[1][2] It depicts a friendly contest of extemporaneous speeches given by a group of notable Athenian men attending a banquet.

In the Symposium, Eros is recognized both as erotic lover and as a phenomenon capable of inspiring courage, valor, great deeds and works, and vanquishing man's natural fear of death.

The extraordinary elevation of the concept of love raises a question of whether some of the most extreme extents of meaning might be intended as humor or farce.

In the Symposium, the dialectic exists among the speeches: in seeing how the ideas conflict from speech-to-speech, and in the effort to resolve the contradictions and see the philosophy that underlies them all.

Implying that these are subjects which Socrates holds personally dear regardless, as evident elsewhere in the book as well, like with his account of the conversation between himself and Diotima of Mantinea.

The dialogue's seven main characters, who deliver major speeches, are: Apollodorus of Phalerum—a passionate follower of Socrates—recounts the story of the symposium to an unnamed friend, having narrated the events to Glaucon while en route home the previous day.

When they are finished eating, Eryximachus takes the suggestion made by Phaedrus, that they should all make a speech in praise of Eros, the god of love and desire.

Even Achilles, who was the beloved of Patroclus, sacrificed himself to avenge his lover, and Alcestis was willing to die for her husband Admetus.

Love encourages sophrosyne, or soundness of mind and character; He governs medicine, music, and astronomy,[g] and even regulates hot and cold and wet and dry, which—when in balance—result in health (see: Humorism).

He begins by explaining that people must understand human nature before they can interpret the origins of love and how it affects their own times.

Zeus thought about blasting them with thunderbolts, but, not wanting to deprive himself of their devotions and offerings, so he decided to cripple them by chopping them in half, in effect separating each entity's two bodies.

Agathon complains that the previous speakers have made the mistake of congratulating mankind on the blessings of love, failing to give due praise to the god himself (194e): Love, in fact, is the youngest of the gods and is an enemy of old age (195b); Eros shuns the very sight of senility and clings to youth; he is dainty, tiptoeing through the flowers, never settling where there is no "bud to bloom" (196b).

When he wakes up the next morning and prepares to leave the house, Socrates is still awake, proclaiming to Agathon and Aristophanes that a skillful playwright should be able to write comedy as well as tragedy (223d).

When Agathon and Aristophanes fall asleep, Socrates rises up and walks to the Lyceum to wash and tend to his daily business as usual, not going home to sleep until that evening (223d).

What follows is a series of questions and answers, typical of Plato's earlier dialogues, featuring Socrates' famous method of dialectics.

Agathon agrees with Socrates that this would be irrational, but is quickly reminded of his own definition of Love's true desires: youth and beauty.

After this exchange, Socrates switches to storytelling, a departure from the earlier dialogues where he is mostly heard refuting his opponent's arguments through rational debating.

Having been conceived at Aphrodite's birthday party, he became her follower and servant, but through his real origins Love acquired a kind of double nature.

From his mother, Love became poor, ugly, and with no place to sleep (203c-d), while from his father he inherited the knowledge of beauty, as well as the cunningness to pursue it.

Socrates does not have the answer and so Diotima reveals it: Beauty is not the end but the means to something greater, the achievement of a certain reproduction and birth (206c), the only claim that mortals can have on immortality.

A year after the events of the Symposium, his political enemies would drive him to flee Athens under fear of being sentenced to death for sacrilege and turn traitor to the Spartans.

Most people, he continues, do not know what Socrates is like on the inside: But once I caught him when he was open like Silenus' statues, and I had a glimpse of the figures he keeps hidden within: they were so godlike—so bright and beautiful, so utterly amazing—that I no longer had a choice.

In his speech, Alcibiades goes on to describe Socrates' virtues, his incomparable valour in battle, his immunity to cold or fear.

Plato shows off his master as a man of high moral standards, unstirred by baser urges and fully committed to the study and practice of proper self-government in both individuals and communities (the so-called "royal science").

The dialogue's ending contrasts Socrates' intellectual and emotional self-mastery with Alcibiades' debauchery and lack of moderation to explain the latter's reckless political career, disastrous military campaigns, and eventual demise.

[19] One critic, James Arieti, considers that the Symposium resembles a drama, with emotional and dramatic events occurring especially when Alcibiades crashes the banquet.

[20] Andrew Dalby considers the opening pages of the Symposium the best depiction in any ancient Greek source of the way texts are transmitted by oral tradition without writing.

Plato does this to free his teacher from the guilt of corrupting the minds of prominent youths, which had, in fact, earned Socrates the death sentence in 399 BC.

In The Frogs, Dionysus, the god of theatre and wine, descends into Hades and observes a heated dispute between Aeschylus and Euripides over who is the best in tragedy.

So the character, Alcibiades, who was the deciding factor in the debate in The Frogs, becomes the judge in the Symposium, and he now rules in favor of Socrates, who had been attacked by Aristophanes in The Clouds.