Quid dicam, Gelli, quare rosea ista labella
hiberna fiant candidiora nive,
mane domo cum exis et cum te octava quiete
e molli longo suscitat hora die?
nescio quid certest: an vere fama susurrat
grandia te medii tenta vorare viri?
sic certest: clamant Victoris rupta miselli
ilia, et emulso labra notata sero

What do you say, O Gellius, to why those rosy lips of yours
become white as winter snow,
in the morning when you go out of your house and when the eighth hour wakes you
out of a nap from a long day?
I do not know what is certain: can the rumor be true
that you swallow the large thing men have in the middle?
It must be so: They proclaim that poor Victor's member has burst,
and the milky fluid is inscribed on your lips


Who exactly Gellius is and what he had done to raise Catullus' ire is lost in the mists of history.

Homosexuality in itself was not seen as being wrong or evil in ancient Rome, however the idea of being submissive was. Gay men who were on the receiving end of anal sex or gave oral sex in a relationship were dubbed cinaedus and were generally derided as being deviants and the exact opposite of what Roman masculinity should be. To call a “real” man this was possibly the highest insult.

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