Leda and the Swan: Bestiality in the Ancient World

Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda on the same night she slept with her husband King Tyndareus of Sparta. She subsequently bears two children from Zeus, Helen (who later becomes Helen of Troy) and Polydeuces (Pollux, one of the Dioscuri) and two children from Tyndareus, Castor (the other Dioscuri) and Clytemnestra. Castor, being the son of a human male, was mortal while Pollux, being a son of Zeus, was immortal.  But Pollux asked to share his immortality with his half brother so each spent half their time in Hades while the other communed with gods on Olympus.

Their unusual conception was just one of several Greek myths in which Zeus seduced or abducted favored mortals while in the form of an animal.  These other tales included Europa and the bull and Ganymede and the eagle.  

Various classical writers recorded that bestiality was common in "other" cultures. Herodotus as well as Pindar, Strabo and Plutarch alleged Egyptian women engaged in sexual relations with goats for religious and magical purposes – the animal aspects of Egyptian deities being particularly alien to the Greco-Roman world. Hittite law mandated the death penalty for intercourse with animals, excluding horses and mules (violators were instead barred from the priesthood and from approaching the king). Likewise,  the Abrahamic religions imposed the death penalty on both the person and animal involved in an act of bestiality. I always view the creation of a law as something needed to prohibit behavior deemed unfavorable that is actually occurring.  

Plutarch, though Greek himself, and Virgil, too, make similar accusations of bestiality among the Greeks, with Plutarch writing in his "Discourse on the Reason of Beasts" that the Greeks committed "very frequently and in many places great outrages, disorders and scandals against nature, in the matter of this pleasure of love, for there are men who have loved she-goats, sows and mares." 

There is some indication that violent sexual encounters, like other mythological scenarios, were acted out as punitive entertainments in the Roman arena. Nero is supposed to have enjoyed a form of bondage with either male or female partners in which he dressed in animal skins to reenact a wild animal attacking a condemned prisoner as frequently occurred in the arena. Cassius Dio also relates how a prostitute pretended to be a leopard for the gratification of a senator. However, such activity was generally viewed by the Romans as undesirable behavior, much like pederasty. But that did not seem to diminish their appreciation of the myth as Leda and the Swan were popular subjects on ceramics and as inspiration for sculpture as well.

Bronze Roman oil lamp in the form of a swan with either Castor and Pollux or Helen and Pollux emerging from its feathers. The children were fathered by Zeus, who took the form of a swan to impregnate their mother Leda.  Now in the Karak Museum in Jordan, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Michael Gunther.

Leda and the Swan (Roman, CE 1-100) at the Getty Villa, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributors Dave and Margie Hill Kleerup

Red-figure Vessel with Leda and the Swan (Greek, Apulia 330 BCE) - Leda with the Swan, as Hypnos enchants her, at the Getty Villa , courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributors Dave and Margie Hill Kleerup.

Red-figure Vessel with Leda and the Swan (Greek, Apulia 330 BCE) - Leda with the Swan, as Hypnos enchants her, at the Getty Villa , courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributors Dave and Margie Hill Kleerup.

Mosaic depicting Leda and the Swan, once the central panel (emblema) of a mosaic floor discovered in the vicinity of the Sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaipafos, late 2nd - early 3rd century CE, Palaepaphos Museum, Cyprus, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Carole Raddato.

Leda with cupid, Roman, 1st century CE, head from Antonia Minor, c. 35 CE, at the Galleria Borghese in Rome, Italy courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Daderot.

Fresco depicting Leda and the swan, from Pompeii, 50-79 CE, Naples National Archaeological Museum courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Carole Raddato.

Reproduction of Leda and the Swan from the Late Hadrianic period courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Mongolo1984.

Leda and Swan, Roman work 2nd century CE after Greek work of the first half of the 4th century BCE, by Timotheus at the Prado Museum courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Caracas1830 (white balance adjusted)

Roman fresco of Leda and the Swan from the Villa Arianna at Stabiae in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Carole Raddato.