SOURCE: "Homosexuality in the Satyricon," Classica et Mediaevalia, Vol. XXXV, No. 1984, pp. 105-27.

In the following excerpt, Richardson states that "the Satyricon provides one of the most comprehensive accounts of homosexual activity in Roman times," stressing that Petronius used homosexual elements in his writing for their comic possibilities and that he did not view homosexuality as perverse.

Classical homosexuality has its bibliography, but the subject has lacked the methodical analysis that one expects of scholarship. This is particularly true of the Satyricon, whose homosexual incident has not received, to my knowledge, a separate consideration. The scattered references to the topic in wider studies either neutralize it by treating it as a part of the ancient sexual smorgasbord, or else find in Petronius satirical and even moralizing tendencies consistent with a stance of disapproval and suspiciously modern. Neither position is capable of doing justice to the sexual ambience of...