STUDIES IN CLASSICS Edited by Dirk Obbink & Andrew Dyck Oxford University/The University of California, Los Angeles A ROUTLEDGE SERIES STUDIES IN CLASSICS DIRK OBBINK AND ANDREW DYCK, General Editors SINGULAR DEDICATIONS Founders and Innovators of Private Cults in Classical Greece Andrea Purvis EMPEDOCLES An Interpretation Simon 'lrcpanier RHETORIC IN CICERo'S PRO BALBO Kimherly Anne Barher roR SALVATION'S SAKE Provincial loyalty, Personal Religion, and Fpigraphic Production in the Roman and fate Antique Near Fast Jason Moralce AMBITIOSA MoRs Suicide and Self in Roman Thought and [,iterature Timothy Hill A LINGUISTIC COMMENTARY ON LIVIUS ANDRONICUS Ivy Livingston ARISTOXENUS OF '[,\RENTUM AND TIIE BIRTII OF MUSICOLOGY Sophie Gibson HYPERBOREANS Myth and History in Celtic-Hellenic Contacts Timothy I~ Bridgman AUGUSTAN EGYPT The Creation of a Roman Province Livia Capponi NoTIIIN(; ORDINARY HERE Statius as Creator of Distinction in the Silvae Noelle K. Zeiner SEX AND TIIE SECOND-BEST C:J'fY Sex and Society in the Laws of Plato Kenneth Royce Moore SEX AND THE SECOND-BEST CITY SEx AND SocIETY IN THE LAws OF PLATO Kenneth Royce Moore I~ ~~o~;~;n~~:up LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2005 by Routledge Published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2005 Taylor & Francis. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.tandfebooks.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. ISBN: 9780415972734 (hbk) Library of Congress Card Number 2005013414 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moore, Kenneth Royce, 1972- Sex and the second-best city : sex and society in the Laws of Plato / Kenneth Royce Moore. p. cm. -- (Studies in classics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-415-97273-4 (alk. paper) I. Plato. Laws. 2. Sex--Greece--History to 1500. 3. Sex role--Greece--History to 1500. 4. Homosexuality--Greece--History to 1500. 5. Greece--Social conditions-- To 146 B.C. I. Title. II. Series: Studies in classics (Routledge (Finn)) (Unnumbered) HQl3.M56 2005 306.76'6'0938--dc22 2005013414 Contents Abbreviations Currency Conversion Series Editors' Foreword Acknowledgments Preface Chapter I Modern Theory, Ancient 'Sexuality' Chapter II vii IX xi xiii xv The Laws in Context 27 Chapter III Educating Magnesia: Developmental Psychology and Sex Role Stereotyping 55 Chapter IV ANdPEIA: A Special Definition for Magnesia 85 Chapter V Sex, the Myth of the Family and Plato's Stepchildren 109 Chapter VI A Brave New Femininity 147 Chapter VII Magnesian Moral Hygiene: Same-Sex Relations, Pleasure and Madness 173 V vi Contents Chapter Vil! General Conclusions 211 Notes 223 Bibliography 295 Index 309 Abbreviations PLC DK Diels- Schubart CH GPM FGrH PCG IC LS] Frag. ep. FHG TGF RP Bergk, Theodor ed. Poetae Lyrici Graeci, 4th edition. Teubner: Leipzig, 1878-82. Diels, Hermann ed. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, I 0th edition, ed. by W Kranz. Weidmann: Berlin, 1951-2. Diels, Hermann and Wilhelm Schubart eds. Anonymer Kommentar zu Platons Theaetet (Papyrus 9782), nebst drei Bruchstucken philosophischen Inhalts (Pap. N.8; P. 9766, 9569) unter Mitwirkung von J. L. Heiberg bearbeitet von H. Diels und W. Schubart. Weidmann: Berlin, 1904. Dover, Sir Kenneth J. Greek Homosexuality. Duckworth: London, 1978. ---Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle. Oxford, 1974. Jacoby, F. ed. Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Brill: Leiden, 1926-1958. Kassel, R and C. Austin eds. Poetae comici Graecae. de Gruyter: Berlin, 1968. Kern, Otto. Inscriptiones Graecae. Walter de Gruyter & Co.: Berlin, 1913. Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott revised and ed. by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edition. The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994. Kinkel G. ed. Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht: Gottingen, 1988. Muller, C. ed. Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum. Firmin Didor: Paris, 1841-72. Nauck A. ed. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. 2nd edition. Hilder- sheim: Olms, 1962. Ritter, H. and L. Preller. Historia Philosophiae Graecae, Eighth ed. Ed- ward Wellmann: Gocha, 1898. vii Currency Conversion (late 5th-early 4th centuries) 1 'Money implies poverty'. -Iain M. Banks 2 1 Athenian talent (36,000g silver) I mina (600g silver) I drachma (6g silver) 1 Kretan Stater (12g silver) 60 minai = 6,000 drachmas 100 drachmas 6 obols (lg each) 2 Athenian drachmas ix Series Editors' Foreword Studies in Classics aims to bring high-quality work by emerging scholars to the atten- tion of a wider audience. Emphasizing the study of classical literature and history, these volumes contribute to the theoretical understanding of human culture and soci- ety over time. This series offers an array of approaches to the study of Greek and Latin (including medieval and Neolatin), authors and their reception, canons, transmission of texts, ideas, religion, history of scholarship, narrative, and the nature of evidence. While the focus is on Mediterranean cultures of the Greco-Roman era, perspec- tives from other areas, cultural backgrounds, and eras included as important means to the reconstruction of fragmentary evidence and the exploration of models. The series reflects upon the role classical studies has played in humanistic endeavors from antiquity to the present, and explores select ways in which the discipline can bring both traditional scholarly tools and the experience of modernity to bear on questions and texts of enduring importance. Dirk Obbink, Oxford University Andrew Dyck, The University of California, Los Angeles xi Acknowledgments I should like to express my sincere gratitude to all those who have helped me, along the way, towards the completion of this book. It is to them that I dedicate it with alac- rity. First and foremost, I must thank my loving parents and grandparents who have supported me and my academic research unconditionally in emotional and monetary terms all throughout. I extend special thanks to Nathan Wood and Charlotte Bjuren who have always been on my side and provided me with inspiration and insight when I most needed it. All of my teachers should be praised here hut I shall only mention a few for want of space and time. I must thank the English and Classics faculties of Birmingham-Southern College (especially Susan K. Hagen, Jane Archer, Michael Mclnturff, Samuel Pezzillo, Fred Ashe, Roger Casey and John Tatter) for giving me my start upon what has been a most interesting academic career. I thank the Classics and Philosophy faculties of the Florida Seate University (especially Leon Golden, Bill and Nancy deGrummond, Jeffrey Tatum, Russell Dancy, Maria Morales, James Sickenger and Justin Glen) for having faith in my abilities and pointing me in the right direction. And I should especially like to offer my sincere gratitude to the School of Classics at the University of St. Andrews (especially Stephen Halliwell, Jill Harries, Jonathon Hesk, Harry Hine and Sir Kenneth Dover) for inspiration and insight as well as tremendous support in general. I should like to express my special thanks and compliments to Greg Woolf and Tom Harrison of St. Andrews for being superb supervisors and friends whose efforts I can never hope to repay fully by word or deed. Without Greg and Tom this book would not have been possible. I am particularly grateful to Karen Stears, of the University of Edinburgh, for helpful advice and insight. Let me also mention my good friends Andy Hughes, John Hardy, Bojan and Dragan Masic (and their mum), Dave Waters, Dave Edwards, John-Mark Glover, Michael Dempster, Alan Stewart, Alan Reid, Brian Stuart, Zev Paul, Amir Tehrani, Emanuella Giangregorio, Cherie Briant, Kennen Blanning, David Darwin, Shari Tharp, Tom Wagner, Betty Grant, Kathy Twilley, Dalton Turner, Thomas Kied- rowski, Joel Beaman, India Van Brunt, Agnes Baxter, Austin Moore, Charles Cush- ing, Allie Thomas, Ray Jackson, Rob and Eric Caves (and their mum), Steven Bailey, xiii xiv Acknowiedgments Shawn Castleman, Tom Cox, Kennen Blanning, Ralph Young, Trevor Henderson, Ian, Gordon and Kenny Anderson, Kenny MacDonald, the good people at Project Archelogos in Edinburgh, especially Dory Scaltsas, and the Fence Collective. I dedi- cate this work of mine to all of the above and many others unnamed. But, perhaps most of all, I dedicate it to the living memory of Plato, son of Ariston and Periktione, without whose love of wisdom-indeed without whose life-the world would surely have been bereft of considerable light. Preface For nothynge is more easye to be founde, then be barking Scyllaes, rauenyng Celenes, and Lestrygones deuowerers of people, and suche lyke grcate and vn- credyble monsters; but to fynde cytyzyns ruled by good and holsome !awes, that ys an excedynge rare and harde thynge. --St. Thomas More 1 Like all literary utopias since his era, Placo's Laws proposes a radical re-invention of society in keeping with the tenets of a philosophical agenda. As with later ucopias, an integral feature of this proposed social change entails a significant revision of popular sexual morality. It would be inaccurate to assert that, in the following chapters, I have dealt with every aspect of that which we would today refer to as sexuality that may be found in the Laws. A significant number of salient points have been considered but there remains ample space for further study. These subjects here chosen for analysis are sufficient to fill the pages of this book. It has been a great pleasure to discover a wealth of information which will provide interesting topics of inquiry for consider- able time to come. The approach that I am employing here combines elements of modern Cul- tural Studies, Marxist-Feminist Theory and 'Queer' Theory along with the long-es- tablished methodologies of the Classics. In this way, this text brings to bear a potent arsenal of diverse scholarship on Plato's final opus. Some might rightly inquire why one should take such measures and consider the Laws in the light of modern theories of sexuality. What could so ancient a text have to tell us about sex and society in the world of today? Not only has Plato, in the Laws, undertaken to theorise about no less than the construction of a hypothetical culture from the ground up (surely a very relevant issue for the modern world), he has also provided us with considerable insight into the subject of sexuality and the manner by which many aspects of it may be controlled and directed through socialisation and the calculated influences of au- thority. Contemporary criticism, especially that which deals with the use oflanguage with regard to sex, serves to illuminate this inquiry in ways that many traditional xv xvi Preface approaches alone could not. Plato was actively contributing to an ancient discourse on human sexuality. Our modern conceptions partake of the same intellectual con- tinuum and our on-going examination of it stands to benefit from a more holistic approach. Re-examining ancient ideas in this way will contribute to our growing body of knowledge. Sex is a complex issue that has yet to be resolved. This examination of the Laws of Plato seeks to achieve a deeper understanding of sexuality as a natural phenom- enon, as force for social change and itself as subject to change. A significant portion of Magnesia's social programming is based on the control of human sexuality through a calculated scheme. The 'artificiality' or 'constructedness' of sexuality in the Laws as the product of directed socialisation towards clear ideological and philosophical ends should be emphasised. This bears particular significance to the (post)modern, post-Freudian world. The broader understanding that I am here attempting will not only add to our overall knowledge of the past but it may also shed some light on our present and future. The chapters of this book have been divided along thematic lines in order to provide a fairly comprehensive coverage of issues of sex and society in the Laws. The first chapter details the modern critical methodologies that will be utilised through- out the text as well as providing some relevant background on ancient views on sexuality as we understand them today. Chapter II deals with the Laws as an histori- cal artefact and providing relevant background information on the text and its place amongst the Platonic corpus. The breakdown of the remaining chapters is as follows. Chapter III examines the educational programme for Magnesia, the city to be founded, as outlined by Plato's narrator, the Athenian Stranger. It is here that he expresses the revolution- ary proposition that women should be educated equally (or almost as equally) as men. Chapter IV considers the Platonic concept of andreia (courage and/or manli- ness) which figures prominently in the philosophical framework of sexual ideals to be impressed upon Magnesia's hypothetical citizenry. Chapter V looks into the official 'myth of the family' and the values associated with it along gendered lines. It consid- ers the Magnesian family's utilitarian function in this hypothetical society. Chapter VI examines the role of women in Magnesia and how that role is to be shaped both by the Platonic ideal of andreia and the physical constraints of the female sex-both perceived and otherwise. Chapter VII deals with the complex issue of same-sex rela- tions in the Laws. Chapter VIII contains my general conclusions. The overall aims of this work are several. First, it is important that the Laws should be brought again into the light of scrutiny. As mentioned above, it has been perhaps the least examined representative of Plato's entire corpus in modern times. Yet, it has much to offer to almost anyone who would undertake to peruse it. The Laws is one of the world's first examples of a written constitution (albeit hypothetical) Preface xvii and, as such, deserves considerable prominence for that fact alone. It explores many significant prospects of societal administration and social regulation that bear rel- evance to the modern world. Plato has demonstrared a number of methods by which a society may be directed and controlled, along specific lines, with the aid of phi- losophy, psychology and rhetoric. Some might say that the twentieth century (not to mention the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with their revolutionary advents of constitution-building) has been largely characterised by just such an approach to the government of peoples. Surely the twenty-first century will continue to proceed along a similar path. Whatever we may think about his methods, Plato appears to have had the noblest of ideas in mind in composing his Laws. Its end was conceived to be no less than the maximum degree of happiness and virtue for the hypothetical citizenry. The 'second-best' approach (second-best because the ideal is perhaps beyond mortal achievement) is designed to correct human failings with philosophically enlightened legal prescriptions. The administration of these by 'a rigid theocracy' is perhaps a dan- gerous example in the wrong hands. 2 The manner in which Plato's works have been employed, or might yet be employed, as always remains the domain of the current generation at any given time. Totalitarian and democratic regimes in the past have utilised his ideas, in their own ways, according to their own particular ideologies. Plato's theoretical excursions may be fairly said to have provided a means by which to change the world. His tools are not weapons of war or implements of terror. Rather, he has demonstrated that our thoughts and our words are the most powerful resources that humanity has at its disposal and that their careful employment can change the minds of others. 3 To change people's thinking is to change the world. These and other similar ideas will continue to induce lively debates long into the future. But for now let us turn to the Laws, as the Athenian Stranger suggests, 'beguiling the time with discourse, and so complete our journey at leisure'. 4 Chapter I Modern Theory, Ancient 'Sexuality' The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. -L. E Hartley 1 We mythologists know very well that myths and legends contain borrowings, moral lessons, nature cycles, and a hundred other distorting influences, and we labour co cut them away and get to what might be a kernel of truth. -Isaac Asimov 2 Well, man, you're doomed to repeat it otherwise. There's continuity and there's foolishness. --Keith Richards 3 Let no one say that we have reached every conclusion about human sexuality. The topic remains in the crucible of modern cultural theory and is hotly debated in all media. No cultural artefact that addresses this issue should be disregarded; although, all such artefacts should be weighted according to their merits. In November of 200 I, a BBC2 television documentary on modern taboos pointed out that, roughly since the 1970s, male fashion advertisements and icons of pop-culture have become in- creasingly homoerotic. Perhaps surprisingly, these adverts are not geared exclusively toward homosexuals. Their primary demographic target consists of those men who would probably identify themselves as unequivocally heterosexual. This trend of in- creasing homoerotic representation shows no sign of subsiding in the near future. It is perhaps possible to speculate that certain shadowy members of the gay-male com- munity have perpetrated some cunningly engineered conspiracy-but such a thing seems altogether unlikely. There must be some other reason why homoerotic imagery that idealises the male form in such a manner that could readily be construed as sexual is considered to appeal so positively (enough to sell clothes, jewellery, cigarettes etc.) to presumably heterosexual men. The BBC television programme, perhaps wisely, offered no explanation for this queer phenomenon. I 2 Sex and the Second-Best City No complete explanation is likely to emerge for some time yet to come and we must not take the (albeit) influential medium of television as the best possible academic source on the matter. It certainly is not. However, the clear presence of ho- moeroticism curiously aimed at heterosexuals that is being highlighted, does perhaps hint at the fact that the sort of paradigms that Western culture is currently utilising for the delineation of sexual categories are somewhat less adequate to the cause than might have been generally supposed. While such issues are examined today within many institutions of higher learning and other similarly sheltered venues, they re- main unsettling conversation for the vast majority of other people (including even some of the scholars who specialise in the subject). The reasons for this are numer- ous and complex. Ultimately, we must admit to some ignorance, at this stage in our development, as to precisely how something as essential as human sexuality actually functions. This is why academics must continue to examine the matter as thoroughly as possible. It can only be to our benefit to plumb its depths, questioning our as- sumptions and past theories as we go, in seeking a greater understanding. The fact that most people tend to feel so strongly about this subject, despite our impoverished comprehension of it, highlights the necessity for more careful study. The ancient Greeks make an interesting port of call from which to embark on this ongoing examination. We know with a reasonable degree of certainty that their attitudes toward sex were different from our own. From there the matter of discern- ing particularities becomes much more difficult. Comparing modern sexuality with the ancient Greek equivalent presumes some clear understanding of the former by which to contrast the latter. It also assumes some understanding of ancient Greek analogues and some general agreement on what the evidence that we have extant actually means. Acquisition of the one, sadly, seems to be almost as daunting a task as the other. But the fact that the problem is difficult should not dissuade one from trying. It is probable that the illumination of ancient Greek sexual mores will also shed considerable light on modern sexuality. The ancient Greeks, free as they were from the Judeo-Christian ideological legacy as well as having existed prior to and apart from the Renaissance-continuum, may have much to tell us about this difficult subject. They lack the 'distorting influences' of modern culture and society and their more 'recent' antecedents. The Greeks too had cultural and historical influences af- fecting their view of sexuality. The examination of such things is the essential to the aims of this text. Is either of these psychosexual states, ancient or modern, somehow more 'natu- ral' than the other? This is probably not the case. Both represent situations of various types in which the given culture influences and conditions human psychology. The modification of human behaviour through cultural influences could be called 'natural' inasmuch as culture may be seen as an evolutionary development. Can one separate the natural (genetic) influences on sexuality from the external (cultural) influences