When delivering his encomium to Love in Symposium, Plato’s Agathon genders this deity male and paints a very specific portrait of him. Comparing Love to the other gods, Agathon describes Love as “the youngest”1 and “the most beautiful and the best.”2 In addition to these virtues, Agathon also argues that Love is “bravest of them all,”3 because “he who has hold is more powerful than he who is held,”4 and Love has a hold on Ares, who is made subservient to Love through his feelings for Aphrodite. Though Agathon uses male pronouns here, indicating the importance he places on the love shared between two men and a refusal to acknowledge the validity or even the possibility of a meaningful relationship between a man and a woman, his decision to mention
