CMS150 - Winter 2001

Trials of Conscience: Litigation

and the Rhetoric of Identity

 Week 3, Class 1 Lecture Outline

1/23/01


Background on the Pre-Socratics

 Background on Sparta

  • Remember, most of what we think we know about Sparta, we know from what other Greeks said about the place and its people. We have virtually no archeological and no literary sources after the archaic age written by Spartans.

  • Small percentage of male pop were citizens ["Equals"] whose primary functions were to serve the city as warriors. Citizens were not supposed to farm, so Sparta depended on slaves to do all the work [slaves called "Helots"]. Sparta, not the Equals owned the land and the slaves. Artisans and business men had more civic rights than Helots but no respect. Land was alloted to citizens and was supposed to return to the state on a citizen's death [often circumvented].

  • Male children at the age of seven were taken away from the family and raised in a military academy style of training until the age of 30. Preoccupied with physical and military training. Practice raids on helots were part of the training. Culminated in a coming of age/initian ritual called the cryptia &endash; young men sent out to the hill country alone. They had to live for a year off the land, unseen by anyone. They had the right to kill helots during this period. Adult males were required to attend common meals [syssitia] in order to maintain their citizenship.

  • Although the earliest archaic Greek poets included Spartans, after these folks, Sparta had no history of literary achievement. They built in wood not stone and their city was not by Greek standards much to look at.

  • Government
    • 5 ephors from the Equals &endash; day to day admin of city
    • supervised by Gerousia [council of elders; 28 members; all > 60; elected for life by Equals]
    • two hereditary kings
      • a. mostly religious functions
      • b. automaticaly member of Gerousia
      • c. one was always commander in chief
  • More info at:

Greek Love

There is a lot of evidence that at least some Athenians not merely tolerated, but in fact, actually encouraged male homosexual relationships. Determining what Athenians thought about these relationships is very difficult for several reasons. First, our own culture enjoys a variety of attitudes toward homosexual relations that range from tolerance to violent supression. Second, it is not at all clear that the Athenians would have understood what moderns meant by homosexuality. Third, the Athenians themselves, appear depending on class, to have held different attitudes.

There are a number of observations we can make. First, our evidence for homosexual relationships playing a critical role within Athenian culture is strongest for the aristocracy (which not coincidently, most strongly segregated the sexes). Second, while Athenians (or at least aristocratic Athenians) encouraged young men to welcome the attention of older men, these relationships were not necessarily sexually active. The most important function of these relationships was to educate young men into the demands of their identities as aristocratic members of a democratic community. More specifically, some have argued that these relationships taught young aristocrats to negotiate difficult issues of power.

Athenians typically used the language of eroticism to describe this relationship. The older partner was the erastes, the "lover" and perhaps sexually dominant partner. The young man was the eromenos, the "beloved" and perhaps sexually submissive partner. It was appropriate when the boys had grown old enough and learned what their lovers had to teach that these relationships lose their erotic focus, that the young men take wives and produce sons of their own, and when they were old enough, take the role of "lover," themselves. Men of either age group who didn't grow out the relationships were frowned upon. Men who did not marry and produce children were looked down upon. Men who when they had ceased to young continued to enjoy being sexually submissive, were despised. Middle aged men who had homosexual relationships with each other were despised. Conversely, men who enjoyed being sexually dominant with younger men, suffered no social sanctions, if they conducted these relationships properly. If the object of the dominent Athenian's affection was a slave or foreigner, Athenians didn't give a damn. If the object of affection was an Athenian boy who could grow up to be citizen and soldier of Athens, Athenians cared very much. Proper conduct of these relationships required that very young boys be free from any such eroticization, and that even with age-appropriate (just before the age when boys start to get their first facial hair) boys, a boy's father approves of the relationship. Young men, moreover, were supposed to behave modestly, and if they "led their lovers on," insisting on gifts, etc., they risked being accused of prostituting themselves (with consequences for their civic rights).

It is important to note that this is how some Athenian men described these relationships, not how they lived them. We have little evidence of what the affective content of these relationships were. It is entirely possible that a number of Athenian men had homosexual relationships that would seem "romantic" to us. They just knew better than to say so [Cf. the old-fashioned kind of husband who likes to joke, "my wife I think I'll keep her," but actually defers to his wife's judgment in important matters].

It is equally important to note that different Athenians held different views on the topic and that these views could and did conflict considerably. This kind of conflict in views, moreover, is probably absolutely normal within any culture on any important question. The Athenians, moreover, explicitly recognized the conlicts within their own society, even within their own laws on the issue, and the conflict between their norms (how they said things should be) and practice (how things were).

In fact Athenian notions about honor were inextricably linked with Athenian notions about sexuality. You will not be suprised when I tell you that these notions were gendered. Men were on top, women were submissive. For a man to be submissive was to act like a woman and to lose his honor. In many cultures, men compete to acquire and demonstrate their honor by pursuing women. On the one hand, a father demonstrates his own honor by keeping his daughter sexually pure until marriage. On the other hand, a man demonstrates his virility by overcoming a father's precautions and taking the girl. It is a zero-sum game, in the words of David Cohen (Law, Sexuality and Society: The Enforcement of Morals in Classical Athens).

The zero-sum game of honor that men in Athens played was particularly complicated because a) there was no tradition of courtship between men and women (marriages were arranged; b) girls were married at very young ages and lived under extraordinary supervision until married; c) at least in aristocratic circles, married women were supposed to live lives of virtual seclusion. Hence the thing for boys. But the game boys and their lovers played was very complicated as well. Boys knew that submission entailed characterization as feminine. Lovers, however, could only gain sexual honor within their own peer group by victory over the boys.

Boys in Athens, played the part of girls. In fact, the Athenians seemed to have regarded boys as not quite sexually determined. If they were educated properly, they would grow up to be manly men who defended the city. If the education process failed, they would grow up to be femine, corruptible, and a disaster for the city. A young boy coming of age in Athens, accordingly, faced the same dilemas that young girls face in ours (i.e., if you're not cute, i.e. sexually appreciated, your socially dead. If you're too cute, i.e., sexy, you're a slut). A young, handsome man who was widely appreciated (and perhaps came to know and meet men who would help him in his public life as an adult) could easily be shunned, and his father's reputation destroyed, if he did not behave modestly and moreover, be perceived to behave modestly.

The honor issues raised by this kind of courtship would follow a man throughout his life. No one knew if a boy "gave in." Instead, Athenians formed an opinion based on their observations of the partners' behavior towards each other, the reputation of lover and beloved, and gossip within the community. When the boy grew to manhood, if he pursued a career in politics, his enemies would be quick to use the charge that he had been a prostitute. Before you quickly dismiss this possibility, think of it in non-sexual terms, in terms of American politics. What sort of analysis did you engage in when the news was released that George W. Bush had pled guilty to a drunk driving charge when he was in his 30s? [If you want to think about American politics in terms of sexual honor, at least heterosexual honor, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal is a good parallel to Athenian charges of homosexual misconduct by politicians].

 

 

 


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