The study of male relationships and male identity, then, has been welcomed by many classicists engaged in studies of gender. In particular, feminist scholars, whose earlier work focused on the rare bits of literature left by women or on representations of women in male-authored texts, have found new ways to explore gender dynamics and the social structures that inform normative and non-normative gender identities. Thus, studies of the construction and performance of masculinity in ancient Greece and Rome have emerged in recent years as a ‘‘new’’ field, or perhaps a very old field with a new perspective.
While studies of Greek masculinity, and in particular pederastic relations between males, have been an integral part of scholarly discourse for many years (e. g., Dover 1978; Halperin 1990), the study of Roman manhood is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Those who have tackled the subject have considered a variety of contexts and content; authors have focused on homosexuality as represented in literary and historical texts or performed by individuals, the use of oratory to provide a homosocial forum for male experience, and transformations that male identity undergoes under Christianity, among others (Richlin 1992; Gleason 1995; C. A. Williams 1999; Burrus 2000; Gunderson 2000).
The study of Roman masculinity, irrespective of approach or subdiscipline, begins with the articulation of the Roman values that had to be instilled and nurtured in any Roman man.3 Core values enable the constitution of a uir (man); indeed not only are they the building blocks of manhood, but one proves that he is a uir through the demonstration or performance of these qualities. As Eric Gunderson has observed, uir is appropriately translated not only as ‘‘man’’ but also as ‘‘husband’’ and ‘‘soldier’’ (2000: 7). Thus, not only are marriage and military service intimately tied to male identity, but the word uir itself indicates not merely sex, but also gender, ‘‘a manly man,’’ one who has fully achieved manhood. Ethical terms associated with uir express both moral and corporeal fitness, though these categories for the Romans are interrelated; moral turpitude shows in one’s actions, physical weakness reveals ethical lapses (C. Edwards 1993: 20-2). Thus, a good man (uir bonus) is recognizable by distinctive, positive, traditional attributes that are taken to be normative: he is Catonic, stoic, self-controlled, self-sacrificing, strong, and excelling in manly deeds. Roman male behavior is prescribed by a complex matrix of positive moral qualities, including disciplina (discipline), pietas (dutiful respect), fides (loyalty), continentia (self-restraint), and, of course, uirtus (manly excellence). Although this list provides only a brief survey of an array of terms, the conservatism inherent in these values is obvious.4 Those terms expressing physical soundness likewise conjure an image of immobility; a real uir is fortis (strong), durus (hard), sanus (sound), and integer (whole). The soldier/farmer/statesman model of behavior that Romans held up to each other (and that we often hold up to our students) represents the ideal male - traditional, unchanging, and beyond reproach.
Manhood, then, for the Romans was an achieved state, not one automatically conferred, since men had to prove their virility and might well lose it. Thus, much of Roman literature illuminates the tension between the achievement of manhood and its potential loss (Gleason 1995: 59, 80-1; Gunderson 2000: 96). Ancient texts reveal anxiety about an individual’s fitness as a man, though expression of this concern varies depending on author, genre, and historical period. Livy’s Mucius Scaevola, for example, demonstrates traditional stoic virility dependent upon its performance, whereas the elegiac poets pose as being enslaved to and in perpetual conflict with their mistresses (dominae). Youths and old men in particular struggle to achieve manhood, since both are at a vulnerable time of life, due to their inability to exhibit the potency of the ideal Roman uir (Skinner 2005: 213-14). Consequently, not only proper ethical values are critical to a uir, but also potency - physical, mental, and sexual. For Romans, the performance of masculinity involves a demonstration of hardness, where the term ‘‘hard’’ (durus) obtains both morally and physically. A uir durus demonstrates his hardness both through his presentation of a stoic exterior (a la Scaevola), and by acting as an active, penetrative partner in all his sexual encounters, whether with males or females (C. Edwards 1993: 174; C. A. Williams 1999: 163).5
Those who fail to exhibit the requisite ‘‘hardness’’ are vulnerable to charges of mollitia (softness). Unsurprisingly, softness, an attribute of women, marks men as effeminate and not truly male. The mollis mas (soft male) has failed in his attempt to achieve the status of a ‘‘real’’ man, and this failure is often attributable to sexual failings. Yet, just as virility is performed, so too is mollitia:. references to men who scratch their heads with one finger or walk with a hasty or lively gait depict such individuals as womanly (C. Edwards 1993: 63; Gleason 1990: 392-3). Mollitia denotes a matrix of behaviors and preferences, including gesture, demeanor, and physical prowess. Connotations of sexual passivity, however, are never completely divorced from the notion of softness, which comprises part of a larger nexus of aberrant (to the Romans) behaviors that conflict in a demonstrable way with the male ideal articulated above.
Accusations of mollitia, then, can often be translated as allegations that a man is or behaves as a cinaedus. There is no easy translation for this term; appropriated from the Greek (kinaidos), it indicates a man who prefers to be penetrated in sexual encounters.6 In sexual practice, to be male was to be the active partner (Richlin 1992; Parker 1997). Thus, the cinaedus represents a willful abdication of the role of uir through deliberately engagingin ‘‘softening’’ behavior. In a world in which manhood must be achieved and demonstrated, and in which virility though once claimed can be lost, the cinaedus occupies a distinctly countercultural position. Though vilified for his complete lack of manly virtues,7 he can also be read from the outside as a revolutionary figure who opts out of the system (cf. C. Edwards 1993: 96-7).
If reality matched the paradigm, there might be little more to say about the nature of masculinity in Roman culture, but the perfection of Roman manhood remained as elusive as any other ideal. While true cinaedi may well have existed, accusations of mollitia tend to appear as attempts to injure one’s standing. Cicero himself was criticized by his contemporaries for deporting himself in an effeminate way while speaking (Tac. Dial. 18.5) and Caesar was suspect for wearing his toga loosely belted (Dio Cass. 43.43.1-4).8 These examples demonstrate the instability of masculinity - even a man such as Cicero was vulnerable to allegations that his behavior was insufficiently manly, and one needed to be ever-vigilant in order to preserve one’s integrity. It is more useful to think of cinaedus and uir as end marks on an axis along which men chart a course rather than distinct categories into which one fits.
These examples, however, also illustrate the perceived efficacy of charges of mollitia. Indeed, charges of softness are common expressions of derision for one’s opponents and frequent forms of slander in the public world of Roman life. The Romans (as well as the Greeks) were a public people, and when we speak of the ethical and physical tokens of masculinity, we are in large part describing public behavior and discourse. That is, Romans did nearly everything in the public eye (including activities that we regard as our most private, such as bathing). For these men, accusations of mollitia are not merely components of a public discourse, but the fabric of a competition that is visible to all. Consider, for example, Cicero’s accusation against Marc Antony (Phil. 2.44):
Uisne igitur te inspiciamus a puero? sic opinor; a principio ordiamur. tenesne memoria praetextatum te decoxisse? ‘patris,’ inquies, ‘ista culpa est.’ concedo. etenim est pietatis plena defensio. illud tamen audaciae tuae, quod sedisti in quattuordecim ordinibus, cum esset lege Roscia decoctoribus certus locus constitutus, quamuis quis fortunae uitio, non suo, decoxisset. sumpsisti uirilem, quam statim muliebrem togam reddidisti. primo uulgare scortum, certa flagitii merces, nec ea parua; sed cito Curio interuenit, qui te a meretricio quaestu abduxit et, tamquam stolam dedisset, in matrimonio stabili et certo collocauit.
Therefore do you want us to examine you from boyhood? Yes, I think so; let us begin at the beginning. Do you remember that you went bankrupt as a boy? You will say, ‘‘that is my father’s fault.’’ I agree. Truly your defense is full of piety. Nevertheless, it was typical of your boldness, that you sat in the 14 rows [of the knights], although a specific place was designated by the Roscian law for the bankrupt, even if one had gone bankrupt by fault of fortune, and not of his own. You took up the toga of manhood, which immediately you rendered a toga of womanhood. At first you were a common whore, the price of your disgrace was fixed, and not small. But quickly Curio intervened, who took you away from your whorish pursuits and, just as if he had given you an apron, settled you into a stable and sure marriage.
This charge, which would read as libelous in our own culture, offers Cicero a way to insult and explain simultaneously. His portrayal of Antony as decadent and soft is tied inextricably to what Cicero sees as his moral and political failings. Mollitia is not an excuse, but an analysis: surely a man this degenerate and wrong-headed must desire to engage in the worst of sexual depravities. His status as cinaedus is deftly tied to lack of piety and financial profligacy. A more light-hearted example appears in this epigram by Calvus about Pompey:
Magnus, quem metuunt omnes, digito caput uno scalpit; quid credas hunc sibi uelle? uirum.
(Scholiast on Juv. 9.133)
Magnus, whom everyone fears, scratches his head with one finger. What do you think he wants? A man.
Here the accusation reads less as an ongoing dispute than as a playful jab at a public figure. Yet, as in the previous example, Calvus mocks Pompey for his inferior gender performance, which the public observes and evaluates. Competition is a crucial aspect of the performance of masculinity, for men in Rome always display themselves with the knowledge that they will be judged, evaluated, and critiqued by the populace. It is in this way that that populace assesses the effectiveness of the performance.
For the Romans, then, masculinity is never truly fixed, but a male body must always be dressed with a convincing performance of manhood. The slippage between status as a uir (in its fullest sense) and a soft man means that a man is potentially always renegotiating his gender status. Moreover, those who seek to challenge the definition of what is normative, to separate a performance of masculinity from the male himself, can find numerous cracks in which to insert the lever.
World History
