Another glimpse of athletes may be got from three lines torn out of the same play:
πότερα θεωροῖς εἶτ' ἀγωνισταῖς λέγεις;
πόλλ' ἐσθίουσιν, ὡς ἐπασκούντων τρόπος.
ποδαποὶ γὰρ εἰσιν οἱ ξένοι; Βοιώτιοι.[80]
In this portrait we recognize the young men satirically described by Euripides in a fragment, translated above, of the lost Autolycus, as roaming about the city in the radiant insolence of youth, like animated statues.
Mourn as we may the loss of Ion and Achæus, our grief for that of Agathon must needs be greater. Though he was not placed in the first class by the Alexandrian critics, it is clear from the notices of Plato, Aristophanes, and Aristotle that he enjoyed the widest popularity at Athens, and was, besides, a poet of marked originality. Personally, he was amiable, delicate, pleasure-loving, and extremely beautiful. He is always called—even by Plutarch and Athenæus—Ἀγάθων ὁ καλός, Agathon the beautiful; while the passionate friendship with which he had inspired Pausanias is celebrated by Plato in Protagoras, by Xenophon in the Symposium. Later authors, like Maximus Tyrius, gave him the title of ἁβρότατος, while Lucian compared him to Cinyras or Sardanapalus. Apparently he was rich enough to indulge the most luxurious tastes. One of the best comic scenes in the Thesmophoriazusæ is that in which Aristophanes described Agathon surrounded by all the appliances of a voluptuary, while engaged in the composition of an effeminate play. Euripides, entering this study of a Sybarite, implores him to put on female attire, using these arguments:
σὺ δ' εὐπρόσωπος, λευκός, ἐξυρημένος,
γυναικόφωνος, ἁπαλός, εὐπρεπὴς ἰδεῖν.[81]
In poetry Agathon adopted innovations consistent with his own voluptuous temperament. His style was distinguished by melodious sweetness and rhetorical refinements; in particular, we are told that he affected the flowery tropes and the antitheses of Gorgias. Sophistry was fashionable in his youth, and Aristophanes recognized in Agathon the true companion of Euripides. Leaving the severer music of the elder tragedians, he invented chromatic melodies, which seem to have tickled the sensuality of his Athenian audience.[82]
We are therefore justified in regarding Agathon as the creator of a new tragic style combining the verbal elegances and ethical niceties of the sophists with artistic charms of a luxurious kind. Aristotle observes that he separated the Chorus from the action of the drama to such an extent that his lyrics became mere musical interludes ἐμβόλιμα, equally adapted to any tragic fable.[83] He also remarks that Agathon composed plays upon romantic subjects, inventing the story for himself, instead of adhering to the old usage of rehandling mythological material.[84] The title of one of these dramatic romances, The Flower, has been preserved; but unhappily we are told nothing about its subject, and have no extracts to judge from. That the form of tragedy suffered other changes at the hands of Agathon may be inferred from another passage in the Poetics, where Aristotle censures him for having included a whole epic, The Taking of Troy, in one play.[85] This play, it may be said in passing, was hissed off the stage. The popularity of Agathon may be gathered from the fact that the first tetralogy he exhibited was crowned in 416 B.C. Plato has chosen the supper-party which he gave in celebration of this victory for the scene of the Symposium; and it is there that we must learn to know this brilliant man of letters and of fashion in the wittiest period of Attic social life. It is not a little curious that the most interesting fragments of Agathon are embedded in the Ethics and the Rhetoric of Aristotle, who must have made attentive study of his works. While discussing the subject of free-will, the sage of Stageira quotes this couplet:
μόνου γὰρ αὐτοῦ καὶ θεὸς στερίσκεται,
ἀγένητα ποιεῖν ἅσσ' ἂν ᾖ πεπραγμένα.[86]
Again, on the topic of art and chance, he cites:
τέχνη τύχην ἔστερξε καὶ τύχη τέχνην.[87]