#ancient greek sexuality

[jeannereames]

Hello Dr. Reames I hope you’re doing well

I have a question. I was reading everything you’ve written on your blog about alexander and hephaistion and in a post you mentioned that as alex and hephaistion became older their relationship became more complicated. Could you expand more on what you mean by that? In what ways did it become complicated?

Why Alexander and Hephaistion as Lovers as Adults was “Complicated”

I’m not entirely sure whether the asker means the historical people, or the characters in my novel, so I’ll answer for both, as the answer is somewhat the same, but in the book, I can add more specificity. One must be more circumspect about the historical people.

First, if they were never lovers (the historical people), then the only complication would have been Alexander’s increasing power. No matter how much freedom Hephaistion had, the murder of Kleitos showed that a drunk, furious Alexander could do terrible things, even to people he considered like family. As ATG aged, he had more cause for anger, and he also drank more.* So there was that.

But returning to the question of whether they were lovers, my colleague Sabine Müller doesn’t think they were—largely because she believes they met as adults. And THAT gets to the heart of why—if they were lovers—their relationship would have become more complicated across time. They aged.

The Greeks placed homoerotic attachments among the stages of life. A preteen/young teen was the beloved, or pursued partner (eromenos). Once he got a beard, post 18-ish (e.g., ephebe age), then one became the lover, or pursuer (erastes). Any relationship one had previously enjoyed with an older lover was expected to transmute into very close friendship/affection. Then, around the late 20s/early 30s, one would settle down and get married. It was still all right to chase younger boys, but only for a little while. Doing it too long earned “dirty old man” status, although we have evidence of older (40+, even 50+) elite men doing just that. Also, males of any age could pursue affairs with hetairai and other prostitutes (male or female), as well as with slaves of any age.

Two adult men still “carrying on” as if they were teens/young men was considered unseemly. By the time both were past 20, and certainly past 25, they shouldn’t still be having sex with each other. Although if they’d been long-time lovers as youths, they might get nods for loyalty (v. the playwright Agathon and his long-time lover, Pausanias) … and friends didn’t ask what they did behind closed doors. But this was easier to pull off as a slightly counter-culture artist playwright than a king and his increasingly important marshal.

So that’s why Alexander and Hephaistion would have experienced complications as they aged—assuming they stayed lovers. And they may not have. Even if, as youths, they were lovers, as adults, they could each have moved on. Curtius names other youths (not just Bagoas) with whom Alexander might have had a fling. It’s subtle in the text, but the Latin word used could imply something. We don’t have similar attestations for Hephaistion, but I wouldn’t expect us to, so that’s meaningless. Remember, our histories are laser-focused on Alexander, with details about other marshals appearing only if/when they matter to the main story. So, we have the name of Philotas’ mistress only because she became Krateros’ source for dirt on what Philotas said about Alexander as pillow talk. If not for that, we wouldn’t even know he had a mistress. Ergo, we MUST assume there’s a lot of information about the men in high positions around Alexander that our sources simply don’t relate (and perhaps didn’t know).

Now, in terms of Dancing with the Lion, the age thing very much is the problem, as Hephaistion is the elder but Alexandros king. They can continue a relationship for a short while (a few years), but AS KING, Alexandros would be assumed to be the “active” partner (erastes), and that would damage Hephaistion’s reputation—because he’s older (and was originally the erastes). For an older male to accept the passive role (bottoming) was demeaning, making himself “like a woman.”

That’s why the penultimate scene in Dancing with the Lion: Rise is so important! Hephaistion “flips the script,” explaining why he considers bottoming the position of power—startling Alexandros, who never thought about it that way.

Going forward, their friends will ignore any continuation and not examine it too closely due to respect for their loyalty to each other. But this works only for a little while. After Granikos and leading up to Issos, the pressure is on for Alexandros to find a nice girl to make his mistress and move Hephaistion into the role of Older Friend (without benefits)—which he does with Barsine. Yet I don’t plan to have them entirely give up their romantic liaison, so that requires concealment for Hephaistion’s benefit. And it’s not fully successful. Some push back against Hephaistion by enemies does owe to disrespect for his “preferences.”

But keep in mind, I’m speaking now of the fictional characters, not necessarily the historical people. My Hephaistion is pretty high on the Kinsey Scale, in the 5-6 range. Keeping the respect needed to command successfully as his political star rises means he must wear a mask, or find a beard, to use slang. One of the (several) points behind my series is to show it wasn’t necessarily any easier to be gay in “tolerant” ancient Greece. It was just difficult in different ways.

———————

* Before anyone asks, no I don’t think Alexander was an alcoholic, even a “functional” one. There’s literally not enough evidence to say for sure, pace J. M. O’Brien (Alexander the Great and the Invisible Enemy). O’Brien may not call him an alcoholic, but he certainly implies it.

We have two complicating factors that make any sort of real determination difficult: first, the nature of banqueting at the Macedonian court, and second, the fact that historians record the exceptional, not the usual. Symposia (drinking parties) in the Greek world were already venues for both competition and display, and Macedonians didn’t customarily dilute their wine, unlike (many) Southern Greeks. The king was not only expected to keep up, but to excel in all things, including his ability to drink. So there’s that. Add to this the fact historians don’t tell you about the 56 times the king held a symposion where nothing exciting or out-of-the-way happened. They’ll tell you about that 57th when something bad DID happen.

Even in antiquity, there was debate about whether Alexander drank too much, with detractors and Roman-era rhetoricians using him as an exempla of Drinking is Bad (especially in rulers), while apologists (like Aristobulos) claimed he didn’t overdrink, he just liked conversation so he stayed late, lingering over his wine.

Hmmm. I’m going with Door Number Three: yes, sometimes he drank too much, especially as stresses piled up, but if he’d been an actual alcoholic, even a functional one, he probably couldn’t have accomplished everything he did. For one thing, availability of alcohol on the march would’ve been sporadic, so I suspect those famous drinking parties were what happened when they got their hands on some wine, in between long stretches where they probably didn’t have much, if any.

[thedepartmentofdiscoveries]

#1 & #2: A Greek Terracotta Aphrodite, Hellenistic Period, Circa 3rd Century B.C. from Christie's.

#3: "The Birth of Venus" an Italian carved and tinted and carved Carrara marble table lamp, Florence, late 19th century/early 20th century, from Sotheby's.

🐚🌊💖💘🫧🦪✨️

[sarafangirlart]

It’s funny how only modern audiences desexualize Hephaestus and act like he doesn’t care about sex and lets Aphrodite have relationships with his (able bodied) brothers. Meanwhile the ancient Greeks (who were violently ableist) had him have multiple sexual partners and several children and not only that, some of those children went on to make orgy cults.

[a-gnosis]

Hi dear. I've been following your comics for a while now. I also absolutely adore your Dionysus and it seems like you do as well! Do you have any book recommendations for someone who wants to learn more about Dionysus as a god associated with sex and subversion of sexual roles? I can't seem to find satisfying answers from just theoi.com alone.

Hi! Dionysos certainly is a fascinating character. I'm glad you like my version of the god. ^^

Unfortunately I haven't read any book that focuses entirely on this aspect of Dionysos. It is mentioned briefly in the chapter "Sexuality and the Gods" in Greek and Roman Sexualities: A Sourcebook by Jennifer Larson.

One article that Larson recommends for further reading is "Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role De/Construction" by Eric Csapo.

It is also discussed a bit in the chapter "The Anthesteria and other Dionysiac Rites" in Polytheism and Society at Athens by Robert Parker.

In Ancient Greek Cults: A Guide, Jennifer Larson means that the analyses of how Dionysos subverted gender roles and other societal norms are largely based on the portraits of Dionysiac worship in Greek poetry and myth, above all the Bacchae of Euripides, but that a study of Dionysos' cults and the historically attested behaviors associated with them yields a different picture:

"In practice, the worship of Dionysos was not truly subversive; instead, it offered outlets for physical and emotional self-expression within socially acceptable contexts. Furthermore, Dionysiac cult was smoothly integrated into Greek civic systems of worship, with ecstatic and private components balanced by state-sponsored festivals and conventional sacrifices."

If anyone knows any good books or articles on this subject, feel free to add.

[thegreekwriter]

Read Athenian Arrow Now!

Yassou, my name is Panagiota Moisakos. I'm half-Athenian and half-Spartan which makes me fully Greek. I wrote a forbidden romance novel set during the Peloponnesian War in Ancient Greece called "Athenian Arrow" on Wattpad. Here is the synopsis:

Set during the Peloponnesian War, Athens and Sparta are battling their differences. While the leader of Sparta argues uncompromisingly with the leader of Athens, the Spartan leader's son Andreas is sent on a quest to steal supplies from Athens, unarmed. While running through the capital of Greece, he meets Athens' finest archer, Alexi. Believing that an unarmed man should not be killed, Alexi decides to not shoot the arrow he had aimed at the Spartan.

But when troubles of trusting a Spartan arise, Alexi finds himself in a predicament that would change the course of his life forever, especially when the two start to develop a unique connection the more time they spend together. But with Andreas being Spartan and Alexi being Athenian, how will the two come to love while their cities are at war?

Their predicament only grows more complicated when the elderly Athenian leader offers the lead position to one of his most trusted soldiers, Alexi, to lead Athens into victory and stop this war once and for all. Will Alexi accept this fortunate opportunity? Or will conflict of interest be the start of Athens' downfall?

I hope you all enjoy the story as much as I did creating it. Thank you to everyone who reads it and gives it love. Your support means the world to me 💙

[hecates-corner]

STOP 👏 LABELING 👏 ANCIENT 👏 GREEK 👏 FIGURES 👏 OR 👏 DEITIES 👏 AS 👏 SELECT 👏 SEXUALITIES 👏

IF THEY DID NOT HAVE A LABEL THEN 👏

WE SHOULD NOT TRY TO LABEL THEM NOW 👏

THAT 👏 IS 👏 FOR 👏 THEM 👏 TO 👏 DECIDE 👏

[amphibious-thing]

Actually I do just want to clarify this point because it was brought up. The dominate rhetoric in 18th English (& colonial) culture saw the agent (top) in m/m anal sex as assaulting the pathic (bottom) even in consensual cases. The agent not only received social stigma but could be sentenced to death for the perceived "assault". The penetrator not receiving social sigma or backlash because he was still preforming the masculine role is, to my understanding, more of an ancient Greek thing (ancient Greek history is not my area so take this with a grain of salt). If anything it could be argued that the agent received more social stigma because he was seen as the aggressor in the crime. However in consensual cases the pathic was understood has having consented to the assault and thus could also be sentenced to death for sodomy. William Pulteney in A Proper Reply to a Late Scurrilous Libel; Intitled, Sedition and Defamation Display’d states: "It is well known that there must be two Parties in this Crime; the Pathick and the Agent; both equally guilty." I have a longer post talking about the topic if you're into that sort of thing.

[liebgotts-lovergirl]

Aphrodite Areia ~ Aphrodite the Warlike

"I can be feminine in all my rage.

I can be girl and woman, and claws with teeth."

[Click for better quality]

[roobgumball95]

ezra: hey, can i get some dating advice?

thrawn: just because i am with eli vanto does not mean i know how i did it.

[jeannereames]

How many love interest did Alexander have in all of his life? I just recently found out he had an affair with a prostitute named Camaspe and apparently she was the one who was the first to have a physical relationship with him although not for long.

Love your work! 💕

Alexander’s Reported Lovers

Just an FYI … Kampaspe (Campaspe in Latin, also Pancaste) is a character in the second volume of Dancing with the Lion (Rise), as I wanted a second female voice and also a slave’s perspective. Even better that she was born to privilege, then lost it. She was reportedly a Thessalian hetaira from Larissa, which was handy as the Argeads had a long history of ties to the city of Larissa. I wrote about her before in a post from the blog tour the publisher had me do when the books first came out. You can read it HERE.

That said, she’s probably a Roman-era invention, mentioned only by late sources (Lucian, Aelian, and Pliny) all with one (repeated) story: Alexander as Super-patron. Reputedly, he gave her to his favored painter Apelles when, commissioned to do a nude,  Apelles fell in love with her. Alexander kept the painting, Apelles got the girl. You bet I’ll have some fun with that. Kampaspe will remain a major character throughout the series…but not as Alexander’s mistress.

When trying to figure out how many sexual partners Alexander had, we must ask which were invented—or denied. Remember: ancient history wasn’t like modern (academic) history. It was essentially creative non-fiction. It inserted speeches, dialogue, even people and events to liven things up and/or to make a moral point. Or it obscured people and events, if that worked better.

Modern readers of ancient sources must always ask WHO wrote this, WHEN was it written, and what POINT did the author intend? Also, especially with anecdotes, look at the wider context. People are especially prone to take anecdotes at face value and treat them as isolated little tales. Yet CONTEXT IS KING.

A lot of our information about Alexander’s love life comes from Plutarch, either in his Life of Alexander or his collection of essays now called the Moralia. Another source is Curtius’s History of Alexander. And finally, Athenaeus’s Diepnosophistai or The Supper Party (really, The Learned Banqueters). All wrote during the Roman empire and had tropes and messages to get across.

Of the WOMEN associated with Alexander, I’m going to divide them into the historical and the probably fictional, or at least their relationship with Alexander was fictional.

Of the certain, we can count one mistress, three wives, and one probable secret/erased liaison.

Barsine is his first attested mistress for whom we have ample references across multiple sources. Supposedly, she bore Alexander a son (Herakles). Herakles certainly existed, but whether he was Alexander’s is less clear to me. As the half-Persian, half-Greek daughter of a significant satrap, she had no little influence. Monica D’Agostini has a great article on Alexander’s women, btw, in a forthcoming collection I edited for Colloquia Antiqua, called Macedon and Its Influences, and spends some time on Barsine. So look for that, probably in 2025, as we JUST (Friday) submitted the last of the proof corrections and index. Whoo! Anyway, Monica examines all Alexander’s (historical) women in—you guessed it!—their proper context.

Alexander also married three times: Roxane, daughter of the warlord Oxyartes of Sogdiana, in early 327. He married again in mid-324 in Susa, both Statiera (the younger), daughter of Darius, and Parysatis, youngest daughter of the king before Darius, Artaxerxes III Ochus. Yes, both at once, making ties to the older and the newer Achaemenid royal lines.

Out of all these, he had only one living son, Alexander IV (by Roxane)—although he got his women pregnant four times. If we can trust a late source (Metz Epitome), and I think we can for this, Roxane had a miscarriage while in India. Also, Statiera the younger was reputedly pregnant when Roxane, with Perdikkas’s help, killed her just a few days (or hours!) after Alexander died.

That’s 3 …who had baby #4?

Statiera the Elder, Darius’s wife. Netflix’s proposal of a liaison between them was not spun out of thin air. Plutarch—the same guy who tells us ATG never even looked at her—also tells us she died in childbirth just a week or three before the battle of Gaugamela, Oct. 1, 331. Keep in mind, Alexander had captured her right after Issos, Nov. 5, 333. Um … that kid wasn’t Darius’s. And if you think ANYbody would have been allowed to have an affair with such a high-ranking captive as the Great-King’s chief wife, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you. More on it HERE.

Now, for the probably fictional….

Kampaspe, I explained above.

Kallixena was supposedly hired by Philip and Olympias (jointly!) to initiate Alexander into sex, because he didn’t seem interested in women. (Yes, this little titbit is also in Rise.) Athenaeus reports the story as a digression on Alexander’s drinking, and how too much wine led to his lack of sexual interest. But within the anecdote, the reported reason for his parents’ hiring Kallixena was because mommy and daddy feared Alexander was “womanish” (gunnis).

Thaïs was linked to him by Athenaeus, almost certainly based on her supposed participation in the burning of Persepolis…which didn’t happen (or not as related; archaeology tosses cold water on it). Thaïs was Ptolemy’s mistress, and the mother of some of his children.

Athenaeus also mentions a couple unnamed interests, but all illustrate the same point: Alexander is too noble to steal somebody else’s love. Two are back-to-back: the flute-girl of a certain Theodoros, Proteas’ brother, and the lyre player of Antipatrides. The last is a boy, the eromenos of a certain Kalchis, a story related apart from the women, but with the same point.

Even more clearly fictional are his supposed encounters with the Amazon Queen Thalestris and Queen Kleophis of the Massaga (in Pakistan). Reportedly, as Onisikritos was reading from his history of Alexander at the court of King Lysimachos (who’d been a close friend, remember), Lysimachos burst out laughing when Onisikritos got to the Amazon story, and asked, “Where was I when this happened?”

Now, when it comes to his MEN/BOYS, the ice is thinner as no names are definitively given except Bagoas (in a couple sources, chiefly Curtius and Athenaeus). We also have a few generic references to pretty boys, as with Kalchis’s boyfriend mentioned above, and some slave boys offered by a certain Philoxenos, who he turns down, a story told by both Plutarch and Athenaeus.

Curtius alone suggests two more, but at least one is meant to show Alexander’s descent into Oriental Corruption(tm), so it’s possible Curtius made them up. At the very least, he used them for his own narrative purposes. Sabine Müller has a great article on this, albeit in German. Still, if you can read German: “Alexander, Dareios und Hephaistion. Fallhöhen bei Curtius Rufus.” In H. Wulfram, ed., Der Römische Alexanderhistoriker Curtius Rufus: Erzähltechnik, Rhetorik, Figurenpsychologie und Rezeption. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2016, 13-48.

Romans had a certain dis-ease with “Greek Love,” especially when it involved two freeborn men. Fucking slaves was fine; they’re just slaves. Citizen men with citizen boys…that’s trickier.

Curtius labels two youths “favorites,” a phrasing that implies a sexual affair. One is mentioned early in the campaign (Egypt) when Alexander is still “good”; the other after Alexander begins his slide into Persian Debauchery. These are Hektor, Parmenion’s son (good), and Euxinippos, described as being as pretty as Hephaistion, but not as “manly” (bad). Curtius employs Bagoas similarly, even claims he influenced imperial policy for his own dastardly goals. Gasp!

Yes, of course I’m being sarcastic, but readers need to understand the motifs that Curtius is employing, and what they really mean. Not what 21st century people assume they mean, or romantically want them to mean. (See my "Did Bagoas Exist?" post.)

What about Hephaistion? I’ve discussed him elsewhere in an article, but I’ll just remind folks that it’s nowhere made explicit until late sources, in large part because, by the time we meet Alexander and Hephaistion in the histories, they were adults, and any affair between them would be assumed to have occurred in the past, when they were youths. (See my “It’s Complicated” and a reply to them maybe being “DudeBros.”)

This is why we hear about Alexander’s interest in youths, not adult men. It would be WEIRD to the ancient mind (= Very Very Bad) if he liked adult men. In fact, by comparing Hephaistion to Euxinippos, Curtius slyly insinuates that maybe he and Alexander were still…you know (wink, wink). That’s meant to be a slam against Alexander (and Hephaistion)! Therefore, we cannot take it, in itself, as proof of anything. Alexander’s emotional attachment to Hephaistion, however, is not doubted by any ancient source.

So, all those people are attached to Alexander in our sources, but over half may not be real, or at least, may not have had a sexual relationship with him. There may be (probably are) some that simply didn’t make it into the surviving sources.

Yet I’ve mentioned before that we just don’t find sexual misconduct as one of Alexander’s named faults. Even Curtius and Justin must dig for it/make up shit, such as claiming Alexander actually used Darius’s whole harem of concubines or held a drunken revel through Karia after escaping the Gedrosian Desert. (Blue Dionysos and drag queens on the Seine at the Paris Olympics got nothing on his Dionysian komos!)

Drink, anger, hubris…he sure as hell ticked all those boxes. But not sex. In fact, a number of sources imply he just wasn’t that randy, despite his “choleric” temperament. Some of the authors credit too much drink (bad), others, his supreme self-control (good). He’s more often an example of sexual continence—as in the stories from Athenaeus related above. He also didn’t rape his captives, etc., etc.

Make of that what you like, but I find it intriguing.

[a-gnosis]

01: Paris

"As many myths attest, Trojan men had an extraordinary erotic appeal for both male and female admirers, generally with negative consequences for themselves and others. Paris is no exception. His beauty is, however, not that of a mighty warrior like Achilles, which is an effect of perfected masculinity, a proper expression of magnificent physical power. It is, rather, a "feminine" allure of the kind associated with fine clothing and luxurious accessories. In keeping with the attraction of like to like, this feminizing type of beauty is expected to make a man attractive to women. It is also closely linked with heterosexual excess and transgressive desire on the part of the man. Paris is the archetype of this feminized variety of masculine beauty: he is the masculine "beautiful evil."

Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation by Ruby Blondell

This version of Paris belongs to @littlesparklight. She writes awesome Greek myth stories.

[kebriones]

Alcibiades on his spartan arc & Timaea. I liked it in that Flowers of Adonis book when he's like "why did I sleep with the queen? because I was bored out of my mind >:C" I thought is was funny.

Also in Theodore Kallifatidis' "Timandra" , Timandra mentions having interchangeable genders with him as well as Alcibiades deliberately copying her behavior and wearing her clothes on at least two occassions, which I can't stop thinking about.

[unreadpoppy]

ngl, i'm kinda over this interpretation of the Medusa tale that athena was just trying to help Medusa so that she'd never be hurt again

but like...that makes no sense. She transformed Medusa in a monster. She's a goddess, she could have done anything else, but sheh chose to give medusa snakes for hair, and essentially isolate her from the rest of the world. That isn't trying to help, she screwed the girl over, which makes way more sense (to me) considering that the greek gods are assholes most of the time.

idk, the topic has been on my mind for some time, but to each their own interpretation

[classicschronicles]

Hi lovelies,

Guys. This blog. Is one years old today! Woah. Icl I’m really bad at sticking to things so the fact that we managed to get a post every week for a year is pretty cool, so thank you all :)

As it’s pride month (happy pride!!) I’ve been seeing a lot of things on Twitter celebrating queer figures from classical antiquity, and whilst there were definitely queer figures to be celebrated, I think there is a lot of misconceptions about sexuality in the ancient world (especially Greece and Rome). So today I thought it would be cool to talk about male and female sexuality in the Ancient Greece and Rome. Quick trigger warning, there are mentions of pro5tituti0n, r4pe, and sl4v3ry, so read at your own risk and please stay safe <3

Okay so just some quick things to understand. The term ‘homosexual’ wasn’t coined until the the late 19th century, and the word bisexual until 1892. In regards to Ancient Greece, it was a largely homosocial, if not ‘homosexual’.

So starting off with Ancient Greece. Potential sexual partners for men included other free men (in the realms of pederastic relationships), wives, pro5titut3s, and both male and female slaves. Pederastic relationships were the main form of homosexual relationships and it was basically a socially acceptable, educative and erotic relationship between an adult male (mid-20s to 30s) and a younger male (mid-to-late teens to early-twenties). The older lover was called the erastes (lover) and the younger was called the eromenos (beloved). The erastes had to pursue the eromenos (usually at the gym) and it was his role to provide education for the younger in the areas of politics, philosophy, rhetoric, and social customs (basically how to be a good citizen). In return, the eromenos would provide the erastes with sexual pleasure, but key point it wasn’t penetrative pleasure because (oh no) that would be too gay. Stupid I know, but basically penetrative s3x would, to them, make one of them ‘feminine’ and in a highly highly misogynistic society that just wasn’t the done thing. But there is evidence to suggest that quite a few men ignored this social convention. For example, in Aristophanes Frogs, they mention a politicians called Cliesthenes who has broken this tradition and in Plato’s Symposium, Pausanias and Agathon. Anyways! The erastes was chosen for his beauty, so the more beautiful you were the better erastes, and therefore education, you would receive. It is really important to note that for the erastes, this wasn’t allowed to be his primary sexual relationship, in that it was expected of him to be married and that his primary relationship was for the purpose of childbirth. Another partner for men in Ancient Greece was was pro5titut3s, and there were two levels of this. The first was the pornoi, who were ‘street workers’ and were slaves (male or female) owned by br0th3l owners. The second levels was the hetairai who were highly educated female courtesans, a mix of free women and slaves, and were primarily seen at drinking parties.

There is little that is know about the sexual partners of women in Ancient Greece but its largely agreed that women could only have male/female relations with their husbands, but as long as it didn’t get in the way of having children, they could also engage in relations with other women. Sappho’s works suggest that this was often the case before marriage.

In Ancient Rome, the potential sexual partners for men included their wives, infames (male or female), slaves (male or female) and extra marital affairs. So starting off with infames, this was a person- that because of their profession) had no legal status in Rome (so actors, gladiators etc…). Because of the focus on the active and passive members of the relationships, the free man always had to be the ‘active’ and the infames the ‘passive’. Generally when it came to homosexuality, romans did not have pederasty and if a roman man wanted to have sex with another man they could as long as they weren’t the passive one, because if a freeman was the passive one it would damage his virtus. Again, like in Ancient Greece, this wasn’t a mans primary relationship and he is still expected to have a wife for the purpose of childbirth. Because of this, relations with male slaves became popular and the term ‘puer delicatus’ (delicate boy) was often applied to slave boys brought specifically for this purpose. Similarly to Ancient Greece, it was encouraged for men to have relations with pro5titut3s and exploit household slaves. Adultery was, however, outlawed but the Lex Julia. BUT, this was hugely hugely unpopular and historian Gaius Suetonius described the reaction as ‘open revolt’. This suggests that extramarital affairs were accepted and popular. Ovid literally has a whole book about pursuing married women and succeeding, which tells you all that it needs to.

In regards to women in Ancient rome, there again isn’t a lot that is known. But Ars Amortia book 3 suggests that women did have extramarital affairs and some form of sexual liberty.

In all, heteronormativity wasn’t as enforced in the ancient world because, in all honesty, they cared more about who took on the ‘feminine’ role, and so their sexual liberty didn’t come from acceptance, but straight up misogyny. Also I read this really fascinating thing that basically said that in todays world where we enforce heteronormativity, we can’t assume that everyone who says they’re straight, is in fact straight. In the same way, to the ancient world where (and forgive my use of modern terminology) homosexuality was expected, you can’t assume that everyone who said they were ‘homosexual’ or ‘bisexual’ actually was. Sexuality has, and always will be, flexible and diverse and deeply fascinating and so you can’t enforce labels on the ancient, or indeed modern, world. It’s fluid and whatever you want it to be, but either way, I hope you all found this interesting!

Thanks for sticking with my awful ramblings for the last year, I love you all loads, and I hope you all have a lovely rest of your weekend <33

~Z

[mythology-void]

friendly reminder that Odysseus had a daily cry when he was on Calypso's Island for 7 years and he's still a certified badass so if you're in a tough spot it's ok to cry too

[fan-male]

Tagging @kingtulip @spacematriarchy @thedivinetreasury