The country on which our cultural heritage is built, Greece, was itself founded on an educational and philosophical platform that saw one generation being shown the way by a slightly older generation, men teachers and boy learners, of lovers and their beloveds, who formed a bond as inextricable as copper and tin melding into bronze, a fusion so flawless that no lover, no beloved, would ever contemplate disloyalty, from whence, at its finest, comes the true story of a captive soldier who, about to be put to death, made the final request that he be pierced through the chest and not the back, knowing that his beloved would search for him and assure his burial, and fearful only that the boy turn his head in shame should the sword wound be from behind, as though his lover had been fleeing. These were warriors, men and boys who defended Greece from barbarism, and through them laid the foundation for the freedom that is ours today. These are our heroes, those who gave their lives to the last man at the Thermopylae, those who defended their country until not one was left standing, as did the Sacred Band, those who formed the greatest fighting force the world has known to this day, the Spartans. They are the eternal lights that continue to show us the way: Pericles, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Leonidas, Alexander, Harmodius, themselves inspired by men of more ethereal times, Patroclus and Achilles, Orestes and Pylades, Apollo and Hyacinth, Orpheus and Hylus. These Immortals will span the first part of this book and remind us that the one factor they all shared, all of them, was the will to educate and give direction to the boys who would share their existence and their star-filled nights. My story covers rougher ground with the Romans, men often set on destroying and demeaning the boys they should have defended to the end. Caesar alone was responsible for 1,200,000 killed, youths who certainly had their whole lives before them, and Sulla, while lecturing the nobility from the heights above the Circus Maximus, allowed the death of 9,000 lads, below, screaming for pity while their throats were slit or their chests run through with a sword. Rome, the home of an emperor who married one of his male slaves, another who stood stark naked at the door of his palace, taking on all comers. Yet there were nonetheless countless untold stories of simpler, more earthly encounters, of first kisses and sighs, first vows and first bliss, of candle-lit meals between lovers, reflected in the eyes of he who literally takes your breath away, and the greatest happiness of all, returning home to a warm boy warming an open bed, a lad awaiting you, anonymous to the world, but the entire world to you. This, too, the Romans certainly knew-for this is eternal.