In such people, faults are no faults. For when this same Alcibiades stole Anytus’s gold and silver plate, Anytus was so far from prosecuting such a shameful deed—though everyone else condemned the impudence and insolence—that he wished it had been more, and much better, for his darling’s sake: he loved him dearly.

No worth stands out in such lovely people; every imperfection is hidden. “For we do not readily suspect ugliness in those whom we love most.” Hearing, sight, touch and the rest—our mind and all our senses are captivated: “A beautiful person delights every sense.”

Many men have been advanced for their looks alone, and chosen as kings, as among the Indians, Persians and Ethiopians of old. The handsomest man the country could offer was elected its sovereign lord: “Virtue is more pleasing when it comes from a beautiful body.” Many other nations have thought and acted in the same way, as Curtius observes: “For great reverence attaches to bodily majesty.” Such men have a majestic presence.

So deeply did they adore beauty that no man was thought fit to reign unless he was perfect and outstanding in every part. Agis, king of Sparta, nearly lost his throne because he married a short woman: they would not have their royal offspring deteriorate.

Who would ever have thought that Adrian IV, an English monk’s bastard—as Papirius Masson writes in his life—“destitute, abandoned by his own family, dirty and wretched,” a poor forsaken child, would ever become pope of Rome? But why did it happen? “He had a keen intellect, ready eloquence, a fine body and a cheerful, pleasant face”—as Masson goes on to say, taking it from William of Newburgh, for he ploughs with another man’s heifer.

He was wise, learned and eloquent, with a pleasant, promising expression: a fine, handsome man. In a word, he had a winning look of his own, and that won the day: it was chiefly for that that he was advanced. So “Saul was a fine and handsome person”; Maximinus was elected emperor; and so on.

Branchus was Apollo’s son by Jance, Sucron’s daughter, says Lactantius, conceived when Apollo kept King Admetus’s herds in Thessaly. Now grown to manhood, he begged his mother to tell him who his father was. The nymph refused, because Apollo had bound her by oath not to reveal it; but his persistence overcame her, and at last she sent him to his father.

When he entered Apollo’s presence, “reverently kissing the god’s cheeks,” he behaved so well and was so handsome a young man that Apollo was utterly captivated by his beauty. He could scarcely take his eyes off him, said that he was worthy of such parents, gave him a golden crown and the gift of prophecy, and finally made him a demigod.

O proud power of beauty! Beauty is a goddess whom the very gods adore, “for the gods love the beautiful.” She is “the mistress of love,” love’s forerunner, love’s lodestone, a witch, a charm, and so on. Beauty is a dowry in itself, a sufficient inheritance, a generous recommendation, a carefully written letter—as Lucian, Apuleius, Tiraqueau and others conclude.

“Beauty worthy of command”: beauty deserves a kingdom, says Abulensis, Paradox 2, chapter 110—and immortality. “More people have gained this honour and eternal life for their beauty than for all other virtues together”; and those who are beautiful “deserve to be honoured by God and men.” For this reason Jupiter carried that Idalian Ganymede into heaven; Hephaestion was dear to Alexander, and Antinous to Hadrian.

For that reason Plato calls beauty a privilege of nature, “the work of nature rejoicing,” nature’s masterpiece, a wordless commentary; Theophrastus, a silent fraud; Carneades, silent rhetoric that persuades without speech, a kingdom without a guard, because beautiful people command like so many captains; Socrates, a tyranny “that tyrannizes over tyrants themselves.” This presumably made Diogenes call handsome women queens, “because men did whatever they ordered”: men were so obedient to their commands.

They will worship, cringe, pay compliments and bow to a common girl, if she is beautiful, as though she were a noblewoman, a countess, a queen or a goddess. Those unrestrained young men of Greece erected a golden statue at Delphi, at immense expense, to preserve the memory of Phryne the courtesan for ever, as Aelian relates. She was so beautiful, Athenaeus says, that Apelles and Praxiteles made their likenesses of Venus from her.

Thus young men worship and honour beauty. Indeed, kings themselves will do it, I say, and willingly submit their sovereignty to a lovely woman. “Wine is strong, kings are strong, but a woman is strongest,” 1 Esdras 4:10, as Zerubbabel proved at length to King Darius, his princes and nobles.

Kings sit at ease and command sea and land, and so forth; everyone pays tribute to the king. But women make kings pay tribute and rule over them. When men have acquired gold and silver, they surrender it all to a beautiful woman, give themselves wholly to her, and gape and gaze at her. All men desire her more than gold, silver or any precious thing. They will leave father and mother and risk their lives for her; labour and travel to earn money and bring all their gains to women; steal, fight and plunder for their mistresses’ sake. No king is so strong that a beautiful woman is not stronger than he.

“Everyone,” he continues, “is afraid to touch the king; yet I saw him with Apame his concubine, the daughter of the famous Bartacus, sitting at the king’s right hand. She took the crown from his head, put it on her own and struck him with her left hand. Yet the king gaped and gazed at her; when she laughed, he laughed; and when she was angry, he flattered her to regain her favour.”

So beauty commands even kings themselves; indeed, whole armies and kingdoms are taken captive along with their kings. “Beauty conquers armed men; beauty takes the sword captive. Those who cannot be conquered in battle will be conquered by looks.”

And it is no small thing, says Xenophon, “and something of which all beautiful people may rightly boast, that a strong man must labour for his living if he is to have anything, a brave man must fight and risk his life for it, and a wise man must speak, display his abilities and toil; but a handsome and beautiful person does it all with ease and obtains what he desires without taking any trouble.”