1. I would like to point out to cfromnyc that while pedastry was a common practice in ancient Greece and Rome, Hadrian and Antonous' relationship was not pedaristic in nature. A pedastristic relationship would not be as long term as their's was, and certainly wouldn't have included the elevation of the younger in the relationship to deity status.

Also, as to the "gray-filled spectrum of sexuality," let's just be honest...in men at least, most of the time, bisexuality is a complete sham. How many middle aged or older men do you know that are bisexual? No, NOT ALWAYS, but most of the time, bisexuality just seems better to some than to say "I am gay."

http://www.spring.org.uk/2005/07/no-physiological-basis-for-male.php

Posted at 11:47AM on Jul 27th 2007 by kbham

2. I do not think a queer eye works in this context and that is particularly why most historians do not label artifacts, structures, and persons from the classical period as being gay or being gay oriented. Romans and Greeks did not have the same notions of homosexuality that we have in this culture. Sex with men happened, but that didn't give you some sort of cultural label (which I think fits more with a gray filled spectrum of sexuality than the generally black and white and grey system most people prescribe to today). To them it mattered more if you were on top or on bottom, the bottom being more taboo. Finally, I wouldn't describe Hadrian's love of Antonous as a gay relationship (although examples of this exist in the ancient world e.g. Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the tyrant slayers) and more of a pederastic relationship in the Greek model. As for the bathhouse, what makes you think women didn't use it (or that all sex was purely homosexual)?

Posted at 11:47AM on Jul 27th 2007 by cfromnyc

3. kbham. Although the study you post has quite a few interesting implications, please do note the limits of your research:
"The researchers are, quite rightly, extremely cautious about the implications of their study which is based on a fairly small sample (101). It is unclear what the relationship is between physiological arousal and emotional and cognitive factors"
i.e. they didn't and could not account for a few rather important variables and their interactions in the study and you must be extremely careful with small sample sizes particularly in studies which use questionaires to determine factors.
Plus nothing in the NYT article even stated such a strong sweeping statement as you are suggesting ... just fluff and sensationalism. Rather it noted the rather tenous knowledge we have about this subject and the implications of this research. GLAAD also puts this to better light http://www.glaad.org/action/write_now_detail.php?id=3827.
As far as Antinous is concerned, I would just say let's not be hasty with labels. There is a lot of that culture we do not understand and it is not clear how Romans viewed that relationship later in life. What is certain is that it started out as pederasty - its closer to adopting a child and then taking that child as a lover later in life. Whether Romans still viewed the relationship as pederastic when Antinous was in his late teens is uncertain particularly since Hadrian is much much older.

Posted at 4:22PM on Jul 27th 2007 by cfromnyc

4. After reading Robert Aldrich's "Gay Life and Culture," it was nice to read this article and compare what each gathered about ancient Romans and homosexual relationships. It is very true what cfromnyc is saying - our culture and that of the ancient Greeks and Romans treat sexuality in very distinctly different ways. Though I enjoyed this article and understand Richard's view, I am happy that the media isn't labeling the sexuality of this archaeological finding, as we in the LGBT community often habitually do.

This past weekend I actually visited the latest ancient Greco-Roman art exhibit at the MET Museum of Art in NYC. Though I found many themes of homosexual relationships and/or homoerotic love (i.e. numerous statues of nude male "youths," athletic scene paintings, and drunken satyrs), I first found myself disappointed that those themes weren't pointed out in the descriptions. Later, I thought that such a mysterious culture should be left to our imagination, and not pidgeon-holed into what we understand as human sexuality.

On a lighter note, I misread the word "deification" the first time through, and got a little confused. Teehee.

Posted at 7:11PM on Jul 27th 2007 by Greg

5. Kevin: you said it well. This bizarre notion that same sex passion and its wonderful cultural manfestation is some 21st Century invention is ridiculous. Regardless of the words used, the people were the same. How sad that so many of us can't accept that and the naturalness of it.

Posted at 6:40AM on Jul 28th 2007 by Richard

6. cfromnyc, you are so insulting. Do you believe gay relationships just sprang up yesterday? They didn't. Do you believe gay sensiblities just developed overnight? They didn't.

Greg... *roll eyes* You should know better. You know d*mn well that if it were a male and female together that no person would have a problem saying they were in a relationship. However, when it's two men or two women people get more cautious or try to deny that there was a relationship. It's really disturbing that you would let others deny YOUR history as a gay man.

Posted at 11:18AM on Jul 28th 2007 by Kevin

7. PLEASE READ MINE AND GREG'S POST MORE CLOSELY, YOU MIGHT REALIZE WHAT WE ARE SAYING.

What I disagreed with was whether Antinous and Hadrian had a gay relationship in the ancient world. As Greg so elegantly points out, what we should be wary of is pigeon-holing aspects of a different culture into classifications that MAY be unique to our culture. Men being sexually aroused by men is not anything new to the world, but how each culture interprets that attraction changes. Again there are relationships that people viewed as being homosexual and there are those that weren't viewed in that context. Different things were taboo then, and therefore, things were viewed with a different light. There are men in the ancient world that had sex with men and had happy relationships with their wives and thought nothing of it. Does that make him gay, maybe, but who are we to rain on his parade if he didn't think so. If he and the rest of his culture thought that having sex with ANYBODY was ok as long as you were the top then what can we do about that; do you want to go back in time and tell them it was wrong? Rather than being inflammatory and defensive about such notions, we as a community need to accept that people in the past viewed these things in different social contexts. I have had some perfectly social liberal professors view Roman society in the same way for good reason - when we start thinking about the past as a resident of the present, we get it wrong.

Read the following link THOROUGHLY if you want to understand why its difficult to label any ancient world relationship as gay, its quite well put read particularly her note at the bottom.
http://www.pothos.org/alexander.asp?paraID=42

Posted at 12:31PM on Jul 28th 2007 by cfromnyc

8. I understand what you are saying cfromnyc. You are saying that two men involved in a relationship thousands of years ago don't make them gay. If it were a man and a woman you would not deny that they were straight. Since it involves two men you are more cautious.

We aren't talking about Alexander. This just proves that you like many people would blanketly deny that anyone was gay thousands of years ago. BTW, the article states that there were different rules for aristocracy. So why won't it be surprising that a man would want another man of his own age or close to it? I'm sure that those types of relationships did occur even though they were condemned.

Posted at 8:13AM on Jul 29th 2007 by Kevin

9. I'm late for this discussion, but I recommend the first chapters of Boswell's "Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality" for a scholarly discussion of "gay" culture in antiquity. Even if you are familiar with his work, it's worth another look on these issues: the differences between classical Greek, Hellenistic, early Roman and late Republican/Imperial attitudes and mores - apples, oranges, pears, limes for purposes of comparison. He makes a strong case for the argument that the relationship between Antinous and Hadrian was characteristic of the evolving trend toward and acceptance of lasting erotic and supportive relationships between adult men in urban centers - distinguishable from the classic Greek model (late adolescent and 20-something in brief erotic relationship becoming lasting friendship) and the rather more Eastern paradigm of the catamite/older man.

That the incidence of sex between mature men of equal or near equal rank became more common in the late Republic and Empire is beyond any genuine dispute. Cicero's friend Milo was in such a relationship; the Emporer Galba was known to prefer mature soldiers (when told he had been proclaimed Emperor, he propmptly grabbed a handy, beefy centurion for a quick roll in the purple - with no clear indication whether as top, bottom or versatile. Juvenal and Petronius reflect the rich variety of the homosexual experience in the Empire, and that experience became more varied and complex as the Empire became increasingly urbanized and sophisticated. It would take almost 2,000 years for Western culture to regain that level of sophistication. So, while it's always a risky proposition to make direct comparisons of now to then (and not just in matters sexual), it is possible to find the antecedents of contemporary social phenomena.

Posted at 6:10PM on Jul 31st 2007 by whenson

10. I worked on the bath complex for the last two years. While your theory is interesting, it is probably more realistic to think of the baths in terms of seperating the sexes, as this was a current practice during this period.

Posted at 12:55PM on Aug 22nd 2007 by Roman archaeologist