Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome

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Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome 345 and in smaller towns throughout Europe for centuries, these rather loose social structures bore little resemblance to a full-blown subculture; they went virtually unnoticed by the greater population and lent little sense of identity to their members.80 The anonymity of a large city and the newly perceived strength of numbers among homosexual men seem to have encouraged the rise of Molly-houses, establishments that combined the social functions of modern gay bars and gay bathhouses. The apparent rise of Rome's subculture was likewise attendant upon a rapid increase in population, which took place during and after the eastern conquests of the second century B.C.E. and rendered the city comparable in size to eighteenth-century London by the first century B.C.E.8' The homosexual subculture of urban society came into existence not by conscious selection but by a trickle-down effect from the population at large, which needed to reach a certain size before the networks of homosexual men could come together in a gradual realization of their numbers and unique cultural properties. The combination of tremendous urban growth and the influx of a more sexually self-aware Greek population augmented social activity among "pathic" men in the city of Rome. Such men as the elder Cato and even the Hellenophile younger Scipio observed these developments with displeasure.82 The huge increase in the slave population also played its part; through ownership or prostitution, "slavery afforded wide possibilities for satisfaction of every free male's needs or predilections."83 The mainstream notion of homosexual males as rapacious pathics and effeminates appears to have arrived with the Roman subculture, as it did to a lesser extent with London's.84 Aristocratic and domestic effeminates in the Greek style begin appearing in Rome during or shortly after Plautus's time, as we know from various fragments attributed to the elder Cato.85 Cato opposes the erection of statues of certain men because they century (see Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice [New York, 1985]). Fantham draws many interesting parallels between Rome's sexual climate and that of Venice. 80Trumbach, 'Sodomitical Subcultures, Sodomitical Roles, and the Gender Revolution of the Eighteenth Century," p. 116. 8"Picrrc Salmon, Population et depopulation dans l'Empire romain (Brussels, 1974), p. 15. 82Fantham, p. 288; Williams (n. 2 above), p. 221. 83Verstraete, "Slavery and the Social Dynamics of Male Homosexual Relations in Ancient Rome" (n. 15 above), p. 231. "4Trumbach, "Sodomitical Assaults, Gender Role, and Sexual Development in Eighteenth-Century London," p. 408. The earliest datable occurrences of the word pathicus are in Catull. 16.2, 57.2, and 112.2. "5Collected in Fantham, p. 288. This content downloaded from 71.172.231.156 on Wed, 24 Jul 2013 18:27:33 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
346 RABUN TAYLOR are effeminati; he notes with disapproval that young aristocrats learn to dance and sing and wear Greek outfits to parties; and he accuses certain politicians of dancing, lewd singing, and prostitution at banquets. The first undoubtedly pathic libertine in the Latin record seems to be Sulpicius Galus, described by Scipio Africanus the Younger, "who walks about with plucked beard and plucked thighs: who, when he was younger, rcclined in a Greek sleeved tunic with his lover [amator, a word that implies the active role] at parties, who is not only wine-mad, but man-mad too-will anyone doubt that he does what pathics always do?"86 Subsequent Roman literature is heavily peopled with such characters, who sometimes have a taste for both active and passive sex, whether the partner be male or female.87 According to Suetonius, for example, Domitian expelled an ex-quaestor from the Senate for acting and dancing and in the same vein of censoriousness condemned many Roman senators and equestrians under the lex Scantinia, which may have outlawed sexual activity between freeborn males.88 But the emphasis is always on the pathic nature of effeminate men, even if pathic activity cannot be directly imputed to them. Seneca the Elder recounts a speech in which wealthy libertines are criticized for castrating male slaves to prolong their terms of sexual submission. But these masters, though the penetrators, are not the virile studs of Plautus; rather, they unman youths "because they are ashamed of being men themselves" ("quia ipsos pudent viros esse"; Sen. Controv. 10.4.17). By the first century B.C.E., pederasty had long been practiced and tolerated by certain elements in Roman society and would continue to be practiced for the duration of the Empire.89 But habitual sexual behavior among adult males seemed a dangerous new development to the moralists. The theme of the aggressive adult pathic began to appear frequently in the theater and in literature. From Pomponius's lost play Prostibulum (The Male Prostitute, ca. 100-85 B.C.E.) have been preserved the lines 86 "Qui barba vulsa feminibusque subvulsis ambulet, qui in conviviis adulescentulus cum amatorc cum chiridota tunica inferior accubuerit, qui non modo vinosus, scd virosus quoque sit, eumne quisquam dubitet, quin idem fecerit, quod cinacdi facerc solent?" (Hcnrica Malcovati, ed., Oratorum Romanorum fragmenta liberac rci publicac [Paravia, 1953], 1: 127, entry number 21.17). 87Williams, pp. 206-80. "ISuet. Dom. 8.3. On the lex Scantinia, sec Richlin, "Not beforc Homosexuality" (n. 3 abovc), pp. 569-71; Williams, pp. 187-91; Lilja (n. 2 abovc), pp. 112-21; Fantham (n. 17 abovc), pp. 285-90; Dalla (n. 13 above), pp. 82-99; Derrick S. Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (London, 1955), pp. 64-65; Boswell (n. 2 above), pp. 65-69; and Johann F. Christ, Historia legis Scatiniae: Antiquorum codicum testimoniis emendandis illustrandispassim distincta (Magdeburg, 1727). 89Regarding tolerance of pederasty in Rome in the first century B.C.E., sce Williams, pp. 11-22; Veyne (n. 15 above), pp. 28-29; Booth (n. 29 above), pp. 105-20. This content downloaded from 71.172.231.156 on Wed, 24 Jul 2013 18:27:33 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome

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