THE EPIGRAMS OF ASKLEPIADES OF SAMOS

ANON   Wednesday, 05 August 2020

Of interest is Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology, translated by Daryl Hine. This is the first complete verse translation of book 12, "Musa Puerilis."

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Editor   Wednesday, 05 August 2020

Hine's translation is certainly what to read if you want the Musa Puerilis in trendy English verse adapted to modern ways of thinking and expressing oneself, but it is hopeless compared to W. R. Paton's if you want to know what was really written and to understand its nuances and implications. For an excellent comparison, and an analysis of the dilemmas facing a translator of this work, see James Jope, "Translating Strato: The Role of Translations in the Study of Ancient Sexuality and the Understanding of Classical Erotica", Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, Volume 5, Number 1, 2005, XLIX—Series III, pp. 47-57.

THE LAWS OF THE CHRISTIAN ROMAN EMPERORS

Helen   Friday, 26 June 2020

This is a most remarkable collection of texts, for which I am very grateful. My only suggestion concerns the still from the film Agora. This film is historically wildly inaccurate in many ways, but most pertinent here is the fact that, though the Serapeum was built as a sort of "daughter" library to the main library, it was no longer used for that purpose at the time of its destruction. It is also not clear how it ended up being destroyed. A Christian mob has been blamed by Eunapius, but other accounts, including letters to and from Theodosius, suggest it was demolished after gangs of pagans had tortured and murdered Christians in it. The pagans were pardoned, but all pagan images were to be destroyed.

THOU SHALT NOT UNCOVER THY MOTHER’S NAKEDNESS BY GEORGE HAYIM

Helen   Friday, 05 June 2020

Stories like these make me realize just how exotic English public school homosex truly is from my (2020 Anglo-American) perspective. So much of it makes no sense at all; I might as well be reading about some unknown people in Kamchatka. I simply do not understand the relations and reactions, the dignities and indignities, that the narrator takes as self-explanatory. The "Greek Love" evident in all this raw adolescence is fractured and animal, and vastly remote from the pedagogical, philosophical, and fraternal modes that coexisted with it.

ALEXANDER'S CHOICE BY EDMUND MARLOWE

Helen   Tuesday, 26 May 2020

The "hostile" review is well worth reading not so much for its sheer ineptitude, which the comments that follow roundly expound, but for how it encapsulates mainstream LGBT culture's ideological incapacity to think seriously about Greek love and about its own history. Perhaps the lowest point comes when the reviewer claims to have felt he was being "groomed"...

A review of The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde: An Intimate Biography by Neil McKenna(2003)

ANON   Tuesday, 21 April 2020

There are many more luscious details of Oscar Wilde's preferential interest, at least socially, in young primary school-aged boys here: web.archive.org/web/20160312065027/http:...sting_with_cubs.html (The archive.org address is given because the original seems to be offline. Perhaps too scandalous and fodder for yellow journalism like this: www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/wildes-lus...potlight-181888.html )

THE GREEK LOVE POEMS OF HILARY THE ENGLISHMAN

Helen   Wednesday, 01 April 2020

Wonderful. Ad PuerumAnglicum XIII can be sung to the tune of "In TabernaQuandoSumus" from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana!

ON NUDITY AND SEXUAL SHAME BY EDUARD BRONGERSMA

ANON   Tuesday, 26 November 2019

The 2nd picture is not from HajoOrtil...

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Editor   Wednesday, 27 November 2019

Could you please give your source of information on this picture? My source for believing it is by Ortil is Pan Magazine XIX (Amsterdam, 1984), where the photo is published on p. 11, it being stated on p. 2 that "all the photos in this issue" are by Ortil.

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ANON   Wednesday, 11 March 2020

Hi! The 2nd picture was probably taken after Ortil`s active time. You can be sure by the haircuts that it does not belong to his work which I have probably seen all of.

BENJAMIN BRITTEN AND DAVID HEMMINGS 1953-55

Helen   Saturday, 08 February 2020

Can anyone enlighten me as to the meaning of the phrase "prior-boy" (in contrast to "choir boy") in Hemming's description of himself? Thanks!

A review of Alexander's Lovers by Andrew Chugg, 2006

jedson   Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Why is Alexander great? It’s not his love-life that I have a problem with. It’s this: What is so great about dashing around conquering people who are just going about their business and leaving you alone? We revere lots of people like this. Here’s a few examples, with notes (admittedly taken out of context.)

Julius Caesar
He formed a triumvirate with Mark Anthony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. They secured their power in Rome by executing thousands.

Charlemagne
“He defended a Christian Europe from Muslim Saracens and pagan Saxons, often beheading thousands in a single day.”

Ashoka the Great “When his father died, Ashoka killed all his brothers and went on a brutal rampage to expand the empire. It culminated in the slaughter by the Daya river, where more than 100,000 citizens were killed by his army.”

Genghis Khan
“He left a mountain of skulls that remained for years in China.”

They’re all that way.
My point is that maybe we need a new idea of “greatness.”

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Edmund Marlowe   Wednesday, 15 November 2017

I take your point, of course, though I think it applies relatively much more to the individuals you have listed whose achievements were largely limited to conquest (meaning mostly Genghis Khan). But is it honestly fair for us to judge the greatness of our ancestors by our modern values of moral repugnance to war, regardless of how incomprehensible those values were to anyone at the time? Isn’t it perhaps a little patronising to sit in judgement of people whose sense of what it was admirable to do was determined by living in radically different circumstances?

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Robert Turner   Saturday, 02 November 2019

Why was Alexander great?

Alexander was great because he led a successful military campaign to free Greek peoples from the despotic rule of the Persian dynasty, which had been his father's mission, and then went on to liberate the remainder of the empire. He was an inspiring general, gifted with great rhetorical skill and a transparent love for his soldiers, alongside of whom he fought on the front line of every battle. He was a great military tactician, whose battle strategies are still studied in war colleges to this day. And he oversaw an enormous logistical enterprise, keeping his large army and support system continuously supplied, which happened under the effective supervision of his chief counselor and intimate friend Hephaestion.

More importantly, Alexander was great because as a conqueror he did not try to impose Greek values by force upon the lands through which he passed. When a city welcomed him without resistance, he left that city unmolested, did not destroy their local temples, and chose respected local leaders to supervise the affairs of the city. The Macedonian garrisons, which boosted the local economy, were left behind not to rule but to ensure the safety of the roads, which enhanced trade across the empire, ensuring not just a wide exchange of material goods, but the transmission of knowledge and ideas between disparate cultures. Most cities recognized this as a magnanimous imperial policy, which fostered enlightened self-rule and brought peace to a broad swath of the world.

Which brings us to the most significant reason Alexander was great. He did not succumb to the notion taught by his teacher, the great polymath Aristotle, that barbarian cultures had little of worth to offer Greek civilization. Alexander recognized that all cultures have something of value to share with other cultures, a very modern notion that makes Alexander metropolitan rather than provincial in his outlook. While he no doubt retained a sense of Greek exceptionalism, he nevertheless believed that Greeks could learn things from eastern cultures as well.

Furthermore, Alexander was great because he led one of the greatest scientific expeditions of all time. Aside from his creation of maps of new terrains, he was constantly sending specimens of animal and plant life back to Macedonia for Aristotle to add to his encyclopedic catalog of knowledge. Hephaestion carried on a regular correspondence with the court philosopher throughout the travels, also sending him reports of historical, sociological, and political characteristics of the cultures they encountered along the way.

Finally, Alexander was great because he founded Alexandria in Egypt, which became one of the greatest cities in history, diverse in its population, a crossroads of culture, which exemplified in its urban character all the best that Alexander had to offer in his worldview.

Alexander was a deep thinker whose political philosophy transcended the traditional notions of Aristotle, considered at the time and even now the greatest philosopher of his age. Coming from a culture of independent states constantly at war with one another, Alexander was a radical visionary who tried to mold a vast and lasting realm of peace that encouraged the widespread exchange of the very best that each culture had to offer. Tragically he died, perhaps by poison, before he had the opportunity to secure a continuity to this legacy.

It is not surprising that, when the new cult of Jesus began to spread, it did so rapidly along the network of trade roads that spanned the Roman Empire, modeled in many ways after Alexander's vision of a multicultural worldwide peace, a vision that also informed Christianity's outreach into the gentile world.

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Edmund Marlowe   Saturday, 02 November 2019

Robert, I think your analysis of why Alexander was great is superb. I would just like to add one point. I think that what inspired people most about him in his lifetime and in the centuries that followed is that he showed by his example that with enough determination, imagination and ability it was possible to go much further than anyone had thought possible. We should be able to appreciate that today without having to share the beliefs of the ancients as to which particular fields of human endeavour are most worthwhile.

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jedson   Monday, 04 November 2019

Robert –

If we say that X is a “great man,” what are we saying? If we simply mean that in some field of endeavor he or she is a very talented person, that would be a clear and easily comprehended assertion, as in “X is really good at ping-pong,” or “X excels at croquet.” But that doesn’t quite capture what is meant by “great.” The sentence “Alexander is a great man” must be uttered with a distinct sense of awe, or it misses the mark. What is meant is not simply that he was talented at war. It is that he was . . . well . . . you know. Great.

Human beings, it would seem, have the need for the divine in their lives. The Greeks had their gods on Olympus who were honored by a lovely assortment of temples. In the middle ages the people looked up to the Supreme Being toward which their cathedrals pointed. We no longer believe in gods of that sort, so we replace them with bigger than life human beings. We marvel at the accomplishments of the Great, and celebrate celebrities. It is no accident that in the same essay – Thus Spake Zarathustra – that Nietzsche proclaims the death of God he announces the birth of the overman (Übermensch) – the quasi-divine human being.

Somehow a limited selection of human beings have managed to become at least quasi-divine. Is it fame that has effected this transformation? Or perhaps wealth? Both, I suspect. Fame grants them the nearest thing to immortality that flesh and blood can hope for, and wealth gives them power. Thus the "great" become immortals of a sort.

Alexander was born into wealth and fame. But being the son of Phillip of Macedonia was an aspect of his situation – not his person. It was something he was given – not something that he earned. He inherited, in addition, an athletic body and a reasonable degree of intelligence. With all of that going for him he could hardly fail, unless the accidents of fortune turned against him. Given his fortuitous head start, he did what self-respecting leaders of empire generally do. He set out to win more territory for his empire. I am a little dubious about his real motive being the altruistic one of liberating the downtrodden from their oppression under Persia. When I hear this sort of justification for wars in the contemporary world, I trend to see it as window dressing. If this was his real motivation why do I hear about his invading India?

But I am not much of an historian, so I could be wrong. In any case your informative response has persuaded me that Alexander was probably a better conqueror than average. But great?

The truth is that I don’t really believe in great men or in great women. I think we are all just ordinary people – which is a good thing to be. Some may be more talented than others in this or that skill, and some may even be more principled than average, or kinder. Some may accomplish more than the average person does. But it’s only because they are playing on a bigger stage that some people appear bigger than life. Wealth and power on a big stage create the illusion of a quasi-divine nature.

I take the time to respond to your thoughtful and informed comment because I believe the notion of greatness is a dangerous one.

So let us drink to Alexander the Better Than Average.

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Edmund Marlowe   Monday, 04 November 2019

jedson, I do understand your point about greatness. However, I'm left wondering (really just wondering, not disbelieving) if you yourself fully understand how and why Alexander is usually considered great even in our peace-admiring age? I wonder partly because you are so dismissive of his success, saying that he could hardly fail with the gifts you say he was born with (though plenty of others were born with such gifts, but none of them were thought to have made nearly such effective use of them). I wonder much more though because you seem to think that Alexander is admired today, like Genghis Khan (whom I personally don't admire), because he was a successful conqueror. I don't think many of Alexander's admirers today (and we are legion) admire him for that per se at all. Some of us do admire the most lasting result of his conquests: the dissemination of Greek ideas and culture throughout the Mediterranean, and eventually the world, beautiful and enrichening ideas now taken for granted, but which could easily have been lost without him. But mostly I think Alexander is admired for being historically unique as one who was simultaneously and successfully a dreamer and a man of action. It is personal.

THE AGE OF THE LOVED BOY IN THE ARAB-ISLAMIC WORLD, 1500-1800

Mike   Thursday, 25 July 2019

I'm a bit critical here of the extensive use of integer chronological age in what I assume to be an attempt to define pederasty. Let me suggest that you look for ways to break away from that supposed restriction, even while applauding what you've already done along those lines by providing examples of art, and first-person historical accounts. I believe falling back into trying to view the situation in terms of chronological age is a modernism that doesn't serve your larger purpose.

In that historical and cultural context (devoid of formal birth certificates and intense government regulation of life based on chronological age) people's status was defined much more on individual traits, tastes, and talents. I would contend this respect for human diversity and individuality is a better approach to understanding all aspects of humanity than chronological (even in our own era). Not all readers may realize that growth milestones like puberty can vary greatly among individuals, as well as in different historical and cultural contexts (due to diet, stress, exposure and to modern human-created chemicals). Thus a reliance—even if not exclusive—on chronological age to describe or define human erotic situations will not only lend to misunderstanding, it also reinforces as "standard" a modernist view of humanity that deserves no special status.

For example, eunuchs were not uncommon in that era and culture. Some eunuchism occurred naturally, and some through surgeries and accidents. The surgeries were sometimes done to increase erotic desirability. And they were a regular part of that culture and can't be dismissed as "freaks" or "exceptions." A reliance on chronological age to define the optimal desirability for an Islamic pederast makes the whole phenomena of eunuchs unexplainable: why take the risks of such a procedure if age is the primary component of desire, and not other, more tangible human attributes? This is only one extreme example where a reliance on age obscures—rather than enlightens—the reader on what constitutes the object of pederastic desire.

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Editor   Monday, 29 July 2019

Thanks for the very interesting comment. I agree quite strongly with almost everything you write. I don't wish to encourage anyone "to view the situation in terms of chronological age", but I do think the apparent age of the boy is one consideration that helps us to understand what pederasty was about, and that is why El-Rouayheb and others wise in these matters have devoted a little space to it.

As it happens, I am currently working on an extensive essay, "On the distinct character of Greek love", which will present my current understanding based on the writings so far on this website and certainly includes your points. I'll send you a draft when it is nearer finished and will gladly take on board any further thoughts you have about it.

I'm not sure if I've understood your point about eunuchs. I thought that when boys were castrated for pederastic purposes, it was in order to prolong the period in which they would be attractive (which, as El-Rouayheb says, would otherwise end with the growth of the beard) rather than to increase erotic desirability at an age when boys were anyway found attractive. Unless you are simply pointing out that it was physical development rather than chronological age that mattered, with which I entirely agree.

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Mike   Wednesday, 31 July 2019

Indeed Editor, that was my intent with the comment about eunuchs: the pederast wasn't attracted by chronological age, but rather by a more complex array of triggers of desire independent of age.

I would contend that one must be very, very careful about categorizations. Humanity is profoundly diverse, and we all have a unique set of triggers of desire (for lack of a better term). So when a statement is made about "lack of a beard" we might forget that most women are expected not to have a beard. Is the presence of a penis AND the lack of a beard the root of pederastic desire? Does a boy's effeminate or masculine bearing matter? Does his physical fitness or height matter? Can a boy's excessive height veto desire? Would a boy's "chubbiness" veto it? It isn't one or two triggers that cause desire, but dozens, if not hundreds, both positive and negative. And not just physical attributes, but social positions: questions as to the extent that relative social power plays in pederastic desire are also very interesting—just as they are in adult heterosexual relationships. Each "pederast" (and human) is unique: he (or she?) has a unique set of erotic triggers and "no-goes." So, in a very real sense there isn't "pederasty" but a whole spectrum of "pederasties" that—when cavalierly lumped together—can often result in confusion, obscuring, and even facilitate various bigotries. For example, I have recently heard commentators employed by America's usually prestigious PBS (or possibly NPR) refer to Jeffery Epstein as a "pedophile," which I find profoundly confusing, obscuring, and facilitating bigotry.

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Mike   Wednesday, 31 July 2019

Here's another example of how chronological age distorts our perceptions: a short, mild-mannered, soft-spoken priest gives oral sex to a tall, self-confident, athletic, guy. If the priest is 26-years-old, and the guy 15 everyone in the modern west today would call that pederasty, if not pedophilia. However a typical 1600s Arab would think that conclusion to be just ridiculous. Who is 'correct'? There's no way to tell if we are even posing the question in a useful way: one that leads us to a better understanding. We just don't have appropriate tools to understand these issues objectively.

The modern West has made remarkable strides in physics, chemistry, engineering, electronics, but as far as the human sciences go, the "modern" West is still in their dark ages. Our understanding of human relationships and eroticism is still mired in religious prejudices and bigotries. The USA particularly is loath to apply even Darwinism to the understanding of human nature—outside a few academics who are under constant scrutiny and intense objections from most of the general population.