In the Symposium, Plato presents a fantastic dinner-party set in Athens in 416 BC, where the guests include Aristophanes, Socrates, and the most famous Athenian of his day, Alcibiades. A sequence of dazzling speeches culminates in Socrates' brilliant account of the views of Diotima, a prophetess who taught him that love is our means of trying to attain goodness.