Note 148 — Women in Greek Poetry (continued 2)

Antimachus already seems to have been inclined to ridicule the story of Heracles and Hylas. (Vide Fr. 8.) Plato and “Platonic” love are, of course, stock subjects throughout the Middle Comedy. (Vide e.g. Amphis, Dithyramb. Fr. 2; Meineke, Com. Fr. iii. p. 307.) The nature of this general attack on the philosophers must not be misunderstood. It is an error to suppose that the more old-fashioned among the Athenians disapproved, in the first instance, of the philosophers because they were paederasts; it would be truer to say that they turned against paederasty because it was so intimately associated with philosophy.