Diotima of Mantinea

Jadwiga Łuszczewska (pen name Diotima), painting by Józef Simmler, 1855

Diotima of Mantinea plays an important role in Plato's Symposium. Since our only source concerning her is Plato, we cannot be certain whether she was a real historical personage or merely a fictional creation. However, it should be noted that nearly all of the characters named in Plato's dialogues have been found to correspond to real people living in ancient Athens.

In Plato's Symposium, Socrates says that Diotima was a seer or priestess who had, in his youth, taught him "the philosophy of love". Socrates also claims that she had succeeded in convincing the gods to postpone the pestilence that besieged Athens for ten years.

Plato was thought by most 19th and early 20th century scholars to have based Diotima on Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, so impressed was he by her intelligence and wit. This question is far from resolved, however, and some scholars have argued convincingly that Diotima was a historical figure.^[1]

Her name has often been used as a moniker for philosophical or artistic projects, journals, essays, etc.:

• Polish writer Jadwiga Łuszczewska (1834-1908) used the pen name Diotima (Deotyma).
• German poet Friedrich Hölderlin used the pen name Diotima as a moniker for Susette Borkenstein Gontard, who inspired him to write Hyperion. In this work, the fictitious first-person author Hyperion addresses letters to his friends Bellarmin and Diotima.
• Italian composer Luigi Nono used her name as part of the title in one of his most important works, the string quartet: "Fragmente-Stille, an Diotima", including quotations from Hölderlins letters to Diotima from Hyperion in the work.

Notes

1. ^ Wider, Kathleen. "Women philosophers in the Ancient Greek World: Donning the Mantle". Hypatia vol 1 no 1 Spring 1986. Part of her argument focuses on the point that all scholars who argued 'for' a fictitious Diotima were male, and most used as a starting point Smith's (Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 1870) uncertainty of her actual existence.

Bibliography

• Navia, Luis E., Socrates, the man and his philosophy, pp. 30, 171. University Press of America ISBN 0-8191-4854-7.

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