Were any of the Caesars gay?

Answer 1

The Greeks and Romans, like some present day Christians, did not understand people to be "homosexual" so that records of the time do not record contemporary figures as being homosexual or heterosexual.

The idea that men and women could be heterosexual, homosexual or indeed bisexual was only recognized in the late nineteenth century by sexologists like Krafft-Ebing in his seminal work Psychopathia Sexualis. Previously, people had recognized homosexual acts but not homosexual people.

That said, the Emperor Hadrian had a male lover, Antinous, as well as a wife. The British Museum introduced its 2008 exhibition on the life and works of Hadrian saying:

"He took a young Greek male lover, Antinous, who accompanied him on his travels around the empire. In AD 130, Antinous drowned in mysterious circumstances in Egypt. Consumed by grief, Hadrian founded a new city, Antinoupolis, close to the spot where he died and had Antinous declared a god, linked to the Egyptian deity Osiris. A cult of Antinous-Osiris sprang up resulting in statues, busts and silverware featuring the image of the newly deified youth."

For a time, the new religion rivalled Christianity. Unhappily for gay people, the wrong religion won, leading to the burnings and hangings that continued through the middle ages and, in the UK, up to the nineteenth century.