The classical contribution to modern notions of gender comprises both the provision of influential theory and captivating examples. Classical texts have regularly been deployed to add authority to claims about appropriate gender roles. So, for example, the image of the vir bonus (good man) as sketched out by Cicero (especially in De officiis) exercised a decisive influence in the European humanist tradition (Narducci 2004; Monfasani 1992). It provided a paradigm for male behavior and established the practice of civic virtue as the most worthy male endeavor. Classical authors spoke to women as well. Richard Hyrde in his 1541 translation of Juan Luis Vives’s Instruction of a Christen Woman describes domestic duties as ‘‘the womans party as Plato and Aristotle say full well.’’ Xenophon’s Oeconomicus was particularly influential in these matters (Hutson 1999). This text enjoyed widespread circulation in both Latin and vernacular translations and formed the basis of a number of textbooks on domestic duties. Xenophon’s text begins as a dialogue between Kritoboulos and Socrates on the importance of household management. After both parties agree on the importance of such matters, Socrates relates what he has learnt from a young man called Isomakhos, who describes the paradigm of the well-run household. Indeed, Isomakhos and his partner come to embody the Renaissance ideal of husband and wife. The most significant passages for the study of gender roles concern Isomakhos’ descriptions of the different duties of men and women and his claims that God made man suited to the outdoor life, travel, and the acquisition of goods through trade or labor. Women, in contrast, lack the necessary courage for such pursuits and are instead like queen bees - designed for the indoor life, the nursing of children, and the care of goods acquired by men {Oeconomicus 7.17-35). These sentiments found their way into a number of influential texts such as Heinrich Bullinger’s Der christliche Ehestand {On the Christian marriage, 1540), and John Dod and Robert Cleaver’s A Godlie Forme of Householde Government {1610; Hutson 1999: 82-4).
The use of such didactic texts was complemented by numerous role models and negative case studies. One of the earliest works of north Italian humanism is, for example, Giovanni Boccaccio’s De claris mulieribus {On famous women, 1361-2), a collection of 106 biographies of famous women from antiquity {Kolsky 2003). This exemplary tradition has a number of strengths. These embodiments of vice and virtue provided a medium by which abstract claims and aesthetic notions could be realized and made substantial. They made convenient and attractive packages for conveying complex ideas. They relied on more than just classical prestige for their validity, however, for historical examples claimed to provide real precedents. Mythological figures could be said to embody poetic truths, reflect human nature, or, post-Jung, arise from the darkest recesses of human psychology. This means that classical ideas were remarkably virulent. When Xenophon falls out of fashion and classical texts are no longer above question, his ideas can easily be transmitted through another vehicle or pass under a different sign. Thus the relationship between Isomakhos and his wife that was celebrated in the Renaissance finds its corollary in the Victorian fascination with the Perseus and Andromeda myth. The image of the bound, naked woman waiting to be rescued by her lover from the ravages of a monster offered a potent blend of Romanticism and voyeurism. It promoted the notion of the passive, helpless woman and the active male hero. The monster, whose sexually predatory nature was barely repressed, warned of the dangers that lay outside the realm of comfortable domesticity. In image after image, we see Andromeda rescued just in time and returned to her proper place inside the home to assume the role of wife and mother {Munich 1989).
The tradition of turning to antiquity for specific historical role models can be traced at least as far back as the Carolingian period {Innes 1997). Greek and Roman myth as well as the works of Plutarch, Suetonius, and Livy meant that there was never any shortage of male role models. Every Homeric champion, mythic monster-slayer, victorious general, or skilled statesman has, at various times and places, managed to find adherents. One of the earliest manifestations of this practice can be seen in the list of ‘‘Nine Worthies.’’ First devised in the fourteenth century, this list of champions was designed to embody the various aspects of chivalric virtue. The canonical list is attributed to Jean de Longuyon, who describes the ‘‘nine worthies’’ {les neuf preux) in his Voeux du paon {Vows of the peacock, ca. 1312). De Longuyon lists three pagan heroes worthy of emulation {Hector, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great) along with three figures from the Old Testament {Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabaeus) and three from Christian times {King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon). The ‘‘nine worthies’’ were a popular subject for masques, and the list could vary according to taste. For example, Shakespeare stages such a masque in the midst of Love’s Labour’s Lost, but includes four pagan heroes (Hector, Pompey the Great, Hercules, and Alexander the Great) in his lineup. Different ages have, of course, different preferences. Republican heroes such as Camillus and Coriolanus who enjoy such popularity in the Renaissance fade from popular consciousness in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Two heroes have remained perennially popular in the male imagination: Alexander the Great and Hercules. Both establish martial prowess and love of adventure as the preeminent masculine virtues. Yet they were also more than just cyphers for ‘‘macho’’ values. Their respective traditions were so rich and varied that they could be deployed to address particular masculine concerns. Alexander’s early death, his drinking, and his disillusionment on finding that there were ‘‘no more worlds to conquer’’ ensured that he could speak to men at their lowest ebb. The rise of the Romantic would be impossible without him (Spencer 1996). Hercules’ humiliating servitude to Queen Omphale, in turn, struck a cord with the emasculated nobles of the French Regency. Forced to hang up their ‘‘clubs’’ in favor of the delights of the salon and its powerful mistresses, the French nobility turned to this incident to express the dangers of their predicament. During this period, we see an unprecedented explosion of images of Hercules and Omphale. Important canvases are produced by Francois Lemoyne (1724), Charles-Antoine Coypel (1731), and Francois Boucher (1734).
Although a corresponding list of nine female worthies (les neuf preuses), which included three virtuous pagan women (Lucretia, Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, and Virginia) was constructed, the classical tradition has been less successful at providing virtuous paradigms for women. This is especially the case when compared with the contribution made by biblical models such as the cult of the Virgin Mary and female martyrs and saints. The one exception is, perhaps, Lucretia, whose suicide after being raped by Tarquin was a popular topic for art and drama. Shakespeare’s Rape of Lucrece (1594) put the story into verse, and Thomas Heywood adapted it for the stage. Indeed, in his Apology for Actors (1612), Heywood praises the story for its beneficial effects on women (‘‘women. . . that are chaste, are by us extolled and encouraged in their virtues, being instanced by Diana, Belphebe, Matilda, Lucrece’’).
It is in the production of negative exemplars that the classical world has provided more fertile ground. These classical women are abject: mixing revulsion and attraction, they encapsulate male fears. Anxiety about female power has been played out through images of Amazons and female monsters such as the harpies. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Electra inspired terror with her capacity for violence, rupturing comfortable notions about classicism in Strauss’s operatic version of her story (1908; Goldhill 2002: 108-77; Scott 2005: 81-94). Freud, in the essays ‘‘The Medusa’s Head’’ (1922; published 1940) and ‘‘The Infantile Genital Organization’’ (1923), turned Medusa into the poster-girl for the male fear of emasculation, the primeval vagina dentata. Women could bring down the greatest heroes. In the medieval period, Achilles was as much a victim of lust as wrath (King 1987: 171-218). Women such as Cleopatra have illicitly thrilled male audiences for centuries (Hughes-Hallett 1990). Attempts made by Dutch painters to domesticate and turn her into a housewife (Hamer 1993: 24-44) were short-lived and largely unsuccessful. She conforms too easily to popular notions about the east and female sexuality. The combination of sex, danger, orientalism, female despotism, and tragedy has made Cleopatra an irresistible subject for artists and cinematographers. She is the original femme fatale. In Pushkin’s Egyptian Nights (1837), Cleopatra is a killer who demands a man’s life as the price of a night’s passion. It is a price all too many men are willing to pay. She is the specter who appears whenever men feel threatened by women. Her persona can be adapted to replicate every new threat. So, for example, in Theda Bara’s cinematic portrayal (1917), she becomes the epitome of that terrifying arrival, the ‘‘new woman.’’ Only modern consumerism seems to be able to tame her with her recent cinematic incarnations (1934, 1963), more designed to push product (cosmetics, fashion, jewellery) than politics (Wyke 2002: 244-78, 297-300).
World History
