tiful soul' could only be found in the male form—women belonged to the animal sphere and could contribute only to the sensual pleasure of man."
As the women were neglected by the men, the former tended to engage in erotic practices among members of their own sex. In the island of Lesbos, the women were especially given to indulging in the love of their own sex—from which historic precedent we get the term Lesbian Love.
Sappho, the Lesbian Nightingale, who lived about 600 B. C. was the principal representative and has remained the classical oracle of this form of erotic expression. In her Ode to Venus, she sings fervently of her passions:
"Thou who rulest all, upon flowers enthroned,
Daughter of Zeus, born of foam, thou artful one,
Hark to my call.
Not in anguish and bitter suffering, O goddess,
Let me perish!—"
The Hellenic conception of beauty was quite invariably realized in the male form, with a characteristic touch of bisexuality—almost a modified hermaphroditism. The sculpture of the period, and of subsequent periods, whenever it has been influenced by the Greeks, shows this tendency. Both Apollo and Dionysus are represented with male and female attributes. The female figures approach the masculine in the cast of their features as well as in their bodily proportions.
As the growing boy comes nearest to combining the male and female lines, the blending of these in sculpture realized the ideal of classical Greek art.
