Queer Culture In Ancient Persia

Queer culture has been a part of human society dating as far back as recorded history, but how heavily did it impact the ideological evolution of humanities past? The idea of homosexuality today often brings out varying viewpoints from person to person, most often based on learned familial, religious, or societal values. On the contrary, ancient Greek and Persian cultures had not synthesized a definition of homosexuality, inhibiting the procurement of viewpoints on sexuality as we picture it today (Mondimore, 2011). In other words, homosexuality was not a part of the human consciousness at that point in history. The rhetoric pertaining to ancient queerness was derived from the varying ideas of family structure, the philosophy of love, mythology,

Zoroastrianism was founded in Iran around the time of existence of the prophet Zoroaster around the sixth or seventh century BC (Greenberg, 1997). Much of the Zoroastrian moral teachings within the Vendidad, a Zoroastrian scripture, take a harsh view on homosexuality. Vendidad 8.73-74 places sodomites among the ranks of those who may be killed on the spot along with criminals and brigands. Teachings like this would push a society to think negatively of queer citizens because of their equation to criminals. If there were queer citizens in Persia, the Zoroastrian teachings would urge them to hide their personal lives and promote society to view queer citizens negatively. Consequently, the Persian construct of homosexuality would have been malicious towards those a part of the queer

Neither Herodotus nor Xenophon mention Zoroaster’s name, suggesting that neither he nor his religion was widely known (Greenberg, 1997). If the Zoroastrian religion was a large influence, it is doubtful that two of the most detailed recorders of ancient history neglected to incorporate the name within their accounts. It could also be argued that the absence of the Zoroaster’s name was motivated by a bigger picture. Since both Herodotus and Xenophon were Greek sources, it is a potential that their neglect to include Zoroaster’s name was because they wanted to prevent the spread of knowledge from a primarily Persian religion. This is most likely not the case because of the religious freedoms that most of the Persian rulers allowed their citizens. Early rulers of the dynasty were not full-fledged Zoroastrians as evident by the absence of Zoroaster’s name and theophoric Zoroastrian names in the tablets of the royal library at Persepolis. However, they did worship Ahura Mazda, Zoroaster’s god. Further refuting the influence of Zoroastrian scriptures, early Persian rulers as well as Artaxerxes I, II, III, and Darius, rulers who can be identified more definitely as Zoroastrian (Zaehner, 2011), allowed the lands they conquered to worship their own religions. Freedom of religion would prevent much of the spreading of the Zoroastrian religion to other groups of people within the Persian Empire.