[Footnote 60: From "The Symposium." Translated by Benjamin Jowett.
Mahaffy ranks this work "as greater and more brilliant" than the
"Phædo." Being intensely Greek, it has, however, seemed alien, if not
offensive, to many modern readers. Scholars have valued it highly as a
vivid picture of the manners of the most refined society of Athens. It
has sometimes been called "The Banquet." Under that name, the poet
Shelley made a translation. The banquet described took place in the
house of the tragic poet Agathon. Agathon was born about 477 B.C., of
a rich and eminent Athenian family. He was remarkable for personal
accomplishments rather than for high literary genius. He is believed
to have died at the age of forty-seven.]
[Footnote 61: Diotima, a priestess, reputed to have been a
Pythagorean, but some writers have doubted her existence.]
[Footnote 62: The wife of Admetus, a Thessalian king, who sacrificed
her life in order to save that of her husband.]
[Footnote 63: Hesiod, whose home was in Boeotia, is thought to have
lived about three centuries after Homer; that is, about 800 B.C. He
was a shepherd in his youth, and began to write verses while tending
his flocks.]
[Footnote 64: Lived probably in the ninth century B.C., and the
traditional author of the laws by which Sparta was governed for
several centuries.]
[Footnote 65: An Athenian, son of Pythocles, and friend of Plato, but
of whom nothing more is known.]