XX
Greece merged into Rome; but, though the Romans aped the arts and manners of the Greeks, they never truly caught the Hellenic spirit. Even Virgil only trod the court of the Gentiles of Greek culture. It was not, therefore, possible that any social custom so peculiar as paiderastia should flourish on Latin soil. Instead of Cleomenes and Epameinondas, we find at Rome, Nero, the bride of Sporus, and Commodus the public prostitute. Alcibiades is replaced by the Mark Antony of Cicero’s Philippic. Corydon, with artificial notes, takes up the song of Ageanax. The melodies of Meleager are drowned in the harsh discords of Martial. Instead of love, lust was the deity of the boy-lover on the shores of Tiber.
In the first century of the Roman Empire, Christianity began its work of reformation. When we estimate the effect of Christianity, we must bear in mind that the early Christians found Paganism disorganised and humanity rushing to a precipice of ruin. Their first efforts were directed toward checking the sensuality of Corinth, Athens, Rome, the capitals of Syria and Egypt. Christian asceticism, in the corruption of the Pagan systems, led logically to the cloister and the hermitage. The component elements of society had been disintegrated by the Greeks in their decadence, and by the Romans in their insolence of material prosperity. To the impassioned followers of Christ, nothing was left but separation from nature, which had become incurable in its monstrosity of vices. But the convent was a virtual abandonment of social problems.
From this policy of despair, this helplessness to cope with evil, and this hopelessness of good on earth, emerged a new and nobler synthesis, the merit of which belongs in no small measure to the Teutonic converts to the Christian faith. The Middle Ages proclaimed, through chivalry, the truth, then for the first time fully apprehended, that woman is the mediating and ennobling element in human life. Not in escape into the cloister, not in the self-abandonment to vice, but in the fellow-service of free men and women must be found the solution of social problems. The mythology of Mary gave religious sanction to the chivalrous enthusiasm; and a cult of woman sprang into being, to which, although it was romantic and visionary, we owe the spiritual basis of our domestic and civil life. The modus vivendi of the modern world was found.
FINIS
Footnotes
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 Eubœa, 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 Mœurs, 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, Phœdr., 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.