Bisexuality in the Ancient World

Bisexuality was intrinsic to the cultures of the ancient world. In both Greece and Rome, sexual relationships between men were acknowledged, tolerated, and widely celebrated in literature and art. For the Greeks and Romans, homosexuality was not an exclusive choice, but alternative to and sometimes simultaneous with the love of a woman.

Drawing on the full range of sources—from legal texts, inscriptions, and medical documents to poetry and philosophical literature—Eva Cantarella reconstructs the bisexual cultures of Athens and Rome and compares them. She explores the psychological, social, and cultural mechanisms that determined male sexual choice and considers the extent to which that choice was free, directed, or coerced. She analyzes the link between social class and homosexuality, and assesses the impact of homosexual relations on heterosexual ones.

In Greece the relationship between men and young boys was deemed the noblest of associations, a means of education and spiritual exaltation. Though highly regulated and never left to individual spontaneity, such relationships were, Cantarella reveals, more than pedagogic and platonic: they were fully carnal. In Imperial Rome, however, the sexual ethic mirrored the political, males being cruelly domineering in love as in war. The critical sexual distinction was that between active and passive, the victims commonly being slaves or defeated enemies, rather than young Roman freemen.

Cantarella explains how the etiquette of bisexuality was corrupted over time and how homosexuality came to be regarded as an unnatural act when it was influenced by the pagan and Judeo-Christian traditions. With chapters on love between women and the response of women to male homosexuality, the book represents a full, readable, and thought-provoking history of bisexuality in the classical age.