That "homosexual" Achilles

[Paralus]

There is a case to be made, with Xenophon, that “methinks he protests too much”. In purely practical terms it beggars belief that buggery was not practised in Sparta. Whilst that might be baldly put, it remains a fact that the “Lycurgan” agoge actively fostered such relationships. As Paul Bardunias has noted, sexual liaisons were to be expected.

“methinks he protests too much”, implies that he wants to hide the sex from his audience which makes no sense given his audience was accepting of such relationships. The important distinction that needs to be made is not whether or not sex occurred, but if it was an obligatory and expected part of the relationship.

Not that Xenophon wants to "hide" such sex from his audience; rather that he wants to keep his audience from assuming that such relationships might be seen as a socially accepted norm in Laconia. From this remove in time it is difficult to form a clear understanding of what exactly others knew of the "secretive" Laconian state. It is a fair bet that knowledge of such relationships existed - Xenophon himself describes these relationships (Agesilaos / Lysander for example).

Complicating matters is the ambivalent attitude of the Macedonian "upper class" to same sex relationships. Echoes of the agoge (though more of the Persian court) ring in Macedonian practices such as the paides basilikoi and the agema of the hypaspists.

Certainly Philip II is well attested as having little social or “moral” qualms about same sex relationships and we can readily assume he was not of that opinion on his “pat” (Malone). The whole story of Pausanias is related without any social comment until the handing over of same to the muleteers. Here it is not the act of buggery that is condemnatory but the complete lack of consent by the “out-of-it” Pausanias: the barbaric rape is unacceptable.

Peter Green (Alexander of Macedon p11)writes it up best:

Most Macedonian nobles preferred the manly pleasures of hunting, carousing, and casual fornication. Sodomy – with young boys or, at a pinch, with each other, they also much enjoyed…