a young man of Mitylene, in the island of Lesbos, who received from Venus, as fable reports, an alabaster vase filled with an essence which had the virtue of conferring beauty. He had no sooner anointed his body with it than he became the most beautiful of men. The ladies of Mitylene fell desperately in love with him; and the celebrated Sappho threw herself from the crest of a precipice because he refused to encourage her passion.