Scholarship

• Hesiod (ancient scholar)- ‘Zeus… made women to be an evil to moral men’
• Annas – ‘Athenian women in Plato’s day led suppressed and powerless lives’
• Grube – ‘Homosexual love alone was generally regarded by the Greeks as just fulfilling the desires of men.’
• Waterfield - ‘In ancient Athens, homoeroticism was considered perfectly natural’

  Goldhill - ‘homoeroticism remained throughout the ancient world a practice with no social status except that of reviled and repressed perversion.’
• Plato in Rhetoric - “Honour Sappho even though she is a woman”
• Karanika - ‘Sappho deeply communicates the female anxiety towards marriage, marriage that did not operate in any romantic terms’
• Wilson - ‘Sappho's poems emphasise the isolation of the individual’
• Hall - ‘Sappho’s homoerotic stance, in the ancient setting, was unremarkable.’
• Brown - ‘Plato believed that the abolition of the family would improve the cohesion of the society as a whole.’
• Waterfield - Plato believed ‘We may be attracted towards beauty, but our real goal is happiness.
• Waterfield -  Claims sex ‘is the love that enslaves us’ stopping us from ascending to true love
• Waterfield - Plato believed ‘desire could enable man to transcend the physical and pursue wisdom and knowledge.’
• Pliny - speaks of the ‘virtue’ of his wife - but she was more of a fangirl than a lover 

  Cicero - claimed women had ‘feeble powers of judgement’

  Metullus Numidicus - on women he said ‘we can neither live comfritably with them, or manage without them’
• D’Ambra – ‘Augustus even ordered the exile of his daughter Julia for her violation of the adultery laws.’
• Wallace-Hadrill ‘Wherever you looked in the Forum, you were confronted with the presence of Caesar’s family.’

  Wallace-Hadrill - ‘In one year alone, Augustus restored 82 temples.’
• On Ovid:

  Verstraete - ‘Enjoyment is more important than desire’

  Verstraete - ‘Sexual pleasure must be equally enjoyed’
• D’Elia - ‘Ovid detested homosexual activity in which one partner is no more than a victim to the other's desire.’
• Bishop -  (About Ovid and Love) ‘it is difficult to pin him down to a serious opinion on Love’
• Motto:

  • ‘For Seneca, true love is analogous (comparable) to an ideal friendship.’ 
  • ‘True love, friendship, elevates the spirit and ennobles the soul.’
  • ‘Seneca and the later Stoics stressed the regulation of emotions rather than their denial. Thus, regarding love, Seneca maintains that this emotion is honourable’
• Gloyn - ‘love in and of itself is neither good nor bad; it’s how you use it that matters. If being in love becomes more important than the pursuit of virtue, things have gone pretty badly wrong.’
• Kreitner - ‘The Stoics held that sexual intercourse is the very antithesis of reason and therefore should be avoided.’