Talk:Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece

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Contents 1 What happened? 2 Comment posted in article 3 Comments 4 Pederasty in military institutions.

[edit] What happened?

I'm not sure what happened to this article. The past versions seem decent, while the current version is written like an essay and in my opinion, shows clear bias. I am reverting to an older version. I suspect the edits that made the page so, well, terrible, were vandalism. If you have questions, just look at the article before I reverted it. That will clear things up.

[edit] Comment posted in article

By an anon: "But what did the ancient Greeks mean by pederasty and eromenos?Your examples refer to the modern Greek glossa and not to the ancient one.Also treating a wound isn't a homoerotic act!You say that the men on the sculpture are erected but none is!None of your references of ancient scholars proves any of your claims,and making laws against homosexuality should make you think that even if there was any it wasn't the rule but the exception to the rule,making laws against thieves,murdereres doesn't mean we are all thieves,murdereres.

Your reference of Percy, William A is a joke!this is from your link to his book,don't think that's copywriting.: "The book also has some serious imperfections. It is inconsistent to distinguish sharply and plausibly between (ancient) ‘situational’ or (modern) ‘androphile’ ‘homosexuality’ on the one hand, and (ancient) ‘pederasty’ on the other, while simultaneously declining even to take part, let alone take sides, in the intellectual debate between ‘essentialists’ (a gay is a gay is a gay) and ‘social contructionists’ (there were no gays before the later nineteenth century at the earliest). The appearance of his article ‘Greek Pederasty’ in the Journal of Homosexuality (1987) does nothing to clarify matters. To classify and explain the intellectual court of the tyrant Polycrates of Samos as diagnostically ‘pederastic’ seems hugely reductionist, not to mention parti pris, a criticism that applies in spades to Percy’s unconscionable coinage ‘pederastic democracy’ for the Athens of Aristeides and Themistocles. If pedersastic pedagogy was, as Percy claims, what most accounted for the cultural greatness of early Greece, why, despite is alleged persistence as an institution, did it cease to have that effect during the Classical (post-500) and subsequent ages?

Finally, inevitably, Percy’s non-specialist inexperience does occasionally deserve palmary punishment. For example, Pausanias the character in Plato’s Symposium is confused with Pausanias the second-century CE travel writer (Index s.v. to p. 29). The idea that the ‘Lelantine War’, itself probably a factoid, ‘lasted almost two centuries’ is ludicrous, not to mention the belief that ‘Brelich (1961)’ represents the ‘latest scholarship’ (p. 212 n. 4). More seriously, the proposition that ‘Chrimes’ argument that Sparta preserved its agoge (rigorous training for the Spartiates) with only insignificant changes and brief interruptions from Archaic to imperial [Roman] times is convincing’ (p. 82) is not cogent. A reading of especially A. Spawforth’s contribution to P.A. Cartledge and Spawforth’s Hellenistic and Roman Sparta (1989), not cited, would presumably have been enough to convince him otherwise. Now Nigel Kennell’s Gymnasium of Virtue (1995) must surely complete his re-education.

Nevertheless, this is not a book to be despised, and especially outside Classical circles it may well have some deservedly positive impact.

Clare College, Cambridge P. A. Cartledge " Azxd 23:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments

The list should probably be a separate page. Also, I note that reference is not made to the Greek god Apollo, despite an unambiguous statement in Bulfinch's Mythology regarding his relationship with Hyacinthus (I think that was the name?) Badbilltucker 22:15, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pederasty in military institutions.

Aside from Williams, which doesn't constitute very investigative analysis in my opinion (I point to reviews done on the book in the American Historical Review, History of Education Quarterly, etc.), exactly what sources say that the relationships between men in ancient Greece, in any significant way, may be classified as pederasty. The writers of these sections ie. 'social aspects' should cite the sources they use to come to these conclusions within the next week, or else I am re-writing every article I find about ancient Greek military history that is non-POV in regards to pederasty.

An example is found in the image caption, "The mythological warriors Achilles and Patroclus. Patroclus' (left) penis is exposed in a reference to the sexual aspect of their pederastic relationship." The actual definitions of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is subject to intense academic debate.

I have read Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch as well as Oxford's Classical and a number of books relating to the specific area in question. While certainly pederastic relationships did exist in a significant way in ancient Greece, it is disturbing to see so many articles - written by the same 8 or so wikipedians, pursuing such an unhistorical agenda.

Furthermore, in the subsection 'Social Aspects' I find that the sourced information is taken out of context to support this claim of the widespread practice of pederasty in the military. (Once again, yes it did exist, but it's practice was not as extensive as this article maintains) Nudas veritas 19:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Nudas veritas, you raise some interesting issues here. I have to disagree with one thing you say, though--there isn't "intense academic debate" about the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus. Classicists generally agree that Homer doesn't depict them as lovers (although a few classicists think that the Iliad shows them as lovers). However, it's an indisputable fact that most ancient Greek sources after Homer treat Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. We've got an article on this, Achilles and Patroclus. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Akhilleus, perhaps I can clarify my comment. I meant that the sexual nature of their relationship was subject to academic debate, and that sentiment wasn't translated adequately into the image caption (which asserted that the relationship was pederastic, which is misleading given the lack of academic consensus on the issue). Nudas veritas 23:52, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Right, well, the caption has been changed on other grounds: male nudity is a standard feature of ancient Greek art, and the visibility of Patroclus' genitalia conforms to this convention, and says nothing (or at least nothing exceptional) about the nature of Achilles' and Patroclus' relationship. However, there really is no scholarly controversy about their relationship, as I've already said. --Akhilleus (talk) 23:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it is important to bear in mind that our purpose here is to arrive at an accurate description of current knowledge by a process of collegial consensus. "Or else" statements are not the best way to enter the discussion. I do appreciate, on the other hand, your courtesy, Nudas Veritas, in informing me of the debate. Please do point out any specific statements which you feel are inaccurate and I will do all I can to confirm or deny their veracity. And by the way, we all think we are contributing here the naked truth.

As for Achilles and Patroclus, we can all agree that their myth always depicted an exceptionally intimate friendship, one of legendary proportions, and was seen by many in antiquity as pederastic. There is nothing to debate here, unless you think that there was ONE myth and it had only ONE form. But this is a tale that was told over a span of one thousand years at least, by people on three different continents. There are many naked truths here, and some of them are quite sexy. Haiduc 01:25, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Haiduc, please also look at my comments on the talk page of Sacred Band Of Thebes which give a better idea of the NPOV I was talking about in regards to pederasty. Nudas veritas 02:08, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I looked at your comments on that page and did not find them particularly clarifying. I have also been struck by that apparent contradiction, between same-sex relationship being essentially pederastic and the need for warriors to be physically mature. For an indirect answer, look at the life of Epaminondas, who had several lovers, one of which fell with him at Mantinea. My own understanding is that these were boys who had grown up enough to have reached fighting age. There is no obligation for them to have sexual relations in order to still be lovers, since pederasty was not necessarily of a sexual nature and then not for long. Haiduc 03:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Nudas Veritas, a basic problem with your position is that in ancient Greece, every male homosexual relationship is described as a relationship between an erastes and an eromenos. In other words, every male homosexual relationship is described as a pederastic relationship. This same language is used of the pairs of lovers who composed the Sacred Band. To claim that these relationships were not pederastic, you need to cite a secondary source, rather than your own interpretation. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:22, 25 April 2007 (UTC)