While I definitely think the novel touches on the theme of homosexuality in antiquity, I don’t think the practice of pederasty, which is characterized by an imbalance of power, was what Aciman had in mind.

Firstly, Elio and Oliver are both students and relatively close in age. Secondly, Elio is Oliver’s intellectual equal, if not superior, and thirdly Elio is of a higher socioeconomic status than Oliver.

An important feature of pederasty is that the older male introduce the younger to the customs of Greek/Roman life. The opposite is true of Elio and Oliver. Elio is the one who teaches and instructs Oliver in the ways Italian life.

The exchange in a pederastic relationship is the wisdom of the older for the beauty of the younger. Aciman has flipped this. Oliver is undeniably the beauty and Elio cerebral.

Lastly, the younger in a pederastic relationship is completely submissive. When playing the passive role in bed, the Greeks believed he ceased to be male. Not only does Elio top but when he does bottom he sees himself as a man, as older, as Oliver’s equal:

“[I]t seemed there was absolutely no difference in age between us, just two men kissing, and even this seemed to dissolve, as I began to feel we were not even two men, just two beings. I loved the egalitarianism of the moment. I loved feeling younger and older, human to human, man to man, Jew to Jew.”

I do, however, see Elio and Oliver’s relationship reflected in another part of Greek life. Their love reminded me of the love between soldiers in the Sacred Band of Thebes. Particularly the way Elio describes their faith as a brotherhood.

“[M]y eyes wandered along his bathing suit and tried to make out the contour of what made us brothers in the desert.”

“My Star of David, his Star of David, our two necks like one, two cut Jewish men joined together from time immemorial.”

“[I]t was the gold necklace and the Star of David with a golden mezuzah on his neck that told me here was something more compelling than anything I wanted from him, for it bound us and reminded me that, while everything else conspired to make us the two most dissimilar beings, this at least transcended all differences…Staring at his neck with its star and telltale amulet was like staring at something timeless, ancestral, immortal in me, in him, in both of us, begging to be rekindled and brought back from its millenary sleep.”

Again, the emphasis here is on how they are the same. Like the Sacred Band of Thebes, 150 pairs of male lovers who fought and died alongside each other, their bond is part of a tradition and purpose much greater than themselves.