I know that the elite were comfortable with the men sleeping around, but I Would love to know more about how the working class approached this. Was monogamy expected of the poor plebians?
@@StanGBAnd, how did the plebeians view their role as the passive partners of the elite? Were the "favourites" of the political elites honoured or were they taunted for being sexually abused continuously.
Great video. Greek and Roman sexuality is one of my pet peeves vis a vis other gay people. It's really bothersome to see the Romans and Athenians held up as examples in this regard of anything other than the mutability of sexual norms when their norms were mostly offensive to core principles most of us share.
Thanks - I fully agree that the Roman approach and the later contrasting Christian approach to homosexuality both reflect deficiencies that we are now able to overcome as a society, but that we shouldn't rest on the march of history to win the battle for us. These values are never fixed in stone and it is a constant battle to assert rights and dignity.
Really? I think it proves the exact opposite. Homosexuality is a transhistorical reality, that has very little to do with whatever culture wishes to impose on human nature.
"The human heart requires both companions and compassion in our brief stints on Earth." I think this is very true. I'm asexual, so it took me a while to understand what I wanted out of life and out of other people, I think because the focus was always on partners, always on sex and relationships (which always meant _romantic_ relationships), and that didn't really suit me as a guide. But in the end it has turned out to be really very simple. I want companions- people to break bread with. Whatever else they are to me, let them be there for me and me there for them. We need other people, whatever else we want aside. That's about the length and size of love, when you get down to it. Doing things together. And if I am here for only a short time, then I will try to be compassionate while I can.
Thanks for the comment here - I was conscious of asexuals while writing this portion and wanted to be inclusive and make it clear that even when talking about the importance of romance that I view you and your community as valid. It went through a lot of rewrites so I'm very glad that the message came through as intended.
Thank you - in my videos the discussion of Roman society that we spend the first 75% of a video on is really just the warm up for thinking about how this knowledge should actually be applied. I don't want to recite names and dates, but help people use history to improve the present (And the future)
@@spyrofrost9158 I'm a gay leftie and I gotta agree with you, I think "trad reactionaries" are significantly less insufferable than "secular leftie reactionaries". At least the traditionalists can raise a child into a functioning adult with a pass rate higher than 50% 😂
Fascinating analysis as usual, and a great reminder of just how shockingly brutal Roman life was. Very funny to see the comments from people who didn't watch the video crying about wokeness - I hope you're not discouraged by them.
a thorough and enlightening look at the topic. i remember learning a lot of the (relatively sanitized) versions of these social dynamics in Latin classes, it’s interesting that so much of the so-called “depravity” of many of the emperors was seen as expected, not aberrant. especially liked the insight that a historical mode which seems “progressive” in relation to current social dynamics is still not by any means a mode which champions human dignity. unfortunately, it seems very par for the course for modern liberal progressivism to praise Roman “openness” about homosexual male relations while also eliding, y’know, the slavery. would love to see a video exploring more of the spectrum of roman sex work. were there high-demand courtesans who enjoyed any kind of social prestige? were there madams who moved in upper crust circles by dint of their clientele?
I love your videos, so informative, especially to see roman history covered from a leftist point of view. However, my favorite part might just be my visit to the comments once the video ends to see the chuds denounce your critical and contextual explanations and insights while announcing their departure. Truly great fun. Keep up the great work
@@tribunateSPQRsome extremist right wing people get attracted to the dark side of Rome & Greece. & then get upset when history & culture doesn’t match their modern beliefs
My 3 favorite emperors are: 1. Caligula. Because empires are essentially bad to begin with, as ya'll like to remind us. I'm in agreement with Albert Camus that Caligula was not at all insane and was actually consciously parodying Roman imperial pomp and hubris. He was the Roman Empire's Joker, a sick and depraved but very intelligent critic of the world he lived in. 2. Antoninus Pius. Because if you want to be a simp for empires and emperors, you should at least appreciate the ones who calmly devote themselves to the boring, every-day administrative drudgery that society needs in order to function properly. He's also the first emperor to make significant laws reducing the brutality of slavery. 3. Diocletian. Because he's essentially the only emperor who gave up power willingly and who wanted to create a lasting structure of power which would ensure stability and prosperity for future generations and ordinary working people, instead of subjecting them to the pestilence of civil wars. An unbelievably ironic and poetically tragic figure; On the one hand, he introduced full-bore God-Emperor authoritarianism in place of the coy pseudo-republicanism of his predecessors, but on the other, he actually gave up that god-emperor power in the name of the greater good. An Illyrian barbarian, a common peasant, a shameless autocrat, a son of a freedman and yet a man who understood the essential value of Republican government far better than the decadent elite families of Rome, who had so often bathed the land in the blood of their countrymen in order to wield absolute power and to salve their consciences by pretending that they were merely "first among equals". He did everything right, he wasn't a hypocrite clinging to power until he died and then asking his descendants to politely give up power for the greater good, unlike *some* people cough Constantinecough. I mean, I'm a Serb so I'm obviously biased in favor of the Illyrian emperors(especially since half of them look like my dad), but still.
@@dingusuhum More comments and engagement help the channel get attention and grow. Also, it IS tangentially related to the video, since he does talk about emperors and how we perceive them for a bit at the beginning and at the end.
@@TuesdayTurkey 1. Caligula was best, because he's like the Joker. Evil and depraved but pointing out why Empire is fundamentally a bad thing, and we shouldn't have "favorite emperors" in the first place. 2. Antoninus Pius because "war glory" is inherently horrible, and if you're going to simp for autocratic emperors despite the former point, at least appreciate the guys who did the socially beneficial administrative drudge work that gets you ignored by the history books. 3. Diocletian, because he not only tried to be a good ruler while he was in power, he also gave up power willingly as part of building a system that would stand the test of time. Also, brownie points for rising from near the bottom/being a freedman's son.
Keep making these videos. They are better than any other content on the topic of Rome than I have found before. It's also funny to see the "RETVRN" weirdos come out of the woodworks to complain about a video they probably didn't watch.
Thank you! Really appreciate the encouragement, the conservative outrage is pretty funny but at least they gave a click and left a comment. They helped raise money for the Trevor Project lol
this was really an excellent video! while not altogether a great body of work, the anthology book “day of fire” touches on a lot of these points pretty well. i’ve been working on a book that in part is about exploring relationships in ancient greece! it’d be great if y’all did my research for me and made a video abt it lol
Thanks! Unfortunately a similar analysis of Greece is way outside my area of expertise and we will likely only touch on Greece to provide a basic understanding of how its history, culture and ideology influenced Rome. But who knows - we are growing and may expand the scope of the channel in years to come. I find the Greeks fascinating and would love to devote time to them if I felt I had something interesting to say.
So cool to talk about sexualities from the Past, but we should be super super super careful about imposing our own sexual identities to their behaviours
I do like to explain this kind of distinction to people. It is fascinating. People understand that the romans had a more positive view of same-sex relations, but they really struggle with the idea that romans saw ALL relationships as inherently hierarchical, the very opposite of what we do today.
There are two modern fallacies about the ancient world that annoy me. The first being that the Greeks and the Romans were 'gay friendly'. Seducing (if not raping) boys is not gay. It's pedophilia. And in many warlike cultures even today part of the domination of boys is accomplished through sexual force. If having a loving relationship with a man your own age in ancient Greece or Rome wass considered abnormal, where's the gay in that? The second fallacy is this particularly African-American fantasy that the ancient Egyptians were black. As is south-Saharan African. Were all the thousands of statues and frescoes and paintings showing olive-skinned or suntanned people bleached, perhaps on purpose by white supremacists?
Someone’s uneducated and it shows… take your bigoted ass to google and realize that at least the ancient Roman and Greece thing is very circumstantial. Nice confirmation bias by the way
You think about the Roman Empire a lot, don't you? A lot. But if you'd watched this video you'd know that the Romans were having homosexual intercourse with other citizens and with slaves, adult as well as child. And a lot of that was nonconsenual, i.e. rape. It's also interesting that you're trying to throw the homosexual nature of the rape under a rug. Very interesting. And then you go off about racism. Very, very interesting.
It seems likely that the (brief and not abundant) condemnation of Homosexuality in the epistles of Paul against homosexuality was based on the fact that, unlike in Greece, the act was very frequently non-consensual. He was not the only one. There was a growing disapproval of homosexual practices, because of the non-concentual aspect that was the norm of the time.
it's only baffling until you realize that "politics" means "gays and non-whites existing" and they think everything north of Africa is and always has been lily white.
@@tribunateSPQRWait, wait, wait... Someone _actually_ thinks a society almost built on political intrigue was nonpolitical? Can I have some of what they're smoking?
Holding up gay relationships in Rome reminds me of people saying that “Black people also owned slaves, so…” People take some statistical anomaly and tout it as the example of a norm. It is not
Did you watch even the first minute of the video? Not taking both men and women as sexualpartners was unusual for an emporer. Not really a relationship in the same way we see it today. You can also get an idea of this being the fact in anciebt greece in Plato's symposion where they basicly have a gay orgy while talking about eros.
@@pendragonsxskywalkers9518 No he wasn't lol Portable Orange made a video that amounted to him saying that 300AD and 400AD historians can't be trusted to provide a clear picture of sexuality in Rome because they're Christians but then cites contemporary modern day historians without acknowledging the biases they would have living in Liberal secular sex positive societies. Both videos are thinly veiled propaganda that conveniently ignore uncomfortable truths to sell a narrative.
That’s the problem with the Romans imo, just similar enough that we can see ourselves in them but then we dig into what they actually believe beyond the surface level we realize how little we share
fantastic video. even modern historians fall into the trap of acting like elit members of society's histories are the "common" stories instead of the more commonly known ones. Having an honest discussion of class society in rome is so rare to see and great to hear plainly. we cannot do justice to the people who lived under roman rule if we base our idea of freedom on the access of the wealthy to do whatever the wanted everyone else
Very glad you enjoyed the video and found it informative. Class remains central to our interpretation of Rome because like you said - a refusal to take this into account will lead to a skewed perspective on Roman cultural and political values
"societal taboos are ALWAYS transgressed".....another aspect to that is that when they are transgressed, they are most often kept Hidden (which might skew our view/understanding of what they were actually doing) and as you pointed out in the vid, accusations that taboos were transgressed were (and are to this day are) falsely claimed, again, skewing our view of their actual behavior
A TH-cam channel named Portable Orange has a video where they quote a bunch of sources to deconstruct even the popular assumption that the Passive partners were looked down on.
I watched a lot of this on your recommendation and really enjoyed it, I thought he did a great job debunking the right wing hack and his really tenuous argument. I haven't watched it all yet but I think the tension between my position and his can be resolved with a little more specificity in terms. I believe that a roman citizen acting in the passive role was viewed as shameful by the old conservatives of each generation but that there were also many open minded Romans who wouldn't have condemned the behavior. We have abundant literary evidence that many Roman males did act in this capacity and it certainly wasn't illegal, I just believe they would have been subject to bigotry from some elements of society, particularly the entrenched elite that wrote so many of our sources.
Imagine for a moment that you were alive for 10:07 , and you'd happened to be born a slave. Or do you think you're a special chosen one, and couldn't possibly have ended up as unprivileged?
Thank you for presenting this very well researched video and including all the nuances of homosexuality in that time. It just seems so wrong because it's so exploitative but there definitely were same-sex partners of the same age and status. John Boswell's _Same-sex Unions in Premodern Europe_ gives you a good rundown.
Lately I've started to think of social mores as the limit of utopia, a cosmological constant we're slowly improving our approximation of. We're endlessly approaching an ideal society, but we might never reach it. That a good life is a process, and not a static ideal. That no one has all the right answers, least of all the dead.
History is inherently political, there is no such thing as a completely a-historical interpretation of history. The only people who believe this are those who think history is only unbiased when it fits their conceptions of the world. Btw, the "history" you are referring to is actually called historiography, history is just writing down what happened, historiography is analyzing what happened, which news-flash buddy, cannot be done without bias from the historian. Most "history" is actually historiography in a trench-coat. Blud really thought he was onto something smh 🤦♂
@@Calabrooo It is most definitely a political symbol, and the notion that it isn't is absurd to anyone outside of western imperialism. I say that as a communist.
@@williamchamberlain2263 I've read a great deal of Greek, Roman, and Chinese classics. This is garbage postmodernism based on anti-gay theories formulated around the concept that homosexuality is an acquired mental disease and a form of cultural degeneration. Namely, queer theory. If anything is ahistorical, it is the application of this postmodern theory to ancient times.
@@Giantcrabz Not at all hypocritical. Gaius is one of the most lied about people in history. Pretty viperous to slander and libel "our most meritorious parent."
@@TuesdayTurkey "A book?"🤣 I've read over 5,000 books and innumerable academic papers. You should try it, so you might present something of value in this discussion..
Thank you for the fascinating and tactful video ✊🏳️🌈 Ok edit because people seem to think something being 'fascinatin' means it's also inherently good - no... It's my belief that if we actually wish to understand historical cultures we have to integrate the things we find abhorrent as much as what we might admire into our understanding, so as to have as full and *honest* representative understanding as is possible with the always incomplete record. Otherwise you are just creating fan fiction if you're only 'keeping' what you personally consider to be 'cool' or 'good'. No bueno
@@TRR901 I said fascinating - not pleasant - obviously not something I admire or would want; but I find history interesting interesting, and if we actually wish to understand historical cultures we have to integrate the things we find abhorrent in history into our understanding to have as full and honest representative understanding possible.
Yeah this one is gonna be the one that makes me unsubscribe. Its not so much that I think your videos are getting anything wrong so much as to me your language puts our modern age on a pedestal we don't deserve and it comes at the cost of saying we are somehow better then people from the past. I don't think we are any more humane then we were in the past, I think we are just less direct. We kill people with bombs for reasons that don't impact our survival, and we've replaced slavery with a prison system that destroys communities for reasons the Romans would find stupid. We love violence and watching people die, we just make separate simulated worlds to enjoy our sadism, or look for snuff films online. We are not great at all, and we are so very inconsistent with our morals.
Wowwww.....heavy stuff at the 14:39 mark or thereabouts....you speak of the Roman ruling class maintained the same obsession with "Roman virtue"....ie their belief that they can continue to rape others no matter how young or that they can continue to rape slaves or those who have less power or belong to an inferior social class....because That is what those "who were not informed by an Abrahamic prohibition of homosexuality" were trying to preserve....they were trying to preserve a Truly predatory sexual belief system. Between your observation of an ancient ruling class "obsessed" (as you correctly put it) with Roman "virtue" which, in my view and seemingly yours as well, was sexual exploitation, and your observation of the Antebellum south preserving those practices, that makes me think of hollywood and it's ruling class sexual perversity and exploitative practices....as well as many of our politicians and corporate rulers....it seems they've just passed these attitudes down through the centuries from patricians to emperors to kings and their courts straight down to plantation slave owners, factory owners, flash in the pan potentate politicians, hollywood moguls etc.... VERY Interesitng
It's not a conspiracy, it's that power without accountability both reveals and corrodes character - in any set of people with unaccountable power over others many will come to abuse that power. You can see it everywhere, from marriages to families to churches to orphanages to police to armed forces to employer/employee relationships. It's just more extreme in the examples you give because the amount of power is more extreme.
Correct! “Gays” are a modern social construct that wouldn’t have existed then. As the video elaborates, people in Rome understood sexuality as an extension of power and subjugation so the idea of any sexual preference related to gender was foreign to them.
This channel has not been subtle about its politics since it started. I find it hilarious how he only crossed the line for you when he mentions (gasp!) THE GAYS!
For fuck sick you were good chance and then you decided to go full on politics . Sorry but you lost me as fan ( and I know you don’t own me anything but so is the other way around )
if you can’t engage with historical facts that you personally don’t like for whatever reason without freaking out, maybe you should stick to children’s programming (toddler level, learning how to count to five etc)
quoting primary sources extensively while discussing historical context is propaganda now? seneca was quoted in this video, are you saying seneca was made up by the gays? I know you can't stop thinking about us but this is a bit much
@@zachjordan7608 buddy im gay as hell but this obsession with queer history often distorts facts and overemphasizes very fringe cases to peddle a narrative. I just have no desire to watch this is all.
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What aspects of Roman sexuality should we cover next in this series?
I know that the elite were comfortable with the men sleeping around, but I Would love to know more about how the working class approached this. Was monogamy expected of the poor plebians?
how it was all related to phasces
@@StanGBAnd, how did the plebeians view their role as the passive partners of the elite? Were the "favourites" of the political elites honoured or were they taunted for being sexually abused continuously.
Was "dating" a thing among the plebs?
If the Romans, whether plebeian or patrician, practised or were accused of polygamy, or polygamy in general I suppose
Great video. Greek and Roman sexuality is one of my pet peeves vis a vis other gay people. It's really bothersome to see the Romans and Athenians held up as examples in this regard of anything other than the mutability of sexual norms when their norms were mostly offensive to core principles most of us share.
Thanks - I fully agree that the Roman approach and the later contrasting Christian approach to homosexuality both reflect deficiencies that we are now able to overcome as a society, but that we shouldn't rest on the march of history to win the battle for us. These values are never fixed in stone and it is a constant battle to assert rights and dignity.
Really? I think it proves the exact opposite. Homosexuality is a transhistorical reality, that has very little to do with whatever culture wishes to impose on human nature.
In Classical Greece homosexuality was literally illegal in many city-states.
“I’m not gay or bi if I’m on top bro” 😂jk
hilarious
Me: Can we go be gay?
Emperor: no, we have being gay at Rome
The being gay at Rome:....
"do you ask for a golden cup when you're dying of thirst" madman
"The human heart requires both companions and compassion in our brief stints on Earth."
I think this is very true. I'm asexual, so it took me a while to understand what I wanted out of life and out of other people, I think because the focus was always on partners, always on sex and relationships (which always meant _romantic_ relationships), and that didn't really suit me as a guide.
But in the end it has turned out to be really very simple. I want companions- people to break bread with. Whatever else they are to me, let them be there for me and me there for them. We need other people, whatever else we want aside. That's about the length and size of love, when you get down to it. Doing things together.
And if I am here for only a short time, then I will try to be compassionate while I can.
Thanks for the comment here - I was conscious of asexuals while writing this portion and wanted to be inclusive and make it clear that even when talking about the importance of romance that I view you and your community as valid. It went through a lot of rewrites so I'm very glad that the message came through as intended.
The final summing up on this video was truly incredible.
Thank you - in my videos the discussion of Roman society that we spend the first 75% of a video on is really just the warm up for thinking about how this knowledge should actually be applied. I don't want to recite names and dates, but help people use history to improve the present (And the future)
Great well researched vid. Trad reactionaries should read more books, the 4 books in the description of this video is a great place for them to start.
Thanks. Unfortunately they would rather ban books
The phrase "Trad reactionaries" says everything anyone would need to know about you.
@@spyrofrost9158 I'm a gay leftie and I gotta agree with you, I think "trad reactionaries" are significantly less insufferable than "secular leftie reactionaries". At least the traditionalists can raise a child into a functioning adult with a pass rate higher than 50% 😂
@@spyrofrost9158that they’re cool as hell and have good politics?
Fascinating analysis as usual, and a great reminder of just how shockingly brutal Roman life was. Very funny to see the comments from people who didn't watch the video crying about wokeness - I hope you're not discouraged by them.
thanks!
Not discouraged at all, honestly good riddance to anyone who can't stomach any historical context
You could say there was a peck(er)ing order in ancient Rome
I'm going to Hell for laughing at this. 😂
a thorough and enlightening look at the topic. i remember learning a lot of the (relatively sanitized) versions of these social dynamics in Latin classes, it’s interesting that so much of the so-called “depravity” of many of the emperors was seen as expected, not aberrant.
especially liked the insight that a historical mode which seems “progressive” in relation to current social dynamics is still not by any means a mode which champions human dignity.
unfortunately, it seems very par for the course for modern liberal progressivism to praise Roman “openness” about homosexual male relations while also eliding, y’know, the slavery.
would love to see a video exploring more of the spectrum of roman sex work. were there high-demand courtesans who enjoyed any kind of social prestige? were there madams who moved in upper crust circles by dint of their clientele?
Well, this was a great birthday gift!
Very glad you enjoyed it and happy birthday!
I love your videos, so informative, especially to see roman history covered from a leftist point of view. However, my favorite part might just be my visit to the comments once the video ends to see the chuds denounce your critical and contextual explanations and insights while announcing their departure. Truly great fun. Keep up the great work
thank you!
A few of the comments on this one have been bizarre, but fortunately there has been much more from people voicing their support
I don’t think it’s leftist, it’s just how it was.roman & Greek sexuality have been known for so long.
@@tribunateSPQRsome extremist right wing people get attracted to the dark side of Rome & Greece. & then get upset when history & culture doesn’t match their modern beliefs
cry more lol
hahahahahahahhahaha, leftist malding over some comments
Really good video as always
Much appreciated - this was a fun one to make since it took me way outside my core area of expertise so I learned a lot putting this one together.
My 3 favorite emperors are:
1. Caligula. Because empires are essentially bad to begin with, as ya'll like to remind us.
I'm in agreement with Albert Camus that Caligula was not at all insane and was actually consciously parodying Roman imperial pomp and hubris. He was the Roman Empire's Joker, a sick and depraved but very intelligent critic of the world he lived in.
2. Antoninus Pius. Because if you want to be a simp for empires and emperors, you should at least appreciate the ones who calmly devote themselves to the boring, every-day administrative drudgery that society needs in order to function properly. He's also the first emperor to make significant laws reducing the brutality of slavery.
3. Diocletian. Because he's essentially the only emperor who gave up power willingly and who wanted to create a lasting structure of power which would ensure stability and prosperity for future generations and ordinary working people, instead of subjecting them to the pestilence of civil wars. An unbelievably ironic and poetically tragic figure; On the one hand, he introduced full-bore God-Emperor authoritarianism in place of the coy pseudo-republicanism of his predecessors, but on the other, he actually gave up that god-emperor power in the name of the greater good.
An Illyrian barbarian, a common peasant, a shameless autocrat, a son of a freedman and yet a man who understood the essential value of Republican government far better than the decadent elite families of Rome, who had so often bathed the land in the blood of their countrymen in order to wield absolute power and to salve their consciences by pretending that they were merely "first among equals".
He did everything right, he wasn't a hypocrite clinging to power until he died and then asking his descendants to politely give up power for the greater good, unlike *some* people cough Constantinecough.
I mean, I'm a Serb so I'm obviously biased in favor of the Illyrian emperors(especially since half of them look like my dad), but still.
that's a whole lot of words nobody asked for
tl;dr
@@dingusuhum More comments and engagement help the channel get attention and grow.
Also, it IS tangentially related to the video, since he does talk about emperors and how we perceive them for a bit at the beginning and at the end.
@@TuesdayTurkey
1. Caligula was best, because he's like the Joker. Evil and depraved but pointing out why Empire is fundamentally a bad thing, and we shouldn't have "favorite emperors" in the first place.
2. Antoninus Pius because "war glory" is inherently horrible, and if you're going to simp for autocratic emperors despite the former point, at least appreciate the guys who did the socially beneficial administrative drudge work that gets you ignored by the history books.
3. Diocletian, because he not only tried to be a good ruler while he was in power, he also gave up power willingly as part of building a system that would stand the test of time. Also, brownie points for rising from near the bottom/being a freedman's son.
@@nebojsag.5871 tl;dr
Keep making these videos. They are better than any other content on the topic of Rome than I have found before. It's also funny to see the "RETVRN" weirdos come out of the woodworks to complain about a video they probably didn't watch.
Thank you! Really appreciate the encouragement, the conservative outrage is pretty funny but at least they gave a click and left a comment. They helped raise money for the Trevor Project lol
Yo! I’m a historian in Chicago and I’ve just discovered your channel. I’m working my way through the catalog and loving it. Great stuff, my dude.
thank you!!
this was really an excellent video! while not altogether a great body of work, the anthology book “day of fire” touches on a lot of these points pretty well.
i’ve been working on a book that in part is about exploring relationships in ancient greece! it’d be great if y’all did my research for me and made a video abt it lol
Thanks! Unfortunately a similar analysis of Greece is way outside my area of expertise and we will likely only touch on Greece to provide a basic understanding of how its history, culture and ideology influenced Rome.
But who knows - we are growing and may expand the scope of the channel in years to come. I find the Greeks fascinating and would love to devote time to them if I felt I had something interesting to say.
It’s so interesting learning about the history of sexuality and how everything that we think is real is heavily influenced by cultural forces.
this was fantastic, thank you for posting it!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for the feedback
So cool to talk about sexualities from the Past, but we should be super super super careful about imposing our own sexual identities to their behaviours
thank you for this video :)
Thank you for taking a moment to show your appreciation- means a lot to us
@@tribunateSPQR keep it up :D
I do like to explain this kind of distinction to people. It is fascinating. People understand that the romans had a more positive view of same-sex relations, but they really struggle with the idea that romans saw ALL relationships as inherently hierarchical, the very opposite of what we do today.
There are two modern fallacies about the ancient world that annoy me. The first being that the Greeks and the Romans were 'gay friendly'. Seducing (if not raping) boys is not gay. It's pedophilia. And in many warlike cultures even today part of the domination of boys is accomplished through sexual force. If having a loving relationship with a man your own age in ancient Greece or Rome wass considered abnormal, where's the gay in that? The second fallacy is this particularly African-American fantasy that the ancient Egyptians were black. As is south-Saharan African. Were all the thousands of statues and frescoes and paintings showing olive-skinned or suntanned people bleached, perhaps on purpose by white supremacists?
Someone’s uneducated and it shows… take your bigoted ass to google and realize that at least the ancient Roman and Greece thing is very circumstantial. Nice confirmation bias by the way
You think about the Roman Empire a lot, don't you? A lot. But if you'd watched this video you'd know that the Romans were having homosexual intercourse with other citizens and with slaves, adult as well as child. And a lot of that was nonconsenual, i.e. rape.
It's also interesting that you're trying to throw the homosexual nature of the rape under a rug. Very interesting.
And then you go off about racism. Very, very interesting.
@@williamchamberlain2263well aren't you jst the superior mind?
@@williamchamberlain2263 well aren't you the superior mind?
It seems likely that the (brief and not abundant) condemnation of Homosexuality in the epistles of Paul against homosexuality was based on the fact that, unlike in Greece, the act was very frequently non-consensual. He was not the only one. There was a growing disapproval of homosexual practices, because of the non-concentual aspect that was the norm of the time.
Why are you making Rome political? Politics weren't a thing back then.
/s
Genuinely baffled by the RETVRN guys who want to go back to a Roman ordering of society and government but also think the past wan't political
it's only baffling until you realize that "politics" means "gays and non-whites existing" and they think everything north of Africa is and always has been lily white.
Roma not political? Hello?
@@kyomademon453 Sarcasm.
@@tribunateSPQRWait, wait, wait...
Someone _actually_ thinks a society almost built on political intrigue was nonpolitical?
Can I have some of what they're smoking?
I like that the subject matter is the star of the channel and the narrator the servant
Thanks! I am happy to take a back seat and let the history speak for itself.
Holding up gay relationships in Rome reminds me of people saying that “Black people also owned slaves, so…” People take some statistical anomaly and tout it as the example of a norm. It is not
Did you watch even the first minute of the video? Not taking both men and women as sexualpartners was unusual for an emporer. Not really a relationship in the same way we see it today. You can also get an idea of this being the fact in anciebt greece in Plato's symposion where they basicly have a gay orgy while talking about eros.
XVIII naked bubulci in the shower at villa aries
Leather Apron Club also made a video about this.
Leather Apron was debunked heavily by Portable Orange.
sadly leather apron club is lame
@@likeabumblebee So true 😂😂😂😂👌🏻💖💖💖
@@pendragonsxskywalkers9518 No he wasn't lol Portable Orange made a video that amounted to him saying that 300AD and 400AD historians can't be trusted to provide a clear picture of sexuality in Rome because they're Christians but then cites contemporary modern day historians without acknowledging the biases they would have living in Liberal secular sex positive societies. Both videos are thinly veiled propaganda that conveniently ignore uncomfortable truths to sell a narrative.
Looking forward to learning more about this
I often think of the Roman Empire, and when I do, I think of it in exactly those terms.
They did have access to a _lot_ of olive oil.
Another great look at the alien-ness of Roman culture - only superficially like our own!
That’s the problem with the Romans imo, just similar enough that we can see ourselves in them but then we dig into what they actually believe beyond the surface level we realize how little we share
What are you even saying here? Are gay people alien to you?
fantastic video. even modern historians fall into the trap of acting like elit members of society's histories are the "common" stories instead of the more commonly known ones. Having an honest discussion of class society in rome is so rare to see and great to hear plainly. we cannot do justice to the people who lived under roman rule if we base our idea of freedom on the access of the wealthy to do whatever the wanted everyone else
Very glad you enjoyed the video and found it informative. Class remains central to our interpretation of Rome because like you said - a refusal to take this into account will lead to a skewed perspective on Roman cultural and political values
"societal taboos are ALWAYS transgressed".....another aspect to that is that when they are transgressed, they are most often kept Hidden (which might skew our view/understanding of what they were actually doing)
and as you pointed out in the vid, accusations that taboos were transgressed were (and are to this day are) falsely claimed, again, skewing our view of their actual behavior
Great work - very intersting
How does one become a channel member?
There's should be an icon next to the subscription button, however, you can also follow this link: th-cam.com/channels/7Jx8j3giv0rsDX0wgz9uGQ.htmljoin
Comment for algorithm.
my favorite kind!
hell yeah brother poundus townus
My great friend back in Rome, Biggus Dickus
@@Lucasp110And his wife, Incontinentia Buttox!
you and your work are appreciated
I love this channel
Thank you - we’re big fans of the podcast!
@@tribunateSPQR that means so much to us, thank you!
This was a great video
Thank you, Glad you enjoyed it
Came early
😅
😳😳
_Oh my_
Heirachies are bad guys, and every motion in time breaks them down. You dont need a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing!
A TH-cam channel named Portable Orange has a video where they quote a bunch of sources to deconstruct even the popular assumption that the Passive partners were looked down on.
I watched a lot of this on your recommendation and really enjoyed it, I thought he did a great job debunking the right wing hack and his really tenuous argument.
I haven't watched it all yet but I think the tension between my position and his can be resolved with a little more specificity in terms. I believe that a roman citizen acting in the passive role was viewed as shameful by the old conservatives of each generation but that there were also many open minded Romans who wouldn't have condemned the behavior. We have abundant literary evidence that many Roman males did act in this capacity and it certainly wasn't illegal, I just believe they would have been subject to bigotry from some elements of society, particularly the entrenched elite that wrote so many of our sources.
@@tribunateSPQRso basically nothing new under the sun?
Fascinating that you decided to use the "progress flag" for this video, immediately invalidating it
Imagine for a moment that you were alive for 10:07 , and you'd happened to be born a slave. Or do you think you're a special chosen one, and couldn't possibly have ended up as unprivileged?
Thank you for presenting this very well researched video and including all the nuances of homosexuality in that time. It just seems so wrong because it's so exploitative but there definitely were same-sex partners of the same age and status. John Boswell's _Same-sex Unions in Premodern Europe_ gives you a good rundown.
What most forget is that the Middle East was part of Rome. 😎
Lately I've started to think of social mores as the limit of utopia, a cosmological constant we're slowly improving our approximation of. We're endlessly approaching an ideal society, but we might never reach it. That a good life is a process, and not a static ideal. That no one has all the right answers, least of all the dead.
I dont think they had rainbow flags in the Roman empire
They literally had massive statues with nothing but busts and phalluses on them. Grow TF up
The Emperor wore purple tho so he must have been bisexual
I find it interesting that you decided to plaster a contemporary political symbol on a video that is supposedly about "history"
It’s only a “political symbol” if you’re dull lmao. It is not inherently political to have a rainbow symbol… grow up
@@Calabrooo it is political for 'conservatives' because confining themselves to social norms is part of their identity politics
History is inherently political, there is no such thing as a completely a-historical interpretation of history. The only people who believe this are those who think history is only unbiased when it fits their conceptions of the world. Btw, the "history" you are referring to is actually called historiography, history is just writing down what happened, historiography is analyzing what happened, which news-flash buddy, cannot be done without bias from the historian. Most "history" is actually historiography in a trench-coat. Blud really thought he was onto something smh 🤦♂
Reading into it.
@@Calabrooo It is most definitely a political symbol, and the notion that it isn't is absurd to anyone outside of western imperialism. I say that as a communist.
!
Keep seething, rightoids 😘
What are we fundraising for, y'all? 😎
Nice ideological video but where is the history?
damn you got so mad you commented 3 times in a row. he quotes primacy sources extensively. you going to accuse roman poets of wokeness?
We're transing and "queering" gay/homosexual relationships in Greece and Rome now? So it seems.
Are you slow? Roman society was very openly gay and that’s not debatable just because of your homophobia. Grow up
No, we're quoting original sources and looking at original mosaics. Facts don't care about _your_ feelings.
@@williamchamberlain2263
I've read a great deal of Greek, Roman, and Chinese classics. This is garbage postmodernism based on anti-gay theories formulated around the concept that homosexuality is an acquired mental disease and a form of cultural degeneration. Namely, queer theory. If anything is ahistorical, it is the application of this postmodern theory to ancient times.
:)
Great stuff. You can tell you studied history :)
You even decided to use the ugliest flag possible, ideology is a hell of a drug!
Remember when Gaius Julius made it law that publicly known "hoπos" could be cast out of public gatherings. Great times.
Pretty hypocritical of him.
@@Giantcrabz
Not at all hypocritical. Gaius is one of the most lied about people in history. Pretty viperous to slander and libel "our most meritorious parent."
remember when your dad said he'd be right back with the milk
Maybe you should read a book. There are 4 listed in the description, your local libraian can help you out if you're lost.
@@TuesdayTurkey "A book?"🤣 I've read over 5,000 books and innumerable academic papers. You should try it, so you might present something of value in this discussion..
Thank you for the fascinating and tactful video ✊🏳️🌈
Ok edit because people seem to think something being 'fascinatin' means it's also inherently good - no... It's my belief that if we actually wish to understand historical cultures we have to integrate the things we find abhorrent as much as what we might admire into our understanding, so as to have as full and *honest* representative understanding as is possible with the always incomplete record. Otherwise you are just creating fan fiction if you're only 'keeping' what you personally consider to be 'cool' or 'good'. No bueno
this video is horrible lmao
@@TRR901 I said fascinating - not pleasant - obviously not something I admire or would want; but I find history interesting interesting, and if we actually wish to understand historical cultures we have to integrate the things we find abhorrent in history into our understanding to have as full and honest representative understanding possible.
Yeah this one is gonna be the one that makes me unsubscribe. Its not so much that I think your videos are getting anything wrong so much as to me your language puts our modern age on a pedestal we don't deserve and it comes at the cost of saying we are somehow better then people from the past. I don't think we are any more humane then we were in the past, I think we are just less direct. We kill people with bombs for reasons that don't impact our survival, and we've replaced slavery with a prison system that destroys communities for reasons the Romans would find stupid. We love violence and watching people die, we just make separate simulated worlds to enjoy our sadism, or look for snuff films online. We are not great at all, and we are so very inconsistent with our morals.
we absolutely are better than the past lmao.
yuck
Nice argument. Unfortunately, you are a literally a bottom. Better luck next time
hahaha
I enjoyed the historical bits. Your silly rants on "human liberation" are misguided and out of place. I'm out.
bye
this isn't an airport
History without interpretation and contextualization is just useless mythology. You’ll learn eventually, if you want to know things.
Hell yeah, stay gone.
Bye, Felicia.
Wowwww.....heavy stuff at the 14:39 mark or thereabouts....you speak of the Roman ruling class maintained the same obsession with "Roman virtue"....ie their belief that they can continue to rape others no matter how young or that they can continue to rape slaves or those who have less power or belong to an inferior social class....because That is what those "who were not informed by an Abrahamic prohibition of homosexuality" were trying to preserve....they were trying to preserve a Truly predatory sexual belief system.
Between your observation of an ancient ruling class "obsessed" (as you correctly put it) with Roman "virtue" which, in my view and seemingly yours as well, was sexual exploitation, and your observation of the Antebellum south preserving those practices, that makes me think of hollywood and it's ruling class sexual perversity and exploitative practices....as well as many of our politicians and corporate rulers....it seems they've just passed these attitudes down through the centuries from patricians to emperors to kings and their courts straight down to plantation slave owners, factory owners, flash in the pan potentate politicians, hollywood moguls etc....
VERY Interesitng
It's not a conspiracy, it's that power without accountability both reveals and corrodes character - in any set of people with unaccountable power over others many will come to abuse that power. You can see it everywhere, from marriages to families to churches to orphanages to police to armed forces to employer/employee relationships. It's just more extreme in the examples you give because the amount of power is more extreme.
wtf............
bro can’t handle history
Happy Pride Month! Deal with it!
Read a few books, you'll be less confused. The 4 books in the description of this video are a great place to start.
There was no gays
were
Take it up with: Otto Kiefer, Craig A Williams, EL Trafford, Rebecca Langlands, Suetonius, Horace, and Seneca.
Correct! “Gays” are a modern social construct that wouldn’t have existed then. As the video elaborates, people in Rome understood sexuality as an extension of power and subjugation so the idea of any sexual preference related to gender was foreign to them.
@@andydupree9091 So if I’m the penetrator that means I’m not gay?🧐
I'm in!
Aaaaaaaaaaaand unsubscribed.
Good luck with that.😂
We won’t miss you 👋
bye
This channel has not been subtle about its politics since it started. I find it hilarious how he only crossed the line for you when he mentions (gasp!) THE GAYS!
Good riddance pig
For fuck sick you were good chance and then you decided to go full on politics . Sorry but you lost me as fan ( and I know you don’t own me anything but so is the other way around )
You showed them
if you can’t engage with historical facts that you personally don’t like for whatever reason without freaking out, maybe you should stick to children’s programming (toddler level, learning how to count to five etc)
Bye
How simple minded do you have to be to see this as “full on politics”. Romans penetrated men, what an insane political statement
yeah what a shame the channel isn't just worshipping empire politely... who had the lictor beat your brains out?
Another propaganda channel. Dislike, don't recommend this channel.
Why?
quoting primary sources extensively while discussing historical context is propaganda now? seneca was quoted in this video, are you saying seneca was made up by the gays? I know you can't stop thinking about us but this is a bit much
I refuse to watch this
We know you watched it with one hand
@@williamchamberlain2263 im gay and I refuse to watch this. is there twinks in it tho?
@@williamchamberlain2263 nah. Any hot twinks in it though? Maybe I’ll think about it depending on your answer
you refuse to learn new things? shocking
@@zachjordan7608 buddy im gay as hell but this obsession with queer history often distorts facts and overemphasizes very fringe cases to peddle a narrative. I just have no desire to watch this is all.
I'd love to see you discuss this topic with leather apron club
I'd love to see you discuss anything with a woman without being maced
I'd love you to watch Poortable Orange. GHe debunked all nonsens Apron said about Rome.