We see thus that the Platonic Symposion is much more ideal, and departs farther from common practice and sentiment, than the Xenophontic. It discards all the common accessories of a banquet (musical or dancing artists), and throws the guests altogether upon their own powers of rhetoric and dialectic, for amusement. If we go through the different encomiums upon Eros, by Phædrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Diotima--we shall appreciate the many-coloured forms and exuberance of the Platonic imagination, as compared with the more restricted range and common-place practical sense of Xenophon.[56] All the Platonic speakers are accomplished persons--a man of letters, a physician, two successful poets, a prophetess: the Xenophontic personages, except Sokrates and Antisthenes, are persons of ordinary capacity. The Platonic Symposion, after presenting Eros in five different points of view, gives pre-eminence and emphasis to a sixth, in which Eros is regarded as the privileged minister and conductor to the mysteries of philosophy, both the lowest and the highest: the Xenophontic Symposion dwells upon one view only of Eros (developed by Sokrates) and cites Kallias as example of it, making no mention of philosophy. The Platonic Symposion exalts Sokrates, as the representative of Eros Philosophus, to a pinnacle of elevation which places him above human fears and weaknesses[57]--coupled however with that eccentricity which makes the vulgar regard a philosopher as out of his mind: the Xenophontic Symposion presents him only as a cheerful, amiable companion, advising temperance, yet enjoying a convivial hour, and contributing more than any one else to the general hilarity. [Footnote 56: The difference between the two coincides very much with that which is drawn by Plato himself in the Phædrus--[Greek: thei/a mani/a] as contrasted with [Greek: sôphrosu/nê thnêtê\] (p. 256 E). Compare Athenæus, v. 187 B.] [Footnote 57: Plato, Phædrus, p. 249 D. [Greek: nouthetei=tai me\n u(po\ tô=n pollô=n ô(s parakinô=n, e)nthousia/zôn de\ le/lêthe tou\s pollou\s. . . . ai)ti/an e)/chei ô(s manikô=s diakei/menos.]] Such are the points of comparison which present themselves between the same subject as handled by these two eminent contemporaries, both of them companions, and admirers of Sokrates: and each handling it in his own manner.[58] [Footnote 58: Which of these two Symposia was the latest in date of composition we cannot determine with certainty: though it seems certain that the latest of the two was not composed in imitation of the earliest.