r they were prohibited
from gymnastic exercises. AEschines, from whom we learn these facts,
draws the correct conclusion that gymnastics and Greek love were
intended to be the special privilege of freemen. Still, in spite of all
restrictions, the palaestra was the centre of Athenian profligacy, the
place in which not only honourable attachments were formed, but
disgraceful bargains also were concluded;[125] and it is not improbable
that men like Taureas and Miccus, who opened such places of amusement as
a private speculation, may have played the part of go-betweens and
panders. Their walls, and the plane-trees which grew along their open
courts, were inscribed by lovers with the names of boys who had
attracted them. To scrawl up, "Fair is Dinomeneus, fair is the boy," was
a common custom, as we learn from Aristophanes and from this anonymous
epigram in the _Anthology_:[126]--

"I said and once again I said, 'fair, fair'; but still will I go on
repeating how fascinating with his eyes is Dositheus. Not upon an
oak, nor on a pine-tree, nor yet upon a wall, will I inscribe this
word; but love is smouldering in my heart of hearts."

Another attention of the same kind from a lover to a boy was to have a
vase or drinking-cup of baked clay made, with a portrait of the youth
depicted on its surface, attended by winged genii of health and love.
The word "Fair" was inscribed beneath, and symbols of games were
added--a hoop or a fighting-cock.[127] Nor must I here omit the custom
which induced lovers of a literary turn to praise their friends in prose
or verse. Hippothales, in the _Lysis_ of Plato, is ridiculed by his
friends for recording the great deeds of the boy's ancestors, and
deafening his ears with odes and sonnets. A diatribe on love, written by
Lysias with a view to winning Phaedrus, forms the starting-point of the
dialogue between that youth and Socrates.[128] We have, besides, a
curious panegyrical oration (called _Eroticos Logos_), falsely ascribed
to Demosthenes, in honour of a youth, Epicrates, from which some
information may be gathered concerning the topics usually developed in
these compositions.

Presents were of course a common way of trying to win favour. It was
reckoned shameful for boys to take money from their lovers, but fashion
permitted them to accept gifts of quails and fighting cocks, pheasants,
horses, dogs and clothes.[129] There existed, therefore, at Athens
frequent temptation