my own conjecture as to
the part played by the Dorians in the development of paiderastia into a
custom.

It is enough for the present to remark that, however introduced, the
vice of boy-love, as distinguished from heroic friendship, received
religious sanction at an early period. The legend of the rape of
Ganymede was invented, according to the passage recently quoted from
Plato, by the Cretans with the express purpose of investing their
pleasures with a show of piety. This localisation of the religious
sanction of paiderastia in Crete confirms the hypothesis of Oriental
influence; for one of the notable features of Graeco Asiatic worship was
the consecration of sensuality in the Phallus cult, the _Hiero douloi_
(temple slaves, or _bayaderes_) of Aphrodite, and the eunuchs of the
Phrygian mother. Homer tells the tale of Ganymede with the utmost
simplicity. The boy was so beautiful that Zeus suffered him not to dwell
on earth, but translated him to heaven and appointed him the cupbearer
of the immortals. The sensual desire which made the king of gods and men
prefer Ganymede to Leda, Io, Danae, and all the maidens whom he loved
and left on earth, is an addition to the Homeric version of the myth. In
course of time the tale of Ganymede, according to the Cretan reading,
became the nucleus around which the paiderastic associations of the
Greek race gathered, just as that of Achilles formed the main point in
their tradition of heroic friendship. To the Romans and the modern
nations the name of Ganymede, debased to Catamitus, supplied a term of
reproach, which sufficiently indicates the nature of the love of which
he became eventually the eponym.

VI.

Resuming the results of the last four sections, we find two separate
forms of masculine passion clearly marked in early Hellas--a noble and a
base, a spiritual and a sensual. To the distinction between them the
Greek conscience was acutely sensitive; and this distinction, in theory
at least, subsisted throughout their history. They worshipped Eros, as
they worshipped Aphrodite, under the twofold titles of Ouranios
(celestial) and Pandemos (vulgar, or _volvivaga_); and, while they
regarded the one love with the highest approval, as the source of
courage and greatness of soul, they never publicly approved the other.
It is true, as will appear in the sequel of this essay, that boy-love in
its grossest form was tolerated in historic Hellas with an indulgence
which it ne