We learn more of Phaedo... He was a boy of Elis, captured in war with Sparta and sold into slavery at Athens to the owner of a house of male prostitution. It was as a male prostitute that Socrates first found him, indicating that Socrates frequented such houses. Finding Phaedo not only beautiful but intelligent and spirited — Kalos Kagathos — he prevailed upon a wealthy adherent to buy the young man’s freedom whereupon he became part of Socrates’ circle.

Speaking of male prostitution, fragments by Aeschinus, Timaeus, Theopompos and others make it clear that there was an abundance of male houses in and around Athens; especially in the port of Piraeus and on Mount Lycabettus. While most of the prostitutes were slaves, and although it was forbidden, free boys from good families could occasionally be found working “to make extra money.” (Some things never change.)

The trade became so pervasive that Solon, the great law-giver, decided it should be regulated. He started by levying a tax on houses that placed males at the sexual disposal of other males at exactly the same rate that was levied on public women’s houses.

MORE ON SOCRATES
It was common knowledge among the ancients that Socrates, in his late teens and early twenties, had been the lover of his teacher, Archelaus.

Xenophon has Diogenes Laertius say, “In his youth he was much given to sensual love which was later supplanted by zealous intellectual work.” And Socrates replies, “Perhaps I may be able to help you in your search for good young men since I am given to love. For whenever I terribly love men I strive with my whole heart that, while loving them, I may in turn be loved.”

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ALCIBIADES
Born in Athens (450 BCE) into wealth and according to his contemporaries “of god-like beauty” he came to be one of the most flamboyantly famed figures of the ancient world. He was the quintessential young-man-on-the-make cum hustler, aggressively bi-sexual in the manner of countless ancient Greeks, and a brilliant athlete and horseman who became one of Greece’s greatest generals.

Orphaned early, he became a ward of the Athenian ruler, Pericles, who was related to his mother. He grew up with the elite youth of the state and became a student of Socrates who, like everyone else, fell in love with him. Later, when he was about 18 years old, Socrates saved his life at the battle of Potidea (432 BCE). (Citizens were a sort of reserve force in Greek wars. Everyone had to fight.) Eight years later Alcibiandes returned the favor by saving Socrates’ life at the battle of Delium (424 BCE).

As a reward for his bravery an immensely wealthy Athenian gave Alcibiades his daughter’s hand in marriage greatly increasing his personal wealth.

As Socrates’ pupil he became the darling of the philosopher, of Plato, and of all the important men of Athens. He gave his sexual favors to any man who could advance him. Apart from his legendary beauty he had what we would now call an astounding level of personal magnetism — charisma. But he also had a skeptical intelligence.

At 16, when his military duties began, he had already learned to question common ideas of justice, temperance, patriotism, and — most dangerously — Greek concepts of what was holy. He indulged in the wildest and most insolent behavior. His amours (especially with men) his debaucheries and impious revels, both homosexual and heterosexual, became notorious throughout the Greek world. But great as were his vices, his abilities — and his beauty — were even greater. He became deeply involved in Atheniun politics, all the while burning down a succession of male and female lovers and keeping Socrates and Plato utterly entranced.

The story of his political and military life is far too complicated to convey here. Suffice it to say he mounted heroic expeditions on behalf of Athens, eventually became a traitor, played one city-state off against another, and was finally assassinated in Phrygia at the age of 47.

Much is known about his life and in the Protagorios of Plato the protagonists says, “Whence come you Socrates? And yet I need hardly ask the question, for I know you have been in chase of the beautiful Alcibiades. I saw him day before yesterday and he has got a beard like a man; and indeed he is a man, as I may tell you in your ear. But I still think he is very beautiful.”

Socrates replies, “What of his beard? Are you not of Homer’s opinion that a young man is most charming when his first beard has come? And that is now the very charm of Alcibiades.”

The French writer and artist, Jean Cocteau, said the most perfect facsimile of the real Alcibiades (who was said to have blond hair) would be Cocteau’s lover, the actor Jean Marais, naked, but bearing the helm, sword, shield and sandals of a Greek warrior.

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THE GIVING OF ARETE (ah-RAY-tay)
The following is extrapolated from the book Phallos by Thorkil Vangaard (Copenhagen 1969/UK and USA – International Universities Press/Sociology-Anthropology Series 1972)
Social anthropologists of the nineteenth century, on seeing numerous stone inscriptions excavated by archeologists in several parts of Greece (The Peloponneses, Crete, Melos, Rodes, Thera, etc.) assumed that a crude — albeit scandalous — form of simple “initiation” — a kind of rite of passage for adolescent youths — was simply an “unsavory” tradition among the Dorian Greeks; something akin to modern “hazing.”

But over time a better understanding of one word that is always attached to these inscriptions and a greater willingness on the part of scholars to accept the truth of the matter changed all that.

The word is ARETE.

“The Giving of Arete,” was not a legend of the ancient Greeks, not a base and brutal form of “initiation,” but an actual, deeply held religious belief — and practice — of the ancient Dorian Greeks. Both parties, the older man and the younger, had a completely different understanding of what was happening than the one we might imagine today.

There is no single modern English equivalent for the ancient Greek word, “Arete.” It means all of the following: Noble Manhood, Manly Virtue, The Genius of Masculine Skill, Power, Wisdom, Character and Dynamism.

The Dorian Greeks believed the way to impart “arete” — all the best qualities of manhood — to a youth was by performing anal coitus upon him. They believed — literally — that a man’s semen was a sacred fluid that had spiritual and magical properties quite apart from its procreative function. The semen of a “fine and honorable” man was to them as holy and as sacramental as communion is to some modern Christians. The act of penetration and resulting infusion of semen into the body of the youth constituted a religious “rite” whereby the senior partner imparted his nobility and virtue to the younger male.

Inscriptions in stone commemorating acts of ritual homosexual copulation are widely scattered. Because they are all very similar, I will only quote one from the island of Thera (modern Santorin).
 

Invoking the Delphic Apollo
I, Crimon
Here copulated with a boy
Son of Gathycles

Because the text opens with an invocation to the god Apollo we understand that what follows describes a religious rite involving the giving of “arete.” Crimon not only announces that he is increasing the youth’s “arete” by putting his seed into him, he also proclaims the boy as “high-born” by naming his father. The likelihood is that Crimon and Bathycles were friends and that Crimon had been chosen by Bathycles to give “arete” to his son. Incest in the first degree, both heterosexual and homosexual, was anathema to the ancient Greeks and so a father depended on an honorable friend for this service. Two fathers who were good friends could undertake this sacred obligation on behalf of one another and upon each others’ sons.

It is noteworthy that the boy’s name is not mentioned. It will only become important when he himself reaches noble manhood and is ready to pass on his “arete” to a still younger man.

I have included “The Giving of Arete” because — although not a legend as such, but rather a fact of ancient Dorian behavior — it was a socio-religious phenomenon completely dependent upon belief in the entire pantheon of Greek gods, heroes, nymphs, etc., and the religious construct of the countless myths surrounding them.

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IN CLOSING
The more I read and write the more references I find and thus, this brief compendium could go on and on. And so, I here — arbitrarily — bring this collection of information to an end. I feel confident that there is surely something in these myths, legends and moments in the lives of people who lived and breathed that will light a creative fire in the imaginations of living artists — just as they have done...for three millennia.

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SOURCES

Eros: An Anthology of Male Friendship. Edit by Alistair Sutherland and Patrick Anderson, Citadel Press, 1991 with translations by Sir Maurice Bowra, R.A. Furness, Simon Ravena and others.

Phallos, by Thorkil Vanggard. International Universities Press, 1969.

Greek Homosexuality, by K.J. Dover. Vintage Books/Random House, 1980.

Poems, Epigrams and Epitaphs from the Palatine Anthology, translated by Dudley Fitts. New Directions, 1941

Homosexuality: A Cross Cultural Approach, by Donald Webster Cory. The Julian Press, 1956 with material by John Addington Symods, W.H.D. Rouse, Edward Westermarck, Edward Carpenter, Richard Burton, Paolo Mantagazza, Hans Licht, Voltaire, Alfred Kinsey, George W. Henry, Morris Ploscowe, Albert Ellis and others.

Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas Bulfinch

Greek Mythology, by Edith Hamilton

The Encyclopaedia Britannica, the 1911 edition

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