Homosexuality in ancient Rome

(left) Busts of the Roman emperor Hadrian (left) and his male lover Antinous, now at the British Museum (right) Roman mosaic from Susa, Libya, depicting the myth of Zeus in the form of an eagle abducting the boy Ganymede

Homosexuality in ancient Rome is a subject of research and scholarly debate. Homosexuality in ancient Rome differed markedly from the contemporary West. Latin lacks words that would precisely translate "homosexual" and "heterosexual". The primary dichotomy of ancient Roman sexuality was active / dominant / masculine and passive / submissive / feminine. Roman society was patriarchal, and the freeborn male citizen possessed political liberty (libertas) and the right to rule both himself and his household (familia). "Virtue" (virtus) was seen as an active quality through which a man (vir) defined himself.

The conquest mentality and "cult of virility" shaped same-sex relations. Pederasty between males was documented, and such relationships were accepted as long as the Roman man took an active/dominant role and passive younger male partner was not a freeborn youth/boy. Acceptable male partners were slaves and former slaves, prostitutes, and entertainers, whose lifestyle placed them in the nebulous social realm of infamia, so they were excluded from the normal protections afforded to a citizen even if they were technically free. Freeborn male minors were off limits at certain periods in Rome. Its difficult to know upto what extent homosexuality in general and pederasty in particular were practiced in ancient Rome.

Same-sex relations among women are far less documented and, if Roman writers are to be trusted, female homoeroticism may have been very rare, to the point that Ovid, in the Augustine era describes it as "unheard-of". However, there is scattered evidence—for example, a couple of spells in the Greek Magical Papyri—which attests to the existence of individual women in Roman-ruled provinces in the later Imperial period who fell in love with members of the same sex.

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