This chapter attempts to show that Virgil's Aeneid is influenced by Plato's Symposium. It then considers what Virgil does to incorporate his Platonic material. Virgil, most learned and allusive of authors, never superficially tosses in a citation or generates an echo for its own sake: for him, writing is rewriting, as he harmoniously or polemically engages with the multiple traditions which he so spectacularly enriches. It is argued that the Nisus and Euryalus episode in Aeneid IX draws curious inspiration from Phaedrus' speech in Plato's Symposium. The writing of Aeneid IX is informed by a reading of Phaedrus' speech: this bald causal hypothesis is readily defensible.
Keywords: Virgil, Plato, Aeneid, speech, Nisus, Euryalus