Exoletus on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
''Exoletus'' is a
''Exoletus'' is a Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
term, the perfect passive participle of the verb ''exolescere'', which means "to wear out with age." In ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
the word referred to a certain class of homosexual males or male prostitutes, although its precise meaning is unclear to historians.
In his essay on sexual morality, ''Offences Against One's Self'', the nineteenth-century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham (; 15 February 1748 Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._4_February_1747.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 4 February 1747">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.htm ...
provided the following definition of the term:
:There was a particular name for those who had past the short period beyond which no man hoped to be an object of desire to his own sex. They were called ''exoleti''. No male therefore who was passed this short period of life could expect to find in this way any reciprocity of affection; he must be as odious to the boy from the beginning as in a short time the boy would be to him. The objects of this kind of sensuality would therefore come only in the place of common prostitutes; they could never even to a person of this depraved taste answer the purposes of a virtuous woman.
However, the word is sometimes also applied to adolescents, ''puberes exoleti'', as in the '' Historia Augusta'' 7.5.4.4. In an essay on Roman erotic art, John Pollini
John Pollini (born October 15, 1945 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American art historian, archeologist, and educator. A scholar of Ancient Rome, Pollini is the USC Associates Professor of Art History at the University of Southern California.
C ...
has argued that the term referred not to age but to prostitutes who had become physically "worn out" by frequent anal penetration. John Boswell argued that the term "exoletus" distinguished an active from a passive male prostitute, or "catamitus", from which the English word "catamite
In ancient Greece and Rome, a catamite (Latin: ''catamitus'') was a pubescent boy who was the intimate companion of an older male, usually in a pederastic relationship. It was generally a term of affection and literally means " Ganymede" in ...
" is derived. In the article "Some Myths and Anomalies in the Study of Roman Sexuality" in the '' Journal of Homosexuality'', James L. Butrica argued that the term did not refer to prostitutes at all.
The word is found in Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
's ''Epistulae'' 95.24, in Suetonius' ''Divus Iulius'' 76.3, and in Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...
's '' Philippics'' against Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius (14 January 1 August 30 BC), commonly known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general who played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic from a constitutional republic into the au ...
.''Qui semper secum scorta, semper exoletos, semper lucas duceret.''
See also
*Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum
Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum has been both exhibited as art and censored as pornography. The Roman cities around the bay of Naples were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, thereby preserving their buildings and artefa ...
* Greek love
* History of erotic depictions
The history of erotic depictions includes paintings, sculpture, photographs, dramatic arts, music and writings that show scenes of a sexual nature throughout time. They have been created by nearly every civilization, ancient and modern. Early ...
* History of human sexuality
* Homosexuality in ancient Rome
Homosexuality in ancient Rome often differs markedly from the contemporary West. Latin lacks words that would precisely translate "homosexual" and "heterosexual". The primary dichotomy of ancient Roman sexuality was active/ dominant/masculine ...
* Homosexuality in ancient Greece
* Pederasty
* Pederasty in ancient Greece
Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged romantic relationship between an older male (the ''erastes'') and a younger male (the '' eromenos'') usually in his teens. It was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods. The i ...
* Prostitution in ancient Rome
* Sexuality in 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. It has sometimes been assumed that "unlimited sexual ...
References
{{reflist Ancient LGBT history LGBT history in Italy Prostitution in ancient Rome Sexuality in ancient Rome Sexuality and age Male prostitution Gay history