A Problem in Greek Ethics: Being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion, addressed especially to medical psychologists and jurists — John Shaqi
A Problem in Greek Ethics: Being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion, addressed especially to medical psychologists and juristsSymonds, John Addington
Philosophy
A Problem in Greek Ethics: Being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion, addressed especially to medical psychologists and jurists
Symonds, John Addington
Ethics -- Greece; Greece -- Social life and customs; Homosexuality
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Up to this point I have been content to follow the notices of Dorian
institutions which are scattered up and down the later Greek authors,
and which have been collected by C. O. Müller. I have not attempted to
draw definite conclusions, or to speculate upon the influence which the
Dorian section of the Hellenic family may have exercised in developing
paiderastia. To do so now will be legitimate, always remembering that
what we actually know about the Dorians is confined to the historic
period, and that the tradition respecting their early customs is derived
from second-hand authorities.
* * * * *
It has frequently occurred to my mind that the mixed type of paiderastia
which I have named Greek Love took its origin in Doris. Homer, who knew
nothing about the passion as it afterwards existed, drew a striking
picture of masculine affection in Achilles. And Homer, I may add, was
not a native of northern Greece. Whoever he was, or whoever they were,
the poet, or the poets, we call Homer, belonged to the south-east of the
Ægean. Homer, then, may have been ignorant of paiderastia. Yet
friendship occupies the first place in his hero's heart, while only the
second is reserved for sexual emotion. Now Achilles came from Phthia,
itself a portion of that mountain region to which Doris belonged.[42] Is
it unnatural to conjecture that the Dorians in their migration to
Lacedæmon and Crete, the recognised headquarters of the custom, carried
a tradition of heroic paiderastia along with them? Is it unreasonable to
surmise that here, if anywhere in Hellas, the custom existed from
prehistoric times? If so, the circumstances of their invasion would have
fostered the transformation of this tradition into a tribal institution.
They went forth, a band of warriors and pirates, to cross the sea in
boats, and to fight their way along the hills and plains of Southern
Greece. The dominions they had conquered with their swords they occupied
like soldiers. The camp became their country, and for a long period of
time they literally lived upon the bivouac. Instead of a city-state,
with is manifold complexities of social life, they were reduced to the
narrow limits and the simple conditions of a roving horde. Without
sufficiency of women, without the sanctities of established domestic
life, inspired by the memory of Achilles, and venerating their ancestor
Herakles, the Dorian warriors had special opportunity for elevating
comradeship to the rank of an enthusiasm. The incidents of emigration
into a distant country--perils of the sea, passages of rivers and
mountains, assaults of fortresses and cities, landings on a hostile
shore, night-vigils by the side of blazing beacons, foragings for food,
picquet services in the front of watchful foes--involved adventures
capable of shedding the lustre of romance on friendship. These
circumstances, by bringing the virtues of sympathy with the weak,
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