Twenty-five centuries ago, a woman named Diotima of Mantinea taught Socrates everything he knew about love --- and what she taught him was this: that the longing you feel for beauty, for connection, for something you cannot quite name, is not a flaw in your nature. It is a ladder. And it leads somewhere. In this episode, Harmonia takes us to a dinner party in Athens, to the words of a woman who wasn't in the room, and to an idea that has traveled through Neoplatonism, Christian mysticism, Islamic philosophy, and the Renaissance --- because it keeps being true. The ladder begins with one face. It ends with every face.

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