Menipo y Sócrates en Diálogos de los muertos 6: pederastía en el Hades

Abstract

This paper discusses a fragment of Lucian’s Dialogues of the
Dead 6, in which Socrates after a brief conversation with
Menippus of Gadara invites the latter to lie down with himself and
his beautiful dead comrades, Charmides, Phaedrus and
Alcibiades. A lexical and contextual analyzes of the fragment
proves that Socrates’ invitation conceals a pederastic intention. A
global vision of Dialogues of the Dead and a consideration of
Lucian’s poetics explain why Socrates, who loves young boys, is
interested in the old and ugly Menippus of Gadara.