Homosexuality in ancient Greece

It is unclear how such relations between same-sex partners were regarded in the general society, especially for women, but examples do exist as far back as the time of Sappho.

[9][better source needed] The roots of Greek pederasty lie in the tribal past of Greece, before the rise of the city-state as a unit of political organization.

To love a boy below the age of twelve was considered inappropriate, but no evidence exists of any legal penalties attached to this sort of practice.

[18] The ancient Greeks, in the context of the pederastic city-states, were the first to describe, study, systematize, and establish pederasty as a social and educational institution.

The Sacred Band of Thebes, a separate military unit made up of pairs of male lovers, is usually considered the prime example of how the ancient Greeks used love between soldiers in a troop to boost their fighting spirit.

For men of the same tribe little value one another when dangers press; but a band cemented by friendship grounded upon love is never to be broken.These bonds, reflected in episodes from Greek mythology, such as the heroic relationship between Achilles and Patroclus in the Iliad, were thought to boost morale as well as bravery due to the desire to impress and protect their lover.

Such relationships were documented by many Greek historians and in philosophical discourses, as Plutarch demonstrates:[21] It is not only the most warlike peoples, the Boeotians, Spartans, and Cretans, who are the most susceptible to this kind of love but also the greatest heroes of old: Meleager, Achilles, Aristomenes, Cimon, and Epaminondas.During the Lelantine War between the Eretrians and the Chalcidians, before a decisive battle the Chalcidians called for the aid of a warrior named Cleomachus (glorious warrior).

[citation needed] According to the opinion of the classicist Kenneth Dover who published Greek Homosexuality in 1978, given the importance in Greek society of cultivating the masculinity of the adult male and the perceived feminizing effect of being the passive partner, relations between adult men of comparable social status were considered highly problematic, and usually associated with social stigma.

According to Dover and his supporters, Greek males who engaged in passive anal sex after reaching the age of manhood—at which point they were expected to take the reverse role in pederastic relationships and become the active and dominant member—thereby were feminized or "made a woman" of themselves.

More recent work published by James Davidson and Hubbard have challenged this model, arguing that it is reductionist and have provided evidence to the contrary.

[24] The legislator Philolaus of Corinth, lover of the stadion race winner Diocles of Corinth at the Ancient Olympic Games of 728 BC,[25] crafted laws for the Thebans in the 8th century BC that gave special support to male unions, contributing to the development of Theban pederasty in which, unlike other places in ancient Greece, it favored the continuity of the union of male couples even after the younger man reached adulthood, the most famous example being the Sacred Band of Thebes, composed of elite soldiers in pairs of male lovers in the 4th century BC, as was also the case with him and Diocles, who lived together in Thebes until the end of their lives.

[26] The romance between Pausanias and Agathon in Athens, made famous by their appearance in Plato's Symposium, also continued from the pederastic phase into adulthood as a stable and long-lasting relationship.

This led to a disagreement about which to perceive as erastes and which eromenos among elites such as Aeschylus and Pausanias [citation needed], since Homeric tradition made Patroclus out to be older but Achilles stronger.

[27] Theseus and Pirithous are another famous pair of close adult male best friends of the same age whose strong bond has homoerotic connotations according to some ancient authors.

The dialogue Erotes ("Affairs of the Heart"), attributed to Lucian, compares the merits and advantages of heteroeroticism and homoeroticism, and Orestes and Pylades are presented as the principal representatives of a loving friendship.

In 1734, George Frederic Handel's opera Oreste (based on Giangualberto Barlocci's Roman libretto of 1723), was premiered in London's Covent Garden.

The fame of Lucian's works in the 18th century, as well as the generally well-known tradition of Greco-Roman heroic homoeroticism, made it natural for theatre audiences of that period to have recognized an intense, romantic, if not positively homoerotic quality, to the relationship between Orestes and Pylades.

Alexander died soon after receiving this letter; Mary Renault suggests that his grief over Hephaestion's death had led him to be careless with his health.

During the year 610 B.C., a group of teenage girls was documented singing classic hymns about their Gods and Goddesses, as well as ties to them, while involved in ploughing rituals in a mountain range.

[8] After a long hiatus marked by censorship of homosexual themes,[38] modern historians picked up the threads, starting with Erich Bethe in 1907 and continuing with K. J. Dover and many others.

These scholars have shown that same-sex relations were openly practised, largely with official sanction, in many areas of life from the 7th century BC until the Roman era.

One such scholar is Bruce Thornton, who argues that insults directed at pederastic males in the comedies of Aristophanes show the common people's dislike for the practice.

[39] Other scholars, such as Victoria Wohl [de], emphasize that in Athens, same-sex desire was part of the "sexual ideology of the democracy", shared by the elite and the demos, as exemplified by the tyrant-slayers, Harmodius and Aristogeiton.

[39] Considerable controversy has engaged the scholarly world concerning the nature of same-sex relationships among the ancient Greeks described by Thomas Hubbard in the Introduction to Homosexuality in Greece and Rome, A Source Book of Basic Documents, 2007, p. 2: "The field of Gay Studies has, virtually since its inception, been divided between 'essentialists' those who believe in an archetypical pattern of same gender attraction that is universal, transhistorical, and transcultural, and "social constructionists", those who hold that patterns of sexual preference manifest themselves with different significance in different societies and that no essential identity exists between practitioners of same-gender love in, for instance, ancient Greece and post industrial Western society.

Hubbard states that "Close examination of a range of ancient texts suggests, however, that some forms of sexual preference were, in fact, considered a distinguishing characteristic of individuals.