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. Mythbusting Ancient Rome – the emperor Nero 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.