Category: queer

Raunchy, Rowdy, and Rotten: Provocative Poetry in Ancient Rome

May 17, 2025

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by

Mark

in Catullus, Everything Latin, Greek history, Juvenal, Martial, Poetry, queer, Roman Empire, Roman Republic

Please be warned, the content of this post is (very) adult in nature. ”In around A.D. 64, Marcus Valerius Martialis (A.D. 31-41 to 103), better known as Martial, arrived in Rome aged 26 from his Spanish hometown of Bilbilis, famous then for its iron mines and for the manufacture of steel, and a center of Roman…
Hadrian & Antinous: The Roman Empire’s LGBTQ+ Heritage

Sep 10, 2024

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by

Mark

in Everything Latin, History, queer, Roman Empire, travel

Publius Aelius Hadrianus assumed control over the vast Roman Empire in AD 117 following the death of his adoptive father, Trajan. He was born in AD 76 in Rome, his family coming from ltalica in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica (near Seville in modern-day Spain). Hadrian’s father having died when he was ten, he and…