Sexuality, textual representation of

Abstract

The basic dominance-submission model of sexual relations, involving a hierarchical distinction between the active and passive roles, was the same in Greek and Roman cultures and remained unchanged throughout classical antiquity. However, we find subtle modifications reflected in the literary tradition from the Homeric age to imperial Rome. In Homer and Hesiod, heterosexual relations are the only recognized form of sexual congress, and consensual sex is mutually pleasurable. Forced sex, in the form of abduction and rape, also occurs in epic narrative. Pederasty became a literary theme in Greek lyric poetry of the archaic age. In classical Athens, discourses of sexuality were tied to political ideology, because self-control was a civic virtue enabling the free adult male householder to manage his estate correctly and serve the city-state in war and peace. Tragedy illustrates the dire impact of unbridled erōs, while comedy mocks those who trespass against moderation or violate gender norms, and forensic oratory seeks to disqualify such offenders from participating in government. Philosophical schools disagreed over the proper place of erōs in a virtuous life. While pederastic relations dominated discussions of love in philosophic works, romantic affairs between men and women received greater attention in Hellenistic poetry, in keeping with an increased emphasis on shared pleasure and reciprocal emotional satisfaction. During the late Republic and the Augustan age, Roman authors incorporated erotic motifs from archaic lyric and Hellenistic epigram into their own first-person love poems. The genre of love elegy, in which the poet-lover professes himself enslaved to a harsh mistress, became widely popular during Augustus’ reign but disappeared shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, Lucretius’ didactic epic On the Nature of Things, and Vergil’s Aeneid, a heroic account of the founding of Rome, both treat erotic obsession as destructive. In the Imperial period, elite anxieties were displaced onto concerns about gender deviance on the part of males and females alike: the figures of the cinaedus and the tribas were castigated in moralizing poetry, especially satire and satiric epigram. Roman novels focused upon the sexual escapades of marginal displaced types. Under Roman rule, on the other hand, Greek literature saw a new flowering in the Second Sophistic movement. While pederasty remained a favorite subject, hotly championed against heterosexual relations in prose treatises, the Greek novel explored a new model of heterosexuality in which premarital chastity and mutual fidelity appear to anticipate later Christian values.