representing him as a saint, who
has won 'the Olympian victory' over the temptations of human nature. The
fault of taste, which to us is so glaring and which was recognized
by the Greeks of a later age (Athenaeus), was not perceived by Plato
himself. We are still more surprised to find that the philosopher is
incited to take the first step in his upward progress (Symp.) by the
beauty of young men and boys, which was alone capable of inspiring the
modern feeling of romance in the Greek mind. The passion of love took
the spurious form of an enthusiasm for the ideal of beauty--a worship
as of some godlike image of an Apollo or Antinous. But the love of youth
when not depraved was a love of virtue and modesty as well as of beauty,
the one being the expression of the other; and in certain Greek states,
especially at Sparta and Thebes, the honourable attachment of a youth to
an elder man was a part of his education. The 'army of lovers and their
beloved who would be invincible if they could be united by such a tie'
(Symp.), is not a mere fiction of Plato's, but seems actually to have
existed at Thebes in the days of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, if we
may believe writers cited anonymously by Plutarch, Pelop. Vit. It is
observable that Plato never in the least degree excuses the depraved
love of the body (compare Charm.; Rep.; Laws; Symp.; and once more
Xenophon, Mem.), nor is there any Greek writer of mark who condones or
approves such connexions. But owing partly to the puzzling nature of the
subject these friendships are spoken of by Plato in a manner different
from that customary among ourselves. To most of them we should hesitate
to ascribe, any more than to the attachment of Achilles and Patroclus in
Homer, an immoral or licentious character. There were many, doubtless,
to whom the love of the fair mind was the noblest form of friendship
(Rep.), and who deemed the friendship of man with man to be higher
than the love of woman, because altogether separated from the bodily
appetites. The existence of such attachments may be reasonably
attributed to the inferiority and seclusion of woman, and the want of
a real family or social life and parental influence in Hellenic cities;
and they were encouraged by the practice of gymnastic exercises, by the
meetings of political clubs, and by the tie of military companionship.
They were also an educational institution: a young person was specially
entrusted by his parents to some elder fri