The Greeks and Greek love A radical reappraisal of homosexuality in ancient Greece

I this marvelously entertaining and erudite follow-up to Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens, Davidson has written the definitive study of the varieties of same-sex love in ancient Greece. Abjuring recent theory-laden views of ancient Greek sexuality, and in particular homosexuality, Davidson examines the great variety of loves practiced across all ages and classes in such locales as Sparta, Crete and Macedonia. He draws deeply on etymology, philology, archeology, poetry and philosophy, observing, for instance, that the various Greek words for love-from agape (fondness) to pothos (longing) and eros (driving love)-define an amatory universe in which a variety of feelings and sexual practices characterize relationships between individuals. Thus, love manifests itself differently depending on whether "the lovers are Spartan women, gods and heroes, comrades-in-arms or master and slave." There is the sweet and playful eros of the lyric poets, the patriotic eros of Pericles' funeral speech, and the letters of Alexander that reject offers to send him the most beautiful boys in the world. Davidson's study is brilliant social history and a first-rate history of classical Greece. B&w illus. (May 26) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Though his title might suggest a broader topic, this massive book by Davidson (reader in ancient history, Univ. of Warwick, UK; Courtesans and Fishcakes) is intended as a total reappraisal specifically of the role of homosexuality in ancient Greek society. Living up to its subtitle, it is the single most important contribution to the subject since Kenneth Dover's landmark Greek Homosexuality (1977), which set the research agenda for an entire generation. The main contrast between the two books concerns homosexual relationships among peers. Dover famously argues that homosexual relationships in Greece were intergenerational, with clearly defined roles-a perspective Davidson challenges. He also takes on David Halperin (One Hundred Years of Homosexuality), who, he argues, needs to put more eros in homoerotic relations and not reduce them to power conflicts. Davidson's use of textual and material evidence is necessarily broad. Verdict The nonspecialist may be overwhelmed by the level of detail here, but the author is an engaging, often humorous writer, which should give the book a broader appeal. Though mostly for academic readers, this will definitely find an audience with anyone interested in homosexual issues and/or ancient Greece.-David S. Azzolina, Univ. of Pennsylvania Libs., Philadelphia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Chapter One EROS IN LOVE Before we start looking at how the ancient Greeks talked of affairs of the heart, we need to remind ourselves how we moderns do it. Even when you know a language inside out, it can be difficult to pin words down, and words of love are especially slippery. Here are a few fragments of conversations overheard. See if you can work out the nature of the affections and guess which ones are talking about sex, which are going to end in tragedy and which will live most happily ever after. 1"I love you." "I love you too, mate." 2"I'm not in love." "No you're not. You're in lust." 3"I love you." "Look, I really like you." 4"I'm really sorry. You know how much I love you. But I like boys." 5"She's nice." "Yeah. She's a really lovely person. I'm terribly fond of her." 6"He's nice." "He's to die for." Try explaining to a foreigner what the words "like" and "love," "lovely," "in love" and "nice" mean in English. It doesn't help to look them up in the Oxford English Dictionary, where there are pages and pages that try to explain. These are words that belong to our own very peculiar and socially promiscuous environment. They have evolved a high degree of ambivalence and diplomatic sensitivity, and have a lot of work to do in getting us through a minefield of possible misunderstandings and embarrassments with the fewest accidental detonations. The Greeks too had a number of words for love, quite apart from the two that most concern us: philia, "intimate love," and eros, "the love drive." As to whether the Greeks made a better job of delimiting the field, here is my schematic guide to a few ancient loves the Greeks had words for... agape Let's start at the shallow end. If you go to Greece today you will hear countless songs about love on the radio. You may be able to make out the words s'agapo--"I love you"--and m'agapeis--"do you love me?" In ancient Greek the word agap-e and its verb(s) are used above all for the feelings of proud and indulgent parents slaughtering a fatted calf for an eldest son, or the tail-?wagging pleasure of old retainers when the master of the house comes home at last. It can certainly be used in the context of sexual relationships, but it has little sexual heat, a "fondness" or "affection" expressed as a "fussing over" of someone who "pleases you," expressing neither intimacy nor an impassioned desire, but something closer to "proud regard." Agape and its relatives are used by Xenophon to describe the chaste-ish feelings of Spartan men for boys they have relationships with, the affection of the soldiers in the Theban "Army of Lovers" for their younger partners, or that of Zeus for Ganymede. Although most modern scholars discount claims of chasteness in Greek "homosexuality," since they think that "homosexuality" is desire for sex, and though agape certainly doesn't rule out a sexual relationship, it seems clear that these authors were using a word that need not entail sexual passion. Greek Christians certainly thought so. Agapetos is all over the New Testament, the word normally translated "beloved," as in "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..." Christ is God's "beloved son," John the "beloved disciple," etc., setting up an opposition to eros, which thereby took the first steps toward sex. pothos Now we come to the masculine "loves" often represented as little male Cupids. Pothos and Excerpted from The Greeks and Greek Love: A Bold New Exploration of the Ancient World by James West Davidson, James Davidson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.