Note 53 — Chapter II · ON PEDICATION

Authors vary on this point. Herodotus: “The Persians pollute young boys; they have learned it from the Greeks,” (I., 135). Plutarch refutes the assertion: “How can the Persians be indebted to the Greeks for these impurities, when all historians are agreed upon the fact that they had eunuchs before they had ever come near to the Grecian seas?” (Of the Maliciousness of Herodotus, p. 857, vol. II of Frankfort edition of 1620). Athenaeus: “Pederastia was first introduced in Greece by the Cretans, as is related by Timaeus; other authors however have asserted that the man who first imported that sort of love was Laius, who, having been hospitably received by Pelops, fell in love with Chrysippus, the son of his host, carried him off in his chariot, and fled to Thebes.” (XIII., 79.) And who has not heard of the incontinence of the inhabitants of Sodom?”