40
Often in the course of the torchlight ceremonies and the gambols of the mysteries his thigh was bared purposely and showed golden. No doubt gilded leather had been put about it, which gleamed in the light of the cressets. There was once a discussion between two of our learned idiots in regard to him, whether he had the soul of Pythagoras, on account of the golden thigh, or some other soul akin to it.As Pythagoras had a golden thigh (Plutarch, Numa, 65; Aelian, Var. Hist., 2, 26), a believer in metempsychosis might think that Alexander was a reincarnation of Pythagoras, They referred this question to Alexander himself, and King Glycon resolved their doubt with an oracle: Nay, Pythagoras’ soul now waneth and other times waxeth; His, with prophecy gifted, from God’s mind taketh its issue,; Sent by the Father to aid good men in the stress of the conflict; Then it to God will return, by God’s own thunderbolt smitten.
41
Although he cautioned all to abstain from intercourse with boys on the ground that it was impious, for his own part this pattern of propriety made a clever arrangement. He commanded the cities in Pontus and Paphlagonia to send choir-boys for three years’ service, to sing hymns to the god in his household; they were required to examine, select, and send the noblest, youngest, and most handsome. These he kept under ward and treated like bought slaves, sleeping with them and affronting them in every way. He made it a rule, too, not to greet anyone over eighteen years with his lips, or to embrace and kiss him; he kissed only the young, extending his hand to the others to be kissed by them. They were called “those within the kiss.”
