Apart from the 'nature' (Muses) of the human species, each
human
being has his own 'nature',
i.e. the way in which he has developed
mentally and physically; and
whatever characteristic anyone has, he
is likely to have it more
than some people and less than others. Greek
recognition that some people
are more homosexual than others need
not surprise us. It is
clearest in the story put into the mouth of
Aristophanes by Plato in S'mp. 189c-193d: human beings were
originally double, each with
two heads, four legs, two genital systems.
and so on, but Zeus ordered
their bisection, and ever since (a
commonly in the folktale
genre, the time-scale is ignored and the
distinction between species
and individual is blurred) 4 each
of us goes
round seeking his or her
'other half' and falling in love with it when we
find it. In this story the
products of an original double male are
homosexual males
(191e-192c), who marry and beget children 'under
the compulsion of custom,
without natural inclination' (192b); the
products of an original
double female are homosexual females (191e
and the rest are
heterosexual, the products of an original male-female.
The variability of people in
respect of their sexual orientation
(genetically determined, in
Aristophanes' story) is incidentally
recognised in Aiskhines'
reference to the 'extraordinary enthusiasm '
of Misgolas for homosexual
relations (§41) and in Xenophon's use. of
tropos –'way', 'character', 'disposition',
'inclination' – in describing
the behaviour of the
extravagant paiderastes
Episthenes
(cf. p. 51); cf.
also Aiskhines' use of prohairesis (p. 32). Aiskhines
contemplates
(§140) substituting tropos for 'eros' as the
appropriate word for the
emotion which inspired
Harmodios and Aristogeiton (it is, of course.
to his advantage if he can
deprive the defence of such support as it
might gain from the magic
names of the tyrannicides):
Those whose valour has
remained unsurpassed, Harmodios and
Aristogeiton, were educated
by their chaste and law-abiding — is 'eros '
the right word, or
'inclination'? — to be men of such a kind that anyone
3. Cf. Dover (1973a) 65. On sexual 'compulsion' cf. Schreckenburg 54-61.
4. Cf. Dover ( 1966) 4 I -?.
who praises their deeds is felt never to do justice. in
his encomium, to
what they accomplished.
(It should however be
mentioned that Aiskhines may have written
'law-abiding Bros. or
however one should call it, to be men ...').'
Aphrodite and Eros are both,
in somewhat different ways,
personifications of the
forces which make us desire people and fall in
love with them. In so far as
the term aphrodisia,
lit.,
'things of
Aphrodite', denotes sexual
intercourse, and the verb aphrodisiazein is
have sexual intercourse',
there is some justification for the
generalisation that genital
activity as a whole is the province of
Aphrodite and the obsessive
focussing of desire on one person, which
we call ' falling in love', the
province of Eros. Not surprisingly, the
distinction, though implicit
in much Greek literature, is nowhere
made explicit, nor was there
a consistent Greek view of the relation
between Aphrodite and Eros
as personal deities; in the archaic period
Eros is regarded as having
come into being at a much earlier stage of
the world's history than
Aphrodite, the classical period tends to treat
him as her minister or
agent, and in Hellenistic literature he is often
her spoilt and unruly son.
Nlorcover, the notion that the female deity
inspires heterosexual
passion and the male deity homosexual appears
only as a Hellenistic
conceit, in Meleagros 18:
Aphrodite. female (sc.
deity), ignites the fire that makes one mad for a
woman, hut Eros himself
holds the reins of male desire. Which way am
T to incline? To the boy or
to his mother? I declare that even Aphrodite
herself will say: 'The bold lad is the
winner!'
In Theognis 1304, 1319f. the
beauty of the eromenos is a 'gift of
Aphrodite', and among the
Hellenistic epigrams we find several (e.g.
Asklepiades 1, Meleagros
119) in which it is Aphrodite who has
caused a man to fall in love
with a boy.
Aphroduia can denote homosexual
copulation, as in Xen. Hiero 1.29
(contrasting paidika aphrodi-sia with 'child-begetting aphrodi-sia'), 1.36,
Mein. i 3.8. indeed, a general reference
to aphrodtsia
may be
followed by a homosexual
exemplification and by no other. So Xen. Ages. 5.4, speaking of the superhuman self-restraint which characterised the
Spartan king Agesilaos in
respect of aphrodisia,
chooses as
his example
an occasion on which the
king avoided kissing a certain young
5 .•' Whatever !moth ' means 'however'. and the
insertion of'whatever' was suggested
by Baiter and Sauppe in 1840. to give the sense '... law-abiding
eros. or however one should
call it. to be men ...'. This emendation,
however. is not required by grammar, Style or
sense.
u