page_title: Sexuality in ancient Rome
section_title: Bestiality
hierarchical_section_title: Sexuality in ancient Rome / Sex acts and positions / Bestiality
caption_attribution_description: English: Castle museums in Linz ( Upper Austria ). Archeological collection: Relief of Leda with swan from Enns, Roman period, 4th century AD. Deutsch: Schlossmuseum in Linz ( Oberösterreich ). Archäologische Sammlung: Relief der Leda mit Schwan aus Enns, Römerzeit, 4.Jhdt. n.Chr.
context_page_description: Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by art, literature and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture. It has sometimes been assumed that "unlimited sexual license" was characteristic of ancient Rome. Verstraete and Provençal opine that this perspective was simply a Christian interpretation: "The sexuality of the Romans has never had good press in the West ever since the rise of Christianity. In the popular imagination and culture, it is synonymous with sexual license and abuse."
  But sexuality was not excluded as a concern of the mos maiorum, the traditional social norms that affected public, private, and military life. Pudor, "shame, modesty", was a regulating factor in behavior, as were legal strictures on certain sexual transgressions in both the Republican and Imperial periods. The censors—public officials who determined the social rank of individuals—had the power to remove citizens from the senatorial or equestrian order for sexual misconduct, and on occasion did so.
context_section_description: The mythological tradition is full of sexual encounters between humans and animals, especially mortal women and gods in the guise of animals. Bestiality is a particular characteristic of intercourse with Jupiter (Greek Zeus), who visits Leda as a swan and Europa as a bull. The Minotaur is born when Pasiphaë feels such sexual attraction for a bull that she has herself disguised as a cow to mate with him. Satyrs, known for their sexual voracity, are often pictured with bestial features.
  
  Mock bestiality is recorded as a form of sexual roleplay in Imperial Rome. Nero is supposed to have enjoyed a form of bondage with either male or female partners in which he dressed in animal skins to attack their genitals, just as condemned prisoners were bound and attacked by wild animals in the arena (see Damnatio ad bestias). The historian Dio tells of how a prostitute pretended to be a leopard for the gratification of a senator. The actor Bathyllus was known for an erotic dance in which he dressed as Leda having sex with the swan; the women watching were variously aroused. Bestiality is also a theme of Apuleius' novel Metamorphoses (or The Golden Ass), in which the protagonist, transformed into a donkey, is desired by a wealthy noble matron, just as Pasiphaë desired the bull.
  There is some indication that violent sexual encounters, like other mythological scenarios, were acted out as punitive entertainments in the arena. The poet Martial praises a scenario for its fidelity to the Pasiphaë myth. The logistics of staging a sex act between a woman and a bull is a matter of speculation; if "Pasiphaë" were a condemned criminal to be tortured and killed, the animal may have been induced by the application of "vaginal secretion from a cow in season". In Apuleius's novel, a female poisoner condemned ad bestias is scheduled to appear in the arena for intercourse with the protagonist in his bestial form.
caption: Leda and the swan, with a Cupid in attendance (4th-century Roman relief)
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