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Love in antiquity, just as today, expressed itself in all kinds of relationships, meanings, connotations, and expectations. There were representations in art, literature, and religion of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual love, the temporary and often misguided madness of desire, the lasting love of family, friends, and pets, and even the love of learning, music, and wine. In short, anything we think ourselves capable of today in the love department has already been tried, tested, eulogised, and abused by peoples living millennia ago from Akkad to Zakros.
In this collection, we look at the Greek and Roman personifications of love and desire, the rules and conventions concerning sex and marriage in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and look at some example literature on the subject, including possibly the world's first love poem and the first romantic novel.
Ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty, desire, and all aspects of sexuality, Aphrodite could entice both gods and men into illicit affairs with her good looks and whispered sweet nothings. Born near Cyprus from the severed genitalia of the sky godUranus, Aphrodite had a much wider significance than the traditional view as a mere goddess of love and sex.
Mark is a full-time writer, researcher, historian, and editor. Special interests include art, architecture, and discovering the ideas that all civilizations share. He holds an MA in Political Philosophy and is the WHE Publishing Director.
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Uploaded by Mark Cartwright, published on 14 February 2019. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
