Religious service: images of pleasure and devotion

ffeminati (effeminate),  concubini (bed-

fellows) and exoleti (catamites).

8

Such slave-boys were generally known

for their playful, coy and wanton behaviour. Martial, for example,

refers to them as lasciui capillati (‘wanton long-haired ones’, i.e., slaves,

Epigr. 3.58.30–1; see also Mart. Epigr. 1.31; Sen. Ep. 95.24). These

pretty-boy delicati were often the preferred sex-objects in acts of homo-

sexual love-making between master and slave.

9

Although sometimes represented as generic types

10

or in a few

3

According to the late Latin jurist Paulus, the term puer, or ‘boy’, has three

meanings in Latin: unam, cum omnes seruos pueros appelaremus; alteram, cum puerum con-

trario nomine puellae diceremus; tertiam, cum aetatem puerilem demonstraremus (‘

first, all those

whom we call slaves; second, a male in contradistinction to a girl; and third, that

which we characterise as one in his boyhood years’, Dig. 50.16.204).

4

Néraudau (1984) 48–53; Wiedemann (1989) 114 with nn. 3, 17; Cantarella

(1992) 118.

5

See further Néraudau (1984) 48–53; Cantarella (1992) 118 et passim.

6

The word ‘boy’ has, of course, continued on in English as a derogatory term

implying ‘servile’ subordination, commonly employed for black males, but also some-

times for white males.

7

Moehler (1940) 269–70.

8

See, e.g., Richlin (1992a) 34–44, 221, 223 et passim and her index verborum; Fless

(1995) 95 et passim. For the evidence of the e

ffeminatus in the ancient Greek and

Roman sources, see RAC 4 (1959) 620–42.

9

Here, I use the term ‘homosexual’, rather than the more faddish expression

‘male-male’ commonly employed in modern gender studies. I employ ‘homosexual’

only as an adjective to describe a same-sex sexual act, rather than as a substantive

to stand for an individual who is attracted exclusively to the same sex. Although

homosexuality has always existed, it is virtually impossible to know from literature

or art whether a person in Roman society was exclusively homosexual, since the

norm for most peoples in antiquity was ‘ambisexual’, in that they were attracted

to both sexes. For the issue of ‘homosexuality’ in the ancient world and the mis-

use of the term ‘bisexuality’ for ‘ambisexuality’ in contemporary society, see my

fuller discussion: Pollini (1999) 22–8.

10

See, for example, on the ‘Warren Cup’ below.