Sporus: the Roman boy who became the castrated wife of Emperor Nero

Sporus is not someone we can ever hear from directly. We only know about Sporus through the writings of Roman historians, who had reason to portray Nero in the most negative and licentious light possible. Sporus’ own voice has been completely lost; we don’t know how he felt about what happened to him or whether he considered himself homosexual in the modern sense of the word.

His life was short and tragic, and was recorded by posterity only in relation to a more powerful man. Yet it can help to reveal the complex attitudes towards sexuality, gender and power in ancient Rome, especially the acceptance and perception of homosexuality.

Who was Sporus?

Sporus was a young boy of extraordinary beauty, although it is important to note that the young boy’s name may not have been Sporus at all. The Greek word σπόρος (Sporos) means “seed” or “sperm,” so it was likely a disparaging nickname that appears to have been given to the boy after his abuse began.

It was said that Sporus bore a striking resemblance to Nero’s second wife, Poppaea Sabrina, who died in 65 AD. Nero kicked her to death, losing both his wife and his unborn child. Another possibility is that Poppaea died during childbirth.

Regardless, Nero is said to have fallen deeply in love with Sporus when he saw him. In 67 AD the emperor ordered the boy to be castrated, making him a eunuch. There were several methods of castration in Roman times, including rubbing or squeezing the gonads. Sometimes the penis was also removed.

What was life like for Sporus as Nero’s ‘wife’?

At this point, Nero already had a new wife – his third, a noblewoman named Statilia Messalina – as well as a “husband,” a freed slave named Pythagoras. In it, Nero took on the role of ‘bride’.

With Sporus it seems he wanted to switch roles again. Suetonius wrote that Sporus was dressed in women’s clothing and adorned with jewelry befitting an empress, before being married “with all the usual ceremonies, including a dowry and a bridal veil.”

Dio Cassius confirmed this account, writing: “Although he was already ‘married’ to Pythagoras, a freedman, he formally ‘married’ Sporus… and both the Romans and others publicly celebrated their marriage.”

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Although it is impossible to say what Sporus thought of all this, Suetonius provides an intriguing clue later in the ‘marriage’. Sporus gave Nero a gift: “a ring with a stone on which the rape of Proserpina was engraved.”

In Roman mythology, the goddess Proserpina was kidnapped by the god of the underworld and eventually forced to live with him for six months of the year. A ring depicting that scene was hardly a romantic gift: perhaps it reflected how Sporus really felt.

What happened to Sporus after Nero?

It wouldn’t be long before Sporus’ life was uprooted again. In the year 68, Nero was removed from power and, fleeing Rome, committed suicide. Amid the chaos that followed, Sporus was taken by a Praetorian prefect named Nymphidius Sabinus, who treated him as a wife and named him ‘Poppaea’.

When Nymphidius was killed – by his own soldiers while trying to become emperor – Sporus was passed to Otho, the second to rule in the so-called ‘Year of the Four Emperors’. By a bizarre coincidence, Otho had been married to Poppaea Sabina before Nero.

After Otho came Vitellius, who ruled for eight months and caused Sporus even more misery. He decided to use the boy for public entertainment in the gladiatorial arena and planned a reenactment of the rape of Proserpina.

To avoid this horrible fate, Sporus committed suicide sometime in 69 AD.

Male homosexuality in ancient Rome

What can the life of Sporus tell us about homosexuality and gender in ancient Rome? The answer is quite a lot, especially when it comes to the supremacy of the penis and the hierarchy of Roman relationships, which were about power, dominance and masculinity rather than the gender binary.

The accounts of Sporus and Nero show how the wider tolerance of male homosexual acts in Rome largely came down to social class. The Romans had a ‘penetrator-penetrator’ binary model, where there would be a passive, inferior partner who would certainly have been of lower status rather than a fellow free man.

For a freeborn Roman man to enter into a submissive sexual relationship with another freeborn Roman man would have been disempowering, shameful and, if we were to believe the Greek historian Polybius, dangerous. He reported that the punishment for a Roman soldier who voluntarily submitted to penetration by another freeborn man was fustuaryor be clubbed to death.

Masculinity was linked to dominance, both in social and sexual contexts. It was perfectly natural and acceptable for a Roman man to perform sexual acts with both women and men, but only as long as he was the penetrating partner (the vir).

For a freeborn Roman man to enter into a submissive sexual relationship with another freeborn Roman man would have been disempowering, shameful and, if we were to believe the Greek historian Polybius, dangerous.

The status and gender of the passive partner (the cinedus) were also crucial. Penetration of women, slaves and male prostitutes was acceptable. Male entertainers were also fair game, as their lifestyle placed them in a nebulous social realm shameleading to a loss of legal and social status.

For a freeborn man, having a passive role in anal sex resulted in a loss of masculinity. Yet none of this means that equal, loving relationships did not exist between freeborn men; rather, negative societal attitudes, combined with the fear of being clubbed to death, meant that they were carried out in secret.

As well cinedusother terms were used for passive male partners, such as Sporus. These included puer delicate (‘exquisite’ or ‘graceful’ boy), pullus (‘jugs’), mollis (‘soft’), tar (‘delicate’), debilis (‘weak’) and effeminatus (‘effeminate’).

How do we know about Sporus?

The fact that we know of Sporus, and Pythagoras before him, proves how negatively Nero’s subversive relationships were perceived by the wider Roman society. Suetonius and Dio Cassius presented the boy’s castration and status as a ‘woman’ as evidence of the emperor’s moral depravity; a grotesque parody of a traditional wedding that proved Nero’s madness and contempt for Roman values.

Taking a lowly slave as one cinedus was one thing. Marrying them and having them publicly paraded around Rome as a facsimile of your late empress was a step too far.

The feminization of Sporus reflected the Roman obsession with control over the bodies of others. He was not just a eunuch, but a symbol of Nero’s power. The emperor could remake reality according to his wishes and assert his imperial power over societal norms. Essentially, Nero wanted everyone to know that he could do whatever he wanted, and Sporus was a victim of his pride.

His tragic story should continue to serve as a powerful reminder of how, far more than issues of sexuality and love, power and privilege defined the sexual and gender boundaries of the ancient world.

Hilary Mitchell is a journalist with a master’s degree in classics from the University of Edinburgh, where she specialized in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of Greece