Tutors to Keep the Lovers Away
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Pausanias — καὶ οἱ θεοὶ καὶ οἱ ἄνθρωποι πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν πεποιήκασι τῷ ἐρῶντι, ὡς ὁ νόμος φησὶν ὁ ἐνθάδε— ταύτῃ μὲν οὖν οἰηθείη ἄν τις πάγκαλον νομίζεσθαι ἐν τῇδε τῇ πόλει καὶ τὸ ἐρᾶν καὶ τὸ φίλους γίγνεσθαι τοῖς ἐρασταῖς. ἐπειδὰν δὲ παιδαγωγοὺς ἐπιστήσαντες οἱ πατέρες τοῖς ἐρωμένοις μὴ ἐῶσι διαλέγεσθαι τοῖς ἐρασταῖς, καὶ τῷ παιδαγωγῷ ταῦτα προστεταγμένα ᾖ, ἡλικιῶται δὲ καὶ ἑταῖροι ὀνειδίζωσιν ἐάν τι ὁρῶσιν τοιοῦτον γιγνόμενον, καὶ τοὺς ὀνειδίζοντας αὖ οἱ
And both the gods and men have granted the lover complete license, as the law here declares— so, on this basis, one might suppose that in this city both loving and becoming a lover's friend are held to be entirely admirable. But when fathers set tutors over their beloved boys and forbid them to talk with their lovers, and the tutor is under strict orders to that effect, and age-mates and companions taunt the boy if they see anything of the sort going on— and those who taunt him, in turn, the—
Continuing directly from 183b's close (“So—”), Pausanias states his conclusion outright: gods and men alike have given the lover complete license, so on this evidence alone one would suppose that loving — and being befriended by a lover — is considered entirely admirable in this city. He immediately complicates it: fathers assign tutors specifically to keep lovers away from their sons, a boy's own age-mates taunt him if they catch him talking with one, and no elder steps in to stop the taunting. The unit ends mid-sentence, continuing into 183d.
The word behind “tutors” is paidagōgoi, and English has borrowed the word while quietly changing what it means. A paidagōgos did not teach; he was a slave assigned to a free boy, walking him to the schoolroom and the gymnasium, carrying his satchel, and reporting or blocking whatever he judged his master's son should not be doing. “Pedagogue” now names a teacher; the Greek word names a custodian, and here it names a custodian with one specific job — keeping this particular boy away from lovers. Pausanias's own case rests on a much grander claim, that Athenian custom regards love between men and boys as an unqualified good; the institution he mentions in the next breath was built, deliberately, to prevent it from happening.
Notice too how Pausanias argues: he states his conclusion first — gods and men have given the lover complete license, so loving must be considered wholly admirable here — and only then supplies the evidence, which cuts the other way. Fathers hire watchers to stop the very thing he has just called honored; a boy's peers jeer at him if they catch him talking with a suitor; and no older man intervenes to stop the jeering. This is the shape of a case built for its verdict rather than from the facts, the same procedure Socrates will spend the Phaedrus testing in Lysias's speech on the non-lover — a claim asserted with confidence before it has earned the right to be believed.
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