It can be deduced that she was born in Mantina and came from that city, but there is no more biographical data about her. In addition, he quotes a single source at the Banquet of Plato, Diotima.

Plato says that once Socrates was at a party, that several men tried to describe him. Then Socrates spoke and explained that Diotima had taught him what love was. Thus, Diotima was a professor or mentor of Socrates. And although there is hardly any data about his life, Plato shows his philosophical thinking through Socrates.

In the opinion of Diotima, in love the person and emotion are separated. When we separate the love of the person, and consider him as an independent bearer of love, we can enter into the divine reality. After all, through this account, Plato says that the concept of Platonic love originates in Diotima.

But being the only contemporary source, most experts deny or question the real existence of Diotima, at a time when women had very little influence on the academic environment. We know that there really were other characters that Plato quotes in the Banquet and that he considers real. So why is Diotima's reference not real? Some believe that Diotima could exist, but he and Aspasia de Miletus, the woman of Pericles and, among other things, who promoted a school for women, say they could be the same person.

If we doubt that a woman who influenced Socrates and Plato and who, therefore, was fundamental to overcome Pythagorean thought until then, was real, how could we think that in the same city and at the same time two women stood out?