I am afraid that is exactly what they did. Spartan soldiers were paired for life with a companion who was
friend, lover, brother, fellow soldier, etc. It was felt that they would fight even harder to protect each
other, which they did.
Dear Stephanos,
I am not hijacking this forum on the pro's and con's of homosexuality. I am merely trying to explain that people of different cultures and times, are exactly that. People of different cultures and times.
As an example, if I recall correctly, our World War II soldiers also fought quite well to protect their buddies. As for the Spartans, they fought for their state, and nothing else. As one Greek rightly put it, considering the way they lived and ate, death was preferable.
To understand them better, one has to remember that their mothers would say, either come back with your shield, or on it. In other words, victorious or dead. That was quite similar to the Greek mothers of the more modern times of the Greek revolution. A bedtime song consisted of telling her son, how he will grow up, fight and die, in order to free his country.
You know it's strange how people will always assume something without really knowing. I recall reading that the Germans encouraged homosexuality in the army, yet the group of Nazi's that were homosexual, were slaughtered by Hitler for exactly that reason. Quite a contradiction!
The problem Stephanos, is that my first language was Greek. I recall their passions, their attitudes, etc. The culture is way different than ours, no matter how well their English, and nuances...or at least it was.
Everyone today speaks fluent English, and copies our ways in certain aspects, and we are deceived into believing they think like us. They don't, unless they attended a school outside of their country before the age of 21, or lived in another culture. But of course, my opinion goes back a few generations. Things have changed quite a bit.
What happens is that we tend to read things in others, that really do not exist. For example, I was watching an old Charlie Chaplin movie, and in it he was fond of an orphan boy and went out of his way to hold on to him. Surprisingly, for our day and age, Charlie Chaplin kept kissing him on the mouth. Now today, he would be considered a pervert.
Another example: In the Brothers Karamasov, a woman's affection towards another women, for giving her back the person she loved, was shown by embracing her and kissing her on the mouth...
As I stated, the concept of men loving young men, in the same way as they loved women was prevalent in Ancient Greece. So prevalent, that the Corinthian women were told to walk around naked so as to attract men. But it was not, as one would say, homosexuality as it is perceived today.
One thing we Americans have to accept, is that we are way off base when we assume other cultures were or are similar to our own. If I read Gibbons correctly, the ancient Greeks, with the exception of Athens in the age of Pericles, was basically the same as modern Greece. They did not speak, think, nor act like Americans or Englishmen.
Zenovia
