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Spartan pederasty?
#16
Sadly, it is this warped version of ancient Greece that seems to stick in most people's minds! Usually the first comments I get from some colleagues at work when you mention Rome or ancient Greece, is ' they were homosexual weren't they?" :roll:
Visne partem mei capere? Comminus agamus! * Me semper rogo, Quid faceret Iulius Caesar? * Confidence is a good thing! Overconfidence is too much of a good thing.
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Byron Angel
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#17
Yeah, no kidding.

Quote:There's plenty of Attic black- and red-figure pottery showing eromenoi and erastai; just because it was found in Etruria doesn't make it Etruscan...

The art style is distinctively Etruscan, especially for those periods. Etruscan art was always painted 'looser', a bit like late 4th century BCE Athenian art, though the Etruscan vases I posted were made earlier.
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#18
And what about all these countless poems about boys (even Solon of Athens wrote some) and several glorifying myths like the one about Zeus and Ganymedes?
--- Marcus F. ---
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#19
Zeus and ganymedes is about the human soul and the divine though it was not always interpreted that way.
Themistoklis papadopoulos
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#20
The argument is not if paedophils existed. They did.
Perhaps they expressed themselves in art too.
The practice was not encouraged though.
Imagine if in 2000 years someone finds erotic art of our time and wonders about our attitutes.

It most porobably was as in our time.
If you had the money or you were essential to the city's defence you could get away with lots of things.

Plus if you translate Aristofanes accuratly you will get sued by minority groups for inciting hatered against them.

Kind regards
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#21
I'm a bit baffled by this thread. There are enough written and pictural sources which give clear hints that the Greek view of certain homosexual relations was different to that common in some modern cultures. Maybe Sparta was an exception, I'm not very interested in this polis and not very well informed about it, but I don't think so.

Sexual assaults against children (and others) were certainly not accepted, but relations with older boys and young men seemed not to be abnormal for a certain social class, at least in Athen, Thebes, Crete and Macedonia. So what?
Wolfgang Zeiler
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#22
Actually the opposite huppened.The only form of homosexuality that was ecceptable was between a young eromenos between 15 and 18 years old and an udult erastes.I Agree with Stefanos that the amount of homosexuals lets say in Athens was probably no more than nowadays or perhaps a bit more.It's just that it was far more accepted in their society than today.In the Symposium,most of the participants talk as if the only reason to marry a woman instead of having a lover is to have children.But still,if you think who where talking,you see that they don't represent but a small minority in Athenian society,and although they mention that some Athenians are against this practise,they don't feel the need to hide anything.Also,they mention that this is a Dorian custom and probably this is why some upper class Athenians are against it.Too much attention has ben paid on the matter,not for any other reason but because some still today are not as open minded as the Greeks 2300 years ago.
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#23
We are annoyed by the fact that it is presented by the media and books that
it was all paiderasts & homosexuals 100% nothing else.The fact that it was condemned by many Greek societies and important persons and that it wasnt a gay/paidophile party all around Greece is never mentioned for fear of not being politically correct .It was a composite situtation and it shouldnt be presented as Black or White opposites.Of course in this day and age that is impossible.
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#24
Quote:The argument is not if paedophils existed. They did.
Perhaps they expressed themselves in art too.
The practice was not encouraged though.
Imagine if in 2000 years someone finds erotic art of our time and wonders about our attitutes.

It most porobably was as in our time.
If you had the money or you were essential to the city's defence you could get away with lots of things.

Plus if you translate Aristofanes accuratly you will get sued by minority groups for inciting hatered against them.

Kind regards

This is a very good point and one that can be amplified with the idea that if they had rampant homosexuality, wouldn't they have had much smaller populations? I recall speaking with an old friend years ago about the "homosexual" attitudes in ancient Greece (She did her Master's Thesis on Alexandrian iconography in Egyptian coin, so I trusted her knwoledge and interpretation of classical Greek culture.), and she explained to me that what we, today, see in homosexuals isn't what the Greeks considered love between men. It wasn't an effiminacy or a "flaming homosexual" personality. The attitude was best explained that no woman can understand a man on the same level that another man can, that the bond between soldiers and Olympians was stronger than anything a man and woman can experience, so they developed "love affairs" that weren't really sexual in nature. They were expressions of what, I believe Homer, called "pure love".
AVETE OMNES
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PATER FAMILIAS DOMVS VRSVM
-Tom
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#25
Erastis & Eromenos (Lover and Beloved) were not of physical nature and when they were it was considered immoral most of the times.All who have read ancient texts notice the use of Erastis & Eromenos sometimes as a good thing but when physical love is involved it is of an immoral nature.From my readings i have understood that it was a composite issue and view.
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#26
Some historians believe it has a common root for Indo-Europeans as other warrior-bonds between males of different age-groups also existed among Celts and Germanic tribes:

"... The Taifali are so sunk in gross sensuality that among them boys couple with men in a union of unnatural lust, and waste the flower of their youth in the polluted embraces of their lovers. But if a young man catches a boar single-handed or kills a huge bear, he is exempt thereafter from the contamination of this lewd intercourse."
(Ammianus, xxxi:9)

http://www.seidh.org/articles/sex-status-seidh.html
--- Marcus F. ---
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#27
Of course they are entitled to their views and interpretations.
But it is a possibility that even the ancient narrators quoted, to have biased views on social phenomena. I think Plutarch was biased in some of his works.
The issue is if it was an ideal world in antiquity for these tastes but it seems as I posted before that it was like our times. If you were VIP you could get away with things just as you can now.
If we take Aristophanes (properly translated) as expressing popular feeling in his comedies then "deviands" were ridiculed and horribly abused verbally at least.
History-or at least a version of narration- can be used to promote an agenda.
The Belgian education minister comes to mind in her attempt to educate pupils in what she perceives correct using the new history text book.
Politics is not my aim here. I just try to stress that historical presentation can be used for promoting ones goals. That applies to ANY group either majority or minority.
Kind regards
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#28
You are totally right, Stefanos. This thread sometimes seems to be an example for it, too.

Is it possible that this could be a problem only in some countries? Never heard of a claim from minorities based on ancient behavior. Btw in this case it would be rather silly because the ancient view of homosexuality was quite different from that nowadays, as far as I can see.
Wolfgang Zeiler
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#29
i agree with Stefanos
Homosexuality exists and always existed imo. I believe basically in the same percentages. Just from time to time some cultures were more tolerate. I believe everybody has the right to do and be whatever he wants as long as he doesn harm somebody. But i also get the feeling that some groups instead of trying to promote their agendas with sincere means try to create stories and historical bases, or set examples by great men. If he that you admire is this or that then we become respectable too. Im afraid it doesnt work that way. Everybody has to fight to earn respect. Previous cases work only in courts of law
aka Yannis
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Molon lave
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#30
Quote:i agree with Stefanos
Homosexuality exists and always existed imo. I believe basically in the same percentages. Just from time to time some cultures were more tolerate. I believe everybody has the right to do and be whatever he wants as long as he doesn harm somebody. But i also get the feeling that some groups instead of trying to promote their agendas with sincere means try to create stories and historical bases, or set examples by great men. If he that you admire is this or that then we become respectable too. Im afraid it doesnt work that way. Everybody has to fight to earn respect. Previous cases work only in courts of law

Totally agree. If you're subtly referring to the gay agenda and trying to remain PC, I get what you're saying. When the gay community uses Greek and Spartan pederasty as a way to plead their case to dance around in assless chaps and feather boas at a pride parade, I don't think that was what the Greeks and Spartans had in mind, so their use of the reference is invalid in my own opinion.

The culture back then was still human. I'm sure some abided by it with honor, while others abused it for their own selfish reasons.
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