By _paiderastia_ a man propagated his virtues, as it were, in the youth he loved, implanting them by the act of intercourse.
In its later Greek phases _paiderastia_ was associated less with war than with athletics; it was refined and intellectualized by poetry and philosophy.

It cannot be doubted that both AEschylus and Sophocles cultivated boy-love, while its idealized presentation in the dialogues of Plato has caused it to be almost identified with his name; thus in the early _Charmides_ we have an attractive account of the youth who gives his name to the dialogue and the emotions he excites are described.

But even in the early dialogues Plato only conditionally approved of the sexual side of _paiderastia_ and he condemned it altogether in the final _Laws_.[21] The early stages of Greek _paiderastia_ are very interestingly studied by Bethe, "Die Dorische Knabenliebe," _Rheinisches Museum fuer Philologie_, 1907.

J.A.

Symonds's essay on the later aspects of _paiderastia_, especially as reflected in Greek literature, _A Problem in Greek Ethics_, is contained in the early German edition of the present study, but (though privately printed in 1883 by the author in an edition of twelve copies and since pirated in another private edition) it has not yet been published in English.