And the Greeks had a word for it...
Παιδεραστεια (‘pederasty’, ‘fancying youths’)
was a central feature of Greek civilisation, earning it a reputation
from which it has still not fully recovered. ‘The unspeakable
vice of the Greeks’ (as E M Forster made a fictional professor
describe it in Maurice) has been the object of ridicule,
opprobrium, censorship and innuendo since we first hear of it in
Classical Greece. While many contemporary gay men think of Ancient
Greece as an idyllic time for unbridled homosexual behaviour, the
truth (as ever) is much more complex and - dare I say it? - interesting.
The study of male homosexuality in Ancient Greece only began in
the 1970s, particularly following the publication of Kenneth Dover’s
Greek Homosexuality in 1978. This book helped to strip away
many of the misconceptions about same-sex love in the Classical
world that had grown up during the nineteenth century and that were
becoming commonplace with the growth of the Gay Liberation movement
from the late 1960s. What Dover sought to demonstrate was that in
Classical Athens, there was an institutionalised form of same-sex
behaviour, whereby an older man (the ’εραστης, ‘desirer’)
is inflamed with passion for a youth (the ’ερομενος, ‘the
desired’) and eases his path into full adult life. He suggested
that this almost ritualised ‘education’ of the youth
might have deeper roots in a Primitive Indo-European initiation
rite that has left traces in other cultures.
Whilst Dover’s work remains the starting point for any exploration
of sexuality in the ancient world, the study of the history of sexuality
has moved on since his day. Sexuality is now seen as something that
is socially constructed, that has little to do with biological imperatives
and it is in this light that Greek παιδεραστεια is now interpreted.
I am unconvinced by many aspects of social constructivism, particularly
in the light of genetic and genealogical studies that are beginning
to suggest that male homosexual behaviour, at least, has a biological
component, but this is not an argument central to Calimach’s
book.
Andrew Calimach has set out to rectify what he sees as a major
omission in the way we read Greek myths: that there is “scant,
if any, mention of male love” (page 118), despite the
common perception that they are full of such stories. He points
out that many of the stories dealing with παιδεραστεια survive only
as “fragments, occasionally conflicting ones, scattered
throughout surviving ancient texts” (page 118) and accordingly
sets out to reconstruct the original forms of those stories. Using
the hints from authors as widely-spaced in time as Homer (perhaps
seventh century BCE) and Stobaeus (fifth century CE), he attempts
the difficult task of giving shape to narratives that are only alluded
to by the ancient authors, who had no need to spell out all the
details that were familiar enough to their audiences.
He focuses on nine stories (Tantalus, Pelops, Laius & Chrysippus,
Zeus & Ganymede, Heracles & Hylas, Orpheus, Apollo &
Hyacinthus, Narcissus and Achilles & Patroclus), interspersing
them with extracts from the dialogue Erotes wrongly attributed
to Lucian of Samosata. The sources for each story are detailed in
the critical notes; in the notes to the story of Zeus and Ganymede,
most of the original sources are quoted in full “to better
illustrate the process by which all the present stories were restored”
(page 134).
Some of the stories are familiar enough.
The tale of Zeus and Ganymede has inspired writers since the anonymous
seventh-century author of the so-called ‘Homeric Hymns’,
while Achilles and Patroclus are familiar from the Iliad (and it
must be mentioned that theirs is an example of something other than
παιδεραστεια, as Achilles is the younger of the two but the dominant
partner, something that gave Classical commentators a bit of a problem).
The story of Narcissus is a good example of how a story can be given
a new dimension by bringing out the homoerotic aspects. In an Afterword
to the book, Heather Peterson quotes Bernard Evslin’s version
of the story (from Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths,
Evslin 1967) in which Narcissus sees a beautiful face “like
a girl’s” and silently alters the gender of the
reflection so that he reaches out “to touch her”
(page 115). Calimach does no such thing. For him, the reflection
that startles Narcissus is of “the most gorgeous guy he
had ever seen” (page 96).
Other stories are less well known, or, at least, their homoerotic
content is generally overlooked. In the story of Tantalus, for instance,
little is usually made of how the king’s son is transformed
from a plain youth to a beautiful one after Zeus restores the sacrificed
child and is then abducted by the aroused Poseidon. The love of
Heracles (Latinised by Calimach to Hercules) for Hylas has a curious
historical parallel in the love of Hadrian for Antinous, but is
something that the musclebound hero of the television series is
unlikely to experience in front of a teenage male audience.
The stories are given a new twist through Calimach’s reconstructive
approach, which not only pieces together the surviving fragments
but also amplifies them with details not in the originals. In some
ways, it reminds me of Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare:
the outline of the story is there in the original, but many of the
details that we often feel we deserve are missing, so the author
adds them. It is probably important to do this today, in a society
where the Greek myths are no longer widely known, and where education
and television often aim to show how people in the past were “just
like us” whilst glossing over the essential strangeness of
other cultures.
The decision to include passages from pseudo-Lucian of Samosata’s
Erotes almost as a refrain between groups of stories was,
I think, a good one. It shows that παιδεραστεια was a contentious
issue, even in the ancient world. It brings in false arguments that
still have resonances today (animals don’t engage in homosexual
acts, youths are debauched into homosexuality, that only love for
women can endure) and highlights the ancient world’s horror
of lesbianism. Calimach points out (page 120) that the history of
lesbianism has been so well suppressed, that we are in no position
to attempt anything like the retelling of stories dealing with female
homosexuality (if any even existed). The poetry of Sappho, for instance,
was highly regarded and well known in the ancient world and it was
deliberate suppression in the Middle Ages, when Pope Gregory VII
ordered the burning of her works, that means we now possess only
fragments.
Calimach retells the stories without prurience and without shame.
He presents male love as an entirely natural part of the Greek world
and as something that gives no cause for concern, which is surely
how they were originally told. Darker elements - such as the tearing
of Orpheus limb from limb by the Thracian women - are not portrayed
as an effect of homophobia, but of sins such as jealousy. Treating
παιδεραστεια as a natural phenomenon in this way is important to
set the stories in their historical context, and Calimach does it
well.
That said, some parts of the book grate,
especially the colloquialisms that occasionally appear, especially
when set against conventional Graecisms such as “tawny-winged
son of the Thracian North Wind” (page 67). For instance,
when Dione learns that her son has been sacrificed, she is told
that “the gods had divvied up the morsels” (page
16) . It is as if Calimach cannot decide whether to be contemporary
and chatty or formal and Homeric. The numbering of lines appears
somewhat pretentious and even slightly dishonest, as if we are reading
a Loeb-style translation of genuine ancient texts. And why do we
have Hercules, rather than Heracles, when we have Zeus, not Jupiter?
These are picky little points, though. It
is a valuable exercise to restore stories that have not just been
forgotten, but actively suppressed (no Classical Greek plays on
homoerotic themes survive, although we know that they existed, such
as Aeschylus’s Myrmidons) and it helps to enrich our
understanding of Classical Greek culture. These are stories that
were familiar in the ancient world and they deserve their place
in the history of western literature and thought.
Bibliography
Evslin, B. 1967. Heroes, Gods and Monsters
of the Ancient Greek Myths. Laurel Leaf Library.
Dover, K. J. 1978. Greek Homosexuality.
London: Duckworth.
Forster, E. M. 1971. Maurice: a novel.
New York: Norton.
Keith Matthews
Keith Matthews has been Senior Archaeologist
for Chester City Council's Archaeological Service for the past thirteen
years. He also lectures at Chester College of Higher Education,
where he developed the (relatively new) Combined Honours programme
in archaeology. His research interests include the archaeology of
sexuality, the archaeology of subcultures (the subject of his PhD
thesis, about to be submitted), the Iron Age/Roman interface and
Late Antiquity.
Keith Matthews can be contacted at: kmatthews@lunet.ac.uk
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