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

Mate HOMOSEXUALITY

was nowhere suggested nor would it have been held to be consonant with the wisdom of “ the wisest of all the Greeks ”’.

12. Locat DeErTairs

To begin with the Cretans, since these, according to Timzus (Ath., xiti, 602f) were the first Greeks who were fond of boys, we must first remember that, according to the incontestable testimony of Aristotle (De Republica, li, 10, 1272), the love of boys in Crete was not only tolerated but was also regulated by the State in order to prevent overpopulation. The extent to which the love of boys was a national practice there, is clear from the fact that the Cretans ascribed the rape of Ganymedewhich, according to an elsewhere unanimous tradition, was carried out by Zeus—to their ancient King Minos, as could be read in the Cretan History of Achemenes (Ath., xiii, 601e). Whether it was Zeus or Minos who carried off Ganymede, certainly in Crete as in many other Greek states the rape of boys had long been an established custom.* ‘The Cretan rape is attested by many writers: it is described most fully by Ephorus of Cyme (Strabo, x, 483f; also Plutarch, De lib. educ, 11 F; Plato, Laws, viii, 836), who composed a grandly planned History of the Greeks from the earliest times to the year 340 B.C.

“Three or four days beforehand, the erastes (lover) announces to his friends that he intends to carry out the rape. To conceal the boy anywhere or to forbid him to go to the street agreed upon, would indicate the greatest disgrace, since it would only mean that the boy does not deserve such a lover. If they have met, and the lover in rank and the like is equal to the boy or is even superior to

1 The rape is the most primitive form of all marriage connections, and

thus ztiologically for the love of youths the rape of Ganymede by Zeus or Minos was invented. 450