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

INTRODUCTION GREEK IDEALS OF LIFE

Although youth was regarded by the Greeks as the most precious possession, and its joys, amongst them love in particular, as the greatest happiness, yet other ideals must not be left unnoticed.

In Homer, Nestor calls after Athene as she disappears in the clear sky: “But, O Queen, be propitious and grant me fair renown, to me myself and to my children, and to my revered wife” (Odyssey, 111, 380).

We may say that these words express the moral ideals of the Greeks. The inclusion of wife and children proves that it is not only a question of victory in war or in athletic contests, but that in addition ideal wishes for life in general are indicated.

According to Pindar (Pythia, i, 99) happiness is the first object to be striven for, the second is an honourable reputation; he who has met with and holds fast to both has found the highest crown.

Naturally, by the side of these more ideal possessions there are also material goods which appeared to the Greek worth striving for and which he prayed the gods to grant him. So far as I know, Theognis (Theognis, 255) is the first who puts health as the happiness most worth striving for by the side of that previously mentioned, next to it as the most pleasant thing, “to attain what one loves,” an ideal which came from the soul of the Greeks, so that, as Aristotle attests (Eth. Eudem., 1, 1, and Eth. Nic., 1, 8), this wish was inscribed on the vestibule of the sanctuary of Leto at Delphi.

The intentional vagueness of the words of Theognis—‘ to attain what one loves’’—has led one so well acquainted with the history of Greek

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