Bisexuality in the ancient world Book

Last year brought the first domestic paperback issue of Secundo Natura, originally published by Editori Riuniti in 1988. Professor of Roman law at the University of Milan, Dr. Cantarella has produced an instance of successful scholarship, appealing to general audiences without sacrificing academic rigor. Consequently, it may be reviewed from both perspectives.

Forty-six pages of notes indicate a wide background with relevant classical texts as well as with two centuries of analytical work on Greco-Roman sexual mores available in Latin, English, German, French and Italian. When available, English editions of these materials are noted. Source texts are commonly given in the original Greek (transliterated) and Latin, with either direct translations or paraphrases following. Her particular strength is the law, written and customary, and what ancient legislation suggests about prevailing practices from the seventh century to Justinian's legislation in A.D. 533. This vast period is divided into five epochs, attention being primarily devoted to the middle three: Hellenic culture before the domination of the city states and, then, the classical period; Rome before its hellenization, during the Empire and, then, upon its Christianization. She is at her weakest in discussing the roots of Judeo-Christian influences.

This book is comparable to her prior, foundational history of ancient gender roles, Pandora's Mirror. Matters taken for granted here are documented and argued there. Exactly what female testimonies come down to us? She provides the sadly short list of texts, mostly fragmentary, and references. How is that the autonomy of women declined with the rise of the city-states? What happened to the institutions for the higher education of girls? She provides arguments while critically reviewing more radical theories, ancient and modern, of traditional matriarchies superseded by patriarchy. Was Christianity an alien accretion upon a more sexually liberal culture or had the move toward ascetic self-control already occurred in paganism? What of ordinary people? How much of what we know about classical mores applies only to the articulate elites?

It is impossible to discuss sex roles without prejudice. Cantarella does not conceal hers. The effect is to the make the book more humane and accessible. It is remarkable that, after Sappho, women are nearly voiceless in classical antiquity, their attitudes only known as they are represented by men. It is remarkable that the ruling elites were generally quite comfortable with exacting subservience, sexual and otherwise, from their inferiors: slaves, freedpersons, women and the lower orders in general. Their unconsciousness or, at least, lack of sensitivity to the interests of others is glaring. One wonders how we might compare in the eyes of future historians. For, like the ancients, we have our enlightened voices, sages and poets, who inspiringly bespeak the worth of humanity while our society remains substantially class-riven, oppressive and violent.

However, while tendentious, the book is not simplistic. Gay and free love advocates will find no unequivocal endorsements in this record. For, while acceptant of sexual practices generally proscribed in the modern West, the ancients hedged their behaviors with prohibitions. While both the Greeks and the Romans sanctioned male bisexuality, it was with conditions and the conditions radically varied between these two cultures and over time.

In the highest sense, a good book will constructively broaden its public. Attentive readers of this one will have their own beliefs challenged, their own taboos put into perspective. So doing, we become more conscious of our own limitations, more sensitive to the ways of others.