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It has been suggested that Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece be merged into this article. (Discuss)

Same-sex love was an integral part of civic life in ancient Greece from Classical times until the Roman era. Three general categories of such relationships can be drawn. Love between women can be traced back as far as the time of Sappho. Love between adult men was known, and though it was discouraged and ridiculed there are records of many such couples. The third, and best known category was love between adult men and adolescent boys, known as pederasty.

Sapphic love

Sappho, a poet from the island of Lesbos, was mistress of a school of girls and wrote love poems to many of her young students, with whom she often fell in love and who often reciprocated her feelings. She is thought to have written close to 12,000 lines of poetry on her love for other women. Of these, only about 600 lines have survived concerted efforts to obliterate her works. In general, the historical record of same-sex love between women is sparse. This is thought to be due at least in part to the dominant male role in writing and preserving historical documents.

Love between adult men

The Iliad

• See Iliad for a detailed discussion

Many believe the first recorded appearance of such desire was in the Iliad (800 BC). The intentions of the Iliad have been a subject of much debate. An abundance of evidence exists that by the beginning of the Hellenistic era (480 BC) the Iliad’s heroes Achilles and Patroclus were icons of male homosexuality.

With the Iliad the ancient Greeks had trouble designating which role to assign to Patroclus and Achilles. Aeschylus in the tragedy Myrmidons made Achilles the protector since he had avenged his love’s death even though the gods told him it would cost his own life. However Phaedrus asserts that Homer emphasized the beauty of Achilles which would qualify him not Patroclus as “eromenos”.

Pederasty

The ancient Greeks, in the context of the pederastic city-states, were the first to describe, study, systematize, and establish pederasty as an institution. It was an important element in civil life, the military, philosophy and the arts.

Main article: Pederasty in ancient Greece

External links

• Pederasty and Pedagogy In Archaic Greece

References

• "Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece" by William A. Percy, III. University of Illinois Press, 1996. ISBN 0252022092