Greco-Roman history has always been remembered as a little gay – an accurate but slightly problematic fact that ignores the prevalent paedophilia rife in Ancient Greece and Rome. In the words of John Mulaney, “we don’t have time to unpack all that”. We do, however, have time to focus on the best parts of ancient Greek homosexuality in warfare. 

 

Sexuality in antiquity is not as clear cut as some may think. The idea of pederasty, an older man pursuing a younger male sexually in return for knowledge or gifts, was common in Greece. However, this was not what we would consider ‘homosexuality’ by modern standards. These older men often had wives, family and children and the younger boy would grow up and have the same (not to say that this defines heterosexuality or otherwise, just a point to think about). However, there is plentiful evidence of homosexuality in antiquity. It is seen from well-known poets like Sappho to the criticism of the gender-binary by Catullus. This brings us to one of the most openly gay parts of Greek antiquity, the Theban army.

 

Made up of 150 gay couples, the Sacred Band of Thebes was an army operating from the 4th century BC for about forty years. They managed to defeat the Spartans, no easy feat, and some speculate that, until their last battle, they remained undefeated. The Band catapulted Thebes into a powerful city-state at a time where Sparta was at its height of power. The Band would be defeated by Phillip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. Alexander. Alexander is well known as a gay disaster, who on the death of his lover Hephaestion demanded an oracle apotheosize him so he could be mourned as a divine hero. Plutarch wrote about Philips discovery of who he had defeated and said, “Perish miserably they who think that these men did or suffered aught disgraceful.”

 

Of course, our ideas of war, gender roles and heteronormativity cannot be compared to Ancient Greece because of, as Sara would stress, context. However, it is interesting to look at an integral part of ancient Greek culture and see it be erased for the gains of a cherry-picking bigot. Hanson, the questionable author of Jeremy Armstrong’s reading, likely disagrees with the Greek and Roman perspectives on homosexuality, and yet he idolizes their civilizations. Jeremy highlighted in his lecture and the following discussion that Hanson believed in a clear progression from ancient Greeks to modern societies like the USA.

 

So, in the heavily paraphrased words of Hanson, make America gay again.