llustrate the popular feeling of the Athenians. Timarchus is
stigmatised[148] as, "the man and male who, in spite of this, has
debauched his body by womanly acts of lust," and again as, "one who
against the law of nature has given himself to lewdness." It is obvious
here that AEschines, the self-avowed boy-lover, while seeking to crush
his opponent by flinging effeminacy and unnatural behaviour in his
teeth, assumes at the same time that honourable paiderastia implies no
such disgrace. Again, he observes that it is as easy to recognise a
pathic by his impudent behaviour as a gymnast by his muscles. Lastly, he
bids the judges force intemperate lovers to abstain from free youths,
and satisfy their lusts upon the persons of foreigners and aliens.[149]
The whole matter at this distance of time is obscure, nor can we hope to
apprehend the full force of distinctions drawn by a Greek orator
appealing to a Greek audience. We may, indeed, fairly presume that, as
is always the case with popular ethics, considerable confusion existed
in the minds of the Athenians themselves, and that, even for them, to
formulate the whole of their social feelings on this topic consistently,
would have been impossible. The main point, however, seems to be that at
Athens it was held honourable to love free boys with decency; that the
conduct of lovers between themselves, within the limits of recognised
friendship, was not challenged; and that no particular shame attached to
profligate persons so long as they refrained from tampering with the
sons of citizens.[150]

XV.

The sources from which our information has hitherto been
drawn--speeches, poems, biographies, and the dramatic parts of
dialogues--yield more real knowledge about the facts of Athenian
paiderastia than can be found in the speculations of philosophers. In
Aristotle, for instance, paiderastia is almost conspicuous by its
absence. It is true that he speculates upon the Cretan customs in the
_Politics_, mentions the prevalence of boy-love among the Kelts, and
incidentally notices the legends of Diocles and Cleomachus;[151] but he
never discusses the matter as fully as might have been expected from a
philosopher whose speculations covered the whole field of Greek
experience. The chapters on _Philia_, in the _Ethics_, might indeed have
been written by a modern moralist for modern readers, though it is
possible that in his treatment of "friendship with pleasure for its
object," an