[lit-ideas] The Deipnosophists

  • From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2007 13:38:55 EST

Geary said:

>Each believed that in bed young boys were best.  
 
------ Although I would qualify on the 'young'. 
 
In any case, it's barbarian how much of the 'dissident' stuff can be found  
in the Loeb, bowdlerised or not. Here below is the Athenaeus's speech on _eros_ 
 from the corresponding volume in the Loeb. 
 
There is this passage in _Philosophy 4_, where O. Wister says that those  
endearing dandies, "Bertie Rogers and Billy Schuyler" did not have time for  
_Philosophy 4_; what, with the time needed in 'learning to be men'. And that's  
precisely Harvard Philosophy (see Title, "Manhood in Harvard"). In this, the  
Athenaeum, a club in Boston, helped much.
 
I'm glad O. Wister said that he _loved_ some of the poor students at  
Harvard, too. Indeed, it reminds me of how Isocrates tutored Demosthenes even  
when 
he couldn't pay the tuition fee. But you can _see_ talent.
 
Comments on the perversities of Athenaios welcome. 
 
Cheers,
 
JL
 
 
 
 
 
Altogether, many persons prefer liaisons with MALES to  those with females. 
For they maintain that this practice is zealously pursued in  those cities 
throughout Hellas which,  as compared with others, are ruled by good laws. The 
Cretans, for example, as I  have said and the people of Chalcis in Euboea, have 
 
a marvellous passion for such liaisons. Echemenes, at any rate, says in his  
History of Crete that it was not Zeus who carried off GANYMEDE, but  Minos. But 
the Chalcidians just mentioned assert that GANYMEDE was carried off  by Zeus 
in their own countrv, and they point out the place, calling it  HARPAGION; in 
it grow excellent myrtle-trees. Even his quarrel with the  Athenians was given 
up by Minos, though it had arisen over the murder of his  son, because he 
loved Theseus and gave him his daughter Phaedra to be his wife,  according to 
Zenis (or Zeneus) of Chios in the  History of his native land. Hieronymus the 
Peripatetic declares these  love affairs with boys became widespread because it 
often happened that the  vigour of the young men, joined to the mutual sympathy 
of their companionship,  brought many tyrannical governments to. an end. For 
if their favourites were  present, lovers would choose to suffer anything 
whatever rather than incur a  reputation for cowardice in the mind of their 
favourites. This was proved, at  any rate, by the Sacred Band organized at 
Thebes by 
Epameinondas, and by the murderous attempt on the  Peisistratidae made by 
HARMODIUS AND ARISTOGEITON – SCULPTURE HERE -- and again  in Sicily at 
Agrigentum, by the love of CHARITON AND MEALRUPPUS. The  latter was Chariton's  
favourite, according to Heracleides of Pontus in his work “On Love  Affairs”. 
It 
transpired that they were plotting against Phalaris, but on  being put to the 
torture and compelled to speak, they not only refused to name  their 
accomplices 
but even moved Phalaris to pity for their tortures, so that he  released them 
with hearty praise. Wherefore Apollo, pleased at this action,  favoured 
Phalaris with a postponement of his death, making a declaration of this  to 
those who 
inquired of the Pythian priestess how they should attack Phalaris;  Apollo 
also gave forth an oracle concerning Chariton and his followers, putting  the 
pentameter before the hexameter, according to the method later followed by  
Dionysius of Athens, nicknamed the Bronze, in his Elegies. The oracle is as  
follows: "Happy were Chariton and  Melanippus, guides for mortals in divine 
loving." Notorious are also the things  that happened in the case of Cratinus 
of 
Athens; for he was a handsome lad at  the time when Epimenides was purifying 
Attica by the sacrifice of human blood,  because of some ancient acts of 
abomination, as recorded c by Neanthes of  Cyzicus in the second book of his 
work On the 
Rituals of Initiation; and  Cratimls voluntarily gave himself up in be half 
of the land that had nurtured  him; following him his lover Aristodemus also 
died, and so the terrible act was  atoned for. Because of these love affairs, 
then, tyrants, to whom such  friendships are inimical, tried to abolish 
entirely 
relations between males,  extirpating them everywhere. Some even went so far 
as to  set fire to the wrestling-schools regarding them as counter-walls to  
their own citadels, and so demolished them; this was done by Polycrates, the  
tyrant of Samos.Among the Spartans, as Hagnon the Academic philosopher says, it 
 was customary for girls before their marriage to be treated like favourite 
boys.  Why, even the lawgiver Solon said: " With longing glance at thighs and 
sweet  lips." Likewise Aeschylus and Sophocles quite frankly said-the first in 
The  Myrmidons: "For the pure honour of the thighs thou hadst no reverence, O  
thankless one for those frequent kisses ! " while the other, in The Colchian  
Women, speaking of Ganymede " Setting Zeus's majesty aflame with his  
thighs." But I am not ignorant that Polemon the Geographer asserts in his  
Replies to 
Neanthes that the story of Cratinus and Aristodemus is a  fiction. But you, 
Cynulcus, believe  these stories to be true even if they are false, and you 
practise in private  all such things in the poems as have to do with the love 
of 
boys. The practice  of paederasty came into Greece from the Cretans first, 
according to Timaeus. But others  declare that Laius initiated such 
love-practices when he was the guest of  Pelops; he became enamoured of 
Pelops's son, 
Chrysippus, whom he seized and  placed in his chariot, and then fled to Thebes. 
Yet 
Praxilla of Sicyorl says that Chrysippus was carried  off by Zeus.And among 
barbarians the Celts also, though they have very beautiful  women, enjoy boys 
more; so that some of them often have two lovers to sleep with  on their beds 
of animal skins. As for the Persians, Herodotus says c they  learned the use of 
boys from the Greeks. King Alexander also was madly devoted  to boys. 
Dicaearchus, at any rate, in his book “On the Sacrifice at  Ilium” says d that 
he 
was so overcome with love for the eunuch Bagoas that,  in full view of the 
entire theatre, he, bending over, caressed Bagoas fondly,  and when the 
audience 
clapped and shouted in applause, he, nothing loath, again  bent over and kissed 
him. But Carystius in Historical Notes says "Charon  of Chalcis had a 
beautiful boy who was dear to him. But when Alexander, at a  drinking-party in 
the 
house of Craterus, praised the boy, Charon bade him kiss  Alexander; and 
Alexander said, 'Not so! For that will not delight me so much as  it will pain 
you.' 
For, passionate as this king was, he was in like measure  self-controlled when 
it came to the observance of decency and the best form.  'Wherefore Darius, on 
learning this, raised his arms and prayed to the Sun that  either he or 
Alexander might be King." As for the righteous Rhadamanthys, Ibycus  says that 
Talos was his lover. And Diotimus in the Epic of Heracles says  that Eurystheus 
was the favourite of  Heracles, and for that reason Heracles patiently 
undertook 
his labours. Again,  Agamennon loved Argynnus, so the  story goes, having 
seen him swimming in the Cephisus river; in which, in fact,  he lost his life 
(for he constantly bathed in this river), and Agamemnon buried  him and founded 
there a temple of Aphrodite Argynnis. Licymnius of Chios in his  Dithyrambs 
says that Elymenaeus was the beloved of Argynnus. Aristocles  the harp-singer 
was 
the beloved of King Antigonus, concerning whom Antigonus of  Carystus, in his 
Life of Zeno, writes as follows, “King Antigonus used to  have revels at the 
house of Zeno. On one occasion, coming away from a  drinking-party at 
daybreak, he rushed to Zeno's and persuaded him to join in a  revel at the 
house of 
Aristocles the harp-singer, whom thc king loved greatly."  Sophocles was fond 
of 
young lads, as Euripides was fond of boys, or at any rate,  in the work 
entitled Sojournings, writes as follows a " I met Sophocles  the poet at Chios 
when 
he was sailing as general to Lesbos; he was playful at  wine, and clever. A 
Chian friend of his, Elermesilaus, who was the proxenus of  Athens, entertained 
him, when there appeared, standing beside the fire, the  wine-pourer, a 
handsome, blushing boy; Sophocles was plainly stirred and said: '  Do you want 
me 
to drink with pleasure ? 'And when the boy said ' Yes ' he said,  ' 'Then don't 
be to rapid in handing me the cup and taking it away.' When the  boy blushed 
still more violently he said to the man who shared his couch: '  'That was a 
good thing Phrynichus wrote when he said, "There shines upon his  crimson 
cheeks the light of love."' To this the man from Eretria (or Erythrae),  who 
was a 
schoolmaster, made answer: ' Wise you are, to be sure, Sophocles, in  the art 
of poetry; nevertheless Phrynichus did not express himself happily when  he 
described the handsome boy's cheeks as crimson. For if a painter should brush  
a 
crimson colour on this boy's cheeks he would no longer look handsome. Surely  
one must not compare the beautiful with what is obvious]y not beautiful.'  
Laughing loudly at the Eretrian Sophocles said: ' So, then, stranger, you don't 
 
like that line of Simonides, either, though the Greeks think it very well  
expressed: " From her crimson lips the maiden uttered speech "; nor again the  
poet who speaks of " golden-haired Apollo "; for if a painter had made the 
god's  locks golden instead of black, the picture would not be so good. And so 
for 
the  poet who said "rosy-fingered" ; for if one should dip his fingers into a 
 rose-dye, he would produce the hands of a purple-dyer and not those of a 
lovely  woman.' There was a laugh at this, and while the Eretrian was squelched 
by the  rebuke, Sophocles returned to his conversation with the boy. He asked 
him, as he  was trying to pick off a straw from the cup with his little finger, 
whether he  could see the straw clearly. When the boy declared he could see 
it Sophocles  said, ' Then blow it away, for I shouldn't want you to get your 
finger wet.' As  the boy brought his face up to the cup, Sophocles drew the cup 
nearer to his own  lips, that the two-heads might come closer together. When 
he was very near the  lad, he drew him close with his arm and  kissed him. 
They all applauded, amid laughter and shouting, because he had  put it over the 
boy so neatly; and Sophocles said, ' I am practising strategy, gentlemen, since 
 Perieles told me that whereas I could write poetry, I didn't know how to be 
a  general. Don't vou think my stratagem has turned out happily for me?' Many  
things of this sort he was wont to say and do cleverly when he drank or when 
he  did anything. In civic matters, however, he was neither wise nor efficient 
but  like any other individual among the better class of Athenians." 
Hieronymus of  Rhodes says in his Historical Notes that Sophocles lured a 
handsome boy 
 outside the city wall to consort with him. Now the boy spread his own cloak 
on  the grass, while they wrapped themselves in Sophocles' cape. When the 
meeting,  i.e. the "doing" was over the boy seized Sophocles' cape and made off 
with it,  leaving behind for Sophocles his boyish cloak. Naturally the incident 
was much  talked of; when Euripides learned of the occurrence he jeered, 
saying that he  himself had once consorted with this boy without paying any 
bonus, 
whereas  Sophocles had been treated with contempt for his licentiousness. When 
Sophocles  heard that, he addressed to him the following epigram, which 
refers to the fable  of the Sun and the North Wind, and also alludes lightly to 
Euripides' practice  of adultery: " Helios it was, and not a boy, Euripides, 
who 
by his heat stripped  me of my cape; but with you, when you were embracing 
another man's wife, Boreas  consorted. So you are not so clever, because when 
sowing in another's field you  bring eros into court for thieving." Theopompus 
in 
his treatise On the Funds  plundered from Delphi  says that Asopichus, the 
favourite of Epameinondas, had the trophy erected at Leuctra pictured on his 
shield, and that he risked extraordinary  dangers; this shield was dedicated as 
a 
votive offering in the colonnade at Delphi. In the same treatise Theopompus 
says that Phayllus, the  tyrant of Phocis, was fond of women, Onomarchus, of 
boys; and froln the  treasures of Apollo the latter gave the offerings of the 
Sybarites, four golden  strigils, to the son of Pythodorus of Sicyon, who had 
come to Delphi to dedicate  his shorn locks, and who, being beautiful, had 
accorded his favours to  Onomarchus. To the flute-girl Bromias, daughter of 
Deiniades, Phayllus gave a  silvcr karchesion, a votive offering of the 
Phocaeans, 
and an ivy wreath of  gold, the offering of the Peparethians. " This girl," 
Theopompus says, " would  even have played the flute accompanimnet to the 
Pythian 
Games had she not been  prevented from doing so by the populace. And (he adds) 
to Physchl.ls, the son of  Lycolas of Trichoneium, a beautiful boy, 
Onomarchus gave a laurel wreath of  gold, votive offering of the Ephesians. 
This boy 
was taken to Philip by his  father and was there prostituted, and afterwards 
dismissed without reward. To  Damippus, the son of Epilycus of Amphipolis, a 
beautiful boy, Onomarchus gave .  . .. a votive offering of Pleisthenes.b To 
Pharsalia, the Thessalian  dancing-girl, Philomelus gave a laurel crown of 
gold, a 
votive offering of the  Lampsacenes. This Pharsalia lost her life in 
Metapontium at the hands of the  soothsayers in the market-place; for a voice 
had 
issued from the bronze bay tree  which the Metapontines had set up when 
Aristeas of 
Proconesus visited them and declared that he had come from the land of the 
Hyperhoreans; and no sooner was  she spied setting foot in the market-place 
than 
the soothsayers became furious,  and she was pulled to pieces by them. And 
when people later came to look into  the cause it was found that she had been 
killed because of the wreath which  belonged to the god." So beware, you 
philosophers who indulge in passion  contrary to nature (para phusin), who sin 
against the goddess of  love,-beware lest you also are destroyed in the same 
manner. 
For even boys are  handsome, as the courtesan Glycera, in the account given 
bv Clearchus, was wont  to say, only so long as they look like a woman. It was, 
in my opinion, quite in  accordance with nature that Cleonymus the Spartan 
acted when he, thc first of  men so to do, took as hostages from the 
Metapontines two hundred of their most  eminent and beautiful matrons and 
maidens, as 
Duris of Samos records b in the  third book of his History of Agathoc1es and 
his 
Times; and what is more,  to put it as Epicrates does in Anti-Lats " I have 
learned completely all  the love-affairs of Sappho, Meletus, Cleomenes, and 
Lamynthius." But do you, my  philosophers, if you ever fall in love with wome n 
and then see thslt it is  impossible to attain your object, learn that (whell 
love is impossible) it comes  to an end, as Clearchus asserts. For example, a 
bull once mounted the bronze cow  of Peiren; and a painted bitch, pigeon, and 
goose were approached, in the one  case, by a dog, in the other, by a pigeon, 
in 
the last, by a gander leaping upon  them; but when it became clear to all 
these creatures that their desires were  impossible, they desisted, like 
Cleisophus of Selymbria. For he, becoming  enamoured of the statue in Parian 
marble at 
Samos, [606] locked himself up in  the temp]e, thinking he should be able to 
have intercourse with it; and since he  found that impossible on account of 
the frigidity and resistance of the stone,  he then and there desisted from 
that 
desire and placing before him a small piece  of flesh he consorted with that. 
This deed is mentioned by the poet Alexis in  the play entitled A Picture ~: 
" Another case of a like sort occurred,  they say, in Samos. A man  conceived 
a passion for a stone maiden, and locked himself up in the temple."  And 
Philemon, mentioning the same, says : " Why, once on a time, in Samos, a man 
fell 
in love with the stone image; thereupon he  locked himself in the temple." Now 
the statue is the w-ork of Ctesicles, as  Adaeus of Mytilene says in his work 
On Sculptors. But Polemon, or whoever  wrote the work entitled Of Hellas, says 
that " at Delphi, in the treasury  of the Spinatae, are two lads carved in 
stone; for one of these, the Delphians  say, a pilgrim to the shrine once 
conceived a passion and locked himself up with  it, leaving behind him a wreath 
as 
the price of the intercourse. When his act  was detected the god ordained to 
the Delphians who consulted his oracle that  they should release the fellow; 
for, the god declared, he had paid the  price."



**************************************Check out AOL's list of 2007's hottest 
products.
(http://money.aol.com/special/hot-products-2007?NCID=aoltop00030000000001)

Other related posts: