Philosophy Now Forum

the point is that Lycurgus, and all the latter Spartans (who respected him) thought of pederasty as an "abomination" tantamount to incest. 'nough said.

You have not one scrap of evidence as to the effectiveness of Lycurgus' "rule" or whether or not it was supported.
You have also invented the word "abomination" for which their is no direct corollary in the literature.
It has absolutely NOTHING to do with incest. You will not convince anyone by making shit up on the spot.

As I said before the very fact that Lycurgus wanted to discourage this behaviour is excellent evidence that the practice was common.

Nuff sed!

You have not one scrap of evidence as to the effectiveness of Lycurgus' "rule" or whether or not it was supported.

You have also invented the word "abomination" for which their is no direct corollary in the literature.

It has absolutely NOTHING to do with incest.

As I said before the very fact that Lycurgus wanted to discourage this behavior is excellent evidence that the practice was common.

except that he was the founder of sparta as we know it, and it's entire way of life.

Oopps. Lycugus is a mythical figure. I studied ancient history for 6 years. Lycugus is supposed to have lived in the Homeric period of which nothing can be know for sure. Xenophon was reflecting the new morality of his own age when he put those words into the mouth of Lycugus. The fact is that homosexuality was a common practice in the fifth century when Plato and Xenophon were writing, and 'history' was a very different subject to the one it is today. You can no more believe the direct reported words of Lycurgus than you can rely on talking horses in Homer, and 'arrows of disease', and the fabled Cyclopse, witches and the undead.
The simply fact is as I said before...... homosexuality was part of a dialectic because it was so common. Plato was a well know prude, but not typical. People speak of Platonic love for goos reason.






i have posted the translation that is on the site of the TUFTS University. i also gave the link to it.

TUFTS is a bit of a joke my friend. One cannot expect a balanced view from a Christian Uni.
As I said the word abomination does not appear in the Greek literature.





Constitution of Lakedaimonians 2:13 :
"But if it was clear that the attraction lay in the boy's outward beauty, he banned the connection as an abomination; and thus he caused lovers to abstain from boys no less than parents abstain from sexual intercourse with their children and brothers and sisters with each other."
so, it was considered an abomination tantamount to incest.

That would depend on what you mean by "tantamount to abomination". Abomination is a Christian notion and derives from Latin. Whose translation are you quoting.




yes, it was. among other cities.

Sorry but you seem to think that you are quoting from Lycurgus - you are not. You are not even quoting from a Spartan. TO understand the origin of this document you have to understand the complexities of the "spartan" Party of Plato and his friends, who were working against the democratic movement at the time and wanted to recommend to the people of the Athenians the Laconic totalitarian system of Sparta - or their version of it.
All you are doing is giving voice to an anti-democracy movement which has many key features in common with Fascism, Naziism and other "Enemies of the Open Society" as Sir Karl Popper put it.



Constitution of Lakedaimonians:
(2:12)
I think I ought to say something also about intimacy with boys, since this matter also has a bearing on education. In other Greek states, for instance among the Boeotians, man and boy live together, like married people; elsewhere, among the Eleians, for example, consent is won by means of favours. Some, on the other hand, entirely forbid suitors to talk with boys.
(2:13)
The customs instituted by Lycurgus were opposed to all of these. If someone, being himself an honest man, admired a boy's soul and tried to make of him an ideal friend without reproach and to associate with him, he approved, and believed in the excellence of this kind of training. But if it was clear that the attraction lay in the boy's outward beauty, he banned the connexion as an abomination; and thus he caused lovers to abstain from boys no less than parents abstain from sexual intercourse with their children and brothers and sisters with each other.

it is interesting that xenophones adds this sentence:
(2:14) :
I am not surprised, however, that people refuse to believe this. For in many states the laws are not opposed to the indulgence of these appetites.

Yes, very interesting considering the remarks I made above.

Oopps. Lycugus is a mythical figure. I studied ancient history for 6 years.

The fact is that homosexuality was a common practice in the fifth century when Plato and Xenophon were writing, and 'history' was a very different subject to the one it is today.

TUFTS is a bit of a joke my friend. One cannot expect a balanced view from a Christian Uni.

As I said the word abomination does not appear in the Greek literature.

That would depend on what you mean by "tantamount to abomination".

who were working against the democratic movement at the time and wanted to recommend to the people of the Athenians the Laconic totalitarian system of Sparta - or their version of it.

All you are doing is giving voice to an anti-democracy movement which has many key features in common with Fascism, Naziism and other "Enemies of the Open Society" as Sir Karl Popper put it.

yes, i oppose the idea of an "open society", because in a society where almost everything is allowed, crime and poverty would flourish. people need authoritarian rule. read hobbes.

...a secular (well-respected) university, which doesn't even have a christian history, but a unitarian/ deist one. ...

...yes, i oppose the idea of an "open society", because in a society where almost everything is allowed, crime and poverty would flourish. people need authoritarian rule. read hobbes.

so? i graduated classical sciences- ancient greek and latin language, mythology, history, and culture. even if lycyrgus was a mythical figure (which i think he was not), that would mean that the spartans would have even a higher respect for the laws they think he gave them.

Well as no one was writing anything down when he was supposed to have lived - then he is by definition a mythical figure. The first reference to him is 300 years after his mythical life. THis you ought to know if your claim is to be believed.



yes, it was. but doesn't change the facts that it was unacceptable in sparta (tantamount to incest) or that plato called it unnatural.

Plato did not speak for the entire Greek speaking world.


mistake mistake. not a christian university, a secular (well-respected) university, which doesn't even have a christian history, but a unitarian/ deist one.

Opps. Unitarian is Christian.



okay here's a translation used on gutenberg:
"Lycurgus adopted a system opposed to all of these alike. Given that some one, himself being all that a man ought to be, should in admiration of a boy's soul endeavour to discover in him a true friend without reproach, and to consort with him—this was a relationship which Lycurgus commended, and indeed regarded as the noblest type of bringing up. But if, as was evident, it was not an attachment to the soul, but a yearning merely towards the body, he stamped this thing as foul and horrible; and with this result, to the credit of Lycurgus be it said, that in Lacedaemon the relationship of lover and beloved is like that of parent and child or brother and brother where carnal appetite is in abeyance. "
not an abomination, but "foul and horrible".

If your claim to have studied ancient Greek is true then perhaps you could let us all know what the word 'abomination' was in the original!



not tantamount to abomination, but incest. it clearly says that pederasty is as bad as incest.

Which was commonly practiced amongst the Gods themselves. All this proves is that incest and homosexuality were practiced enough for people to speak against them.



and you studied ancient history? sparta actually employed democracy, and was praised for it, and took as an example by both the french republic, and the american founding fathers. neither looked to athens as an example, but to sparta (and rome).

Go back to school! You are fucking clueless!! Democracy was born in Athens, and their Delian League impressed and even imposed Democracy on a number of City- States.
Conversely Sparta was ruled by 2 Kings and a small council of Old Men.
This is pretty basic stuff. Is this the stuff you learned at TUFTS??? What a joke!





yes, i oppose the idea of an "open society", because in a society where almost everything is allowed, crime and poverty would flourish. people need authoritarian rule. read hobbes.



I have read Hobbes' Leviathan and Behemoth, but I seriously doubt that you have.

Then why don't you go and live in Russia? Oh wait--- even they have rejected totalitarianism.. I know - fuck off to North Korea. But whilst you are about it you are in serious need of revising you (ahem) knowledge of the ancient world.

I think we are done here!!!

ROFL.

Scary, but at least you admit where you're coming from so I commend you for that. However, it would be useful to remember what was happening when Hobbes was writing Leviathan and how that may have coloured his perspective.

Actually a close reading of Hobbes reveals a very complicated political system in which the sovereign was duty bound to serve the community. It was very forward looking and is often incorrectly caricatured as a recommendation to totalitarianism.

@john
However, it would be useful to remember what was happening when Hobbes was writing Leviathan and how that may have coloured his perspective.
human nature hasn't change from the time of hobbes. as he said is the video clip you saw- all men are created d**ks.

Yeah, I forgot that you seem to think the environment doesn't influence much.

@john
However, it would be useful to remember what was happening when Hobbes was writing Leviathan and how that may have coloured his perspective.
human nature hasn't change from the time of hobbes. as he said is the video clip you saw- all men are created d**ks.

@Arising_uk
as i said- a secual institution with a unitarian history.

@chaz wyman
Plato did not speak for the entire Greek speaking world.
neither did i say he did.

i'm nowhere denying that homosexuality was extant, even prevalent in greece, i'm just posting an information that Xenophon wrote that it was not respected in Sparta.

If your claim to have studied ancient Greek is true then perhaps you could let us all know what the word 'abomination' was in the original!
i have given you an alternative translation. "foul and horrible" are used in stead of "abomination".

So you are saying you don't know what the Greek word was! I thought you said you studied ancient Greek



All this proves is that incest and homosexuality were practiced enough for people to speak against them.
okay. and Xenophon says that the spartans spoke against it.

Go back to school! You are fucking clueless!! Democracy was born in Athens, and their Delian League impressed and even imposed Democracy on a number of City- States.
Conversely Sparta was ruled by 2 Kings and a small council of Old Men.
This is pretty basic stuff. Is this the stuff you learned at TUFTS??? What a joke!
talk about being clueless.
2 kings in sparta were it's generals in war, the gerousia ("council of old men") was what supreme court is to america, but the spartan state was ruled by five presidents (ephors), which could hold office only for a year (without the possibility of re-election), and both ephors and members of gerousia were elected by members of the apella, which was the spartan "parlement", consisting of all adult spartans. (kings were elected by gerousia)
1) u'r rude, 2) u'r uneducated, 3) u'r arrogant (without basis), 4) u make presumptions (i didn't attend TUFTS, i'm not even from the usa)



1) only when confronted with silliness
2) I imagine that my level of education exceeds your own
3) And you are not???
4) Well you were so keen to quote this so-clled University, that I though tyou must have had an interest in it.


Have you ever attended a University?


and also, sparta was arranged in this way even before the athenian delian league was founded.



It is thought that most of the wide ranging greek city states had some form of representation of the adult warrior males. Athens had a long history of similar systems, but whose recent overthrown had led to a popular uprising around 508 bce, to replace it with a well designed legal and judicial system, that was by far the most representative.

In Sparta, although nominally the small number of 'Spartiates' were 'represented', in practice things were decided by the Council of old men, and the final decision was in the hands of the King at War, and the other one when at home. It would be stretching the imagination to call this democratic.

There was no effective democracy in Sparta. America based its model on a range of sources. But the "SENATE" was named after the Roman model. Little was known about Sparta in 1776 in any event and most of the knowledge of the ancient world was via Plato and Roman sources. There was, in any event less interest in creating a democracy and more interest in creating a Republic. For the first 100 years of US history only 5% of the population actually voted in Presidential elections.
The history of the idea of the Republic is a long and complex one. One that is not attributable to Sparta. If you want to know about the ideas behind American independence I suggest that you start with Machiavelli's ideas on the Res Publica. You should then go on to Locke and the Bill of Rights 1689, and study French political philosophy, but most of all read Thomas Paine.




you are in serious need of revising you (ahem) knowledge of the ancient world.
that would be you.

and stop being rude, it discredits you as a person worthy of talking to.

So you are saying you don't know what the Greek word was! I thought you said you studied ancient Greek

The isolated Ancient Greek city-state of Sparta was a ferocious opposite to the cosmopolitan port of Athens. Spartans were hostile to outsiders and rhetoric, to philosophy and change.