Classical Mateship: A Transtemporal View of a National Ideal

Several scholars have made visible the links between the classical worlds of Greece and Rome and the construction of meaning in Australia's Great War, including in CEW Bean's multivolume Official History of the conflict. However, Australia's postwar version of special masculine bonding and intimate friendship – called 'mateship' – was frequently claimed to be forged on the beaches and cliffs of Gallipoli and became central to Australian identity. With a focus on Homer's the Iliad and framed by scholarship on Homeric masculinities, this article interrogates Bean and his writings to demonstrate that, from many angles, his rendition of mateship appears to be an antipodean interpretation of Homer's Iliadic comradeship. In turn, the paper reveals that, rather than a unique national trait, Australia's version of male bonding in war has transnational and transtemporal foundations.