Attic Black, Athens
c. 550
Side C: Three couples occupy the center of the composition. The couple on the left are courting. The man uses the standard courting gesture, reaching for the youth's chin with one hand and his genitals with the other. The other two couples are engaged in intercrural sex. On the left of the scene a naked youth dances. At the right a bearded man holds a cock, a standard courting gift.Homosexual courting scenes have a limited production period in Athens from circa 560 to 475 with a floruit from circa 550 to 500. Shapiro 1981a connects the popularity of these scenes in the second half of the sixth century with the cultivation of the erastes/eromenos relationship by the aristocracy under the Peisistratids. Turnbull in Shapiro 1981, no. 62 interprets Side C as the main scene on the vase with the scenes on the other two legs as subsidiary.
The Perseus Project. University Museums, University of Mississippi