A Problem in Greek Ethics Part 9

[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 Paidike_, 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 Paidike_, 8: cp. a fragment of Crates, _Poetae Comici_, Didot, p. 83.

[132] _Comici Graeci_, Didot, pp. 562, 31, 308.

[133] It is curious to compare the pa.s.sage 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 _aeschines against Timarchus_.

[135] _Peace_, line 11; compare the word _Pallakion_ in Plato, _Comici Graeci_, p. 261.

[136] Diog. Laert., ii. 105.

[137] Plato's _Phaedo_, 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 Actaeon, wherefore he may be compared, he says, to that other Actaeon who was torn to death by his own dogs.

[140] 153.

[141] _Symp._, 217.

[142] _Phaedr._, 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] aechines, 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 Paidike_, 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 _Phaedrus_, where Socrates, improvising an improvement on the speech of Lysias, compares lovers to wolves and boys to lambs. See the pa.s.sage 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 a.n.a.lysis of love, as it attacks the uninitiated and unphilosophic nature, in the _Phaedrus_.

[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 cla.s.sic 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 mediaeval 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 pa.s.sions. 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 Paidike_, i.

[170] _Ibid._, 208.

[171] _Ibid._, 258, 2.

[172] _Ibid._, 70, 65, 69, 194, 220, 221, 67, 68, 78, and others.