ek: _paiderastia_], and
adultery are the favorite motives in them, and few rise above the
mephitic atmosphere which breathes from Cephalus and Procris or other
stories of crime, like that of Philomela and Procne, which were so
popular among Greek and Roman poets, and presumably suited their
readers. With amusing naivete Eckstein pleads for these "specimens of
antique romance" on the ground that there is more lubricity in
Bandello and Boccaccio!--which is like declaring that a man who
assassinates another by simply hitting him on the head is virtuous
because there are others who make murder a fine art. I commend the
stories of Parthenius to the special attention of any one who may have
any lingering doubts as to the difference between Greek ideas of love
and modern ideals.[328]

GREEK ROMANCES

Parthenius is regarded as a connecting link of the Alexandrian school
with the Roman poets on one side, and on the other with the romances
which constitute the last phase of Greek erotic literature.[329] In
these romances too, a number of my critics professed to discover
romantic love. The reviewer of my book in _Nature_ (London) asked me
to see whether Heliodorus's account of the loves of Theagenes and
Chariclea does not come up to my standard. I am sorry to say it does
not. Jowett perhaps dismisses this story somewhat too curtly as "silly
and obscene"; but it certainly is far from being a love-story in the
modern sense of the word, though its moral tone is doubtless superior
to that of the other Greek romances. The notion that it indicates an
advance in erotic literature may no doubt be traced to the legend that
Heliodorus was a bishop, and that he introduced Christian ideas into
his romance--a theory which Professor Rohde has scuttled and sent to
the bottom of the sea.[330] The preservation of the heroine's
virginity amid incredible perils and temptations is one of the tricks
of the Greek novelists, the real object of which is made most apparent
in _Daphnis and Chloe_. The extraordinary emphasis placed on it on
every possible occasion is not only very indelicate, but it shows how
novel and remarkable such an idea was considered at the time. It was
one of the tricks of the Sophists (with whom Heliodorus must be
classed), who were in the habit of treating a moral question like a
mathematical problem. "Given a maiden's innocence, how can it be
preserved to the end of the story?" is the artificial, silly, and
vulgar leading mo