Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial's Forgotten Rivals Book

As someone coming in wet behind the ears to eroticism in greek antiquity, this book was so interesting to me. Firstly, I found out that Aphrodite is the greek adaptation of the Eastern inspired Ishtar-Astarte! (Ishtar is the assyrian goddess of love/fecundity). Aphrodite is typically thought of as a goddess of love but she was also seen as a goddess who had political & administrative importance since she was believed to help in providing civic harmony.

In reading about eroticism, the first divine being one would hear of is Eros, the male love god. (Read my previous review of symposium). But in fact, eros was not very important in antiquity, he was seen to be an underling, an aspect, of Aphrodite, sometimes even considered her son.

Eros only really became more prominent and revered with the Athenian aristocracy's institutionalisation of paederasty (homosexual relations between men & younger boys). So Eros was developed in symposiums, these dinner parties with male elites, by poets. He embodied the divinized ideal of the beloved male youth, and thus became the male counterpart to Aphrodite in that way.