.

In its later Greek phases _paiderastia_ was associated less with war than
with athletics; it was refined and intellectualized by poetry and
philosophy. It cannot be doubted that both AEschylus and Sophocles
cultivated boy-love, while its idealized presentation in the dialogues of
Plato has caused it to be almost identified with his name; thus in the
early _Charmides_ we have an attractive account of the youth who gives his
name to the dialogue and the emotions he excites are described. But even
in the early dialogues Plato only conditionally approved of the sexual
side of _paiderastia_ and he condemned it altogether in the final
_Laws_.[21]

The early stages of Greek _paiderastia_ are very interestingly
studied by Bethe, "Die Dorische Knabenliebe," _Rheinisches Museum
fuer Philologie_, 1907. J.A. Symonds's essay on the later aspects
of _paiderastia_, especially as reflected in Greek literature, _A
Problem in Greek Ethics_, is contained in the early German
edition of the present study, but (though privately printed in
1883 by the author in an edition of twelve copies and since
pirated in another private edition) it has not yet been published
in English. _Paiderastia_ in Greek poetry has also been studied
by Paul Brandt, _Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vols.
viii and ix (1906 and 1907), and by Otto Knapp
(_Anthropophyteia_, vol. iii, pp. 254-260) who seeks to
demonstrate the sensual side of _paiderastia_. On the other hand,
Licht, working on somewhat the same lines as Bethe (_Zeitschrift
fuer Sexualwissenschaft_, August, 1908), deals with the ethical
element in _paiderastia_, points out its beneficial moral
influence, and argues that it was largely on this ground that it
was counted sacred. Licht has also published a learned study of
_paiderastia_ in Attic comedy (_Anthropophyteia_, vol. vii,
1910), and remarks that "without _paiderastia_ Greek comedy is
unthinkable." _Paiderastia_ in the Greek anthology has been fully
explored by P. Stephanus (_Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen_,
vol. ix, 1908, p. 213). Kiefer, who has studied Socrates in
relation to homosexuality (O. Kiefer, "Socrates und die
Homosexualitaet," _Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix,
1908), concludes that he was bisexual but that his sexual
impulses had been sublimated. It may be added that many results
of recent in