By Louis Crompton
How have significant civilizations of the final millennia taken care of those who have been drawn to their very own intercourse? In a story journey de strength, Louis Crompton chronicles the lives and achievements of gay women and men along a darker background of persecution, as he compares the Christian West with the cultures of old Greece and Rome, Arab Spain, imperial China, and pre-Meiji Japan. historic Greek tradition celebrated same-sex love in background, literature, and artwork, making excessive claims for its ethical impact. in contrast, Jewish spiritual leaders within the 6th century B.C.E. branded male homosexuality as a capital offense and, later, blamed it for the destruction of the biblical urban of Sodom. while those traditions collided in Christian Rome through the past due empire, the tragic repercussions have been felt all through Europe and the hot international. Louis Crompton strains Church-inspired mutilation, torture, and burning of "sodomites" in sixth-century Byzantium, medieval France, Renaissance Italy, and in Spain less than the Inquisition. yet Protestant professionals have been both devoted to the execution of homosexuals within the Netherlands, Calvin's Geneva, and Georgian England. the basis reason used to be non secular superstition, abetted via political ambition and sheer greed. but from this cauldron of fears and wishes, homoerotic subject matters surfaced within the paintings of the Renaissance masters--Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Sodoma, Cellini, and Caravaggio--often intertwined with Christian motifs. Homosexuality additionally flourished within the court docket intrigues of Henry III of France, Queen Christina of Sweden, James I and William III of britain, Queen Anne, and Frederick the good. Anti-homosexual atrocities devoted within the West distinction starkly with the extra tolerant traditions of pre-modern China and Japan, as printed in poetry, fiction, and artwork and within the lives of emperors, shoguns, Buddhist monks, students, and actors. within the samurai culture of Japan, Crompton makes transparent, the get together of same-sex love rivaled that of historic Greece. Sweeping in scope, elegantly crafted, and lavishly illustrated, Homosexuality and Civilization is a beautiful exploration of a wealthy and bad earlier. (20031130)
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Names that appear are Miltiades and Alcibiades, Theognis the poet, and Agathon the dramatist. Robinson and Fluck have identified several members of the Socratic circle, a score of generals, and a significant number of Athenian orators and statesmen. The name most often found—it appears over forty times—is Leagros, an Athenian general who died in 465 commanding a fleet in Thrace. 27 We must inevitably wonder: did these relations remain “platonic,” or did they take on a specifically sexual form? Literary evidence is relatively scarce in the pre-classical period, but again ceramics provide clues.
Anacreon’s attachment to Smerdies seems to have run deeper than his usual flirtations. ”51 Jealous, Polycrates cut off Smerdies’ hair. Anacreon rebuked Smerdies in verse, as if the boy had done the deed himself. For this he has been praised for his tact and damned for his cowardice. 52 Eventually Polycrates was lured into a trap set by the Persians who captured and crucified him. Anacreon’s good fortune, however, did not desert him. This was an age of brilliant tyrants, and Anacreon immediately found a congenial home in Athens with Hippias and Hipparchus, sons of Peisistratus.
Her lyrics tell of the powerful feelings these women aroused in her: He seems as fortunate as the gods to me, The man who sits opposite you And listens nearby to your sweet voice and lovely laughter. Truly that sets my heart trembling in my breast. 35 Repeatedly, Sappho strikes her characteristic note of intense feeling. ”36 It is not surprising that Sappho’s favorite goddess was Aphrodite, whom she invokes in a passionate prayer, here translated in an approximation to the so-called “Sapphic” meter she made famous: Throned in bright colors, deathless Aphrodite, Zeus’ most subtle daughter, now I pray you, Do not violate my soul with sorrow, And pain, O Goddess!