sium_ (175-78), in
which love is declared to be the source of the greatest benefits to
us. There can be no greater blessing to a young person, we read, than
a virtuous lover. Such a lover would rather die a thousand deaths than
do a cowardly or dishonorable deed; and love would make an inspired
hero out of the veriest coward. "Love will make men dare to die for
the beloved--love alone." "The actions of a lover have a grace which
ennobles them." "From this point of view a man fairly argues that in
Athens to love and be loved is a very honorable thing." "There is a
dishonor in being overcome by the love of money, or of wealth, or of
political power." "For when the lover and beloved come together ...
the lover thinks that he is right in doing any service which he can to
his gracious loving one." And in the _Republic_ (VI., 485): "He whose
nature is amorous of anything cannot help loving all that belongs or
is akin to the object of his affections."[305]

All this, as I have said, suggests romantic love, except for one
circumstance--a fatal one, however. Modern romantic love is an
ecstatic adoration of a woman by a man or of a man by a woman, whereas
the romantic love described by Xenophon and Plato--so-called "Platonic
love"--has nothing whatever to do with women. It is a passionate,
romantic friendship between men and boys, which (whether it really
existed or not) the pupils of Socrates dilate upon as the only noble,
exalted form of the passion that is presided over by Eros. On this
point they are absolutely explicit. Of course it would not do for a
Greek philosopher to deny that a woman may perform the noble act of
sacrificing her life for her husband--_that_ is her ideal function, as
we have seen--so Alcestis is praised and rewarded for giving up her
life; yet Plato tells us distinctly (_Symp_., 180) that this phase of
feminine love is, after all, inferior to that which led Achilles to
give his life for the purpose of avenging the death of his friend
Patroclus.[306] What chiefly distinguishes the higher love from the
lower is, in the opinion of the pupils of Socrates, purity; and this
kind of love does not exist, in their opinion, between men and women.
In discussing this higher kind of love both Plato and Xenophon
consistently and persistently ignore women, and not only do they
ignore them, but they deliberately distinguish between two goddesses
of love, one of whom, the celestial, presides--not over refined love
betwe