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

PROSE

In a very charming framework the contest between two friends is brought forward, the Corinthian Charicles, who commends the love between a man and a woman, and the Athenian Callicratidas, who praises that between men and boys.

Lycinus, who acts as arbitrator, finally puts his judgment into the following words, which best characterize the Greek conception of love: ‘“ Marriage is for men a life-pressing necessity and a precious thing, if it is a happy one; but the love of boys, so far as it courts the sacred rights of affection, is in my opinion a result of practical wisdom. ‘Therefore let marriage be for all, but let the love of boys remain alone the privilege of the wise, for a perfect virtue is absolutely unthinkable in women. But do not be angry, my dear Charicles, if the crown belongs to Athens, and not to Corinth.”

That the Erotes enjoyed great popularity in antiquity, is clear from the fact that the little work found several imitators, the best known of whom is Achilles Tatius. In the concluding chapters of the second book of his romance the problem which is the foundation of the Evotes is treated of in the same manner in the form of two opposing speeches.

In the romance of Xenophon of Ephesus which contains the loves of Habrocomes and Antheia, there occurs a homosexual episode, in which Hippothots tells how, in his native place, Perinthus, he was passionately in love with a boy named Hyperanthus. But when the boy is bought by Aristomachus, a rich merchant of Byzantium, Hippothotis follows him thither, kills Aristomachus, and flees with his favourite. Near Lesbos their ship is overtaken by a heavy storm, in which Hyperanthus is drowned, and there nothing remains for the utterly disconcerted Hippothois but to erect a beautiful memorial for his dead favourite, after which in despair he takes to a bandit’s life.

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