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little value one another when dangers press but a band cemented by friendship grounded upon love is never to be broken these bonds reflected in episodes from greek mythology such as the heroic relationship between achilles and patroclus in the iliad were thought to boost morale as well as bravery due to the desire to impress and protect their lover such relationships were documented by many greek historians and in philosophical discourses as plutarch demonstrates 25 black figured amphora depicting cavalrymen credit mharrsch cc by 2 0 flickr it is not only the most warlike peoples the boeotians spartans and cretans who are the most susceptible to this kind of love but also the greatest heroes of old meleager achilles aristomenes cimon and epaminondas during the lelantine war between the eretrians and the chalcidians before a decisive battle the chalcidians called for the aid of a thessalian warrior named kleomachos of pharsalos he answered their request bringing his lover to watch leading the charge against the eretrians he brought the chalcidians to victory at the cost of his own life the chalcidians erected a tomb for him in the marketplace in gratitude 25 spartan weddings edit after 500 bc spartan men were required to get married it was considered a public service to have children for a spartan wedding the bride s hair was cropped short to show she was now a woman and the men grew their hair long this reversal continued on for the bride who was dressed in mens attire and wearing a fake beard this was explained as apotropaic cross dressing 26 george devereux on the other hand suggested this was to make the husband s transition from homosexual to heterosexual relationships easier 26 thereby marking pederasty relationships as temporary developmental ones and not one of sexual and intimate connection like with a woman however if the male was under the age of 30 he had to sneak over at night to see his bride and was not allowed to live with her some cases they kept the marriage a secret until there was a child once the male was deemed as having enough children he could then honorably pass his wife on to a friend it is also noted as ancestral custom for a wife to have three or more husbands depending on if they were related and any children born belonged to all husbands 26 yet when two men of similar age shared a similar relationship it was deemed taboo and in fact perverse 27 sex between adult men edit anal sex between two males two sides of a drinking cup greek archaic period 550 500 bce according to the opinion of the classicist kenneth dover who published greek homosexuality in 1978 given the importance in greek society of cultivating the masculinity of the adult male and the perceived feminizing effect of being the passive partner relations between adult men of comparable social status were considered highly problematic and usually associated with social stigma 28 this stigma however was reserved for only the passive partner in the relationship according to dover and his supporters greek males who engaged in passive anal sex after reaching the age of manhood at which point they were expected to take the reverse role in pederastic relationships and become the active and dominant member thereby were feminized or made a woman of themselves dover refers to insults used in the plays of aristophanes as evidence passive men were ridiculed more recent work published by james davidson hubbard have challenged this model arguing that it is reductionist and have provided evidence to the contrary 29 the legislator philolaus of corinth lover of the stadion race winner diocles of corinth at the ancient olympic games of 728 bc 30 crafted laws for the thebans in the 8th century bc that gave special support to male unions contributing to the development of theban pederasty in which unlike other places in ancient greece it favored the continuity of the union of male couples even after the younger man reached adulthood the most famous example being the sacred band of thebes composed of elite soldiers in pairs of male lovers in the 4th century bc as was also the case with him and diocles who lived together in thebes until the end of their lives 31 the romance between pausanias and agathon in athens made famous by their appearance in plato s symposium also continued from the pederastic phase into adulthood as a stable and long lasting relationship achilles and patroclus edit main article achilles and patroclus achilles and patroclus the first recorded appearance of a deep emotional bond between adult men in ancient greek culture was in the iliad 800 bc in the original epic homer does not depict the relationship between achilles and patroclus as sexual however they were depicted as such by some writers in the later classical greek period the ancient athenians emphasised the supposed age difference between the two by portraying patroclus with a beard in paintings and pottery while achilles is clean shaven although achilles was an almost godlike figure in greek society this led to a disagreement about which to perceive as erastes and which eromenos among elites such as aeschylus and pausanias citation needed since homeric tradition made patroclus out to be older but achilles stronger it has been noted however that the depictions of characters on pottery do not represent reality and may cater to the beauty standards of ancient athens other ancients such as socrates argued in xenophon s symposium that achilles and patroclus were simply close friends aeschylus in the tragedy myrmidons made achilles the erastes since he had avenged his lover s death even though the gods told him it would cost his own life however the character of phaedrus in plato s symposium asserts that homer emphasized the beauty of achilles which would qualify him not patroclus as eromenos 32 theseus and pirithous edit theseus and pirithous are another famous pair of close adult male best friends of the same age whose strong bond has homoerotic connotations according to some ancient authors pirithous had heard stories of theseus s courage and strength in battle but wanted proof so he rustled theseus s herd of cattle and drove it from marathon and theseus set out in pursuit pirithous took up his arms and the pair met to do battle but were so impressed with each other s gracefulness beauty and courage they took an oath of friendship 33 according to ovid phaedra theseus wife felt left out by her husband s love for pirithous and she used this as an excuse to try to convince her stepson hippolytus to accept being her lover as theseus also neglected his son because he preferred to spend long periods with his companion 34 35 orestes and pylades edit orestes and pylades attributed to pasiteles school orestes and pylades similarly to achilles and patroclus grew up together from childhood to adulthood their relationship is stronger and more intimate than any of their relationships with other people the relationship between them has been interpreted by some authors from roman times onwards as romantic or homoerotic the dialogue erotes affairs of the heart attributed to lucian compares the merits and advantages of heteroeroticism and homoeroticism and orestes and pylades are presented as the principal representatives of a loving friendship in 1734 george frederic handel s opera oreste based on giangualberto barlocci s roman libretto of 1723 was premiered in london s covent garden the fame of lucian s works in the 18th century as well as the generally well known tradition of greco roman heroic homoeroticism made it natural for theatre audiences of that period to have recognized an intense romantic if not positively homoerotic quality to the relationship between orestes and pylades alexander and hephaestion edit main article personal relationships of alexander the great the emblema of the stag hunt mosaic c 300 bc from pella the figure on the right is possibly alexander the great due to the date of the mosaic along with the depicted upsweep of his centrally parted hair anastole the figure on the left wielding a double edged axe associated with hephaistos is perhaps hephaestion 36 alexander the great had a close emotional attachment to his cavalry commander hipparchus and childhood friend hephaestion he was by far the dearest of all the king s friends he had been brought up with alexander and shared all his secrets 37 this relationship lasted throughout their lives and was compared by others as well as themselves to that of achilles and patroclus hephaestion studied with alexander as did a handful of other children of ancient macedonian aristocracy under the tutelage of aristotle hephaestion makes his appearance in history at the point when alexander reaches troy there they made sacrifices at the shrines of the two heroes achilles and patroclus alexander honoring achilles and hephaestion honoring patroclus ancient writers did not conclusively identify them as lovers 38 however many modern scholars believe that it is possible they could have been lovers 38 according to robin lane fox alexander and hephaestion were possible lovers after hephaestion s death in oct 324 bc alexander mourned him greatly and did not eat for days 39 full citation needed alexander held an elaborate funeral for hephaestion at babylon and sent a note to the shrine of ammon which had previously acknowledged alexander as a god asking them to grant hephaestion divine honours the priests declined but did offer him the status of divine hero alexander died soon after receiving this letter mary renault suggests that his grief over hephaestion s death had led him to be careless with his health alexander was overwhelmed by his grief for hephaestion so much that arrian records that alexander flung himself on the body of his friend and lay there nearly all day long in tears and refused to be parted from him until he was dragged away by force by his companions 40 harmodius and aristogeiton edit main article harmodius and aristogeiton harmodius and aristogeiton were two lovers in classical athens who became known as the tyrannicides τυραννόκτονοι tyrannoktonoi for their assassination of hipparchus the brother of the tyrant hippias for which they were executed a few years later in 510 bc the spartan king cleomenes i forced hippias to go into exile thereby opening the way to the subsequent democratic reforms of cleisthenes the athenian democrats later celebrated harmodius and aristogeiton as national heroes partially to conceal the role played by sparta in the removal of the athenian tyranny cleisthenes notably commissioned the famous statues of the tyrannicides the two principal historical sources covering harmodius and aristogeiton are the history of the peloponnesian war vi 56 59 by thucydides 41 and the constitution of the athenians xviii attributed to aristotle or his school 42 however their story is documented by several other ancient writers including important sources such as herodotus and plutarch 43 44 sex between adult women edit generally the lives of ancient greek women were not well documented 45 the historical record of love and sexual relations between women is sparse 8 there is some speculation that pederastic style relationships existed between women and adolescent girls especially in sparta together with athletic nudity for women in the 700s bc the spartan poet alcman used the term aitis as the feminine form of aites which was the official term for the younger participant in a pederastic relationship 46 27 28 during the year 610 b c a group of teenage girls was documented singing classic hymns during ploughing rituals 47 such songs involved likely flirtation with lyrics like if only astaphis were mine if only philulla were to look in my direction and but i mustn t go on for hagesichora has got her eye on me 47 thy soul grown delicate with satieties atthis o atthis i long for thy lips i long for thy narrow breasts thou restless ungathered ezra pound ἰμέρρω 48 adaptation of sappho 96 sappho of lesbos edit the lyric poet sappho was born on the greek island of lesbos sometime between 630 and 612 bce 49 she wrote many wedding songs and love poems addressed to women and became so well known that she lent the name of her island lesbian to eventually mean love between women the library of alexandria collected sappho s work into nine volumes much of which was lost in the fire 49 only about 600 lines of sappho s estimated 12 000 lines of poetry have survived 50 reference in the symposium edit in the 300s bce aristophanes in plato s symposium recounts a story accounting for the origin of human love before being split in half by the gods humans were originally created with four legs four arms and two faces since we were split each human is always seeking our other half to become complete he says that there were originally four legged male people who became men attracted only to men four legged hermaphroditic people who became heterosexuals and four legged female people who are women attracted to women 51 a the four legged females become women who do not care for men but have female attachments 52 for these relationships between women aristophanes uses the term trepesthai to be focused on instead of eros which was applied to other erotic relationships between men and between men and women 53 47 characters in lucian s works edit a red figure kylix depicting two women in an intimate setting the kneeling woman may be grooming or annointing the other or it may depict lesbian intimacy attributed to the painter apollodorus c 490 480 bce tarquinia national museum in the a d 100s in lucian s dialogues of the courtesans a female character admits to having lesbian sex and talks about being pursued by two female characters 54 portrayals in red vase pottery edit lesbian relationships also may be portrayed in ancient greek pottery historian nancy rabinowitz argues that red vase images which portray women with their arms around another woman s waist or leaning on a woman s shoulders can be construed as expressions of romantic desire 45 women who appear on greek pottery are depicted with affection and in instances where women appear only with other women their images are eroticized bathing touching one another with dildos placed in and around such scenes and sometimes with imagery also seen in depictions of heterosexual marriage or pederastic seduction 46 27 28 45 scholarship and controversy edit at the centre of the image is anal sex between two males at the far left is a pederastic scene between two males tyrrhenian amphora around 565 550 bce after a long hiatus marked by censorship of homosexual themes 55 modern historians picked up the threads starting with erich bethe in 1907 and continuing with k j dover and many others some scholars believe that same sex relationships especially pederasty were common only among the aristocracy and that such relationships were not widely practised by the common people demos one such scholar is...