Erôs, in fact, was as much at home in the gymnasia of Athens as Aphrodite in the temples of Corinth; he was the patron of paiderastia, as she of female love. Thus Meleager writes:—
"The Cyprian queen, a woman, hurls the fire that maddens men for females; but Erôs himself sways the love of males for males."[122]
Plutarch, again, in the Erotic dialogue, alludes to "Erôs, where Aphrodite is not; Erôs apart from Aphrodite." These facts relating to the gymnasia justified Cicero in saying, "Mihi quidem hæc in Græcorum gymnasiis nata consuetudo videtur; in quibus isti liberi et concesi sunt amores." He adds, with a true Roman's antipathy to Greek æsthetics and their flimsy screen for sensuality, "Bene ergo Ennius, flagitii principium est nudare inter cives corpora."[123] "To me, indeed, it seems that this custom was generated in the gymnasiums of the Greeks, for there those loves are freely indulged and sanctioned. Ennius therefore very properly observed that the beginning of vice is the habit of stripping the body among citizens."
The Attic gymnasia and schools were regulated by strict laws. We have already seen that adults were not supposed to enter the palæstra; and the penalty for the infringement of this rule by the gymnasiarch was death. In the same way, schools had to be shut at sunset and not opened again before daybreak; nor was a grown-up man allowed to frequent them. The public chorus teachers of boys were obliged to be above the age of forty.[124] Slaves who presumed to make advances to a free boy were subject to the severest penalties; in like manner they were prohibited from gymnastic exercises. Æschines, from whom we learn these facts, draws the correct conclusion that gymnastics and Greek love were intended to be the special privilege of freemen. Still, in spite of all restrictions, the palæstra was the centre of Athenian profligacy, the place in which not only honourable attachments were formed, but disgraceful bargains also were concluded;[125] and it is not improbable that men like Taureas and Miccus, who opened such places of amusement as a private speculation, may have played the part of go-betweens and panders. Their walls, and the plane-trees which grew along their open courts, were inscribed by lovers with the names of boys who had attracted them. To scrawl up, "Fair is Dinomeneus, fair is the boy," was a common custom, as we learn from Aristophanes and from this anonymous epigram in the Anthology:[126]—
"I said and once again I said, 'fair, fair'; but still will I go on repeating how fascinating with his eyes is Dositheus. Not upon an oak, nor on a pine-tree, nor yet upon a wall, will I inscribe this word; but love is smouldering in my heart of hearts."
Another attention of the same kind from a lover to a boy was to have a vase or drinking-cup of baked clay made, with a portrait of the youth depicted on its surface, attended by winged genii of health and love. The word "Fair" was inscribed beneath, and symbols of games were added—a hoop or a fighting-cock.[127] Nor must I here omit the custom which induced lovers of a literary turn to praise their friends in prose or verse. Hippothales, in the Lysis of Plato, is ridiculed by his friends for recording the great deeds of the boy's ancestors, and deafening his ears with odes and sonnets. A diatribe on love, written by Lysias with a view to winning Phædrus, forms the starting-point of the dialogue between that youth and Socrates.[128] We have, besides, a curious panegyrical oration (called Eroticos Logos), falsely ascribed to Demosthenes, in honour of a youth, Epicrates, from which some information may be gathered concerning the topics usually developed in these compositions.
Presents were of course a common way of trying to win favour. It was reckoned shameful for boys to take money from their lovers, but fashion permitted them to accept gifts of quails and fighting cocks, pheasants, horses, dogs and clothes.[129] There existed, therefore, at Athens frequent temptations for boys of wanton disposition, or for those who needed money to indulge expensive tastes. The speech of Æschines, from which I have already frequently quoted, affords a lively picture of the Greek rake's progress, in which Timarchus is described as having sold his person in order to gratify his gluttony and lust and love of gaming. The whole of this passage,[130] it may be observed in passing, reads like a description of Florentine manners in a sermon of Savonarola.
The shops of the barbers, surgeons, perfumers, and flower-sellers had an evil notoriety, and lads who frequented these resorts rendered themselves liable to suspicion. Thus Æschines accuses Timarchus of having exposed himself for hire in a surgeon's shop at the Peiræus; while one of Straton's most beautiful epigrams[131] describes an assignation which he made with a boy who had attracted his attention in a garland-weaver's stall. In a fragment from the Pyraunos of Alexis, a young man declares that he found thirty professors of the "voluptuous life of pleasure," in the Cerameicus during a search of three days; while Cratinus and Theopompus might be quoted to prove the ill fame of the monument to Cimon and the hill of Lycabettus.[132]
The last step in the downward descent was when a youth abandoned the roof of his parents or guardians and accepted the hospitality of a lover.[133] If he did this, he was lost.
In connection with this portion of the subject, it may be well to state that the Athenian law recognised contracts made between a man and boy, even if the latter were of free birth, whereby the one agreed to render up his person for a certain period and purpose, and the other to pay a fixed sum of money.[134] The phrase "a boy who has been a prostitute," occurs quite naturally in Aristophanes;[135] nor was it thought disreputable for men to engage in these liaisons. Disgrace only attached to the free youth who gained a living by prostitution; and he was liable, as we shall see, at law to loss of civil rights.