Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome

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Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome 349 act.97 No change had occurred in the received opinions or long-standing taboos about certain homosexual acts. What had changed was the visibility and apparent aggressiveness of those who engaged in such behavior. Hysteria peaked in London with the raids on Molly-houses in the 1720s. Alarmed Londoners became convinced that "even the adult man whose desires were (what they would have called) natural was subject to sodomitical assault because sodomites, in their universal passivity, were likely to seek an active sexual object."98 The Roman manifestation of this mentality finds its locus classicus in Petronius 23, where the impotent Encolpius is ravished by a pathic who may even be a eunuch; the aggressive pathic has tipped the sexual balance of power. The image recurs later in Pseudo- Lucian's Asinus (38) and of course Apuleius; here the notorious Galli have gang pathic sex with a young man picked up at the baths (Met. 8 .29) .99 RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIPS Although pathic behavior was deemed the paradigm for Rome's subculture, forced acquaintance with the behavior of its members brought Roman society at large to the realization that many so-called pathics freely took both the active and passive sexual roles and were even committed to reciprocal homosexual relationships. While it is difficult to cite an instance in Latin literature of a sexual relationship between men of the same age other than Ascyltos and Encolpius of the Satyricon, there is ample evidence of the older partner, or the one in a superior social position, playing the pathic role. Philebus the Gallus, for example, has such relations with younger men, and it is clear that the youth Giton and his older "brother" Encolpius have reciprocal relationships.'00 As we shall see, Roman baths were often the venue where older, more established men could solicit males of lesser age or status to play the active role- 97L. J. Boon, 'Those Damned Sodomites: Public Images of Sodomy in the Eighteenth Century Netherlands," in Gerard and Hekma, eds. (n. 64 above), pp. 237-48, at pp. 241-42; Bray (n. 10 above), pp. 19-21; Rey (n. 58 above), pp. 113-24. See also van der Meer (n. 64 above), pp. 263-310. For Roman blame of foreign cultures, see J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (London, 1979), pp. 225-26; MacMullen (n. 15 above), p. 494, n. 39. Ovid (Met. 9.727, 736) uses the word monstrum of female same-sex unions. For an equivalent sentiment in Greek writers, see Epictetus (Arr. Epict. Diss. 3.1.27-31); Dio Chrysostom 33.60. 98Trumbach, "Sodomitical Assaults, Gender Role, and Sexual Development in Eighteenth-Century London" (n. 79 above), p. 409. 9Niall W. Slater, Reading Petronius (Baltimore, 1990), p. 42; Vincenzo Ciaffi, Petronio in Apuleio (Turin, 1960), pp. 112-13. '0?Williams, pp. 341-49. 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
350 RABUN TAYLOR or, more likely, to trade roles, though the dominant Roman culture only acknowledged the fact grudgingly and with little understanding. The growing awareness of homosexual reciprocity within the subculture is visible in the very vocabulary of literary vituperation. It must bc acknowledged up front, though, that the most common terms to describe men of "pathic" inclination, such as mollis (soft) and cinaedus (effeminate male) are sufficiently vague to suit the sweeping prejudices of Roman men.'0' Martial's use of cinaedus is liberal proof that we cannot reconstruct strict definitions of contemptuous terms. Only one of his poems, 2.28, expressly confines cinaedi to playing the passive role in homosexual intercourse. Two others (6.37, 12.16) emphasize the passive role. Verse 3.73 emphasizes active or reciprocal roles. In 7.58 and 10.40, cinaedi are impotent with women or uninterested in them; but in 6.39.12-13, a man's cinaedus concubine fathers one of his wife's children. In 9.2 they are the product of castration-specifically, they are Galli; in 6.16, the phallic god Priapus threatens cinaedi with the sickle, implying that they are genitally intact. In 6.39, 9.90.7, 10.40, and 12.16, they are slaves; in 6.90, 7.58, and 9.63, they are free. As nouns, mollis and cinaedus are roughly interchangeable, although the latter is restricted to men who are past their teenage years. One of Publilius Syrus's preserved maxims says, "Age hides the cinaedus, age reveals him" ("aetas cinaedum celat, aetas indicat").102 This apparently means that when a committed pathic passes into adulthood, he tries to hide his behavior from society; but the conventional signposts of adult pathics (pallor, depilation, etc.) reveal him for what he is. When mollisis a modifier, it can often be read simply as the adjectival form of cinaedus 101 It is worth noticing that the British term "molly" refers to an cffeminatc man or a malc prostitute. Whilc most etymologists accept this as the diminutivc of the namc Mary, Latin in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cspecially in the thcatcr, had a great influencc on the language of the subculture. Thus in Elizabcthan times a malc prostitute or a malc brothel is called "spintry"(from the rare Latin word spintria, an cxotic malc prostitute); sec Waync Dynes, Homolexis: A Historical and Cultural Lexicon of Homosexuality (Ncw York, 1985), p. 23. For ctymologies, see the entrics in the Oxford En,glish Dictionary. "Catamitc" meaning "kept boy" (from catamitus) first appears in 1593. It is possiblc, then, that "molly" derives from mollis and likewise got its start in the Elizabethan, Jacobean, or Rcstoration theater culturcs (it is not attested until the beginning of the cightecnth century), which werc repositorics of classical Icarning and, likc theatcr culturcs in many socictics, havens for a "sodomitical" subculturc (see Bray, pp. 54-55). Many derogatory terms for mcmbers of a subculture are invented or prescrved by the mcmbers themsclves, not by hostilc outsiders. 102 Guliclmus Meycr, ed., Publilii Syri mimi sententiac (Leipzig, 1880), p. 18, line 24. However, R. A. H. Bickford-Smith, ed., Publilii Syri sententiac (London, 1895), p. 2, line 24, reads astus and aestus in the places of aetas. 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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