out of the past

Reprints from the classics; biographies of famous homosexuals.

The following observations appeared in the Canadian paper, The Globe and Mail for February 19, 1958, in reply to one of their correspondents. The author so accurately and nicely refutes the myth of the "moral decay" of Greece that we felt that his words had a definite application in these pages.

The Fall

of

Ancient Greece

Your correspondent, E. T. Barlen. tells us that "moral decay sealed the doom of Greece" and that "even the high-minded Socrates and Plato were guilty of outrageously moral misconduct" (sic).

Presumably he is not referring to the political activity of the latter or to the general fact that Greek civilization, like the Roman, was based upon slavery, which we regard as immoral. He refers, I assume, to the sort of thing we read about in Plato's Symposium.

one

Is there any real evidence for the often-repeated assumption that Greece and Rome “fell” because the personal or sexual morals of the Greeks and Romans did not come up to Christian standards, and in particular displeased St. Paul (vide Romans I) who thought celibacy a higher state than matrimony, and like all the early fathers, expected the end of the world at an early date and put a premium on virginity?

Beliefs of this nature are surely even more negative biologically speak-

22