ed lover[114] had
invited him to a banquet after a victory which he had gained in the
pancration; and many other guests, including the Socratic party, were
asked to meet him. Autolycus came, attended by his father; and as soon
as the tables were covered and the seats had been arranged, a kind of
divine awe fell upon the company. The grown-up men were dazzled by the
beauty and the modest bearing of the boy, just as when a bright light is
brought into a darkened room. Everybody gazed at him, and all were
silent, sitting in uncomfortable attitudes of expectation and
astonishment. The dinner party would have passed off very tamely if
Phillipus, a professional diner-out and jester, had not opportunely made
his appearance. Autolycus meanwhile never uttered a word, but lay beside
his father like a breathing statue. Later on in the evening he was
obliged to answer a question. He opened his lips with blushes, and all
he said was,[115] "Not I, by gad." Still, even this created a great
sensation in the company. Everybody, says Xenophon, was charmed to hear
his voice, and turned their eyes upon him. It should be remarked that
the conversation at this party fell almost entirely upon matters of
love. Critobulus, for example, who was very beautiful and rejoiced in
having many lovers, gave a full account of his own feelings for
Cleinias.[116]

"You all tell me," he argued, "that I am beautiful, and I cannot
but believe you; but if I am, and if you feel what I feel when I
look on Cleinias, I think that beauty is better worth having than
all Persia. I would choose to be blind to everybody else if I could
only see Cleinias, and I hate the night because it robs me of his
sight. I would rather be the slave of Cleinias than live without
him; I would rather toil and suffer danger for his sake than live
alone at ease and in safety. I would go through fire with him, as
you would with me. In my soul I carry an image of him better made
than any sculptor could fashion."

What makes this speech the more singular is that Critobulus was a
newly-married man.

But to return from this digression to the palaestra. The Greeks were
conscious that gymnastic exercises tended to encourage and confirm the
habit of paiderastia. "The cities which have most to do with
gymnastics," is the phrase which Plato uses to describe the states where
Greek love flourished.[117] Herodotus says the barbarians borrowed
gymn