How The Symposium drew on Theogony/Works and Days
A documented line of influence: Plato demonstrably engaged Hesiod’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Theogony/Works and Days
Hesiod · c. 700 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
The Symposium
Plato · c. 385 BCE
Ancient GreeceRelevance
8/10
On The Symposium’s page
- The Symposium's opening speech leans on Hesiod — Phaedrus quotes the Theogony to crown Eros the oldest of the gods
- "First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed Earth ... and Love": knowing Hesiod's genealogy first shows you exactly which line Plato is mining and why it settles the argument
- It's a small but telling debt — Plato reaches for the oldest cosmogony he knows to give the praise of love an ancient pedigree
On Theogony/Works and Days’s page
- Hesiod's cosmogony becomes a debating point in The Symposium — Plato's first speaker, Phaedrus, quotes the Theogony to argue Eros is the oldest of the gods
- "First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed Earth ... and Love": Phaedrus reads Hesiod's genealogy as proof that desire is primordial, born among the very first powers
- The Theogony is the authority the praise of love is built on — Plato sends his speaker back to Hesiod to make the case