Book summary “Sex in Antiquity”: summary

Introduction

You often struggle to understand how ancient societies conceptualized sex, gender, and desire without imposing modern categories onto them. You need a reliable guide to navigate the vast chronological and geographical terrain stretching from the Ancient Near East through Greece and Rome.

The volume Sex in Antiquity investigates sex, gender, and sexuality in the ancient world from historical, sociological, and theoretical perspectives across multiple media.

Mark Masterson and contributors dismantle simple narratives by examining texts, artifacts, and legal codes across three major cultural spheres. You will discover how ancient peoples constructed masculinity, regulated transgressive acts, and expressed desire through ritual, poetry, and philosophy.

This book answers several critical questions about antiquity:

• How did Ancient Near Eastern cultures link male power to fertility and magic?
• What mechanisms did Greek symposia use to govern pederastic desire?
• How did Roman legal and dress codes enforce strict penetration hierarchies?

1. Ancient Near Eastern Rituals and Fertility

Ancient Near Eastern cultures conceptualized fertility as a masculine attribute while utilizing complex birth rituals, protective amulets, and magic.

Reproductive Magic and Biblical Texts

Three biblical texts depict women engaged in acts of reproductive magic or related protective rites in ancient Israel. In Genesis 30:14–16, Rachel and Leah vie for mandrake plants as fertility aphrodisiacs. In Genesis 38:28, a midwife ties a red thread around the hand of newborn Zerah. In Ezekiel 13:17–23, women prophets sew wrist and head bands and use barley and bread in rituals associated with childbearing.

Rachel and Leah competing for the mandrake roots found by Reuben in a field.

In the Hebrew Bible, the distinction between religion and magic is determined not by the ritual itself, but by the social legitimacy of the actor. Acts performed by authorized male figures like prophet Elisha are praised, whereas similar protective rituals performed by women or outsiders are condemned as illegitimate magic. Magic in the biblical text is essentially the activity of the outsider.

Mesopotamian and Hittite rituals provide direct parallels for the protective birth magic reflected in biblical texts. Comparative ancient Near Eastern texts show that binding red threads, tying knotted bands to stop vaginal bleeding, using amulet stones, and making bread offerings to appease baby-snatching demons were common components of birth rituals.

Male Fertility and Cosmogony

In Ancient Near Eastern ideology, males were regarded as the exclusive founts of initial life and creation, supplying the seed while females merely received and shaped it. Mesopotamian and broader Near Eastern texts attribute the active role of creation to male semen and divine phallic power. Women's physiological contributions were understood purely as incubating, molding, and nurturing the seed provided by the male partner.

A late second-millennium Babylonian incantation expressed this division directly as My father begot me, my mother bore me.

Workaday infertility treatments for men addressed erectile dysfunction through specialized medical ointments, animal symbolism, and psychological rituals. Babylonian ŠÁ.ZI.GA texts and Hittite rituals used external applications, erotic dialogue, and sympathetic magic to banish passivity and restore masculine potency.

In Paškuwatti’s ritual against impotence, you find that the practitioner removes a spindle and distaff from the patient and hands him a bow and arrows to substitute femininity with masculinity:

• Place a spindle and distaff in the patient's hand as he walks through the gates.
• Take the spindle and distaff away from him.
• Give him a bow and arrows.
• Declare that femininity has been taken away and masculinity given in return.

Female barrenness was treated through magical amulets, severe organic remedies, divine intervention, or the introduction of a surrogate wife. Legal codes and contracts regulated the replacement or supplementation of a non-reproducing wife, while medical texts prescribed bizarre concoctions and amulets to induce pregnancy. Codex Hammurabi sections 144 to 147 regulated the process by which priestesses provided a šugitu to their husbands for bearing children, and Alalakh document AT 93 specified seven years before a husband may take a second wife.

Conflict and Sexual Violence

Sexual violence during civil conflicts is not an inevitable byproduct of war or raw misogyny, but a deliberately employed political strategy to achieve war-waging objectives. Cynthia Enloe and other researchers emphasize that rape is utilized as a tactical tool to destroy cultural identity, reproductive capacity, economic viability, and family honor. It functions within social systems where sexual dominance is equated with normative manhood and military prowess.

During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in a 100-day campaign where up to 75 percent of the Tutsi population was exterminated. More than 250,000 widowed victims registered with the Ministry of Family and Women in Development soon after the genocide ended.

Absalom publicly violated his father's ten concubines in a staged spectacle to assert political dominance, claim the royal household, and publicly humiliate David. Following the advice of Ahithophel, Absalom pitched a tent on the roof and had sexual intercourse with his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel. This public act functioned as a symbolic castration and a political display of conquest rather than a legitimate marital alliance.

2. Paraphilias and Legal Codes

Legal codes in the Ancient Near East strictly regulated bestiality and sexual multiples while reflecting broader societal anxieties regarding transgression.

Babylonian and Hittite Laws

Ancient Babylonian texts included specific rituals to cleanse a man's conscience after sexual intercourse with a goat. A Babylonian ritual involved using hair from a red goat and a virgin white goat, placing them before the sun-god Shamash, and eventually discarding the linen cloth containing the hair into a beer distributor's gate to remove the evil omen.

A specific ritual instructed a man suffering from regret after sex with a goat to take hair from a red goat and tie it up before Shamash with the help of a virgin she-goat and a beer libation.

• Take hair from a she-goat and from a red goat on the roof before Shamash.
• Tie them in a linen cloth and place them on the ground before Shamash while kneeling and speaking three times.
• Throw the linen cloth into the gate of a beer distributor and remove it after fifteen days.

Hittite laws drew sharp distinctions regarding bestiality, punishing sex with cows, sheep, dogs, or pigs with death while permitting sex with horses, mules, and corpses. Initiating sex with cows, sheep, dogs, or pigs was a capital offense, but if an ox or pig mounted a human male, the animal was killed instead of the man. Meanwhile, sex with equids and corpses was deemed no offense.

Hittite law code numbers 187, 188, 189, 190, 199, and 200 outline specific penalties and exemptions for sexual acts with cows, sheep, dogs, pigs, dead people, horses, and mules, dating to the Old Hittite Period around c. 1650–1500 BCE.

Mesopotamian Age Classifications

Sumerian and Akkadian languages possessed rich, fluid vocabularies to describe life stages, ranging from small children to adolescents and senior elders. Terminology is derived from administrative lists, legal codes, and literary texts, using signs such as tur for small children, KAL or guruš for strong youths, and abba or šugi for elders.

Mesopotamian legal and economic texts reveal that a girl's virginity was heavily guarded as a patriarchal asset linked to family inheritance and bride prizes. Girls typically married in their teenage years while men married later in young adulthood. Deflowering a betrothed girl was treated as a severe crime akin to adultery, and false accusations against a young girl's reputation carried heavy silver fines.

The Code of Urnammu stipulates capital punishment for a man who violates the virgin wife of a young man, while the Code of Lipit-Ishtar imposes a fine of ten shekels of silver for a false accusation during the twenty-first century BCE. Martha Roth's research indicates a marriage age range of fourteen to twenty for girls and twenty-six to thirty-two for men.

Courtship Scenes in Greece

Depictions of male-to-male courtship on Greek pottery present a utopian world of superabundance devoid of the bitter rivalries found in literary sources. While Greek poetry and legal speeches portray seduction as a high-stakes competition filled with numerous hostile rivals, vase paintings show idealized pairings where lovers stand alongside each other without worrying about competition.

Literary sources describe scores of lovers pursuing Alcibiades, and Theognis worries about losing his beloved to others.

Greek vase paintings depicting lovers' gifts served a didactic purpose, helping to navigate the thin line between acceptable courtship and prostitution. Because lovers' gifts needed to be precisely calibrated to avoid appearing mercenary, vase painters used group scenes and specific repertoires of gifts to outline normative behavior.

A kylix attributed to Macron in Munich shows boys progressively undressing as they receive a garland, a rabbit, and a fighting cock, alongside inventory numbers 2279 for the Peithinios cup in Berlin and 2655 for the Munich kylix.

Depictions of homosexual group sex or orgies in Greek vase painting are extremely rare, highly coded, and intended to repel or warn rather than to celebrate group sex. When multiple bodies appear in group sex scenes, the imagery is generally marginal, suspicious, or fantastic, serving iconographic functions rather than advocating for collective copulation.

A red-figure kylix in Turin dated to 500-475 BC shows an unusual gathering around a wineskin and a central group engaged in ambiguous frottage, carrying inventory number 4117, found near Vulci in the 1830s.

3. Greek Pederasty and the Symposium

Greek pederasty and symposium culture functioned as institutionalized pedagogical spaces governed by codes of modesty and exchange.

Building on and modifying Foucault's framework, you can distinguish between proto-problematization and hyper-problematization. Proto-problematization refers to cultural focus and unquestioning idealization typical of the archaic period. Hyper-problematization denotes the explicit moral criticism and debate characteristic of classical Athens.

The ethical status of Greek pederasty shifted historically from general idealization to intense intellectual debate. While theories range from Dark Age soldier relations to population control, the initiation theory finds support in early archaeological findings. These include eighth-century BC bronzes from Kato Syme and inscriptions from Thera mentioning penetrative sex alongside divine invocations, as well as classical descriptions of Spartan and Cretan ritual abductions.

An inscription on the island of Thera (IG 12.3 537a) records an obscene boast invoking Apollo Delphinios, stating that Krimon penetrated the son of Bathykles.

Archaic vase paintings consistently portray pederasty as an idealized social exchange rather than a predatory act. Vase paintings emphasize athletics, hunting, and gift exchanges, positioning the youth not as a victim or a prostitute, but as an active participant who grants access to his thighs or genitals in exchange for valuable gifts or favors.

A red-figure pelike by the Triptolemos Painter (Mykonos 966) shows an intercrural scene where the youth gazes at his courting gift of a hare while holding a leashed dog.

The Tomb of the Diver

The famous frescoes of the Tomb of the Diver in Poseidonia combine Greek symposium imagery with Etruscan eschatological themes, presenting a blended vision of an afterlife focused on male homoeroticism. Discovered in 1968 and dated to approximately 480-470 BCE, the tomb features five painted slabs showing a male symposium with couples, music, and an egg as an Orphic symbol, alongside a lid painting of a young man diving into water.

The paintings depict scenes such as gli amanti (the lovers), a flute player, a wine pourer near a krater, and a man playing kottabos by throwing wine dregs in the name of an erōmenos.

Orphic initiates were buried with inscribed gold tablets serving as ritual passports to navigate the underworld and reach a blessed afterlife. These texts provide specific instructions for the deceased on which springs to avoid and which waters to drink from the lake of Memory.

A fifth-century gold tablet found in Hipponium instructs the deceased to bypass the spring near the cypress tree and instead request cold water from the lake of Memory.

• Approach the cold water running from the lake of Memory with its keeper
• State the formula: I am the son of the Earth and of starry Heaven; I burn with thirst and I am fainting
• Ask to drink the cold water from the lake of Memory
• Travel the sacred path where the other mystai and bakkhoi proceed in glory

Symposium as Paideia

The Greek symposium functioned not merely as a drinking party, but as a key pedagogical space where older citizens transmitted social values, civic conduct, and sexual ethics to youths. Through listening to poetry recitations, observing elders, and engaging in discussions, young free citizens learned the proper behaviors expected of them in public life, pederastic relationships, and civic society.

In Xenophon's Symposium, Lycon accompanies his son Autolycus to ensure he pays attention to Socrates' moral teachings drawn from Theognis.

Attic drinking vessels visually reinforced social boundaries by contrasting the unrestrained, nude bodies of female prostitutes with the composed, clothed figures of boy-youths. Vase paintings by masters like Onesimos and Oltos used parody, humor, and parallel visual compositions to instruct viewers on proper behavior, warning youths not to emulate female banqueters.

On a red-figure kylix by Oltos (525–475 BCE), side B depicts fully nude female banqueters playing the aulos and drinking straight wine, while side A depicts an athletic youth running with a bull. Classical andrōn rooms typically featured 7 to 11 couches lining the walls, accommodating 14 to 22 participants. Onesimos painted a notable red-figure kylix dated 510–490 BCE.

4. Prostitution, Poetry, and Tragic Heroines

Ancient authors explored desire, prostitution, and female liminality through melodic poetry, legal definitions, and tragic drama.

Prostitution and Citizenship

Classical Athens utilized a nuanced system of categories to classify women involved in sexual commerce, distinguishing between slaves, long-term companions, and mistresses.

The classical city recognized distinct terms:

• porne for a slave available for purchase in a brothel;
• hetaira for a courtesan who exchanged sexual favors for material and intellectual benefits with greater autonomy;
• pallake for a long-term concubine providing domestic care;
• auletriz for a flute-girl hired for symposia.

Phryne became so rich as a hetaira that she offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes destroyed by Alexander, though the citizens refused the offer.

In classical Athens, the entire system of prostitution was organized around and subordinated to the status, laws, and values of the adult male citizen. Prostitution itself was not criminalized under Athenian law, and the state even levied a prostitute tax. Legal issues arose when sexual behavior threatened the patriarchal civic household, citizen inheritance, or proper civic decorum. Male prostitution was likewise penalized as a failure of proper citizen behavior.

Aeschines prosecuted Timarchus on the grounds that having been a prostitute when young, Timarchus forfeited his proper citizen behavior and political loyalties.

Roman jurists like Ulpian distinguished prostitution based on whether a woman made herself openly available to the public. Under certain legal frameworks, a woman who engaged in private sexual transactions for money was not legally a prostitute, whereas one who was openly available without charging money could be classified as such.

Ulpian, in discussing the Lex Papia and Lex Julia, declared that a woman having private intercourse with one or two individuals for money is not understood to make a living openly by her body.

Erotic Melic Poetry

Archaic Greek love poetry should be understood as melos, a ritual and performative musical act, rather than modern lyric expression of a poet's private feelings. Claude Calame argues that modern concepts of lyric, sex, and gender are inadequate for pre-classical poetry. Melic poetry features a self-referential 'I' that engages in speech acts anchoring the performance in the ritual moment, distinguishing between the speaker persona, the musical performer, and the author function.

Sappho’s poetry was not merely private feminine expression, but choral and ritual training directed by a master of the Muses to guide aristocratic girls toward maturity. Ancient testimonies and papyrological evidence show that Sappho operated as a choregus or master instructing young girls from local and Ionian families in singing, dance, and the cultural arts of beauty under the aegis of Aphrodite and Eros.

Sappho led a group of young aristocratic girls from Lesbos and Lydia, including students from Miletus, Colophon, and Salamine.

Tragic Heroines and Gender Theory

Electra remains trapped in a liminal state between girlhood and womanhood because she is kept unmarried and childless. In ancient Greek ideology, marriage acts as a taming and yoking process that brings a wild girl into normative culture. By remaining unmarried and refusing traditional domestic roles, Electra occupies an anomalous, dangerous space outside societal norms.

In Sophocles' play, Electra laments that she is like a stranger or servant living in her father's house, completely deprived of a marriage bed or children.

Electra's persistent mourning in classical tragedy functions as a form of Freudian melancholy stemming from her forbidden grief and gendered subjugation. Because Electra is a woman living under tyrannical rule and unable to act without her brother, her grief cannot be resolved or publicly expressed. This leads to profound dejection, social isolation, and an embodied state of melancholy.

In Aeschylus' Libation Bearers and Sophocles' Electra, Electra is confined to endless laments outside the house, comparing herself to a dishonored dog or a nightingale that has lost its young.

5. Roman Sexuality, Dress, and Late Antiquity

Roman constructions of sexuality relied heavily on the penetration paradigm, clothing sign systems, and late antique Christian asceticism.

Tiberius and Erectile Dysfunction

From becoming emperor in 14 CE until his death in 37 CE, Tiberius faced well-documented erectile problems, prompting him to deploy massive human and financial resources to seek visual and physical arousal. Suetonius details the elderly emperor Tiberius's chronic difficulties in attaining and sustaining an erection while ruling at Capri.

Tiberius established the sellaria on Capri, where groups of people performed group sexual acts to stimulate his failing passions, and decorated his quarters with explicit art and manuals by Elephantis.

The Penetration Model

Clothing in Roman society functioned as a complex sign system and visual code that articulated rank, status, power, gender, and sexuality. Roman visual culture prioritized sight as the primary source of knowledge, making self-presentation and dress essential for establishing social meaning.

The toga served as the quintessential marker of Roman citizenship and active male dominance, while its absence signaled outsider status. Seneca reported that Emperor Claudius wished to see the whole world dressed in togas.

In Roman sexual ideology, the primary conceptual model links penetrating with freeborn status, masculinity, and social dominance, while associating being penetrated with servility, femininity, and social inferiority. Scholars call this framework the penetration paradigm, which accounts for most ancient evidence regarding Roman sexual ideology. Traditional terminology conflates penetration with agency by labeling all penetrated individuals as passive, whereas a grammatical model based on Latin grammarians reveals that activity and passivity relate to volition, body movement, and desire.

Drawing on fourth-century CE grammarian Charisius, activity refers to performing an action, bodily movement, or mental desire, while passivity indicates enduring something.

Persecution and Christian Asceticism

The Passio Sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis is the earliest extended prose text in Latin purported to be written by an early Christian woman, detailing the imprisonment and martyrdom of Perpetua in Carthage. Vibia Perpetua, a well-born young mother and catechumen, was arrested in 203 CE under Emperor Septimius Severus and martyred in the arena.

Perpetua was arrested in or near Carthage in 203 CE alongside Felicitas, Revocatus, Secundulus, Saturninus, and later Saturus.

In her fourth prison vision, Perpetua experiences a radical gender transformation, explicitly stripping off her feminine gender to become male in order to defeat her demonic opponent. Led by Pomponius to the amphitheater, Perpetua encounters a hideous Egyptian opponent representing the Devil.

Perpetua states in her vision that she was stripped and made a male, utilizing the masculine adjective rather than a noun for man.

Emperor Justinian severely intensified the legal persecution of male same-sex sexual activity during his reign, punishing offenders with public castration, parading, and death. Beginning around 528, Justinian purged bishops and men accused of same-sex relations.

Chronicler John Malalas recorded the purge of bishops and officials like E-saias of Rhodes and Alexandros, who suffered torture, exile, or castration and death.

10 Key Ideas

1. The volume Sex in Antiquity investigates sex, gender, and sexuality in the ancient world from historical, sociological, and theoretical perspectives across multiple media.
2. Ancient Near Eastern cultures conceptualized fertility as a masculine attribute while utilizing complex birth rituals, protective amulets, and magic.
3. Legal codes in the Ancient Near East strictly regulated bestiality and sexual multiples while reflecting broader societal anxieties regarding transgression.
4. Greek pederasty and symposium culture functioned as institutionalized pedagogical spaces governed by codes of modesty and exchange.
5. Ancient authors explored desire, prostitution, and female liminality through melodic poetry, legal definitions, and tragic drama.
6. Roman constructions of sexuality relied heavily on the penetration paradigm, clothing sign systems, and late antique Christian asceticism.
7. In the Hebrew Bible, the distinction between religion and magic is determined not by the ritual itself, but by the social legitimacy of the actor.
8. Classical Athens utilized a nuanced system of categories to classify women involved in sexual commerce, distinguishing between slaves, long-term companions, and mistresses.
9. Clothing in Roman society functioned as a complex sign system and visual code that articulated rank, status, power, gender, and sexuality.
10. Emperor Justinian severely intensified the legal persecution of male same-sex sexual activity during his reign, punishing offenders with public castration, parading, and death.