n the Dorians had settled down upon their
conquered territories, and when the passions which had shown their more
heroic aspect during a period of warfare came, in a period of idleness,
to call for methods of restraint, then the discrimination between
honourable and base forms of love, to which Plato pointed as a feature
of the Dorian institutions, took place. It is also more than merely
probable that in Crete where these institutions were the most precisely
regulated, the Dorian immigrants came into contact with Phoenician vices,
the repression of which required the adoption of a strict code.[44] In
this way paiderastia, considered as a mixed custom, partly martial,
partly luxurious, recognised by public opinion and controlled by law,
obtained among the Dorian Tribes, and spread from them throughout the
states of Hellas. Relics of numerous semi-savage habits--thefts of food,
ravishment as a prelude to marriage, and so forth--indicate in like
manner the survival among the Dorians of primitive tribal institutions.

It will be seen that the conclusion to which I have been drawn by the
foregoing consideration is that the mixed form of paiderastia, called by
me in this essay "Greek love," owed its peculiar quality, what Plato
called its intricacy of "laws and customs," to two diverse strains of
circumstances harmonised in the Greek temperament. Its military and
enthusiastic elements were derived from the primitive conditions of the
Dorians during their immigration into Southern Greece. Its refinements
of sensuality and sanctified impurity are referable to contact with
Phoenician civilisation. The specific form it assumed among the Dorians
of the historic period, equally removed from military freedom and from
Oriental luxury, can be ascribed to the operation of that organising,
moulding and assimilating spirit which we recognise as Hellenic.

The position thus stated is, unfortunately, speculative rather than
demonstrable; and in order to establish the reasonableness of the
speculation, it would be natural at this point to introduce some account
of paiderastia as it exists in various savage tribes, if their customs
could be seen to illustrate the Doric phase of Greek love. This,
however, is not the case. Study of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Tables, and of
Bastian's _Der Mensch in der Geschichte_ (vol. iii. pp. 304-323),
together with the facts collected by travellers among the North American
Indians, and the mass of curious inform