The Gay Romans

Honeyed Juventius, while you were playing I stole from you
A sweeter kiss than sweet ambrosia.
Yes, but I didn’t get t scot-free, for I remember
Being stuck for more than an hour on a cross
While I made my excuses to you but could not move
Your cruelty one bit with my tears.
For hardly was it done before you drenched your lips
With water-drops and wiped them with soft knuckles,
Lest anything infectious from my mouth remain,
As though it were some pissed-on whore’s foul spittle.
Beside you were not slow to hand wretched me over
To angry Love and crucify me every way,
So that for me that kiss was now turned from ambrosia
To something sourer than sour hellebore.
Since you propose this penalty for a wretched lover,
Henceforth I’ll never steak a kiss again.

Catulllus, in this poem, appears affectionate, weak, love-struck, and easily manipulated by a boy. This kind of submissive behavior is characteristically un-Roman. This new style of distinctly effeminate, anti-Roman, literature signified the popularity (and acceptance?) of pederasty among the Roman nobility. While Greece did not export homosexuality to Rome; it introduced this new type of homoerotic relationship. The popularity of which is irrefutable evidence that Rome was progressively assimilating the panache of Hellenistic Greece. It infiltrated the mainstream, and hindered Roman laws from combating such homoerotic Hellenistic tendencies.