Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome

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Two Pathic Subcultures in Ancient Rome 323 and distinctive acts with an understood meaning, its own jargon." '0 The subculture created its own ethics and semiotics because society at large excluded homosexual men; but it also acknowledged the dominant culture and, thereby, allowed some men to shuttle between the two as convenience dictated. This paradigm is a far cry from Halperines, which in my opinion does not successfully explain the existence of or the need for sexual subcultures in the premodern world. The corpus of ancient literature contains thousands of scattered references to homosexual activity. The dominance of a certain point of view in the sources does not obscure the reality of vastly different worldviews and lifestyles within the Roman world. John Boswell, one of the first serious modern interpreters of Roman homosexuality, extracted his materials from a multiplicity of quarries; one cannot fail to be suspicious of the gleaming, monochromatic edifice he built with them.1" The richest sources-graffiti, invective, epigram, satire-all make liberal use of hyperbole, irony, and ambiguity. And in the "straighter" genres such as history, treatises, and epistolary literature, too often an author's word or opinion is taken for granted, and we forget that the opposing attitudes he attacks or suppresses are equally real. The author's biases naturally carry over to his narrative of events. Technical treatises are another important genre supporting the sexual attitudes of the dominant culture, as Halperin, Maud Gleason, and Winkler have recently revealed.'2 These are the works of a professional elite who shared the broad values of their literary colleagues. The limitations of the available sources thus render certain investigative biases unavoidable. The age, class, status, and occupation of many persons, though all-important in defining their accepted sex roles (which we must carefully distinguish from their actual or preferred roles), can sometimes only be guessed, yet the scholar who ignores the vast gulf in sex-role expectations between slaves and freeborn Romans, or between boys and men, risks going down with Boswell's ship.'3 "'Alan Bray, Homosexuality in Renaissance England (London, 1982), p. 86. On the semiotics of subcultures, see Dick Hebdige, Subculturc: The Meaning of Stylc (London 1979). " For a recent summary of Boswell's views (n. 2 above), see Richlin, "Not before Homoscxuality," pp. 528-30. '2Maud Gleason, "The Semiotics of Gender: Physiognomy and Self-Fashioning in the Second Century C.E.," in Bcfore Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma M. Zeitlin (Princeton, NJ, 1990), pp. 389-415; Winkler; Halperin, pp. 21-24. '3Boswell repeatedly cites the Romans' well-known tolerance for penctrative exploitation of social inferiors as evidence that there were no taboos against homosexual behavior in general. In fact, homosexual behavior in which freeborn boys or men played the passive role was socially condemned and legally prohibited. This did not, of course, prevent such boys from being sexually exploited; see inter alia Petronius 85-87; Pliny Ep. 3.3.3-4, 7.24; 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
324 RABUN TAYLOR A FEW REMARKS ABOUT MALE HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR Richlin asks the question, Were there men in the Roman world who liked to be sexually penetrated by other men?'4 Her answer is a resounding affirmative. But was that class of men, as many scholars suppose, satisfied with an exclusively pathic role in intercourse? Modern anthropological and ethnographic studies suggest that in most cultures where same-sex erotic behavior enjoys some legitimacy, sexual reciprocity is downplayed or discouraged, as it apparently was in Rome. But they also show that behavior is often quite contrary to the perceived norm. Even in Roman literature, one occasionally encounters such unexpected characters as a rich manfs male concubine who is compelled to shave his body and dress like a woman, yet "plays the man [i.e., takes the active role] in the bedroom" ("in cubiculo vir est"; Seneca Ep. 47.7). Is the Roman "pathic" simply an encoded image of the homosexual or bisexual man who engages in reciprocal intercourse with others of his kind? A brief analysis of the usages of the terms mollis and cinacdus, which I undertake later in this study, suggests that this is at least partly true. Many of the characters we meet in Roman literature ought to be regarded as men who assume and enjoy both roles, even if they are not portrayed as such. But others seem to have been pathic both in act and in inclination. The prevailing attitude in Rome as in Greece recognized women, girls, boys, slaves, and noncitizens, to a greater or lesser extent, as potential pathic partners of free men.'5 But among males, effeminates alone were thought to be inherently pathic. In literature such men are treated and especially Valerius Maximus 6.1.6-12, which illustrates the continuing exploitation of freeborn boys throughout the Republic as well as the moral outrage and legal penaltics incurred by such acts. Martial and juvenal are also rich sources for this kind of cvidencc. See Williams (n. 2 above), pp. 157-205; and Danilo Dalla, 'Ubi Venus mutatur': Omosessualita e diritto nel mondo romano (Milan, 1987), a useful book-length study of Roman law and homosexuality. '4Richlin, "Not before Homosexuality" (n. 3 above), p. 524. '5Ibid., pp. 532-40; Williams, pp. 87-119, 157-205; FranSoise Gonfroy, 'Homosexualite et idWologie esclavagiste chez Ciceron," Dialogues d'histoire ancienne 4 (1978): 219- 63, at 227; Beert Verstraete, 'Slavery and the Social Dynamics of Malc Homosexual Relations in Ancient Rome," Journal of Homosexuality 5 (1980): 227-36. Scveral other articles have tried, with varying success, to characterize Roman homosexuality as a historical phenomenon. Ramsay MacMullen, "Roman Attitudes to Greek Love," Historia 31 (1982): 484-502, which is also published in Homosexuality in the Ancient World, ed. Wayne Dynes and Stcphen Donaldson (New York and London, 1992), pp. 340-58, attributes the increased visibility of homosexuality in this period to Roman adoption of Grcek attitudes and idcals. Paul Veyne, "Homosexuality in Ancient Rome," in Western Sexuality: Practice and Preccpt in Past and Present Times, ed. Philippe Aries and Andre Bejin, trans. A. Forster (Oxford, 1985), pp. 26-35, emphasizes the diffcrences between Greek and Roman atti- 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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