Writing about love is a difficult task. Nevertheless, for thousands of years, an inordinate number of brave individuals have attempted to come to terms with this most important of emotions. Poets have shared both real and imaginary experiences of love, philosophers have pondered it, artists have painted and sculpted it, and scientists have placed it under the microscope.
A Cultural History of Love, part of Bloomsbury’s Cultural Histories Series, explores love in six volumes, which are organised chronologically, cover 2,500 years, and involve 55 international experts.
As editors of Volume 1, Marguerite Johnson and Han Baltussen faced a challenge. Where does one begin when attempting to trace love in antiquity? How should one best communicate the topic in a single volume spanning nine hundred years (500 BCE-400 CE)?
The history of love
Part of the editorial process, and one shared with contributors, was a close consideration of a recurrent scholarly question underpinning the history of love: are expressions and definitions of love culturally defined, or can we argue that ‘love is love’ no matter the time or place? This ideological starting point revolves around the age-old question, as posed in the Introduction: ‘Do humans experience the same emotions across time and space, and, if so, is love universal?’
While brains and bodies are wired for love, social conventions influence its expression. Working within this paradigm, the editors and contributors approached the culture of love via Greek and Roman value systems, institutions, and organizations. The most familiar forms of love, namely romantic love, familial love, and friendship, emerge from antiquity in myriad ways, some of which will resonate with contemporary readers. But other forms of love are more socially and culturally specific. One chapter, for example, explores love as experienced in the contexts of community, including philosophical schools as well as Jewish and Christian groups. Expressions of love embodied by divinities, as manifest in Greek and Roman polytheistic religion and its gods, are the focus of another chapter. The book also shows that love impacted the politics of antiquity as different manifestations of love were believed to have the potential to unleash some positive, but more often harmful effects on governments. The volume concludes with two chapters on the physicality and sensuality of love, with insights into how it was expressed in both written and visual sources.
The editors and contributors were alert to the necessity of myth-busting when it came to matters of love in Greece and Rome. This task involved counteracting popular images of promiscuity, including orgies and indulgences in every sexual taboo. Such assumptions, particularly promulgated in films and television series, have left a distorted concept of the ancients that regularly denies them individualism, humanity or even, on occasion, the ability to love. One only has to think about films, such as ‘Caligula’ (originally screened in 1979, followed by ‘cut’ and ‘uncut’ releases, including a hardcore version in 1985) and, though less explicit, the HBO series, ‘Rome’ (2005-2007), to understand the challenges entailed in presenting a more balanced historical record.
Ancient expressions of love
Indeed, far from a sexual free-for-all, Greek and Roman cultures included rules, regulations, laws, and mores that governed expressions and enactments of love. As a result, excessive expressions of love, for instance in the form of public grief as well as romance, were met with censure and could even have legal implications. The Greek statesman, Solon (c.630–c.560 BCE), was said to have instigated legislation to restrict demonstrative mourning at the funerals of loved ones. In Rome, while distracted by erotic love, as per the actions of the Roman politician, Pompey (106-48 BCE), towards his fourth wife, was met with opprobrium.
Yet, despite socio-cultural specificities pertaining to expressions of love, the ancients produced some of the most memorable expressions of love in all its glorious manifestations, from the first flushes of attraction to the joys of sensuality and the pains of rejection.
To emphasise this, the editors chose a romantic and tender cover image, depicting a couple in bed with their dog at their feet from the second century CE.
The volume takes care to include many of these voices, from Sappho (the Greek female poet from the sixth century BCE) to Ovid (the controversial Roman raconteur from the late first century BCE to the early first century CE), even extending to philosophers, such as Plato (c. 429–347 BCE), whose dialogues contain some of the most profound contemplations on the meaning of love, providing the now standard image of the wings of love.
Sappho sings of desire – a close companion of love:
Some people believe a squadron of cavalry, others infantry,
and still others a fleet of ships, to be the most beautiful
sight on the dark earth, but I believe it is
whatever an individual desires. (Fragment 16.1-4)
Sappho’s sensual expression predates the maxim of the Greek philosopher, Protagoras (c.490-c.420 BCE) that ‘man is the measure of all things’. The sentiment is a powerful one, expressing the uniqueness of every human being, not only men but, importantly for Sappho, women and their emotional worlds.
Despite the challenges, augmented by the Covid pandemic, which interrupted access to libraries, archives, and museums, and affecting lives more personally, the editors found the project a joyful – indeed, uplifting – one. And, in view of the topic, how could it be anything else?
Barclay, Katie (general editor), A Cultural History of Love, 6 volumes, Vol 1: A Cultural History of Love in Antiquity, edited by Marguerite Johnson and Han Baltussen (Bloomsbury: 2025).
