Yet Rome has played a role in love between women for a few privileged and extraordinary individuals. Rome has appealed to far fewer LGBTQ+ women than men, precisely because it is mostly a male elite who have had access to a classical education. Latin has been used as a private language in which upper-class men could talk between themselves about sex, safe in the knowledge that their wives or servants would not be able to understand. In writing about sex using the very language of ancient Rome, Symonds was participating in a long modern tradition. There, describing a sexual encounter with a male lover, he slips from English into Latin. Even though the activist John Addington Symonds deplored Roman vice while celebrating Greek virtue in his public campaigning works, he was far less prudish in his private diary. Wilde was far from alone in responding to ancient homosexuality rather differently depending on whether he was operating in a public or a private context. Yet in private, he toyed with the pleasingly decadent model offered by Rome and the emperor Nero. However, Wilde publicly defended himself against charges of being a “sodomite” by appealing to the idealised vision of Greek love. The book is sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde. The novel’s use of this Roman pair even suggests that love between two men can survive beyond death, recalling Hadrian’s mourning for his lover after his untimely demise, and immortalising of Antinoüs throughout the Empire. The devoted couple who form the novel’s emotional heart are repeatedly presented as the emperor Hadrian and his beloved, Antinoüs. Teleny even suggests that love, and not just sex, between men can be influenced by Rome. There are also passages on Rome’s obsession with huge penises, reflected in its worship of the god Priapus, who was famed for his enormous member. For instance, at an orgy, cross-dressing men are titillated by paintings that recreate sexually explicit Roman murals. Nods to Rome in the novel include sex scenes with language recalling the imagery found in the works of Catullus and Martial.
This can be seen in the anonymous and clandestinely circulated 1893 pornographic novel Teleny. When Rome is embraced, love and sex need not be mutually exclusive. While Greek homosexuality was rather bloodless – used to demonstrate that love between two men could be respectable – Rome is able to encompass a much queerer and more varied set of erotic possibilities. But for those who did not feel the need to apologise for their desires, the Romans provided a positive model. Doing so highlighted the virtue of Greek homosexuality and bestowed a similar virtuous sheen upon those who denounced Rome’s debauched ways. Rome embracedĭemonising Roman vice was politically convenient. Also frequently attacked for obscenity, were the poets Juvenal and Martial. Catullus, in whose work tender love verses for women and boys are found alongside shocking sexual imagery. These authors also criticise the licence of Roman writers including Petronius, whose novel the Satyricon became a byword for Roman decadence. A man who is believed to have enjoyed penetrating as much as he enjoyed being penetrated by his well-endowed husband. A hedonistic ruler who married both women and men. It is often linked to the notorious emperor Nero. To them, Roman homosexuality was not expressed with romantic love, but with riotous orgies.
However, when describing Roman love and erotic practices words such as “gross”, “obscene”, and “lust” abound. Greek love is celebrated in their work for “sublimity” and “aesthetic” appreciation of male beauty.
They found this through Platonic philosophy and historical and mythical examples of devoted lovers. It offered them a legitimising precedent for elevated and spiritual love between men. Pioneering activists such as John Addington Symonds (1840-1893) and George Cecil Ives (1867-1950) turned to Greece as a respectable model. However, it’s an outlook on sex and love we are only now coming to embrace.Īncient Greece’s appeal to gay men is much better known. Their approach was grittier, dirtier and sometimes just as romantic. The reality is, though, that love and sex for the queer community owe more to the ancient Romans. Greek homosexuality has been set upon a pedestal, deemed a worthy and respectable model for romance by philosophers, writers and lovers alike. Professor Jennifer Ingleheart, from our Department of Classics and Ancient History explains why the Romans' hedonistic approach to love and sexuality should be celebrated.