Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the study of Classical Greece in England was done mainly through the eyes of the ancient Romans. What I mean by this is that nearly all scholars in the field used Latin translations of Greek writings and Roman histories on the Greeks to construct their understanding of ancient Greece. It is evident that most works done on the Classical Greeks during the Industrial Era apply Roman ideals to Greek culture and refer to Greek historical figures and characters by their Roman names. This is problematic for a plethora of reasons, the least of which is that though the appearances of the two cultures seem similar, the religious practices and cultural values do differ greatly. Despite this, the use of Roman material continued in the place of Greek writings for many centuries.
Andrew Lang, a Scottish Historian, was one of the rare individuals who avoided this standard, as unlike his colleagues he focused on Greek translations. Being more interested in the folklore rather than the history, Lang established his own direct translation of the Odyssey (1879) and the Iliad (1883) to better understand the stories at play in this culture. Lang gained an understanding of the prose used in epic poetry, inspired by both the rhythm of Epic poetry and the play Helen by the Athenian playwriter Euripides, he culminated his expertise into Helen of Troy: Her Life and Translation. First published in London by George Bell and Sons in 1882, the publication shown here is the 1910 3rd edition by the American reprint and fine-press publisher Thomas B. Mosher (we also hold Mosher’s 1897 1st edition). Here Lang shows an expert understanding of both Greek prose and culture, most apparent in the book’s first chapter where Paris and Helen first meet. Greek rules around hospitality dictate that a host should not question who their guest is and why they are traveling until they have been fed and bathed. Menelaus, Helen’s husband, follows these rules perfectly in Lang’s writings as he waits to ask Paris for his identity and reasons for visiting Sparta.
Helen of Troy is a short but enjoyable read. It offers a glimpse into the life of the woman who “launched a thousand ships” and brings life to a character we actually see very little of in the Iliad and Odyssey.
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-- LauraJean, Special Collections Classics Intern.
So I saw a jokey Achilles/Patroclus post going around and, being the viper of myth & snake of history that I am, I wrote a jokey comment in response to it...
then decided to post it as a jokey minorinterlude instead...
and THEEEEeeeennNN.........
it turned into This monstrosity :T
SO:
(and with the proviso that my knowledge of this era and subject is by no means Perfect, and also that I could be hilariously forgetting important Bits)::
On the one entirely metaphorical hand: By the forms of "Classical" aristocratic(!important to note!) Greek culture, Achilles was clearly the eromenos(”the beloved”. The passivity is intentional) as the younger lover. English-speakers dealing with Achilles and Patroclus have, almost universally, age-switched them in treatments of the subject, which is a not-so-subtle hint at which view is conventionally favored in English-speaking cultures, if you ask me.
On the other entirely metaphorical hand: Homer was “writing” centuries before the “Classical” Era for a non-Classical audience, and their relationship, while easy to interpret through this model, clearly doesn’t follow it. Did the erastes/eromenos dynamic exist in Homer’s time? I don’t know. Was it as formalized as it was in the Archaic and Classical Era, both socially and symbolically(eromenosian hairlessness and erastean beardedness, etc)? I don’t know. If it was formalized, did it even take the same form? I don’t know.
The classical Greeks(and later Romans) (!!!)whose writings we have(!!!) generally lack an interest in “historical accuracy”, and mostly treated historical writing as polemical. By which I mean: they wrote about history to make arguments about the present, had absolutely zero or near-to-zero compunctions against making shit up or passing on as fact fictions convenient to them, and typically -unless tradition remembered otherwise and thus would declare them assholes immediately for saying it- assumed their social mores were the past’s social mores. So it’s entirely possible that Patroclus, while older, was still the eromenos in a Homeric Greece where social position[1] or relative prowess in battle mattered more in defining formal sexual relationships between aristocratic men[2]. Indeed, it’s entirely possible that the whole “conflict” about the nature of their relationship is the result of Athenian writers reading it through a Classical lens that was entirely alien to the relationship-dynamic Homer meant to convey(and which, presumably, was conveyed more clearly in the traditions surrounding and predating the Illiad which have been lost to memory, and to an audience steeped in them). And the thing is: that Classical Greeks argued against the most obvious romantisocial interpretation, as many must have for Plato to feel it necessary to write them into Symposium to refute them, shows that the issue was much more complicated in practice than formal Greek social institutions suggest.
On the third entirely metaphorical hand: The modern innovation of the power-bottom presents, I agree, an excellent compromise for both sides of this issue, entirely the fault of egocentric Athenians or not, though potentially an anachronistic one u_u
On the fourth entirely metaphorical hand: There were obviously other models of m/m love in Classical Greece. In Thebes, erastes and eromenos fought beside each other, as grown men and as social equals, with Achilles and Patroclus as a possible inspiration for this, or an example of the Homeric(meaning age not literature here) traditions that inspired the stories about them(of which only the one remains). The Sacred Band(the unit built around this tradition of military male homosexuality) was also reported to be drawn from all social classes purely on the basis of skill[4]. So, while described with the same terms, it clearly had different dynamics: it wasn’t restricted to the aristocracy; it was an equal relationship rather than one between mentor and student; and it was between two grown men, not between a grown man and a teenager.
Notes under the cut:
[1]Patroclus was Achilles’s henceman or follower. You could also say he was from a lower-status(but still aristocratic and royal) “branch family”. In modified modern terms, he was a “half-cousin” of Achilles: they shared a great-grandmother, Aegina, who had a child by Actor(a mortal king) named Menoetius, and a child by Zeus named Aeacus. Achilles’ grandfather was Aeacus; Patroclus’s grandfather was Menoetius. Who was also semi-divine through Aegina, who was the daughter of a humble river-god, Asopus. How humble? there were FOUR Asopuses ::::| We could go whole-hog speculative on this and treat it as a metaphor for royal/aristocratic hierarchy -given that every “King” everywhere and anywhen has justified their hegemony through divine descent or writ- but I leave the decision on such speculation entirely to the Reader u_u
[2]which clearly DID NOT operate under the same rules as paiderastia which required the eromenos to be a “hairless youth”. Yes that word inspired the English word you think it did, no it doesn’t mean exactly the same thing It’s Complicated, yes these relationships were supposed to end[3] when the youth had grown an appreciable amount of body-hair because Tradition defined sex not by gender but action and a grown man being penetrated was traditionally see as “womanish”, i.e., emasculating. Greek Aristos were misogynistic shitheads.
[3]”end” in the sense that penetrative sex was supposed to end. The social relationship between “Lover”(also, Mentor) and “Beloved” was expected to continue on and be close, and “The Greek Way” of intercrural sex(between the thighs) could presumably continue. Though, obvsl, people usually have sex privately(for a value of “privately” that, in Classical Greece, includes wild drunken parties with close friends), even if this privacy was mostly a social fiction in itself given the design of Greek homes(and social nature of “privacy”), so one would assume this would be, to some extent, also a social fiction. Many continued on as they had been, many knew they did so, and many were fine with this.
[4]I’ve done very little reading on Classical Greek history outside of Athens and Sparta, and especially social-history-reading(for which there aren’t many sources anyway, from what I understand), so I’m also interested in whether or not the dynamic of the Sacred Band played out in the rest of Theban society. Like: were Theban male homosexual relationships more equal and adult than general for Greece? Was there less of a stigma on class-mixing in Thebes(class was a HUGE issue in Athenian politics, and Sparta -for all its ascetic “egalitarianism” BETWEEN “Spartans”- was a racist totalitarian slave-empire)? I should look for books that might discuss these things :T
throwback to the time when you could begin a scholarly article on epigraphy with the sentence ‘On the 4th of last January a dealer in antiquities in Athens brought me a fragment of Pentelic marble bearing a metrical sepulchral inscription.’
(Poland, ‘A Sepulchral Inscription from Athens’, Papers of the American School at Athens, vol. 6 (1890-7), pp. 357-63.)
Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo
Sanjay Kumar Mohindroo. skm.stayingalive.in
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