Deipnosophistae

But Apollodorus, in his book on Courtesans, says that there were two women named Phryne, one of whom was nicknamed Clausigelos,[*](From κλαίω, to weep, and γέλως, laughter.) and the other Saperdium. But Herodicus,

Alexander destroyed this wall, but Phryne the courtesan restored it;

1. Before our time, the Thespian Phryne was
2. Far the most famous of all courtesans;
3. And even though you're later than her age,
4. Still you have heard of the trial which she stood.
5. She was accused on a capital charge
6. Before the Heliæa, being said
7. To have corrupted all the citizens;
8. But she besought the judges separately
9. With tears, and so just saved herself from judgment.

And I would have you all to know that Democles, the orator, became the father of Demeas, by a female flute-player who was a courtesan; and once when he, Demeas, was giving himself airs in the tribune, Hyperides stepped his mouth, saying,

Will not you be silent, young man? why, you make more puffing than your mother did.

1. Hear me now praying, goddess, nurse of youths,
2. And grant that this my love may scorn young men,
3. And their most feeble fancies and embraces;
4. And rather cling to grey-headed old men,
5. Whose minds are vigorous, though their limbs be weak.

1. For dear to me Theoris is.

Why, like the owls, she is sitting on the tombs.

But Isocrates also, the most modest of all the orators, had a mistress named Metanira, who was very beautiful, as Lysias relates in his Letters. But Demosthenes, in his oration against Neæra, says that Metanira was the mistress of Lysias. And Lysias also was desperately in love with Lagis the courtesan, whose panegyric Cephalus the orator wrote, just as Alcidamas the Elæan, the pupil of Gorgias, himself wrote a panegyric on the courtesan Nais. And, in his oration against Philonides, who was under prosecution for an assault, (if, at least, the oration be a genuine one,) Lysias says that Nais was the mistress of Philonides, writing as follows:—

There is then a woman who is a courtesan, Nais by name, whose keeper is Archias; but your friend Philonides states himself to be in love with her.

1. Is it not owing to you the greedy Lais
2. Does love Philonides

1. And while she still was in her bed, I saw
2. Isocrates' concubine, Lagisca,
3. Playing her tricks; and with her the flute-maker.

But it is reported that Demosthenes the orator had children by a courtesan; at all events he himself, in his speech about gold, introduced his children before the court, in order to obtain pity by their means, without their mother; although it was customary to bring forward the wives of those who were on their trial; however, he did this for shame's sake, hoping to avoid calumny. But this orator was exceedingly addicted to amorous indulgences, as Idomeneus tells us. Accordingly, being in love with a youth named Aristarchus, he once, when he was intoxicated, insulted Nicodemus on his account, and struck out his eyes. He is related also to have been very extravagant in his table, and his followers, and in women. Therefore, his secretary once said,

But what can any one say of Demosthenes? For everything that he has thought of for a whole year, is all thrown into confusion by one woman in one night.

And Demetrius the king, the last of all Alexander's successors, had a mistress named Myrrhina, a Samian courtesan; and in every respect but the crown, he made her his partner in the kingdom, as Nicolaus of Damascus tells us. And Ptolemy the son of Ptolemy Philadelphus the king, who was governor of the garrison in Ephesus, had a mistress named Irene. And she, when plots were laid against Ptolemy by the Thracians at Ephesus, and when he fled to the temple of Diana, fled with him: and when the conspirators had murdered him, Irene seizing hold of the bars of the doors of the temple, sprinkled the altar with his blood till they slew her also. And Sophron the governor of Ephesus had a mistress, Danae, the daughter of Leontium the Epicurean, who was also a courtesan herself. And by her means he was saved when a plot was laid against him by Laodice, and Laodice was thrown

many people justly despise the Deity, and they may justify themselves by my case, who having saved a man who was to me as my husband, am requited in this manner by the Deity. But Laodice, who murdered her husband, is thought worthy of such honour.

The same Phylarchus also speaks of Mysta, in his fourteenth book, in these terms:

Mysta was the mistress of Seleucus the king, and when Seleucus was defeated by the Galatæ, and was with difficulty able to save himself by flight, she put off the robes of a queen which she had been accustomed to wear, and assumed the garment of an ordinary servant; and being taken prisoner, was carried away with the rest of the captives. And being sold in the same manner as her handmaidens, she came to Rhodes; and there, when she had revealed who she was, she was sent back with great honour to Seleucus by the Rhodians.

But Demetrius Phalereus being in love with Lampito, a courtesan of Samos, was pleased when he himself was addressed as Lampito, as Diyllus tells us; and he also had himself called Charitoblepharos.[*](That is, With beautiful Eyelids; from χάρις, grace, and βλέφαρον, an eyelid.) And Nicarete the courtesan was the mistress of Stephanus the orator; and Metanira was the mistress of Lysias the sophist; and these

And you punished Archias the hierophant, when he was convicted before the regular tribunals of behaving with impiety, and offering sacrifices which were contrary to the laws of the nation. And he was accused also of other things, and among them of having sacrificed a victim on the festival of Ceres, which was offered by Sinope the courtesan, on the altar which is in the court of the temple at Eleusis, though it is against the law to sacrifice any victims on that day; and though, too, it was no part of his duty to sacrifice at all, but it belonged to the priestess to do so.

Plangon the Milesian was also a celebrated courtesan; and she, as she was most wonderfully beautiful, was beloved by a young man of Colophon, who had a mistress already whose name was Bacchis. Accordingly, when this young man began to address his solicitations to Plangon, she, having heard of. the beauty of Bacchis, and wishing to make the young man abandon his love for her, when she was unable to effect that, she required as the price of her favours the necklace of Bacchis, which was very celebrated. And he, as he was exceedingly in love, entreated Bacchis not to see him totally overwhelmed with despair; and Bacchis, seeing the excited state of the young man, gave him the necklace. And Plangon, when she saw the freedom from jealousy which was exhibited by Bacchis, sent her back the necklace, but kept the young man: and ever after Plangon and Bacchis were friends, loving the young man in common; and the Ionians being amazed at this, as Menetor tells us in his treatise concerning Offerings, gave Plangon the name

1. As a fig-tree planted on a lofty rock
2. Feeds many crows and jackdaws, so Pasiphila's
3. A willing entertainer of all strangers.

That Menander the poet was a lover of Glycera, is notorious to everybody; but still he was not well pleased with her. For when Philemon was in love with a courtesan, and in one of his plays called her

Excellent,

And Harpalus the Macedonian, who robbed Alexander of vast sums of money and then fled to Athens, being in love with Pythionica, spent an immense deal of money on her; and she was a courtesan. And when she died he erected a monument to her which cost him many talents. And as he was carrying her out to burial, as Posidonius tells us in the twenty-second book of his History, he had the body accompanied with a band of the most eminent artists of all kinds, and with all sorts of musical instruments and songs. And Dicæarchus, in his Essay on the Descent to the Cave of Trophonius, says,—

And that same sort of thing may happen to any one who goes to the city of the Athenians, and who proceeds by the road leading from Eleusis, which is called the Sacred Road; for, if he stops at that point from which he first gets a sight of Athens, and of the temple, and of the citadel, he will see a tomb built by the wayside, of such a size that there is none other near which can be compared with it for magnitude. And at first, as would be natural, he would pronounce it to be the tomb, beyond all question, of Miltiades, or Cimon, or Pericles, or of some other of the great men of Athens. And above all, he would feel sure that it had been erected by the city at the public expense; or at all events by some public decree; and then, again, when he heard it was the tomb of Pythionica the courtesan, what must be his feelings?

And Theopompus also, in his letter to Alexander, speaking reproachfully of the profligacy of Harpalus, says,—

But just consider and listen to the truth, as you may hear from the people of Babylon, as to the manner in which he treated Pythionica when she was dead; who was originally the slave of

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Bacchis, the female flute-player. And Bacchis herself had been the slave of Sinope the Thracian, who brought her establishment of harlots from Aegina to Athens; so that she was not only trebly a slave, but also trebly a harlot. He, however, erected two monuments to her at an expense exceeding two hundred talents. And every one marvelled that no one of all those who died in Cilicia, in defence of your dominions and of the freedom of the Greeks, had had any tomb adorned for them either by him or by any other of the governors of the state; but that a tomb should be erected to Pythionica the courtesan, both in Athens and in Babylon; and they have now stood a long time. For a man who ventured to call himself a friend to you, has dared to consecrate a temple and a spot of ground to a woman whom everybody knew to have been common to every one who chose at the same fixed price, and to call both the temple and the altar those of Pythionica Venus; and in so doing, he despised also the vengeance of the Gods, and endeavoured to insult the honours to which you are entitled.

1. You shall be queen of Babylon if the Fates
2. Will but permit it. Sure you recollect
3. Pythionica and proud Harpalus.

But after the death of Pythionica, Harpalus sent for Glycera, and she also was a courtesan, as Theopompus relates, when he says that Harpalus issued an edict that no one should present him with a crown, without at the same time paying a similar compliment to his prostitute; and adds,—

He has also erected a brazen statue to Glycera in Rhossus of Syria, where he intends to erect one of you, and another of himself. And he has permitted her to dwell in the palace in Tarsus, and he permits her to receive adoration from the people, and to bear the title of Queen, and to be complimented with other presents, which are only fit for your own mother and your own wife.

1. A. There is a pinnacle, where never birds
2. Have made their nests, where the long reeds do grow;
3. And on the left is the illustrious temple
4. Raised to a courtesan, which Pallides
5. Erected, but repenting of the deed,
6. Condemn'd himself for it to banishment.
7. And when some magi of the barbarians
8. Saw him oppressed with the stings of conscience,
9. They made him trust that they could raise again
10. The soul of Pythionica.

1. B. But I do wish to learn from you, since I
2. Dwell a long way from thence, what is the fate
3. At present of the land of Athens; and
4. How all its people fare?
5. A. Why, when they said
6. That they were slaves, they plenty had to eat,
7. But now they have raw vegetables only,
8. And fennel, and but little corn or meat.
9. B.I likewise hear that Harpalus has sent them
10. A quantity of corn no less than Agen,
11. And has been made a citizen of Athens.
12. That corn was Glycera's. But it is perhaps
13. To them a pledge of ruin, not of a courtesan.

Naucratis also has produced some very celebrated courtesans of exceeding beauty; for instance, Doricha, whom the beautiful Sappho, as she became the mistress of her brother Charaxus, who had gone to Naucratis on some mercantile business, accuses in her poetry of having stripped Charaxus of a great deal of his property. But Herodots calls her Rhodopis, being evidently ignorant that Rhodopis and Doricha were two different people; and it was Rhodopis who dedicated those celebrated spits at Delphi, which Cratinus mentions in the following lines—

1. * * * *

Posidippus also made this epigram on Doricha, although he had often mentioned her in his Ethiopia, and this is the epigram—

1. Here, Doricha, your bones have long been laid,
2. Here is your hair, and your well-scented robe:
3. You who once loved the elegant Charaxus,
4. And quaff'd with him the morning bowl of wine.
5. But Sappho's pages live, and still shall live,
6. In which is many a mention of your name,
7. Which still your native Naucratis shall cherish,
8. As long as any ship sails down the Nile.

Archedice also was a native of Naucratis; and she was a courtesan of great beauty.

For some how or other,

Naucratis is in the habit of producing beautiful courtesans.

There was also a certain courtesan named Sappho, a native of Eresus, who was in love with the beautiful Phaon, and she was very celebrated, as Nymphis relates in his Voyage round Asia. But Nicarete of Megara, who was a courtesan, was not a woman of ignoble birth, but she was born of free parents, and was very well calculated to excite affection by reason of her accomplishments, and she was a pupil of Stilpon the philosopher.

There was also Bilisticha the Argive, who was a very celebrated courtesan, and who traced her descent back to the Atridæ, as those historians relate who have written the history of the affairs of Argolis. There was also a courtesan named Leæna, whose name is very celebrated, and she was the mistress of Harmodius, who slew the tyrant. And she, being tortured by command of Hippias the tyrant, died under the torture without having said a word. Stratocles the orator also had for his mistress a courtesan whose name was Leme,[*](λήμη literally means the matter which gathers in the corner of the eyes; λῆμαι, sore eyes. παρόραμα means an oversight, a defect in sight; but there is supposed to be some corruption in this latter word.) and who was nicknamed Parorama, because she used to let whoever chose come to her for two drachmas, as Gorgias says in his treatise on Courtesans.

Now though Myrtilus appeared to be intending to say no more after this, he resumed his subject, and said:—But I was nearly forgetting, my friends, to tell you of the Lyda of Antimachus, and also of her namesake Lyda, who was also a courtesan and the mistress of Lamynthius the Milesian. For each of these poets, as Clearchus tells us in his Tales of Love, being inflamed with love for the barbarian Lyde, wrote

Lyde.

1. You know, too, how Œager's much-loved son,
2. Skilfully playing on the Thracian harp,
3. Brought back from hell his dear Agriope,
4. And sail'd across th' inhospitable land
5. Where Charon drags down in his common boat
6. The souls of all the dead; and far resounds
7. The marshy stream slow creeping through the reeds
8. That line the death-like banks. But Orpheus dared
9. With fearless soul to pass that lonely wave,
10. Striking his harp with well-accustom'd hand.
11. And with his lay he moved the pitiless gods,
12. And various monsters of unfeeling hell.
13. He raised a placid smile beneath the brows
14. Of grim Cocytus; he subdued the glance
15. So pitiless of the fierce, implacable dog,
16. Who sharpen'd in the flames his fearful bark,
17. Whose eye did glare with fire, and whose heads
18. With triple brows struck fear on all who saw.
19. He sang, and moved these mighty sovereigns;
20. So that Agriope once again did breathe
21. The breath of life. Nor did the son of Mene,
22. Friend of the Graces, the sweet-voiced Musæus,
23. Leave his Antiope without due honour,
24. Who, amid the virgins sought by many suitors
25. In holiest Eleusis' sacred soil,
26. Sang the loud joyful song of secret oracles,
27. Priestess of Rharian[*](Rharia was a name of Ceres, from the Rharian plain near Eleusis, where corn was first sown by Triptolemus, the son of Rharus. It is ʼἐς δʼ ἄρα ʽράριον ἷξε, φερέσβιον ὀ͂θαρ ἀρούρηςτὸ πρὶν, ἄταρ τότε γʼ οὔτι φερέσβιον ἀλλὰ ἕκηλονεἱστήκει πανάφυλλον, ἔκευθε δʼ ἄρα κρῖ λευκὸνμήδεσι δήμητρος καλλισφύρον.—Od. in Cerer. 450. ) Ceres, warning men.
28. And her renown to Pluto's realms extends.
29. Nor did these bards alone feel Cupid's sway;
30. The ancient bard, leaving Bœotia's halls,
31. Hesiod, the keeper of all kinds of learning,
32. Came to fair Ascra's Heliconian village,
33. Where long he sought Eoia's wayward love;
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34. Much he endured, and many books he wrote,
35. The maid the inspiring subject of his song.
36. And that great poet whom Jove's Fate protects,
37. Sweetest of all the votaries of the muse,
38. Immortal Homer, sought the rocky isle
39. Of Ithaca, moved by love for all the virtue
40. And beauty of the chaste Penelope.
41. Much for her sake he suffer'd; then he sought
42. A barren isle far from his native land,
43. And wept the race of Icarus, and of Amyclus
44. And Sparta, moved by his own woes' remembrances.
45. Who has not heard of sweet Mimnermus' fame;
46. Parent of plaintive elegiac verses,
47. Which to his lyre in sweetest sounds he sang
48. Much did he suffer, burning with the love
49. Of cruel Nanno; and full oft inflamed
50. With ardent passion, did he feast with her,
51. Breathing his love to his melodious pipe;
52. And to his hate of fierce Hermobius
53. And Pherecles, tuneful utterance he gave.
54. Antimachus, too, felt the flame inspired
55. By Lydian Lyde; and he sought the stream
56. Of golden-waved Pactolus, where he laid
57. His lost love underneath the tearless earth,
58. And weeping, went his way to Colophon;
59. And with his wailing thus sweet volumes fill'd,
60. Shunning all toil or other occupation.
61. How many festive parties frequent rang
62. With the fond love of Lesbian Alcæus,
63. Who sang the praises of the amorous Sappho,
64. And grieved his Teian[*](Anacreon.) rival, breathing songs
65. Such as the nightingale would gladly imitate;
66. For the divine Anacreon also sought
67. To win the heart of the sacred poetess,
68. Chief ornament of all the Lesbian bands;
69. And so he roved about, now leaving Samos,
70. Now parting from his own enslaved land,
71. Parent of vines, to wine-producing Lesbos;
72. And often he beheld Cape Lectum there,
73. Across th' Aeolian wave. But greatest of all,
74. The Attic bee[*](Sophocles.) oft left its rugged hill,
75. Singing in tragic choruses divine,
76. Bacchus and Love * *
77. * * * *
78. I tell, besides, how that too cautious man,
79. Who earn'd deserved hate from every woman,
80. Stricken by a random shot, did not escape
81. Nocturnal pangs of Love; but wander'd o'er
82. The Macedonian hills and valleys green,
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83. Smitten with love for fair Argea, who
84. Kept Archelaus' house, till the angry god
85. Found a fit death for cold Euripides,
86. Striving with hungry hounds in vain for life.
87. Then there's the man whom, mid Cythera's rocks;
88. The Muses rear'd, a faithful worshipper
89. Of Bacchus and the flute, Philoxenus:
90. Well all men know by what fierce passion moved
91. He to this city came; for all have heard
92. His praise of Galatea, which he sang
93. Amid the sheepfolds. And you likewise know
94. The bard to whom the citizens of Cos
95. A brazen statue raised to do him honour,
96. And who oft sang the praises of his Battis,
97. Sitting beneath a plane-tree's shade, Philetas;
98. In verses that no time shall e'er destroy.
99. Nor do those men whose lot in life is hard,
100. Seeking the secret paths of high philosophy,
101. Or those whom logic's mazes hold in chains,
102. Or that laborious eloquence of words,
103. Shun the sharp struggle and sweet strife of Love;
104. But willing, follow his triumphant car.
105. Long did the charms of fair Theano bind
106. The Samian Pythagoras, who laid bare
107. The tortuous mysteries of geometry;
108. Who all the mazes of the sphere unfolded,
109. And knew the laws which regulate the world,
110. The atmosphere which doth surround the world,
111. And motions of the sun, and moon, and stars.
112. Nor did the wisest of all mortal men,
113. Great Socrates, escape the fierce contagion,
114. But yielded to the fiery might of Venus,
115. And to the fascinations of the sex,
116. Laying his cares down at Aspasia's feet;
117. And though all doubts of nature he could solve,
118. He found no refuge from the pursuit of Love.
119. Love, too, did draw within the narrow Isthmus
120. The Cyrenean sage: and winning Lais,
121. With her resistless charms, subdued and bound
122. Wise Aristippus, who philosophy.
123. Deserted, and preferr'd a trifling life.

But in this Hermesianax is mistaken where he represents Sappho and Anacreon as contemporaries. For the one lived in the time of Cyrus and Polycrates; but Sappho lived in the reign of Alyattes, the father of Croesus. But Chameleon, in his treatise on Sappho, does assert that some people say that these verses were made upon her by Anacreon—

1. Love, the golden-haired god,
2. Struck me with his purple ball,
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3. And with his many wiles doth seize
4. And challenge me to sport with him.
5. But she-and she from Lesbos comes,
6. That populous and wealthy isle—
7. Laughs at my hair and calls it grey,
8. And will prefer a younger lover.

1. You, O my golden-throned muse,
2. Did surely dictate that sweet hymn,
3. Which the noble Teian bard,
4. From the fair and fertile isle,
5. Chief muse of lovely womanhood,
6. Sang with his dulcet voice.

But it is plain enough in reality that this piece of poetry is not Sappho's. And I think myself that Hermesianax is joking concerning the love of Anacreon and Sappho. For Diphilus the comic poet, in his play called Sappho, has represented Archilochus and Hipponax as the lovers of Sappho.

Now it appears to me, my friends, that I have displayed some diligence in getting up this amorous catalogue for you, as I myself am not a person so mad about love as Cynulcus, with his calumnious spirit, has represented me. I confess, indeed, that I am amorous, but I do deny that I am frantic on the subject.

1. And why should I dilate upon my sorrows,
2. When I may hide them all in night and silence?

Therefore I, considering that Love is a mighty and most powerful deity, and that the Golden Venus is so too, recollect the verses of Euripides on the subject, and say—

1. Dost thou not see how great a deity
2. Resistless Venus is? No tongue can tell,
3. No calculation can arrive at all
4. Her power, or her dominions' vast extent;
5. She nourishes you and me and all mankind,
6. And I can prove this, not in words alone,
7. But facts will show the might of this fair goddess.
8. The earth loves rain when the parch'd plains are dry,
9. And lose their glad fertility of yield
10. From want of moisture. Then the ample heaven,
11. When fill'd with rain, and moved by Venus' power,
12. Loves to descend to anxious earth's embrace;
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13. Then when these two are join'd in tender love
14. They are the parents of all fruits to us,
15. They bring them forth, they cherish them; and so
16. The race of man both lives and flourishes.

And that most magnificent poet Aeschylus, in his Danaides, introduces Venus herself speaking thus—

1. Then, too, the earth feels love, and longs for wedlock,
2. And rain, descending from the amorous air,
3. Impregnates his desiring mate; and she
4. Brings forth delicious food for mortal man,—
5. Herds of fat sheep, and corn, the gift of Ceres;
6. The trees love moisture, too, and rain descends
7. T' indulge their longings, I alone the cause.

And again, in the Hippolytus[*](V. 3.) of Euripides, Venus says—

1. And all who dwell to th' eastward of the sea,
2. And the Atlantic waves, all who behold
3. The beams of the rising and the setting sun,
4. Know that I favour those who honour me,
5. And crush all those who boast themselves against me.

And, therefore, in the case of a young man who had every other imaginable virtue, this one fault alone, that he did not honour Venus, was the cause of his destruction. And neither Diana, who loved him exceedingly, nor any other of the gods or demi-gods could defend him; and accordingly, in the words of the same poet,—

1. Whoe'er denies that Love's the only god,[*](This is not from the Hippolytus, but is a fragment from the Auge.)
2. Is foolish, ignorant of all that's true,
3. And knows not him who is the greatest deity
4. Acknowledged by all nations.

And the wise Anacreon, who is in everybody's mouth, is always celebrating love. And, accordingly, the admirable Critias also speaks of him in the following manner:—

1. Teos brought forth, a source of pride to Greece,
2. The sweet Anacreon, who with sweet notes twined
3. A wreath of tuneful song in woman's praise,
4. The choicest ornament of revelling feasts,
5. The most seductive charm; a match for flutes'
6. Or pipes' shrill aid, or softly moving lyre:
7. O Teian bard, your fame shall never die;
8. Age shall not touch it; while the willing slave
9. Mingles the wine and water in the bowl,
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10. And fills the welcome goblet for the guests;
11. While female bands, with many twinkling feet,
12. Lead their glad nightly dance; while many drops,
13. Daughters of these glad cups; great Bacchus' juice,
14. Fall with good omen on the cottabus dish.

But Archytas the Harmonist, as Chamæleon calls him, says that Alcman was the original poet of amatory songs, and that he was the first poet to introduce melodies inciting to lawless indulgence,. . . . being, with respect to women . . . . On which account he says in one of his odes—

1. But Love again, so Venus wills,
2. Descends into my heart,
3. And with his gentle dew refreshes me.

1. This gift, by the sweet Muse inspired,
2. That lovely damsel gave,
3. The golden-hair'd Megalostrate.

And Stesichorus, who was in no moderate degree given to amorous pursuits, composed many poems of this kind; which in ancient times were called παιδιὰ and παιδικά. And, in fact, there was such emulation about composing poems of this sort, and so far was any one from thinking lightly of the amatory poets, that Aeschylus, who was a very great poet, and Sophocles, too, introduced the subject of the loves of men on the stage in their tragedies: the one describing the love of Achilles for Patroclus, and the other, in his Niobe, the mutual love of her sons (on which account some men have given an ill name to that tragedy); and all such passages as those are very agreeable to the spectators.

Ibycus, too, of Rhegium, speaks loudly as follows—

1. In early spring the gold Cydonian apples,
2. Water'd by streams from ever-flowing rivers,
3. Where the pure garden of the Virgins is,
4. And the young grapes, growing beneath the shade
5. Of ample branches flourish and increase:
6. But Love, who never rests, gives me no shade,
7. Nor any recruiting dew; but like the wind,
8. Fierce rushing from the north, with rapid fire,
9. Urged on by Venus, with its maddening drought
10. Burns up my heart, and from my earliest youth,
11. Rules o'er my soul with fierce dominion.

1. Oh may it ever be to me to love,
2. And to indulge my love, remote from fear;
3. And do not thou, my mind, pursue a chase
4. Beyond the present number of your years.

1. There is a time to love, a time to wed,
2. A time to leave off loving;

1. When this man ought to set (δύνειν) he now begins
2. To follow pleasure (ἡδύνεσθαι).

1. And now (for seasonable is the time)
2. You ought, my soul, to pluck the flowers of love,
3. Which suit your age.
4. And he who, looking on the brilliant light that beams
5. From the sweet countenance of Theoxenus,
6. Is not subdued by love,
7. Must have a dark discolour'd heart,
8. Of adamant or iron made,
9. And harden'd long in the smith's glowing furnace.
10. That man is scorn'd by bright-eyed Venus.
11. Or else he's poor, and care doth fill his breast;
12. Or else beneath some female insolence
13. He withers, and so drags on an anxious life:
14. But I, like comb of wily bees,
15. Melt under Venus's warm rays,
16. And waste away while I behold
17. The budding graces of the youth I love.
18. Surely at Tenedos, persuasion soft,
19. And every grace,
20. Abides in the lovely son of wise Agesilas.

And many men used to be as fond of having boys for their favourites as women for their mistresses. And this was a frequent fashion in many very well regulated cities of Greece. Accordingly, the Cretans, as I have said before, and the Chalcidians in Eubœa, were very much addicted to the custom of having boy-favourites. Therefore Echemens, in his History of Crete, says that it was not Jupiter who carried off Ganymede, but Minos. But the before-mentioned Chalcidians say that Ganymede was carried off from them by

But Hieronymus the Peripatetic says that the ancients were anxious to encourage the practice of having boy-favourites, because the vigorous disposition of youths, and the confidence engendered by their association with each other, has often led to the overthrow of tyrannies. For in the presence of his favourite, a man would choose to do anything rather than to get the character of a coward. And this was proved in practice in the case of the Sacred Band, as it was called, which was established at Thebes by Epaminondas. And the death of the Pisistratidæ was brought about by Harmodius and Aristogiton; and at Agrigentum in Sicily, the mutual love of Chariton and Melanippus produced a similar result, as we are told by Heraclides of Pontus, in his treatise on Amatory Matters. For Melanippus and Chariton, being informed against as plotting against Phalaris, and being put to the torture in order to compel them to reveal their accomplices, not only did not betray them, but even made Phalaris himself pity them, on account of the tortures which they had undergone, so that he dismissed them with great praise. On which account Apollo, being pleased at this conduct, gave Phalaris a respite from death; declaring this to the men who consulted the Pythian priestess as to how they might best attack him. He also gave them an oracle respecting Chariton, putting the Pentameter before the Hexameter, in the same way as afterwards Dionysius the Athenian did, who was nicknamed the Brazen, in his Elegies; and the oracle runs as follows—

1. Happy were Chariton and Melanippus,
2. Authors of heavenly love to many men.

The circumstances, too, that happened to Cratinus the Athenian, are very notorious. For he, being a very beautiful boy, at the time when Epimenides was purifying Attica by human sacrifices, on account of some old pollution, as Neanthes of Cyzicus relates in the second book of his treatise on

But among the Spartans, as Agnon the Academic philosopher tells us, girls and boys are all treated in the same way before marriage: for the great lawgiver Solon has said—

1. Admiring pretty legs and rosy lips;—

1. You paid not due respect to modesty,
2. Led by your passion for too frequent kisses;—

1. Inflaming with his beauty mighty Jove.

But I am not ignorant that the stories which are told about Cratinus and Aristodemus are stated by Polemo Periegetes, in his Replies to Neanthes, to be all mere inventions. But you, O Cynulcus, believe that all these stories are true, let them be ever so false. And you take the greatest pleasure in all such poems as turn on boys and favourite; of that kind; while the fashion of making favourites of boys was first introduced among the Grecians from Crete, as Timæus informs us. But others say that Laius was the originator of this custom, when he was received in hospitality by Pelops; and that he took a great fancy to his son, Chrysipps, whom he put into his chariot and carried off, and fled with to Thebes. But Praxilla the Sicyonian says that Chrysippus was carried off by Jupiter. And the Celtæ, too, although they have the most beautiful women of all the barbarians, still make great favourites of boys . . . . . And the Persians, according to the statement of Herodotus, learnt from the Greeks to adopt this fashion.