[1] Compare the fine rhetorical passage in Max. Tyr., _Dissert._, xxiv.
8, ed. Didot, 1842.
[2] i. 135.
[3] Numerous localities, however, claimed this distinction. See Ath.,
xiii. 601. Chalkis in Euboea, as well as Crete, could show the sacred
spot where the mystical assumption of Ganymede was reported to have
happened.
[4] _Laws_, i. 636. Cp. _Timæus_, quoted by Ath., p. 602. Servius, _ad
Aen._ x, 325, says that boy-love spread from Crete to Sparta, and thence
through Hellas, and Strabo mentions its prevalence among the Cretans (x.
483). Plato (Rep. v. 452) speaks of the Cretans as introducing naked
athletic sports.
[5] _Laws_, viii. 863.
[6] See Ath., xiii. 602. Plutarch, in the Life of Pelopidas (Clough,
vol. ii. p. 219), argues against this view.
[7] See Rosenbaum, _Lustseuche im Alterthume_, p. 118.
[8] Max. Tyr., _Dissert._, ix.
[9] See Sismondi, vol. ii. p. 324, Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy_, _Age
of the Despots_, p. 435; Tardieu, _Attentats aux Moeurs_, _Les Ordures
de Paris_; Sir R. Burton's _Terminal Essay_ to the "Arabian Nights;"
Carlier, _Les Deux Prostitutions_, etc.
[10] I say almost, because something of the same sort appeared in Persia
at the time of Saadi.
[11] Plato, in the _Phædrus_, the _Symposium_, and the _Laws_, is
decisive on the mixed nature of paiderastia.
[12] Theocr., _Paidika_, probably an Æolic poem of much older date.
[13] _Phædrus_, p. 252, Jowett's translation.
[14] Page 178, Jowett.
[15] Clough, vol. ii. p. 218.
[16] Book vii. 4, 7.
[17] We may compare a passage from the _Symposium_ ascribed to Xenophon,
viii. 32.
[18] Page 182, Jowett.
[19] Plutarch, _Eroticus_, cap. xvii. p. 791, 40, Reiske.
[20] Lang's translation, p. 63.
[21] See Athenæus, xiii. 602, for the details.
[22] See Athenæus, xiii. 602, who reports an oracle in praise of these
lovers.
[23] Ar., _Pol._, ii. 9.
[24] See Theocr. _Aïtes_ and the _Scholia_.
[25] See Plutarch's _Eroticus_, 760, 42, where the story is reported on
the faith of Aristotle.
[26] _Pelopidas_, Clough's trans., vol. ii. 218.
[27] Cap. xvi. p. 760, 21.
[28] Cap. xxiii. p. 768, 53. Compare Max. Tyr., _Dissert._, xxiv. 1. See
too the chapter on Tyrannicide in Ar. Pol., viii. (v.) 10.
[29] Clough's trans., vol. v. p. 118.
[30] _Hellenics_, bk. ix. cap. xxvi.
[31] Suidas, under the heading _Paidika_, tells of two lovers who both
died in battle, fighting each to save the other.
[32] See, for example, _Æschines against Timarchus_, 59.
[33] Trans. by Sir G. C. Lewis, vol. ii. pp. 309-313.
[34] _Symp._ 182 A.
[35] i. 132.
[36] _De Rep._, iv. 4.
[37] I need hardly point out the parallel between this custom and the
marriage customs of half-civilised communities.
[38] The general opinion of the Greeks with regard to the best type of
Dorian love is well expressed by Maximus Tyrius, _Dissert._, xxvi. 8.
"It is esteemed a disgrace to a Cretan youth to have no lover. It is a
disgrace for a Cretan youth to tamper with the boy he loves. O custom,
beautifully blent of self-restraint and passion! The man of Sparta loves
the lad of Lacedæmon, but loves him only as one loves a fair statue; and
many love one, and one loves many."
[39] _Laws_, i. 636.
[40] _Pol._, ii. 7, 4.
[41] Lib. 13,602, E.
[42] It is not unimportant to note in this connection that paiderastia
of no ignoble type still prevails among the Albanian mountaineers.
[43] The foregoing attempt to reconstruct a possible environment for the
Dorian form of paiderastia is, of course, wholly imaginative. Yet it
receives certain support from what we know about the manners of the
Albanian mountaineers and the nomadic Tartar tribes. Aristotle remarks
upon the paiderastic customs of the Kelts, who in his times were
immigrant.
[44] See above, Section V.
[45] It appears from the reports of travellers that this form of passion
is not common among those African tribes who have not been corrupted by
Musselmans or Europeans.
[46] It may be plausibly argued that Æschylus drew the subject of his
_Myrmidones_ from some such non-Homeric epic. See below, Section XII.
[47] 182 A. Cp. _Laws_, i. 636.
[48] _Eroticus_, xvii. p. 761, 34.
[49] See Plutarch, _Pelopidas_, Clough, vol. ii. p. 219.
[50] Clough, as quoted above, p. 219.
[51] The connection of the royal family of Macedon by descent with the
Æacidæ, and the early settlement of the Dorians in Macedonia, are
noticeable.
[52] Cf. Athenæus, x. 435.
[53] Hadrian in Rome, at a later period, revived the Greek tradition
with even more of caricature. His military ardour, patronage of art, and
love for Antinous seem to hang together.
[54] _Dissert._, xxvi. 8.
[55] See Athen., xiii., 609, F. The prize was armour and the wreath of
myrtle.
[56] _Symp._ 182, B. In the _Laws_, however, he mentions the Barbarians
as corrupting Greek morality in this respect. We have here a further
proof that it was the noble type of love which the Barbarians
discouraged. For _Malakia_ they had no dislike.
[57] Bergk., _Poetæ Lyrica Græci_, vol. ii. p. 490, line 87 of Theognis.
[58] _Ibid._, line 1,353.
[59] _Ibid._, line 1,369.
[60] _Ibid._, lines 1,259-1,270.
[61] _Ibid._, line 1,267.
[62] _Ibid._, lines 237-254. Translated by me in _Vagabunduli Libellus_,
p. 167.
[63] Bergk., _Poetæ Lyrici Græci_, vol. ii. line 1,239.
[64] _Ibid._, line 1,304.
[65] _Ibid._, line 1,327.
[66] _Ibid._, line 1,253.
[67] _Ibid._, line 1,335.
[68] _Eroticus_, cap. v. p. 751, 21. See Bergk., vol. ii. p. 430.
[69] See Cic., _Tusc._, iv. 33
[70] Bergk., vol. iii. p. 1,013.
[71] _Ibid._, p. 1,045.
[72] _Ibid._, pp. 1,109, 1,023; fr. 24, 26.
[73] _Ibid._, p. 1,023; fr. 48.
[74] Maximus Tyrius, _Dissert._, xxvi., says that Smerdies was a
Thracian, given, for his great beauty, by his Greek captors to
Polycrates.
[75] See what Agathon says in the _Thesmophoriazuse_ of Aristophanes.
[76] xv. 695.
[77] Bergk., vol. iii. p. 1,293.
[78] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 327.
[79] Athen., xiii. 601 A.
[80] See the fragments of the _Myrmidones_ in the _Poetæ Scenici Græci_,
My interpretation of them is, of course, conjectural.
[81] Lucian, _Amores_; Plutarch, _Eroticus_; Athenæus, xiii. 602 E.
[82] Possibly Æschylus drew his fable from a non-Homeric source, but if
so, it is curious that Plato should only refer to Homer.
[83] _Symph._, 180 A. Xenophon, _Symph._, 8, 31, points out that in
Homer Achilles avenged the death of Patroclus, not as his lover, but as
his comrade in arms.
[84] Cf. Eurid., _Hippol._, l. 525; Plato, _Phoedr._, p. 255; Max. Tyr.,
_Dissert._, xxv. 2.
[85] See _Poetæ Scenici_, _Fragments of Sophocles_.
[86] _Eroticus_; p. 790 E.
[87] Ath., p. 602 E.
[88] _Tusc._, iv. 33.
[89] See Athenæus, xiii. pp. 604, 605, for two very outspoken stories
about Sophocles at Chios and apparently at Athens. In 582, e, he
mentions one of the boys beloved by Sophocles, a certain Demophon.
[90] Plato, _Parm._, 127 A.
[91] Pausanias, v. 11, and see Meier, p. 159, note 93.
[92] This, by the way, is a strong argument against the theory that the
_Iliad_ was a post-Herodotean poem. A poem in the age of Pisistratus or
Pericles would not have omitted paiderastia from his view of life, and
could not have told the myth of Ganymede as Homer tells it. It is
doubtful whether he could have preserved the pure outlines of the story
of Patroclus.
[93] Page 182, Jowett's trans. Mr. Jowett censures this speech as
sophistic and confused in view. It is precisely on this account that it
is valuable. The confusion indicates the obscure conscience of the
Athenians. The sophistry is the result of a half-acknowledged false
position.
[94] Page 181, Jowett's trans.
[95] See the curious passages in Plato, _Symp._, p. 192; Plutarch,
_Erot._, p. 751; and Lucian, _Amores_, c. 38.
[96] Quoted by Athen, xiii. 573 B.
[97] As Lycon chaperoned Autolycus at the feast of Callias.--_Xen.
Symp._ Boys incurred immediate suspicion if they went out alone to
parties. See a fragment from the _Sappho_ of Ephippus in Athen., xiii.
p. 572 C.
[98] Line 137. The joke here is that the father in Utopia suggests, of
his own accord, what in Athens he carefully guarded against.
[99] Page 222, Jowett's trans.
[100] _Clouds_, 948 and on. I have abridged the original, doing violence
to one of the most beautiful pieces of Greek poetry.
[101] Aristophanes returns to this point below, line 1,036, where he
says that youths chatter all day in the hot baths and leave the
wrestling-grounds empty.
[102] There was a good reason for shunning each. The Agora was the
meeting-place of idle gossips, the centre of chaff and scandal. The
shops were, as we shall see, the resort of bad characters and panders.
[103] Line 1,071, _et seq._
[104] Caps. 44, 45, 46. The quotation is only an abstract of the
original.
[105] Worn up to the age of about eighteen.
[106] Compare with the passages just quoted two epigrams from the _Mousa
Paidiké_ (Greek _Anthology_, sect. 12): No. 123, from a lover to a lad
who has conquered in a boxing-match; No. 192, where Straton says he
prefers the dust and oil of the wrestling-ground to the curls and
perfumes of a woman's room.
[107] Page 255 B.
[108] 1,025.
[109] _Charmides_, p. 153.
[110] _Lysis_, 206, This seems, however, to imply that on other
occasions they were separated.
[111] _Charmides_, p. 154, Jowett.
[112] Page 155, Jowett.
[113] Cap. i. 8.
[114] See cap. viii. 7. This is said before the boy, and in his hearing.
[115] Cap. iii. 12.
[116] Cap. iv. 10, _et seq._ The English is an abridgment.
[117] _Laws_, i. 636 C.
[118] Athen., xiii. 602 D.
[119] _Eroticus_.
[120] Line 60, ascribed to Theocritus, but not genuine.
[121] Athen., xiii. 609 D.
[122] _Mousa Paidiké_, 86.
[123] Compare the _Atys_ of Catullus: "Ego mulier, ego adolescens, ego
ephebus, ego puer, Ego gymnasi fui flos, ego eram decus olei."
[124] See the law on these points in _Æsch. adv. Timarchum_.
[125] Thus Aristophanes, quoted above.
[126] Aristoph., _Ach._, 144, and _Mousa Paidiké_, 130.
[127] See Sir William Hamilton's _Vases_.
[128] Lysias, according to Suidas, was the author of five erotic
epistles adressed to young men.
[129] See Aristoph., _Plutus_, 153-159; _Birds_, 704-707. Cp. _Mousa
Paidiké_, 44, 239, 237. The boys made extraordinary demands upon their
lovers' generosity. The curious tale told about Alcibiades points in
this direction. In Crete they did the like, but also set their lovers to
execute difficult tasks, as Eurystheus imposed the twelve labours on
Herakles.
[130] Page 29.
[131] _Mousa Paidiké_, 8: cp. a fragment of Crates, _Poetæ Comici_,
Didot, p. 83.
[132] _Comici Græci_, Didot, pp. 562, 31, 308.
[133] It is curious to compare the passage in the second _Philippic_
about the youth of Mark Antony with the story told by Plutarch about
Alcibiades, who left the custody of his guardians for the house of
Democrates.
[134] See both _Lysias against Simon_ and _Æschines against Timarchus_.
[135] _Peace_, line 11; compare the word _Pallakion_ in Plato, _Comici
Græci_, p. 261.
[136] Diog. Laert., ii. 105.
[137] Plato's _Phædo_, p. 89.
[138] _Orat. Attici_, vol. ii. p. 223.
[139] See Herodotus. Max. Tyr. tells the story (_Dissert._, xxiv, 1) in
detail. The boy's name was Actæon, wherefore he may be compared, he
says, to that other Actæon who was torn to death by his own dogs.
[140] 153.
[141] _Symp._, 217.
[142] _Phædr._, 256.
[143] Page 17. My quotations are made from Dobson's _Oratores Attici_,
vol. xii., and the references are to his pages.
[144] Page 30.
[145] Page 67.
[146] Page 67.
[147] Page 59.
[148] Page 75.
[149] Page 78.
[150] Æchines, p. 27, apologises to Misgolas, who was a man, he says, of
good breeding, for being obliged to expose his early connection with
Timarchus. Misgolas, however, is more than once mentioned by the comic
poets with contempt as a notorious rake.
[151] See _Pol._, ii. 7, 5; ii. 6, 5; ii. 9, 6.
[152] The advocates of paiderastia in Greece tried to refute the
argument from animals (_Laws_, p. 636 B; cp. _Daphnis and Chloe_, lib.
4, what Daphnis says to Gnathon) by the following considerations: Man is
not a lion or a bear. Social life among human beings is highly
artificial; forms of intimacy unknown to the natural state are therefore
to be regarded, like clothing, cooking of food, houses, machinery, &c.,
as the invention and privilege of rational beings. See Lucian, _Amores_,
33, 34, 35, 36, for a full exposition of this argument. See also _Mousa
Paidiké_, 245. The curious thing is that many animals are addicted to
all sorts of so-called unnatural vices.
[153] Maximus Tyrius, who, in the rhetorical analysis of love alluded to
before (p. 172), has closely followed Plato, insists upon the confusion
introduced by language. _Dissert._, xxiv. 3. Again, _Dissert._, xxvi. 4;
and compare _Dissert._, xxv. 4.
[154] This is the development of the argument in the _Phædrus_, where
Socrates, improvising an improvement on the speech of Lysias, compares
lovers to wolves and boys to lambs. See the passage in Max. Tyr., where
Socrates is compared to a shepherd, the Athenian lovers to butchers, and
the boys to lambs upon the mountains.
[155] This again is the development of the whole eloquent analysis of
love, as it attacks the uninitiated and unphilosophic nature, in the
_Phædrus_.
[156] Jowett's trans., p. 837.
[157] _Dissert._, xxv. 1. The same author pertinently remarks that,
though the teaching of Socrates on love might well have been considered
perilous, it, formed no part of the accusations of either Anytus or
Aristophanes. _Dissert._, xxiv., 5-7
[158] This is a remark of Diotima's. Maximus Tyrius (_Dissert._, xxvi.
8) gives it a very rational interpretation. Nowhere else, he says, but
in the human form, does the light of the divine beauty shine so clear.
This is the word of classic art, the word of the humanities, to use a
phrase of the Renaissance. It finds an echo in many beautiful sonnets of
Michelangelo.
[159] See Bergk., vol. ii. pp. 616-629, for a critique of the canon of
the highly paiderastic epigrams which bear Plato's name and for their
text.
[160] I select the _Vita Nuova_ as the most eminent example of mediæval
erotic mysticism.
[161] _Tusc._, iv. 33; _Decline and Fall_, cap. xliv. note 192.
[162] See Meier, cap. 15.
[163] Cap. 23.
[164] Cap. 54.
[165] Page 4.
[166] It is noticeable that in all ages men of learning have been
obnoxious to paiderastic passions. Dante says (_Inferno_, xv. 106):--
"In somma sappi, che tutti fur cherci,
E letterati grandi e di gran fama,
D'un medesmo poccato al mondo lerci."
Compare Ariosto, _Satire_, vii.
[167] _Dissert._, xxvi. 9.
[168] I am aware that the genuineness of the essay has been questioned.
[169] _Mousa Paidiké_, i.
[170] _Ibid._, 208.
[171] _Ibid._, 258, 2.
[172] _Ibid._, 70, 65, 69, 194, 220, 221, 67, 68, 78, and others.
[173] Perhaps ten are of this sort.
[174] 8, 125, for example.
[175] 132, 256, 221.
[176] 219.
[177] 7.
[178] 17. Compare 86.
[179] Ed. Kayser, pp. 343-366.
[180] It is worth comparing the letters of Philostratus with those of
Alciphron, a contemporary of Lucian. In the latter there is no hint of
paiderastia. The life of parasites, grisettes, lorettes, and young men
about town at Athens is set forth in imitation probably of the later
comedy. Athens is shown to have been a Paris _à la Murger_.
[181] See the introduction by Marcus Aurelius to his _Meditations_.
[182] See quotations in Rosenbaum, 119-140.
[183] See Athen., xii. 517, for an account of their grotesque
sensuality.
[184] The following passage may be extracted from a letter of
Winckelmann (see Pater's _Studies in the History of the Renaissance_, p.
162): "As it is confessedly the beauty of man which is to be conceived
under one general idea, so I have noticed that those who are observant
of beauty only in women, and are moved little or not at all by the
beauty of men, seldom have an impartial, vital, inborn instinct for
beauty in art. To such persons the beauty of Greek art will ever seem
wanting, because its supreme beauty is rather male than female." To this
I think we ought to add that, while it is true that "the supreme beauty
of Greek art is rather male than female," this is due not so much to any
passion of the Greeks for male beauty as to the fact that the male body
exhibits a higher organisation of the human form than the female.