Proagogeia, mastropeia,promnestria: maieutics and eroticpaideia in ancient Socratic literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14195/1984-249X_18_4Keywords:
pimpery, match ‑making, eros, paideia, maieuticsAbstract
The paper aims to investigate the meaning of a set of concepts – προαγωγεία, μαστροπεία and προμνήστρια – in ancient Socratic literature, with special regard to their rela-tionship with some crucial themes of Socratic philosophy such as ἔρως, παιδείαand maieutics. The chief texts i will refer to are aeschines’ Aspasia, Xenophon’s Symposium and Plato’s Theaetetus, which can be combined in order to achieve a wider picture of this aspect of Socrates’ teaching activity. Moreover, this allows us to connect the latter to aspasia’s wifely didactics, which can be interpreted as an application of Socratic ἔρως. The starting point of the analysis is the depiction of aspasia’s pedagogical activity in aeschines’ account, and particularly in Cicero’s testimony in De inventione, 1.31, 51 -53. The relevance of the theme of education in aeschines’ dialogue also emerges from Xenophon’s testimony in Economics 3.14 and in Memo‑rabilia 2.6, 36, where Socrates quotes aspasia regarding τὰς ἀγαθὰς προμνηστρίδας, the “good matchmakers”. now, the meaning of this reference becomes clearer when connected to some fundamental passages from Xenophon’s Symposium and Plato’s Theaetetus. in both accounts, προαγωγεία is presented as a “profession” enjoying a terrible reputation but is nonetheless associated to Socrates’ teaching activity. in conclusion, i will ar-gue that this art of προαγωγός – which Socrates puts into prac-tice in the final section of Xenophon’s Symposium (8.37 ff.) – ul-timately must be understood in the same “noble” sense we can infer from the Theaetetus.
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