Sexual life in ancient Greece : with thirty-two full-page plates
EROTIC IN GREEK LITERATURE
thieves was missing. ‘Terrified at the thought of being put to death, he told the lady he had consoled so well what had happened and declared that rather than undergo court-martial he would kill himself; one favour only he asked of her—to bury him on the spot, and let the same tomb embrace both her husband and her lover.
“The lady was as compassionate as she was chaste, and exclaimed: ‘Ah! the gods will not allow me to see at the same time the two mortals whom I loved most tenderly in one and the same grave. No! ’tis better that I should turn the dead to use than kill the living,’ and having so said she ordered her husband’s body to be taken from the coffin and hung upon the cross from which that of the thief had been stolen. The soldier availed himself of the artful woman’s guile, and on the following day everyone was wondering what the dead man could have done that he should be crucified and could not understand it!”
Among the writings of the Athenian Xenophon (about 430-354) is one devoted almost entirely to the erotic problem, the charmingly graceful Symposium. ‘The meal was given by the wealthy Athenian Callias in honour of a beautiful favourite Autolycus, who had been victorious in the pancratium at the Panathenza in 422. In contrast to the Platonic Symposium, jesters, female dancers and lute-players take part in it, and also a beautiful boy who treats the guests to his gymnastic and musical tricks. After all kinds of orations of a serious and cheerful character, Socrates delivers a speech on love, the pith of which is that one must allow oneself to be fascinated by the intellectual talents of a boy rather than by his bodily charms. The proceedings conclude with a mythological ballet, representing a love-scene between Dionysus and Ariadne, which makes such an impression upon the guests, that “the unmarried swear to take a wife as soon as possible, and the married to mount
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