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

DANCE AND BALL-GAMES

came from Cos, which island, as it appears, produces gods. Whenever he looked at the spectators, as he threw or caught his ball, we shouted loudly in applause : ‘ How beautiful the boy is! The grace and harmony of his limbs in movement!’ or, when he spoke, ‘A marvel of beauty! I have never heard of nor seen such enchanting grace! Something worse would have befallen me, had I remained longer; and ah! already my heart aches with love.’ }

Besides the public festivals, banquets and drinking-bouts in particular afforded the opportunity of enjoying the spectacle of the dance, accompanied by the insinuating sounds of music, especially the sensual flutes. Greek drinking-bouts or, as the Hellenes called them, Symposia, have been so often described in the generally well-known representations of Greek life (Becker, Charicles, 1840; Stoll, Bilder aus dem altgriechischen Leben, 2nd edn., 1875), that a detailed account of them would be superfluous. Finally we may refer to two writings of antiquity, the perusal of which cannot be sufficiently recommended to everyone who wishes to make himself acquainted with the spirit of ancient Greece. They are the writings of Plato and Xenophon,? that have come down to us under the same title Symposia. If the graceful narrative of Xenophon, by its living truth and freshness, transplants us into the social conditions of his time, the intellectual and at the same time easily intelligible philosophy of Plato, with its conversations that exhale a fragrance illuminated by poetry, on the nature of love, will always enchant the reader, unless he is completely overwhelmed by the triviality of everyday life, and fill him with bitter-sweet longing

* Cf. Goethe’s description of a game of ball, seen at Verona (p. gr).

* In addition to these, two others may be mentioned, neither of which deserves to be spoken of contemptuously: Plutarch’s Symposium or Banquet of the Seven Wise Men, and the Banquet of Learned Men by Athenzus. Both are priceless and rich sources for the knowledge of ancient life, although certainly they are anything but poetical. The

Feast of the Lapithe in Lucian may be strongly recommended to those who like coarsely satirical characterization.

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