for an increasingly debauched and materialistic society that would gradually decline and eventually come to an end. There were Roman writers such as Juvenal, Horace, and Martial who railed against the abuses of sexuality, but they were largely ignored. Increased tolerance of homosexuality and other forms of sexual practice was one of several effects, not the cause, of the decline of Roman influence and power.
31. Pan Teaching the Flute to Olympos, 4th century BC.
Marble. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.
32. Barberini Faun, c. 200 BC. Marble, h: 125 cm.
Staatliche Antikensammlungen und Glyptothek, Munich.
33. Banquet Scene from North Wall of the Tomb of the Diver, c. 480 BC.
Museum of Paestum, Italy.
Our knowledge of Roman provincial and domestic art, architecture, and aspects of daily life, comes primarily from the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum – both of which were preserved under volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Although Pompeii was not a Roman city, per se, it fell under the jurisdiction of Roman control. Pompeian civilisation and approaches to sex and love were an offshoot of Hellenistic Greece – a focus on sensuality and hedonism devoid of the earlier Greek notions of virtue, beauty, and form. The pottery, graffiti, and mural art discovered at Pompeii provide some evidence that there was indeed a visible homosexual subculture. Pompeians were notorious for celebrating sexuality as a source of strength and fertility. In Pompeii, the cult of Dionysos and the cult of the phallus were widespread and there are many walls carved with or otherwise decorated with disembodied erect phalluses (as signposts of brothels) and scenes of group sex. The phallus was taken as a divine symbol, associated with Hermes, the god of fertility and good fortune. It appeared often in sculptures, as fountain ornaments, or as decorative architectural detailing. Phalluses were most frequently found on herms or rectangular pillars surmounted by a human head and intended to ward off evil and bring prosperity.
It is on the frescoed and graffiti-filled walls of public buildings and in the private homes of Pompeii where we get a glimpse into the sexual preferences and activities of common culture. It was during the Augustan period that a “domestication of desire” had occurred both in Rome and in its provinces. That is, both upper class (including the emperor himself) and lower class people possessed and displayed little paintings, wall frescos, and decorative objects in their homes that showed mythological characters (e.g. satyrs, nymphs, Pan, hermaphrodites) and human couples engaged in a variety of sexual acts and positions (Clarke, pp.286–87). The representation of sex in its multiple aspects had become fashionable in Pompeii. In the first century AD, scenes of lovemaking of varying quality could be found in Pompeian bedrooms, dining rooms, or in public baths, hotels, and brothels.
The erotic functions and décor of Pompeian buildings, from private homes to bordellos, were complemented by the decorative arts used inside them. Wealthy patrons commissioned silver or gold drinking vessels and serving pieces, illustrating many kinds of scenes, sometimes erotic, to amuse banquet guests. The most striking example of this kind of homoerotic decorative art is the Warren Cup.
The Warren Cup is a luxury drinking vessel made of silver and created for use in a provincial home of the early Roman Empire. It would have been used in specific decorative architectural spaces (personal homes of the wealthy) in which vessels with scenes of lovemaking (usually heterosexual) were found. They were meant to entertain the guests with their engaging imagery and fine craftsmanship (Clarke, p.279). Because of its high quality and unique subject matter, the Warren Cup has challenged “the modern viewer to consider a broad range of artistic, cultural, and social issues” concerning male homosexuality in Roman times (Clarke, p.277).
34. The Tomb of the Bulls, c. 550–500 BC.
Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, Tarquinia.
35. Statue of Antinous, Favourite of Emperor Hadrian, 130–138 AD.
Archeological Museum of Delphi, Delphi.
36. Belvedere Antinous.
Marble. Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican.
37. Tripod with Ithyphallic Young Pans, c. 1st century AD.
Bronze from Pompeii. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.
38. Pan with Hermaphroditus, reign of Nero.
Wall painting from House of the Dioscuri (atrium) in Pompeii. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.
39. The Destruction of Sodom, c. 1170–1190.
Monreale Cathedral, Sicily.
Chapter 2 – Homosexuality in the Middle Ages
Unlike antiquity, the Middle Ages has been the period least studied for signs of Western homosexuality in art. The rise of Christianity and the increasing influence on the daily lives of people accounts for the near invisibility of homosexuality in the art of this period. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 381 under Theodosius the Great (346–95). Emperor Constantine (274–338) had legalised Christianity in the fourth century AD. The death penalty for male homosexual acts was first imposed in 342 by Emperors Constantine and Constans, and then again by the Theodosian Code of 390 (Warren Johansson and William A. Percy, “Homosexuality,” in Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage, eds., Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, New York, Garland Publishing, Inc, 1996, pp.160–61). Theodosius decreed death by burning for homosexuality. Lesbian behaviour had been similarly proscribed in the Middle Ages through a law in 287 AD imposed by Diocletian (245–313) and Maximianus. The death penalty for both male and female homosexual acts was not repealed in civil law until the late eighteenth century in most Western European countries.
The extreme measures taken by these rulers were justified by theological rationalisations on sexual ethics ranging from Saint Paul to Saints Augustine and Jerome. Of all the church fathers, it was Saint Augustine who held the longest influence over sexual attitudes in the Christian West. Around 400 AD, Augustine launched an attack against classical myth and attempted to ‘correct’ its immoral pagan aspects. Relying heavily on the Old Testament, he insisted that all non-procreative forms of sexual gratification were wrong because their sole goal was pleasure and not propagation of the species.
Between the fourth and fifteenth centuries, most art was produced under church patronage, and even private commissions were often mandated to have religious themes (Saslow, p.56). All representations of sexual acts, especially homosexuality, were discouraged and later attacked by the church. Christian intolerance against homosexuality resulted primarily from reaction to the hedonistic legacy of Greco-Roman paganism where homosexual practices were, in many instances, encouraged. Christianity set out to deny the body and all forms of earthly pleasures. When erotic themes do appear in medieval art, they tend to be couched in “solemn spirituality and ineffable mysteries” (Saslow, p.56). During the medieval period, homosexuality was split into two polarised camps: the classical ideal of amicitia (a chaste, intimate friendship), and sodomia (an unstable term condemning a range of sexual acts from anal sex, to masturbation and bestiality)
