1The Roman vir
I begin with two historical vignettes, far apart in time and, at first glance, subject matter. In 68 CE the Roman Empire was in a precarious position. The West went up in rebellion against Nero, led by C. Julius Vindex and the man who would become emperor, Servius Sulpicius Galba. After some initial success, a series of setbacks threatened the coup. Vindex committed suicide in May after the loss at Vesontio, and a despondent Galba retreated to Clunia in Spain to consider his next moves. His spirits revived when his favorite male concubine, Icelus, arrived to deliver the report that Nero had committed suicide and that the army, Senate, and populus had declared him, Galba, emperor. Galba greeted the good news by kissing Icelus and instructing him that without delay he was to depilate his thighs. The future emperor then led his freedman away and sexually penetrated him in celebration of his immanent assumption of rule. Finally, discarding his civilian toga and dressed in military regalia, he set out for Rome to claim the throne and the title of Caesar, a dagger hanging menacingly around his neck.1
That Galba celebrated the news that he was soon to become the most powerful man in the world by sexually penetrating his freedman illustrates the close connection in ancient Rome between sex and politics. It also underscores the importance of domination and power in descriptions of elite male life, both on the battlefield and in the bedroom, in truth, throughout social life. As Amy Richlin evocatively comments on the ubiquity of imagery promoting the virâs domination of others, âThe Roman projection of Rome as a male fucking the rest of the world ⌠is probably intrinsic to Roman cultural identity.â2 It would seem that for a Roman man to wield power of all kinds over others was a crucial requirement for qualifying as a vir.
The second passage is the famous third-century BCE description of the âGood Companionâ by the Calabrian Italian poet Ennius, who describes a relationship between the senator Servilius and the poemâs namesake, perhaps Ennius himself:
Saying this, he [i.e., Servilius] calls upon a man with whom he often at his pleasure shares his table and conversation as well as his counsel on his private affairs, exhausted from having spent the greater part of his day conducting great affairs of state in the broad forum and the hallowed Senate; he spoke freely to this man on matters great and small, as well as telling jokes, but also blurting out things good and bad to say, if he wished, and storing them safely; with this man there was much pleasure ⌠joys private and public; his character no fleeting evil thought can persuade to do an evil deed; a learned, faithful, and pleasant man, delightful, content in himself, happy, clever, saying the right thing at the right time, affable, a man of few words, knowing many old things which the passage of time has buried, customs old and new, and laws of many ancient gods and men, knowing when to speak and when to keep silent on things said; this man, in between battles, Servilius addressedâŚ3
Politics and power are certainly not absent from Enniusâ poem; indeed, they are the focus of the two menâs conversations. But in sharp contrast to Suetoniusâ Galba, exploitation of others is not an all-encompassing metaphor for the male public role. For the âGood Companion,â the essence of the vir is not captured by sexual or military domination, but by intimate friendship in the midst of political life. This is unmistakably a description of comradery and cooperation with a peer.
The values at play differ markedly, but both passages are representatively Roman descriptions of the behavior and characteristics associated with âbeing a manâ in ancient Rome. But I will argue in this chapter that modern scholars of Roman manliness in politics have overemphasized the values of the first vignette, and have overlooked equally compelling features of the second. Current scholarly consensus considers Roman manhood to have revolved almost completely around the exercise of power over various societal âOthers,â for example, slaves, freedmen, legal minors, foreigners, and women. If these scholars are correct, then Roman ideas about potestas (âpowerâ), vis (âforceâ), and imperium (the right to command an army), and how a man ought to use them, are critical to our project.
This chapter approaches the question by analyzing the ancient language of Roman manliness in order to identify the characteristics of male self-fashioning which the Romans themselves prized as most important. There is often a disconnect between the ideal man in the ancient literature and the one we summon in our own modern imagination. The differences between the two recall Quentin Skinnerâs idea of âprolepsis,â which occurs âwhen the historian is more interestedâas he [or she] may legitimately beâin the retrospective significance of a given historical work or action than in its meaning for the agent himself.â4 We may have therefore overlooked compelling aspects of manhood which the ancients themselves would not have failed to stress.
As Anthony Fletcher writes about the study of masculinity in the middle ages, âWhat happens if we start with the medieval language of manhood, and then consider how this fits in with modern ideas of masculinity, rather than taking modern social theory as the starting point of our inquiry?â5 I aim to do the same with the ancient Roman language of manhood. The discussion here is largely synchronic and deals with how ancient authors described ideals of manly conduct, and not necessary how individual men put these ideals into action. Additionally, many components of masculinity shifted over the several centuries which this book addresses. I leave closer inspection of these important details to later chapters.
Power, aggression, and dominance
Did access to power help shape the Romansâ sense of manhood? Did being a âreal manâ depend on domination or aggression? ...
