Other songs celebrated the praise of wine, the joys of love, the happiness of friendship; there were also special drinking songs, some composed by very great poets, such as Alcaeus, Sappho, Anacreon, Simonides, Pindar, who composed them in various metres. A vase painting shows us a reveller lying on a couch with a wreath on his head, holding a lyre in his hand, and singing, while raising his head as though inspired; the words written underneath by the vase painter show us that he is singing an ode by Theognis in praise of a beautiful boy. Here, too, changes in taste took place in the course of time; many of the old songs were regarded as old-fashioned, even in the time of Aristophanes, and he who when his turn came sang a song by Simonides, instead of some grand air from Euripides, was regarded as quite behind the times. Very commonly flute or harp girls were present at the symposium, and entertained the guests by playing and singing, and probably also by dancing. These girls were either specially invited and paid by the host for the evening, or else entered of their own accord a house where they imagined there was a merry company, or they were sometimes introduced by guests who came late in the evening. Thus, in Plato’s Symposium we find a flute girl present at the beginning; she accompanies the introductory libation with her playing, but one of the guests suggests that they should send her away, and let her either play to herself or to the women in their own apartments, since men preferred to entertain each other by sensible conversation. But Plato was almost alone in this opinion, which he expresses far more strongly in another place, saying that educated men did not require flute or harp girls or dancers, or any such foolish entertainment while drinking. Most people regarded these playing girls as equally indispensable at the symposium with the entertainments and wreaths, and accordingly in Plato’s banquet, towards the end of the evening, Alcibiades, coming from another drinking party, already in a state of intoxication, is supported by a flute girl who accompanies him. On the vase pictures these girls are seldom wanting; and these pictorial representations, as well as other allusions to the symposia, show that the presence of these girls was not due only to a desire for music. The flute and harp girls were almost always hetaerae, and liberties of various kinds were taken with them; for instance, a guest might be ordered to carry the flute girl several times round the room, or she might be put up for auction, and handed over to the highest bidder as his property for the evening; and in consequence of the presence of these girls the drinking parties often became veritable orgies, in which Eros was honoured no less than Dionysus. The vase painters sometimes give us a picture almost too truthful, though this degeneracy of custom seems to have increased rather than diminished in later times. [Illustration: FIG. 99.]