Numerous modern ministries of defence sack up thousands of young men and woman each year from armed forces for homosexuality, which is mostly deemed “incompatible with military services”. The cost is immense if we consider the loss of experienced personnel, not to mention that ministries are engaged in degrading detailed investigations and surveillance of the private lives of suspected individuals.
On contrary, in the past relations between men in the armed forces were different. Emotional bonding was an important social institution among the upper classes and Greek authors such as Aristophanes and Pindar felt it naturally present in the context of aristocratic education. Numerous double graves of warriors, discovered across Iron Age Europe should perhaps be interpreted in this context. Brother in arms from Novo mesto in Slovenia, discovered in grave VII/19 in Kapiteljska njiva is just one such example demonstrating that the habitual world of Greek hoplites and prehistoric warriors was much closer connected than previously assumed.
