Homosexuality in ancient Greece
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"Greece merged into Rome; but, though the Romans aped the arts and manners of the Greeks, they never truly caught the Hellenic spirit. Even Virgil only trod the court of the Gentiles of Greek culture. It was not, therefore, possible that any social custom so peculiar as paiderastia should flourish on Latin soil. Instead of Cleomenes and Epameinondas, we find at Rome, Nero, the bride of Sporus, and Commodus the public prostitute. Alcibiades is replaced by the Mark Antony of Cicero's Philippic. Corydon, with artificial notes, takes up the song of Ageanax. The melodies of Meleager are drowned in the harsh discords of Martial. Instead of love, lust was the deity of the boy-lover on the shores of Tiber." --A Problem in Greek Ethics (1883) by John Addington Symonds |
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In classical antiquity, writers such as Herodotus, Xenophon, Athenaeus and many others explored aspects of same-sex love in ancient Greece. The most widespread and socially significant form of close same-sex sexual relations in ancient Greece was between adult men and adolescent boys, known as pederasty. (It is important to note, however, that marriages in Ancient Greece between men and women were also age structured, with men in their 30s commonly taking wives in their early teens.) It is unclear how such relations between women were regarded in the general society, but examples do exist as far back as the time of Sappho.
See also
- Greek love
- Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece
- LGBT rights in Greece
- Malakos
- The Sacred Band of Stepsons