Athenian pederasty
Encyclopedia
Pederasty
Pederasty or paederasty is an intimate relationship between an adult and an adolescent boy outside his immediate family. The word pederasty derives from Greek "love of boys", a compound derived from "child, boy" and "lover".Historically, pederasty has existed as a variety of customs and...
entailed a formal bond between an adult man and an adolescent boy outside his immediate family, consisting of loving and often sexual relations. As an erotic and educational custom it was initially employed by the upper class as a means of teaching the young and conveying to them important cultural values, such as bravery and restraint.
Athenian society generally encouraged the erastes to pursue a boy to love, tolerating up to sleeping on the youth's stoop and otherwise going to great lengths to make himself noticed. At the same time, the boy and his family were expected to put up resistance and not give in too easily, and boys who succumbed too readily were looked down upon. As a result, the quest for a desirable eromenos was fiercely competitive.
History and artistic record
In Athens, as elsewhere, pederastic relationships had their beginnings among the aristocracy, but in time the practice was picked up by others sections of the population. With the advent of democracy, whose role models were the lovers and tyrant slayers Harmodius and Aristogiton, "access to gymnastic and sympotic culture widened, so the concomitant pederastic emotions and relationships may also have become more widely admired and imitated."A great deal of modern knowledge about Athenian pederastic practices has been derived from ceramic paintings on vases depicting various forms and aspects of the relationship. These vases first appear about 560, a year after the pederastic tyrant Peisistratus
Peisistratus
Peisistratos or Peisistratus or Pisistratus may refer to:*Peisistratos of Athens, tyrant at various times between 561 and 528 BC*Pisistratus the younger, r...
seized power in Athens. Their production ceased around 470 BCE, after which they either went out of fashion or were replaced with vases of precious metal which have not survived. The iconography attests to the dominant status of pederasty in Athenian social life. On the strict red-figure vases, Eros only appears in scenes that show the interaction of men and adolescent boys. Kroll reports that ceramic depictions of individuals labeled as beautiful include only thirty of women and girls, καλή, but five hundred and twenty eight of boys, καλός.
While John Boardman in his studies postulated the age of the depicted youths to range from 12 to 14, they are now believed to range in age from 14 to 18.
Practice
Gymnasium (ancient Greece)
The gymnasium in ancient Greece functioned as a training facility for competitors in public games. It was also a place for socializing and engaging in intellectual pursuits. The name comes from the Ancient Greek term gymnós meaning "naked". Athletes competed in the nude, a practice said to...
or the palaestra
Palaestra
The palaestra was the ancient Greek wrestling school. The events that did not require a lot of space, such as boxing and wrestling, were practised there...
e, at symposia
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
, at the baths
Public bathing
Public baths originated from a communal need for cleanliness. The term public may confuse some people, as some types of public baths are restricted depending on membership, gender, religious affiliation, or other reasons. As societies have changed, public baths have been replaced as private bathing...
and on the streets of the city. Fathers wanting to protect their sons from unwanted advances provided them with a slave guard, titled "pedagogos," to escort the boy in his travels.
The courtship often was fiery, involving street fights with other suitors, sleeping on the threshold of the beloved as a show of sincerity, and composing and reciting love poems. In encountering the boy, the suitor would attempt to seduce him by reaching up with one hand to turn his face to look him straight in the eye, and with the other reach down to stimulate him sexually, a variant of the standard pleading form in which one would grasp the knees of the person with one hand and turn his face with the other. This ritual has been named by historians the "up and down gesture" and is routinely encountered in depictions on vases.
The erotic and sexual aspect of the relationship, usually consisting of embracing, fondling and intercrural sex
Intercrural sex
Intercrural sex , also known as femoral/interfemoral sex/intercourse, is a type of non-penetrative sex, in which a male places his penis between his partner's thighs , and thrusts to create friction.-Heterosexuality:The sex education and sexual experimentation of adolescents may feature intercrural...
, ended when the youth reached adulthood, and evolved into a lifelong friendship (philia).
Law
A number of laws addressed the issue of relations between men and boys. None but citizens could engage free boys in pederastic relationships. A law stated that “A slave shall not be the lover of a free boy nor follow after him, or else he shall receive fifty blows of the public lash”, and slaves likewise were forbidden from the wrestling schools: “A slave shall not take exercise or anoint himself in the wrestling-schools”. Both laws were attributed to Solon. Commercial pederasty involving free boys was also forbidden. The relative who lent out a ward for illicit intercourse was punished. Boys who sold their favors (hetaireesis) risked losing most of their rights as citizens once come to adulthood. One surviving piece of Greek oratoryOratory
Oratory is a type of public speaking.Oratory may also refer to:* Oratory , a power metal band* Oratory , a place of worship* a religious order such as** Oratory of Saint Philip Neri ** Oratory of Jesus...
documents a legal case, Against Timarchos, in which Aeschines
Aeschines
Aeschines was a Greek statesman and one of the ten Attic orators.-Life:Although it is known he was born in Athens, the records regarding his parentage and early life are conflicting; but it seems probable that his parents, though poor, were respectable. Aeschines' father was Atrometus, an...
pleads to enforce precisely that law against his opponent. Hubris (rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
) was against the law not only in the case of free boys, but even with slaves.
In order to prevent teachers from taking advantage of their charges, a law was passed forbidding them from opening their schools before dawn or staying open past sunset. Likewise, there was a law threatening with death any man under forty who trespassed onto school grounds.
Cultural references
In a funeral speech ascribed to him by ThucydidesThucydides
Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...
, Pericles
Pericles
Pericles was a prominent and influential statesman, orator, and general of Athens during the city's Golden Age—specifically, the time between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars...
exhorts the Athenians to "gaze day after day on the power of the city and become her erastai," interpreted to mean that "citizen-soldiers should behave towards Athens like boyfriends, erastai: i.e. love the city without calculation, more than life itself.
Athenian pederasty is a major theme in the historical novel The Last of the Wine
The Last of the Wine
The Last of the Wine is Mary Renault's first novel set in Ancient Greece, the setting that would become her most important arena. The novel was published in 1956 and is the second of her works to feature male homosexuality as a major theme...
by Mary Renault
Mary Renault
Mary Renault born Eileen Mary Challans, was an English writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece...
.
See also
- History of AthensHistory of AthensAthens is one of the oldest named cities in the world, having been continuously inhabited for at least 7000 years. Situated in southern Europe, Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece in the first millennium BCE and its cultural achievements during the 5th century BCE laid the foundations...
- PederastyPederastyPederasty or paederasty is an intimate relationship between an adult and an adolescent boy outside his immediate family. The word pederasty derives from Greek "love of boys", a compound derived from "child, boy" and "lover".Historically, pederasty has existed as a variety of customs and...
- Pederasty in ancient GreecePederasty in ancient GreecePederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged relationship between an adult and a younger male usually in his teens. It was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods...
- Homosexuality in ancient GreeceHomosexuality in ancient GreeceIn classical antiquity, writers such as Herodotus, Plato, Xenophon, Athenaeus and many others explored aspects of same-sex love in ancient Greece. The most widespread and socially significant form of same-sex sexual relations in ancient Greece was between adult men and pubescent or adolescent boys,...
- LGBT themes in mythologyLGBT themes in mythologyLGBT themes in mythology refers to mythologies and religious narratives that include stories of romantic affection or sexuality between figures of the same sex or feature divine actions that result in changes in gender...
- The Last of the WineThe Last of the WineThe Last of the Wine is Mary Renault's first novel set in Ancient Greece, the setting that would become her most important arena. The novel was published in 1956 and is the second of her works to feature male homosexuality as a major theme...