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Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome
This groundbreaking study, among the earliest syntheses on female homosexuality throughout Antiquity, explores the topic with careful reference to ancient concepts and views, drawing fully on the existing visual and written record including literary, philosophical, and scientific documents. Even today, ancient female homosexuals are still too often seen in terms of a mythical, ethereal Sapphic love, or stereotyped as "Amazons" or courtesans. Boehringer's scholarly book replaces these clichés with rigorous, precise analysis of iconography and texts by Sappho, Plato, Ovid, Juvenal, and many other lyric poets, satirists, and astrological writers, in search of the prevailing norms, constraints, and possibilities for erotic desire. The portrait emerges of an ancient society to which today's sexual categories do not apply―a society "before sexuality"―where female homosexuality looks very different, but is nonetheless very real. Now available in English for the first time, Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome includes a preface by David Halperin. This book will be of value to students and scholars of ancient sexuality and gender, and to anyone interested in histories and theories of sexuality.
424 pages, Paperback
First published October 12, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 17, 2026
A long time ago, when I wrote my Masters of Letters thesis on what I referred to as ancient Roman homoeroticism, I was treading relatively new ground academically. It's no surprise that, looking back thirty three years later, I made a significant error in my study, i.e. failing to take into account what might be considered female homoeroticism. So, I thought it was important for me to take a look at Sandra Boehringer's major study Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome so as to fill in the gaps for myself, as well as see how the study of ancient sexuality has progressed since my wobbly baby steps. All up, it is pleasing to see that many of my ideas and arguments from the early Nineties seem to still hold true. Furthermore Boehringer establishes some important differences between male-to-male sexual relations and female-to-female sexual relations in the ancient Graeco-Roman context. Unfortunately I don't believe I have the skills to really engage with what the author has written and posited in this book, which is my issue, as well as a reflection on how complex and at times how obtuse she writes. Be that as it all may be, this surely is a major achievement and one that will inform many a future exploration of the subject within the confines of academia.
One thing that warmed to Boehringer early in the text was her inclusion of both an introduction from and references to David Halperin and his One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, a scholar who has had a major influence on the discourse around ancient sexualities for many a year now and who I once met at a university seminar. Boehringer has certainly taken on board Halperin's insights into ancient sexuality, and this is shown early on:
"The following account cannot of course claim to be exhaustive, and the dates given are simply meant as signals of the general trends I want to highlight. I should also be clear that I am using the term “homosexuality” in a heuristic way, without meaning to endorse the approach that claims to rediscover modern gay and lesbian identity categories in ancient sources. Tracing the history of “homosexuality” helps to identify the periods when this theme has appeared significant to researchers, apart from whatever their methods and theoretical conceptions of sexuality may have been."
Not only does this quote reflect how the author of this text is explicit in her rejection of the imposition of anachronistic and irrelevant constructs of sexuality from today on the ancient Greeks and Romans, it also negates all of my initial reservations when considering her use of the term 'homosexual'. Boehringer is more than capable of establishing what I would consider to be a relevant and historiographical correct construction of her discussion of the topic.
As the author unfolds her analysis of the book's subject she makes a major effort to achieve several things. Her ability to bring together the disparate and at times obscure sources for depictions of female homoeroticism in Greece and Rome in this text is remarkable. It goes without saying that she looks in great depth at Sappho, the iconic archaic poet from Lesbos who became a symbol and a signal for what might be considered in modern parlance lesbianism. I know from my own work that trying to identify and then interpret relevant evidence for this kind of inquiry is like winnowing wheat from the chaff, and in Boehringer's case, considering the paucity of evidence, it is perhaps even more akin to hunting for a needle in a haystack. She has pulled together a compelling and wide range of primary source materials, including physical evidence such as pottery paintings. Major writers such as Plato, Juvenal, Ovid, Seneca and Lucian all are included, as are less famous or more fragementary ancient works. Throw in her referrals to modern historians and their work (aside from Halperin) including important academics such as Dover, Winkler and Veyne, and one would be hard put to find problems with the depth of her scholarship. This kind of work leads her to make some appropriate and highly valuable comments, such as these on how female homosexual acitivities were left unrepresented for the most part by our extant sources from classical era Greece:
" The silence of the visual record about sex between women shows that Greek society liked to be seen, and liked to see itself, as a world in which women do not make love among themselves."
"So, pottery shows us that Greek men did not find sex between women erotic; the silence of comedy during Aristophanes’ time shows us that they did not find it funny either."
It was particularly interesting, and dare one say enjoyable, when Boehringer goes on a deep dive into the figure of Philaenis, trying to unravel what might have been a real woman who was associated with something akin to pornographic writing, and as a figure in one of the Roman poet Martial's more explicit poems:
"The tribade Philaenis buttfucks (pedicat) boys, and, more raging than an erect husband, she planes down (dolat) eleven young girls in a single day. With her clothes hoisted up, she also plays ball and, covered with sand, she swings from confident arm weights even studs (draucis) would find heavy, and filthy from the dusty palaestra, she takes a beating from an oiled gymnastics instructor. She doesn’t recline or dine until she’s vomited three liters of wine, and thinks she can carry on in this manner once she has wolfed down sixteen meatballs. After all this, when she’s horny, she doesn’t give blowjobs—she thinks it not manly enough—but greedily devours the crotches of girls (sed plane medias vorat puellas). May the gods bring you to your senses, Philaenis, if you believe it manly to lick cunt!"
Boehringer goes to great effort to deconstruct what is going on here, as well as in the literary and historical background that exists behind this poem, I think the author is definitely on the right track with what she says about the poem and about Philaenis, and it's explained with clarity and insight. Unfortunately there are other times in the book when this isn't the case. As noted earlier, Boehringer writes in such a manner to (at times) obscure for more simpler readers such as I what she is really trying to say. This extract, unlike many other historical materials in the book, is not explained in such complex language to leave the reader mystified. Also, and this is something of an unfair criticism, the continued use of Greek words in Greek script means that those of us without the relevant language skills must surely be missing out on much of Boehringer's analysis.
When Boehringer comes back to the reader with less complicated and semantically challenging writing she is definitely on the right path. This is but one more example fo what the author gets right in my opinion:
"The feeling the three friends experience on beholding the beauty of the Aphrodite statue shows that this “taste” relates not to one sex or the other, but to one or another body part of the desired person, irrespective of sex."
Boehringer knows what she is talking about, speaking to issues such as 'taste', or as to how homoerotic relations in ancient Greece and Rome are definitely different to what we might consider gay, queer, homosexual etc. She makes a consistent and detailed effort to speak to the language and semiotics of sexuality as represented in the ancient texts, and I would suggest her analyses and conclusions on the topic of ancient Greek and Roman female homoeroticism are all encompassing and maybe definitive.
Now as stated before, I didn't get as much of a hold on this book and Boehringer's writing as I had hoped for, and that's down to me. It also is an important point to consider if one is coming to Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome without the appropriate level of academic skills. This is not a book that will be accessible or indeed relevant for anyone not interested in ancient sexuality. This is not an indictment on the quality of the work, rather a recognition as to who should and could get the benefit of Boehringer's writing. I would suggest, as a closing statement, that just as Ken Dover's Greek Homosexuality was the book that started so much of what Boehringer and others have written since then, her text will begin and sustain new and continuial enquiries on ancient female homoerotocism.
One thing that warmed to Boehringer early in the text was her inclusion of both an introduction from and references to David Halperin and his One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, a scholar who has had a major influence on the discourse around ancient sexualities for many a year now and who I once met at a university seminar. Boehringer has certainly taken on board Halperin's insights into ancient sexuality, and this is shown early on:
"The following account cannot of course claim to be exhaustive, and the dates given are simply meant as signals of the general trends I want to highlight. I should also be clear that I am using the term “homosexuality” in a heuristic way, without meaning to endorse the approach that claims to rediscover modern gay and lesbian identity categories in ancient sources. Tracing the history of “homosexuality” helps to identify the periods when this theme has appeared significant to researchers, apart from whatever their methods and theoretical conceptions of sexuality may have been."
Not only does this quote reflect how the author of this text is explicit in her rejection of the imposition of anachronistic and irrelevant constructs of sexuality from today on the ancient Greeks and Romans, it also negates all of my initial reservations when considering her use of the term 'homosexual'. Boehringer is more than capable of establishing what I would consider to be a relevant and historiographical correct construction of her discussion of the topic.
As the author unfolds her analysis of the book's subject she makes a major effort to achieve several things. Her ability to bring together the disparate and at times obscure sources for depictions of female homoeroticism in Greece and Rome in this text is remarkable. It goes without saying that she looks in great depth at Sappho, the iconic archaic poet from Lesbos who became a symbol and a signal for what might be considered in modern parlance lesbianism. I know from my own work that trying to identify and then interpret relevant evidence for this kind of inquiry is like winnowing wheat from the chaff, and in Boehringer's case, considering the paucity of evidence, it is perhaps even more akin to hunting for a needle in a haystack. She has pulled together a compelling and wide range of primary source materials, including physical evidence such as pottery paintings. Major writers such as Plato, Juvenal, Ovid, Seneca and Lucian all are included, as are less famous or more fragementary ancient works. Throw in her referrals to modern historians and their work (aside from Halperin) including important academics such as Dover, Winkler and Veyne, and one would be hard put to find problems with the depth of her scholarship. This kind of work leads her to make some appropriate and highly valuable comments, such as these on how female homosexual acitivities were left unrepresented for the most part by our extant sources from classical era Greece:
" The silence of the visual record about sex between women shows that Greek society liked to be seen, and liked to see itself, as a world in which women do not make love among themselves."
"So, pottery shows us that Greek men did not find sex between women erotic; the silence of comedy during Aristophanes’ time shows us that they did not find it funny either."
It was particularly interesting, and dare one say enjoyable, when Boehringer goes on a deep dive into the figure of Philaenis, trying to unravel what might have been a real woman who was associated with something akin to pornographic writing, and as a figure in one of the Roman poet Martial's more explicit poems:
"The tribade Philaenis buttfucks (pedicat) boys, and, more raging than an erect husband, she planes down (dolat) eleven young girls in a single day. With her clothes hoisted up, she also plays ball and, covered with sand, she swings from confident arm weights even studs (draucis) would find heavy, and filthy from the dusty palaestra, she takes a beating from an oiled gymnastics instructor. She doesn’t recline or dine until she’s vomited three liters of wine, and thinks she can carry on in this manner once she has wolfed down sixteen meatballs. After all this, when she’s horny, she doesn’t give blowjobs—she thinks it not manly enough—but greedily devours the crotches of girls (sed plane medias vorat puellas). May the gods bring you to your senses, Philaenis, if you believe it manly to lick cunt!"
Boehringer goes to great effort to deconstruct what is going on here, as well as in the literary and historical background that exists behind this poem, I think the author is definitely on the right track with what she says about the poem and about Philaenis, and it's explained with clarity and insight. Unfortunately there are other times in the book when this isn't the case. As noted earlier, Boehringer writes in such a manner to (at times) obscure for more simpler readers such as I what she is really trying to say. This extract, unlike many other historical materials in the book, is not explained in such complex language to leave the reader mystified. Also, and this is something of an unfair criticism, the continued use of Greek words in Greek script means that those of us without the relevant language skills must surely be missing out on much of Boehringer's analysis.
When Boehringer comes back to the reader with less complicated and semantically challenging writing she is definitely on the right path. This is but one more example fo what the author gets right in my opinion:
"The feeling the three friends experience on beholding the beauty of the Aphrodite statue shows that this “taste” relates not to one sex or the other, but to one or another body part of the desired person, irrespective of sex."
Boehringer knows what she is talking about, speaking to issues such as 'taste', or as to how homoerotic relations in ancient Greece and Rome are definitely different to what we might consider gay, queer, homosexual etc. She makes a consistent and detailed effort to speak to the language and semiotics of sexuality as represented in the ancient texts, and I would suggest her analyses and conclusions on the topic of ancient Greek and Roman female homoeroticism are all encompassing and maybe definitive.
Now as stated before, I didn't get as much of a hold on this book and Boehringer's writing as I had hoped for, and that's down to me. It also is an important point to consider if one is coming to Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome without the appropriate level of academic skills. This is not a book that will be accessible or indeed relevant for anyone not interested in ancient sexuality. This is not an indictment on the quality of the work, rather a recognition as to who should and could get the benefit of Boehringer's writing. I would suggest, as a closing statement, that just as Ken Dover's Greek Homosexuality was the book that started so much of what Boehringer and others have written since then, her text will begin and sustain new and continuial enquiries on ancient female homoerotocism.
May 2, 2019
Un estudio muy interesante sobre las relaciones homoeróticas femeninas en Grecia y Roma a partir de las pocas (o nulas) fuentes de las que disponemos.
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January 9, 2025li a introdução e o capítulo "fragments d’un discours amoureux"
September 1, 2025
J’ai adoré l’analyse notamment de la scène entre Callisto et Zeus métamorphosé en Artemis. Également l’analyse sur la poète Sappho était vraiment pertinente.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews