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

MaLE HOMOSEXUALITY

Having thus culled but a few of the flowers that bloom so profusely in the twelfth book of the Anthology, the “ Musa puerilis” of Straton, we come now to the so-called “ cinedic”’ poetry, whose most important representative, Sotades, has already been discussed (p. 266).

The earliest meaning of cincedus (xivatdos) was ‘‘a lover of boys’, with an obscene significance; then the name was given to the professional dancers of certain indecent ballets, as they are known to us from Plautus and Petronius and from the wall-paintings of the Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome, which were accompanied with very free, or even according to our ideas highly indecent songs. Only quite unimportant fragments of them have been preserved. The boxer Cleomachus of Magnesia had fallen in love with such a cinedus-actor and a girl kept by him and was thereby induced to take up similar dialogue character parts. (Cinzdic Poetry : Plautus, Mul. glor., 668 (111, 1, 73) ; Petronius, 23 ; O. Jahn, Wandgemalde des Columbariums in der Villa Pampili (Philol. Abhandl. der Munchener Akademie, vul, 254 ff.) ; for the story of Cleomachus see Strabo, xiv, 648a).

According to Athenzeus (xv, 697d) “ everyone sang a song glorifying the love of boys” by Seleucus (beginning of the second century B.c.) of which two verses are preserved: “I also love boys; this is more beautiful than languishing in the yoke of marriage ; for in murderous battle your friend still stays as a protector at your side.”

IV. Prose

It is superfluous to give a complete summary of the passages treating of peederasty in Greek prose, since the Greek prose-writers have already been sufficiently discussed. Hence it will be enough to

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