- Adaios
Adaios, (lived ca. 450 BCE) also known as Adaeus, was a
Macedon ian poet of which little is known, save that he made two notable contributions to literature and history. When his good friendEuripides died in exile and was refused burial in his nativeAthens , Adaios composed the epitaph that graced the playwright's grave in Macedonia. Adaios' other noted achievement was his sage advice for those men who would know the pleasures of another male::::::"If you see someone beautiful" :::::"hammer it out right then." :::::"Say what you think;" :::::"grab his balls: be a man." :::::"But if 'I admire you' is what you say" :::::"and 'I'll be a brother to you' -" :::::"shame will bar the only way" :::::"to all you want to do."
(This is one of several modern translations.)
The fact that Adaios does not speak specifically of loving a boy, a custom known to the Greeks as "paiderastia", but instead seems to speak of sexual love between males in general, gives a clue to the Macedonians' ideas on the subject. While their neighbors to the south, especially in Athens, believed that such relations should be restricted to those between adult men and teenage boys, and that exclusive
homosexuality should be shunned whilebisexuality was accepted as the norm, the Macedonians apparently held no such prejudices, and relations between men of similar age was apparently more commonly accepted, as evidenced by the relationships betweenAlexander the Great andHephaestion ."This article originally appeared on the [http://outcyclopedia.0catch.com/adaios.html Outcyclopedia] website."
ADAEUS or ADDAEUS, called the Macedonian in the title of one of his epigrams, was a contemporary of
Alexander the Great . Among his epigrams are epitaphs on Alexander and onPhilip ; his date is further fixed by the mention ofPotidaea in another epigram, asCassander , who died B.C. 296, changed the name of the city intoCassandreia . Eleven epigrams are extant under his name, but one is headed "Adaeus ofMytilene " and may be by a different hand, as Adaeus was a common Macedonian name. They are chiefly poems of country life, prayers toDemeter andArtemis , and hunting scenes, full of fresh air and simplicity out of doors, with a serious sense of religion and something of Macedonian gravity. The picture they give of the simple and refined life of the Greek country gentleman, likeXenophon in his old age atScillus , is one of the most charming and intimate glimpses we have of the ancient world, carried on quietly among the drums and tramplings of Alexander's conquests, of which we are faintly reminded by another epigram on an engraved Indian beryl.[http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_gkanth_bio3a.htm Poets of Greece Proper and Macedonia,about.com]
ADAEUS, or ADDAEUS (Αδαίος or Αδδαίος), a Greek
epigram matic poet, a native most probably ofMacedon ia. The epithet Μακεδόνος is appended to his name before the third epigram in the Vat. MS. (Anili. Gr. vi. 228); and the subjects of the second, eighth, ninth, and tenth epigrams agree with this account of his origin. He lived in the time ofAlexander the Great , to whose death he alludes. (Anth. Gr. vii. 240.) The fifth epigram (Anth. Gr. vii. 305) is inscribed Αδδαίου Μυτιληναίου, and there was a Mytilenaean of this name, who wrote two prose works Περί αγαλματοποιών(On statue-makers and Περί Διαθέσεως(On disposition) (Athen. xiii. p. 606. A, xi. p. 471, F.) The time when he lived cannot be fixed with certainty. Reiske, though on insufficient grounds, believes these two to be the same person. (Anth. Grace, vi. 228, 2589 vii. 51, 238, 240, 305, x. 20 ; Brunck, Anal. ii. p. 224 ; Jacobs, xiii. p. 831.) [C. P. M.][http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0027.html The Ancient Library]
External links
* [http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bioa1/adai1.html Profile at the Living Room]
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