Lex Scantinia

The Lex Scantinia (less often Scatinia) is a poorly documented ancient Roman law that penalized a sex crime (stuprum) against a freeborn male minor (ingenuus or praetextatus). The law may also have been used to prosecute adult male citizens who willingly took a passive role in having sex with other men. It was thus aimed at protecting the citizen's body from sexual abuse (stuprum), but did not prohibit homosexual behavior as such, as long as the passive partner was not a citizen in good standing. The primary use of the Lex Scantinia seems to have been harassing political opponents whose lifestyles opened them to criticism as passive homosexuals or pederasts in the Hellenistic manner.

The law may have made stuprum against a minor a capital crime, but this is unclear: a large fine may have been imposed instead, as executions of Roman citizens were rarely imposed by a court of law during the Republic. The conflation of the Lex Scantinia with later or other restrictions on sexual behaviors has sometimes led to erroneous assertions that the Romans had strict laws and penalites against homosexuality in general.