MARJORIE ROSENI3ERC
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dwindle in the fifth ccntury
13.c.
and fell catastrophically in the fourth.
Perhaps it was not only constant warfarc and cconomic conditions which
were responsible; procreation as a duty to thc statc may have failed a a
stimulus.
Sparta and Crcte alone , among the Greck city-states, constructed so–
cieties in which familial and individual relationships were effectivcly sub–
ordinated to military organization. It was both predictable and useful in
such socictics that thc valucd warriors would most value cach other, and
thus a strong homoscxual culturc dcvclopcd. But whcther Greek homo–
sexuality originated in thc military organization of Dorian states, as many
scholars assert, is unprovable.
What can bc obscrved is the function of male homosexuality in the
fragmentcd Greek world where each city-state was constantly confronted
with the problem of survival against aggressive neighbors. Bound together
through political and military associations on which their lives and the
continued existcncc of their states depended, male citizens sharcd an in–
tensity of experience and a common purpose. Family life was everywhere
secondary, and the devaluation of womcn, which began with thcir lack of
physical strcngth and cndurancc, was augmcntcd by the opposition be–
tween their family-centered lives :1I1d the public concerns of their hus–
bands. Greek tragcdy oftcn dramatized this conflict, as in Sophocles's
AI/figolle,
whcre the tyrant, Creon, forbids the burial of the hcroinc's
brother bccause of his treachcry
to
the state. 13ut Antigonc dares
to
flout
his commands because of her sense of family obligation and is, in turn,
entombed alive by Creon. Clytemnestra's murder of Agamcmnon, in part
a retaliation for his sacrificc of their daughtcr, Iphegenia, in the cause of
the Trojan War, is a more complicated embodimcnt of this opposition of
values.
But although the conflict was resolved neither in Iifc nor in drama,
compensatory satisfactions occurred in the intimacy of male associations.
Having placcd thc highest value on wh:1t wcre thought to be cxclusively
male activities and attributes, it is unsurprising that the Greeks camc to
value love between males and then to usc this lovc to further thcir social
purposes. Always, however, the cmphasis was on love, with a grcat elabo–
ration of its nonphysical cxprcssion. Thus, the older lover - most often
himself a young adult - approached the bcautiful boy hc admired as a
teacher, an initiator into masculine activities. The boy might have been
selected for his bcauty, but the Greeks chosc to belicve that beauty was an
indication of virtue and thcn worked to make this true. Lovers claimed
that they participated activcly in the moral and intellectual development
of the boys who permitted thcir attcntions.
Xenophon rcports on this phenomenon with some skepticism in the
