practice of medicine that drunkenness is harsh for men. No compulsion is needed to restrain drinking, only self-interested obedience to one who knows. Indeed, the assembled group concludes, through the voice of the doctor, "It has seemed best that each one drinks as much as each one wishes, that there be no compulsion" . The unity between freedom and authority is achieved in Agathon's house through wisdom. Self rule, the absence of compulsion and equality, all meld in the dramatic setting of the dialogue, but only an important caveat if the ocblos is absent.
The evening described in the symposium continues in this fashion, as the characters mimic the behavior of citizens in the ecclesia. The assembled guests now debate what they are to do, since they have agreed not to compete in drinking. As a community. They need to define that communal action which will engage them during the evening ahead.The doctor proposes to honor the god of love with speeches. Socrates with on unaccustomed note of self-assurance asserts in the language of the assembly: "No one will vote against you" and, using another term common from the discourse of the assembly, he sets the group off on their series of speeches "with good luck" . Since I am focusing on the dramatic setting here and not on the content of the marvelous speeches for which the Symposium is renowned, I will only note that apart from the disorderly hiccoughs of the comic poet Aristophanes (who disrupts the Athenian democracy as well with his outrageous parodies of the Athenian political system), the evening proceeds in an orderly fashion, each participant speaking in turn, drawing particular excellence to praise love (and, incidentally, to praise himself as well). The communal activity communally and freely decided upon has the good fortune that Socrates had wished for it. Nevertheless, sometime during the speeches and the moderate drinking the community at Agathon's house has transformed itself. The door is closed, the order created by the community