Andrew: At such times I reach for my well-thumbed pocket-sized copy of Sir

Kenneth Dover’s Greek Homosexuality

(which Roger Scruton

, for some reason,

describes as a “trivializing” book). Turning to the index for “Thermopylae”

I find only “Thera… Theseus… thighs…” There are lots of entries for

“Sparta” though. Most are too long (and some too icky) to include here, but

the upshot of it is that Sir Ken is skeptical of this particular Spartan

myth, certain snide remarks by Plato notwithstanding. Sample: “If Spartans

in the fourth century B.C. unanimously and firmly denied that their erastai

and eromenoi ever had any bodily contact beyond a clasping of right hands,

it was not easy for an outsider even at the time to produce evidence to the

contrary, and for us it is impossible.” I shall continue to appeal to the