Classical Era
This tag is used to indicate the eras dominated by Greek and Roman civilization. In regions where those cultures had no influence, consider it to indicate roughly 1000 BCE to the early centuries of the Common Era. If a more specific date in the Common Era is known, that will be used.
LHMP entry
The article begins by defending the use of the term "lesbian" by citing Brooten's evidence for a medieval sense of a woman who "behaves like a man" and "is oriented toward female companionship for sex" while raising several issues with that usage. But the author is examining a similar apparent contradiction in medieval texts to the one found by Brooten in early Christian texts: an acceptance (to some degree) of female same-sex unions combined with hostility toward female appropriation of male roles.
Lesbian Historic Motif Project: #52 - Rupp 2009 Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women
Chapter 1 (Introduction)
A discussion of terminology, some of the cross-cultural problems of defining the topic of the book, and a statement of intent.
Chapter 2 (In the Beginning: 40,000-1200 BCE)
Although honoring the dead was a duty of Athenian citizens (i.e., men), the rituals of mourning and the work of tending to graves largely belonged to women. And an analysis of tombstones from the most important cemetery of 5-4th century Athens shows that women were more commonly featured on memorial carvings as well. Carved tomb markers frequently depict two or more figures: the deceased and persons who presumably were important in their life or who wished to be depicted as mourners.
Interpreting the meaning and context of Greek pottery art is far from straightforward. The modern framing as valuable “fine art” is to a large extent a by-product of the antiquities trade and it must be remembered that these vessels were originally created as a cheap imitation of fine metal utensils and, as such, might reasonably be viewed as “pop culture” works rather than the products of an artistic elite. These views make quite a difference in interpreting the depictions of women and their interrelationships with each other.
Skinner examines the relationship between female poetic inspiration and the homoerotic implications of a female poet with a female muse. Although the article opens with a consideration of modern discussions of the concept of poetic muse and the implications of gendering this imagined relationship, the heart of her paper concerns the Greek poets Sappho and Nossis and the ways they portray their relationship to inspiration in the form of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and secondarily to the nine Muses.
Rehak works on reconstructing (or at least plausibly imagining) female-centered aspects of Cretan society based on a series of frescoes from one particular site on the island of Thera. Aegean art of this era (ca. 1700-1100 BCE) does not portray images of sexual intercourse or even displays of affection or intimacy (whether between members of the opposite or same sex).
This collection is somewhat unusual for its topic both in being interdisciplinary and in focusing exclusively on women’s relationships with other women. The introduction notes that with the exception of Brooten (1996) and the cottage industry of Sappho studies, there has been extremely little research published on female homoeroticism in antiquity, especially in contrast to the attention directed at male homoeroticism.
Ovid's Iphis & Ianthe (in the Metamorphoses) raises questions about Roman views of female homoerotic relationships. Iphis, born female but raised male, falls in love with Ianthe and then is transformed into a male body in order to marry her.
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