Homosexuality and the fall of rome
House Speaker Mike Johnson blamed the fall of the Roman Empire on its embrace of gayness — a totally baseless claim
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a devout Christian, once blamed the fall of the Roman Empire on "homosexual behavior."
"Some credit to the fall of Rome to not only the deprivation of the society and the loss of morals, but also to the rampant homosexual behavior that was condoned by the society," Johnson said in a radio interview in , as CNN first reported.
The claim that gay behavior brought down the Roman Empire is not supported by historical evidence.
Rome's collapse in the years leading up to AD has been endlessly pored over — but rarely attributed to its sexual mores.
More common factors cited are government corruption, the vastness of the space it tired to rule, and invasions by barbarian tribes.
Most historians agree that same-sex sexual activity was tolerated and even acknowledged during the Roman Empire, although there were still some taboos. The main activity was men of high social status having sex with male slaves or other subordinates.
The R
In honour of LGBTQIA+ history month, Ancient History alumni Ollie Burns takes a closer look at the social, political, and cultural implications of homosexuality in ancient Rome.
Trigger Warning: sexual violence, homophobia, paedophilia, nudity.
The presentation and perception of homosexuality in the Roman world was vastly diverse than how it is today, and gives us an example of how homosexuality has been indelibly linked with communications of power and authority in antiquity. The Latin language has no word for either heterosexual or lesbian, and instead partners in a sexual relationship would be presented as either active, synonymous with masculinity, or passive and therefore, feminine, regardless of the gender of the individuals involved. Freeborn male Romans had the civil liberty to do as they pleased when it came to sexual activity, and as such, the notion of a Roman gentleman engaging in homosexual sex was in no way controversial or taboo to the Romans, as elongated as it fell within certain parameters.
Rome was a deeply militarised state, with conquest and domina
THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE:
Some (Sometimes Silly) Explanations
[Strategy and Tactics Magazine #39 (), p. 21 (characterizations added)]
first version by Albert A. Nofi, planner of Imperium Romanum
- PLAGUES reduced the population, and the fertility of the survivors. [Medical archaeology]
- LEAD PIPES and utensils poisoned the aristocracy, lowering their birth-rate and intelligence level of this most important class (S. Colum Gilfillan) [Eugenics]
- The admission of INFERIOR RACES to the citizenship lowered the strength of the Pure Roman Stock. [Racism]
- CHRISTIANITY made people less concerned with this world. (Edward Gibbon) [Religious Bigotry, Enlightenment]
- Augustus&#; jury-rigged apparatus of articulate was unable to cope with certain types of crisis. [Systems Analysis]
- CIVIL WARS sapped the strength of the Empire. [The Military Theory]
- The People praciticed BIRTH Manage without restraint, thus causing a impairment of population. [Medical/Religious]
- Failure to found a workable CONSTITUTION. [Legal/Systems Analysis]
- "Bread and Circuses&quo
A Brief History of Homosexuality in Italy from Ancient Rome to Today
Postwar Italy, politically dominated by the country’s Catholic party, didn’t do much against the diffused homophobia of those years. Population cared about gay people only for the wrong reasons, as it happened in when an investigation on the “homosexual scene” in the northern town of Brescia turned into a substantial media case with endless plot twists and unfounded accusations (which included one of human trafficking). When the so-called “Scandalo dei Balletti Verdi ” (“Green Ballets Scandal”) reached TV personalities fond Mike Bongiorno, the entire region turned its morbose attention to it.
In , Fuori! (Out!), the first homosexual organization in Italy, was founded. Mario Mieli, the most famous Italian LGBTQ+ activist, took part in the movement before founding his own corporation. A year later, a collective of gay people publicly demonstrated for their rights for the first time in the history of the country.
Since then, the Italian queer community has been keeping an active role in manifesting and demanding rights