March 9: Women's Month

As ancient Greek women didn’t engage in glorious battle, with the proverbial eceptions of the Amazons and the Roman warqueen Camilla,  Delivering children, you say? No more than their duty, and they even got that wrong sometimes, when they produced a girl instead of an heir. Respect for women was an unknown concept, and their opinion was never asked. Except by the excentric philosopher Sokrates. He engaged in conversation with a certain Diotima of Mantinea, who explained her thoughts on the concept of love. In her view, true love evolves from physical attraction to a spiritual connection, and in its purest form, to love for beauty and philosophy itself. Sokrates’ pupil Plato records this encounter in his “Symposium”. Since then, Diotima’s ideal of love without desire is known as “Platonic”. Why not “Diotimic”? Because most scholars agreed that Diotima had to be the product of Plato’s imagination. Such deep insights from a woman? About something abstract and metaphysical as love? No way.

Socrates with a Disciple and Diotima, Frank Caucig, National Gallery of Slovenia

Diotima, Statue, National Archeological Museum, Athens, Greece