In short, an adult Roman citizen male could acceptably penetrate (whether a male or a female) but not be penetrated – catamite was commonly used as a slander. Slaves still were considered legitimate sexual partners, often if not always regardless of their wishes.
As men, particularly the pater familias, wielded complete authority in Roman society, the Roman experience of same-sex relations is often characterized by master/slave-style interactions. Mid and late RepublicĪs Greek attitudes gradually became accepted in Rome during the late Republic and early Empire, however, a new form of same-sex relations emerged that was quite different from homosexuality in ancient Greece, but owed much to it. In the early Roman Republic, pederasty with freeborn boys was considered a degenerate Greek practice and as such was generally condemned.
Although it again and again becomes apparent that bisexuality was more common, even the ancient authors agree that there were ancient Roman men who had sexual relations exclusively with men.
In discussing such attitudes, it is fundamental to recall that the term homosexuality is entirely problematic for the ancient world since there is no single word in either Latin or ancient Greek with the same meaning as the modern concept of homosexuality.
