The ignorance expressed in these lines would be astounding were it not so commonplace. How can anyone have the chutzpa to write about Greek homosexuality without ever having read the *Symposium*?
Aristophanes: (191D-192B)
Each of us, then, is but a tally of a man, since everyone shows, like a flat-fish, the traces of having been sliced in two; and each is ever searching for the tally that will fit him. All the men who are sections of that composite sex that was at first called man-woman are woman-courters; our adulterers are mostly descended from that sex, whence likewise are derived our man-courting women and adulteresses. All the women who are sections of the woman have no great fancy for men: they are inclined rather to women, and of this stock are the she-minions (hetairistriae). Men who are sections of the male pursue the masculine, and so long as their boyhood lasts they show themselves to be slices of the male by making friends with men and delighting to lie with them and to be clasped in men's embraces; these are the finest boys and striplings for they have the most manly nature. Some say they are shameless creatures, but falsely: for their behavior is due not to shamelessness but to daring, manliness, and virility, since they are quick to welcome their like. Sure evidence of this is the fact that upon reaching maturity these alone prove in a public career to be men**. So when they come to man's estate they are boy-lovers, and have no natural interest in wiving and having children, but only do these things under stress of custom; they are quite contented to live together unwedded all their days. A man of this sort is at any rate born to be a lover of boys or the willing mate of a man... (translation by W.R.M. Lamb)
** Aristophenes may here be presented as referring to Cleon, a leading politician of the time, whose flamboyant gayness was ridiculed in several of his plays. (sm)
Shane M.
^^^^^^ CB: Was this an ideology of all classes of the time and place, or only the ruling class elite ?