Pederasty was both idealized and criticized in ancient literature and philosophy. It has no formal existence in the Homeric epics, and seems to have developed in the late 7th century BCE as an aspect of Greek homosocial culture, which was characterized also by athletic and artistic nudity, delayed marriage for aristocrats, symposia, and the social seclusion of women. Some scholars locate its origin in initiation ritual, particularly rites of passage on Crete, where it was associated with entrance into military life and the religion of Zeus. The influence of pederasty on Greek culture of these periods was so pervasive that it has been called 'the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens.' It was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods. Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged romantic relationship between an older male (the erastes) and a younger male (the eromenos) usually in his teens. The man on the right tries to kiss the youth with whom he is sharing a couch. Pederastic couples at a symposium, as depicted on a tomb fresco from the Greek colony of Paestum in Italy.
