Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome

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Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome 359 and they are always past their teenage years. In the five centuries after Plautus presented the first known usages of the word, exoletus is employed to refer to smooth, downy-cheeked young men (Sen. Ep. 95.24) and coarse, hairy men (Suet. Galba 22.1 );136 sexually functional men who enjoy ancillary relations with women (Mart. 12.91; Suet. Calig. 24.3) and eunuchs (Sen. Controv. 10.4.17; Sen. Dial. 1.3.13). Sometimes they are working prostitutes (Cic. Mil. 55.8; S.H.A. Heliogab. 27.7, 31.6), occasionally they are nondescript pathic lovers, as in the passage from Curtius Rufus; but more often they are simply presented as the sexual minions of wealthy and powerful men, often alongside young boys or eunuchs.'37 This latter understanding of the term is of greatest interest here. Exoletus with its specialized meaning of "overage male sex-partner" seems to have originated as a modifier of scortum. The word appears only three times in Plautus, always as an adjective; once in a Plautine fragment it modifies virgo (virgin),'38 and twice scortum (Curc. 473; Poenulus 17). Both of the latter citations are in "Roman" passages that Plautus either radically adapted from his Greek model or invented wholesale. Lilja and others have suggested that these citations refer to males.'39 Two things support such a conclusion. First, the scorta exoleta mentioned in Curculio come in the midst of a long list of Roman types, all of them either male or of unspecified gender-including prostitutes of free status (482), who significantly are homines (people), not specifically women. Second, the later meaning of exoletus as an exclusively male prostitute or concubine suggests that Plautus is using the adjective to distinguish the sex of these types from all of his other scorta, who are almost always female. 140 This is not to say that age plays no role in Plautus's use of the adjective exoletus; it obviously does with reference to the virgin, and it apparently designates diminishing desirability in Curculio 473, since the clientele 136Seneca is probably describing a eunuch, since an exoletus with normal hormonal levels, like the one in Suetonius, would have body and facial hair. '37Ampelius 11.4; Mart. 3.82.8, 12.91.2; S.H.A. Comm. 5.4; Sen. Controv. 10.4.17, excerpta 10.4.1, Dial. 10.12.5, and Ep. 12.8, 66.53, 95.24, 114.25; Suet. Calig. 24.3, Galba 22.1, Iul. 49.2, Tib. 43.1, and Tit. 7.1; Tac. Ann. 15.37. '38Heinrich Keil, ed., Grammatici Latini (Leipzig, 1855-80), 2: 489. '39Lilja(n. 2 above), p. 30; Williams (n. 2 above), p. 36. '4OThe exception is Ergasilus in Captivi, whose nickname is "Scortum" because "at banquets my lover / is liable to invoke a scortum, a scortum I say, when he rolls the dice" ("scortum in convivio / sibi amator, talos quom iacit, scortum invocat"; 72-73). Most commentaries assume that the invoked prostitute is a mistress. A simpler explanation is that the winner of the dice game gets to have the prostitute of his choice. This would make sense of a passage in Petronius, where Ascyltos is described as a male prostitute "whose youth is available at the throw of a die" ("cuius anni ad tesseram venierunt"; 81.4). 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
360 RABUN TAYLOR of these prostitutes are men "who are accustomed to haggling" ("qui stipulari solent"). After all, exoletus, so often translated "fully grown" or the like, is the passive participle of the verb exolesco, which can mean "to decay" or "to decline." While it may refer to a man in his physical prime, it emphasizes his sexual obsolescence as a passive partner: he is beyond his teenage years, "has passed the terminus . . . of development" ("excessit . . . crescendi modum"; Festus, Gloss. Lat. 5.13), and is no longer suitable for that role. That exoleti generally are perceived to be pathics has been amply demonstrated by Williams.'4' We may conclude tentatively that in the minds of Plautus and most of his contemporaries an adult male prostitute is undesirable. The assumption underlying such an attitude is that appropriate male prostitutes are youthful, passive sexual partners-an assumption shared by many cultures, ancient and modern. In Plautus, such youths are simply called pueri or pueri cauponii ("tavern-boys," Poenulus 1298) and are often preferred over women or girls. The slave-girl Astaphium in Truculentus says on behalf of female slaves in general, "This field of ours isn't for plowing, it's for pasture. If you must have plow-land, you'd best approach the pueri, who are used to being plowed. We have public property, but they are the publicans." 142 We do not know the arrangements under which pueri were employed; there were probably many. In this passage the term publicani, "tax-farmers," suggests that the boys keep a portion of the asking price as a "collection fee" while their pimps or owners take the rest. The term for plowland, aratio, can refer to land farmed out for a tenth of the yield. Female slave prostitutes, on the other hand, are denied a share in their income, perhaps because they are less profitable; Astaphium characterizes them as public pasturage, inferior farmland that brings in less income. Lyco, the banker in Curculio, fancies buying a puer "who would be desirable enough to pay me a dividend" ("qui usurarius / nunc mihi quaeratur"; 382-83). Krenkel interprets this to mean that boys are leased out to one lover at a time.'43 He may well be right; we see no sign of them among the scorta exoleta and self-employed prostitutes in Plautus's catalogs of Rome's lowlifes. This could explain why so many pueri in Latin sources, when they become exoleti, are found to be established figures in the retinues of wealthy men; their original masters may have sold them to clients who had lived with these slaves as boys, enabling the slaves to retire from 141Williams, pp. 130-42. Compare Boswell, p. 79 and n. 87. 142 4Non arvos hic, sed pascuost ager: si arationes / habituru's, qui arari solent, ad pueros ire meliust. I hunc nos habemus publicum, illi alii sunt publicani" (Plaut. Trucukntus 149-51). 143 Krenkel (n. 55 above), p. 184. 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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Page 7 and 8: 324 RABUN TAYLOR A FEW REMARKS ABOU
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Page 15 and 16: 332 RABUN TAYLOR ously he had broug
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Page 21 and 22: 338 RABUN TAYLOR AN URBAN SUBCULTUR
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Page 25 and 26: 342 RABUN TAYLOR corresponding lack
Page 27 and 28: 344 RABUN TAYLOR by freeborn males
Page 29 and 30: 346 RABUN TAYLOR are effeminati; he
Page 31 and 32: 348 RABUN TAYLOR Empire, "those who
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Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome

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