Greek Homosexuality
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Greek Homosexuality is a scholarly work by K.J. Dover, published in 1978 and discussing the practices and attitudes of the ancient Greeks toward homosexuality, based on archaic and classical archaelogical and literary sources. It has three major subsections on the evidence of vase paintings, speeches in the law courts, and the comedies of Aristophanes together with smaller sections based on other ancient Greek literary and philosophical writings.
The conclusions drawn are that while the Greeks regarded homosexuality in general to be natural, normal and salutary, their actual practices were circumscribed by cultural norms. In the case of the ancient Greeks - specifically the Athenians - the sexual roles of the lovers were sharply polarized.
For example the author concludes that the Greeks conceived of same-sex relations primarily as boy love. The Greeks even had certain words that indicated the roles of the two male lovers, erastes, "the lover," that is, the older active partner, and eromenos, "the beloved", indicating the younger, passive partner. The evidence of surviving vase painting depicting these type of sexual acts almost exclusively show a youthful adolescent or preadolescent male beloved being fondled or penetrated by an older bearded male lover (interfemoral intercourse is most frequently depicted). It was expected that the young beloved, when he reached the age of manhood - indicated by his growth of a beard - would switch roles and become a lover himself, seeking out a younger male for a love relationship. At the same time he was expected to marry and produce new citizens for the state.
To fail to switch roles was considered unmanly and irresponsible, and Dover points out the mockery that Aristophanes (a very popular and successful Athenian comic playwright) inflicted in passing, in several plays, on a certain Athenian citizen who was notorious for his persistence in the role of beloved long after reaching his maturity.
With regard to the record of cases in the law courts, Dover concentrates primarily on a certain case initiated by the orator Demosthenes. Demosthenes had been in an embassy sent to the neighboring state of Macedonia which had not only failed to achieve its mission, but was widely suspected of having accepted bribes from king Phillip to abandon their mission. Upon the return to Athens, Demosthenes initiated a prosecution of his fellow ambassadors for bribery in an attempt to avoid being indicted himself. The defendants successfully had the charges dismissed on the grounds that that one of Demosthenes' co-plaintiffs, Timarchos, had been a boy prostitute and had thereby lost his rights as an Athenian citizen, becoming ineligible to bring suit in Athenian courts.
Dover extensively quotes from the records of the trial to demonstrate, among other things, that while the Athenians attached no stigma to same sex relations per se, they did adhere to certain conventions; in this case, that no citizen could be permitted to sell his sexual favors, which they regarded as the proper function of a slave, not a free man.
Dover has been criticized by subsequent scholars for having restricted himself to early texts, and thus discounted significat sources such as Plutarch, Lucian and Athenaeus. His view of pederasty has been described as "myopic" and "verging on homophobia," as it privileges a discourse of penetration over one of pedagogy and affection. William Armstrong Percy III, "Reconsiderations about Greek Homosexualities," in Same–Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West, Binghamton, 2005; pp48, 56J. Davidson, "Dover, Foucault and Greek Homosexuality: Penetration and the Truth of Sex," in Past and Present, 170 pp3-51
Notes
References
- Greek Homosexuality, by Kenneth J. Dover; New York; Vintage Books, 1978. ISBN 0394742249
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