Plato's dialogue "The Symposium" was written around 385 BC. In it, the narrator Apollodorus recounts a banquet where the theme of eroticism is explored through speeches and counter-speeches. Participants include not only fictional characters but also the politician Alcibiades, Plato's teacher Socrates, and the comic playwright Aristophanes. The latter contributes to the discussion with the famous story of the spherical humans who were split into two genders by Zeus's command and can only temporarily soothe their longing for lost wholeness through sexual intercourse. Plato's text, from which the term asexual "platonic love" originates, is considered the philosopher's most significant literary achievement and has engaged thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, and Foucault up to the modern era.