To celebrate LGBTQ+ history month, we’ve thrown the spotlight on the ancient world, showcasing stories and figures that resonate with queer identities and life experiences today. True, it is impossible to exactly map our contemporary world onto the past – particularly when the gap is pushing at least two thousand years – but these little gems prove that queerness in all its iridescent spectrum is as old as human history.
Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene – Simeon Solomon, 1864
L: The OG Lesbian
When it comes to queer women in the ancient world, there are none more famous than Sappho – the woman who literally put the L in LGBTQ+. The seventh century poet hailed from the Greek island of Lesbos, and because those reading her work have found it really hard to explain away the references to her desire for other women, being a Lesbian came to have its current meaning. (‘Sapphic,’ a now slightly more old fashioned euphemism for female same-sex desire, is also derived from the poet.) It’s very hard to know much for certain about her life, but successive generations of scholars – some explicit homophobes, some who just don’t have anything better to do – have come up with a highly inventive set of reasons to deny her queerness. My personal favourite is the one where Sappho is actually a kind of ancient Miss Jean Brodie, with her affection for girls just a fuzzy, school mistress fondness – I guess that definitely-not-creepy-at-all theory is preferable to the more obvious option that Sappho was into other women. More recent scholars have pointed out that the question of whether the Lesbian was a lesbian is sort of futile – she wouldn’t have recognised that particular modern identity label. There are stories, some of which go back to the ancient world, that she had affairs with men as well – and while a few may be anti-queer propaganda for sure, maybe the reality is that Sappho’s orientation was more akin to modern bisexuality than anything else. In any case, you should really check out Sappho’s poems, though mostly they survive in fragments – Anne Carson’s collection of translations If Not, Winter is particularly stunning. But first, check out this article from The Toast, possibly the greatest piece of internet content of all time.
Set (left) and Horus (right) bless the pharoah Ramesses, from the temple at Abu Simbel.
G: What sexy thighs you have, Horus
If you thought Greek mythology has some strange stories, they’re nothing compared to the bonkers and bizarre tale from ancient Egypt that’s often referred to as The Contendings of Horus and Set. There simply isn’t the room to go into all the details here, but there’s hippo fighting, a mother who definitely goes above and beyond for her son, and an awkward situation with some bodily fluids and a lettuce. Smuggled amidst this craziness, however, is the world’s earliest recorded same-sex chat up line. Horus and Set are competing for the throne, and having been unsuccessful so far, Set invites his rival over to his house in the hope of conquering him in a different way. As they recline together, Set tries to seduce Horus by remarking on how muscular his rival’s thighs are. They proceed to bang, of course, even if Set isn’t quite achieving what he wants to achieve – Horus ends up doing something pretty unusual next, but that’s a story for another time…oh ok, fine, he catches Set’s jizz and sneakily smears it on some lettuce, Set unwittingly chows down on the lettuce for breakfast the next morning, and then at a meeting of the gods, the semen speaks – yes, speaks, because the gods asked it a question, of course – not from inside Horus but inside Set. So Horus is the winner, and the god Thoth removes the semen from Set’s head as a solar crown. Told you it was bizarre.
Achilles binding Patroclus’ wounds, from a cup by Sosias, c.500BCE
B: Achilles hearts Patroclus
The intense bond between the greatest hero of Greek mythology, Achilles, and his companion Patroclus is one of the best known examples of ancient same-sex desire. The earliest piece of literature in which they feature, Homer’s epic Iliad, gives no clear indication of their relationship being sexual (though academics continue to argue about that). In classical Athens a couple of hundred years later, however, they are definitely doinking: Plato depicts philosopher Socrates and co discussing Achilles and Patroclus as lovers in the Symposium. One of the fragments of Aeschylus’ lost play Myrmidons, written around this period, features Achilles praising Patroclus’ thighs (those ancients sure loved some sexy thighs). Plenty of writers have followed Aeschylus’ example. Patroclus is Achilles’ “masculine whore” in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, and while the abysmal Hollywood Troy from 2004 goes to great lengths to reimagine Achilles and Patroclus as just cousins, the pair receive a poignantly romantic treatment in Madeline Miller’s award-winning novel The Song of Achilles. Crucially, however, the recent BBC adaptation of the Iliad, Troy: Fall of a City, stresses Achilles’ bisexuality – something that is often erased in pro-LGBTQ+ adaptations as much as it is by those that seek to deny anything queer is happening at all.
Telethusa and Iphis at the temple of Isis; engraving by Antonio Tempesta, 17th century
T: Isis, the ultimate trans ally
Roman poet Ovid’s vibrant collection of myths, Metamorphoses, feature lots of (in)famous transformation moments: Arachne into the first spider, Medusa into her terrible snake-haired form, Echo into, well, an echo. But there’s a lesser known tale that may strike a chord with today’s transgender community (as complicated as it is to understand trans identities in myth). Although female-bodied, Iphis is raised by their mother Telethusa as male. Telethusa neglects to tell her husband – Iphis’ father – this, though, so when Iphis comes of age, their dad arranges a marriage with the beautiful Ianthe. Iphis and Ianthe proceed to fall in love. As the wedding day approaches, Iphis grows increasingly anguished at being outed and therefore disbarred from marrying Ianthe (same-sex marriage was still a couple of thousand years away, alas). In desperation, Telethusa takes Iphis to the temple of the goddess Isis – the mother of Horus-of-the-sexy-thighs – who proves herself to be a true ally by transforming Iphis’ female body into a male one, aligning their biological features with their gender identity. The pair even enjoy one of the rare happy endings of ancient myth: they marry successfully, with their wedding attended by an array of fabulous gods. By the by, if you’re interested in trans identities in the ancient world, you might start with a recent essay from the brilliant author and historian Cheryl Morgan on transgender Romans in the new Introduction to Transgender Studies textbook.
The Death of Hyacinthos by Jean Broc, 1801
Q: If only Gerard Butler knew…
Finally, a lesser known myth that is particularly refreshing for being about same-sex desire while not revolving around sexual assault (see the story of Laius and Chrysippus) or what we might now call pedophilia (see the story of Zeus and Ganymede. Actually that’s probably sexual assault as well). The story is still tragic though. Hyakinthos was a mythic prince of Sparta, apparently so beautiful that not one but two gods fell in love with him: Apollo, the god of all sorts of cultured things like archery, music, and sporting activities, and the slightly less glam god of the west wind, Zephyrus. Hyakinthos reciprocated Apollo’s advances but spurned Zephyrus – so as Apollo was teaching his new lover how to play with a discus, Zephyrus blew that deadly frisbee off course so that it struck Hyakinthos on the head, killing him. Distraught, Apollo transformed Hyakinthos into the hyacinth flower. This story was particularly important for ancient Spartans: every year they celebrated a festival to Hyakinthos during a month also named after him. Today – thanks, in part, to the Gerard Butler-led xenophobic atrocity that is the movie 300 – Spartans are often appropriated as idols for a certain kind of toxic, far right, hetero-only masculinity. There is something deliciously queering about the fact that in reality Spartans literally worshipped a guy most famous for fancying other (divine) guys – a guy that was, if not a pansy per se, certainly a flower.
Marcus Bell in R&D for our new project
+… the queerness of Orestes and Pylades
OK, so forgive the plug, but this final queer pair are on our minds at the moment as we develop a new show around them. Orestes – the man most famous for murdering his mother Clytemnestra and subsequently being pursued by the monstrous Furies – is almost always joined by his companion Pylades in his adventures. But while there are some whispers of them sharing more than a friendship stretching far back into antiquity, their queerness is not nearly as well known as the likes of Achilles or Sappho. So check back in with us over the coming months to see where the show goes…
