Greek
Homosexuality,
continued
MYCENAE
was a much earlier major city and civilization, in the second millennium BC,
centered ca. 30 miles S of Corinth.
One legendary pair there included Orestes (the son of Agamemnon, who
fought at Troy), who murdered his mother and her lover for killing his father,
and Pylades—whom the Athenian playwright Euripedes (5th century BC) described
as “a pair of brothers in loving affection but not born brothers.”91 Pylades
eventually married Electra; but later when Iphigeneia offers to spare Orestes’
life if she can sacrifice his companion, Pylades, Orestes offers his own life
instead, telling her that “his life means as much to me as my own.” In turn, Pylades wants to
die and be burned along with Orestes on the pyre (Euripedes, Iphigeneia
Among the Taurians, esp. lines
498, 72, 608).92 Later Orestes and Pylades will be honored especially as heroes
in Sparta.93 Another location of interest is CRETE, a large island
located ca. 65 miles SE of Greece, where homosexual traditions also appeared
earlier, in the second millennium BC (cf. the “Chieftain Cup”94). Davidson
holds that the famous abduction ritual here marked not so much a coming of
age as a path leading to homosexual marriage.95 The boy
was probably a Stripling, his abductor a couple of years older and a member
of a Men’s House, and his “friends” actually the boy’s adult fan-club and
guard of honor, who must approve of a suitor and who then accompanied the
couple on their two-month trip into the “country,” to assure that the boy
was not ‘forced.’96 After
returning to the Men’s House, the abductor then publicly kissed the boy; and
the boy gave him a bronze cup as a symbol of his love and loyalty.97 Plato speaks of homosexuality as a defining feature of this
island (Plato, Laws 636b-d, 835e-842a), and Aristotle held that the
Cretan lawgiver instituted same-sex “intercourse [homilia]” as a means of population control (Aristotle, Politics
1272a).98 These “Famed” youths and their yokemates then formed a special
group of beautiful champions who fought in the Cretan army.99 Later, in
the 8th century, SPARTA was an important city-state situated in southern
Greece, ca. 65 miles S of Corinth. The Spartans also differentiated between the Under-Eighteens,
the Striplings or “Sturdy Boys,” and Male adults or “Bloomers” (Twenties and
older). Plutarch
notes that the boys were put into herds, sometimes as young as 7, where they
played on sports teams; then at 12, they slept together by gang and by company.100 When it
was time for the boys to marry, at their “bodily peak” (Lycurgus), all the
boys and girls were put into a dark building and whichever girl a boy laid
hold of would later become his wife—although males might go for years sleeping
in their barracks and only infrequently visiting their wives at night.101 What was
a scandal to the Athenians was probably that in Sparta Twenties and over could
visit where the Under-Eighteen boys camped and associate with them.102 Xenophon
explains how the youths had one cloak which they wore throughout the year,
even in summer. These
Boys 12-20 went nude except for their cloaks, which they never took off.103 Yet, even
if a worthy gentleman rolled around with a Boy ‘wrapped up like a present,’
one can expect that this offered little protection.104 In fact, Cicero (106-43 BC) wrote that the Spartans permitted
everything apart from stuprum (seduction, rape, violation, disgrace105). In fact,
the Greek word lakonizein, meaning “to do it in the Spartan way,” referred to
anal intercourse.106
ELIS,
a city located ca. 75 miles W of Corinth in the region of Achaea, was not
as famous as Athens, Sparta or Thebes, but it was a large, wealthy Greek community.107 There were
no “complex manners” nor “pursuit” in Elean Homosexuality, but it was “easy,”
because they “aren’t clever at talking” (so Pausanias, in Philo’s Symposium
182b Davidson). Xenophon
called what they did “utterly reprehensible”—which might refer to the Elean
battalion with 150 pairs of lovers (apparently organized like the Theban Sacred
Band), who fought and “slept together” (Xenophon, Hellenica 7.4,13).108 Yet, Davidson notes also that in Plato’s Phaedo, during the last hours of Socrates (399 BC) in jail
in Athens, he is attended by Phaedo, a former male prostitute from Elis, who
as a war-captive was forced to “sit in a cubicle” in Athens, but then Socrates
turned him to philosophy instead.109 So, maybe the reprehensible homosexual custom in Elis was male
prostitution.110 THERA was a city-state located on the island of Santorini,
ca. 125 miles E of the southern tip of Greece. Here boys dating back to the
7th century cut inscriptions in deep letters on the mountainside at a sacred
sacrificing site. Some
are just names, while others record, e.g., that so-and-so “is in love with
[eratai] Phanocles.” Often oiphe appears, meaning “to jack off, ejaculate,” as in “Crimon
oiphes Amotion” or simply “Euponos oiphed.” Also scribbled is the notation, “Yes, by [Apollo]
Delphinios, Crimon here oiphed [so-and-so] . . . , son of Bathycles, brother,”
using the term “brother” to refer to his same-sex partner.111 Davidson
believes that the inhabitants of Thera probably imported Spartan homosexuality
with cloaks along with other Spartan institutions.112 SAMOS was an island
off the W coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey). Three significant male poets appeared here in the
6th century BC, including Alcaeus, an independent aristocrat, and two poorer
successors who ‘sang for their supper’ at the court of tyrants of Samos.
Ibycus from southern Italy earned the title “the most crazy about boys”—although
Cicero wrote that “the loves of [all] these three were lustful.”113 Little remains
of Ibycus’s poetry;114 but
one clever fragment survives from his successor, Anacreon (who came from near
Ephesus), combining the genitive, dative and accusative cases in: “With Cleopulou I’m in love, for Cleopulo I am mad, at Cleopulon I stare” (frag. 359).115 The long-haired Smerdies and the reed-playing Bathyllus
look like “toyboys” at the court of Polycrates, a tyrant of Samos.116 Samos in
the archaic period (800-500 BC) must have been “quite a place,” writes Davidson.117
THEBES
was a city located ca. 30 miles N of Athens, in the region of Boeotia, and
it was considered almost as bad as Elis (Plato, Symposium 182b). Here males were joined together
in a “yoked pair” (syzygy), in same-sex
marriages. A Theban
named Pammenes (according to Plutarch) argued that a band of soldiers held
together by love (erōs)
would avoid anything on the battlefield to feel ashamed in front of one’s
beloved. So it was with the Sacred
Band (Hieros Lochos),118 described at length by Plutarch
(ca. 46-ca. 120), which was made up 150 pairs of the best erastai and their erōmenoi, who fought valiantly and successfully for forty years
until they were wiped out by Alexander the Great at the Battle of Chaeronea
in 338.119 The Theban erastai gave armor and weapons to their beloveds when they
reached adulthood (either at 18 or 20). Perhaps the Athenians were scandalized partly because
the Theban Band deployed Eighteens and Nineteens alongside bearded men.120 Yet, the
prototype for this Sacred Band appeared a few decades earlier with a battalion
of 300 front-row champions known as “reins-holders” and “standers-by,” who
fought at the battle of Delium in 424 BC, although these warriors fought on
foot and not in chariots.121 THESSALY, the homeland of Achilles, was a region that
lay NW of Athens in central Greece.122 One famous ruler, Meno III, who at the end of the 5th century
led an expedition of the “Ten Thousand” mercenaries on an ill-fated Persian
campaign, even sounded so “good-looking”
that a blind man would notice him (so said Socrates). Xenophon later noted that Tharypas, Meno’s favorite
(paidika), had a beard while
Meno did not; and the historian further complained that Meno surrounded himself
with handsome Striplings, as well as associating with Misgolas, who was accompanied
by handsome cithara-boys.
In other words, both Meno and Misgolas were “rampant homosexuals,”
whose “lust is contrasted with the honourable hopeless devotions of Greek
love, which Xenophon had trumpeted” (Davidson).123 Tharypas appears to have been a boy-king of the Molossians (residents
of Epirus, a region located to the W of Thessaly in Greece), who went to Athens
to study; and then wanting to be fully ‘Greek’ he became the boyfriend of
Meno, even though Meno was younger, a Stripling or in his early twenties,
when he went off to Persia.124 MACEDON (Macedonia) was located N of Thessaly, and was
the home of Philip II (382-336 BC) and his son Alexander the Great (356-323
BC). Philip took Pausanias (I)
as his “intimate friend,” then discarded him for Pausanias (II), who mocked
the first lover by calling him “effeminate” and “a whore.” A friend of Pausanias I then
arranged to have Pausanias II gang-raped by mule-drivers. When Pausanias II complained
to the king, Philip did nothing; so eventually the assaulted and insulted
lover took his revenge by assassinating the king (Diodorus Siculus 16.3-94).125 The kings of Macedon, descended from Heracles,
seem to have institutionalized boyfriends. These so-called Iolidae were young Striplings who served as the king’s wine
tasters and pourers, then later as his “deputies” or seconds-in-command, a
tradition probably going back to the 5th century.126 Moreover,
Philip established a special corps called the Royal Boys, an elite group of
Striplings (pictured in the royal Macedonian tombs) who guarded the royal
bedchamber and accompanied the king on hunts and to war. This corps seems to have led to many intense homosexual
relationships and intrigues.127 Also, Theopompus noted that
Macedonian courtiers “took around with them two or three male prostitutes
and they served others in the same capacity.” What stands out about Macedonian Homosexuality
is its great variety.128
Alexander
and Hephaestion. Athenaeus, a Greek anthologist (ca. 200 AD), summed
up what he had gleaned from his reading by saying that “Alexander was insanely
fond of boys” (Davidson).129 The main erotic interest in Alexander’s later life was the handsome
Persian eunuch Bagoas, who was among the gifts which Narbazanes, Darius’s
chiliarch (second-in-command), gave
to Alexander to win his favor.130 As Curtius (Historiae Alexandri 6.5.22-23) notes, Bagoas
was “a eunuch of exceptional appearance and in the very flower of boyhood,
with whom Darius had had a relationship, and with whom Alexander soon had
one . . . .”131 When Alexander saw Bagoas, his beauty “took Alexander’s breath
away” (Worthington).132 Then, Plutarch tells us, “When Alexander arrived at the palace
of Gedrosia, he restored the army with a festival. It is said he got drunk and watched
choral competitions. His
beloved [erōmenon] Bagoas won
in the dancing and he traversed the theater in his costume and sat down beside
him. Seeing this,
the Macedonians applauded and shouted out, bidding Alexander kiss him, until
he embraced him and kissed him deeply” (Plutarch, Alexander 67.8).133 Or, adding another source, Alexander “was so enthralled with
the eunuch Bagoas that in the view of the entire theatre he bent back and
kissed him deeply, and when the audience shouted approval and applauded, he
did as they bid and bent back and kissed him again” (Athenaeus 603b, incorporating
Dicaearchus F23 Wehrli).134
Yet,
the primary love of Alexander’s life was Hephaestion, son of Amyntor,135
who was one of his father’s Royal Boys, was striking as a youth, and was about
the same age as Alexander,136
although perhaps a year older.137 Curtius (3.12.16) relates how Alexander and Hephaestion
were brought up together, while other sources report on numerous sexual relationships
that developed among the Macedonian Royal Pages138 at the palace boys’ school where
upper class youths were trained to become military officers.139 Hephaestion was “by far the dearest of all the
king’s friends; he had been brought up with Alexander and shared all his secrets”
(Curtius 3.12.17); and their partnership would endure through all the later
hardships of Alexander’s ten-year campaign in Asia. Although none of the ancient sources state
outright that Alexander and Hephaestion were lovers, Arrian (1.12.1) describes
an occasion in 334 when they publicly identified themselves with Achilles
and Patroclus, who in turn were acknowledged to have been lovers by Plato,
Aeschylus, and others. When
Alexander arrived in Troy, he laid a wreath on the tomb of Achilles, after
which Hephaestion laid a wreath on the tomb of Patroclus; and then the two
ran a foot race, naked and oiled in the traditional fashion, to honor their
dead heroes (Aelian [Claudius Aelianus], Varia Historia 12.7; Arrian,
Anabasis Alexandri 1.2). In fact, the Iliad was Alexander’s favorite
literary work.140 Robin Lane Fox calls this “a remarkable tribute” and adds,
“Already the two were intimate, Patroclus and Achilles even to those around
them; [and] the comparison would remain to the end of their days and is proof
of their life as lovers . . . .”141 Of course, Alexander and Hephaestion grew up in a time and place
where homosexual affairs were viewed as perfectly normal, although the pattern
varied from place to place.
Diogenes the Cynic, of Sinope, who came to Athens from Asia Minor and
lived naked in a large tub in self-imposed poverty, wrote a letter to Alexander
when he was a grown man, in which he accused Alexander of being “ruled by
Hephaestion’s thighs [genitals]” (Diogenes, Epistles 24), which points to Hephaestion being Alexander’s erōmenos (Reames-Zimmerman). Hephaestion once wrote to Olympias, Alexander’s
mother, saying “you know that Alexander means more to us [me] than anything”
(Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheke Historike 17.114.3); and Arrian (7.14.50)
wrote that Alexander, after Hephaestion’s death, described him as “the friend
I valued as my own life.”142
It
was unexpectedly at Hamadan in 324, during a festival celebration, that Hephaestion
developed a fever which turned into typhoid; and in a week he was dead. Then, Lane Fox writes, Alexander’s
“grief was as uncontrolled as the rumors of it . . . . Some said he lay day and night
on the body, refusing to be torn away; others that he hanged the doctor for
negligence and ordered a local temple to the god of healing [Asclepius] to
be destroyed in mourning.
Certainly, he refused to eat or drink for three days after the event
. . . .” Also, he
also cut his own hair and clipped off the tails and manes of the horses in
camp, which had a Persian precedent, but more tellingly recalled the hair
Achilles and his companions cut off to honor Patroclus (Iliad 23.133-136). Alexander felt the loss of
Hephaestion’s love more than anything else in his career.143
Alexander’s extravagant
mourning for Hephaestion is mentioned in a number of sources, and Arrian (7.14.4)
and Aelian (7.8) explicitly compare it with Achilles’ mourning for Patroclus.
Justin (Historiae Philippicae 12.12.11) wrote that Hephaestion
was dear to Alexander because of his “beauty,” “boyishness,” and “services,”
the last of which could have included sex.144 In all that Alexander undertook on his Eastern journeys, Hephaestion
was always by his side; and Alexander displayed an unfailing trust in and
reliance on him. At
the time of his death, Hephaestion held the highest title under Alexander,
chiliarch (grand vizier), having recently taken over as sole
commander of the Companion Cavalry.145 Davidson notes that modern historians tend to “trivialize” Hephaestion
serving as Alexander’s Second: He “may have been no great warrior, but Alexander
was warrior enough.” Hephaestion’s great service probably focused on
the complex tasks of organization and administration.146 One cannot help but wonder if Jonathan in the Bible had only
lived to serve devotedly at David’s side as his mishneh (“second [in command],” 1 Sam 23:17d) whether he might
also have played a singularly trusted and invaluable role in helping David
during his often troubled reign.
Alexander
had at least four sexual relationships with males during his life, with: (1)
Hephaestion, whom “Alexander loved most of all” (Plutarch, Alexander
47.9-12); (2) Bagoas, the beautiful Persian eunuch; and most likely also (3)
Excipinos, a pretty boy (probably a Page) who caught Alexander’s eye and became
a kind of replacement for Hephaestion;147
and (4) Hector, of whom Alexander was very fond and for whom he gave a magnificent
funeral when the boy drowned.148 Yet at the same time, Alexander had as many significant sexual
relationships with women, including: (1) Barsine, daughter of the Persian
noble Artabazus, which lasted for at least 5 years and produced Alexander’s
first child that we know of, Heracles;149
(2) Roxane, the captive Bactrian noblewoman, who after Alexander’s death finally
gave birth to the future Alexander IV; (3) Barsine, later named Stateira,
the eldest daughter of the overthrown Persian king Darius III; and (4) Parysatis,
the youngest daughter of the former Persian king Artaxerxes III Ochus―the
last two taken as part of the mass marriages Alexander organized in 324 for
over ninety of his companions with Persian noblewomen at Susa.
Royal polygamy characterized both the Persian and Macedonian courts.150 Yet,
all of Alexander’s marriages no doubt advanced certain political goals: his
marriage with Barsine I may have been offered as a conciliatory gesture to
the Persian aristocracy, and his union with Roxane to honor the country of
Bactria. The Susa marriages expressed
Alexander’s claim to be the successor to both Achaemenid kings, with a desire
to integrate the Macedonian and Persian nobilities.151 Also, in the mass marriages of 324, Alexander gave Hephaestion
Darius’s younger daughter (Drypetis) as his wife, because Alexander wanted
Hephaestion’s children to be his own nephews and nieces―a “rare and
timely insight into the bond between the two men” (Lane Fox).152
So,
was Alexander “gay,” as Davidson calls him?153 Reames-Zimmerman notes that he seems to “have comfortably pursued
both sexes,”154 and Worthington
notes that “bisexuality was normal for all the Greeks.”155 Still, at
Hephaestion’s death the two had been bosom friends for 19 years, had lived
in close quarters on the campaign, and had seen one another daily when not
away on independent missions.
In terms of affectional attachment, Hephaestion―and not any of
Alexander’s four wives―was the king’s life partner. They were probably intimate
at some point, although maybe not in the later years. Greek philia
could include a sexual component, but extended far beyond that, or an “intense
friendship” could just develop a sexual side at some point, with no special
note made of it (Reames-Zimmerman).156
Of
course, it must be said that sexuality in the ancient Greek world differed
greatly from that in ancient Israel, relating to the widespread use of bisexual
customs in Greek culture, which led all or most of its male citizens (and
others) to take up homosexual practices as well as heterosexual ones, along
with their distinctive ethical views on all of this.
The Israelites did live in male-dominated world (like the Greeks),
men in Israel could take more than one female sexual partner, and they could
also visit prostitutes which the Law of Moses did not forbid; yet, when homosexual behavior appears in the Hebrew Bible, it is only in
violent, degrading contexts (attempted gang-rape at Sodom and Gibeah), with
the exception of the Jonathan and David story. Yet, homosexual desire exists in every culture,157 with some individuals discovering
that their primary, sometimes even exclusive, sexual passion is for members
of their own sex; and so it should not come as a surprise that homosexual
love surfaces at some point in the Israelite record, especially
at court and among heroes, which appears so often to be the setting for this
in ancient Near Eastern records, as can be seen in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Homosexual attachments appeared
in the Greek world also especially in military contexts and among soldiers. Yet, in spite of such different
worlds, in ancient Greece and Israel, comparisons can still be found in the
expressions of homosexual desire in the Greek texts and in the Jonathan and
David story.
Looking
back at the material just surveyed, one finds similarity in love language
in such expressions as: “beloved companion/greatly beloved” (Iliad
19.315-316, 2 Sam 1:26); “delight/delighted [in]” (Iliad 19.288, 1
Sam 19:1 KJV); “brother[s]/my brother” (Euripedes and an inscription at Thera,
2 Sam 1:26); and loving someone “as my/his own life” (Iliad 18.82;
1 Sam 18:1,3, “soul” better translated here as “life”158). Alexander also spoke of Hephaestion as “the friend I valued
as my own life” (Arrian), this last phrase clearly pointing to a very unique
and intense kind of love.
Sometimes weapons were given as a gift to a young beloved (at Thebes
and pictured on the “Chieftain Cup,” 1 Sam 18:4).
Although we are not told of any special pledge that Achilles/Patroclus
or Alexander/Hephaestion made to each other, we do know that male couples
in Thebes formally bonded themselves together as a “yoked pair” (syzygy), which may be compared to the loving covenant (berit), or kind of marriage alliance, which Jonathan and
David made between themselves (1 Sam 18:3). Various texts draw attention to the special handsome
features of certain males, e.g., to Achilles’ “beauty” (Plato), Patroclus’s
“lovely eyes” (Iliad 23.67), and David’s “beautiful eyes” and “handsome”
appearance (1 Sam 16:12 NRSV). There is a strong reluctance to speak of intimate
sexual activity between males, although explicit sexual references sometimes
slip through in ambiguous code-words, e.g., in Homer’s mention of Patroclus’s
manos (Iliad 24.6, spirit/spunk = semen), in Aeschylus’s
reference to Achilles’ “thighs” as well as Diogenes’ reference to Hephaestion’s
“thighs” (mēroi = genitals),
and in the Bible in the loaded statements ou metochos ei tō
(1 Sam 20:30 Septuagint Van der Pool; “you [Jonathan] are a [sexual] partner
to” David) and sunteleias megalēs . . . uperebalen (1
Sam 20:41 Septuagint Van der Pool; Jonathan and David held each other until
David ‘exceeded to a great finale’ = came sexually). Alexander took multiple wives simultaneously and
also had male ‘friendships’―in contrast to Jonathan and David who appear
devoted only to each other during their short time together (Michal not withstanding),
although David later adds even more wives and concubines than Alexander, many
also for political reasons. Jonathan, before his untimely death, envisioned
himself one day becoming David’s mishneh (“second,” 1 Sam 23:17), just as Hephaestion actually was appointed by
Alexander as his chiliarch (second-in-command). Yet, it was only after the
death of their partners that Achilles, David and Alexander gave expression
to the true depth and character of their love.
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BIBLE TRANSLATIONS: King James Version, 1611. New Revised Standard Version, 1989.
© 2009 Bruce L. Gerig
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