Gay Marriage In The Roman Empire

The following excerpt comes from Marilyn Yalom’s The History of The Wife:

“Nero, the flamboyant Roman emperor who ruled from 54 to 68 C.E., went so far as to marry two men, sequentially, in public ceremonies. Suetonius wrote of Nero’s first homosexual marriage: “Having tried to turn the boy Sporus into a girl by castration, he went through a wedding ceremony with him – dowry, bridal veil and all – which the whole Court attended; then brought him home, and treated him as a wife. He dressed Sporus in the fine clothes normally worn by an Empress and took him in his own litter … through the Street of Images at Rome, kissing him amorously now and then.” He later also married the freedman Doryphorus. Nero forced the Imperial Court to treat his male brides with the same courtesy bestowed upon his three heterosexual wives (first Octavia, whom he divorced on a trumped-up adultery charge and then put to death; then Poppaea, who died three years later; and finally Statilia Messalina.)

Homosexual weddings seemed to have increased during the first and second centuries, but were outlawed in 342. Some of the reactions to these weddings sound very much like those voiced today by conservatives facing gay and lesbian commitment ceremonies, domestic partnerships, and the possibility of legalized marriage.”

Note: I had forgotten that “gay marriage” was among the many infamous acts of Nero, the mad Roman emperor.

About Hunter Wallace 12379 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

32 Comments

  1. Gay marriages celebrated in Catholic churches throughout Italy up until at least 1800’s.
    Yale history chair John Boswell found many, many Cyrillic-alphabet parchment ceremonies in the archives of many churches. Apparently all the Latin ones had been destroyed, but the destroying priests of the later centuries couldn’t read Cyrillic and skipped right over them!
    Boswell, “Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe”, sets all this out, if you read the actual book. Most of the backlash was of the <> denial that used to call homosexuality an illness, and claimed <>.

  2. Crap like that didn’t happen during the puritanical days of the Republic, when the Romans were a healthy, growing people.

    Decadence only sprang up after oriental-style extreme elitism had debauched the virtue of the ruling class.

    Rome, as a nation, died, and was replaced by a multi-cultural cess pool, because the 2nd century BC elites did not sufficiently support Cato’s efforts to maintain the stern old republican virtues, or Gracchus’ efforts to maintain a relatively egalitarian social structure including a large yeoman class.

  3. One must take care with the stories about Emperors. Some of it is propaganda. I’d guess that Seutonius was doing down some of the emperors with unfounded rumors.

    However, Rome was at the peak when these Emperors ruled. In decline when the more resolute Christian Emporers ruled.

    These stories about debauched aristocrats do serve to show that such excesses are features of societies that are oppressive though. Nero’s failures and Caligula’s abject rule are connected to their sexual incontinence even in the mind of the ancient pagans.

  4. Gays are no better or worse than healthy heterosexuals who refuse to have children.
    Both pose the same threat to the survival of the race.

  5. “Having tried to turn the boy Sporus into a girl by castration, he went through a wedding ceremony with him – dowry, bridal veil and all – which the whole Court attended; then brought him home, and treated him as a wife. He dressed Sporus in the fine clothes normally worn by an Empress and took him in his own litter

    Looks like Nero also waged World War T.

    Let’s see: Nero supported gay marriage, tranny-ism, urban renewal (that’s why he had Rome burned, because he wanted to reconstruct it to his own liking), and he hated Christians. Sounds just like your typical big city American mayor today. Rahm Emanuel, anyone?

    ruled from 54 to 68 C.E.

    For God so loved the world that He gave the world his one and only son, named Common…

    This morning, many of us noted the annual observance of Common resurrecting himself then ascending to Heaven.

  6. I find it curious that all five Emperors from the Julio-Claudian Dynasty were great nephews of those who they succeeded. Not father-son, or grandfather-grandson, as one would expect in a hereditarian monarchy. I’m also wondering if some of the craziness of Caligula and Nero could be explained by incest.

  7. Hey QD – are you going to Amren conference in Tennessee?

    We (I) made some excellent hard copy magazines of OD’s greatest articles. Also some posters, post cards. We need someone to distribute, sell them, someone to represent OD.

    So are you going?

    JR

  8. JR

    AR is always at the worst time of year for me. So the answer to this year, like every so far, is unfortunately no.

    However, I am on the verge of having to make some crucial career decisions. If I make the right ones, then my Aprils won’t be the clusterfreaks they are now.

    BTW, you yourself have a big decision this Tuesday. Jesus, the Jew or stay home?

  9. Nothing much has changed. The American Empire is the new Roman Empire. Thanks liberals and your “conservative” allies for destroying Western Civilization. The Southern Nationalist Movement is the answer to the problem. #Secede

  10. QD asks:

    “BTW, you yourself have a big decision this Tuesday. Jesus, the Jew or stay home”

    Jack responds:

    I am voting for the Jew. In city politics, he doesn’t do much of anything Neo Con war mongering. His Yid Hollywood family connections just mean they film some big budget stupid Transformer movie here in Chicago and Teamsters Union guys get good $ pay.

    Rahm tried at least to take down the Chi Teachers Union, he lost, so did we.

    I see Rahm as a straight version of Ed Koch – could be way worse.

    No say I’m making a Mexican guy named Je Sus mayor of my city and outing out the world to tens of millions of Je Sus guys in Mexico, Central America to come here as they would supposedly be taking over.

    No way.

  11. Re Drummond’s claim:
    Boswell, “Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe”, sets all this out, if you read the actual book.

    Boswell’s book has been roundly attacked as faulty scholarship.

  12. So Rahm Emanuel didn’t play any role in the abduction and torture of Christina Eilman, Jack Ryan?

    Could it be the LofS fails to galvanize people because its leaders lack real conviction?

    The image of the hideous yid leading a lynch mob of groids to the torture of a helpless innocent white girl is one I’ll never exorcise from my mind. No white with any backbone could

    You clearly hate blacks/hispanics more than you love whites, particularly white women. I doubt I’m the only reader who’s noticed this.

  13. The hides do not have the numbers here in Chicago that they do in LA and New York, so their political power at least is most always as advisors – the David Axelrod variety or contributors to Lib Black causes, with some Holocaust museum stuff thrown in.

    The Yids here are generally of the just so well, get along with everyone in a Lib Dem Leftist way and then sort of put the word out they wish Chicago was more like New York or LA where…

    They know people.

    Some Jews opposed, or ran against the Senior Mayor Daley for mayor, they lost.

    Of course 1968 was a full out Jew Marxist led street anarchy and later it spilled over in to terrible ant White, Black takeovers of once great, all White working class neighborhood like Marquette Park where Rockwell made his base.

    But generally, Jews here just go along do well own NBA basketball teams and Major League Baseball teams. Of course there is no remotely pro White a Conservative GOP in the city and the Jews help to ensure that doesn’t happen. Chicago is rather politically stable in a racial third world kind of way. Throwing a Mexican power mayors fronting for the worst, Black Lib Chicago Teacher’s union in to the mix is definitely going to destabilize things here.

    There are some not so subtle memes coming out of the Rahm campaign that this is a contest where one side wants to make things ….

    Like Detroit.

    Yeah, I’m voting for the Jew.

  14. JR

    I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but if I was living in Chicago, I’d vote Rahm, too. Mainly because Jesus is a Mex married to a PR and he’s the sock puppet of that big fat ghetto black Communist sowpottamus Karen Lewis. George Wallace isn’t on the ballot, after all.

    The reasons why his enemies say that Rahm has to be voted out just don’t hold water, even if the reasons Rahm gives that he should stay aren’t exactly stellar. I’d like to know what Rahm did so f’n wrong, why all the things that people are blaming him for are his fault. The school closings? What, are the illicit black hoodlums of the south and west side supposed to have veto power over education policy? Are everyone’s pie in the sky wishes supposed to override CPS budgetary reality?

    Another factor is that urban politics are way different than state politics and national politics. I despised Rahm when he had some kind of Federal power (Congress, Obama’s Chief of Staff), but as Mayor, I don’t think he’s that bad, or that good.

  15. We’ll said QD.

    I must say that you always seem to have the best, most practical view of current events, what is possible, what is a waste of time.

    I like to think I have a pretty good grasp of things to do and not do, but you are the best…

    How about making a few changes and please represent us/OD at Amren? I have some outstanding posters, propaganda post cards, plus a high quality glossy best of OD.

  16. One upon a time there was a Senator who ascended to power and changed a free republic into an evil empire whose every adventure was to impose imperial tyranny via the military on one sovereign nation after another until finally his his malevolence caused a galaxy wide rebellion.

    One there was a Senator from Illinois who ascended into the Presidency and turned it into a evil empire dedicated to imposing Liberal-Modernity on the people of the planet as he already has on the states……let is hope there is a rebel alliance in our future to!

  17. Question Diversity:

    The Patrician and Knight classes had a custom of ‘adopting’ others into the family. It was not uncommon for say a wealthy and powerful man, lacking any living sons of worth, to adopt a close friend (or employee of sorts) to take the family name after his death. That way, the family name and fortune would be protected. This was most famously done during the pre-Christian emperors. For example, Hadrian adopted Antonius who then became Emperor Antonius Pius, probably one of the best men who ever led the pre Crisis of the Third Century Roman Empire.

    So the relations of Romans (all those nephews you mentioned) may have been bound more in name than in blood.

  18. I am sorry I am unaware of the Christina Eilman case. Please reference.

    You’re in the Chicago area, right? Considering the kind of site you post on, as well as the other sites I can only assume you might peruse from time to time, I don’t understand how you could be unaware of her case.

    Note: This tragedy and maliciousness was on Daley’s watch, so I don’t understand how Take Me Liberty is attaching it specifically to Emanuel. Regardless, when a White woman is kidnapped, brutally gang raped, and then thrown out of the seventh floor of a building, it kind of shows up on the radar of anyone who is even remotely tied in to the pro-White network.

  19. I’m sure Jack was well aware of the that tragic case in Chicago. It was discussed at length on several WN sites.

    I was totally outraged!

    However, I did not remember the victim’s name until reminded of the incident.

    Probably the same with Jack.

  20. Sam, 2 seconds(literally) of an Internet search immediately provides all the information needed. Even the genuinely “unaware” could find the facts of the case more quickly than they could write a two sentence reply asking for references.

    Do you remember the name Chianne Gast? I do. Maybe it’s because the heinous crime was in my hometown. When White women are brutally victimized so close to home, those kind of stories tend to get burned into your cortex — at least they do for me. Then again, there are hundreds of names from all over the USA that I would immediately recognize as being victims.

    Anne Pressly?
    Beverly Hope Melton?
    Amber DeLoach?

    I could throw out hundreds of names, and I guarantee you that if you didn’t already recognize the names and remember the stories, it would take you all of 5 seconds to do a search and start reading about the crimes. I just find it really strange that someone would ask for “references” when — even as dysfunctional as the pro-White sphere might be — there is no shortage of websites where concerned White people post links so you can more easily find details about black-on-White violence. People who get their reality from the mainstream news might have an excuse to play dumb, but not someone who is supposedly in the corner of pro-White people.

  21. As far as I’m concerned it is a profound and almost ultimate commentary on pro-white american men that I have to actually explain Christina Eilman to anyone who’s been around more than a couple years.

    It’s absolutely unforgivable.

    It’s the reason I’m leaving at some point, and setting my sights on every other freaking ‘aryan’ country but here. You can’t name one that features the kind of pathetic narcissism among men that the US does. Check out Reclaim Australia.

    In general, where there is a strong sense of tribe there will be at the least some major sense of defense of their women from imperialist dark races. The notion that the aussies are rallying isn’t separable from the fact that they perceive defense of their women’s freedom as central to their freedom at large.

    You have no one but yourselves to blame for american pro-white’s stillbirth.

  22. Take Me Liberty says:

    ‘As far as I’m concerned it is a profound and almost ultimate commentary on pro-white american men that I have to actually explain Christina Eilman to anyone who’s been around more than a couple years. It’s absolutely unforgivable.’

    Faulty reasoning.

    If you had mentioned the facts of the case with the woman’s name most of us would have remembered the story instantly.

    On the other hand most people would have no problem recalling events linked solely to hearing the names of Michael Brown, Traevon Martin, or Rodney King etc., etc.

    Why?

    Because of the constant media focus, attention and repetition of those names linked to situations which have become branded in our minds.

  23. Most people in this movement are men. It is up to you, then, to make Christina Eilman’s name a household one.

    You only have yourselves to blame. And you bear 100% of that blame.

    Period.

  24. Sam and QD, yes, I was aware of the case, if not the name of the victim, yes, certainly a terrible crime. I don’t see how Rahm is specifically to blame for this.

    We have terrible atrocities in Chicago all the time, many “no go places” . Except for a few magnet schools, the $8 billion a year Chicago public schools are….

    “No go places” for White people, middle class people of any kind.

    I can’t see how Rahm E is to blame for this.

  25. What do you know of his father, Jack Ryan? Very little, I gather.

    If you think the status of whites is perilous under some white liberal’s auspice, just wait till you live under a plurality or political majority of jews.

    Just wait.

  26. Take me Liberty – I know the whole deal with Rahm his father.

    No, Rahm is not a George Washington, Charles Lindbergh, Pat Buchanan “America First patriot”. Rahm did service in the Israeli army, not the US Army… In my book that’s pretty much splitting hairs as the US army only gets used for Israeli, Neo Con, Jewish Zionists issues anyway.

    We have to stop being such pure, honest, patriot types and try to make the best of the world as it is in it’s fallen state. Yeah Jewish Americans have lots of loyalty to Israel, they aren’t 100% pro A,erican patriots.

    Wow, such shocking news! Who would have thought it could be so?!

    We have to start acting more like Jews and start looking at for the group interests, group,power of our people.

    All of this race denying $&(@)& like patriotism , the worst forms of universalism Judeo Christianity, democracy and especially Libertarianism – all need to go.

    Rahm is doing a decent job as Chicago’s mayor. He’s not the Secretary of US Defense.

  27. His people are literally genociding mine by the week. His father was part of the ‘freedom fighters’ who went around murdering palestinian children and raping women – systematically, as a means of breaking the palestinians’ will – in various ‘hot spot’ villages.
    These are sandn*ggers, plain and simple – not human beings. Their blood runs cold, truly.

    And they stop at nothing in their quest to subjugate and exterminate the european people. I knew Emanuel was Irgun (his family at some point) the minute I laid eyes on the snake. I literally knew this just by knowing his name and by seeing that yid countenance – pure unadulterated evil.

    Why anyone invested in whites’ survival would endorse such a monster is just hard to fathom. There’s such a thing as not voting.

  28. Take Me Liberty

    I’m 25% Russian. Russians tend to have the best historical record on deal with….

    This certain tribe.

    For one terrible 40 year period 1918-58, Jews were running, doing terrible things in Russia. The rest of Russian history is my people keeping the Jews down.

    That’s the situation now. Russia has a great Russian leader who knows the jews very, very well. A couple of Yid oligarch got out of line, the worst was put in a jail/cage, sent to work camps in Siberia. Other Yid Oligarchs booked out to England to buy British Premier League soccer clubs.

    Russian middle East policy under Putin might as well be directed by Pat Buchanan.

    Ok, so we don’t live in Russia. We live in this decaying, corrupt multi cult country with the Yids controlling our media, foreign policy.

    If you Take Me Liberty are most concerned with Yid Zionist/Neo Con manipulation of US foreign policy, Israel uber alles – then you might consider becoming a Liberal Leftist – that is where the only opposition to Zionist/Neo Conservative war mongering. White Red State Christian Whites are totally in the Yid/Zionist/Neo Con war camp.

    That’s life.

    It’s a fallen world.

    “When the world is falling down, you make the best of what’s still around”
    -The Police

Comments are closed.