Note 42 — Chapter II · ON PEDICATION

Valerius Maximus (IX., 12) relates of Pindar: “One day, at the Gymnasium, Pindar, leaning his head against the breast of a young lad, whom he loved above all (Suidas says his name was Theoxenes), fell asleep; no sooner had the head of the establishment seen him asleep than he ordered all the doors to be closed, for fear of the poet being awakened.” Athenaeus on his part (XIII., 81) tells us of Sophocles: “Sophocles loved boys to the same degree as Euripides loved women”; and a little farther on (ch. 82) he relates the story of a youth whom Sophocles enjoyed, but at the price of his mantle, which the rogue abstracted. Euripides, having been informed of this adventure, mocked the poet for having been thus done: “I also”, he said, “have had him, but he got nothing else out of me.” I am surprised that this passage of Athenaeus should have appeared doubtful to the celebrated Casaubon, on account of the expression “got out of me” which is quite correct and applicable. Sophocles and Euripides had both lavished their white fluids upon the little rogue; but from one of them he got besides a mantle, from the other nothing else.