Greek Pederastic Relationship

While essentially all of the city-states in ancient Greece acknowledged male love in some form, only pederasty, the love of an older man for a boy, was a commonly accepted from of a homosexual relationship, and was even occasionally encouraged in a polis. Two parties were involved in a pederastic relationship: an erastes, the older male, and an eromenos, his beloved, who was typically an adolescent boy. Pederasty was mutually beneficial and consenting, with both men having their own pre-determined roles and responsibilities: [i]t was his (erastes’) duty to be the boy’s teacher and protector and serve as a model of courage, virtue, and wisdom to his beloved, or eromenos, whose attraction lay in his beauty, youth and promise of future moral, intellectual, and physical excellence. …show more content…
A pederastic relationship was primarily a romantic one opposed to sexual, and was typically expected to end once the adolescent reached manhood. Some city-states, especially Athens, frowned upon the continuation of such relationships past adolescence, perceiving it as a degradation of masculinity for both men, when the roles of the erastes and eromenos become questionable, although it was typical of men to remain close friends after their pederastic relationship had ended. Most polis’ idealized pederasty, utilizing the role of the erastes’ as a mentor to teach his eromenos on matter of the state, military, and society. States such as Sparta, Megara, and Thebes utilized pederasty for military purposes, occasionally having an eromenos grow up to fight alongside his former mentor. Thebes was unique in its encouragement of same-sex love past adolescence, and its use of pederasty as a basis for its most successful military division, the Sacred Band. Pederastic relationship