Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity

With startling clarity, the classical world is invoked both as the home of sexual freedom and a haven for wanton acts of sexual perversity. Sex: Vice and Love from Antiquity to Modernity examines the profound impact that sexual fantasies about the classical world have had on modern Western culture, and looks at the ways in which various cultures have used classical erotica to locate and articulate their own erotic discourse. In this provocative new study, Alastair Blanshard offers rich insights how our perceptions of vice and love in antiquity continue to shape the roles of sex and sexuality in modern culture.

List of Illustrations ix

Preface xi

Part I Roman Vice 1

1 Introduction 3

2 Naked Bodies 7

An Introduction (less than successful) to the Naked Body 7

The Naked Body in Greece 14

Naked Romans 21

The Love of Art and the Art of Love 28

3 Obscene Texts 34

Illustrating the Unspeakable 34

Talking Dirty 40

4 Erotic Rites 48

The Myth of the Orgy 48

Locating the Erotic in Roman Religion 55

5 Imperial Biography 65

The Private Lives of the Caesars 65

Explaining Roman Gossip Culture 79

Part II Greek Love 89

6 Introduction 91

What is ′Greek Love′? Scenes from a Courtroom I 92

7 Greece 97

The Loves of Hellas 97

The Platonic Vision 99

8 Rome and the West 109

Greece under Rome and Rome under Greece 109

Greek Love Burns Briefly, but Brightly 119

9 Renaissance and Enlightenment 124

Giving Birth in the Beautiful 124

The Pursuit of Love 135

10 Nineteenth Century and Beyond 143

Greek Love Triumphant 143

Sapphic Love 149

A Mixed Legacy: Greek Love in the Twentieth and Twenty–First Centuries 159

11 Epilogue 164

Scenes from a Courtroom II 164

Notes and Further Reading 166

Bibliography 190

Index 205