this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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While there is undoubtedly a strong pederastic component in Roman same-sex activity, during the Late Republic and Imperial era there is a trend of more... age-appropriate liasons, until a homophobic backlash in the late 3rd century AD (not due to Christianity, probably), and then the complete prohibition of male same-sex activity in the mid-late 4th century AD (due to Christianity, unambiguously). This is in part due to the Romans rejecting the concept of 'lover-and-beloved' as a mutually ennobling relationship - any Roman youth who 'submitted' his body to another man was shaming himself.
I'm not a specialist, but I'm not sure the idea of a “lover-and-beloved' as a mutually ennobling relationship” existed before the modern era. In classical Greece there was already the idea of sexuality as a domination situation were the gender of the participants were not that important, only the domination of the penetrator on the penetrated (normally younger and poorer than the penetrator).
That was definitely core to the Hellenic idea of pederasty.
The idea of sex as domination has more in common with the Roman view of sexuality than the Greek. Especially of note is that in Greek same-sex relationships, intercrural sex is preferred rather than penetrative.
What does fish have to do with it? Oh wait never mind.
My reading on the subject goes back a long way, so I'll take your word for it. But I'm quite surprised.