Erastes‐Eromenos Relationships in Two Ancient Epics

Abstract

Translate Article

Erastes‐Eromenos Relationships in Two Ancient Epics Morgan van Kesteren When reading ancient epics, such as Virgil’s Aeneid (Pharr ; West ) and Homer’s Iliad, parallels can be discerned from the complexities that lie underneath relations between certain characters, which highlight cultural aspects of ancient society. There exist undeniable similarities between the examples of heavenly love, Nisus and Euryalus from the Aeneid and Achilles and Patroclus from the Iliad, and the examples of common love, Dido and Aeneas from the Aeneid and Paris and Helen from the Iliad. Plato’s Symposium provides further insight into how ancient philosophers considered homosexual relations and what they deemed beneficial out of the love that two people share. In short, this paper argues that Plato’s Symposium can help provide insight into Virgil’s and Homer’s attitudes toward spiritual love and a more sexual love. This paper is organized into two main sections, focusing on the respective characters from the Aeneid and the Iliad. Each section provides a brief summary of the events of that epic, followed by examples from each story placed within the theoretical context of Plato’s explorations of love in the Symposium. Through close reading of these texts, this paper provides the reader with a sense of how homosexual relations have been understood and portrayed through the works of Virgil, Homer, and Plato. The Aeneid In his epic, Virgil whisks the reader through the Trojan warrior Aeneas’ journey as he, among the other Trojans, is forced to leave their land, defeated by the Greeks in the Trojan War, and eventually found Rome. The obstacles that Aeneas and his men face are the workings of the goddess Juno, who resents the Trojans and tries to prevent them from reaching the shores of Italy, even though Aeneas is destined to found Rome. Along their journey, a storm incited by Juno’s envious rage drowns many of his men, but Neptune guides Aeneas and the rest of the Trojan warriors safely to the shores of Carthage. Aeneas’s mother, the goddess Venus, empathizes with her distressed son and resolves to make his stay in Carthage pleasurable by providing Aeneas with the company of a lover. Under Venus’s command, Cupid strikes Dido, Queen of Carthage, with his arrow, causing Dido to fall head over heels for Aeneas. Lovesick Dido is quickly disappointed when her lover Aeneas must abandon her to continue his journey and fulfill his destiny, as determined by Jupiter. Devastated by Aeneas’s betrayal, Dido believes the only way to ease her pain is to commit suicide. This tragic love story of Dido and Aeneas reminds the reader that many of Virgil’s characters are simply pawns of the gods and only serve to promote the founding of Rome. While reading the Aeneid, certain relations between characters, like Nisus and Euryalus and Aeneas and Pallas, resonate as examples of the heavenly love depicted in Plato’s Symposium. Plato’s Symposium exposes various ancient Greek philosophers’ understandings about the goddess of Love, and it exposes the different motivations behind each type of love. Phaedrus, one of the ancient Greek philosophers, suggests that love between an older man and a younger man is most effective in guiding men to lead good lives, more so than the family, the state, or money, because this love teaches men shame when behaving disgracefully. Pausanias, another ancient Greek philosopher, strengthens Phaedrus’ theory by describing two different goddesses of love, Heavenly Aphrodite and Common Aphrodite, and associating them with two different types of love, heavenly love and common love. According to Pausanias, common love is deemed bad because it consists of attraction only between the bodies of a man and a woman and not between minds. Heavenly love, on the other hand, is only shared between two males and consists of a loved one who gratifies his lover, or his mentor, in exchange for wisdom and gaining virtue. When recognizing Pausanias’ two different types of love in the Aeneid, we observe that common love, like the love between Dido and Aeneas, is a form of divine intervention, whereas heavenly love, like the love between Nisus and Euryalus, is divinely protected. The fleeting love between Dido and Aeneas...