Odisseo nel Simposio di Platone: il silenzio di Socrate

Silence has in Plato’s production the power of words, especially when it is of Socrates. This contribution uncovers the possible paradigm for the scene with which Aristodemus, in the Symposium, begins the story, for the scene that opens again, with great plastic realisation, in Alcibiades’ praise of Socrates at the end: in the porch of Agathon’s neighbours and on the field of Potidaea, silence conceals the reflection that shines through in the Iliad, with the characterisation of Odysseus, in Book III for the story, offered by Antenor, of the embassy inside the walls of Troy and in Book XI for the reflection that suggests in five stages the basis of the choice of life in the Apology, the passage that refers to Book XVIII of the Iliad, with Achilles’ display of the courage, immediately after the doubt of Thetis about imminent death. In Alcibiades’ praise of Socrates comes the proof of Plato’s literary memory with the quotation of the verse which, for Telemachus to hear, Helen inserts into her song, with Menelaus’ repetition, for the numerous deeds of Odysseus, for the survey inside the walls of Troy and for the stratagem of the horse.