Cultural References
In a funeral speech ascribed to him by Thucydides, Pericles exhorts the Athenians to "gaze day after day on the power of the city and become her erastai", interpreted to mean "that citizen-soldiers should behave towards Athens like boyfriends, erastai: i.e. love the city without calculation, more than life itself."
Athenian pederasty is a major theme in the historical novel The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault.
Read more about this topic: Athenian Pederasty
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“Barbarisation may be defined as a cultural process whereby an attained condition of high value is gradually overrun and superseded by elements of lower quality.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)