By around 500 B.C. the Greeks had developed a strange (for us) model of romantic love. While adult men were expected to take a wife and raise a family, they were also allowed considerable license in fulfilling sexual desires. Poets, philosophers and artists celebrated the passion of an adult male (erastes) for a beardless youth (eromenos). This practice, which for us is morally and legally problematic, is illustrated on drinking vessels and in wall murals, as well as in kouroi statues, which revel in the fresh, muscled beauty of young men.1 The relations between the mature erastes and the […]