reek _Anthology_, the
basis of which was laid by Meleager, a contemporary of the Roman poets
just referred to, contains a collection of short poems by many Greek
writers, in which, of course, some of my critics have discovered
romantic love. One of them wrote that "the poems of Meleager alone in
the Greek _Anthology_ would suffice to refute the notion that Greece
ignored romantic passion." If this critic will take the trouble to
read these poems of Meleager in the original he will find that a
disgustingly large number relate to [Greek: paiderastia], which in
No. III. is expressly declared to be superior to the love for women;
that most of the others relate to hetairai; and that not one of
them--or one in the whole _Anthology_--comes up to my standard of
romantic love.

[326] The best-known ancient story of "love-suicide" is that of
Pyramus and Thisbe. Pyramus, having reason to think that Thisbe, with
whom he had arranged a secret interview at the tomb of Ninus, has been
devoured by a lion, stabs himself in despair, and Thisbe, on finding
his body, plunges on to the same sword, still warm with his blood.
This tale, which is probably of Babylonian origin, is related by Ovid
(_Metamorph._, IV., 55-166), and was much admired and imitated in the
Middle Ages. Comment on it would be superfluous after what I have
written on pages 605-610.

[327] See Rohde, 130; Christ, 349.

[328] No more like stories of romantic love than these are the five
"love-stories" written in the second century after Christ by Plutarch.
This is the more remarkable as Plutarch was one of the few ancient
writers to whom at any rate the _idea_ occurred that women _might be_
able to feel and inspire a love rising above the senses. This
suggestion is what distinguishes his _Dialogue on Love_ most favorably
from Plato's _Symposium_, which it otherwise, however, resembles
strikingly in the peculiar notions regarding the relation of the
sexes; showing how tenacious the unnatural Greek ideas were in Greek
life. Plutarch's various writings show that though he had advanced
notions compared with other Greeks, he was nearly as far from
appreciating true femininity, chivalry, and romantic love as Lucian,
who also wrote a dialogue on love in the old-fashioned manner.

[329] Hirschig's _Scriptores Erotici_ begins with Parthenius and
includes Achilles Tatius, Longus, Xenophon, Heliodorus, Chariton, etc.
The right-hand column gives a literal translation into Latin.