The Proof of a Young God
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Agathon — δὲ τεκμήριον τῷ λόγῳ αὐτὸς παρέχεται, φεύγων φυγῇ τὸ γῆρας, ταχὺ ὂν δῆλον ὅτι· θᾶττον γοῦν τοῦ δέοντος ἡμῖν προσέρχεται. ὃ δὴ πέφυκεν Ἔρως μισεῖν καὶ οὐδʼ ἐντὸς πολλοῦ πλησιάζειν. μετὰ δὲ νέων ἀεὶ σύνεστί τε καὶ ἔστιν; ὁ γὰρ παλαιὸς λόγος εὖ ἔχει, ὡς ὅμοιον ὁμοίῳ ἀεὶ πελάζει. ἐγὼ δὲ Φαίδρῳ πολλὰ ἄλλα ὁμολογῶν τοῦτο οὐχ ὁμολογῶ, ὡς Ἔρως Κρόνου καὶ Ἰαπετοῦ ἀρχαιότερός ἐστιν, ἀλλά
And he himself furnishes proof for this argument, fleeing headlong from old age, which is clearly swift — at any rate it comes upon us faster than it should. This, indeed, Eros is naturally disposed to hate, and not even to come anywhere near it. But he always keeps company with the young and lives among them; for the old saying holds true: like always draws near to like. Now, I agree with Phaedrus on many other points, but this one I do not agree with — that Eros is older than Cronus and Iapetus, but—
Agathon has just called Eros the youngest of the gods. Now he backs the claim with an argument from observation — Eros himself flees old age and always keeps company with the young — and closes by openly rejecting Phaedrus's earlier claim, made in the dialogue's first speech, that Eros is among the eldest of the gods.
Agathon's proof for Eros's youth is a τεκμήριον, evidence drawn from behavior rather than genealogy or cult. Eros avoids old age and clings to the young; therefore, Agathon reasons, Eros himself must be young — treating a personified force as bound by the company it keeps. He backs this with a proverb, ὅμοιον ὁμοίῳ ἀεὶ πελάζει, "like always draws near to like," already old in Plato's Athens; a version of it appears at Odyssey 17.218, and Socrates takes the same saying apart at length in the Lysis (214a–b), testing whether likeness can explain friendship at all. Agathon uses it here as settled wisdom. Elsewhere in Plato, it is anything but settled.
There is also a small piece of table drama in this line. Phaedrus is reclining a few couches away, and it was his speech, delivered first, that called Eros one of the oldest gods, citing Hesiod and Parmenides for a divinity with no parents at all. Agathon has just finished praising the very graciousness Phaedrus is owed as the man who proposed these speeches; now he turns and, plainly, tells him he is wrong. The move sets up a pattern this dialogue keeps repeating: each speaker corrects the ones who spoke before him, and Socrates will do it most thoroughly of all, cross-examining Agathon the moment his speech ends, at 199c, using the very definitional method Agathon has just claimed for his own.
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