Last Time on “80 Gays”: 19) Adonis, although he had several male lovers, is most associated with 20) Aphrodite, a deity famous for her beauty and less well-known for her male form, 21) Aphroditus, a deity often confused with 22) Hermaphroditus, and in one of her other alternate persona called Aphrodite Urania, there was a statue in the agora of Athens near to those of 23) Harmodius and 24) Aristogeiton.
The story of 23) Harmodius and 24) Aristogeiton was featured on this blog in its first year way back in 2011. It formed part of my series on “The Gayest Games in Ancient Greece”, a brief history of the Panathenaic Games. You can read the relevant section here.
The Panathenaic, or Panthenaean, Games are currently believed to have lasted for eight days. Day 6 was the most spectacular and most eagerly anticipated of the whole festival, apart from the final day with its sacrifices, prize giving and partying. It began as night fell in the sacred olive grove in Akademia outside the city gate. Each of the ten demes, or “tribes”, of Athens has selected a team of four men to take part in this event, the Panathenaic torch relay to the Acropolis. In the Akademia was an altar to the god of love and guardian of same-sex male relationships, Eros.
The tangled sexual web into which Harmodius and Aristogeiton found themselves deserves going over again from the above-mentioned 2011 blog entry. Aristogeiton had a rival for the position of senior partner of Harmodius. That rival was 25) Hipparchus, but Harmodius rejected him. Just to point out what I’ve written before – same-sex relationships in Greece were not what we would call gay today. There were a traditional part of a young man’s passage into adulthood. Every young man who entered the gymnasium or army training academy expected to acquire an older man as a sexual partner. It was perfectly normal for a Greek man to have a young male lover and a wife, as Hipparchus had, at the same time.
Hipparchus’s wife was the daughter of 26) Charmus of Kolyttus, whose own young male lover in the gymnasium was Hipparchus’s brother, 27) Hippias. And, yes, Charmus had previously been the young partner of an older man, and guess who it was? It was the father of Hipparchus and Hippias, 28) Peisistratus.
I’m not surprised if you’re confused, so I’ll add this illustration from 2011 which may make it clearer.
The outcome of this web of relationships was the assassination of Hippias by Aristogeiton and Harmodius, followed by their own deaths, turning them into local heroes and inspiring the people of Athens to introduce a form of democracy, regarded as the birth of democracy in our modern world.
What is relevant for us in relation to this series of “80 Gays” is that all of those named today have some connection to the Panathenian torch relay. Aristogetion, Harmodiius, Hippias and Hipparchus were present at the relay during which three of them were killed, and Charmus and Peisistratus are both connected to the altar of Eros at which the relay torches were lit.
The torches were lit from the sacred flame at the altar of Eros. This altar and shrine were built be either Peisistratus or Charmus. It was most probably built by Peisistratus to honour his former lover Charmus.
Of course, we can’t think of a torch relay these days without thinking about the modern Olympics, introduced by Nazi Germany at the 1936 games. The ancient Olympics never had a torch relay, but there is a connection between those games and the Panathenian torch relay in the person of Phidias (No. 8 in the 2020 series of “80 Gays”). The Panathenian relay ended at the Acropolis, which features many of Phidias’s sculptures on the Parthenon. The modern Olympic torch relay begins at Olympia, the ancient site of the original games, where Phidias made one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World, the gigantic statue of Zeus.
Even in the ancient world, this statute of Zeus was seen as a great wonder. If it had still existed in the early 20th century I’m sure the Nazis would have tried to add it to their stash of stolen art treasures in Berlin. It had definitely been ear-marked centuries earlier for transportation to Rome and have its head replaced with that of one of the most eccentric Roman emperors, 20) Caligula (12 AD-41 AD).
Next time on “80 Gays”: We ignore a prophecy and get written out of history, and end up being arrested at Moscow Pride.
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