Spartans were gay

According to Xenophon, the Spartans abhorred the thought of using the relationships as the basis of unit formation for placing too much significance on sexuality rather than talent. This was due to their founder Lycurgus who attacked lusts on physical beauty regarding it as shameful. So, we know that Spartan society was deliberately designed in a way that made it an incubator for homosexual behaviour, and we also know that certain forms of homosexual behaviour were an accepted part of the (early) adult life of prominent Spartiates (as they were among other Greeks).

Spartans are famous soldiers of the ancient history of Greek. These Spartans soldiers always fought as heroes till their end of life. The distinctive part of the heroes was their gay relationships not only within the soldiers but outside their troops. On the night of their wedding, Spartan wives were expected to lie in a dark room and dress as a man - presumably to help their husbands make the transition from homosexual to heterosexual love.

For a Corinthian or a Spartan male to deliberately choose a submissive sexual role, he was seen as a type of traitor, one who accepted being ignoble for sexual pleasure, when he could be noble. Each guest gives a speech in praise of the god Eros and provides his own understanding of love. One of the guests, Phaedrus, waxes lyrical about the loyalty that the lover has to his beloved.

He cites, as evidence, the mythological hero Achilles, who sacrificed himself for his beloved Patroclus in the Trojan War. He speculates on the bravery that such soldiers might exhibit on the battlefield:. If by some contrivance a city, or an army, of lovers and their young loves could come into being.

For a man in love would rather have anyone other than his lover see him leave his place in the line or toss away his weapons, and often would rather die on behalf of the one he loves. Plato wrote the Symposium probably around BCE. At that time, many Greek states were subjected to the hegemony of the Spartans, who were enjoying a period of dominance after defeating the Athenians in in the devastating Peloponnesian War.

But one of these states, Thebes, stood up to the military might of Sparta. Given the uncertainty of the exact date of writing, Plato might have been referring explicitly to the Sacred Band, which was formed in BCE. A Spartan force had been occupying the citadel of Thebes, crushing opposition and exiling dissidents.

One Theban exile, Pelopidas, formed a coup and liberated the city from the Spartans, installing a democracy there. The Thebans knew they needed to defend themselves against inevitable Spartan retaliation. The band was the first professional standing army funded by the state in Greek history; most armies in Greece consisted of citizen-soldiers who enlisted only part-time.

And it was founded on the principle that men so intimately devoted to one another would fight as a cohesive unit. These emotional bonds turned the band into a force to be reckoned with. The band would eventually defeat the Spartan-led coalition, ushering in a decade of Theban hegemony. Romm has written and edited a number of books on Greek history, from Herodotus to Alexander the Great. He also has translated works of the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca.

Now he turns to fourth-century Greek history, a turbulent period of shifting power dynamics that marked the transition from the Classical to the Hellenistic era. An elite corps of male lovers was unique in Greek history, but homosexual relationships were commonplace. In many cities, it was a rite of passage for elite males in their late teens to enter into a pederastic relationship with an older man. This relationship was probably sexual, but it was also pedagogical.

The Greeks did not conceive of sexual orientation in our terms e. In Thebes, on the other hand, it was actively encouraged, and even legally incentivized.

spartan pederasty

While poets and philosophers had surmised about the martial power of Eros , the Thebans were the first to leverage that power in practice. For the next decade after the coup, the Sacred Band fought the Spartans head-on, campaigning to drive their garrisons from the Boeotian cities. When peace talks failed, the Theban army faced the Spartan army, which had a numerical advantage.

The Sacred Band played a pivotal role in the Theban victory. Because of its small size and tight cohesion, the band charged like a projectile into the Spartiates, wounding their general. Seeing this, the Spartan army began a haphazard retreat. This devastating defeat marked the first time in three centuries that a Spartan army had been routed. The victory at Leuctra changed the geopolitical landscape of Greece forever.