Like Pellicia 1995, this article takes a stab at identifying and evaluating possible intended meanings contained in Anacreon’s “she doesn’t like my grey hair” epigram.
Classical Era
This tag is used to indicate the eras dominated by Greek and Roman civilization. In regions where those cultures had no influence, consider it to indicate roughly 1000 BCE to the early centuries of the Common Era. If a more specific date in the Common Era is known, that will be used.
LHMP entry
In the ages before people fought their academic battles in mailing lists and then blogs, the pages of academic journals often recorded back-and-forth rivalries over such details as the accuracy of translations and interpretations, proper credit for prior publication, and accusations of misunderstanding. This article is one of those: largely a record of detailed pedantic rivalry over whether a prior rebuttal to a previous article had correctly understood the original author’s position.
This article is not particularly relevant, as it presents an overview of the structure of sexual relations from an elite male point of view. There is discussion of the social construction of sexual systems, with some odd anecdotal parallels from more modern cultures. There is a brief discussion of how to understand Sappho’s biography and work within this context (including a perhaps unwarranted assumption that social structures in Lesbos were identical to those in Athens).
This is not a book about history. The author’s area of focus is religious studies and psychology and the book primarily concerns itself with interpreting Greek and Roman mythological references to same-sex relations through a Freudian and Jungian lens. (Indeed, half the book is a discussion of Freud’s and Jung’s writings on same-sex relations and the development of their theories.) The conclusions are entirely concerned with modern Freudian understandings of Greek myth and how those might inform the experiences of modern people.
Bremmer presents some anecdotal, cross-cultural evidence for classical Greek pederasty having structural similarities to some generational-initiation ceremonies or systems in “primitive” cultures, positing that it is, perhaps, a relic of a more widespread Indo-European practice. The body of the article is focused exclusively on male relations, however a very brief appendix reviews three brief references to a possible female parallel in Sparta that could expand understanding of the context of Sappho’s love poetry. The references are:
This is one of those delightful linguistic deep-dives so beloved of classical philologists. Nelson considers the use of classical Greek ὄλισβος (olisbos) as meaning “dildo” within the context of its other meanings and of other words for dildo and concludes that not only was “dildo” not the primary meaning for the word, but that it also wasn’t the standard/default term for such an instrument.
This is a very brief philological note about the appearance and context of the Greek word “lesbiai” (lesbians) after the classical period. It begins by noting usage of the verbs “lesbizo” and “lesbiazo” that refer to fellatio, not to same-sex relations. He also notes Lucian’s reference connecting women from Lesbos with same-sex relations (in the Dialogues of the Courtesans). He discounts a claim (which I reviewed at one point and discarded as irrelevant) that there is a reference to “lesbizo” referring to tribadism in the 15th century.
A great deal of this article isn’t directly of interest, so much will be glossed over. The “proverbs” in question are various Greek adages in reference to people from Lesbos that mostly are not in reference to female same-sex relations. [Note: I’ve seen some arguments that some of the interpretations are more ambiguous that indicated here, but I’ll stick to summarizing what’s in this article.]
This article is a survey of recent work in trans and intersex historical studies covering the medieval period. Wingard notes that these topics have only been seriously included in book-length studies since 2020, following something of a hiatus in queer medieval history publications in general since the early 2000s. This particular survey focuses on work that studies “lived experience” via documentary sources and non-fiction texts, rather than a broader scope that includes literary and artistic materials.
Cameron acknowledges that Brooten found more evidence for love between women in Greco-Roman antiquity than scholars had previously supposed was available. However, he then lays out his agenda that her arguments depend on four Greek texts, each of which he will challenge the interpretation of. In two cases, Cameron’s objection is that the verb “gamein,” when applied to two women, does not refer to marriage at all, not even metaphorically.
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