ABSTRACT
The fourth-century historian Ephorus records a custom in Crete, settled by Dorian Greeks, illustrating the extent to which pederasty was ritualized in Dorian culture. Several anecdotes from Greek history and legend demonstrate the power of pederasty to instill aristocratic values like martial courage and loyalty. Harmodius and Aristogeiton were particularly important role models for aristocrats. Aristocratic values were particularly reflective of reciprocity based on an absolute identity of "friends" and "enemies". The pedagogical function of pederasty involves the ethical ideal of reciprocity, which provides rational control for pederastic eros. The idealized symposia of literature, emphasized a strictly controlled context for the intellectual expression of eros. Socrates transforms the traditional imagery of eros's destructiveness into metaphors for the stimulating effect sexual beauty has on the immaterial soul and its yearning for absolute knowledge. The idealization of self-control as defining the "just" pederastic eros is apparent as well in Xenophon's Symposium.
