Love Is Love: A Review of Ancient Greek Homosexuality

Figure 1: Athenian Amphora dated to 540 BC

 

There is a great deal of scholarship concerning ancient Greek culture and society.  This in part due to their prolific written and material cultural record, as well as their influence on contemporary cultures and arts.  Despite this there were aspects of Greek history and culture that were willfully ignored or reinterpreted to meet current and dominate values.  It was not until 1978 when K.J. Dover published his monumental work on Greek homosexuality that attentions slowly shifted, and the topic eventually became more acceptable to address.  Today’s blog post will provide a review of what is currently known about Greek homosexuality.

 

Before an in-depth discussion is begun, however, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of much of the current scholarship.  There has been an over emphasis on Greek elites, particularly men, in the study of homosexuality.  There is limited information and study on Greek women and their perceptions or activities in terms of their sexualities, and there is not much concerning nonelite Greek’s values or activities concerning sexuality. 

 

Much of the current scholarship has been widely influenced by the interpretations made by Dover, who studied Greek material culture and literature in reaching his conclusions.  He believed that Greek homosexuality was embedded in the fabric of Greek elite society, and it was a rite of passage that was institutionalized in many ways into the elite Greek educations.  Older men would engage in sexual relationships with adolescent males.  The adolescents would receive educations in arts, philosophy, and politics, while the adult men would secure and reaffirm their masculine identities as the dominator.  This is reaffirmed in Homer’s Iliad, wherein two Greek heroes, Achilles and Patroclus, were engaged in a mixed age sexual relationship, as well as in various vases that show an adult male engaging in sexual acts with a younger, submissive male (Figure 1).  Adult men would end their relationships with their adolescent partners when they reached adult ages, in which case the newly adult partners would engage in their own relationships with younger partners.

 

This idea was widely held for an extended period and remains steadfast among various current Greek scholars.  It is one, however, that is being reanalyzed more recently based on a review of the evidence.  First, Achilles was younger but he was the dominator of the relationship, which calls into the notion that these relationships were about power.  Additionally, there are various vases that show similarly aged males engaging in sexual relationships, or younger adolescent males being the aggressors or enjoying the sexual attentions of their older male partners. 

 

Furthermore, there is no specific written evidence within Greek records to definitively support the notion of sexual relationships being about power.  In fact, there is actually the opposite available.  The ancient Greeks believed love was love, be it with a same sex or opposite sex partner.  This is supported by one of their origins stories that claims early humans existed with multiple arms, legs, and double the internal organs of modern humans.  These humans angered the paramount god, Zeus, who split them in two, creating modern humans with two legs, two arms, and a single set of organs.  The search for a loving partner was about finding one’s original other half from when humans had multiple limbs and organs, meaning same sex relationships were acceptable and, in many ways, expected.  Additionally, the ancient Greeks never had terms or designations for homosexual or heterosexual relationships.  In fact the term homosexual did not exist until 1869 when it was coined by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert.  This means the notions of sexuality as we understand them today is a modern invention and such notions about sexuality did not exist in the past.

 

As previously noted the scholarship on female sexuality and the sexual relationships of nonelites is limited, but it is ongoing.  There is evidence that suggests that female same sex relationships did exist (based on the poetry by Sappho who wrote about her love for various women), as well as laws among various ancient Greek city states that privileged same sex relationships.  As this area of study is no longer considered taboo more and more information concerning sexuality among ancient Greeks, and other societies around the world, should become available and illuminate our understanding of love and sexual relations both in the past and today.

 

Bibliography

Cartlidge, B. (2019, February 27). LGBT History Month - Homosexuality in Ancient Greece. Retrieved from University of Liverpool Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/archaeology-classics-and-egyptology/blog/2019posts/homosexuality-in-ancient-greece/

Flynn, J. (2021, June 22). Lovers and Soldiers. Retrieved from National Endowment for the Humanities: https://www.neh.gov/article/lovers-and-soldiers

Livius. (2020, July 29). Greek Homosexuality. Retrieved from Livius.org: https://www.livius.org/articles/concept/greek-homosexuality/

No Author. (n.d.). Homosexuality. Retrieved from PBS: https://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/19a_p1.html

Percy, W. A. (2008). Reconsiderations About Greek Homosexualities. Journal of Homosexuality, 13-61.