Conservative and innovative trends concerning pederasty in the Amores ascribed to Lucian (with a look at Roman law on castration and Lucian’s satire) (original) (raw)

2023, E. Poddighe, T. Pontillo (eds.), Resisting and justifying changes II. Testifying and legitimizing innovation in Indian and Ancient Greek culture, Pisa, pp. 351-371.

mong the works attributed to Lucian, Amores was regarded as inauthentic for most of the 20th century and not studied by many scholars until the 1980s, when the publication of Michel Foucault’s third volume of his Histoire de la sexualité (1984) renewed scholarly attention. Indeed, Foucault deals with the dialogue to show how it exhibits a “deproblematisation” of pederasty which, in the Imperial era, was no longer privileged as the focus of the theoretical reflection on love. By contrast, it had been problematised in earlier Greek culture where it was the subject of ethical concern and debate. This paper aims to illustrate how the tools adopted by Charicles to marginalise pederastic liaisons in Amores are both innovative and conservative. As such, I will first deal with the main tools Charicles adopts to ostracise pederasty in the light of some hypotexts, and I will then relate these tools to some of Lucian’s main pictures of pederasty (e.g., Alex. 5, Dmort. 6.6, Eun. 6, Symp. 39, VH 2.17–19, VitAuct. 15). At the heart of my argumentation, I will argue that Charicles’ reference to castration (26) as a means to marginalise pederastic liaisons should be ex- plained by means of references to the social and historical Imperial context when Amores was written.