Η παιδεραστία/ομοφυλοφιλία στην αρχαία Ελλάδα

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1.37-1.83 Theognis

1.37: Theognis 87-90
Don't caress me with words, your heart and mind in another place,
If you love me and your heart is true.
Love me with a pure heart or renounce me,
Start a fight, hate me openly.

1.38: Theognis 371-72
Don't drive me back to the wagon, pricking hard -- I won't go,
Cyrnus, though you drag me all too deeply into your love.

1.39: Theognis 695-96
I can't give you everything you want, heart,43
Be patient. You're not the only lover of pretty boys.

1.40: Theognis 959-62
While I alone was drinking from that deepwater spring
The water seemed to me sweet and fine.
But now it's muddied, the water's mingled with water --
I'll drink from another spring, or stream.

1.41: Theognis 1063-70
In youth you can sleep the night through with a friend, 44
Unloading the desire for lusty action,
1065 And you can go wooing and sing to a flute-girl's tune --
No other thing is more thrilling than these
For men and women. What are wealth and honor to me?
Pleasure conquers all -- and merrily.
Mindless men and fools weep for the dying
1070 Instead of the blossom of youth that's falling.

1.42: Theognis 1091-94
My heart's in pain because of my love of you,
For I can't either hate or love,
Knowing it's hard when a man's your friend
To hate him, and hard to love him if he doesn't want.

1.43: Theognis 1097-1100
Already I've risen up on wings like a bird
From a great marsh, leaving a rotten man behind,
Breaking the bond. And you, who've lost my love,
Will know one day how wise I was.

1.44: Theognis 1231-34
Lines 1231-1389 of the Theognid collection are almost entirely concerned with the relationship of Theognis and Cyrnus. Our manuscripts label them as "Book Two" of Theognis' elegies, but their collection into a separate book was probably the work of later Christian scholars who wanted to segregate the most explicitly pederastic poems from the rest of the corpus.
Merciless Eros, the Frenzies cradled you and gave you suck,
Because of you Troy's citadel was crushed,45
Theseus, great son of Aegeus, was crushed,46 and Ajax crushed,
The noble son of Oileus, by your recklessness.47

1.45: Theognis 1235-38
Boy, my passion's master, listen. I'll tell no tale
That's unpersuasive or unpleasant to your heart.
Just try to grasp my words with your mind. There is no need
For you to do what's not to your liking.

1.46: Theognis 1238a-1242
Don't leave the friend you have to find another,
Yielding to the words of vulgar men.
You know, they'll often lie to me about you,
To you about me. Don't listen to them.
You'll take pleasure in this love that's gone,
And that one will elude your mastery.

1.47: Theognis 1243-44
"Let's love long."48 Then go be with others.
You are a trickster, fidelity's antitype.

1.48: Theognis 1245-46
Water and fire will never mix. And we shall never be
True to each other and kind.

1.49: Theognis 1247-48
Think about my hatred, and the crime. Know in your gut
That I will pay you for this wrong as I am able.

1.50: Theognis 1249-52
Boy, you're like a horse.49 Just now sated with seed,
You've come back to my stable,
Yearning for a good rider, fine meadow,
An icy spring, shady groves.

1.51: Theognis 1253-56
Happy the man who's got boys for loving and single-foot horses,50
Hunting dogs and friends in foreign lands.
The man who doesn't love boys and single-foot horses
And dogs, his heart will never know pleasure.51

1.52: Theognis 1257-58
Boy, you're like those adrift in risks,
Your mood now friendly to some, now others.

1.53: Theognis 1259-62
Boy, you were born good-looking, but your head
Is crowned with stupidity.
In your brain is lodged the character of a kite,52 always veering,
Bending to the words of other men.

1.54: Theognis 1263-66
Boy, you paid back a bad exchange for kindness.
No thanks from you for favors.
You've never given me pleasure. And though I've often
Been kind to you, I never won your respect.

1.55: Theognis 1267-70
Boy and horse, a similar brain: the horse
Doesn't cry when its rider lies in the dust;
No, it takes on the next man, once it's sated with seed.
Same with a boy: whoever's there he loves.

1.56: Theognis 1271-74
Boy, your slutting around has wrecked my affection,
You've become a disgrace to our friends.
You dried my hull for a while. But I've slipped out of the squall
And found a port as night came on.

1.57: Theognis 1275-78
Eros, too, rises in season, when the earth
Swells and blooms with Spring flowers.
Then Eros leaves Cyprus, that lovely island,53
And goes among men, scattering seed on the ground.

1.58: Theognis 1278a-78b
Whoever offered you advice about me, also urged you
To leave behind our love and go your way.

1.59: Theognis 1279-82
I won't mistreat you, even if the deathless gods
Would treat me better, pretty boy.
And I don't sit in judgment on petty errors.
Pretty boys get away with doing wrong.

1.60: Theognis 1283-94
Boy, don't wrong me -- I still want to
Please you -- listen graciously to this:
1285 You won't outstrip me, cheat me with your tricks.
Right now you've won and have the upper hand,
But I'll wound you while you flee,54 as they say
The virgin daughter of Iasius,
Though ripe, rejected wedlock with a man
1290 And fled; girding herself, she acted pointlessly,
Abandoning her father's house, blond Atalanta.55
She went off to the soaring mountain peaks,
Fleeing the lure of wedlock, golden Aphrodite's
Gift. But she learned the point she'd so rejected.

1.61: Theognis 1295-98
Boy, don't stir my heart with rotten anguish,
Don't let your love whisk me off
To Persephone's halls.56 Beware the anger of the gods
And men's talk. Think gentle thoughts.

1.62: Theognis 1299-1304
Boy, how long will you be on the run? I'm following,
Tracking you down. I only wish I'd reach the end
Of your anger. But you, lusting and headstrong,
Run off reckless as a kite.
Stop now, do me a favor. You won't
Hang on to the gift of Cypris,57 violet-wreathed, much longer.

1.63: Theognis 1305-10
Knowing in your heart that the flower of lovely youth
Is briefer than a footrace, loosen my chain.
For even you, mightiest of boys, may some day be compelled
And meet the hard work of the Love Goddess,
Even as I do now with you. Beware!
A boy's wickedness may one day conquer you.

1.64: Theognis 1311-18
You haven't fooled me, boy -- I'm on your trail --
You've stolen off to your new fast friends,
And thrown my love away in scorn.
But you were no friend of theirs before.
No, out of them all, I thought it was you I'd made a trusted
Mate. And now you hold another love.
I, who served you well, am laid low. Looking at you
No one on earth would want to love a boy.

1.65: Theognis 1319-22
Boy, since the goddess Cypris58 gave you a lusty
Grace, and your beauty's every boy's concern,59
Listen to these words and for my sake take them to heart --
Knowing how hard it is for a man to bear desire.

1.66: Theognis 1323-26
Cyprian,60 end these pains, scatter the cares
That eat my soul, turn me back to merriment.
End this awful anxiety, be merciful,
And let me act wisely now that my youth is gone.

1.67: Theognis 1327-34
Boy, as long as your cheek is smooth, I'll never
Stop praising you, not even if I have to die.
For you to give still is fine, for me there's no shame in asking,
Since I'm in love. At your knees . . . I beg,
Respect me, boy, give pleasure, if you're ever
To have the gift of Cypris60 with her wreath of violets,
When it's you who's wanting and approach another. May the goddess
Grant that you get exactly the same response.

1.68: Theognis 1335-36
Happy the lover who has a work-out when he gets home
Sleeping all day with a beautiful boy.

1.69: Theognis 1337-40
I no longer love the boy, I've kicked away terrible pains
And fled in joy from crushing sorrows.
I've been freed from desire by Cytherea61 of the lovely wreath.
Boy, you hold no charm for me at all.

1.70: Theognis 1341-50
Alas! I love a smooth-skinned boy, who to all friends
Displays me, against my will.
But I'll put up with it and not hide. Much is compelled, even unwilling.
For I was not shown tamed by an unappealing boy.
1345 Boy love is a delight, since even the son of Cronus,
King of the gods, once came to love Ganymede,
And seizing him, brought him up to Olympus and made him
Eternal in the lovely flower of boyhood.62
So, Simonides,63 don't wonder that even I
1350 Was shown to be tamed by love of a comely boy.

1.71: Theognis 1351-52
Boy, don't go reveling, heed an old man.
Reveling's not good for a young man.

1.72: Theognis 1353-56
Bitter and sweet, pleasant and harsh is the love of youths,
Cyrnus, till it be achieved.
If achieved, it becomes sweet, but if a man pursues
And achieves not, it is the most grievous of all.

1.73: Theognis 1357-60
For boy lovers a yoke lies on the neck, uncomfortable,
A difficult memory of erstwhile welcome.
For a man who toils to win a boy must lure him into love
Like a hand into a blazing fire of vine twigs.

1.74: Theognis 1361-62
A ship, you struck a rock and missed my love's haven,
Boy, laid hold of a rotten hawser.

1.75: Theognis 1363-64
I'll never hurt you, even when I'm gone; and no one
Will talk me out of loving you.

1.76: Theognis 1365-66
Prettiest, most desirable of boys --
Stick around and listen to me a bit.

1.77: Theognis 1367-68
With a boy there must always be mutual favor. But to a woman
No one's a trusted mate; she always loves the one who's there.

1.78: Theognis 1369-72
Boy love is nice to have, nice to put aside;
It is easier to be found than to achieve.
Countless ills hang on it, countless gains,
But there is some charm even in this.

1.79: Theognis 1373-74
You've never waited for my sake, no, you always
Chase eagerly after every message.

1.80: Theognis 1375-76
Happy the lover of boys who doesn't know the sea
And worry, there on the waves, about the coming night.64

1.81: Theognis 1377-80
Being good-looking and loving vice, you hang out with worthless
Men, and for this you get ugly reproaches,
Boy. But though I lost your love against my will,
I've won, can act a free man.

1.82: Theognis 1381-85
Men thought you came with the gift of the golden
Cyprian.65 Yet the gift of the violet wreathed
Can be the hardest load men have
If the Cyprian doesn't give hardship some relief.

1.83: Theognis 1386-89
Cyprian Cytherea with your web of cunning, Zeus did you honor
By giving you this transcendant gift;
You master men's clever minds, and there is none
So strong and skilled that he can flee.

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1.32: Anacreon, fragment 359 PMG
I love Cleobulus,
I am mad for Cleobulus,
I gaze at Cleobulus.

1.33: Anacreon, fragment 360 PMG
Boy with a maiden's glance,
I seek you out, but you hear not,
Unknowing that you are the charioteer
Of my soul.

1.34: Anacreon, fragment 402(c) PMG
Boys would love me for my words,
For I sing graceful things, and I know how to say graceful things.

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.84: Simonides, fragment 22.9-18 W2

This fragment comes from two tattered papyri, which it first became possible to piece together and assign to Simonides in 1992. The first eight lines are very fragmentary, but seem to describe the speaker reaching a pleasant, forested island, possibly the Isle of the Blessed (an afterlife paradise).


And seeing blond Echecratidas with my eyes,

10 I would take his hand,
While he drips the flower of youth from his comely skin
And alluring desire from his eyelids.
And I would luxuriate, reclining with the boy among flowers,
Clearing away from my face white hair and wrinkles,

15 Plaiting a flowery crown . . .
. . . lovely, new-grown on his locks.
Steering an eloquent tongue in my mouth . . .
. . . clear, alluring . . .

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1.85: Pindar, fragment 123 S-M

This short skolion (a drinking song for performance at symposia) praises the beauty of the boy Theoxenus. Some critics have supposed it to be Pindar's personal declaration of love, but it was more likely commissioned by the boy's lover and the first-person is meant to express the erotic attraction of any man who likes boys.

[strophe] One must pluck loves, my heart, in due season and at the proper age.
Ah! But any man who catches with his glance
The bright rays flashing from Theoxenus' eyes 67
And is not tossed on the waves of desire,

5 Has a black heart of adamant or iron
[antistrophe] Forged in a cold flame, and dishonored by Aphrodite of the arching brow
Either toils compulsively for money
Or, as a slave, is towed down a path utterly cold
By a woman's boldness.

10 But I, by the will of the Love Goddess, melt
[epode] Like the wax of holy bees stung by the sun's heat,
Whenever I look upon the fresh-limbed youth of boys.
And surely even on the isle of Tenedos
Seduction and Grace dwell
15 In the son of Hagesilas.

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1.88-1.89 drinking songs

1.88: Carmina Popularia, fragment 873 PMG

This anonymous skolion, according to Plutarch, celebrates the legendary love of a Chalcidian soldier and a boy who saw him die in battle during the Lelantine War (in the 8th century BCE).

You boys who have a share of the Graces and noble fathers,
Do not begrudge the company of good men during your hour of youth.
For together with courage Eros, the limb-loosener,88
Flourishes in the cities of the Chalcidians.

1.89: Carmina Popularia, fragment 893 PMG

This anonymous skolion celebrates a famous pair of lovers in Athenian history, the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton (on whom see 2.2 and Fig. 18). The song exists in several versions; it was probably current soon after the Cleisthenic reforms of 507 BCE.

In a myrtle branch I'll carry my sword,89
Like Harmodius and Aristogeiton
When they killed the tyrant
And made Athens a land of equal laws

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2.1: Plutarch, Love Stories 2.772E-773B

Plutarch tells the story of an Argive family that settled in Corinth. These events, if historical, would have occurred around 735-30 BCE. The story is alluded to by Alexander of Aetolia, an early Hellenistic poet.

[772] [i]This Melissus had a son named Actaeon, the handsomest and most modest youth of his age, who had many lovers, chief of whom was Archias, of the family of the Heracleidae,1 in wealth and general influence the most outstanding man in Corinth. Now when he could not gain the boy by persuasion, he determined to carry him off by force. So he got together a crowd of friends and servants, went as in a drunken frolic to the house of Melissus, and tried to take the boy away. But his father and his friends resisted, the neighbors also ran out and pulled against the assailants,

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2.2: Thucydides 6.54.1-4, 6.56.1-59.2

This account of the assassination of Hipparchus, brother of the tyrant Hippias, in 514 BCE, comes as a digression in Thucydides' narrative of events in 415, when many Athenians suspected an oligarchical coup and return to tyranny.

[54] For the exploit of Aristogeiton and Harmodius was undertaken because of a love affair and by describing it in full I will show that neither other sources nor the Athenians themselves say anything accurate about their own tyrants or about the incident. For after Peisistratus died at an advanced age while holding the tyranny,4 it was not Hipparchus, as widely believed, but Hippias as the oldest who took his place. When Harmodius was conspicuous in his youthful prime, Aristogeiton, an Athenian and a citizen of the middle class, possessed him as a lover. Harmodius, after he was propositioned by Hipparchus and refused him, denounced him to Aristogeiton. And he, with a lover’s outrage, fearing Hipparchus’ rank and a possible abduction by force, immediately plotted, as far as one of his class could, to overthrow the tyranny. Meanwhile, Hipparchus, after he had again propositioned Harmodius with no greater success, was unwilling to use force yet arranged to insult him in a surreptitious way, as though it were quite unconnected. . .

[56] Harmodius, then, who had refused his advances, he insulted just as he had planned; after enlisting his sister, a maiden, to carry a basket in a certain procession,5 they expelled her saving that they had not enlisted her in the first place because of her unworthiness. While Harmodius was resentful, Aristogeiton on his account became very much more enraged as well, and after they had made their other arrangements with those taking part in the deed, they awaited the Great Panathenaia6 which was the only day that those citizens who escorted the procession assembled in arms without becoming suspect. They themselves were to begin, and the others were supposed to join in the attack immediately by attending to the mercenaries. The members of the conspiracy were not many, for reasons of security; they hoped that if even a few acted boldly, those with no advance knowledge, since they even had weapons, would want to take part in their own liberation then and there.

[57] And when the festival came around, Hippias was outside with the bodyguard in what is known as the Kerameikos7 arranging how each part of the procession was to go forth; and Harmodius and Aristogeiton, with their daggers now, were advancing for the deed. And when they saw a member of their own conspiracy talking informally with Hippias (who was approachable to everyone), they were alarmed and thought that they had been informed on and were just on the point of being arrested. Accordingly, they hoped that if possible their revenge would come first, against their tormentor who had caused them to risk everything, and in this state they rushed inside the gates, encountered Hipparchus near what is called the Leokoreion,8 and falling on him immediately, with no hesitation, in all the fury that a man in love and a man humiliated could feel, they stabbed until they killed him. The one, Aristogeiton, escaped the bodyguard for the moment when the crowd was milling around and later, after capture, was dealt with in no gentle way;9 Harmodius was killed right on the spot. [58] When the news reached Hippias in the Kerameikos, he immediately proceeded not toward the incident but toward the hoplites10 in the parade before they found out, since they were some way off, and making his face inscrutable in the presence of the calamity he ordered them to go where he had pointed to a certain spot, without their weapons. They went off, thinking that he was going to tell them something, but he, after a signal to the bodyguard to remove the weapons, picked out those he held responsible, along with anyone caught carrying a dagger; for their practice was to parade with shields and spears.11

[59] It was in this way, because of a lover's grievance, that both the original plot and the heedless daring of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, in the alarm of the moment, came about. After this, the tyranny took on a harsher form for the Athenians, and Hippias, now more under the influence of fear, put many citizens to death and at the same time looked around in foreign parts to see where he could find some place providing him with security if a revolution occurred.

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2.3: Phanias of Eresus, Fr. 16 FHG

Phanias was a pupil of Aristotle who wrote historical treatises on tyrants in the late fourth century BCE. There is no other record of a tyranny at Heraclea, but the events described here must be subsequent to 433, when the city was founded.

In Heraclea in Italy there was a beautiful boy called Hipparinus, who came from a very good family. His lover, Antileon, tried everything, but was wholly unable to win him round. He would often dash up to the boy, who was a regular at the gymnasia, declaring that he wanted him so much that he would endure any hardship, that whatever the boy told him to do, he would fail in nothing. Now the boy asked him ironically to fetch the bell12 from a certain rocky place that was kept under especially close guard by the Heraclean tyrant, convinced that Antileon would never manage this feat. But Antileon secretly approached the fort, lay in wait for the man who was guarding the bell, and killed him. And when he came back to the boy, the mission accomplished, the boy became very fond of him and from that time onwards they loved each other dearly. When the tyrant began to lust after the young man's beauty and was on the point of using force to abduct him, Antileon was outraged. He told the boy not to incur risks by refusal; but he himself, when the tyrant was leaving his house, rushed up and assassinated him. This done, he fled and would have escaped had he not fallen in with a flock of sheep all tied together and been captured. So once the city had returned to its original constitution the Heracleotes erected bronze statues to both men,13 and a law was enacted that no one in the future was to drive bound sheep.


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2.4: Xenophon, Hieron 1.29-38

This work presumes to record a dialogue between Hieron, the tyrant of Syracuse from 478 to 467 BCE, and the poet Simonides of Ceos, who like Pindar wrote encomiastic poems for him.

[29] And the tyrant is at a disadvantage in the pleasures that come from making love to boys even more than in the pleasures that come from begetting children. For we all, presumably, know that making love is by far the most pleasurable if one does it with desire.14 [30] But desire, in general, comes to a tyrant less easily than to anybody. For desire does not like to aim at available things, but rather at hoped-for ones. Therefore, just as someone who is unacquainted with thirst would not enjoy drinking, in the same way someone who is unacquainted with desire is unacquainted with the sweetest forms of love.

[31] That is what Hieron said, but Simonides, having had a laugh, said, "What is that you said, Hieron? You say that desire for boys isn't native to tyrants? How does it then come that you are in love with Daïlochus, whose nickname is 'the loveliest'"?

[32] "Because, by Zeus, Simonides," he said, "I do not desire to get from him that which I could obviously have for the asking, but rather that which a tyrant is least likely of anyone to win. [33] For certainly I love Daïlochus on account of those things which human nature compels us to seek from the beautiful. But I very much desire to get the things my love wants from a willing lover, and with friendship. And I think I would want to take them from him by force less than I would want to do myself harm. [34] For I consider that to take from your enemy against his will is the sweetest of all things; but the sweetest of all charms, I think, are the charms of a boy who yields to you willingly. [35] For when a boy loves you in return, how sweetly he looks back at you, how sweetly he asks questions, how sweetly he answers; and the sweetest of all and the most erotic is when he fights with you and argues. [36] But to enjoy the charms of an unwilling boy," he said, "seems to me to be more like robbery than love-making. In fact, a robber at least gets some pleasure from his profits and from making his enemies unhappy; but for a man to take pleasure in the unhappiness of the person he loves and to be hated in return for his love and to force himself on someone he makes miserable: how could this not be a nasty, debasing experience? [37] The private citizen, as soon as the boy he loves does him a favor, has proof that the boy is being kind to him out of love, because he knows that he is doing these things under no compulsion, while it is never possible for a tyrant to feel sure that he is loved. [38] For we know that those who do things for one out of fear do everything they can to make it seem that they act out of friendship. Indeed plots are most often formed against tyrants by none other than those who claim to love them the best."

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2.15: Aristotle, Politics 2.10, 1272a22-26

In this chapter, Aristotle contends that the Spartans derived many of their institutions from Crete, and cites in particular the institution of common meals. In the midst of this discussion comes the following digression on pederasty.

The lawgiver gave much thought to the benefits of moderation in eating and also to the isolation of women, so that they not have many children. To this end he devised intercourse with males. There will be another occasion to examine whether this is a bad thing or not.

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