ew them into disorder and routed them; and the
Eretrian infantry also fleeing in consequence, the Chalcidians won a
splendid victory. However, Cleomachus got killed, and they show his tomb
in the market-place at Chalcis, over which a huge pillar stands to this
day, and whereas before that the people of Chalcis had censured
boy-loves, from that time forward they preferred that kind of love to
the normal love. Aristotle gives a slightly different account, namely,
that this Cleomachus came not from Thessaly, but from Chalcis in Thrace,
to the help of the Chalcidians in Euboea; and that that was the origin
of the song in vogue among the Chalcidians,

'Ye boys, who come of noble sires and beauteous are in face,
Grudge not to give to valiant men the joy of your embrace:
For Love that does the limbs relax combined with bravery
In the Chalcidian cities has fame that ne'er shall die.'

But according to the account of the poet Dionysius, in his
'Causes,'[111] the name of the lover was Anton, and that of the boy-love
was Philistus. And among you Thebans, Pemptides, is it not usual for the
lover to give his boy-love a complete suit of armour when he is enrolled
among the men? And did not the erotic Pammenes change the disposition of
the heavy-armed infantry, censuring Homer as knowing nothing about love,
because he drew up the Achaeans in order of battle in tribes and clans,
and did not put lover and love together, that so

'Spear should be next to spear, helmet to helmet,'[112]

seeing that Love is the only invincible general.[113] For men in battle
will leave in the lurch clansmen and friends, aye, and parents and sons,
but what warrior ever broke through or charged through lover and love,
seeing that even when there is no necessity lovers frequently display
their bravery and contempt of life. As Thero the Thessalian, who put his
left hand on a wall, and drew his sword, and chopped off his thumb, and
challenged his rival to do the same. And another in battle falling on
his face, as his enemy was about to give him the _coup-de-grace_, begged
him to wait a little till he could turn round, that his love should not
see him with a wound in his back. And not only are the most warlike
nations most amorous, as the Boeotians the Lacedaemonians and the
Cretans, but also of the old heroes, who were more amorous than
Meleager, Achilles, Aristomenes, Cimon, and Epaminondas. Why,
Epaminondas had as his boy-loves Asopichus and C