Page:Symonds - A Problem in Greek Ethics.djvu/74

62 consorted at the common tables. Their talk fell naturally upon feats of strength and training; nor was it unnatural, in the absence of a powerful religious prohibition, that love should spring from such discourse and intercourse.

The nakedness, which Greek custom permitted in gymnastic games and some religious rites, no doubt contributed to the erotic force of masculine passion; and the history of their feeling upon this point deserves notice. Plato, in the Republic (452), observes that "not long ago the Greeks were of the opinion, which is still generally received among the barbarians, that the sight of a naked man was ridiculous and unseemly." He goes on to mention the Cretans and the Lacedæmonians as the institutors of naked games. To these conditions may be added dances in public, the ritual of gods like Erôs, ceremonial processions, and contests for the prize of beauty.

The famous passage in the first book of Thucydides (cap. vi.) illustrates the same point. While describing the primitive culture of the Hellenes, he thinks it worth while to mention that the Spartans, who first stripped themselves for running and wrestling, abandoned the girdle which it was usual to wear around the loins. He sees in this habit one of the strongest points of distinction between the Greeks and barbarians. Herodotus insists upon the same point (book i. 10), which is further confirmed by the verse of Ennius: "Flagitii," &c.

The nakedness which Homer (Iliad, xxii. 66) and Tyrtæus (i. 21) describes as shameful and unseemly is that of an old man. Both poets seem to imply that a young man's naked body is beautiful even in death.

We have already seen that paiderastia, as it existed in early Hellas, was a martial institution, and that it never wholly lost its virile character. This suggests the consideration of another class of circumstances which were in the highest degree conducive to its free development. The Dorians, to begin with, lived like regiments of soldiers in barracks. The duty of training the younger men was thrown upon the elder; so that the close relations thus established in a race which did not positively discountenance the love of male for male rather tended actively to encourage it. Nor is it difficult to understand why the romantic emotions in such a society were more naturally aroused by male companions than by women. Matrimony was not a matter of elective affinity between two persons seeking to spend their lives agreeably and profitably in common, so much as an