Erastes

Detail from an ancient  Greek bowl showing a youth being courted by two potential erastai. Picture courtesy Truth Tree.Com "Erastes" was a term used by the ancient Greeks, meaning both "lover" and "inspirer" to describe the elder man in a relationship based on paiderastia.   An erastes was a man of majority age, usually between twenty-one and thirty years of age, who was both the lover and teacher of an adolescent or young adult male, called an eromenos.  The plural form of erastes is erastai. The duty of the erastes was to instruct his eromenos in the ways of good citizenship, soldiering, right thinking, and right action.   Sex was used to cement a bond between teacher and student.   The relationship was intended to be consensual, with the eromenos choosing his erastes from a variety of suitors, who wooed him with gifts and poetry.  In Athens and some other areas, custom forbade the erastes from ever being the passive partner in sex, the theory being that doing so meant he was "less of a man" than the boy he was supposed to be preparing for manhood.  Often, however, there was no penetrative sex between the erastes and his boy, and oral sex was rarely practiced.  Mutual masturbation and frottage were more common in such relationships.  Exceptions to this rule existed in other areas, such as Macedonia and Thrace, and the age difference was often much smaller, often by only a few years.  In every case, the erastes was expected to remember that his relationship with his eromenos was intended as a compliment to his married life and not a substitute.  Bisexuality was openly practiced and tolerated among Greek men; exclusive homosexuality was not. The role of the erastes was an honored one as well as an important duty.   Even the gods acted as erastai at times, with Poseidon acting as erastes to Pelops and Apollo to Hyakinthos, among others.   Perhaps the most famous of all erastai was Aristogiton, whose love for his eromenos Harmodius led to rebellion against the tyrant Hippias and the eventual birth of democracy in Athens. Links: The World History of Male Love The Erastic Eromenos Truth Tree: Pederasty Gender and Sexuality in the Classical World Plato's Symposium Homosexuality in Greek Myth KeywordTitleAuthor