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Sexual conquest was a common metaphor for imperialism in Roman discourse, [8] and the "conquest mentality" was part of a "cult of virility" that particularly shaped Roman homosexual practices. [9] Roman ideals of masculinity were thus premised on taking an active role that was also, as Craig A. Williams has noted, "the prime directive of ...
Like other aspects of Roman life, sexuality was supported and regulated by religious traditions, both the public cult of the state and private religious practices and magic. Sexuality was an important category of Roman religious thought. [42] The complement of male and female was vital to the Roman concept of deity.
The worship of Antinous proved to be one of the most enduring and popular of cults of deified humans in the Roman empire, and events continued to be founded in his honour long after Hadrian's death. [8] Antinous became a symbol of male homosexuality in Western culture, appearing in the work of Oscar Wilde, Fernando Pessoa and Marguerite Yourcenar.
At least two of the Roman Emperors were in same-sex unions; and in fact, thirteen out of the first fourteen Roman Emperors are held to have been bisexual or exclusively homosexual. [18] The first Roman emperor to have married a man was Nero , who is reported to have married two other men on different occasions.
509 BC – The Roman Republic is founded. Homosexuality, as in Greece, is widespread and legalized throughout the Roman heyday, from the Republic to the Empire (see Homosexuality in ancient Rome). 149 BC – The Lex Scantinia, a Roman law, regulates homosexuality for the first time on record. According to the law, homosexuality should be denied ...
[76] [77]: 13 In Spain, Italy, and the Holy Roman Empire, sodomy between women was included in acts considered unnatural and punishable by burning to death, although few instances are recorded of this taking place. [citation needed] In the Holy Roman Empire under Charles V, a law on sexual offences specifically prohibits sex acts between women.
The first known Roman law to mention same-sex relations was the Lex Scantinia. Although the actual text of this law is lost, it likely prohibited free Roman citizens from taking the passive role in same-sex acts. The Christianization of the Roman Empire made social attitudes increasingly
[19]: 72 Homosexual behaviors at Rome were acceptable only within an inherently unequal relationship; male Roman citizens retained their masculinity as long as they took the active, penetrating role, and the appropriate male sexual partner was a prostitute or slave, who would nearly always be non-Roman. [20]