Public brothels for males were kept in Athens, from which the state derived a portion of its revenues. It was in one of these bad places that Socrates first saw Phædo.[136] This unfortunate youth was a native of Elis. Taken prisoner in war, he was sold in the public market to a slave-dealer, who then acquired the right by Attic law to prostitute his person and engross his earnings for his own pocket. A friend of Socrates, perhaps Cebes, bought him from his master, and he became one of the chief members of the Socratic circle. His name is given to the Platonic dialogue on immortality, and he lived to found what is called the Eleo-Socratic School. No reader of Plato forgets how the sage, on the eve of his death, stroked the beautiful long hair of Phædo,[137] and prophesied that he would soon have to cut it short in mourning for his teacher. Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracuse, is said to have spent his youth in brothels of this sort--by inclination, however, if the reports of his biographers be not calumnious. From what has been collected on this topic, it will be understood that boys in Athens not unfrequently caused quarrels and street-brawls, and that cases for recovery of damages or breach of contract were brought before the Attic law-courts. The Peiræus was especially noted for such scenes of violence. The oration of Lysias against Simon is a notable example of the pleadings in a cause of this description.[138] Simon, the defendant, and Lysias, the plaintiff (or some one for whom Lysias had composed the speech) were both of them attached to Theodotus, a boy from Platæa. Theodotus was living with the plaintiff; but the defendant asserted that the boy had signed an agreement to consort with him for the consideration of three hundred drachmæ, and, relying on this contract, he had attempted more than once to carry off the boy by force. Violent altercations, stone-throwings, house-breakings, and encounters of various kinds having ensued, the plaintiff brought an action for assault and battery against Simon. A modern reader is struck with the fact that he is not at all ashamed of his own relation towards Theodotus. It may be noted that the details of this action throw light upon the historic brawl at Corinth, in which a boy was killed, and which led to the foundation of Syracuse by Archias the Bacchiad.[139] XIV.