BOOKS
663
Moreover, the notion that women never left the house, and that they
were shackled in some Hellenic purdah, is given short shrift by Thornton.
Many Greek literary sources offer plenty of evidence that women could and
did get outside the house for a variety of reasons. The best known is
Aristophanes' comedy
Lysistrata,
which portrays the women of Athens not
only leaving their houses but occupying the Acropolis and organizing with
the women of Sparta a boycott of sex with their husbands until both sides
cease their military hostilities. Thornton argues that feminist claims about
Greek women being confined to the house are a misinterpretation of the fact
that the household was the woman's realm, the place where she exercised
authority and control over her husband, children and servants.
Thornton also provides little comfort for those lesbian separatists who see
the seventh-century poet Sappho as their founding inspiration. He argues that
she has been a victim of mischaracterization for 2500 years. Sappho was a wife
and mother who wrote
epithalamia
or wedding songs celebrating not lesbian
love but the briefly flowering beauty of young women who were themselves
about to become wives and mothers. Only one of the poems from her nine
books survives intact, but several of her fragments have been translated in the
modern era, with the translators filling in the gaps. Many modern readers are
unaware the translators are thus essentially writing Sappho's poems for her.
Thornton argues that her famous "Hymn to Aphrodite" is not a poem about
a mutually sustaining sexual relationship between women but a partly theo–
logical, partly philosophical work that attempts to redefine human understand–
ing of the power of the goddess. Though her poetry does sometimes speak of
her erotic suffering with desire for a beautiful girl, the only certainty about the
claim that Sappho was a lesbian is that she came from the island of Lesbos.
An
even greater distortion is evident in modern interpretations about
Greek male homosexuality, especially the purported cult of pederasty so
widely celebrated by modern gay writers. According to the latter--especial–
ly K.J. Dover, David Halperin and Michel Foucault-the Greeks were indif–
ferent to same-sex relations, and indeed considered them perfectly normal.
The only restriction was that participants had to observe certain protocols and
conventions. In the case of "boy love," the custom was that the boy had to be
courted and play hard to get, that his reputation be protected and that he not
receive any money. Some of these writers say the boy should not be anally
penetrated-the older man was only allowed to rub his penis between the
boy's thighs, as depicted in scenes on some ancient Greek vases-but others,
such as Eva Cantarella, claim that "anal penetration was normal in pederastic
relationshi ps."
Thornton offers two chapters on Greek homosexuality which, hopeful–
ly, should demolish these myths once and for all. He shows convincingly that
there is no evidence in their literature for the supposition that the Greeks
