Among the myths to which Greek lovers referred with pride, besides that
of Achilles, were the legends of Theseus and Peirithous, of Orestes and
Pylades, of Talos and Rhadamanthus, of Damon and Pythias. Nearly all the
Greek gods, except, I think, oddly enough, Ares, were famous for their
love. Poseidon, according to Pindar, loved Pelops; Zeus, besides
Ganymede, was said to have carried off Chrysippus. Apollo loved
Ayacinth, and numbered among his favourites Branchos and Claros. Pan
loved Cyparissus, and the spirit of the evening star loved Hymenæus.
Hypnos, the god of slumber, loved Endymion, and sent him to sleep with
open eyes, in order that he might always gaze upon their beauty. (Ath.
xiii. 564). The myths of Phoebus, Pan, and Hesperus, it may be said in
passing, are paiderastic parallels to the tales of Adonis and Daphne.
They do not represent the specific quality of national Greek love at all
in the same way as the legends of Achilles, Theseus, Pylades, and
Pythias. We find in them merely a beautiful and romantic play of the
mythopoeic fancy, after paiderastia had taken hold on the imagination of
the race. The case is different with Herakles, the patron, eponym, and
ancestor of Dorian Hellas. He was a boy-lover of the true heroic type.
In the innumerable amours ascribed to him we always discern the note of
martial comradeship. His passion for Iolaus was so famous that lovers
swore their oaths upon the Theban's tomb;[19] while the story of his
loss of Hylas supplied Greek poets with one of their most charming
subjects. From the idyll of Theocritus called _Hylas_ we learn some
details about the relation between lover and beloved, according to the
heroic ideal.
"Nay, but the son of Amphitryon, that heart of bronze, he that
abode the wild lion's onset, loved a lad, beautiful Hylas--Hylas of
the braided locks, and he taught him all things as a father
teaches his child, all whereby himself became a mighty man and
renowned in minstrelsy. Never was he apart from Hylas,..... and all
this that the lad might be fashioned to his mind, and might drive a
straight furrow, and come to the true measure of man."[20]