Exoletus is a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 term, the perfect passive participle of the verb exolescere, which means "to wear out with age." In ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 the word referred to a certain class of homosexual males

Homosexuality in Ancient Rome

Same-sex attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome often differ markedly from those of the contemporary West. Latin lacks words that would precisely translate "homosexual" and "heterosexual." The primary dichotomy of ancient Roman sexuality was active/dominant/masculine and...

 or male prostitute

Prostitution in ancient Rome

Prostitution in ancient Rome reflects the ambivalent attitudes of Romans toward pleasure and sexuality. Prostitution was legal and licensed. Some large brothels in the 4th century, when Rome was becoming officially Christianized, seem to have been counted as tourist attractions and were possibly...

s, although its precise meaning is unclear to historians.

In his essay on sexual morality, Offenses Against One's Self, nineteenth-century British philosopher Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...

 provided the following definition of the term:

There was a particular name for those who had past the short period beyond which no man hoped to be an object of desire to his own sex. They were called exoleti. No male therefore who was passed this short period of life could expect to find in this way any reciprocity of affection; he must be as odious to the boy from the beginning as in a short time the boy would be to him. The objects of this kind of sensuality would therefore come only in the place of common prostitutes; they could never even to a person of this depraved taste answer the purposes of a virtuous woman.

However, the word is sometimes also applied to adolescents, puberes exoleti, as in the Scriptores Historiae Augustae

Augustan History

The Augustan History is a late Roman collection of biographies, in Latin, of the Roman Emperors, their junior colleagues and usurpers of the period 117 to 284...

7.5.4.4. In an essay on Roman erotic art, John Pollini has argued that the term referred not to age but to prostitutes who had become physically "worn out" by frequent anal penetration. John Boswell argued that the term "exoletus" distinguished an active from a passive male prostitute, or "catamitus", from which the English word "catamite

Catamite

A catamite was a handsome youth kept as a sexual companion in ancient Rome, usually in a pederastic relationship. The word derives from the proper noun Catamitus, the Latinized form of Ganymede, the beautiful Trojan youth abducted by Zeus to be his companion and cupbearer...

" is derived. In the article "Some Myths and Anomalies in the Study of Roman Sexuality" in the Journal of Homosexuality

Journal of Homosexuality

The Journal of Homosexuality is a peer-reviewed academic journal This forum for research into same-sex desire examines sexual practices and gender roles in their cultural, historical, interpersonal, and modern social contexts. In the fall of 2005, the Journal celebrated its 50th volume.- History...

, James L. Butrica argued that the term did not refer to prostitutes at all.

The word is found in Seneca

Seneca the Younger

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...

's Epistulae 95.24and in Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

's Philippics

Philippicae

The Philippicae or Philippics are a series of 14 speeches Cicero gave condemning Mark Antony in 44 BC and 43 BC. The corpus of speeches were named and modeled after Demosthenes' Philippic, which he had delivered against Philip of Macedon, and were styled in a similar manner.-The political...

against Mark Antony

Mark Antony

Marcus Antonius , known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general. As a military commander and administrator, he was an important supporter and loyal friend of his mother's cousin Julius Caesar...

.

See also

• Homosexuality in ancient Rome
  Homosexuality in Ancient Rome
  Same-sex attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome often differ markedly from those of the contemporary West. Latin lacks words that would precisely translate "homosexual" and "heterosexual." The primary dichotomy of ancient Roman sexuality was active/dominant/masculine and...
  
  
• Sexuality in ancient Rome
  Sexuality in Ancient Rome
  Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by Roman art, literature and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture...
  
  
• Prostitution in ancient Rome
  Prostitution in ancient Rome
  Prostitution in ancient Rome reflects the ambivalent attitudes of Romans toward pleasure and sexuality. Prostitution was legal and licensed. Some large brothels in the 4th century, when Rome was becoming officially Christianized, seem to have been counted as tourist attractions and were possibly...