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Symposium (Plato Dialogue)
The ''Symposium'' (, ''Symposion'') is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, dated . It depicts a friendly contest of extemporaneous speeches given by a group of notable Athenian men attending a banquet. The men include the philosopher Socrates, the general and statesman Alcibiades, and the comic playwright Aristophanes. The panegyrics are to be given in praise of Eros, the god of love and sex. 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. It is seen as transcending its earthly origins and attaining spiritual heights. 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. ''Eros'' is almost always translated as "love," and the English word has its own varieties and ambiguities that provide additional challenges to the effort to understand the ' ...
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Papyrus Oxyrhynchus
The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient rubbish dump near Oxyrhynchus in Egypt (, modern ''el-Bahnasa''). The manuscripts date from the time of the Ptolemaic (3rd century BC) and Roman periods of Egyptian history (from 32 BC to the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640 AD). Only an estimated 10% are literary in nature. Most of the papyri found seem to consist mainly of public and private documents: codes, edicts, registers, official correspondence, census-returns, tax-assessments, petitions, court-records, sales, leases, wills, bills, accounts, inventories, horoscopes, and private letters. Although most of the papyri were written in Greek, some texts written in Egyptian ( Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hieratic, Demotic, mostly Coptic), Latin and Arabic were also found. Texts in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac and Pahlavi hav ...
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Athenian
Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southernmost capital on the European mainland. With its urban area's population numbering over 3.6 million, it is the List of urban areas in the European Union, eighth-largest urban area in the European Union (EU). The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 (2021) within its official limits, and a land area of . Athens is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BCE. According to Greek mythology the city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, ...
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Tragedy
A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure,” for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term ''tragedy'' often refers to a specific Poetic tradition, tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture, Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Classical Athens, Greeks and the Elizabethan era, Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenistic civilization, Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it. Originating in the theatre of ancient Greece ...
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Ancient Greek Comedy
Ancient Greek comedy () was one of the final three principal dramatic forms in the theatre of classical Greece; the others being tragedy and the satyr play. Greek comedy was distinguished from tragedy by its happy endings and use of comically exaggerated character archetypes, the latter feature being the origin of the modern concept of the comedy. Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods; Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven extant plays of Aristophanes; Middle Comedy is largely lost and preserved only in relatively short fragments by authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis; New Comedy is known primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. A burlesque dramatic form that blended tragic and comic elements, known as phlyax play or hilarotragedy, developed in the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia by the late 4th century BC. The philosopher Aristotle wrote in his '' Poetics'' (c. 335 BC) that comedy is a representation of l ...
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Physician
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis and therapy, treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments. Physicians may focus their practice on certain disease categories, types of patients, and methods of treatment—known as Specialty (medicine), specialities—or they may assume responsibility for the provision of continuing and comprehensive medical care to individuals, families, and communities—known as general practitioner, general practice. Medical practice properly requires both a detailed knowledge of the Discipline (academia), academic disciplines, such as anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, underlying diseases, and their treatment, which is the science of medicine, and a decent Competence (human resources ...
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Eryximachus
Eryximachus, son of Acumenus (; Greek: Ἐρυξίμαχος Ἀκουμένου ''Eruxímachos Akouménou''; c. 448 – late 5th century or early 4th century BCE) was an ancient Athenian physician who is best remembered for his prominent role in Plato's ''Symposium''. It is likely that he was indicted in the mutilation of the herms, a domestic Athenian conflict during the Peloponnesian War.Debra Nails, ''The People of Plato'', Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2002; pp. 134–135 Life The son of the physician Acumenus, Eryximachus was born in the mid-5th century BC. Set approximately in 433/2, Plato's ''Protagoras'' dialogue includes a depiction of his close friendship with Socrates' student Phaedrus, a friendship that continued into the dramatic time of the '' Phaedrus'' dialogue some 15 years later. His wealth and social status are unclear from the extant sources. An Eryximachus is mentioned in Andocides' ''On the Mysteries'' speech as among those indicted in the mutila ...
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Pausanias (Athenian)
Pausanias (; ; fl. c. 420 BC) was an ancient Athenian of the deme Kerameis, who was the lover of the poet Agathon. Although Pausanias is given a significant speaking part in Plato's ''Symposium'', very little is known about him. Ancient anecdotes tend to address only his relationship with Agathon and give us no information about his personal accomplishments. Around 407 BC he removed himself together with Agathon from Athens to the court of the Macedonian king Archelaus. Pausanias appears briefly in two other Socratic dialogues, Plato's ''Protagoras'' and Xenophon's ''Symposium''. He is also mentioned in Book V of Athenaeus' ''Deipnosophistae'', and in Book II of Claudius Aelianus' ''Varia Historia.'' See also *List of speakers in Plato's dialogues following is a list of the speakers found in the dialogues traditionally ascribed to Plato, including extensively quoted, indirect and conjured speakers. Dialogues, as well as Platonic ''Epistles'' and ''Epigrams'', in which the ...
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Phaedrus (Plato)
The ''Phaedrus'' (; ), written by Plato, is a dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. The ''Phaedrus'' was presumably composed around 370 BC, about the same time as Plato's ''Republic'' and ''Symposium''. Although ostensibly about the topic of love, the discussion in the dialogue revolves around the art of rhetoric and how it should be practiced, and dwells on subjects as diverse as metempsychosis (the Greek tradition of reincarnation) and erotic love, and the nature of the human soul shown in the famous chariot allegory. Setting Socrates runs into Phaedrus on the outskirts of Athens. Phaedrus has just come from the home of Epicrates of Athens, where Lysias, son of Cephalus, has given a speech on love. Socrates, stating that he is "sick with passion for hearing speeches", walks into the countryside with Phaedrus. Socrates is hoping that Phaedrus will repeat the speech. They sit by a stream under a plane tree and a chaste tree, and the r ...
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Stephanus Pagination
Stephanus pagination is a system of reference and organization used in modern editions and translations of Plato (and less famously, Plutarch) based on the three-volume 1578 edition''Platonis opera quae extant omnia'' edidit Henricus Stephanus, Genevae, 1578. of Plato's complete works translated by Joannes Serranus (Jean de Serres) and published by Henricus Stephanus (Henri Estienne) in Geneva. Overview In the case of Plato's works, Stephanus pagination first divides the works into numbers that are the page numbers of each of the Stephanus edition's three volumes, and each such page and page number is further subdivided into lettered sections which correspond to parallel Greek/Latin translated passages on a given page, mostly commonly a, b, c, d, and e. This system is used in modern scholarship to cite Plato. For Plato's works, unique coordinates for a passage can therefore be given with three pieces of information: the work's name, the (Stephanus) page number, and the letter deno ...
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Phaedrus (Athenian)
Phaedrus (), son of Pythocles, of the Myrrhinus deme (Ancient Greek language, Greek: Φαῖδρος Πυθοκλέους Μυῤῥινούσιος, ''Phaĩdros Puthokléous Murrhinoúsios''; c. 444 – 393 BC), was an Classical Athens, ancient Athenian aristocrat associated with the inner-circle of the Ancient Greek philosophy, philosopher Socrates. He was indicted in the profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries in 415 during the Peloponnesian War, causing him to flee Athens. He is best remembered for his depiction in the dialogues of Plato. His philosophically Eros, erotic role in his Phaedrus (dialogue), eponymous dialogue and the ''Symposium (Plato), Symposium'' inspired later authors, from the Ancient Greek comedy, ancient comedic playwright Alexis (poet), Alexis to contemporary philosophy, contemporary philosophers like Robert M. Pirsig and Martha Nussbaum.Martha Nussbaum, ''The Fragility of Goodness'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001; pp. 200–224 Life Phaed ...
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Athens
Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southernmost capital on the European mainland. With its urban area's population numbering over 3.6 million, it is the List of urban areas in the European Union, eighth-largest urban area in the European Union (EU). The Municipality of Athens (also City of Athens), which constitutes a small administrative unit of the entire urban area, had a population of 643,452 (2021) within its official limits, and a land area of . Athens is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, world's oldest cities, with its recorded history spanning over 3,400 years, and its earliest human presence beginning somewhere between the 11th and 7th millennia BCE. According to Greek mythology the city was named after Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom, ...
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Agathon
Agathon (; ; ) was an Athenian tragic poet whose works have been lost. He is best known for his appearance in Plato's '' Symposium,'' which describes the banquet given to celebrate his obtaining a prize for his first tragedy at the Lenaia in 416. He is also a prominent character in Aristophanes' comedy the '' Thesmophoriazusae''. Life and career Agathon was the son of Tisamenus, and the lover of Pausanias, with whom he appears in both the ''Symposium'' and Plato's '' Protagoras''. Together with Pausanias, around 407 BC he moved to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who was recruiting playwrights; it is here that he probably died around 401 BC. Agathon introduced certain innovations into the Greek theater: Aristotle tells us in the '' Poetics'' (1451b21) that the characters and plot of his '' Anthos'' were original and not, following Athenian dramatic orthodoxy, borrowed from mythological or historical subjects. Agathon was also the first playwright to write choral pa ...
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