Between sacrilegium and ἀνδρομανία. Justinian’s Law in the Testimonies of Byzantine Historians

Abstract

The Roman legislator regulated various sexual attitudes, according to him, morally reprehensible: fornication, adultery, prostitution, pedophilia, sodomy and homosexuality. Republican leges, and later imperial leges, concerned the problems connected with these phenomena. The Christian Roman emperors and Byzantine emperors paid particular attention to those problems. A significant extension of sources, necessary in the analysis of the problem, are the literal sources, and among them the Byzantine historiography of the 6th–12th centuries. The author focused on the issue of homosexuality in Justinian’s law. The analysis of the problem includes Byzantine historiography (Procopius of Caesarea, John Malalas, Theophane the Confessor, Simone Logoteta, Michael the Syrian, George Kedrenos, George Hamartolos, John Zonaras).

Keywords

• homoseksualizm
• źródła historiograficzne
• prawo rzymskie klasyczne i poklasyczne
• kodyfikacja justyniańska