[Meaning] to penetrate [sexually], or [for women] to proffer themselves to strangers; for the Spartans [Lakones] keep very little guard over their womenfolk.
*lakwniko\n tro/pon: perai/nein, h)\ pare/xein e(auta\s toi=s ce/nois: h(/kista ga\r ta\s gunai=kas fula/ssousin oi( *la/kwnes.
Likewise in
Hesychius lambda226 and
Photius,
Lexicon lambda47 Theodoridis, and cf.
Apostolius (the paroemiographer) 10.42.
This entry brings up the chronological rear of a considerable body of lexicographical and scholiastic mention of the phrase "Spartan-style": see for convenience K.J. Dover,
Greek Homosexuality (London 1978) 187-8. Dover finds the essence of the phrase in anal intercourse, by either men or women (or presumably one of each).
On the supposed freedom(s), sexual and otherwise, of Spartan women see generally P.A. Cartledge, "Spartan women: liberation or licence?",
Classical Quarterly 31 (1981) 84-105. Concerning the present entry, provided the first glossing infinitive relates to women (in the way that what follows self-evidently does), one could compare
Artemidorus 1.80: there this same verb,
perai/nein, is used to describe intercourse between two women, one grammatically active and the other passive. For the same in the case of men see
Diogenes Laertius 2.127. (The remarks on this verb in J. Henderson,
The Maculate Muse [New Haven 1975] 158) do not adequately distinguish between active, middle, and passive.)
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