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Category:Pederasty in ancient Greece (closely related topic)

The word eromenos is used to describe an adolescent boy as the passive (or ‘receptive’, ‘subordinate’) partner in a homosexual relationship (usually between males), opposite to the word eraste (to love, the older and active partner) in Ancient Greece.

Terminology

erômenos (ἐρώμενος) means ‘one who is sexually desired in Greek language and is the past participle of the verb eramai, to have sexual desire. In Greek Homosexuality, the first modern scholarly work on this topic, K. J. Dover used the literal translate of the Greek word as an English word to refer to the passive partner in Greek homosexual relationship. Though in many contexts the young man is also called pais, ‘boy’, the word can also be used for child, girl, son, daughter and slave, and therefore eromenos would be more specific and can “avoid the cumbrousness and…imprecision of ‘boy’”. It is in contrast to the masculine active participle erάn (‘be in love with…’, ‘have a passionate desire for’) in order to. The word erastes (lover), however, can be adapted to a married man’s role in both heterosexual and homosexual relationship.

Kenneth James Dover, Greek Homosexuality, updated and with a New Postcript. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1989), 16.

Ibid.

Characteristics

In vase paintings and other artworks, eromenos is often depicted as a young adult. The relatively smaller scale suggests his passive role in the relationship and younger age as well as social status. The specific age is a nuanced issue for eromenos. The lack of beard and public hair is an important clue to identify an eromenos. A poem quoted in Greek Sexuality (couplet 1327f) shows that ‘the poet will never cease to ‘fawn on’ the boy so long as the boy’s cheek is hairless.

Eromenos is not a fixed term, as it is only a stage of Greek young men. After they grow up, their relationship with the erates will end as they get married or start relationship with other women. As Bion the Borysthenite condemned Alcibiades, ‘that in his adolescence he drew away the husbands from their wives, and as a young man the wives from their husbands.’ According to Garrison, for Cretan boys, the passage to adulthood for boys is the ‘prewedding’ of sex with a mature man.

Ibid.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, IV, 7, 49, as cited in Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1st American ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978, 188.

Daniel H. Garrison, Sexual Culture in Ancient Greece, Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture; v. 24 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), 164.

Depiction

Visual Art

In vase paintings and other artworks, eromenos is often depicted as a young adult. The relatively smaller scale suggests his passive role in the relationship and younger age as well as social status. The specific age is a nuanced issue for eromenos. The lack of beard and public hair is an important clue to identify an eromenos. A poem quoted in Greek Sexuality (couplet 1327f) shows that ‘the poet will never cease to ‘fawn on’ the boy so long as the boy’s cheek is hairless.

Eromenos is not a fixed term, as it is only a stage of Greek young men. After they grow up, their relationship with the erates will end as they get married or start relationship with other women. As Bion the Borysthenite condemned Alcibiades, ‘that in his adolescence he drew away the husbands from their wives, and as a young man the wives from their husbands.’ According to Garrison, for Cretan boys, the passage to adulthood for boys is the ‘prewedding’ of sex with a mature man.

Ibid.

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, IV, 7, 49, as cited in Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1st American ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978, 188.

Daniel H. Garrison, Sexual Culture in Ancient Greece, Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture; v. 24 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), 164.

Literature

The love for eromenos is a frequent topic in Ancient Greek poems. Dover studied poems related to pederasty and quoted some verses expressing love to eremonos, ‘O boy with the virginal eyes, I seek you, but you do not listen, not knowing that you are the charioteer of my soul!’ Also, A surviving fragment of Solon from the early sixth century B.C. writes that ‘Till he loves a lad in the flower of youth, bewitched by thighs and by sweet lips.’

The graffiti of Thera verified that anal penetration was normal in pederastic relationship, for in the inscriptions, Krimon used the verb oipein (male sexual act performed as either the male or female part in Dorian dialect) to describe the intercourse with his eromenos, which indicates anal penetration. Also, literature suggested that the charm of eromenos lied in their attractive anal area, which was described by various metaphors such as rosebud, fruits, figs or gold.

It is noteworthy that most of the Greek verses about homosexuality were about how the eraste longed for the eromenos, but few were written from the perspectives of the eromenos.

Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 84.

James Neill, The Origins and Role of Same-sex Relations in Human Societies, (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland &, 2009), 145.

Cantarella, Bisexuality in the Ancient World, 27.

Cantarella, Bisexuality in the Ancient World, 26.

Myths

The erate-enomenos relationship can not only be between humans but also gods. The love between Apollos and Hyacinthus were said to be the archetype of pederasty in Sparta. Apollo fell in love with Hyacinthus by his youtuful beauty and became his instructor to teach him archery, music, hunting and gymnasium. Hyacinthus was killed by the discus thrown by Apollo when studying discus throwing with him, and in some versions of myths it was Zephyr who also loved Hyacinthus and disturbed the wind to cause this accident.

Homeric Hymm of Aphrodite gave an explicit portrait about the erotic relationship between Ganymede and Zeus. Ganymede is a young and beautiful man kidnapped by Zeus from Greek and became a mortal in Olympus. He was depicted in ancient vase paintings as the ideal of eromenos.

Neill, The Origins and Role of Same-sex Relations in Human Societies, 150.

Attitudes

Athenians banded slaves in homosexual courtship, as Against Timarchus stated that ‘A slave shall not be the lover of a free boy nor follow after him, or else he shall receive fifty blows of the public lash’, but this did not apply to free men. Nevertheless, to be in the relationship with honor, and eromenos were supposed to resist the chase of men to test their love before finally yielding.

Moreover, the perception of pederasty varied in different cities. While it was allowed in Elis and Boeotia, Ionians did not accept homosexual courtship and Athenians held a complicated attitude, as Athenian fathers should protect their sons from suitors.

Cantarella, Bisexuality in the Ancient World, 20.

Ibid.

Scholar Review

Power Structure

Some scholars like Sissa believe that what eromenos gained from erastes were not material rewards, but intellectual and moral edification as well as satisfaction to desire, as pederasty was regarded as a process of education and sensual pleasure. For over a millennium, this relationship was the primary way of education young men of the ruling class in military skills, social values, literature and arts. Eric Bethe, the first classical scholar to acknowledge Greek homosexuality, believed that the semen via anal intercourse was regarded as how noble qualities of the tutor-love was passed down to the youth. However, Foucault argued that, according to Plutarch, the sexual relation is an impose through violence and eromenos could only feel anger, hatred, the desire for revenge and becoming an object of contempt, which he described as acharistos.

Giulia Sissa, Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 67

Neill, The Origins and Role of Same-sex Relations in Human Societies, 130.

Ibid.

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1st American ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 206.

Comparison to Heterosexual Women Women

In heterosexual erotic images in Ancient Greece, the gender division is often depicted as the ‘dominant’ and ‘subordinate’ position. Women often bends over, lays back or are supported with men positioned upright or on top, while eromenos are often depicted as experiencing ‘intercrural sex’ as the partners standing face to face with thighs crossing.

To erastes, whether the appeal and seduction of eromenos lie in their masculinity or femininity is contested. Dover discovered a line of Athenian Kritias quoted by a Roman writer, ‘In males, the most beautiful appearance is that which is female; but in females, the opposite.’ However, due to the lack of specific context and further supporting evidence, we cannot conclude that female characteristics of eromenos are the stimuli of pederasty. He also found that beardless male faces and female share the same contour except the eyes. It may be partial to think that the love for eromenos is exactly because of their femininity. On the contrary, they became the beloved because of their masculinity or athletic beauty.

Some scholars like Eva Cantarella and Cohen founded out that the ideal procedures of resistance before both homosexual and heterosexual courtships were similar, for their honor lied not in the refusion, but the right time of capitulation.

Please note that not all homosexual relationship in Ancient Greece include this pederasty or erastes-eromenos relationship. The love between Achilles and Patroclus might be a counterargument to pederasty, for both of them showed their masculinity in this heroic, blood-brother like relationship.

Dover, Greek Homosexuality, 68.

Cantarella, Bisexuality in the Ancient World, 18.

Later Adaptation

The 20th century English and South African writer Mary Renault was famous for her romantic novels on pederasty in Ancient Greece.