From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion by Ariadne Staples Page A
Authors: Ariadne Staples
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collective political action was not peculiar to Cato. Roman myth abounds in similar tales and there are plenty of examples from historical times, as Valerius points out in reply to Cato. Through Cato and Valerius Livy was expressing a common theme in Roman attitudes towards women. Matronae were a double source of anxiety; they were a threat to husbands as well as to the old established — male dominated — traditions of the state.
But though the threat from matronae was political, it was expressed in terms of women ’ s sexuality and by means of sexual innuendo.
Give loose rein to their uncontrollable nature and to this untamed creature (indomitio animali) and expect that they will themselves set bounds to their licence (licentia) … it is com- plete liberty, or rather if you wish to speak the truth, complete licence that they desire.
( ibid., 2.13 – 14)
Whatever the nature of the threat from women, whether it was directed at individual husbands or the hallowed institutions of the state itself, whether it came from individual women or from orga- nized groups of them, it was always seen to stem from their sexual- ity. Women were seen, moreover, as being incapable of curbing their dangerously wild natures on their own initiative. If men were to avoid the consequences of untamed female sexuality, they had to do the taming themselves, ideally domestically where each man kept strict control over his own wife, or if that failed, by law. The conse- quences of failing to control women would be social and political turmoil. 9
Cato ’ s diatribe, like Juvenal ’ s, was not all unrelieved gloom. Here too we can discern an ambivalence towards women. Cato also admits the existence of the virtuous woman, but like Juvenal puts her out of contemporary reach. Female virtue existed in the old days because those grand old Romans — maiores nostri — knew how to control their women. Subsequent wealth and ease had caused the degeneration of both men and women. This state of affairs was deplorable in men but dangerous in women. Thus, although my examples were taken from two very different literary genres, with very different social agendas, the rhetoric of misogyny is quite simi-
lar. More particularly the ambivalence in the attitude towards women was expressed by Cato in a manner very much like that of the sixth satire. It is arguable that both Livy and Juvenal drew on a wider tradition of misogynistic discourse that obtained in Roman society.
Livy however went further than Juvenal. He shifted the focus of male ambivalence towards women from the past onto the present. Valerius replying to Cato ’ s warning is made to use examples from the past to redeem contemporary women. The phenomenon of matronae organizing themselves to act in ways which had political repercussions was not unprecedented in the history of Rome. Valerius cites four examples: the Sabine women; the women led by the mother of Coriolanus who went to him in a body and persuaded him to withdraw his Volscian army and desist from a threatened attack on Rome; the women who ransomed the city from the Gauls with their own jewellery; and the women who in a body escorted the image of Cybele into Rome. These were all actions taken by women in times of the gravest national crises and each time the outcome had preserved and strengthened the state. But their importance in this particular debate was to give immediacy to the ambivalence that Cato would have relegated to the past. Forcing the comparison between women from the semi-mythical past and those lobbying for the repeal of the Oppian law effectively mitigated the force of the misogynistic attack and blurred the stark outlines of the female threat as Cato had laid it out.
WIFE AND PROSTITUTE IN MYTH
A similar ambivalence informs the stories which constituted Rome ’ s self-representation, and in which women featured in important ways. In this section I shall examine the myths of Romulus ’ birth, the Sabine women and
But though the threat from matronae was political, it was expressed in terms of women ’ s sexuality and by means of sexual innuendo.
Give loose rein to their uncontrollable nature and to this untamed creature (indomitio animali) and expect that they will themselves set bounds to their licence (licentia) … it is com- plete liberty, or rather if you wish to speak the truth, complete licence that they desire.
( ibid., 2.13 – 14)
Whatever the nature of the threat from women, whether it was directed at individual husbands or the hallowed institutions of the state itself, whether it came from individual women or from orga- nized groups of them, it was always seen to stem from their sexual- ity. Women were seen, moreover, as being incapable of curbing their dangerously wild natures on their own initiative. If men were to avoid the consequences of untamed female sexuality, they had to do the taming themselves, ideally domestically where each man kept strict control over his own wife, or if that failed, by law. The conse- quences of failing to control women would be social and political turmoil. 9
Cato ’ s diatribe, like Juvenal ’ s, was not all unrelieved gloom. Here too we can discern an ambivalence towards women. Cato also admits the existence of the virtuous woman, but like Juvenal puts her out of contemporary reach. Female virtue existed in the old days because those grand old Romans — maiores nostri — knew how to control their women. Subsequent wealth and ease had caused the degeneration of both men and women. This state of affairs was deplorable in men but dangerous in women. Thus, although my examples were taken from two very different literary genres, with very different social agendas, the rhetoric of misogyny is quite simi-
lar. More particularly the ambivalence in the attitude towards women was expressed by Cato in a manner very much like that of the sixth satire. It is arguable that both Livy and Juvenal drew on a wider tradition of misogynistic discourse that obtained in Roman society.
Livy however went further than Juvenal. He shifted the focus of male ambivalence towards women from the past onto the present. Valerius replying to Cato ’ s warning is made to use examples from the past to redeem contemporary women. The phenomenon of matronae organizing themselves to act in ways which had political repercussions was not unprecedented in the history of Rome. Valerius cites four examples: the Sabine women; the women led by the mother of Coriolanus who went to him in a body and persuaded him to withdraw his Volscian army and desist from a threatened attack on Rome; the women who ransomed the city from the Gauls with their own jewellery; and the women who in a body escorted the image of Cybele into Rome. These were all actions taken by women in times of the gravest national crises and each time the outcome had preserved and strengthened the state. But their importance in this particular debate was to give immediacy to the ambivalence that Cato would have relegated to the past. Forcing the comparison between women from the semi-mythical past and those lobbying for the repeal of the Oppian law effectively mitigated the force of the misogynistic attack and blurred the stark outlines of the female threat as Cato had laid it out.
WIFE AND PROSTITUTE IN MYTH
A similar ambivalence informs the stories which constituted Rome ’ s self-representation, and in which women featured in important ways. In this section I shall examine the myths of Romulus ’ birth, the Sabine women and
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