Athenaeus, The Learned Banqueters (Deipnosophistae) 602d · 602d
Tyrants and wrestling schools
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Myrtilus — ἐν βʹ περὶ Τελετῶν, ἑκὼν αὑτὸν ἐπέδωκεν [ ὁ Κρατῖνος ] ὑπὲρ τῆς θρεψαμένης· ᾧ καὶ ἐπαπέθανεν ὁ ἐραστὴς Ἀριστόδημος, λύσιν τ’ ἔλαβε τὸ δεινόν. διὰ τοὺς τοιούτους οὖν ἔρωτας οἱ τύραννοι ( πολέμιοι γὰρ αὐτοῖς αὗται αἱ φιλίαι) τὸ παράπαν ἐκώλυον τοὺς παιδικοὺς ἔρωτας, πανταχόθεν αὐτοὺς ἐκκόπτοντες. εἰσὶ δὲ οἳ καὶ τὰς παλαίστρας ὥσπερ ἀντιτειχίσματα ταῖς ἰδίαις ἀκροπόλεσιν ἐνεπίμπρασάν τε καὶ κατέσκαψαν· ὡς ἐποίησε Πολυκράτης ὁ Σαμίων τύραννος. παρὰ δὲ Σπαρτιάταις, ὡς Ἅγνων φησὶν ὁ
…in the second book of On Rites, Cratinus willingly gave himself up for the land that reared him; and his lover Aristodemus died after him, and the horror came to an end. So because of loves like these the tyrants, to whom such friendships were hostile, banned the love of boys altogether and rooted it out everywhere. Some even burned and razed the wrestling schools, as if they were counter-forts against their own citadels, as Polycrates the tyrant of Samos did. Among the Spartans, as Agnon the…
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Cratinus offers himself as the victim. Then Myrtilus explains why tyrants hated such friendships, and names Polycrates, tyrant of Samos in the later 6th century BC.
A note on this passage
Cratinus dies for Athens, and his lover dies after him. Myrtilus draws the moral that tyrants drew: friendships like that are dangerous to a man who rules by fear.<br><br>Plato had already put this into the mouth of Pausanias in the <i>Symposium</i>: where tyrants rule, the love of boys is called shameful, because rulers do not want strong friendships among their subjects, and Athens learned this from Harmodius and Aristogeiton (182b–c). The wrestling school was where men met boys, so a tyrant who feared lovers had reason to burn it.
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