Overview

Since the middle of the eighteenth century, the classical world has been seen as foundational and exemplary to Western civilization. However, the Greeks never invaded and colonised western and northern Europe the way the Romans did, and, conversely, Greece was a difficult place to reach for modern travellers well into the nineteenth century. Inevitably, therefore, the links with ancient Greece were a product of the imagination: an exemplary civilization, in its politics, arts, and culture. There was one problem, however: the Greeks, it seemed, enjoyed pederastic relations. And not only this: one of Athens' most famous teachers, Socrates, was attracted to boys. Daniel Orrells offers a fresh, original examination of how modern thinkers in Germany and Britain, who were so invested in a model of history that directly traced the European present back to an ancient Greek past, negotiated the tricky issue of ancient Greek pederasty.

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9780199236442

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Orrells skilfully offers an overview of his period as well as close analysis of well-chosen examples ... the book is intelligently shaped by an understanding that in confronting what Platonic pedastry meant to its modern readers, we raise large issues concerning interactions between past and present. Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Author Information

Daniel Orrells is Associate Professor in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Warwick.

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