LACEDÆMONIAN MARRIAGES. the cause of courtesans," as Lycophron the Chalcidian relates in his treatise on Comedy. And accordingly we, who are now about to set out a discussion on amatory matters, (for there was a good deal of conversation about married women and about courtesans,) saying what we have to say to people who understand the subject, invoking the Muse Erato to be so good as to impress anew on our memory that amatory catalogue, will make our commencement from this point—
Come now, O Erato, and tell me truly
what it was that was said by the different guests about love and about amatory matters.
2. For our admirable host, praising the married women, said that Hermippus stated in his book about lawgivers, that at Lacedæmon all the damsels used to be shut up in a dark room, while a number of unmarried young men were shut up with them; and whichever girl each of the young men caught hold of he led away as his wife, without a dowry. On which account they punished Lysander, because he left his former wife, and wished to marry another who was by far more beautiful. But Clearchus the Solensian, in his treatise on Proverbs, says,—"In Lacedæmon the women, on a certain festival, drag the unmarried men to an altar, and then buffet them; in order that, for the purpose of avoiding the insult of such treatment, they may become more affectionate, and in due season may turn their thoughts to marriage. But at Athens, Cecrops was the first person who married a man to one wife only, when before his time connexions had taken place at random, and men had had their wives in common. On which account it was, as some people state, that Cecrops was called [Greek: diphyês],[1] because before his time people did not know who their fathers were, by reason of the numbers of men who might have been so."
And beginning in this manner, one might fairly blame those who attributed to Socrates two wives, Xanthippe and Myrto, the daughter of Aristides; not of that Aristides who was surnamed the Just, (for the time does not agree,) but of his descendant in the third generation. And the men who made this statement are Callisthenes, and Demetrius Phalereus, and Satyrus the Peripatetic, and Aristoxenus; who were preceded in it by Aristotle, who relates the same story in hismeaning, "of double nature."]
- ↑ [Greek: diphyês
