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Catullus, Caesar and Roman Masculine Identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Ellen Greene
Ellen Greene*
Affiliation:
The University of Oklahoma
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Extract

One of the hallmarks of Latin love poetry is its seemingly oppositional stance toward traditional Roman values. As I and others have recently argued, however, critical approaches that merely focus on a search for oppositional ideology in Roman poetry are not only reductionist but also fail to do justice to the complex literary strategies at work in those texts. As Matthew Santirocco suggests, Augustan literature does not simply reflect a pre-existing ideology but rather participates interactively in its production. It seems to me that mis applies equally well to Catullus. By problematizing the poet's relationship to male public culture, Catullus sets the stage not only for the elegists’ ambivalent stance toward political life, but also for their ambiguous gender identifications.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 40 , 2006 , pp. 49 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2006

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References

1 For discussions of opposition toward Roman ideology in Roman amatory texts, see especially Greene, E., ‘Gender Identity and the Elegiac Hero in Propertius 2.1 ’, Arethusa 33 (2000) 241–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Janan, M., The Politics of Desire. Propertius IV (Berkeley 2001)Google Scholar; Platter, C., ‘Officium in Catullus and Propertius: A Foucauldian Reading’, CPh 90 (1995) 211–24Google Scholar; Miller, P.A. and Platter, C., ‘Introduction’, CW 92 (1999) 403–7Google Scholar; Miller, , ‘Why Propertius is a Woman: French Feminism and Augustan Elegy’, CPh 96 (2001) 127–46Google Scholar.

2 See Boyle, A.J. (ed.), Roman Literature and Ideology: Ramus Essays for J.P. Sullivan (Bendigo Australia 1995)Google Scholar.

3 Santirocco, M., ‘Horace and Augustan Ideology’, Arethusa 28 (1995) 225–43Google Scholar. For discussions of the ambiguous and indeterminate nature of Roman ideology, see Kennedy, D., The Arts of Love (Cambridge 1993)Google Scholar; Habinek, T., The Politics of Latin Literature (Princeton 1998)Google Scholar; Miller and Platter (n. 1).

4 For an analysis of the interaction between public and private discourses in Catullus, see Platter (n. 1).

5 For discussions of Catullus' feminine persona, see especially Greene (n. 1); Skinner, M.B., ‘Ego Mulier: The Construction of Male Sexuality in Catullus’, Helios 20 (1993) 107–30Google Scholar; Wray, D., Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Manhood (Cambridge 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 For a fuller discussion of fragmentation and the erotic self in Catullus, see Greene, , ‘The Catullan Ego: Fragmentation and the Erotic Self, AJPh 116 (1995) 77 Google Scholar.

7 I first wrote this article in 2003 for a conference on Julius Caesar and Roman Ideology at the Villa Vergiliana in Cumae, Italy. I am grateful to Rufus Fears for inviting me to that conference. At that time, however, I was unaware of David Konstan's on-line essay on Catullus' poems of invective concerning Mamurra: ‘Self, Sex, and Empire in Catullus: The Construction of a Decentered Identity’, Diotima (2000). In that essay, Konstan explicitly juxtaposes Canili. 11 and 57, among other poems. Konstan focuses on the associations between sexuality and empire and on the particular subject position Catullus constructs for himself ‘in a world of erotic aggression and imperialism’ (9). I am gratified that my own readings of Canili. 11 and 57 concur, in large measure, with those of Konstan. The focus of my paper, however, is more on the ways the figure of Caesar in Catullus serves as a touchstone for articulating Catullus' own conflicts in regard to constructions of Roman masculinity and Roman imperialist ideology.

8 Quinn, K., Catullus: The Poems (London 1970) 256 Google Scholar.

9 For brief but insightful analyses of Catull. 57, see especially Fitzgerald, W., Catullan Provocations (Berkeley 1995) 84–6Google Scholar, and Williams, C.A., Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (Oxford 1999)207–9Google Scholar.

10 Williams offers a detailed analysis of Roman concepts of effeminacy; see especially 125-80. See also Edwards, C., The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Wray (n. 5).

11 at ne cui dubium omnino sit et impudicitiae et adulteriorum flagrasse infamia, Curio pater quadam eum oratione omnium mulierum virum et omnium virorum mulierem appellat ( Suet, Jul. 52.3 Google Scholar).

12 Suetonius reports that Caesar was ‘quite exacting about the care of his body’. See Suet, . Jul. 45.2 Google Scholar: circa corporis curam morosior, ut non solum londeretur diligenter ac raderetur, sed vellerelur etiam; Aug. 68.1 : item L. Marci frater, quasipudicitiam delibatam a Coesore Aulo etiam Hirtio in Hispania trecentis milibus nummum substraverit solitusque sit crura suburere nuce ardenti, quo mollior pilus surgeret. Apparently, Caesar was known for plucking his body hairs, one of the signifiers of feminine comportment in Roman society. In that context see Williams (n. 9) for discussion of excessive grooming as a signifier of effeminacy in Roman society.

13 See Edwards (n. 10) for an analysis of Roman moralising discourses. Edwards argues that self-control is an inextricable feature of ‘Romanness’ and that mastery over the self was considered essential to being able to participate successfully in public life.

14 See Konstan 2000 (n. 7) for a discussion of invectives concerning Mamurra In regard to poem 115 (the famous ‘Mentula’ poem), Konstan points out that ‘Mamurra is caricatured as a figure of hyperbolic craving, in the first instance for sex, but also, by analogy, for possessions in general’ (3).

15 Konstan (n. 7) 3.

16 Konstan (n. 7) 7.

17 Fitzgerald (n. 9) 85 points out that poem 57 ‘creates an endlessly adaptable pair’ and that Catullus' invective against Caesar and Mamurra focuses on how their private understanding implicitly challenges the ‘power of the collectivity.’

18 Konstan (n. 7) notes that this egalitarianism between Caesar and Mamurra appears to suggest a ‘collapse of the usual dimorphism in homoerotic relations’ (7-8). Thus, Catullus seems to contradict the usual division of roles in Greek and Roman erotics between the active lover and the passive beloved. But Catullus shows in the poems involving Mamurra and/or Caesar that vice and virtue are not dependent on whether one assumes the active or passive position, but rather on one's ability to exercise continentia.

19 Throughout the Catullan corpus we see a number of examples of the male narrator at war with his own desires, most notably in poems 8,51,72, 76, 85.

20 See Janan (n. 1) 41ff. for a discussion of the ways politics and love intersect in Propertius’ poetry. Janan's analysis of love and the political as ‘two sides of the same coin’ can be applied to Catullus as well.

21 Gleason, M., Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton 1995)Google Scholar has argued, persuasively, that the perception of effeminacy in ancient Rome had largely to do with the desire to be penetrated. Thus Gleason points out that the deviance of the cmaedus does not lie in the gender of the sexual object but in the style of his erotic pursuit, that is, in the fact that he prefers the passive, receptive role. See also Edwards (n. 10) 70-4, who maintains that what matters in sexual relationships was whether one takes the active or passive role and that ‘to be active was to be male’. Moreover, Edwards points out that ‘citizen men who enjoyed being penetrated ran the risk of exposing themselves to legal and civic disabilities. ‘ Most importantly, as Edwards argues, ‘to be penetrated was to be aligned with the female, the “other”.’

22 See in particular poems 8,51,72,75,76. When I refer to the speaker's ‘avowed moral failings’ I am pointing to his expression of unhappiness at his inability to overcome his irrational desire for Lesbia, a situation he explicitly refers to as a ‘sickness’ that destroys him personally and adds to the general decay of moral values.

23 See Williams (n. 9) on the origins of the word cinaedus. Williams argues that the word's etymology suggests no direct link with any particular sexual practice. The association of cinaedi and dancers shaking their buttocks, Williams contends, is reinforced by the fact that Greeks referred to a certain bird as cinaedion (butt-shaker). Also, Williams points out that Pliny the Elder refers to a fish called the cinaedus; Williams argues that ‘these animals were obviously notable for the way they moved their hindquarters’ (127).

24 Plaut, . Aul. 422 Google Scholar: ita fustibus sum mollior magis quam ullus cinaedus, Mil. 668: ad saltandum non cinaedus malacus aequest atque ego; Poen. 1317-8: quin adhibuisti dum istaec loquere, tympanum?/nam te cinaeaum esse arbitrar magis quam virum.

25 Williams (n. 9) 175-8.

26 Edwards (n. 10) 79-81 points out that effeminacy was associated with luxuriousness and that the life of luxury, including homosexual practices, was thought to have come from Greece and Asia. The association of decadence (including moral excess) and the East can be seen throughout Greek literature as well.

27 For studies of representations of erotic experience as disease, see especially Carson, A., Eros the Bittersweet (Princeton 1986)Google Scholar, and Cyrino, M., In Pandora's Jar: Lovesickness in Early Greek Poetry (Lanham MD 1995)Google Scholar.

28 Fitzgerald (n. 9) remarks that the notion of the pair produces an image of Caesar and Mamurra as a ‘perverse unit’ (85).

29 See Williams (n. 9) 142-53 for discussions of the stereotype of the ‘effeminate womaniser’. Williams emphasises that the cinaedus is not defined by the gender of his sexual object but by his excessive, lascivious character.

30 Konstan (n. 7) 8.

31 On Canill. 11, see especially: Blodgett, E.D. and Nielsen, R., ‘Mask and Figure in Catullus, Carmen 11’, Revue Beige de Philologie et Histoire 64 (1986) 22–31 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bright, D., ‘Non Bona Dicta: Catullus' Poetry of Separation’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 21 (1976) 105–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Forsyth, P., “Thematic Unity of Catullus 11’, CW 84 (1991) 457–64Google Scholar; Fredricksmeyer, E., ‘The Beginning and End of Catullus' Longus Amor’, Symbolae Osloenses 58 (1983) 63–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Method and Interpretation: Catullus 11’, Helios 20 (1993) 89-105; Greene, , ‘Catullus Translating Sappho’, Arethusa 32 (1999) 1–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Janan, , “When the Lamp is Shattered”: Desire and Narrative in Catullus (Carbondale IL 1994)Google Scholar; Kinsey, T.E., ‘Catullus 11’, Latomus 24 (1965) 537–44Google Scholar; McKie, D., ‘The Horrible and Ultimate Britons: Catullus 11’, PCPS 210 (1984) 74–8Google Scholar; Mulroy, D., ‘An Interpreation of Catullus 11’, CW 71 (1977) 82–93 Google Scholar; Putnam, M., ‘Catullus 11: The Ironies of Integrity’, in Essays on Latin Lyric, Elegy and Epic (Princeton 1982) 13–29 Google Scholar; Richardson, L., ‘Furi et Aureli, Comites Catulli’, CPh 58 (1963) 93–106 Google Scholar; Scott, R T., ‘On Catullus 11’, CPh 78 (1983) 39–42 Google Scholar; Sweet, D., ‘Catullus 11: A Study in Perspective’, Latomus 46 (1987) 510–26Google Scholar; Yardley, J., ‘Catullus 11: The End of a Friendship’, Symbolae Osloenses 56 (1978) 63–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 For an interpretation of the images in the catalogue as erotic, see Putnam (n. 31) IS; Kinsey (n. 31) 540-1; Sweet (n. 31) 520; Yardley (n. 31) 143.

33 See the discussion in Greene (n. 31) of the play between ottum and negotium in poem S1.

34 See especially poems 8, 72 and 76.

35 Edwards (n. 10) 26 points out that ‘those who could not govern themselves, whose desires were uncontrollable, were thought to be unfit to rule the state.’

36 Konstan (n. 7) 10.

37 Ancona, R., “The Untouched Self: Sappho and Catullan Muses in Horace, Odes 1.22’, in Spentzou, E. and Fowler, D. (eds), Cultivating the Muse: Struggles for Power and Inspiration in Classical Literature (Oxford 2002) 161–86Google Scholar.

38 See Konstan (n. 7) 11 for a discussion of an alternative vision of love expressed in poem 11.

39 Stigers, E.S., ‘Retreat from the Male: Catullus 62 and Sappho's Erotic Flowers’, Ramus 6 (1977) 83–102 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Snyder, J.M., Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho (Columbia 1997)Google Scholar.

40 We can only guess what the context for this poem might have been. Scholars have speculated, based on Sappho's other fragments, that the flower represents a young girl whose beauty and innocence have been destroyed through the loss of her virginity.

41 See Snyder (n. 39) 104-6 for a discussion of Catullus' flower image in poem 11.

42 See Snyder (n. 39) 18-9, 58-9 for discussions of how Sappho ‘constructs a private world of intimate physical intimacy’, especially in frag. 2.

43 duBois, Both P., Sappho is Burning (Chicago 1995)Google Scholar and Snyder (n. 39) suggest that the image of the hyacinth in Sappho's fragment does not ultimately point to its utter destruction. duBois asserts: “The destruction of the mountain flower at the feet of the herdsmen is accomplished even as the integrity of the hyacinth is reinvoked’ (45). Similarly, Snyder argues that ‘it is just possible that the image of the hyacinth … performed in some way the role of celebrating a woman's beauty’ (105).

44 Thus duBois (n. 43) 10: “The observers, the witnesses, the beholders of the world have been both male and female, but only the male spectators, the theoroi, have been official ambassadors, named to see. They have seen, spoken, and written their desire.’

45 Konstan(n.7)11.

46 Janan(n. 31)164.

47 I want to thank the anonymous referee for recommending a more nuanced discussion of the masculine and feminine sides of the Catullan persona. I also want to thank Marguerite Johnson for her very helpful comments and suggestions.