The Bucolics and Eclogues

71 BCE-20 BCE Virgil

Homosexuality in ancient Rome is a subject of research and scholarly debate. Conceptions of homosexuality in ancient Rome differed 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. In a lot of accounts from the Roman era, 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 the 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.…