Ganymede

1. Ganymede Waters Zeus as an Eagle – Bertel
Thorvaldsen, 1817 (Danish) Thorvaldsen Museums,
Copenhagen

2.  One of the oldest homosexual myths
“…Ganymede, handsomest of mortals, whom the
gods caught up to pour out drink for Zeus and
live amid immortals for his beauty’s sake”
(Homer, Iliad, Book XX, 232-235)
“Zeus carried off golden-haired Ganymedes
because of his beauty, to be amongst the Deathless
Ones and pour drink for the gods in the house of
Zeus – a wonder to see – honored by all the
immortals as he draws the red nectar form the
golden bowl”
(Homeric Hymn 5 to Aphrodite, 203 ff.)
 Note: the stress of the physical attraction
Zeus has for Ganymede in earlier texts
 Also: What makes it the myth and not just
an erastes and eromenos depiction?
Berlin Painter, bell krater, attic red figure,
ca. 524-475, Museum du Louvre, Paris,
France

5.  Popular on kylix, kraters, symposium items, etc.
 Representation varied: violent vs. peaceful
 Eagle or Zeus form
 Ganymede shown as very young, nude and beautiful
 Most images: as a cupbearer (symposium) and being taken

7.  Mid 6th century BCE:
Theognis: used Zeus’s love of boys to justify his own in his fragments
“…Ganymede/Was loved by Kronos’s son himself, king of
immortals/Who seized him and brought him up to Olympus and made
him/Divine, possessing as he did the lovely bloom of boyhood.” l. 1345-
1347
 Around 408 BCE:
In Euripides's Orestes: Ganymede as Zeus’s bedmate/spouse (euntētes)
 Late 360’s:
Xenophon’s Symposium:
“…even in the case of Ganymede, it was not his person but his spiritual
character that influenced Zeus to carry him up to Olympus” l. 30
Ganytai: delights in medea: thoughts
Hēdugnōmōn: sweetness of thought

9.  Ganymede and Zeus were
the divine model for erastes
and eromenos relationships
 Ganymede was the ideal
erastes: beautiful mind and
body
 Ganymede was their
prototype
 Crete origins and initiation
 Parastathis: “he who stands
beside”
 Noble boys could attend
symposiums and banquets as
cupbearers (tauroi)

10. Late 360’s: Xenophon’s Symposium:
“…even in the case of Ganymede, it was not his person but his spiritual character that
influenced Zeus to carry him up to Olympus” l. 30

11.  Bremmer, J. "An Enigmatic Indo-European Rite: Pederasty." Arethusa. Vol.
13. Buffalo, New York: Department of Classics 1980. 279-98. Print.

 Davidson, James. "Ganymede's Rising." The Greeks and Greek Love: A
Radical Reappraisal of Homosexuality in Ancient Greece. London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007. Print.

 Dover, K. J. Greek Homosexuality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1978. Print.

 Sergent, Bernard, Georges Dumézil, and Arthur Goldhammer.
Homosexuality in Greek Myth. London: Athlone, 1987. Print.