Just as was the case with the cult of Venus in that country, so the “love of boys” assumed quite a different form in Greece. As _Paedophilia_ (Affection for boys) it took rank as one of the means of education, being consecrate to the heavenly Eros, while Paederastia (Carnal love of boys) fell to the province of the common Eros. Down to quite modern times Paedophilia has been confounded with Paederastia, and in this way a shameful stigma attached to the Greek _nation_,—a stigma that _Meier_, following the initiative of _Jacobs_ and _K. O. Müller_ (loco citato), was the first to free the Greeks from. Granted, the two things approached very near each other; still _Paederastia was never approved by the Greeks_[243]. At Sparta the violation of boys was punished by loss of civil rights, exile or death[244], and it was the same at Athens, as _Meier_ (loco citato) pp. 167 sqq. has sufficiently proved. The fact that the laws relating to this offence were promulgated at Athens only after the time of _Solon_ shows that paederastia, as well as brothels, did not come into use there till about that time. True Athens in later times was quite as notorious for the prevalence there of paederastia as Corinth was for its Gay Women[245]; and Aristophanes’ Comedies show only too abundantly how much occasion he could find for scourging the “Pathics”, and how the Gymnasia and Palaestrae (Wrestling-grounds) also were responsible for a great deal of the harm done.
ἐν παιδοτρίβου δὲ καθίζοντας, τὸν μηρὸν ἔδει προβαλέσθαι τοὺς παῖδας, ὅπως τοῖς ἔξωθεν μηδὲν δείξειαν ἀπηνές. εἶτ’ αὖ πάλιν αὖθις ἀνισταμένους ξυμψῆσαι, καὶ προνοῆσαι εἴδωλον τοῖσιν ἐρασταῖσιν τῆς ἥβης μὴ καταλείπειν.
(Of old when boys sat at the trainer’s, they were bound to throw out the thigh, so as not to expose to the spectators’ gaze anything unbecoming; then again when they got up again, they had to scrape out the mark in the sand, and take care not to leave behind a model of their youthful shape,—an incitement to lovers).
Besides the Gymnasia and Palaestrae, the barber’s shops (κουρεῖα)[247], perfumers’ shops (μυροπωλεῖα)[248], Surgeries (ἰατρεῖα)[249], Money-changers’ counters (τράπεζαι)[250], bath-houses[251], and to a greater or less extent all kinds of workshops (ἐργαστήρια)[252], particularly when in situations handy to the Market, served as trysting-places of the paederasts and pathics. Here the former sought victims for their vicious desires, and the latter opportunities to sell their persons; while many of the proprietors of such places may well have acted as Procurers (προαγωγοί, μαστροποί,—Procurers, Pandars) for this purpose. The vice itself was chiefly practised in lonely, obscure parts of the town, and particularly on the Pnyx hill[253].