Poseidon (Neptune) great God of The Ocean, fell in love with the hero, Pelops. Young Pelops did not respond to Poseidon’s overtures and one day while walking on the shore of the Peloponeses — the region is named after Pelops — a huge, warm, softly embracing wave swept the hero into the passionate embrace of Poseidon in the depths of his watery kingdom. Pelops became the “eronomos” (a youth loved by a man) of Poseidon and Poseidon became the “erastes” (a man who loves a younger man) of Pelops. (The Greeks had a work for everything.)

Later, when Pelops was a fully mature man, Poseidon let him go; and when it came time for Pelops to take a wife he invoked his old lover, Poseidon, with prayer’s at the sea’s edge. Poseidon, for the love he still bore him, used his powers to help Pelops win the woman of his choice.

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LAIUS AND CHRYSIPUS

Later, when Pelops was the father of a handsome son named Chrysippus, — Laius, the King of Thebes fell — not in love — but in lust for the youth. Laius, feigning friendship, pretended to offer to teach the boy how to handle a four-in-hand chariot. While out in the field he suddenly turned his horses and, clutching the struggling youth, made a thunderous, headlong dash for Thebes with Pelops and his men in hot pursuit. But Laius made it through the gates of Thebes before Pelops and his host could overtake him. Laius held his prize fast and poor Chrysippus became a male concubine for the king’s pleasure. There are numerous ancient vase paintings and relief’s of The Rape of Chrysippus.

Pelops, saying that he would have given his son to Laius had he asked properly and had his son consented, vowed revenge. He put a fearful curse on the house of Laius who was, indeed, eventually killed by his own son, Oedipus. This story was the beginning of the whole series of the famous Oedipus tragedies.

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ZEUS AND GANYMEDE

This is perhaps the most famous story of homosexual love in all of Greek mythology.
Apollo’s father Zeus, another ravisher of mortal women and nymphs, also fell in love with a boy, Prince Ganymede, son of King Tros of Troy.

Thinking that the prince would resist his advances, the father-god appeared to the youth in the guise of an injured eagle. As the boy approached to help the eagle he was seized, abducted to Mount Olympus, and ravished by the god. The youth, in turn, falls in love with the god. Forever onward, Zeus loved the youth and, wishing to keep him with him forevermore, made him immortal — cup-barer to the gods — and he lives in eternal happiness on Olympus at Zeus’s golden-sandaled feet.

(In one renaissance painting he is pictured kneeling — somewhat suggestively — between Zeus’s mighty legs holding a golden bowl of shimmering nectar.)

A related scene from mythology is of Zeus’s good son, the god Hermes, presenting King Tros a growing golden vine and two splendid white stallions in compensation for the loss of Ganymede. Hermes is assuring the king of the blissful immortality of his son. Mount Olympus looms majestically in the background with Zeus and Ganymede embracing on a jeweled couch. Zeus so loved Ganymede that he set his image among the stars. It is called Aquarius (Water-Cup-Bearer).

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ORPHEUS AND CALAIS

Orpheus, the tragic lyre-player, along with Penelope, wife of Odysseus, is seen as one of the great paragons of conjugal fidelity. Although a demi-god — the son of Apollo and the muse Calliope — he was doomed to destruction.

Most know the story of his too brief marriage to his beloved wife, Eurydice — killed by a snake bite. He followed her to Tartarus (the underworld) to beg Hades — the god of the place — to allow her to return to life and into his arms. He played the lyre for Hades and his attendants and because of the power of his music they agree to let her return; but with conditions that are not met. (Orpheus looks back as they are ascending to the upper world.) She is immediately returned to death once more with no further chance of escape.

In deep mourning, he retires to Thrace vowing to eschew the company of women forever and the women of Thrace eventually kill him because of his refusal to succumb to their blandishments.

That is the part of the story we have come to know, but for the Ancient Greeks there was an additional twist to the tale...

In Thrace he meets a young man named Calais who falls in love with him and in time, Orpheus — experiencing unfamiliar longings because of the tenderness this youth shows him — finally opens his eyes to the world of male love and makes Calais his lover. It is a switch from the usual Greek pattern because it is the younger man who is teaching the older man. And yet, in spite of his love for Calais, there is never a suggestion that it has in any way altered his devotion to his lost wife. Inherent in the story is the suggestion that a lovingly married or widowed man might none-the-less find another kind of love (and sexual release) in the arms of another male.

But the story has a sad and violent ending.

In this lost aspect of the legend it was his taking a man as a lover — not his merely avoiding their company — that drove the women of Thrace mad with fury. At last they tore him limb from limb and threw his remains into the river, Hebrus.

For every after he was credited (though cursed by the women) with having introduced the love for men for men into the land of Thrace...”where it flourishes.” (Stobaeus)

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CASTOR AND POLLUX (GEMINI/THE DIOSCOURI)

These gorgeous twins, along with their sister, Helen of Troy, were the offspring of Zeus (in the guise of a swan) and Leda. The boys had an unusual birth in that they were hatched from a single egg produced by Leda. Castor became famous as a tamer of dangerous wild horses and Pollux was a great boxer.

As demi-gods sailing with Jason’s Argonauts stars encircled their heads during a terrible storm and the sea became calm. They thus became the patron deities of sailors, who also kept phallae as protective amulets. The phallus was sacred to Dionysius.

At last, after many noble adventures and heroic deeds Castor was slain in a war and Pollux was so inconsolable that he begged his father, Zeus to be allowed to take his brother’s place in death.

Zeus took pity on him and allowd him to take his brother’s place every other day. But the twins — who cannot bear to be apart — are finally rewarded for their love of one another by being placed among the stars as the constellation Gemini so that they can be together for eternity.
The Heavenly Twins sometimes leave the firmament and appear at great battles to help right prevail, riding naked on magnificent white steeds... Their cult was so powerful that it lasted through Roman times.

Although usually interpreted as symbols of fraternal solidarity, there is something about the obsessive devotion of Castor and Pollux to one another which somehow transcends even legendary notions of brotherly love.

The men simply cannot live without one another and there are no women in their lives. Over time, literary descriptions and images of two beautiful nude males on rearing white horses, or in easeful company with one another cannot but imply an incestuous homo-eroticism that’s hard to ignore.

Was the story of Castor and Pollux really the ancient version of “Brothers Should Do It?”

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