Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates

FESTIVALS

appearance. He accustomed them to imitate, as well as possible, the voice, walk and gestures of young girls, and put them amongst other girls, without their being different from them or being recognized by any one as boys. After his return, he held a solemn procession, accompanied by those youths, who were dressed just like those who now carry the vine-branches, at the festival. According to the story, this was said to be done in honour of Bacchus and Ariadne, or, what is more probable, since Theseus returned at the time of the gathering, of the fruit of the vine”.

That the most beautiful boys were selected to carry the vine-branches is clear from a letter of Alciphron (iii, 1) in which a girl, who had come to Athens to see the festival, thus describes it to her mother: “I cannot contain myself, mother, I cannot endure now to marry that stripling from Methymuna, the pilot’s son, whom my father told me the other day was to be my husband. I have seen someone else, a youth at Athens who was carrying the vine-branch in the procession on the day you sent me to the city to watch the festival. He is beautiful, mother, so beautiful and such a darling. His curls are more crisp than hazel blossoms, his smile is more charming than the summer sea. When he looks at you his eyes gleam with a dark radiance, even as the ocean gleams beneath the rays of the sun. And his whole face! You would say that on his cheeks dance all the Graces ; and as for his lips—he has filched the roses from Aphrodite’s bosom and made them bloom again upon their surface.”

A genuine boy’s festival was the Theseia, held at Athens on the day after the Oschophoria. The chief event was a parade of the Athenian youth, accompanied by gymnic contests. Here there was a swarm of boys of every age, about four times as numerous as youths or men, for Theseus was the ideal type of boys, to whom they looked up and

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