79. But among the Spartans, as Agnon the Academic philosopher tells us, girls and boys are all treated in the same way before marriage: for the great lawgiver Solon has said—
Admiring pretty legs and rosy lips;—
as Æschylus and Sophocles have openly made similar statements; the one saying, in the Myrmidons—
You paid not due respect to modesty,
Led by your passion for too frequent kisses;—
and the other, in his Colchian Women, speaking of Ganymede, says—
Inflaming with his beauty mighty Jove.
But I am not ignorant that the stories which are told about Cratinus and Aristodemus are stated by Polemo Periegetes, in his Replies to Neanthes, to be all mere inventions. But you, O Cynulcus, believe that all these stories are true, let them be ever so false. And you take the greatest pleasure in all such poems as turn on boys and favourites of that kind; while the fashion of making favourites of boys was first introduced among the Grecians from Crete, as Timæus informs us. But others say that Laius was the originator of this custom, when he was received in hospitality by Pelops; and that he took a great fancy to his son, Chrysippus, whom he put into his chariot and carried off, and fled with to Thebes. But Praxilla the Sicyonian says that Chrysippus was carried off by Jupiter. And the Celtæ, too, although they have the most beautiful women of all the barbarians, still make great favourites of boys.... And the Persians, according to the statement of Herodotus, learnt from the Greeks to adopt this fashion.
80. Alexander the king was also very much in the habit of giving in to this fashion. Accordingly, Dicæarchus, in his treatise on the Sacrifice at Troy, says that he was so much under the influence of Bagoas the eunuch, that he embraced him in the sight of the whole theatre; and that when the whole theatre shouted in approval of the action, he repeated it. And Carystius, in his Historic Commentaries, says,—"Charon the Chalcidian had a boy of great beauty, who was a great favourite of his: but when Alexander, on one occasion, at a great entertainment given by Craterus, praised this boy very much, Charon bade the boy go and salute Alexander: and he said, 'Not so, for he will not please me so much as he will vex you.' For though the king was of a very amorous disposition, still he was at all times sufficiently master of himself to have a due regard to decorum, and to the preservation of appearances. And in the same spirit, when he had taken as prisoners the daughters of Darius, and his wife, who was of extraordinary beauty, he not only abstained from offering them any insult, but he took care never to let them feel that they were prisoners at all; but ordered them to be treated in every respect, and to be supplied with everything, just as if Darius had still been in his palace; on which account, Darius, when he heard of this conduct, raised his hands to the Sun and prayed that either he might be king, or Alexander."
But Ibycus states that Talus was a great favourite of Rhadamanthus the Just. And Diotimus, in his Heraclea, says that Eurystheus was a great favourite of Hercules, on which account he willingly endured all his labours for his sake. And it is said that Argynnus was a favourite of Agamemnon; and that they first became acquainted from Agamemnon seeing Argynnus bathing in the Cephisus. And afterwards, when he was drowned in this river, (for he was continually bathing in it,) Agamemnon buried him, and raised a temple on the spot to Venus Argynnis. But Licymnius of Chios, in his Dithyrambics, says that it was Hymenæus of whom Argynnus was a favourite. And Aristocles the harp-player was a favourite of King Antigonus: and Antigonus the Carystian, in his Life of Zeno, writes of him in the following terms:—"Antigonus the king used often to go to sup with Zeno; and once, as he was returning by daylight from some entertainment, he went to Zeno's house, and persuaded him to go with him to sup with Aristocles the harp-player, who was an excessive favourite of the king's."