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
tenderness for the beautiful, protection for the young, together with
corresponding qualities of gratitude, self-devotion and admiring
attachment, into play, may have tended to cement unions between man and
man no less firm than that of marriage. On such connections a wise
captain would have relied for giving strength to his battalion, and for
keeping alive the flame of enterprise and daring. Fighting and foraging
in company, sharing the same wayside board and heath-strewn bed,
rallying to the comrade's voice in onset, relying on the comrade's
shield when fallen, these men learned the meanings of the words
_Philetor_ and _Parastates_. To be loved was honourable, for it implied
being worthy to be died for. To love was glorious, since it pledged the
lover to self-sacrifice in case of need. In these conditions the
paiderastic passion may have well combined manly virtue with carnal
appetite, adding such romantic sentiment as some stern men reserve
within their hearts for women.[43] A motto might be chosen for a lover
of this early Dorian type from the Æolic poem ascribed to Theocritus:
"And made me tender from the iron man I used to be."
* * * * *
In course of time, when the Dorians had settled down upon their
conquered territories, and when the passions which had shown their more
heroic aspect during a period of warfare came, in a period of idleness,
to call for methods of restraint, then the discrimination between
honourable and base forms of love, to which Plato pointed as a feature
of the Dorian institutions, took place. It is also more than merely
probable that in Crete where these institutions were the most precisely
regulated, the Dorian immigrants came into contact with Phœnician vices,
the repression of which required the adoption of a strict code.[44] In
this way paiderastia, considered as a mixed custom, partly martial,
partly luxurious, recognised by public opinion and controlled by law,
obtained among the Dorian Tribes, and spread from them throughout the
states of Hellas. Relics of numerous semi-savage habits--thefts of food,
ravishment as a prelude to marriage, and so forth--indicate in like
manner the survival among the Dorians of primitive tribal institutions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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