Beauty
becomes a distinction, like genius, or noble place.
"By no people," says Winckelmann, "has beauty been so highly
esteemed as by the Greeks. The priests of a youthful Jupiter at
Aegae, of the Ismenian Apollo, and the priest who at Tanagra led
the procession of Mercury, bearing a lamb upon his shoulders,
were always youths to whom the prize of beauty had been
awarded. The citizens of Egesta erected a monument to a certain
Philip, who was not their fellow-citizen, but of Croton, for his
distinguished beauty; and the people made offerings at it. In an
ancient song, ascribed to Simonides or Epicharmus, [208] of
four wishes, the first was health, the second beauty. And as
beauty was so longed for and prized by the Greeks, every
beautiful person sought to become known to the whole people by
this distinction, and above all to approve himself to the artists,
because they awarded the prize; and this was for the artists an
occasion for having supreme beauty ever before their eyes.
Beauty even gave a right to fame; and we find in Greek histories
the most beautiful people distinguished. Some were famous for
the beauty of one single part of their form; as Demetrius
Phalereus, for his beautiful eyebrows, was called Charito-
blepharos. It seems even to have been thought that the
procreation of beautiful children might be promoted by prizes.
This is shown by the existence of contests for beauty, which in
ancient times were established by Cypselus, King of Arcadia, by
the river Alpheus; and, at the feast of Apollo of Philae, a prize
was offered to the youths for the deftest kiss.
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