BMCR 2009.04.65: Williams on Lear, Images of Pederasty: Boys Were Their Gods

Andrew Lear, Eva Cantarella, Images of Pederasty: Boys Were Their
Gods.  London/New York:  Routledge, 2008.  Pp. xvii, 262.  ISBN
9780415223676.  $115.00.

Reviewed by Craig Williams, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center,
City University of New York  ([email protected])
Word count:  2020 words
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This book meets a real need. The very fact that the authors' analysis
is based on study of approximately 1000 vases (111 of which they
illustrate) makes Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty a valuable
resource, and an appendix including a catalogue of 647 vases  compiled
by the late Keith DeVries only adds to its value. The book greatly
expands the amount of material available to nonspecialists,
demonstrating that there are considerably more pederastic scenes in the
surviving vases than has generally been believed, and its balanced and
articulate readings of the material--the authors carefully describe
recurring patterns, make allowance for exceptions, discuss alternative
interpretations, and do not press when the evidence only goes so
far--make it a significant contribution to our understanding of Greek
pederasty.

The book begins with a jointly authored preface, followed by an
introduction by Cantarella reviewing the textual evidence and one by
Lear on the iconography of the vase paintings. There are then seven
chapters authored by Lear (Courtship; Ideals/Idealization;
Consummation; Pederasty and the Gods; Kalos-Inscriptions; Vase Dating;
Fragments) and a jointly written conclusion. Cantarella's capable
overview of the major issues raised by the textual evidence suggests we
keep an open mind on some debated points, for example on possible
historical origins of pederasty as social institution. Lear's
introduction lays out the approach and terminology used in the book,
which are perfectly suited to answering the questions it poses. These
are in the first instance semiological: instead of asking (mostly
unanswerable) questions about what Greek pederasty may have been like
for those who participated in it, this study aims to interpret "the
language in which images communicate," which in turn means exploring
"the elements of which Greek images of pederasty are composed, how
these elements are combined and varied, and what these elements,
combinations, and variations show or imply about pederasty or the
ideals associated with pederasty" (p. 23).

Indeed, perhaps the single most important contribution of this book is
its consistent application of a fundamental principle: images on vase
paintings are not "drawn whole directly from the reality of ancient
Greek life," nor are they "snapshots of life in ancient Greece" (p.
24). The authors grant that the point seems obvious, but they do well
to insist on it, for, as they note, sometimes "even the most highly
trained scholars lapse into considering vase-painting in some sense a
trustworthy record of historical reality." Thus, instead of
interpreting a given scene as a pseudo-photographic snapshot of an
actual event, Lear and Cantarella invite us to look at the recurring
and recombinable elements used by painters to build scenes which spoke
to ancient viewers - and are meaningful to us - as evocations of
widespread social realities and cultural ideals. In other words, there
is no doubt that men courted boys, gave them gifts and copulated with
them, just as there is no doubt that they enjoyed the company (and
services) of hetairai, or that they drank wine and played musical
instruments at symposia. But we should be cautious about concluding
that any particular scene portraying these practices is a
straightforward depiction of what it really looked like in the moment.

The book's analyses make use of the following basic elements:
scene-type, figure, costume, posture, gesture, prop, synecdoche,
symbol, inscription, and decorative program. Some of these terms
require and receive further explanation. A scene-type is "a certain set
of figures in a certain, typical relation to each other" (e.g. a
courting-gift scene, consisting of a male figure marked as older
offering a gift to another male figure marked as younger): it is
brilliantly suggested that the figures within such scenes can be read
like "paper dolls, or perhaps Ken and Barbie dolls" (or rather, as Lear
wittily adds, "Ken and Bobby") used by the artist to create a scenario.
These figures "can be put in different postures, make different
gestures [e.g. the famous up-and-down gesture], wear different costumes
[e.g. cloaks, nudity itself or massive chests and thighs in
particular], and use different props [e.g. wreaths or spears]," and
each of these elements in turn is "variable and open to interpretation"
(p. 26). The term "synecdoche" is used to refer to elements like an
athlete's gym-kit or a hare, which symbolize and evoke a related larger
context (the gymnasium and pederastic courtship respectively), and
"inscriptions" is here used not in its strictest sense--texts scratched
on to the surface of finished pots--but rather to refer to textual
elements, such as the famous kalos inscriptions, which were painted on
the vase before firing as part of the original design. The relationship
between these textual elements and the iconography of the vases on
which they are found is the subject of Chapter 5.

The concept of "costume" is expanded in Chapter 2
("Ideals/Idealization") to include that of "mask": examples are the
figures' muscularity, their genitalia, and visual cues to relative age
(such as beards and their absence or relative height). Reading the
figures' penises, in particular their size and erect or flaccid state,
as elements of costume is a brilliantly effective move, freeing us from
pointless arguments, usually sparked by misreadings of Dover, around
the question whether Greek boys enjoyed sex with men. Lear's
conclusion: "Through the elements of costume and mask, the lovers in
pederastic scenes are portrayed as athletic, modest, and
self-restrained, and adhering, in their pederastic relations, to basic
Greek conventions about age-roles: to a set of ideals closely related
to those that we find associated with pederasty in our textual sources"
(p. 72), including one according to which eromenoi are "so uninterested
in sex with their erastai that they do not have erections even when
sexually stimulated" (p. 66).

And so we come to Chapter 3 ("Consummation"), which opens by making the
important point that, although they have drawn a great deal of
scholarly attention, only 5 percent or less of extant pederastic scenes
explicitly show copulation. As is well known, the overwhelming majority
of scenes of pederastic consummation depict intercrural intercourse, a
fact which Lear rightly calls a "visual euphemism" (p. 106). We can
make no claims about how widespread this mode of intercourse was in
practice, or whether it was more or less commonly practiced than anal
intercourse (the latter, as jokes in Aristophanes make perfectly clear,
was a fact of Athenian life), but the method adopted by Lear and
Cantarella allows them to make and refine a significant point. It has
been recognized since Dover that most depictions of anal intercourse on
surviving vases involve either satyrs or else youths and boys amongst
themselves: Lear and Cantarella have now carefully shown that these
scenes contain no synecdochic elements connecting them to hunting or
athletics, no sign of wooing or gift-exchange. "The only thing these
scenes have in common with pederastic iconography," they conclude, "is
the presence of youthful athletic figures," but even these wear a
costume significantly distinct from that marking pederastic scenes:
their genitalia are often realistically or even hyperrealistically
large and erect. In short, instead of courtship, the scenes depicting
anal intercourse "represent group activities of a festive or orgiastic
nature, and they relate, iconographically, to a broad set of
scene-types that include Satyr scenes and komos scenes" and invite
being read in contrast to scenes of pederastic courtship (pp. 118-119).
Another important point made in this chapter is that very few surviving
paintings show erotic relations between men and boys marked as slaves
(p. 135). Although the authors do not pursue the point, it closely
corresponds to a perspective widespread in the Athenian textual
tradition: pederasty is the province of present and future citizens and
not of slaves, an illuminating point of contrast with Rome, where
sexual connections between free men and their slaves of both sexes are
a prominent feature of the cultural landscape.

Lear's Chapter 6 ("Vase Dating") responds, among other things, to the
common assertion that "pederasty vanished from vase-painting in the
early fifth century," in turn used in support of an argument that
"public approval of pederasty declined in Athens under the democracy"
(p. 175). Lear is rightly skeptical both of the premise and of the
conclusion. In fact, he points out, "pederastic courtship remains a
common motif down into the fourth century," and while explicit
depictions of consummation become rare after the 470s, the same is true
of explicit depictions of heterosexual sex as well. If anything, then,
this shift is evidence for "a more general trend toward prudery"; it
cannot be used to build arguments about change in the public status of
pederasty. Indeed, Lear and Cantarella are in general admirably
cautious about using shifts in iconography as the principal or sole
basis for arguments about change in social practice (e.g., p. 67).

On a few points of detail the book's conclusion was less persuasive.
First, it uses the term "sodomy" (p. 190), a word best avoided in
discussions of ancient sexuality, not only because of its anachronistic
connotations of illegality and sin, but also because of its unstable
denotations: sometimes anal intercourse, sometimes oral sex, sometimes
sex with animals, sometimes "deviant sexual intercourse" by forcible
compulsion or with minors (as in New York State law to this day). Next,
the authors write that "in literary texts, particularly Aristophanes
and Aeschines, it seems clear that anal sex elicited social
disapproval" (p. 190). This is not clear to me; on the contrary, I read
those texts as communicating a knowing familiarity with the practice of
anal intercourse, capable of inspiring coarse jokes about dung-beetles
and the like; and I would argue that what elicits disapproval is not
the act itself, but those boys or men who take pleasure in being
penetrated. Thus, when the authors refine their formulation on the same
page ("Aristophanes' and Aeschines' criticisms do not strike at anal
sex itself, only indulging in it to excess or in exchange for
payment"), I would add yet a further refinement: criticism is aimed
only at indulging in the receptive role to excess or for payment.
Finally, on the question of the ideal age of erastai--adult,
adolescent, or both?--the authors profess uncertainty in face of
conflicting or shifting evidence (p. 191), but perhaps they see a
problem where there is none. It may be that there simply were no hard
rules with regard to the appropriate age to play the role of erastes.

But none of this detracts from the validity and value of the book's
method and conclusions. Above all, the authors are consistently
attentive to the distinction between the language of texts and that of
visual imagery. This book amply demonstrates that the two languages
tell much the same story about pederasty and that those few points on
which they do diverge (e.g., on the role of gifts or the importance of
the hunt) are thus all the more noticeable. Most specialists since
Dover would, I think, readily grant that Greek pederasty "includes and
brings together pedagogy and eroticism," that it was "an important part
of the idealized vision of the life of elite Greek males," and that it
constructed a contrast between the noble, beautiful and self-controlled
on the one hand and the excessive, uncontrolled and unattractive on the
other (pp. 192-3), but precisely these points have been greatly in need
of the detailed support from the vase paintings and clear exposition of
their iconography which Lear and Cantarella have now provided. Finally,
the authors do their readers a great service by ending not with the
figure of the erastes, whose voice and vision dominate the surviving
material, but instead with that of the eromenos (p. 192). The young man
cast in this role, they argue, "is not represented as a victim or a
person who passively submits"; his "dignity is emphasized not only in
the literature but also in vase iconography, and he participates
actively in the exchange which is at the foundation of the erotic
relationship." The point is worth emphasizing, as it adds an important
qualification to the differential models of sexuality so prominent in
the textual and visual traditions of Greece and Rome, sometimes
oversimplified or even caricatured in the pages of scholarship, but not
in this careful book.