Boylove in antiquity

In antiquity, boylove was seen as an educational institution for the inculcation of moral and cultural values in some cultures, as well as a form of sexual expression, entered history from the Archaic period onwards in Ancient Greece, though Cretan ritual objects reflecting an already formalized practice date to the late Minoan civilization, around 1650 BC. According to Plato, in ancient Greece, boylove was a relationship and bond – whether sexual or chaste – between an adolescent boy and an adult man outside of his immediate family. While most Greek men engaged in relations with both women and boys, exceptions to the rule were known, some avoiding relations with women, and others rejecting relations with boys. In Rome, relations with boys took a more informal and less civic path, men either taking advantage of dominant social status to extract sexual favors from their social inferiors, or carrying on illicit relationships with freeborn boys.

Analogous relations were documented among other ancient peoples, such as the Thracians, and the Celts. According to Plutarch, the ancient Persians, too, had long practiced it, an opinion seconded by Sextus Empiricus who asserted that the laws of the Persians "recommended" the practice. Herodotus, however, asserts they learned copulation with boys (παισὶ μίσγονται) from the Greeks, by the use of that term reducing their practice to what John Addington Symonds describes as the "vicious form" of pederasty, as opposed to the more restrained and cultured one valued by the Greeks. Plutarch, however, counters Herodotus by pointing out that the Persians had been castrating boys long before being exposed to the mores of the Greeks.

Opposition to the carnal aspects of boylove existed concurrently with the practice, both within and outside of the cultures in which it was found. Among the Greeks, a few cities prohibited it, and in others, such as Sparta, only the chaste form of pederasty was permitted, according to Xenophon and others. Likewise, Plato's writings devalue and finally condemn sexual intercourse with the boys one loved, while valuing the self-disciplined lover who abstained from consummating the relationship.

Judaism and Christianity also condemned sodomy (while defining that term variously), a theme later promulgated by Islam and, later still, by the Baha'i Faith. Within the Baha'i faith, pederasty is the only mention of any type of homosexuality by Bahá'u'lláh. "We shrink, for very shame, from treating of the subject of boys [...] Commit not that which is forbidden you in Our Holy Tablet, and be not of those who rove distractedly in the wilderness of their desires."

Within this blanket condemnation of sodomy, boylove in particular was a target. The 2nd-century preacher Clement of Alexandria used divine pederasty as an indictment of Greek religion and the mythological figures of Herakles, Apollo, Poseidon, Laius, and Zeus: "For your gods did not abstain even from boys. One loved Hylas, another Hyacinthus, another Pelops, another Chrysippus, another Ganymedes. These are the gods your wives are to worship!" Early legal codes prescribed harsh penalties for violators. The law code of the Visigothic king Chindasuinth called for both partners to be "emasculated without delay, and be delivered up to the bishop of the diocese where the deed was committed to be placed in solitary confinement in a prison." These punishments were often linked to the penance given after the Sacrament of Confession. At Rome, the punishment was burning at the stake since the time of Theodosius I (390). Nonetheless the practice continued to surface, giving rise to proverbs such as With wine and boys around, the monks have no need of the Devil to tempt them, an early Christian saying from the Middle East.

Cretan pederasty

Cretan pederasty was an archaic form of pederasty that involved the ritual kidnapping (harpagmos) of a noble boy by an adult male of the aristocratic class, with the consent of the boy's father.

The man (known as philetor, "befriender") took the boy (known as kleinos, "glorious") into the wilderness, where they spent several months hunting and feasting with their friends. If the boy was satisfied with the conduct of his would-be comrade, he changed his title from kleinos to parastates ("sidekick," indicating he had fought in battle alongside his lover) returned to the philetor and lived in close bonds of public intimacy with him.

The function of the institution, beside teaching the youth adult skills, was supposed to confirm the status of the best men, and to offer both lover and beloved the chance to give proof of a noble character deserving of respect.

History

Archaeological work indicates that the Cretan pederastic tradition was already well established and structured in the Minoan period, around 1650-1500 BCE. Ancient Greek historical tracts trace the origins of the tradition to mythological times. Aristotle states that it was king Minos who established pederasty as a means of population control on the island community: [They] "segregated the women and instituted sexual relations among the males so that women would not have children." The practice seems to have been reserved for the aristocracy, and it was a reciprocal acknowledgment and cultivation of honor. The man was honored by being allowed to take the boy, and the boy's honor was increased by being thus taken. As the historian Strabo records it,

"(The Cretans) have a peculiar custom in regard to love affairs, for they win the objects with their love, not by persuasion, but by abduction; the lover tells the friends of the boy three or four days beforehand that he is going to make the abduction; but for the friends to conceal the boy, or not to let him go forth the appointed road, is indeed a most disgraceful thing, a confession, as it were, that the boy is unworthy to obtain such a lover; and when they meet, if the abductor is the boy’s equal or superior in rank or other respects, the friends pursue him and lay hold of him, though only in a very gentle way, thus satisfying the custom; and after that they cheerfully turn the boy over to him to lead away; if, however, the abductor is unworthy, they take the boy away from him."

Recent scholarship has suggested that the practice may have been adopted by the Dorians around 630 BC, spreading from Crete to Sparta and then to the rest of Greece.

Structure

This custom was highly regarded, and it was considered shameful for a youth to not acquire a male lover. Again, Strabo:

"It is disgraceful for those who are handsome in appearance or descendants of illustrious ancestors to fail to obtain lovers, the presumption being that their character (masculinity) is responsible for such a fate. But the parastathentes (those who stand by their lover in battle) receive honors; for in both the dances and the races they have the positions of highest honor, and are allowed to dress in better clothes than the rest, that is, in the habit given them by their lovers; and not then only, but even after they have grown to manhood, they wear a distinctive dress, which is intended to make known the fact that each wearer has become kleinos, for they call the loved one kleinos (distinguished) and the lover philetor."

Not surprisingly, these same Cretans were credited with introducing the myth of Zeus kidnapping Ganymede to be his lover in Olympus – though even the king of the gods had to make amends to the father. This myth, however, is denounced by Plato in his Laws as having been made up to justify purely sensual practices:

And we are unanimous in accusing the Cretans of fabricating the story of Ganymede: because they believed that their laws had come from Zeus, they have also attached this story to the god, thinking that they could reap the fruit of this pleasure and say that they were following the god's example. But that is the realm of myth. (636B-D)

Strabo also indicates that it is the boy’s masculinity that consigns him his lover:

The most desirable youths, according to Cretan conventions, are not the exceptionally handsome ones, but rather those who are distinguished for manly courage and orderly behavior.

Together the boy and his lover live in the wilderness for a time, and at some point during the courtship the two made an offering of a votive tablet and an animal sacrifice at the sanctuary of Hermes and Aphrodite, on Mt. Dikte, close to the cave where Zeus was said to have been reared.

Upon their return the lover gives the boy expensive gifts, among which a military outfit, an ox (a sacrifice to Zeus), and a drinking cup (symbolic of spiritual accomplishment). At that time, according to Strabo, the boy also is empowered to choose between continuing or putting an end to his relationship with his abductor, and to denounce the man if he misbehaved in any way. Here the cycle of honor given and returned is completed, but now it is the boy's turn to grant - or withhold - that honor:

The youth sacrifices the ox to Zeus and gives a feast to those who came down with him from the mountains. He then declares, concerning his relationship with the lover, whether it took place with his consent or not; the convention encourages this in order that, if any violence is used against him in the abduction, he may restore his honor and break off the relationship.

A late comment by the Roman historian Cornelius Nepos claims that Cretan youths had more than one lover: "Quite young men in Crete are praised for having had as many lovers as they could."

Archeological findings

A number of archaeological findings have been interpreted as documentation of the Cretan pederastic rites. At a rustic shrine dedicated to Hermes and Aphrodite, at Kato Syme, approximately sixty kilometers east of Hagia Triada, on Mt. Dikte (location of the cave where allegedly Zeus was reared) at c. 1200m above sea level, excavations led by Angeliki Lembessi have uncovered numerous bronze objects offered to the deities, together with remains of animal sacrifices.

Among these were found bronze figures of youths from the Minoan period (before 1100 BC), indicating this to have been a long-standing sanctuary site. Such figurines were offered over the course of many centuries. One set, dated to c. 8th-7th century BC and presently in the Louvre depicts a male couple consisting of an older bearded male and a younger male with long, flowing hair and curls in front. The older partner, who carries a horn bow, grasps the younger by the arm and draws him close. The younger carries a slain goat on his shoulders, presumably a sacrificial animal. They are looking intently at each other, their legs and feet touch, and the genitals of the younger male are exposed.

Another bronze piece, dated c. 750 BC and presently in the Heraklion Museum, shows two helmeted but otherwise nude youths, one older than the other. They both display erections and stand beside each other holding hands. Yet another bronze cutout dated to the 7th century BC shows a lad, nude except for a long, decorative cape and sandals, holding a bow and quiver. These pieces document that this Cretan initiatory tradition continued over many centuries and that later offerings left by pairs of lovers at this shrine became more elaborate and erotically explicit.

These objects appear to belong to the same tradition reflected in the Chieftain Cup (image at bottom of linked page), found in 1903 in the male dining club of the palace at Hagia Triada, and dated to the Middle Minoan II to Late Minoan I, (c. 1650 BC-1500 BC). It is carved out of serpentinite and depicts two beardless youths, one older than the other (discernible by the difference in height and in hairstyle), dressed in kilts and tall boots and wearing jewelry. The older presents the younger with a sword and a javelin, while on the reverse of the cup other youths (the lover's friends?) bring three flattened ox hides, presumably for making a shield.

Myths and folktales

Beside the myths, a couple of Cretan pederastic folktales have come down to us, albeit in fragmentary form. In both tales the boy is named Leucocomas (leukos = bright / kóme = hair) and puts his lover to the test by challenging him to perform a number of difficult tasks, known as "athlon" (the same term used of the twelve Labors of Heracles, "dodekathlos"). In the tale of Euxinthetus and Leucocomas the lover must bring the boy's dog from Prasus back to Gortyn, a distance of one hundred eighty stadia (over twenty eight kilometers). In the other tale, that of Promachus ("forward fighter") and Leucocomas, the boy set his lover a number of arduous tasks, culminating in retrieving a priceless helmet. Promachos, however, infuriated by his beloved's endless and unreasonable demands, retrieved the helmet but placed it on the head of another boy, leading Leucocomas to kill himself in a jealous fit.

The Greeks

Main articles: Ancient Greece

Plato was an early critic of sexual intercourse in pederastic relationships, proposing that men's love of boys avoid all carnal expression and instead progress from admiration of the lover's specific virtues to love of virtue itself in abstract form. While copulation with boys was often criticized and seen as shameful and brutish, other aspects of the relationship were considered beneficial, as indicated in proverbs such as A lover is the best friend a boy will ever have.

The pederastic relationship had to be approved by the boy's father. Boys entered into such relationships in their teens, around the same age that Greek girls were given in marriage.^{[Citation needed]} The mentor was expected to teach the young man or to see to his education,^{[Citation needed]} and to give him certain appropriate ceremonial gifts.

The physical dimension ranged from fully chaste to sexual intercourse.^{[Citation needed]} Pederastic art shows seduction scenes as well as sexual relations. In the seduction scenes the man is standing, grasping the boy's chin with one hand and reaching to fondle his genitals with the other. In the sexual scenes, the partners stand embracing face to face, the older of the two engaged in intercrural sex with the younger, who (usually but not always) does not show arousal. Anal sex is almost never shown, and then only as something eliciting surprise in the observers. The practice was ostensibly disparaged, the Athenians often naming it jocularly after their Dorian neighbors ("cretanize," "laconize," "chalcidize"). While historians such as Dover and Halperin hold that only the man experienced pleasure, art and poetry indicate reciprocation of desire, and other historians assert that it is "a modern fairy tale that the younger eromenos was never aroused."

Pederastic couples were also said to be feared by tyrants, because the bond between the friends was stronger than that of obedience to a tyrannical ruler. Plutarch gives as examples the Athenians Harmodius and Aristogeiton. Others, such as Aristotle, claimed that the Cretan lawgivers encouraged pederasty as a means of population control, by directing love and sexual desire into relations with males.

The Romans

Main articles: Ancient Rome

From the early Republican times of Ancient Rome, it was perfectly normal for a man to desire and pursue boys. However, penetration was illegal for free born youths; the only boys who were legally allowed to perform as a passive sexual partner were slaves or former slaves known as "freedmen", and then only with regard to their former masters. For slaves there was no protection under the law even against rape.

The result was that in Roman times, pederasty largely lost its function as a ritual part of education and was instead seen as an activity primarily driven by one's sexual desires and competing with desire for women. The social acceptance of pederastic relations waxed and waned during the centuries. Conservative thinkers condemned it — along with other forms of indulgence. Tacitus attacks the Greek customs of "gymnasia et otia et turpes amores" (palaestrae, idleness, and shameful loves). The emperors, however, indulged in male love — most of it of a pederastic nature — almost to a man. As Edward Gibbon mentions, of the first fifteen emperors, "Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct" — the implication being that he was the only one not to take men or boys as lovers.

Other writers spent no effort censuring pederasty per se, but praised or blamed its various aspects. Martial appears to have favored it, going as far as to essentialize not the sexual use of the catamite but his nature as a boy: upon being discovered by his wife "inside a boy" and offered the "same thing" by her, he retorts with a list of mythological personages who, despite being married, took young male lovers, and concludes by rejecting her offer since "a woman merely has two vaginas."

Other venues

Pederasty in ancient times was not the exclusive domain of the Greeks and Romans. Athenaeus in the Deipnosophists states that the Celts also partook and despite the beauty of their women, preferred the love of boys. Some would regularly bed down on their animal skins with a lover on each side. Other writers also attest to Celtic pederasty: Aristotle (Politics, II 6.6. Athen. XIII 603a.), Strabo (iv. 199), and Diodorus Siculus (v. 32)). Some moderns have interpreted Athenaeus as meaning that the Celts had a boy on each side, but that interpretation is questioned by Hubbard, who reads it as meaning that they had a boy one side and a woman on the other. (Hubbard, 2003; p. 79) The Sibylline oracles claim that only the Jews were free from this impurity:

[The Jews] are mindful of holy wedlock,

and they do not engage in impious intercourse with male children,
as do Phoenicians, Egyptians and Romans,
spacious Greece and many nations of other,
Persians and Galatians and all Asia, transgressing

the holy law of immortal God, which they transgressed.

Persian pederasty and its origins was debated even in ancient times. Herodotus claimed they had learned it from the Greeks: "From the Greeks they have learned to lie with boys." However, Plutarch asserts that the Persians used eunuch boys to that end long before contact between the cultures. In either case, Plato claimed they saw fit to forbid it to the inhabitants of the lands they occupied, since "It does not suit the rulers that their subjects should think noble thoughts, nor that they should form the strong friendships and attachments which these activities, and in particular love, tend to produce."