The education of the youths took place in the gymnasium. Far more than a modern gym, such a complex was situated in the centre of every Greek town. There boys and men spent a large part of their day engaged in physical and intellectual exercise. Its architecture was described by the Roman architect Vitruvius: First, it contained a large peristyle, i.e. a square with a perimeter of two stadia (or 90 m [270 ft] per side). It was surrounded on three sides by single arcades, and on the southern side by a double arcade that enclosed the Ephebeion, the training ground for the epheboi, young men past the age of majority, that is eighteen to twenty or so. At the sides were baths, halls and other rooms, where philosophers, rhetoricians, poets and all the many friends of male beauty would come together. Behind the peristyle were further arcades, one of them the xystos, apparently mainly for the training of adult men, and connected to it the palestra, the main training ground for the youths. The rooms were decorated with all kinds of artwork, above all with statues of gods and heroes such as Hermes, Apollo and the Muses, Herakles and especially Eros. Such daily exposure to the many wondrous works of art and to the beauty of young bodies harmoniously developed by regular exercises goes a long way towards explaining the Greeks’ enthusiasm for beauty and male eros.

The word gymnasium derives from gymnos, naked, reflecting the fact that all sports were performed unclothed. Not surprisingly, the gymnasium was an epicentre of erotic energy. The cult of male nudity was a widespread phenomenon of Greek life, and was viewed as one of the cardinal differences between the cultured Greeks and their barbarian neighbours. Nudity was practised not only in the gymnasia but also at the great national competitions in Olympia, Nemea, Delphi and on the Isthmus, at religious ceremonies, at public festivals and at private feasts where the young cupbearers went usually in the nude. The Gymnopaidiai was an important yearly festival in Sparta, celebrated with dances and presentations of naked boys. Paradoxically, the Spartan authorities tried to use the dances as reward for those fighting the decrease in population that their state was stricken with: only married men were allowed as spectators.

Varieties of traditions

On the other hand, one of the myths explaining the origin of pederasty has it that Minos, the king of Crete, introduced it to avoid overpopulation of his island. That custom, in the form of a traditional rite of passage, is also the earliest form of pederasty that is historically documented, in a text of Ephorus of Kyme.

The lover announces to his friends his decision to perform the abduction three or four days before. Now it would be disgraceful to hide the boy or to forbid him to go the appointed road, because this would mean that he did not deserve such a lover. Then when they have met and the lover takes rank with the boy or even ranks above him, they pursue the abductor only out of tradition to keep up appearances, in fact they let him go delightedly. Still they pursue him until he has brought the boy into his house. But if the lover is not of equal rank, they wrench the boy from him forcibly. He who excels in beauty is regarded as less desirable than he who distinguishes himself by valour and virtue. The boy receives a present from his friend, and the latter takes him to where he wants to have him. The witnesses to the abduction go with them; then follows a festive dinner, after which they return to town. Two months later the boy is sent home, with rich presents. [Three traditional presents made up the symbolic foundation of the boy’s entry into adult life: a suit of armour symbolizing martial accomplishment, a bull symbolizing the responsibilities of working the land, and a cup, symbolizing divine inebriation as the path to the accomplishments of the spirit.] Besides these there were many other valuable gifts, so that the friends too may have their pleasure. Upon his return the young man sacrificed the bull to Zeus and treated his friends to a feast. [At the same time he had to answer the ritual question of whether he liked the relationship with his abductor or not, a tradition which presumably served as further restraint on those lovers prone to take advantage of their position.] But when a beautiful boy from a good family cannot find a lover, it is a shame to him, because the reason for it must be his character. The boys preferred by abduction are especially honoured. They get the best places at round dances and running-matches and are allowed to wear the garments given them by their lovers as a mark of distinction.

The Greek Dorian tribes, such as the Spartans, had similar traditions, though details varied from one state to another. The underlying idea remained the same, though: that the adult lover had to give the adolescent beloved a piece of his own heart, so to speak, transferring his own areté, meaning all that was good and noble in him, to facilitate the youth’s passage into manhood. The bond that was formed by these relationships often lasted beyond the end of the youth’s formal education. Sometimes the older man remained responsible for his pupil until the latter reached marriageable age, about thirty.

Harmodius and Aristogiton  (read the story)          (click image to enlarge)

The power of love that was used to such good effect to educate Greek youths also served to sharpen their motivation, and that of their lovers, in battle. The bravery of male couples, such as those that made up the Theban Sacred Band, was well known throughout ancient Greece and was an important factor in war. Pederastic couples were also known as tyrannicides, killers of tyrants, in that they often were the first to rise up against despots. Harmodius and his erastes, Aristogiton, were perhaps the best known of those couples.

Other aspects

Though the Greeks, in their creative genius, elevated a common human impulse and utilized its power for the improvement of both boy and man, in daily life male love had other faces too, even as today ideal marriage is far from being the only manifestation of desire between a woman and a man. Prostitution of boys, for example, was common from early on. The statesman Solon of Athens (ca. 634-560 BC), who put through important social reforms in his home town, tried to regulate these aspects of sexual life. His laws forbade the prostitution of free-born Athenian boys, but did not protect slaves nor xenoi, ‘foreigners’ (who lacked Athenian citizenship), from such abuse. Brothels that provided boys were officially sanctioned, and taxed just like the ones that offered women or girls. Many were ‘staffed’ by captive boys who had been kidnapped in war after their parents had been killed or sold off into slavery. Free boys as well were not always above selling their favours to the highest bidder.

Poetry and culture

Among the Ionian Greeks pederasty had a more casual character than among the Dorians. The poems of Anakreon reflect that nonchalant playfulness. Still, the love of boys was no less frequent among these Greeks. The cultural stimulus of this passion can hardly be overstated. Especially strong in the fifth century BCE, the classical age of Athens, it inspired artists and poets such as Phidias and Sophocles. Later, after the Greek city-state, the polis, had lost its dominance as political and spiritual centre, life and love became more private and individual sentiment came more to the fore. This was mirrored by the wistful tone of Theocrite’s most personal poetry.

Most Greek lyric poets, such as Theognis, Archilochos, Alcaios, Ibycos, Anacreon and Pindar, devoted a large part of their works to the love of young men. Straton, who lived in the second century CE in Sardis, the ancient capital of Lydia in Asia Minor, collected numerous epigrams and compiled them with his own poems under the title Mousa Paidika, ‘The Boyish Muse’, that subsequently became the twelfth book of the ‘Greek Anthology’.

The ‘Indian summer’ of antique culture, the 2nd century CE, also saw a love story that seemed to echo the legend of Zeus and Ganymede in real life. The Roman Emperor Hadrian, and Antinous, a simple Greek youth, became inseparable companions for several years, until the young man drowned in the Nile at the age of nineteen, in the year 130. The distraught Hadrian commanded the priests to declare Antinous a god. After his deification, the youth became the last great subject of Greek art not long before its final decline. Statues and portraits still tell of his melancholy beauty and enigmatic nature. His cult was kept up in the Eastern parts of the Empire until the rise of Christianity in the 4th century, when religious fervour married to politics started to destroy all remaining traces of classical culture and religion. The teachings of Him who preached love were used to deal the final blow to a timeless love, and the long dark ages began.