In this blog, Mark Masterson explores the history of homoeroticism in histories from the tenth-century Byzantine empire.

Sources from the tenth-century Byzantine empire give us glimpses of a culture of homoeroticism. Men, who were attractive to other men, got ahead on the basis of their looks and athletic abilities. Desire frequently played a role in these situations. Saying this runs against what some scholars say. Often when narrating sexuality-adjacent details about Byzantium, scholars speak in terms of a presumed heterosexual and pious rhetorical persona, completely stripped of desire, sensuality, and emotions.

This means that sexual things we read in the sources become mysteries and metaphors, and narratives that are homoerotic cannot be that. I am not making this up. While there are exceptions to this, including my own recent book, one still too often reads things like the following from this very year: “The Byzantines did not write about homosexual desires, as they were repugnant to Christian thought” (p.247). A challenge for scholars of the Byzantine empire who are interested in sexuality in history is the enduring conservatism of the field of Byzantine studies.

Spread across History, Art History, and Classics, Byzantine studies have no fixed home, and the Eastern Orthodox Church may well be the strongest institutional presence. Insecurity of resources, lack of strong scholarly institutions, religious-based conservatism, and a frequent lack of training in the study of sexuality in history have meant that there is a dearth of sophisticated work on Byzantine sexuality. But enough of that. Let us instead consider the that that cannot be, for I assure you that it can be.

History and a Tenth-Century Historian

The area I specialize in is the 900s, and I am interested in Byzantine court culture and the homoeroticism to be found there. While we could consider the many personal letters that survive, today it’s about historiography and the glorious founder of the Macedonian dynasty, emperor Basil I, who ruled from 867-886. He was of great interest to writers of history in the century that followed his rule.

They enjoyed telling how Basil, trading on his looks and athletic ability, became an important man at court and eventually co-emperor with emperor Michael III. We could look at the anonymous Life of Basil or the world chronicle of Symeon the Logothete, works that both talk about Basil I and the sexy goings on. Instead, though, we will travel a road less traveled to arrive at Joseph Genesius and his On Imperial Reigns, a work of history.

Joseph Genesius was born about 910 and was a man of some standing in the imperial hierarchy. His On Imperial Reigns details in four books the reigns of emperors Leo V (813–820), Michael II (820–829), Theophilos (829–842), and Michael III (842–867). The fourth book on Michael III contains the material on Basil’s rise to power. Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos likely commissioned him to write On Imperial Reigns around 954.

As Basil was Constantine’s grandfather, a reader may assume that Genesius would not be writing anything offensive to general sensibilities. Anything scandalous we think we discover is but a sort of beam in our eye. This text was meant to please Basil’s grandson.

Imperial Inspection

Genesius gives us a spectacle of Basil’s young attractive body. After emperor Michael III witnesses a wrestling match, and Basil is on display there, he wants a closer look. Basil at this point in time is but a spunky young man of no particular position and in the retinue of one of the noble men of the court. At 4.26 of Imperial Reigns, he describes how:  

Emperor Michael…summoned him (Basil) with two (other wrestlers) of the same age. And when he had gazed upon them, he loved the sight. He praised this company of young men all the same age, but he had admired Basil much more than the other two. He (Basil) subsequently achieved greater rank and was honoured with greater favours.

The wrestlers’ excellence called for detailed inspection. The emperor loved the sight of Basil most of all. This love born of sight then translated into advantages, among which would be the office of parakoimomenos (lit. “the one who sleeps beside”) that Basil held later – and the throne too.

Scourged and Promoted

But Genesius is not done showing us how Basil’s body was revealed to an interested masculine gaze. Just prior to crowning Basil co-emperor with him, Michael has Basil stripped, whips him, and this is his way of showing affection:

Having locked Basil in one of the imperial sleeping chambers, he [Michael] with a nod ordered those with him to strip Basil naked and stretch out both his hands. When this happened as ordered, Basil was shocked, but all the same, being vigorously youthful, he recovered. He was positioned by the emperor himself and was whipped by him with a double whip thirty times, done to provide him with an engraved memory of loving goodwill toward him. And then having gone to the greatest church -the Hagia Sophia- that very morning, he presented him as emperor to the people on the 26th of May in the fourteenth indiction. He gave to him all the things appropriate to the second in rank in imperial office. And giving to him in addition much affection, he also bestowed (upon Basil) equal prerogatives, and even things in excess.

This scene of Basil’s naked scourged body and subsequent promotion shows a number of things. The outstretched arms and scourging bring Christ to mind. A Byzantine reader might also think of martyrologies, which feature literal and yet symbolic torture. Martyrs suffered persecution that was not only destruction of their physical bodies; it was also the means to sanctity as one of God’s elect. Here Basil suffered torture that preceded the splendour of being co-emperor.

Michael also meant this physical abuse to show affection and love. It’s “an engraved memory of loving goodwill toward him” after all. In my experience of Byzantine historical records, this collocation of loving and violence is unparalleled in other Byzantine historiographies. But Genesius has written it.

And an historian’s duty is to follow evidence to the places it leads and offer interpretation. And an understanding in homoerotic terms is justified by the context. Basil’s clothes are removed, his arms are held out, and, his body positioned by the emperor, a whipping follows. These actions resemble a gay sadomasochistic scene now.

Rethinking Homoeroticism

While speaking of gay sadomasochism in Byzantium is anachronism perhaps to beat them all, it is clarifying: the resignification of the infliction of pain as showing affection and love is an underlying mechanism in sadomasochistic scenarios, and suggests homoeroticism in this extravagant scene prior to a coronation. At the end of this passage, the scene of Basil’s being crowned and receiving “much affection” makes this resignifying point again: there are many ways to show affection and love, and preferment and violation are among them.

Mark Masterson is Associate Professor of Classics at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His has written two books: Between Byzantine men: Desire, homosociality, and brotherhood in the medieval empire (Routledge 2022) and Man to man: Desire, homosociality and authority in late-Roman manhood (Ohio, 2014). He is one of three editors of Sex in antiquity: Gender and sexuality in the ancient world (Routledge, 2014). He is also author of a number of articles and book chapters on sex and desire between men in history (and other topics in addition). He posts at BlueSky.

Copyright remains with individual authors who grant VIDA holding a perpetual, world-wide, royalty free and non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce and promote content. For permission to re-publish any VIDA blog post, in whole or in part, please contact the managing editors at auswhn@gmail.com.au