As far as sexual mores are concerned, the Hellenistic period does not show dramatic changes, though a more romantic view of sexuality is evident. This is probably the result of the reevaluation of marriage and the family mentioned earlier. A more refined eroticism—“soft porn” products for public consumption—replaced the often crude sexuality of images and texts from the Archaic and Classical Greek world closely related to the sumposion. It is significant that large-scale sculptural representation of the female nude, especially statues and figurines representing the goddess Aphrodite, seems to have started in the middle of the 4th century BC. That writers and artists showed less interest in homosexuality also fits the new mood. Some scholars are of the opinion that this change in tone reflected, or caused, a change in behavior. Romanticism, eroticism, and even idealized family life would have been no more than a cover-up for a society in which hedonism flourished and in which, compared to earlier periods, heterosexual intercourse was more and more detached
From reproduction. In this context, it is often pointed out that during the Hellenistic period the number of children per family was reduced dramatically due to contraception (some effective methods were probably known), abortion, infanticide, or the abandonment of newborn babies. Naturally, this piece of information influences the way we look at sexual life, but we lack proof for this or most other statements concerning actual behavior. Abandoning infants was a standard solution in the ancient world, where many lived below what we would now call the poverty line. There is no firm evidence for an increase in this kind of behavior in the Hellenistic period.
Because of what has been said before about the demography of the ancient world, it will be clear that a marked reduction in family size must have resulted in a decreasing population. Sure enough, sources speak of a decline, especially in Greece. A drop in the number of landowning citizens, recorded for a number of places, notably in Sparta, does not, however, seem to have had primarily demographical causes, but social ones: in a society replete with mercenary armies, communities no longer see the need of maintaining the citizens’ army to the required standard. This opens up possibilities for the elite to enlarge its territory at the expense of others. In fact, our knowledge of demographical developments during the Hellenistic period is extremely limited. Migration patterns are the only matter about which we can make informed guesses, although, of course, there are no figures. Many Greeks moved either east or to Egypt, as mercenaries or in the wake of military conquest. Over a long period, a powerful countercurrent of both Greeks (sometimes second-generation migrants) and non-Greeks (especially Jews and Syrians) moved from the East to the West. The size of the population leaving Greece and Macedonia should, therefore, not be exaggerated. In addition, we should not forget to include slaves when mentioning patterns of migration: large-scale warfare during the whole of the period led to the enslavement and subsequent transfer of vast numbers of people.
World History
