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When Antinous drowned in AD 130, Hadrian made Antinous into a god, publicly commemorated him across the empire, created a city Antinopolis in his name and created a religious cult equivalent at the time to Christianity in his name. Hadrian had an openly sexual relationship with a beautiful youth, Antinous. Hadrian was unique however in making his love "official" in a way that no other emperor had before him.
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Many predecessors had taken male lovers, as was possible in Roman society. Hadrian was not only a peacemaker, he was also the first leader of Rome to make it clear that he was in today's language what we would call gay. 117 – Emperor Hadrian, ruled Britain from 117 to 138.By the end of the first century, Londinium the city was dotted with lupanaria ('wolf dens' or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels) and thermiae (hot baths).
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Although Roman men in general seem to have preferred youths between the ages of 12 and 20 as sexual partners, freeborn male minors were off limits, though professional prostitutes and entertainers might remain sexually available well into adulthood.Acceptable male partners included prostitutes, and entertainers, whose lifestyle placed them in the nebulous social realm of infamia, excluded from the normal protections accorded to a citizen even if they were technically free.
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Roman men were free to enjoy sex with other males without a perceived loss of masculinity or social status, as long as they took the dominant or penetrative role. The conquest mentality and "cult of virility" shaped same-sex relations. "Virtue" ( virtus) was seen as an active quality through which a man ( vir) defined himself. In the three main cities of London, Colchester and Saint Albans as in all Roman settlements was patriarchal, and the freeborn male citizen possessed political liberty ( libertas) and the right to rule both himself and his household ( familia). Roman society was to shape Britain for the next four centuries.
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