Historical Homosexuality: Ancient Greece
Friday 18th April 2008
As modern homosexuals, it’s likely that your thoughts are focused mainly on the present and the future. Certainly the gay rights movement is concerned far more with how things can be made better tomorrow than how it was yesterday.
An ancient Greek vase, now in the Louvre, shows an older man kissing his adolescent companion.
As the old saying goes, however, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. In the spirit of celebrating the rich and varied history of homosexuality and the impressive contributions made by gay men and women throughout history, Pinke will feature a series of articles on homosexuality throughout history.
Homosexuality has been around as long as humans. While anything before written history is just speculation, it’d be hard to imagine that no human until a few thousand years ago has ever had an interest in members of their own sex. Surveys have shown that a certain percentage of the world population is gay, and that’s more than likely the way it’s always been.
Since we can’t travel back in time to spy on Grok the Neanderthal and his boyfriend Rog, we’re going to focus on the first period of time of which we have knowledge of a culture’s ideas on homosexuality. We’ll start our historic journey in Ancient Greece, where we’ll focus on male same-sex relationships today.
Although our series deals with the history of homosexuality, it’s worth noting that the term “homosexuality” as we use it today is not particularly applicable to Ancient Greek culture. For one thing, we would consider most Ancient Greeks bisexual. For another, homosexual acts between two males were almost always between an older man and a young boy.
Homosexuality between two adult males was not unheard of, but the vast majority of homosexual relationships were between an older mentor and his prodigy. While these acts are rightly considered horrendous today, it was the norm at the time.
The Greeks considered sex between an older “mentor” known as the erastes, or lover, and an adolescent boy called the eromenos,or beloved. This was so common as to be seen as a social duty in some places, although even then there was a significant contingent of people against this behavior.
Greek mythology is full of tales of this kind of relationship. Zeus, in the form of an eagle, descended to earth to steal the world’s most beautiful boy, Ganymede, as his partner and took him to Mount Olympus. Apollo and Hyakinthos has a passionate, but ultimately star-crossed, relationship.
But if a man conducted relationships with boys exclusively, he would be considered odd. Greek men were expected to marry and raise children in addition to making themselves available for relationships with younger men. Men that found both women and adolescent men attractive were considered the norm. And in a change from today, it was adolescent men who were considered “the fairer sex” rather than women. Teenage boys were the ideal of beauty.
The relationship between a young man and his older lover was considered not just a sexual bond, but an intellectual one as well. Homosexual love between a man and youth was seen as the ideal way to develop the virtues of kalos k’agathos, or beautiful and good. Kalos k’agathos was the idea that the body’s physical beauty and the goodness of the soul were the essence of male perfection. A homosexual relationship was supposed to help both partners progress towards this perfection.
While these relationships were supposed to be pure and innocent, even then there were disturbing exceptions. There’s a good reason that relationships between men and adolescents are frowned upon today. Quite a few men apparently treated the relationships as little more than sexual. This was the darker side of Greek homosexuality.
When the Romans colonized Greece, they conducted a wholesale theft of Greek culture. They made minor changes and Greek culture became Roman culture. While the most obvious example is Roman religion (Zeus became Juno, Heracles became Hercules, etc.) they also seemed to have an attitude towards homosexuality that was similar to the ancient Greeks. In that way, Greece’s beliefs on homosexuality lived on after the culture itself essentially died out.
This article has focused on male homosexuality in ancient Greek culture. However, most people are probably aware that female homosexuality also considers Greece it’s spiritual home. Join us next week as we continue to delve into the history of homosexuality with a history of lesbianism in ancient Greece.
An ancient Greek vase, now in the Louvre, shows an older man kissing his adolescent companion.
As the old saying goes, however, those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. In the spirit of celebrating the rich and varied history of homosexuality and the impressive contributions made by gay men and women throughout history, Pinke will feature a series of articles on homosexuality throughout history.
Homosexuality has been around as long as humans. While anything before written history is just speculation, it’d be hard to imagine that no human until a few thousand years ago has ever had an interest in members of their own sex. Surveys have shown that a certain percentage of the world population is gay, and that’s more than likely the way it’s always been.
Since we can’t travel back in time to spy on Grok the Neanderthal and his boyfriend Rog, we’re going to focus on the first period of time of which we have knowledge of a culture’s ideas on homosexuality. We’ll start our historic journey in Ancient Greece, where we’ll focus on male same-sex relationships today.
Although our series deals with the history of homosexuality, it’s worth noting that the term “homosexuality” as we use it today is not particularly applicable to Ancient Greek culture. For one thing, we would consider most Ancient Greeks bisexual. For another, homosexual acts between two males were almost always between an older man and a young boy.
Homosexuality between two adult males was not unheard of, but the vast majority of homosexual relationships were between an older mentor and his prodigy. While these acts are rightly considered horrendous today, it was the norm at the time.
The Greeks considered sex between an older “mentor” known as the erastes, or lover, and an adolescent boy called the eromenos,or beloved. This was so common as to be seen as a social duty in some places, although even then there was a significant contingent of people against this behavior.
Greek mythology is full of tales of this kind of relationship. Zeus, in the form of an eagle, descended to earth to steal the world’s most beautiful boy, Ganymede, as his partner and took him to Mount Olympus. Apollo and Hyakinthos has a passionate, but ultimately star-crossed, relationship.
But if a man conducted relationships with boys exclusively, he would be considered odd. Greek men were expected to marry and raise children in addition to making themselves available for relationships with younger men. Men that found both women and adolescent men attractive were considered the norm. And in a change from today, it was adolescent men who were considered “the fairer sex” rather than women. Teenage boys were the ideal of beauty.
The relationship between a young man and his older lover was considered not just a sexual bond, but an intellectual one as well. Homosexual love between a man and youth was seen as the ideal way to develop the virtues of kalos k’agathos, or beautiful and good. Kalos k’agathos was the idea that the body’s physical beauty and the goodness of the soul were the essence of male perfection. A homosexual relationship was supposed to help both partners progress towards this perfection.
While these relationships were supposed to be pure and innocent, even then there were disturbing exceptions. There’s a good reason that relationships between men and adolescents are frowned upon today. Quite a few men apparently treated the relationships as little more than sexual. This was the darker side of Greek homosexuality.
When the Romans colonized Greece, they conducted a wholesale theft of Greek culture. They made minor changes and Greek culture became Roman culture. While the most obvious example is Roman religion (Zeus became Juno, Heracles became Hercules, etc.) they also seemed to have an attitude towards homosexuality that was similar to the ancient Greeks. In that way, Greece’s beliefs on homosexuality lived on after the culture itself essentially died out.
This article has focused on male homosexuality in ancient Greek culture. However, most people are probably aware that female homosexuality also considers Greece it’s spiritual home. Join us next week as we continue to delve into the history of homosexuality with a history of lesbianism in ancient Greece.
