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As it happens, I've read both Aristotle and Xenophon at some length--although, unfortunately, not in the original Greek. I can't speak to Aristotle's views, since--offhand--I can't recall him addressing the matter, and don't feel a burning desire to look it up. Insofar as Xenophon is concerned, if one reads Xenephon's book, 'The Persian Expedition,' Xenophon refers disparagingly to a known homosexual who was a member of their company on that famous adventure--thus Xenophon's views on the matter are a matter of record, and he viewed the man's death by drowning as a sign of divine displeasure. For his part, Socrates decried the 'womanly' behavior of his weeping disciples at the time of his execution, so one might conclude that Socrates, like Xenophon, another Athenian, thought pederasty and effeminacy in men distasteful, at best. However--and this is an important however--while the practice might've been frowned upon, Athenian society did not punish homosexuals, via Athenian law or otherwise. Sparta, on the other hand, was notorious for its 'practices', and it seems to me the author of the piece you quote at such mind-numbing length is bending over backwards, so to speak, to exonerate the Spartans of such behaviors when existing records concerning 'pederasty' and older male 'lover' relationships with younger Spartan boys are plain on the matter, without the semantic twisting and turning the author of your piece seems to imply. I'm not even going to go into the clearly erotic overtones or the celebration of youthful male beauty permeating late period classical Greek art and sculpture--particularly the urns and vases, the 'commercial' art of its day--which was, I suppose, the classical equivalent of a Calvin Klein ad.

I just wonder why the author felt so driven to act as an apologist for Sparta. The brainchild of Lycurgus, Sparta was a deformed, even psychopathic society that brutally enslaved its neighbors, thrived by bloody conquest, and transformed itself into a parody of community. As was once said of Prussia: they weren't a country with an army; they were an army with a country.

So no, I don't buy it. One can extol the beauty of qualities such as courage, patriotism, and determination without holding up a bloodthirsty slave-state like Sparta as an example.

If you can not read the actual Classical Greek text I suggest you learn the language and stop relying on mistranslated material because you are not getting the full picture but a distored view. While there were Greek and Roman men engaged in relations with both women and boys, exceptions to the rule were known, some avoiding relations with women and others rejecting relations with boys. But they never viewed same sex as being ok, acceptable or correct and yes it could be punishable by death and exile. I read it and understand it fluently as does the author who's piece I posted, so you not "buying" it but relying on bogus mistranslated material for your information is quite comical to say the least particularly given that there is little to no actual Spartan documention to suggest they actually participated in such material. What I find humerious from people who can't read the actual material is their blind faith on relying on someone else translated view on the material. Luckly for me, I do not fall under that category and can rely on what the actual ancient texts in Classical Greek say.

Let me tell you a little story regarding some of these non-Greek supposed psuedo "scholars" on ancient Greece who you and most people like you seem to rely on for most of your "information" and this is from a personal experience mind you. Date was October 14-18, 2002 at the the International Symposium on Ancient Macedonia in Thessaloniki; speakers some supposedly "well known" world "scholars" on Classical Greece come to talk to an auditorium full of scholars and students of the Classics. A Kate Mortensen and her collegues start "teaching" their bogus material to us when they are challenged to point out where in the original ancient Greek untranslated texts does it say what they claimed it said. Needless to say Mortensen and her crew had to admit they could not even read the untranslated texts, never mind tell us where the passages were. This admition left us all dead silent with our mouths hanging wide open and total disbelief. So these were the suppose "historian" who were teaching the world our country's History? How pathetic. Ofcouse they were all hackled straight out the country and the bulk of many jokes for months to come in the news media were of them and they also were the comic relief in every show there is in Greece. What is funny about this whole event is that the main stream English news outlets bring up the point of Mortensen and her crew being "hackled" during this event but fail to point out why they were made fun of. Very telling in my opinon, historians who are supposed to be taken as legit academics who can't even read the work they are suppose to be "experts" in? Yeah, some creditable sources they are. ;p