The inclusion of the civilized Greeks in a treatise on Primitive Love
will naturally cause surprise; but I cannot attribute a capacity for
anything more than primitive sensual love to a nation which, in its
prematrimonial customs, manifested none of the essential _altruistic_
traits of Romantic Love--sympathy, gallantry, self-sacrifice,
affection, adoration, and purity. As a matter of course, the
sensualism of a Greek or Roman is a much less coarse thing than an
Australian's, which does not even include kisses or other caresses.
While Greek love is not a sentiment, it may be sentimental, that is,
an _affectation of sentiment_, differing from real sentiment as
adulation does from adoration, as gallantry or the risking of life to
secure favors do from genuine gallantry of the heart and
self-sacrifice for the benefit of another. This important point which
I here superadd to my theory, was overlooked by Benecke when he
attributed a capacity for real love to the later Greeks of the
Alexandrian period.