ABSTRACT
Gay studies, or the study of homosexuality, is a relatively new field, but it has attracted increasing interest and produced research with implications outside its specialised province.1 Scholars from various disciplines have been drawn to gay studies, and cross-fertilisation of methodologies and the use of different sources have led to new theories about homosexuality, homosociality and homoeroticism, as well as insights into the general subject of sex and society.2 The ancient world provides a particularly significant domain for such studies, since Antiquity is considered the fount of Western civilisation and because of the permutations of sexual and affectational relationships which were the norm in classical Athens and Rome. Among the varieties in sexual behaviour characteristic of classical culture was a widely practised and socially acceptable type of ‘homosexuality’.3
