(Boylove Documentary Sourcebook) - A Verbal Reminder of the Oath Sworn by Gnathios, an Ancient Greek Warrior, to His Young Male Beloved, in the Epitaph Inscribed on the Former's Tombstone

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Philippides by Willoughby Vera. Illustration from A Vision of Greece (1925).


From Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Alexander the Great, Third Edition, edited by Matthew Dillon and Lynda Garland (London; New York: Routledge, 2010). First edition published in 1994 by Routledge.

4.75 Inscriptiones Graecae I3 1399: An Oath for Love of a Boy

A slab of marble from the Attic countryside, with crude archaic lettering, c. 500 BC, recording the heroic love of Gnathios for a younger boy, for whom he swore an oath that he would go to war; the boy presumably erected this as a memorial to Gnathios. [IG I2 920.]

Here a man swore a solemn oath for love of a boy
To mingle in strife and tearful war.
I am sacred to Gnathios, who lost his life in war ...


Ancient Greek marble grave stele with relief depicting a scene of pederastic courtship in which a youthful erastes offers a rooster as love gift to a boyish eromenos. Rhodian, Severe Style, Early Classical Period, c. 465 BCE. Rhodes, Archaeological Museum, Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights, Γ 1640.

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