ABSTRACT
This article shows that the accounts in our ancient sources regarding Boeotian attitudes towards homosexuality, namely that the Boeotians were different from other Greeks in that they enjoyed great freedom in this respect and seemingly everything was permissible to them, present a distorted picture of the homosexual practices in this region. In fact, vase paintings with homosexual iconography dating from the sixth century BC reveal marked similarities with Attic and Corinthian pottery ware of the same period. The view that the Boeotians conducted themselves in an ‘uncivilized’ manner in their homosexual relations is therefore better understood as an attempt by other Greeks to 174Boeotia is a part of Central Greece that borders on Attica, the district in which Athens is situated. It is a mountainous region with two famous mountains, Mt. Helicon, the dwelling place of the Muses, and desolate Mt. Cithaeron, where the god Dionysos was celebrated by his followers. Its most important city was Thebes, but other cities, too, were well known, such as Plataeae, Orchomenus, and Tanagra, where an important pottery ware industry was located. The population derived its livelihood mainly from agriculture and the raising of cattle, and so the Boeotians were thought of as peasants. In particular by their neighbors, the Athenians, they were depicted as coarse and uncultured. In his Olympian Ode VI Pindar, the great Boeotian poet of the fifth century BC, refers to this reproach: “… and next to know if we can put to flight with words of truth that ancient term of abuse, ‘Boeotian swine’” (O. 6.89–90. Cf. Plutarch, Moralia 995 ff.).
Books on Greek homosexuality usually contain a chapter on Boeotia. Sergent (1986, pp. 42–52), for instance, devotes much attention to the Sacred Band, seeing many resemblances between Theban pederasty and the initiation rituals of Crete. Dover (1978, p. 190 ff.), Buffière (1980, pp. 95–101, 261–266), and Percy (1996, pp. 133–138) provide a more balanced treatment of Boeotia, letting the sources speak for themselves without forcing them into a specific straitjacket. Our knowledge of homosexuality in Boeotia is hampered not only by the problem that the sources available to us are very brief, but also by the fact that the majority of these are not of a primary nature, with non-Boeotian authors writing about the state of affairs in Boeotia, or writers who are indeed Boeotian reaching back to a period of many centuries earlier. For various reasons, therefore, these sources are biased. For instance, the level of culture in Boeotia may be looked down upon, as in Plato, or an author may not have much use for homosexuality, such as Xenophon or Plutarch. Plutarch, moreover, although himself a Boeotian, bases his 175knowledge of Boeotia on other literary sources and chronologically, too, stands at a far remove from the subject about which he gathers his information. There are only a few primary sources which furnish us with ‘direct’ insight into the homosexual practices of the city of Thebes: vase paintings stemming from the sixth century BC and the poetry of Pindar (518-c. 438 BC). I shall first set out in summary form the information supplied by the secondary sources and next discuss to what extent the poetry of Pindar and the Boeotian vase-paintings supplement and confirm this body of information.
