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AUTHOR: Eva Cantarella
TRANSLATOR: Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin 
LANGUAGE: English
PUBLISHER: Yale University Press
DATE: March 11th 2002
PAGES: 296
ISBN: 9780300059243

Bisexuality in the Ancient World

by Eva Cantarella

“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.

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.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS
  • Preface to the Second Edition
  • Preface
  • PART ONE: GREECE
    • The Beginnings, the Greek Dark Age and the Archaic Period
    • The Problem of Origins and Pederasty as a Form of Initiation
    • The Homeric Poems
    • The Age of Lyric Poetry: Salon, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Theognis, Ibycus and Pindar
    • The Classical Age
    • The Etiquette of Love, How to Conquer a Boy: The Social Rules of Courtship
    • How to Love a Boy: Erotic Manifestations in the Pederastic Relationship
    • The Laws on Pederastry, Two Cities: Athens and Beroea
    • The Age for Loving and the Age of Being Loved
    • Breaking the Rules on Age: Cusoms and Law
    • Male Prostitution: The Oration of Aeschines Against Timarchus
    • Homosexuality and Heterosexuality Compared in Philosophy and Literature
    • Socrates
    • Plato
    • Xenophone
    • Aristotle
    • Plutarch
    • The Greek Anthology: Achilles Tatius and Pseudo-Lucian
    • Women and Homosexuality
    • Love Between Women
    • Women and Male Homosexuality
    • Female Homosexuality Seen by Men
  • PART TWO: ROME
    • The Archaic Period and the Republic
    • The Indigenous Features of Roman Homosexuality
    • Legitimate Forms of Love: Subjecting One’s Own Slave, Paying a Prostitute
    • Prohibited Loves: Subjecting a Roman
    • The Lex scatinia
    • The edict De adtemptata pudicitia
    • The Late Republic and the Principate
    • The Poets: Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Ovid
    • The Lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis
    • Tradition and Innovation: The Carmina Priapea, graffiti, satire
    • The Empire
    • Practices
    • The Sexual Behavior of the Powerful: Excuse or Example?
    • Women and Homosexuality
    • The Law: Constantius and Constans, Theodosius I, the Theodosian Code and the Corpus Iuris Civilis
    • The Metamorphoses of Sexual Ethics in the Ancient World
    • Metamorphoses Within Pagan Belief
    • The Judaeo-Christian Tradition
  • Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • Select Bibliography
  • Index
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