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

MaLeE HOMOSEXUALITY

The philosopher Maximus of Tyre, who lived in the time of the emperor Commodus (A.D. 180-92), has repeatedly examined the problem of the love of boys in his numerous writings. ‘Thus we have from him S:arpiBai, that is, discourses on the Eros of Socrates, a subject which the hermaphrodite Favorinus, the most learned and distinguished philosopher of the period of Hadrian, had already treated.

t. Tue Love oF Boys IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY

After all that up to this point has been said of Greek love of boys on the authority of written documents, the conjecture that it also played an important part in the mythology of the Hellenes is abundantly fulfilled. In fact, the entire body of legend concerning the gods and heroes of the Hellenes is so rich in motifs of pzdophilia, that R. Beyer was able to write a monograph on the subject. It would be a welcome task here to record these amours with boys of the Greek gods and heroes, since they in great part belong to the most beautiful flowers of Hellenic poetry, but considerations of space forbid any complete or connected presentation in this place of the pedophil myths of the Greeks, and we have moreover, in Beyer’s valuable dissertation, a thoroughly sufficient, if not always complete, compilation of peedophil motifs in Greek mythology. We must therefore refer the reader to this work, and be content merely to mention here that as early as the times of antiquity more or less detailed catalogues of the beautiful boys of legend and their lovers were committed to writing. ‘races of these lists have been preserved in several cases, as in Hyginus, Athenzus and others; but the fullest is that of the pious and learned Father of the Church, Clement of Alexandria,

1 R. Beyer, Fabule Grece quatenus quave etate puerorum amore commutate sint (Leipzig, 1910).

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