Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome

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Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome 351 (which only rarely is used adjectivally). The words frequently appear together where they could be construed as synonymous or redundant.'03 The behavioral and physiognomic association of the cinaedus with pathic behavior and its attendant moral inferiority have been well established by Richlin, Williams, and others. I hope to demonstrate that the term cinaedus in the late Republic and early Empire designated a grown man who took (and usually enjoyed) the passive role, but not exclusively. There is ample evidence in a variety of sources that the word came to reflect an acknowledgment (though not acceptance) of reciprocal roles in homosexual relationships as a Roman subculture of homosexuality became well established. It is generally agreed that cinaedus in Latin originally meant "dancer," especially of the peculiarly lewd Greek type imported in the third century B.C.E.'04 But like so many words, it is not attested earlier than Plautus, who also uses the word to mean "pathic.' The two usages spring fullblown into Latin from Greek, where the word's general association with lewdness and effeminacy extends far back into the literary record. "One and the same are the minds of the kinaidos and of the lowly whore," writes Archilochus in the seventh century B.C.E. ("'t?oo; Xcvatcou icat icacici; iopvs; 6 vos;" 328.1). Aristotle uses the word to mean effeminacy in both men and women.'05 His near-contemporary in the fourth century B.C.E., Aeschines, says of the effeminate Demosthenes, "It is by common rumor, not by his nurse, that he is called Batalos [Buns]. He earned the name by his unmanliness and kinaidia."'06 By imputing the same status of legal disenfranchisement to Demosthenes as to his opponent Timarchus, whom he accuses of pathic prostitution, Aeschines implies that Demosthenes is equally debased in his sexual pursuits (Aeschines In Tim. 181). Elsewhere he associates Demosthenes' kinai- '03See Catull. 16, 25; Mart. 3.73, 7.58; Petron. 23.3; Phacdrus 10.2-3, 18-20; Plaut. Aul. 422; Pliny Ep. 9.17.1. '04PW, s.v. "xicvatto;"; Williams (n. 2 above), pp. 214-17; J. N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore, 1982), p. 194; Lilja (n. 2 above), p. 22; Jean Granarolo, "L'heure de la verite pour Tallus le cinede (Catulle XXV)," Revue des etudes ancicnnes 60 (1958): 290-306, at 292. '05Arist. Phgn. 808a.12, 810a.34, 813a.18, 813a.35. In the first citation, the word pakaico6q appears in association with this word. 061 KoKOs c i)& Un 5 X%, aXk o6X imon t~; ritGr"; BdraXoo; npocayopeiTetat, ei avavbpac; ical xtvat6ia; iveyicdptvo; ToUvoIa" (Aeschin. In Tim. 131). Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon claims the origin of this nickname is Demosthenes' stutter. But the first- or second-century-B.C.E. lexicographer Harpocration explains that Eupolis, a fifthcentury-B.C.E. comedian, calls the buttocks Nitakoq and that with respect to Dcmosthenes, Acschines is "quoting comedy [or mocking him] about his effeminacy" ("Kce icwg rte & ?ii pakaEKia"; 72.4). 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
352 RABUN TAYLOR dia with "shameful acts" (aiaxpoupyt'a; On the Embassy 99) and calls him "a kinaidos impure in body, even whence his voice emanates" ("civat6ov ... jiiKaOapU0ovta t- a6gan, j.Tr18' 0b0v tv 4iv dmio ijatv"; On the Embassy 88), a hint as much at fellatio as at slander. Here, as in Plautus, there is no hint of the active role in intercourse. The first evidence in Latin literature of cinaedi who take the active role surfaces in Catullus.107 Poem 29 describes an act of symbolic buggery, the greed of Mamurra, by a symbolic cinaedus, Rome itself: "Romulus, you cinaedus! Can you watch this and endure it? You are shameless, a compulsive gambler. Was it not in [Mamurra's] name, peerless ruler, that you went to the furthest western isle just so that fuckedout cock of yours could devour twenty or thirty million?" (Catull. 29.9- 14).108 This is a fine illustration of the simultaneous voracity and exhaustion that Romans of the late Republic imputed to cinaedi. But this cinaedus is no pathic; the instrumental part of his anatomy lies to the fore, and it is Britain and the Roman people who are forced to proffer their backsides to his onslaught. The passive participle diffututa ascribes Romulus's exhaustion to his active role in intercourse, not to any passive tendencies.'09 Mamurra appears again in poem 57, this time with Caesar as his bedmate: "What fine accord between two foul cinaedi, both Mamurra the pathic and his Caesar. No wonder: the stains on each-one Roman, the other Formian-hold fast, will never wash clean: A pair of twins, both equally diseased, both little scholars on a single bed, with vying appetites for adultery, rival playmates of little girls, no less. What fine accord between two foul cinaedi." 110 Mamurra is nominally the pathic in this relationship, but Caesar too is labeled a cinaedus. Caesar was widely believed to have played the pathic in his early manhood, and we are meant to suspect that he did so with Mamurra as well."' Whatever Catullus's intentions, the important thing to note is that both parties in a homosexual relationship are called '07 Not all the instances of the word in Catullus arc so flexible. Poems 16 and 25 both use the word to mean a simple pathic; but both poems are Priapic in naturc and, thus, follow the old stereotypes that dominate the poems of the phallic god. 108 Cinacde Romule, haec videbis et feres? / es impudicus et vorax et aleo. / conc nomine, imperator unice, / fuisti in ultima occidentis insula, / ut ista vestra diffututa mcntula / ducenties comesset et trecenties?" 109 For another example of this, see Priapea 26. "0"Pulcre convenit improbis cinaedis, / Mamurrac pathicoque Caesarique. / Ncc mirum: maculac pares utrisque, / urbana altera ct illa Formiana, / impressac resident ncc eluentur: / morbosi pariter, gemclli utrique, / uno in lecticulo erudituli ambo, / non hic quam ille magis vorax adulter, / rivales socii et puellularum. / Pulcre convenit improbis cinacdis." "'On Cacsar's pathic role in early manhood, see Suet. Iul. 49; Plut. Caes. 1; Dio Cass. 43.20.2. 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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