{{Short description|Ancient Greek woman or fictional figure in Plato's Symposium}}
{{use dmy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox religious biography |image = File:Simmler-Deotyma.jpg |caption = Jadwiga Łuszczewska, who used the pen name ''Diotima'', posing as the ancient seer in a painting by Józef Simmler, 1855 |region = Mantinea, Arcadia, Northern Peloponnese |name = Diotima of Mantinea |native_name = Διοτίμα Μαντινίκη |death_date = {{circa|5th century BC}} |religion = Ancient Greek religion |notable_ideas = Platonic love }}
'''Diotima of Mantinea''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|d|aɪ|ə|ˈ|t|iː|m|ə}}; {{langx|el|Διοτίμα}}; {{langx|la|Diotīma}}) is the name or pseudonym of an ancient Greek character in Plato's dialogue ''Symposium'', possibly an actual historical figure, indicated as having lived circa 440 B.C. Her ideas and doctrine of ''Eros'' as reported by the character of Socrates in the dialogue are the origin of the concept today known as love.
==Role in ''Symposium''== {{see also|Symposium (Plato)|Platonic love}} In Plato's ''Symposium'' the members of a party discuss the meaning of love. Socrates says that in his youth he was taught "the philosophy of love" by Diotima, a prophetess who successfully postponed the Plague of Athens. In an account that Socrates recounts at the symposium, Diotima says that Socrates has confused the idea of love with the idea of the beloved. Love, she says, is neither fully beautiful nor good, as the earlier speakers in the dialogue had argued. Diotima gives Socrates a genealogy of Love (Eros), stating that he is the son of "resource (''poros)'' and poverty (''penia)''". In her view, love drives the individual to seek beauty, first earthly beauty, or beautiful bodies. Then as a lover grows in wisdom, the beauty that is sought is spiritual, or beautiful souls. For Diotima, the most correct use of love of other human beings is to direct one's mind to love of wisdom, or philosophy.<ref>Plato, ''Symposium'', 210a–212b</ref>
From the ''Symposium'' Diotima's descriptor, "Mantinikê" (Mantinean) seems designed to draw attention to the word "''mantis''", which suggests an association with prophecy. She is further described as a foreigner (ξένη) (201e) and as wise (σοφὴ) in not only the subject of love but also of many other things (ἄλλα πολλά), she is often associated with priestcraft by a majority of scholars insofar as: 1 - she advises the Athenians on sacrifice (thusiai) which delayed the onset of a plague (201d), and 2 - her speech on eros utilizes the language of sacrifice (thusia), prophecy (mantike), purification (katharsis), mystical cultic practices like initiation (teletai) and culminates in revelations/visions (202e). In one manuscript her description was mistranscribed ''mantikê'' ('mantic woman' or seeress) rather than ''Mantinikê'', which may be another reason for the reception of Diotima as a "priestess".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Riegel |first1=Nicholas |title=Cosmópolis: mobilidades culturais às origens do pensamento antigo |date=2016 |publisher=Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra |location=Eryximachus and Diotima in Plato’s Symposium |isbn=978-989-26-1287-4}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Grote |first1=George |title=Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates |date=1888 |location=Chapter XXVI |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40435 |access-date=2019-12-01 |archive-date=2024-03-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240318232342/https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40435 |url-status=live }}</ref> Her views of love and beauty appear to center Socrates' lesson on the value of the daimonic (that which is between mortal and immortal) and "giving birth to the beautiful."
==Historicity== [[File:Relief Diotima Mantineia Arcadia National Archaeological Museum of Athens 2.jpg|thumb|Relief of a woman holding a liver for hepatoscopy, possibly a depiction of Diotima of Mantineia.]]
The evidence for the existence of Diotima as a real person is sparse. Plato's ''Symposium'' is the only independent reference to her existence; all later references to her are derived from Plato.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nails |first1=Debra |title=The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics |date=15 November 2002 |publisher=Hackett Publishing |isbn=978-1-60384-027-9 |pages=137–138 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cspgDwAAQBAJ |access-date=21 February 2023 |language=en}}</ref> Based on this scarcity of evidence, scholars from the Renaissance through modern times have debated whether she was a real historical person who existed or a dramatic invention of Plato. Most modern scholars believe that Diotima is a fictional character invented by Plato.<ref name=Deretic-n32>{{cite book|last1=Deretić|first1=Irina|last2=Smith|first2=Nicholas D.|chapter=Plato's Women: Extending the Socratic Insight|title=Women in the Socratic Tradition|editor-first=Carolina |editor-last=Araújo|at=n. 32}}</ref>
===As a fictional character=== Marsilio Ficino, in the 15th century, was the first to suggest she might be fictional.<ref>{{cite book|title=A History of Women Philosophers: Volume I: Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 BC–500 AD|last=Waithe|first=Mary Ellen|date=1987|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff|isbn=9789024733484|editor-last=Waithe|editor-first=Mary Ellen|place=Dordrecht|pages=83–116|chapter=Diotima of Mantinea|access-date=October 10, 2018|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y5taj_6aiEwC&q=Diotima&pg=PA83}}</ref> Believing Diotima to be a fiction, Martha Nussbaum notes that Diotima's name, which means "honor the god", stands in direct contrast to Timandra ("honor the man"), who, according to Plutarch, was Alcibiades' consort.<ref>The Speech of Alcibiades. Philosophy and Literature, Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 1979, pp. 131-172</ref><ref>See also {{cite book |last=Irigaray |first=L. |title="Sorcerer Love: A Reading of Plato's Symposium, Diotima's Speech," in Feminist Interpretations of Plato, (ed.) N. Tuana |publisher=Penn State Press, University Park |date=1994}} and {{cite book |last=Halperin |first= D. |title=One Hundred Years of Homosexuality: And Other Essays on Greek Love. |publisher=London, Routledge |date=1990}} for arguments that Plato uses the fiction of Diotima to appropriate a feminine form of philosophical inquiry.</ref>
===As Aspasia=== Plato was thought by some 19th- and early 20th-century scholars to have based Diotima on Aspasia, the companion of Pericles who famously impressed him by her intelligence and eloquence. This identification was recently revived by Armand D'Angour.<ref>{{cite book |last=D'Angour |first=Armand |title=Socrates in Love: The Making of a Philosopher |publisher=Bloomsbury |date=2019 |page=5}}</ref>
===As an independent figure=== Although in the early 20th century German scholars such as Walther Kranz and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf believed that Diotima was a real historical figure, modern scholars have tended not to believe this.<ref name=Deretic-n32/> Later in the 20th century, Mary Ellen Waithe<ref>{{cite book|title=A History of Women Philosophers: Volume I: Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 BC–500 AD|last=Waithe|first=Mary Ellen|date=1987|publisher=Martinus Nijhoff|isbn=9789024733484|editor-last=Waithe|editor-first=Mary Ellen|place=Dordrecht|pages=83–116|chapter=Diotima of Mantinea|access-date=October 10, 2018|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y5taj_6aiEwC&q=Diotima&pg=PA83|archive-date=June 3, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240603131121/https://books.google.com/books?id=y5taj_6aiEwC&q=Diotima&pg=PA83#v=snippet&q=Diotima&f=false|url-status=live}}</ref> argued that Diotima could be an independent historical woman known for her intellectual accomplishments,<ref name="Wider1986">Wider, Kathleen. "Women philosophers in the Ancient Greek World: Donning the Mantle". ''Hypatia'' vol 1 no 1 Spring 1986.</ref> noting that in the ''Symposium'', Diotima expounds ideas that are different from both Socrates's and Plato's, though with clear connections to both.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of women in the ancient world|last=Salisbury|first=Joyce|author-link= Joyce E. Salisbury |date=2001|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1576070925|oclc=758191338}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Urban Walker|first=Margaret|date=Summer 2005|title=Diotima's Ghost: The Uncertain Place of Feminist Philosophy in Professional Philosophy|journal=Hypatia|volume=20|issue=3|pages=153–164|jstor=3811120|doi=10.2979/hyp.2005.20.3.153}}</ref><ref>For further details concerning Diotima's independent existence See {{cite book |last1=Nye |first1=Andrea |chapter=Irigaray and Diotima at Plato's Symposium |title=Feminist Interpretations of Plato |date=1 November 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=978-0-271-04024-0 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6f-anA7r0kQC&pg=PA197 |language=en }} and {{cite book |last1=Nye |first1=Andrea |title=Socrates and Diotima: Sexuality, Religion, and the Nature of Divinity |date=27 December 2015 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-137-51404-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D7yhCgAAQBAJ |language=en |access-date=21 February 2023 |archive-date=21 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230221070228/https://books.google.com/books?id=D7yhCgAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> More recently Irina Deretić and Nicholas Smith have advocated for Diotima's historicity. They observe that the information Plato gives about Diotima does not seem to have any particular connection to her expertise in love; they argue that if she were a fictional rather than historical figure she would be more likely to be from a city such as Corinth (whose patron deity was Aphrodite, the goddess of love) rather than Mantinea.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Deretić|first1=Irina|last2=Smith|first2=Nicholas D.|chapter=Plato's Women: Extending the Socratic Insight|title=Women in the Socratic Tradition|editor-first=Carolina |editor-last=Araújo|pages=289–290}}</ref>
==See also== * {{anli|Diotíma (website)|Diotíma}} * {{anli|Susette Gontard}}
==Notes== {{Reflist|30em}}
==Further reading== *{{cite journal |last=Evans |first=N. |date=2006 |title=Diotima and Demeter as Mystagogues in Plato's Symposium |journal=Hypatia |volume=21 |number=2 |pages=1-27}} *{{cite book |last=Navia |first=Luis E. |title=Socrates, the Man and His Philosophy |pages=30, 171 |publisher=University Press of America |year=1985 |isbn=0-8191-4854-7}}
==External links== *[https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/project/directory-of-women-philosophers/diotima-of-mantinea-ca-440-bce/ Diotima of Mantinea] at History of Women Philosophers and Scientists website * {{cite web |last=D'Angour |first=Armand |title=Meet the woman who initiated Socrates in the philosophy of love |website=Aeon |date=2025-04-22 |url=https://aeon.co/essays/meet-the-woman-who-initiated-socrates-in-the-philosophy-of-love |access-date=2025-04-27}}
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Category:5th-century BC Greek philosophers Category:5th-century BC Greek women Category:5th-century BC Greek writers Category:5th-century BC clergy Category:5th-century BC women writers Category:Ancient Greek ethicists Category:Ancient Greek priestesses Category:Ancient Greek seers Category:Ancient Greek women philosophers Category:Ancient Greek women writers Category:Ancient Mantineans Category:European people whose existence is disputed Category:Metic philosophers in Classical Athens Category:Year of birth unknown Category:Year of death unknown