Editing History of zoophilia (section)

==Classical antiquity==
[[File:Da michelangelo, leda e il cigno, post 1530 (national gallery) 01.jpg|thumb|right|''[[Leda and the Swan (Michelangelo)|Leda and the Swan]]'', copy of lost [[Michelangelo]]]]
Several Greek myths include the God Zeus seducing or abducting favoured mortals while in the form of an animal: Europa and the bull, Ganymede and the eagle, and Leda and the Swan.<ref name="HSE">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Cornog |first1=M. |last2=Perper |first2=T. |year=1994 |title=Bestiality |editor1-last=Haeberle |editor1-first=E. J. |editor2-last=Bullough |editor2-first=B. L. |editor3-last=Bullough |display-editors=3 |editor4-last=B. |encyclopedia=Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia |publisher=Garland |location=New York & London |url=http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/SEN/CH06.HTM#b3-BESTIALITY |accessdate=18 February 2012 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204033652/http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/GESUND/ARCHIV/SEN/CH06.HTM#b3-BESTIALITY |archivedate=4 February 2012 }}</ref> Only the latter legend includes actual copulation between Leda and Zeus in his animal form, but depictions of this act, fairly uncommon in antiquity, became a popular motif in classicising Renaissance art, contributing to a lasting prominence in Western culture.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bull|first=M.|title=The Mirror of the Gods, How Renaissance Artists Rediscovered the Pagan Gods|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-521923-6|url=https://archive.org/details/mirrorofgods00bull}}</ref>
[[File:Zoophilia.jpg|thumb|right|Zoophilia carving on Rock with Old Kannada script engraved at [[Kedareshvara Temple, Balligavi]]]]

Various classical writers recorded that bestiality was common in other cultures. Herodotus was followed by Pindar, Strabo and Plutarch{{Citation needed|date=February 2012}} in alleging that 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.<ref>{{cite book|last=Ray|first=J. D.|title=The Ancient Gods Speak: A Guide to Egyptian Religion|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-515401-6|editor=Redford, D. B.|page=90|chapter=Animal Cults}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Leavitt|first=J.|title=Greek and Egyptian Mythologies|year=1992|publisher=University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago, IL|isbn=978-0-226-06454-3|editor=Bonnefoy, Y.|page=[https://archive.org/details/greekegyptianmyt00bonn/page/248 248]|chapter=The Cults of Isis among the Greeks and in the Roman Empire|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/greekegyptianmyt00bonn/page/248}}</ref> Conversely, Plutarch and Virgil make similar accusations of the Greeks.

Despite their place in mythology and literature, actual acts of bestiality were probably as uncommon in antiquity as they are today.<ref name="HSE" /> Roman civil law, however, made no mention of it.<ref>{{cite web|last=Norton|first=R.|title=Of Sodomy and Bestiality|url=http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1729disn.htm|work=Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook|accessdate=18 February 2012}}</ref> The explicit prohibition of and strict penalties for zoophilia universal in later European legal systems were derived from Jewish and Christian tradition.<ref name="HSE" /> The Hebrew Bible imposes the death penalty on both the human and animal parties involved in an act of bestiality: "if a man has sexual relations with an animal, he shall be put to death; and you shall kill the animal."<ref name="ReferenceA" /> The [[Synod of Ancyra]] in 313–316 discussed the position of the church with regard to bestiality at length and two of the resulting twenty-five canons addressed it: the sixteenth canon described the penance and level of restrictions to be applied to various age groups for committing bestiality; the seventeenth canon prohibited all lepers from praying inside church if they had committed bestiality while they suffered from leprosy.<ref>{{cite web|title=THE COUNCIL OF ANCYRA, HISTORICAL NOTE & CANONS|url=http://www.synaxis.org/canon/ECF37THE_COUNCIL_OF_ANCYRA_HISTORICAL.htm|accessdate=18 February 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100213214224/http://www.synaxis.org/canon/ECF37THE_COUNCIL_OF_ANCYRA_HISTORICAL.htm|archive-date=13 February 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref>

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).<ref>[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/1650nesilim.asp The Code of the Nesilim, c. 1650-1500 BCE] Retrieved 24 July 2013</ref>