Alcibiades’ praise of Socrates as ‘the most wonderful aulos player’ in Plato’s Symposium
Abstract. In the Symposium, Plato presents us with two strikingly different characterisations of the double-pipes (aulos). As discussed in The Seductive voice of the aulos in Plato’s Symposium: the enigmatic dismissal of the Aulos Girl, the aulos-girl is sent away at the very beginning of the drinking party (Symp. 176e7).
But the Aulos Girl reappears at a key moment of the dialogue, namely Alcibiades’ drunken arrival at the party: his dramatic entrance is announced and accompanied precisely by the sound of her “voice” (αὐλητρίδος φωνὴν ἀκούειν, 212c8; cf. 212d6).
And Αlcibiades subsequently praises Socrates as ‘the most wonderful aulos player’, claiming that this image represents not only the effect of Socrates’ words on the souls of his listeners (cf. 215b-216d) but reveals no less than “the truth” about Socrates (τοῦ ἀληθοῦς ἕνεκα, 215a9).
But what do Socrates’ words have in common with the seductive voice of the aulos?
This article will show how these apparently conflicting images can help us understand Plato’s complex and nuanced attitude towards the alluring voice of the aulos and its psychological effects.
Thanks to Alcibiades, we understand how the power of Socrates’ seductive words can be truly likened to a ‘good use’ of auletic music.
Just as Marsyas’ and Olympus’ divine music is capable of revealing who needs to participate in mystic rites, so also Socrates’ ‘aulos tunes’ go much deeper than mere rational persuasion and exposes the true ethical needs of his interlocutors.
Differently from what is often maintained, I will show that Plato is not at all concerned with the capacity of the aulos to stir deep and powerful emotions; far from rejecting the intense and even ecstatic effects of music, Plato wants to highlights the crucial importance of using these powerful forces correctly.
If oriented correctly, both musical and rhetorical ‘aulos tunes’ become crucial educational ‘tools’ to give shape to the soul and its inner hierarchy of desires. But the stunning power of both persuasive speech and music lead to the exact opposite result, if they are used in the wrong ethical direction: psychological — and therefore political — strife.
The Reappearance Of The Aulos Girl And Alcibiades’ Arrival On Scene
From the very moment of his appearance on scene, Alcibiades is an outsider to the measured environment of the earlier party. His arrival is explicitly signalled as an abrupt and unexpected “invasion” of reality into the ideal and, to some extent, artificial intellectual world created in Agathon’s house. Socrates has just finished his complex and passionate discourse on Love (eros) when, all of a sudden (ἐξαίφνης, 212c6), the guests hear a group of drunken revellers approaching, emphatically announced by door-banging and by the sound of “the voice of an aulos-girl” (τὴν αὐλητρίδος φωνὴν ἀκούειν, 212c8).
the Greek term phōnē (φωνή) indicated both human voices and the “voices” of instruments: Plato elsewhere mentions the ‘voices of trumpets and auloi, panpipes and all other instruments’ (Resp. 3.397a: σαλπίγγων καὶ αὐλῶν καὶ συρίγγων καὶ πάντων ὀργάνων φωναί)
So the “alien voice” of the aulos-girl and her instrument, against which Socrates argued so strongly in the Protagoras, is employed here as a powerful symbol of the wildest aspects of contemporary symposia and significantly preludes to Alcibiades’ own entry on scene.
In fact, Plato describes Alcibiades’ arrival through the very same expression and dramatic sequence he had previously employed in connection with the aulos-girl: long before seeing him, Agathon’s guests hear the sound of Alcibiades’ voice (Ἀλκιβιάδου τὴν φωνὴν ἀκούειν) as he starts shouting loudly from the forecourt of the house, completely drunk.
This oblique connection is confirmed as soon as Alcibiades stumbles into the banqueting-hall: completely intoxicated and unable to walk on his own, Αlcibiades is literally “brought in” and “supported” by the aulos-girl (212d6) — an effective image that momentarily merges the two characters into one item, and interestingly presents Αlcibiades as a passive follower of the aulos-girl and her lead.
Ιn the following pages of the dialogue, Plato provides many sustained and vivid representations of Αlcibiades’ psychological turmoil, which reveal how deeply he embraced the model of intemperance epitomised by the aulos-girl. As he admits himself, he is completely drunk, and more inclined to reveal the dominant traits of his nature:
“you wouldn’t hear me say what I am about to tell you, unless wine had been there first… and, as the saying goes, there is truth in wine when the slaves have left — but also when they haven’t!” (Symp. 217e)
τὸ δ ̓ ἐντεῦθεν οὐκ ἄν μου ἠκούσατε λέγοντος, εἰ μὴ πρῶτον μέν, τὸ λεγόμενον, οἶνος ἄνευ τε παίδων καὶ μετὰ παίδων ἦν ἀληθής…
After this dramatic self-disclosure, Alcibiades hubristically appoints himself as the new ‘Symposium leader’ — a gesture whose symbolic and ethical value hardly needs flagging.
But it is another, apparently minor, detail that reveals the full extent of Plato’s cultural condemnation of Alcibiades’ psychological and ethical degradation. With a subtle touch of literary artistry, Plato makes Alcibiades order a slave to fill up a psyktēr (ψυκτήρ) — a large vase which, as the name says, was normally used as a wine ‘cooler’(cf. ψύχειν=breathing, blowing; ψυχή= life breath, soul), to be placed inside larger kraters.
Turning this huge vase into his own personal cup, Alcibiades dramatically drains it dry, almost in one shot. While this gesture could be simply regarded as a particularly memorable example of Alcibiades’ intemperance, his request for that specific container — a word that appears only here in the whole Platonic corpus — subtly adds a supplementary charge, since the ψυκτήρ was used to store pure wine — which was to be mixed with water in a larger bowl (krater).
What action could be more emblematic of a disharmonic nature in a Greek symposium than disobeying the very basic law (nomos) of mixing wine and water, embracing the ‘barbaric’ custom of drinking large quantities of undiluted wine?
And here it is the self-proclaimed symposiarch who overthrows this rule — that is to say, the person who was normally in charge to enforce it (cf. e.g. Pl. Leg. 1.639–64). Through this revealing gesture, then, Alcibiades exposes fully the deranged emotional and ethical hierarchy established in his soul: in other words, he turns into a living, tragic paradigm of psychological ‘lawlessness’ (παρανομία).
The Most Wonderful Auletes, Or The “Truth” About Socrates
If our understanding of Plato’s use of aulos imagery in the Symposium were to be based only on what we have seen so far, the verdict would have to be unanimously and unquestionably negative: the aulos-girl, a widely recognised icon of sympotic excesses, is consistently associated with ethically dubious attitudes and especially with the character of Alcibiades, Plato’s supreme example of intemperance.
However, the following pages of the dialogue pose a radical challenge to the network of symbols we have traced up to now: in fact, repeatedly claiming to speak the truth, Alcibiades centres his discourse of praise on describing Socrates as the most excellent and wonderful aulos-player (αὐλητής, 215b).
So how should we interpret this seemingly incongruous choice? If Plato simply regarded the aulos and its players as a symbol of the negative consequences of excessively indulgent ethical attitudes, why would he make one of his most powerful characters use this kind of imagery to describe nothing less than “the truth” about Socrates?
Alcibiades first highlights the contrast between the physical unattractiveness and the “inner treasures” that both Socrates and the statues of musical Silens held in store for the people who are truly able to understand their value.
Alcibiades then moves on to the most important and explicitly musical resemblance between Socrates and these mythical aulos players, and likens Socrates to the mythical archetype of all aulos players—the Phrygian satyr Marsyas:
Why, aren’t you an aulos-player? And indeed you are much more wonderful than Marsyas. In fact he bewitches people by means of his instruments, thanks to the power of his mouth, and so does anyone who plays his compositions on the auloi even today — for I say that the pieces that Olympus played are actually by Marsyas, who taught him. Whether it is a good aulete who plays his tunes or a third-rate aulos-girl, they are the only pieces which can cast a spell over the listeners and overwhelm them, revealing who is in need of the gods and mystic rites, because they are themselves divine. (Symp. 215c)
ἀλλ ̓ οὐκ αὐλητής; πολύ γε θαυμασιώτερος ἐκείνου. ὁ μέν γε δι ̓ ὀργάνων ἐκήλει τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τῇ ἀπὸ τοῦ στόματος δυνάμει, καὶ ἔτι νυνὶ ὃς ἂν τὰ ἐκείνου αὐλῇ — ἃ γὰρ Ὄλυμπος ηὔλει, Μαρσύου λέγω, τούτου διδάξαντος — τὰ οὖν ἐκείνου ἐάντε ἀγαθὸς αὐλητὴς αὐλῇ ἐάντε φαύλη αὐλητρίς, μόνα κατέχεσθαι ποιεῖ καὶ δηλοῖ τοὺς τῶν θεῶν τε καὶ τελετῶν δεομένους διὰ τὸ θεῖα εἶναι.
The very first and most relevant aspect emphasised by Alcibiades is the intense emotional effect of Marsyas’ music: with his seductive tunes, he bewitches (κηλεῖν) the listeners and brings them to an entranced state (κατέχεσθαι), revealing which souls are troubled and need to partake in mystic initiation rites (τελεταί).
According to Alcibiades this extraordinary effect, which is often associated with the aulos music employed in Corybantic rites, is so intimately related to the nature of these compositions that it can be achieved independently from the ability of the performers, a point that is significantly illustrated by juxtaposing the performance of a mediocre aulos-girl to that of a skilled male aulete.
So what kind of music was Alcibiades thinking of here? In specifying that these tunes could be still heard at his own time, Alcibiades brings the figure of Olympus into the picture, characterising him as Marsyas’ pupil; but if Marsyas and his music belong entirely to the mythical realm, the connection established with Olympus gives us some hints as to the contexts in which the type of aulos music described by Alcibiades could be heard in Classical Athens.
Technical texts associate Olympus to the solemn spondaic mode (cf. Ps.-Plut. De mus. 1134e-1135f and 1137a-e), which accompanied for instance the libations that marked the transition from the end of the dinner to the beginning of a proper symposion.
In contrast, other Classical sources — including Aristophanes, Aristotle and Euripides (e.g. Aristoph. eq. 9, Eur. Iph. Aul. 576ff., Arist. Pol. 8.1339b–1140a, Telestes fr. 806 Page) – focus on Olympus’ Phrygian compositions such as the Metroia (Ps.-Plut. De mus. 1141b; Diod. Sic. 5.49.3).
Performed in honour of the mother Goddess in the context of ecstatic rites, Metroia performances involved intense dancing accompanied by the sharp sound of the auloi and energetic rhythms — musical features which led the initiates to experience “divine possession” (enthousiasmos), as Aristotle tells us in the Politics:
“But it is clear that we are affected by many types of music and not least by the tunes of Olympus: for these admittedly make our souls enthusiastic” (Arist. Pol. 8.1340a8–11)
ἀλλὰ μὴν ὅτι γιγνόμεθα ποιοί τινες, φανερὸν διὰ πολλῶν μὲν καὶ ἑτέρων, οὐχ ἥκιστα δὲ καὶ διὰ τῶν Ὀλύμπου μελῶν· ταῦτα γὰρ ὁμολογουμένως ποιεῖ τὰς ψυχὰς ἐνθουσιαστικάς.
cf. Dion. Halic. De Demosth. 22.1–18, where the author mentions precisely the two musical genres associated with Olympus in order to exemplify the two most different types of music: serious spondaic aulos songs or Dorian tunes that bring about a calm and solemn ethos, versus the ecstatic music of the Metroia and the Corybantes.
Keeping these musical features in mind, let us examine the rest of Alcibiades discourse, where he completes his musical ‘image’ (eikon) by explaining how Socrates’ words resemble the aulos music played by the Phrygian Satyr.
Once again, Alcibiades starts by describing in great detail the nature of the emotional reactions triggered by the “wonderful aulete” Socrates: similarly to the ecstatic music of Dionysiac rites, Socrates’ words are able to generate passionate feelings and desires in his audience, casting a sort of spell which brings them to an entranced state (ἐκπεπληγμένοι ἐσμὲν καὶ κατεχόμεθα, 215d). Narrowing momentarily the focus on his own personal response, Alcibiades continues by portraying his own physical and emotional reactions to the discourses of this “philosophical Marsyas”:
And weren’t for the fact that I would seem to be completely wasted, gentlemen, I would swear to you that this is exactly what i felt and still feel myself when i am under the influence of his words. Whenever I listen to him, my heart races much more than that of the people who are filled with Corybantic frenzy: his discourses make tears flow down my cheeks, and i see that many other people undergo the same feelings.
When listening to Pericles or other good orators, I used to think that they spoke well but i didn’t experience anything remotely like this: my soul was not thrown into turmoil nor was it irritated because of my servile attitude. but often this Marsyas here has made me feel this way, to the point that I thought my life was not worth living in my present state. and you, Socrates, can’t say that these things are not true. (Symp. 215d6–216a2)
ἐγὼ γοῦν, ὦ ἄνδρες, εἰ μὴ ἔμελλον κομιδῇ δόξειν μεθύειν, εἶπον ὀμόσας ἂν ὑμῖν οἷα δὴ πέπονθα αὐτὸς ὑπὸ τῶν τούτου λόγων καὶ πάσχω ἔτι καὶ νυνί. ὅταν γὰρ ἀκούω, πολύ μοι μᾶλλον ἢ τῶν κορυβαντιώντων ἥ τε καρδία πηδᾷ καὶ δάκρυα ἐκχεῖται ὑπὸ τῶν λόγων τῶν τούτου, ὁρῶ δὲ καὶ ἄλλους παμπόλλους τὰ αὐτὰ πάσχοντας· Περικλέους δὲ ἀκούων καὶ ἄλλων ἀγαθῶν ῥητόρων εὖ μὲν ἡγούμην λέγειν, τοιοῦτον δ ̓ οὐδὲν ἔπασχον, οὐδ ̓ ἐτεθορύβητό μου ἡ ψυχὴ οὐδ ̓ ἠγανάκτει ὡς ἀνδραποδωδῶς διακειμένου, ἀλλ ̓ ὑπὸ τουτουῒ τοῦ Μαρσύου πολλάκις δὴ οὕτω διετέθην ὥστε μοι δόξαι μὴ βιωτὸν εἶναι ἔχοντι ὡς ἔχω. καὶ ταῦτα, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὐκ ἐρεῖς ὡς οὐκ ἀληθῆ.
Alcibiades’ behaviour resembles, and even exceeds, that of people who partake in mystic rites. Both his body and his soul are completely overwhelmed by the experience of listening to Socrates’ enchanting voice — an experience he shared at least in part with the other guests of the party:
“for you all took part in the philosophical mania and bacchic frenzy [caused by Socrates]…” (Symp. 218b3–4)
πάντες γὰρ κεκοινωνήκατε τῆς φιλοσόφου μανίας τε καὶ βακχείας…
But the “philosophical mania” caused by Socrates’ ‘aulos songs’ (aulemata) unveils a kind of psychological disharmony that differs from the one revealed by Olympus’ music: Socrates brings his Corybantes to feel dissatisfied with their own actions and ethical attitude, instilling a cognitive dissonance within their minds that leads them to reject their own choices and lifestyle, ultimately urging them to change their ways.
Just as the Corybantes perceive acutely only the particular tune that belongs to the god that they are possessed by, and have plenty of dance motions and words that go well with that specific melody only (Plato, Ion 536c), this deep psychological reaction can be triggered only by Socrates’ enchanting speeches and not by the words uttered by any random, if skilled, rhetorician: as Alcibiades confesses, Socrates is the only person who could force him to admit that his ethical conduct is neither correct nor serves his real psychological needs, compelling him to see for a moment the pointlessness of his ambition and making him feel ashamed of himself.
“he forced me to admit that, even though Iam severely flawed, I don’t take care of myself but i get involved in athenian politics. So I force myself to block my ears and go away, as if i was escaping from the Sirens […]” (Symp. 216a4–7)
(ἀναγκάζει γάρ με ὁμολογεῖν ὅτι πολλοῦ ἐνδεὴς ὢν αὐτὸς ἔτι ἐμαυτοῦ μὲν ἀμελῶ, τὰ δ ̓ Ἀθηναίων πράττω. βίᾳ οὖν ὥσπερ ἀπὸ τῶν Σειρήνων ἐπισχόμενος τὰ ὦτα οἴχομαι φεύγων […]).
In the following lines, Alcibiades reveals an even deeper aspect of the effect of Socrates’ beguiling words:
“and there is something I experienced only in the presence of this man, something nobody would believe Ihave in me: feeling ashamed before anyone whatsoever. Yet before him and him alone I feel ashamed” (see Symp. 216b1–2)
πέπονθα δὲ πρὸς τοῦτον μόνον ἀνθρώπων, ὃ οὐκ ἄν τις οἴοιτο ἐν ἐμοὶ ἐνεῖναι, τὸ αἰσχύνεσθαι ὁντινοῦν· ἐγὼ δὲ τοῦτον μόνον αἰσχύνομαι.
Hence by portraying Socrates as a wonderful aulete, Alcibiades actually tells the truth about him: Socrates’ powerful ‘aulos songs’ are as divine as Marsyas’, because they are able to reveal the unhealthy and troubled state of other people’s souls and, at the same time, provide a cure for them.
But there is one reason why Socrates is an even more wonderful aulos-player than Marsyas: he is able to achieve these life-altering effects without the aid of the seductive notes of the aulos, just with the ardent music of his bare words:
“you differ from him (i.e. Marsyas) in one thing only — that you produce the same effect without any instruments, with your bare words only” (Symp. 215c6–8)
σὺ δ ̓ ἐκείνου τοσοῦτον μόνον διαφέρεις, ὅτι ἄνευ ὀργάνων ψιλοῖς λόγοις ταὐτὸν τοῦτο ποιεῖς.
Conclusions
So how are we to interpret Plato’s apparently contradictory attitude towards the aulos? Similarly to how the powerful emotions related to sympotic practices are presented in a different light depending on the ethical approach that informs them, so also the evaluation of the effects of aulos music is not fixed and immutable because it is not the musical nature of the instrument per se or its ability to provoke powerful emotions that triggers Plato’s worries: in fact, all these elements are presented in a positive light in connection with the figure of Socrates the wonderful aulos-player and in relation to Olympus’ divine ‘aulos music’ (aulemata).
The reason why the aulos-girl, the symbolical representative of “bad” eroticism, was sent away at the beginning of the refined symposium hosted at Agathon’s house is that she is not aware — or interested in taking care — of the wide-ranging psychological impact of the powerful emotions stirred by her music.
In the absence of careful handling, these intense forces end up having a negative effect on the souls of her listeners, making their souls more conflictual and disharmonic without providing an adequate and constructive release to this tension, as shown by the tragic figure of Alcibiades.
But the very same psychological experiences have a completely different meaning in the case of the “bacchic frenzy” caused by Socrates’ aulos songs: his intense music gives a precise direction to the emotional energy it liberates, turning it into a central tool to give the “right shape” to disharmonic souls.
Significantly, this outcome is exactly the one that is envisaged in Book 1 of Plato’s Laws in relation to correctly organised symposia. In these metaphorical “gyms” for the soul, the guests can train themselves by means of intense emotions and pleasures, in order to learn how their psychological reactions work and how to handle them at best in all circumstances. This crucial psychological exercise (προσγυμνάζειν, 1.647c8) leads them to develop real mastery over pleasures: in other words, the guests of these select symposia, and the ideal citizens of Plato’s constitutions, learn how to enjoy pleasures without being enslaved by them (cf. Leg. 1.647c, Leg. 1.647d–1.649d and 2.673e–674c, where “good” symposia are characterised as “serious” institutions that teach the citizens how to use emotions correctly).
This seems to be the substantial difference that informs all the Platonic evaluations of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ use of emotions, whether triggered by music, love or wine: given the deep effects that these forces have on the soul, it is crucial to orient them in a constructive direction that improves the human nature of each individual and his ethical quality, instead of damaging it.
If oriented towards the wrong objects, the emotions elicited by these powerful experiences, while originally generating an “ecstatic” effect similar to well-oriented practices, end up achieving the opposite result: the inner order of the soul is destroyed by the conflict created between its different parts, a psychological outcome which does not affect only the life of each individual, as Plato is well aware, but inevitably leads also to political strife (στάσις).
These potentially opposite outcomes are represented effectively by the conflictual feelings experienced by the character of Alcibiades. His gifted nature allows him to understand intellectually and feel emotionally “the truth” of Socrates’ intense music; however, not having trained his soul to strive towards ‘correct’ ethical goals, as soon as Socrates’ seductive music is over, to use his own words, he falls again “a victim to the honour of the crowds” (216b6–7).
© Tosca A.C. Lynch
For fuller references and bibliography, see Lynch, T. (2018) ‘The seductive voice of the aulos in Plato’s Symposium: from the dismissal of the auletris to Alcibiades’ praise of Socrates-auletes’, in Baldassarre, A. and Markovic, T. (eds.), Music cultures in Sounds, Words and Images, Vienna: Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, 709–23
