Putative Akkadian Origins for the Greek Words KivaiSoq and ITVYTJ

The purpose of this note is to suggest Semitic, specifically Akkadian, etymo-

logies for two Greek nouns, and thus for words derived from these. The first
noun in question is KivaiSoc; for a person participating in certain male homo-
sexual acts. The authors suggest that this word is ultimately derived from the
Akkadian noun 'qinnatu', meaning anus, or more generally, the rear. This
noun was productive in Greek, and also passed into Latin as 'cinaedus'.
The second Greek noun for which we suggest an etymology is Ttuyri
denoting buttocks. Our hypothesis is that this word is derived from the
Akkadian 'puqu' meaning cleft or buttocks. Within the Greek language itself,
the noun KaTa7ri)ycuv was developed from the noun Ttuyf) by use of a prefix.
Brown and Levin propose a four step grading for proposed etymo-
logical borrowings:
A certain or virtually so
B highly probable
C quite probable, more than likely
D possible, with no disqualifying flaws.1
The authors argue on the grounds set out below that either of the two alleged
borrowings would, individually, constitute a ' C . We are sanguine that when
the two proposals are considered together it appears that the Greeks were
receptive to two Akkadian words for buttocks, and so, in each case, the
possibility of borrowing might be considered as highly as a 'B'.
We commence by examining each of these four words: the two Greek
words and their putative Akkadian sources. It may be that the words were
indirectly borrowed from Akkadian (e.g. through one of the cultures of Asia
Minor) or perhaps from some other Semitic language. However, so far as we
can tell, the words are not attested in Ugaritic, or Phoenician.2 They are
known too early in Akkadian to be borrowings from Greek. The authors
observe that the two borrowings into Greek seem to have occurred at
different times. However, the very fact that two such words should come to
Greece from the east, perhaps at an interval of centuries (as shall be indicated
below), perhaps indicates a long term receptivity in Greece to eastern cultural
and perhaps even erotic, influence.

' John P. Brown and Saul Levin. 'The Ethnic Paradigm as a Pattern for Nominal Forms in
Greek and Hebrew', General Linguistics 26 (1986) 71-105 at 72.
2
The word 'puqu' has possible cognates in Syriac and Arabic. The Hebrew sips is
probably a distant relative, signifying split, spring off. However, the chance of an early
borrowing from Syriac or Arabic into Greek seems remote. The attested lexical range of
the Hebrew does not include meanings of valley (as in Syriac and Arabic), let alone of
cleft, buttocks. The chain of lexical development seems to be split and cleft and then >
valley and > buttocks.

54
Antichthon 36 (2002) 54-64

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 Putative Akkadian Origins 55
Qinnatu
The Assyriological Dictionary of Chicago gives the meaning of 'qinnatu' as
anus, buttocks, whether human or animal. The Neo-Babylonian dialect of
Akkadian attests a herb known as 'qinnat andi', or buttock of the slave girl?
Black, George and Postgate also note its prepositional use to mean behind
and refer to the related term 'qinnis' meaning backwards.4
The Akkadian word 'qinnatu' has an original meaning of anus,
buttock. From the Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian periods on, the addi-
tional sense of rear is attested. Thus it appears in the earthy sentence: 'tasnip
appaka aq-qi-na-ti-ka'—you tied your nose to your buttocks. As stated, the
term also had application to the rears of animals, thus an omen from the
Mesopotamian stock of teratology reads: 'summa izbu InaSu ina GU.DU
(qinnatu)-su sakna'—if a malformed animal's eyes are on its buttocks.5 It is
also attested in the sense of sexual relations between male and female, e.g.
'summa amelu ana GU.DU (qinnatu) mehrisu ithe', if a man approaches the
buttocks of his partner; and 'gumma amelu ana SAL (sinnistam) purqidam
ana GU.DU (qinnatu) illik', if a man to a woman lying on her back, goes to
her buttocks.6
Significantly, when the word appears in the first of these sentences to
do with sex, it specifically refers to intercourse between males. The Akkadian
word for the person's partner (mehrisu) actually means something like 'col-
league', and is grammatically masculine, hence, probably to avoid ambiguity,
CAD translates as follows: 'gumma amelu ana GU.DU (qinnatu) mehrisu
ithe': if a man makes sexual contact with the rectum of another man.1

Puqu
Black, George and Postgate give the meaning of 'puqu' as defile, cleft in Old
Babylonian through to Neo-Babylonian. The word was, apparently, then
metaphorically applied to the cleft of a river valley, and to the rear cleavage
of sheep and humans. It is also attested in the dual in Neo-Babylonian, for in
the Akkadian language the dual was employed for body parts, and in certain
fixed phrases.8 The noun is said to be related to the verb 'piaqum', meaning
to make narrow, tight.9 Yet, there is an Arabic word <=>-" meaning anus, anal
orifice, and as Akkadian would lose the third consonant it may be that the
Akkadian and Arabic are derived from an ancient Semitic root. That root
might have had a meaning of split, break open. If so, this would explain the
Syriac root 'fqc', from which these meanings are derived: to burst open,
break asunder, be wide open, be rent and hence, even valley. Brockelmann
cites some other Arabic and Hebrew parallels, which take us beyond the

CAD, volume Q, sub 'qinnatu', 254 and 256.

J. Black, A. George and N. Postgate, A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian (Wiesbaden
1999)289.
CAD, volume Q, 254-255.
CAD, volume Q, 255.
CAD, volume Q, 255.
Black et al. (n.3) 278.
Black etal. (n.3) 274.

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 56 Joseph Azize and Ian Craigie

scope of this essay, but tend to confirm, as is already apparent, the antiquity
of this Semitic root.10
Kivcu5o<;
This word is first attested in Plato's Gorgias.11 While Plato lived between
about 487/427 and 348/347 B.C., the precise dating of the Gorgias cannot be
regarded as settled. It is generally considered to be one of Plato's early or
'Socratic' dialogues, although, one of the 'later' of the 'early' works.12 It is
prudent to follow the scholarly practice, and to date Plato's dialogues by a
relative dating (that is, relative to each other), Plato opened the Academy in
about 388/387 B.C., and so a range within or close to the second quarter of the
fourth century B.C. for the Gorgias would appear to be reasonable.
LSJ gives the meaning of KivaiSoc, as 'catamite generally, lewd fellow
... (2) public dancer (?) ... (3) pi., obscene poems ...II a sea-fish ... Ill =
Kivai5iov -cbSnc,, eq, after the fashion of catamites.' Also related is an
abstract noun KivmSeia meaning—in LSJ's translation—unnatural lust.
Lewis and Short give similar, but slightly different, meanings for
cinaedus, and indicate that it simply a Latin translation of the Greek term.
Lewis and Short offer as the chief meaning he who practises unnatural lust, a
sodomite, catamite.
In his study of Indogermanic roots, Pokorny noted a root -ken, with a
basic meaning of to compress, pinch, concentrated.P Pokorny then went on
to consider certain roots and words which he considered had been derived
from —ken. Among these he placed Greek words which expanded upon the
original root by adding the consonant 'd', such as KVCBSCOV two projecting
teeth on the blade of a hunting spear and KvcbSaXcov dangerous animal.
Pokorny listed Kivai5og here, and directed the reader's attention to a later
section.
Further below, with words such as Latin cinis and Greek Koviq,
Pokorny placed words derived from Kvaico meaning to wear out, to rub. The
noun Kivat8o<;, he stated, means 'unzuchig' but actually 'pruriens'.14
It is not surprising that the writers have not been able to find an
etymologist who considers the derivation of the word Kivai5o<; to be secure,
apart from Pokorny.15 The lexical range of words provided by Pokorny
simply does not approximate to that of the Greek noun Kivat5o<;. Itching,

Karl. Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum (Hildesheim 1966) 590, referring to some Arabic
words and to the Hebrew SJpD (see note 2 dbove).
William Armstrong Percy III, Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece (Chicago,
1996)8.
See, for example, Der neue Pauly Enzyklopadie der Antike, volume 9, 1095-1100.
I am informed in a private communication by Dr. N. Weeks of the University of Sydney
that 'Indogermanic' was a term employed before it was realised that the Celtic
languages belonged to this linguistic group. It was an attempt to nominate the grouping
be reference to its most easterly and westerly families. When the position of Celtic was
realised, a new term was needed, hence 'Indoeuropean'.
Julius Pokorny, Indogermanisches Etymologisches Worierbuch (Berne and Munich,
1949, 1959) 558, 560 and 561.
In fairness to him, Pokorny does not state whether he considers the etymological
relationship to be certain, speculative, or in between.

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 Putative Akkadian Origins 57
scratching and rubbing are not part of the basic sense of the term, and
Pokorny does not supply any arguments for his contention that the meaning
of the word is 'eigentlich pruriens'. The fundamental sense of the term is to
do with buttocks, and hence it is applied to animals in whom movement of
the posteriors is prominent. Pokorny's contention might be more persuasive
if he could find examples of where movements of other parts of" the body
were associated with the KivaiSoq.
The fullest etymological treatment of the term known to the authors is
that of Wilhelm Kroll in Paulys Realencyclopadie. Kroll observes that the
Greeks named a bird KtvaiStov orCTeiCTOiruyii;,and a fish Kivai5o<;. This, he
observes was because of the similarity of their movements to those of the
human Kivai5o<;. Kroll continued:
Die Etymologie ist nicht aufgehellt, da weder die altem noch die
modernen Deutungen befriedigen. ... So ist es durchaus moglich,
da(3 K. nicht griechischen, sondern fremden und zwar kleinasi-
atischen Ursprunges ist, wozu die Bedeutungsentwicklung durch-
aus papt.16
Dover states that the word is 'etymologically mysterious'.17 Neither is any
light shed upon the term by Chantraine and older dictionaries.18 Frisk notes
the type of etymology relating the noun to verbs of itching and scratching
suggested by Pokorny, and that it in fact dates back to ancient Greece itself.
However, Frisk is sceptical, saying 'Nicht befriedigend erklart'.19
A suggestion to see a Semitic origin for the word in the postulated
*khunaitha (based upon the Arabic khanith and mukhannath) is ingenious,
but unsupported by evidence of how the borrowing might have come about.20
On the other hand, Williams, referred to below, follows Kroll and speculates
that the origin might lie in a language of Asia Minor.
The etymology suggested herein occurred to the authors at a recent
conference which featured a paper on the social history of the KIVCUSOC;. The
writers' thesis is bolstered by the following factors:
1. The term has no satisfactory Greek or Indoeuropean etymology;21
2. The proposed Akkadian etymology is reasonably close. All of the
consonants are there, the 'q' has become a 'k' and the 't' a 'd'. This is
entirely possible, as the following borrowings or parallels indicate:
Kavcbv < Akkadian 'qanu' / Hebrew 'qaneh' 22
ndkXaKic, 17taAX.aKf| < Hebrew 'pilagas' / Aramaic 'palqta'23

Kroll, Wilhelm. 'Kinaidos', RE 11A.459-62 at 459.

K.J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge, Mass. 1978) 17.
Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue grecque. histoire des mots
(Paris 1970).
Hjalmar Frisk, Griechisches Etymologisches Worterbuch, (Heidelberg 1960-1972), pt.
8, 854.
Percy (n.ll) 194n. 12.
The word was provided by later authors with folk etymologies, which happen to be
contradictory. For consideration and rejection of these, see Kroll 1921 passim.
Burkert, Walter. The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek
Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cambridge, Mass. 1992)34.
John P. Brown, Israel and Hellas (Berlin & New York 1985) 19; and Burkert (n.22) 40.

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 58 Joseph Azize and Ian Craigie

nekeKvq < Akkadian 'palaqu' 2 4

VEietap < Hebrew 'nqtr' 2 5
uScop < Hebrew 'mtr' 2 6
Semitic ' q ' often became kappa in Greek. At one time, Greek did have
the Semitic 'q' (however it may have been pronounced), and knew it
as the letter koppa. It stood in the Greek alphabet between ' p ' and 'r'.
In Hebrew the letters of the alphabet stand in the order, ' p ' , then
'tsade', then 'q', and then 'r'. Even after ' q ' had disappeared from the
Greek alphabet, it was still used for counting, falling as the number 90
between 'pi' as 80 and 'rho' as 100. 27
3. As Williams, cited below, indicates, the Latin noun 'cinaedus' is asso-
ciated with dancers in the Eastern fashion, making a Semitic origin
more plausible. The authors are not aware of any recent study of the
KivouSoc, in Greece which is as authoritative as Williams' survey of the
evidence for the 'cinaedus' in Rome. This is not to suggest that the
situation which obtained in Rome in respect of the 'cinaedus' was
identical to that in Greece for the Kivau5oc„ yet there are obvious
parallels. 28 Williams concludes that:

... (A) 'cinaedus' is a man who fails to live up to traditional standards of

masculine comportment, and one way in which he may do so is by
seeking to be penetrated; but that is merely a symptom of the deeper
disorder, his gender deviance. Indeed, the word's etymology suggests no
direct connection to any sexual practice. Rather, borrowed from Greek
'kinaidos' (which may itself have been a borrowing from a language of
Asia Minor), it primarily signifies an effeminate dancer who entertained
his audiences with a 'tympanum' or tambourine in his hand, and adopted a
lascivious style, often suggestively wriggling his buttocks in such as way
as to suggest anal intercourse. (That a salient characteristic of the dancer
called 'kinaidos' was his tendency to shake his buttocks is clear from the
fact that Greeks referred to a certain kind of bird as 'kinaidion' or
'seisopugus' ['butt-shaker'], and Pliny the Elder mentions a fish called the
'cinaedus': these animals were obviously notable for the way they moved
their hindquarters).
... I would suggest that the image of an effeminate Eastern dancer lurked
behind every description of a man as a 'cinaedus' in the transferred sense,
and that behind the Eastern dancer in turn lurked the image of the 'gallus'.
... Thus 'cinaedus' was a multifaceted insult. To call a Roman man a
'cinaedus' was to associate him with the East (and, as seen in chapter 4,
there was already a tendency to create a gendered contrast between
decadent, effeminate Easterners and virtuous, masculine Romans), with

M.L. West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth
(Oxford 1997)41.
Brown and Levin (n.l) 75.
Brown and Levin (n.l) 75-6.
Herbert W. Smyth, Greek Grammar, rev. Gordon M. Messing (Cambridge, Mass. 1956)
pp. 8, 103 and 104.
The similarities are readily apparent: see especially Kroll (n.l6)passim.

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 Putative Akkadian Origins 59
dancing (a disgraceful profession which was often gendered as effeminate
anyway), and with the effeminate sexual role of being penetrated.29

KaTcmuyrav
That 7tuyf) was a 'buttock' is clear, although the noun seems to have had more
than one nominative form. While we maintain that its Akkadian origin is
virtually certain, we note that Pokorny maintains that it is an Indogermanic
word, derived from a root of pu, peu, pou and phu, meaning 'aufblasen,
aufgebauscht' and similar concepts. Without further explanation, he lists
Truyq with the old Iceland words 'fjuk' and 'fjuka' for 'Schneesturm' and
'schnell durch die Luft fahren, stieben', respectively. Pokorny also cited
Latvian 'puga', signifying 'Windstoss', and 'pauga', meaning 'Polster,
Kopf .30 Here, in our view, the lexical range is simply too remote from 7royf|
to be plausible. Frisk states that the word is 'Ohne uberzeugende Etymologie'
and specifically notes that the suggested Indo-European root puga is not
made out.31
One might even go so far as to say that Pokorny's research supports
the hypothesis that the Greek word 7irjyf| does not have an Indo-European
etymology, because it is clearly a very different concept from that attested by
the words most similar in Indo-European.
The synthetic term KaTa7iuyo)v is first attested on a shard from the 8th
century B.C.32 The conjoining of mTd to 7iuyf| to coin a new word, should—
if etymology is a certain guide—rightly refer only to the pathic partner in
anal intercourse.33 However, the meanings of words do not necessarily re-
main fixed. One might wonder whether in future years philologists will be
arguing whether because of the etymology of the English word 'bottle', it
was properly used in the 21 st century only to denote small containers of wine.
In the event, the word KaTomuycov came to mean something like 'badly
behaved' and certainly did not apply only to males. It is unclear whether
when used to refer to sexual activities it could refer to other than passive
behaviour.34
Scholars working in the field of linguistic borrowings into early Greek
from Semitic languages have noted that in Akkadian texts as they circulated
in Northwest Semitic areas, there was a certain graphic interchangeability
between the consonants 'h', 'q', 'k' and 'g'. 35 On the other hand, Phoenician
'q' often becomes 'k' in Greek, for example, 'Kadmos' the son of Agenor,

Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical

Antiquity (NY & Oxford 1999) 175, 177.
Pokorny (n. 14) 847.
Frisk (n.19) pt. 15, 618-19. Frisk does not refer to Pokorny's work or his suggested
cognates.
Dover (n. 17) 113.
Dover (n.17) 113, 142-3.
Dover (n.17) 142-3. But in n. 10, p. 114, Dover speculates that the feminine form of the
noun 'was probably an Attic invention which had a limited life.' It may have been, but
equally, it may not have been; our sources are hardly exhaustive, and 'perhaps' is more
advisable than 'probably'.
Jan Best, Chapter 1 in Jan Best and Fred Woudhuizen (eds), Lost Languages of the
Mediterranean (Leiden 1989), 29.

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 60 Joseph Azize and Ian Craigie

from Phoenician QDM.36 This would suggest an Akkadian as opposed to a

Phoenician source for this borrowing; but this is by no means a conclusive
argument.
Now, if the authors are correct in their conjecture, then there obtains
not only a similarity in these two borrowings, but also a dissimilarity. That is,
while both are Akkadian words for buttocks, only 7royf| is directly taken into
Greek with this sense. So far as we can tell, although the buttocks were
always a colourful connotation of the Kivai5oq, the word is not attested as
meaning 'buttocks' simpliciter in Greek. That is, it may have entered the
Greek language as a word for a dancer who performed in the manner
Williams refers to.
This suggests that in either Akkadian or some other Semitic or
Western Asian language, the word 'qinnatu' may have developed a meaning
directly analogous if not identical to that of the later Greek term KivatSoq.
Ventris and Chadwick note that often the introduction of a word into Greek
will lead us to assume that the Greeks had lacked a corresponding term,37 that
is, new words tend to be imported with new goods or concepts. But even if
the art of the KVVCUSOC, was taken into Greece and successfully acclimatized, it
can hardly be imagined that the Greeks ever lacked words for buttocks, or for
concubines (we have noted the possible Semitic origin of naXkaxk, I
7iOAlaKf|). In connection with the borrowing of this last term, Levin contends
that:
... a good principle of etymology (is) that the motive for borrowing a
certain word needs to be determined after the fact of borrowing has been
established—especially when the contacts between the languages was
rather limited and the transfer of vocabulary not large altogether.38
It occurs to the writers that if it has been established that there were two such
borrowings at a remove of several hundred years, then it would seem that the
cultures of Western Asia had a tenacious influence on the Greek erotic
imagination.
Ramifications
The word 7ivyr\ is a relatively early borrowing, and could well have been
taken directly from Akkadian, as many words were in very early Greek
history.39
However, in the case of Kivm5o<;, the dating does seem rather late for
a borrowing from Akkadian. There are, it seems to the writers, two chief
possibilities. First, and most likely, the term had passed from Akkadian into a
language of Asia Minor, and hence into Greek. This would thus tally with
Kroll's and Williams' speculation of an Asia Minor origin, but also provides
a concrete basis for the suggested transmission. We conjecture that this

36
Ruth Edwards, Kadmos the Phoenician, (Amsterdam 1979).
37
M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, 2"d edition (Cambridge
1973)135,319-320.
38
Saul Levin, 'Hebrew 'pilegeS', Greek naXkaKi\, Latin paelex: The Origin of Inter-
marriage among the Early Indo-Europeans and Semites', General Linguistics, 23
(1983) 191-7 at 191.
39
Best (n.35) passim. The literature in this area is steadily increasing, and the number of
Semitic words identified in Greek surpasses the few noted by Chadwick and Ventris.

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 Putative Akkadian Origins 61
probably occurred no later than the fifth century B.C., for the term to have
become a familiar one when Plato was writing Gorgias. The second possi-
bility, is that there was a related term in another Semitic language, most
likely Phoenician, and that passed into Greek. We surmise that Phoenician
was the most likely candidate, given the nature of relevant cultural exchanges
between Greece and Phoenicia.
The cultural impact of Phoenicia on Greece in the Bronze Age is
increasingly apparent, and we do not need to cite authorities to the readers of
this journal. However, especially relevant, are the following matters:
1. The recent location in Crete of Phoenician clay figurines of male
tambourinists, apparently with painted cheeks and necklaces, dating
to the eighth century B.C.;40
2. Athenaios attributes Phoenician origins, for the stringed phoinix;41
the nablas and a form of the lyre,42 and the 'elephant pipes'
(sometimes the ascription is controversial).43 He mentions that the
Phoenicians use the pipes known as the gingras (which, he says,
were popular at Athenian symposia and in Caria). While Athenaios
not say that the Phoenicians invented this instrument, this may be
perhaps be implied.44
3. Baal MRQD was 'Lord of the Dance'. Little is known of him, but it
is tempting to see a connection between his title 'MRQD' and the
Greek udya5is. Baal MRQD is known exclusively from three Greek
and 15 Latin inscriptions.45 However, this is still conjectural and
requires further research: the authors do not even offer this as a
suggested etymology.
While we are conscious of Goldhill's warning not to reconstruct ancient
sexuality from isolated passages without considering the literary nature of the
entire work in which they appear,46 one passage in Herodas is of particular
interest for future research. Writing his 'Mimiambs' sometime in the first half
of the third century B.c,47 Herodas depicts in the second of the series a
brothel-keeper by the name of Battaros (son of Sisumbriskos, grandson of
Sisumbras). He is presenting a case to a jury against a certain Thales who
beat his door down and tried to abduct one of his ladies.48 The nature of the
case is not stated. In the course of his address, he declaims:

40
V. Karageorghis, 'Amathus between the Greeks and the Phoenicians', Atti del il
congresso internazionale di sludi fenici e punici (Rome 1991), vol. 3, 959-68, at 962-
963.
41
Deipnosophists 637.
42
Deipnosophists 174-1"/'5.
43
Deipnosophists 182.
44
Deipnosophists 174-175.
45
DCPP p. 59 under 'Baal Marqod' and pp. 126-127 under 'Danse rituelle'. For the
magadis, see Athenaios, Deipnosophists 14.636-637.
46
Simon Goldhill, Foucaulfs Virginity (Cambridge 1995) 110.
47
For a review of the very few details known of Herodas, and notes on the 'mimiamb' see
the introduction by l.C. Cunningham in Theophrastus: Characters, Herodas: Mimes,
Cercidas and Choliambic Poets (2nd edition, Cambridge Mass. 1993) 202-203.
48
Thales is said to have 'forced' her: KCIPI&^ET'—see line 71.

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 62 Joseph Azize and Ian Craigie

... & yfjpas

aot Ouerco e-afel] TO aiu.' av e£e4>ucrT|o-ev
dxrirep OCALOTOS ev Xd|iwvL KOT' O Bpeyicos.
yeAais Kiva[i.]86s €U(XL Kal OIJK diTapveup.ai.
Kai BaTTapos (iou TOUVO^JL CCTTI KCO TrdiTTTos
T|v (JLOL Etau^Ppas KO) iraTT)p Xioruu.p1pio-Kos
(Mime 2, lines 71-76, omitting editor's marks for unclear letters)

0 Old Age, let him sacrifice to you (in thanksgiving) since he did not pour
out his blood as Philistos the son of Bregkos did in Samos. Do you laugh?
1 am a 'kinaidos', and I do not deny it. Battaros is my name, and the name
of my grandfather was Sisumbras, and of my father, Sisumbriskos.
We are also told in line 18 that Battaros came out from Tyre bringing his
ladies. It is interesting to see this connection between the KivaiSoi; and the
eastern Mediterranean. One wonders whether Herodas is here transmitting a
memory of some connection between the KivcuSoc, and Phoenicia.
Cunningham, the editor of the Loeb edition, translates line 74 as: 'You
laugh? I am gay and don't deny it.' To the writers, it seems that 'gay' is
anachronistic and unduly specific. Nevertheless, Cunningham could have
some justification for his translation, in that the term KivaiSoc; does seem to
refer to someone who today would be termed 'homosexual'—which is not to
say that everyone we would call a homosexual was a KivaiSoi;, or that it was
coterminous with our words 'homosexual' or 'gay'. It is trite that the Greeks
did not have a word for 'homosexual'. However, Battaros does identify
himself as a KivaiSoi;, and the KivaiSoi; does seem to have been a subset of the
modern term 'homosexual'. This prompts the suggestion that perhaps the
really significant point is that the Greeks did not have a word for
heterosexual, which tells us something about their assumptions. That is, if
every male was normally expected to have sex with females at least to bear
children, then the KivaiSoc; is perceived as something departing (maybe even
'deviating') from the norm, perhaps because he was associated with Western
Asian culture.49
The issue in Herodas, however, is that Battaros having rattled his
sabre, his audience has started to laugh. His masculinity is in doubt. He
defends this by the technique 'confess and avoid'. Yes, he is a KivaiSoi; but
he does not deny it. He then states his name, and the names of his grandfather
and father, which are both very similar to each other; and asseverates that he
could throttle Thales. So the passage commences and ends with an aggressive
tone. If indeed this was considered humorous, one can infer that KivaiSoi and
brothel-keepers were not considered formidable for their masculinity or
pugilism. Although Battaros does not state that his forebears were KivaiSoi,
they were clearly capable of fathering at least one son each. It is difficult to
extrapolate more.

The authors are aware that Winkler (1990) offers a more sophisticated view of what is
involved in questions of 'homosexuality' in ancient Greece: see pp. 45-46 for his
observation that the term KivaiSoi; refers, at least to some extent, to 'a category of
persons, not just of acts.' However, it would take us too far from our purpose to
consider Winkler's views in details. Our main concern is etymology and the related
issue of cultural influence: not a full analysis of the sexual culture of ancient Greece.

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 Putative Akkadian Origins 63

There can be no doubt at all that, in Mesopotamia, dancers, playing

instruments or not, also sometimes performed sexual acts or accompanied
50
them. That we have no such evidence for Phoenicia may simply be a func-
tion of the greater evidence from Mesopotamia.

Further Research
If the authors are correct in their conjectures, then perhaps scholars of Greek
eroticism and sexual culture might, with advantage, add to their Greek resear-
ches the perspective of the history of these matters in ancient Western Asia. It
may well be that Greek attitudes were, to some extent, shaped under the
influence of the more cosmopolitan civilizations of Western Asia.
The writers do not intend to broach the subject of the Mesopotamian
attitude to sex between males. The reader is referred to the discussions of
Leick, and Bottero and Petschow.51 The situation in Mesopotamia appears to
have borne a certain resemblance to the situation in Rome, where 'stuprum'
attached only if barriers of class (in particular, the division between free
males and slaves) were breached.52 However, the position which obtained in
Mesopotamia was very different from the Roman in one important respect: in
Mesopotamian the 'assinnu' (among others),53 had a ritual role, being in the
service of Istar, and was associated with singing, dancing, and the playing of
instruments.54 Indeed, the Kivai5o<; almost appears as a secular counterpart of
the 'assinnu'. One cannot know whether these dancers also had a sacred
function in Asia Minor or Western Asia55 (assuming the correctness of our
theory): there is insufficient data. The authors are not aware of any evidence
for such a role in Greece.

University of Sydney JOSEPH AZIZE AND IAN CRAIGIE

A.D. Kilmer (1995) 'Music and Dance in Ancient Western Asia', in Civilizations of the
Ancient Near East, ed. J.M. Sasson et al. (New York 1985), vol. 4, 2601-13, at 2604-5.
Jean Bottero, and H. Petschow, 'Homosexualitat', Reallexicon der Assyriologie, ed. G
Ebeling et al. (Berlin 1972-5), volume 4, pp. 459-468 at 462, paragraph 8. Leick (1994)
pp. 157-169. A.D. Kilmer, 'A Note on an Overlooked Wordplay in the Akkadian Gilga-
mesh' in Zikir Sumim, ed. G. Van Driel et al. (Leiden 1982), 128-32, makes an
interesting point that while there is controversy as to whether Gilgamesh and Enkidu (of
the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh epic) had a homoerotic relationship, there do seem
to be references to such a possibility, but the references are made in puns. For some
reason, there was a reticence about directly addressing the question.
'Stuprum' cannot be adequately translated by one or even two English words. It is dealt
with throughout Williams (n.29).
Bottero and Petschow (n.51) 463, paragraph 10, and 467, paragraph 19. This is not to
suggest that in Mesopotamia every male who had sexual relations with other males was
known as an 'assinnu'. There appear to have been other males with similar functions,
referred to by other terms. The situation in Mesopotamia was complex.
Bottero and Petschow (n.51) 463, paragraph 11.

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 64 Joseph Azize and Ian Craigie

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