Alcyone and Ceyx is the story of a wife who committed suicide on discovering the body of her husband on the sea-beach; and the story of Orpheus, who grieved so over the death of his wife Eurydice that he went to the lower world to bring her up again, but lost her again because, contrary to his agreement with Pluto and Proserpina, he looked back to see if she was following, is known to everybody.  The conjugal attachment and grief at the loss of a spouse which these two legends tell of, are things the existence of which in Greece no one has ever denied.  They are simple phenomena quite apart from the complex state of mind we call romantic love, and are shared by man with many of the lower animals.  In such attachment and grief there is no evidence of altruistic affection.  Orpheus tried to bring back Eurydice to please himself, not her, and Alcyone’s suicide was of no possible use to Ceyx.[326]

The story of Panthea and Abradates, to which Professor Ebers refers so triumphantly, is equally inconclusive as to the existence of altruistic affection.  Abradates, having been urged by his wife Panthea to show himself worthy of the friendship of Cyrus by doing valorous deeds, falls in a battle, whereat Panthea is so grieved at the result of her advice that she commits suicide.  From the modern Christian point of view this was not a rational proof of affection, but a foolish and criminal act.  But it harmonized finely with the Greek ideal—­the notion that patriotism is even a woman’s first duty, and her life not worth living except in subservience to her husband.  There is good reason to believe[327] that this story was a pure invention of Xenophon and deliberately intended to be an object lesson to women regarding the ideal they ought to live up to.  The whole of the book in which it appears—­[Greek:  Kyrou paideia]—­is what the Germans call a Tendenzroman—­a historic romance with a moral, illustrating the importance of a correct education and glorifying a certain form of government.

To a student of Greek love one of the most instructive documents is the [Greek:  erotika pathaemata] of Parthenius, who was a contemporary of the most famous Roman poets (first century before Christ), and the teacher of Virgil.  It is a collection of thirty-six short love-stories in prose, made for him by his friend Cornelius Gallus, who was in quest of subjects which he might turn into elegies.  It has been remarked that these poems are peculiarly sad, but a better word for them is coarse.  Unbridled lust, incest, [Greek:  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]