Imagining Men: Ideals of Masculinity in Ancient Greek Culture (Praeger Series on the Ancient World)

188 Pages·2008·0.8 MB·English

by  Thomas Van Nortwick

Imagining Men

IMAGINING MEN
Ideals of Masculinity in
Ancient Greek Culture
Thomas Van Nortwick
Praeger Series on the Ancient World
Bella Vivante, Series Editor
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Van Nortwick, Thomas, 1946–
Imagining men : ideals of masculinity in ancient Greek culture / Thomas
Van Nortwick.
p. cm. — (Praeger series on the ancient world, ISSN 1932–1406)
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978–0–275–98812–8 (alk. paper)
1. Masculinity—Greece—History—To 1500. I. Title.
II. Title: Ideals of masculinity in ancient Greek culture.
DF93.V36 2008
305.310938—dc22 2008017742
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2008 by Thomas Van Nortwick
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008017742
ISBN: 978–0–275–98812–8
ISSN: 1932–1406
First published in 2008
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Mary
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Contents
Series Forewordby Bella Vivante ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiv
Historical Timeline xv
1. Introduction: Men, Death, and the Meaning of Life 1
2. Young Men 24
3. Men and Women 50
4. Men and War 74
5. Men, Gods, and Fate 94
6. Old Men 122
Afterword 155
Further Reading 159
Index 163
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Series Foreword
The lives of ancient peoples may seem far removed, socially, linguistically,
and especially technologically, from the concerns of the modern world.
Yet the popularity of historical subjects on both the big and little screens—
Troy , Alexander , 300 , HBO’s Rome, the many History Channel programs—
demonstrates the abiding fascination the ancient world continues to exert.
Some people are drawn to the dramatic differences between the ancient and
modern, others seek to find the origins for contemporary cultural features
or the sources to provide meaning to our modern lives. Regardless of ap-
proach, the past holds something valuable for all of us. It is literally the root
of who we are, physically through our actual ancestors and culturally in es-
tablishing the foundations for our current beliefs and practices in religious,
social, domestic, and political arenas. The same ancients that we study were
themselves drawn to their own pasts, often asking questions similar to the
ones we pose today about our past.
The books in the Praeger Series on the Ancient World address different
topics from various perspectives. The ones on myth, sports, technology,
warfare, and women explore these subjects cross-culturally, both within the
ancient Mediterranean context—Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and
others—and between the ancient Mediterranean cultures and those of the
Americas, Africa, and Asia. Others, including the volumes on literature, men,
sexuality, and politics and society, examine their topic more specifically
within a Greek or Greek and Roman cultural framework.
A ll renowned scholars committed to bringing the fruits of their research
to wider audiences, each author brings a distinctive new approach to his or
her topic that differentiates them from the many books that exist on the an-
cient world. A major strength of the first group of books is their multicultural
breadth, which is informative in its comprehensive embrace and provides
numerous opportunities for comparative insights. Likewise, the books in the
second group explore their topics in dramatically new ways: the inner life of
male identity, the contributions of both women and men to the social polity,
the ancient constructions of concepts of sexuality and eroticism.