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

MaLeE HOMOSEXUALITY

Pindar thought much the same as his contemporaries about friendship with the ephebi, and we owe to him what is unfortunately only a fragment of one of the most glorious poems ever written (frag. 123; see p. 431). The gods also rejoiced at his friendship for his favourite, Theoxenus. It was related that Pindar had prayed the gods to give him the most beautiful thing there was in the world ; ‘Theoxenus was the gift, and when, afterwards, the poet was present at a gymnastic contest in Argos he, during an attack of faintness, leaned on this boy’s bosom and died in his arms.

Pindar’s ashes were carried to Thebes, where, as Pausanias tells us (ix, 23, 2), they were buried in a tomb in the Hippodrome before the Proetidian gate.

7. 'THEOCRITUS

Of the thirty idylls preserved under the name of Theocritus, who lived about 310-245 B.C., no fewer than eight are exclusively devoted to the love of youths, and also in the others boys and love for them are frequently spoken of.

One, perhaps, the most beautiful of the poems of Theocritus about youths, inscribed Ta waduxa (“ the Favourites ’’), contains a conversation of the no longer youthful poet with his own heart. Certainly, his reason advised him to renounce all idea of love, but his heart teaches him that the battle with Eros is a useless enterprise. ‘‘ For irresistible the life of the boy rushes in like the swift foot of the hind, and in the morning thou already seest him striving further after the fickle kiss of another love. Not lasting, however, was the most delightful enjoyment of youthful bloom. Yet thou consumest thy vigour in the torments of longing, and his charming picture is all that thy dream will paint for thee.”

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