Toxic Boyfriends of Greek Mythology (feat. Historical Homos)

Liv teamed up with Historical Homos https://www.historicalhomos.com/ to talk all about the toxic boyfriends (or, toxic relationships) of Greek myth. Someone almost always dies, but why and how and what does it mean?!?! Submit your question for the next Q&A via email http://mythsbaby.com/questions or a voice note https://www.speakpipe.com/LTAMB. Get ad-free episodes and so, so much more, by subscribing to the Oracle Edition at patreon.com/mythsbaby http://patreon.com/mythsbaby CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here:mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions http://mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. Learn more about Liv's next group trips https://travelbugxlivalbert.my.canva.site/ to GREECE! Application deadline is November 30 (Subject to change due to demand). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Liv Albert?

  Hey nerds, really quick note from me. I want to tell you that we now have the applications open for the next set of listener group trips. This is us going back to the original, the trips that we have held in the past that have been so much fun, so successful, and pretty affordable in terms of wandering around Greece with a bunch of nerds. So check out the details and get your applications in at mythsbaby.com grouptrip.

• 0:43Speaker 01

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• 2:15Speaker 03

  Hello, this is Let's Talk About Myths, baby, and I am your host Liv, here with something a little different. Okay, so I teamed up with the fine people at Historical Homos to do an episode about, yes, you guessed it, Historical Homos, but specifically Toxic Boyfriends of Greek Mythology. I spoke with Bash for this podcast, and yeah, oh my god, we had so much fun. So basically, it's an episode that is branded as Historical Homos, but that was just because Bash was keen to do all the work for it. And I was like, I would

• 2:55Speaker 03

  love to just play that whole episode. But it is, between the two of us, it's a full-blown collaboration where we dive deep into these toxic boyfriends. So in some cases, there are characters I've talked about before, but we are getting to like an entirely different level, because queer stories have existed always, and fuck if they aren't the most fun and interesting part of all things in human history, but specifically Greek mythology. There is some wild stuff going on there, and we all just know and love it. So just sit back and enjoy this absolutely delightful dive into Toxic Boyfriends of Greek Mythology.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  This is Toxic Boyfriends of Greek Mythology, featuring the Historical Homos Podcast.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  Welcome back to another installment of our award-seeking series, Toxic Boyfriends of Greek Mythology. Now, if you're a fan of Greek mythology, you probably know that the gods and goddesses love to act like humans. They laugh, they play sports, they have dinner parties, they love, they fuck, they fight. But one of their chief pastimes is, how do I put this? Killing us? Yes, us mortals, humans. We should be very scared if a god shows up on Earth, because chances are someone's gonna get pregnant or dead real soon, or both. And this pattern seems to hold when it comes to the gay Greek myths. Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon, Heracles, they can't seem to keep

• 5:02Speaker 04

  any of their younger boyfriends alive. Why is this? You could argue that death makes for a tidy end to any story, nothing more final than a one-way ticket across the River Styx. But Greek myths took shape over hundreds of years. They were told and retold, not just because they were good stories, but because they told the ancients something deeper about themselves. Is it possible that bottoms always die in Greek mythology to teach us something? To make us feel something? What's going on narratively, psychologically, historically, erotically, when gods and heroes love their beloveds, their eromenoi in the Ancient Greek, a little too roughly? It's time we get to the bottom

• 5:45Speaker 04

  of all of these crucial, world-changing questions. So strap into your sluttiest sandals and absolutely nothing else. We are raw-dogging it Ancient Greek city-style today, because it's time to dive in. And the Aegean seawater is, mm, ooh, yes, let me just dip a little toe, human temperature.

• 6:13Speaker 05

  So let's go back in time and take another rewrite through our history. H O N E. Celebrate ourselves tonight and cover all the things that's still a mystery. H O N E. Cause if you think you know, you don't know around the world we go, go, go, go. Time to blow your mind with a historical homo. Historical homo. Historical homo.

• 6:50Speaker 04

  I am so thrilled to introduce to your ear holes Liv Albert, who is the host of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby. Resident Greek myth, Greek and Roman mythology nerd, actually all mythology nerd, I feel like you, you straddle it all. Liv, first of all, thank you so much for being here. Who are you? What's inspiring you right now?

• 7:10Liv Albert?

  Who am I? I am Liv. I am deeply obsessed with Greek mythology to a point where I, some of the stuff that lives in my head, I, I don't even understand it anymore. And I consciously work to make Greek myth not my entire personality, but I'm failing at it.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would say that that's not coming through yet.

• 7:32Liv Albert?

  Great, great. Well, and then to just really continue on with that vibe, what's inspiring me right, me right now is that I am like knee deep in Odyssey research because I'm writing a children's retelling of the Odyssey. And that is consuming my entire life at this stage. Yes.

• 7:52Speaker 04

  Wow. What an exciting project.

• 7:54Liv Albert?

  It's truly the most, one of the most exciting things that's happened to me in ages and it's going to be so good and nerdy and honest and weird and yeah. Coming next year.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  I love that. Move over Stephen Fry.

• 8:08Liv Albert?

  Dreams.

• 8:10Speaker 04

  That's awesome. That's so cool. And we need all of that today because we are delving back into the world of the toxic boyfriends of Greek mythology. Hell, yeah. So this was the first episode that we ever did on this podcast. We did an episode all about Zeus and Ganymede, famously, pretty toxic, in the sense that, you know, being stolen from your family is not a great way to start a relationship. So check out that episode if you want to, if you want more. But we also talked about the toxic boyfriends of the Roman Empire, Hadrian and Antinous, who are probably known to every gay worth his salt for being kind of the poster boys of homosexuality in the Roman Empire. To go back to our Greek myth boys, however, what I've always been interested

• 8:53Speaker 04

  in are the other kind of smaller stories that you hear, the minor tales, Heracles and Hylas, Apollo and Hyacinth, Pelops and Poseidon, Achilles and Patroclus is probably a big one now because, well, it was a big one in the ancient world as well. It was. Yeah, but it's even bigger because of Lady Madeline Miller's service as well. So I think we need to dive into those stories a little bit deeper and ask, what is going on? And one thing that I've noticed that tends to happen in all of them is that the younger one, the bottom, if you will, in modern parlance, tends to die. And, you know,

• 9:33Speaker 04

  Apollo and Hyacinth, spoiler alert, he dies. Hyacinth dies. Achilles and Patroclus, they both die. Heracles and Hylas, Hylas dies. What is going on? Why, why so much death? Now, little content warning, as always, when we're talking about the ancient world of homosexuality. And this is what's interesting about these, these Greek myths is that they tend to be modeling different versions of Greek homosexuality or same-sex desire between men, right? Or males. So Zeus and Ganymede is kind of like the traditional image of the pederastic relationship. And even the ancients themselves talked about that story of Zeus and Ganymede as potentially an inappropriate way to excuse pederasty.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Right? So there was some anxiety around that. And, and Heracles and Hylas, who we're going to talk about similar, but there's a different emphasis in the story. It's, it's more about, I think, education and then like having to let go of that younger lover. And then as they get older, Apollo and Hyacinth, Apollo is famously not an adult man, right? Like, he is kind of the eternal ethebe, which is the Greek word for the sort of in-between zone when you're like 18 to 20, early twenties. So, and, and he's in love with a younger, a younger boy. So that is, that's a different type of pederasty that they're kind of modeling there of the young man and the adolescent.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  And then Achilles and Patroclus, what's being modeled there is a form of really intense, passionate erotic devotion, right? That, that the Greeks believed existed between men at war and was actually helpful in some senses for men at war. Right? Because it made you more loyal to one another. And indeed Achilles and Patroclus die for one another. So this is what we're going to be talking about today. Maybe I spoiler alerted, maybe I should have spoiler alerted all of that. Yeah, we can end the episode now. It's all, we've done, we've done it all.

• 11:33Liv Albert?

  I mean, I have so much to say.

• 11:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, good. Well, you know, that's it. I'm just revving you up right now, Liv. But yeah, I do want to, I, you know, we just want to acknowledge we are talking about pederasty. It is a different type of homosexual, I mean, mostly we're talking about pederasty. It is a different type of brand flavor of homosexuality than the modern term gay typically connotes. But I would ask our listeners to remember that this was very much a socially approved institution back in the ancient world. It was a different kind of love probably than we're used to understanding. It was a combination of romance, of sex, well, erotic desire, of, of mentorship. So we can't map our modern ideas onto it easily.

• 12:19Liv Albert?

  Similarly, can I just add, like, I do, I agree with all of that to a degree, but I think it's also important to reference that it wasn't necessarily accepted all the way around as being like always an okay thing. And there's like, there's a lot of murky questionability on, in terms of like consent and stuff. Like, I think it's really interesting to talk about, but yeah. It's hard to, it's, it's also important not to map it onto modern homosexuality because there's also this added like, there's like a bit of a question of coercion and stuff like that, that. Adds a weird level.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, and and also, you know, often what we're talking about is like the Athenian version of this institution. It existed everywhere in different ways and with different emphases, right?

• 13:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  It was different. They had different words for the lover and the beloved. I think one of them is, one of them I always remember is espnelos, which means the inspirer. That that was the word instead of the lover. So there and that was much more of an emphasis on, I think that's at Sparta, that that's what they call it. And that's much, there's much more of an emphasis on the mentorship and educational function of pederasty. But yes, I take your point. At the same time, I mean, you know, the the definition of consent, even the definition of age, right, relative age shifts historically. So these things are all socially constructed and we have to, I think it's easier for us to come at it from a place of trying to understand it on the Greek terms, rather than just being like, rather than writing it off as like, this is creepy.

• 13:47Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's a little in between. Yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  It's not to say it isn't creepy.

• 13:50Liv Albert?

  No. And today, it would be very creepy, but back then, it was not always creepy. And also one thing, it's important to also remember, because people love to like harp on the issue of age when it comes to pederasty, like how young the boys could have been. But what they often don't include alongside that is that the girls were marrying at the same age. So it wasn't like,

• 14:12Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 14:13Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 14:13Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 14:14Liv Albert?

  It was like ick, it was equal ick, you know, in terms of how we see it today, like age wise, it wasn't like,

• 14:20Speaker 04

  Everyone is terrible. Please remember that.

• 14:23Liv Albert?

  Equal opportunity ick.

• 14:26Liv Albert?

  It was a problem all around. Yeah, it definitely wasn't a gay problem. It was a like power dynamic

• 14:33Speaker 04

  Exploitation.

• 14:33Liv Albert?

  Problem. Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I think that's something that's, that's really important to to keep in mind is that like, this is just such a different world. And the last thing I'll say about pederasty, and something that I think is always interesting, just on that, on that last point, is that a lot of these myths were created for a society that was made out of really tightly knit city-states, right, that are essentially little like, Corporation, like many corporations governing themselves, going to war with one another. Like it's very

• 15:01Liv Albert?

  Tiny kingdoms.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Tiny kingdoms, tiny, tiny kingdoms. Pederasty, to my mind, is a way of building ties between men in these societies, right? So if you're a tiny little society that's always at war and has to govern itself the right way, you have to figure out how to make ties to as many people as possible in the community. So I think that's something to keep in mind also. Like, one way of doing that was obviously marriage.

• 15:25Liv Albert?

  I was gonna say, yeah. In that same way that marriage fits into that, yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  Exactly, but this was another added layer. And the fact that pederasty was primarily an aristocratic concept, institution, even though people from other classes were brought into it, kind of gives you a hint that it was believed to have that function as well. They're not educating younger boys in these relationships for their health. Like, it's because they need smart young men who are gonna lead the city in the next generation, you know? So I think that's an interesting thing to keep in mind of, like, why do people need this institution? It serves a sociological, political function as well. But let's get to the stories, because that's why we're here, that's the fun part. So for each of the celebrity couples that I told you the stories of already, kind of

• 16:12Speaker 04

  in brief, we're gonna go through them, we're gonna get to the death of the bottom, or the beloved, however you prefer to say it, and ask, what the fuck is going on here? Act One: Heracles and Hylas are Scared of Girls. So let's begin with, and I say Heracles on this podcast.

• 16:33Liv Albert?

  You are damn right.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  Not Hercules. I'm not using no fucking romanized spellings. I'm not using Roman names. We all know Heracles as Hercules. We all hopefully know the Disney film, which

• 16:47Liv Albert?

  Zero to hero, just like that?

• 16:48Speaker 04

  Just like, every time I say the word Hercules, someone in my brain says, honey, you mean Hunkules.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  I like, I just can never get that out of my brain. But Heracles is not the bumbling, gangly teenager of the Disney film in the ancient imagination. Even though, love that movie, it is one of the best movies ever written.

• 17:08Liv Albert?

  I maintain, sorry, this is maybe not the time, but I say it every possible opportunity. I maintain, and I have said this to some of the top scholars in the field. Disney's Hercules is the most mythologically accurate piece of reception we have on film.

• 17:25Speaker 04

  Fucking obsessed with that, and I hope you've done an episode on that because I want to hear the full rant.

• 17:30Liv Albert?

  You know what I should do a full, I haven't, I haven't entirely, and now I simply must, so thank you.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, invite me on that, please. So to the ancient Greeks, like I remember when I first read a, in college, a play where Heracles features. My professor described him as like the Don Juan of the, of the Greek, kind of like demigods. Like, he is all man because he beds everyone he meets. He's like always having sex, both genders. He's strong, he fucks, he eats, like, he is just the.

• 18:02Liv Albert?

  He wears girls' clothes sometimes. Oh, I guess you're going for the masculine side, sorry.

• 18:07Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 18:07Liv Albert?

  Come back to the other side.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  He's so, he's so masked that he can wear girls' clothes and no one looks twice. No, but I mean, like, he is the preeminent model of maleness in the Greek mythological imagination. In the same way that, you know, like Zeus kind of epitomizes a certain type of like male stature. Like, Heracles is the guy who can fight, who can fuck, who can do it all. So in, in this story, what we're, what happens is he falls in love with this younger kid, teaches him everything he knows, and then they go away together. And basically, we meet Heracles and his younger love, Hylas, in a not great situation where he's basically being taken as a hostage from his family.

• 18:52Speaker 04

  So Heracles, as he frequently does, is roaming around and meets a king who he doesn't like named Theodamus. And he's kind of like a country bumpkin, you know, backwoods king, says something catty that Heracles doesn't like. Heracles kills the shit out of him and takes his son in addition on as an apprentice. Except Heracles is very smitten with the young, beautiful Hylas. TBC on what Hylas thinks of being abducted by his father's murderer. Maybe didn't love having to be the errant boy for some psychotic stranger.

• 19:28Liv Albert?

  But he's hot.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  But he's hot. Like, that's the thing. I do often think of the Heracles statue in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is just like, thick, thick with two Cs, rippling and thick.

• 19:40Liv Albert?

  I think of the Farnesi in Naples, which where is, like, I have a close up of his ass.

• 19:49Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 19:51Liv Albert?

  I think Farnesi is like peak, like, big, big, hot Hercules. But, well, it is.

• 19:56Speaker 04

  This is big, hunky, zaddy. This is the kind of chaotic, zaddy energy that I think Heracles was bringing to the tale of Hylas. So, so for whatever, you know, Hylas doesn't have much of a choice. They, they go on together. He can't help but be impressed by this paragon of male strength and skill. You know, Heracles knows how to do everything. He's great with the bow and arrow. He's great with the club. He's great with, with everything he touches. And he gladly teaches Hylas everything that he knows, which is very much the role of the erastes, of the older lover in the pederastic relationship. You're meant to like, kind of guide them on becoming, becoming a man.

• 20:38Speaker 04

  And he's eventually very chuffed to see the young Hylas grow into a fine young man. And that is when Heracles and Hylas are called, along with every other major hero at the time in Greece, to voyage with Jason on the Argo in search of the golden fleece. So, so Hylas has grown up a lot, but he's still in the flower of youth, as the Greeks love, love to say. And they arrive in Mycia in northern Turkey. They've got to rest for a while, so they find a beautiful field, take out the couches for a feast. And then Hylas runs off to get Heracles his water for the evening because twinks have to do everything. Unfortunately for Hylas, he stumbles upon a trio. Sometimes it's one nymph, sometimes it's a trio, dancing by the spring and they are

• 21:23Speaker 04

  immediately infatuated with him because he's hot. And so he dips his pitcher into the stream to get some water for Thaddeus.

• 21:32Liv Albert?

  Dips his pitcher into the stream.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, close reading analysis of that coming up. They, the nymphs reach out because they're so obsessed with him and pull him in and Hylas is terrified and calls out to Heracles as loud as his little gay voice can carry, but he is in fact underwater and smothered in nymphs, river nymphs. So it all gets muffled. Eventually, a few hours pass, Heracles is like, where's my fucking water? And grabs his weapons, starts roving around, starts going a little insane looking for him. So he calls for him over and over, but he can't hear Hylas's cries because let's just be clear, Hylas has gone to live with the nymphs means he is now drowned and dead. So Heracles goes crazy, wandering around, wandering around, and he actually misses

• 22:18Speaker 04

  the boat to get back onto the argo to go sail for the golden fleece. Eventually, in this version, Hylas appears to him in a dream and says, don't worry, I'm actually kind of loving living with the ladies in the stream. And so Heracles is finally freed from his, you know, erotic madness and goes on his merry way. What does it all mean? First reactions, Liv.

• 22:44Liv Albert?

  I mean, Hylas is an interesting one because we really get a sense of Heracles's devotion, which I think is like kind of lacking from a lot of the other stories. I think it represents the most sort of obvious Athenian, pederistic relationship where, like you say, like he's like kind of got Hylas to that point in the mentorship where that relationship finds its, you know, supposedly natural end and he's supposed to just get over it. And then maybe he's an example of like how hard that sometimes was for, you know, either side in it.

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• 25:33Liv Albert?

  But it's interesting too, because we don't have particularly ancient versions of that story in comparison to some of the others.

• 25:39Speaker 04

  I was just gonna say, this is very much taken from a poem written by a third century B.C. poet named Theocritus, who's kind of, I mean, he writes a lot about Petrarasty. This is the 13th idyll where he tells the story of Hyliss. And what's interesting is that it gets picked up by later writers. In the Roman Empire, Propertius writes about Hyliss and, and basically has a line in one of his poems where he's like advising one of his friends on a relationship with a younger boy or adolescent or whatever. And he's like, "Don't entrust that beautiful Hyliss of yours to the nymphs." And basically what he's saying is like, "You have to be careful about letting these young men around women.

• 26:21Speaker 04

  A, because young men are horny, and B, because there, I think what's also going on here is that there's like a fear of feminine sexuality, as there so often is in, in the ancient world."

• 26:34Liv Albert?

  No. That's not like half my career at this point.

• 26:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, pointing that out is my day job. The, the women, the nymphs in this story are very much given that kind of sexual agency of like, they want Hyliss and they take him. But I, I think that's, it's a really interesting kind of, it sort of smacks to me of the modern misogyny that we sometimes get from gay men, you know, of like, stay away from women, they're, they're pulling focus, you know? There is this anxiety, I mean, we know also from other ancient sources that homosexual love and sex was very much compared to heterosexual love and, and sex, with many writers writing in favor of Petrarasty because they were misogynist, because they thought that the

• 27:21Speaker 04

  love between men was like, you know, more sublime or, or whatever the fuck, whatever nonsense. So I, I also see that in this. I see a sort of like reflection of that contemporary, there's the sort of long- Longstanding anxiety, I think, in this tradition of Peter Asti around, okay, these boys have to grow up at some stage. And that typically means going and getting married to a woman eventually. And so it's like, what do we do with that? These relationships have a built in expiration date effectively. And then there's the other kind of more contemporary reflection, contemporary in their time of like this weird misogyny, where they're basically afraid of female sexuality impinging on their relationships.

• 28:04Liv Albert?

  It's hard to untie that from, because, I mean, that's so much of Greek myth, right? Like, I mean, I don't want to say 90%, it's probably more than 90%, but let's be fair. So, so much of Greek myth revolves around fear of women's sexuality and fear of like the reproductive power of a uterus as compared to men. And so it's really interesting to then see how that clashes with how they felt about same gender relationships. Generally Peter Asti, but also just the broad idea of, of men loving other men. Like, it's an interesting way that that clashes because, I mean, they were very afraid of women being sexually free, regardless of the situation.

• 28:48Liv Albert?

  And I think those nymphs really specifically, but the stories of nymphs more broadly too. Like, I mean, I just can't unsee recently, I've, I've done, well, not recently, but over the last year, I did some digging into things that I just truly cannot unsee about this fear that the men had. And I say men in that case, in that way of like, the patriarchal powers at, like, they feared women. And so you can kind of pick that out of so many stories. And having this one where Heracles, who is like so famously manly, but also so famously fertile, like the man has so many children. And, you know, so having that story where he.

• 29:31Liv Albert?

  He's kind, has his lover stolen by a woman? You know, there's, there, if, there's a lot kind of happening there, I think, but in terms of like, yeah, just how, what, what's kind of part of the, the ancient Greek psyches we can like dig out from a story like that?

• 29:47Speaker 04

  And I loved what you said also about like, if you read this story, I think through ancient Greek eyes, it is kind of touching as well, how driven to madness Heracles is. I mean, the flip side of that is that, and this is a theme that we'll see in our next story, in both of our next stories, actually, is that Eros is dangerous in the, in the Greek imagination. You know, like in modern life, love is the best thing that can happen to you. In the ancient world, Eros is a tricky subject because while it can be the inspirer of, you know, a love of the good and the beautiful in Plato, for example, and it can, you know, create these beautiful relationships, it also drives you mad. It drives you to do

• 30:30Speaker 04

  completely irrational things. And for the Greek man, for the Greek male especially, being in control of your irrational self is what makes you a man. It's what makes you a Greek. So I also could see, like, I, I see the touching side of it. And then I also see the kind of warning side of it of like, look at how Heracles is acting a fool, running around, you know, driven to this level of, of madness over this young boy. I think we have to ask our ancient audiences meant to hear that and be like, is that normal? Methinks you might be a little too obsessed, my lord.

• 31:03Liv Albert?

  Story of Heracles though, too, because it's like.

• 31:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, he does that a lot.

• 31:07Liv Albert?

  Yeah, like this is not the only time that he is driven to madness in relation to a relationship, really. I think it's also interesting to, to think about the ways, like just the way you said Eros is dangerous. In that way, we mean Eros, the concept of love, but also Eros, the divinity and Aphrodite is the divinity like associated with that. But. You know, it's, it's kind of hard to wrap your head around how they understood this type of thing because love was something that was both natural and inflicted by the gods. But the implication there is actually that like all forms of love are divine, like divinely inspired, good or bad. And I think it's interesting to kind of look at how they

• 31:51Liv Albert?

  just understood those kinds of emotions. Like, there is this element that you do control yourself, but simultaneously, there is this element that the gods control it.

• 32:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, that's such an interesting point. We need to keep that in mind, especially as we go on to this next one, because this is really another interesting story where we're sort of, I think, meant to be asking ourselves, is all this love always a good thing? Act Two, Apollo and Hyacinth, or A Tale of Two Tops.

• 32:21Liv Albert?

  Or a frisbee tragedy, as I tell it in my episode.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  Gay frisbee gone wrong. So Apollo, famously the god of prophecy, music, and this is what's confusing. He's the god of lots of great things. He's the god of prophecy, the god of music, healing, light. And we, we meet him kind of just, you know, minding his business for once, doing god stuff at one of his shrines, when he suddenly comes across this, the most beautiful youth the world has ever seen. And just spoiler alert, this is like the 12th time that a god has come across the most beautiful youth in the world. So he, the youth happens to be in Sparta, and he's just hanging out there minding his business. Apollo starts making inquiries. Turns out that the hottie's name is Hyacinth,

• 33:08Speaker 04

  or Huacintus, as it would be in Greek. And he is the son of the Spartan king. Surprise, if you're hot, you're also rich and noble. So, oh, and the other thing about Hyacinth is he happens to be taken. He's already the beloved of a local renowned musician named Thamyrus, which Apollo obviously thinks is a giant joke, given that he is literally the god of music. So in most toxically gay fashion, Apollo sabotages Thamyrus by- By reporting to the nine biggest divas in all of Greece, the muses, that Themeras has been talking smack about them, saying he can sing and strum the lyre better than any of them.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  Now, because this is Greek mythology, they dream up a completely benign punishment for Themeras, which is to strike him dumb and blind and erase all memory of music from his brain. Cool.

• 34:01Liv Albert?

  Apollo's a dick. This is what I'm saying.

• 34:03Speaker 04

  Apollo is such a dick.

• 34:04Liv Albert?

  Apollo is terrible.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  And what's ironic for Apollo in this story is that he then has to deal with yet another suitor. This time it's another god, the west wind, Zephyrus, who challenges Apollo to a contest for the beautiful boy Hyacinth. Finally, the day of the contest comes. Zephyrus gets up, does something nifty with the wind, and Hyacinth is like, "Not bad." Then Apollo takes out his bow and arrow, famous for being the archer, and shoots an arrow that sings through the air. So he's really combining his specialties here, and it's like musical arrows. Hyacinth's panties drop at this. Obviously, there's nothing like a guy who's into music and who is also a god.

• 34:52Speaker 04

  And so Apollo and Hyacinth spend all their time together. The god teaches Hyacinth all these things that boys need to know, like hunting and gymnastics and music. And actually, that's kind of it. That's all that a Greek boy needs to know. Hunting, gymnastics, and music. You're good.

• 35:09Liv Albert?

  Wrestling. Toss in some wrestling. We love naked wrestling.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  Toss in some wrestling.

• 35:14Liv Albert?

  Yeah. We love naked wrestling.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  And assorted track and field. Assorted track and field, as we'll see. Naked, because one day they decide to have a friendly naked game of discus, i.e. ancient metal frisbee. So they strip down, they lube their bodies up in olive oil to throw a metal disc around, not really sure how being slathered in oil is conducive to throwing and catching a metal disc.

• 35:38Liv Albert?

  And let's just clarify here that this is not, this detail, not just myth. This is just how they competed in any athletic games. And I think it's important that people understand that. That's real life. Naked, oiled up, wrestling, discus, sprinting, like whatever you want. It's gotta be naked and you gotta be oiled to shit.

• 36:01Speaker 04

  It's just, I mean, I guess in my mind, I'm sort of like, sounds hot, but then I'm also like, how do you wrestle with your bits flying all over the place?

• 36:08Liv Albert?

  And like, well, no, oh, let me tell you, oh, my God, do you want to hear actually what happened? Because they had a string and they tied it. They, they had a string. It had a name. I forget the name of the string, but they took a little string and they tied it around their little dick and then they tied it and they tucked it under and then they tied it up in a nice little bow, so it didn't fly around.

• 36:27Speaker 04

  Wow, the, so it's kind of like a reverse drag queen tuck.

• 36:31Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:33Liv Albert?

  But just like naked, so with a little bow.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  Naked with a, with a scrotum bow.

• 36:37Liv Albert?

  Yeah. I did an episode on the ancient Olympics with a friend of mine who studies ancient spectacle and oh, my God, that part of the conversation, I'll never forget it. I'll never forget it.

• 36:47Speaker 04

  That, that, it's, it's an image seared into my brain. So, so they're, they're slippery, they're slick, it's, there's burning hot sunlight, their sandy scrotums are tied up, right? And they're ready to throw around this big hunk of metal. Now creepy little Zephiris comes back into play. He's sort of sitting on the sidelines unbeknownst to the two lovers, Apollo and Hyacinth. And Apollo decides to show off a bit, so he gathers all of his strength and he hurls the discus as far as he possibly can. And Hyacinth runs out to catch it because as we have already seen, the twink has to do everything in Greek mythology.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  Now, Zephiris senses an opportunity here and he decides to blow, blow, blow the west wind, AKA himself, just right, so that the discus slams into Hyacinth's temple and bashes his brain in. Again, a totally reasonable response for getting turned down for a date. So Apollo is then unable, Apollo rushes to Hyacinth's side, but in a truly, one of the biggest plot holes in Greek mythology, is unable to fix his poor beloved's gushing brains, despite being the literal god of healing and can do nothing but hold him in his arms until he expires. But don't worry, he then promises-

• 38:10Speaker 04

  Gives him a silver lining. Apollo is gonna help hyacinth live forever by A, singing his name, you know, and I guess we are still talking about him, so that did kind of work. And by turning him into the hyacinth flower, which shoots up every spring, a symbol of beauty, a symbol of renewal, of youth. And hyacinth is sort of like, okay, sounds good, and then dies. The end.

• 38:34Liv Albert?

  Totally normal.

• 38:35Speaker 04

  Really sweet, sweet consolation prize. Like, so what the hell does this one mean? Your thoughts, Liv. Over to you.

• 38:43Liv Albert?

  Oh, this one's wild. I'm gonna try not to just make this like, Liv dislikes Apollo hour, but I do think it's interesting to talk about him and generally how like the gods kind of function in this way, because this is a good example. Just the way you said, like, you know, he was like holding him as he dies. He's the god of healing. He can't do anything. And I think that that-

• 39:03Speaker 04

  My hands are tight, but I'll make you a flower.

• 39:04Liv Albert?

  Truly. His hands, his scrotum, they're all just like tied up and he can't do anything. So the thing is with Apollo and why, one of the other reasons I use to like make fun of him as a god, is that he is the god of all of these things, right? He's the god of music and, and healing and art. He's like the god of all of these things, archery, all of this. But almost every one of those things, he is like this, like, he's like a mid, he's like the, the CEO of those things. He is the god of them, but he doesn't actually do the work. Cause like Asclepius is his son. He's the full god of medicine. He's the one who actually does

• 39:44Liv Albert?

  the healing. The muses are Apollo's, like, kind of, they're, they're not his children. They're basically his aunts or cousins, I guess.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  Cause they're, they're, are they Zeus's children?

• 39:55Liv Albert?

  They're Zeus and Nemoceany. So he, he like kind of works through them, but they do actually the inspiring. And then the oracle and prophecy, he's the god of prophecy, but all he does is give it to other people. He doesn't prophesy anything. And he, like, and he's the god of archery, but he's not even like the most famous archer in Greek mythology. You know, like that would maybe be his sister or even Eros. Like, he just is these, this god of so many things that are like, almost none of them does he actually do himself. Actually is Plague the only one that I could think of him actually doing himself.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  He's like, oh, this plague? I could get behind this.

• 40:32Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah, I'm a plague.

• 40:33Speaker 04

  Leave this one with me.

• 40:34Liv Albert?

  But so I just think he's this god who like takes credit for everything that other people do. And I just generally think that's an entertaining thing about him. But also, I think, I mean, he is a god who is sort of famous for regularly, quote unquote, falling in love and, you know, becoming infatuated is more likely becoming infatuated, becoming obsessed with somebody and then causing their death in the pursuit of that obsession. He does it with women, he does it with men. And so I think a lot of what's happening here symbolically is he's a god associated with young deaths, you know, a, a, a young person who dies too soon, who dies young.

• 41:16Liv Albert?

  He's associated with that. And so we have these kinds of stories about him, you know, kind of serving that role. He's definitely like, I mean, yeah, in a dark, in a dark kind of way. And I mean, I don't want to just, he's obviously also a queer god, and I think that is interesting. I think he's like equal opportunity defiler. That's maybe not the best way to follow up, calling him a queer god, but like, I think it's true. But I just think it's, I, I think it's indicative of him and maybe some of these things that he is the god of, that he never loves permanently. He doesn't have any lovers who don't have terrible deaths.

• 41:55Liv Albert?

  Or if he does, I certainly can't think of any, you know, he, he loves a lot of people who die terribly. And it is interesting that it's, you know, people of all genders.

• 42:07Speaker 04

  Slash vegetally, like a lot of people are being turned into plants and trees.

• 42:12Liv Albert?

  And animal, you know, Cronus is another of his lovers. She, she died because he loved her and she got turned into like a crow. Like there's, you know, there's, there's a lot, or maybe it was because of a crow. I don't know. But you know, there's a lot of, of these kinds of transformations. And so, you know, it also is like saying something about this, you know, the, the introduction of a hyacinth flower. And it's saying a lot about the youthful nature of Spartans and kind of what they are interested in. And, you know, it says a lot while also being like a depressing story about someone who died in a frisbee tragedy. I'm gonna, I know it's not clever enough for me to keep saying it, but I will anyway.

• 42:56Speaker 04

  No, but I love what you were saying about Apollo being a taker. Like, he is, he is kind of exploitative and manipulative in this story, in a lot of stories. But in this story, in a way that I think reflects, like, almost models, again, kind of dangerous behavior, that the reason I call it a tale of two tops is because, and actually, it's a tale of three tops if you, if you count Themeras, like, this level of competition for younger men's affections, attention, is, is a source of strife, potentially, you know? If we're thinking about this from that kind of like sociological lens, like, you have this institution where the, the prettiest young men get chosen by the older men to

• 43:41Speaker 04

  be in these relationships, which are publicly known. They reflect on the young man, they reflect on the older lover as well. And it's almost like Apollo is modeling, like, really bad behavior of, like, strong arming his way in, you know? In a way, I wonder if, like, Hyacinth has to die in this in order to kind of pull on our heartstrings and show, like, look, like, the gods are fucking insane, and A, love, love makes you do crazy things, including turning boys into flowers. But also, this is like, this is part of the danger of love, is that it can become so competitive. Like, it, it's interesting that it's, like, the Greeks were obsessed with contests and

• 44:22Speaker 04

  competition, and it's interesting that there's both a, a romantic erotic competition going on here and an actual game, a frisbee tragedy, as you, as you put it, you know? There's, there's kind of, there's, there's a kind of poetic elegance to, to that structure.

• 44:38Liv Albert?

  Well, and you reminded me of something, I'm gonna forget who first voiced this thought to me, but it wasn't my own, but there is also something to be said for, you know, you, you mentioned much earlier, I think, so I'll remind everyone, but that Apollo is not meant to be old, Apollo is meant to be

• 44:57Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:57Liv Albert?

  perpetually youthful. And I think that's important, too. There's also something to be said for Apollo and Hyacinthus and and Zephyr, Zephyr too. And like, there are versions, if I recall, where Zephyr and Apollo were kind of switched in terms of like, who seems to be like, more interested, actually, in Hyacinth's fate. But regardless, both of those gods are perpetually young. They're both always depicted as youthful. And so I think there's something to be said for this story also representing the wrong way to do these types of relationships and why

• 45:38Liv Albert?

  that ends up, you know, with a death because the, you know, for all that the Greeks, and we say this broadly, but like, a lot of what we know does come from Athens in terms of these relationships. So like, for all that we, you know, want to talk about, they were pretty open to having, you know, same gender lover. Well, as long as they were men, they didn't really care about women. But like, they were very open to having, you know, men having these relationships. But it was really explicitly culturally acceptable when the other was younger. I think that a story where they are ostensibly of like, a similar age range, gets to this thing that they were navigating themselves, which is that they didn't have

• 46:22Liv Albert?

  a way to culturally accept that type of relationship. Because they were still always, like, the, the pederastic relationships served as that mentorship, as that, like, they were kind of like this coming of age thing. And then the expectation was, as soon as the younger one gets old enough, he goes off, he marries a woman because he's got to have babies, you know? And so I think this is also telling a part of the story where it's like, well, if they're both young, like, this really doesn't work because we don't have a way to navigate that type of long term relationship. We still are, you know, going along with this. They, they had to make babies. And in Sparta, too, actually,

• 47:02Liv Albert?

  now that I remind, I'm reminded of that, too. But in Sparta, making babies was the biggest thing because Sparta was a horrific slave state where they had such a small Spartan population because they were so, so xenophobic. And the structures around Spartan.

• 47:20Liv Albert?

  Births were such that like they had a very small population and making more was important because they had to keep their slave class in check, which their slave class was like three times the size of their actual populations. It was like not a good idea. They were terrible for that. But so there's also something to be said there about that Spartan thing coming in and how they were so concerned with making babies that like they can't have this kind of relationship thrive because that goes against that like propagandic nature. Yeah.

• 47:49Speaker 04

  No, but I hadn't thought about it as from that vantage point of sort of like Apollo is also modeling kind of improper behavior for the for the effie, but you know, for the kind of the young man in the 18 to 20 ish range.

• 48:03Liv Albert?

  Yeah, but he's supposed to be the bottom and he's being the top.

• 48:07Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, but you're supposed to grow up like you're supposed to kind of move beyond that these pederastic relationships where which are appropriate when you're a younger adolescent, you know, aged 13 to 17, let's say those ages kind of changed throughout antiquity. But, but, but it's time to move on. Once you age out, it's not time to look back and now get, get your own eruminos.

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• 50:42Speaker 04

  I do think, I mean, the Greek Soviet, like, you think about the Warren Cup, you know? Like, they have the Ephib and the young boy on one side, and then the kind of adolescent Ephib-ish and older man on the other side. Like, I think that these are two, that's obviously a later artifact from, like, you know, I think it's first century AD. Oh, my God. It's my favorite.

• 51:05Liv Albert?

  I mean, I might know it. I just don't know the name of it, but...

• 51:09Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Hold on. I gotta show you this. Gotta show you this.

• 51:12Liv Albert?

  Thank you.

• 51:13Speaker 04

  So this is like, older guy adolescent on one side, and then on the other side, and this is like, they're kind of in a brothel or something like that, but then on the other side, you have this.

• 51:24Liv Albert?

  Oh.

• 51:26Speaker 04

  On the other side, you have much younger boy and kind of Ephib, Ephib age. You know, he really maps on to the adolescent from the other side. So anyway, it's just to say like, I totally agree with what you're saying. But then also I think there that the Greeks acknowledged that this kind of relationship did happen. You know, and like, and that it was a kind of another natural form of pederasty. I'm not sure we can call it pederasty if it's like too.

• 51:57Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 51:58Speaker 04

  Pre 25 year olds, but like it's, it was another form that they had to deal with and like work through. But it's interesting to think about that of like, especially in the Spartan context of you are not doing the right thing. When you are busying yourself with like pretty young things at the age, at the Ephib age range. And I, and I think also just to bring it back to Heracles, like this is tying into the theme of like, Eros is a danger, a potentially dangerous force in that, you know, Zephros is also in love with Hyacinth. Like he, he's the one in who, who knocks the discus into his head and kills the, kills the, the kid.

• 52:42Speaker 04

  So this is also a demonstration of like, even the gods are not impervious to the dangers of Eros, to the irrationality that it can lead you to. So in that way, I feel like this story is a lesson to like chill the fuck out.

• 52:58Liv Albert?

  I feel like that's so much of Greek mythology.

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Like calm the fuck down maybe for a second before you kill someone else. They, and they never do. And you know what? That is the perfect segue for our final act on Achilles and Patroclus.

• 53:15Liv Albert?

  Are you telling me that they are not chilled the fuck out?

• 53:19Speaker 04

  Well, we will see. Achilles pretends he's chill for a little too long.

• 53:23Liv Albert?

  In the underworld, they're chill.

• 53:25Speaker 04

  And that's right, right, right, right. Sweet, sweet, sweet death brings some chill to them. Act three, Achilles and Patroclus, From Comrades to Comrags.

• 53:36Speaker 04

  I was particularly proud of that, I just have to say.

• 53:41Liv Albert?

  And you should be.

• 53:42Speaker 04

  I was really proud of that one occurring to me last night at 10:00 PM. So, everyone knows this story. This is the Iliad. This is the Song of Achilles. But just in case you missed it, just in case you've been living under a rock for 3,000 years.

• 53:59Liv Albert?

  Go read that book first, and then the Iliad. Maybe the Iliad first.

• 54:05Speaker 04

  I would say, I would say, read the Iliad first. It is actually, it's really good.

• 54:09Liv Albert?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:09Speaker 04

  I read it recently.

• 54:10Liv Albert?

  And read Emily Wilson's.

• 54:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. No, it's good. I also read my most extra bitch thing that I ever, extra Greek mythology bitch thing that I ever did was go to Greece alone for two weeks and read The Odyssey on the beach. And it was one of the best two weeks of my life. I'm just gonna tell you right now.

• 54:28Liv Albert?

  I mean, I've spent two weeks in Greece alone, and that's good enough. But yeah, adding The Odyssey, there's nothing wrong with that.

• 54:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Except it's so like, it's so basic in a way, but it was like, I had like, the best time of my life. Back to the Iliad. So, Paris is a prince of Troy. He comes to Sparta and selfishly absconds with Helen, the most beautiful mortal in all of the world, yet again, another one. She is unfortunately, inconveniently, the bride of Menelaus. And as many of us know, everyone in Greece goes over to Troy to fight for this one single woman. Amongst them is Achilles, swift-footed Achilles. He is the fiercest fighter in all of Greece.

• 55:11Speaker 04

  So halfway into the war, a debate about a Trojan woman, Briseus, who is kind of, you know, a, what's called a spear prize in this horrific patriarchal world where, you know, the Greeks are pillaging towns around Troy in the lead up to the siege, well, during the siege of the city, because they need to feed their army. And so Briseus is one of these captive women. Agamemnon tries to take her away from Achilles, and that lands them in a spat. That is kind of where we start in the Iliad. So Achilles refuses to fight after his spoils are not properly allotted to him.

• 55:49Speaker 04

  Poor, poor, poor little Achilles.

• 55:51Liv Albert?

  She's just the, the woman, the individual human being that he stole from her entire life and family. Somebody else stole her.

• 56:00Speaker 04

  Give her to me, she's mine. Achilles is of, of, of royal descent. He is famously the daughter of the son of a nymph, a sea nymph, Thetis. So that also gives-

• 56:11Liv Albert?

  The biggest and baddest sea nymph. But there's also like, there's all of this hidden evidence that she like has so much on the gods that she is like ultimately like their biggest threat. And that's why they like marry her off to Pelias instead of anyone else and why she also is like one of the only-

• 56:31Speaker 04

  They neutralize her.

• 56:33Liv Albert?

  They neutralize her and, but they can't even fully do it. And that's why she's the only goddess who is forced to marry a mortal and then leaves him.

• 56:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's, it's also super interesting that Achilles is the son of a goddess, you know? I mean, not that that's unheard of, like Aeneas is, is the son of, um-

• 56:53Liv Albert?

  Aphrodite.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  Aphrodite. But it does tend to be that the Greek hero, male Greek hero is the son of a, a male god. Also, I'm wondering if like the kind of non-normative divine mortal relationship of Thetis and Pelias like somehow carries down into Achilles in some way, being this like recalcitrant, stubborn figure who doesn't like, doesn't fit into the mold and kind of his relationship with Patroclus also doesn't fit into the mold. So Achilles comes from, you know, this, this weird relationship. He's also the lover or the beloved of Patroclus and leader of the fearsome Myrmidons. So-

• 57:34Liv Albert?

  Or the podcast bros will tell you that they were just friends and absolutely they were just pals and they were just like, they like to share a lady now and then, that's all.

• 57:44Speaker 04

  And they were roommates.

• 57:46Liv Albert?

  They were roommates.

• 57:47Speaker 04

  It's very that energy.

• 57:48Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 57:49Speaker 04

  And Patroclus goes along with him to the war, obviously. Achilles says he's taking a break from the war because he can't have his spear prizes. And the Greeks begin to lose badly. So Patroclus eventually has enough of this because he's like, hey buddy, at least let me like pretend to be you and borrow your armor and I can, I can scare off the Trojans because they're all so scared of you. They are actually burning our ships right now. Can we do this now, please? And Achilles is like, no, don't do that. But then, of course, tragedy. Poor Patroclus goes off and gets himself absolutely murdered because he does take the armor. He does charge. It does go well at first, but then Apollo sees him cutting down all of his favorite Trojans and takes him out.

• 58:31Liv Albert?

  Apollo's piece of shit.

• 58:32Speaker 04

  Apollo, Apollo, taking, taking, taking, taking from everyone. And then this devastating loss for Achilles actually goads him into action. So no more Mr. Nice hanging out in my tent Achilles. He now joins the battle with nothing but vengeance for his lover on his mind. And what's important just dramatically is like, we know, everyone knows that Achilles knows that he will die doing this, you know? His mother Thetis has told him he's fated to die and that specifically he's fated to die soon after Hector, the Trojan prince, who's the brother of Paris. And so Achilles kills Hector, knowing that it's going to eventually mean his own death as well.

• 59:14Speaker 04

  He also kills Hector and then abuses his corpse for days, presumably as some kind of, you know, sick gesture to his, to the dead Patroclus. So then Patroclus has to step in again because twinks have to do everything. Patroclus comes to him in a dream and says, okay, I love what you're doing. A for effort, but it's really kind of enough now. Please hurry up and die so that we can be together again, which also kind of toxic to be like. Hurry up and die so I can love you. So Achilles joins the battle again, absolutely crushing it. Apollo sees him and guides an arrow from Paris's bow straight to the warrior's precious little heel. And this is famously something that we don't see in the, in the Iliad, right?

• 59:56Speaker 04

  So that part is actually not really the dramatic climax of the Iliad. It's really more Patroclus's death and Achilles getting back into the action as a result of it. Eventually Achilles and Patroclus are buried together on the shores of Troy, their bones in one urn. And both of their souls are whisked away to the Isles of the Blessed, where they can live in conjugal bliss for eternity.

• 1:00:19Liv Albert?

  Roommates forever.

• 1:00:21Speaker 04

  Roommates, even in their urn.

• 1:00:23Liv Albert?

  Roommates, even in the urn. I know, it's so nice.

• 1:00:26Speaker 04

  So what does all of this mean? I mean, I love that I'm ending this episode with, what does the Iliad mean? But we're specifically asking like, how is this story working in terms of our understanding of ancient Greek homosexuality and paterasty? I mean, one thing to just say, who is Patroclus? Is he the lover or is he the beloved? My understanding seems to be that in Homer, in the OG version, Achilles is the younger of the two, which kind of aligns with his spoiled brat behavior and his overall characterization as this like hot-headed youth. But later authors like Iscalus, in a fragmented play, has Achilles being the older lover

• 1:01:08Speaker 04

  and talking to Patroclus's corpse about how much he loves his thighs and which is-

• 1:01:13Liv Albert?

  I wonder why.

• 1:01:14Speaker 04

  Which, yeah, roommates. And so, I mean, there's a little bit of, I think the story, like the emphasis does kind of change depending on what we're, what we're saying. You know, if it's like Patroclus being the responsible, older lover who's like, goes to battle and kind of like does what needs to be done. It kind of changes it from Achilles avenging his younger, hot-headed Patroclus from going into battle and losing his life. But actually, I think like, they both die, so. So either way, like we can, we can read it any way, any way we want. But I don't know, what is your, what's your view on that? Do you feel like it changes the story, like how we're meant to read it?

• 1:01:59Liv Albert?

  So, I mean, I think I'll say first, I don't think it matters which of them is older. I mean, generally, the question of that is a later construct that's coming from a time when people were trying to put these labels on them. And that's interesting in itself. When it comes to the Iliad, we're looking at this story that was being developed over hundreds of years and, and workshopped and changed and adjusted until it was finally put into this form that we have, right? So I think what's most interesting about them is this kind of debate about, the debate, I guess, about whether they were, who was Erastus, who was Aromenos, like, or Erastes and Aromenos?

• 1:02:45Liv Albert?

  Because that's the debate that they were having in the classical period.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:49Liv Albert?

  But they were also trying to, to map that relationship onto their classical period culture. Whereas it very much predated that. So, I mean, I think, I think Achilles and Patroclus are a better example of a much more human relationship. And by that, I mean, like, one that was coming about from natural love and affection, rather than these kind of cultural norms that are then being ascribed later. I feel like in, in the Song of Achilles, it's, it's been a long time since I read that. But it feels to me more like they're, they're on the same kind of level. They're age mates, as we might say.

• 1:03:32Speaker 04

  They are, yeah.

• 1:03:33Liv Albert?

  Yeah. And I think that that's so much more interesting because it feels to me like this is like a very real relationship that they developed, just like anyone would today, you know, with that kind of. I guess, freedom to be themselves and be together because it's also coming from this time period where we don't necessarily know the expectations or the like, understanding around same gender relationships and like whether those were, you know, ever, you know, acceptable or what have you like. And then also, I wonder if there's something to be said for the fact that Achilles knows he's going to die. And so because of that, we

• 1:04:13Liv Albert?

  kind of get this sense that the typical concerns of an adult man don't necessarily apply. And so then

• 1:04:23Speaker 04

  Oh, interesting. Yeah.

• 1:04:24Liv Albert?

  Right? Like, and so then we have this question of like, well, is he allowed to be in this kind of relationship with Patroclus because there's no expectation of him to have a child in the more traditional sense? Like, he does, of course, have a child, you know, but, but that's sort of like this, this sort of side quest story that happens before the events of the Iliad. And so instead, yeah, we just get this, this kind of, I think that what's most interesting about it is that it asks all of these questions. It has no answers. Yeah, I think it's just much more interesting to think of it as like this thing that kind of lives in a separate world from most of the other myths because it kind of does. And I think that shows in the story itself.

• 1:05:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, it's interesting. You, you say that of like Achilles by accepting his death is kind of like not an adult man. I think there is a trans historical thing here of like modeling the intense commitment of comrades at arms, which like would have existed in, you know, earlier archaic Greece and carried through to the Hellenistic period. It gets that added layer of pederasty added to it, maybe as we move into the classical age, although it could also have been that in, in, in, you know, the Homeric kind of in that era when it's being, when it's being workshopped, as you, as you said, in which

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  case, like, I still think there are interesting questions to ask around, like, is Patroclus kind of like the responsible? One, is he the patriotic one versus Achilles? I mean, what's interesting, if it is a Peterastic relationship is that Achilles is the talented one. He doesn't need Patroclus's sort of mentorship. That's also a different construct because that mentorship aspect doesn't really apply. Like Achilles is the son of a god s and knows and is the fiercest fighter in all of Greece. But maybe what he does need is like some emotional maturity, you know?

• 1:06:24Liv Albert?

  That's what I was gonna say. I feel like they, I feel like, and this is like another, I mean, sort of example towards like them being sort of on this similar level, which is that I think that they serve the role for each other, like Patroclus is level headed in a way that Achilles is not. And Achilles is like, has the lust for war in a way that Patroclus does not. Like, he's much more gentle in a way that Achilles is not. And so I think they almost level each other out, balance each other out in a way that again, I think, shows us a much more interesting example of of this relationship that's like much more on like a level playing ground.

• 1:07:07Liv Albert?

  But also, I think, you know, and just to keep in line with this idea that like, yeah, when the Iliad was out there being workshopped, Peterasty very well could have, you know, been just as prominent. But I think maybe what's happening there is we're getting a sense, and this might be just this kind of like a hope and dream for me, but like, we're getting a sense of maybe what non-Athenian relationships in that vein looked like. Because Athens in general, in terms of of power structure and sexual and relationship dynamics is like the most toxic of all of the Greek world, right? Like for men and women.

• 1:07:46Liv Albert?

  And so, but we know that Peterasty started probably in Crete, or like at least Crete had it, like earlier, definitely in the archaic period. And so I think what's more interesting is to maybe imagine. That this is a sense of of other forms of pederastic relationships where the power dynamic wasn't quite so ick, like where it didn't have that Athenian ick to it, where maybe the mentorship relationship was more equal, where these people were were developing relationships based on, what I think is considerably more healthy, obviously, in a way where like the other person balances them out and kind of like, you know, keeps them grounded, whatever.

• 1:08:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:29Liv Albert?

  And so maybe that is still indicative of of these non-Athenian ways of of having those kinds of relationships.

• 1:08:37Speaker 04

  It's so interesting because also Achilles is like not, in some ways, he's not a good Greek. Like, he's he's not in control of himself. He's very motivated by his personal honor. He doesn't, he doesn't work for the community. You know, like, he abuses a corpse, which is one of the worst things that you can do. So that's interesting, too, of like, I think this extreme character being tempered by this kind of more reasonable source of love in the Iliad. So, yeah, really interesting and really different last one for us. Achilles goes too far. Patroclus also maybe, you know, is makes a mistake by stealing his armor and all of that.

• 1:09:22Speaker 04

  But I think we have to end it now by asking the question again. Why do bottoms always die? I have one answer. I kind of think bottoms die to teach tops a lesson. It's, I think, like, these are all different expressions of things that can go wrong or can be dangerous or can be tricky about pederastic relationships and about love more broadly. So in all of these, we have heroes or gods who are kind of driven to irrational lengths by love. Heracles and Hylas, it's sort of like, it's OK to have a boyfriend, but they need to grow up and you need to. Be okay with that, you know, there are more underage fish in the sea for you to go after.

• 1:10:05Speaker 04

  For Apollo and Hyacinth, it's like, okay, competing for boys is gonna happen, but chill the fuck out, otherwise you'll kill them. Or like, i- it's harmful to them in some way. And Achilles and Patroclus is more complex, but I think it is, again, posing this question of different types of love, like one that is very irrational and can drive you to terrible lengths, and then one that is more kind of level-headed and can maybe actually make people better people, which is a very Socratic idea as well. What do you think? Any other takeaways?

• 1:10:40Liv Albert?

  I mean, I, I agree with so much of that. And I think that, like, I almost wonder whether, you know, Greek mythology generally has basically no healthy love stories. I put this call out to people back when Twitter was like a thing that I was capable of being on, and I asked that question of like, I would like to hear if anyone has suggestions for Greek love stories that don't end in tragedy or aren't like widely problematic. And there was no answer. But I think that the Greeks really were, I don't want to make this about women, but I'm gonna just bring us in a tiny bit, because I just think that

• 1:11:21Liv Albert?

  the Greeks were so afraid of women, but I mean that in a way where I think that they were just baffled. They were baffled and they, in terms of like, men, which, you know, when we, when we say Greeks, unfortunately, we have to kind of refer to men because they didn't like, tell us anything about women, other than their own biases. But I think that they were so concerned with holding on to the power i- in their whole world, that they were generally incapable of understanding a healthy, or like a loving man and woman relationship, because they didn't really see it in that way. Like, it was very much about control and, and just carrying on the family line and kind of like tucking her away.

• 1:12:04Speaker 04

  Household management at best.

• 1:12:06Liv Albert?

  Exactly.

• 1:12:07Speaker 04

  Is the ideal.

• 1:12:08Liv Albert?

  And so I almost wonder whether they were more comfortable examining stories of love through male relationships?

• 1:12:17Liv Albert?

  And like what that kind of says, I mean, obviously, we're still talking about like, why do they die? But because I think that there is still that thing coming in of them being like, we're more comfortable examining this kind of love and devotion between men, but we still recognize that in order for like us to maintain our power, we have to use the women to make more men.

• 1:12:35Speaker 04

  That's such a fascinating take, though, that like so much of this comes down to fundamental misogyny that underlay Greek homosexuality, Greek pederasty. I mean, we've got to fall in love with the boys because the women are not real people is basically part of what goes into this institution's kind of rationale.

• 1:12:55Liv Albert?

  I think what that comes with, though, too, which is kind of interesting and like harder, because I feel like the the kind of reaction to that, that some people would have to what I said, is this devaluing of homosexual relationships, which obviously I don't mean it to. But I also think that that is coming from this modern, Western Christian lens, right? Because it's coming from this preexisting idea that that there is something quote unquote, wrong with same sex relationships, whereas the Greeks didn't have that, that didn't exist. And so there wasn't this existing bias. So it's like, the misogyny doesn't discount any of the gayness, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

• 1:13:36Speaker 04

  Yes, yes. Although, as we said at the top, we are talking about a different kind of gayness anyway. So it's like, but it doesn't, I think what, yeah, I agree with you, like, it doesn't invalidate the desire, the legitimacy of the love. And these are, you know, the reason we have myths exploring these themes is because these are, this is real love to the Greeks. This isn't just their creepy institution of pederasty. Like, it is a source of real romantic, passionate and spiritual desire and love. So they need these myths in some ways, I think, to to model different types of relationships and maybe like Plato thinks justify them on some level, but also explore like, who do

• 1:14:19Speaker 04

  they benefit? How can they go awry? The fact that we have lots of kids dying in them, I think, suggests an anxiety about what they do to the the these younger beloveds. But I think also for me, like, just reading, I mean, these are not myths that are really taught in in any detail. They kind of get relegated to like Zeus and Ganymede is kind of The origin story for the Trojan War. Hera goes and supports the Greeks because she's pissed off at, at her husband getting with a Trojan prince. You don't learn that because these, these myths have been sanitized. They've been valorized, they've been removed from the canon. So I think for me, there's just, there is like kind of a rediscovery of the gay Greek myths that needs to happen.

• 1:15:04Speaker 04

  And I hope this, this episode has been that. These myths show that they were wrestling with really deep questions and challenges that these relationships posed.

• 1:15:14Liv Albert?

  I think that this is all just so utterly interesting and I do, I mean, I love, I love to break down the bullshit. And obviously I talk a lot about the patriarchy because it's there. But I think that one thing that's like really difficult to tear, like to, to understand when we're in this, it's like to, to tear the Christianity out is to, because like, I think so much of how people see the ancient Greeks and all of their relationships is still through this like Western Christian lens. This idea that any culture inherently believed that men and women should be the only ones together. But I don't think that there is that inherent nature in any way.

• 1:15:58Liv Albert?

  Like what's interesting is to look at the way the Greeks understood these relationships as just being different. And like, people love to tell you, I mean, I'm sure you hear it all the time. I've certainly heard it on my show. There are people who would be the first to say that like the Iliad does not explicitly say that they were in a romantic relationship. And it's like, no, but we can read it. It's like right there.

• 1:16:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:18Liv Albert?

  Because there is this idea that like, you know, there is still an enormous group of people who were like, the Greeks were really straight. And you're like, what are you reading? What do you mean?

• 1:16:27Speaker 04

  Did you read the chapter on the scrotum time?

• 1:16:30Liv Albert?

  Truly, they were just not. But I also think it's really interesting, like the symposium is the thing that keeps sticking in my head because that's where, you know, we get this, this like debate about Achilles and Patroclus. And I think what's the thing that people don't get unless you're like really deep into that. But I think at the core is a piece of evidence that we have where like the, the classical Greeks, so like the ones we think of as these like perfect beacons of intelligence. Like they were not debating. Same-sex relationships being okay. They, that was not a question at all. The question was like, yeah, who was the top and who was the bottom? And what did that say about them?

• 1:17:09Liv Albert?

  And like, that's, you know, that's so foreign to us from this Western Christian lens.

• 1:17:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:17Liv Albert?

  Yeah, like, there's no assumption that there's anything wrong with that. It's the question of how you do it and when. Whereas I think when people come to it now, it's this idea that like, oh, you know, but like, God made men and women to make babies together. And it's like, the Greeks were concerned about the baby-making for sure, but that, it didn't come in to that. It was just about the physical ability to create a baby. Like, it wasn't about that kind of like, wrong or right or... And so I just, yeah, it's just really interesting to break that down and kind of like, just tease out what we can find once we sort of attempt to like shove aside that Christian lens that is really hard to get out of because it's like the whole goddamn world.

• 1:17:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, and read it, like, read these myths through their eyes, or at least try to, through the ancient, through the, through the prism of ancient sexuality, which is a fucking weird place.

• 1:18:09Liv Albert?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:09Speaker 04

  It is different.

• 1:18:10Liv Albert?

  Yeah, it's just so different.

• 1:18:13Speaker 04

  And that, you know, it doesn't make it wrong, but it is really different. So yeah, this has been so fascinating. I love doing this. I love chatting mythology with you. Thank you so much for all of your time and insight and patriarchal attack.

• 1:18:28Liv Albert?

  Thank you. It's my utter pleasure. It was so much fun.

• 1:18:33Speaker 04

  That's all for this week. Thank you so much for listening. And if it's your first time listening to a Historical Homos episode, first of all, welcome. You are officially one of our little historical hormones. It's a growing community of beautiful geniuses who read a lot and care about queer history and also smell really good. If you want to keep a breast and a testicle, of all things Historical Homos, you can follow us on Instagram and TikTok or sign up for our weekly email on our website at www.historicalhomos.com. Love you. Bye.

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