# Pausanias — Dialogues character guide

> Pausanias in Dialogues by Plato.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0031-symposium

## Snapshot

Agathon's older lover, who argues that love is only noble when it is virtuous and that Athenian law should distinguish between two kinds of it.

## Who they are

Pausanias speaks as a man with a personal stake in the question, defending a refined and lawful love while his relationship with Agathon sits visibly in the room. He draws careful distinctions between common and heavenly love, and between the customs of different cities, in a speech that is as much about social respectability as about desire. His earnest legalism gives the evening its first real argument and its first real tension between theory and life.

## In the story

### [Symposium](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dialogues_se/chapters/symposium)

Delivers a speech distinguishing between heavenly and common love, emphasizing virtue and the improvement of the soul.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/dialogues_se/characters/pausanias
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