The Roman Empire was considered the most significant ancient empire lasting approximately five hundred and seven years of reign. The Munus Gladiatorium, meaning presentation of gladiators, began in the year 235 BC. Gladiators are described as fighting men; for these men, however, we accept homosexual sexuality. The Roman Empire is a complex society although there were not many written laws regarding homosexuality, however it did have rules that were enforced. The Roman Empire embodied this idea of ​​virtue; however, gladiators were considered aphrodisiacs. They managed to attract the attention of both men and women; gladiator fights took place inside the amphitheater due to its erotic beauty. This created the lust of the gladiators; leading to homosexual relationships. Sexuality in the Roman Empire was not frowned upon as it is today; This essay will discuss sexuality in the Roman Empire through domination, infamy and patriarchy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay “The Roman sex-gender system may be a foreign domain to someone new to this historical context. In short, the Romans operated on a system of gender identity rather than one of sexual orientation. Instead of categorizing their sexual world into identities based on someone's partner's preferred gender, as we do, Roman sexual ideology seems to have divided the world into 'penetrators' and 'those who are penetrated.' Roman sexuality is about demonstrating power; they cared about gender orientation but held dominance. Gladiators considered themselves top men, and it was these men who displayed this brute strength in gladiatorial combat; they are the men who have superiority over other men. Gladiators represented their dominance in the amphitheater; that dominance is then brought into the ranks of those in control in a sexual situation. Homosexuality was seen as a norm; no rules were given about what is right or wrong; it was a sense of duty. Gladiators were seen as "lustful" men who needed certain attributes to survive, and while they couldn't have certain women like master wives that gladiators desired, there were men/boys within the empire or gladiators who they admired those gladiators. Christianity was not yet established in the Roman Empire; ensure that homosexuality is not seen as a sin. Women were only used to procreate; to continue their legacy, but the men were there to fulfill the needs of the gladiators. Gladiators can only subtly dominate in a sexual way due to the lack of dominance they have in their lives. “According to the first priapic directive, a real man must only ever play the insertive role in hierarchically constructed encounters of this kind. Indeed, one cannot go far into the Roman textual tradition without perceiving the consistent awareness that the penetrating role is quintessentially and definitively male. Just as Seneca wrote that women were "born to be submissive,"11 so the prevailing belief was that men were born to penetrate, recall the image of the hypermasculine god Priapus, eagerly seeking to exercise his virility on boys and girls , men and women. women alike. Paul Veyne's incisive phrase accurately summarizes the perspective regularly offered by Roman texts: «To be active is to be a male, whatever the sex of the passive partner».12”. However; if a higher status individual wants to have sexual intercourse with a gladiator or someone infamous, that higher status person cantake control only in the role of the penetrator. This means that the higher the status of the person, the more role the person who held the dominant role in the same sexual activity plays; if men of higher status are caught submitting to the gladiators, they may lose their reputation, which could lead to shame and thus being considered inflamed. This is the law of the Lex Scantina; which means punishing upper class men for being subservient to the lower class. “Much ink has been spilled on the question of whether homo? sexuality was 'illegal' in Roman culture, largely on the basis of the enigmatic attestations of the lex Scantina... They make the punishment adequate to the crime: they hang traitors and turncoats from trees, while the cowards and the cowardly and the infamous compared to their peers drown the body in muddy swamps, pressing on a wicker structure. The distinction in punishment has this meaning: that crimes must be made public as they are punished, but sins must be hidden. By infamous we mean the category of sin and shame; for the gladiators they were considered the infamies of their society. Being alienated from society; gladiators had no rights or control over their bodies and their surroundings. Gladiators were in a sense slaves, they were considered property who had no rights over their lives. “The sexual vulnerability of the male slave made him less than a man; a slave was called puer throughout his life, and it seems likely that this term refers to the sexual use as well as the age of a real puer. Owners sometimes sought to prolong the physical characteristics of boyhood in their slaves, although we only hear of this from disapproving observers.31 In other words, to be a puer (sexually) meant to be stigmatized. '. For slaves such as gladiators, their use beyond fighting was to please their masters. This itself has shown cases of rape. Rape within these slaves carried no charges because a master has complete authority over his property; as well as torturing and punishing them whenever they see fit. In a social act; being raped was seen as acceptable to the infamies, as these slaves having nothing to their name had no choice in their abuse because going against their master meant asking to be killed. “The speeches cited by Seneca constitute a notable set of homophobic sentiments and victim-blaming, for example, sic imitatus est puellam ut raptorem inveniret, 'did he imitate a girl so well that he found himself a rapist? a thought-provoking definition of both impudicus and puella. Is the act of rape aligned with the act of composing a carmen famosum, a defamatory satire? note the meaning of famosus, here 'tending towards infamy'. The infamies consisted in being constantly mistreated; in a hierarchy to be a villain; to have that sense of marginalization or alienation was to live such a horrendous life where there is no control over advancement up the social ladder or in one's body. The definition of patriarchy is a social system or government in which men hold power and women are largely excluded. It. (Dictionary) Patriarchy in the Roman Empire is about men and status. Gladiators are not considered men, therefore they are not considered equal. In a society where men are the superior gender; this puts gladiators at a disadvantage due to their sexual inferiority. Gladiators have no rights; they could not vote, nor were they trusted in the eyes of the Roman Empire. The gladiators had no protection from their masters, which led them to continue to.