Debunking the Myth of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece
Alistair_Sim
You've got to give Adonis Georgiades credit. Here he is, just a shade over
30, and he manages one of Hellas' most prestigious publishing houses, hosts
a five-day a week TV show, runs a school which specializes in teaching the
ancient language of his ancestors, and somehow still manages to find the
time to lecture and write books on the subject nearest and dearest to his
heart: the unrivalled and many-faceted glory of ancient Greece: A
renaissance man in every sense of the word.
Naturally, a man like this is going to be more than just a little upset over
the distortions and outright fabrications circulating in today's
multicultural, postmodern world. A world where the unsuspecting and
historically challenged are subjected to whatever deconstructed version of
reality the purveyors of the kind of putrescent pap think most suits their
worldview of "diversity" and "cultural equality." To such dissembling
dimwits, Plato, Dr. Ruth, and Chief Seattle are intellectually, ethically,
and philosophically equal! As a result, the unique contributions made by
the Greeks in the millenniums-old struggle to lift mankind out of the slime
of ignorance and superstition are trivialized, ignored, or put into an
ersatz context which helps to promote the "isms" in fashion at the moment.
Thus, we discover that the Greeks hated and victimized their women, that
they imposed their culture upon the poor, suffering peoples they conquered,
that they were heartless slave-owners, that they stole their philosophy from
the brown-skinned Egyptians, that they appropriated their alphabet from the
Semitic Phoenicians, and that some of their most outstanding
personalities -- and even some of their gods and goddesses -- were Black!
Those of you who have cracked a respectable number of pre-postmodern books,
or are frequent visitors to this site, know that such invidious absurdities
are untrue, and can easily be proven to be untrue. The fact remains,
however, that such is the blather being hustled these days, and a whole
generation of innocent youth is being exposed to this poison: A poison
purposely injected into their minds in order to create the stateless,
colorless, genderless, faithless, inarticulate, boob-tube-mesmerized,
consumer-drones the proponents of this Zyclon-B-of-the-intellect want to
inhabit the "Global Village" they are hell-bent on creating.
Such fuzzy-minded huckstering is especially prominent among the professors
in the Humanities departments of the colleges and universities of the
Western World. The frenzy-to-conform exhibited by these homunculi -- whose
shoes don't touch the floor when they are seated in their academic chairs --
is such that they are willing to sell their souls, betray their racial
heritage (those who are White), and pollute the quality of their scholarship
by playing an active role in the promulgation of this historical mythmaking.
And it is here, in these departments, where the most infuriating lie of
all -- that which posits the prevalence of homosexuality in ancient
Greece -- was born. This myth, engendered in Academia, and "legitimized" by
an alien and hostile element in America -- an element that controls the
awesome mind-molding power of the media and Hollywood -- could not help but
"have legs." And so it has come to pass that even an Al Sharpton -- a man
with the intellect of a retarded Neanderthal -- could publicly refer to the
ancient Greeks as "a bunch of fairies" in a speech given before an audience
of his mentally challenged acolytes. "Mentally challenged" because instead
of hissing and booing at such patronizingly obvious demagoguery, they
cheered, clapped, whistled, and hooted with bug-eyed delight at hearing
Whitey traduced and ridiculed by one of their own.
This is the myth that Adonis Georgiades so successfully and convincingly
demolishes in his book Debunking the Myth of Homosexuality in Ancient
Greece.
Georgiades manages, in just over 200 easy-to-read and well-documented pages,
to cite a multitude of ancient sources which shed the light of truth upon
the question of just how homosexuals and homosexuality were regarded in the
Hellas of the 9th to the 4th century B.C. His thesis is simple: "Of course
homosexuality existed in Greece, just as it has existed, and will continue
to exist, everywhere and at all times in human history. However, while it
did exist, it was never legally sanctioned, thought to be a cultural norm,
or engaged in without risk of serious punishment, including exile and
death." A pitiful creature like Barney Frank, for instance, would have --
upon his particular "proclivity" being discovered -- been executed or sent
into exile. After which, his living quarters would have been fumigated and
ritually purified by a priest. Unless, of course, he had previously "gone
public" with his homosexual lifestyle. In that case, though he would have
been permitted to live, he would, under Athenian law (grafí etairísios), not
be permitted to
become one of the nine archons, nor to discharge the
office of priest, nor to
act as an advocate for the state, nor shall he hold any
office whatsoever, at home
or abroad, whether filled by lot or by election; he
shall not be sent as a herald;
he shall not take part in debate, nor be present at the
public sacrifices; when the
citizens are wearing garlands, he shall wear none; and
he shall not enter within the
limits of the place that has been purified for the
assembling of the people. Any
man who has been convicted of defying these prohibitions
pertaining to sexual
conduct shall be put to death (Aeschines. "Contra
Timarchus," as cited in
Georgiades, p. 69).
We learn as well that "Athens had the strictest laws pertaining to
homosexuality of any democracy that has ever existed" (62). In
non-democratic Sparta, as well as in democratic Crete and the rest of
democratic Hellas, there were similar prohibitions with similar punishments
as that meted out in Athens, and Georgiades gives us citations galore to
prove his main thesis: "At no time, and in no place, was this practice
considered normal behavior, or those engaged in it allowed to go unpunished"
(passim). In order to remove any doubt whatsoever, he draws on such ancient
luminaries as Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Diodorus Seculus, Euripides, Homer,
Lysias, Plato, Plutarch and Xenophon, all of whom have left a written record
as to what the prevailing norms were concerning this behavior. He also
covers Greek vase painting, Mythology and Lesbianism, while not neglecting
to reveal the truth about such much-maligned personalities from Hellas'
glorious past as Achilles and Patroclus, Alcibiades and Socrates, Alexander
the Great and Hephaestion, and the woman that the later Greeks regarded as
"the greatest of the lyric poets," Sappho.
Greek vase painting has been a favorite source for the distorters of Greek
culture and civilization. Georgiades points out that, of the tens of
thousands of vases unearthed so far (the count for just the province of
Attica, where Athens is located, is over 80,000), only 30 or so have an
overtly homosexual theme; representing, in other words, just .01% of the
total (127). When one compares this small percentage to what we see today on
TV, in ads, books, magazines, the cinema, etc., one can just imagine what
future generations will think of us. There is more, much more, but the
purpose of this review is to stimulate the reader to order the book to see
for himself just how Georgiades has managed to shed the light of truth on
this important aspect of Greek history.
There is one more thing, however, that must be said. Georgiades has -- in a
clear and easy-to-comprehend manner -- delineated the difference between
what the ancients meant when they used the words "Erastis" and "Eromenos,"
and the way these words are translated and used in our time. This alone is
worth the price of the book. Briefly, to the ancient Greeks, the term
Erastis denoted a man who mentored, in a non-physical way, an Eromenos. The
Eromenos was in all cases a beardless youth who looked up to and respected
his mentor, and who had been commissioned by the boy's parents to take on
the vital chore of preparing him to assume the roles of husband, father,
soldier, and active citizen in the affairs of his community. Georgiades
delves deeply into this relationship, and explains how and why these terms
have come today to be confused with the "dominant" and "passive" partners in
an homosexual union.
We can only be grateful that there are still young men around like Adonis
Georgiades who want only to see that the truth is told about the country
they love. This book is highly recommended, and though it has been published
only in Greek to date, we sincerely hope to see an English language edition
in the near future.
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Adonis Georgiades, Debunking the Myth of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece
(Omofilofilía Stín Archéa Ellátha: O Mýthos Katareëi). Georgiades Publishing
Co. Academias 84, Athens 106 78. 2002. Tel: (+ 302 10) 38 36 231. Or
http://www.georgiadesbooks.gr
Translations of quotes by staff. Emphasis was added.
http://www.grecoreport.com/debunking_the_myth_of_homosexuality_in_ancient_gr
eece.htm