spartans etc

[peter]

hi its that awful person again quoting historical fact! ive been asked where i get my info regarding same sex liasons of historical times: my refernce point is : the british museum, the british library, oxford university, cambridge university (beat that pedegree america) with regards to spartans shaving wives heads and dressing them as boys please try and see the documentary series called "the spartans" (available on video & dvd) made by historian bettany hughes whose sources include all the above refrences also. there is also a book by paul cartledge. spartan women were given sexual freedom including the right to commit adultery and have same sex relationships. it was said of ceaser that he was a man to every woman & a woman to every man! i find that people keep using the word gay to apply to historical men, i have plainly stated that these men would not think of themselfs as gay it was normal in their pagan times to sleep with whatever sex they chose. for further reading please see 'Homosexuality in Grece and Rome - a sourcebook' by Thomas K hubbard - University of California Press - available from the British Museum. re alexander please read michael wood i think he did a tv series also. i belive modern historians tend to view barsine & alexander as folk lore not fact. but im shure some historians are human and will give their own slant on things all one can do is use the most reputiable.

[beausefaless]

I have no problem with men with men and boys in ancient times or modern times(boys over eighteen because of law in the U.S.), I feel the same with women, I just want to know what book from the British museum, the British library, oxford university and Cambridge university mentions Antony and Caesar(it was said of Caesar that he was a man to every woman & a woman to every man) had men. If you decide to respond, I thank you for your time

[agesilaos]

The quote is in Suetonius' life of Caesar; he definitely bent both ways as did Alexander and all manly Greeks the Ionions were considered odd because they did not treat their adolescents thus.This whole nice person thing is pretty boring, unfortunately I think it was me who mentioned the pink dollar; let me explain: from the snippets of dialoue on this site it seems that Stone is imagining a totally pansy relationship ie a men and a woman substitute; pardon me whilst I puke.,Alexander slept with men and eunuchs but at no stage did he descend to the depths of Robert Maplethorpe Modern homosexuals like to cite the ancients as excuses for gross practices ; the love for one human for another cannot be gross and this is what Alexander felt for his parteners, they are few and not too important.Let us get back to something more interesting than the rights and wrongs of fudge-packing and these sure to be execrable films.PSI enjoyed Gates of Fire despite its ahistorical use of Diodorus and am enjoying Tides Of War but nothing can beat Creation byGore Vidal could not put it down

[davej]

The Quotes on Spartan relationships, male on male and female o female come directly from Plutarch's life of Lycurgus. But as foe the Caesar and Antony references I would need some convincing. Karl could probably provide the reference. But bear in mind Seutonius stand point. Which Caesar? We all know r=that Gaius like a bit of touch your toes action. I like the reference in Seutonius which states something like a Centurion branging about buggering the emporer and wearing himself out in the process.The old gay not gay , argueemnt is not new to anybody here on the forum I would not have thought. And I agree with Karl, Stone's script does seem to make Alexander out to be effeminite. I doubt that even if he did bend both ways that he would have been a raving queer. By that he was not camp.I think I am going to back away now as Karl suggested already.

[Tre]

By Zeus, Karl, where did you pick up that vocabulary? I personally find it interesting to discuss the sexuality of the ancients because it is so different from modern conceptions, but of course in those days there were men who preferred the company of men exclusively, those who could happily have relations with both sexes and those who preferred women exclusively. Of course that's the same as now, but people nowadays reject what is the whole dynamic of the biological species (for which this behavior is also routinely practiced, but in animals, same sex pairings is all about power, much as it was in the ancient world)for religious views on what they think is the preferred method and all others must be wrong. The Athenians had strict rules about how a young eromenos could be treated to preserve his honor, but of course this does not take into account what happened to a boy or girl slave and one has to be careful because the Athenians wrote history and everything has a decidedly Athenian slant. Macedonian males appear to have differed in that same sex partners were often of the same age, i.e. youths, and from what little we know women were older when they married, whereas the males were younger than in Athens. The Spartans, Athenians and to some extent Thebans preferred an older erastes to educate a younger eromenos in the ways of the world so to speak, socially and martially. But of course one has to be careful about generalizations, because they can come back and bite you, i.e. Philip's sexual practices were in line with Athenian, not surprising considering the Argead house considered itself the Greekest of the Greeks.I would not equate sexual orientation as approving of pedophilia, however, and I think you come dangerously close to implying that. Pedophilia is certainly not associated with homosexuality, but with power over others. One must understand a 13 year old in the ancient world was not like a 13 year old in our time in western culture - he was separated from the females at a very young age and trained to be a man from that age forward. We have excessively long childhoods in our time - we can afford the luxury, the ancients couldn't. Women were routinely married at an age which we consider still a child to get them out of the household. Anyone who uses that as an excuse to practice pedophilia in our time, well, is an idiot as well as the lowest form of criminal, and I suppose I shouldn't expect them to actually acknowledge the differences

[Tre]

Anyone who uses that as an excuse to practice pedophilia in our time, well, is an idiot as well as the lowest form of criminal, and I suppose I shouldn't expect them to actually acknowledge the differences between societies.My concerns on Stone is that he will put an effeminate slant on the relationships between the males, and that is historically inaccurate. No self-respecting Macedonian would be caught dead behaving so, nor would they have been able to live down the insult. Witness what happened to Philip's second Pausanias when insults of that nature were made, and what would have been Alexander's reaction to his father's comment about his singing voice being too high (which in fact, was preferred for young male singers).As for Tides of War - it sucked. Alkibiades was one of the most fascinating men of that time, for all intensive purposes an Alexander but without honor, yet Pressfield makes him one dimensional and totally boring. I struggled 60 pages into the book and asked someone who is an ancient history professor who specializes in Alexander if it was just me and she mentioned that she was having the same dreadful time and we both liked Gates of Fire. I read the whole thing and wished I hadn't. His later book on the Amazons was a tad better.Regards,Tre

[davej]

I am back. I revisited your post and want to add. Secondary sources are not usually acceptable as "fact" they are opinion based on fact. Documentary are notoriously bad. If you had said you based your opinions on sexuality on Plutarch. Arrian, or similiar I might pay attention.

[xxx]

But of course Plutarch, Arrian, Curtius, Diodorus et al are also secondary sources

[beausefaless]

Thank you for the info on Caesar (hope you ment Julius), how about Antony? I've known about (go Greek) the life style of the ancients most of my life.
You don't have to do the nice person scenario with me you can take your gloves off anytime. I been watching ya, your the man when it comes to the pink dollar M.O.
I hope your wrong when you say the odds are very good that these films will be execrable.

[davej]

Too true, but they are closer to the originals then Paul Cartledge or Cambridge will ever be.

[Tre]

Cartledge has an excellent reputation BTW, and is a prolific producer of books, a lot of them sold with the Barnes and Noble mark. They did a recent PBS special on his book on the Greeks, from the BBC probably - it was interesting.I rather see current scholars as versions of Arrian et al, but with their own cultural overlay and message, as was Arrian's Roman cultural overlay, but I see your point about sources now that you've explained that. It is truly better to read those than the later ones so the opinion of the later authors, doesn't impede ones view.

[karen]

For some reason the forum isn't accepting my log-in... but it's me, the same Karen...You guys have the greatest expressions. Fudge-packing? Touch your toes action? Hahahaha...Tre is bang on, homosexuality and pedophilia are *not* the same thing. The vast majority of pedophiles are straight and see boys as a woman substitute. That said, I personally think that the ancient Greek system of an older man inculcating a youth was open to abuse, as any relationship in which power is uneven. Hence the necessity of creating all those rules. I recall that Sokrates, Athenian though he was, was against men seeking out youths under a certain age as lovers, as he felt the youth was being put into a role for which he was not truly ready. Surprise, therapists specializing in child abuse today say exactly the same thing.I had not heard before that Makedonians tended to have more age parity in relationships in general, not just Alexander and Hephaistion. Tre, I'm interested to know where you got this. It makes sense to me, however, as they were not a slave-holding culture. I think that the keeping of slaves inculcates very firmly into a culture the notion of superior and inferior people, and thus that all relationships are between a superior and an inferior.Re Karl's comment about Stone imagining a "man and a woman substitute," fact is, the way our culture has gone, people, especially men, find it really hard to wrap their heads around the idea of two perfectly masculine, equal men being tender and loving toward each other. They're supposed to beat each other up. I've published two novels and I had the hero, who's very much an Alexander type, fall in love with both a Bagoas analog (younger, effeminate) and another great warrior, and the publisher, who is very much the Republican, was fine with the former but asked me to change the latter. "They can't fall in love, it can't be, it's not in their characters," he was telling me, as if he knew *my* characters better than I did. He just couldn't wrap his head around the idea of tenderness without anything feminine around... or a sexual relationship being between two equals. I suspect Stone is trapped in the same limited view.Love & peace,
Karen

[davej]

Hi Karen,Its nice that you have a sense of humour. I cant recall the reference but I know that Alaxander was apaled by Paederasty. We covered some areas of sexuality at Uni, including that the relationships between men and youths seldom included penatration. Sexual activities between citizen males was between the thighs (although how much fun that can be is beyond me). Also Socrates is supposed to have taken Alkibiades under his wing so to speak, so that he would not exposed to this sort of thing. Personally I think Alkibiades would have been up for anything, he was a bit of a lad.Later, and kudos to you.Dj

[THE LIGHT 7000]

....WELL I'VE HEARD THAT SOMETHING WAS QUITE UNUSUSAL AND WRONG DOWN THERE AT LESBOS, BUT I DIDN'T KNOW THAT THOSE SOUTH FROM MT. OLYMP ARE SO PERVERSE THAT ARE MAKING ORDINARY MAN SICK!!!!... SO THERE IS NO QUESTION NOW FROM WHERE THIS THINGS ARE COMMING...ALL ARROUND THE WORLD, AND THEY ARE PROUD OF THAT... AOH !......IF ONE IS "SUCH" HE SHOULD KEEP IT FROM HIM SELF, WHAT IS THE "GLORRY" AND SENSE IN TALK...THE LIGHT

[Tre]

Hello Dave and Karen:Firstly, Macedonians were a slave culture - Hammond has it incorrect when he says otherwise. Hammond had some very unusual and not supported by history ideas of the culture, i.e. when he suggests that in Tomb II one of Philip's wives was killed to put in the tomb with her husband. As for same age sex pairings, note that during the trials of the pages, the lovers were of approximately the same age group.As for sex between the thighs, this was an 'idealized' stance painted on vases so as to protect the honor of the eromenos and show the control of the erastes, but of course, not entirely correct. Aristophanes made very, ahem, pointed remarks about the appearance of buttocks which more than suggests things were otherwise than painted :-)Regards,Tre