Introduction
For those who believe that Lysias’ speech in the Phaedrus is an authentic piece of Lysianic rhetoric, its attribution to Lysias is easy to explain. Plato presents the speech as by Lysias simply because it is by Lysias.Footnote 1 The current scholarly consensus, however, is against Lysianic authorship and the speech is now most often read as a Platonic imitation of Lysias.Footnote 2 If this consensus is correct, as I believe that it is, the question naturally follows: why does Plato attribute this particular speech, tackling this topic in this way, to Lysias as opposed to any other rhetorician or sophist?Footnote 3
Any answer to this question needs to address the fact that, for all that the speech makes confident use of Lysianic language, it is also notably out of keeping with Lysias in significant ways.Footnote 4 Scholars often observe, in agreement with Socrates’ critique of the speech within the dialogue, that it is not a particularly impressive piece of rhetoric. In fact, it is often taken to be distinctly inferior to the surviving Lysianic speeches, most frequently in terms of structure and fluency.Footnote 5 More significantly for my purposes, its subject matter is strikingly different from what we find in the Lysianic corpus.Footnote 6 None of Lysias’ surviving speeches shares either the erotic or the encomiastic nature of the Phaedrus’ speech. Further, although we do find non-forensic speeches in the corpus, there is nothing that comes close to its epideictic playfulness or paradoxicality. Lysias’ speech in the Phaedrus is much closer in tone and style to the sort of ‘intellectual titillation’ we find in Gorgias’ Encomium to Helen or Defence of Palamedes than to any surviving speech of Lysias.Footnote 7
The question here, then, is not simply that of why Plato chooses to attack Lysias rather than any other orator, but rather why he chooses to attack Lysias, whose fame is founded on his skill as a logographer, on the basis of a disappointing piece of epideictic.Footnote 8 Those scholars who have attempted to answer this question have tended to do so by claiming that Lysias must, at some point or other, have been overtly associated with this kind of epideictic, so that it makes sense for Plato to criticise the logographer Lysias as a representative of sophistic rhetoric.Footnote 9 In what follows, I will offer an alternative suggestion. My claim is that the attribution of the erōtikos to Lysias is far more significant than has generally been acknowledged. In fact, Lysias is chosen precisely because he is a logographer, and the erōtikos attributed to him in the Phaedrus is intended, its epideictic form notwithstanding, to represent logographic rhetoric, in a broad sense. Lysias is not present in the Phaedrus simply as a famous a rhetorician who also happens to be a writer; he is present as someone whose success depends on writing speeches for other people. Recognising this fact requires us to reconsider our approach to the erōtikos and its role within the dialogue. In fact, I will argue that both the context and the content of the erōtikos encourage us to consider its relevance to Socrates. By attributing an (underwhelming) attempt at Socratic rhetoric to Lysias, the Phaedrus frames his speech as an example of the potential pitfalls of putting words into Socrates’ mouth. As such, the speech has broader significance for our understanding of what it means to write Socratic logoi.
Lysias as logographer in the Phaedrus
Lysias is clearly present in the Phaedrus as the personification of rhetoric in general, to stand as a rival and antagonist to Socrates, the personification of philosophy. Nevertheless, Lysias’ particular activity as a logographer is emphasised throughout the Phaedrus. The importance of his role as someone who writes speeches for others to perform is most clearly signalled by the manner in which he exerts his influence within the dialogue. Lysias dominates the Phaedrus, but he does so only via the presence of the written speech that Phaedrus carries with him. His ‘voice’ is heard only through Phaedrus reading the speech aloud.Footnote 10 This replicates Lysias’ absent presence in the law courts, where clients perform the speeches he has written as their own.Footnote 11 Phaedrus even attempts to suppress the presence of the written speech by hiding it under his cloak and offering what he claims is his own precis of its arguments.Footnote 12 In doing so, he mimics the role of the legal client in memorising and performing a speech written by a logographer as if it were his own.Footnote 13
We see further acknowledgement of Lysias’ logographic activity in the message that Socrates gives Phaedrus to relay to Lysias at 278b7–d1. There Lysias is listed as the archetype of logography alongside Homer and Solon, the representatives of poetry and political oratory respectively. Even the pairing and comparison of Lysias and Isocrates at the very end of the dialogue (278e5–b3) can be understood at least in part in terms of their shared status as logographers.Footnote 14 Socrates’ apparently ironic estimation of Isocrates’ potential in comparison to Lysias is usefully informed by Isocrates’ claim to have forsaken logography for philosophy.Footnote 15 In addition, it should be read in the context of the possibility that Isocrates and Lysias had been real-life rivals in the law courts.Footnote 16 Isocrates is not just Lysias’ rival in terms of philosophical potential. He is also Lysias’ logographic rival.Footnote 17
Lysias’ logographic activities are most explicitly addressed in a passage following Socrates’ second speech. There, Socrates expresses the hope that Lysias will leave behind the sort of rhetoric represented by Socrates’ first speech (and, by implication, Lysias’ own), and follow his brother Polemarchus in taking up philosophy (257b1–6). Phaedrus, now apparently convinced of Socrates’ rhetorical superiority, voices his suspicion that Lysias may be unwilling to continue the rhetorical contest with Socrates (257c4–7):
Indeed, my wonderful friend, just the other day one of the politicians was abusing him on this very charge, and all the while he was abusing him, he kept calling him a ‘speechwriter’ (λογογράφον); so perhaps we will find that he refrains from writing (γράφειν) out of a care for his reputation.
Phaedrus assumes that any speech that Lysias generates in response to the Palinode will inevitably be written. As Yunis notes, he does not even consider the possibility that Lysias could, as Socrates has just done, extemporise a response.Footnote 18 Lysias is characterised as someone whose rhetorical ability is inseparable from its presentation in writing.Footnote 19
Socrates’ response to Phaedrus’ suggestion that speechwriting will, after all, be a source of shame for Lysias is also telling. In the account of political rhetoric that follows (257c8–258d6), Socrates insists (contrary to Phaedrus’ view) that politicians are ‘especially in love with speechwriting (μάλιστα ἐρῶσι λογογραφίας) and with leaving speeches for posterity’. As is often noted, Socrates’ critique of political writing here manipulates an ambiguity in the term λογογραφία, which can be used to refer either (as Phaedrus does) to forensic speechwriting specifically or (as Socrates does) to the writing of prose in general.Footnote 20 This ambiguity allows Socrates to shift the discussion from its focus on Lysias as a speechwriter to an analysis of writing as a whole. Nevertheless, Lysias is not forgotten, and his speech is held up as a test case of writing at 258d7–11. Lysias’ logographic activities are not left behind; rather, Socrates’ analysis of logography (in general terms) is applied to Lysias’ specific activity as a speechwriter.
I noted above the puzzle of why Lysias’ speech in the Phaedrus is epideictic rather than forensic, given that his fame is as an author of legal speeches. Bearing in mind the essential connection between logography and the forensic, it may seem that this problem is only exacerbated by insisting that Lysias’ status as a logographer is fundamental to his treatment within the dialogue. There are two factors to consider here. The first is that the Phaedrus adopts a universalising attitude towards what the later tradition will categorise as different branches of rhetoric. This tendency is most clearly established by Socrates’ definition of rhetoric at 261a7–b2 as the ‘same art’ of psychagogia ‘not only in the law courts and other public gatherings, but also in private’.Footnote 21 In fact, this desire to generalise about the practice of rhetoric across all its contexts may, in itself, provide a partial explanation of the fact that Lysias is represented here by epideictic rather than forensic.Footnote 22 Making Lysias the author of a non-forensic speech serves to draw attention to the fact that all rhetoric is unified in both its aims and its flaws.
A further factor is that, as we have seen, logography in the Phaedrus is a flexible term. In the passage assessing the value of logography at 257c8–258d6, Socrates treats both deliberative political rhetoric and the inscription of successful political proposals as logographic activities. The similarity between Lysias and the politicians as ‘logographers’ is in their shared writing of speeches, rather than in any common genre or content.Footnote 23 In targeting Lysias’ particular logographic activity, the Phaedrus signals its interest in what it means for Lysias to write speeches for others, rather than in the fact that he generally writes those speeches for clients to perform in the courts.
Logographic responsibility
In characterising Lysias primarily as a logographer writing speeches for others to perform, the Phaedrus also presents a complex assessment of his relation to and responsibility for the content of his erōtikos. In introducing Lysias’ speech, for example, Phaedrus implicitly raises the question of Lysias’ responsibility for its content and his relation to the non-lover in whose voice its arguments are presented. In his very first account of the erōtikos at 227c5–6, Phaedrus initially treats Lysias as standing apart from the act of propositioning within the speech, stating that ‘Lysias has written of (γέγραφε) someone beautiful being propositioned (πειρώμενον), but not by a lover’. In the next breath, however, Phaedrus attributes the arguments of the speech to Lysias himself, thereby identifying the rhetorician with the non-lover ‘giving’ the speech: ‘For he [i.e. Lysias] says (λέγει) that favours should be granted to a non-lover over a lover.’ Phaedrus is hardly unjustified in making this connection, for while Lysias may well write his speeches for others to perform, he is the one who writes them. Since Lysias is someone who habitually constructs arguments for others to present on their own behalf and in their own voice, it will always be difficult to establish to what degree he can be held responsible for the content of the speeches he writes (especially if those speeches are then circulated in written form under his name).Footnote 24
We have seen that Socrates connects Lysias’ logographic activity to that of political speechwriting at 257c8–258d6. Here again, we see an emphasis on the question of authorial responsibility for written speeches, this time with a specific focus on the act of writing itself. At 257e4–6, Socrates notes that politicians are so proud of their status as speechwriters that they incorporate into their speeches the names of those who praise them. As becomes clear in the face of Phaedrus’ incomprehension, Socrates is referring to the commonplace of including a statement of ratification at the beginning of an inscribed political decree:Footnote 25
No doubt the writer says ‘Resolved by the Council’, or ‘Resolved by the People’, or both, and ‘So-and-so said’, referring to himself with great solemnity and self-congratulation (258a4–6).
Socrates is working with a generous notion of ‘speechwriting’ here to produce a critique of political oratory. It is significant, nonetheless, that he describes how a speech (more specifically, a proposal) is altered by the act of inscription, i.e. in being written down.Footnote 26 The politician is explicitly named within the inscription as the source of the proposal. The act of writing thus monumentalises the politician's responsibility for the decree.Footnote 27
As Yunis notes, neither the public approval nor the proposer's name is part of the politician's original speech.Footnote 28 Yet Socrates clearly claims that the speechwriter is the one who produces the decree as a whole (… φησιν … ὁ συγγραφεύς⋅ ἔπειτα λέγει …), so that, in referring to himself in the third person, he is, in a sense, writing in someone else's voice.Footnote 29 Unlike Lysias, however, he writes in someone else's voice to establish his own share of responsibility for what is written.
There is, of course, an obvious difference between the politician who speaks in the hope that his proposal will be ratified and inscribed, and the forensic logographer who writes a speech for a client to present in order to win a case. Nevertheless, Socrates’ account is explicitly related to speechwriting throughout, even if we understand him to be using this term in a more general way. The questions Socrates raises, however implicitly, of authorial responsibility are clearly significant for Lysias as a forensic logographer, not least because Socrates raises them in responding to Phaedrus’ speculation about Lysias’ ongoing commitment to speechwriting.Footnote 30 The politician adopts someone else's voice to name himself as responsible for the content of his decree. A forensic logographer such as Lysias, on the other hand, is typically absent from his writing and tends to avoid any claim of responsibility for its content (at the time of its delivery in court). Unlike the politician, he does not write his name into his speech. If anything, the act of writing is, for Lysias, an act of abnegating responsibility for the arguments he produces and of denying his own voice. Lysias writes himself out of his speeches, as is necessary if they are to be effective as speeches given by his clients. In doing so, however, he deliberately obscures his responsibility for the content of his writing.
The Phaedrus provides further examples of Socrates’ analysis of logography in terms of its interest in authorial responsibility. At times, Socrates’ assessment of Lysias’ connection to the content of the erōtikos seems to fit his general worry about rhetoricians’ lack of interest in the truth of the matters about which they speak. There is perhaps a hint of this criticism in Socrates’ assessment of Lysias’ speech at 234e5–235a8. There, Socrates suggests that Lysias’ reliance on repetition within the speech may indicate his lack of interest in its subject matter (‘or perhaps he was not interested in this sort of issue’, 235a3–6). If Lysias is not committed to the truth of what he has written, it is hardly surprising that he has not been able to find a compelling range of well-structured arguments in its favour.Footnote 31
This idea of the rhetorician's lack of connection to his own rhetoric may also be identifiable in Socrates’ recommendation at 243d3–7 that Lysias should join him in recanting the argument of his speech and write instead that favours should be granted to the lover. Phaedrus’ reply to Socrates, stating that he will compel Lysias to write a speech along these lines (243d8–e1), is equally suggestive of an assumption that Lysias writes to order, rather than out of conviction.
Elsewhere, however, Socrates assumes a surprisingly close connection between Lysias and the content of his speech. Perhaps the clearest example of this is to be found at 228d6–e2. In this passage, Socrates goes so far as to suggest that the written speech Phaedrus carries with him is more than representative of Lysias; it is Lysias. Socrates declines Phaedrus’ offer to epitomise the speech on the grounds that ‘so long as Lysias himself is present (παρόντος δὲ καὶ Λυσίου), I do not intend to offer myself up for you to practise on’. Socrates treats the written speech as identical with its author. It is notable that, in doing so, Socrates is resisting Phaedrus’ efforts to insert himself into the authorial and performative process by hiding the written copy and offering his own precis of its arguments. By suppressing the presence of Lysias’ writing, Phaedrus is attempting both to minimise Lysias’ claim on its arguments and to create a role for himself as transmitting or translating the speech from written word to oral performance.Footnote 32 His attempt to create a role for himself as intermediary between Lysias and Socrates is both encouraged and enabled by the existence of the written speech. Socrates’ response is to insist on the intimate connection between the erōtikos and its author.
Socrates’ insistence on the identity between Lysias and his speech is repeated in the analysis of rhetoric in the second half of the dialogue. At 263d5–264e2., Socrates asks whether Lysias included the necessary definition of love at the beginning of his speech. Suggesting that they should return to the text to see whether he indicated what definition of love ‘he himself wanted’ (αὐτὸς ἐβουλήθη), he instructs Phaedrus (263e5):
Read it (λέγε), so that I can hear the man himself (αὐτοῦ ἐκείνου).
Here, once again, Socrates talks of the speech as if it were Lysias himself. Now, of course, Socrates can claim some justification in doing so, given that Lysias is the author of the speech and what it says can therefore justifiably be referred to as ‘what Lysias says’. But, as Ferrari notes, to treat the content of the speech as if it were directly representative of Lysias’ own views on the matter is rather naive.Footnote 33 There is no reason to think that Lysias shares the conception of love around which the non-lover builds his argument, just as there is no reason to assume that Lysias is committed to the truth of any of the arguments he provides for his clients.Footnote 34
Socrates’ identification of Lysias with his speech can be contrasted with his characterisation of his own relationship to the content of his first speech. In introducing his answer to Lysias’ erōtikos, Socrates attributes its content to a source outside himself (‘I am well aware that I am not the source of any of these ideas’, 235c6–8), possibly the poets Sappho or Anacreon or ‘some prose writers’ (συγγραφέων).Footnote 35 He goes on not only to call upon the muses for inspiration at 237a7–b1, but also to distinguish himself from the professed non-lover of his speech, by adding a preface explaining in whose voice it is given (‘and this is what he said’, 237b6).Footnote 36 Whereas Socrates insists on taking Lysias’ non-lover to be identical with Lysias, both in voice and opinion, he is emphatic in rejecting any claim of responsibility for or identity with the non-lover in his own speech.
Why then does Socrates insist on identifying Lysias with his erōtikos and assuming that the non-lover's rhetoric is representative of the beliefs of its author? The answer lies in the complexities of Lysias’ particular relationship to the content of his speeches, which are written to be performed by someone else. Phaedrus’ ambivalence in introducing the speech demonstrates the difficulty of establishing Lysias’ relation to its content. On the one hand, insofar as Lysias constructs his arguments solely to support his clients’ attempts to persuade, he is an extreme example of rhetorical indifference to truth. On the other hand, the circulation of the speech as a work of Lysias firmly establishes his responsibility for its content. Socrates acknowledges Lysias’ likely indifference to the subject matter but insists on holding Lysias responsible for it. In doing so, he emphasises Lysias’ status as the author of its arguments. Socrates’ concern is with Lysias’ responsibility for the arguments he writes, precisely because the act of writing is what cements that responsibility.
As we have seen, in addition to its focus on rhetoric and writing, the Phaedrus has an interest in the relationship between the two, as represented by Lysias and his erōtikos.Footnote 37 The speech's status as a written text is what encourages and enables the suppression of authorial responsibility (insofar as it is possible for a reader to memorise or represent it as their own). It is also what ensures that its author can be held to account, insofar as it has been written by no one other than the author. When Lysias writes a speech of a non-lover seeking to persuade a young man to succumb, it is justifiable to read it as in some sense representative of Lysias. At the same time, it is reasonable to assume a certain indifference to its content, insofar as Lysias is not the non-lover. The erōtikos itself instantiates not only the complexities of the relationship between Lysias as author and Phaedrus as performer, but also the ambiguity of Lysias’ relationship to the non-lover for whom he provides arguments.Footnote 38 This prompts the question for whom the non-lover's speech is actually written. As we shall see, both the context and the content of the erōtikos encourage us to consider the possibility that it was written, either seriously or in jest, with Socrates in mind.
Socrates and the non-lover
At 227c3–5, pressed by Socrates to give an account of what he has heard from Lysias, Phaedrus responds:
In fact, Socrates, it is fitting (προσήκουσα) that you hear it, since the speech on which we were spending our time was, in some sort of fashion, about love.
This passage is generally read as a reference to Socrates’ ‘erotic expertise’.Footnote 39 Since the speech is (‘in some sort of fashion’) about love and Socrates has a special interest in love, he will naturally be interested in the speech. It is notable, however, that Socrates’ response to Phaedrus is not concerned with the general topic of the speech. Rather, his immediate reaction is to question the relevance of its central argument to his own seductive efforts (227c9–d2):
What a wonderful fellow! If only he would write that that they must be granted to a poor man rather than a rich one, or someone older rather than his junior, and all the other sorts of qualities that I and most of us have. Then his speeches would be truly urbane, and for the common good.Footnote 40
Both Phaedrus and Socrates consider Lysias’ speech in terms of its relevance to Socrates. That relevance is not simply a matter of Socrates’ special interest in erōs, but of the degree to which he (or someone else) might usefully employ the arguments within the speech for their own benefit. Phaedrus’ brief introduction of the speech and Socrates’ immediate response thus do two things. First, as I argued above, they serve to flag up the question of Lysias’ relation to the non-lover in whose voice the speech is given. Second, they ask us to consider the speech's relevance to Socrates himself, in terms of the degree to which its argument may or may not work in his favour. When we read the speech in this context, considering to what extent its content may be appropriate to Socrates, we find much that looks plausibly Socratic.
Scholars have often dismissed the content of Lysias’ speech as unworthy of close study. For some it is simply too trivial to take seriously; for others, too immoral.Footnote 41 On occasion, readers have identified allusions to certain Socratic or Platonic ideas.Footnote 42 As we shall see below, a close reading of the speech demonstrates that the non-lover's argument, both in its details and its apparently paradoxical position, bears some significant similarities to the picture of Socratic erotic ethics that we find in the works of Plato and Xenophon.
Before setting out these similarities in detail, it is worth emphasising that I am not suggesting that the Platonic and Xenophontic Socrates should be read as a doctrinal unity, or that the significant differences between the two sets of Socratic writings should be ignored. Rather, the fact that the erōtikos bears similarities to Socratic ideas as they are represented in both Plato and Xenophon suggests that these ideas may have been more generally recognised (and recognisable) as Socratic. As I will argue below, the Phaedrus is interested in authorial claims to write in Socrates’ voice and to represent his ideas.
It is also worth noting that many of the ideas I identify below as Socratic are recognisable reworkings of contemporary Athenian sexual mores.Footnote 43 This need not preclude their being Socratic in some specific sense. Socrates, after all, is active within an Athenian pederastic context. I am not claiming that these elements are Socratic as opposed to Athenian, but that the context in which the speech is introduced encourages us to consider their compatibility with Socratic erotic ethics as expressed elsewhere in the Socratic literature.Footnote 44
Emphasis on benefit
The opening of Lysias’ speech at 230e6–7 sets out a central tenet of the non-lover's argument:
You know how things stand with me, and you have heard that I think it is to our advantage (συμφέρειν ἡμῖν) that these things should happen.
Throughout the speech, the non-lover appeals to the prospective benefit of his proposed arrangement.Footnote 45 At 233a4–5, he promises the young man that ‘you will become a better person if you listen to me rather than a lover’. He goes on, at 233b6–c5, to state his concern for the long-term benefits of the association. Again, at 233e5–234a3, the non-lover urges that
favours should not be granted (χαρίζεσθαι) to those who are most in need of them, but rather to those best equipped to repay them (ἀποδοῦναι χάριν); … not to those who will exploit your youthful bloom, but rather to the sort of person who will share their goods (τῶν σφετέρων ἀγαθῶν μεταδώσουσιν) with you when you become older.
Finally, at 234c3–4, the non-lover concludes his speech by recommending that ‘it should not be the source of harm, but should only benefit both parties (ὠφελίαν δὲ ἀμφοῖν)’.
In addition to emphasising the mutual benefits of the association, the non-lover sets up a contrast between his own rational concern for his self-interest and the lover's willingness to harm even himself in pursuit of his goal. At 231a4–6, we are told that the non-lover voluntarily offers what he has to give ‘as they [i.e. non-lovers] would best look after their own affairs’. The lover, by contrast, cares so little about his self-interest beyond satisfying his sexual appetite that he will come to regret the damage he has done to his own interests (231a6–8) when in the grip of erotic passion.
The non-lover claims that he approaches the relationship on the basis of rational consideration, that he has something to offer in return for the favours he might receive, and that he is choiceworthy as a result. The lover, in contrast, lacks rationality and has so little to offer and so little regard for his own interests that he is likely to bring more harm than benefit to the younger man.Footnote 46
For some readers, this emphasis on mutual benefit within an erotic context renders Lysias’ speech distinctly unpalatable.Footnote 47 It is notable, however, that Socrates’ own erotic teachings are themselves represented as having provoked distaste on similar grounds. At Mem. 1.2.51–5, Xenophon discusses the accusation that Socrates encouraged his companions to neglect their family and friends in favour of those who could combine affection with some kind of benefit. On Xenophon's account, the accusation extended to the claim that Socrates used this argument in his own favour, encouraging his companions to believe that no one offered a greater benefit by association.Footnote 48 Xenophon admits that there is some truth in this account of Socrates’ ethics (1.2.53) but explains it as a Socratic exhortation to consider what benefit one can offer those for whom one feels affection (Mem. 1.2.55):
He wanted to show that a lack of sense (ἄφρων) is unworthy, and encouraged the cultivation of utmost sense and usefulness (φρονιμώτατον εἶναι καὶ ὠφελιμώτατον), so that anyone who wanted to be valued by his father or brother or anyone else would not simply put their faith in the connection and neglect them, but would make an effort to be useful (ὠφέλιμος) to all those by whom they wanted to be valued.
On Xenophon's account, Socrates is recommending a concern with enhancing one's own value to one's friends and relatives. Yet Xenophon's description of the charge against Socrates, and particularly of the connection drawn between Socrates’ teachings on benefit and friendship and the ardent admiration of his companions, indicates that there were some who perceived Socrates as using this sort of teaching to attract or impress followers. Here we find the first of several parallels between (reported perceptions of) Socrates’ interactions with young men and the argument of the non-lover. The non-lover recommends that he should be preferred as more able than the lover to benefit the younger man. According to Xenophon, some accused Socrates of encouraging his companions to prefer him above all others on the basis that he was best able to benefit them by sharing his wisdom.
We see something similar in Plato's Lysis. At 210d1–3, Socrates offers advice in keeping with what we find in the Memorabilia:
But if you become wise, my boy, then everyone will be your friend and everyone will feel a connection with you – because you will be useful and good.
This recommendation forms part of a discussion of philia, within the broader context of an explicitly pederastic exchange. Socrates has offered to show Hippothales how to attract the affection of Lysis (206c4–7) but, as the conversation continues, Lysis becomes smitten with Socrates himself.Footnote 49 Both the Memorabilia and the Lysis show Socrates encouraging younger men to take care to make themselves useful as a means of attracting affection. The Memorabilia suggests that Socrates was perceived as using this lesson to render himself more attractive. The Lysis shows him enchanting Lysis partly through the deployment of this advice. There are thus two parallels to be drawn between the non-lover and Socrates in this respect. The first is their shared emphasis on benefit within personal relationships.Footnote 50 The second is that both express this desire in the context of apparently pederastic exchanges, thereby establishing a connection between the concern for benefit and the attractions of the person expressing that concern.Footnote 51 This is the first hint of a significant connection between the content of Lysias’ erōtikos and Socratic erotic ethics.Footnote 52
Erotic self-control
Another key feature of the non-lover's speech is his repeated denigration of the lover as lacking in self-control. At 231d2–4, the non-lover claims that the lovers will admit their failings in precisely these terms:
For they themselves agree that they are sick (νοσεῖν) rather than in their right mind (σωφρονεῖν), and they know that they are not thinking straight (κακῶς φρονοῦσιν) but are unable to control (κρατεῖν) themselves.
Again, at 232a4–6, the non-lover refers to ‘non-lovers, who have control (κρείττους) of themselves’ and promotes his own case at 233c1–2 as someone ‘not at the mercy of passion, but in control (κρατῶν) of myself’. Of course, the denigration of erōs as something that deranges is in keeping with traditional Athenian sexual discourse, but the prominent approval of self-control is also a point of striking similarity with Socratic erotic ethics. Xenophon, in particular, is explicit in emphasising both Socrates’ erotic self-control and his recommendation of the same to others (Mem. 1.3.8):
He advised strict avoidance of sexual relations with beautiful people. For he said it is difficult to keep one's composure (σωφρονεῖν) when one gets caught up in such things.Footnote 53
Xenophon goes on to praise Socrates’ own impressive erotic self-control at Mem. 1.3.14–15:Footnote 54
As for his own conduct in these matters, he had clearly trained himself so that he could more easily abstain from the most handsome and attractive types than others abstain from the ugliest and least attractive.Footnote 55
Xenophon's description of Socrates’ erotic self-control has parallels in Plato. In the Charmides, Socrates himself describes his ability to suppress the apparently erotic urge he felt while sitting next to the handsome young Charmides (Chrm. 155d3–e3):
Then, my wonderful friend, I saw what was inside his cloak and I caught fire and was no longer in possession of myself … Nevertheless, when he asked if I knew the cure for his head, I just about managed to reply that I did.
Plato's Symposium offers perhaps the most famous example of Socratic erotic self-control. Towards the end of the dialogue, Alcibiades describes his sustained attempts to seduce Socrates.Footnote 56 It is worth noting that Alcibiades expects precisely the sort of reciprocal exchange that Lysias’ non-lover appears to be endorsing, believing that ‘I was in a position, if I granted my favours (χαρισαμένῳ) to Socrates, to hear from him everything that he knew’ (217a4–5). Socrates, famously, is unmoved by Alcibiades’ efforts.
The non-lover and Socrates are thus strikingly similar in their erotic self-control as well as in the fact that, in some cases at least, this self-control is explicitly based on a rational consideration of what is most beneficial overall.Footnote 57 Whilst Socrates does not, in the way that the Phaedrus’ non-lover does, advertise that self-control as a means of attracting partners, there is a clear implication in the Symposium that Alcibiades’ interest is sustained by Socrates’ own lack of interest. As we shall see, the attractive power of erotic indifference provides another point of similarity between Lysias’ non-lover and Socrates.
Erotic indifference
One of the most notable aspects of Alcibiades’ narrative in the Symposium is his tenacity in the face of Socrates’ indifference to both his beauty and his seductive efforts. In fact, Socrates’ final rebuff leaves Alcibiades in a state of enslavement to the older man (219d3–7). The dialogues provide further examples of the apparently seductive appeal of Socratic indifference. In the Charmides, for example, Socrates is initially agitated by Charmides’ youthful beauty but then turns his attentions to Critias in a way that excites the violent interest of the younger man. By the end of the dialogue, and on the basis of some rather ambiguous and brief flattery, Charmides is so besotted with Socrates that he declares himself to ‘have no objection to being charmed by you every day until you say I have had enough’ (Chrm. 176b2–3). Despite, or perhaps because of, Socrates’ lack of interest in him, Charmides is seduced. In the Lysis, Hippothales succeeds only in making himself less attractive by acting out the stereotype of the desperate lover. Socrates, meanwhile, manages to enthral Lysis precisely as he demonstrates his own cool-headed lack of interest.
In none of these cases does Socrates appear actively to be attempting to seduce his companion. Rather, he attracts their attention at least partly as a result of his lack of interest. It is worth relating this habit of seduction by indifference to the advice that Socrates almost offers to Hippothales at Lysis 210e2–4:Footnote 58
This, Hippothales, is how you should talk to your darling, humbling them and undermining them, instead of puffing them up and giving them airs as you do.
Here, Socrates endorses the seductive power of critique, rather than indifference as such. But, when placed in the context of Socrates’ success in attracting affection, we can plausibly read this advice as indicating an awareness on Socrates’ part of the seductive power of rejection. He is surely not blind to the effect he has on Alcibiades and the others. Even if Socrates never presses his case on the grounds of his self-control or indifference, the Lysis gives us reason to think that he is aware of its seductive power.Footnote 59
Both Lysias’ non-lover and Socrates endorse self-control and the pursuit of benefit within relationships. Both also draw a connection between indifference and erotic success. For the non-lover, this is part of his argument in his own favour. For Socrates it is a fact of the way he attracts and fascinates his young companions.
We have seen that some central aspects of Lysias’ speech are significantly close to elements of Socratic erotic ethics as they are represented by both Xenophon and Plato.Footnote 60 This is not to suggest that every aspect of the non-lover's characterisation or argument is obviously and explicitly Socratic. There remains, however, one further, fundamental, aspect of the speech which provides a point of continuity between the non-lover and Socrates’ erotic activity.
Erotic ambiguity
When Socrates offers his response to Lysias’ erōtikos, he introduces it as the speech of a wily lover masquerading as a non-lover, despite being ‘no less in love [than the others]’ (237b4–5). It is often assumed that Lysias’ non-lover is also either a lover masquerading as someone not in love or a genuine non-lover, lacking erotic passion, who nonetheless seeks sexual favours from his companion.Footnote 61 In fact, however, there is no explicit request for sexual favours anywhere in the non-lover's speech.Footnote 62 He only ever speaks obliquely of how the relationship will benefit him. So, for example, the non-lover begins his speech at 230e7 by expressing the desire ‘that these things should happen’ (γενομένων τούτων). He goes on to refer to the young man's decision to ‘give away something like that’ (τοιοῦτον πρᾶγμα προέσθαι, 231c7), which he also calls ‘what you value most’ (ἃ περὶ πλείστου ποιῇ, 232c1) and, as is standard, ‘granting favours’ (χαρίζεσθαι, 233d5).
My aim is not to deny that these phrases can or should be read as oblique references to sex.Footnote 63 After all, this vagueness in the non-lover's language is entirely in keeping with the norms of Athenian erotic discourse.Footnote 64 The fact remains, however, that the non-lover never explicitly requests sex, so that the sexual connotations of the non-lover's language always remain at the level of connotation and, insofar as this is true, the indirectness of erotic discourse introduces a degree of ambiguity into the non-lover's motivation.Footnote 65 It is worth noting, in support of this suggestion, that the lover's desire is characterised in more explicit terms than that of the non-lover, as an interest primarily in the young man's body. At 232e3–4, for example, we are told that many lovers ‘desire someone's body before they know his ways’. This relatively explicit language is contrasted with the oblique reference to the activities of non-lovers who ‘were friends with you before they did these things (ταῦτα ἔπραξαν)’ (233a1–2).Footnote 66
What could the non-lover possibly want from his companion, if not sex? In establishing the parallels between the non-lover's emphasis on self-control and Socratic erotic ethics, I noted that both Plato and Xenophon represent Socrates as endorsing or practising erotic restraint. He necessarily does so in ostensibly erotic contexts. In Xenophon's Symposium, we are reminded both that Socrates tends to discourage succumbing to erotic passions (4.23) and that he is not entirely blind to erotic stimuli himself (4.28). At the beginning of Plato's Charmides, Socrates admits to the passion he experiences on catching a glimpse inside Charmides’ cloak. This example is particularly pertinent, since it hints at the fact that Socrates’ eroticism is something that requires interpretation. As M. M. McCabe explains, ‘what Socrates has a view of is not fully explicit. It is Plato's readers who suppose that what Socrates sees are Charmides’ genitalia.’Footnote 67 If Socrates has been inflamed (at least in part) by a glimpse of Charmides’ philosophical potential, then this too represents an example of Socrates’ erotic ambiguity.
The most notorious case of Socrates’ erotic ambiguity is one we have already considered. In the Symposium, Alcibiades pursues Socrates on the basis of his failure to interpret correctly Socrates’ erotic status and interests. At 217a2–219d5, Alcibiades explains that he had formed the belief that Socrates felt a ‘serious enthusiasm for my youthful bloom’, only to be disappointed by Socrates’ lack of interest.Footnote 68 In rejecting Alcibiades, Socrates not only questions whether he can offer what Alcibiades is after, but also expresses a disdain for physical favours. Alcibiades has ‘misread the signals’ in chasing Socrates and assuming his interest is in sexual gratification.Footnote 69
The non-lover never explicitly requests sexual favours from his companion but is plausibly interpreted as doing so. Likewise, both Xenophon and Plato represent Socrates’ erotic persona as either ambiguous or easy to misread. Just like the non-lover, Socrates is someone who recommends and practises erotic restraint whilst both speaking and acting in a manner that encourages a sexual interpretation.
Socrates’ response to Lysias’ speech
I have argued that both the introduction and the content of Lysias’ erōtikos invite us to draw parallels between the non-lover and Socrates. Before I consider the possible implications of such parallels it is worth looking at two further pieces of evidence in favour of such a reading, both of which are to be found in Socrates’ response to Lysias’ speech.
On finishing his reading at 234c6–7, Phaedrus asks Socrates what he thinks of the speech (‘Does it not seem to you to be fantastically good, especially in the choice of words?’). Socrates replies:
Divinely (δαιμονίως), my friend. I am dumbstruck (ἐκπλαγῆναι).
Socrates’ term of approval for the speech (δαιμονίως) is noteworthy. It carries specifically Socratic connotations via its connection to Socrates’ daimonion and is one of his common terms of affection.Footnote 70 More significantly for my reading, it is precisely the term that Alcibiades uses to describe Socrates in his account of Socrates’ final rejection (219b7–c2):
I threw my arms around this truly divine and wonderful creature (δαιμονίῳ ὡς ἀληθῶς καὶ θαυμαστῷ), and lay there all night long.
Socrates’ assessment of Lysias’ speech can be read as an allusion to his peculiar erotic indifference in the Symposium.Footnote 71 It represents an acknowledgement on Socrates’ part of the parallels between Lysias’ non-lover and his own (non-)erotic identity.
Socrates’ assessment and reformulation of Lysias’ arguments in his own first speech provide a further indication that he recognises Lysias’ non-lover as in some sense Socratic. Pressed by Phaedrus to improve on the rhetorician's effort, Socrates qualifies his original claim to be able to do better, insisting that he must adopt the central tenets of Lysias’ argument (235e5–236a2):
Take, for example, the subject matter of the speech. Who do you think could argue that one should grant one's favours to the non-lover rather than the lover, but fail to praise the good sense of one and reproach the lack of sense of the other – since these are essential points – and still have other things to say?
Socrates is true to his word, in part at least. In presenting his own speech, he maintains the position both that the lover is undone by irrational desire and that the worth of a companion should be assessed in terms of the advantage he offers. In making this case, he adopts a more recognisably Socratic method of argument, eschewing probabilities in favour of arguments from necessity and working from a definition of erōs.Footnote 72 In fact, as Nussbaum has argued, he formulates a critique of the lover that bears striking similarities to the psychology put into Socrates’ mouth in the Republic.Footnote 73 In reformulating Lysias’ speech, Socrates accepts (at least temporarily) the truth of its central claim, but presents it within a more philosophically respectable argumentative framework.Footnote 74 Socrates thus renders Lysias’ content in a manner consistent with what and how he argues elsewhere in the Platonic dialogues. The point is that Socrates’ non-lover is similar to Lysias’ non-lover in voicing a position consistent with some of the views attributed to Socrates elsewhere. In this respect, at least, both Lysias’ and Socrates’ non-lovers can be considered in some sense Socratic, albeit in different ways.Footnote 75
One final point is worth making in support of reading Socrates’ response to the erōtikos as indicating an awareness of its parallels between the non-lover and Socratic erotic ethics. I noted above Phaedrus’ attempt to hide Lysias’ speech from Socrates by keeping it under his cloak. There is an echo of this episode in Socrates’ preparations to give his first speech. At 237a4–5, Socrates covers his head, ostensibly out of a sense of shame. It is striking that this action leads Socrates to mimic physically the circumstances in which the erōtikos first finds its way into the dialogue.Footnote 76
Writing for Socrates
I have argued that Lysias’ status as a logographer is fundamental to his role within the Phaedrus. The dialogue treats him as someone whose rhetorical activity is always and essentially written. He is present in the Phaedrus only via his written text and Phaedrus assumes that any further engagement in the rhetorical contest with Socrates will also be written. His speech is analysed by Socrates as a paradigm of both rhetoric and writing, but it is also a paradigm of written rhetoric. Written rhetoric, as it is represented in the form of Lysias’ speech, is written to be vocalised by others, as if it were their own. Phaedrus’ attempts to co-opt Lysias’ arguments and to suppress the presence of Lysias’ speech are encouraged and enabled by the fact that he has a written copy in his possession. They are also encouraged by the fact that, in writing speeches for others, Lysias deliberately obscures his own voice. As we have seen, the phenomenon of speeches written for others to perform creates a puzzle about authorial responsibility. Both Phaedrus and Socrates demonstrate some ambivalence about Lysias’ relation to the content of his speech. Nevertheless, Socrates is insistent not only on holding Lysias responsible for its content, but also on assuming that it represents Lysias’ own views.
The Phaedrus prompts us to consider what assumptions we can make about Lysias’ relation to the non-lover of his speech. As I have argued, the context and content of the speech establish a connection to the Socratic erotic ethics we find elsewhere in Plato and in Xenophon. Insofar as the Phaedrus represents Lysias as someone who writes for others and the speech itself can be read as in some sense Socratic, we are encouraged to read the erōtikos as a (Platonic version of a) Lysianic attempt at Socratic rhetoric. Lysias’ non-lover is intended to be recognisably Socratic and the Phaedrus represents Lysias attempting to write in and for the voice of Socrates.
The suggestion that Lysias’ speech can be read as an attempt at Socratic rhetoric finds support in the ancient tradition that attributed an Apology of Socrates to Lysias.Footnote 77 If, as this tradition suggests, Lysias was plausibly thought to have authored at least one Socratic text, then the attribution of a Socratic speech to Lysias within the Phaedrus is particularly appropriate.Footnote 78 The Phaedrus characterises Lysias as someone who writes speeches for and in the voices of others; Socrates himself is among the crowd of voices for which Lysias was thought to have written. If we read Lysias’ erōtikos as an essentially written attempt to represent the sorts of things that Socrates says, we can see that Lysias’ status as a logographer also allows him to function in yet another significant, and necessarily implicit, role within the dialogue. He is present as a Socratic author, i.e. as someone who writes words to put into the mouth of Socrates.
What is the significance of reading Lysias’ speech as an implicit representation of an attempt at Socratic rhetoric? The first point to note is what it indicates about the relation between the Phaedrus’ three speeches on love. Lysias’ speech is present not simply as a piece of trivial and disposable epideictic, the content of which is more or less irrelevant to all that follows. Rather, it marks the first of three attempts at a Socratic account of love. Lysias’ speech represents one interpretation and representation of Socratic erotic ethics, a version that Socrates himself finds unsatisfactory in a variety of ways. Socrates’ first speech offers a revision of that ethical position, which, although supported by more recognisably philosophical argumentation, is a disappointment. The Palinode then marks a revision and rejection of the apparently Socratic ethics of the first two speeches.Footnote 79 If we are to understand the revisionary erotic ethics of Socrates’ second speech, we must do so against the background of the ethics it explicitly rejects. Lysias’ speech therefore has a significant role to play in our understanding both of what Socrates rejects and of what he accepts within the Phaedrus.
If Lysias’ speech does represent an attempt at Socratic rhetoric, with Lysias putting words into Socrates’ mouth, there may be further significance in Socrates’ critical response. I have suggested that Socrates’ reaction to the speech indicates his recognition that it is an attempt at representing his erotic persona. In revising its content to produce a speech that is more recognisably philosophical in method and argument, Socrates can be read as expressing an implicit preference for one sort of representation over other versions of his persona. Of course, Socrates seems to reject even this more philosophical version of the erōtikos in giving his Palinode. Nevertheless, by having Socrates reject Lysias’ representation of one sort of Socratic rhetoric in the first instance, the Phaedrus implicitly dismisses rival accounts of Socratic erotic ethics, perhaps even those found elsewhere in Plato.Footnote 80
The possibility that Lysias can be read as misrepresenting Socratic rhetoric is further supported by the details of the tradition that he wrote an Apology. In the versions of both Cicero and Diogenes Laertius, Socrates is said to have rejected Lysias’ speech on the grounds that it was unsuitable.Footnote 81 Even if we think, as seems plausible, that these accounts rely more on imagination than historical fact, they do at least indicate that Lysias, at some point, gained a reputation for failing to write appropriately Socratic rhetoric.
One final implication is worth considering. We have seen that Socrates adopts a relatively naive approach to the interpretation of Lysias’ speech, insisting on the identity between Lysias and his non-lover. I noted above how odd it is to assume that Lysias’ own views are present in the arguments he provides for his clients. In fact, Socrates’ insistence on reading the non-lover as speaking for Lysias is even more surprising when we consider what he has to say about the interpretation of written logoi in his critique of writing towards the end of the Phaedrus. At 275d4–e5, Socrates reflects on the similarities between the products of painting and writing as unyielding to interpretative inquiries. Written accounts may seem to encourage questions but, inevitably, they offer no response to analysis:
And when it has been written once, every discourse is spread around everywhere in the same way, among both those who understand it and those who have no business with it, and it does not know how to address those it should and not those it should not. And when it is abused and unjustly traduced, it is always in need of help from its father (πατρός). For it lacks the capacity to defend or help itself.
The pertinence of this passage to Lysias’ speech is clear. The inert written copy of the erōtikos is being ‘spread around’ by Phaedrus. He performs it for Socrates, as someone who knows about its subject matter (whether we understand that to be love in general, or Socratic love specifically) but we are told that it has been performed already for others (no doubt with less understanding) and presumably it will be again. And yet, despite the relevance of this passage to Lysias’ speech, Socrates’ sensitivity to interpretative difficulties here seems to be out of step with his treatment of the erōtikos. Here, Socrates carefully distinguishes the text and its ‘father’ and notes that the former is orphaned in the absence of the latter. We have seen that, elsewhere, he treats the erōtikos not as Lysias’ offspring, but as identical to Lysias himself. What are we to make of this contrast between what Socrates has to say on the matter of interpreting written texts and his actual practice in respect of Lysias’ speech?
The answer may well lie in how we understand Socrates’ reference to the ‘father’ of the abandoned logoi. Scholars are generally inclined to read Socrates as analysing the interpretative problems a text faces in the absence of its author.Footnote 82 It is notable, however, that when Socrates uses the father–offspring metaphor elsewhere in the dialogue, it is not to describe the authorial role as such. At 274e9–275a2, Theuth is described as the ‘father of letters’ (πατὴρ γραμμάτων) in deference to his status as the inventor of writing, rather than as the author of a text. At 261a3–5, Socrates refers to ‘Phaedrus of the beautiful offspring’ (καλλίπαιδα). Phaedrus is, of course, not an author of logoi, but someone who ‘fathers’ them in his commissioning role, by prompting Socrates and Lysias to produce speeches.Footnote 83 Finally, and most tellingly, Socrates refers to Lysias as the ‘father of the speech’ (τοῦ λόγου πατέρα) at 257b1–6. Here, Socrates is not talking about Lysias’ role as the author of his own speech, but as the person who bears the responsibility (and blame) for the nature of everything that has been said about love up to this point, including Socrates’ own first speech. In each case, the father is the instigator of logoi in some more general sense than that of author.Footnote 84
Once we recognise that the father of logoi in Socrates’ critique of writing may be someone other than their author, the apparent conflict between Socrates’ theory and practice falls away. Socrates can insist that the written text represents Lysias whilst acknowledging that it is prone to be misinterpreted and abused in the absence of its ‘father’. Who is its father, if not Lysias? Once we acknowledge that Lysias’ speech is an attempt at Socratic rhetoric, the answer seems obvious. Lysias may be the author of the erōtikos, but Socrates is its ‘father’. Just as Lysias and Phaedrus, each in their own way, inspire the speeches in the Phaedrus, so Socrates ‘begets’ a vast array of Socratic logoi. Each such text offers an account of Socrates’ words and actions. Each is necessarily read in the absence of Socrates’ interpretative authority and subject to misinterpretation as a result.
Conclusion
Lysias’ speech in the Phaedrus should be understood in the context of his logographic activity. The dialogue characterises Lysias as someone whose reputation is founded in his success in writing speeches for others to perform. Insofar as the content and context of Lysias’ speech support reading it as an attempt at Socratic erotic rhetoric, Lysias himself can be understood as a Socratic author. The Phaedrus therefore offers an implicit lesson in the complexities of reading and, perhaps, writing Socratic texts. Phaedrus and Socrates present alternative perspectives on how we assess the relationship between a Socratic author and their writing. Phaedrus models an approach which acknowledges that the author is to be distinguished from the characters to whom he gives voice. Yet it is natural also instinctively to regard those voices as somehow identifiable with their particular author. Socrates’ treatment of the speech represents a similar but slightly different point. Like Phaedrus, Socrates treats the author as responsible for and identifiable with the views he gives to his speakers. Just as Lysias is responsible for what the Socratic non-lover has to say, so any Socratic author should be held responsible for his particular representation of Socrates. As a logographer, Lysias is, like Plato, always absent from the texts he writes. The Phaedrus reminds us, however, that this absence does not free the author from accountability for what they write. In fact, the very act of writing is an assertion of responsibility.
In his critique of writing, Socrates introduces a further figure of significance, that of the father of the logos. As I have demonstrated, there is good reason to read the ‘father’ of the logos not as its author, but as its inspiration. In the case of Socratic texts, that inspiration must be Socrates. The Phaedrus insists on the responsibility of an author for the content of their writing, even and perhaps especially where their own voice is absent, as in the case of Lysias’ logography or Plato's dialogues. It also asserts the inevitability of misinterpretation of Socratic logoi which are written and read in the absence of Socratic authority.Footnote 85
I have hinted that Plato may be drawing attention to his own activities as a Socratic author in representing Lysias as aspiring to be such. I do not want to go so far as to argue that the Phaedrus is an outright claim of Platonic authority in contrast to other Socratic authors. Nor do I want to suggest that it signals Plato's desire to undermine the authority of his representation of Socrates. My suggestion is rather that Lysias is present in the Phaedrus at least in part as an example of someone who aspires to put words into Socrates’ mouth. As such, he also functions as an implicit warning that we, in reading any Socratic text, must always be aware of the complexities of the relation between what Socrates is made to say and those who make him say it.
