Identity of Diotima
The name Diotima means "honoured by Zeus". Her home of Mantinea was an ancient Greek city on the Peloponnese and the site of the largest battle of the Peloponnesian War.
Plato was thought by most 19th and early 20th century scholars to have based Diotima on Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, so impressed was he by her intelligence and wit. The identity of Diotima is far from resolved, however. Aspasia appears under her own name in Plato's dialogue Menexenus, and some scholars have convincingly argued that Plato did not use false names: therefore, Diotima could be a historical figure.
Read more about this topic: Diotima Of Mantinea
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