In 1481, a Byzantine woman in Thessaloniki inscribed an intense, cultured love poem on the tomb of her beloved man, Loukas Spandounes. … Read the post women should express greater, wider-ranging love for men
Cyril Mango’s influential 1980 book Byzantium: The Empire of the New Rome fallaciously describes Byzantine literature and Byzantine anti-feminism. … Read the post Mango on Byzantine literature and Byzantine anti-feminism
Wary of friends, the 11th-century Byzantine nobleman Kekaumenos recognized that a man with seductive skills could readily have sex with another man’s wife. … Read the post Kekaumenos knew seductive skills more potent than emperor’s wealth
Achieving gender equality in military service requires Byzantine novels’ frank and fearless appreciation for women’s comparative advantage in combat. … Read the post recognize women’s combat advantages for military gender equality
Charikles in the Byzantine novel Drosilla and Charikles showed that men must be cunning enchanters and act like scoundrels to ignite women’s sexual desire. … Read the post Charikles redeemed Byzantine novel from romantic simplicity
Interrupting Hysminias’s dream of loving Hysmine, her mother violently dragged her away and summoned an army of women to stone him. … Read the post Hysminias loving Hysmine spurred her mother to violence
The Byzantine novel Hysmine and Hysminias offers a superb literary tool for helping men in love to overcome their romantic innocence and simplicity. … Read the post Byzantine literature can help men overcome romantic simplicity
Andronikos I, a Byzantine nobleman, defied the Spartan mothers’ teaching on violence against men. He focused on manly passion in bed. … Read the post Andronikos defied Spartan mothers, rejected soldier’s role
Gynocentric society supports castration culture and cadres of vicious, jealous eunuch officials like Eutropius in Constantinople in 399. … Read the post castration culture promotes vicious, jealous eunuchs as officials
Hysmine’s treatment of Hysminias while he was serving as herald offers a case study of sexual harassment of men in 12th-century Byzantium. … Read the post how Hysmine enthralled Hysminias: hazards of herald service