PEDERASTY AMONGST THE ANCIENT CELTS
Presented here is all the surviving evidence as to the practise of pederasty amongst the ancient Celts, an Indo-European people who during the last millenium of antiquity inhabited a vast swathe of Europe including the British Isles, Gaul (which stretched east to the Rhine and south into northern Italy), most of Iberia and much of central Europe.. The primary sources are presented in the chronological order in which they were written.
Aristotle, Politics II 6 (1269b xxii-xxxii)
Politics Πολιτικά is a work of political philosophy composed by the great philosopher Aristotle of Stageira (384-322 BC), at least some of it towards the end of his life. The following passage is about states in which the position of women is poorly regulated. The translation is by William Ellis in A Treatise on Government by Aristotle (London: J. M. Dent, 1912). However, his Latinisation of Greek names has been undone in favour of transliterated forms.
So that in such a state riches will necessarily be in general esteem, particularly if the men are governed by their wives, which has been the case with many a brave and warlike people except the Celts, and those other nations, if there are any such, who openly practise pederasty. And the first mythologists seem not improperly to have joined Ares and Aphrodite[1] together; for all nations of this character are greatly addicted either to the love of women or of boys, | ζῶσι γὰρ ἀκολάστως πρὸς ἅπασαν ἀκολασίαν καὶ τρυφερῶς. ὥστ᾿ ἀναγκαῖον ἐν τῇ τοιαύτῃ πολιτείᾳ τιμᾶσθαι6 τὸν πλοῦτον, ἄλλως τε κἂν τύχωσι γυναικοκρατούμενοι, καθάπερ τὰ πολλὰ τῶν στρατιωτικῶν καὶ πολεμικῶν γενῶν, ἔξω Κελτῶν ἢ κἂν εἴ τινες ἕτεροι φανερῶς τετιμήκασι τὴν πρὸς τοὺς ἄρρενας συνουσίαν. ἔοικε γὰρ ὁ μυθολογήσας πρῶτος οὐκ ἀλόγως συζεῦξαι τὸν Ἄρη πρὸς τὴν Ἀφροδίτην· ἢ γὰρ πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἀρρένων ὁμιλίαν ἢ πρὸς τὴν τῶν γυναικῶν φαίνονται κατακώχιμοι πάντες οὶ τοιοῦτοι. |
Diodoros of Sicily, Library of History V 32 vii
Diodoros of Agyrion in Sicily wrote his history of the world known to him in forty books between 60 and 30 BC. The translation here is by C. H. Oldfather for the Loeb Classical Library 340, published by the Harvard University Press in 1939. Concluding a long description of the Gauls (for whom one of his main sources was the lost witness account of them by Poseidonios from the 90s BC):
Although their wives are comely, they have very little to do with them, but rage with lust, in outlandish fashion, for the embraces of males. It is their practice to sleep upon the ground on the skins of wild beasts and to tumble with a catamite on each side.[2] And the most astonishing thing of all is that they feel no concern for their proper dignity, but prostitute to others without a qualm the flower of their bodies; nor do they consider this a disgraceful thing to do, but rather when anyone of them is thus approached and refuses the favour offered him, this they consider an act of dishonour. | Γυναῖκας δ᾿ ἔχοντες εὐειδεῖς ἥκιστα ταύταις προσέχουσιν, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὰς τῶν ἀρρένων ἐπιπλοκὰς ἐκτόπως λυττῶσιν. εἰώθασι δ᾿ ἐπὶ δοραῖς θηρίων χαμαὶ καθεύδοντες ἐξ ἀμφοτέρων τῶν μερῶν παρακοίτοις συγκυλίεσθαι. τὸ δὲ πάντων παραδοξότατον, τῆς ἰδίας εὐσχημοσύνης ἀφροντιστοῦντες τὴν τοῦ σώματος ὥραν ἑτέροις εὐκόλως προΐενται, καὶ τοῦτο αἰσχρὸν οὐχ ἡγοῦνται, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ὅταν τις αὐτῶν χαριζομένων μὴ προσδέξηται τὴν διδομένην χάριν, ἄτιμον ἡγοῦνται. |
Strabon Στράβων of Amaseia in Pontus (64/3 BC-ca. AD 24) was a well-travelled Greek writer who wrote his Geographika Γεωγραφικά in seventeen books the last years of his life. The translation here is by Horace Leonard Jones in the Loeb Classical Library volume 50, published by the Harvard University Press in 1923.
And the following, too, is one of the things that are repeated over and over again,[3] namely, that not only are all Celti fond of strife, but among them it is considered no disgrace for the young[4] to be prodigal of their youthful charms. | αὶ τοῦτο δὲ τῶν θρυλουμένων ἐστίν, ὅτι παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς αἰσχρὸν τὸ τῆς ἀκμῆς ἀφειδεῖν πάντες Κελτοὶ φιλόνεικοί τέ εἰσι, καὶ οὐ νομίζεται τοὺς νέους. |
Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos II 3 lxi-lxii
The Alexandrian scholar Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos (Four Books), written in the middle of the second century AD, was for many centuries considered the most authoritative on astrology.
Under this arrangement, the remainder of the first quarter, by which I mean the European quarter, situated in the north-west of the inhabited world, is in familiarity with the north-western triangle, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius, and is governed, as one would expect, by the lords of the triangle, Jupiter and Mars, occidental. In terms of whole nations these parts consist of Britain, (Transalpine) Gaul, Germany, Bastarnia, Italy, (Cisalpine) Gaul, Apulia, Sicily, Tyrrhenia, Celtica, and Spain. […] However, because of the occidental aspect of Jupiter and Mars, and furthermore because the first parts of the aforesaid triangle are masculine and the latter parts feminine, they are without passion for women, and look down upon the pleasures of love, but are better satisfied with and more desirous of masculine[5] association. And they do not regard the act as a disgrace to the paramour, nor indeed do they actually become effeminate and soft thereby, because their disposition is not perverted, but they retain in their souls manliness, helpfulness, good faith, love of kinsmen, and benevolence. |
[lxi] Ἐκ δὴ τῆς τοιαύτης διατάξεως τὰ μὲν ἄλλα μέρη τοῦ πρώτου τῶν τεταρτημορίων, λέγω δὲ τοῦ κατὰ τὴν Εὐρώπην, πρὸς βορρολίβα κείμενα τῆς ὅλης οἰκουμένης, συνοικειοῦται μὲν τῷ βορρολιβυκῷ τριγώνῳ τῷ κατὰ τὸν Κριὸν καὶ Λέοντα καὶ Τοξότην, οἰκοδεσποτεῖται δὲ εἰκότως ὑπὸ τῶν κυρίων τοῦ τριγώνου Διὸς καὶ Ἄρεως ἑσπερίων. ἔστι δὲ ταῦτα καθ᾿ ὅλα ἔθνη λαμβανόμενα Βρεττανία, Γαλατία, Γερμανία, Βασταρνία, Ἰταλία, Γαλλία, Ἀπουλία, Σικελία, Τυρρηνία, Κελτική, Ἱσπανία. […] διὰ μέντοι τὸν ἑσπέριον σχηματισμὸν Διὸς καὶ Ἄρεως, καὶ ἔτι διὰ τὸ τοῦ προκειμένου [lxii] τριγώνου τὰ μὲν ἐμπρόσθια ἠρρενῶσθαι, τὰ δὲ ὀπίσθια τεθηλύσθαι, πρὸς μὲν τὰς γυναῖκας ἀζήλοις αὐτοῖς εἶναι συνέπεσε καὶ καταφρονητικοῖς τῶν ἀφροδισίων, πρὸς δὲ τὴν τῶν ἀρρένων συνουσίαν κατακορεστέροις τε καὶ μᾶλλον ζηλοτύποις· αὐτοῖς δὲ τοῖς διατιθεμένοις μήτε αἰσχρὸν ἡγεῖσθαι τὸ γινόμενον μήτε ὡς ἀληθῶς ἀνάνδροις διὰ τοῦτο καὶ μαλακοῖς ἀποβαίνειν, ἕνεκεν τοῦ μὴ παθητικῶς διατίθεσθαι, συντηρεῖν δὲ τὰς ψυχὰς ἐπάνδρους καὶ κοινωνικὰς καὶ πιστὰς καὶ φιλοικείους καὶ εὐεργετικάς. |
Athenaios, The Learned Banqueters 603a
The following comes from the middle of a substantial section devoted to the love of boys in this late 2nd century AD compendium by the Greek rhetorician Athenaios of Naukratis. As with Diodoros, one of his main sources of information on the Celts was the lost witness account of the Gallic Celts by Poseidonios from the 90s BC. The translation is by Douglas Olson for the Loeb Classical Library volume 345, published by the Harvard University Press in 2011.
So too the Celts, even though they have the most beautiful women of all the barbarians, prefer sex with boys; as a result, some of them routinely sleep on their animal-skins with two boyfriends. | καὶ Κελτοὶ δὲ τῶν βαρβάρων καίτοι καλλίστας ἔχοντες γυναῖκας παιδικοῖς μᾶλλον χαίρουσιν· ὡς πολλάκις ἐνίους ἐπὶ ταῖς δοραῖς μετὰ δύο ἐρωμένων ἀναπαύεσθαι. |
The Book of the Laws of Countries 25-27
The Book of the Laws of Countries is a dialogue written by Philip, a disciple of Bardaisan (AD 154-222), the founder of the long-lasting Bardasainite sect of Christian Gnostics. The main speaker is Bardaisan himself, whose parents came from Persia, and who himself lived in Edessa, the capital of the nearby kingdom of Osrhoene. Presented here is the only passage concerning pederasty, an account of how it was favoured in the North (in contrast to the hostile attitude to it he had just described as usual in the lands east of the Euphrates).
The book has survived in a manuscript in Syriac, the language of Bardaisan and his countrymen, and another in Greek, which is not necessarily further removed from the original than the Syriac one is. Though only slightly different from the Syriac in most of its content, it differs critically in what matters here, in that it refers unambiguously to “Gauls”, where the Syriac version is confused between “Germans and “Gauls”, casting severe doubt on what the writer of the Syriac manuscript or perhaps Bardaisan himself, living so very far away from any of these western barbarians, really knew about their sexual practices, or if they even knew how to distinguish between them. However, what Bardaisan claims is much more likely to be true of the latter, simply because they are far better attested by other sources as lovers of boys. Both versions are given here.
1. SYRIAC VERSION
The complete Syriac text was first published in 1855 from a sixth or seventh century manuscript in the British Museum. It was translated from the original Syriac into Dutch by H. J. W. Drijvers, and then further translated from the Dutch into English by Mrs. G. E. van Baaren-Pape in The Book of the Laws of Countries: Dialogue on Fate of Bardaişan of Edessa (Assen, the Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1965), pp. 47-53, from which the following passage is taken.
In the North, however, in the territory of the Germans and their neighbours, the boys who are handsome serve the men as wives, and a wedding feast, too, is held then. This is not considered shameful or a matter of contumely by them, because of the law obtaining among them. Yet it is impossible that all those in Gaul who are guilty of this infamy should have Mercury in their nativity together with Venus in the house of Saturn, in the field of Mars and in the Western signs of the Zodiac. For regarding the “men”[6] who are born under this constellation, it is written that they shall be shamefully used, as if they were women. [pp. 47-49]
Fate does not [prevent] the Gallic “men”[7] from having sexual intercourse with one another. [p. 53]
2. GREEK VERSION
The Greek version was preserved in Book VI of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Preparation for the Gospel, begun in about 313, and unsurprisingly had greater circulation than the Syriac.
The translation is by E. H. Gifford in his ὐσεβιου του Παμφιλου Εὐαγγελικης Προπαρασκευης λογοι ιεʹ. Eusebii Pamphili Evangelicæ Præparationis libri XV. Ad codices manuscriptos denuo collatos recensuit, anglice nunc primum reddidit, notis et indicibus instruxit E. H. Gifford (Oxford, 1903), but like many translations of that era, it is often inaccurate in the cause of euphemism, so five amendments have been made, all explained in the footnotes and all in harmony with the text’s translation into French by Édouard des Places in Eusèbe de Césarée. La Préparation Évangélique (Paris, 1980).
VI 10 xxvii, xxxv, xlv-xlvi
Among the Gauls the youths[9] give themselves as wives[10] openly, not regarding this as a matter of reproach, because of the law among them. Yet it cannot possibly have been the lot of all in Gaul who thus impiously suffer outrage to have the morning-star with Mercury setting in the houses of Saturn and regions of Mars at their nativities. […] Thus their nativity does not compel […] the Gauls to cease from giving themselves as wives,[11] […] And what shall we say concerning the sect of the Christians? […] And neither in Parthia do the Christians, Parthians though they are, practise polygamy, […] nor among the Bactrians and the Gauls do they profane marriage,[12] |
[xxvii] παρά δέ Γάλλοις οί νέοι γαμοϋνται μετά παρρησίας, ού ψόγον τοΰτο ηγούμενοι διά τον παρ' αύτοΐς νόμον. καί ού δυνατόν έστι πάντας τούς έν Γαλλία ούτως άθέως υβριζομένους λαχεϊν έν ταΐς γενέσεσι Φωσφόρον μεθ' 'Ερμου έν οϊκοις Κρόνου καί όρίοις "Αρεος δύνοντα. […] [xxxv] καί ούκ άναγκάζει ή γένεσις […] τούς Γάλλους μή γαμεϊσθαι. […] [xlv] τί δέ έροϋμεν περί της των Χριστιανών αίρέσεως, […] [xlvi] ούτε οί έν Παρθία Χριστιανοί πολυγαμοϋσι, Πάρθοι τυγχάνοντες, […] ού παρά Βάκτροις καΐ Γήλοις ψθείρουσι τούς γάμους, |
Editorial note: Silences and the possible variations they hint at
It should be apparent from the above that though very little is known about the ancient Celts compared to European peoples such as the Greeks and Romans, their reputation amongst the latter two for relatively fierce erotic attachment to boys was unrivalled, and their boys would seem to have had far less cause to fear being thought poorly of for giving themselves to men. Whilst there are no grounds for doubting in very general terms that this reputation for inclination to pederasty was deserved, the large gaps in our knowledge are grounds for questioning whether pederasty was uniformly ubiquitous over all the many Celtic lands over such a long period.
Of the six ancient writers presented on this page, Aristotle and the author of The Book of the Laws say they were writing about the Gauls only. Though the others claimed to speak for Celts in general, their knowledge may well also have been heavily concentrated on the Gauls, who were much the most populous of the Celtic peoples and the best-known to Greek and Roman writers. Strabon, for example, was careful to stress that he knew nothing reliable about the Irish and yet he would seem to have known more about them than any of the other writers. Diodoros and Athenaios made it clear that a major source for them was the greatly-respected Greek writer Poseidonios who wrote a lost book about the Celts based on information gathered while staying in Gaul in the 90s BC. It could be that what they said about “Celtic” pederasty was based on his purely Gallic information.
The richest source of information about any of the pre-Christian Celtic peoples are the voluminous writings about the Irish in the mythological age preceding their conversion. Though these were only written down long afterwards, the likelihood that their oral transmission until then had been largely faithful is not to be taken lightly. It is therefore odd that there is no clear trace of pederasty in them. Is this because customs in this remote westernmost outpost of the Celtic world were different, or because pederasty was in severe decline by the time of the 2nd to 5th centuries AD in which most of the Irish myths were set, or because the pederastic references were cut by the Christians who first recorded them?
In his article “Celtic Pederasty in Pre-Roman Gaul”,[13] Eric Pontalley offers some interesting, albeit bold, conjectures and conclusions about ancient Celtic pederasty which add nothing concrete to what has already been reported, but are nevertheless well worth consideration. Amongst other things, he points to interesting similarities in the wider settings of Gallic and Greek pederasty, things that are beyond the strict remit of the present article such as the importance of beauty in both cultures and the reverence for male nudity.
As regards the discrepancy between Gaul and Ireland, Pontalley points out that pederasty flourished in Gaul because the warrior class there prevailed over the Druids, whom he says, like all Indo-European priesthoods, were hostile to it, but “the disappearance of traditional pederastic practices […] was finalised in Ireland, where the Druids held on to the reins of power right up to the advent of Christianity.” He also perceives significant parallels between Greek pederastic myths and elements in the stories of Irish mythical heroes, suggesting pederasty may have been more prevalent in Ireland well before the advent of Christianity.
[1] “Ares and Aphrodite” means “War and Love”, of which these were the gods [Website footnote].
[2] The Greek may possibly mean, “with concubines of both sexes”; but Athenaios 13. 603 a) states that the Celts were accustomed to sleep with two boys. [Translator’s note]
The similarity between Diodoros and Athenaios here strongly suggests they were using the same source. Though Diodoros wrote earlier, Athenaios’s work was almost entirely drawn from sources much earlier than him. Hence Athenaios’s much clearer report is much to be preferred, including its clarification that two boys was meant and not a woman and a boy (and less still two men, which would have made the Celts freaks amongst the ancients) [Website footnote].
[3] An argument has been made (see David Clark, Between Medieval Men: Male Friendship and Desire in Early Medieval English Literature by David Clark (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 41) that pederasty in Gaul may have declined since Aristotle’s time since it is was not mentioned by C. Julius Caesar in his Commentaries on the Gallic War, a detailed firsthand account of his conquest of Transalpine Gaul between 58 and 52 BC. This argument is surely nullified by Strabon, writing two generations after Caesar and repeatedly referring to changes in Transalpine Gaul brought about by the Romans in the meantime, saying that the Celtic young making themselves sexually available to men was something still repeated over and over again in his day. [Website footnote]
[4] Jones translates the simple masculine adjective νέους, meaning young, as “young men”, but there is no justification for this corruption of the text. “Men” has therefore been removed. The earlier translation into English by H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer, published by Bell in London in 1903, renders this, “It is well known that all the Kelts are fond of disputes; and that amongst them pederasty is not considered shameful”, which gets the point in question roughly right, but is less accurate in other respects. [Website footnote]
[5] “With men” has been replaced by “masculine” as a much more accurate translation of ἀρρένων. [Website footnote].
[6] The editor of this page cannot read Syriac, so can only guess (and would be most grateful if anyone who can read it would tell him either way), but he has put “men” in inverted commas because he very strongly suspects that it is an inaccurate translation of the Syriac word, probably for “those”, or possibly for “males”. In other words, the implication that sex between men was involved is false. The main reason is that the alternate Greek text says nothing about “men” and supports a translation as “those”. Secondly, it does not make sense to speak of “men” having been used as women when the narrative is clearly referring back to its description of boys being thus used.
It is lamentably very common to mistranslate ancient religious texts in this manner. Consider, for example, the historically most famous prohibition of male homosexuality, that in Leviticus 18: 22, which appears in almost all English bibles as something like “Thou shalt not lie with mankind”, though the operative word, זָכָר means “males” as does its Greek equivalent, ἄρσενος, used in the Septuagint.
In this context, it should be added there is one further brief mention (on p. 61 of van Baaren-Pape’s translation) of Gallic “men” (presumably the same mistranslation) having sex together. This has been omitted here as not, if accurately translated, pederastic (and as at best repetitious), but it corresponds to VI 46 in Eusebios’s Greek version. [Website footnote]
[7] The translator’s “men” has been put into inverted commas to indicate doubt about it as an accurate translation, for reasons set out in the preceding footnote. [Website footnote]
[8] Instead of “boy beloveds” adopted here, Gifford translates “έρωμένους” as “favourites”, an old-fashioned euphemism too vague for present purposes. [Website footnote]
[9] Gifford translates “οί νέοι” as “the young men” but it is simply the masculine form of “the young”, ie. he has invented “men”. [Website footnote]
[10] Gifford translates “γαμοϋνται” as “give themselves in marriage” (rather than “give themselves as wives”) which misses the point. [Website footnote]
[11] Gifford translates “γαμεϊσθαι” as “effeminacy” (rather than “giving themselves as wives”), which is hopelessly inaccurate. [Website footnote]
[12] Gifford translates “ψθείρουσι τούς γάμους” as “form unnatural unions”, but nothing is said about nature; “profane marriage” is much more accurate. [Website footnote]
[13] Published in Paidika, issue 6, Amsterdam, autumn 1990, pp. 32-39. [Website footnote]