Diotima revealed to Socrates a new spiritual principle in erotic life--the principle which guides man beyond the pleasures of the senses and, through love, leads him to the divine. “The slave of his senses runs after women; but he who loves with his soul and strives to win immortality through virtue and wisdom, seeks a great and beautiful soul that he may surrender himself to it completely.” This looks innocent enough on the surface, but as it was the opinion of the Greeks that a beautiful soul was to be found only in the body of a man, the implications are clear. Dr. Beatrice M. Hinkle (_The Re-Creating of the Individual_) remarks that “The symbol of this human ideal achievement for the Greek was the psychic hermaphrodite, the blend of feminine and masculine attributes in a male form and its immortalization was attained in Greek art. The homosexuality flourished as the natural accompaniment of man’s love for himself--that is, of his own sex--was an incidental result which does not affect the real significance of the Greek achievement, nor alter the greatness of their ideal aim, the creation of the highest human values under the conception of ideal love, and the effort at its achievement in the world of reality.... The ‘great and beautiful 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.