Courtesans and Fishcakes

Courtesans and Fishcakes PDF Author: James N. Davidson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226137430
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
As any reader of the Symposium knows, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates conversed over lavish banquets, kept watch on who was eating too much fish, and imbibed liberally without ever getting drunk. In other words, James Davidson writes, he reflected the culture of ancient Greece in which he lived, a culture of passions and pleasures, of food, drink, and sex before—and in concert with—politics and principles. Athenians, the richest and most powerful of the Greeks, were as skilled at consuming as their playwrights were at devising tragedies. Weaving together Greek texts, critical theory, and witty anecdotes, this compelling and accessible study teaches the reader a great deal, not only about the banquets and temptations of ancient Athens, but also about how to read Greek comedy and history.

Courtesans and Fishcakes

Courtesans and Fishcakes PDF Author: James N. Davidson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226137430
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
As any reader of the Symposium knows, the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates conversed over lavish banquets, kept watch on who was eating too much fish, and imbibed liberally without ever getting drunk. In other words, James Davidson writes, he reflected the culture of ancient Greece in which he lived, a culture of passions and pleasures, of food, drink, and sex before—and in concert with—politics and principles. Athenians, the richest and most powerful of the Greeks, were as skilled at consuming as their playwrights were at devising tragedies. Weaving together Greek texts, critical theory, and witty anecdotes, this compelling and accessible study teaches the reader a great deal, not only about the banquets and temptations of ancient Athens, but also about how to read Greek comedy and history.

The Greeks and Greek Love

The Greeks and Greek Love PDF Author: James N. Davidson
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
ISBN: 0375505164
Category : Greece
Languages : en
Pages : 833

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Book Description
For nearly two thousand years, historians have treated the subject of homosexuality in ancient Greece with apology, embarrassment, or outright denial. Now classics scholar James Davidson offers a brilliant, unblushing exploration of the passion that permeated Greek civilization. Using homosexuality as a lens, Davidson sheds new light on every aspect of Greek culture, from politics and religion to art and war. With stunning erudition and irresistible wit–and without moral judgment–Davidson has written the first major examination of homosexuality in ancient Greece since the dawn of the modern gay rights movement. What exactly did same-sex love mean in a culture that had no word or concept comparable to our term “homosexuality”? How sexual were these attachments? When Greeks spoke of love between men and boys, how young were the boys, how old were the men? Drawing on examples from philosophy, poetry, drama, history, and vase painting, Davidson provides fascinating answers to questions that have vexed scholars for generations. To begin, he defines the essential Greek words for romantic love–eros, pothos, philia–and explores the shades of emotion and passion embodied in each. Then, exploding the myth of Greek “boy love,” Davidson shows that Greek same-sex pairs were in fact often of the same generation, with boys under eighteen zealously separated from older boys and men. Davidson argues that the essence of Greek homosexuality was “besottedness”–falling head over heels and “making a great big song and dance about it,” though sex was certainly not excluded. With refreshing candor, humor, and an astonishing command of Greek culture, Davidson examines how this passion played out in the myths of Ganymede and Cephalus, in the lives of archetypal Greek heroes such as Achilles, Heracles, and Alexander, in the politics of Athens and the army of lovers that defended Thebes. He considers the sexual peculiarities of Sparta and Crete, the legend and truth surrounding Sappho, and the relationship between Greek athletics and sexuality. Writing with the energy, vitality, and irony that the subject deserves, Davidson has elucidated the ruling passion of classical antiquity. Ultimately The Greeks and Greek Love is about how desire–homosexual and heterosexual–is embodied in human civilization. At once scholarly and entertaining, this is a book that sheds as much light on our own world as on the world of Homer, Plato, and Alexander.

Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome

Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome PDF Author: Sandra Boehringer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000396169
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
This groundbreaking study, among the earliest syntheses on female homosexuality throughout Antiquity, explores the topic with careful reference to ancient concepts and views, drawing fully on the existing visual and written record including literary, philosophical, and scientific documents. Even today, ancient female homosexuals are still too often seen in terms of a mythical, ethereal Sapphic love, or stereotyped as "Amazons" or courtesans. Boehringer's scholarly book replaces these clichés with rigorous, precise analysis of iconography and texts by Sappho, Plato, Ovid, Juvenal, and many other lyric poets, satirists, and astrological writers, in search of the prevailing norms, constraints, and possibilities for erotic desire. The portrait emerges of an ancient society to which today's sexual categories do not apply—a society "before sexuality"—where female homosexuality looks very different, but is nonetheless very real. Now available in English for the first time, Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome includes a preface by David Halperin. This book will be of value to students and scholars of ancient sexuality and gender, and to anyone interested in histories and theories of sexuality.

The Greeks and Greek Love

The Greeks and Greek Love PDF Author: James N. Davidson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780753822265
Category : Greece
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Greece.

Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece

Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece PDF Author: Nancy Demand
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801847622
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Why did Greek society foster social conditions, especially early marriage with its attendant early childbearing, that were known to be dangerous for both mother and child? What were the actual causes of death among women described as dying of childbirth in the Hippocratic Epidemics? Why did families choose to portray labor scenes on tombstones when the Greek commemorative tradition otherwise avoided reference to suffering and illness? In Birth, Death, and Motherhood in Classical Greece, Nancy Demand offers the first comprehensive exploration of the social and cultural construction of childbirth in ancient Greece. Reading the ancient evidence in light of feminist theory, the Foucauldian notion of discursively constituted objects, medical anthropology, and anthropological studies of the modern Greek village, Demand discusses topics that include midwifery, abortion, attitudes of doctors toward women patients, and the treatment of women generally. For evidence, she relies primarily on the case histories in the Epidemics concerning women with complications in pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth. She also draws relevant details from cure records and dedications from healing sanctuaries, labor scenes depicted on tombstones, Aristophanic comedy, andPlatonic philosophy.

A Companion to Greek Religion

A Companion to Greek Religion PDF Author: Daniel Ogden
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444334174
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 521

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Book Description
This major addition to Blackwell’s Companions to the Ancient World series covers all aspects of religion in the ancient Greek world from the archaic, through the classical and into the Hellenistic period. Written by a panel of international experts Focuses on religious life as it was experienced by Greek men and women at different times and in different places Features major sections on local religious systems, sacred spaces and ritual, and the divine

One Mykonos

One Mykonos PDF Author: James Davidson
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466892013
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
The Giants were the cousins of the Olympians, who rebelled and were defeated. "When all the gods had slaked their thirst for particular vengeance there were still a few Giants left over, dead in all their various shapes and sizes. Hercules looked around a bit to see if anyone was looking, then brushed them all under one Mykonos." In antiquity, Mykonos had little going for it, apart from being the sibling island to Delos, birthplace of Apollo. The Persians regrouped there after their defeat in 490 BCE at Marathon. Throughout most of the first 1000 years CE regular pillaging by the Turks impoverished the inhabitants. With its labrynthine streets and minimal buildings, it became a haven, hiding spies all the way up through the Napoleonic and First World Wars. James Davidson, a brilliant young classical scholar, visited Mykonos for the gay Festival of the Twelve Gods and found it a hedonistic paradise. Although he is in modern Mykonos, ancient Mykonos' history and mythology periodically consume the narrative, asserting their influence and power. Part travelogue, part classical history, part personal essay, part mythology, this is a witty and fascinating gem of a book.

Courtesans at Table

Courtesans at Table PDF Author: Laura McClure
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131779415X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Witty nicknames, crude jokes, public nudity and lavish monuments, all of these things distinguished Greek courtesans from respectable citizen women in ancient Greece. Although prostitutes appear as early as archaic Greek lyric poetry, our fullest accounts come from the late second century CE. Drawing on Book 13 of the Athenaeus' Deipnosophistae--which contains almost all known references to hetaeras from all periods of Greek literature--Laura K. McClure has created a window onto the ways ancient Greeks perceived the courtesan and the role of the courtesan in Greek life.

Greek Homosexuality

Greek Homosexuality PDF Author: Kenneth James Dover
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
ISBN: 9781474257183
Category : Greece
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Sleep of Reason

The Sleep of Reason PDF Author: Martha C. Nussbaum
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226923312
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
Sex is beyond reason, and yet we constantly reason about it. So, too, did the peoples of ancient Greece and Rome. But until recently there has been little discussion of their views on erotic experience and sexual ethics. The Sleep of Reason brings together an international group of philosophers, philologists, literary critics, and historians to consider two questions normally kept separate: how is erotic experience understood in classical texts of various kinds, and what ethical judgments and philosophical arguments are made about sex? From same-sex desire to conjugal love, and from Plato and Aristotle to the Roman Stoic Musonius Rufus, the contributors demonstrate the complexity and diversity of classical sexuality. They also show that the ethics of eros, in both Greece and Rome, shared a number of commonalities: a focus not only on self-mastery, but also on reciprocity; a concern among men not just for penetration and display of their power, but also for being gentle and kind, and for being loved for themselves; and that women and even younger men felt not only gratitude and acceptance, but also joy and sexual desire. Contributors: * Eva Cantarella * Kenneth Dover * Chris Faraone * Simon Goldhill * Stephen Halliwell * David M. Halperin * J. Samuel Houser * Maarit Kaimio * David Konstan * David Leitao * Martha C. Nussbaum * A. W. Price * Juha Sihvola