Eryximachus Proposes an Easier Pace
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Eryximachus — Ἕρμαιον ἂν εἴη ἡμῖν, ἦ δʼ ὅς, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐμοί τε καὶ Ἀριστοδήμῳ καὶ Φαίδρῳ καὶ τοῖσδε, εἰ ὑμεῖς οἱ δυνατώτατοι πίνειν νῦν ἀπειρήκατε· ἡμεῖς μὲν γὰρ ἀεὶ ἀδύνατοι. Σωκράτη δʼ ἐξαιρῶ λόγου· ἱκανὸς γὰρ καὶ ἀμφότερα, ὥστʼ ἐξαρκέσει αὐτῷ ὁπότερʼ ἂν ποιῶμεν. ἐπειδὴ οὖν μοι δοκεῖ οὐδεὶς τῶν παρόντων προθύμως ἔχειν πρὸς τὸ πολὺν πίνειν οἶνον, ἴσως ἂν ἐγὼ περὶ τοῦ μεθύσκεσθαι οἷόν ἐστι τἀληθῆ λέγων ἧττον ἂν εἴην ἀηδής. ἐμοὶ γὰρ δὴ τοῦτό γε οἶμαι
It would be a windfall for us, said he, so it seems — for me, Aristodemus, Phaedrus, and these others — if you, the strongest drinkers, have now given out; we, at least, are always incapable. Socrates I set aside from the reckoning — he is equal to it either way, so whichever we do will suit him. Since, then, none of the company here seems to me eager to drink a great deal of wine, maybe I would be less unwelcome telling you the truth about what drunkenness actually is. This much, I think, has become plain to me at least—
Eryximachus's proposal continues (begun in 176b): after Aristophanes admits he too is still hungover and Agathon confesses he has no strength left either, Eryximachus calls their weakness a stroke of luck for the heavy drinkers among them, exempts Socrates from the whole question since he can handle either extreme, and offers to speak frankly about drunkenness as someone trained in medicine — the physician turning what was a toast into a lecture.
The move is quietly funny: a symposium, literally a drinking party, opens with a doctor proposing that they barely drink at all. Eryximachus's habit through this dialogue is to medicalize what everyone else treats as pleasure or ritual — wine, love, the hiccups he later cures for Aristophanes. That habit shows itself here before he has said a word about erōs. He classifies Socrates rather than simply seating him: hikanos amphotera, 'capable either way,' the language of a diagnosis, not a preference. The same reflex will govern his speech on love three speeches later, which reads more like a treatise on bodily humors than a lover's account of desire. A room of hungover men accepts sobriety with visible relief, and the man volunteering to explain drunkenness to them has already begun treating the party as a patient.
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