The mid-20th-century sexuality theorist Michel Foucault regarded sex throughout the Greco-Roman world as governed by restraint and the art of managing sexual pleasure. The censors- public officials who determined the social rank of individuals-had the power to remove citizens from the senatorial or equestrian order for sexual misconduct, and on occasion did so. Pudor, 'shame, modesty', was a regulating factor in behavior, as were legal strictures on certain sexual transgressions in both the Republican and Imperial periods. In the popular imagination and culture, it is synonymous with sexual license and abuse.' īut sexuality was not excluded as a concern of the mos maiorum, the traditional social norms that affected public, private, and military life. Verstraete and Provençal opine that this perspective was simply a Christian interpretation: 'The sexuality of the Romans has never had good press in the West ever since the rise of Christianity. It has sometimes been assumed that 'unlimited sexual license' was characteristic of ancient Rome. Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by art, literature, and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture.
Male–female couple on the back of a bronze mirror ( ca.
