Sex and the ancient city: Aspects of sexual intercourse in Greco-Roman antiquity

A CONFERENCE IN HONOUR OF PROFESSOR CHRIS CAREY, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

ORGANIZERS: ANDREAS SERAFIM (University of Cyprus) & GEORGE KAZANTZIDIS (University of

Patras) & KYRIAKOS DEMETRIOU (University of Cyprus)
VENUE AND TIME: University of Cyprus, New Campus, 11-13 June 2019, Room: B108
SPONSORS: Department of Social and Political Science & Postgraduate Programme in Gender Studies,
University of Cyprus

ABSTRACTS
AFRODITI ATHANASOPOULOU (CYPRUS): “The locus amoenus as an erotic landscape. Some
observations on the development of the topos in the learned and vernacular literature in Greek:
From Achilles Tatius to Voskopula”

This paper explores locus amoenus, a literary topos with an impressive diffusion in the European
literature over the ages. Although its nascent form dates back to Homer, I argue that the locus
amoenus becomes actually a topos, i.e. a system in Late Antiquity, in the context of the Hellenistic
novels, with the contribution of the Christian literature (Song of Songs); it then flourishes throughout
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in both the Byzantine and occidental literature, and finally dies
out, like all the classical topoi, in the age of Enlightenment. I focus on the study of the locus amoenus
in the learned and vernacular literature in Greek, from the Hellenistic period up to the late Renaissance
(roughly, from the novel of Achilles Tatios to the Cretan pastoral idyll entitled Voskopula) because
this production is generally neglected by the scholars of topology in Europe, who focus mainly on
ancient Greek and/or Latin texts.

A main question, which is addressed in the paper, is “what distinguishes the locus amoenus from
other pleasant landscapes?” To answer this, the paper provides a detailed examination of the features
of the locus amoenus (shape, basic elements, flora and fauna, colours, senses, mode of description).
Based on the findings, I reach in some conclusions, which provide a more specific designation of
Ernst Curtius’s initial definition of this topos. I argue that the locus amoenus, far from being
naturalistic, is a literary construct, an imaginary landscape. Its defining characteristic – what makes
it amoenus – is the fact that is an erotic landscape, the par excellence “landscape of Eros/Love”,
venerated as the creative force that animates the entire Universe. Its elements constitute a system, “a
sum of parts which interact” in a certain order that cannot be violated. This system has a cosmological
foundation; the locus amoenus constitutes a certain realisation of the relationship between man and
nature, nature and art, nature and civilization, which is characteristic of pre-modernity and is governed
by three basic principles: the reflection effect, the four-colour beauty, and concordia discors, the
harmony of opposites.

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ALLISON GLAZEBROOK (BROCK UNIVERSITY): “An Olynthian Woman in Crisis: Slavery,
Violence, and Sex at the Symposium”
While there has been consistent scholarly interest in sexual violence since the 1990s (e.g. Scafuro,
Deacy and Pierce, Omitowoju, Harris, Gaca, James), there is a tendency to consider such violence in
relation to free Athenian women only. The sources, however, suggest that Athenians considered
sexually violent treatment a marker of slavery and employed sexual violence as a strategy to
distinguish between free women and slave women more generally. This distinction is most visible in
Demosthenes’ description of a recently enslaved Olynthian woman at a symposium hosted by
Xenophron (Dem. 19.196-98). Demosthenes’ narrative emphasizes her status as eleuthera as well as
her sōphrosunē. These qualities contrast directly with her treatment: the guests force her to drink
wine, order her to sing, and eventually strip and whip her. The woman is described as bewildered and
as crying, but also as being unwilling to comply and as being angered at her mistreatment. It is only
her supplication to another guest that saves her from being sexually violated (my reading of apōlet’an
paroinoumenē). The episode presents multiple perspectives: those who consider her free
(Demosthenes as narrator), those who consider her a slave (attendees at the symposium), and finally
the woman herself. These contrasting viewpoints reveal the sexual violence inherent in the display
and treatment of women at symposia. This woman’s plight, furthermore, contrasts with the experience
of some other Olynthian captives, the female kin of Apollophanes, whom Satyros asks to be freed
from captivity and allowed to be married (Dem. 19.192-95). Building on Gardner 2013 and
Glazebrook 2015 and 2018, I argue that sexual violence was construed differently depending on the
status of the victim. I further suggest that free women were complicit in sexual violence involving
lower status women by considering themselves exempt from sexual violence.

ANDREAS FOUNTOULAKIS (CRETE): “Silencing Female Intimacies: Sexuality, Silence and

Cultural Formation in Lucian, Dial. Meretr. 5”
Among Lucian’s Dialogues of the Courtesans the fifth dialogue (Dial. Meretr. 5) is unique in that it
focuses not on the usual encounters and relations of hetaerae with men or on their interaction with
other hetaerae, but on the sexual adventures of a hetaera called Leaina with another woman called
Megilla and her female partner, Demonassa. When Leaina describes those adventures to her friend
Clonarium, she remains silent about the form of sexual intercourse she had with those women and
only notes that their acts are too shameful to be mentioned.

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the reasons of Leaina’s silence and its implications with
respect to the depiction of sexual relations in this dialogue. Drawing on evidence coming from
Herondas’ mimiambs, the dream analysis of Artemidorus, Martial’s epigrams and the Greek magical
papyri in connection with the meagre relevant references of Lucian’s text, this paper seeks to specify
first the potential types of sexual intercourse alluded to by Leaina’s descriptions as well as the reasons
why she avoids getting more specific about them. As these reasons are linked with perceptions of
gender, sexuality and female homoeroticism occurring in Lucian’s text, such an investigation also
brings to the foreground wider relevant perceptions and moral standards which were prevalent in
Greek society and culture from the fifth century onwards. It is argued that the reference to Leaina’s
homoerotic adventures in combination with her silence about specific types of sexual intercourse
forms part of the narrative strategies of Lucian’s satire, which evokes the morality of a Greek cultural
past and, at the same time, undermines by means of allusion and insinuation the values upon which
that past was based. Those narrative strategies reflect wider concerns of Lucian’s times and are part
of a process of cultural formation and change prevalent in his cultural milieu.

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ANDREAS SERAFIM (CYPRUS): “A Psychosomatic Vignette of Kinaidos in Greek Literature”
Aeschines’ speeches 1 and 2 contain the only attestations of the term kinaidos in oratory, and the
word is only rarely used elsewhere in Greek literature. Some attestations can be found, for example,
in Archilochus fr. 328; Plato’s Gorgias 494c-e; Pseudo-Aristotle’s Physiognomics 808a, 810a, 813a
and in Nicomachean Ethics 1148b15-1149a20. This limited use of the word kinaidos makes it hard
to pin down the traits of the character. The attempts to define kinaidos in modern scholarship, and to
describe its fundamental features, are mostly preoccupied with the moral defects and failings of this
character. This paper reconstructs, for the first time, a complete picture of the physical features and
the bearing of the figure of kinaidos as presented in Attic oratory and a range of other ancient sources.
It would be argued that physical aspect and aesthetic features, appearances and movements were as
important as moral and sexual aspects in the characterisation of the kinaidos.
By exploring several textual and non-textual sources, not only Attic oratorical speeches, but also
sources attempting to etymologize the term kinaidos, Pseudo-Aristotle’s Physiognomics, a 4th century
comic fragment of an anonymous author and the marble statue of Kroisos Kouros, this paper provides
information about all the references that have been made to the physical and bodily ways in which a
kinaidos carries himself (knees, head, hands and gait). In Against Timarchus, Aeschines accuses
Demosthenes in respect to a lack of restraint in using luxurious garments that are indistinguishable
from female garments. In On the False Embassy, Demosthenes’ kinaidia is associated with his
effeminate physique and manners and his lack of military prowess. Both of these physical and
behavioural distortions serve to underline Demosthenes’ military and civic worthlessness and his
failure to be part of the Athenian community.

ANTONINI SMYRILLI (CYPRUS): “Queering Helene: Re-reading Euripides’ educational

appropriation”
With emphasis on Euripides’ Helene for Third Grade Gymnasium as a paradigmatic example of
educational adaptation and appropriation (here forth referred to as HfE, Helene for Education),
Ancient Greek Drama’s [re]presentation in the Greek Cypriot Curriculum is problematized and the
latter’s commitment to narratives of heteronormativity and continuity of the Nation is destabilized.
HfE’s framing by analogues and management through guiding vectors serves a mission of
exoneration. This exoneration, rendered meaningful and relevant in terms of an unspoken, always
assumed patriarchal order of female honor, forfeits Helene’s multiplicity of orientations and
Euripides’ historical asynchrony. Through which mechanisms is this heteronormative re-orientation
of HfE’s reading to exoneration mediated? To which extend is a counter-narration, e.g., vindication
rather than exoneration, rendered impossible? How does the Ancient Greek Curriculum’s self-
pronounced continuity with Antiquity intersect with missions of female exoneration to produce the
nation’s heteronormative (en)vision(ing)? The paper engages in a conversation with Gayle Rubin,
Judith Butler and Lauren Berlant to explore how family bonds mediate national belongingness and
national continuity. National belongingness requires identification with heterosexual life. A queer
reading of Helene effects minute cracks to missionary kinship as it recovers other lines of intimacy.

BARBARA GOLD (HAMILTON COLLEGE): “Were Female Martyrs Transgender?”

Female martyrs of late antiquity have been cast and viewed in many different roles and against various
cultural paradigms. They were among the first proto-gender-benders in history, inhabiting a world
between masculine and feminine, blurring the lines that had been established by the early Church
Fathers and classical writers like Plato and Aristotle before them. Today these martyrs have received
new notice because of the current interest in transgendered people, in particular Caitlyn Jenner. What
do we learn when we compare Perpetua of the third century CE to Caitlyn Jenner?
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The female martyrs of early Christendom were regarded with deep suspicion and puzzlement by the
early Church Fathers of the 3rd – 5th centuries. Many were seen as women who exhibited unnatural
male characteristics – characteristics that were admired in men but not seen as suitable for
women. Perpetua carried this masculinizing one step further by having a vision in which she
physically turned into a male and fought in a brutal pancration against a large Egyptian opponent
(Passio 10). Immediately after her contest, she awoke and became a female again, addressed as filia
by the lanista who was running the contest. Nevertheless, her actions and behaviors – self-
confidence, courage, strength, leadership of her group, determination to die – all serve to denote her
as masculinized. Many viewers see in Perpetua the ultimate masculinized female (Cobb, Moss);
others see a maternal figure who exhibits female traits (Perkins) or who is a site of ambivalent
identification (Burrus, Castelli, Bal). She is a figure of continual contestation, who can represent
whatever the viewer wants her to and who has undergone processes of reinterpretation,
misinterpretation, resubjugation, and victimization.

I will question whether such a malleable figure, seemingly subject entirely to the whims of the viewer,
has any real substance or identity, and whether thinking in transgender terms can help us to answer
this question about substance/identity.

BARTŁOMIEJ BEDNAREK (WARSAW): “The iconography of soft pornography: allusions to erotic

foreplay in Greek vase painting”
Apart from the scenes that have been labelled (justifiably or not) as “hard pornography” and those of
courtship, ancient iconography includes a vast category of types that should be taken as referring to
an intermediate stage of the process of erotic conquest, which do not contain graphic depictions of
intercourse itself, but allude to it in a way that should have been easily recognized by an ancient
viewer familiar with the “visual language” of vase painting. One of the typical motifs can be
compared to the conventional means of expression used in the mid-twentieth century cinema, in
which intercourse was often evoked by the scene of the undressing of the lovers (or one of them).
Similarly, in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5.161-5), the poet focuses entirely on the clothes and
jewellery of the goddess as being put by her mortal partner on a chair. What followed the scene of
undressing is mentioned in the text only in the most laconic way.
In my paper, I would like to present a similar motif, which pervaded vase painting from the late
archaic period onwards, and which was arguably recognized by ancient viewers as an allusion to
undressing. Chairs and stools with clothes deposited on them were humble witnesses of sexual
practices of ancient men and women and became somewhat marginal components of outwardly erotic
scenes. More interestingly, empty stools seem to have become a gradually more and more
conventional sign of undressing. Such an iconographic marker set in the context that may be evocative
of eroticism (ranging from kisses and gift-giving to something that could be taken as an innocent
conversation), in many cases shall be taken as a clear allusion to the intentions of the figures
represented on vases, which triggered the viewers’ fantasies about the aftermath of the scene they
were looking at.

CATALINA POPESCU (OKLAHOMA): “The Womb inside the Male Member- A Lucianic Twist”
According to Maud Gleason (2008), during the High Empire men were watching each other in order
to detect signs of effeminacy (from voice to gesture). My paper aims to show that Lucian’s Verae
Historiae I. 22-23 base their humor precisely on the transformation of the male member into a
multifunctional yet defective womb, where both genders are deconstructed. According to Lucian, a
specific breed of Selenites multiplies by means of a tree-phallus, both androgynous and asexual: it
develops a flesh column from the testicle of a man carefully removed and planted in the ground (22,
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13-17). The Lucianic tree-penis recapitulates the entire male and female physiology. The oscillations
between the two genders is obvious. In order to procreate, the male suffers a paradoxical castration.
Then, his severed seed impregnates the earth, without a penis. Instead of generating a foetus, this
chthonian uterus reconstructs a whole phallus adorned with floral appendages. In a way, the flesh
pillar undermines the feminine symbolism of this earthly womb. The masculine symbol is also both
reconfirmed and challenged since this member lives only as a vegetative gestational chamber for the
seeds of acorn. Its erect presence above the ground is amusingly matched only by its inertia. The
problem of birth-giving and gender assignment is here solved through vegetal hybridization, which
turns the phallus into a mere support for miniature pregnant wombs shaped as acorns. Asexual
germination replaces sex and birth.
The constant attempt of the Greek utopist to eliminate the female by circumventing her physiology is
a process that ultimately ends in castrating the male who refuses to acknowledge the “other” whether
as an inside principle or as a separate partner. The male body cannot successfully cast the female
without reproductive malfunction, just like the woman cannot completely engulf the man without
castrating him. As Loraux (1989: 55) asserts about the male-female tension in tragedy, here too “the
feminine element is part of the ambivalences of virile strength [...] [and] serves in many ways to
amplify that strength”. Similarly, to the myths about Zeus and Metis, the “absorbed” female inside
the Selenites keeps protruding through the surface.

CHARILAOS MICHALOPOULOS (THRACE): “Having sex with statues: agalmatophilia in Latin

literature”
Agalmatophilia in broad terms can be described as the pathological condition in which some people
establish exclusive sexual relationships with statues. In real life the phenomenon is only sparingly
recorded. Whether a fantasy or a behavioral perversion, agalmatophilia is not unknown to classical
literature. In Latin literature in particular the phenomenon has high frequency. One of the most
celebrated stories is the erotic derangement inflicted upon its viewers by Praxiteles’ statue of naked
Venus which was exhibited in the city of Knidos. Pliny the Elder and Valerius Maximus (among
others) preserve the piquant details of the sexual assaults suffered by the statue. Equally popular are
Ovid’s version of Pygmalion and his erotic desire for his own work of art in the Metamorphoses and
Laodamia’s sexual infatuation with the effigy of her dead husband as narrated by herself in Ovid’s
Heroides.

Recent scholarship has concentrated mostly on the metaliterary quality of these stories by focusing
on the artistic complexities of the man-statue liaison. My aim is to reassess stories of agalmatophilia
by offering a critical reading primarily (if not exclusively) informed by erotics. The man-statue
relationship will be examined essentially as a romantic story with sexual implications. Questions to
be addressed are the following (among others):
i) Which is the symptomatology of agalmatophilia in Latin literature?
ii) Is there a shared pattern in all these stories which would allow us to read other narratives as well
as stories of covert agalmatophilia?
iii) What happens when the inanimate object gives voice to their desire, as is the case with the wooden
statue of Priapus in the Corpus Priapeorum (CP 26)? How does this affect our appreciation given
that all emphasis so far has been put exclusively on the human side of things?

CHIARA THUMIGER (WARWICK): “‘Shameful parts’. A late-antique passage on clitoridectomy

and the question of female sexual pleasure in ancient medicine”
The late-antique medical compilers Aetius of Amida and Paul of Aegina preserve a passage about the
practice of clitoridectomy which is of extreme interest for multiple reasons. First because it preserves
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a description of the mutilation practice that is unique in our sources (as well as detailed); second,
because they accompany the surgical account with a set of medical, but also ethical motivations that
touch on a key question for our understanding of ancient views on female sexuality and gynecology:
that of female sexual sensibility and pleasure. In my paper I shall present the passage in question,
comment on its key parts, and offer some considerations about ancient medical approaches to female
sexual sensibility.

CHRIS CAREY (LONDON): “Thinking with sex: power, control and self-assertion”
Sex in all its guises is an all-pervasive aspect of human life. In one way or another it is a constant
presence. It can be free or bought, enjoyed or denied, approved or deprecated, simple or subject to
almost infinite modification, active or passive, gentle or violent. It can be a means of control or an
expression of love. Its all-pervasiveness gives it enormous value as a means of thinking or talking
about the nature of the cosmos and about aspects of human experience. My interest here is in the
latter and my aim is to explore some of these uses, with a specific focus on lyric poetry, historiography
and comedy. Insofar as there is a theoretical underpinning, the discussion draws its inspiration from
cognitive readings of metaphor, which interpret metaphor not as a feature of style but as a more
fundamental means of organizing reality. On this view metaphor is a way of thinking.

CHRISTINA ZACHARIA (CYPRUS): “Male homosocial triangles in the Iliad”

Ιn Between Men, Sedgwick, building on Girard’s schematization of the folk wisdom of erotic triangles
develops a methodology that allows her to explore how narrative forms and patriarchal economies of
male desire become consolidated in canonical English literature. Sedgwick argues that the triangle is
a dominant scheme in patriarchal societies, not only in erotic relationships but also in all (homosocial)
relationships between men. Triangle relations are not gender symmetric despite the apparent formal
symmetry between two beloveds or two equal rivals. Bonds between men are dependent on and work
through the relegation of women to the position of the trophy and their exception form positionalities
of narrative and/or erotic subjectivity. Women as trophies and temporalized rewards, as anchors of
referentiality and buffers devouring homophobic panic, presented but not present as agents, help build
homosocial male relationships and sustain power relationships between men. This paper maps the
triangle’s deployment in the Iliad, analyses some critical instances and discusses how the pedagogical
explication of epic poetry’s narrative devices reinforces the sedimentation of homosocial male bonds
and the imperviousness of the Homeric literary to queer critique.

CHRYSANTHI DEMETRIOU (CYPRUS): “Sex in Ancient Texts and Medieval Monasteries: The
Case of Hrotswitha’s Dulcitius”

The hagiographical dramas of Hrotswitha of Gandersheim, composed in the 10th century, use Terence
as their model (Praefatio, fol. 78r, 4-13). Scholarship has extensively examined this intriguing
journey: in their medieval adaptations, Terence’s bonae meretrices become prostitutes who convert
to Christianity and are finally sanctified, while comic adulescentes amantes are transformed into
pagans whose sexual impulses threaten Christian female chastity. More interestingly, in Hrotswitha’s
dramas, a play’s happy-ending does not derive from a sexual union – and consequently a marriage –
as often in the classical prototypes, but rather from the avoidance of sexual intercourse.
In this paper, I will focus on a specific episode of sexual interest. In Hrotswitha’s Dulcitius, the
homonymous character, unarmored with the three protagonists of the drama (Agapes, Chiona and
Irena), arranges to meet with the virgins in private. However, occupied by a miraculous illusion,
Dulcitius eventually has sex not with the girls, as he has initially planned, but with some cooking
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pots. Scholarship has already addressed several interesting themes in the examination of this episode:
the possible influence of mime, the (provoking) element of voyeurism on the part of the three virgins
(who happily watch Dulcitius’ sexual activity), as well as the long question of Hrotswitha’s sources.
In my presentation, I wish to re-examine the possible (classical) intertexts for Dulcitius’ “rape of the
pots”. My discussion will be mainly revolved around a) the question of whether Hrotswitha is here
incorporating elements from the (classical) literary tradition and, b) more generally, the extent to
which the re-examination of this scene could contribute to the re-assessment of Hrotswitha’s creative
engagement with her models and, consequently, to the study of the reception of classical literature –
and of episodes of sexual interest in particular – in the Middle Ages.

CHRYSANTHOS CHRYSANTHOU (HEIDELBERG): “‘Do not call me Lord, for I am a Lady’ (Cass.
Dio 80[79]16.5)”
This paper will focus on the emperor Elagabalus (AD 203–222) and particularly his portrayal in the
epitomated account of Cassius Dio’s History (80[79]9–20). There Elagabalus’ sexual behaviour is
depicted in an extreme and outspoken critical way: the emperor, prompted by his effeminacy, plans
to cut off his genitals altogether; he marries many women in order to imitate their actions in his
intercourse with his male lovers; he is a submissive, passive partner who loves to take a beating from
his husbands; he goes to taverns and plays the prostitute himself, while at the same time he wants to
be seen as an adulterous woman. He also chooses officers based on the size of their cock and asks his
doctors to make him bisexual. In the present paper I will examine three main issues in relation to
Elagabalus’ sexual conduct: (i) the ways in which such defamatory depiction of sexuality fits within
Cassius Dio’s model of leadership, ethics, and ideal of Romanness in the third-century world; (ii) the
ways and the extent to which sexual intercourse is incorporated in the genres of Imperial
historiography and biography as a means of exploring the character of historical agents and offering
historical interpretation—To this effect, I will compare Elagabalus’ depiction in Cassius Dio with
that in Herodian’s History and the Historia Augusta; and (iii) the implications of Elagabalus case-
study for the history of gender and the marginalised as well as for the ideas about transexuality in the
ancient and modern world.

DIMITRIOS KANELLAKIS (OXFORD): “(Con)Figuring Sex and Politics”

Focussing on the traditional non-literal imagery (metaphors, similes, metonymies, and allegories) of
sex and of politics, I will point out their intersection, reading Aristophanes as a case study. The
imagery of sex in Greek literature has been well studied, both in general (e.g. duBois 1988,
Murgatroyd 1995) and with regards to Aristophanes (e.g. Henderson 1991). Political imagery has
also been well studied, both in general (e.g. Brock 2013) and with regards to Aristophanes (e.g.
Hutchinson 2011). What has not been adequately addressed, however, is the nexus between the two.
Sailing (e.g. Thgn. 457-8; Soph. OT 1207-9), farming (e.g. Aesch. Sept. 753-4; Soph. Ant. 569), and
igniting (e.g. Pl. Chrm. 155d; Xen. Symp. 4.24) are common metaphors for intercourse. Sailing (e.g.
Alc. fr. 6; Pl. Resp. 6.488a2 ff.), farming (e.g. Hdt. 5.92 ζ2-η1; Pl. Euthph. 2d–3a), and igniting (e.g.
Alc. fr.74.6; Eur. Or. 696-7) are also traditional metaphors for governing the polis. To draw a
parallelism is more than appropriate: even if the similarity between sexual and political imagery is
considered coincidental, it still provided the authors with a popular intertext to enrich their works. So
how does Aristophanes employ this intertext? Judging from the traditional nuances of these
metaphors, what is the sexiest (or most unattractive) government? Conversely, what is the most
democratic (or most tyrannical) sexual practice?

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DIMOS SPATHARAS (CRETE): “The ‘wisdom’ of repulsion: ‘filth’ and sex in classical Athens”
In this paper I focus my attention on the projective uses of disgust in contexts of sexual/erotic
communication from classical Athens. Projective disgust, i.e. instances in which unpleasant or
defiling physical attributes are projected upon others, is one of the most effective weapons of
besmirching or marginalizing individuals. Quite paradoxically, sexual satisfaction requires
suspension of disgust –we smell, touch, and taste our partners’ secretions and sexual organs-, but at
the same time disgust eliminates sexual desire. Fear, guilt or shame may make us reluctant to enjoy
sex, but on account of its visceral nature disgust is a conversation stopper. On the basis of recent
research on the hotly debated emotion of disgust and its social uses, my aim in this paper is to look
into the ways in which the emotion of disgust is manipulated in contexts of erotic communication. As
I argue, the elicitors of core, i.e. physical, bodily disgust are commonly deployed in such a way as to
indicate ‘deviant’ types of sexual behaviour. But because disgust is a particularly effective medium
of social marginalization, the emotion’s scripts that we find in our sources are heuristically useful
because they allow us to locate the norms which regulated sexual behaviour in the societies that attract
our attention.

EKATERINI SYMEOU (CYPRUS): “Mourning in Judith Butler and Pericles’ Funeral Oration:
reverse itineraries”
This paper aims to disclose the relationship between Judith Butler’s theory of mourning and Pericles’
Funeral Oration by Thucydides. In Butler, the object of loss is unutterable and any likelihood of it
being mourned as a loss is, itself, precluded from the onset; thus, mourning becomes an impossibility.
The term “reverse co-navigation” is proposed to delineate and steer through the aforementioned
relationship between Butler’s theory of mourning and Pericles’ Funeral Oration. The different
perspective through which the Funeral Oration is approached aims to illustrate and elaborate on the
proposition of the “reverse co-navigation” of the two -theory and text- proffering alternative paths to
their interpretation.
ELENI VOLONAKI (PELOPONNESE): “Sex, A Topos of Political Loidoria in Athenian Forensic
Oratory”
The topos of inappropriate or socially unaccepted sexual activity constitutes a common rhetorical
attack of political loidoria in the context of character assassination consisting of exaggerated and
even false accusations against political figures at public trials in Athens. Thus, politicians are often
accused of having committed adultery (moicheia) or of having been involved in prostitution or in
many sexual relations. A few examples of the topos on sexual activity as part of political loidoria can
be found in the speeches of Lysias, Against Alcibiades, Against Agoratus, Against Nicomachus, in
the speech of Apollodorus Against Neaira, and also in the personal dispute between Aeschines and
Demosthenes in their speeches Against Timarchus, On the embassy and the On the Crown. The
present paper aims to explore the use of the rhetorical topos of sexual inappropriate behaviour against
politicians, the kinds of accusations used and finally the language employed either to insinuate sexual
excess or to explicitly describe relevant sexual activities.

EMMA STAFFORD (LEEDS): “Olive oil, dildoes and slippers: Greek sex toys reassessed”
Kilmer’s 1993 survey of erotica in Attic red-figure vase-painting categorises olive oil and dildoes as
‘sex toys’, while considering the slipper under the heading of “sexual violence”. Henderson
1991[1975] and Robson 2006 discuss relevant passages from Attic comedy, and individual images
and texts have received further attention in the course of studies of Greek sexuality (such as Lear and
Cantarella 2008, and Robson 2013), but without adopting the same nomenclature. A systematic
treatment of the use of sexual aids in ancient Greece is therefore lacking. This paper will reassess our
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limited evidence (both textual and visual), considering the extent to which a class of “sex toy” can be
identified, and the range of contexts in which such aids might have been used, in real life and/or as
the stuff of erotic fantasy.

GABRIEL EVANGELOU (CYPRUS): “Sex and disgust in Martial’s Epigrams”

Martial’s poems are distinctive for his humorous social commentary on the scandalous lives of his
fellow Romans and of their slaves. While invitations to dinner parties, people’s miserliness and
conflicts between friends are common themes in his epigrams that have attracted considerable
attention is scholarship, certain types of remarks on sexual relations have not been adequately
explored. Martial repeatedly expresses his sexual desire for women, girls and even boys. Conversely,
his attitude towards cinaedi and older women is notably different.
This paper investigates the image of disgust that Martial creates in his detailed and vivid descriptions
of groups of people whom he considers not only sexually undesirable, but also repulsive. The
language that he uses in his references to oral sex performed both on men and women indicates a
strong aversion to such sexual acts. Similarly, he seems to have disapproved of masturbation and
depilation of men’s nether parts. The primary targets of his attacks were indubitably cinaedi,
effeminate men who assumed the passive role in their sexual relations with other men, and women
who had reached a certain age that Martial considered repulsive, hence his constant comparisons of
them with death. The former are portrayed as disgusting because they allow themselves to be
sodomised or to perform fellatio on other men. The latter because they are sexually active, despite
the erosion of their body. Nevertheless, younger women are also viewed as repulsive when they are
promiscuous or unattractive and when they have sexual relations with other women or slaves. The
main aim of this paper is to shed light on what both Martial and many of his contemporaries perceived
as repulsive in regard to human sexuality and to determine whether their aversion was a reflexive or
a deliberate type of fastidium (“disgust”).

GEORGE KAZANTZIDIS (PATRAS): “τὴν συνουσίαν εἶναι μικρὰν ἐπιληψίαν: Macrobius and
Foucault on sex and epilepsy”
The end of Book II of Saturnalia ends with a tirade on sex and gluttony (II.8.10-16); both, Macrobius
tells us, make us look like animals–they have something filthy in them. Take, for instance,
“Hippocrates, a man of godlike understanding [who] thought that sexual intercourse has something
in common with the utterly repulsive illness we call the ‘comitial disease’: his words, as they have
been handed down, are: “intercourse is a small seizure”, τὴν συνουσίαν εἶναι μικρὰν ἐπιληψίαν”
(II.8.16, transl. R. Kaster). Nowhere in the (surviving treatises of the) Hippocratic Corpus do we find
such a statement.
In the first part of my paper I will offer a close reading of a number of ancient medical sources,
spanning from the Hippocratics to Aretaeus of Cappadocia and Galen, in an attempt to illustrate how
the clinical picture of epilepsy (convulsions, excessive sweat, rolling eyes, inarticulate cries) is
invested with a series of images which readers would have naturally been inclined to see as “sexual”.
Though not deriving from an actual source, Macrobius’ quotation, I will suggest, is not wide of the
mark when tested against medical evidence.
In the second part of my paper, I will examine Foucault’s discussion of Macrobius’ passage in one of
his lectures at the Collège de France (25 February 1981). Foucault uses Macrobius as a starting point
before he proceeds to review relevant evidence from Scribonius Largus, Celsus, Galen and Caelius
Aurelianus. The reason why epilepsy is assimilated to the sexual act, according to Foucault, is that
the disease (a) comprises violent and involuntary movements (b) entails loss of consciousness and
memory and (c) leads to a total exhaustion of the body. Foucault, I will argue, is not so much
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interested in fleshing out the association between sex and epilepsy on grounds of impurity but focuses
instead on how they both make the body – and to some extent, the mind – act in the same way. A
closer look at Macrobius will reveal that the element of disgust is equally important for establishing
a connection between the two conditions. Perhaps the main reason, I will suggest, for considering
epilepsy as a parallel for the sexual act is related to its alleged “polluting” qualities as a disease and
to the assumption that, unlike other mental conditions (mania, melancholia, phrenitis), it implicates
the affected subject in a metaphorical script of “dirt”.

IOANNIS KONSTANTAKOS (ATHENS): “The maiden that knew nothing about sex: A scabrous
theme in novella and comedy”
The ingenuous maiden, who has no idea of sex and cannot understand what the sexual act means, is
a recurrent figure in the ancient Greek humorous tradition. The most famous example is an inserted
scabrous novella in the Vita Aesopi (chapter 131), which also found its way into the corpus of Aesopic
fables (383 Perry). The imbecile girl of this story is unable to recognize the act of copulation and is
stupidly taken in by a rough rustic, who satisfies his lust upon her. The same story pattern was later
developed by Boccaccio (Decameron III 10), who was perhaps acquainted with the ancient Greek
model, through some lost intermediary source. In fact, the tale has a long literary ancestry. An implicit
pun in the Greek text of the Vita Aesopi and the fables (noon – onon) indicates that the main narrative
canvas must go back to an older Ionian novella (possibly one of Aristides’ Milesian Tales, or an even
earlier source). Indeed, the Archaic Ionian tradition also offers a male counterpart of the theme:
Margites, the fool who did not know what to do with his wife on their wedding night — clearly an
age-old Near-Eastern Schwank, traced already in the Hittite Story of Appu (ca. 16th/15th century
BCE), which may have passed into the narrative lore of early Ionia from Anatolian sources.
The Aesopic tradition also produced further versions of the theme. In fable 410 Perry the young girl
is replaced by an ignorant old woman, who is raped by a lustful youngster without realizing what she
is suffering. In this case the victim’s advanced age produces a more grotesque effect; the entire
narrative can be read as a coarser variation of the old Ionian tale. The pattern was also exploited in
comedy. A play by the Middle Comedy poet Amphis (fr. 46) burlesqued the myth of Callisto,
Artemis’ virgin companion, who was raped by Zeus. The omnipotent god took the form of Artemis
herself in order to seduce the ingenuous maiden; but Callisto did not understand what had happened,
and later blamed Artemis for her defloration and pregnancy. In this paper I propose to comparatively
investigate the literary history of this abominable, politically incorrect, sexist, but also most hilarious
theme.

JEREMY MCINERNEY (PENNSYLVANIA): “Hephaistos among the Satyrs”

Recent discussion of male sexuality in classical Athens have drawn attention to the comedic figure
of the satyr or silen. Often associated with coarse sexual behaviour, they are presented in vase painting
as ithyphallic, masturbating or having sex with objects such as amphoras. Yet in these images and in
some iambic references to similar sexual activities the discourse on male sexual desire found a place
not only to mock but also to acknowledge the power of extreme arousal. The viewer or reader was
invited to see these characteristics in himself. These provide the backdrop against which we must set
the myth of Hephaistos’ attempted rape of Athena. Usually read as a variation on the theme of
autochthony, since the result of the episode is the birth of Erichthonios, the story in fact needs the
comic and ludicrous associations with masturbation and premature ejaculation to undercut the grand
claim of autochthony. Read this way, the story of Hephaistos’ transgression conforms to Nicole
Loraux’s observation that there is a disquiet at the heart of autochthony. Moreover, semen itself is an
ambiguous substance: both a source of life, yet also of pollution. Accordingly, Hephaistos’ awkward
fathering of Erichthonios plays with deep-seated anxieties over impregnation and alternative forms
10
of release. Athena’s virginity (and vagina) remains intact, but procreation occurs because the god has
spilled his seed. The resulting compromise, a snakey bodied child whose appearance scares the
daughters of Kekrops to death, is semi-monstrous, suggesting that the myth of Erichthonios was,
finally, deeply normative: only penetrative sex and ejaculation within the female’s sexual organs were
the proper outcome for a sexual encounter. Anything else risked, at best, mockery, or at worst,
monstrosity.

JOSE MALHEIRO MAGALHAES (ROEHAMPTON): “Human-animal sex in ancient Greece”

The sexual life of the ancient Greeks has been one of the hot topics in classical scholarship for the
last forty years. Today, there a vast scholarship on sexuality in ancient Greece, from single volumes
that provide a general perception of sex in ancient Greece, to studies that focus on more specific
objects of research such as the sexual life of women, homoerotism, pederasty and sexual violence
among others specific subjects. However, to date almost nothing has been written on sexual activities
that the ancient Greeks deemed wrong, transgressive, against human nature and against social norm.
Various ancient authors, including Herodotus, Plato, Plutarch and Artemidorus mention various
examples of this typology of sexual behaviour, and among them, we find references to sexual acts
between humans and animals. In this paper, I will discuss the surviving evidence for sex between
animals and humans, both mythological and non-mythological, and both literary and iconographical,
aiming not only to demonstrate how these sources convey the general perception that the ancient
Greeks had of human-animal sex, but also how they emphasise the perceived natural order of the
Greek universe. I will discuss why human-animal sex was considered to be a sexual transgression,
establishing brief comparisons with other transgressional sexual behaviours, such as sex with corpses
in order to provide a wider view of the common reasons that brand a specific sexual activity as wrong.

JULIE LASKARIS (RICHMOND): “Sex and the cool head”

Reproductive seed and cerebral spinal fluid (myelos), are closely aligned in early Greek thought, as
noted by Richard Onians (1951, 108-15) and Elizabeth Craik (2009, 111), who confine their
discussions to male semen. Medical and other texts reveal, however, that reproductive seed in women
was also believed to have its origin in myelos, and that because of the presence of myelos in them, the
eyes – and consequently vision itself – were related to reproductive matters in Greek thought. That
these ideas cohered with ubiquitous notions concerning the powers of menstruating women and the
evil eye no doubt contributed to their longevity, even as they were folded into the theories of
pangenesis and haematogenesis, alternate views of seed formation with which they should have been
at odds, eventually working their way into optical theory. The process by which myelos became
reproductive seed is related, this paper argues, to ideas concerning concoction as a physiological
process.

KONSTANTINOS KAPPARIS (FLORIDA): “Dover, Tops, Bottoms, and the Continuum of Greek
Sexuality”
Dover’s model of male same-sex relations in ancient Greece has dominated classical scholarship ever
since the publication of his pioneering 1978 book. At the time when Dover was writing his book in
the University of St. Andrews consensual relations between men were illegal in Scotland. This was a
bold project, to begin with, for a high ranking academic in a society which penalized such
relationships, and punished participants with cruel penalties ranging from hard labour, as in the case
of Oscar Wilde, to chemical castration, as in the case of Alan Turing. Dover’s ambitious monograph
was intended to investigate the vast amounts of evidence in literature and vase iconography by
establishing an interpretative model according to which relationships between men were largely
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formative and educational, while any physical/sexual dimensions needed to be marginal, and
preferably non-existent. This model in order to work assumed that such relationships were never
relationships of equals based on mutual attraction and love. They needed to be unequal with an older,
wiser man imparting his wisdom and life experience to a keen and willing youth avidly consuming
this knowledge for his education. This schematic interpretation of the ancient evidence, undoubtedly
motivated by modern sensibilities, was intended to reassure the moral heterosexual majority that
Greek models of love and love-making were perfectly in line with 20th century heterosexual norms.
In this paper I will argue that this model is in urgent need of a radical reassessment. Although its
dominance has been challenged in recent years, many of the unsafe assumptions upon which it is
based are still accepted as factual: did Greek teenagers and young adults prioritize education to the
extent of yielding to unwanted sexual advances for the sake of it? Would an older man really spend
much time and money to pursue a youth, with whom he might have little in common, for the sake of
companionship and friendship but not sex? Did no one ever enjoy themselves in these affairs, in a
primal, physical sense? Do the flaccid penises in vase iconography really symbolize lack of desire?
Does the perfectly natural and normal act of penetration during human intercourse, vaginal or anal,
really create associations of subjugation? Does it demean the penetrated partner, and when men
penetrate their partner, male or female, do they do so in order to demean them? Such presuppositions
might make sense in the fear-dominated climate of the early 1970’s, but they no longer make sense,
and need to be reassessed, if we ever want to correct the fake historical image which Dover created
in order to appease the sensibilities of his own time.

KREŠIMIR VUKOVIĆ (ZAGREB, CROATIA): “Sex and the Lupercalia: ‘sadistic beating’ or ‘playful
pecks’”?
Countless papers and whole books have been written about the Roman festival of the Lupercalia.
Almost all aspects of it have been explored through comparative, historical, literary and
archaeological studies. However, very little at all has been said about the sexual aspect of the festival
which was obviously a prominent part of the proceedings. Yet the scene of young naked men beating
denuded women on their buttocks or back surely deserves a discussion of its own. Most scholars
make but cursory notes on “sadistic beating” or “playful peck” as part of the festival. I will combine
the ancient sources’ description of the Lupercalia with the vivid iconographic evidence (a mosaic, a
relief and a sarcophagus) to argue that the sexual aspect of the festival is crucial to understanding the
ritual. Following from Carrie Vout’s (2006) idea on Roman sex as an expression of power (including
political power) I analyze accounts of sadistic sex in imperial narratives such as rape in the arena and
Suetonius’ imperial biographies (plus an old Etruscan fresco) while drawing on modern theoretical
tools in the process (Zimbardo’s famous Stanford “experiment”, Reicher and Haslam’s (2002) follow-
up). Finally, I will compare this to the “Jews’ Race” in early modern Rome in order to argue that the
naked action at the Lupercalia was both a form of sexual play and also an intrinsically political act.

LESLEY DEAN-JONES (TEXAS): “Citing and Siting Pleasure: seeking and dismissing women’s
testimony in HA X”
In his researches into female animals, Aristotle did not often seek enlightenment from women: in
Bertrand Russell’s famous quotation, “Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that
women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs Aristotle to keep her mouth
open while he counted”. More importantly, in various passages throughout his biological works
Aristotle states that in all vivipara without exception male and female use the same part for the
discharge of fluid residue and for copulation (HA V.5, 541a3-5; PA IV.10, 689a6-9; GA I.13, 719b29-
34 & 18, 726a16-25). This is one of the main reasons we can eliminate Aristotle as the author of
Historia Animalium X; the author of that treatise knows the urethra is separate from the vagina

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(637a24-25). In fact, the author of HA X shows a quite startling awareness of female genitalia in that
his description of female sexual excitement maps on with some precision to references to Bartholin
glands, Skene glands and “gushing” among contemporary clinical sexologists. This indicates a clear
interest in women’s experience on the part of the author. Why, then, does he insist that a woman has
to climax and ejaculate if she is to conceive (636b13-24)? Even Aristotle knows this is not the case
(GA I.19, 727b8-11), and the Hippocratic authors show in a variety of ways that although they think
the ejaculation of female γονή/σπέρμα is necessary for conception to take place, it is pregnancy itself
that shows this has happened, not a woman’s sexual satisfaction. This paper will argue that HA X’s
insistence on the importance of female orgasm is motivated by the author’s idiosyncratic theory of
pangenesis, which necessitates that the σπέρματα of the man and the woman mingle outside the
uterus, a theory to which Aristotle refers with some approval at GA IV.3, 769a26-b3.

MARCEL LYSGAARD LECH (DENMARK): “Sexual imagery and forced feminization in

Aristophanes’ Knights”
The grotesque and lewd imagery of Aristophanes’ violent satire, Knights, seems at first hand to belong
to the two opposing characters, the Sausage-seller and the Paphlagon, but a further look at the
character of the comic chorus of young horsemen suggests that we should rethink the role of the
chorus in this play and the imagery that surrounds it. This paper will show the network of metaphors
employed by the playwright to describe the play’s chorus and its actions, and how the sexual
(suggestive rather than obscene) imagery of the chorus generates its character. However, as the play
moves along this imagery deconstructs the chorus’ character and regenerates into new social, sexual
and gendered frames (youths, horsemen, horses, rowers, triremes, women etc.), the structure of the
imagery becomes, I propose, clearly a comic attack on the horsemen and their social stratum: an
ideological attack carefully executed through social and gendered discourse on sexuality. This
network of metaphors naturally takes its cue from hippological features in Greek poetic tradition and
discourse, of which sexuality is a great part (especially seen in the first parabasis of Knights), to the
forced feminization of the chorus in the second parabasis with its mock assembly of female ships.
This journey in respect to gender and sexuality is closely intertwined with the politico-ideological
basis of the play and runs as suggestive sub plot along the main plot of the play, and, I argue,
constitutes a kind of ideological joke that emasculates the chorus of elite youths, and by extension
the elite of Athens to the degree that denying sex becomes their last resort.

MARIA XANTHOU (HARVARD CHS/BRISTOL): “Archilochus’ P. Colon. 7511 (fr. 196a W.): The
violation of sexual norms, premature ejaculation outside the female body, and the #metoo
movement”
Archilochus’ First Cologne Epode (fr. 196a W.) is a poem about the sexual advances of a male
towards an unwilling young woman. It also ends with a sexual experience that satisfies the male part
without involving intercourse and, thus, consummation. More precisely, the whole narrative is capped
by a moment of one-sided, exclusively male sexual gratification without penetration, which leads to
an almost premature ejaculation, which looks more like the result of an erection that was caused long
before the actual attempt for a coitus.
There are many aspects to discuss the poem. One of them is how it presents premarital sex with a girl
and how it violates, if not distorts, what has been called “every recorded and accepted sexual ideology
for respectable women”. There is also the girl’s anxiety to accept having premarital intercourse, since
she runs the risk to compromise her virginity, her reputation, and, ultimately, her prospects to marry
well.

13
What is more significant is how the male part uses a rather problematic rhetoric in order to elicit the
girl’s consent and how he handles the female body. What is alarmingly disturbing and creates a
discrepancy is the girl’s hesitance and unwillingness to participate and give her consent. It is notable
that the girl’s response has not survived through the transmission of the text. The male speaker’s
desire motivates the incident. The word ]ματι παυ[σ]αμένην | τὼς ὥστε νεβρ[ points towards a rather
non-consensual sex. I think it is time to re-read this text under the new light of male sexual speech,
sexual assault, and the fetishization of a girl’s body. In Archilochus’ First Cologne Epode, the male
is presented as the only active member of this sexual engagement. I will discuss the way he touches,
caresses, tries to penetrate the young, female body. I will also focus on his emotional infatuation
which is capped and also called off by his premature ejaculation.
All in all, the poem dramatizes a startling violation of standard sexual and social norms. My aim is to
discuss a series of questions that arise from its reading against the #metoo movement backdrop: how
this violation is also linked to the poetics of the genre, how it challenges the social norms on legal
and/or non-consensual sex, how the female body is negotiated in the text, how the non-consumed
intercourse signifies in terms of sexual practice, sexual norms, and genre poetics.

MIKE EDWARDS (LONDON): “Carey on Sex”

Chris Carey, Emeritus Professor of Greek at University College London and one of the UK's leading
Greek scholars, has published on a wide range of prose and verse texts, and in various areas of Greek
and in particular Athenian law. One of the themes that permeate his work is sex. Never shy of
discussing controversial and sensitive topics, Professor Carey has made a series of important
contributions to the study of ancient sexuality. Are radishes still being inserted? Is it worse for a
woman to be raped or seduced? How do we react to the activities of pimps and prostitutes? In my
laudatory lecture, I shall, in line with the theme of the conference, revisit some of Professor Carey's
influential discussions of sexual matters, focusing on his work in Athenian oratory and law.

NICOLAS SIRON (PARIS): “Eyes wide shut. Witnesses of an orgy: participants or spectators?”
In the speech Against Neaira, Apollodoros mentioned one of the orgies in which Neaira participated
in Athens after she was taken from Corinth by Phrynion. During a feast given by Chabrias celebrating
his victory in the Pythian Games, many people, including slaves, reportedly had sexual intercourse
with the courtesan. To prove this statement, Apollodoros provided witnesses by calling them τοὺς
ὁρῶντας καὶ παρόντας μάρτυρας ([Dem.] 59.34). Why did he choose this very rare designation in
forensic speeches? Does it reflect the existence of the “eyewitnesses” testimony as we know it in
modern societies (“témoin oculaire”, “Augenzeuge”, and so on) in the Athenian thought? Having
seen the sexual feast would be as important, or even more, than having been present. Exploring the
vocabulary of seeing in the speech Against Neaira will help us to understand that the dual
qualification as “bystanders” and “spectators” refers to two different strategies, due to the context of
the orgy: Apollodoros tried to distinguish his witnesses from other guests who have had sex in public
with a foreigner, while their attendance at the feast was essential for their testimony to be accepted.
Thus, the orator evoked the presence of his witnesses in order to make them trustworthy to the jurors
and added the idea of sight to indicate, in contrast, that they were out of the sexual intercourse that
took place that night.

RANIA IAKOVOU (CYPRUS): “Besieging effeminacy or gender trouble? Reading Bacchae”

In investigating gender and sexuality in Ancient Greek Tragedy, Euripides’ Bacchae plays a
prominent role, mostly due to the popularized cross-dressing of Pentheus and the effeminate
14
appearance of Dionysus, both often cited as metaphors or performative events of gender fluidity.
Several critics have even detected a latent homosexuality in Pentheus, explaining his hostility towards
Dionysus as an instance of “homophobic panic”. This paper, problematizes celebratory projections
of gender fluidity in Bacchae and argues that the play stages the patriarchal state’s violent circles of
recuperation against the anxiety of masculinity’s defeat. This anxiety is not anxiety about gender
stability in general but, specifically, about effeminacy that comes from without and threatens political
order and cultural stability within. The anxiety is exacerbated by a universalist quasi contagious view
of effeminacy. Eventually, though, destruction erupts from within, as dissolution of masculinity rather
that corrosion by effeminacy from without. The course of action taken on by Pentheus to chase away
Dionysus and dispel the double danger of contamination by the “Stranger’s” effeminacy leads to
events that undermine masculine order and bring up the dissolution of the oikos and the polis.

REGINA HÖSCHELE (TORONTO): “Statues as sex objects”

The writings of Greco-Roman Antiquity are full of tales about people falling in love with statues,
paintings or other types of images - a condition nowadays known as "agalmatophilia" and
characterized as a form of paraphilia by modern psychology. Whether or not there is a kernel of
historical truth to any of the incidents mentioned in ancient texts (something impossible to determine),
the frequency with which such anecdotes are told in Antiquity in a wide variety of contexts is clearly
meaningful, and the idea of image-love has served as a powerful literary motif ever since.
My paper explores textual accounts as well as iconographic representations of sexual intercourse
between humans and statues. While ancient texts mostly show us men filled with desire for images
of beautiful boys or women (in some cases actually engaging in sexual activities with them), there
are also some references to women yearning to satisfy their lust with the help of sculptures. In
numerous tales, their desire appears frustrated by the immobility and coldness of the stone, even as
the unresponsiveness of the image may further fuel erotic longing. In my talk, I will contemplate
these anecdotes against the backdrop of ancient sexual discourses, determine underlying narrative
patterns and investigate what tales of agalmatophilia may tell us about ancient conceptions of art and
beauty.

ROSALIA HATZILAMBROU (ATHENS): “Asexuality in the Greek Papyrus Letters”

In a conference on sexuality I will speak about asexuality. More specifically, I will explore the
scarcity of love letters among the Greek letters written on papyrus and similar materials. Indeed,
among the c. 8.000 Greek letters on papyrus hitherto published only three can be considered proper
love letters. The extremely small number of papyrus love letters appears more inexplicable, if
compared to the emphasis placed on love and sexual desire in other texts of the same period, for
instance in the magical papyri. My paper argues that the reason for the observed asexuality in the
corpus of the Greek papyrus letters lies in a range of factors, which have nothing to do with the
sexuality of the Greek speaking inhabitants of Egypt in the Imperial and Byzantine period.

SABIRA HAJDAREVIĆ (CROATIA): “Sexuality and Sexual Practices in Greek Fictional

Epistolography”
Greek fictional epistolography as a subgenre represents an ideal corpus for any kind of synoptic and
comparative study: all we have left are four late-antique collections of erotic letters (written by
Alciphron, Aelian, Philostratus and Aristaenetus) and a Byzantine one (by Theophylact).

15
The conventions of the sub-genre prohibited both obscene language and explicit pornography.
However, once they chose erotica as the theme of some of their letters, the authors had to include at
least some “spicy” descriptions of sexual contacts.
The focus of my research is on the overall representation of lovers’ sexuality in the collections; the
letters of each one will be approached from different aspects and the results will be consequently
compared. The areas of my interest are:
- male and female means of seduction/ display of sexual interest
- male and female initiative concerning the foreplay
- descriptions of “side-effects” of physical contact (arousal and erection) and of sexual act itself
(sounds, sweat, ejaculation, the (avoidance of) pregnancy, abortion)
- variations in marital and extra-marital sexual liaisons; asexuality and avoidance of marital
duties, adultery, threesome, sex in a public place, voyeurism, masochism, fetishism, (a
possible case of) oral sex, objectophilia and same-sex relations.
The final goal of the paper is to point to (potential) differences in the representation of (both male
and female) sexuality in general throughout the literary subgenre from Alciphron to Theophylact and
to answer the question which of the authors offers the most detailed and explicit picture of the lovers’
sexual activities (and why).
Of course, due to the limited time given for the paper-presentation, only the most interesting and
important results of the analyses would be presented, with the emphasis on examples that are a unique
feature of one of the authors.

SPYRIDON TZOUNAKAS (CYPRUS): “Sexual Language and Literary Criticism in Persius’ First
Satire: The Case of Some Double Entendres”
In his programmatic first satire, Persius (34-62 A.D.) criticises the literature of his time severely,
laying special emphasis on poetry, castigating the direction it has taken, its literary models and the
dominant aesthetic tendencies in Rome. He considers the degeneracy of literature and good taste,
both in the case of the writers and of the audience, to be a sign of effeminacy and presents the literary
activities of his contemporaries as perverted, as these are shown to reflect the moral corruption of
Rome.

As a result, the proverb talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis uita, which directly connects the language
of a person and his life, constitutes the main subject of the particular satire. In this framework,
allusions to homosexuality and effeminacy, as well as to the hypocritical severity of the pervert,
abound in this poem (Bramble 1974), revealing literary and stylistic characteristics of poetry which
Persius rejects and which point towards the notion of oratio dissoluta uel effeminata, found at the
centre of his literary criticism. In this paper, building upon the works of previous scholars (e.g.
Bramble 1974, Adams 1982, Waser 1994, Miller 1998), I argue that the presence of sexual imagery
in Persius’ first satire is even stronger than it was believed to be and that sexual innuendos could be
found even in passages which appear ‘innocent’ at a first glance. Thus I investigate cases which did
not receive any such attention until today and I interpret them as double entendres, since they may be
understood in two different ways, one of which is sexually suggestive. This interpretation is
compatible with Persius’ general literary techniques, since, as is known, he is one of the most obscure
Latin poets, writes in a cryptic way, chooses his words with great diligence and adroitly exploits their
multiple possible allusions, so as to serve a variety of expediencies.

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STEPHANOS EFTHYMIADIS (CYPRUS) & CHARIS MESSIS (ATHENS): “From Plato’s to Methodios’
Symposium and to the Passio Nerei et Achillei (BHG 1317): ‘female’ readings of male sexuality”
This paper will discuss a cluster of texts of antiquity and early Byzantium in order to see through and
define what has been regarded as the womanly-female perspective of eroticism and sexuality. The
figure of Diotima as in Plato’s Symposium will be the starting point of this discussion which will
chiefly dwell on the ten philosophizing women as they appear in the Christianized version of
Symposium attributed to Methodios of Olympos, author of the third-fourth centuries CE. Attention
will be also paid to the presence or absence of women in the erotic dialogues of the Roman period as
those, for instance, of Plutarch and Lucian. The paper will conclude with a presentation of a new
theory of gender and sexuality as launched in some early Christian Martyrdoms, especially that of Sts
Nereus and Achilles (BHG 1317).

THOMAS K. HUBBARD (TEXAS): “Group Sex, Exhibitionism/Voyeurism and Male

Homosociality”
Alastair Blanshard (2015) has recently argued that most depictions of group sex on Attic vases were
satirical illustrations of drunken excess rather than titillating or aspirational, much less what actually
went on at symposia. However, his interpretation relies on only a handful of all-male interactions. I
believe the evidence for what group sex (or fantasies about it) actually conveyed to the purchasers of
these vases deserves a broader examination, including the evidence of complex bi-sexual scenes that
involve two or more men and one or more women, and relevant literary texts.
Against Neaera 33-35 tells us that Phrynion took Neaera to many symposia and enjoyed having sex
with her in front of other guests, and at one party shared her with other men, including servants.
Timarchus’ lovers purchased courtesans and flute girls for him to enjoy at symposia, presumably in
their company (Aeschines 1.75). At the very least exhibitionism and voyeurism were pleasures
enjoyed by some Greek men in the company of male friends after much drinking. A series of vases
displays a woman between two men who either penetrate or are about to penetrate her; most of these
code one man as older (bearded) and the other as a youth (unbearded). In at least one notable case,
the man’s gaze is not focused on the woman, who is old and flabby, but on the youth with whom he
shares her, whose pleasure is more fascinating to him than anything about the woman. Other examples
show either a youth watching men and women perform or a man watching a youth and woman;
sometimes the voyeur appears ready to join. I would evaluate such scenes in terms of what Sedgwick
(1990) has called “male homosociality,” in which men manifest desire for one another through
common pursuit of a mediating, but ultimately unimportant woman.

VASILEIOS LIOTSAKIS (HEIDELBERG): “Hermaphrodites and Sexual Intercourse in Hellenistic

and Imperial Literature”
In Greco-Roman literature, hermaphrodites are predominantly treated as marvelous figures. The
narratives about the anatomy of their genitals, conduct, and interaction with their sexual partners are
very often included in lists of mirabilia in works of paradoxography, or in digressions composed by
geographers and historiographers about the extraordinariness of a place or a people. Also,
hermaphrodites are often associated by ancient authors with the ritualistic tradition of the Greco-
Roman world, being presented either as distinguished priests/augurs or as victims in human sacrifices
due to the ancient society’s superstitious prejudices against them. That being said, it is no surprise
that scholarly interest has been traditionally occupied with the issues of the amusing character of the
stories on hermaphrodites, the value of these accounts for understanding their body structure, and the
role(s) of those individuals in the religious life of the Greeks and the Romans on both a mythical and
ritualistic level. On the contrary, the brevity of the literary reports about the sexual intercourse
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(related) with hermaphrodites has hindered any effort to penetrate in detail the sexual activity
pertaining to both hermaphrodites and their mates, and is perhaps the reason why modern scholarship
has paid relatively little attention to this matter.

In this paper, drawing from Greco-Roman accounts of the Hellenistic and Imperial Eras, I aspire to
shed light on the issue of the hermaphrodites’ associations with sexual intercourse in antiquity,
addressing the following questions: (a) To what degree did hermaphrodites and their mates experience
pleasure in the process of sexual intercourse? (b) Were hermaphrodites sexually attractive or not, and
in what sense can we define their (in)attractiveness? (c) Were hermaphrodites believed to receive
more or less satisfaction during sexual activities in comparison with non-hermaphrodites? And (d) is
it possible to discern any social, religious, and philosophical symbolisms of the sexual intercourse
with hermaphrodites in Greco-Roman literature? My main point of argument will be that the emphasis
laid by the ancients on the marvelous nature of the hermaphrodites stemmed not only from the latter’s
bodily extraordinariness but also from the special way in which they were believed to experience
sexual intercourse.

VASSILIOS VERTOUDAKIS (ATHENS): “Sex with boys or with women? Erotic dilemmas and
sexual preferences in the Greek Anthology”
According to Michel Foucault in the territory of Greek sexuality the enjoyment of boys and of women
did not constitute two classificatory categories between which individuals could be distributed; a man
who preferred paidika did not think of himself as being “different” from those who pursued women.
In this sense this paper aims to investigate men’s sexual orientation as represented in the epigrams of
the Greek Anthology: why do some men prefer boys, while other women? What is considered as a
repellent in a boy’s body and what in the female one? Can the desire be addressed to both? The study
draws on the epigrams of both the fifth and the twelfth book of the Greek Anthology.

ZELIA GREGORIOU (CYPRUS): “Outside Diotima’s Educational Matrix: Silenic Remains in

Plato’s Symposium”
“Did you know that the Ancient Greeks had homosexual sex?” The tactical gesture is among the most
predictable ones to occur in ‘progressive vs conservative’ Greek Cypriot classroom warfare. The
gesture is as likely to embarrass the homophobe’s vocal claim that sodomy is unnational as to sharpen
the reticent policy maker’s view that one should always be careful what texts to include in the
Curriculum. A feminist reclaiming of Diotima’s speech, like Halperin’s historicism, would help
contain homophobic panic against the Symposium and create possibilities for a comprehensive
reception of the work’s pedagogical ideas and pathos beyond pedagogical sedimentations of
pedagogical eros. The shifts and twists of teacher-student roles, the corrosion of their asymmetry, the
egalitarian redistribution of ignorance and desire, the metaphors of birthing, nurturing and enabling,
parodies of banking notions of education and the deliberate leading of the search for comfort zones
to misfire resonate with poststructuralist approaches to learning and critical pedagogy. In fact, such a
pedagogical reading inspires a textual reorientation of the whole text around the pedagogical matrix,
since Diotima’s speech gestates and births anew phantasms from other speakers’ encomia. The
pedagogical matrix of Diotima, this paper argues, drains the Symposium of misogynist male
homoeroticism but also drains the imagination from queer affect. Outside the female erotics of
gestation and birth, which overlap with the heteronormativity dream of immortality through
reproduction, the paper traces remains of queer affectivity and precarity, such as the silenic
figurations Socrates and the rupturing, childish erotics of Alcibiates’s shame. A backwards (Love
2007) reading of the Symposium, around and outside Diotima’s pedagogical matrix, indulges in the
queer affect that remains alive so long as it remains incongruous and irreconcilable to pedagogical
promise.

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