are our best
authorities for the vices which prevailed in Hellas during the
Empire;[182] the Roman law, moreover, proves that the civil governors
aided the Church in its attempt to moralise the people on this point.

XVII.

The transmutation of Hellas proper into part of the Roman Empire, and
the intrusion of Stoicism and Christianity into the sphere of Hellenic
thought and feeling, mark the end of the Greek age. It still remains,
however, to consider the relation of this passion to the character of
the race, and to determine its influence.

In the fifth section of this essay, I asserted that it is now impossible
to ascertain whether the Greeks derived paiderastia from any of the
surrounding nations, and if so, from which. Homer's silence makes it
probable that the contact of Hellenic with Phoenician traders in the
post-heroic period led to the adoption by the Greek race of a custom
which they speedily assimilated and stamped with an Hellenic character.
At the same time, I suggested in the tenth section that paiderastia, in
its more enthusiastic and martial form, may have been developed within
the very sanctuary of Greek national existence by the Dorians, matured
in the course of their migrations, and systematised after their
settlement in Crete and Sparta. That the Greeks themselves regarded
Crete as the classic ground of paiderastia favours either theory, and
suggests a fusion of them both; for the geographical position of this
island made it the meeting-place of Hellenes with the Asiatic races,
while it was also one of the earliest Dorian acquisitions.

When we come to ask why this passion struck roots so deep into the very
heart and brain of the Greek nation, we must reject the favourite
hypothesis of climate. Climate is, no doubt, powerful to a great extent
in determining the complexion of sexual morality; yet, as regards
paiderastia, we have abundant proof that nations both of North and South
have, according to circumstances quite independent of climatic
conditions, been both equally addicted and equally averse to this
habit. The Etruscan,[183] the Chinese, the ancient Keltic tribes, the
Tartar hordes of Timour Khan, the Persians under Moslem rule--races sunk
in the sloth of populous cities, as well as the nomadic children of the
Asian steppes, have all acquired a notoriety at least equal to that of
the Greeks. The only difference between these people and the Greeks in
respect to paiderastia is that e