Originally Posted by Far-L

No worries, I am just a former student who likewise took classes, heard lectures, etc. and read tons on this particular part of history and I consider myself an amateur history buff - however, though I took years and years of Latin I never did learn Greek to be able to do my own translations.

The evidence is not all circumstancial btw since the ancient historians that I mentioned were eye witnesses to a significant degree for what they were writing about and though there are issues with each there is not a modern historian or a ph.d of antiquities out there that doesn't go by the same source material and disagreements over translations are not that vehement.

Yes, homosexuality in general was much more tolerated and even institutionalized in some respects - certainly the ancients did not think gay = sissy boy by any measure. Hollywood is no where near clever enough to get that distinction right since they are too concerned with selling popcorn to a modern and usually uneducated audience that would be predisposed to the usual modern stereotypes of gender, sexuality, etc.

For the record - the Spartans were a professional warrior society but they were very reluctant to engage in any battles unless they absolutely had to. That is why they arrived at the end of Marathon and why the Ephors did not want to send troops with Leonidas... also there were plenty of times when Sparta was actually an ally of the Persians. The Athenians were actually the more aggressive and empire building culture of the two which is what led to the Pelopponesian wars... but that is another story...