Having “no regrets” is not a good thing

 The Hollywood Reporter recently posted an article titled “Jennifer Aniston Has No Regrets.” I’ve seen, now and then, similar slogans expressed by this or that celebrity/other.

On the one hand, I recognize this may represent a coming-to-terms with our past, a way to convey forgiveness to ourselves. Yet I fear it accidentally points to a dangerous inability to understand maturity, or to acknowledge growth—of which failure is a part. It has certain similarities to those politicians (or other leaders) who can never admit to changing their minds for fear it might be branded as “flip-flopping.”

What both share is rigidity.

To my mind, as we age, we either ossify, like bone, or learn to bend like a willow.

Having no regrets, like never changing one’s mind, suggests an inability to learn from our own past. To grow, and change.

Biologically, at 57, most of the cells in my body are not the same ones I had at 20, or 30, or even 40, although my neurons are another matter, so perhaps my analogy is wonky. Yet I like to think that I’ve become a different person across those years. Less sure of myself and so more tolerant, less impetuous and so more judicious, less ambitious but more determined.

One doesn’t get to those places without regrets. Without mistakes. Without being a least a little broken.

A wise person is able to change their mind when presented with new evidence, or new experience.

A kind person is able to acknowledge regrets and learn from them in such a way they can offer grace to others who also fail, or at least don’t achieve what they once dreamed of.

Regrets aren’t a sign of weakness. From Ernst Hemmingway’s masterpiece, A Farewell to Arms: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.”

Have regrets. Just don’t become mired in them. I think that’s a better way to say it.

In Memoriam: Eugene N. Borza, 1935-2021

When I first arrived at Penn State University to visit in the spring of 1992, thinking about going there to study with Gene (Eugene N.) Borza, he was off in Greece with students. I’d spoken with him on the phone but not met him in person. I made sure to find his office. Several comics had been taped to the door. One can tell a lot about a professor by what they put on their door. I decided I liked him.

Penn State wasn’t the only uni I’d applied to, but it was the one offering funding, which is how I landed in Macedonian and Greek studies, not Early Church history. It was also the one I’d really wanted to attend, with the professor I really wanted to work with. I picked Gene not by default, but quite intentionally after reading articles by various authors writing on ancient Macedonia and Alexander the Great. I liked how he wrote, and how he treated other scholars in footnotes, even when he disagreed with them. Plus, I was interested in the country that produced Alexander as much as in Alexander himself.

Once I and my then-husband arrived in State College, PA in July of 1992, and were semi-settled, I finally met Gene in person, in his office in Oswald Tower (then home to the history department although it moved not long after I arrived). The comics-covered door was open this time and the man himself was waiting for me in a nice leather chair. I settled down in a comfy seat across the desk from him and thought:

“Oh, my God, I’ve come to Penn State to study Alexander the Great with Aristotle.”

The resemblance was a little uncanny, and also, I suspect, a little cultivated. Years later, I would dedicate the first half of Dancing with the Lion, which most featured Aristotle, to Gene. (Gene at left, looking Aristotle-y.)

I spent six years studying with him, gamely attending classes he liked to hold at the crack of dawn because he was very much a morning person, and I very much was not. But we could both agree on a love for cats. I defended my dissertation in September of 1998 (which Beth Carney also attended as my external committee member). I’d remain in town another two years until finally getting a tenure-track job at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. Even then, TT jobs were thin on the ground.

Gene was a consummate story-teller, which is why I opened this memorial in the way I did: with the story of meeting him. To this day, bits and pieces of Gene’s stories from lectures still appear in my own lectures on Greece or Macedonia. And the graduate seminar I teach on Argead Macedonia is nicknamed my “I’m going to teach you to love Philip II” class because Ol’ Phil was Gene’s favorite, more than his son Alexander. And Gene’s book, In the Shadow of Olympus, is one of the main textbooks.

Gene also had a mischievous side. When I arrived at Penn State, I’d never heard most of those Greek names said aloud, so I looked them up in Greek, then pronounced them according to the ancient Greek accents. Ergo de-mos-THE-nes instead of de-MOS-the-nes. Gene would just laugh when I’d come out with these and tease me, “Who, who?” with a hand to his ear.

Similarly, not long after I arrived in State College, Gene took me on a short tour of the Penn State campus. As we walked, I noticed an interesting fallen leaf of a type I didn’t recognize. I picked it up and asked him, “What sort of tree did this come from?” He just stared for a minute, probably gobsmacked. “That’s an oak leaf. As in Zeus?” I looked at it and said, “No, it’s not. I had a yard full of oaks growing up.” Laughing, he replied, “That’s a real oak.” Of course, the oaks I’d grown up with in Florida were water and scrub oak, whose leaves are small and have smooth edges. The leaf I’d picked up had come from a big White Oak. From then on, oak leaves became a running joke. I even brought a couple back from the (Valonian) oak tree growing in the palace ruins on the Aegae acropolis at Vergina. But that was his sense of humor, a little sly. He also offered, or perhaps threatened, to make a little sign for me to put in the back window of my car that first winter that said: BEWARE, FLORIDA DRIVER.

Not all PhD students are or remain close to their academic parent (the supervisor of one’s dissertation). Yet I’d been Gene’s last PhD student (at least as supervisor), and had specifically specialized in his field of expertise. He’d treated me like an extra daughter, and I continued to correspond with him, and his wife Kathleen after. He came out to Omaha to give a lecture for me in 2002 (Gene at right sitting behind my desk at UNO), and I (with Tim Howe) organized a festschrift in his honor, published in 2008 (Macedonian Legacies). The last time I saw Gene was for Thanksgiving in 2018 (image below), to bring him a signed copy of the dedicatory page to Dancing with the Lion: Becoming. I went home with several boxes of books. He was trying to thin his library. UNO also has copies of offprints he gave us, his and several other scholars, in the days before PDFs—many of them signed by the authors. They’re the Eugene N. Borza Offprint Library for the Ancient Mediterranean Studies Program here.

Gene taught me more than just about Macedonia. He knew about wine, and jazz, had played trumpet himself. He told lots of stories about his encounters with other historians, which helped his students feel they were part of a larger academic family. He also dragged me/us to a fair number of conferences: annual meetings of the Association of Ancient Historians, and the (then) American Philological Association (now SCA) and Archaeological Institute of America. At none of these could Gene walk down a hall without stopping to talk to at least four people. He seemed to know everybody, not just fellow Macedoniasts, and earned his title as dean of U.S. scholars on ancient Macedonia.

When I first started reading on Macedonia, I noticed certain recurring names, frequently cited. Those same authors sometimes had little debates in the footnotes with each other. Before I knew Gene, or even really considered a PhD in Macedonia, I started to think of three of them as “The Three Bs”: Badian, Borza, and Bosworth. It turned out they all knew each other rather well, and got on, even when they argued theories. Among the things Gene taught me was how to disagree and stay friendly. That was the nature of good scholarship. I have colleagues now who I love dearly, but disagree with, sometimes sharply. It’s not at all personal. I still enjoy getting a beer or glass of wine with them. I want to know how they are. That’s the Gene Borza Effect.

Anyway, all Three of the Bs have now walked on. Ernst Badian in 2011, Brian Bosworth in 2014, and now Gene in 2021. I’d like to think they’re hanging around somewhere—maybe having tracked down Philip of Macedon to join them—for a glass of good red wine (or perhaps proper ambrosia). Then they’re going to argue over who got what right—probably joined by Nick Hammond and Manolis Andronikos.

Tonight, I’ll tip my glass of Boutari Naoussa to Gene. The glass it’s in was a house-warming gift when he visited Omaha in 2002, only to discover I had no proper set of red wine glasses. That just wouldn’t do! He couldn’t leave the new assistant professor of Greek history in Omaha without proper red wine glasses. So off we went to find glasses. The gold replica of the larynx from Royal Tomb II was a gift from Kathleen a couple years ago, and the Alexander drachma is one of the last Gene had collected, back when Greece still had drachmas, and sent to me when Dancing with the Lion was published. All my love to Kathleen and Gene’s kids, Michael and Karen, as they work through healing from a tremendous loss.

What Genre IS Dancing with the Lion?

(N.B.: This post should not make anyone feel guilty for mislabeling the novels; I’m posting it because there seems to be some confusion.)

One of the most important parts of selling a book is getting it into the right hands: that is, to the readers most likely to enjoy it. And that involves labeling it correctly.

If you picked up Dancing with the Lion because you’re a fan of Alexander the Great or ancient Greece, the book’s genre probably matters little. I’ve read novels about Alexander in everything from lit mainstream to SFF to mystery to old-school Romance.

Yet such readers are a fraction of potential readership. For those with no particular inclination to a book about Alexander the Great, naming the genre matters. Will it meet reader expectations and appeal, or frustrate and annoy? That’s why authors worry about genre labels.

So, to answer the question:

Dancing with the Lion is a mainstream historical coming-of-age novel with touches of magical realism and queer themes.

Below, I’ll explain in brief why it’s some labels and not others. But I want to stress that getting a book correctly labeled is NOT a diss at genres it isn’t. Again, it’s about getting it into the right hands so readers like it instead of hate it.

Novel: At root, two basic story types exist—those that focus on plot (romance, small /r/ = adventure story) and those that focus on characters (novel). I write both, incidentally; my current WIP is an historical fantasy adventure series. But DwtL is a novel. Characterization IS the plot, rather than characters moving the plot along.

Mainstream: Just means the book doesn’t fit into the plot conventions of commercial genre fiction. Saying something is “mainstream” therefore says mostly what it is not: not mystery, not horror, not Romance, not fantasy, etc. Some folks will subdivide it further into “literary” mainstream versus commercial mainstream with the distinction that the latter sells better and/or the former is more artsy.

Historical: A subcategory of several genres, including mainstream. Readers of historicals tolerate more historical detail and unusual names, although genre historicals can alter that. Too much historical detail in an historical Romance that slows down the love story can get an author in trouble. Mainstream historicals may include glossaries, character stemma, timelines of historical events, or other reader guides. Afficionados of historical novels are reading for that detail, not in spite of it.

Coming-of-Age: as the name suggests, this very old story archetype is all about the characters growing up. In DwtL, three characters have coming-of-age arcs: Alexandros, Hephaistion, and Kleopatra.

Magical Realism: Unlike genre fantasy, magical realism combines realistic/non-magical elements with supernatural ones. They also take place in this world, not a different fantasy world in which magic works. Yet the line between historical fantasy and historical magical realism can be fine because, in the past, people did assume magic worked, and the better authors of historical fantasy employ magical systems appropriate to that place and time. The biggest difference is that magical realism is subtler, and the supernatural elements may not be perceived by all, or even most characters. (So while Alexandros sees Dionysos, no one else does.)

Queer Themes: This is more than just Alexandros and Hephaistion as lovers. Especially in Rise, one sub-plot for Hephaistion’s coming-of-age is his own growing awareness that the way he experiences desire does not conform to the expectations of his society. He is what we, in the modern world, would call gay. I wanted to explore how it might feel for someone to be gay in a world that doesn’t have that label, and which might, on the face of it, seem more accepting…but really isn’t.

Now, for the genres it’s not, and why:

Not Romance: Capital /R/, Romance the genre has fairly locked-in plot arc expectations. The Hero and Hero (if it’s m/m) meet, go through trials and tribulations, then finally hook up in some sort of permanent way to live happily-ever-after (HEA) or at least happily-for-now (HFN). The focus of the novel must remain firmly on the Hero and Hero and their relationship. Other relationships and events should serve to frame the main one, never distract from it.

DwtL: Becoming simulates some of those things. The book does begin when the boys meet, and they go through a friends-to-more plot arc, but there’s too much Other Stuff, and in Rise, the story just keeps going even after they get together. Furthermore, Rise is not a Romance plot arc, even loosely. It’s all about Alexandros and Hephaistion entering the adult world of politics and war, and the larger theme (of the whole series, not just these books) asks what it means to be a moral/ethical sovereign?

Not YA (Young Adult): Although YA novels should have an adolescent protagonist and will often be a coming-of-age story, not all novels with an adolescent protagonist or coming-of-age story are YA. So what’s the difference? The themes and the language employed.

The plot of YA should focus on things important to that age group (13-18), not necessarily what could equally matter to someone in their 50s. That doesn’t mean adults can’t enjoy YA stories; about 55% of YA books are purchased by adults. Another aspect of YA is the vocabulary used and complexity of ideas. Sometimes adult coming-of-age stories are called more “sophisticated,” which isn’t a term I like. Intricate might be better, in characterization and theme.

Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and J.D. Salinger’s A Catcher in the Rye are all coming-of-age novels, and some are even assigned in high school English classes. But they aren’t commercial YA in language or theme. In contrast to, say, Madeline L’Engel’s A Wrinkle in Time, Jane Yolen’s Pit Dragon trilogy, or Ursula LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. Yet I don’t think anyone would call those latter three “unsophisticated.”

In short, a teen protagonist and/or coming-of-age story does not qualify a book as YA.

Finally, most YA treats sex gingerly as they must be appropriate for readers as young as 13, 14, 15. They may have some romance or none at all, and they may have elided sexual situations light on description. It shouldn’t be shocking, but age-appropriate to adolescent curiosity about sex. (By contrast, the category of New Adult [18-25 readership] may have quite a lot of graphic sex in it, although in other ways NA resembles YA.)

When I wrote Dancing with the Lion, despite the age of the main protagonists, I made no attempt to moderate the language. There are also POV scenes from adults, and three of the chief thematic concerns—what does it mean to be a moral king [Alex], how does one support the powerful without losing one's self in the process [Hephaistion], or how to exercise personal agency when one has none legally [Kleopatra]—are themes that can apply to any age group. Last, the sex scenes have no stop on them. If two are over fairly quickly with general/poetic description, the third is graphic because it needs to be as what they are doing matters very much to Hephaistion’s character arc. There is also reference to the rape of women and children in war; only the aftermath is shown, but still. While I realize emotional maturity can vary wildly, I wouldn’t recommend the second novel for readers under 15/16. (I told my niece not to let my great-niece read it yet.)

That’s why I’m concerned about Dancing with the Lion being labeled YA. An unsuspecting parent might buy it for their early teen child, only for that child to get a textual eyeful in book 2!

Also, readers who pick it up thinking it’s ___, get angry when it’s not. E.g., in an otherwise fairly positive review, at least one reader wrote: “Because the western spellings/pronunciation are so ingrained using the stranger sounding Greek slows the pace even further and seems to over complicate things merely for the sake of it. This is clearly aimed at a YA audience and so I find the choice doubly baffling - Because you want to encourage teens reading not put them off by making this harder than it needs to be.”

But it’s not YA, was never meant to be YA, nor marketed or labeled as YA on the cover. Apparently, some folks on Goodreads labeled it that in their tags, so now “Young Adult” shows up as one of its genres…and I can’t get rid of it because I don’t set those tags (nor does my publisher).

In the above case, the reader mostly enjoyed it, but her perceptions affected how she reviewed it. Authors can’t always control those perceptions and expectations, but as we really do want readers to like the book (not feel deceived), we endeavor to use the right labels on them.

Philia Reigns Supreme

David Konstan’s In the Orbit of Love lays out how ancient Greek concepts of philia (friendship) differ from modern ... and why using modern cultural cues to read ancient friendships is, at best, unwise, at worse, arrogant and ethnocentric.

This is why I’m not that fussed by the idea that maybe Alexander and Hephaistion were friends-without-benefits. Notice I didn’t say “just” friends because “just friends” is SUCH a modern idea. English-speaking countries seem to have special difficulty with super-close friendships to the point we make up words for it: bromance, girl-crush, BFF.

Why isn’t “They love each other” good enough?

(You know the reason: because we tend to elide love and sex, except when applied to family members.)

Ancient Greeks didn’t do that. They were rich in terms that we translate “love.” As I’ve insisted before, Philia existed at a much higher level than eros. In a society like ancient Greece where most of one’s time was spent with people of the same gender, it’s no great surprise if that’s where one’s affective (and also erotic) ties lay too.

The best-selling genre of fiction in English-speaking countries is Romance. It is, quite literally, the bread-and-butter of the publishing industry. Even in genres outside Romance, novels that have a love story somewhere often sell better than those without them. Super-close friendships don’t count, and if a novel (or TV show) has one, a chunk of viewers want to make it sexual.

Why is it so hard to wrap our heads around the idea that people can really, really, like REALLY love each other, but not want to have sex with each other?

But this attitude promotes Queer Erasure from history!

No, it doesn’t. I’m all for outing ancient figures where appropriate. Yet the difference in open affection between ancient Greeks and modern Americans (or those of other, more restrained cultures/countries) results in a tendency to misread normal affection as “extreme.” We can go into how homophobia has deprived especially men of emotionally significant non-sexual relationships…but that’s a post for another day. I simply want to underscore that I’m well aware of the impact of homophobia on Queer Erasure.

The answer to that is not to sexualize every close tie that’s not family. Yes, I tend to assume Alexander and Hephaistion were lovers in their youth, and have reasons for doing so, which I’ve argued elsewhere. But at the moment, I want to do a little pushback at the auto-assumption that anyone who thinks they weren’t is homophobic. Er, no.

Konstan’s book details how the concept of philia underlies so much of Greek/Athenian social life. He discusses Rome, for complement and contrast. My chief complaint is, as usual, the Greek part is extremely Athenocentric. He opens by talking about Greece generally, but quickly narrows down to Athens. It’s also strongly focused on philosophic thought. While I think there were some differences in other places (especially the north: Macedon, Epiros, and Thessaly), the basic principles hold true, I believe.

Their society had different emotive constructs that placed friendship much more at the center than we allow today. It might be easier if we described Hephaistion as Alexander’s brother, but Aristotle really did say it best: “One soul in two bodies.” (Diog. Laert. 5.1.20)

Ancient Greek Sex[uality] for Dummies

This is in response to an "ask" on the social media site Tumblr: "Could you please write an 'Ancient Greek Sexuality for Dummies?'" It seemed like an excellent idea.

Caveat the First: while this may look long, it IS the short version. It’s not a book; it’s not even an article. There are no citations.

Caveat the Second: it’s colloquial and even irreverent, and includes quite a few NSFW images from ancient pottery. The Greeks were far from prudes.

Caveat the Third: every modern reader—put away current terminology and assumptions about human sexual behavior. It’s natural to try to understand new things by fitting them into frameworks we already have. But that can get in the way of allowing us to grasp how, and how much, human conceptualizations have changed.

So, first, the TL;DR version: The Greeks looked at what was done and the status (not gender) of the one doing it. Everything else is the flavor of your dipping sauce.

***

Now, here’s the longer skinny with proper nuance:

Sex was what you did: a verb, aphrodisiazō. That meant “have sex,” or, bluntly, “fuck.” And yes, same root as Aphrodite’s name. They also had “politisms” such as sunousía, but that noun just means “intercourse” and is used for verbal conversation too.

Nobody described or categorized themselves by their choice of sex partners, which was assumed to vary.

Ergo, it all came down to WHAT you did, not who you did, that determined acceptability. This is why you’ll see me use the term “homoeroticism” and “heteroeroticism” rather than “homosexual,” “bisexual,” or “heterosexual.”

For ancient Greeks, the role taken was crucial: active or passive. And that linked directly to one’s social position. In general, Greek thinking tended to the dichotomatic. Even the language shows it in the so-common-we-only-rarely-translate-it pair of words “men…de.” Literally, “On the one hand this…on the other hand that.” It’s all over the damn place in ancient Greek. Language shapes how we think about ourselves and our world, and the Greeks thought in “men…de.”

Also, those dichotomies are hierarchical: immortal-mortal, man-woman, citizen-non-citizen, adult-child, free-slave, etc. Your relative status determined your role in the sexual encounter: active/penetrating/on-top, or passive/penetrated/on-bottom.

Sexual relationships are not equal. And you didn’t switch positions as the mood struck.

It’s hard to get across just how super-steroid-competitive Greek society was. I think that’s why they developed democracy, even if that seems counterintuitive. Democracy was Athens’s wild-card attempt to deal with the problem of stasis (clan and class conflict) that was shredding Greek civic life by the end of the archaic era. It spread out from there, although more Greek city-states weren’t democratic than were (yes, really).

In a lot of sexual transactions (using that term intentionally) relative status was automatic, and thus, easy to figure out. So sex between a freeborn man and freeborn woman, or a freeborn man and a slave of either gender would put the man on top or in the active role: the penetrator. If the woman was on top, it was transgressive.

NOTE: Just because it’s transgressive doesn’t mean they didn’t engage in it. In fact, given the prices we find on the walls of excavated ancient brothels, positions that put the woman “on top” were more expensive. This appears to be male-penetrating-female sex, not pegging. The Greeks certainly had dildoes. We find pictures of them on pottery and have found them archaeologically too; we’ve even found double dildoes. Sex toys were a thing. (See comical image below of a respectably dressed matron gardening her dildo patch.) But there’s not much evidence for strap-ons. If a woman used a dildo on a man, that would be doubly transgressive.

Anyway, it’s “safe” to be transgressive with someone who, as soon as you walk out the door, is unquestionably below you in the social order: such as a slave prostitute. Maybe one could try it with one’s freeborn citizen wife but she might blab at the water fountain with her women friends (because those women could never keep their mouths shut, donchaknow). And those women might then tell their husbands—your friends, or worse, your enemies—which would make you a laughing stock and lose face. Ergo, save your kink for the sex workers.

That brings me to THE most important thing to remember: Status/honor (timē) is EVERYTHING. This is a shame society, not a guilt society. Guilt was certainly felt, but usually as a result of letting someone down; it was personal and mostly semi-private. Shame was public. It could (and did) lead to suicide in extreme cases.

These concepts aren’t unfamiliar; human feelings are consistent across time. What tends to change is what evokes those feelings.

So if you get their basic status constructions, you can figure out how the Greeks would view any given sexual relationship. As noted, many would have been straightforward. Things got muddier, however, if both partners occupied one of those larger social categories—both were freeborn men, or both freeborn women, or both slaves.

Now, I just gave all three chief possibilities, but the Greeks themselves only worried about the first. Greek misogyny means Greek men didn’t care, and therefore didn’t talk much about what the women were doing sexually unless it might lead to family shame. And slaves? Phfft. They’re slaves.

So (cue Rod Sterling Voice) “You are now entering…The Male Gaze Zone.”

We also have an evidence problem: most of what we know is Athenian, both in art and in text. Those of us who look outside Athens have fewer sources.

Yet while some parameters can fluctuate, such as how much age difference is required, where these relationships are fomented, or when same-sex affairs should respectably end, what seems constant is a need to maintain a hierarchy.

Again, these are not equal relationships. One partner is the social superior, the other, the social inferior. The elder partner was assumed to play a pedagogical role, hence the use sometimes of “paedophilia” [note spelling!] for the Greek practice, with an emphasis on paideia as teaching, not “little kids.” Many modern scholars have dropped the term, just as we avoid “gay,” because it feeds modern assumptions.

That’s NOT to say ancient relationships were never pedophilic. By their use of age to establish hierarchy, they created a veritable breeding ground for potential abuse.* I don’t want to sugar-coat or romanticize what the Greeks were doing, but do want to explain why Greek freeborn male/male pairings are better compared to dating in 1950s America.

In democratic city-states such as Athens, age became the primary way to mark relative status when all citizens were theoretically equal (but of course weren’t). Even non-democratic city-states such as Thebes and Sparta, or monarchic Macedon, used age as a factor. A youth’s Older Friend was expected to introduce him to “all the right people” and take him to “all the right parties.” Non-democratic cities such as Thebes, Sparta, and those on Crete had other unique-to-them customs I won’t go into. (See my long-ago article, “An Atypical Affair.”)

The terms they employed were erastes (lover) and eromenos (beloved): pursuer/pursued. In Sparta, it was “Inspirer” and “Hearer,” underscoring even more the teaching aspect. I should add that in addition to age, breeding mattered. For one thing, male-male courtships were perceived as largely an upper-class conceit. They had time (and money) for it. Farmers’ sons were busy with backbreaking labor out in the fields, and potters’ boys were minding the house shop.

So in a society hyper-fixated on maintaining the agency and honor of freeborn citizen men, how did they keep these relationships from looking too much like sexual transactions with women or slaves?

By requiring courting from the erastes, and giving the boy (eromenos) the right to say “No.”

Thus, I compare it to dating in 1950s America, or really any time after girls were allowed out without a chaperone, before the Sexual Revolution of the ‘60s/’70s. Citizen boys of status were roped about with remarkably similar velvet cords regarding “proper” behavior.

Courting involved not just attention but presents. Yet these couldn’t be worth too much or the boy might be accused of accepting payment, making him a prostitute (and thus, barring him from a political future). We see a lot of “low-ticket” items: wreaths of sweet-smelling leaves, hunted game (esp. small like hares), plus cockerels (right, Ashmolean G279). Love-poems, sometimes commissioned from a real poet, might be recited.

After courting from various suitors, a boy might select his Friend. Now they’re going steady! In fact the term philos (friend) is used more often than erastes. These pairings didn’t necessarily last. Remember, most involved teens and young men in early/mid-20s. Ideally, sex was verboten in early stages, but a lot of longing glances, caresses, and kissing (image below). To “give in” too soon made one a Loose Boy!**

 

If things do progress? How does your erastes ask to get hot and heavy in the backseat…er, under the blanket? He’ll chuck you under the chin! Oh, and also slip fingers inside your himation to tickle your dick. If you’re okay with that, lean in and look up lovingly, if not, grab his hand! (Below are four courtship scenes, Peithinos Painter, Attic red-figure, Altes Museum. A consenting boy and a partially consenting one [allows the arm around his shoulders] are bookended by two who reject advances.)

The proper boy is expected to refuse of course, at least at first. One can’t be easy—horrors! Also, except for the black-figure scene below (which is probably meant to take place in a gymnasion), note how covered up the youths are in public, even to their himation being partially over their head…like a girl! It’s not accidental.***

Once they get to sex, some activities were acceptable while others absolutely were not.

A youth should submit to his lover only out of friendship (philia), and pity for his predicament, never lust on his part! And the quintessential sex position was intercrural: between the thighs. The boy is NOT penetrated in any orifice! That prevents feminizing him because it’s terrible if a Greek man becomes “like a woman.” (The misogyny fairly drips….)

Consider the Attic black-figure below: the central pair are engaged in intercrural, yet note the youth’s disinterest, back upright, arm raised. Also note posture in ALL these courting scenes. The lover bends at the waist or knees: a position of supplication while the boy stands straight. The locus of power is with the youth, not the man. Only in the one scene (above) where the boy is receptive do we find him in a “melting” posture not unlike Harlequin Romance covers.

Yet all depict intercrural. It is by far the most common. We have a few pots that depict same-sex anal, and at least one of these appears to be between boys of about the same age—which I find most interesting. By contrast scenes of anal sex with women are common (prostitutes and wives); it’s a form of birth control. What I have never seen, anywhere, is oral sex between two men. And with women, it appears only with prostitutes. Especially oral sex had enormously demeaning connotations related to warfare and defeat. That said, there are some references in Comedy to the vagina as a “tongue pocket.” *snort* Art and texts don’t necessarily line up.

The upshot, however, is that Good Boys don’t let themselves be penetrated. Period.

So yeah, 1950s America meets 5^th Century Athens. Except the arm-candy is a boy. And unlike the arm-candy girl, he will eventually outgrow it and turn into a voting citizen like his former lover. That former lover is now his TRUE equal and possibly political ally. But sex should be a thing of the past (because sex requires one of them to take the “lesser” position).

Yet just as in 1950s America, the ideal only sometimes lined up with the real. And I expect much of the above reflected Athenian democratic myths not seen in non-democratic cities.

Reality suggests boys got pressured to “give in,” or did so simply because they wanted to. Some were gold diggers, using their looks to climb the social ladder, and some were raped, especially if the rapist was so far above the youth as to be untouchable and act with impunity. If these boys didn’t have to worry about pregnancy, they did have to worry about the ancient Greek gossip mill which could be just as devastating.

The last question I often get: Even if the ancient Greeks didn’t have terms for “gay” or “lesbian” (etc.) ….did they at least recognize the basic concept?

My answer is, "Perhaps." Ancient sources suggest that at least some recognized people might prefer their own gender, the other gender, or both in varying degrees of intensity. But here's where categorization gets tricky. Even if they recognized these tendencies, they clearly didn't think them important enough to create labels, much less conceptualize them in the ways we do.

Interesting, no? And instructive.

I’ll leave y’all with one last titbit that, I think, shows how truly different Greek attitudes were.

It wasn't necessarily lovers of men who were assumed to be effeminate, but men obsessed with women. What a twist! The modern equation of effeminacy with homosexuality assumes that gay men really want to be women. (Regardless of whether this is true, of course.) But the ancient Greeks assumed that loving women "to excess" would cause men to become womanish. You are who you fuck?

In the end, Greeks worried about excessive desire of any kind. We have only to recall the admonition at Delphi from Apollo: moderation in all things. Sophrosunē (self-control) was the desired goal. It wasn't the object of one's desire that concerned them, but the control exercised over it. A katapugos or kinaidos was not a "fairy," but simply wanton: insatiable and constantly seeking sex past appropriate boundaries. That could mean serving as the passive partner in male-male relations when one shouldn't, or by committing adultery with another man's wife. BOTH violated boundaries and displayed a shocking lack of sophrosunē!

The ideal man was expected to display self-control at all times: in his public speech (measured and calm, not angry or overly excited), in his public comportment, in his consumption of alcohol (why wine was watered), and in his sexual practices.

Anything less was the mark of the barbaros: barbarian.

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*Like us, they recognized “dirty old men” and one (lesser) job of gymnasiarchs (andministrators) and gymnastai (trainers) was to police behavior in the gymnasium (gymnasion). Not enclosed like today, these were big parks where men and youths exercised nude; they usually included various specialized buildings. Older men caught harassing youths could be thrown out.

So if they lacked a #MeToo Movement, they did have courts, and honor killings over “hubristic” acts. Rape of a youth was an hubristic act. Keep in mind, girls were typically married c.15-16, possibly even younger. That said, sex with a child (prepubescent) was not okay. Even following sieges, rape of children was loathed (but certainly happened).

**Again, parallels between Loose Woman and Loose Boy with overtones of “whore,” which presumably would lead to eventual prostitution are perfectly valid. See my final discussion about the kinaidos as one who can’t control himself = like a barbarian = a “natural slave.” Slaves (and prostitutes who usually are slaves) had no citizen rights.

*** Pottery can be tricky because telling free from slave in sex scenes requires recognizing other symbolic markers—so be careful. Hint: slaves are often depicted nude when others are clothed, with short hair (especially for women), and are physically smaller. Just as gods are depicted as taller. That figure you think is a child? Might be a slave. And not just in sex scenes; same issue on funeral stelae. Is that the deceased's child, or servant?