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Ganymedes the Gay · Lambda: the LGBT in Antiquity Podcast

• 0:28
  Dominica Raven: Hello everybody and welcome to Lambda, the LGBT and Antiquity Podcast, the show about all things LGBT in the ancient world.
• 0:36
  Dominica Raven: I'm your host, Dominica Raven, episode 6, Ganymedes the Gay.
• 0:41
  Dominica Raven: Now I need the gentler touch, for of boys, beloved of the gods, I will sing.
• 0:48
  Dominica Raven: Zeus, the Supreme King, once loved Ganymedes the Phrygian, so he changed his form into a mighty eagle, the greatest bird in the skies, who carries Zeus's thunderbolts.
• 1:00
  Dominica Raven: Ganymedes was a shepherd out tending his flocks on Mount Ida, near the city of Troy.
• 1:06
  Dominica Raven: He was compassionate and caring towards his flock.
• 1:09
  Dominica Raven: Suddenly the great eagle Zeus appears and whisks the boy away to Olympus.
• 1:15
  Dominica Raven: When he returns to a more human-looking form, Zeus kisses Ganymedes for the very first time.
• 1:22
  Dominica Raven: In the beginning, Ganymede is scared and surprised.
• 1:26
  Dominica Raven: He actually takes the god for a rustic deity like Pan and assumes he's trying to capture the sheep.
• 1:33
  Dominica Raven: As they talk, Ganymede is also concerned that his father will miss him and that his sheep will be harmed by wolves and wild animals.
• 1:41
  Dominica Raven: It takes some time for the mightiest of all the gods to convince the simple shepherd that he has in fact been taken up to Olympus and given divine rank.
• 1:52
  Dominica Raven: Once Zeus explains that Ganymedes will be the immortal cup-bearer for the gods, Ganymede asks about agemates and friends.
• 2:01
  Dominica Raven: Zeus laughs at the insecurity of this youth and introduces him to Eros, in Latin, Cupid, the child of Aphrodite.
• 2:09
  Dominica Raven: Eros and Ganymede are habitually portrayed as playmates in literature and the visual arts.
• 2:15
  Dominica Raven: So then Ganymede asks if he will be sleeping at night with Eros, his new friend.
• 2:21
  Dominica Raven: And Zeus chuckles and says, Truly that is why I stole you off.
• 2:26
  Dominica Raven: I wanted us to sleep together.
• 2:30
  Dominica Raven: Then the god Hermes took the boy to Olympus and gave him the nectar of immortality.
• 2:36
  Dominica Raven: The story of Ganymede and Zeus is significant because it is a real candidate for the first homosexual lover in Greek and Roman history.
• 2:45
  Dominica Raven: This mythical episode would be reflected upon for centuries.
• 2:49
  Dominica Raven: Some authors saw the very origin of homosexuality, that very birth of the type of affection and love that many experience.
• 2:59
  Dominica Raven: Others found formulas to describe male beauty and writing affectionately for male lovers.
• 3:06
  Dominica Raven: And some moral hectoring old men found an excuse.
• 3:10
  Dominica Raven: Those gays are just using the story of Ganymede to justify their own debauchery.
• 3:16
  Dominica Raven: But for whatever reason, Ganymede was a story ancient, medieval, and modern authors alike revisit habitually.
• 3:23
  Dominica Raven: While Zeus is married officially to Hera and has numerous other female consorts and lovers such as Leto, Demeter, and Maya, there is a certain pansexuality reflected in the stories of Zeus.
• 3:38
  Dominica Raven: Zeus has many affairs with women and men and even non-human figures such as satyrs.
• 3:45
  Dominica Raven: When we look at the many, many loves of Zeus, they're all bound to Zeus, regardless of the fact that Zeus is not bound to any of them.
• 3:56
  Dominica Raven: They know that they're just one of the many, many sexual adventures Zeus will engage with across time, even if they themselves are not sexually active apart from Zeus.
• 4:08
  Dominica Raven: So when we look at Ganymedes, he represents a loyal, faithful figure, even if Zeus is never faithful back.
• 4:16
  Dominica Raven: Ganymedes might be able to fool around with his agemate Eros, or with Hermes, Latin Mercury, but Ganymedes only in a real relationship with Zeus.
• 4:29
  Dominica Raven: Therefore, we have this figure who is only ever shown in a homosexual relationship.
• 4:35
  Dominica Raven: Many authors focused on Zeus and were bound to see this bisexual or pansexual figure, but when we focus on the beloved Ganymedes, we do see a truly homosexual figure in the ancient world.
• 4:50
  Dominica Raven: So the question is: when did the story of Zeus and Ganymedes develop its homoerotic flavor?
• 4:57
  Dominica Raven: The story of Ganymede is one of the oldest pieces of mythology which comes down to us.
• 5:03
  Dominica Raven: Homer makes two references to the story.
• 5:06
  Dominica Raven: First, when Diomedes is discussing the magnificent horses which pulled the chariot of Aeneas, the future founder of Rome and the Roman people.
• 5:16
  Dominica Raven: These were the fastest and most powerful horses ever bred on earth.
• 5:20
  Dominica Raven: The original were gifts to the Trojan king Laomedon, the father of Ganymede, as a gift for his son.
• 5:27
  Dominica Raven: The descendants of these original horses now pull Aeneas's chariot.
• 5:32
  Dominica Raven: Diomedes defeats Aeneas in a duel and takes his horses, but is not able to kill him due to the timely intervention of Aphrodite and Apollo.
• 5:41
  Dominica Raven: The other reference to Ganymede from the Iliad comes from Aeneas' duel with Achilles.
• 5:46
  Dominica Raven: In traditional fashion, the two combatants swap boasts and insults before they recite their familial genealogy.
• 5:53
  Dominica Raven: Here's another reference to Aeneas's great uncle Ganymedes.
• 5:57
  Dominica Raven: Homer explicitly states Ganymedes was born the fairest of mortal men, wherefore the gods caught him up on high to be cupbearer for Zeus by reason of his beauty, that he might dwell with the immortals.
• 6:12
  Dominica Raven: This time it's Poseidon who intervenes, so Aeneas is not killed by Achilles.
• 6:17
  Dominica Raven: The future culture hero of the Romans kind of sucks in the Iliad.
• 6:22
  Dominica Raven: In any case, these are the first two references to Ganymedes in literature.
• 6:26
  Dominica Raven: It's important to note that technically, neither one explicitly states that Ganymedes was Zeus's boyfriend.
• 6:34
  Dominica Raven: Now there's another Homeric reference to Ganymedes found in Homeric hymn number five to Aphrodite.
• 6:40
  Dominica Raven: The hymn tells the story of Aphrodite and Anchises, the father of Aeneas.
• 6:46
  Dominica Raven: The two make love and then have a discussion about the implications of a goddess and a mortal lying together.
• 6:52
  Dominica Raven: During this discussion, Aphrodite references Tithanus and Ganymedes as other times mortal and immortal beings laid together.
• 7:01
  Dominica Raven: She says, I felt awful grief in that I laid me in bed with a mortal man.
• 7:07
  Dominica Raven: Zeus carried off golden-haired Ganymedes because of his beauty to bed amongst the deathless ones and poured drinks for all the gods in the house of Zeus.
• 7:17
  Dominica Raven: Critically, Aphrodite is referencing times when mortals and immortals were lovers.
• 7:22
  Dominica Raven: All three of these are important love stories.
• 7:25
  Dominica Raven: Dawn, Eos, fell in love with Tithonus and requested Zeus grant her lover immortality.
• 7:32
  Dominica Raven: Though Tithonus became immortal, he was never granted eternal youth, so he kept aging and aging until he shriveled up and all but disappeared, though his wisdom was still sought by gods and oracles alike.
• 7:45
  Dominica Raven: The story of Anchises is also clearly romantic.
• 7:48
  Dominica Raven: The two have sex, then Aphrodite gives birth to Aeneas, who is destined to survive the Trojan War and settle in Rome.
• 7:55
  Dominica Raven: So though the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite does not explicitly state Ganymedes as a homosexual lover, the fact that the author put it on a list of sexual encounters between mortals and gods is very telling.
• 8:10
  Dominica Raven: Ganymedes, Anchises, and Tithanus are given as examples of male lovers.
• 8:16
  Dominica Raven: Thus, though the narrative does not explicitly state the relationship as erotic, there really isn't a viable alternate interpretation.
• 8:24
  Dominica Raven: The likely candidate for the first time Ganymede is explicitly stated as a homosexual lover is in the works of Theognus, a lyric poet who lived during the mid-6th century BC, over 200 years after Homer.
• 8:38
  Dominica Raven: The narrative voice in his poem begins by praising the good looks of a soft-skinned young man and lamenting the poet's fortunes in homosexual courting.
• 8:48
  Dominica Raven: The narrative voice makes this clear.
• 8:50
  Dominica Raven: The love of boys has given us delights ever since Ganymede was loved by Krono's son himself, who seized and brought him to Olympus and made him divine.
• 9:01
  Dominica Raven: So this poem claims Ganymede as the archetypal gay lover.
• 9:05
  Dominica Raven: The context of the poem is actually something of a defense of homosexuality.
• 9:10
  Dominica Raven: The very last line says, Don't be amazed, Simonides, that I as well have been conquered by love for a handsome boy.
• 9:20
  Dominica Raven: This first explicit reference to Ganymedes as a gay lover is in a defense of homosexuality.
• 9:28
  Dominica Raven: This implies that not only was homosexuality present, but it was viewed with suspicion or even condemnation.
• 9:35
  Dominica Raven: Thus, the case in point of the story is that homosexuality cannot be too far out of the norm as even Zeus has partaken.
• 9:45
  Dominica Raven: So, while potentially that first reference in the Iliad made in the 8th century BC includes Ganymedes being abducted for totally non-sexual reasons, as early as the 7th century BC, the sexual reasons were already explicit.
• 10:03
  Dominica Raven: Now, what specifically that abduction was for, if not sexuality, is unclear.
• 10:10
  Dominica Raven: It also begs the question of why these Homeric references often center around the horses given as gifts to the father of Ganymedes, which is exactly the same thing one would expect to gifts given to the father of the bride.
• 10:25
  Dominica Raven: For the record, I have yet to read a compelling argument for what is going on in Homer with the story of Ganymede if it isn't homosexuality.
• 10:34
  Dominica Raven: Ultimately, though, the very first example given was a defense of homosexuality, and in time the character of Ganymedes would be used to glorify one's own lovers.
• 10:47
  Dominica Raven: It was common for a poet to compare their lover to Ganymedes as a synonym for youthful beauty and lovely male appearances.
• 10:55
  Dominica Raven: Now, some of these ancient examples are clearly focused on beauty for its aesthetic qualities, which may not have been sexual at all.
• 11:04
  Dominica Raven: Pindar was a 5th-century poet best known for his praises of the victors in various Olympic Games.
• 11:12
  Dominica Raven: One such ode was composed around 476 for the victor Hagicidemus.
• 11:18
  Dominica Raven: After acknowledging the strength and ability of the athlete, Pindar compares the beautiful athlete glorying in his victory to Ganymedes' beauty.
• 11:28
  Dominica Raven: Nothing in this poem is explicitly sexual.
• 11:31
  Dominica Raven: A Roman poet named Marshall composed a huge volume of epigrams in the first century A.D.
• 11:38
  Dominica Raven: He references Ganymedes many times in his works.
• 11:41
  Dominica Raven: Some of the references clearly focus on glorifying a youthful male form.
• 11:47
  Dominica Raven: But Marshall also wrote love poems for a young man named Cestus, praising his beauty and chastity.
• 11:54
  Dominica Raven: Cestus is beautiful and Marshall longs for his tenderness and sensuality, but is disappointed that the youth had such a sense of chastity, which prevents him from going beyond kissing, though Marshall admires the chastity itself.
• 12:11
  Dominica Raven: Another epigram is directed at Marshall's close friend Apher.
• 12:15
  Dominica Raven: When the two drink together, Marshall eyes up Aphor's cup-bearing boyfriend named Hillos.
• 12:21
  Dominica Raven: Apparently, Aphor had a problem with this.
• 12:23
  Dominica Raven: Marshall suggests that Aether's response is unjust because beauty should not be hidden.
• 12:29
  Dominica Raven: Marshall even hints that Hermes is allowed to play with Ganymede and Zeus is not jealous.
• 12:36
  Dominica Raven: So Aphor should only invite blind men to his dinner parties if he doesn't want men to enjoy the sight of his boyfriend Hillas.
• 12:45
  Dominica Raven: A similar motif occurs in another poem where Marshall admires Theopompus the cook.
• 12:51
  Dominica Raven: Marshall is so impressed with the beauty of the youth he's unable to imagine why one so pretty would be confined to a kitchen when he should be out publicly pouring wine.
• 13:02
  Dominica Raven: Surely Zeus would never have done this to Ganymedes.
• 13:06
  Dominica Raven: Finally, Marshall has a boyfriend named Telesphoros, who is referenced in several poems.
• 13:11
  Dominica Raven: They share an intense, though sometimes stormy, relationship.
• 13:15
  Dominica Raven: Marshall admires this youth so much he even states, Jove is not more happy at the side of Ganymede.
• 13:23
  Dominica Raven: Clearly, this is an intense, long-lasting homosexual relationship.
• 13:28
  Dominica Raven: One final example is drawn from the mythic love between Ampelos and Dionysus.
• 13:34
  Dominica Raven: Dionysus falls in love with the satyr and the two frolic in the forests and the streams of wild Phrygia.
• 13:40
  Dominica Raven: Sick with affection, Dionysus calls out to the heavens and says that Ampelos outshines even Ganymedes.
• 13:48
  Dominica Raven: Later, Dionysus mourns the death of the boy, saying Zeus was able to save Ganymedes from death, but Dionysus could not save Ampelos.
• 13:58
  Dominica Raven: It is important that the word Ampelos is a word for grapevine, so the idea that the cup-bearer is put on a level of the glorious wine poured out of the cup provides an interesting parallel in the story.
• 14:11
  Dominica Raven: It is especially important here as though Ampelos does die, he is transformed into the literal grapevine after death.
• 14:20
  Dominica Raven: So despite the lamentation, Dionysus was actually able to save Ampelos and the two enjoy eternity together.
• 14:28
  Dominica Raven: So though Ganymedes is one of the oldest pieces of mythology we have, some scholars have questioned at what point the homosexual element was introduced.
• 14:38
  Dominica Raven: The two references in the Iliad are suggestive but inconclusive.
• 14:42
  Dominica Raven: The Homeric hymn is telling as Ganymedes is listed among the male lovers of gods, but this is just circumstantial evidence.
• 14:51
  Dominica Raven: What we see is what ancient and modern authors alike have viewed as queer coded elements in a narrative.
• 14:59
  Dominica Raven: Ultimately, it was in later poetry that Ganymede was transfigured into that archetypal male lover.
• 15:06
  Dominica Raven: Once it was established, though, Ganymedes became the measuring stick for praising male beauty, whether sexually or purely aesthetically.
• 15:15
  Dominica Raven: Authors invoked Ganymedes in much the same way they used Helen of Argos, this archetypal image of beauty.
• 15:23
  Dominica Raven: Ganymedes is a male lover reflected in the gods, and many humans idealize their human lovers in terms of Ganymedes.
• 15:31
  Dominica Raven: Critically, it's usually a youthful, blooming beauty being praised.
• 15:37
  Dominica Raven: These men are admiring the youthful appearances and not necessarily manly attributes associated with these young men.
• 15:46
  Dominica Raven: Even Pindar does not liken the Olympian athlete to Heracles or one of the strong manly heroes, but a softer, youthful masculinity of Ganymedes.
• 15:56
  Dominica Raven: Marshall is generally talking about wine pourers and cooks, youths, not middle-aged men.
• 16:03
  Dominica Raven: And at this point in the story, Dionysus and Ampelos are youths.
• 16:10
  Dominica Raven: These examples that we've talked about today are drawn from major canon-level poets like Pindar and Marshall, but there are just so many examples we could have drawn from.
• 16:20
  Dominica Raven: Poets use Ganymedes as a synonym for beauty, yes, but also social roles.
• 16:26
  Dominica Raven: Notice that the cooks and the cupbearers are not the idealized image of manliness, but of youth.
• 16:34
  Dominica Raven: For a man to have a younger, even much younger boyfriend is the ideal.
• 16:39
  Dominica Raven: This does not necessarily mean that gay men had to have an extreme age differential, but it implies strongly that this was a more socially acceptable version of homosexuality than between two peers.
• 16:53
  Dominica Raven: Remember, the first explicit reference to a sexual relationship between Zeus and Ganymedes was in the works of Theognis, and it was a defense of homosexuality invoking the myth to explain the poet's own desires towards a younger male.
• 17:11
  Dominica Raven: What's critical for our discussion is that all of these examples are examples of male homosexuality expressed in the first person towards their lovers.
• 17:21
  Dominica Raven: Their emotions are strong, strong enough to be immortalized in poetry.
• 17:26
  Dominica Raven: It is unfortunate that so often the praise singer's words are recorded, where the praised man's voice is lost.
• 17:35
  Dominica Raven: So what comes down to us is a very one-sided narrative of homosexuality.
• 17:40
  Dominica Raven: But it remains remarkable that these praises survived at all.
• 17:45
  Dominica Raven: They provide us with a glimpse into the relationship itself and the homoerotic desires within.
• 17:51
  Dominica Raven: By studying Ganymedes, we are technically studying many gay men in antiquity.
• 17:57
  Dominica Raven: Next week we're going to explore bisexuality represented in Apollo's amorous escapades.
• 18:04
  Dominica Raven: While many deities have their boyfriends, just like we saw with Zeus and Ganymedes, most of the gods favor heteronormativity.
• 18:12
  Dominica Raven: This is where Apollo comes in.
• 18:15
  Dominica Raven: Apollo is visibly bisexual with strong affection both for men and for women.
• 18:20
  Dominica Raven: Included among these are Hyacinthos, another candidate for the first male lover in history, and Daphne, one of the most famous loves between a god and a mortal, in the entire canon.
• 18:34
  Dominica Raven: Hope to see you next Monday.
• 18:36
  Dominica Raven: Notes and comments.
• 18:48
  Dominica Raven: The retelling of the narrative of Ganymedes is drawn from Ovid, the Roman poet who lived between 43 BC to 18 A.D.
• 18:56
  Dominica Raven: His Metamorphosis, chapter 10, verses 152 through 161, contains the story of Zeus and Ganymedes.
• 19:05
  Dominica Raven: Another source used in this discussion is Lucian, a Greek poet who lived between 120 and 180 AD.
• 19:13
  Dominica Raven: He was known to mix myth, history, and comedy into satires that give often humorous retellings and commentary on Roman life.
• 19:22
  Dominica Raven: His Dialogues of the Gods No.
• 19:25
  Dominica Raven: 10 contains a discussion between Zeus and the recently abducted Ganymedes.
• 19:31
  Dominica Raven: The portion of the episode mapping the history of the story of Ganymedes, starting with a dissection of the Homeric references and carrying it through the archaic lyric poetry, is drawn from Bernard Sargent's Homosexuality in Greek Myth, Chapter 22, The Handsome Ganymedes.
• 19:49
  Dominica Raven: The book was first published in French in 1984 and was translated by Arthur Goldhammer in 1986.
• 19:57
  Dominica Raven: The call out to Ganymedes during Aeneas and Diomedes' duel is found in Homer's Iliad, Book 5, verses 255 through 274.
• 20:06
  Dominica Raven: Homer's Iliad, Book 20, verses 232 through 234, contains the part where Achilles and Aeneas swap their genealogies.
• 20:15
  Dominica Raven: The quotation of Homer was drawn from A.
• 20:18
  Dominica Raven: T.
• 20:18
  Dominica Raven: Murray's translation, done in 1924 for the Loeb Classical Library, which is now in the public domain.
• 20:25
  Dominica Raven: The Homeric hymns were written between the 7th and the 5th centuries BC.
• 20:30
  Dominica Raven: Bards would sit at important civic festivals and holidays and then perform Homer live on their lyres.
• 20:37
  Dominica Raven: Generally, before they began the epic material, the bards would sing a brief hymn to one of the gods, praising their attributes or telling a different key story from that god's mythology.
• 20:48
  Dominica Raven: These were written by the Homeridae.
• 20:50
  Dominica Raven: Some of these bards literally descended from Homer, and others who performed Homer in a religious meditation, all of whom know Homer by heart.
• 21:00
  Dominica Raven: So these little hymns became attached to the works of Homer, so much so that we really don't know the names of the people who actually composed them.
• 21:09
  Dominica Raven: It is probable that the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite was fairly early in the date range, but we can't be certain precisely when it was written.
• 21:17
  Dominica Raven: The quote was from Homeric hymn number 5, verses 202 through 217.
• 21:23
  Dominica Raven: The quote comes from Evelyn White's 1936 translation of Hesiod Homeric Hymns and Homerica for the Loeb Classical Library.
• 21:33
  Dominica Raven: The works of Theognos, called the Theognidaea, was a poetic anthology which became associated with Theognis of Megara, who lived in the 6th century BC.
• 21:44
  Dominica Raven: However, the poetry which survives appears to be an amalgamation of works spanning about a century either way and written by an unclear number of pens.
• 21:55
  Dominica Raven: This is a persistent problem with studying ancient works when we don't actually.
• 21:59
  Dominica Raven: Know who wrote what or when, precisely because of the way the work has come down to us by edited anthology.
• 22:08
  Dominica Raven: Some scholars believe that the poem quoted here is actually the work of Euneus, who lived in the 5th century, but we cannot be sure.
• 22:17
  Dominica Raven: The quote from Theognos is translated by Andrew Miller, 1996, Greek Lyric, an anthology in translation by Hackett Publishing.
• 22:27
  Dominica Raven: I want to point out that the Homeric hymn date range and the date range for the works of the Theognidea overlap in most maddeningly unhelpful way.
• 22:37
  Dominica Raven: Both are amalgamations of many authors' labors composed between the 7th and 5th centuries BC.
• 22:45
  Dominica Raven: We literally cannot say which came first, but since both of them do present the homoeroticism in the Ganymedes episode, it's not actually all that important for our purposes.
• 22:56
  Dominica Raven: Pindar was a Theban poet who lived from about 518 through about 438 BC.
• 23:02
  Dominica Raven: He composed a lot of poetry, especially glorifying the victors at the Olympic Games.
• 23:08
  Dominica Raven: Marshall was a Roman poet who lived from around 40 to 104 AD.
• 23:14
  Dominica Raven: He composed several books of poetry, most famously his Epigrams.
• 23:18
  Dominica Raven: Martial Epigram Book 8, No.
• 23:21
  Dominica Raven: 46, discusses the beauty and chastity of Cestus.
• 23:25
  Dominica Raven: Martial Epigram Book 9, No.
• 23:28
  Dominica Raven: 25, discusses the beauty of Apher's boyfriend, and Martial Epigram Book 10, No.
• 23:35
  Dominica Raven: 66, contains the beautiful cook.
• 23:37
  Dominica Raven: Martial Epigram, Book 11, No.
• 23:40
  Dominica Raven: 26, contains the figure of Telesphoros, who is also referenced in Book 11, No.
• 23:46
  Dominica Raven: 58, though that is the subject of more censorship for its obscenity.
• 23:51
  Dominica Raven: The quote was drawn from Bond's Classical Library, 1897, public domain translation.
• 23:58
  Dominica Raven: Nonnus of Panopoulos tells the tragedy of Dionysus and Ampelos in books 10 and 11 of the Dionysiaca, written during the 5th century A.D.
• 24:08
  Dominica Raven: Dionysus' affection, connected with Ganymedes, is detailed in Book 10, verses 292 through 320, and Dionysus' lament about not being able to save Ampelos is in Book 11, verses 118 to 145.
• 24:27
  Dominica Raven: That's all for this week.
• 24:29
  Dominica Raven: We'll see you next Monday.