(Boylove Documentary Sourcebook) - A Verbal Reminder of the Oath Sworn by Gnathios, an Ancient Greek Warrior, to His Young Male Beloved, in the Epitaph Inscribed on the Former's Tombstone

Philippides by Willoughby Vera. Illustration from A Vision of Greece (1925).

From Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Alexander the Great, Third Edition, edited by Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland (London; New York: Routledge, 2010). First edition published in 1994 by Routledge.

4.75 Inscriptiones Graecae I³ 1399: An Oath for Love of a Boy

A slab of marble from the Attic countryside, with crude archaic lettering, c. 500 BC, recording the heroic love of Gnathios for a younger boy, for whom he swore an oath that he would go to war; the boy presumably erected this as a memorial to Gnathios. [IG I² 920.]

Here a man swore a solemn oath for love of a boy
To mingle in strife and tearful war.
I am sacred to Gnathios, who lost his life in war ...

Marble Grave Stele with Erastes, Eromenos and Rooster, c. 465 BCE. Rhodes, Archaeological Museum, Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights, Γ 1640.

See also

• Adult friend
• Athenian pederasty
• Boylove
• Cretan pederasty
• Ephebophilia
• Greek love
• Historical boylove relationships in ancient Greece
• Loved boy
• Minor-attracted person (dictionary)
• Pedophilia
• Philosophy of ancient Greek pederasty
• Theban pederasty
• Young friend

External links

• PURSUIT AND FLIGHT BY SIR KENNETH DOVER (Greek Love Through the Ages)
• DID THE GREEKS PEDICATE THEIR LOVED BOYS? (Greek Love Through the Ages)