s for boys of wanton disposition, or for those who
needed money to indulge expensive tastes. The speech of AEschines, from
which I have already frequently quoted, affords a lively picture of the
Greek rake's progress, in which Timarchus is described as having sold
his person in order to gratify his gluttony and lust and love of gaming.
The whole of this passage,[130] it may be observed in passing, reads
like a description of Florentine manners in a sermon of Savonarola.

The shops of the barbers, surgeons, perfumers, and flower-sellers had an
evil notoriety, and lads who frequented these resorts rendered
themselves liable to suspicion. Thus AEschines accuses Timarchus of
having exposed himself for hire in a surgeon's shop at the Peiraeus;
while one of Straton's most beautiful epigrams[131] describes an
assignation which he made with a boy who had attracted his attention in
a garland-weaver's stall. In a fragment from the _Pyraunos_ of Alexis,
a young man declares that he found thirty professors of the "voluptuous
life of pleasure," in the Cerameicus during a search of three days;
while Cratinus and Theopompus might be quoted to prove the ill fame of
the monument to Cimon and the hill of Lycabettus.[132]

The last step in the downward descent was when a youth abandoned the
roof of his parents or guardians and accepted the hospitality of a
lover.[133] If he did this, he was lost.

In connection with this portion of the subject, it may be well to state
that the Athenian law recognised contracts made between a man and boy,
even if the latter were of free birth, whereby the one agreed to render
up his person for a certain period and purpose, and the other to pay a
fixed sum of money.[134] The phrase "a boy who has been a prostitute,"
occurs quite naturally in Aristophanes;[135] nor was it thought
disreputable for men to engage in these _liaisons_. Disgrace only
attached to the free youth who gained a living by prostitution; and he
was liable, as we shall see, at law to loss of civil rights.

Public brothels for males were kept in Athens, from which the state
derived a portion of its revenues. It was in one of these bad places
that Socrates first saw Phaedo.[136] This unfortunate youth was a native
of Elis. Taken prisoner in war, he was sold in the public market to a
slave-dealer, who then acquired the right by Attic law to prostitute his
person and engross his earnings for his own pocket. A friend of
Socrates, perhaps Ceb