Greek Homosexuality

by K.J. Dover

The ancient Greeks have for centuries been regarded as Western Culture's cultural and intellectual ancestors. But throughout generations of education in ancient Greek philosophy, drama, poetry, politics, and art, a crucial aspect of the ancient Greek world has come to be overlooked, avoided, distorted, or denied--the role of the homosexual relationship. K.J. Dover's scholarly, thorough, and fair study is a landmark in the opening of the issue to the public.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, LGBT, Greece, Sexuality, Anthropology, Queer

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

Reviews

[Monty Milne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember buying this as an undergraduate at Oxford. Unfortunately, while I was on holiday in the long vac my mother found my copy and was so scandalised by it that she destroyed it! My expostulations that it was a work of serious academic rigour cut no ice with her. "It was a nasty dirty book" she said. I've since replaced it, mainly for nostalgic reasons.

I never met the author (who was a don at Oxford while I was there) but I did hear from a fellow student (now a distinguished historian) that Dover had originally written a preface along the lines of "Many people have wondered why a pipe smoking heterosexual like me should have had sufficient interest in this subject to have written a book on it...well, it's always been an interest of mine since a rather curious experience in my youth, which I now propose to describe..." My friend assured me that Dover was persuaded to excise this preface or he would have certainly become a laughing stock. The story is no doubt scurrilous and of doubtful veracity, but there is a certain ponderousness of style here which has the effect of causing unintentional humour - at least to a pervert like me - e.g. -

- Dover's dry note to one decorated pottery vase: "A youth places his finger in the anus of another. Possibly intended as a jocular insult."
For some reason the image of a highly respectable, tweed clad, uxorious Professor and Knight of the Realm carefully annotating a ludicrously lubricious piece of pottery in that manner gives me quite a lot of amusement.

[G.R. Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book and told my lover that we had to try intercrural sex right now, I couldn't wait. I got into character and murmured sweet nothings to him in Classical Greek, using my best imitation of a willing young ephebe's voice. I'm sorry to say that he freaked. Wuss.

[Sharad Pandian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is often described as a landmark study on the topic of Greek (male) homosexuality, the first study of its kind, and even the "the best historical account of Greek sexual customs" by Martha Nussbaum. Naturally I had to read it. I'm not reviewing any of the content here, but instead simply make notes about the methods used and displayed.

I. About the book

It's a short (~200 pages), scholarly work which examines pottery, texts, poetry from ancient Greece, "to describe those phenomena of homosexual behaviour and sentiment which are to be found in Greek art and literature between the eighth and second centuries B.C." (vii). He tries to avoid questions of anachronism about the use of "homosexuality" by adopting the working definition "the disposition to seek sensory pleasure through bodily contact with persons of one's own sex in preference to contact with the other sex" (1).

He points out that there are five major sources of material to draw from:
(a) late archaic and early classical homosexual poetry
(b) Attic comedy, particularly Aristophanes and his contemporaries
(c) Plato
(d) a speech of Aiskhines, the Prosecution of Timarkhos
(e) homosexual poetry of the Hellenistic period

Surprising to me, he doesn't focus on Plato:

Plato differed from most Athenians of his time in possession of wealth and leisure, in boundless zeal for the study of philosophy and mathematics, in a suspicious and censorious attitude to the arts, and in contempt for democracy (to which it is fair to add that he differed from them also in his ability to write in a way which combines to a unique degree dramatic power, convincing characterisation, vitality and elegance)... Yet Plato's right to speak even for Greek philosophy -to say nothing of a right to speak for Greek civilisation - was not conceded by other pupils of Socrates, and although Plato gave great impetus to philosophy, neither his own pupils nor the philosophical schools which arose in the two following generations accorded his teaching the status of revelation. (13)

Instead he focuses on (d), the Prosecution of Timarkhos, arguing that it is "the only surviving work of Greek literature on a substantial scale (45 printed pages in a modern edition) which is entirely concerned with homosexual relationships and practices" (13) and that since it was meant to be a speech designed to convince a jury compased of ordinary citizens, paying attention to it is far more revealing:

If we want to discover the social and moral rules which the average Athenian of the fourth century B.C. treated with outward respect and professed to observe, we cannot do better than study the sentiments and generalisations which the forensic, orators make explicit, the implications of their allusions, boasts or reproaches, and the points at which they introduce, or omit to introduce, evaluative terms into a narrative. (13-14)

Once a framework is extracted from the Prosecution, a variety of other sources are analysed to show how these work. Particuarly helpful is the ~50 pages of pottery photographs included (though not all referred to are printed, and even for those meant to be there according to the text, many are strangely missing). This helps see what Dover is talking about. Admittedly some of Dover's readings are dubious, from the extracts and excerpts he provides, but that's to be expected and even he acknowledges it.


II. Context

As a non-scholar in this area, I'm not going to comment on how accurate the analysis is. It's fascinating to note, however, that standard terms about Greek sexuality which is somewhat familiar now might have originated with him. For example he writes

I have consistently adopted the Greek term eromenos, masculine passive participle of eran, 'be in love with ... ', 'have a passionate desire for ... '. For the senior partner I have adopted the Greek noun erastes, 'lover', which is equally applicable to heterosexual and homosexual relations but (being, like eromenos, derived from eran) is free from the ambiguities inherent in the English word 'love'. (16)

Big, if true.

That this is a work from another, far more homo-averse time is clear. He starts by arguing (using a lot of quotes from others) that the study of Greek sexuality has been impaired by bias.

I am far from claiming expertise in the interpretation of pictures, but I am fortified by seeing that experts sometimes err, e.g. in describing a typical pair of males engaged in intercrural copulation as 'wrestlers' or in taking a scene of homosexual courtship, in which hares are offered as gifts, as a 'discussion of the day's hunting'. (4-5)

However, he positions himself as even-handed, explicitly affirming Arno Karlen's statement that "Some (sc. public and academic experts on sex) are secret homosexuals, their "research" disguised apologetics. Other researchers and clinicians reveal in private a vengeful hatred toward sexual deviants that they would never display in print or in public" (vii). As opposed to these, he puts forward his credentials for objectivity as consisting of two aspects:

-His indubitable heterosexuality

Established linguistic usage compels me to treat 'heterosexual' and 'homosexual' as antithetical, but if I followed my inclination I would replace 'heterosexual' by 'sexual' and treat what is called 'homosexuality' as a subdivision of the 'quasi-sexual' (or 'pseudo-sexual'; not 'parasexual'). Anyone who wishes to make an impression on me by ascribing my inclination to prejudice must first persuade me that he has made a serious attempt to distinguish between prejudice and judgment. (vii-viii)

[In his 1986 Postscript, in response to crticism, he justifies this conceptualization with "My reasoning was simple: we have the word 'sex' because there is more than one sex, definable in terms of reproductive function, and I accordingly use 'sexual' to mean 'having to do with (difference of) sex'." (206)]

-His lack of disgust at bodily configurations:

I am fortunate in not experiencing moral shock or disgust at any genital act whatsoever, provided that it is welcome and agreeable to all the participants (whether they number one, two or more than two).

While this does seem like a bit over-the-top by today's standards, the text itself is pretty good, and builds up to defenses that the Greeks emphatically did not have a policy of blanket disapproval of homosexuality, and that being paranoid about the presence of homosexuality will make for poor understanding of those times:

There is no sign in the sexual discussions which make up Book IV of the Problemata, or in Aristotle, or indeed in Plato, that a genital response to the bodily beauty of a younger male was regarded as a defect or impairment of male nature, no matter what view was taken of the duty of the law to prevent gratification of the desire aroused by this response. (170)

So long as we think of the world as divided into homosexuals and heterosexuals and regard the commission of a homosexual act, or even the entertaining of a homosexual desire, as an irrevocable step across a frontier which divides the normal, healthy, sane, natural and good from the abnormal, morbid, insane, unnatural and evil, we shall not get very far in understanding Greek attitudes to homosexuality. (183)

III. Interpretive methods

The lack of information means much of this is speculative and needs importing of alien norms to be interpretted. This means numerous references to other cultures are present:

In the old Norse epics the allegation 'X uses Y as his wife' is an intolerable insult to Y but casts no adverse reflection on the morals of X. (105)

phalloi fixed on the ground, the former with two cavorting satyrs and the latter heavily veined in a manner unusual in Greek art (though normal in Japanese erotic prints) (132)

The assumption that shared sexual experience is the foundation upon which the mutual sexual passion of the partners is built rather than the goal towards which their pre-existing passion moves is widely adopted in societies which segregate boys and girls and put the responsibility of arranging marriages on parents. (151)

If the legend had no erotic element, we may wonder why beauty (as distinct from zeal and a steady hand) is a desirable attribute in a wine-pourer, but it should not be impossible for us, even after a prolonged immersion in the ambience of Greek homosexuality, to imagine that the gods on Olympos, like the souls of men in the Muslim paradise (Koran 76.19), simply rejoiced in the beauty of their servants as one ingredient of felicity. (196-7)

Most alien norms are, unsurprsingly, from "our" own time and world:

If the quarry is human and the object copulation, the difficulty of the chase enhances the value of the object, and eventual capture, after fierce competition with rival hunters, is incalculably reassuring to the hunter himself. No great knowledge of the world is needed to perceive the analogy between homosexual pursuit in classical Athens and heterosexual pursuit in (say) British society in the nineteen-thirties. (88)

In modern literature we are more likely to find metaphysical language applied to sex than sexual language to metaphysics; in both cases, the analogy is facilitated by the sensation, not uncommon in orgasm, that one's individual identity has been obliterated by an irresistible force. (165)

Since it has been observed in our own day (to say nothing of Euboulos fr. 120 [p. 135]) that segregation of males into armies, ships or prisons promotes homosexual behaviour, there is an a priori argument for an exceptional degree of such behaviour in Sparta and Crete (192-3)

This method of using similarity with the present to understand the past, however, results in an asymmetry, where the past needs explanation in terms of the present. Why, we can ask, does the "exceptional degree of such behaviour in Sparta and Crete" stand in need of explanation? Or at the least, would it at least be acceptable if symmetrically we could say "compared to the world of Sparta and Crete, modern capitalist, liberal society can be explained by the differentiated institutions present there"?

[Interestingly, there is one place where Dover asks the explicitly sociological question about the Greeks and tries to answer it:

Whether any anthropologist, sociologist or social historian initially ignorant of the Greeks but supplied with a succession of data which did not include any manifest evidence of homosexuality could say after a certain point 'It necessarily follows that overt homosexuality was strongly developed in such a society', I do not know, and the experiment is hardly practicable, for a social scientist not already aware that homosexuality was a conspicuous feature of Greek life will not easily be found. The best we can do is first, to make the reasonable assumption that Greek homosexuality satisfied a need not otherwise adequately satisfied in Greek society, secondly, to identify that need, and thirdly, to identify the factors which allowed and even encouraged satisfaction of the need by homosexual eros in the particular form which it took in the Greek world. It seems to me that the need in question was a need for personal relationships of an intensity not commonly found within marriage or in the relations between parents and children or in those between the individual and the community as a whole. The deficiencies of familial and communal relationships can be derived ultimately from the political fragmentation of the Greek world." (201)]

Luckily, near the end, Dover seems to break this asymmetry and tries to be more evenhanded analytically (only if implicitly):

if we could ask ancient Greeks why homosexual eros, once invented, caught on so quickly, widely and deeply, practically all of them (I exclude some philosophers and most cynics) would reply rather as if we had asked them the same question about wine: enjoyment of both females and males affords a richer and happier life than enjoyment of either females or males. (200-1)

The modern sentiment which I have heard expressed, more than once, in the words 'It's impossible to understand how the Greeks could have tolerated homosexuality' is the sentiment of a culture which has inherited a religious prohibition of homosexuality and, by reason of that inheritance, has shown (until recently) no salutary curiosity about the variety of sexual stimuli which can arouse the same person or about the difference between fundamental orientation of the personality and episodic behaviour at a superficial level. The Greeks neither inherited nor developed a belief that a divine power had revealed to mankind a code of laws for the regulation of sexual behaviour; they had no religious institution possessed of the authority to enforce sexual prohibitions. Confronted by cultures older and richer and more elaborate than theirs, cultures which none the less differed greatly from each other, the Greeks felt free to select, adapt, develop and- above innovate. Fragmented as they were into tiny political units, they were constantly aware of the extent to which morals and manners are local. This awareness also disposed them to enjoy the products of their own inventiveness and to attribute a similar enjoyment to their deities and heroes. (203)

IV. Penises, tee-hee

Finally, being a child, there are many lines which I found hilarious, as is inevitable when such bawdy matters are treated scholarly:

It is not always easy to decide at what stage between flaccidity and complete erection a satyr's penis is supposed to be. (128)

Patroklos in R39, while his wound is being bound up by Achilles, sits on his right heel in such a way that his genitals rest on the upper surface of his foot; it is as if the painter were under a powerful constraint not to conceal the genitals. (130)

Satyrs were a godsend to artists who felt impelled to give expression to exuberant penile fantasies (835, in which a satyr's erect penis is as massive as his arm, is the ultimate exaggeration), and the uninhibited behaviour characteristic of comast-scenes provided other opportunities for celebrating the power of the penis. B678 is a fantasy rooted, I think, in that genre: a musician whose hands are fully occupied with the double pipe has a spontaneous ejaculation, and a bewildered bee dodges the bombardment. (131)

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dover’s text is a seminal one on its subject and one that anyone who wants to study ancient sexual history must consult. However, it is now in its most recent edition over 30 years o,d and there is no doubt that the scholarship has moved on. This can be seen quite readily in his constant referral to homosexuality instead of the more appropriate term ‘homoeroticism’. He wrote his book using a schema of sexual terminology that is not analogous to the context he investigates, or indeed the constructs he posits.

There is no doubt that Dover’s research, combining literary and physical evidence is impressive. However it has to be said that this, combined with his devotion to utilising Ancient Greek terms and his academic language in toto presents a serious barrier to all but the most astute reader. Whilst wading through Dover’s multiple citations and his numerous Greek terms it is very easy to lose the path and the historical narrative of his arguments.

Therefore, I would not recommend this book to the lay reader or the non-academic. Diver wrote a demanding and extremely scholarly work that will always be most useful for those following in his academic footsteps. It is not, however, a book to be digested readily by anyone who has minimal exposure beforehand to Ancient Greek study. It is not a book for everyone, but it is a book that will meet the needs and interest of those starting to study the subject Dover addresses.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

While being very instructive I found two things that hinerded the reading of this book...for me.

1. although he provided many photographs of vase-painting and gave a thorough explanation of the vases....the code numbers didn't match up! I went through almost all of the vases as he was explaining e.g. vase RS1098..and without question...numerically speaking I could never find the vase. This was disruptive to my reading about the vase and in the end I gave up trying to match his number system with regards to the vases.

2. He was so thorough in his explanation of many Greek words found...that sometimes reading about one word in the middle of an explanation became most difficult. He seemed to parse sentences and words ad nauseum. eg. he would give the ancient Greek word followed by...'(....(a word...)' ".."..)

But he was trying to tell the reader how the words were actually found in ancient scripts and stone.

Dover meticulously covered all the areas of Greek homosexuality: poems, epic, comedies, speeches. Very informative.

Then he delved into where it possibley originated.

He gave us stories of Spartan pederasty and how it differed.

All in all, despite the fact of the vase numerals, I found this book to be very thorough and interesting.

[Nour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tremendously insightful and well written.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A landmark study in ancient Greek sex and gender studies, with good reason. It's well-researched and informative, although some of Dover's footnotes are a little...awful. Take this one for instance about hubris and rape:

I do not countenance the strange notion that women 'really want' to be raped...

Well that's good

...but I am acquainted with a case in which, according to her own private testimony, a woman violently resisting rape became aware that her immediate desire for sexual intercourse had suddenly become much more powerful than her hatred of her attacker.

Why is this footnote included?

[Colin Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating, but I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone who doesn't know some Greek. Interesting insights as to whether Sappho was homosexual. I find myself marveling at several points that I now knew what the Greeks thought of as the ideal shape for a penis.

[The Kid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dover offers a pretty thorough survey of extant material (literature, vase paintings, inscriptions etc.) and makes some interesting analyses. This book remains an important introduction for anyone interested in homosexuality in the ancient Greek world.

[Ruric Amhari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly detailed methodical description and analysis of homosexuality in Ancient Greece. Scholarly, detailed and academic but not beyond a lay person to read.

Looks at the law, manifestatio of eros and nature and society. Good, if somewhay dry, read.

[matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in order to support an essay argument. It was both informative and interesting in it offering links to other texts and interpretations. Dover breaks down arguments into simple terms with his commentary often being humorous making it an enjoyable read.

[Manolis P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

O Kenneth Dover θεωρείται από τους μεγαλύτερους Άγγλους κλασικούς φιλολογους της σχολής της Οξφόρδης και το έργο του Greek Homosexuality είναι πολύ σημαντικό για την μερική κατανόηση της ομοφυλοφιλίας στην αρχαία Ελλάδα.
Εντάξει η εργασία είναι κάπως μικρή δεδομένου οτι θα μπορούσε να αναλύει περισσότερο τις πηγές.Σωστα χρησιμοποιεί τα αγγεία αλλά δεν λέει τίποτα για την ιστοριογραφία που σίγουρα θα βρίθει παραδείγματα ομοφυλοφιλιας. Νομίζω δεν αναφέρει και το πασίγνωστο παράδειγμα του Αριστογείτονα και του Αρμόδιου που αναφέρει ο Θουκυδίδης και ο Αριστοτέλης.
Πολύ ενδιαφέρον ανάγνωσμα και θυμάμαι μας το είχε προτείνει και ο καθηγητής μας στην φιλολογία ο κ. Λεντακης και ο κ. Βερτουδακης.
Και το άλλο έργο του που κυκλοφορεί σε ελληνική μετάφραση (η κωμωδία του Αριστοφάνη) πολύ καλό .

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a hard thing to write a review of a book so justly-famed as this one is; it seems harder to give it only three stars, and so I have lingered on this review for a few days now, seemingly getting nowhere. Dover deserves credit for being one of the first to openly tackle the topic of 'Greek love,' arguing his case patiently and thoroughly at a time when a positive reception could not have been guaranteed. The study of sexuality in antiquity is well-worn ground now--and subsequent classicists have taken Dover to task for his (at times wilful) misinterpretation of some texts, ignorance of others, and so on--but Greek Homosexuality must still find a place in the syllabus of every course on premodern sexualities, though I caution the curious not to read it in isolation.

[Cole Drake · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. It's very interesting learning about the history of homosexuality - specifically in Greece, and how it shows in their art, literature, myths, and law. I never knew that it was definitely nothing like it was in the West, where it was very shameful and hidden, especially in our religion of Christianity and Catholicism, with the Church.

In a sense, as a homosexual myself, it felt very empowering and a breath of fresh air that not everywhere in history was it terrible to be gay. The fact that it was in other popular religions was interesting.

[Zachary Sokol · Rating 4 out of 5]

A shockingly interesting read. Had a philosophy prof in college that referenced this book constantly and made jokes about it. Some of the funniest paraphrased epithets epithets (when talking about the Greeks): “The slippery thighs of a young boy are far preferable to the cavernous parts of a woman”, “boys are best right when they start getting a bit of peach fuzz”. NOTE: I AM NOT CONDONING PEDOPHILIA AND NEITHER DOES THIS BOOK.

[Mike Crowley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal survey of the topic in the title. Definitely academic in scope and language, but if you're interested in the landscape of homosexuality in Greek culture as a whole, this is worth a read. Dover is very matter-of-fact in his approach to "sensitive" topics, which is a breath of fresh air when so many classicists can tend towards the conservative vis a vis the gays.

[Izabela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Najgorszy moment to przebrnąć przez sprawę Timarcha potem naprawdę okej się czyta
Duży plus za ilustracje waz umieszczone na końcu książki przez co nie trzeba się odrywać i szukać w internecie jak wyglądają.
Jeśli ktoś chce zgłębić temat homoseksualizmu w Grecji archaicznej i klasycznej to jak najbardziej zwłaszcza polecam.

[Michael Turkhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A somewhat idiosyncratic, but a very detailed overview of a subject, with the author taking a fine approach between demonizing and glorifying the phenomena of Classical Greek same-sex relations.

[Kamil · Rating 3 out of 5]

#studia

[Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kenneth Dover's 1978 text still remains the place to start for an informed, nuanced and cant-free discussion of the topic Greek homosexuality. What strikes a modern reader is just how evolved and absolutely sensible so many of the judgments are. The book appeared midway between the decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain in 1967 and the passage of the odious Section 28 laws under the Thatcher government. In other words, Dover's book arrived at a time of swirling back and forth arguments regarding homosexual activity and ages of consent. Though his book is not about the contemporary furore, everywhere Dover's text stands as a commonsense and tempered reflection on practices in the Greek world that obtained for a certain time under certain conditions. It remained breath of sensible air in an era of overheated rhetoric that sent many to the fainting couches. It still reads as remarkably forthright and free of jaundiced stupidity. One only wishes now that a different term had been found for same-sex practices described in his text, since homosexuality is a (relatively) modern term that carries with it an enormous freight of preconceptions, most of which are less than relevant to the historical context Dover engages with. The work is encyclopedic in its use of images and texts (legal and creative) to unpack the topic, and almost entirely free of crippling jargon. As useful today as when it first appeared, and a model approach to a fascinating and charged topic.

[Christin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a textbook, make no mistake. And it's not on Greek homosexuality overall but just how it is portrayed in art. Which is fair, relying on the sources only, without any flights of fancy, though it does account for the difference between real life and human emotion versus idealized philosophy and whatever Aristophanes would do for a laugh. But the footnotes are amusing at times and it is fascinating. It was also fun to read this in Panera, surrounded by all those nice families. :)

[Jeremy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title pretty much says it all.

[michelle]

classics major ftw.

[Tz348 · Rating 3 out of 5]

dry and slow, pictures of interesting sex scenes

[Merry Kusuma]

I think this book good for read

[Panagiotis Fragkos]

i like to read this book

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone interested in Greece/Rome, sexuality or literature/culture/anthropology.

[AskHistorians]

The first major work on this long-ignored, but very important, issue in Greek social history.