A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity

Jerry Toner

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781350077843
• eBook ISBN: 9781474233040
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

The ancient world used the senses to express an enormous range of cultural meanings. Indeed the senses were functionally significant in all aspects of ancient life, often in ways that were complex and interconnected. Antiquity was also a period where the senses were experienced vividly: cities stank, statues were brightly painted and literature made full use of sensory imagery to create its effects. In a steeply hierarchical world, with vast differences between the landed wealthy, the poor and the slaves, the senses played a key role in establishing and maintaining boundaries between social groups; but the use of the senses in the ancient world was not static. New religions, such as Christianity, developed their own way of using the senses, acquiring unique forms of sensory-related symbolism in processes which were slow and often contested. The aim of this volume is to provide an overview of these structures and developments and to show how their study can yield a more nuanced understanding of the ancient world.

A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity presents essays on the following topics: the social life of the senses; urban sensations; the senses in the marketplace; the senses in religion; the senses in philosophy and science; medicine and the senses; the senses in literature; art and the senses; and sensory media.

CHAPTER ONE

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The Social Life of the
Senses: Feasts and
Funerals

DAVID POTTER

INTRODUCTION

In the winter of 290/91 CE Diocletian Augustus met his colleague Maximian Augustus at Milan. There was a ceremonial entry into the city, on a day when one important sensory experience for all involved must have been chill. Few in the vast crowd that assembled to see what no one had seen in years—the two rulers of the world in one place at one time—heard either of the emperors speak. At times, and at a distance, they could see them speaking to each other in a friendly way, but they were not privy to the conversations. Some people, if they had been close enough to the parade, might have smelt the torches that would have been carried, even in broad daylight, before their rulers. They would have seen the soldiers—maybe there were cavalry units bearing the dragon banner adapted from the Persians which hissed in the wind—heard the tramp of their feet, the martial music with which they marched through the city. They would have seen images of imperial victories on the far-flung frontiers of the empire, images of northern barbarians bowing before Maximian and the submission of Persia’s king to Diocletian. They had seen the splendid clothes the emperors wore. The emperors held still, like their images with which people were familiar, as they entered the city, looking neither left nor right, though possibly ducking as they entered the city gates to symbolize their physical superiority (perhaps though this was only a trope developed for a notably short emperor on his visit to Rome some sixty years later). But the great mass of people were not invited to pass into the imperial audience hall, they were not invited to dinner, so they would not taste the food prepared for the emperors themselves. If there was a banquet offered for the crowd—we are not told there was one—they might have scented its preparation and tasted of the emperor’s largess that way, but it would not have been the emperor’s food, consumed with those privileged few who were permitted into his direct presence. To share the emperor’s food, to hear him speak, to touch his very clothes, those were things that only the members of the imperial entourage or the leaders of the community could hope to do. Distinctions of sensory experience shaped the sense of class, privilege of rank, and worth that day. The average person was simply not good enough to hear the emperor’s voice, touch his clothes, eat his food, smell his perfume, or see him in an intimate setting.¹

Sensory control mattered for imperial ceremonial, but do we also see in these moments a more general commentary on the senses? Power may have been expressed by sensory deprivation, but was that deprivation determined by some ranking of senses from greater to lesser—some would now argue that the modern world has elevated sight and sound above touching, tasting and smelling (see Smith 2007: 1–18). If the importance of a sense was related to the emperor’s ability to restrict someone’s access to him through that sense, such a scheme would have left sight at the bottom, for that was the one of the five senses most open to the masses. If you were really important you could hear the emperor’s voice, share his food, possibly even smell his perfume, and touch his clothing—and be seen to do so. You had to be very important to touch the emperor.

Even if touch achieved a somewhat more important role in Diocletianic spectacle, the strongest impression that emerges from the description of imperial arrival (adventus) ceremonies is that it was the mixture of senses that mattered most of all. Such a view would be very much in tune with views expressed by various writers on the senses, though not by all. In reviewing discussions of the senses to gain an impression of what might have been expected to be a good or bad sensual experience, it is plain that we are exploring the parameters within which a discussion was held, possible terms that might be used rather than uncovering hard and fast rules, even amongst those who could agree on (or care about) general theories of perception. Those theories of perception begin to emerge into our view during the late fifth and early fourth centuries BCE in the work of Plato and Aristotle. People who moved in Aristotle’s circle, for instance, might agree with his association of a “proper sensible” with each sense—“resisting the hand” (hardness) for touch, savors for taste, sound for hearing, odors for smell, and light for sight (Harvey 2006: 104; see also [Simplicius] On Aristotle’s On the Soul 2.5–12 159 and see Huby and Steele 1997: 196). Both Plato and Aristotle did also try to rank the senses, Plato making sight the most important, while Aristotle claimed that touch and taste were of lesser significance in that all animals made use of them (Harvey 2006: 101–3). Not everyone would agree. Cicero, for instance, seemingly reflects a tradition, also evident many centuries later in the work of Augustine, in which the senses were on a par (Cic. Or. 3.99; Aug. Mus. 38). In general terms theories of sense perception were essentially tactile—one perceived something because one encountered its sensible manifestation. Even diametrically opposed systems of thought—e.g. Stoic and Epicurean—could agree on this point, though for the Stoic the mind processed impressions of things the sense organs encountered, while for Epicureans sense organs did the processing on their own.

When it came to evaluating touch, the discussion tended to be framed by concepts derived from both religion and philosophy (Ar. De anima 2.6.418a 11–14; Ptolemy Optics 2.13, tr. Smith). In the one case there was the basic dichotomy between pure and impure, both of which tended to be defined by physical contact or lack of same. The other was connected with Empedocles’ theory of earth, wind, water, and fire as the four elements of being. Aristotle and Theophrastus, for instance, argued that the organs for sense other than touch consisted of air and water (Huby and Steele (trs.) Priscian on Theophrastus 29). That being the case Aristotle located the sense of touch in the flesh, which he felt to be composed of earth. That was why he was tempted to assert that touch wasn’t a “primary” sense organ, “even if we sense immediately on contact with it.” ([Simplicius] On Aristotle’s On the Soul 2.5–12 162; 161; see Huby and Steele 1997: 202, 199).

The situation with touch was a bit more nuanced outside the school of Aristotle, especially in discussions associated with concepts of impurity and cleanliness. In Latin the primary meaning of sacro was to “set something aside” for the service of a god, while the verb polluo implies a physical act of making something impure. To be sacer was either (in its most basic meaning) to be consecrated to a god, or to have forfeited everything to a god through a criminal act; to be sacrosanctus was to be untouchable (a good thing in this case).² To make something consacratus was to set something aside for the use of a divinity; a fanum was property that was consecrated; something profanes was, in its mildest sense, to be unused in a religious setting, or, more harshly, to be unclean; to be purus was to be free from dirt, contamination or admixture; to be impurus was to be physically dirty or engaged in sex (OLD s.v. consacratus; fanum; purus; impurus). One could turn a perfectly innocent statement into something quite offensive, as Cicero points out, depending on how fast one spoke, so that an audience might hear illam dicam (no doubt with a gesture at the person in question) as landicam (Cic. Fam. 9.22.2 with Douglas 1996: 3). In the Greek world one was not supposed to offer sacrifice unless one was hagnos, or pure, a view related to the notion that while divine bodies were pure, human bodies were not. Just how one could become hagnos varied from place to place, but in general terms, one who had been in contact with a corpse or been having sex ought to stay away from the gods—at Metropolis in Ionia, a man could be hagnos twelve days after the death of a family member, two days after sex with his wife, and three days after sex with a prostitute. At Maionia, the intervals were five days after the death of a relative, three days after the death of another, the same day, if properly cleansed (in public) after sex with one’s spouse, three days (again with public washing) after sex with a prostitute. At Olympia, sex in the sanctuary was strictly prohibited (LSAM 29 (Metropolis); LSAM 19 (Maionia); Minon (2007) n. 4 (Olympia) with Vernant 1991: 49; Parker 1983: 144–50; Potter 2003: 408–9). The regulations of the Yahwist cult that emerge from Deuteronomy and Leviticus make it plain that priests are not meant to come into contact with death, that bodily secretion disqualified one from approaching the divine and even from remaining in the army camp at night—as the army was God’s army one could not defile the ground upon which it resided.³ In this case though the distinction was not so much clean and unclean as things lacking blemish because they are “whole,” and actions that detract from “wholeness.” Still the crucial point is that these are distinctions arising from physical actions.

Hearing and seeing appear often to have been considered as a pair, both conducive of pleasure and central to understanding of mimesis. In the Hippias Major, Plato’s Socrates compares the pleasure obtained through the observation of fine decorations and artworks with that of hearing fine sounds, music, pleasing speech, and stories (Plat. Hipp. Maior. 298a; Rep. 601a–b; 603 b–c), while in the Republic he deals with the problem that while a good artist can produce images that look like things that are real, they are not, they deceive people who judge things by their colors and shapes. Whereas Plato is suspicious of the power of imitation, others applaud it. In the third century CE (probably), Aristides Quintilianus asserted that the virtue of musical performance excited the emotions through both melody and actors’ gestures—though he also notes that people’s emotions might be aroused differently according to age and gender—children sing through pleasure, women in grief, and old men through divine possession. Such was the power of music that people needed to make sure they used it in the right way, with properly authorized melodies, rhythms, and dances (Aristid. Quint. 4–6). If one looked at things the wrong way or at the wrong things, one could become perverted, as was Hostius Quadra, the infamous libertine of the Augustan age who had himself surrounded by mirrors so he could watch himself having sex. Seneca noted that Augustus felt that his slaves should not be punished for murdering him (Sen. Quest. Nat. 1.16). This warning tracked Lucretius’ observation that desire could pervert vision by influencing a person to see beauty where there was none, even though this might have reflected his personal understanding of pleasure—he also equated orgasm with death and compared it with a battle wound. Such talk resonated with concern that what one could perceive was perceived correctly (Lucr. 4.1155).

One test for correct perception was symmetry. Plotinus noted that we perceive beauty through what we see and what we hear; what we understand to be beautiful is that which is symmetrical and appropriate, hence the linkage between sight and sound that are judged by the same measure (Plot. En. 1.6). Much earlier, Cicero had suggested that correct perception arose from nature—the painter did not have an actual image of Minerva in front of him when he painted the divinity, rather an image of what was beautiful. So too with speech—a person had an innate ability to perceive the rhythmic principles that gave pleasure (Orator 2.7–9; 53.178; 55.183–4). Eyes, he would write, would judge the beauty and order of colors and shapes as well as moral qualities, agreeing with Plato that the sight of beauty could inspire an aspiration for virtue, while the ears judge the variety of tones and intervals, the qualities of instruments and voices, evidently according to a common scale (De Nat. Deor. 2.57.145–6; De off. 1.4.14 quoting Plat. Phaed. 250d). In this, his view was similar to Philodemus who noted that with hearing all people had the same capacity to grasp the same tunes and experience similar pleasures, even though with other senses people might differ in their perceptions according to their predispositions (Mus. 115.44).

Perception was connected with the way sight was understood. Although some, Epicureans for instance, might adopt an intromissionist understanding of vision (one perceived emanations of atoms), most mature thinking on the subject asserted an extramissionist model of vision (Lehoux 2012: 106–32; Smith 1996: 21–35, 49–55). One’s perception of an object depended on the ability of reasoning faculties to interpret the stimuli, since perception depended upon the interaction of color, light, and “visual rays” (Ptolemy Optics 2.16–17). Sight thus contained a subjective element, with misperceptions arising both from the processes of seeing and of perceiving—visual power accounted for why some people could see better than others, while perception depended upon the ability to perceive what one was seeing. For instance, in viewing a horse-drawn chariot one does not perceive that the wheels are moving at a different speed to the horses because one does not perceive the constituent parts of motion as being separate (Ptolemy Optics 2.142; see also Lehoux 2012: 126).

In more practical terms, vision appears to have been the sense most closely associated with understanding power on the human plane. This is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in the theater, where the stratified society of a city met to enjoy the illusions of the stage. Front seats were best in the Greek world and women were excluded from male entertainments, both athletic and dramatic (street theater and mime were another matter and in the Roman period female performers became significant). Still the basic sense was that one saw society the way it should be. The point was made even more strongly in Roman contexts, where first the leges theatrales and then laws governing seating at the circus as well as in the amphitheater defined the social order, though in this case one in which women and slaves could be admitted (albeit most often in the cheap seats).⁴ It was sight that also allowed people to experience different places—hence the importance of painting, both at triumphs and on other occasions where imperial virtues were illustrated, often coded with complex meanings (for instance, depictions of barbarian villages without the massacre of their inhabitants symbolized integration within the Roman system, while depictions of atrocities represented no interest in finding new Romans; Dillon 2006). No visual spectacle was ever so powerful as that enacted, wordlessly, by Diocletian, when, on May 1, 305 CE, he removed the purple cloak from his shoulders on the very platform outside Nicomedia where once he had been proclaimed emperor to announce what he hoped to be the dawn of a new era of order in his empire (Lact. DMP 19).

Roman imperial art and Diocletianic visual spectacle were relatively straightforward when compared to some spectacles of earlier ages, especially those that had evolved in the context of the Ptolemaic court that aimed to create a nearly divine atmosphere on earth. The grand procession of Ptolemy II, with its intermixing of divine statues and humans clad as if they were mythological characters was intended to blur the line between the kings and the gods. So it was that a four-wheeled cart, drawn by 180 men carried a 15-foot statue of Dionysus pouring a libation followed by a procession that included two massive Delphic tripods, the priest of Dionysus, the guild of artisans, and “satyrs, having golden cro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Series Preface
• Editor’s Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Sensing the Ancient Past
• 1 The Social Life of the Senses: Feasts and Funerals
• 2 Urban Sensations: Opulence and Ordure
• 3 The Senses in the Marketplace: The Luxury Market and Eastern Trade in Imperial Rome
• 4 The Senses in Religion: Piety, Critique, Competition
• 5 The Senses in Philosophy and Science: Five Conceptions from Heraclitus to Plato
• 6 Medicine and the Senses: Humors, Potions, and Spells
• 7 The Senses in Literature: Falling in Love in an Ancient Greek Novel
• 8 Art and the Senses: The Artistry of Bodies, Stages, and Cities in the Greco-Roman World
• 9 Sensory Media: Representation, Communication, and Performance in Ancient Literature
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Notes on Contributors
• Index
• Copyright