Talk:Hasdrubal the Fair - Misplaced Pages

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Source for characterization as a "catamite"?

Hi. The quotation provided for Livy is as follows:

"Hasdrubal, coming between father and son, held the supreme power for eight years. He is said to have become a favourite of Hamilcar's owing to his personal beauty as a boy; afterwards he displayed talents of a very different order, and became his son-in-law."

While I agree that there's certainly an intimation there, isn't it quite a hop, skip, and a jump away from "He was a favourite because of his beauty" to "He was a boy who submitted to a sexual relationship with Hamilcar"? Are there other sources that say this more explicitly? It's perfectly appropriate for us to mention this if (for example) reputable historians have stated that this was what Livy meant. But I haven't found any substantiation for this claim -- outside of Misplaced Pages. Nandesuka (talk) 01:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I found this in Cornelius Nepos: "These objects being executed according to his desire, he then, by dint of a spirit confident and incensed against the Romans, contrived, in order more easily to find a pretext for going to war with them, to be sent as commander-in-chief with an army into Spain, and took with him thither his son Hannibal, then nine years old. There also accompanied him a young man named Hasdrubal, a person of high birth and great beauty, who, as some said, was beloved by Hamilcar with less regard to his character than was becoming; for so great a man could not fail to have slanderers. Hence it happened that Hasdrubal was forbidden by the censor of public morals to associate with him; but Hamilcar then gave him his daughter in marriage, because, according to their usages, a son-in-law could not be interdicted the society of his father-in-law. We have inserted this notice of Hasdrubal, because, after Hamilcar was killed, he took the command of the army, and achieved great exploits; and he was also the first that corrupted the ancient manners of the Carthaginians by bribery."

This is slightly more straightforward than Livy's elliptical mention. I'll re-insert the text in question and rewrite it to make clear that this was, essentially, a rumor, but one credited widely in Rome. Nandesuka (talk) 01:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I just noticed this note of yours (after having edited you at the HPC article). Nevertheless I still think it is dishonest to say that "some think" because it implies that some do not think so. Thanks for finding the Nepos, by the way. Haiduc (talk) 03:08, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I hope this goes some way to demonstrating that I'm really not trying to expunge all mentions of pederasty from Misplaced Pages. I just believe it serves us well to be, frankly, type A about sources. Nandesuka (talk) 03:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to disturb all your efforts but I was able to track down his year of birth which makes him out of the age for being a catamite. I made the appropriate corrections here and at another place on pederastic relationships in antiquity where it is mentioned too.

As a side I noticed there were several inaccuracies by previous people that I corrected as well. It looks like someone or some people have been adding false infomation. I have been looking at the same translation of Diogenes Laertius as they were using and I noticed that they are saying things that simply aren't there. It seems they are purposefully inaccurate because at least once if not twice, they quote the translation word for word and replace the word "friend" in the original with "eromenos." I don't know if it was meant as a joke or what. Very shocking to say the least. But I think I've caught all the errors just by searching and comparing with Diogenes Laertius. I can't say about the other sources unless I compare with them but to do that for all of them would take waaayyy too much time and there's not enough tea in my pot for that! That's all from me!

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