Abstract

This article argues that one of our only pieces of evidence for Roman marriage between cinaedi, Juvenal's second satire, has been consistently misread and in fact describes a marriage between a cinaedus and a sex worker. It begins by providing the context for the passage in question and its traditional reading, and then demonstrates that the critical phrase siue hic recto cantauerat aere refers to financial, not erotic, exchanges. The article finally discusses the implications of this correction, which are far more substantial than one might expect for a contentious ablative.