Think of Roman sex and you picture debauched orgies, sexual depravity, and promiscuous liaisons.
Shame on you!
No sex please — we’re Roman
The Roman renown for sexual laxity is not accurate. It is a product of risqué descriptions of how Rome’s first twelve Caesars lived, according to Suetonius, (c. A.D. 70 — c. 160) and affirmed by Roman art and Hollywood.
Not tonight, I’ve got a headache!
The average Roman was simply too knackered for prolific hanky-panky; they married young, had children, and worked long hours. Monogamy was encouraged by the state and by ancestral custom (mos maiorum). A lack of effective contraception acted as a brake on extra-marital affairs among married Romans.
Prostitution existed, it was regulated by the state and seen as an undignified occupation. Romans placed a high value on public dignitas (dignity) and social stability, and the standard family unit was seen as the ideal for the maintenance of both.
Love and marriage?
The late Republic saw a notable relaxing of sexual restrictions, more prevalent among upper-class Romans. Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, sought to curb this loosening of sexual mores by introducing new laws, the Julian Laws (the lex Julia). These laws were meant to encourage a return to traditional Roman values.
Traditionally, there were three forms of marriage for the Romans, by coemptio (symbolic purchase of the young bride-to-be from her father), by usus (cohabitation), or by confarretio, in religious terms, only the last, reserved for the patrician class (the nobility), was considered of importance to the gods. Pliny the Elder tells us that within traditional Roman religious rites, marriage by confarretio was the most sacred of all (Plin., NH, 18, 10: nihil religiosius) (Turcan, 2000, p.22). For the Romans of old, this institution was thought to be indissoluble, though in practice it could be dissolved, its sacred nature meant that this was to be, if possible, avoided. However, by the imperial era, for the upper-classes, marriage was commonly taken lightly, adultery became tolerated, even fashionable, and divorce became more prevalent. A lot of people remained unwedded, and many who did marry seemed to have an aversion to undertaking the responsibilities of having children.
The law
Augustus’ will to reform Roman morality with the lex Julia was a stark contrast to how he behaved while a younger man, and the behaviour of his daughter Julia became the subject of scandalous gossip. Augustus was married three times, he took his last wife, Livia, from her husband, whilst she was pregnant with her second child; from three marriages he fathered one child, Julia. The sources (men, often eager to spread racy gossip, to be taken with a pinch of salt) allege, she became infamous for her sexual proclivities. As for divorce, he made his stepson, Tiberius, divorce a woman he loved (Vipsania), in favour of Julia. Yet, it seems, that after his marriage to Livia (36 B.C.) Augustus remained faithful and devoted to her.
The lex Julia met with considerable pushback, especially from the equestrian order (Rome’s middle/upper-middle class). He adjusted the lex Julia and established, in A.D. 9, the lex Poppaea.
These laws sought to regulate the sexual relations between men and women and to curb excessive luxury via a sumptuary law. The sumptuary laws, as with previous attempts to reign-in desires for ostentatious displays of luxury, were a failure. What did these laws involve?
Divorce? Think of the children!
A man had to divorce his wife in advance of any action taken against her for suspected adultery. Punishments for ignoring this were severe: exile of both parties to different remote islands and the confiscation of considerable parts of their estates. Also, a man was punished if he married an adulterous woman or did not divorce an adulterous wife. Augustus attempted to encourage marriage and child-rearing by proposing age limits on marriage (twenty-five for men, twenty for women), by fixing penalties on unmarried people (they were not allowed to accept inheritances or legacies apart from those from close relatives) and by rewarding men and women who had children (preference was shown to family men in elections, as was the allocation of provinces).
Although these laws did not achieve their objectives, the sources tell us that Augustus banished, his daughter Julia and his granddaughter Julia because of their alleged promiscuity.
Sex and art
Our modern view of the Romans as sex-mad is encouraged by the brutal depictions in art and literature of the behaviour of the gods and other characters in Roman mythology, abduction, rape, incest, and sadomasochistic themes were all part of the Roman mythological canon. Add to this production of ithyphallic statues (showing erect penises) and those showing prominent deities appearing half-naked and moderns have a more salacious view of the Roman past.
Gay sex
Heterosexual romance and love were prominent themes in many novels, plays and poetry, from the many plays of Plautus in the 2nd century B.C. to Longus’ romantic novel Daphnis and Chloe 300 years later. Nevertheless, we can assume lesbian relationships occurred, but they have escaped the written record, the ancient written sources we have are men.
For traditional Romans, relationships that deviated from heterosexuality were said to be due to the influence on the Roman culture of the east and the Greeks. The Romans had no definite word for male homosexuality, being predisposed not to think in terms of predetermined sexual orientation but in terms of public behaviour.
Unlike Greek elites, the Romans never sought to idealize homosexuality or pederasty. Homosexuality was thought of as a Greek practice, and with the greater influence of Greek culture in Rome during the later Republic, descriptions of homosexual relationships in the sources proliferated.
If the Roman sources do not idealize homosexual relationships, they do not, unlike later Christian sources, demonize their existence. Rather, the Roman concern about these relationships was of a sexist nature, a concern about who played, what they thought of as, the passive female role. Those who did were reviled and they risked the loss of their citizenship. The circulation of gossip and stories about prominent political men playing the passive role in homosexual encounters were used to destroy reputations.
The political enemies of Julius Caesar circulated such rumours, claiming that, when young, he had been the boyfriend of King Nicomedes of Bithynia. Emperors — such as Nero — who permitted themselves to be penetrated lost public respect. According to Suetonius (Suet., Ner., 28–29, 6), Nero wore the dress of a bride for a mock wedding to a boy whom he had castrated, and with another male lover he, during sex, ‘went as far as to imitate the cries and lamentations of a maiden being deflowered.’
Public decorum
For the ancient Romans, displays of public decorum were important.
When Titus, a popular emperor, ascended in A.D. 79, he closed his harem of catamites (pubescent boys). The emperor Trajan, a lover of Greek culture, more popular than Titus, took a harem of boys along on military campaign, this was deemed acceptable, at least outside of Rome. However, his lengthy period of mourning for his boyfriend Antinous, who drowned while swimming in the Nile, seemed to many excessive and undignified for someone of his position. Emperors like Caligula in the A.D.1st century and Elagabalus A.D.3rd century made such public displays of their sexual mores — Elagabalus allegedly prostituted himself- that they were quickly assassinated.
From the A.D. 3rd century onwards, there was a definite public shift in attitudes towards sex. Some attribute this to the rise of Christianity in Rome and throughout the empire and the prevalence of Neoplatonism may, for both Christians and pagans alike, have been influential in this regard. Both emphasized transcending worldly pleasures, the pleasures of the flesh not least among them.
Sources
Bradley, P. (2003) Ancient Rome; Using Evidence, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp.442–444.
Dodge, H., Rodgers, N. (2020) Ancient Rome, an Illustrated History, Anness Publishing Ltd, pp.494–495.
Turcan, R. (2000) The Gods of Ancient Rome, translation by Nevill, A., Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press Ltd.
Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars 6. 28–29 (Loeb Classical Library edition, 1913–1914, Rolfe). Available at: Suetonius • Life of Nero (uchicago.edu) (Accessed 24 February 2022).
