Symp.). Nor does Plato feel any repugnance, such
as would be felt in modern times, at bringing his great master and hero
into connexion with nameless crimes. He is contented with 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.
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