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

THrE ‘THEATRE

expressions occurred even in the dramas of Sophocles (e.g. frag. 388 dvacriddar 5 frag. 390 dmooKddutte ; frag. 974 odpdy). 3. EURIPIDES

The story of Chrysippus, the young favourite of Laius, was also made the subject of a drama by Euripides. The drama, called after its hero Chrysippus, was prompted by a personal experience of the poet himself. Among the most beautiful boys, who at that time of Hellenic sensual enjoyment attracted attention in the streets of Athens, was Agathon, the son of Tisamenus. It is the same Agathon, of whom Aristophanes in the Thesmophoriazuse gives the well-known witty characterization and who plays an important part in Plato’s Symposion, the same Agathon who is highly praised by Aristotle as a tragic poet. To his contemporaries he seemed a god come down from heaven and wandering among men in earthly form. But many were eager to gain the love of this ephebus ; his beauty lead to the scene of jealousy between Socrates and Alcibiades, so delightfully described by Plato. We are now told that even the cynical Euripides allowed himself to be overcome by the unusual charms of this wonderful phenomenon ; indeed, that for his sake he wrote his Chrysippus and put it on the stage. If this statement is correct, and there seems no reason to doubt it, we may conjecture that the hero of the piece, in fact Chrysippus, was created by the poet from his beautiful prototype Agathon, and that the poet imagined himself to be playmg the part of Laius. But now we find a note in Cicero (Tusc. Disp., iv, 33, 71), from which it is evident that the foundation of the piece was longing sensuality and that the wishes of Laius who courted the favour of the boy stood out plainly and distinctly. We must make it clear that it is a question of a drama performed in public, at which of course Euripides and the beautiful Agathon were present.

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