astics together with paiderastia from the Hellenes; and we hear that
Polycrates of Samos caused the gymnasia to be destroyed when he wished
to discountenance the love which lent the warmth of personal enthusiasm
to political associations.[118] It was common to erect statues of love
in the wrestling-grounds; and there, says Plutarch,[119] the god's wings
grew so wide that no man could restrain his flight. Readers of the
idyllic poets will remember that it was a statue of Love which fell from
its pedestal in the swimming-bath upon the cruel boy who had insulted
the body of his self-slain friend.[120] Charmus, the lover of Hippias,
erected an image of Eros in the academy at Athens which bore this
epigram:--

"Love, god of many evils and various devices, Charmus set up this
altar to thee upon the shady boundaries of the gymnasium."[121]

Eros, in fact, was as much at home in the gymnasia of Athens as
Aphrodite in the temples of Corinth; he was the patron of paiderastia,
as she of female love. Thus Meleager writes:--

"The Cyprian queen, a woman, hurls the fire that maddens men for
females; but Eros himself sways the love of males for males."[122]

Plutarch, again, in the Erotic dialogue, alludes to "Eros, where
Aphrodite is not; Eros apart from Aphrodite." These facts relating to
the gymnasia justified Cicero in saying, "Mihi quidem haec in Graecorum
gymnasiis nata consuetudo videtur; _in quibus isti liberi et concesi
sunt amores_." He adds, with a true Roman's antipathy to Greek aesthetics
and their flimsy screen for sensuality, "Bene ergo Ennius, _flagitii
principium est nudare inter cives corpora_."[123] "To me, indeed, it
seems that this custom was generated in the gymnasiums of the Greeks,
for there those loves are freely indulged and sanctioned. Ennius
therefore very properly observed that the beginning of vice is the habit
of stripping the body among citizens."

The Attic gymnasia and schools were regulated by strict laws. We have
already seen that adults were not supposed to enter the palaestra; and
the penalty for the infringement of this rule by the gymnasiarch was
death. In the same way, schools had to be shut at sunset and not opened
again before daybreak; nor was a grown-up man allowed to frequent them.
The public chorus teachers of boys were obliged to be above the age of
forty.[124] Slaves who presumed to make advances to a free boy were
subject to the severest penalties; in like manne