Were the Greeks Gay?

Debunking myths about so-called "Greek love."

Certain LGBT activists have looked to ancient Greece as some sort of pre-modern San Francisco, where being gay was commonly accepted and practiced. But does this line up with the historical record? 

No, not really. 

Homosexuality was not widely accepted at all by the Greeks. Nor did they really have a clear concept of it. The closest thing to it were relationships between adult men and adolescent boys, the latter of which were usually slaves. The practice of pederasty—as it was called at the time—would be regarded as utterly repulsive to most modern observers. 

Background

Ancient sources about Greek homosexuality include Herodotus, Plato, Xenophon, and Athenaeus. Modern scholarship on the topic became popular with the publication of Kenneth Dover’s 1978 book Greek Homosexuality. Since then, modern scholars have attempted to reconstruct how the Greeks approached sexual orientation. The Greeks did not think in the modern terms of homosexuality and heterosexuality. They instead thought in terms of active and passive partners. 

Historically, the phrase “Greek love” has been used as a polite euphemism for male homosexuality. Homosexuality, in most cases, came in the form of pederasty. Sometimes, the boys were as young as 12. Anything below age 12, however, was seen as abhorrent.

Pederasty was originally designed as a platonic teacher-student relationship, but it came to be exploited by creepy old men. It degenerated into a parasitic relationship, something more akin to child abuse. One could argue that it was non-consensual activity with underage slave boys. Hardly a model for modern morals!

The various Greek city-states appear to have lacked uniformity on the issue. Some accepted it. Others were ambiguous. Some cities outright banned it. In any case, same-sex relations were far from universally accepted. Man-to-man relationships between two adults of the same status were never accepted. Wherever such relationships were mentioned, they were always mocked and disdained. 

Vase art

The idea of Greek homosexuality usually comes from provocative images found on pottery art. The most common pose is between men and boys, engaging in thigh sex. Of about 80,000 pieces, only about 600—less than one percent—depict what might be construed as homosexual scenes. 

Only 30 of those 600 vases could really be described as homosexual. This is because many of the 600 vases depict non-human characters, such as satyrs. Satyrs were regarded as highly grotesque and undesirable, so they are not demonstrative of the ideals of Greek society. In addition, some of the contested scenes depict heterosexual couples, but Dover counted them as gay because of the sexual positions. 

Contrary to popular myth, homoerotic scenes are not common in Greek vase art. They are actually very rare, and they are not unambiguously approving. 

Literature

Another piece of evidence cited is the allusion to homosexuality in Greek literature. This include lyrical poems, myths, philosophical treatises, speeches, inscriptions, medical texts, tragedies, comedies, curses, and anecdotes. But this is also misleading, because some of those references are ambivalent or even disapproving. 

Greek physicians wrote about homosexuality, but they did not see it favorably. They investigated its natural causes, with some regarding it as a disease. Others considered it to be a mental illness or birth defect. 

Achilles and Patroclus

In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles and Patroclus are two male dudes. They had something of a very close bromance. Were they gay? 

The strong, virile Achilles was known to have had many affairs with ravishing Greek women. There is no mention of any male affairs in Homer’s text. 

The gay interpretation was explored in Madeline Miller’s 2011 novel The Song of Achilles. Oddly enough, it was actually proposed by ancient writers themselves. Plato speculated that the two characters had a homoerotic relationship, but the philosopher wrote 300 years after Homer’s epic poem. Pederasty wasn’t practiced in the 8th century BC. 

Xenophon, an ancient Athenian historian and disciple of Socrates, explicitly clarified that Achilles and Patroclus were not in a relationship. Even if one assumes that Xenophon was some sort of homophobe, it would still prove that the Greeks were far from unanimous in their alleged acceptance of homosexuality. 

Greek philosophers

Did Plato endorse male homosexuality? No. Early on, Plato’s positive references to homosexuality were directed at pederasty. Plato actually changed his mind later in life, around 360 BC. 

Plato’s Symposium spoke of how Greek parents would hire bodyguards to protect their children from pederasts. Older children mocked younger ones who were caught in such a relationship. To Plato, pederasty had both an honorable and a shameful component. One can easily guess which part was the dishonorable one! The Greek philosopher mocked the idea of a person who could not control their lust, which he described as shameful. 

Plato’s Laws saw homosexuality—even women-on-women action—as unnatural and lustful. The philosopher explicitly prohibited homosexuality between free male citizens. 

The Stoic philosophers were known to oppose homosexuality, and promiscuity in general. 

Xenophon regarded sex in the teacher-student relationship as totally unacceptable, describing it as a grotesque form of unnatural lust. 

Mythology 

LGBT themes rarely appear in Olympian mythology either. Aphrodite had a husband, and many male lovers. Athena was chaste. Ares had a wife. Zeus had his wife Hera, as well as many gorgeous female mistresses. 

Modern ideas about sexuality do not necessarily match those of the Greeks. The Greeks, for example, did not connect sexual desire and romance. They divided them. Aphrodite was the goddess of love and beauty, while Eros was the goddess of desire. 

When Siproites saw the goddess Artemis bathing naked in the woods, she turned him into a woman as retribution. This was not a transgender theme, but rather a punishment. 

Lesbians

Since Greece was largely a male-oriented society, little is known at all about girl-on-girl love. The word itself, lesbian, comes from the Greek island of Lesbos. Sappho is sometimes held up as the West’s first lesbian poet. But before you get too excited, Sappho’s lesbianism needs to be qualified. Although the Greek poetess did in fact write salacious poetry directed at her fellow women, Sappho was married to a man. Few of her amorous poems survive, and it is possible that they were written in the voice of a presumably male character. 

Conclusion

To put it bluntly, there is little evidence that the Greeks accepted homosexuality. Modern attempts to find “queerness” in the Greeks are anachronistic and inaccurate. Such claims are a trendy way of “deconstructing” the Classical tradition, but these caricatures tell us more about the alphabet activists than Antiquity. 

Tolerance is a great thing, and there’s nothing wrong with looking to Antiquity for moral and intellectual inspiration. But the image of the glorious Greeks as a bunch of bearded gay guys, prancing around like the Village People in Achillean armor—that’s just ridiculous! It is a gross exaggeration, as well as just gross. Such obvious distortions of the historical record shouldn’t be mistaken for serious scholarship. 

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