ABSTRACT
This paper reexamines the ancient evidence to see what light it sheds on homoeroticism in Sappho. From the Hellenistic period on there are derogatory references to her homosexuality–and also denials that she was involved in same-sex relationships. From the late archaic period on there are hints that women from Lesbos had a reputation for being sexually adventurous. Yet there is a discontinuity between these quips about Sappho and/or “Lesbianism,” and her own poetry, which is intense, sometimes voluptuous, but really not very carnal. Sappho’s oeuvre is so fragmentary that the evidence it offers is tentative at best. Nevertheless, if her homoerotic poetry is at all autobiographical it reflects a circle of mainly adolescent girls or very young women around a somewhat older and more authoritative Sappho. Passionate attachments exist between members of this group as well as between individual girls and Sappho. Although many modern scholars believe Sappho’s relationships were egalitarian and same-age, the collective evidence of her own poetry together with the ancient testimonia and commentaries does not support that inference.
