Eunuchs and Other Men-Kuefler

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Eunucht and Other Ment
The Crisis and Transformation of
Masculinity in the Later Roman West
A Dissertation
presented to the Faculty of the Graduate school
of
Tale University
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Mathew Stephen Kuefler
Dissertation Director: Thomas Bead
December 1995
UMI Number: 9613978
Copyright 1995 by
Kuefler, Mathew Stephen
All rights reserved.
UMI Microform 9613978

Copyright 1996, by UMI Company. All rights reserved.
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Abstract
£unucAs and other Mem
Mathew Stephen Kuefler
1995
Masculinity experienced a crisis and a transformation in later Roman
antiquity. In the period from the beginning of the third century C. E.
to the middle of the fifth century, social forces threatened men's image
of themselves. The crisis disrupted the established categories of
masculine and feminine and the parallel separation of men into manly and
unmanly parts, which were both based on notions of virtue and vice. The
crisis affected men's public lives; the collapse of the defences of the
empire challenged men's military identity, and the autocracy of late
imperial rule and the removal of the upper classes from political
domination challenged the ideals of masculine public authority. The
crisis also affected men's private lives: the decline of the system of
patria potestas in later Roman law and the problematization of men's
sexual behavior both placed new restrictions on men's actions. The
presence of eunuchs in large numbers in the vest in late antiquity
highlighted the crisis of masculinity. As men who were no longer men,
they symbolized the threatened male identity precisely in the areas of
public and private life which were in crisis. The crisis of masculinity
provides a context for the conversion of Roman men to Christianity.
Christianity offered men a new identity and the possibility of
transformation. Christians had inherited very different traditions of
sexual difference and of men's identity, traditions which they used to
transform masculinity in late antiquity. In public life, Christian
writers rejected the importance of physical battles, emphasizing in
their place the courage of martyrs and the fight against sin. They also
rejected the political importance of the state and found new authority
in ecclesiastical office, in private life, Christian writers focused on
the heroism of sexual and familial renunciation, and discounted marriage
while at the same time continuing male authority within it. The eunuch
figured prominently in Christian writings, both as a negative symbol of
pagan decadence but also as a positive symbol of the Christian
renunciation of traditional notions of manliness, and monks represented
a manly type of eunuch. The new masculinity which evolved in the later
Roman west successfully met the crisis.
0 1995 by Mathew Stephen Kuefler
All rights reserved.
Eunuchs and Other Men:
Table of Contents
Page
Dedication v
Thanks vi
List of Abbreviations Used ix
Introduction: The Study of Masculinity in the Western

Mediterranean in Late Antiquity 1
Part One: Crisis

Chapter 1: Who is sufficiently a man?
Traditions of Masculinity and Effeminacy
in the Later Roman Empire 27
Chapter 2: Men receive a wound, and submit to a defeat:
The crisis of Men's Public Lives
1. Their loss is disgraceful:

Declining Militarism
and the Elite Roman Male 57
2. My concern was for luxury:

The Political Elites
of the Later Roman Empire 87
Chapter 3: Nor should any man's rights be taken from him:

The crisis of Men's Private Lives
1. Husbands also shall be admonished:

The Decline of Patria Potestas
2. A purity which he does

not show himself:
Sexuality and the Elite Roman Male 133
Appendix to Chapter 3: Rape 171
ii
Page
Chapter 4: You whom the male sex has discarded:

Eunuchs in the Later Roman Empire
and Male Anxiety 173
1. A third type of humanity:
Eunuchs as an Intermediate sex 174
2. Be used him in every way like a wife:
Eunuchs in Family Life
and Domestic Sexuality 184
3. What in a man is honorable
is disgraceful in an emasculate:
Eunuchs in the Military
and Public Administration 200
Part Two: Transformation
Chapter 5: The manliness of faith:

Christians and Masculinity 214
1. Virtue always as
his companion and ally:
The Christian Transformation of Pirtus 215
2. And suddenly I was a man:
Masculinity and the Question
of Christian Androgyny 222
3. Nothing effeminate attains to praise:

The Christian Critique of Onmanliness 237
4. The disgrace with which he was laden:
The Christian critique
of Roman Paganism 253
Chapter G: When the exterior becomes like the interior:
Christian Masculinity and the
Transformation of Men's Public Lives 271
1. Meek in the face of
injuries and insults:
Patience and Pacifism 272
2. We conquer in dying:
Militarism and Martyrdom 285
3. Your weapons are fasts,
your battle is humility:
The interior Battle against sin 297
iii
Page
4. All that is reckoned noble is empty:

The Christian Flight from the World 311
5. I made you emperor:
Christians and the
Authority of the State 319
6. We who are weak little men:
Obedience, Humility,
and Christian Submission 334
Chapter 7: Who is so much a master of a
servant as he was of his body:
Christian Masculinity and the
Transformation of Men’s Public Lives 363
1. To bring under subjection
the members of the body:
Christian Sexual Transgression 364
2. The spirit, like a charioteer,
curbs the Impetus of the flesh:
The Heroism of Sexual Renunciation 374
3. The love of a woman
effeminates a man’s spirit:
The Renunciation of Marriage 390
4. A kind of alienation from dear ones:
The Renunciation of Family Life 399
5. Unchaste perversity
in the name of religion:
The Place of Sex and Marriage
in Polemic against Heretics 413
6. A friendly and genuine union of

one ruling and the other obeying:
The Value of Marriage and Family Life 423
Appendix to Chapter 7: Spiritual Marriage

and Equality between Husband and Wife 444
Chapter 8: Altars raised to a eunuch god:

Eunuchs, Gender, and Religious Anxiety 449
1. What sort of monstrous and

unnatural thing is all this?:
The Christian Response
to Pagan castration 450
iv
Page
2. Practices with which they

dishonor their own bodies:
Biblical Traditions on Castration 463
3. Some who look upon it as a holy deed:
Christian Traditions on castration 474
4. Necessity nakes another a eunuch,
ny own choice makes ne sot
Monks as Manly Eunuchs 489
Conclusion: The New Masculinity 503
Appendix: The Roman Emperors of Late Antiquity 508
Bibliography of Primary Sources 513
Bibliography of Secondary Sources 522
Dedication
To Robert Martel,
a great and close friend
who has taught me more than anyone else
what it means to be a man.
Thanks
I owe so many thanks to so many individuals. First of all, I am
grateful for the continuing love and support of my family and friends,
especially that of my mother and sisters, who have been both. A large
part of my inspiration for this study, as well as the particular idea of
studying eunuchs, came from John Boswell and his scholarship, and it
will always be a regret that I did not know him earlier and have a
greater opportunity to benefit further from his friendship and learning.
I am very fortunate in having found such a kind and diligent successor
for my advisor in Thomas Head, whose efforts on my behalf have been
without parallel, and so to him also go many thanks.
Many other scholars gave me pieces of advice and criticism on this
project in correspondence or in personal conversations, making
suggestions on the proposal itself, reading and commenting upon
chapters, or discussing sections of the dissertation. First of all,
thanks go to my readers: Robert Babcock and Jaroslav Pelikan. Thanks
are also due to: Henry Abelove, Caroline Bynum, Elizabeth A. Clark, Joy
Dixon, Chris Friedrichs, Rowan Greer, Bentley Layton, Sarah Lipton, Jo
Ann McNamara, Mark Micale, David Niremberg, Joyce Salisbury, Michele
Salzman, Harold Scheffler, Carola Small, Heinrich von Staden, Craig
Williams. Special thanks are owed to my colleagues and friends in
vii
graduate studies at Yale for their encouragement and expertise: Jeffrey
Bowman, Mario Erasmo, R. Jeffrey Fisher, Carlos Galvad-Sobrinho, Candace
Gregory, Sharon Koren, Rebecca Krawiec, Kathryn Miller, Jocelyn Olcott,
Michael Powell, Mark Rabuck, Mary Ramsey, Halid Saleh, Antigone
Samellas, Bernard Schlager, Joel Selzer, Nancy Seybold, Benigno
Sifuentes, and Jay Smith.
Thanks are due for the financial support which I received during
my studies in graduate school: foremost, to my parents, but also to Yale
University, for a tuition scholarship which enabled me to come to Yale;
the Government of Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council, for a doctoral fellowship which served as a living allowance
for three of the five years of my education at Yale; the Mellon
Foundation, for a travel grant to examine manuscripts at the
Biblioth&que nationals in Paris; the University of Alberta and the
University of British Columbia, for providing me with summer employment
in 1991, 1992, and 1993; the Research Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies
at Yale, for a fellowship which permitted me to work full-time on the
dissertation in the summer of 1994; and the Mrs. Giles whiting
Foundation, for a fellowship which permitted me to work full-time on the
dissertation for the 1994-95 academic year.
I am grateful to the staff of the Sterling Memorial Library at
Yale University for their practical support. Particular thanks are owed
to the staff of the International Law Library at YaleUniversity, who
gave me an office for research in the spring of 1993; as well as to the
viii
Library of the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies at the
University of Toronto, where I did a large part of my research in the
summer of 1993.
Parts of the dissertation were delivered as papers at conferences
at Yale University, Columbia University, Fordham University, the
University of Toronto, and the Institute for Medieval Studies at
Kalamazoo, Michigan. I am also grateful to Bennington College in
Bennington, Vermont, for inviting me to speak on the subject of my
dissertation in March of 1994.
Last, but certainly not least, somewhat embarrassed thanks for
editorial comments go to Mary Ramsey and Heather Hogg for their
detection of so many errors in my writing.
List of Abbreviations Used
AASS Acta Sanctorum.
ACW Ancient Christian Writers.
ANCL Ante-Nicene Christian Library.
CCSL Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina.
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum.
FC Fathers of the Churchs A New Translation.
LCL Loeb Classical Library.
NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.
PL Patrologia Latina.
PG Patrologia Graeca.
PS Patristic Studies.
SC Sources chrdtiennes.
Abbreviations of ancient authors are from the Oxford Latin Dictionary.
Introduction
The Study of Masculinity in the Western Mediterranean in Late Antiquity
The problem with men's history is that there is too much of it.
How is it that one can study masculinity at all - that is, study men as
a gender - when so much of history is about men's actions, thoughts, and
lives? My solution to this challenging question will, I hope, help us
to view the period of late Roman antiquity and the transition of western
European culture from ancient to medieval from a new perspective. I
also hope that it will help us to situate some of the broad social
changes of the period, especially the conversion of the Roman world to
Christianity, within a new context. This new perspective and context
throws light on the crisis and transformation of masculinity, and the
documentation of both is the focus of this study.
This study of masculinity would not have been possible without the
tremendous advances that have been made in women's studies; thus it is
important to begin with some of the theoretical framework which has been
laid out for gender and history by scholars in women's studies. In
women's history, especially that of ancient and medieval Europe, much of
the work done recently has focused on the dissonances between women's
2
social roles and the personal identities of women.1 All aspects of
women's social roles - the restrictions on women's public lives and
accomplishments and the limitations on their social status and personal
independence - were continually challenged and upset by individual
women's unwillingness to live with those restrictions and l imitations.
The social category of "woman," in other words, was simply insufficient
to contain individual "women." Much has been learned about women from
the study of this tension between low social role and high personal
identity.
The low social role of women in pre-modern Europe was of course
intimately connected with an idealization of the masculine. This fact
has also been brought to our attention by scholars of women's history,
and much recent literature emphasizes the universalized masculine in
western culture. The masculine was central, perfect, and complete; the
feminine, in contrast, was marginal, imperfect, and incomplete. As
Monique Wittig goes so far as to suggest that "indeed there are not two
genders. There is only one: the feminine, the 'masculine' not being a
gender. For the masculine is not the masculine but the general."2
Within the framework of sexual difference between male and female, it is
10n women in late antiquity: Gillian Clark, Women in Late

Antiquitys Pagan and Christian Lifestyles (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993);
Joyce Salisbury, Church Fathers, independent virgins (New York:
Routledge, 1992); Susanna Elm, Virgins of Gods The Making of Asceticism
in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994); Elizabeth A. Clark, Ascetic
Piety and Women's Faiths Essays in Late Ancient Christianity, Studies in
Women and Religion, no. 1 (New York: Edwin Mellon, 1986); and Jo Ann
McNamara, A Mew Songs Celibate Women in the First Three Christian
Centuries (New York: Harrington Park, 1985).
2Monique Wittig, "The Point of View: Universal or Particular?"

Feminist Issues 3 (1983): 63-9 at 64.
3
argued, a whole range of the dichotomies of western thought can be
placed: culture/nature, form/matter, mind/body, subject/object,
good/evil, and self/other.3
It should be noted, however, that women were only one of a
substantial group of inferior persons in western history. Slaves,
foreigners, and members of religious or ethnic minorities were also
among those excluded from full participation in ancient and medieval
societies. This fact has provided a useful balance on seeing misogyny
as the sole or most important type of oppression.4 Judith Butler asks:
"If the feminine is not the only or primary kind of being that is
excluded from the economy of masculinist reason, what and who is [also]
excluded?"5 This question has been an important element is some recent
studies of "otherness," such as racial difference.6 The problem of
"otherness" is also crucial to my study.
30n this point: Sherry Ortner, "Is Female to Hale as Nature is to

Culture?" Feminist Studies 1 (1972): 5-31; Luce Irigaray, "Any Theory of
the 'Subject' Has Always been Appropriated by the 'Masculine'," in
Speculum of the Other Woman, trans. G. Gill (Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University, 1985); Nancy Jay, "Gender and Dichotomy," Feminist Studies 7
(1981): 38-56; Elizabeth Spelman, "Homan as Body: Ancient and
Contemporary Views," Feminist Studies 8 (1982): 109-31; Sheila Ruth,
"Bodies and Souls/Sex, Sin and the Senses in Patriarchy: A Study in
Applied Dualism," Hypatia 2 (1987): 149-63; Eva Feder Kittay, "women as
Metaphor," Hypatia 3 (1988): 63-86; Teresa de Lauretis, "Eccentric
Subjects: Feminist Theory and Historical Consciousness," Feminist
Studies 16 (1990): 115-50; Monique Hittig, "Homo Sum," Feminist Isues 10
(1990): 3-11; Phyllis Rooney, "Gendered Reason: Sex Metaphor and
Conceptions of Reason," Hypatia 6 (1991): 77-103.
4Sandra Harding, "The Instability of the Analytical Categories of

Feminist Theory," Signs 11 (1986): 645-64; Judith Butler, "Bodies That
Matter," in Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of sex (New
York: Routledge, 1993).
sButler, Bodies that Matter, 49.
60n the African-American experience: Leonard Harris, "Honor:

Emasculation and Empowerment," in Rethinking Masculinity: Philsophical
4
The primary paradigm for understanding the dichotomy between the
ideal and the less-than-ideal is still often a gendered one. As Butler
writes: "the feminine is 'always' the outside, and the outside is
'always' the feminine."7 In a cultural system in which the ideal was a
masculine one, anything else, even when it occurred in men, was
feminized. In other words, it was not only male slaves or male
foreigners who were treated as equivalent to women, but also any man who
failed to live up to the lofty expectations of the masculine cultural
role. This fact goes a long way to explaining the commonplace elision
between unmanliness on the one hand and effeminacy on the other.
Such an elision also served an important cultural function. To
describe any man as womanish not only condemned him as inferior but also
distanced him from the one doing the describing. The description both
created a category of feminine "otherness" for the one and preserved
intact the masculine "self" of the other. The category of unmanliness,
in other words, was central to definitions of masculinity. The
depiction of groups or types of men as unmanly helped to prevent the
serious questioning of idealized masculinity, and thus to provide
support for it.
The notion of unmanliness is therefore key to studying men as a
gender. Like women, men can also be studied by examining the tensions
between their social roles, personal identities, and anatomy, but this
Explorations in Light of Feminism, ed. L. May and R. Strikwerda (Lanham,

Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992); and Paula Rothenberg, "The
Construction, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction of Difference," Hypatia
5 (1990): 42-57.
7Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter, 48.
5
examination must be done in reverse. For men living in male-dominated
cultures, the dissonance in sex and gender was between an idealized
rhetoric of masculinity on the one hand, and the limitations and
restrictions which prevented an individual man from realizing the ideal
on the other. Of course, the personal identities of most men did not
match the elevated social role accorded them.8 The category "man,”
unlike that of "woman," was quite literally larger-than-life: too
artificial and idealized a construct to correspond to most men's
realities. Only the greatest of men achieved what was expected of them
as men: most men could not and did not live up to the ideal.
In order to understand masculinity in this period, it is necessary
to study the rhetoric of idealized masculinity as well as those persons,
real or imagined, who were either praised for their conformity to this
ideal or denounced for their failure to meet it. It is important to
cover the distance between manliness and unmanliness, two terms which
serve throughout this study as short-hand for this double portrait of
masculinity: from the heroic and superior ideal to its villainous and
inferior shadow.
Manliness and unmanliness served as the two end-points of a
continuum of masculinity onto which each individual man could be
pinpointed. For this reason, biographical details and general
discussions of virtue and vice are as important here as any direct
comments on masculinity. The process of placing the individual man on
8In what follows, I found helpful the framework of Joseph Pleck,

The Myth of Masculinity, rev. ed. (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1984).
6
this continuum, whether he be a pagan emperor or a Christian holy man,
also required a great deal of interpretation by the one doing the
pinpointing. One might admit the mixture of good and bad in an
individual, but one might just as easily gloss over the deficiencies and
paint a faultless portrait of the man as a hero, or again, one might
choose to emphasize the deficiencies and create a sort of photographic
negative of the man as miscreant. All of these approaches may be found
in abundance in the historical record. The reasons for placing a man
among the manly or among the unmanly of course depended on individual
and variant notions of what constituted masculinity, but this process of
placing men on the continuum offers important clues in recreating
historical definitions of masculinity.9
To discuss a continuum of male identity according to the wide
range of male behaviors and how these behaviors conform to cultural
values helps to correct an earlier tendency, especially in some feminist
writings, to discuss men as a collective agent acting as a whole.10 But
the idea of a continuum is insufficient unless it contains a recognition
of the hierarchy implicit in such a range, between those behaviors
closest to the ideal and those behaviors most removed from that ideal.
9Jeff Hearn and David Collinson ("Theorizing Unities and

Differences between Hen and between Masculinities," in Theorizing
Masculinities, ed. H. Brod and M. Kaufman [Thousand Oaks, California:
Sage, 1994]) list a number of modern ways in which men could differ from
an ideal - age, appearance, bodily facility, ability to care, economic
class, ethnicity, relationship to biological reproduction, leisure
interests, marital and kinship status, mental abilities, occupation,
place of residence and origin, religion, sexuality, size, participation
in violence - as well as composite factors.
10On this point: Harry Brod and Michael Kaufman, eds., Theorizing
Masculinities.
7
Robert Connell distinguishes between what he calls "hegemonic
masculinity" and the "subordinated masculinities" in contemporary
society, the latter controlled by the former through relations of
production, authority, and sexuality.11 A study by Patrick Hopkins
notes how men closest to the ideal must continually assert this
hegemonic masculinity against those further from the ideal:
The gender category of men constructs its members around at

least two conflicting characterizations of the essence of
manhood. First, your masculinity (being-a-man) is natural
and healthy and innate. But second, you must stay masculine
- do not ever let your masculinity falter. . . . Masculinity
is so valued, so valorized, so prized, and its loss such a
terrible thing, that one must guard against losing it.
Paradoxically, then, the "naturalness" of being a man, of
being masculine, is constantly guarding itself against the
danger of losing itself . . . [and] exposes its own
uncertainties in its incessant self-monitoring - a self
monitoring often accomplished by monitoring others.12
Thus, a dynamic is created in which the dominance of a hegemonic
masculinity is asserted by some men against others who are unable or
unwilling to conform to its content. Such a dynamic seems to be a
constant in the history of male-dominated cultures, since, in order to
perpetuate that male dominance, they require the constant reaffirmation
of the masculine as ideal. The analysis of this dynamic can be seen in
recent historical writings on men in other periods of western history.13
11R. W. Connell, (Sender and Powers Society, the Person and Sexual
Politics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987).
12Patrick Hopkins, "Gender Treachery: Homophobia, Masculinity, and

Threatened Identities," in Rethinking Masculinity, ed. L. May and R.
Strikwerda (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992), 123.
13For ancient Greece: John Winkler, The Constraints of Desires The

Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (New York: Routledge,
1990), esp. chap. 2, "Laying Down the Law: The Oversight of Men's Sexual
Behavior in Classical Athens." For modern America: Michael Kimmel, "The
Cult of Masculinity: American Social Character and the Legacy of the
8
Of course, even if the dynamic is much the same for modern men as for
men of the later Roman empire, the content of that ideal changes
dramatically with time.
To posit a dynamic of masculinity permits a new perspective on the
study of gender. Instead of focusing on gender as a trans-historical
constant or artifact of human culture and masculinity as a "thing" which
can be examined in its varied incarnations, this new perspective gives
us the opportunity to see gender as a series of relations of power
between individuals, groups, and institutions in constantly shifting
configurations. This shift in perspective has been one of the lasting
contributions of Michel Foucault to the history of sexuality.14
The construct of gender as a dynamic of relations can help to
clarify the meaning of the terms used in studying sex and gender. Most
of us tend to be unclear about these terms, and use them to refer
indiscriminately to various realities: participation in social or
cultural roles, sense of personal or psychological identity, and
classification according to anatomical or physiological differences.
Cowboy," in Beyond Patriarchy: Essays by Men on Pleasure, Power, and

Change, ed. M. Kimmel (Oxford: Oxford University, 1987).
14Michel Foucault, The Bistory of Sexuality, Volume I: An

Introduction, trans. R. Hurley (New York: vintage, 1978). On Foucault's
historical methodology: Lois McNay, Foucault and Feminism: Power, Gender
and the Self (Boston: Northeastern University, 1992); or Mitchell Dean,
Critical and Effective Bistories: Foucault's Methods and Bistorical
Sociology (New York: Routledge, 1994); Lin Foxhall, "Pandora Unbound: A
Feminist Critique of Foucault's Bistory of Sexuality," in Dislocating
Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies, ed. A. Cornwall and N.
Lindisfarne (New York: Routledge, 1994). Cf. the approach of gender as
power relations by Monique Wittig, "The Category of Sex,” Feminist
Issues 2 (1982): 63-8; Monique Wittig, "One is Not Born a Woman,"
Feminist Issues 1 (1981): 47-54; and Colette Cuillaumin, "The Masculine:
Denotations/Connotations," Feminist Issues 5 (1985): 65-73.
9
Attempts at neat categorization, especially the association of cultural
roles with anatomical features, belong to past generations of scholars
of gender. Such attempts have been creatively challenged in recent
years by gender theorists and historians of gender, and the tenuous
links between the different aspects of human sexual identity - cultural,
personal, biological - have also begun to be recognized.15
Because these terms have only vague meanings, I have made no
attempt to tie them to any particular definitions in this study.
Instead, terms like sex and gender are prefixed throughout with
clarifying descriptions, like "anatomical sex" or "social gender roles."
More often than not, however, I have avoided them altogether in favor of
more precise terms such as "male anatomy" or "women's social roles."
When the terms "masculinity" or "masculine identity" are used below, and
less often, "femininity" or "feminine identity," they describe the
network of these biological, psychological, and social functions and not
any one feature of them. For this reason, "male" is synonymous with
"masculine," and "female" with "feminine.” In turn, the terms
"masculinity" and "masculine identity" include both the subcategories of
"manliness" and "unmanliness," as described below, but I have avoided
terms like "manhood" or "maleness" as distinct from "masculinity,"
although when I use them for stylistic reasons, they mean the same
15See Judith Butler, Gender Troublet Feminism and the Subversion

of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990); or Judith Lorber, Paradoxes of
Gender (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University, 1994); both of whom
summarize and critique a broad literature on the subject of gender and
sex. On the history of theories of sexual difference: Prudence Allen,
The Concept of Womans The Aristotelian Revolution, 750 BC - AD 1250
(Montreal: Eden, 1985); or Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender
from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1990).
10
thing. In all of this, it is the dynamic of inclusion or exclusion
which forms the basis of gender, and not the definitions in themselves.
This study is focused on the dynamic of one of these shifts in the
content of masculinity: the collapse of the ancient ideal for men in the
western Mediterranean and the establishment of a new hegemonic
masculinity, a Christian one. The dynamic of power relations provides a
useful context in which to approach the history of later Roman men. The
history of Roman masculinity, indeed, is a study in the continual
struggle between men in areas of public life, and the continual
exclusion of women from public life and from any real power in private
life. Moreover, issues of dominance and authority, which are so
connected to the power relations between men and women as well as
between groups of men and between individual men, also figure centrally
in Roman definitions of masculinity.
Four areas of concentration seem best for examining the lives of
men of the later Roman empire. The first two are aspects of men's
public lives: military behavior and political authority. The second two
are aspects of men's private lives: family authority and sexual
behavior. These are not discrete categories. For example, negotiations
for later Roman marriage had as much to do with public life - political
ambitions encouraged through aristocratic alliance, and public authority
cemented through popular ceremonies - as they did with the private life
of the home and family. As a result, it has been impossible to be
entirely systematic with these classifications. Moreover, these are not
11
the only categories I might have examined, but they seemed useful for
the purposes of this study.16 They should be thought of as typical
rather than exhaustive definitions of Roman masculinity.
The study covers the period from roughly the start of the third
century of the Common Era to the middle of the fifth century. The Roman
empire began its collapse in the third century, with the end of the
Antonines, and by the middle of the fifth, central governmental
authority in the west had largely been usurped by barbarian kingdoms,
even if imperial rule continued to the year 476. Important social
changes can also be dated to the early third century, especially the
extension of Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire in
212, and the roughly contemporaneous first influx of large numbers of
barbarians into the empire. The beginning of the third century also
marks the period of influence of two key figures in the evolution of
Roman masculinity: the emperor Elagabalus (ruled 218-222) and the
Christian theologian Tertullian (born about 170, died before 212). The
middle of the fifth century provides a practical point of termination:
the end of the reign of the western emperor Valentinian III (ruled 425-
455) and the completion of the writings of the major Christian leaders
Augustine of Hippo (died 430) and John Cassian (died about 433), as well
as other Christian writers, Salvian of Marseilles (died after 445) and
Paulinus of Pella (died about 459), who are important to this study.
The two termini of the study are only approximate, however, and I have
16These categories are often central features of discussions of

modern masculinity, with the additional categories of sports and work:
Arthur Brittan, Masculinity and Power (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989).
12
felt free to range more broadly on specific points. For example, I have
included works by Apuleius and Marcus Aurelius, both of whom wrote in
the late second century but were widely read after that, and works by
Sidonius Apollinaris, who lived until near the end of the fifth century,
but whose writings include several works from the middle of the same
century.17
The sources for the information which follows are varied: legal,
narrative, biographical, and religious. Some might object to the uses
to which I put some of the material. For example, while the laws
contained in Justinian's Digest originated for the most part from the
second century as expert legal opinions, they gradually acquired more
authority with each century until they were codified under his reign in
the sixth century. In part, the growth of this authority was because
they reflected common cultural concerns in the third, fourth, and fifth
centuries. In this way, I have interpreted them as relevant to this
study, even when they were not enforced or only enforced as legislative
attempts to alter social custom. The same might be said of biographies:
their accuracy when dealing with historical figures is less important
than how their images were created and presented by their biographers.
Queen Boudicca's speech on the effeminate manners of the Romans, for
example, was not so much a comment on the mid-first century, when she
17l have not attempted to question the dating of persons or works,

but have generally accepted those given in biographies or editions,
since only in a few places is an actual date important to this study.
An appendix lists reign dates of all Roman emperors from 200 to 476,
even those who ruled in only a part of the empire or who were later felt
to be usurpers.
13
lived, but on the mid-third century, when Cassius Dio, a Roman himself,
wrote his history of the event.18
virtually all of the sources of this period originated from the
upper classes, and it is impossible fully to counteract this bias. Many
of the sources - the laws of the later Roman emperors or the sermons of
the Christian bishops - did claim to be universally applicable.
Nonetheless, it is impossible to know how deeply such concerns were
shared by members of other classes, even if these concerns were known to
the lower classes. It is only possible to document the opinions of the
upper classes from which were drawn the greater part of the later Roman
empire's public leaders, both political and religious, both pagan and
Christian, and it is concerning members of the upper classes that we
have any real information about private life. This dissertation is
therefore in large part a discussion of changes to upper-class
definitions of masculinity. Mention has been made, however, when
broader class issues could be discerned from the extant record.19
The study attempts only to document the transformation of
masculinity in the western Mediterranean - that is, the western half of
the Roman empire. This may seem to some an artificial division, but it
can be defended in a number of ways. Although it was ruled as a single
empire at the beginning of the third century, even as early as the reign
18See below, chap. 2.
19On the Later Roman nobility: T. D. Barnes, "Who Were the

Nobility of the Roman Empire?" Phoenix 28 (1974): 444-9; J. A.
schlumberger, "Potentes and Potentia in the social Thought of Late
Antiquity," in Tradition and Innovation in Late Antiquity, ed. F. Clover
and R. Humphreys (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1989).
14
of Diocletian at the end of the same century the empire was divided into
four prefectures, two eastern and two western, which provided the basis
for a number of divisions of the empire by Diocletian's successors
throughout the fourth century. The two halves of the empire were never
again ruled together after the death of Theodosius I in 395.
The two parts of the empire, west and east, also roughly followed
the linguistic dominance of Latin and Greek respectively. Along with
the difference in language came differences not only in terminology but
also in cultural heritage. Some key figures of the period, Jerome and
Ambrose among them, read both languages and served as transmitters of
Greek culture, including its Christian culture, to the west, but other
central figures, Augustine foremost, knew no Greek. Nevertheless, there
can be no hard-and-fast distinction between Latin and Greek cultures,
and there will be some ambiguities in what follows. Some western
writers wrote in Greek, especially in the third century (for example,
Dio Cassius), some eastern writers wrote in Latin (for example, Ammianus
Marcellinus and Jerome), certain important eastern texts were translated
into Latin in order to circulate in the west (Rufinus' translation of
Eusebius' history of early Christianity, for instance), and certain
works were intended to be read in both western and eastern halves (such
as the Theodosian Code). I have included some of these writers and
texts in this study, but have mostly confined myself to western Latin
writers.
I can, therefore, draw no conclusions about masculinity in the
eastern empire, how it was defined, or what changes might have occurred
to it over the course of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Anyone
15
attempting to answer these questions must reckon with the complex
overlapping of ancient cultures in the eastern Mediterranean, each with
its own regional traditions, another feature that distinguishes the
multicultural eastern half of the empire from the more homogenous
western half. One must also reckon with the fact that the social
changes of the later Roman empire - invasions, political collapse,
economic disruption - were not as profound in the east as in the west,
and thus perhaps neither as profound were the changes to masculinity.
Excluding the eastern Roman empire permitted me to study the
development of masculinity in Roman culture itself. Granted, there were
regional variations between the Roman population of Italy and the
Romanized populations of Gaul, Spain, and North Africa - when such
variations are particularly evident, they are noted. Unlike the east,
however, inhabitants of the western Roman empire by late antiquity
showed every indication of having felt themselves to be as Roman as
anyone dwelling in the city of Rome. Members of the uppermost classes,
in fact, typically owned homes in the city of Rome as well as their
family estates elsewhere. This process of the involvement of the
Romanized peoples of the western Mediterranean in political authority
and family custom is discussed below. For these reasons, the term
"Roman” refers to any citizen of the western empire.
My dissertation, then, focuses on the changes to definitions of
masculinity among Latin-speaking, uppper-class Romans in the western
half of the empire from the beginning of the third century to the middle
of the fifth. With this focus, I came to appreciate that while there
had always been a certain amount of dissonance between the ideals and
16
the realities of masculinity; and a certain amount of posturing around
manliness and unmanliness, the period of transition from ancient to
medieval was one of a profound crisis in masculinity. Because of the
many disruptions to public and private life occasioned by the general
crisis of society - the collapsing defences of the empire, the exclusion
of the upper classes from political power, the restrictions on men's
absolute rights over their wives and children, the concerns about the
medical and moral dangers of sex - an overall impression of men's
failure was created. Roman culture, according to its own definitions,
was becoming unmanly. The result of this crisis was that familiar
patterns of distinction between manliness and unmanliness, and indeed,
between men and women, no longer corresponded to the social realities of
individual's lives. The general crisis of society was reflected in
men's anxieties about their manliness.
A crisis model for social change was not the only one available to
me. After all, it may seem odd to describe something as a social crisis
which took three centuries to be fully felt, and which not all members
of the society experienced in the same way. One might just as easily
view these changes as part of a natural, inevitable, or even desirable
shift of social custom or perhaps a shift merely of cultural focus.20 I
20On cultural evolution: Krishan Kumar, "The Evolution of Society:

A Darwinian Approach," in When History Acceleratess Essays on Rapid
Social Change, Complexity, and Creativity, ed. C. M. Hann (London:
Athlone, 1994). On cultural revitalization: Frank Lechner,
"Fundamentalism and Sociocultural Revitalization: On the Logic of
Dedifferentiation," in Differentiation Theory and Social Changes
Comparative and Historical Perspectives, ed. J. Alexander and P. Colomy
(New York: Columbia University, 1990). On no model at all: David
Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of
Cultural Change (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989). See also Michael
17
was influenced in the decision to interpret these changes as crisis,
however, by the work of Robert Markus. In a recent analysis precisely
on the transformation of western culture from the ancient to the
medieval period, Markus constructs a scenario of what he calls
"epistemological crisis" for the later Roman west:
Such a crisis occurs when established traditions have become

sterile and are seen to lead intellectually to a dead end;
when the use of hitherto accepted ways of thought "begins to
have the effect of increasingly disclosing new inadequacies,
hitherto unrecognized incoherences, and new problems for the
solution of which there seem to be insufficient or no
resources within the established fabric of belief." Such a
crisis is resolved by the adoption of a "new and
conceptually enriched scheme," which can simultaneously deal
with the sterility or incoherence produced by its
predecessor, account for the previous difficulty in doing
so, and carry out these tasks "in a way which exhibits some
fundamental continuity of the new conceptual and theoretical
structures with the shared beliefs in terms of which the
tradition of enquiry had been defined up to that point."21
The crisis model best explains the radical disjunctions in later Roman
culture, and especially the motivation for the reinterpretation of
masculinity as part of a reformulation of traditional gender roles. The
crisis model has already been successfully utilized by historians of
other periods of masculinity, and by sociologists studying contemporary
changes to men's social roles.22
Morony, Teleology and the Significance of Change," in Tradition and

Innovation.
21Robert Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity (Cambridge:

Cambridge University, 1990), 224. Markus includes several citations
here from Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose justice? Which rationality? (Notre
Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1988), 362.
22Michel Dorais, L'homme ddsempard. Les crises masculiness les

comprendre pour s ’en ddprendre (Montreal: ULB, 1988); or Michael Kimmel,
"The Contemporary 'Crisis' of Masculinity in Historical Perspective," in
The Making of Masculinities: The New Men's Studies, ed. H. Brod (Boston:
Allen and Unwin, 1987). Kimmel writes (p. 123) of "....those historical
moments in which gender issues assume a prominent position in the public
consciousness, moments of gender confusion and the vigorous reassertion
18
The crisis of masculinity provided the impetus for Roman men's
conversion to Christianity. The mass conversion in this period, even if
somewhat taken-for-granted by many historians, meant nothing less than
the large-scale exchange of a whole range of cultural symbols, including
a new cultural framework for gender. Historians of women and
Christianity in this period have long been aware of the theoretical and
practical advantages to women's conversion.23 It was not only women who
converted to Christianity, however, even if they might have done it a
bit sooner than their male counterparts. Something also attracted men
to the unusual philosophy of Christianity, and made them willing to
abandon long-held and traditional notions of masculinity for the new
concepts which Christian leaders espoused.
of traditional gender roles against serious challenges to inherited

configurations - moments, we might say, of 'crisis' in gender
relations...” Cf. Michael Roper and John Tosh, Introduction to Manful
Assertions: Masculinities in Britian since 1800 (New York: Routledge,
1991), 18-9: "The idea of a 'crisis in masculinity' may be an invention
of the 1980s. But given that it expresses this kind of contradiction
between experience and expectation, its relevance is clearly not
confined to the present. Masculinity is always bound up with
negotiations about power, and is therefore often experienced as tenuous.
It is clear that there are periods when changed social conditions
frustrate on a large scale the individual achievement of masculinity,
and at such times the social and political fall-out may be
considerable."
23Anne Yarborough ("Christianization of Rome in the Fourth

Century: The Example of Roman Women," Church History 45 [1976]: 149-65)
emphasizes the priority of women's conversions to men's conversions, and
women's role in the conversion of the aristocracy, reacting to an
earlier article on the role of Roman women in the conversion of the west
by Peter Brown ("Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman
Aristocracy," Journal of Roman Studies 51 [1961]: 1-11). The
conclusions drawn by Yarborough and Brown, made largely from the
literary record, have been questioned on the basis of epigraphical
evidence by Michele Salzman, "Aristocratic Women: Conductors of
Christianity in the Fourth Century," Helios 16 (1989): 207-20.
19
The ability of Christian leaders to resolve the crisis of
masculinity explains the success of the religion. Indeed, Christian
apologetists wrote in direct and conscious response to the crisis of
masculinity with the goal of attracting men to their beliefs. They
guaranteed the triumph of their religion through the incorporation of
unmanly elements into a rhetoric of manliness, effecting a forceful
reversal of traditional expectations of manliness and unmanliness. What
was unmanly according to traditional Roman notions could in a Christian
context be considered manly, and vice versa. Masculine identity could
be preserved even in the crisis of the later empire through a radical
reversal of role expectations. This role reversal is what I call the
"new masculinity" or the "counter-masculinity."
All this is not to say that Christianity's success was inevitable.
Indeed, Christianity incorporated some of the more successful features
of pagan religions in its development during this period.24 Nor is it
to say that there is a monolithic Christianity which transcends time,
social context, or individual personality. I must say a few words about
what constitutes Christian ideology, Christian teaching, or Christian
leadership, all terms which are used in the text. I have attempted to
distinguish between the opinions and ideas of different writers and to
examine the evolution of certain concepts and trends over the course of
time.
24Judaism is not discussed, because there are few sources for Jews
in the western Mediterranean at this time, and because even though Jews
participated in the dominant culture of the western Roman empire, most
also remained culturally distinct, and I cannot therefore speculate the
extent to which they participated in the general crisis of masculinity.
20
Nevertheless, it is possible to speak of a unitary western
Christian tradition which evolved over the course of the third, fourth,
and early fifth centuries. This tradition was created by the inclusion
and exclusion of the writings and personalities of earlier times, the
process which we call canonization and which is traditionally linked to
questions of orthodoxy and heresy. In important ways, however, the
western Christian tradition superseded these questions of belief, and
one has only to think of the continuing influence of two heretical
writers, Tertullian and Origen, to appreciate this fact. For this
reason, it is possible to discuss authors from different centuries,
regions, and schools of belief together on the same theme, as
representative of a commonness of belief.25
In the first half of the dissertation, the crisis of masculinity
is documented. The first chapter discusses established notions of
gender and masculinity, including the importance of the distinction
between masculine and feminine, and the concomitant dichotomy of
manliness and unmanliness, as inherited by Romans of the later empire
from their cultural traditions. The second chapter depicts the crisis
of masculinity in the public sphere through an examination of the
effects of the declining militarism of men of the upper classes and
their gradual exclusion from political power. The third chapter
examines men's private lives and how the crisis of masculinity was
intensified because of restrictions of men's authority within the family
25This approach is championed by Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence

of the Catholic Tradition (100 - 600), vol. 1 of The Christian
Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Chicago: university
of Chicago, 1971).
21
and on their sexual behavior. The fourth chapter focuses on the figure
of eunuch as a symbol of the crisis of masculinity, and looks at
references to eunuchs in public and private life.
In the second half of the dissertation the role of Christian
ideology in the resolution of the crisis of masculinity is demonstrated.
The fifth chapter shows how the cultural traditions concerning gender
and masculinity inherited by Latin Christians were unique and novel, but
also incorporated elements of traditional Roman culture, including the
elevated position of the masculine identity, and therefore, the
continued necessity of asserting one's manliness. The sixth chapter
describes how the declining militarism and political ineffectiveness of
the Roman upper classes were circumvented through an emphasis on moral
militarism and moral authority. The seventh chapter likewise describes
how the restrictions on men's family life and sexual behavior were
reinterpreted as freedom from unmanly association with women and from
unmanly sexual compulsion. The eighth chapter looks at Christian
depictions of eunuchs, not only as representative of the degeneracy of
traditional Roman culture, but also as powerful symbols of the Christian
counter-masculinity where monks, as "manly eunuchs," served as new
symbols of masculinity.
Throughout the dissertation I am seeking to demonstrate not only
social change but also cultural change. The first part of the
dissertation involves an examination in detail of the realities of the
lives of Roman men of the later empire. The second part of the
dissertation, however, focuses on Christian leaders as cultural
innovators and their use of these social changes to formulate a new
22
rhetoric of masculinity.26 I am not attempting to prove that this new
masculinity was accepted by all men - there is much evidence to show
that it was not. I do, however, attempt to show that what had
previously been a subordinated masculinity gained hegemony. In this
process, a whole new series of subordinated masculinities were created.
I have been encouraged and inspired by a few scholars who deserve
special mention. Foremost among them is Peter Brown, whose works
influenced many aspects of my investigation. In The Body and Society,
for example, Brown depicts the same reformulation of masculinity through
crisis, even if not in these terms, when he writes of
that exaltation of [bodily] integritas, which enabled the

Catholic clergy to provide the most formidable of all the
'invisible frontiers' behind which the Roman populations of
the post-imperial West preserved their identity, long after
the military frontiers of the Empire had been washed away by
barbarian invasion and settlement.27
Elsewhere in the same work, Brown alludes to the manliness of this
reformulation when he adds that "to surrender any boundary line was to
court the ancient shame of the Roman male - it was to 'become soft,' to
be 'effeminated.'"28
26See S. N. Eisenstadt, "Modes of structural Differentiation,

Elite Structure, and Cultural visions," in Differentiation Theory and
Social Change; his ideas about what he calls "institutional
entrepreneurs" are summarized by Paul Colomy (pp. 477-8): "...small
groups of individuals who crystalize broad symbolic orientations,
articulate specific and innovative goals, establish new normative and
organizational frameworks for the pursuit of those goals, and mobilize
the resources necessary to achieve them."
27Brown, The Body and Societys Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation
in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University, 1988), 362.
28Brown, Body and Society, 347.
23
Brown has also been a formidable scholar on the Christian
tradition of male authority. In an important early article, "The Rise
and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity," Brown situates the
figure of the Christian holy man and ascetic in rural communities of the
eastern empire.29 In Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity, Brown
reflects on ways in which the new (male) Christian dlite both continued
elements of traditional Roman authority and subverted them: perpetuating
the classical education and the rhetorical skills which it provided, but
adding to this an emphasis on a Christian, especially biblical
education; appreciating the traditional reliance on a wide network of
friends and allies and the old system of patronage, but with the twist
of advocacy for the poor and powerless as new "political” allies in
gaining spiritual favor.30 Brown emphasizes in his research that his
focus is on the eastern Mediterranean, but similar processes of
continuity and innovation also typified its western half, even though
there were significant differences.31
Although not a scholar of either ancient or medieval gender,
Marjorie Garber was also an important inspiration for this study.
29Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late
Antiquity, " Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 80-101; reprinted in
Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of
California, 1982), 103-52. Brown notes (p. 151) only briefly the
context of gender: "...his rise was a victory of men over women, who had
been the previous guardians of the diffuse occult traditions of their
neighbourhood.”
30Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a

Christian Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1992), especially
chap. 2, "Paideia and power." Cf. also his The Making of Late Antiquity
(Cambridge: Harvard University, 1978).
31Peter Brown, "Eastern and Western Christendom in Late Antiquity:

A Parting of the Ways," in Society and the Holy.
24
Author of a fascinating work on the role of the transvestite in modern
western culture, Vested Interests, she focuses on the place of the
transvestite as an intermediate gender figure. Such a figure, she
argues convincingly, offers an opportunity to highlight tensions and
contradictions not only in gender but also in other areas of culture:
political, social, religious. In turn, cultural tensions and anxieties
show up as gender ambiguities. The transvestite, she writes, serves as
an index . . . for the notion of the 'category crisis' . . .

a failure of definitional distinction, a borderline that
becomes permeable, that permits of border crossings from one
(apparently distinct) category to another."32
This is precisely the role played by the eunuch in later Roman culture,
revealing the anxieties around sexual differentiation and at the same
time questioning its foundations, and bringing to the surface all of the
uncertainties of masculine identity, in particular, the tension between
manliness and unmanliness. For this reason, I have devoted two entire
chapters in a study of masculinity to eunuchs.
A happy coincidence occurred, just as I was finishing this
dissertation, in the form of a new publication by Maud Gleason, entitled
Making Men. Gleason examines the role of gender in the public personae
and professional rivalry of the public rhetors of the Roman empire. She
also sees the dichotomy between manliness and unmanliness as crucial to
discussions of masculinity in her sources. She also finds that the
figure of the eunuch, in the person of the eunuch-orator Favorinus,
provides a focus for particulary self-conscious reflections on
32Marjorie Garber, vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural

Anxiety (New York? Routledge, 1992), 16.
25
masculinity.33 I am encouraged by the similarities between her
methodology and mine, and humbled by her masterful exposition of the
problem.
This dissertation, finally, is about the social construction of
gender. Granted, there is a biological basis to sexual differentiation,
but it is the social meaning given to this differentiation that is
examined here. This meaning was the result of large-scale social forces
as well as human intervention and the creativity of certain individuals
in interpreting those forces. I use the rather materialistic term
"construction” with hesitation when describing the creation of a new
Christian masculinity, wishing to leave open the possibilities of
individual variations within the same culture and of conscious
participation by those involved in the "construction.” Indeed, I find
myself more persuaded by recent discussions of the performativity of
gender than those of its construction.34
Perhaps the following are ultimately the goals of studying
historical masculinity: to problematize the process itself by which
gender is created, to highlight the ambiguities and anxieties around
33Maud Gleason, Making M e m Sophists and Self-Presentation in

Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University, 1995).
34See J. Davis, "Social Creativity," in When History Accelerates;

see also Judith Butler, Introduction to Bodies That Matter, who writes
(p. 2): "...performativity must be understood not as a singular or
deliberate act, but, rather, as the reiterative and citational practice
by which discourse produces the effects that it names," and again (p.
6): "If gender is constructed, then who is doing the constructing?" Cf.
also Lois McNay's critique (in Foucault and Feminism) of the "docile
body" implied in early writings of Michel Foucault, and her praise of
the "autonomy of the self" described in his later writings. For the
Middle Ages: Nancy Partner, "No Sex, No Gender," Speculum 68 (1993):
419-43.
26
sexual differentiation, to question gender's place in the foundations of
the social hierarchy, to challenge the rhetoric of gender, and to
reflect on moments of cultural change in men's and women's identities.
If this study contributes something toward these goals, for the place
and period under investigation, and if its conclusions have
ramifications for understanding human culture more broadly, then it will
have been successful.
Part I
Crisis
Chapter One
Who is sufficiently a man?
Traditions of Masculinity and Effeminacy in the Later Roman Empire
Historian Ammianus Marcellinus painted a detailed portrait of the
fourth-century Roman emperor Julian, known as the Apostate, including in
this portrait a depiction which might serve as a starting point for our
investigation of the Roman ideal of manhood:
Julian must be reckoned a man of heroic stature, conspicuous

for his glorious deeds and his innate majesty. Philosophers
tell us that there are four cardinal virtues: self-control,
wisdom, justice, and courage; and, in addition to these,
certain practical gifts: military skill, dignity,
prosperity, and generosity. All these Julian cultivated
both singly and as a whole with utmost care.1
Such glorification in the description of Julian should not surprise us:
although Ammianus had known Julian personally, he was looking back over
several decades at Julian's reign, and part of the agenda of his history
was to honor a reign which had been the last flowering of a pagan
1Amm. Marc. (ed. W. Seyfarth [Leipzig: Teubner, 1978]; trans. w.

Hamilton [London: Penguin, 1986]) 25.4.1: "Vir profecto heroicis
connumerandus ingeniis, claritudine rerum et coalita maiestate
conspicuus. cum enim sint, ut sapientes definiunt, uirtutes guattuor
praecipuae, temperantia, prudentia, iustitia, fortitudo eisgue
accedentes extrinsecus aliae, scientia rei militaris, auctoritas,
felicitas atgue liberalitas, intento studio coluit omnes ut singulas."
28
heritage in what had become a Christian world.2 Ammianus was deeply
conservative, and derived his notions of Julian's excellence from old
and accepted Roman principles of virtue, principles which had come in
turn from ancient Greek philosophical notions. Indeed, this
idealization of Julian accords well with the precepts of both Stoic and
neo-Platonic philosophy, two of the most popular ethical schools among
the dlite of later Roman society. Ammianus' description highlights the
ideal known collectively as uirtus ("virtue") which was, according to
philosophical notions, the very summit of excellence and achievement,
the supreme goal of human existence.3
The fact that uirtus was equally the foundation of masculinity,
"man-ness" in it etymological origins, is essential to an understanding
of Roman culture.4 The equation of excellence and masculinity may be
20n Ammianus' history, see the exhaustive study by John Matthews,

The Roman Empire of Ammianus (London: Duckworth, 1989), esp. on this
point chap. 2, "Ammianus and his History."
30n Stoicism: see Marcus Aurelius Ad se ipsum, quoted below. The

classic work on the Stoic virtues in Latin literature is Vernon Arnold,
Roman Stoicism (Hew York: Humanities, 1958; originally published 1911),
esp. 281-300. For a recent analysis, see Marcia Colish, The Stoic
Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, vol. 1: Stoicism in
Classical Latin Literature (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990). On neo
platonism: see Plotinus Enneadi (ed. V. Cilento [Naples: Bibliopolis,
1986]) 1.2[19]: VH xpcoxov uiv apqncBT]XT|ai|iov, ei Kai xouxtp ujrapxouai nacav
oiov ocxppovi avSpekp elvai, $ |if)xe t i S evvov e c x i v ovSev yap e ^ o B e v jit ix e
xpociov iy5i> 0'S Kai Eiu&opia av yevoixo pf| xapovxoq, iv’ex]j eX]j. Ei 8e Kai
auxoq ev 6peêi ecxi xtov vot]xcov <5v Kai a i rpexepai, SiyXov oxi Kai %uv e k e iG e v o
Koopoq Kai a i apexai." See Stephen Gersh, Middle Platonism and
Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition (Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame
University, 1986) for a study of four influential Roman writers: Cicero,
Seneca, Gellius, and Apuleius.
4See Herner Eisenhut, Virtus Romana. Ihre Stellung im rbmischen

Wertsystem (Miinchen: Wilhelm Fink, 1973); somewhat revised by Juhani
Sarsila, Some Aspects of the Concept of virtus in Roman Literature until
Livy (Jyvaskyla: University of JyvSskyla, 1982). An easy comparison
could be made with ancient Greek notions of avSpeia.
29
better understood, thanks to the insights provided by feminist
literature, especially the recent focus on the relationship between
gender and identity.5 The Roman concept of uirtus is typical of male-
dominated and misogynistic cultures, where all thought and achievement
could be understood and expressed only in masculine terms, which usurped
the place of the universal or fully human. As a result, the "feminine"
existed merely as reverse or absence of the masculine: its mirror-image.
Positive values were translated into a masculine framework, and negative
values into a feminine one. The Roman notion of uirtus formed the core
of this idea, and this idea was the core of the Roman gender system.
Of course, the double meaning of uirtus as both masculinity and
excellence served important cultural functions. The attribution of
"natural" moral characteristics to anatomical differences helped to
establish clear boundaries between men and women. Sexual differences
were not merely superficial, but outward representations of a natural
dichotomy in human nature. Moreover, because these clear boundaries
were not neutral divisions, but associated with moral superiority in men
and moral inferiority in women, the equation of sexual and moral
differences helped to provide ideological support for the male dominance
which had created these categories in the first place. The theoretical
differences between men and women could be supplemented with practical
differences, and the practical differences could be justified by the
theoretical differences. Both supported in turn the notion that men and
5See above, introduction, pp. 2-4.
30
women were each other's opposites, with complementary natures and
complementary roles in society.
Roman medical knowledge, such as it was, supported this
construction of men and women as mirror images of each other. Roman
medical writers frequently pinpointed the exact difference between males
and females as the placement of the genitals either external or internal
to the body. Both sexes had virtually identical organs, it was commonly
believed, but their place was reversed. According to the masculine
standard of medical thought, the uterus was merely an inverted penis,
the Fallopian tubes were a vas deferens leading to the ovaries, which
were internal testicles.6 This construction of women's physical gender
as inversion paralleled the construction of the moral inversion of
women.
Romans found a vivid metaphor for their images of men and women in
the language of texture. The duritia ("hardness”) of men referred to
the muscularity of the ideal male body; it also symbolized the moral
uprightness and self-discipline which men were presumed to exhibit. In
contrast, the mollitia ("softness") of women represented not only their
delicate bodies, but their love of luxury, the languor of their minds,
the ease with which they gave themselves to their emotions, and their
dissolute morals. This was the opinion of the early fourth-century
60n this point: Allen, Concept of Woman; Aline Rouselle, Porneia:

On Desire and the Body in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988);
Laqueur, "Destiny is Anatomy," in Making Sex; Joan Cadden, Meanings of
Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1993).
31
writer and tutor to the children of the emperor Constantine, Lactantius.
Lactantius repeated a well known if invented etymology:
Thus man [vir] was so named because strength [vis] is

greater in him than in woman; and from this, virtue [virtus]
has received its name. Likewise, woman [mulier], as it is
interpreted by [the ancient Roman writer] Varro, is from
softness [mollitia], changed and shortened by a letter, as
though it were moilier ["with softness"].7
The gendered language of hardness and softness was also used to
describe the expected sexual roles of Roman men and women. Duritia
acted as a cultural marker not only of men's moral austerity but also of
their role as sexual penetrators. The potency and aggressiveness of
male sexuality in the ancient world has been well analysed; the recent
use of the term "phallus" to identify the cultural centrality of
penetration and dominance in male-dominated societies is a useful
reminder of the bonds between sexual behavior and the larger sphere of
human interaction. The symbolic phallus was a familiar concept to the
ancient Romans, too, and one which they had personified as the god
Priapus.8 In a complimentary way, the mollitia of women implied their
7Lactant. De opificio Dei (ed. M. Perrin, SC 213; trans. M.

McDonald, FC 54) 12.16-7: "Vir itague nuncupatus est, quod maior in eo
uis est quam in femina, et hinc uirtus nomen accepit; item mulier, ut
Varro interpretatur, a mollitie, inmutata et detracta littera, uelut
mollier."
80n the symbol of the phallus in the ancient world: Jean-Joseph

Goux, "The Phallus: Masculine Identity and the Exchange of Women,”
differences 4 (1992): 40-75; and Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus:
Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (Oxford: Oxford University,
1992). On male sexual behavior generally in the ancient world: Michel
Foucault, The Bistory of Sexuality, vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure, trans.
R. Hurley (New York: vintage, 1985), and idem, The Bistory of Sexuality,
vol. 3: The Care of the Self, trans. R. Hurley (New York: Vintage,
1986); Eva Keuls, The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual politics in Ancient
Athens (New York: Harper and Row, 1985); Winkler, Constraints of Desire;
David Halperin, John Winkler, and Froma Zeitlin, eds., Before Sexuality:
The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World
(Princeton: Princeton University, 1990); and Eva Cantarella, Bisexuality
32
role as sexually penetrated. Women were expected to play a passive role
not only in sexual relations but in culture generally as the objects of
male actions.
Roman notions of human gestation also played a role in the
theoretical support for the gender system. Masculine and feminine
characteristics were attributed to early fetal development, in
particular, to the placement of the male semen ("seed") in the womb.
The ideas of Lactantius, a man who was learned but not a physician,
illustrate this belief:
[When] a masculine seed comes into the right part [of the
uterus] and a feminine into the left, the two fetuses come
forth rightly, so that for the feminine the beauty of its
nature holds throughout all things, and for the masculine
manly strength [robur uirile] is preserved both as to the
mind and the body.9
From this separation of the physical semen ("seed”) within the womb
sprang all of the other separations: virtuous and vicious, dominant and
submissive, hard and soft, sexually aggressive and sexually passive.
The problem with such a neat dichotomy was that it did not
correspond with reality. Even Lactantius, in the same passage in which
he described the ideal gestation, was forced to deal with the
contingencies which created dispares naturae ("different natures") in
some individuals:
in the Ancient World, trans. C. 6 Cuillean&in (New Haven: Yale

University, 1992).
âctant. De opificio Dei 12.14: "Si uero masculinum in dexteram,

femininum in sinistram peruenerit, utrosgue fetus recte prouenire, ut et
feminis per omnia naturae suae decus constet et maribus tarn mente guam
corpore robur uirile seruetur." Cf. the identical opinion of a fifth-
century medical writer in Caelius Aurelianus Gynaecia (ed. M. Drabkin
and I. Drabkin [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1951]) 57:
"oppinatur [Ypocrates] guod in dextra parte matricis conceptio facta
masculum formet, in sinistra feminam."
33
When it chances that a seed from a male parent falls into

the left part of the uterus, the opinion is that a male is
begotten, but since it is conceived in the female part, it
suffers some female characteristics to hold sway in it more
than its masculine splendor: either a beautiful figure, or
exceeding whiteness or lightness of the body, or delicate
limbs, or short stature, or a soft voice, or a weak mind, or
several of these characteristics. Likewise, if seed of a
feminine stock flows into the right part, a female is, of
course, begotten, but, since it is conceived in the
masculine part, then some characteristics of maleness hold
sway more than the usual sex classification would permit:
either strong limbs, or excessive height, or a ruddy
complexion, or a hairy face, or an unlovely countenance, or
a heavy voice, or a daring spirit, or several of these.10
As odd as this theory may seem to us, it helps us to understand
some of the Roman cultural anxiety about sexual difference in general,
and masculinity in particular. After all, if the only thing separating
male and female was the direction in which the semen had drifted after
intercourse, then the all-important dividing line between male and
female, while paramount in Roman male-dominated culture, was nonetheless
quite tenuous indeed. The challenge was how to deal with the realities
of these "different natures,” and with the ambiguities which made them a
threat to the gender system, while leaving the theoretical underpinings
of male dominance intact.
10Lactant. De opificio Dei 12.12-3: "Dispares quoque naturae hoc

modo fieri putantur: cum forte in laeuam uteri partem masculinae stirpis
semen inciderit, marem quidem gigni opinatio est, sed quia sit in
feminina parte conceptus, aliquid in se habere femineum supra quam decus
uirile patiatur, uel formam insignem uel nimium candorem uel corporis
leuitatem uel artus delicatos uel staturam breuem uel uocem gracilem uel
animum imbecillum uel ex his plura. Item si partem in dexteram semen
feminini generis influxerit, feminam quidem procreari, sed quoniam in
masculina parte concepta sit, habere in se aliquid uirilitatis ultra
quam sexus ratio permittat, aut ualida membra aut inmoderatam
longitudinem aut fuscum colorem aut hispidam faciem aut uultum indecorum
aut uocem robustam aut animum audacem aut ex his plura.” Cf. Jan
Blayney, "Theories of Conception in the Ancient Roman World," in The
Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, ed. B. Rawson (London: Croom
Helm, 1986).
34
One method of meeting this challenge was to ignore the ambiguities
of the individuals with "different natures" and to assign to them,
however arbitrarily, sexual categories of maleness or femaleness. This
method is demonstrated clearly in Roman writings concerning
hermaphrodites. Hermaphrodites, a physically intermediate sex, should
have been an unsettling difficulty for the sexual binaries of Roman
society, yet they were not. Hermaphroditic infants had apparently been
removed as a threat to sexual classification in ancient times by
exposing them to die as monsters,11 but this was no longer happening in
the last centuries of the empire.
Instead, hermaphrodites were removed from society in a symbolic
fashion, by disregarding their female, "interior" genitals and assigning
them a male identity and masculine status based on their male,
"exterior" genitals. The fifth-century Christian writer, Augustine of
Hippo, explained how the problem of the sexual identity of
hermaphrodites was settled precisely in this way:
As for Androgynes, also called Hermaphrodites, they are

certainly very rare, and yet it is difficult to find periods
when there are no examples of human beings possessing the
characteristics of both sexes, in such a way that it is a
matter of doubt how they should be classified. However, the
11See Carlin Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans: The

Gladiator and the Monster (Princeton: Princeton University, 1993), 131-
2, n. 127, writes: "...from a brief survey of the portents collected
chronologically by Julius Obseguens for the years 190-12 B.C.E., it
appears that the slaughter of the hermaphrodite ceases abruptly in the
first century B.C.E." The Twelve Tables of ancient Roman law had
permitted the exposure of "monstrous" infants. See also Pliny HU 31.12
and 27.37; Diod. Sic. 32.12. Cf. Greek notions of hermaphroditism:
Hannelore Gauster, "Zu Hermaphroditen-Darstellungen in der Antike," in
Frauen Weiblichkeit Schrift, ed. R. Berger, et al., Literatur im
historischen Prozefi, 14 (Berlin: Argument-Sonderband, 1985).
35
prevalent usage has called them masculine, assigning them to

the superior sex.12
Augustine confirmed this classification from grammatical usage, since,
he continued, "no one has ever used the feminine" in referring to
hermaphrodites and androgynes, that is, since both were masculine nouns
in Latin.13 Augustine was correct: Roman culture quite
straightforwardly ignored the female aspect of the hermaphrodites and
subsumed them into the category of males.
The assignment of a masculine identity to the hermaphrodite can be
confirmed from discussions of hermaphroditism in Roman law. In a legal
opinion which had become binding in the later empire, the early third-
century jurist Ulpian suggested that "each one should be ascribed to
that sex which is prevalent in his [in eo] make-up,"14 but then used the
masculine pronoun to describe the individual. At another place, Ulpian
contended that a hermaphrodite should only have the male right of
establishing a posthumous heir "if the maleness [uirilia] in him [in eo]
12August. De civ. D. (ed. CCSL 47-8; trans. H. Bettenson [London:

Penguin, 1972]) 16.8: "Androgyni, quos etiam Hermaphroditos nuncupant,
quamvis admodum rari sint, difficile est tamen ut termporibus desint, in
quibus sic uterque sexus apparet, ut ex quo potius debeant accipere
nomen incertum sit; a meliore tamen, hoc est a masculino, ut
appellarentur loquendi consuetudo praevaluit."
13August. De civ. D. 16.8: "Nam nemo umquam Androgynaecas aut

Hermaphroditas nuncupavit."
140ig. (ed. T. Mommsen and P. Krueger, trans. A. Watson

[Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1985]) 1.5.10: "Quaeritur:
hermaphroditum cui comparamus? et magis puto eius sexus aestimandum,
qui in eo pravualet." Watson unjustifiably translates in eo as "in his
or her." Jane Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen (New York: Routledge,
1993), 192-3, n.2, believes this law expresses "doubt whether to
classify them as men or women..."
36
is predominant."15 A similar argument can be found in the legal opinion
of Ulpian's contemporary Paulus: "Whether a hermaphrodite can witness a
will depends on his sexual development."16 Paulus actually used the
phrase qualitas sexus incalescentis ("the quality of heating of [his]
sex"), but he meant maleness by this, since men's blood was considered
to be warmer than women's blood.17 In all cases, it is the maleness of
the hermaphrodite which is sought and defined.
Pagan myths also demonstrate the assignment of a masculine
identity to the hermaphrodite. Later Roman authors repeated the ancient
legend of the male youth, Hermaphroditus, whose name was already an
amalgamation of those of his divine parents. Hermaphroditus became
double-sexed when he was merged with a wood nymph who had fallen in love
with him and had asked the gods to unite her to him. He retained his
masculine identity; her feminine identity, however, signified by her
name Salmacis, disappeared in their fusion.18 Another example is that
of Agdistis, a hermaphroditic companion to the Phrygian goddess Cybele.
15Dig. 28.2.6: "Hermaphroditus plane, si in eo uirilia

praeualebunt, postumum heredem instituere poterit."
16Oig. 22.5.15: "Hermaphroditus an ad testamentum adhiberi possit,

qualitas sexus incalescentis ostendit."
17See Peter Brown, "Late Antiquity," in Paul Veyne, ed., A History

of Private Life, vol. 1: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge:
Harvard University, 1987), 243.
18Auson. (The Works of Ausonius, ed. R. Green [Oxford: Clarendon,

1991]; trans. H. White, LCL) Epig. 112: "Salmacis optato concreta est
nympha marito; / felix virgo, sibi si scit inesse virum. / et tu,
formosae iuvenis permixte puellae, / bis felix, unum si licet esse
duos.” Cf. ibid. Ill: "Mercurio genitore satus, genetrice Cythere, /
nominis ut mixti, sic corporis Hermaphroditus, / concretus sexu, sed non
perfectus, utroque, / ambiguae Veneris, neutro potiendus amori." For an
earlier version of the legend, see e.g. Ov. Met. 4.285-388.
37
Having been born of a rock onto which Zeus' seed had been dropped,
Agdistis himself was aroused to spill his seed under a pomegranate tree,
the fruit of which was then eaten by the princess Nana, who gave birth
as a result to the boy Attis.19 Again, although a hermaphrodite,
Agdistis functioned in the myth only as a male.
Having placed the greatest value on the presence of the exterior
male genitalia in the hermaphrodite, Roman law and myth assigned to him
a masculine identity and a masculine role based on his capabilities as
genitor, that is, one capable of fathering children, ignoring his
additional if hidden female genitalia. From this we might assume that
the presence of a penis and testicles helped to some extent in
establishing a psychological separation of the male from the female and
the privileged from the unprivileged: a phallic economy of gender. The
hermaphrodite is also an excellent example of the masculine as the
universal or general, in that only the absence of the male sex organs
established once again the female sign of absence. Incidentally, this
tendency to identify individuals of indeterminate sex as male may also
explain an odd poem of Ausonius, about the surprise when children
thought to be males suddenly exhibited female sexual characteristics.20
19Discuased in M. J. Vermaseren, The Legend of Attis in Greek and

Roman Art (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1966), 3-5. For more on the cult of
Cybele and Attis in the later Roman empire, see below, chap. 8.
20Auson. Epig. 72: "Vallebanae (nova res et vix credenda poetis, /

sed quae de vera promitur historia) / femineam in speciem convertit
masculos ales / pavaque de pavo constitit ante oculos. / cuncti
admirantur monstrum, sed mollior agna / [line missing] / 'quid stolidi
ad speciem notae novitatis hebetis? / an vos Nasonis carmina non
legitis? / Caenida convertit proles saturnia Consus / ambiguoque fuit
corpore Tiresias. / vidit semivirum fons Salmacis Hermaphroditum, /
vidit nubentem Plinius androgynum. / nec satis antiquum, quod Campana in
38
If the Roman gender system had an accepted method for dealing with
physical ambiguities, by creating new categories of men and extending to
them the privileges of male dominance, the method for dealing with
social or psychological or moral ambiguities was the opposite: to create
new categories of women, assigning to men of "different natures" a
feminine identity and denying them the privileges of male dominance.
All of the negative attributes of women were applied to men who shared
the moral nature of women. The term mollitia was used to refer to men
who were believed to possess this feminine composite of dissolution,
passivity, and inferiority. Indeed, mollitia functioned as a virtual
synonym for unmanliness and mollis ("soft”) for the unmanly man,
alongside euiratus ("unmanly"), effeminatus ("effeminate"), and
muliebriarius ("womanly"). The word semiuir ("half-man") also carried
with it the same semiotic equations, and reveals the mindset in which
"soft" men were felt to have failed to achieve uirtus or ideal
masculinity.
The feminization of some men had its cultural equivalent in the
masculinization of some women, the parallel strategy for dealing with
gender ambiguities in women. Women were frequently described as manly
if they showed some virtue greater than expected: courage, equanimity,
sexual modesty.21 The stereotype of the uirago ("the manly woman") was
Benevento / unus epheborum virgo repente fuit. / nolo tamen veteris

documenta arcessere famae: / ecce ego sum factus femina de puero.’"
21Apul. Met. (ed. R. Helm [Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1970]; trans.

J. Hanson, LCL) 7.6: "sed uxor eius Plotina, quaedam rarae fidei atque
singularis pudicitiae femina, quae decimo partus stipendio viri familiam
fundaverat, spretis atque contemptis urbicae luxuriae deliciis fugientis
comes et infortunii socia, tonso capillo, in masculinam faciem reformato
habitu, pretiosissimis monilium et auro monetali zonis refertis incincta
39
related to this masculinized image of women, as were the myths of the
Amazons and the cult of Bellona, the goddess of war.22 Through such a
strategy, virtue could be praised in women while leaving the
intellectual equation of virtue and masculinity intact.23
The feminized image of men who violated the gender system goes a
long way in helping us interpret traditional Roman statements on
masculinity. Seneca, writing at the beginning of the Common Era, had
posed the question to his contemporaries: "Who is sufficiently a man?”
The question occurs in a long invective against the effeminate effects
of luxury:
Look at our young men: they are lazy, their intellects

asleep . . . Sleep, torpor, and a perseverance in evil that
inter ipsas custodientium militum manus et gladios nudos intrepida

cunctorum periculorum particeps et pro mariti salute pervigilem curam
sustinens, aerumnas adsiduas ingenio masculo sustinebat." Cf. the
description of Zenobia in S.H.A. (ed. and trans. D. Magie, LCL) Tyrannis
triginta 15.8: "quibus duratus solem ac pulverem in bellis Persicis
tulit, non aliter etiam coniuge adsueta, quae multorum sententia fortior
marito fuisse perhibetur, mulier omnium nobilissima orientalium
feminarum..." The imputation of manliness in a woman was not always
positive: S.H.A. Firmus Saturninus Proculus et Bonosus 12.3: "huic uxor
virago, quae ilium in hanc praecipitavit dementiam, nomine Samso, quod
ei postea inditum est, nam antea vituriga nominata est." The "dementia"
involved the arming of slaves.
22E.g., Claud. (Carmina, ed. J. Hall [Leipzig: B. G. Teubner,

1985]; trans. M. Platnauer, LCL) Fescennina 11. 31-39: "tu si niualis
per iuga Caucasi / saeuas petisses pulcher Amazonas, / peltata pugnas
desereret cohors / sexu recepto; patris et inmemor / inter frementes
Hippolyte tubas / strictam securim languida poneret / et seminudo
pectore cingulum / forti negatum solueret Herculi, / bellumque solus
conficeret decor."
23Recent works on Roman women include: Judith Hallett, Fathers and

Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family (Princeton:
Princeton University, 1984); Jane Gardner, women in Romen Law and
Society (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1986); Pauline Schmitt Pantel,
ed., From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints, vol. 1 of A History of
Women in the West (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1992); Gunhild viddn,
Women in Roman Literature: Attitudes of Authors under the Early Empire
(Goteborg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1993); Clark,
Women in Late Antiquity.
40
is more shameful than either have seized hold of their

minds. Libidinous delight in song and dance transfixes
these effeminates. Braiding the hair, refining the voice
till it is as caressing as a woman's, competing in bodily
softness with women, beautifying themselves with filthy
fineries - this is the pattern our youths have set
themselves. Which of your contemporaries - quite apart from
his talent and diligence - is sufficiently a man?24
Ostentation in dress or appearance was considered particularly feminine,
as Seneca's comments suggest.
If feminine appearance in men was offensive to cultural
sensibilities, equally so was any indication of feminine behavior in
men. In a telling comment, the mid-third-century emperor Gallienus was
described as "more contemptible than any woman" for his unjust
actions.25 Hen who were sexually penetrated were considered especially
feminized; they were labelled molles, and were seen as having abandoned
their right as sexual penetrators and aggressors by taking what was
considered the passive role of women in sex. They were placed in a
category of inferior men, along with slaves and prisoners of war from
other peoples - who were among those considered available for sexual
penetration by the men who were their captors or masters. The sexual
24Sen. Coatrov. (ed. L. H&kanson [Leipzig: Teubner, 1989]; trans.

H. Winterbottom, LCL) 1 praef. 8-9: "Torpent ecce ingenia desidiosae
iuventutis, nec in unius honestae rei labore vigilatur: somnus
languorque ac somno et languore turpior malarum rerum industria invasit
animos; cantandi saltandique obscena studia effeminatos tenent; [et]
capillum frangere et ad muliebres blanditias extenuare vocem, mollitia
corporis certare cum feminis et immundissimis se excolere munditiis
nostrorum adulescentium specimen est. quis aequalium vestrorum quid
dicam satis ingeniosus, satis studiosus, immo quis satis vir est?
emolliti enervesque quod nati sunt inviti manent, expugnatores alienae
pudicitiae, neglegentes suae." I am grateful to Jeff Bowman for this
reference.
25S.H.A. Tyranni triginta 12.11: "...Gallienus, sordidissimus

feminarum omnium...”
41
penetration of one's social inferiors was all part of the phallic
dominance of the upper classes of Roman society.26 A whole host of
terms referred to a man who was sexually penetrated: cinaedus (from the
Greek tdvaiSoq, "[male] dancer”); malthacus (from the Greek paXBaxoq, also
liaXaicdg, "weak, soft, effeminate"); pathicus (from the Latin patior, "to
submit, endure”); subactus (from the Latin subigere, "to constrain,
subjugate"); impurus ("filthy"); impudicus ("shameless"). These terms
helped to separate such men conceptually from other men.27
Hen who acted or appeared as women threatened the moral division
of humanity and the clearly delineated boundaries between men and women.
This moral division could be salvaged, however, by removing effeminate
men from the sexual category of men, despite their male anatomy, and
placing them into the gender category of women, giving them a female
260n this point: Beert Verstraete, "Slavery and the Social

Dynamics of Hale Homosexual Relations in Ancient Rome,” Journal of
Homosexuality 5 (1980): 227-36; Jerzy Kolendo, "L'esclavage et la vie
sexuelle des hommes libres A Rome," indexs Quaderni camerti di studi
romanistici/Index: International Survey of Roman Law 10 (1981): 288-97.
See also below, chap. 3.
270n this point: Amy Richlin, "Not Before Homosexuality: The

Hateriality of the Cinaedus and the Roman Law against Love between Hen,”
Journal of the History of Sexuality 3 (1993): 523-73. On the detailed
Latin sexual terminology: Craig Williams, "Homosexuality and the Roman
Han: A Study in the Cultural Construction of Sexuality" (Ph.D.
dissertation: Yale University, 1992). On the effeminate "other": Haud
Gleason, "The Semiotics of Gender: Physiognomy and Self-Fashioning in
the Second Century C. E.," in Before Sexuality. Richlin (Garden of
Priapus, 59) believes that Roman humor played with this notion of the
"otherness" of the sexually penetrated male: "...th[e poetic] central
figure...could be stained and humiliated. He becomes an antihero in a
literal sense: he is the virile, warlike male unmanned, placed in
humiliating situations, defiled by disgusting acts and foul substances.
... the audience can either separate themselves and laugh at the figure
(that is, derive comfort from being better than that figure) or identify
with the figure temporarily and derive titillation from the temporary
humiliation that they in fact do not expect to experience or admit as
their own."
42
identity. Such men could be constructed as "other," given unambiguous
physical and mental characteristics, and limited in their social
privileges.
The physical differences between manly and unmanly men were
plainly articulated in a late fourth-century anonymous physiognomic
treatise, the very purpose of which was to distinguish certain types of
men, like uir fortis ("a strong man") and timidus et imbecillis ("a
timid and feeble man").28 In this distinction, effeminacy returned
again and again as a category of human difference, visible in a variety
of physical characteristics from fine hair to soft feet.29 The mollis,
like the androgyne, was distinguishable by his throaty voice, inclined
head, raised eyebrows, quick movements, and light step.30 Indeed,
280e physiognomia liber (ed. A. Jacques [Paris: Belles lettres,

1981]) 90: "Constituamus uirum fortem. Recto corpore debet esse,
latera, articuli, ima pedum manuumque solida, ossa grandia, capillus
durior, uenter latus, aliquanto cauus, humeri fortes, scapulae
seiunctae, pectus et metaphrena solida, cioxtov durum>, surae solidae,
crura non indigentia carnis, imi pedes discreti articulis, color acrior
magis quam pressior, acies oculi uelox, humida, oculi non satis grandes,
non nimium patentes nec nimium conclusi, supercilia non extenta, frons
nec leuis nimium nec n imium aspera, uox durior ac uehementer,
magnanimitate praecellens, anhelitus quoque tranquillus. Huiusmodi uiro
uirtus et fortitudo assignanda est." Cf. Ibid. 91: "Timidus et
imbellicis capillo est molliore omnique figura remissiore, collo
longiore, colore nigro uel pallido uel albo, sed et cum pallore albo,
oculis siccis perturbatis, palpebris citis atque mobilibus, anhelitu
pauido, cruribus tenuibus, ima parte spinae, <quae graece ocnpuq
dicitur>, longa, pectore imbecilli, manibus longissimis, uoce molli ac
sonora. His timidus, ut diximus, indiciis declaratur."
290n hair: De physiognomia liber 14: "Capilli molles et ultra

modum tenues, rubei et rari penuriam sanguinis, eneruem, sine uirtute ac
femininum animum indicant et quanto rariores fuerint, tanto magis
subdolum. On feet: ibid. 72: "Pedes imi discreti neruis et articulis
clari generosam et uirile ingenium declarant. Holies et ampla carne
circumdati molle ingenium et femininum ostendunt.”
30On the loollist De physiognomia liber 115: "Molles autem, quos

quidem <tavai8ouq> dicunt, ita sunt: inclinato ad latus capite,
coniunctis scapulis, qui extollunt calcanea, qui plerumque iunctos
43
effeminacy was visible in any body parts - which could include the left
eye, hand, breast, testicle, or foot - in which the left was larger that
the right, or in which the left part of the head, nose, or lips was more
prominent. Manliness was visible in a rightward disposition.31 The
division was unequivocal, making it possible for any man to identify
anyone else as like himself or as "other."
A separate category for effeminate men also appears in a treatise
on chronic diseases by the fifth-century medical writer, Caelius
Aurelianus. Caelius devoted a section to molles, the gist of which was
habent pedes, cum loquuntur, qui glauciunt aliquatenus ut oues, qui

narem suam respiciunt et qui narem digitis suis dirigunt atque fingunt,
qui quod aut ipsi sputant aut alii sollicite calcant et obterunt, qui
saepe inspiciunt partes eas sui corporis quas pulchriores sibi habere
uidentur, qui frequenter subrident loquentes, qui uocem tamquam
perfractam habent, qui supercilia seiuncta, qui demissum superius cilium
ita ut inferius occupetur, quibus salientibus etiam scapulae prosiliunt,
qui mouent corpus ut mulieres, qui brachia peruersa habent et qui
tunicam circa lumbos tendunt, qui cum rident clamant et qui frequenter
manus aliorum apprehendunt." On the androgyne: ibid. 98: "De androgyno.
Qui inter uirum est et feminam, quern Graeci avSpoyuvov uocant, ita
intelligitur: oculos habet humidos, qui impudenter intuentur, ccuius
quatiuntur et circumuolant pupillae>, cuius frons contrahitur et malae,
cuius non stant supercilia, cuius inclinata est ceruix, cuius <ooipug>,
id est ima pars spinae, non quiescit, cuius omnes artus incerti status
sunt, qui insilit frequenter imis pedibus et calcaneis saepius insurgit,
qui genua collidit, qui resupinatas plerumque manus praemouet, qui se
circumspicit, qui uoce est tenui et tamquam quae insonet gutturi, cuius
uox prope garrula nec ingrata interdum est nec interest an nimium tarda
uox sit an praeceps."
31De physiognomia liber 7: "Accidunt praeterea species feminino

generi quas quidem masculino assignauimus. Quae in quocumque sexu
fuerint magis edent ex sese fetum generis masculini. Ea uero accidentia
quae feminino generi assignata sunt, in quocumque sexu fuerint, edunt
magis sobolem femininam. Item in quocumque corpore pars aliqua dextra
maior fuierit uel oculos uel manus uel mamilla uel testiculus uel pes,
uel uertex capitis ad dextram magis se conferat, uel si ex duobus
uerticibus uel tribus maior in dextris partibus fuerit, assignantur haec
omnia indicia generi masculino. Si aliqua pars ex sinistris maior
inuenta fuerit, assignatur his indiciis generi feminino. Et si uertex
capitis ad sinistram partem magis conuersus fuerit uel ex duobus aut
tribus maior sinister fuerit, assignabitur generi feminino. Sed et
nares et labia cum ad dextram partem magis conuersa sunt, masculinum,
cum ad sinistram, femininum genus profitentur."
44
to show how completely and pathologically "other" such men were.
Effeminate men did exist, Caelius began, although "it is not easy for
some to believe it," since their condition was "not part of human
nature." Effeminate men were diseased, but it was not a typical
disease, being "rather the vices of a corrupted mind," than bodily
infirmity. The disease was chronic, although occasionally a man's
uirilitas ("virility") would manifest itself temporarily despite the
condition. The disease occurred at conception, when a man and woman's
seeds [germina, semina] fought with each other [pugnare] instead of
joining together [unam facere]; because of this, the disease was
incurable except through manly self-control.32 ultimately, the
diagnosis was tautological: effeminacy was the result of too little
virility and not enough manly self-control. The diagnosis was also
32Caelius Aurelianus Tardarum Passionum (ed. I. Drabkin [Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1950]) 4.9: "Molles sive subactos Graeci
malthacos vocaverunt, guos quidem esse nullus facile virorum credit,
non enim hoc humanos ex natura venit in mores... turn denique utentes
veste atque gressu et aliis femininis rebus quae sunt a passionibus
corporis aliena, sed potius corruptae mentis vitia. nam saepe tumentes
[or timentes] vel, quod est difficile, verentes quosdam quibus forte
deferunt, repente mutati parvo tempore virilitatis quaerunt indicia
demonstrare, cuius quia modum nesciunt, rursum nimietate sublati plus
quoque quam virtuti convenit faciunt, et maioribus se peccatis
involvunt. nam neque ulla curatio corporis depellendae passionis causa
recte putatur adhibenda, sed potius animus coercendus qui tanta
peccatorum labe vexatur. ...Parmenides libris quos De natura scripsit
eventu inquit conceptionis molles aliquando seu subactos homines
generari. ...femina virque simul veneris cum germina miscent venis,
informans diverso ex sanguine virtus temperiem servans bene condita
corpora fingit. nam si virtutes permixto semine pugnent, nec faciant
unam permixto in corpore, dirae nascentem germino vexabunt semine
sexum." The treatise may be Caelius' own work, or a paraphrase or
translation of a lost work by Soranus of Ephesus. See P. H. Schrijvers,
Eine medizinische ErklSrung der mSnnlichen Homosexualityt aus der Antike
(Amsterdam: B. R. Griiner, 1985).
45
comforting to most men, presumably, since it defined a diseased minority
and distanced "normal" men from that minority.
Those men whose unmanly behavior or physiology brought their
masculinity into question could also be legally separated from the rest
of men. The term infamia ("infamy, ignominy") provided a juridical
parallel to broader cultural definitions of unmanliness. Infamia could
be used to describe the reputation of a man guilty of a wide range of
shameful and unlawful activities from theft to improper marriages, and
was associated with unmanliness. For example, men who were dishonorably
discharged from the army for cowardice could be declared infamis
("infamous") or famosns ("notorious"). A man found guilty of the loss
of self-control in unwarranted insult might also became infamis.33
33For studies on the legal use of infamias A. H. J. Greenidge,

Infamia: Its Place in Roman Public and Private Law (Oxford: Clarendon,
1894); and L6on Pommeray, Etudes sur l'infamie en droit romain (Paris:
du Recueil Sirey, 1937). For infamia for theft: Paulus Sent. (ed. L.
Arndts, lulii Paulli Receptarum Sententiarum ad filium Libri quinque, in
E. BScking, gen. ed., Corpus Juris Romani Anteiustiniani [Bonn: Adolph
Mark, 1841]) 2.31.15: "Furti quocumque genere condemnatus famosus
efficitur." Cf. Dig. 3.2.6: "Sed si furti uel aliis famosis actionibus
quis condemnatus prouocauit, pendente iudicio nondum inter famosus
habetur: si autem omnia tempora prouocationis lapsa sunt, retro infamis
est..." For infamia for illicit marriage: Dig. 3.2.11: "Non solent
autem lugeri, ut Neratius ait, hostes uel perduelionis damnati nec
suspendiosi nec qui manus sibi intulerunt non taedio uitae, sed mala
conscientia: si quis ergo post huiusmodi exitum mariti nuptum se
collocauerit, infamia notabitur." For infamia for military discharge:
Dig. 3.2.1-2: "Praetoris uerba dicunt: 'Infamia notatur qui ab exercitu
ignominiae causa ab imperatore eoue, cui de ea re statuendi potestas
fuerit, dimissus erit... Quod ait praetor: 'qui ab exercitu dimissus
erit': dimissum accipere debemus militem caligatum, uel si quis alius
usque ad centurionem, uel praefectum cohortis uel alae uel legionis, uel
tribunum siue cohortis siue legionis dimissus est." For infamia for
insult: Dig. 3.2.4.5: "Item si qui furti, ui bonorum raptorum,
iniuriarum, de dolo malo suo nomine damnatus pactusue erit simili modo
infames sunt."
46
Infamia represented in many ways, therefore, the legal equivalent of
mollitia.34
The appellation of infamy brought with it a score of civil
disadvantages. Infames were forbidden to act as assessors, to act as
witnesses in legal trials, or even to bring accusations against others
except in cases of treason.35 The numerous legal incapacities of the
infamous highlighted their unmanliness, because many of these same
restrictions were imposed upon women. Both women and infamous men were
forbidden to make application to the magistrate, and thus to register a
public complaint against another person for civil redress. Both were
prohibited from witnessing a will. Both were also forbidden to become
attorneys, or to plead in court on behalf of another person.36 infamous
34This is the focus of the discussion of infamia by Richlin ("Not

Before Homosexuality"), although she is only concerned with the
Republican and early Imperial periods. See also Gardner, "Behaviour:
Disgrace and Disrepute," in Being a Roman Citizen. Although I admire
Gardner's attempt to ask why certain illicit acts and professions
entailed infamia while others did not, I reject her conclusion (p. 154)
that infamia was a legal concept of rights restriction unrelated to
social and literary disapproval.
35Infamous men forbidden to act as assessors: Dig. 1.22.2:

"Infames autem licet non prohibeantur legibus adsidere, attamen arbitor,
ut aliquo quoque decreto principali refertur constitutum, non posse
officio adsessoris fungi." Infamous men forbidden to act as witnesses
in trials: Dig. 22.5.3: "Testium fides diligenter examinanda est.
ideoque in persona eorum exploranda erunt in primis condicio
cuiusque...an honestae et inculpatae uitae an uero notatus quis et
reprehensibilis... alii uero propter notam et infamiam uitae suae
admittendi non sunt ad testimonii fidem. Cf. Mosaicarum et Romanarurn
legurn collatio (ed. and trans. M. Hyamson [London: Oxford University
Press, 1913]) 9.3.1: "Suspectos testes et eos uel maxime, quos accusator
de domo eduxit uel uitae humilitas infamauerit, interrogari non placuit:
in testibus enim et uitae qualitas spectari debet et dignitas."
Infamous men forbidden to bring accusations against others: Dig. 48.4.7:
"Famosi, qui ius accusandi non habent, sine ulla dubitatione admittuntur
ad hanc accusationem."
36Both women and infamous men forbidden to make application to the

magistrate: Dig. 3.1.1: "...edictum proponitur in eos, qui pro aliis ne
47
men were thus reduced in fundamental ways to the legal equivalent of
women.37 The restrictions placed on these men, like those placed on
women, served to emphasize how unlike true men they were - the
privileges of men in the Roman gender system were taken from them.
The dichotomy between manliness and unmanliness as an expression
of the distinction between virtue and vice is immediately apparent in
depictions of the later Roman emperors, which provide an excellent
source for contemporary notions of both images. The sharp contrasts
between the supreme goodness or deep depravity of the rulers of the
empire sprang from the writer's need to praise or excoriate the
individual, according to particular political agendas and in keeping
with established literary models.38 These agendas and models resulted,
postulenti in quo edicto excepit praetor sexum et casum, item notauit

personas in turpitudine notabiles. sexum: dum feminas prohibet pro
aliis postulare. et ratio quidem prohibendi, ne contra pudicitiam sexui
congruentem alienis causis se immisceant, ne uirilibus officis fungantur
mulieres..." Both women and infamous men forbidden to witness a will:
Inst. last. (ed. P. Birks and G. McLeod [Ithaca, New York: Cornell
University, 1987]) 2.10.6: "sed neque mulier neque impubes neque servus
neque mutus neque surdus neque furiosus nec cui bonis interdictum est
nec is, quern leges iubent improbum intestabilemque esse, possunt in
numero testatium adhiberi." Infamous men forbidden to plead in court:
Paulus Sent. 1.2.1: "Omnes infames, qui postulare prohibentur,
cognitores fieri non possunt, etiam volentibus adversariis.” women
forbidden to plead in court except in their affairs: Paulus Sent. 1.2.2:
"Femina in rem suam cognitoriam operam suscipere non prohibetur." This
last privilege is also specifically denied to the authors of defamatory
writings: Dig. 22.5.21: "Ob carmen famosum damnatus intestabilis fit."
37For a comparison of the rights of women and infames, see

Gardner, Being a Roman Citizen, 87. Although she does not draw any
conclusions from this comparison of social status, she does describe in
detail (pp. 111-26) the consequences for men of such restrictions in
daily life, and they are remarkably like those of women.
38The panegyrics are skillfully placed into a political, literary,

and cultural framework by Sabine MacCormack, "The World of the
Panegyrists," in Art and ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley:
University of California, 1981).
48
admittedly, in shallow or cartoon depictions of these rulers, but it is
this very sort of characterization which can help to underline the fact
that the emperor was expected to set an example of ideal uirtus,
glorified if he did so, and denounced if he did not. The anonymous
author of the late-fourth-century Historia Augusta, who wrote under
several pseudonyms, admitted this didactic purpose to his biographies.39
Aurelius Victor made similar laudatory comments on the uirtutes
principum ("virtues of the emperors") in his mid-fourth-century
biographies.40 The early-fifth-century imperial poet Claudian warned
that "the vices of monarchs cannot anywhere remain hid."41
Two examples, one of a virtuous emperor and one of a vicious
emperor, will suffice to demonstrate this dual categorization of the
Roman rulers as manly and unmanly. First, perhaps no monarch gained as
39S.H.A. Avidius Cassius 3.3: "proposui enim, Diocletiane Auguste,

omnes qui imperatorum nomen sive iusta causa sive iniusta habuerunt, in
litteras mittere, ut omnes purpuratoros Augustos cognosceres."
40Aur. Vic. Caes. (ed. F. Pichlmayr [Leipzig: Teubner, 1993])

35.11-4: "Ita utrimque pudore ac modestia certabatur, rara in hominibus
virtute, rebus praesertim huiuscemodi, ac prope ignota militibus.
Tantum ille vir severitate atque incorruptis artibus potuit, ut eius
necis <nuntius> auctoribus exitio, pravis metui, simulata dubiis, optimo
cuique desiderio, nemini insolentiae aut ostentationi esset; atque etiam
soli quasi Romulo interregni species obvenit, longe vero gloriosior.
Quod factum praecipue edocuit cuncta in se orbis modo verti nihilque
accidere, quod rursum naturae vis ferre nequeat aevi spatio; adhuc
virtutibus principum res attolli facile vel afflictas, easque firmiores
praeceps vitiis dari." On Aurelius Victor as historian: H. W. Bird,
Sextus Aurelius Victor. A Historiographical Study (Liverpool: F. Cairns,
1984).
41This occurs in a lengthy poem on the need for virtuous behavior

by the young emperor Honorius, as an imaginary talk by his father and
predecessor, Theodosius I. Claud. Cons. Hon. 4.269-75: "hoc te
praeterea crebro sermone monebo, / ut te totius medio telluris in ore /
uiuere cognoscas, cunctis tua gentilibus esse / facta palam nec posse
dari regalibus usquam / secretum uitiis; nam lux altissima fati /
occultum nihil esse sinit, latebrasque per omnes / intrat et abstrusos
explorat fama recessus."
49
much renown for his virtue as did the mid-second-century emperor Marcus
Aurelius. "At home or in war," Aurelius Victor wrote, "all of his
actions and all of his decisions were those of a god.”42 Searching for
a way to describe the mid-fifth-century western emperor Anthemius, the
poet Sidonius Apollinaris could think of nothing more flattering to say
than that he was a second Marcus Aurelius.43 Quite apart from the
military and domestic features of Marcus Aurelius' reign, which were
mostly unremarkable, his reputation was largely built on his writings
about the virtuous ideal.44
The meditations of Marcus Aurelius, an amalgam mostly of maxims
from Stoic and old Roman ethics, idealized manly virtue. Throughout the
meditations, Marcus Aurelius glorified the faculty of reason as the
divine spark within each man, which "should preside over a being who is
virile and mature [&ppijv], a statesman, a Roman, and a ruler; one who
has held his ground, like a soldier."45 Marcus Aurelius often used
42Aur. vie. Caes. 16.2s "Cuius divina omnia domi militiaeque facta
consultaque..."
43Sid. Apoll. (ed. and trans. W. Anderson, LCL) Panegyricus dictus

Athemio Augusto 202-4: "sic sub patre Pius moderatus castra parentis, /
sic Marcus vivente Pio, post iura daturi, / innumerabilibus legionibus
imperitabant."
44For a modern biography: Anthony Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A

Biography (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University, 1987). On the
military features of his reign: Graham Webster, The Roman imperial Army
of the First and Second Centuries A. D. (London: A. and C. Black, 1985),
98-101. For literary and thematic antecedants of his writings: R. B.
Rutherford, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: A Study (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1989).
45Marcus Aurelius Ad se ipsurn (ed. J. Dalphen [Leipzig: Teubner,

1979^; trans. M. Staniforth [London: Penguin, 1964]) 3.5: "EXi 5e 0 ev ool
Geoq eoxa> jrpocxarnq £q>ov appevoq r a i JipeoPuxou K ai jioXixikoO teal 'Pofialpu >
w a i dpxovxoq avaxExaxoxoq eavxov, otoq a v evn xiq Jtepip.evojv xo dvatcXrixiKov ek
xoO ptou euXuxoq, jifjxe opKou Seopevoq p.f]XE dvBxwjrou xivo<; pdpxopoq."
50
manly metaphors of authority and military power to describe reason, also
a common feature of earlier Stoic thought.46 The dominance of reason as
a type of inward rule or interior conquest necessitated a personal
detachment from the mundane pleasures of life, especially from the
emotions, which enslaved the self.47 The rule of reason, however,
required a dedication to self-control:
In moments of anger, let the thought always be present that

loss of temper is no sign of manliness (avSpucov), but that
there is more virility (appeviKarepov), as well as more
natural humanity, in one who shows himself gentle and
peaceable; he it is who gives proof of strength and nerve
and manliness (avSpeia), not his angry and discontented
fellow. Anger is as much a mark of weakness as is grief; in
both of them men receive a wound, and submit to a defeat.48
Hidden in this analysis of rationality and maturity as ideal
masculine qualities was the misogynistic parallel that the feminine
represented irrationality, immaturity, and intemperance. Other writers,
like Ammianus Marcellinus, brought this idea to the fore:
Anger is defined by philosophers as a long-standing and

sometimes incurable mental ulcer, usually arising from
weakness [mollitia] of intellect. In support of this they
46See Arnold, Homan Stoicism, 363-4.
47Marcus Aurelius Ad se ipsum 6.13: "Otov 8n to (pavxacio^ A.a|j.pdvEtv

Ejri xdjv oyeov Kai xdjv xoiouxwv e5(o6t|i(ov, oxi VEKpoq ouxoq i^Guoq, ouxoc 8e
VEKpbq opviOoq xoipov, Kai JtaA.iv oxi o <bdA.epvoc xuAapiov eaxi oia<puMou Kai
f| Jtepuiopqyupoq xjpixia jcpojiaxiou aipaxicp KopcT]q oeSeopeva' Kai ejri xcbv Kaxa
xrjv crovoociav <oxi^ Evxepiou jtapaxpiyiq Kai jiexd xivoq GJiaG]iov jiuJjapiov
EKKpiaiq- otai 8fj abxai eiciv ai <pavxaciai KaOiKvoupevai auxtov xcov Jtpayp.dxiDv
Kai Sieîouaai 8i’auxdiv, ©axe opav, oid xiva jiox’eaxiv- ov>xa> 8ei nap’oXov xov
piov JioiEiv Kat, ojiou Aiav aijiojcioxa xa Jipaypaxa <pavxd£sxai, ajioyupvouv ai>xa
Kai xf|v ei>xeA.£iav aiixcov KaOopav Kai xfjv icxopiav, £<p’ f|CEpvuvexai,
JtEpiaipElV."
48Marcus Aurelius Ad se ipsum 11.18: " J tp o x e ip o v 8e e v xatq opyaiq, oxi

oi>xi tb 0ujiot)O0ai av8piKov, a k \ a xb jrpaov Kai %iEpov ©cjtEp av0piojriK(6xEpov,
obxco Kai appEviKuiEpov, Kai ioxvoq Kai vevpcav Kai avSpEiaq xauxtp j ie x e g x iv ,
oi>xi x<ji ayavaKXOuvxi Kai SuoapEaxoSvxi. oc& yap aJtaSeiqc xouxo oiKEioxepov,
xocobx© Kai SuvapEi. diojtEp xe t| A-imt] doSEvobq, obxto Kai f j opyt]. dpipoxEpoi
yap xixp©vxai Kai £v8e8c£>Kaoiv."
51
argue with some plausability that this tendency occurs more

in invalids than in the healthy, more in women than in men,
more in the old than in the young, more in those in trouble
than in the prosperous.49
Anger was a typical target of the Stoics, since it demonstrated the
temptation to succumb to one's emotions and thus to abandon the supreme
virtue, anaGeia ("passionlessness").50 Ammianus' remark that women
tended more to anger than men, which must surely have been
counterintuitive to him, only underscored his adherence to a gendered
notion of virtue, and was a necessary complement to the school of ideas
of Marcus Aurelius.
Descriptions of unmanly rulers made perhaps the more colorful
entries in the imperial biographies, but were equally didactic in
function. Here, none serves as a better example than Marcus Aurelius'
own son and successor, Commodus. Aurelius Victor wrote of his
reputation for cruelty.51 The Bistoria Augusta went much further,
detailing his depraved personality with a certain fascination: "from his
earliest boyhood he was base [turpis], shameless [improbus], cruel
49Amm. Marc. 27.7.4: "hanc enim ulcus esse animi diuturnum

interdumque perpetuum prudentes definiunt nasci ex mentis mollitia
consuetum id asserentes argumento probabili, quod iracundiores sunt
incolumibus languidi et feminae maribus et iuuenibus senes et felicibus
aerumnosi."
50On the Stoics against anger: Arnold, Homan Stoicism, 333-6; on

d/rdBeias Colish, Stoic Tradition, 42-50.
slAur. Vic. Caes. 17.1: "At filius saeva a principio dominatione

detestabilior habebatur..." For biographical details: Michael Grant,
The Antonines: The Roman Empire in Transition (New York: Routledge,
1990.
52
[crudelis], lecherous [libidinosus]. "52 Examples were given of his
shameful sexual lifestyle:
Commodus began a life of orgiastic abandonment in the

palace, amid banquets and baths: he had three hundred
concubines, whom he assembled together for the beauty of
their person, recruiting both married women and whores,
together with youths of ripe age [puJberes exoleti], also
three hundred in number, whom he had collected, with beauty
as the criterion, equally from the commons and the nobility,
by force and by payment.53
Commodus' lack of self-restraint in sexual liaisons was merely a symptom
of a greater unmanliness. The reference to puberes exoleti ("youths of
ripe age") carried with it an implication that the emperor was the
sexually receptive partner to them, an implication also stated outright:
Commodus was "defiled of mouth too and debauched."54
The imperial biographers, and probably most contemporaries, were
at a loss as to how such an ignoble son sprang from such a virtuous
father: how, in the words of Cassius Dio, "a kingdom of gold” had become
"one of iron and rust."55 The author of the Bistoria Augusta repeated a
rumour that Marcus' wife Faustina had been involved in adulterous
52S.H.A. Comm. 1.7: "nam a prima statim pueritia turpis, improbus,

crudelis, libidinosus... fuit."
53S.H.A. Comm, (trans. here A. Birley [London: Penguin, 1976])

5.4: "hac igitur lege vivens ipse cum trecentis concubinis, quas ex
matronarum meretricumque dilectu ad formae speciem concivit,
trecentisque aliis puberibus exoletis, quos aeque ex plebe ac nobilitate
vi pretiisque, forma disceptatrice collegerat, in Palatio per convivia
et balneas bacchabatur."
54S.H.A. Comm, (trans. here A. Birley) 1.7: "nam a prima statim

pueritia turpis, improbus, crudelis, libidinosus, ore quoque pollutus et
constupratus fuit."
55Cass. Dio 72.36.4: "...anb TE ptxciXeiaq EôiSipav Kai

K0CTI(0)1EVT]V TOOV TE 7tpaYH&T(0V TOiq TOTE 'P(0)iai0iq KOI T])UV VUV KCXT(X7t£O0\)CT|^
Tfjq iCTTopia^." On Cassius Dio as historian: F. Millar, A Study of Cassius
Dio (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964).
53
affairs with "both sailors and gladiators,1,56 surely without realizing
that he had in the process compromised his ideal image of that
emperor.57 The biographer did not dare imply that Commodus had been
illegitimate, however, and thus not the true heir to the empire, but
offered the possibility, attributing it coyly to "vulgar opinion," that
Faustina had douched herself with the blood of a freshly-killed
gladiator before the sexual act which had conceived Commodus.58
The misogynistic underpinings of this explanation are obvious,
since the adulteries and lustfulness of Commodus' mother - that is, her
feminine moral weakness - formed the cause of his own effeminate and
debauched behavior. He are reminded that the stigma of effeminacy drew
56S.H.A. H. Ant. 19.7: "multi autem ferunt Commodum omnino ex

adulterio natum, si guidem Faustinam satis constet apud Caietam
condiciones sibi et nauticas et gladiatorias elegisse.”
57Cf. Aur. Vic. Caes. 16.2: "...quae imprudentia regendae coniugis

attaminavit, quae in tantum petulantiae proruperat, ut in Campania
sedens amoena litorum obsideret ad legendos ex nauticis, quia plerumque
nudi agunt, flagitiis aptiores."
58S.H.A. M. Ant. 19:2-5: "...ac talem fabellam vulgari sermone

contexunt: Faustinam quondam, Pii filiam, Harci uxorem, cum gladiatores
transire vidisset, unius ex his amore succesnsam, cum longa aegritudine
laboraret, viro de amore confessam. quod cum ad Chaldaeos Marcus
rettulisset, illorum fuisse consilium, ut occiso gladiatore sanguine
illius sese Faustina sublavaret atque ita cum viro concumberet. quod
cum esset factum, solutum quidem amorem, natum vero Commodum gladiatorem
esse, non principem...” Whether the insinuations about Faustina's
character can be believed cannot be known. Farquharson (Marcus
Aurelius, 82) defends Faustina, calling the rumors about her affairs
"pure malice... [and] the 'fee paid for beauty' by women in high
places." Marcus Aurelius himself {Ad se ipsum 1.17) called her
"...ontcoai |iev JtEi0f|vtov, oik© Se <piXooxopyov, oik© 8e oupEXfj... ” ("so
submissive, so loving, and so artless"). Cf. F. J. Ddlger
("Gladiatorenblut und Martyrerblut,” Vortrage der Bibliothek Warburg,
1923-24 [1926]: 196-214) argues unconvincingly (210) that the Latin
sublavaret ("she douched") is a manuscript error for sublevaret ("she
lifted up [to drink]"), and that Faustina possibly suffered from
epilepsy, one of the recommended cures for which was to drink the blood
of freshly killed gladiators.
54
its strength from the oppression and hatred of women. If vice and
debauchery were somehow more excusable in women, part of the
misogynistic cultural constructions of women's nature according to the
Roman view of reality, they were nonetheless condemned. And yet,
whether such behavior existed in women, construed as part of their
nature, or existed in men, construed as miscegenation and contrary to
their nature, it offered a serious challenge to the moral division of
human nature between the good and masculine and the evil and feminine.
Ultimately, effeminate behavior was a challenge to the accepted
connection between gender and the exercise of power. As long as human
beings could be separated into two moral camps, the political divide
between them could continue unchallenged. They could equally be
separated into the privileged and the unprivileged, those with rights
and authority on one side of the divide, and those without on the other.
This division of privilege was the larger social purpose behind the
morbid classifications of medical and physiognomic writers, and the
oversimplified portraits of the imperial biographers and historians. To
distinguish between men and not-men was to delineate clearly the
boundaries of power and identity.
The received wisdom that divided men into manly and unmanly parts,
into the wielders of power and the subjects of power, would be tested by
the events of the final centuries of the western empire. Roman
masculinity underwent profound changes in the third, fourth, and early
fifth centuries, and these changes can be seen as provoking a crisis in
men's view of themselves, since they threatened the established
separation of masculine and feminine and the distinction between
55
manliness and unmanliness in men. Traditional definitions of
masculinity were insufficient in the contemporary crisis of the empire,
which posed a series of challenges to the ways in which men saw
themselves as male. The crisis was too widespread to cut off from the
whole a minority of effeminate males, since it affected all men.
Significant features of masculine identity suffered significant
reversals, threatening all men with an unmanly self-image, and blurring
the critical cultural distinction between themselves and women. These
features and these changes will be examined in detail.
Chapter Two
Men receive a wound, and submit to a defeat:
The Crisis of Men's Public Lives in the Later Roman Empire
The crisis of the later Roman empire affected men's public lives
in a clear and demonstrable fashion. Two factors figure prominently in
this crisis; both of them had far-reaching consequences for traditional
conceptions of masculinity. The first aspect of the crisis was Roman
men's military identity: the idea of the individual as a soldier, either
literally in defence of the empire or metaphorically as a description of
a frugal and disciplined life. This traditional identity was profoundly
shaken by the unsuccessful defence of the empire's borders and the
ferocity of the foreign invaders. The second aspect of the crisis was
men's public authority over others: the governance of the empire and its
cities, which had been traditionally in the hands of men of the upper
classes. This traditional authority was challenged by the growing
autocracy of the emperors, and by the emperors' increasing reliance on a
servile bureaucracy for the administration of the empire.
57
1. Their loss is disgraceful:
Declining Militarism and the Elite Roman Male
Roman men consistently pictured themselves as soldiers, and
military metaphors formed an essential element of traditional
masculinity. The courage and hardiness of the soldier was much admired,
as were the discipline under which he lived and the camaraderie which he
enjoyed. Indeed, uita militaris ("the soldier's life") functioned as
short-hand for the manly life. There were two elements to this military
metaphor.
First, writers made repeated references to the military history of
the Roman people. They often returned to the ancient myth that Rome's
political dominion had been possible only because of the military
successes of its armies. Vegetius, author of a military treatise of the
later empire, wrote that there existed "no other explanation of the
conquest of the world by the Roman People than their... military
expertise."1 References to past glories also served as reminders of the
need to remain strong militarily. The poet Pacatus compared Julian's
wars to the battle of Actium as praise but also as a lesson in history.2
Vegetius Epit. rei militaris (ed. C. Lang [Leipzig: Teubner,

1885]; trans. N. Milner [Liverpool: Liverpool University, 1993]) 1.1:
"Nulla enim alia re uidemus populum Romanum orbem subegisse terrarum
nisi armorum exercitio, disciplina castrorum usuque militiae." Dating
of Vegetius' work is difficult, but Milner (p. xxv) argues that it can
be placed sometime between 383 and 450.
2Pacatus Panegyricus dictus Theodosio imperatori (ed. D. Lassandro

[Turin: Pavaria, 1992]; trans. C. Nixon [Liverpool: Liverpool
University, 1987]) 33.3: "Non contendam duces - nec enim principem
nostrum non dicam victus Antonius, sed victor Augustus aequaverit..."
58
Such comparisons also acted as a guarantee of the future military
promise of the Roman people. Claudian's advice to the emperor Honorius
was to "read of deeds you may soon rival” and to "study the lives of the
heroes of old to accustom yourself for wars that are to be."3
Second, the vita militaris served as a constant means by which the
emperors were measured. The usurper Pescennius Niger, for instance, was
said to have led an especially military lifestyle. There is no known
source for the description given by the Bistoria Augusta, and perhaps it
only existed as a mental image. Still, it was a very masculine image:
On all his campaigns he took his meals in front of his tent

and in the presence of all his men, and he ate the soldiers'
own fare, too; nor did he ever seek shelter against sun or
against rain if a soldier was without it. In time of war he
assigned to himself and to his slaves or aides as heavy
burdens as were borne by the soldiers themselves... He took
an oath, besides, in the presence of an assembly, that as
long as he had conducted campaigns and as long as he
expected to conduct them, he had not in the past and would
not in the future act otherwise than as a simple soldier -
having before his eyes [the victor during the Jugurthan war
of early Roman history] Marius and other commanders as he.
He never told anecdotes about anyone save [Carthaginian
military leader and defeater of early Rome] Hannibal and
others such as he.4
3E.g., Claud. Cons. Bon. 4 11. 396-400: "interea Musis, animus dum
mollior, instes / et quae mox imitere legas; nec desinat umquam / tecum
Graia loqui, tecum Romana uetustas. / antiquos euolue duces, adsuesce
futurae / militiae, Latium retro te confer in aeuum." He follows this
with several examples.
4S.H.A. Pescennius Niger 11.1-4: "Idem in omni expeditione ante

omnes militarem cibum sumpsit ante papilionem, nec sibi umquam vel
contra solem vel contra imbres quaesivit tecti suffragium, si miles non
habuit. tantum denique belli tempore, ratione militibus demonstrata,
sibi et servis suis vel contubernalibus putavit quantum a militibus
ferebatur, cum servos suos annona oneraret, ne illi securi ambularent et
onusti milites, idque ab exercitu cum suspirio videretur. idem in
contione iuravit se, quamdiu in expeditionibus fuisset essetque adhuc
futurus, non aliter egisse acturumque esse quam militem, Marium ante
oculos habentem et duces tales, nec alias fabulas umquam habuit nisi de
Hannibale ceterisque talibus."
59
According to the Bistoria Augusta, even Severus Alexander, the man who
defeated Pescennius, thought that M[i]t is a pity that we cannot imitate
the military discipline of this man whom we have overcome in war."5 All
later Roman emperors wore the title of soldier as a badge of honor,6 and
often referred to themselves as the commilitiones ("fellow-soldiers”) of
their troops.7
Despite the cultural dominance of this military ethic, however,
there is little evidence for overwhelming numbers of Romans in the
armies of the later empire. Troops were instead almost wholly comprised
of non-Romans: in the third century, these were men mostly from the
various ethnic groups within the empire; by the fourth century, Germans
settled within the borders of the empire formed the backbone of the
Roman army.8
5S.H.A. Pescennius Niger 3.9: "Exstat epistula Severi, qua scribit

ad Ragonium Celsum Gallias regentem: 'Miserum est ut imitari eius
disciplinam militarem non possimus quern per bellum vicimus...1"
6Hadrian was especially remembered for this. See S.H.A. ffadr.

10.2 and 5: "...ipse quogue inter manipula vitam militarem magistrans,
cibis etiam castrensibus in propatulo libenter utens, hoc est larido
caseo et posca... exemplo etiam virtutis suae ceteros adhortatus...
vestem humillimam frequenter acciperet, sine gemmis fibula stringeret,
capulo vix eburneo spatham clauderet..." See also Dio Cass. (ed. and
trans. E. Cary, LCL) 69.9.2-4. Cf. also the description of Julian by
Amm. Marc. 16.5.1-5.
7See J. B. Campbell (The Emperor and the Roman Army, 31 B. C. - A.

D. 235 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1984], 32-59) who writes (p. 56): "the idea
of commilitium had developed into the almost total identification of the
warrior-emperor and his army." Campbell also analyses the other
intersections between emperor and army, among them: the sacramentum or
oath of loyalty demanded of each soldier to the emperor (19-32), the
adlocutio or imperial address to the troops (69-88), the granting of the
emperor's cognomen to a specific legion (88-93), and the army's
acclamatio or shouted recognition of the emperor's rule (120-8).
80n the Germans and other non-Romans in the later Roman army:
Michael Speidel, "The Rise of Ethnic Units in the Imperial Army,"
Aufstieg und Niedergang der rdmischen Weit 2.3 (1975): 202-31; William
60
The refusal of Romans to participate in their own army was not
because of widespread anti-militarism, although such a sentiment did
exist as a minority opinion among certain groups of men.9 It was due
rather to what has been called "a process of demilitarization" among the
elite classes of Rome,10 which had eroded the enthusiasm for
participation in war among the Roman nobility. This sentiment was
described by the poet Claudius Mamertinus, who wrote that "military
service was rejected by the nobility as a squalid occupation, unfitting
for a free man."11 The refusal of Roman men to fight in the wars which
they believed had made their people great could not help but have
serious consequences for men's identity.
Liebeschuetz, "The end of the Roman army in the western empire, ” in War
and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. Rich and G. Shipley (New York:
Routledge, 1993); Arthur Ferrill, "The Barbarians in the Army," in Roman
Imperial Grand Strategy (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America,
1991); J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishopst Army, Church,
and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom (Oxford: Clarendon,
1990), 48-85. Cf. Yann Le Bohec (L'armde romaine sous le haut-Bmpire
[Paris: Picard, 1990], 82-107) who charts the ethnic composition of
various branches of the Roman army from the early 1st to the late 3rd
century C. E. From the start of the Christian era, he argues, the army
had been for the most part comprised of non-Romans: especially from
Numidia and Egypt in Africa, Syria in Asia, Thrace, Dacia, and Moesia in
the Balkans, Pannonia and the province of Germania along the German
border.
9See Duncan Cloud, "Roman poetry and anti-militarism," in War and

Society in the Roman World, ed. J. Rich and G. Shipley (New York:
Routledge, 1993); and Harry Sidebottom, "Philosophers’ attitudes to
warfare under the principate," ibid., on philosophers.
10Liebeschuetz ("End of the Roman Army,” 274) writes: "A process

of demilitarization affecting all classes can certainly be observed over
the whole imperial period of Roman history." See also Liebeschuetz,
Barbarians and Bishops, 11-25.
11Claudius Mamertinus Gratiarum actio suo Iuliano imperatori (ed.

D. Lassandro [Turin: Pavaria, 1992]; trans. S. Lieu [Liverpool:
Liverpool University, 1986]) 20: "Itaque nullum iam erat bonarum artium
studium. Militiae labor a nobilissimo quoque pro sordido et inliberali
reiciebatur."
61
For those men who did belong to the army, military service offered
a road to political success often travelled in the later empire.
Emperors were frequently chosen from the upper ranks of the army to
solve dynastic crises.12 Alternately, men wishing to be emperors simply
created their own opportunities for advancement. Legions in virtually
all parts of the empire attempted to elevate their commanders to the
position of emperor at some point in the third, fourth, or fifth
centuries, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. The armies raised and
decimated by these usurpations or attempted usurpations contributed in
large part to the military disasters of the empire and certainly to the
social and political chaos of the period.
Equally fatal to the well-being of the empire and its citizens was
the presence of foreign populations ready to take advantage of this
political weakness. Subject peoples within the empire regularly rose in
revolt in the third, fourth, and early fifth centuries. From outside
the empire came the Germans, who had already been entering the empire to
join its army as auxiliaries and to settle within its borders, and who
crossed over the Rhine and Danube in larger and larger numbers and
penetrated ever further into the heart of the empire. Later Roman
writers overwhelmingly spoke of the German settlements as invasions,
12For later Roman history, the most complete analysis is still A.

H. H. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284 - 602: A Social, Economic, and
Administrative Survey, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964). See also
Andrd Chastagnol, L'dvolution politique, sociale et dconomique du monde
romain de Diocldtien A Julien. La mise en place du rdgime du Bas-Empire
(284-363) (Paris: Socidtd d'Edition d 'enseignement sup£rieur, 1982); and
Matthews, Roman Empire of Ammianus, for useful chaps, on "Legitimacy and
Usurpation," "The Office of Emperor," "The Character of Government,"
"The Practice of war," "Barbarians and Bandits," "The Physical
Environment," and "Social Relations."
62
although such language has been muted by modern historiography. The
best the imperial government could do with such groups was to accept the
fait accompli and offer them rights of settlement and property ownership
as foederati ("federates") within the empire.13 Groups of slaves took
advantage of the general chaos and escaped their masters to join the
foreign troops as they made their way across the provinces, or sometimes
even formed their own guerilla bands.14
One result of these military and popular insurrections, fueled as
they were by the "process of demilitarization," was that men of the
later Roman nobility were more likely to be the victims of military
aggression rather than its perpetrators. Paulinus of Pella, in his
fifth-century autobiographical poem, recorded the devastations caused by
the Goths in Bordeaux:
When the Gothic king, Ataulf, commanded his men to leave our
city they treated us as though we had been conquered by
burning the entire city. . . They took from me everything I
owned and looted my mother's house as well but they left us
grateful that we escaped without injury to ourselves.15
130n both the theme of invasion and the settlement of the

foreigners, see esp. Walter Goffart, Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418-
584i The Techniques of Accomodation (Princeton: Princeton University,
1980).
140n the bacaudae of Aquitania: Raymond Van Dam, Leadership and

Community in Late Antique Gaul (Berkeley: University of California,
1985), 25-56; or J. F. Drinkwater, "The Bacaudae of fifth-century Gaul,"
in idem and H. Elton, eds., Fifth-century Gaul: A Crisis of Identity?
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1992).
15Paulinus of Pella Bucharisticus (ed. C. Houssy, SC 209; trans.

H. Isbell [London: Penguin, 1971]) 11. 311-20: "Namque profecturi regis
praecepto Atiulfi / nostra ex urbe Gothi, fuerant qui in pace recepti, /
non aliter nobis quam belli iure subactis / aspera quaeque omni urbe
inrogauere cremata. I ... I nudauere bonis simul omnibus et genetricem /
iuxta meam mecum communi sorte subactos, / uno hoc se nobis credentes
parcere captis / quod nos inmunes poena paterentur abire..."
63
Paulinus' reaction to the violence was notably to flee. Flight did not
end Paulinus' sufferings, however, as he also recorded:
When we were driven off and our ancient house burned, we

fled to Vasatis, a neighbouring city, which has been the
home of my ancestors. There too the enemy came and again
laid seige to us. Our danger there was increased when the
slaves rebelled in a conspiracy encouraged by a few and
abandoned all care for their obligations and armed
themselves for the slaughter of their masters.16
Paulinus escaped from this catastrophe, but again by flight. Throughout
the crisis, Paulinus made no attempt to defend himself and his family
with arms. Instead, he sought an audience with the Gothic king to plead
for protection, a typical response to a common situation.17
16Paulinus of Pella Eucharisticus 11. 328-36: "Nee postrema tamen

tolerati meta laboris / ista fuit nostri quern diximus; ilico namque /
exactos laribus patriis tectisque crematis / obsidio hostilis uicina
excepit in urbe / Vasatis patria maiorum et ipsa meorum, / et grauior
multo circumfusa hostilitate / factio seruilis paucorum mixta furori/
insano iuuenum <nequam> licet ingenuorum / armata in caedem specialem
nobilitatis."
17It is not without reason, therefore, that John Matthews (Western

Aristocracies and Imperial Court, A. D. 364 - 425 [Oxford: Clarendon,
1975], 324) writes: "The autobiographical poem of Paulinus is cast in
the form of an extended prayer of thanksgiving; yet it is pervaded by,
and does not always try to disguise, a profound pessimism..." This
anecdote and my argument generally contradicts the view of Ramsay
MacMullen (Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire [Cambridge:
Harvard University, 1963]), that civilians in the later Roman empire
were forced to militarize themselves to deal with the threat posed by
the political dangers, even while (and this agrees with my analysis)
soldiers, deprived of sufficient support to wage war, were forced to
fend for their own livelihood by settlement, trade, or rapine.
MacMullen writes: "Civilian turned soldier, soldier turned civilian, in
a rapprochement to a middle ground of waste and confusion." (p. 152).
See instead the conclusion of Le Bohec (Armde romaine, 271): "Au m e
sidcle, bien des choses ont changd du fait de la crise: les guerres,
longues et dangereuses, ont ddtournd les nobles de leur devoir, les
sdnateurs dvitent les camps; les pldbdiens les plus douds essaient eux
aussi d'dchapper A leurs obligations, A cause des risques encourus,
certes, mais dgalement parce que le service militaire est devenu un vrai
mdtier et que cette profession est de plus en plus mal rdmundrde.” Le
Bohec does not extend his study beyond the third century, but much the
same continued, as is demonstrated for one region in a recent study by
Ralph Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gauls Strategies for
Survival in an Age of Transition (Austin: University of Texas, 1993).
64
The crisis of the military was thus not only a problem for the
empire as a whole but for every free man in the empire. The Roman
cultural emphasis on militarism in masculine identity demanded some type
of collective response by men to the depredations. As early as the
first quarter of the third century, historian Cassius Dio interpreted
the military crisis of the empire as a crisis of the manliness of the
Roman man. Dio projected his worries about Roman manliness onto the
historical figure of the British rebel-queen, Boudicca, and had her
denounce the Romans as:
...men insolent, unjust, insatiable, impious, — if, indeed,

we ought to term those people men who bathe in warm water,
eat artificial dainties, drink unmixed wine, anoint
themselves with myrrh, sleep on soft couches with boys for
bedfellows, - boys past their prime at that, - and are
slaves to a lyre-player [Nero] and a poor one too.18
Dio's implication was clear: it is the unmanly lifestyle of the Romans
of Nero's day and the refusal of Roman men to lead a vita militaris
which has provoked this crisis. The denunciation was placed in the
mouth of a woman, whose courage shows her to be manlier than her Roman
enemies. The speech was as much a comment on contemporary politics as
it was a historical depiction, since Rome in Cassius' day was ruled by
18cass. Dio 62.6.4: "TOlODtCDV ouv av5p©v Kai toiodtcov yuvaiKcov

PaciXEUotxja, jrpoceuxopai xe coi Kai ait© viktiv Kai aamjpiav Kai eXeuBepiav
Kax’av5p©v tyipioicov jxSIkcov ajtXr|oxwv avoateov, ei ye Kai avSpaq KaXeiv
avGpconoix; u8axi Bepp© Xoupevouq, o\|/a OKeuaoxa ecBiovxaq, oivov aKpaxov
jtivovxaq, pup© dXeupopevoDq, paX8aK©q Koip©pevov^, pexa peipaKv©v, Kai
xot>x©v i^©p©v, tcaBeuSovxaq, KiBapmS©, Kai xouxm k o k ©, SouXcuovxaq. ” The
reference to the "boys past their prime” implies that the Romans were
the receptive partners in sexual encounters, another insult to their
manliness, as will be discussed below, chap. 3. The incident was
supposed to have taken place in 61 C.E.
65
the emperor known as Elagabalus, remembered like Nero for his
effeminacy.19
Not all Roman authors were so critical. Vegetius, for example,
offered an explanation for the military decline of Rome which tried to
circumvent the implicit critique of the manliness of the Romans. The
neglect of military skill among men was due to the "sense of security
born of long peace [which] has diverted mankind partly to the enjoyment
of private leisure, partly to civilian careers."20 When Vegetius wrote,
the empire had hardly enjoyed "long peace,” and so his response must be
seen as more of a denial of the military realities then a serious
attempt at explanation. Roman writers of the later empire typically
only reiterated the masculine military ethic and what was becoming more
and more a charade of might in war. More often than not, they simply
denied the realities of the political status of the empire, and repeated
the maxim of the ancients on war - men who avoided things military were
proditores libertatis ("betrayers of liberty") even while they refused
military service as demeaning.21
The denial of the effects of the military crisis can best be seen
in the panegyrics of the later Roman empire. The whole purpose of these
poetic orations was to praise the emperors and other cultural heroes as
19Cass. Dio 80.14.3: ""Oxi ev x£> SiK&êiv xiva avf|p Jttoq eTvai eSokei,
ev 8e 5f| xolq aXXoiq xq> epytp Kai xq> oxtijiaxi xffe qxovffc mpaiêxo. ”
20Vegetius Epit. rei militaris 1.28: "Sed longae securitas pacis

homines partim ad delectationem otii partim ad ciuilia transduxit
officia."
21Digr. 49.16.4.10: "Grauius autem delictum est detrectare munus

militiae quam adpetere: nam et qui ad dilectum olim non respondebant, ut
proditores libertatis in seruitutem redigebantur."
66
manly conquerors. Men often delivered panegyrists in gratitude for
appointments to high public offices, and could perhaps be excused for
their gratuitous flattery. Their orations also always followed standard
literary themes, including the praise of the parentage of the man who
was the subject of the poem, his upbringing, and his virtues. Chief
among their themes was always - without fail and however extravagantly -
the prowess in war exhibited by the man being praised. Indeed, it has
been suggested that the emphasis on the martial accomplishments of the
panegyrist's subject may have been the most politically expedient in an
age of usurpers and military coups, when the emperor's parentage and
upbringing may not have been distinguished.22
Panegyrics of the later empire demonstrate this facade of
continued military strength. A panegyric to Julian praised him at
length for his vita ailitaris.23 A panegyric to Honorius dwelt also at
length on the military upbringing of the emperor, his eagerness for war,
and his manly appearance in armor. The poem even managed to compare
22MacCormack, Art and Ceremony, 34. See her work generally on the
place of the panegyric in later Roman culture and politics. Cf. the
assessment of political role of the panegyrical praise of military
virtues by Frangois Heim, Virtus. Iddologie politique et croyances
religieuses au IVe si&cle (Berne: Peter Lang, 1991), 277-83. Later
Roman writers themselves, it should be noted, recognized the exaggerated
nature of the genre: Julian. Or. (ed. and trans. W. Wright, LCL) 1.4B-C;
S.H.A. Pescennius Niger 11.5-6.
23Claudius Mamertinus Gratiarum actio de consulatu suo Iuliano

imperatori 11-12 (too lengthy to quote). See also Polymnia
Athanassiadi, Julians An intellectual Biography (New York: Routledge,
1992). Athanassiadi creatively attempts (192-225) to recreate Julian's
own perception of his military role, and argues that he was obsessed
with the idea that his life would parallel that of Alexander the Great,
an example perhaps of the utmost in a masculine military identity.
67
Honorius to the god Mars, although he was only a youth at the tine and
hardly practised at war.24
The last, most ineffectual emperors of the mid-fifth-century west
were accorded some of the most elaborate and laudatory panegyrics. In
one, the female personification of Rome bemoans her recent military
disasters in the presence of Jupiter, who assures her that he will send
her the emperor Avitus for her rescue.25 In another, the goddess Rome
receives the tribute of other personified peoples because of her new
lofty stature under Majorian, a warrior since childhood.26 In a third,
the numerous gods and goddesses of the pagan pantheon vow to send a
savior in the person of the new emperor Anthemius to the personified
empire to deliver her from her military troubles.27 Fifth-century
panegyrics attest both to the heights of unrealistic flattery to which
poets were willing to climb in their praise of imperial virtues, and
their willingness to deny the realities of the military state of affairs
in the empire.
24Claud. Cons. Hon. 3 11. 14b-87a, and idem, Cons. Hon. 4 11. 518-
29: "quantus in ore pater radiatl quam torua uoluptas / frontis et
augusti maiestas grata pudorisl / iam patrias inples galeas; iam cornus
auita / temptatur uibranda tibi; promittitur ingens / dextra rudimentis
Romanaque uota moratur. / quis decor, incedis quotiens clipeatus et auro
/ squameus et rutilus cristis et casside maiorl / sic, cum Threicia
primum sudaret in hasta, / flumina lauerunt puerum Rhodopeia Martem. /
quae uires iaculis uel, cum Gortynia tendis / spicula, quam felix arcus
certique petitor / uulneris et iussum mentiri nescius ictuml"
25Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus dictus Avito Augusto (456 C.E.). For a

recent study of this writer and the political and cultural environment
in which he lived: Jill Harries, sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of
Rome, AD 407 - 485 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994).
26Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus dictus Maioriano Augusto (458 C.E.).
27Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus dictus Anthemio Augusto (468 C.E.).
68
The emphasis among men on the dignity of the uita militaris also
required the utter neglect of contemporary accounts about how it was
actually conducted. Armies were repeatedly condemned for debauchery by
the same writers who demonstrated great admiration for the soldier's
life. Ammianus Marcellinus, describing the wintering of Julian's army
at Antioch, noted critically the
intemperate habits of the troops, who were gorged with meat

and demoralized by a craving for drink, so that almost every
day some of them were carried through the streets to their
quarters on the shoulders of passers-by after debauches in
the temples which called for punishment rather than
indulgence. Conspicuous in this respect were the [legion
called the] Fetulantes and the Celts, whose indiscipline at
this time passed all bounds.26
According to the Bistoria Augusta, the emperor Severus Alexander
complained that the Roman soldiers stationed in Gaul:
...go straggling on all sides; the tribunes bathe in the

middle of the day; they have cook-shops for mess-halls and,
instead of barracks, brothels; they dance, they drink, they
sing, and they regard as the proper limit to a banquet
unlimited drinking.29
Emperors occasionally had to have their soldiers crucified to discourage
theft from the local populace, and the hands of recaptured deserters cut
28Amm. Marc. 22.12.6: "Hostiarum tamen sanguine plurimo aras

crebritate nimia perfundebat tauros aliquotiens immolando centenos et
innumeros uarii pecoris greges auesque Candidas terra quaesitas et mari
adeo, ut in dies paene singulos milites carnis distentiore sagina
uictitantes incultius potusque auiditate carnis umeris impositi
transeuntium per plateas ex publicis aedibus, ubi uindicandis potius
quam cedendis conuiuiis indulgebant, ad sua diuersoria portarentur,
Fetulantes ante omnes et Celtae, quorum ea tempestate confidentia
creuerat ultra modum." Cf. a letter of Marcus Aurelius quoted in the
biography of the usurper Avidius Cassius, former governor of Syria under
Marcus Aurelius. S.H.A. Avidius Cassius 4.5: "Avidio Cassio legiones
Ssyricas dedi diffluentes luxuria et Daphnidis moribus agentes..."
29S.H.A. Pescennius Niger 3.10: "milites tui vagantur, tribuni

medio die lavant, pro tricliniis popinas habent, pro cubiculis
meritoria; saltant, bibunt, cantant, et mensuras conviviorum hoc vocant
cum sine mensura potarunt."
69
off, which suggest that both offences were commonplace occurrences
needing severe punishments as disincentives.30
The praise of the soldier's life was also obliged to ignore the
high rates of desertion in the later Roman army. Some desertion must
only have been expected. The continually sinking defense against the
barbarian invaders over the course of the third, fourth, and fifth
centuries must have disheartened even the bravest of the imperial
troops. Before a decisive battle in Britain in 368, the general
Theodosius invited all soldiers who had fled because of the ferocity of
the barbarians to return with impunity. Many were said to have accepted
this offer, implying that many had previously deserted.31 Later Roman
emperors were much harsher to desertors, but the situation had by then
deteriorated significantly. A half-century later, for example,
Valentinian III issued fines against anyone who hid an army desertor or
who obstructed inquiries into desertion.32 Military desertors could be
30For the crucifixion of soldiers: S.H.A. Avidius Cassius 4.2:

"nam primum milites qui aliquid provincialibus tulissent per vim, in
illis ipsis locis, in quibus peccaverant, in crucem sustulit." For the
amputation of the hands of thieving soldiers: S.H.A. Avidius Cassius
4.5: "idem multis desertoribus manus excidit, aliis crura incidit ac
poplites, dicens maius exemplum esse viventis miserabiliter criminosi
quam occisi.” This may be more of a suggestion on the part of the
author of the Bistoria Augusta, rather than a record of fact, but this
does not affect the implication of the rate of occurrence.
31Amm. Marc. 27.8.9-10: "Vbi ad audenda maiora prospero successu

elatus totaque scrutando consilia futuri morabatur ambiguus diffusam
uariarum gentium plebem et ferocientem immaniter non nisi per dolos
occutiores et improuisos excursus superari posse captiuorum
confessionibus et transfugarum indiciis doctus. denique edictis
propositis impunitateque promissa desertores ad procinctum uocabat et
multos alios per diuersa libero commeatu dispersos. quo monitu rediere
plerique incentiuo perciti releuatusque anxiis curis..."
32NOv. Valentiniani (ed. T. Mommsen and P. Meyer as part of Cod.

Theod. [Berlin: Weidmann, 1905]; trans. C. Pharr [Princeton: Princeton
university, 1952]) 6.1: "Ne qui tamen damni publici abusus occasione
70
punished in a variety of ways, including: "reprimand, money fine,
imposition of duties, change of branch of the service, reduction in
military rank, dishonorable discharge" or even with death in extreme
circumstances.33 Hen temporarily absent without leave were treated more
leniently than deserters, if they returned voluntarily, and if they had
left for understandable reasons: this leniency may indicate it as a
regular occurrence.34
The problem of desertion may help to explain the increasing
reliance of the Roman empire on German mercenary troops, one of the key
factors in the eventual collapse of the western government. In turn,
the large numbers of Germans serving for pay in the Roman army may help
to explain the problem of soldiers who fled before battles or went over
lucrum capere se credat de fiscali dispendio, si personam semel

insignitam militari titulo ruris colendi causa vel negotiationis
exercendae gratia aut cuiuslibet ministerii occasions detentet..."
Ibid. 6.2: "Quid enim magis professis est desideriis expetendum, quam ut
adiectis viribus per dilectum roboris militaris Romanus augeatur
exercitus... 7 Aversum quippe animum a communi defensionis studio iure
talis severitas insequitur. Superest igitur, ut nullius animus retardet
iniuncta, quia, quisquis in hac parte cessaverit, sese quodammodo
confitetur non esse Romanum.”
33Dig. 49.16.3: "1. Poenae militum huiuscemodi sunt: castigatio,

pecuniaria multa, munerum indictio, militiae mutatio, gradus deiectio,
ignominiosa missio... 4. is, qui exploratione emanet hostibus
insistentibus aut qui a fossato recedit, capite puniendus est... 10.
Is, qui ad hostem confugit et rediit, torquebitur ad bestiasque uel in
furcam damnabitur, quamuis milites nihil eorum patiantur. 11. Et is,
qui uolens transfugere adprhensus est, captie punitur: humane militiam
mutat."
34Dig. 49.16.4.13-15: "sed siue redeat quis et offerat se, siue

deprehensus offeratur, poenam desertionis euitat: nec interest, cui se
offerat uel a quo deprehendatur. Leuius itaque delictum emansionis
habetur, ut erronis in seruis, desertionis grauius, ut in fugitiuis.
Examinantur autem causae semper emansionis et cur et ubi fuerit et quid
egerit: et datur uenia ualetudini, affectioni parentium et adfinium, et
si seruum fugientem persecutus est uel si qua huiusmodi causa sit. sed
et ignoranti adhuc disciplinam tironi ignoscitur."
71
to the enemy during campaigns.35 The frequent defections of mercenary
troops may also be explained by the apparent lack of sustained financial
support for soldiers, valentinian III, for example, imposed a new tax
to help pay for military supplies so that the troops would not have to
continue to engage in trading, "which is unworthy and shameful for an
armed man,” but which otherwise "they can scarcely be vindicated from
the peril of hunger or from the destruction of cold."36 Lack of
supplies and pay similarly resulted in a mutiny of troops in Gaul in
354, a dangerous situation which was ended only when the leaders of the
rebellion were bribed.37 Numbers of desertors may have been augmented
by the numerous civil wars of the period. When the usurper Maximin lost
his throne to Licinius in 313, it was said of his army that "half lay
dead, the other half either surrendered or took to flight."38
35Dig. 49.15.19t "4. Transfugae nullum postliminium estt nam qui

malo consilio et proditoris animo patriam reliquit, hostium numero
habendus est... 8. Transfuga autem non is solus accipiendus est, qui
aut ad hostes aut in bello transfugit, sed et qui per indutiarum tempus
aut ad eos, cum quibus nulla amicitia est, fide suscepta transfugit."
See below for an explanation of postliminium.
36Nov. Valentiniani 15.1: "...quos nisi indigna et pudenda armato

homini negotiatio aluerit, vix possunt a famis periculo et a frigorum
pernicie vindicarii."
37Amm. Hare. 14.10.4-5: "...Eusebius praepositus cubiculi missus

est Cabyllona aurum secum perferens, quo per turbulentos seditionum
concitores occultius distributo et tumor consenuit militum et salus est
in tuto locata praefecti.” See below, chap. 4, for more on the career
of this Eusebius.
38Lactant. De mortibus persecutorum (ed. and trans. J. Creed

[Oxford: Clarendon, 1984]) 47: "At in exercitu pars dimidia prostrata
est, pars autem vel dedita vel in fugam versa est..." The battle was
that of Ergenus.
72
Lactantius, describing the scene, added that "any shame at
deserting their emperor had been removed by his deserting them."39 The
problem of unmanliness was never far from the minds of men, especially
in describing desertion and flight from military encounters. Julian
dismissed the fleeing army of the usurper Hagnentius, despite their
manliness [drv<5peta] in battle, as "beasts... reap[ing] the fruits of his
cowardice.”40 For those men frightened enough to attempt suicide rather
than fight in battle, the law proscribed death.41 Even Vegetius,
however, was forced to admit in his military treatise that "few men are
born naturally brave; hard work and good training makes them so."42
Given the Roman preoccupation with distinguishing the manly from the
unmanly, it is perhaps not surprising, then, that Vegetius felt
compelled to add:
It is a natural reaction in the minds of nearly all men to

be fearful as they go to do battle with the enemy. But
39Lactant. De aortibus persecutorum 47: "...ademerat enim pudorem

deserendi desertor imperator."
40Julian, or. 1.37A: ..£§i(DKOV 8£ ftnavxaq KapxEptbq, xivaq pfcv m b q

x8 neSiov (bp^Kotaq (pEuyeiv, <nv f| vbJ; iXAyouq aneoeooe u6Xiq, x8 Xovkov 8k eq
xbv Jtoranbv Karnvex&n, KaOdnep |Joa>v fjpooKTifiaxtov ay£A.ri truveXauvdnevoi.
xoaauxa ekeivo to oxpatEâ xr^q xou ropavvou 8eiX.iaq, ouoev ^kevvov dvfjoav ek
xr^q avSpeiaq xfjq avxou, paxiiv djceXauoe." The battle was that of Myrsa in
353. For a comparison with Republican Rome, when military defeats were
usually blamed not on the cowardice of the general leading the force,
but on the lack of discipline and courage among the soldiers: Nathan
Rosenstein, Imperatores victii Military Defeat and Aristocratic
Competition in the Middle and Late Republic (Berkeley: University of
California, 1990), 92-113.
41Oig. 49.16.6.7: "Qui se uulnerauit uel alias mortem sibi

consciuit, imperator Hadrianus rescripsit, ut modus eius rei statutus
sit, ut, si impatientia doloris aut taedio uitae aut morbo aut furore
aut pudore mori maluit, non animaduertatur in eum, sed ignominia
mittatur,si nihil tale praetendat, capite puniatur.”
42Vegetius Epit. rei militaris 3.26: "Paucos uiros fortes natura

procreat, bona institutions plures reddit industria."
73
those whose minds are panicked by [the enemy's] actual

appearance are without doubt the weaker sort
[infirmiores],43
Later Roman law, with much the same thing in mind, decreed that "whoever
was first to flee from the line of battle must suffer capital punishment
with (his fellow) soldiers looking on, by way of example."44
Legislating manliness in war was one method of dealing with cowardice
and desertion.
The stigma attached to desertion or cowardice in battle also made
itself felt in the attitude toward prisoners-of-war. Prisoners-of-war
indicated by their very survival that they had preferred capture to
death in battle, and the law was harsh to such men. Jurisprudence
suggested that "in every branch of the law, a person who fails to return
from enemy hands is regarded as having died at the moment when he was
captured."45 The penalties enacted against prisoners-of-war reinforced
their legal inexistence: their wills were no longer valid, and their
citizenship was put in jeopardy. While prisoners-of-war could be
recovered through postliminium, the negotiated exchange of property
captured in war, the same was likely felt about the return of men as the
return of weaponry: "their loss is disgraceful."46
43Vegetius Epit. rei militaris 3.12: "Animis paene omnium hominum

hoc naturaliter euenit, ut trepidant, cum ad conflictum hostium
uenerint. Sine dubio autem infirmiores sunt quorum mentes ipse
confundit aspectus..."
440ig. 49.16.6.3: "Qui in acie prior fugam fecit, spectantibus

militibus propter exemplum capite puniendus est."
45big. 49.15.18: "In omnibus partibus iuris is, qui reuersus non
est ab hostibus, quasi tunc decessisse uidetur, cum captus est."
46Dig. 49.15.2: "Non idem in armis iuris est, quippe nec sine
flagitio amittuntur: arraa enim postliminio reuerti negatur, quod
74
Yet somehow, despite the disasters of the later Roman wars, the
idea of martial manliness continued to hold sway. The power of military
metaphors to express the cultural aspirations of Roman masculinity, even
in the declining centuries of the western empire, may be seen in the
rapid spread of the religion of Mithra. Hithra was a Persian god whose
worship first appeared in the eastern empire sometime in the second
century C. E. and to the west after that date. The cult of Mithra
especially attracted soldiers in the Roman army, and was likely brought
west by them as they were transferred from one location to another along
the borders of the empire. Mithraism was not confined to soldiers,
however, and there is evidence for its popularity among the upper
classes of Rome, at least from the late second century and the reign of
Commodus, the first emperor known to have patronized the religion. The
emperor Julian was also a devotee of the cult, and may have sponsored a
revival of the cult in the fourth century. In that century, it has been
estimated, there were more than one hundred temples to the god in the
city of Rome alone.47
turpiter amittantur..." On the invalidity of the wills of prisoners-of-

war: Dig. 28.3.6: "Irritum fit testamentum, quotiens ipsi testatori
aliguid contigit, puta si ciuitatem amittat per subitam seruitutem, ab
hostibus uerbi gratia captus..." On the postliminium Dig. 49.15.4:
"Eos, qui ab hostibus capiuntur uel hostibus deduntur, iure postliminii
reuerti antiquitas placuit. an qui hostibus deditus reuersus nec a
nobis receptus ciuis Romanus sit, inter Brutum et Scaeuolam uarie
tractatum est: et consequens est, ut ciuitatem non adipiscatur.”
470n Mithraism: Manfred Clauss, Mithras. Kult und Mysteries

(Munich: C. H. Beck, 1990); Robert- Turcan, Mithra et le mithriacisme
(Paris: Belles lettres, 1993); idem, Les cultes orientaux dans le monde
romain (Paris: Belles lettres, 1989). On the spread of the cult and the
role of the army: C. M. Daniels, "The Role of the Roman Army in the
Spread and Practice of Mithraism," in Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of
the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies, vol. 2, ed. J.
Hinnells (Manchester: Manchester University, 1975). For epigraphical
75
Part of the appeal provided by the worship of Mithra was its
militaristic symbols and vocabulary. The genesis-legend of the god
himself involved a primordial battle against the forces of evil,
signified by the salvific slaying of a cosmic bull, a slaying re-enacted
by believers in a rite known as the tauroboliua.** Followers considered
themselves part of a sancta militia ("holy militia") with the god as
their dux ("commander"). Moreover, miles ("soldier") was the title of
the third of seven stages of initiation, and may have involved military-
type tests of endurance and strength, and a military-type crown of
laurels given to the participant. The very idea of ranks of membership
formed a parallel with the army. Finally, the complete exclusion of
women from the religion supported this military appearance to the
religion.
Through Mithraism, one might suggest, religious devotion could
continue to provide a mask of militarism for Roman participants. The
martial power of the divinity could be seen as reinforcing the strength
of his followers in their daily lives on earth - lives which may not
otherwise have seemed powerful at all.49 In this way, the aura of a
evidence of the Mithraic cult in the west: Manfred Clauss, Cultores

Mithcae. Die AnhSngerschaft des Mithras-Kultes (Stuttgart: Franz
Steiner, 1992). On Commodus' devotion to the cult: S.H.A. Comm. 9.6.
On Julian's devotion to the cult: Athanassiadi, Julian, 52-88; disputed
by Turcan, Mithra, 42.
48John Hinnells, "Reflections on the Bull-slaying Scene," in

Mithraic Studies, vol. 2.
49This interpretation is suggested by R. L. Gordon, "Mithraism and

Roman Society: Social Factors in the Explanation of Religious Change in
the Roman Empire," Religion 2 (1972): 92-121.
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
76
militaristic religion supplanted the cultural void left by the declining
military effectiveness of the empire.
Men of the later Roman empire also satisfied their desire for
military exploits vicariously through their leisure activities, as
spectators of the martial violence in the gladiatorial contests,
wrestling matches, and various arena games.50 A connection between the
soldier and the gladiator was frequently made, linking the two in the
ancient mind.51 The Roman nobility was notoriously addicted to such
sports, and gathered in arenas and amphitheatres built in most large
Roman cities across western Europe to watch them, spending exorbitant
sums on the contests.52
The gladiatorial games and other athletic and pugilistic contests
were closely linked to issues of manliness and unmanliness. It was
uncertain, however, which category should include gladiators. On the
one hand, the author of the Bistoria Augusta suggested that manliness
was at the very origins of such contests:
50On the gladiatorial games: Keith Hopkins, Death and Renewal

(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1983), 1-30; Michael Poliakoff, Combat
Sports in the Ancient Worlds Competition, violence, and Culture (New
Haven: Yale University, 1987).
51This point is argued by Patrick Le Roux, "L'amphitheatre et le

soldat sous l'Bmpire romain," in C. Domergue, et al., eds., Spectacula:
actes du collogue tenu h Toulouse et h Lattes les 26, 27, 28 et 29 mai
1987 (Paris: Imago, 1990). Cf. Barton, Sorrows of the Ancient Romans.
52Monique Clavel-LdvSque, L'Bmpire en jeux: espace symboligue et

pratique sociale dans le monde romain (Paris: Centre national de la
recherche scientifique, 1984). As Clavel-Ldvfique indicates (pp. 162-
73), the spatial dominance of the amphitheatres in most Roman cities is
a symbolic marker of their cultural dominance. For the archeological
record, see Augusta Hfinle, R&mische Amphitheater und Stadien:
GladiatorenkSmpfe und Circusspiele (Ziirich: Atlantis/Antike Welt, 1981);
or Domergue, Spectacula.
77
...when about to go to war the Romans felt it necessary to

behold fighting and wounds and steel and naked men
contending among themselves, so that in war they might not
fear armed enemies or shudder at wounds and blood.53
The virtuous man was compared to a gladiator, and the gladiator's
courage, perseverance, discipline, and disregard for pain were admired.
Gladiators and athletes were not subject to legal infamy, as were other
public performers: "for their object was to display their prowess
[uirtus ]."54
On the other hand, most intellectuals showed a certain disdain for
the bloody sports.55 The imperial biographies, moreover, generally
praised those emperors who attempted to limit the expense and violence
of the games, like the revered Marcus Aurelius, and condemned those
emperors who spent recklessly on the games.56 The despised Commodus,
53S.H.A. Maximus at Balbinus 8.5-7: "Unde autem mos tractus sit,

ut proficiscentes ad helium imperatores munus gladiatorium et venatus
darent, breviter dicendum est. multi dicunt apud veteres hanc
devotionem contra hostes factam, ut civium sanguine litato specie
pugnarum se Nemesis (id est vis quaedam Fortunae) satiaret. alii hoc
litteris tradunt, quod veri similius credo, ituros ad bellum Romanos
debuisse pugnas videre et vulnera et ferrum et nudos inter se coeuntes,
ne in bello armatos hostes timerent aut vulnera et sanguinem
perhorrescerent.”
54Dig. 3.2.4: "Athletas autem Sabinus et Cassius responderunt

omnino artem ludicram non facere: uirtutis enim gratia hoc facere. et
generaliter ita omnes opinantur et utile uidetur, ut neque thymelici
neque xystici neque agitatores nec qui aquam equis spargunt ceteraque
eorum ministeria, qui certaminibus sacris deseruiunt, ignominiosi
habeantur."
55H6nle, "Amphitheater und Gesellschaft," in Rbmische

Amphitheater.
56S.H.A. M. Ant. 11.4: "gladiatoria spectacula omnifariam

temperavit. temperavit etiam scaenicas donationes iubens ut quinos
aureos scaenici acciperent, ita tamen ut nullus editor decern aureos
egrederetur.” Cf. ibid. 27.6: "gladiatorii muneris sumptus modum
fecit." According to one source, the emperor Marcus Aurelius did not
even permit the contests to use real weapons: Cass. Dio 72.29.3:
"MapKoq ye out© t i <p6voiq o\>k fcxaipev ©ore Kai wbq novon&xou? ev tfl
78
notably, loved the games and even fought in them himself. "Indeed,"
wrote the author of the Bistoria Augusta, "one would have believed him
born rather to a life of infamy than to the high place to which Fortune
advanced him.”57
As this last comment implied, it may be that the disdain for
participation in the games had more to do with class than gender, since
most fighters in the arenas were slaves or low-born. Cassius Dio
repeated the tradition of a previous generation of historians, that
during the reign of Nero:
There was another exhibition that was at once most

disgraceful and most shocking, when men and women not only
of the equestrian but even of the senatorial order appeared
as performers in the orchestra, in the Circus, and in the
hunting-theatre, like those who are held in lowest esteem.
Some of them played the flute and danced in pantomimes or
acted in tragedies and comedies or sang to the lyre; they
drove horses, killed wild beasts and fought as gladiators,
some willingly and some against their will.58
dfcnep dGXuxixq &KivSv>vcoq &<6pa (laxopivouq- aifiTjpiov yap ooS&xoxe ouSevi

avx&x bfyiIScokev, iOJkii Kai dpjiAioiv dkntep £o<paipa>pipoif x&vxec; ^jidxovto."
57S.H.A. Comm. 2.9: "equos currules sibi comparavit. aurigae
habitu currus rexit, gladiatoribus convixit, atque se gessit ut lenonum
minister, ut probris natum magis quam ei loco eum crederes, ad quern
fortuna provexit." Cf. ibid. 11.10: "Gladiatorium etiam certamen subiit
et nomina gladiatorum recepit eo gaudio quasi acciperet triumphalia.”
According to one source, these contests were always carefully rigged so
that the emperor won: Aur. Vic. Caes. 17.4-6: "Immiti prorsus feroque
ingenio, adeo quidem uti gladiatores specie depugnandi crebro
trucidaret, cum ipse ferro, obiecti mucronibus plumbeis urerentur.
Cumque eo modo plures confecisset, forte cum Scaeua nomine, audacia ac
robore corporis pugnandique arte peruigens, ab studio tali deterruit;
qui, spreto gladio, quern inutilem cernebat, sufficere utrique ait, quo
armabatur ipse. Bo metu, ne inter congressum, uti solet, extorto
pugione conficeretur, Scaeuam remouit, atque ad alios formidolosior, in
feras beluasque ferociam conuertit." Cf. Cass. Dio 73.15-21 which does
not included this episode.
58cass. Dio 62.17.3: "6keivo 8k 8f| Kai au mcxov Kai 8eiv6xaxgy &pa
ey£vexo, 6xi Kai avSpeq Kai pvatKeq ov>x xo^j uxxucoG aXkit Kai xou v
PodXeuxikou 6cîc6p.axoq xt|v &pxf|cxpav Kai x6v ixxoSpopov to xe 8£axpov to
KDvijyExiKov ect]X0ov ooxEp oi 0 X1(16x0 X01,Kai rpfA,iicdv xive? aoxtov Kai
<bpxt(oavxo xpayq>8iaq xe Kai KcopcpSiaq fatEKpivavxo Kai iKiGapcpStioav, ixnovq xe
79
Severus Alexander believed that "actors and wild-beast hunters and
chariot-drivers should be treated as if they were our slaves."59 The
inferior social status of the participants in the games undermined their
manly gender status.
Yet another aspect of the Roman response to the military crisis is
visible in the frequent literary contrasts between the manliness of the
Romans, as demonstrated by their martial prowess, and the effeminate
practices of the cultures and peoples of the east. This was an old
theme in Latin literature, and was based in large part on the successful
historical conquest of those peoples by Rome. The assessment of the
eastern Mediterranean peoples - Greeks, Phyrgians, Syrians, Arabs,
Egyptians - as effeminate may also be found in abundance in later Roman
authors. Included in the critique of these peoples was a host of
negative commentst how their greater wealth, as demonstrated by the
richness of their clothing - especially the greater use of colored
silks, purple dyes, and precious metals and gems - gave them a love of
luxury which was unbecoming. Also included in the Roman opinion of the
easterners was an implicit critique of their sexual mores, especially
the sexual penetration of free-born adolescent males: Roman traditions
forbad this practice as demeaning.60 Roman writers were themselves
r\Xaaav Kai Gqpia dx^KtEivav Kai efiovoiidxtiaav, oi nev £0EX.ovral ol Si Kai

irdvu aKOVTEq." cf. Suet. Ater. 4.
59S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 37.1: "Spectacula frequentavit cum summa

donandi parsimonia, dicens et scaenicos et venatores et aurigas sic
alendos quasi servos nostros aut venatores aut muliones aut
voluptarios."
60On the theme of the effeteness of Greek culture in classical

Latin authors: A. N. Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1970), 71-86; J. P. V. D. Balsdon,
80
questioning the manliness of Roman men; as a result, this projection of
effeminacy onto the defeated eastern peoples took on an ironic tone.
In many sources, the terms for easterner and effeminacy were
virtual synonymous. Herodes, son of rebel Palmyran queen Zenobia, was
the "most delicate of men, utterly oriental and [given] to Grecian
luxury..."61 It was because of the association of effeminacy with the
peoples of the east that the emperor Severus Alexander preferred to be
thought of as a Roman, even though he was of mixed ancestry, and was
angered when reminded him of his Syrian parentage.62 Julian was
similarly angered when his troops called him "a degenerate Greek from
Asia."63 The soldiers were obviously unaware of the manly character
which Julian was said to possess by Ammianus Marcellinus and others, but
Romans and Aliens (London: Duckworth, 1979), 30-54. For a classical

Latin critique of the Greek and Hellenistic sexual practice of xaiSepaaria
("pederasty"), in which free-born youths were available as sexual
partners to be penetrated sexually by adult men: Williams,
"Homosexuality and the Roman Han," 64-107. See also Ernest Ament
("Aspects of Androgyny in Classical Greece," in Women's Power, Man's
Garnet Essays in Classical Antiquity in Honor of Joy K. King, ed. H.
DeForest (Wauconda, Illinois: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1993) for examples of
gender ambiguity in Greek literature.
61S.H.A. Tyr. trig, (my translation here) 16.1: "Non Zenobia matre
sed priore uxore genitus Herodes cum patre accepit imperium, homo omnium
delicatissimus et prorsus orientalis et Graecae luxuriae..."
62S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 28.7: "volebat videri originem de Romanorum

gente trahere, quia eum pudebat Syrum dici, maxima quod quodam tempore
festo, ut solent, Antiochense, Aegyptii, Alexandrini lacessiverant
conviciolis, et Syrum archisynagogum eum vocantes et archierum.” Hagie
(vol. 2, p. 235, n. 3) believes this a reference to the religious cult
and status of Elagabalus. See discussion on this emperor and the cult
below, chaps. 4 and 8. Severus Alexander tried inter alia to distance
himself from his predecessor, Elagabalus, who had brought many eastern
customs to Rome.
63Amm. Hare. 17.9.3: "frugibus enim nondum etiam maturis miles

expensis, quae portabat, nusquam repperiens uictus extrema minitans
Iulianum compellationibus incessebat et probis, Asianum appellans,
Graeculum et fallacem et specie sapientiae stolidum.”
81
they were responding to the same stereotypes of easterners. Even Julian
utilized these stereotypes, referring to the "effeminate dispositions"
of the Antiochenes.64 All eastern nations were considered unmanly: the
Egyptians were full of vice,65 and the Arabs were molles.66 The
weakness of their moral character, Claudian asserted, had brought to
successive ruin the empires of Sparta, Assyria, Macedonia, and Persia.67
In the final centuries of the western empire, however, it was
insufficient to remind emperors, as Pacatus does in his panegyric to the
emperor Theodosius I, that he might just as easily crush the German
barbarians as his imperial predecessors had destroyed the Hellenistic
kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean,68 or describe for purposes of
64Julian. His. 339A-B: " ty iE ic Kai kv xq> yf|p£ i^XoCvxEC xoix; tyidiv
avaDv vieaq Kai xaq SDya^pa^bKO dppdrnroq picru Kai ictoq dftaXarnroc xpdnou
Xeiov £Ki)iEA(D£ epYdêoQe, tov avSpa bnotpaivovxeq Kai JiapaSEiKvuvxE^ oia xoi>
(lExcojioD Kai o\>x &anep f\pei<; £k x©v yvatkov."
65S.H.A. Firmus Satuminus Proculus et Bonosus 7.4: "sunt enim

Aegyptii, ut satis nosti, viri ventosi, furibundi, iactantes, iniuriosi,
atque adeo vani, liberi, novarum rerum usque ad cantilenas publicas
cupientes, versificatores, epigrammatarii, mathematici, haruspices,
medici."
66Claud. Cons. Hon. 4 11. 257-264a: "tu licet extremos late

dominere per Indos, / te Medus, te mollis Arabs, te Seres adorent..."
67Claud. Cons. Stil. 3 passim esp. at 11. 160b-l: "nam cetera

regna / luxuries uitiis odiisque superbia uertit..."
68Pacatus Panegyricus dictus Theodosiani imperatori 33:

"Memorabile putavit antiquitas quod Actiaco aliquando bello ducibus
motibusque Romanis peregrina Aegyptus arma permiscuit, tantumque res
credita est habere novitatis ut, nisi frequenter isset in litteras, apud
posteros videretur facti fides laboratura. ...Quo tibi, imperator,
indignius videbatur eius piaculi quemquam invenire potuisse consortem,
cuius se barbarus agebat ultorem." Cf. Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus...
Maioriano 11. 419-30: "ut primum versis dat tergum Vandalus armis, /
succedit caedes pugnae: discrimine nullo / sternuntur passim campis, et
fortia quaeque / fecit iners. trepidante fuga mare pallidus intrat / et
naves pertransit eques, turpique natatu / de pelago ad cymbam rediit.
sic tertia Pyrrhi / quondam pugna fuit: caesis cum milibus ilium /
Dentatus premeret, lacerae vix fragmina classis / traxit in Epirum qui
82
morale, as in the Historia Augusta, the old Roman victories over the
Gauls and Carthaginians.69 The Roman empire was by that point at the
mercy of foreign invaders.
Again, many Roman writers simply attempted to ignore the threat
posed by the military success of the Germans. The numerous treaties
which the Romans signed with the northern tribes, in a futile attempt to
limit their ravages, were variously described as shrewd political
manoevers,70 or as peacefully negotiated alternatives to war,71 or again
as short-sighted imperial leadership,72 and only rarely admitted to be
weak capitulations73 or practicalities enforced because of lack of
Chaonas atque Molossos, / qui Thracum Macetumque manus per litora vestra
/ sparserat et cuius vires Oenotria pallens / ipsaque, quae petiit,
trepidaverat uncta Tarentus."
69S.H.A. Valeriani duo 1.3-4: "cogita quantas gentes Romani ex

hostibus suas fecerint, a quibus saepe victi sunt, audivimus certe quod
Galli eos vicerint et ingentem illam civitatem incenderint; certe
Romanis serviunt. quid Afri? eos non vicerunt? certe serviunt
Romanis."
70Amm. Marc. 29.4.1: "sollertiae uero circa rem publicam usquam

digredientis nemo eum uel obtrectator peruicax incusabit illud
contemplans, quod maius pretium operae foret in regendis uerius milite
barbaris quam pellendis.”
71Amm. Marc. 14.6.4: "...in iuuenem erectus et uirum ex omni

plaga, quam orbis ambit immensus, reportauit laureas et triumphos;
iamque uergens in senium et nomine solo aliquotiens uincens ad
tranquilliora uitae discessit."
72From a speech attributed to Constantius II to his troops, who

agree to a treaty between the Romans and the Alamans. Amm. Marc.
14.10.14: "...postremo id reputantes, quod non ille hostis uincitur
solus, qui cadit in acie pondere armorum oppressus et uirium, sed multo
tutius etiam tuba tacente sub iugum mittitur uoluntarius, qui sentit
expertus nec fortitudinem in rebelles nec lenitatem in supplices animos
abesse...”
73Sid. Apoll. Epist. 7.7 to Graecus, passim but esp. at 7.7.4:

"pudeat vos, precamur, huius foederis, nec utilis nec decori."
83
financial support for the troops.74 A description from the late-fourth-
century Historia Augusta represents this see-no-evil approach:
For all Germany, throughout its whole extent, has now been
subdued, and nine princes of different tribes have lain
suppliant and prostrate... All booty has been regained,
other booty too has been captured, greater, indeed, than
that which was previously taken. The barbarians' oxen now
plough the farms of Gaul, the Germans' yoked cattle, now
captive, submit their necks to our husbandmen, the flocks of
divers tribes are fed for the nourishing of our troops,
their herds of horses are now bred for the use of our
cavalry, and the grain of the barbarians fills our
granaries. Why say more?75
More needed to be said. In the final century of the western
empire's existence, writers typically described the fear-inspiring
character of the barbarian tribes in frightened recognition of their
fighting abilities.76 In a particularly contrived panegyric, Sidonius
Apollinaris compared the martial prowess of the emperor Avitus
unconvincingly to that of several northern tribes:
74Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus...Avito 11. 306b-311: "postquam undigue

nullum / praesidium ducibusgue tuis nil, Roma, relictum est, / foedus,
Avite, novas; saevum tua pagina regem / lecta domat; iussisse sat est
te, guod rogat orbis. / credent hoc umguam gentes populigue futuri? /
littera Romani cassat guod, barbare, vincis."
75S.H.A. Probus 15.2 and 5-6: "subacta est omnis qua tenditur late
Germania, novem reges gentium diversarum ad meos pedes, immo ad vestros,
supplices stratigue iacuerunt. ...praeda omnis recepta est, capta etiam
alia, et guidem maior quam fuerat ante direpta. arantur Gallicana rura
barbaris bubus et iuga Germanica captiva praebent nostris colla
cultoribus, pascuntur ad nostrorum alimoniam gentium pecora diversarum,
eguinum pecus nostro iam fecundatur eguitatui, frumento barbarico plena
sunt horrea. quid plura?"
76E.g., the Huns, by Claud. In Rufinum 1 11. 323-31: "est genus

extremos Scythiae uergentis in ortus / trans gelidum Tanain, quo non
famosius ullum / Arctos alit. turpes habitus obscaenague uisu /
corpora; mens duro numquam cessura labori; / praeda cibus, uitanda
Ceres, frontemque secari / ludus et occisos pulchrum iurare parentes. /
nec plus nubigenas duplex natura biformes / cognatis aptauit eguis:
acerrima nullo / ordine mobilitas insperatique recursus." Cf. Amm.
Marc. 31.2.1-12. Cf. also related description of the Scythians,
probably Huns, in Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus...Anthemio 11. 241, who calls
them "barbara barbaricis" ("barbarous even to barbarians").
84
...the Herulian found in you his match in fleetness, the Hun

in javelin-throwing, the Frank in swimming, the sauromatian
in use of shield, the Salian in marching, the Gelonian in
wielding the scimitar; and in bearing of wounds you did
surpass any mourning barbarian to whom wailing means self-
wounding and tearing the cheeks with steel and gouging the
red traces of scars on his threatening face.77
Here the prowess and ferocity of the Germans was unquestioned.78 As
unrealistically as Sidonius described Avitus, he did attribute his
military skill to the training he had received under the commander-in-
chief of his empire, the Roman general Aetius who had been raised as a
hostage of the Huns, without apparently a trace of irony, the
panegyricists frequently lay much of the credit for the military
defences of the empire, such as they were, at the feet of these military
commanders, often, like Stilicho under the western emperor Honorius,
barbarians themselves.79
77Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus...Avito 11. 235b-240: "vincitur illic /

cursu Herulus, Chunus iaculis Francusque natatu, / Sauromata clipeo,
Salius pede, falce Gelonus, / vulnere vel si quis plangit cui flesse
feriri est / ac ferro perarasse genas vultuque minaci / rubra cicatricum
vestigia defodisse." I have changed the translator's "thee" to "you"
and "thou didst" to "you did."
78The savagery of the northerners was also a theme of classical

Latin literature: Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice, 1-61. For the later
empire: Thomas Wiedemann, "Between men and beasts: Barbarians in
Ammianus Marcellinus," in Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman
Historical Writing, ed. I. Moxon, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1986).
79Claud. Cons. Stil. passim but esp. at 1 11. 188-92: "miramur

rapidis hostem succumbere bellis, / cum solo terrore ruat? num classica
Francis / intulimus? iacuere tamen. num Harte Suebos / contudimus,
quis iura damus? quis credere possit? / ante tubam nobis audax Germania
seruit." Cf. ibid. 2, 11. 240b-45: "turn flaua repexo / Gallia crine
ferox euinctaque torque decoro / binaque gaesa tenens animoso pectore
fatur: / 'qui mihi Germanos solus Francosque subegit, / cur nondum
legitur fastis? cur pagina tantum / nescit adhuc nomen, quod iam
numerare decebat?'" Cf. idem, cons. Hon. 6 11. 242-64. On the
barbarian commanders of the later Roman empire, see Liebeschuetz,
Barbarians and Bishops, 7-10.
85
Quite simply, the Romans believed the barbarians to be manlier
than they were. Even the pinkish skin color of the Germans and Celts
was evidence of their bravery, according to physiognomists.80 Sidonius
Apollinaris' description of Theodoric II, mid-fifth-century king of the
Visigoths, bore many similarities with earlier descriptions of manly
emperors:
In his [physical] build the will of God and Nature's plan

have joined together to endow him with a supreme perfection;
and his character is such that even the jealousy which
hedges a sovereign has no power to rob it of its glories.
Take first his appearance. His figure is well-
proportioned... His shoulders are well-shaped, his upper
arms sturdy, his forearms hard, his hands broad. The chest
is prominent, the stomach recedes . . . Strength reigns in
his well-girt loins. His thigh is hard as horn; the upper
legs from joint to joint are full of manly vigour.81
The manly vigor of the barbarians, which became more and more
apparent as they took gradual control of the Roman empire, obliged the
Romans finally to admit their inability to defend their empire. In
their self-examination, the writers of the later empire offered various
80Oe physiognomia liber 79: "Color niger leuem, imbellem, timidum,

uersutum indicat: refertur ad eos gui in meridiana plaga habitant, ut
sunt Aethiopes, Aegyptii et qui his iuncti sunt. Color albus subrubens
fortes et animosos indicat: refertur ad eos gui in septentrione
commorantur." Cf. ibid. 9: "Hie Aegyptio est similis, Aegyptii autem
sunt callidi, dociles, leues, temerarii, in uenerem proni; hie Celto, id
est Germano, est similis, Celti autem sunt indociles, fortes, feri; hie
Thraci est similis, Thraces autem sunt iniqui, pigri, temulenti." For
ethnic differences as perceived by Romans of earlier periods: Balsdon,
Romans and Aliens, esp. chap. 14.
81Sid. Apoll. Epist. 1.2.1-3: ”...ita personam suam deus arbiter

et ratio naturae consummatae felicitatis dote sociata cumulaverunt;
mores autem huiuscemodi, ut laudibus eorum nihil ne regni guidem
defrudet invidia. si forma guaeratur: corpore exacto... teretes umeri,
validi lacerti, dura bracchia, patulae manus, recedente alvo pectus
excedens. aream dorsi humilior inter excrementa costarum spina
discriminat. tuberosum est utrumque musculis prominentibus latus. in
succinctis regnat vigor ilibus. corneum femur, internodia poplitum bene
mascula, maximus in minime rugosis genibus honor...”
86
explanations for the political collapse: divine retribution for the
abandonment of the old religion or incompetent rulers, but also,
tellingly, a loss of military vigor among the F man people. Even
Ammianus Marcellinus, who had praised Julian's manliness and the
brilliance of his reign, was forced to recognize that among the best of
Julian's troops were the barbarian mercenaries, and concluded that
earlier Romans had been better able to withstand foreign incursions
because they had not yet traded their vita militaris for a vita
mollitiae.82 Sidonius Apollinaris, a century later and putting the
words into the mouth of a Gothic king, concurred, adding that as a
result of this lifestyle Roman men preferred luxury and self-indulgence
to military pursuits, and peace to war.83
Beyond the crude racial and gendered stereotypes in the
historians, panegyrists, and physiognomists, is an important truth:
Roman writers were attempting to explain historical change according to
traditional notions of manliness and unmanliness. Their accounts and
descriptions all emphasized that history was repeating itself, and the
manly were conquering the unmanly. The loss of masculinity and the
abdication from the uita militaris had cost them the empire.
82Amm. Hare. 31.5.14: "uerum mox post calamitosa dispendia res in

integrum sunt restitutae hac gratia, quod nondum solutioris uitae
mollitiae sobria uetustas infecta nec ambitiosis mensis nec flagitiosis
quaestibus inhiabit..."
83The words were attributed to the Gothic king, Theodoric II, in

response to Avitus' proposal for peace, in Sid. Apoll.
Panegyricus...Avito 11. 495b-499a: "mihi Romula dudum / per te iura
placent, parvumque ediscere iussit / ad tua verba pater docili quo
prisca Maronis / carmine molliret Scythicos mihi pagina mores; / iam
pacem turn velle doces."
87
2. Hy concern was for luxury:
The Political Elites of the Later Empire
The foundations of Roman masculinity also underwent significant
changes in the exercise of public authority. The secondary literature
on the later empire has examined the effects of these changes from the
perspective of their effects on government, but their effects on
masculine identity have usually been ignored. Yet participation in
politics and public life, through the holding of offices and placement
among the ranks of Roman 61ite collectively known as the cursus honorua
("course of honors"), was central to men's identity.84 Indeed, while
women's sphere of influence was felt naturally to be the home and
domestic affairs, men were believed equally by nature to be rulers of
the city and of political affairs.85
84An exception is Paul Veyne, "The Roman Empire," in From Pagan

Rome to Byzantium, ed. P. Veyne, trans. A. Goldhammer, vol. 1 of A
History of Private Life, ed. P. AriSs and G. Duby (Cambridge: Harvard
University, 1987). Veyne writes (p. 105): "in identifying a [Roman
male] person it was customary to indicate his place in civic life, his
political or municipal titles and dignities, if any. These became a
part of a man's identity...” Cf. his work on men in the Roman family,
discussed below, chap. 3.
85Hallett (Fathers and Daughters, 8) writes: "The complete

exclusion of Roman women from formal involvement and leadership in the
political sphere ranked as a similarly long-lived and hallowed tradition
[to women's domestic responsibilities].'' Children were similarly
excluded from public life: Thomas Wiedemann, "Citizenship and Office
Holding," in Adults and Children in the Roman Empire, ed. T. Wiedemann
(New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University, 1989). On the need for gender
in an analysis of political power: Wendy Brown, "Finding the Man in the
State," Feminist Studies 18 (1992): 7-34.
88
Classical scholars have discussed the shift in authority and dlite
(male) identity in the earlier political transition from republic to
empire. The shifting system of family alliances and family rivalries
which had marked republican politics took second place to a new
political strategy: the formation of alliances with the imperial family
and the courting of imperial favor, the dominant goals of masculine
efforts. In other words, a competitive aristocracy became an
aristocracy of service. The changes to the imperial government in the
later centuries of the empire, while less well studied, were merely an
intensification of this process, in which more of the balance of public
power was removed from the dlite classes and given to the emperor and
his associates. The government virtually excluded the old nobility from
political power except through imperial service.86
First among the factors involved in the exclusion of the
aristocracy from power was the crisis of the imperial succession in the
third century. The usurpation of the throne by ambitious generals meant
that the imperial throne was controlled by a series of military rulers
who owed their elevation to the army. These generals-turned-emperors
usually rewarded the army accordingly, often preferring its officers in
privileges and influential offices to the established senatorial
aristocracy, who were often neglected and demoted from positions of
86What follows owes much to Jones, The Later Roman Empire. For
more specific studies: Stephen Williams, Diocletian and the Roman
Recovery (London: Batsford, 1985), esp. chap. 8; Chastagnol, L'Evolution
politique, sociale et dconomique; P. S. Barnwell, Emperor, Prefects and
Kings: The Roman West, 395-565 (London: Duckworth, 1992), esp. chaps. 2-
5; and Eugen Cizek, Mentalit^s et institutions politiques romaines
(Paris: Fayard, 1990), esp. chap. 9.
89
power. Even the restoration of the political order at the end of the
third century by Diocletian precluded any significant influence by the
nobility in imperial accession. The establishment of a semi-dynastic
system in the fourth century, under the Constantinian and Theodosian
houses, encouraged a system of promotion through favor and alliance with
the imperial family. Finally, by the fifth century, at least in the
western half of the empire, the army commanders known as magistri
militum ("masters of the soldiers"), many of whom were barbarians,
established a succession of puppet-emperors under their control.87 All
of these systems worked to exclude the Roman nobility from real power.
Similarly, the later Roman empire witnessed an increasing emphasis
on the independent authority of the emperors, with a corresponding de
emphasis of the political support which had brought him to the throne.
Diocletian and his successors had exaggerated the divine aura of the
imperial command, and added many of the trappings of eastern rulers to
Roman custom: an imperial presence, robbed in purple silk and adorned
with gold and jewels, demanding prostration and the address of dominus
("lord") by all others. Both visual and literary depictions of imperial
rulers show an idealization of rulership and a view of the emperor as
the charismatic embodiment of the providential presence in the empire
and a symbol of divine favor, at first pagan and then Christian. This
idealized image of the emperor encouraged ever more elaborate rituals of
87Many of these puppet-rulers were descended from the Roman

nobility, which provides evidence of some continuing authority, but many
were also the result of significant intermarriage with powerful German
families. See Alexander Demandt, "The Osmosis of Late Roman and
Germanic Aristocracies," in Das Reich und die Barbaren, ed. E.Chrysos
and A. Schwarcz (Vienna/Cologne: Bohlau, 1989).
90
imperial procession, in which the later Roman nobility was obliged to
participate.88 The new ceremonies made the new political realities
increasingly tangible to Roman men.
The exclusion of the Roman nobility from power was never absolute.
There were still prestigious public offices for upper-class Roman men to
hold: as consuls, praetors, prefects, governors.89 Urban dlites
continued to exercise considerable local authority in the provinces, and
imperial government still needed to draw from among these men to fill
its regional representation.90 In a sense, the challenge to the public
880n the exaltation of later emperors: Andreas Alfoldi, Die

monarchische Representation im romischen Kaiserreiche (Darmstadt:
wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1970); MacCormack, Art and ceremony;
Heim, Virtus, passim but esp. 187-218 and 307-47. On imperial autocracy
as a particularly masculine image (mostly from Byzantine sources): Dean
Hiller, "Royautd et ambiguxtd sexuelle," Annales E.S.C. 26 (1971): 639-
52.
89For a list of later Roman office-holders: Timothy Barnes, The

New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (Cambridge: Harvard University,
1982). M. T. W. Arnheim (The Senatorial Aristocracy in the Later Roman
Empire [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972]) argues that the Christian emperors, in
order to buy support for their religious reforms among the mostly pagan
western aristocracy, were required to reverse the tide of ever greater
exclusion of noblemen from the highest offices in the empire (pp. 49-
102), but he concedes (p. 98) that: "an emperor could appoint whomsoever
he wished to any particular post.” Matthews (Western Aristocracies)
also gives evidence for the continuation of the western aristocracy in
positions of authority in the fourth century, especially, he writes (pp.
1-31), governorships, consulships, and the office of praefectus urbi
("prefect of the city [of Rome]"). However, he also documents the
fluctuating influence of the old nobility, which was during the reigns
of several emperors, eclipsed by the military Elites, especially during
the reigns of valentinian I (pp. 32-55) and Theodosius I (pp. 88-100).
90See Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion, 3-34. Brown does confine
his analysis to the eastern empire, but his conclusions almost certainly
also hold true for the western empire, as a study of nobles in the
government of fifth-century Gaul suggests: Ralph Mathisen, "Gallic
Traditionalists and the Continued Pursuit of the Roman Ideal," in Roman
Aristocrats. Cf. Brown's earlier comments (The Making of Late Antiquity
[Cambridge: Harvard University, 1978], 27-53) on the overemphasis of the
idea of "decline" in the later Roman provincial aristocracy and the
overreliance on the epigraphical record.
91
authority of the aristocracy was met by means of a gradual cultural
adaptation to the new political realities, so that the Elites operated
within this new system of imperial patronage. Moreover, men of the
upper classes continued to emphasize exactly those qualities which set
them apart from women and the lower classes: their education in
literature, philosophy, and rhetoric, and their network of friendships
and personal alliances.91
The ranks to which the later Roman nobility belonged, moreover,
were hotly debated, and much was made of the order of honorific
privilege which certain titles and offices conferred. All members of
the upper nobility - the senatorial order - were permitted to call
themselves clarissiai ("brightest ones"); members of the lower nobility
- the equestrian order - might only call themselves egregii
("distinguished ones"). Participation in the civil service, however,
brought further titles of distinction. Men of these classes who had
been provincial governors could call themselves perfectissimi ("most
perfect ones”), but only those who had been praetorian prefects could
bear the title eminentissimi ("most eminent ones"). Members of the
aristocracy who had held other major posts could call themselves
illastres ("illustrious ones”) or gloriosi ("glorious ones"); those who
had held minor post were known as spectabiles ("brilliant ones”). Each
rank carried with it various privileges and a different social status;
91See Brown, Power and Persuasion, 35-70.
92
an individual's place in this hierarchy of rank also determined his
access to the emperor and his public presence.92
Nonetheless, such elaborate schedules of ranks and titles served
only to mask the decline of real authority of such offices, which became
largely honorific. They were becoming less of an honor and more of an
obligation because of the many financial responsibilities associated
with the positions, which provided a convenient source of income for the
state if an often heavy burden on the individual, small wonder, then,
that many members of the aristocracy attempted to escape such dubious
honors. The unwillingness of the nobility to accept the onus of public
expenditures, however, was likely not because of any declining wealth
among the later Roman landowning class - the opposite seems to have been
the case, as a declining population left lands and monies in fewer hands
- but because the expenditures represented an investment in the
political economy which the nobility no longer shared.93
The changing nature of the political honors can be seen in a law
of Constantine which required a son to take up the position of praetor,
an appellate judge, if his father had died before performing the office.
A century later, the law was extended so that a man who died without
sons but with a daughter left her the responsibility. "For although it
920n the ranking of the later Roman nobility: Jones, later Roman
Empire, 523-62; Henrik lohken, Ordines Dignitatum. Untersuchungen zur
formalen Konstituierung der spatantiken Fiihrungsschicht (Vienna/Cologne:
Bohlau, 1982).
93Matthews (Western Aristocracies, 9) writes: "Office was regarded

as an encumbrance, accepted with reluctance and laid down with
relief..." For the relation of public expenditures and the political
economy in earlier Roman history: Paul Veyne, Bread and Circusest
Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism, trans. B. Pierce (London:
Penguin, 1990). On the declining population, see below, chap. 3.
93
appears to be unlawful and disgraceful for women to advance to the
Senatorial garb and insignia,” read a law of the emperors Valentinian
and valens, "nevertheless, they shall be able to assume the obligations
of the... praetorship [carnaria praetura]."94 If women, who were
excluded from advocating in court,95 were nonetheless assuming the
obligations of praetor, the office could not have brought much real
authority with it.96 The law is unclear, however, and may only have
obliged the women to pay the public expenses which came with the office,
and not to perform any of its judicial duties, still, if women were
94Cod. Theod. 6.4.17: ”Etsi iniustum enim atgue dedecus videtur

mulieres ad laticlavum atgue insignia procedere, tamen carnariam
praeturam iuxta glebam paternae substantiae cognoscere poterunt."
Constantine's law is not extant, but mentioned in the later law.
95The early imperial law known as the senatus consul turn Velleianum
was reaffirmed by Constantine in Cod. Theod, 9.1.3: "Cum ius evidens
adgue manifestum sit, ut intendendi criminis publici facultatem non nisi
ex certis causis mulieres habeant, hoc est, si suam suorumgue iniuriam
perseguantur, observari antiguitus statuta sit.” it was confirmed again
by Theodosius I in ibid. 2.12.5: "Nullo pacto feminae aut amplius, guam
sibi conpetit, agere pro aliis possunt intervenire personis." We even
have examples in which Valentinian III refused women's rights of
advocacy in two specific cases: Nov. Valentiniani 8.1 and 8.2. For
secondary literature on the senatus consultum Velleianum, see J. A.
Crook, "Feminine Inadeguacy and the Senatusconsultum Velleianum,” in The
Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, ed. B. Rawson (London: Croom
Helm, 1986).
96Charles Coster (The Judicium Quinquevirale [Cambridge: Medieval

Academy of America, 1970; orig. publ. 1935], 5) writes: "The sole duties
attached to these offices at the time... were the giving of games and
theatrical performances and the undertaking of public works, all at the
expense of the office-holders. But these expenses were very great
indeed, so great that after A.D. 361 it was made obligatory to give ten
years' notice to nominees for the praetorship." This is not entirely
true. In particular, the praetor had the right to emancipate
individuals from their paterfamilias, a right confirmed in Cod. Theod.
6.4.16: "Praetori defertur haec iurisdictio sancientibus nobis... Sane
interponi ab eo decreta conveniet, ut, sive in integrum restitutio
deferenda est, probatis dumtaxat causis ab eodem interponatur decretum,
seu tutoris dandi seu ordinandi curatoris... nec sane debita filiorum
votis patrum vota cessabunt, ut patente copia liberos suos exuant
potestate, magis propriis obseguiis mancipatos, cum sese intellegant his
obseguii plus debere, a guibus sese meminerunt vinculis curaie exutos."
94
inheriting some of the highest honorific posts, even if only to increase
public revenues, the distinctions between men's and women's roles, in
particular the division of responsibility into public and private
spheres, was becoming blurred.
The shrinking political role of the nobility of Rome can best be
demonstrated by the decline of the senate, the pre-eminent body of
politically influential Roman men. The senate had already begun its
decline from its earlier position as executive body for the Republican
state with the rise of imperial authority in the first century. Even
after the establishment of the empire, however, the senate had
guaranteed the political power of the early emperors, and no emperor had
lasted long without its support. Legislation, for example, even if
initiated by the emperor, was typically debated in the senate-house and
then issued as senatus consults ("[having been made] with the advice of
the senate").97 Diocletian, however, introduced men of the provincial
aristocracy into the senate, enlarging it for that purpose from about
six hundred to about two thousand members and consigning it to
uselessness.98 Rome itself became somewhat of a political back-water,
97Fergus Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (31 BC - AD 337)

(Londons Duckworth, 1977), 341-55, writes (at p. 341): "...at least up
to the third century matters of imperial policy could still be debated
in the senate..." and (at p. 350): "It is thus apparent that, so far as
our evidence shows, senatus consults embodying legislation, embassies to
the senate and decisions by the senate on the affairs of provincial
communities all came to an end in the second half of the second or the
first half of the third century." Cf. Arnheim (Senatorial Aristocracy,
32) who writes: "By the third century the senate as an institution had
no power worth mentioning.” For details on the functioning and
activities of the senate: Richard Talbert, The Senate of Imperial Rome
(Princeton: Princeton University, 1984).
980n the provincial nobility in the Senate and its enlargement: A.

Chastagnol, "L'evolution de l'ordre senatorial aux H i e et IVe si&cles
95
with the removal of the imperial residence under Diocletian to Nicaea,
followed by the creation of a new capital under Constantine, and the
western emperors frequently established themselves in Trier, Milan, or
Ravenna. Morever, emperors in the fourth and fifth centuries issued
only independent decrees, constitationes ("constitutions"), and thus the
senatorial aristocracy was removed even from legislative power."
Small wonder, then, that the senators of the later empire ignored
their minor political role and became obsessed with the ranks and titles
which they possessed, the properties which they owned, and the luxuries
which their station in life provided for them. The conservative
Ammianus Marcellinus was particularly critical, accusing the aristocracy
of ”behav[ing] as if they were licensed to indulge in vice and
debauchery."100 He contrasted the unmanly lifestyles of the
contemporary nobility with the manly actions of the founders of Rome,
their putative ancestors:
de notre Are,” Revue historique 496 (1970): 305-14. For e.gs. of such
families: Hagith Sivan, Ausonius of Bordeaux: Genesis of a Gallic
Aristocracy (New York: Routledge, 1993); M. K. Hopkins, "Social Mobility
in the Later Roman Empire: the Evidence of Ausonius," Classical
Quarterly 55 (1961): 239-49; B. Twyman, "Aetius and the Aristocracy,"
ffistoria 19 (1970): 480-503. The extension of senatorial privilege to
the provincial nobility was of course only made possible by the grant of
Roman citizenship to all free persons living within the empire in 212
C.E.
"on the political decline of Rome: Jones, Later Roman Empire,

329; Matthews, Roman Empire of Ammianus, 235. On the decline of
legislative powers: Jones, Later Roman Empire, 471-3; Matthews, western
Aristocracies, 305. Matthews does argue for some ad hoc powers of
diplomacy exercised in the political crises of the fifth century, but
these must be seen as individual roles rather than institutional, since
he concedes (ibid., 388) that much of their power rested on "their
possession of the most durable of all sources of influence, landowning
and patronage."
l°°Amm. Marc. 14.6.7: "...sed tamquam indulta licentia uitiis ad

errores lapsorum atque lasciuiam."
96
[They] think that the height of glory is to be found in

unusually high carriages and an ostentatious style of dress;
they sweat under the burden of cloaks which they attach to
their necks and fasten at the throat. These being of very
fine texture are easily blown about, and they contrive by
frequent movements, especially of the left hand, to show off
their long fringes and display the garments beneath, which
are embroidered... They presumably do not know that their
ancestors, who were responsible for the expansion of Rome,
did not owe their distinction to riches, but overcame all
obstacles by their valour in fierce wars, in which, as far
as wealth or style of living or dress was concerned, they
were indistinguishable from common soldiers.101
Once again, the vita militaris was contrasted with the vita mollitiae.
The wealth of the senators failed to mask their political impotence, and
because they were denied the public authority of masculinity they had
become women in their love of luxury and ostentation.102
To some extent, there was nothing new in the later Roman
traditionalists' condemnation of wealth spent on clothing: extravagant
dress had always been a cause for concern in Roman culture.
Condemnations of the love of luxury in the later Roman empire perhaps
only disguises the greater availability of luxury items; after all,
Romans had established regular trade with the eastern Mediterranean, and
101Amm. Marc. 14.6.9-10: "Alii summum decus in carruchis solito

altioribus et ambitioso uestium cultu ponentes sudant sub ponderibus
lacernarum, guas in collis insertas iugulis ipsis annectunt, nimia
subtegminum tenuitate perflabiles, expectantes crebris agitationibus
maximeque sinistra, ut longiores fimbriae tunicaeque perspicue luceant
uarietate liciorum effigiatae in species animalium multiformes.
...ignorantes profecto maiores suos, per quos ita magnitudo Romana
porrigitur, non diuitiis eluxisse, sed per bella saeuissima nec opibus
nec uictu indumentorum uilitate gregariis militibus discrepantes
opposita cuncta superasse uirtute."
102Matthews (Western Aristocracies, 1-4) mentions and discusses

this passage, adding (at p. 3): "No doubt senators could be seen doing
such things, and some even more outrageous and eccentric. It would be
surprising to have found it otherwise, among a wealthy aristocratic
class with time and money on its hands." No doubt, too, their idleness
was a reflection of their political insignificance.
97
beyond that, with Arabia, Persia, India, and China. These condemnations
may also indicate the greater opportunity for purchasing luxury items,
as the shrinking numbers of the aristocracy translated into greater
wealth controlled by fewer persons. Finally, the condemnations may
reflect how the prestige attached to luxury items supplanted declining
political prestige: the exclusion of the aristocracy from real political
power might have influenced some individuals to be more ostentatious in
their wealth as a visible indicator of their social status, when office-
holding no longer provided it.103
The wealth exhibited in clothing, however, became the focus for
considerable anxiety about manliness. Again, this was nothing new, and
even the earliest Roman writers had complained about the effeminacy of a
man overly concerned with his appearance or his dress. Nonetheless, the
question of manliness in dress was felt in a new way at the beginning of
the third century in the person of the emperor Elagabalus. Elagabalus
was much maligned by his biographers for his unmanly sexual habits.104
He was also reputed to dress in women's clothing, and Cassius Dio
consistently referred to him as Sardanapalus, an ancient Assyrian king
reputed to have cross-dressed.105 True cross-dressing was not unknown
103On ostentation as a reflection of the political economy, i.e.,

as a means of publicizing one's social status: Catharine Edwards, The
Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University,
1993).
l°4See below, chap. 3.
105Portions of Cassius Dio's account of Elagabalus' reign are

unfortunately missing. On Sardanapalus and other transvestite figures
of the ancient world: vern Bullough and Bonnie Bullough, "Mythology and
History in the Ancient World," in Cross Dressing, Sex, and Gender
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1993). For a later Roman
reference to Sardanapalus: Auson. Edogae 2, 11. 26-8: "e contra
98
in the ancient world, and it was a familiar theme of literature, if
usually associated with disguise.106 It is possible, however, that
Elagabalus' transvestism was exaggerated because of the wealth spent on
his attire, and the fact that he dressed in what were at the time
eastern fashions new to Rome. As the author of the Historia Augusta
wrote: "He was the first of the Romans, it is said, who wore clothing
wholly of silk, although garments partly of silk were in use before his
time."107 Also in the same account:
He would wear a tunic made wholly of cloth of gold, or one

made of purple, or a Persian one studded with jewels, and at
such times he would say that he felt oppressed by the weight
of his pleasures. He even wore jewels on his shoes,
sometimes engraved ones - a practice which aroused the
derision of all, as if the engraving of famous artists could
be seen on jewels attached to his feet. He wished to wear
also a jewelled diadem in order that his beauty might be
increased and his face look more like a woman's.108
inlecebris maculosam degere uitam / quern iuuat, adspiciat poenas et

crimina regum, / Tereos incesti uel mollis Sardanapalli."
106Apul. Met. 7.8: "Tota denique factions militarium vexillationum

indagatu confecta atque concisa, ipse me furatus aegre solus mediis Orci
faucibus ad hunc evasi modum. Sumpta veste muliebri florida, in sinus
flaccidos abundante, mitellaque textili contecto capite, calceis
femininis albis illis et tenuibus indutus et in sequiorum sexum
incertatus atque absconditus, asello spicas hordeacias gerenti residens
per medias acies infesti militis transabivi. Nam mulierem putantes
asinariam concedebant liberos abitus, quippe cum mihi etiam tunc depiles
genae levi pueritia splendicarent. Nec ab ilia tamen paterna gloria vel
mea virtute descivi..." Note the emphasis in the last phrase on the
manliness of this individual despite his cross-dressing.
107S.H.A. Heliogab. 26.1: "Primus Romanorum holoserica veste usus

fertur, cum iam subsericae in usu essent."
108S.H.A. Heliogab. 23.3-5: "usus est aurea omni tunica, usus et

purpurea, usus et de gemmis Persica, cum gravari se diceret onere
voluptatis. habuit et in calciamentis gemmas, et quidem scalptas. quod
risum omnibus movit, quasi possent scalpturae nobilium artificium videri
in gemmis, quae pedibus adhaerebant. voluit uti et diademate gemmato,
quo pulchrior fieret et magis ad feminarum vultum aptus." I have left
out a "forsooth" in the translation.
99
Large parts of his biography in the Historia Augusta took up the theme
of his depraved extravagance in lurid detail.
More interesting are those remarks in the Historia Augusta which
indicate that was what novel during Elagabalus' reign, in dress and in
life-style, had become more commonplace: "he was the first . . . who
wore clothing wholly of silk,” "he was the first to use silver urns and
casseroles," "he was the first to make force-meat of fish, or of oysters
of various kinds or similar shell-fish," "he was the first to concoct
wine seasoned with [spices] . . . which our luxury retains [and which] .
. . are not met with in books before the time of Elagabalus."109 The
author of the Historia Augusta praised Elagabalus' successor, Severus
Alexander, for refusing such luxuries: "He himself had very few silk
garments, and he never wore one that was wholly silk," and "the jewels
that were given to him he sold, maintaining that jewels were for women
and that they should not be given to a soldier or be worn by a man."110
This account concluded with the didactic remark that "illustrious men
followed his example."m
The concern about wealth spent on clothing, then, while framed in
the traditional language of effeminacy, was intimately related to
109S.H.A. Heliogab. 19.3-6: "primus deinde authepsas argenteas

habuit, primus etiam caccabos. ...et mastichatum et puleiatum et omnia
haec quae nunc luxuria retinet primus invenit. ...denique haec genera
poculorum ante Heliogabalum non leguntur." The whole of the biography
from 18.4 to 33.7 details his love of luxury.
110S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 40.1: "Vestes sericas ipse raras habuit;

holosericam numquam induit, subsericam numquam donavit." Cf. ibid.
51.1: "...gemmas sibi oblatas vendidit, muliebre esse aestimans gemmas
possidere, quae neque militi dari possint neque a viro haberi."
111S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 41.2: "imitati sunt eum magni viri et uxorem
eius matronae pernobiles.”
100
anxiety about the exercise of power. Later Roman emperors forbade their
subjects from wearing garments of gold thread or purple to their
subjects, but these decrees which went largely ignored, if Ammianus and
others are to be believed on the appearance of the later Roman nobility.
Nonetheless, the emperors wore such garments themselves as symbols of
their unique position in society, and topped their outfits with jewelled
diadems to symbolize their imperial rule.112 The riches displayed in
the clothing of the emperors - to be sure - was no sign of unmanliness.
Claudian's panegyric to the emperor Honorius included a lengthy
description of his appearance, without a hint of embarrassment:
Jewels of India stud your vestment, rows of green emeralds

enrich the seams; there gleams the amethyst and the glint of
Spanish gold makes the dark-blue sapphire show duller with
its hidden fires. Nor in the weaving of such a robe was
unadorned beauty enough; the work of the needle increases
its value, thread of gold and silver glows therefrom; many
an agate enlivens the embroidered robes, and pearls of Ocean
breathe in varied pattern.113
112Against clothing of gold or gold thread: Cod. Theod. 10.21.1

and 10.21.2. Against clothing of purple: ibid. 10.21.3. On the use of
the jewelled diadem for imperial coronations: see MacCormack, Art and
Ceremony, passim in chap. 3. An example of the luxurious appearance of
the later Roman nobility is provided by Auson. Epigr. 26: "Quidam
superbus opibus et fastu tumens / tantumque verbis nobilis, / spernit
vigentis clara saecli nomina, / antiqua captans stemmata, / Martem
Remumque et conditorem Romulum / privos parentes nuncupans. / hos ille
Serum veste contexi iubet, / hos caelet argento gravi, / ceris inurens
ianuarum limina / et atriorum pegmata: / credo, quod illi nec pater
certus fuit / et mater est vere lupa."
113Claud. Cons. Bon. 4 11. 585b-92: "asperat Indus / uelamenta

lapis pretiosaque fila zmaragdis / ducta uirent; amethystus inest et
fulgor Hiberus / temperat arcanis hyacinthi caerula flammis. / nec rudis
in tali suffecit gratia textu; / auget acus meritum picturatumque
metallis / uiuit opus: multaque animantur iaspide cultus / et uariis
spirat Nereia baca figuris.” I have changed the translator's "thy" to
"your," and his "adorns" to "enlivens," according to the more recent
edition of the text.
101
In fact, the only imperial figures whose luxurious dress was
counted a sign of effeminacy were the usurpers. Claudian accused
Rufinus of designs on the imperial throne: his purple robe and jewelled
crown became "a woman's raiment."114 "No woman was more elegantly
groomed" than the usurper Maximus, according to the Historia Augusta.115
Julian described the son of a Roman commander in Galatia who "took from
the women's apartments a purple dress, and showed himself truly a
tyrant."116
Most discussions of the trappings of imperial authority manifest
some anxieties about manliness and unmanliness, and behind these
discussions lay the anxieties about the new power relations. Julian
rejected the use of his wife's necklace as a diadem for his acclamation
as emperor, for example, "protest[ing] that to wear a female trinket
would be an inauspicious beginning [to his reign].”117 Similarly, a
panegyric to the emperor Theodosius I proclaimed:
114Claud. In Rufinum 2 11. 343-7: "ipse salutatum reduces post

proelia turmas / iam regale tumens et principe celsior ibat / collaque
femineo iactabat mollia gestu / imperii certus, tegeret ceu purpura
dudum / corpus et ardentes ambirent tempora gemmae."
115S.H.A. Maximini duo 28.5: "vestibus tarn adcuratus fuit ut nulla

mulier nitidior esset in mundo."
116Julian Or. 2.98C-99B: "... m i xeXoc, e k xife y u v a iK C f lv m S o j;

aveX6nevo$ aXoupy££ ipaxiov yeXotoq aXr]0©q rupeevvoqjcai xpayiKb^ ovxoq
avEtpavT], evtavOa ov axpaxiaraxi xaXenax; j i e v eixou Jtpoq xijv ajciaxiav, GfjXuv 8e
oux uJtopevovxEi; opav evSeSuicoxa o x o X t jv xov SeiXaiov ejti0ep.Evoi
axapaxxouoiv..."
117Amm. Marc. 20.4.17-8: "impositusgue scuto pedestri et sublatius

eminens nullo silente Augustus renuntiatus iubebatur diadema proferre
negansque umquam habuisse uxoris colli... uel capitis poscebatur. eoque
affirmante primis auspiciis non congruere aptari muliebri mundo equi
phalera quaerebatur, ut coronatus speciem saltern obscuram superioris
praetenderet potestatis."
102
[When] because either through long experience of the East or

through the laxity of many of your imperial predecessors
some men were so given up to extravagant living that it
seemed by no means an easy task to restrain their inveterate
practice of self-indulgence by any remedy, you wished the
moral reform to begin with yourself . . . For who could take
it ill that he was being confined to the limits of a prince,
or be grieved that something was being subtracted from his
private luxury, when he saw his emperor, ruler of the world,
master of lands and men, living frugally and contentedly,
relieving long fasts with the simple meals of a soldier, or,
in addition to this, the whole court, sterner than the
Spartan gymnasia, abounding in examples of toil, endurance
and frugality; or that not one man could be found to dare to
demand at the palace-table fish from remote shores, fowl
from foreign climes, a flower that was out of season?118
The panegyrist contrasted Theodosius with "those delicate and languid
men [delicati ac fluentes] such as the state has often endured."119
Since this oration was delivered in the wake of Theodosius' military
victory over the usurper Maximus in 389, it seems an obvious indictment
of the previous emperor as both illegitimate in authority and unmanly in
character. Nonetheless, the panegyrist's praise did veil a reference to
the limitations which imperial rule placed on men. Through all of these
118Pacatus Panegyricus dictus Theodosio Imperatori 13.1-4: "Quin

ubi primum te imperio praestitisti, non contentus ipse ultra vitia
recessisse, aliorum vitiis corrigendis curam adiecisti, idque moderate,
ut suadere potius honesta quam cogere videreris. Et quia vel longo
Orientis usu vel multorum retro principum remissione tantus quosdam
luxus infecerat ut adulta consuetudo lasciviae haudquaquam facile
videretur obtemperatura medicinae, ne quis se pati iniuriam putaret,a te
voluisti incipere censuram, et impendia palatina minuendo, nec solum
abundantem reiciendo sumptum sed vix necessarium usurpando dimensum,
quod natura difficillimum est, emendasti volentes. An quis ferret
moleste ad principis semet modum coerceri? Aut subtractum sibi doleret
privata luxuria, cum videret imperatorem rerum potentem, terrarum
hominumque dominum, parce contenteque viventem, modico et castrensi cibo
ieiunia longa solantem; ad hoc aulam omnem Spartanis gymnasiis duriorem,
laboris patientiae frugalitatis exemplis abundantem; neminem unum
inveniri qui auderet ad penum regiam flagitare remotorum litorum piscem,
peregrini aeris volucrem, alieni temporis florem?"
119Pacatus Panegyricus dictus Theodosio Imperatori 14.1: "Nam

delicati illi ac fluentes, et quales tulit saepe res publica...”
103
discussions of gender and luxury, then, the relations of power are
evident.
Despite the limitations of the upper classes of Rome, both
political and economic, large numbers of men were willing to abandon
their membership in the provincial aristocracies and their participation
in the provincial cities of the empire, for admission to the senatorial
class. The reasons for this willingness to move from the provincial
cities to Rome are not hard to fathom. Such a move at least exempted
the individuals involved from the onerous public duties of their home
towns, for which, as provincial curiales ("decurions"), they were
responsible. Chief among these duties was the collection of taxes. If
they were unable to raise the tax revenues required for their locality,
decurions were constrained to make up the difference from their own
incomes.120
Numerous laws of the later emperors forbade men of the curial
class from abandoning the cities or their curial occupations, and made a
concerted effort to close the loop-holes in escaping such duties -
except by permission of the emperor - again, by blurring the
distinctions between men's and women's status. Women were never made
responsible for the collection of taxes, even if they were the sole
heirs to their fathers, but later Roman law tied their sons and husbands
to the obligations, which was not legal custom.121 Moreover, despite
1200n the decurionate: Jones, Later Roman Empire, 543-52 and 712-
66; Chastagnol, L 'Evolution politique, sociale et dconomique, 278-302;
Peter Garnsey, "Aspects of the Decline of the urban Aristocracy in the
Empire," Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt 2.1 (1974): 229-52.
121Women not responsible as sole heirs: Cod. Theod. 12.1.137:

"...qui mulicipibus genere... Nullus sane solis materni sanguinis
104
the legal principle that all children should assume the social status of
their mother, a fifth-century law required the taking of curial rank by
any son of a decurion, even if his mother were a slave, so that he might
assume his father's duties at his death.122 The law obscured class
differences even as it obscured gender differences. Sons and daughters
of a decurion-made-senator were even for a while forced back to their
provincial obligations after their father's death; sons were eventually
vinculis inligetur, quia mulierum infirmitas numquam huiusmodi

functionibus reddit obnoxios, a quibus ipsa habeatur immunis." Women's
sons responsible as heirsi ibid. 12.1.178: "Omnes, qui curiali genere
origine vel stirpe gignuntur, curiarum nexibus obligenur. Aequum est
enim, ut ingenua matre nascentes et quorum natales origo demonstrat, ex
matre ingenua nati maiorum suorum dignitatibus socientur." This is
specifically a repudiation of the above law. Women's husbands
responsible as heirs: ibid. 12.1.124: "Si quis filiam decurionis vel
principalis suo iunctam consortio nullis exstantibus liberis fatali
sorte perdiderit atque eius ultimo hereditatem fuerit adeptus arbitrio,
si ab omnibus alienus officiis est et nullis, quibus merito excusari
possit, privilegiis adiuvatur, eius mox civitatis curiae mancipetur, in
qua antea uxore vivente, sine rerum dominio et proprietate liber, curiae
obnoxias facultates heres coeperit uxoris possidere.” There were only
two other areas which obliged men to take up their wife's profession.
The first was bread-making: ibid. 14.3.2: "Si quis pistoris filiam suo
coniugio crederit esse sociandam, pistrini consortio teneatur obnoxius
et familiae pistoris adnexus oneribus etiam parere cogatur." This law
was confirmed in ibid. 14.3.14 and in ibid. 14.3.21. The second
profession was the collection of fish for purple dyes: ibid. 10.20.5:
"Si quis uxorem de familiis conchylegulorum acceperit, sciat condicioni
eorundem se esse nectendum." For more on the hereditary professions: A.
H. M. Jones, "The Caste System in the Later Roman Empire," Eirene 8
(1970): 79-96.
12W . Majoriani 7.1-2: "Curiales nervos esse rei publicae ac

viscera civitatum nullus ignorat... Quorum progeniem ita dividendam
esse censemus, ut quotquot fuerint masculini sexus filii patrem
sequantur feminis praedii domino relinquendis: ilia discretione servata,
ut, si ex colonabus nati sunt, curiis inserantur, si ex ancillis editi,
collegiis deputentur, ne materni sanguinis vilitate splendor ordinum
polluatur." Jones (Later Roman Empire, 747) believes this law was
designed to thwart the designs of those decurions who cohabited rather
than married so that they might bequeath their estates to their
illegitimate children but would not have to pass to them their curial
obligations. For Roman traditions on marriages of slaves and
freepersons: P. R. C. Weaver, "The Status of Children in Mixed
Marriages," in B. Rawson, ed., The Family in Ancient Rome: New
Perspectives (London: Croom Helm, 1986).
105
exempted from this reversal of status, although if a man had three sons,
one had to be degraded to curial rank.123 The legal changes by
successive emperors, advancing from curial status and forcing a return
to curial status, only underscored the political weakness of these
classes.
At the same time that men of the traditional nobility were being
squeezed from political power in the senate and provincial councils,
this power was being given to other men. In part this reconfiguration
of political power was a practical expansion of the state service: the
size of the bureaucracy had greatly increased as a result of the reforms
of Diocletian, who doubled the number of provinces. Still, new
administrative posts in the inflated bureaucracy of the later empire
dwarfed the traditional offices in political importance. The new posts
created a new aristocracy of men - sometimes men of the lower nobility,
sometimes men of the lower classes, sometimes even freed slaves of the
imperial household - who owed their political rise entirely to the
emperor. The emperor Constantine, for example, established a new rank
123According to a law of 371 C.E., sons but not daughters could

retain the senatorial rank: Cod. Theod. 12.1.74: "In his, qui ex curiis
ad senatus consortia pervenerunt, haec forma servetur, ut, si perfunctus
quispiam muneribus et filii subole nixus fuerit, quern senatorio necdum
indepto honore suscepit, filium suum curiae functionibus tradat, ipse
optata clarissimatus dignitate potiatur." In 382 C.E. this law was
revoked: ibid. 12.1.93: "Cuncti, qui ex decurionibus senatorum se
splendori et collegio miscuerunt, eorumque omnis suboles, vel quae prius
edita est vel quae postmodum docetur esse suscepta, remittatur ad
curiam." In 393 C.E. the privilege was restored: ibid. 12.1.132: "Si
quis curialis tres mares filios susceperit, unum dare senatui non
vetetur."
106
of comites ("counts"), whom he appointed to oversee provincial and urban
administrations.124
Even more significant for the shift in political power was the
greater reliance of the emperor on his household staff for official
responsibilities. This staff, called collectively the palatium ("palace
[staff]”), performed various duties including those of praepositi
("ministers"), consistoriani ("consistory [scribes]"), notarii
("notaries"), and castrensiani ("domestic [staff]"). For the most part,
these functionaries were men of the lower classes, and many were slaves
purchased by the imperial administration.125 Their positions
nonetheless put them in daily contact with the emperor and assured them
opportunities of influence in a political regime which relied on gaining
the emperor's favor.
1240n the expansion of the provincial administration: Jones, Later

Roman Empire, 42-3; Williams, Diocletian, 104-6. On the comites: Jones,
Later Roman Empire, 104-7. A new senate established in Constantinople
required the elevation of a whole group of new men, again about two
thousand in number, to one of the highest ranks in the empire. On the
senate of Constantinople: Jones, Later Roman Empire, 132-3;
Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, 132-45.
1250n the later Roman civil service: Jones, Later Roman Empire,
563-606; Chastagnol, L'dvolution politique, sociale et dconomique, 186-
205. For more detailed studies of specific aspects of the civil
service: H. C. Teitler, Notarii and Exceptores: An Inquiry into Role and
Significance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical
Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (from the Early Principate to c. 450 A.
D.) (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1985); Manfred Clauss, Der magister
officiorum in der SpStantike (4.-6. Jahrhundert). Das Amt und sein
EinfluB auf die kaiserliche Politik (Munich: c. H. Beck, 1980).
Teitler, e.g., documents inter alia the rise of the position of notarius
in the fourth century (p. 21), their political imporance (pp. 34-7), the
resentment of them by the old aristocracy (p. 28), and their elevation
to high rank (pp. 64-8). He gives as an example one Flavius
Marcellinus, to whom Augustine of Hippo dedicated the first three books
of his De civitate Dei, a notarius raised to the rank of vir clarissimus
(p. 1).
107
The aristocratic reaction to the changing political realties was
varied. Some men sought a place in the new hierarchy, and as early as
the end of the fourth century, members of the old nobility were paying
large sums for the privilege of taking positions in the new imperial
administration. Some might curry favor by more traditional means, using
the occasion of the arrival of the emperor in a given location as an
opportunity for political advancement. Some men of the old nobility
channelled their political energies in subversive directions, and
resented or even rebelled against the authority of the state as an evil
imposed on a helpless population.126
In this political environment, however, many men chose to abandon
altogether the pursuit of public authority and the cursus honorurn.
Instead, they retreated to their rural estates to lead private lives.
Sidonius Apollinaris chided a friend about his decision to remain in the
country, because by doing so, he was turning his back on the public life
which defined the Roman nobleman:
Why guide the plough-handle . . . and yet forgo all ambition

for the consul's robe? Do not bring a slur on the nobility
by staying so constantly in the country. . . I would not
indeed say that a wise man should fail to concern himself
with his private affairs, but he should act on the even
principle of considering not only what he should have but
what he should be. If you reject all other forms of
accomplishments that noblemen should cultivate, and if the
sting to extend your property is the only emotion that stirs
you, then you may look back on a name derived from consular
robes, you may recall a series of curule seats and gilded
travelling-chairs and purple mantles all recorded in the
1260n senators in the imperial administration: Jones, Later Roman

Empire, 557. On the currying of favor with the visiting emperor:
MacCormack, Art and Ceremony, 17. On subversion of the state: van Dam,
Leadership and Community, 25-56. An excellent source for this last
point is Salvian of Marseilles De gubernatione Dei (ed. CSEL 8; trans.
J. O'Sullivan, FC 3) 5.4-9 (too lengthy to quote).
108
annals of the State, but nevertheless you will prove to be

that obscure hard-working type who has less claim to be
praised by the censor than to be preyed on by the tax-
assessor.127
But the decision of Sidonius' friend was apparently a common one. Even
governors had to be reminded by law that they must not prefer leisure
activities to their duties, and that they must reside in the capital of
their provinces and not on their country e s t a t e s . 128 The pastoral
pleasures that Ausonius described in his poem, Mosella, he followed with
the wish that he be permitted to leave the emperor's service with the
honorary title of consul, and to retire to southern Gaul.129
l27Sid. Apoll. Epist. 8.8.2-3: "quid Serranorum aemulus et

Camillorum cum regas stivam, dissimulas optare palamatam? parce tantum
in nobilitatis invidiam rusticari. ...neque dixerim sapienti viro rem
domesticam non esse curandam, sed eo temperamento, quo non solum quid
habere sed quid debeat esse consideret. nam, si ceteris nobilium
studiorum artibus repudiatis sola te propagandae rei familiaris urtica
sollicitat, licet tu deductum nomen a trabeis atque eboratas curules et
gestatorias bratteatas et fastos recolas purpurissatos, is profecto
inveniere, quern debeat sic industrium quod latentem non tarn honorare
censor quam censetor onerare."
1280n not preferring leisure: Cod. Theod. 1.16.9: "...absit autem,

ut iudex popularitati et spectaculorum editionibus mancipatus plus
ludicris curae tribuat quam seriis actibus." On residing in the capital:
ibid. 1.16.12: "...in his locis sedem constituat, in quibus oportet
omnibus praesto esse rectorem, non deverticula deliciosa sectetur..."
129Auson. Hos. 11. 448-53: "ast ego, quanta mihi dederit se vena
liquoris, / Burdigalam cum me in patriam nidumque senectae / Augustus
pater et nati, mea maxima cura, / fascibus Ausoniis decoratum et honore
curuli / mittent emeritae post tempora disciplinae, / latius Arctoi
praeconia persequar amnis." Cf. Prudent, (ed. and trans. H. Thomson,
LCL) Cathemerinon 1, 11. 89-91: "sunt nempe falsa et frivola / quae
mundiali gloria, / ceu dormientes, egimus..." That this is not only a
Christian sentiment may be presumed by a reference to the same in a
late-third-century pagan writer: Nemesianus Cynegetica (ed. H. Williams
[Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986]) 11. 100-102: "hue igitur mecum, quisquis
percussus amore / uenandi damnas lites auidosque tumultus / ciuilesque
fugis strepitus bellique fragores I nec praedas auido sectaris gurgite
ponti."
109
The acceptance of a quiet, rural, and private existence by
aristocratic men reflected their disillusionment with public life and
political office. Paulinus of Pella, whose mishaps with the Goths and
slave rebels were noted above, recorded in detail how he was drawn to
private life:
Eventually my concern was for luxury in my house and my life

so that at each season the rooms where I lived were always
comfortable. My own table was richly and handsomely set; my
servants were not only young but numerous; the place was
furnished with taste and variety; the silver was valued more
for price than for weight; many skilled workmen were there
to fill my requests; many well-bred, well-trained horses
filled my stables and there were carriages to take me where
I wished.130
The domestic affairs in which Paulinus took such pride were precisely
the duties of an upper-class Roman woman. Even in Paulinus' well-
appointed home, repercussions of the crisis of masculinity were felt.
By abandoning the political responsibilities which were part of
the accepted nature of men, and assuming control instead of the private
roles of domestic management and home life, men of the later Roman
130Paulinus of Pella Bucharisticus 11. 202-12: "Quae et mihi cara

nimis semper fuit ingenioque / congrua prima meo mediocria desideranti,
/ proxima deliciis et ab ambitione remota, / ut mihi compta domus
spatiosis aedibus esset / et diuersa anni per tempora iugiter apta, /
mensa opulenta nitens, plures iuuenesque ministri / inque usus uarios
grata et numerosa supellex / argentumque magis pretio quam pondere
praestans / et diuersae artis cito iussa explere periti / artifices
stabula et iumentis plena refectis, / tunc et carpentis euectio tuta
decoris..." Matthews (Western Aristocracies, 79), discussing this
passage, writes: "In all this, of course, Paulinus was studiously
typical of his class, as we can see it in Gaul and elsewhere." He adds
(p. 80): "If Paulinus admits to a lack ofpolitical ambition, this is
perhaps not so hard to understand in the context of his preoccupations
as a devoted landowner and head of family, and the leisure of an
aristocrat of refined taste. Indeed, the most interesting feature of
Paulinus' position may be precisely that, as a man of his class and from
such a family as his, he could rationally choose not to enter politics
at all." In attempting to explain this, Matthews decides that political
office was only "a derivative aspect of their social and economic
position as private men.”
110
aristocracy in effect renounced an important part of their masculinity,
and took in its place aspects of the role of women. They became
feminized both by their political insignificance in the autocratic and
bureaucratic later empire, by their relentless pursuit of luxury and
ostentation, and by their subsequent retreat to the private sphere of
hearth and home. Another sea change in the exercise of masculinity in
the later empire had taken place.
Chapter Three
Nor should any man's rights be taken from him:
The Crisis of Men's Private Lives in the Later Roman Empire
The transformation of the social roles of adult males in the later
Roman dlites did not solely involve public failure of the military or
disillusionment with the responsibilities of political office, and
subsequent inability of these arenas to sustain masculine expectations
of success, although it certainly included these things.
Contemporaneous to the crisis in men's public lives was an equal
transformation of men's private lives. In the realm of marriage and
family life, for example, Roman noblemen experienced changes which
brought into question the definition of adult manhood. Two factors
predominated: first, the loss of the exercise of authority within the
familial household which the Romans called patria potestas ("paternal
power"), and second, the restriction of the types of sexual expression
which followed from these patriarchal rights.
112
1. Husbands also shall be admonished:
The Decline of Patria Potestas in the Later Roman Empire
The near-absolute control in ancient Roman society which the
eldest living male of a noble family exercised was proverbial.1 The
power of this male, called the paterfamilias ("father of the
household”), over his descendants in the early Roman period had included
the right to collect all property or money which they had earned, to
choose their marriage partners or end their marriages, and even to sell
them into slavery or expose them at birth. The paterfamilias wielded
authority over his wife as the legal equivalent to his daughter,
according to the system of marriage cum manu ("with the hand”). The
system of patria potestas also perpetuated itself from generation to
1The information from this section for the republican and early
imperial periods owes much to many scholars and works. On Roman law:
Fritz Schultz, Classical Roman Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1951); and
William Buckland, A Text-Book of Roman Law from Augustus to Justinian
(Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1950). On Roman marriage: Percy
Corbett, The Roman Law of Marriage (Oxford: Clarendon, 1930); Jean
Gaudemet, Le mariage en Occident: les moeurs et le droit (Paris: du
Cerf, 1987); M. Humbert, Le remariage d Rome (Milan: Dott. A. Guiffrd,
1972); and Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: lusti Coniuges from the Time
of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991). On Roman
women and the law: S. B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves:
Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken, 1975); J. Balsdon,
Roman Women: Their History and Habits (London: Bodley Head, 1962); and
Jean Gaudemet, "Le statut de la femme dans 1'Empire romain," Receuils de
la Socidtd Jean Bodin pour 1 'histoire comparative des institutions 2
(1959): 193-222; Yan Thomas, "The Division of the Sexes in Roman Law,"
in A History of Women in the West, vol. 1: From Ancient Goddesses to
Christian Saints, ed. P. Schmitt (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1992).
On the family: Brent Shaw, "The Family in Late Antiquity: The Experience
of Augustine," Past and Present 115 (1987): 3-51; idem, "Latin Funerary
Epigraphy and Family Life in the Later Roman Empire," Historia 33
(1984): 457-97.
113
generation: men achieved independence upon their father's death and
became patresfamilias in their own right, while the legal control of an
unmarried woman fell after her father's death upon her brother or other
close male relative, and the control of a widowed woman upon her son or
other male relative of her husband, according to the rules of tutela
perpetua mulierum ("the perpetual tutelage of women").2
The absoluteness of these patriarchal rights may have been in part
mythical, because the earliest periods of Roman history already show
some restraints on the rights of a father. Even before the republican
era, the law denied fathers complete autonomy in exposing unwanted
children and in selling their children into slavery.3 Scholars have
typically interpreted such changes to the patriarchal system as the
encroachment of the rights of the state on the rights of the individual
man.4 Even more recently, scholars have examined the restraints which
human feeling, by creating sentimental ties between a father and his
2See J. A. Crook, "Patria Potestas," Classical Quarterly 17

(1967): 113-22. Men under the age of majority were also provided with a
temporary tutor ("guardian"). The tutor performed for a woman and a
minor male all of the administrative tasks of which they were legally
incapable. Persons under the legal authority of another were called
alieni iuris ("under the right[s] of another"); independent men (and
later women) were known as sui iuris ("under one's own right[s]"). In
what follows, "patriarchal" is used as the adjectival form of ”patria
potestas,” although I recognize that feminist scholars have questioned
the use of the term.
3See Richard Sailer, "Corporal Punishment, Authority, and

Obedience in the Roman Household," in Marriage, Divorce, and Children in
Ancient Rome, ed. B. Rawson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991).
following generally on the early feminist analysis of Simone de

Beauvoir, Le deuxidme sexe (Paris: Gallimard, 1949) 1.147: "C'est de
conflit de la famille et de l'Etat qui ddfinit l'histoire de la femme
romaine."
114
family, placed on the unrestricted exercise of paternal power.5
Moreover, scholars have noted how women wielded informal authority
within the patriarchal household, especially in home management.6
Still, Roman writers generally looked back on their past as a golden age
of unobstructed men's rights.7
The constraints on patria potestas, it should be noted, often
happened within the context of a struggle between the rights of men as
fathers and their rights as husbands. Fathers likely engineered the
decline of the marriage cum manu, for example, so that their financial
interests would not be lost by a daughter's marriage.8 In a marriage
5See Suzanne Dixon ("The Sentimental Ideal of the Roman Family,”

in Marriage, Divorce, and Children) on the "sentimental ideal” of the
Roman family. See Treggiari (Roman Marriage, 229-61) on love between
husbands and wives. See also Emiel Eyben ("Fathers and Sons," in
Marriage, Divorce, and Children) who argues for an ideal of fatherly
strictness, neither too harsh nor to indulgent. Sailer ("Corporal
Punishment") argues that the feeling of fathers for their wives and
children, called pietas ("piety”), distinguishes these ties from the
absolute control of the father over slaves in the household.
6Treggiari lRoman Marriage, 253-61) looks at letters between

husbands and wives from the classical period for evidence both of
romantic ties and of women's responsibilities. She writes (at 258): "it
is impossible in any of these letters from husbands to wives to find the
domineering tone that Rome's original patriarchal institutions might
lead us to expect." Cf. Jane Phillips, "Roman Mothers and the Lives of
their Adult Daughters," Helios 6 (1978): 69-80.
7Suzanne Dixon, The Roman Family (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University, 1992), 19-24.
®The role of a woman's blood relatives, viz. her father, in the

decline of the marriage cum manu was first proposed by way of
explanation by de Beauvoir (Deuxidme sexe, 1.1). For a detailed
discussion, see S. B. Pomeroy, "The Relationship of the Married Women to
her Blood Relatives in Rome," Ancient Society 7 (1976): 215-27. Pomeroy
argues that the rights of the father won out over the rights of the
husband, because the high rates of female infanticide meant far more men
of marriageable age than women, and this gave fathers greater powers of
negotiation in marriage contracts than prospective husbands. See below,
however, on female infanticide.
115
sine manu ("without the hand"), a husband could not expect any direct
financial gain from his wife's family. Instead, he received a dowry
from his wife as her share of her father's estate, and while he
controlled its use as well as the income from it during their marriage,
he could not sell or otherwise alienate it and it had to be returned to
her family of birth at his death or upon their divorce.9 As always, the
paterfamilias retained the sole right to chose his children's marriage
partners and to initiate a divorce. In this period, the law confirmed a
father's right to kill a daughter who had committed adultery, something
her husband was denied.10
Paternal rights over wives and children continued to decline in
the early imperial period. New imperial legislation of the emperor
Augustus probably only cemented what was already social custom in the
later republic.11 Nonetheless, the legal reforms of Augustus did permit
the state to intrude in new ways into the private lives of men.
9In a marriage cum manu, the husband or his paterfamilias gained

full possession of a woman's dowry. In a marriage sine manu, he only
had the right of usufructus. The dowry served as a woman's inheritance
from her family of birth; this may be surmised from the lex Voconia of
the late Republic, confirmed in the early Empire as the ratio Voconiana,
which denied to men the right to leave large inheritances to their
daughters. See J. A. Crook, "Women in Roman Succession,” in The Family
in Ancient Romes New Perspectives, ed. B. Rawson (London: Croom Helm,
1986).
10On choice of marriage partners and divorce: Susan Treggiari,

"Consent to Roman Marriage: Some Aspects of Law and Reality," Classical
Views 26 (1982): 34-44.
11For detailed analyses of the Augustan legislation, see P.

Csillag, The Augustan Laws on Family Relations (Budapest: Akaddmiai
Kiadd, 1976); Leo Raditsa, "Augustus' Legislation Concerning Marriage,
Procreation, Love Affairs and Adultery," Aufstieg und Niedergang der
ROmischen Welt 2:13 (1980): 278-339; and Angelika Mette-Dittmann, Die
Ehegesetze des Augustus. Eine Untersuchung im Rahmen der
Gesellshaftspolitik des Princeps (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1991).
116
Foremost among his reforms, Augustus instituted what has been called
mandatory marriage - which is to say that he enacted financial penalties
for men or women who chose either not to marry, not to have children, or
not to remarry after divorce or the death of their spouse.12 Augustus’
concerns for the declining numbers of the Roman nobility likely prompted
the creation of this law, since it was only apparently enforced only
among the upper classes of the Roman population. Another of Augustus'
laws confirms his demographic concerns: it gave women who bore several
children the privilege, known as the ius liberorum ("right [granted
because] of children"), of freedom from the tutela perpetua mulierum.
Women with the ius liberorum might administer their own financial
affairs without the binding supervision of a male relative.13
12This law, the Lex de maritanda ordinibus, applied to women

between the ages of 25 and 50, and to men between the ages of 25 and 60.
The maximum delay between marriages was 2 years; a minimum delay of 10
months was also required for women to certify paternity in cases of
pregnancy, called the tempus lugendi. Hen may have been required to
become betrothed almost immediately upon reaching the age of 25, or
after the end of a first marriage, and a betrothal could last no more
than 2 years. Cf. A. Wallace-Hadrill, "Family and Inheritance in the
Augustan Marriage-Laws," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society 207 (1981); 58-80, who argues that unmarried and childless
persons were still permitted to leave their estates to natural heirs.
13Sometimes called the ius trium liberorum ("the right [granted

because] of three children") because a woman living in the city of Rome
who bore 3 children was freed from the tutela; other Italian women and
freedwomen, too, could be granted this privilege, but were required to
bear 4 children, and women of the provinces were required to bear 5
children to receive the benefit. John Evans (War, Women and Children in
Ancient Pome [New York: Routledge, 1991], 13) argues for an indirect
connection between population and women's legal emancipation: that the
numerous wars in which the greatly enlarged empire was involved resulted
in a much higher mortality rate for men, which made such legal
enactments a practical solution to the shortage of male guardians. Tim
Parkin (Demography and Poman Society [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University, 1992], 116-9) wonders whether this this law referred to
children ever born or children who survived to adulthood.
117
Legal changes to family life in the second century further eroded
the absolute nature of patriarchal authority. By the second century,
for instance, women gained the right to initiate divorce, a right
previously only belonging their husbands and fathers. At about the same
time, fathers lost the right to force a divorce between the children
under their patria potestas if the individuals themselves did not want
to separate.14 During the second century, edicts permitted men to leave
property in wills to their mothers - who earlier had been forbidden to
own property at all - and permitted mothers in turn to leave such
property to their children, and to bequeath their dowries to their
children instead of the property being reappropriated by their
patresfamilias. Moreover, mothers might write such a will without the
supervision of their legal guardian.15 The hitherto male domains of
marital consent, ownership of property, and testation now also belonged
to women.
The continued demise of patria potestas is precisely how the
crisis of masculinity made itself felt in the later Roman family. The
public crisis certainly played a role in this demise. The deterioration
140n the initiation of divorce: Susan Treggiari, "Divorce Roman

Style: How Easy and how Frequent was it?" in B. Rawson, ed., Marriage,
Divorce, and Children.
15Bequests to mothers were made possible by the law known as the

senatus consulturn Tertullianum; the law stipulated that the mother must
have ius liberorum. Bequests by mothers were made possible by the law
known as the senatus consultum Orfitianum. For example of these laws in
action: see Liselot Huchthausen, "Kaiserliche Reskripte an Frauen aus
den Jahren 117 bis 217 u.Z.," in Eirene. Actes de la Xlle Conference
internationale d'dtudes classiques (Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert, 1972);
and Edoardo Volterra, "Les femmes dans les 'inscriptiones' des rescrits
impdriaux,” in E. von Caemmerer et al., eds., Xenion. Festschrift fur P.
J. Zepos (Athens: C. Katsikales, 1973).
118
of Rome's military greatness and the numbers killed in the periods of
civil unrest and rebellion only worsened the demographic decline which
Rome had already been experiencing at the beginning of the Common Era.16
The decline was somewhat alleviated by the influx of a new, non-Roman
nobility into the cities of the empire, which the extension of Roman
citizenship to the free inhabitants of all the provinces made possible.
The new Roman citizens, however, brought not only new potential marriage
partners into contact with the old dlites, but also new customs of
marriage and family life.17
New changes to women's position in the later empire challenged the
absolute nature of men's rights over them. Foremost among these changes
were those concerning marriage payments. Specifically, the later empire
saw the establishment of a reverse dowry system which equalled in value
the traditional dowry. Under the title of betrothal gifts, the future
husband's father gave substantial benefits - usually properties - to the
betrothed couple for use in their marriage, just as the dowry provided
the opportunity for the bride's father to give properties to the
16See A. Boak, Manpower Shortage and the Fall of the Roman Empire
in the West (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1955); updated by Pierre
Salmon, Population et depopulation dans 1'Empire romain (Brussels:
Latomus, 1974). Parkin (Demography and Roman Society, 67-8) questions
the methods of Boak and Salmon, but arrives at similar conclusions
himself (p. 120).
17Valid marriages (justae nuptiae) could only happen between two

Roman citizens according to the laws of conubium. While cohabitation
between individuals ineligible to marry was permitted, as in the case of
Roman citizens and non-Roman inhabitants of the empire (peregrini), it
was an inferior arrangement, called matrimonium non justurn ("non-valid
matrimony") if the husband lacked the rights of conubium, and
contubernium ("[simple] cohabitation") if the wife lacked conubium. No
marriage payments were permitted except in valid marriages. After 212,
all of these regulations were abandoned, although conubium was denied to
members of the lower classes.
119
couple.18 The exact nature of the establishment of a reverse dowry
system in this period has not been well studied, but is clear from the
sources.19 The reasons for such a shift are equally obscure.20 A law
180n the traditional dos ("dowry") in earlier periods: Treggiari,

Roman Marriage, 323-64; Suzanne Dixon, "Polybius on Roman Women and
Property," American Journal of Philology 106 (1985): 147-70; and Richard
Sailer, "Roman Dowry and the Devolution of Property in the Principate,"
Classical Quarterly 34 (1984): 195-205. The betrothal gifts were
variously called donatio ante nuptias ("gift before marriage"),
sponsalicia largitas ("betrothal donation"), dona nuptialia ("nuptial
gifts"), dona sponsalicia ("betrothal gifts"). Justinian consistently
replaces the various terms with donatio propter nuptias ("gift on
account of marriage"), by which it is best known in the Roman legal
histories. Such a system is called a "brideprice" in traditional
anthropological literature, although many recent discussions prefer the
more neutral term "reverse dowry."
19lt is implied that the traditional dowry is still well in place

in 363 in a law of Julian: Cod. Theod. 3.13.2: "in dote reddenda et
retentiones ex iure venientes et pacta, quae legibus consentanea esse
monstrantur, placet etiam ex huius sanctionis auctoritate intemerata
inviolataque servari." Nonetheless, a law issued 439 mandated that
while a woman still had to bring into the marriage what was called a
dowry, it might in fact even be "given back" from the property given to
her father as her betrothal gift: Nov. Theodosiani 14.3: "...licet res
ante nuptias donatae, ut adsolet fieri, in dotem a muliere
redigantur..." A law of 458 specifically refused to permit the dowry to
be larger in value than the betrothal gifts: Nov. Majoriani 6.9: "...ut
numquam minorem quam exigit futura uxor sponsaliciam largitatem dotis
titulo se noverit conlaturam..." A law of 452 specifies the equal
amount of the two payments: Nov. Valentiniani 35.9: "Pars vero feminae
tantum dare debebit quantum sponsalibus maritus intulerit, ut dantis et
accipientis sit aequa condicio, ne placita futuraque coniunctio uni
lucrum, alteri faciat detrimentum..." Moreover, the wife's family
rarely gave betrothal gifts to the couple, cf. Cod. Theod. 3.5.6: "Quod
si sponsa interveniente vel non interveniente osculo sponsaliorum
titulo, quod raro accidit..." All of this had the result that while
marriages still involved payments called dowries, the flow of money is
reversed from the ancient custom.
200ne of the few historians to document the shift attributes it to

high rates of female infanticide, widely divergent ages of marriage
between men and women, and prevalence of perpetual virginity by women:
David Herlihy, Medieval Households (Cambridge: Harvard University,
1985), 14-22. These are doubtful explanations. First, vows of
perpetual virginity were taken by men as well as women in the later
empire (see below, chap. 7). Second, infanticide in the Roman world has
been exaggerated, as demonstrated by John Boswell, The Kindness of
Strangers: The Abandonment of Children in Western Europe from Late
Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York: Random House, 1988). Third,
120
noting the increasing value of marriage payments provides a possible
explanation for this double system.21 The combination of a dowry and
reverse dowry provided a mechanism for the transference of properties
from one generation to the next in an environment of low birth rates in
which family inheritances fell into ever fewer hands.
Laws originally enacted to protect women's dowries continued to
apply to the reverse dowry. The effect of these laws was therefore to
further restrict men's rights within the family. For example, even
while the property designated as her betrothal gifts did not come from
her family, the wife was legal owner of it and her husband could not
alienate it nor could she legally give it to him. The betrothal gifts
also belonged to her when the marriage ended.22 While she was obliged
to preserve the value of the betrothal gifts intact for her children if
she had any, or for her husband’s parents if they were still alive, in
other cases the property was hers to dispose of as she wished, and in
any case she had free use of the property's usufruct.23
ages of marriage tend to be self-regulating and open to change according

to social environments.
21The law permitted an aristocratic family to give even a fundus

Italicus ("Italian foundation-estate"), usually an ancient home
property, as a betrothal gift: Cod. Theod. 3.5.8: "Quotiens sponsae in
minori constitutae aetate futurae coniugi aligua conlata in praediis
Italicis vel stipendiariis seu tributariis intercedente stipulatione
donantur, largitas perpeti firmitate subsistat, etiamsi traditionis
sollemnitas defuisse videatur, ita tamen, ut etiam in his donationibus,
quae in minores conferuntur, actorum confectio omnifariam flagitetur."
22Cod. Theod. 3.13.3: "Si constante matrimonio maritus fatali

fuerit sorte consumptus, dos, quae data dicitur vel promissa ex eius
uxoris facultatibus, ad feminam revertatur...''
23Cod. Theod. 3.8.2: "Feminae, quae susceptis ex priore matrimonio

filiis ad secundas transierint nubtias, quidquid ex facultatibus priorum
maritorum sponsaliorum iure, quidquid aut mortis causa donationibus
factis aut testamenti iure directo aut fideicommissi vel legati titulo
121
The rights of women to possess and bequeath inheritances and dotal
properties in the later empire was combined with a greater control over
the disposition of the actual property during their lifetimes, a change
made possible because of the disappearance of the tutela perpetua
mulierum. The perpetual tutelage of women, which had obliged a man to
manage all property owned by women, disappeared as a social institution
sometime between the third and fifth century. The jurisprudents of the
later second and early third century had already generally concurred
that the legal incapacity of women had nothing to do with their
intellectual abilities but was merely customary.24 At the beginning of
the fourth century, the emperor Constantine permitted women of good
character over the age of eighteen to control their own property,
vel cuiuslibet munificae liberalitatis praemio ex bonis maritorum

fuerint adsecutae, id totum ita ut perceperint integrum ad filios, quos
ex praecedente coniugio habuerint, transmittant vel ad quemlibet ex
filiis... Quod si nullam ex priore matrimonio habuerit successionem vel
natus native decesserint, omne, quod quoquomodo perceperit, pleni
proprietate iuris obtineat..." Cf. Nov. valentiniani 35. The only
condition under which she lost her rights to the property was if she
remarried within a year of her husband's death: Cod. Theod. 3.8.1: "Si
qua ex feminae perdito marito intra anni spatium alteri festinarit
innubere - parvum enim temporis post decern menses servandum adicimus,
tametsi id ipsum exiguum putemus - probrosis inusta notis honestioris
nobilisque personae et decore et iure privetur atque omnia, quae de
prioris mariti bonis vel iure sponsaliorum vel iudicio defuncti coniugis
consecuta fuerat...”
24Gai. Inst. (ed. and trans. w. Gordon and 0. Robinson [Ithaca,

New York: Cornell University, 1988]) 1.190: "Feminas uero perfectae
aetatis in tutela esse fere nulla pretiosa ratio suasisse uidetur: nam
quae uulgo creditur, quia leuitate animi plerumque decipiuntur et aequum
erat eas tutorum auctoritate regi, magis speciosa uidetur quam uera;
mulieres enim, quae perfectae aetatis sunt, ipsae sibi negotia tractant,
et in quibusdam causis dicis gratia tutor interponit auctoritatem suam;
saepe etiam inuitus auctor fieri a praetore cogitur." Cf. Dig. 16.1.2:
"...cum eas uirilibus officis fungi et eius generis obligationibus
obstringi non sit aequum ... quia opem tulit mulieribus propter sexus
inbecillitatem multis huiuscemodi casibus suppositis atque obiectis.
...infirmitas enim feminarum, non calliditas auxilium demeruit." Cf.
also ibid. 2.13.12: "Feminae remotae uidentur ab officio argentarii, cum
ea opera uirilis sit."
122
although they still seem to have had to retain legal guardians.25 By
the end of the fourth century, however, legislation specifically treated
women as legally eguivalent to men in the administration of their
affairs, and ignored the tutela of women, which must have had little
consequence.26 Indeed, a law of 414 ordered that all contracts made by
women be considered as binding27 - a clear indication of women's
independence in these matters, as is another law permitting women to act
as guardians for their children.28
25Cod. Theod. 2.17.1: "Feminas guogue, guarum aetas biennio viros

non sera pubertate praecedit, servato etiam in hoc temporis intervallo
decern et octo annos egressas ius aetatis legitimae mereri posse
sanximus: sed eas, guas morum honestas mentisgue sollertia, guas certa
fama commendat. Has vero propter pudorem ac verecundiamin coetu publico
demonstrari testibus non cogimus, sed percepta aetatis venia annos
tantum probare tabellis vel testibus misso procuratore concedimus: ut
etiam ipsae in omnibus contractibus tale ius habeant, guale viros habere
praescripsimus." The tutela mulierum is mentioned two years after the
enactment of the law above in a second law, ibid. 3.17.2: "In feminis
tutelam legitimam consanguineus patruus non recuset.”
26Cod. Theod. 3.17.3: "...tutores curatoresve ex guolibet ordine

idoneos faciat retentari. ...Itague hoc modo remoti a matu gui consilio
adfuerint permanebunt et parvulis adultisgue iusta defensio sub hac
prudentium deliberatione proveniet." The adults referred to in the law
may be the furiosi ("imbeciles") and prodigi ("spendthrifts")
traditionally provided with guardians and not necessarily women.
Corbett (Roman Law of Marriage, 47) sees this law as the terminus ante
quem of the tutela perpetua mulierum.
27Cod. Theod. 2.16.3: "Et mulieribus et minoribus in his, guae vel

praetermiserint vel ignoraverint, innumeris auctoritatibus constat esse
consultum." The law was issued by Theodosius II; in the same year, he
elevated his sister Pulcheria to the title of augusta, an honorary name
given only to a handful of women in the later empire: Kenneth Holum,
Theodosian Empresses: Women and Imperial Dominion (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1982). Although there is no evidence to this
effect, it is tempting to speculate about a possible relationship
between the political success of Pulcherria and the legal improvement of
women's status.
28Cod. Theod. 3.17.4: "Matres, guae amissis viris tutelam

administrandorum negotiorum in liberos postulant..." The mother had to
promise not to remarry. If she declined the responsibility, however, or
wished to remarry, only a male relative could be chosen: Nov.
123
Such formal changes in the legal position of women had tremendous
social consequences. Consider the disparate ages of marriage between
men and women, for instance, which frequently saw a woman not much past
puberty marry a man perhaps decades older, and probably outlive him and
his parents.29 If the birth-rate in the later empire had dramatically
declined, as has been suggested, many married couples might well have no
children surviving them, so that a widowed wife might have no natural
heirs. Under the old Augustan laws, widows under the age of fifty were
required to remarry within two years, or lose ownership of their
property, but in the year 320, the emperor Constantine ended the
Theodosiani 11.2: "Idemque observari volumus, et si mater legitima

liberorum tutela suscepta ad secundas contra sacramentum praestitum
adspiraverit nuptias, antequam ei tutorem alium fecerit ordinari eique
quod debetur ex ratione tutelae gestae persolverit." This law was
enacted in the west by Valentinian II when was only 19 years of age and
greatly under the influence of his mother, Justina. Again (cf. note
above), one might speculate about Justina's personal role in extending
women's jurisdiction over their sons, since at this time, a female
regent was as yet virtually unprecedented in Roman history and without
real legal approval. These laws generally contradict the thesis of
Suzanne Dizon ("Infirmitas sexuss Womanly Weakness in Roman Law,"
Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 52 [1984]: 343-71) that as the
tutela perpetua mulierum disappeared, it was replaced by philosophical
concepts of the weakness of women to the same effect.
29While no one disputes the wide age-range between Roman husbands

and wives, there has been considerable debate on exact ages of marriage:
see M. Durry, "Le mariage des filles impubdres A Rome," Revue des etudes
latines 47 (1955): 17-25; opposed by J. Reinach, "Pubertd fdminine et
mariage romain,” Revue historique de droit frangais et etranger 10
(1956): 268-73; but supported by H. Hopkins, "The Age of Roman Girls at
Marriage," Population Studies 18 (1965): 309-27; opposed again by B.
Shaw, "The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage: Some Reconsiderations,"
Journal of Roman Studies 77 (1987): 30-46; but supported again by R.
Sailer, "Men's Age at Marriage and its Consequences in the Roman
Family," Classical Philology 82 (1987): 21-34; and Treggiari, Roman
Marriage, 398-403. For examples, cf. R. fitienne, "La ddmographie des
families impdriales et sdnatoriales au ive sidcle aprds J.-C.," in
Transformations et Conflits au IVe siScle ap. J.-C. (Bonn: Rudolf
Habelt, 1978).
124
requirement of marriage.30 Such circumstances conspired to produce
large numbers of independent widows in the fourth and fifth centuries:
women in full possession of large estates, with no male guardians and no
natural heirs, and not obliged to remarry. The numbers of independent
widows troubled many male writers; the emperor Majorian condemned their
"lascivious freedom of living.”31 That men had been enjoying such
freedoms since ancient times was not the point; here is clear evidence
of the real decline of men's authority over women.
Legal reforms of the later Roman empire also greatly disrupted the
patriarchal rights of men over their children. Later imperial
legislators expressly repealed the ancient custom which gave fathers the
right to any inheritances of their minor children, in an obvious
indication of the declining authority of men.32 Several laws repeatedly
denied fathers the permission to sell property inherited by any of their
30Cod. Theod. 8.16.1: "Qui iure veteri caelibes habebantur,

inminentibus legum terroribus liberentur adque ita vivant, ac si numero
maritorum matrimonii foedere fulcirentur, sitque omnibus aequa condicio
capessendi quod quisque mereatur. Nec vero quisquam orbus habeatur:
proposita huic nomini damna non noceant. Quam rem et circa feminas
aestimamus earumque cervicibus inposita iuris imperia velut quaedam iuga
solvimus promiscue omnibus."
31Nov. Majoriani 6.5: "Viduarum sane obstinationibus permovemur,

quae nulla prole suscepta fecunditatem suam reparationemque familiae
repudiata coniugii iteratione condemnant et solitariam vitam non eo
eligunt, ut pudicitiae religionis amore famulentur, sed potentiae
ambitum orbitatis suae casibus viduitatisque captantes lascivam vivendi
eligunt libertatem..."
32Cod. Theod. 8.18.4: "...ex diversis successionibus ad se

devolutas antehac his, in quorum potestate fuerant... id simili
iustitiae moderamine ad patrem aut ad patris genus pertineat, ut ex
utraque familia manentes facultates singulis quibuscumque cessisse
potius quam adeptae esse videantur." The text as extant is corrupt.
125
children from their mother’s relatives.33 The law also gave children
the right even to receive the inheritance due them from their mother and
her relatives during her lifetime, without interference from their
fathers.34 Nor did the law permit a father to have any rights to the
property to which his children had gained access by their own
33Cod. Theod. 8.18.3: "...qui quoniam in his usufructuarii

remansisse videntur, usurpare ea ac pervertere confidunt, ut per hoc
his, qui in orbitate remanserunt, nulla nec possidendi nec litigandi
tribuatur occasio." Cf. ibid. 3.13.3: "...ita ut proprietas eiusdem a
liberis ex eadem susceptis alienari a marito non possit." Cf. also Cod.
Theod. 8.18.6: "Quemadmodum maternas facultates venditione vel donatione
transcribere in alias personas patribus non licet, ita ea, quae pater
matris...donaverint sive ab intestato reliquerint, patribus alienare non
liceat." Cf. also ibid. 8.18.7: "Quidquid avus avia, proavus proavia,
nepoti nepti, pronepoti pronepti, cuiuslibet tituli largitate
contulerint, id est testamento fideicommisso legato codicillo donatione
vel etiam intestati successione, pater filio filiaeve integra
inlibataque custodiat, ut vendere donare relinquere alteri aut obligare
non possit..." This is confirmed in ibid. 8.19.1: "Cum venerandae leges
vetuerint patribus iure potestatis adquiri, quidquid eorum filiis avus
avia, proavus proavia a linea materna venientes quocumque titulo
contulissent...” Confirmed once more in Nov. Valentiniani 35.1: "Pars
vero feminae tantum dare debebit quantum sponsalibus maritus intulerit,
ut dantis et accipientis sit aequa condicio, ne placita futuraque
coniunctio uni lucrum, alteri faciat detrimentum." Do the numerous
repetitions of this law mean it was not being obeyed? As these laws
indicate, the father still retained usufruct as long as his children
were minors, although if he emancipated them from his patria potestas,
relinquishing all legal jurisdiction over them and appointing a third
party as guardian to them, he was permitted by law to retain one-third
of his wife's estate as compensation: Cod. Theod. 8.18.1: "Quod si pater
suum filium patremfamilias videre desiderans eum emancipaverit,
repraesentare ei maternam debebit substantiam, ita ut filius accepto
munere libertatis reique suae dominus effectus, ne videatur ingratus,
tertiam partem custoditae sibi rei muneris causa parenti offerat..."
Cf. ibid. 8.18.2: "...cum aetates legitimae liberorum ad emancipationem
parentes invitaverint et patresfamilias videre liberos suos voluerint,
tertiam partem maternorum bonorum eis filii tamquam muneris causa
offerant..."
34Cod. Theod. 2.24.2: "Nulli quidem de bonis usurpandis vivorum

nec dividundis contra bonos mores concessa licentia est: sed si
praecipiente matre bona eius inter se liberi diviserunt, placuit
omnifariam nobis hiuismodi divisionem durare..." This is in many ways a
corollary of the laws specifying ownership of a woman's dowry as being
her children's, so that as long as she had children, she could not
alienate even her dotal property.
126
marriages.35 Indeed, if his children died with their own children
living, the law considered these persons, his grandchildren, as the
natural heirs to the property which had belonged to his children, to his
complete exclusion, even if, as his descendants, they lived under his
authority.36
Other laws contributed to the growing restriction of men's rights
over their families. One law granted permission for children to take
their father to court.37 Legitimate children had the right to expect
the full inheritance from their fathers, and even a man of the highest
social classes was prohibited from leaving any part of his estate to
35Cod. Theod. 8.19.1: "...quidquid vel uxor marito non emancipato

vel maritus uxori in potestate positae quocumque titulo vel iure
contulerit sive transmiserit, hoc patri nullatenus adquiratur, atque
ideo in eius tantum, cui delatum est, iure durabit." Anachronistically,
such property is still referred to in some laws as peculium, the ancient
legal term for property in the use of one person but the actual
possession of the paterfamilias: ibid. 1.34.2: "Velut castrense peculium
filii familias adsessores post patris obitum vindicent..."
36Nov. Theodosiani 14.8: "Quod autem scitis prioribus continetur,

nec a filia quae in potestate est donationem ante nuptias patri nec a
filio dotem adquiri, eo addito confirmamus, ut defunctis his adhuc in
potestate patris, si liberis extantibus moriantur, ad liberos eorum
eaedem res iure hereditatis, non ad patrem iure peculii transmittantur
nec per nepotes avo videlicet adquirendae..." He did have usufruct of
such properties if his grandchildren were minors: Cod. Theod. 8.18.9:
"Habeat igitur avus veniens cum nepotibus in potestate durantibus
usumfructum bonorum omnium, quae ex defunctae aviae successione delata
sunt." Cf. ibid. 8.18.10: "...ea quidem, quae filius defunctus
extrinsecus adquisierat, sibi habeat pater et perpetuo iure dominii
possideat, bonorum vero ex matris patrimonio filio qui defunctus est
quaesitorum solum usumfructum retentet, ad alios filios ex eodem
matrimonio natos post eius obitum proprietate reditura."
37Here the occasion is specified as an unfair gift of property to

one of the children to the exclusion of the others: Cod. Theod. 2.21.1:
"Cum omnis hereditas dote dicatur exhausta, concordare legibus promptum
est, ut at exemplum inofficiosi testamenti adversus dotem inmodicam
exercendae actionis copia tribuatur et filiis conquerentibus emoluments
debits deferantur."
127
illegitimate children, if this excluded his legitimate heirs.38 All of
this legislation on children's rights has been associated with Christian
influence.39 This explanation is possible, although the flurry of
legislative activity on children perhaps reflects instead the desire -
as with the laws on the reverse dowry - to have clear mechanisms for the
transference of property from one generation to the next in a period of
declining birth-rates, without interference from fathers. Regardless of
their origin, however, the laws ended by restricting men's rights to
control the inheritances of their wives and children.
Legislators were obviously worried at the decline of patria
potestas and the implications of this decline for men's status and
38Cod. Theod. 4.6.3: "Senatores seu perfectissimos, vel guos in

civitatibus duumviralitas vel quinquennalitas vel famonii vel sacerdotii
provinciae ornamenta condecorant, placet maculam subire infamiae et
pergrinos a Romanis legibus fieri, si ex ancilla vel ancillae filia vel
liberta vel libertae filia, sive Romana facta seu Latina, vel scaenica
vel scaenicae filia, vel ex tabernaria vel ex tabernari filai vel humili
vel abiecta vel lenonis vel harenarii filia vel guae mercimoniis
publicis praefuit, susceptos filios in numero legitimorum habere
voluerint aut proprio iudicio aut nostri praerogativa rescribti, ita ut,
quidquid talibus liberis pater donaverit, sive illos legitimos seu
naturales dixerit, totum retractum legitimae suboli reddatur aut fratri
aut sorori aut patri aut matri." This law was adjusted by successive
emperors: ibid. 4.6.4 (permitting 1/12 to illegitimate children, 1/4 if
there were no legitimate children); ibid. 4.6.5 (rescission of 4.6.4;
restoration of 4.6.3); ibid. 4.6.6 (rescission of 4.6.5; restoration of
4.6.4); ibid. 4.6.7 (rescission of 4.6.6, permission to illegimate
children in take up to 1/8 of estate by testament); Nov. Marciani 4.1
(rescission of Cod. Theod. 4.6.7; restoration of 4.6.3 banning all
inheritance by illegitimate children). If there were no legitimate
children, the estate was to be absorbed by the imperial fisc: Cod.
Theod. 4.6.2. In earlier Roman law, a man was free to divide his estate
between his legitimate and illegitimate children as he wished.
390n Christian influence: Jean Gaudemet, "Les transformations de

la vie familiale au Bas-Empire et 1'influence du Christianisme,"
Romanitas 4 (1962): 58-85; idem, "Tendances nouvelles de la legislation
familiale au ive si£cle," in Transformations et conflits au IVe si&cle
ap. J.-C. (Bonn: Rudolf Habelt Verlag, 1978); Jack Goody, The
Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983), 153.
128
identity. A law of the year 426 specifically degraded the legal status
of mothers as regarded children's inheritances in order to bring it to
the level of the status of fathers, arguing that "We shall not allow
fathers to be legally inferior to mothers in any particular."40
Nevertheless, the overall attempt seems to have been to equalize men's
and women's positions regarding children. This is the stated intent of
one law:
It is Our Will that husbands also shall be admonished by a

similar example of both piety and law . . . [so that] what
is enjoined upon mothers by the necessity of the law, as
here set forth, is more readily expected of [fathers] in
consideration of justice.41
The legal positions of men and women in family law were moving ever more
closely together.
There were still significant social differences between men and
women, to be sure. Even in one of the more significant changes to the
legal status of marriage, a law of Constantine which put an end to
divorce "for trivial reasons,"42 noticeable differences remained between
40Cod. Theod. 4.1.1: "Patrem aliqua ex parte minorem esse matribus

non sinemus."
41Cod. Theod. 3.8.2: "Simili etiam ammoneri maritos volumus et

pietatis et legis exemplo; quos, etsi vinculo non adstringimus velut
inpositae severius sanctionis, religionis tamen iure cohibemus, ut
sciant id a se promptius sperari contemplatione iustitiae, quod
necessitate propositae observationis matribus imperatur..."
42Cod. Theod. 3.16.1: "Placet mulieri non licere propter suas

pravas cupiditates marito repudium mittere exquisita causa, velut
ebriosi aut aleatori aut mulierculario, nec vero maritis per quascumque
occasiones uxores suas dimittere, se din repudio mittendo a femina haec
sola crimina inquiri, si homicidam vel medicamentarium vel sepulchrorum
dissolutorem maritum suum esse probaverit, ut ita demum laudata omnem
suam dotem recipiat. Nam si praetor haec tria crimina repudium marito
miserit, oportet earn usque ad acuculam capitis in domo mariti deponere
et pro tarn magna sui confidentia in insulam deportari. In masculis
etiam, si repudium mittant, haec tria crimina inquiri conveniet, si
moecham vel medicamentariam vel conciliatricem repudiare voluerint. Nam
129
the effects of the law on men when compared to its effects on women.
Men might divorce their wives for adultery, for being a conciliatrix
("mediator") - that is, involved in prostitution - or for being a
medicamentaria ("[female] medical practitioner"), possibly for having
used medicines to avoid pregnancy or to procure an abortion.43 In
contrast, the same law denied a woman permission to divorce her husband
for drinking, gambling, or for being a muliercularius, an otherwise
unattested term of uncertain meaning.44 She could, however, obtain a
si ab his criminibus liberam eiecerit, omnem dotem restituere debet et

aliam non ducere. Quod si fecerit, priori coniugi facultas dabitur
domum eius invadere et omnem dotem posterioris uxoris ad semet ipsam
transferre pro iniuria sibi inlata." The phrase levi obiectione ("for
trivial reasons") actually comes from the interpretatio of the law,
probably added at the time of the publication of the Cod. Theod., i.e.,
439 C.E. That such potions were used can be surmised from a comment by
Jerome. Hieron. Epist. [ed. J. Labourt, 8 vols. [Paris: Belles lettres,
1949-63]) 22.13: "Aliae uero sterilitatem praebibunt et necdum sati
homines homicidium faciunt. Nonnullae, cum se senserint concepisse de
scelere, aborti uenena meditantur et frequenter etiam ipsae commortuae
trium criminum reae ad inferos perducuntur, homicidiae sui, Christi
adulterae, necdum nati filii parricidae."
43Pharr (Theodosian Code, 77) translates medicamentaria as

sorceress, and their is a possibility that the medical practice might be
mixing magic potions, which were known to be made in late antiquity.
James Brundage (Law, Sex, arid Christian Society in Medieval Europe
[Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987], 94) takes it in a similar sense
as "having administered poisons." Gillian Clark (Women in Late
Antiquity, 22) writes: "A medicamentaria (the Latin equivalent of the
Greek pharmakeutria) used suspect drugs and perhaps spells, but her
purpose might be anything from murder to abortion to the treatment of
infertility or unrequited love." On the use of contraceptives: Keith
Hopkins, "Contraception in the Roman Empire," Comparative Studies in
Society and Bistory 8 (1965): 124-51; John Noonan, "Contraception in the
Roman Empire," in Contraceptions A History of Its Treatment by the
Catholic Theologians and Canonists, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Harvard
University, 1986).
44Pharr (Theodosian Code, 77) believes it means a husband's sexual

infidelity, which had not previously been illegal and not considered as
being a moechus ("adulterer"), which meant a man who had sex with a
married woman. Brundage (Law, Sex, and Christian Society, 94) obviously
concurs, translating it as "adulterer." Corbett (Roman Law of Marriage,
244) believes it means even a husband's flirtatiousness. Both take the
"woman" aspect of the man's behavior as being the objects of his sexual
130
legal divorce if he were a murderer, a tomb robber, or a medicamentarius
("[male] medical practitioner"), possibly a poisoner.45 Both are
interesting comments on the absolute limits of unacceptable behavior for
men and women within marriage. If the couple separated for any other
reason, neither could remarry. The penalty exacted from a woman who
remarried was greater than from a man, however, since she forfeited her
dowry if she were guilty of any of the three offenses, or if she left
her husband for any but the three established reasons. If he were
guilty of any of the offenses, or left her for reasons other than those
accepted, he lost his access to her property, but not his own property.
Still, if a man remarried after leaving his wife unjustly, she had the
right to claim his second wife's dowry.46
Men of the later empire also lost the right to repudiate a
marriage partner. In earlier periods, this right had been an effective
tool for men's patriarchal control. It was especially useful for
reformulating dlite alliances, because men could divorce women who
desire: muliercularius meaning "he who [desires] a little woman”

(muliercula being understood as any woman other than his wife, a term of
disrepute used in numerous instances for a prostitute, but also often
used in the phrase "pueri et mulierculae," perhaps to mean a young
woman). A muliercularius might refer to a man who consorts with
prostitutes. It is possible, however, that the term refers to
effeminate behavior by a man, especially to receptive sexual behavior
with another man: muliercularius meaning "he who [acts like] a little
woman.” A. Souter (Glossary of Late Latin [Oxford: Clarendon, 1964],
258) lists it as a synonym for mulierarius ("of a woman") which does not
clarify its meaning here.
45Pharr (Theodosian Code, 77) translates medicamentarius as

"sorcerer," and Brundage (Law, Sex, and Christian Society, 94) as
"poisoner."
46As in the classical period, we can suspect that attempts by men

to seize control of their wife's dowry led to some false prosecutions:
see Treggiari's speculations (Soman Marriage, 297).
131
belonged to families on the wane politically, and replace them with
others more advantageous. Men could also ensure heirs by marrying women
who had proved their fertility in previous marriages.47 Constantine's
law restricting divorce denied this strategy to dlite families.48 Not
surprisingly, the law proved unpopular with the Roman nobility, and was
briefly abrogated by the emperor Julian, in a law not preserved, but
presumably overturned by Jovian.49 The divorce law was also annulled
47See Mireille Corbier, "Divorce and Adoption as Roman Familial

Strategies (Le Divorce et 1'adoption 'en plus')," in B. Rawson, ed.,
Marriage, Divorce, and Children; and Keith Bradley, "Remarriage and the
Structure of the Upper-Class Roman Family," in ibid.
48Historians have also typically assigned this law to Christian

influence: see V. Basanoff, "Les sources chrdtiennes de la Loi de
Constantin sur lerepudium (Cod. Theod. Ill, 16, 1 a. 331) et le champ
d'application de cette loi,” in Studi in onore di Salvatore Riccobono
nel XL anno sel suo insegnamento (Palermo, 1936); Jean Gaudemet, Mariage
en Occident, 70-83; or M. Humbert, "L'hostilitd du ldgislateur chrdtien
a l'dgard du remariage: la rupture avec les traditions classigues,” in
Remariage k Rome. This has been re-evaluated recently; Christians
differed on the acceptability of divorce at all, and no one viewpointon
divorce was universally accepted at this time. See Roger Bagnall,
"Church, State and Divorce in Late Roman Egypt," in K.-L. Selig and R.
Somerville, eds., Florilegium Columbianum: Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar
Kristeller (New York: Italica Press, 1987); M. Verdon, "Virgins and
Widows: European Kinship and Early Christianity," Man 23 (1988): 488-
505. G. Quale (A Bistory of Marriage Systems [Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood, 1988], 201-2) suggests that by emphasizing the
indissolubility of marriage, Romans of late antiquity who were
increasingly moving away from rural roots to urban life, could replace
the lost extended kinship bonds which had existed in the rural clans
with newly-created marital ones.
49Bagnall ("Church, State, and Divorce," 43) argues that there is

no evidence that Julian's law was ever repealed, and so "as far as we
know" it remained in force until 421, when another divorce law was
issued: Cod. Theod. 3.16.2: "Mulier, quae repudii a se dati oblatione
discesserit, si nullas probaverit divortii causas, abolitis
donationibus, quas sponsa perceperat, etiam dote privetur, deportationis
addicenda suppliciis: cui non solum secundi viri copulam, verum etiam
postliminii ius negamus." This law, however, can be understood as a
clarification of divorce laws, since it deals with couples who separate
and remarry for other than the acceptable reasons. In the version of
the law as published by Justinian, the death penalty is also specified
as the punishment for adultery by either party, but this is almost
132
briefly by Theodosius II in 439,50 but revived under Valentinian III in
452.51 By the mid-fifth century, then, the state held the rights of
divorce firmly in its possession, dispensing it only infrequently. The
changes to divorce laws are certainly to be understood as a restriction
on men's rights.
The narrowing of men's freedom of action within marriage and
family life through the decline of patria potestas must be taken as
further evidence of the declining fortunes of Roman men. Although the
political turbulence of the later Roman period had convinced many men to
escape the hazards of public office and military life and concentrate
their personal ambitions within their private lives, neither marriage
nor the family offered any guarantee of masculine success or the
authority which men traditionally wielded. Instead, the growing power
certainly a later interpolation! Cod. lust. 9.9.29t "Sacrilegos autem

nuptiarum gladio puniri oportet." See J. Evans-Grubbs, "'Munita
Coniugia': the Emperor Constantine's Legislation on Marriage and the
Family" (Ph.D. Dissertation: Stanford University, 1987), 188. Contrast
Bagnall's opinion with that of Gaudemet (Mariage en Occident, 79) who
does not believe that Julian's law existed at all, since it is not
included in any legal compilation of the period, but only mentioned by a
Christian polemicist.
50nov. Theodosiani 12.1: "Consensu licita matrimonia posse con

trahi, contracta non nisi misso repudio dissolvi praecipimus.
Solutionem etenim matrimonii difficiliorem debere esse favor imperat
liberorum. Sed in repudio mittendo culpaque divortii perquirenda durum
est veterum legum moderamen excedere. Ideo constitutionibus abrogatis,
quae nunc maritum, nunc mulierem matrimonio soluto praecipiunt poenis
gravissimis coerceri, hac constitutione repudii culpas culparumque
coercitiones ad veteres leges responsaque prudentium revocare
censemus..." Theodosius II might have changed his mind about this in
450, since he seemed to revert to the Constantinian rules in a law not
preserved in the Cod. Theod. but in Cod. lust. 5.17.8, too lengthy to
quote. Cf. discussion by Clark, Women in Late Antiquity, 24.
51Wov. Valentiniani 35.11: "In ipsorum autem matrimoniorum

reverentiae vinculum, ne passim et temere deserantur, antiquata novella
lege, quae solvi coniugia sola contraria voluntate permiserat, ea quae a
divo patre nostro Constantio decreta sunt intemperata serventur."
133
of women and children within the dlite family only intensified the
crisis of later Roman masculinity.
2. A purity which he does not show himself:
Sexuality and £lite Roman Men
The relationship between the dlite Roman male and others was
certainly changing in the last centuries of the empire. Not only were
the geographical barriers which he had erected against the barbarian
outsiders were collapsing. Not only were low-born men were usurping his
place in the governance and maintenance of the empire. Not only was his
position of dominance within the family and his control over his wife
and children was slipping away from him. It was not only his
relationship to others; his very relationship with himself - with his
body and his use of it in sexual activity - was changing.
More importantly, men believed that the changes they were
experiencing were undermining the manliness of male sexuality. Roman
males were still bound by ancient codes of sexual behavior, but sexual
morality as developed in the later empire added new restrictions to
these ancient codes. Accepted patterns of sexual behavior with little
or no social reproach - for a man to have sex with women other than his
wife, with slaves or prostitutes, with boys - fell under social sanction
and legal prohibition.
Writers of the later empire attempted to describe the restrictions
in sexual morality as manly self-restraint and part of a philosophical
detachment from the physical world. Nonetheless, fear of the medical
134
dangers of sex also played a role in the restrictions on men's
sexuality. In the end, procreation became the sole legitimate purpose
of sexual activity. The changes to male sexuality, rather than pointing
to the manliness of later Roman men, in fact demonstrated only the
extent to which the crisis of masculinity had made itself felt even
within the confines of the private realm of sexuality.
The changing nature of male sexuality has already come to the
attention of some historians of the early Roman empire. Interestingly,
• scholars examining these issues have frequently theorized about the ways
in which political and social changes affected men's sexuality.
Examining the shift from a republic controlled by the male dlite to an
empire ruled by a single man, or the restructuring of the early imperial
family, as a result of the Augustan laws and the disappearance of the
marriage cum manu, they have generally concluded that in the context of
men's declining authority within the state and within the family, men of
the early empire sought greater authority within themselves, including a
sexual self-control.52
52Paul veyne, "La famille et 1'amour sous le Haut-Empire romain,”

Annales E.S.C. 33 (1978): 35-63; reprinted in La socidtd romaine (Paris:
du Seuil, 1991); Evans, War, Women and Children; and Foucault, Care of
the Self, esp. part 3, "The Self and Others." Foucault writes (ibid.,
95): "The reflection of the use of pleasure that was so directly linked
to the close correlation between the three types of authority (over
oneself, over the household, and over others [in politics]) was modified
in the very course of this elaboration [of an ethics of self-mastery].
A growth of public constraints and prohibitions? An individualistic
withdrawal accompanying the valorization of private life? We need
instead to think in terms of a crisis of the subject, or rather a crisis
of subjectivation - that is, in terms of a difficulty in the manner in
which the individual could form himself [sic] as the ethical subject of
his actions, and efforts to find in devotion to self that which could
enable him to submit to rules and give a purpose to his existence."
135
The possibility of a connection between socio-political changes
and changes to sexuality deserves some consideration. Indeed, one might
speculate that in the later Roman empire the connection between the two
is even clearer. After all, the final centuries of the western empire
witnessed the further decline of men's authority in the state and in the
family, as well as the collapse of military effectiveness. As an
explanation for cultural change, however, this connection leaves much to
be desired. If men's sexuality could be affected in the same ways by
both an expanding early empire and a shrinking later empire, then the
size of Rome's political dominion could not seriously affect the size of
the sexual appetites of its men. One might speculate with equal
plausibility that the loss of authority in politics and in the family
caused Roman men to strengthen their sexual hold on those persons they
still could dominate, especially slaves and prostitutes. Reasoning
which proposes that the political and social changes created a focus on
the conjugal unit and on marital fidelity is also faulty, because it is
unable to explain the freer access to divorce in the early empire and
the resistance to the restrictions on divorce in the later empire.
If we cannot explain the social and political changes as the cause
of the changes to sexuality, it is important nonetheless to see them as
part of a whole series of changes to masculinity. Anxiety about the
male role and masculine identity - an anxiety created in the midst of
social and political crisis - also precipitated the changes in male
sexuality in the later empire. In effect, the new sexual morality
formed part of an attempt to avert the challenges to male identity in
this period. The new sexual morality only contributed to the challenge
136
to male identity, as we will see, by assimilating men's sexual role to
women's. Paradoxically, it was precisely the attempt to preserve the
manliness of the later Roman male that played a role in his
feminization. The perspective of gender throws new light onto the
relationship of sexuality and masculinity.
Ammianus Marcellinus' depiction of the emperor Julian illustrates
the new ideal of men's sexuality. We have already seen that Ammianus
regarded Julian as an ideal man. In this instance, Ammianus praised
Julian at length for his decision to renounce sex after the death of his
wife:
he was so spectacularly and incorruptibly chaste after the

loss of his wife he never tasted the pleasures of sex, but
[said] . . . that he was glad to have escaped from slavery
to so mad and cruel a tyrant as love. To strengthen this
resolve Julian was in the habit of repeating a [favourite]
saying . . . to the effect that chastity adds lustre to a
life of high ideals just as a good painter enhances the
beauty of a face.53
These remarks followed immediately after Ammianus' general assessment of
Julian's character - even before the description of Julian's vita
militaris which follows it, or the description of Julian's courage and
skill in battle, or the authority which Julian wielded over his army.54
53Amm. Marc. 25.4.2-3: "Et primum ita inuiolata castitate enituit,

ut post amissam coniugem nihil umquam uenerium augis larens illus
aduertens, quod... interrogatum... negantem id adiecisse, quod gauderet
harum rerum amorem ut rabiosum quendam effugisse dominum et crudelem.
item ut hoc propositum ualidius confirmaret, recolebat saepe dictum
lyrici Bacchylidis, quern legebat iucunde, id asserentis, quod ut
egregius pictor uultum speciosum effingit, ita pudicitia Celsius
consurgentem uitam exornat. quam labem in adulto robore iuuentutis ita
caute uitauit, ut ne suspicione quidem tenus libidinis ullius uel
citerioris uitae ministris incusaretur, ut saepe contingit."
54Julian's character: Amm. Marc. 25.4.1 (quoted at the beginning

of chap. 1). Julian's uita militarist ibid. 25.4.4: "...per uarios
autem procinctus stans interdum more militiae cibum breuem uilemque
sumere uisebatur.” Julian's skill and authority in war: ibid. 25.4.10-
137
Clearly Julian's renunciation of sex proved his manly virtue in
Ammianus' eyes, at least as much as did his military prowess.
Ammianus clarified his understanding of the manliness of Julian's
sexual abstinence when he described the emperor as virtually assuming
the pallium ("philosopher's mantle").55 Linking the pursuit of
philosophy to the renunciation of sex helped to assimilate it to the
image of Stoic dnrdtOeia and the mind's mastery over the body. The image
also helped to associate Julian with the Platonic ideal of the
philosopher-king: the man who pursues virtue both privately and
publicly, exercising the same authority over himself as over others.
The same idea is present in Claudian's advice to the emperor Honorius:
"When you can be king over yourself, then you will rule rightfully over
all."56
An associate of Julian's, the philosopher Iamblichus, made
explicit the connection between the vita philosophies ("philosopher's
life") and the life of sexual renunciation. Ostensibly writing a
biography of the ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, Iamblichus was
obliged in the absence of any real information of the man's life to
invent episodes and attribute sayings to Pythagoras and his followers to
suit his tastes and those of his contemporaries in the neo-Pythagorean
12: "Fortitudinem certaminum crebritas ususgue bellorum ostendi et

patientia frigorum immanium et feruoris... castrensium negotiorum
scientiam plura declarant... auctoritas adeo ualuit, ut dilectus
artissime, dum timetur..."
55Amm. Marc. 25.4.4: "namque in pace uictus eius mensarumque

tenuitas erat recte noscentibus admiranda uelut ad pallium mox
reuersuri..." On Julian as philosopher: Athanassiadi, Julian.
56Claud. Cons. Bon. 4 11. 261b-262a: "tunc omnia iure tenebis, /

cum poteris rex esse tui."
138
movement, and possibly the tastes also of his imperial patron. His
ideal for men was clear: "By their discipline and sound-mindedness
[ocixppoovvj]]," he wrote, "[men] should become examples both to those in
the households where they live, and to those in the whole community."57
This Pythagorean ideal included variations of the cardinal virtues found
in the Stoic and Platonic philosophers, and incidentally, in Ammianus'
description of Julian. Additionally, however, the Pythagorean ideal
included a component of sexual restraint:
And those men apparently believed it necessary to prevent

births which arise contrary to nature and with violence.
They allowed, however, those in accord with nature and
temperance [ooxppoovvr)], which take place for the purpose of
temperate and lawful begetting of children.58
Iamblichus credited the Pythagoreans with the belief that sexual
activity should be begun late in life, engaged in only infrequently, and
committed always only with the purpose of procreation in mind.59 Any
other sexual activity was mere self-indulgence, from which had come all
of the vices.60
57Iambl. De uita Pythagorica (ed. and trans. J. Dillon and J.

Hershbell, Society of Biblical Literature, Texts and Translations, no.
29 [Atlanta: Scholars, 1991]) 9[48]: "Kai Xfl T&êi Kai Xfl oaxppoovvp
7rapa8EiYH.ee yevEGfkxi xoTq xe tcata ttjv oiKiav, f]V oIkeT, icai xotq Kara xf|v
7 c 6 X .iv ..."
58lambl. De uita Pythagorica 31 [210]: "\)7t£X6npavov 8’,<bq 4oikev,

ekeivoi oi &vSp£q HEpiaipEiv p4v 8eTv x6q xe Ttapa (puoiv yevvt[oei£ icai xaq jie0’
uppEcoq YiyvopEvaq, KaxaXipTrdvEiv 84 xcov Kaxa <p\>civ xe Kal jiExa oaxppocruvriq
Yivopivtov x&q fetti XEKVOTtou^t wkppovi xe Kai vo|iipcp Ytvopfevaq."
59lambl. De uita Pythagorica 31 [209]: "8eiv ouv xov TtaiSa o\>xa>£

ayEaSai, efcrre pf| £hxeiv 4vxbq xmv eikociv 4xfi>v xf[v xoiauxr]v auvoDoiav. 6xav S’
Elq xoOxo a(piKT]xai, OTtavioiq fitvat xpifCTEOV xoiq &q>po8ioioiq.."
60lambl. De uita Pythagorica 17 [78]: "xaq ]1EV vuv aKpotciaq

EicPEpXaaxdKavxi a0Ecpoi y&jioi Kai <p0opai Kai p60ai Kai Trapa qrixnv aSovai
Kai a<po8pai xivei; £7ti0v>]uai, |iix p i Papa0ptov Kai Kpimvcov Si&Kouoai.
139
There was more to the renunciation of sex, however, than either
Ammianus' praise of Julian or Iamblichus' invented lives of the early
Pythagoreans might suggest, something that calls into question the manly
image of sexual restraint. It is the ancient scientific theory of the
medical dangers of sex and its unhealthiness to the male body. An
unmanly fear of sex pervaded later Roman culture, and the desire to
avoid the dangers which it posed to the male body probably had as much
to do with the curtailing of sexual expression in the period as did the
manly pursuit of the philosopher's life.
Even Julian himself may have had these fears. Oribasius, a
fourth-century medical writer and court physician to Julian, collected
together a lengthy series of medical opinions for his imperial patron.
Included among these opinions were some which explained the dangers of
sex in clear and forceful language. Oribasius, like most practitioners
of ancient medicine, felt that semen was only purified blood and
therefore part of what animals and human beings needed to live. To
expell semen was to deplete one's reserves of vital fluid, and
"continual sexual excess" would drain this fluid from every part of the
body. Oribasius continued:
This draining process does not stop . . . so if it is

constantly repeated . . . the result will be that all the
parts of the animal (or the living creature) are drained not
just of seminal fluid but also of their vital spirit . . .
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that those who lead a
debauched life become weak, since the purest part of both
substances is removed from their body. As well as this,
pleasure itself can dissolve vital tension to such an extent
that people have died from an excess of pleasure. We should
140
therefore not be surprised if [even] those who indulge

moderately in the pleasures of love become weak.61
In sum, sex was deadly. This was not exactly a new idea in late
antiquity, and Oribasius derived much of this passage from the writings
of the second-century physician Galen, who got it in turn from earlier
writers. Mot even Galen took his ideas as far as Oribasius did: sexual
abstinence was the ideal state of health, not only in women but also in
men.62 The fifth-century writer Caelius Aurelianus repeated Oribasius'
conclusion: although sex is natural, virginity is healthier.63
61Or±basius Collectio medica (ed. U. Bussemaker and C. Daremberg,

6 vols. [Paris: L 1imprimerie nationals, 1851-76]) 22.2.20-22: "Aid
jtavxix; xoivov xauxou yivopfcvgj) Kai ir&vxcov dSajtep kx xoptp pexaSiSovxeov
aA.A.f|Xoic, avpi xooauxov KEvaucOai ta Kaxa Skox xo £cpov dyyetd xe Kai popia
avavKaTov eoxiv axpi Jtsp av fepjrXTjoOf] xo ioxup6xaxov. Ou p,6vov Bk xfjq
BopaSovq uyp6xr]xo<; fapaipstoOai itaai xou £oxn) xot^pipEoi crupPf)CT£xai Kaxa
xouq xoiooxauc Kaipouq, aXkd Kai xoS jrveojiaxoq xoju ^(oxiKoft- Kai yap Kai xo^xo
feK xwv dpxiwuav eKKEVouxai jiExd xffc ajispuaxoEiSow; uypoxTixoq, ©oxe oiAkx ^
Baupacxov aaQeveox^poix; fatoxEXEiodai xovx; toeyveuovxaq, d<paipoop£vo\x: xou
atopaxoc &rcavxo<; femx^pac x©v ■oXfflv x6 E&iKpivECXEpov. ripooEpxopEvnq oe xfjq
tiSovt^, T] xiq auxf) Kaxa auxf|V ouxtoq iaxiv iKavf| StaXueiv^xdv £©xik&v x6vov,
cooxe t)5t] xive<5 •oitEpnoS^vxEq dxeQavov, o\>8fev £xi Oaupacxov ddflEVEOxfcpovq
artoxEXeioOai xabq dq>po8iavdôvxaq apexpoxepov." Quoted and trans. with
discussion in Rousselle, Porneia, 14. Foucault, in his discussion of
Galenic medical notions on sex, writes (Care of the Self, 113): "The
pathology of sexual activity [was] constructed around two elements by
which the dangers of the sexual act are usually characterized: an
involuntary violence of tension [i.e., erection] and an indefinite,
exhausting expenditure [i.e., ejaculation]."
620ribasius Collectio medica 6.37: "’ Acppo5icri©v 8t Kaxa pev

'EftiKOOpov 0\)5£)na xpfjouj uyiEivf|..." This is followed by exceptions.
Cf. Oribasius Synopsis (ed. ibid.) 5.1: "Hie denique salutaris
virginitas conprobatur, ut etiam in feminis, sic denique [et] viris...”
This passage is found only in the Latin translation of Oribasius and not
in the Greek original.
63Caelius Aurelianus Gynaecia 42: "hinc denique salutaris

virginitas approbatur, ut in viris sic et in feminis. set [sic]
naturali atque communi ratione, quo genera permaneant, ne mundi spatia
deserta ac vacua torperent animalium successione cessante, iniecta venus
qua sibi mixta corpora crearentur, utili vexatione coniuncta.”
141
The notion of the vita philosophies gave a manly justification to
the abandonment of sex, but the fear of sex revealed an unmanly side to
this lifestyle. Both philosophical and medical beliefs worked together
to discourage all but procreative sex. Within a public context of
demographic replacement and a private context of family continuity and
the transmission of property through inheritance, procreation could be
construed as the only necessary form of sex, or perhaps rather the only
form of sex worth the risk. The value placed on procreation even came
through in the imperial biographies. The Bistoria Augusta said of
Fescennius Niger that "as for intercourse with women, he abstained from
it wholly save for the purpose of begetting children."64 Many refused
even this type of sex after the repeal of the laws denying inheritances
to unmarried and childless persons. Ammianus complained that the latter
were easily the most popular individuals at Rome, probably since
everyone wanted to be remembered in their wills.65
Finding manliness in this new sexual ideal remained an important
requirement. Writers of the later empire identified the pursuit of the
new sexuality as manliness by cleverly referring to it as the ancient
virtue known as pudicitia ("sexual modesty"). In a general sense,
pudicitia and its opposite, impudicitia ("sexual immodesty"), marked the
most and least acceptable forms of sexuality.66 The pudicus ("sexually
64S.H.A. Pescennius Niger 6.6: "...rei veneriae nisi ad creandos

liberos prorsus ignarus."
65Amm. Marc. 14.6.22: "...aestimant praeter orbos et caelibes nec

credi potest, qua obsequiorum diuersitate coluntur homines sine liberis
Romae."
66E.g., in the description of Valentinian I by Amm. Mar. 30.9.2:

"Omni pudicitiae cultu domi castus et foris, nullo contagio conscientiae
142
modest [man]") was he who acted in a sexually appropriate manner; the
impudicus ("sexually immodest [man]”), in contrast, was he who acted
inappropriately. More importantly, the terms were virtually synonymous
with manliness and unmanliness. When writers used pudicitia and
impudicitia to describe specific sexual activities, however, it becomes
clear how much had changed from the early to the later empire. In
earlier usage, the terms had indicated the old belief in men as sexual
aggressors. Accordingly, the pudicus was the impenetrable male, and the
impudicus was the penetrated male.67 Later writings used these terms in
very different ways.
The new code of male sexuality in the later empire continued to
view sexual dominance as an integral part of manliness. The clearest
evidence for this view is the revulsion toward sexual passivity in adult
men as impudicitia. Sexual passivity was in many ways the defining
feature of men's sexuality. As long as a man preserved his virile
status - especially his status as penetrator, even in the penetration of
another man - there was no cultural stigma in ancient Rome against
uiolatus obscoenae, nihil incestum..." I am grateful to Craig Williams

for providing me with a copy of his dissertation, "Homosexuality and the
Roman Man," and with it, much food for thought in this section which
follows. I was also fortunate enough to hear a paper which he
delivered, "Pudicitia: Roman Concepts of Male Sexual Integrity," at the
City university of New York Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in
December 1993, which provided many the classical references to pudicitia
and impudicitia which follow.
67E.gs. of classical uses of these terms include: Cic. Cat. 2.25

(on pudicitia as virtue); Cic. Phil. 2.3, 44-5 (on impudicitia as
effeminacy); Suet. Jul. 52 and Sen. Dial. 7.13.3 (on pudicitia and
impudicitia as dominance and passivity). See Williams, "Homosexuality
and the Roman Man," passim; and Cantarella, Bisexuality.
143
homosexuality per se.68 If a man lost his virile status, however - if
he allowed himself to be penetrated either anally or orally, or to be
sexually passive in any other sense - he became an object of disgust.
Behind this antipathy towards the penetrated male lay the
traditional belief in the absolute distinction between masculinity and
femininity, according to which men and women should exhibit specific
sexual characteristics. To use the male body as if it were a female one
was to misuse it, and to call into question the distinction between
masculine and feminine. Of course, it was precisely the absoluteness of
this distinction which the crisis of masculinity in the later Roman
empire had called into question. It is not surprising then that anxiety
about impudicitia and the impenetrability of the male body - and behind
that, about the sexual manliness of the Roman male - appeared throughout
later Roman writings. Some of the most virulent statements against
sexual passivity in adult men are found in writings of the later empire,
when the manliness of all men was in doubt.
No figure aroused more disgust because of his impudicitia than the
early third-century emperor Elagabalus. His biographer in the Historia
68I am aware of the substantial secondary literature which claims

that it is impossible to speak of homosexuality as existing in the pre-
modern world: see, e.g., Robert Padgug, "Sexual Matters: Rethinking
Sexuality in History," Radical Bistory Review 20 (1979): 3-23. Cf. also
the reply to this notion by John Boswell, "Revolutions, Universals, and
Sexual Categories," Salmagundi 58-9 (1983): 89-113; both essays
reprinted in M. Duberman, et al., eds., Bidden from Bistoryi Reclaiming
the Gay and Lesbian Past (New York: New American Library, 1989). Cf.
also Richlin ("Not Before Homosexuality") for a lengthy rebuttal for the
period of ancient Rome. I use the term homosexuality here to refer to
sex between males, especially between two men of roughly approximate
ages. Below, I use the term pederasty or its Greek form, xaiSepaovia, for
sex between a man and a youth of widely varying ages. Both are uses
based on modern definitions of these terms.
144
Augusta vacillated between horror and titillation in a lengthy
discussion of his sexual passivity, a passivity heightened in effect by
emphasizing his preference for sex with men with large genitals:
And even at Rome he did nothing but send out agents to

search for those who had particularly large organs [bene
vasati, lit., "well equipped"] and bring them to the palace
in order that he might enjoy their vigour.69
Or again:
He made a public bath in the imperial palace and at the same

time threw open the bath of Plautianus to the populace, that
by this means he might get a supply of men with unusually
large organs. He also took care to have the whole city and
the wharves searched for onobeli ["mule-like men" ], as those
were called who seemed particularly lusty [uiriliores].70
Elagabalus is impurus ("impure") and obscenus ("obscene") and infamis
("infamous") and luxuriosus ("voluptuous”).71 Over and over again, his
biographers returned to the theme of his passivity andhis unmanliness.
"For who could endure a princeps who was the recipient of lust in every
orifice of his body," wrote the author of the Bistoria Augusta, "when no
one would tolerate even a beast of his sort?”72 In Aurelius Victor's
69S.H.A. Beliogab. 5.3: "Romae denique nihil egit aliud nisi ut

emissarios haberet, qui ei bene vasatos perquirerent eosque ad aulam
perducerent, ut eorum conditionibus frui posset."
70S.H.A. Beliogab. 8.6-7: "Lavacrum publicum in aedibus aulicis

fecit, simul et Plautini populo exhibuit, ut ex eo condiciones bene
vasatorum hominum colligeret. idque diligenter curatum est, ut ext tota
penitus urbe atque ex nauticis onobeli quaererentur. sic eos
appellabant qui viriliores videbantur."
71S.H.A. alex. Sev. 6.3-5: ”di te ex manibus impuri eripuerunt, di

te perpetuent. impurum tyrannum et tu perpessus es, impurum et obscenum
et tu vivere doluisti. di ilium eradicarunt, di te servarunt. infamis
imperator rite damnatus. ...luxuriosus imperator iure punitus est,
contaminator honorum iure punitus est."
72S.H.A. Beliogab. (trans. here A. Birley) 5.2: "quis enim ferre

posset principem per cuncta cava corporis libidinem recipientem, cum ne
beluam quidem talem quisquam ferat?"
145
words, "he was more sexually degenerate [impurius] than any unchaste or
wanton woman could ever be."73
Elagabalus was no isolated case of impudicitia, however, and in
this lies the heart of Roman anxieties about sexual manliness. The
emperor Commodus was tainted with the same sort of sexual scandal as
Elagabalus. "[He] defil[ed] every part of his body, even his mouth,"
claimed the author of the Historia Augusta, "in dealings with persons of
either sex."74 He was "orally defiled and anally debauched."75 He
consorted sexually with puberes exoleti ("mature and grown-up men")t an
implication that he was the penetrated partner and not them.76 Similar
rumors circulated about the third-century usurper Opellius Macrinus. He
was oris inverecundus ("unchaste in mouth") and when acclaimed emperor
by the Senate, one anonymous voice shouted: "Anyone rather than the
filthy [impurus]I"77
73Aur. Vic. Caes. 23.2: "Hoc impurius ne improbae quidem aut

petulantes mulieres fuere..." Most modern biographies of Elagabalus are
equally prurient: Robert Turcan, Bdliogabale et le sacre du solsil
(Paris: A. Michel, 1985).
74S.H.A. Comm. 5.11: "nec inruentium in se iuvenum carebat

infamia, omni parte corporis atque ore in sexum utrumque pollutus." The
phrase "even his mouth" is absent from Magie's translation.
75S.H.A. Comm, (my translation here) 1.7: "nam a prima statim

pueritia turpis, improbus, crudelis, libidinosus, ore quoque pollutus et
constupratus fuit." On this double defilement, cf. the description of a
lewd woman, possibly a prostitute, by Auson. Epigr. 75: "...deglubit,
fellat, molitur per utramque cavernam..."
76S.H.A. Comm, (my translation here) 5.4: "hac igitur lege vivens
ipse cum trecentis concubinis, quas ex matronarum meretricumque dilectu
ad formae speciem concivit, trecentisque aliis puberibus exoletis, quos
aeque ex plebe ac nobilitate vi pretiisque, forma disceptatrice
collegerat, in Palatio per convivia et balneas bacchabatur." see below
on the conventions of pederasty.
77S.H.A. Opellius Macrinus 2.1,3-4: "Occiso ergo Antonino Bassiano

Opilius Macrinus, praefectus praetorii eius, qui antea privatas curarat,
146
Other later Roman sources demonstrated this same revulsion toward
sexually passive men. Ausonius devoted a series of epigrams to the
ridicule of the impudicus, finding the shame of oral sex a particularly
strong point of ridicule.78 In one poem, a man sucks his wife's fingers
so that he might not miss any opportunity to practice performing
fellatio.79 In another, Ausonius spelled out in Greek the action which
he accused a man of doing - Xeixei ("he licks") - adding coyly that "it
is not seemly that I should say such a nasty thing in Latin."80 Several
of his poems focus on the malodorous breath of the man who enjoys oral
sex.81 A physiognomic text of the later empire, describing sexually
imperium arripuit, humili natus loco et animi atgue oris inverecundi...

quamvis senatus eum imperatorem odio Antonino Bassiani libenter
acceperit, cum in senatu omnibus una vox esset: 'Quemvis magis quam
parricidam, quemvis magis quam incestum, quemvis magis quam impurum,
quemvis magis quam interfectorem et senatus et populi.'"
78Classical sources are discussed in detail by Craig Williams,

"Homosexuality and the Roman Kan," 212-33. Cantarella (Bisexuality,
124) also offers an explanation for the shame of fellatiot "Fellare
meant doing something which was exactly the opposite of what a Roman
male ought to do. Instead of taking his own pleasure, a man performing
fellatio placed himself at the service of another man's enjoyment."
That a man might place himself at the service of a woman seems an
equally powerful cultural disincentive to cunnilinctus. On sexual
satire involving these activities: Richlin, Garden of Priapus, passim.
79Auson. Epigr. 74: "Lambere cum vellet mediorum membra virorum /

Castor nec posset vulgus habere domi, / repperit ut nullum fellator
perderet inguen: / uxoris coepit lingere membra suae." I take the
wife's membra ("members") to be her fingers, rather than any other body
part, including her genitals, as the likeliest explanation for humorous
sense of the epigram (this poem is left untranslated in the LCL edn.).
80Auson. Epigr. (my translation here) 85: "Aatg"Epox; et ”Irug, Xeipcov

et "Epox;, "Itu; alter / nomina si scribas, prima elements adime, / ut
facias verbum, quod tu facis, Eune magister. / dicere me Latium non
decet opprobrium." In Latin slang, lingere ("to lick") could refer to
the action either of fellatio or cunnilinctus. See J. N. Adams, The
Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins university, 1982),
134-5.
147
passive men, said that they try to act like "real” men, but their
natural physical characteristics slip out unexpectedly.82
Roman writers had always found such impudicitia in adult men a
cause for ridicule. There is no reason to believe - despite a recent
historian's attempt to convince us otherwise - that the proliferation of
statements against sexual passivity represented some increase in numbers
of men who participated in it or their liberation from the restraints of
the stigma attached to it.83 Nor should specific accusations of
81Auson. Epigr. 82: "Eune, quid affectas vendentem Phyllida

odores? / diceris hanc mediam lambere, non molere. / perspice ne mercis
fallant te nomina, vel ne / aere Seplasiae decipiare cave, / dum K\XJ0OV
KOOtovque putas communis odoris / et nardum ac sardas esse sapore pari.”
Cf. ibid. 83: "Diversa infelix et lamhit et olfacit Eunus; / dissimilem
olfactum naris et oris habet." Cf. also ibid. 84: ”Salgama non hoc sunt
quod balsama? cedite odores. / nec male olere mihi nec bene olere
placet.”
62De physiognomia liber 74: "Tertia species est eorum qui cinaedi
quidem certa fide sunt, uerum suspicionem a se remouere conantes uirilem
sumere speciem sibimet laborant. Nam et incessum pedum iuuenilem
imitantur et semet ipsos rigore quodam confirmant et oculos uocemque
intendunt atque omne corpus erigunt, sed facile deteguntur uincente se a
nudante natura. Nam et collum et uocem plerumque submittunt et pedes
manusque relaxant aliisque temporariis indiciis facile produntur; nam et
timor subitus et gaudium improuisum ab imitations procurata eos excutit
atque ad suum ingenium reuocat. Plerumque etiam oscitantes detecti
sunt."
83Cantarella, Bisexuality, 155-62. Her complicated hypothesis is

that ”during the Empire male passivity spread to the point where it
caused considerable worries for legislators, inducing them to issue
repressive measures which grew more and more severe as time went on" (p.
155) is ultimately unconvincing, as is her idea (at pp. 155-6) that the
reason for this was that "Some of the most prominent people in the
political life of the city - military generals and popular leaders, men
whose virility was certainly not open to question on other counts - were
behaving sexually like women." She offers Julius Caesar as an example
of this "new man" (at p. 158): "Caesar, then, offered the Romans an
unusual sexual image: a man who remained virile even if he happened to
assume the subordinate position now and again - a man who was such a he-
man that he could afford to turn passive once in a while." According to
her, his example "served merely as an excuse which allowed all those who
were breaking the ancient precepts secretly... to come out of the
closet, as it were” (p. 162).
148
impudicitia always be believed, since such accusations were a powerful
ingredient of political invective and satire and an effective way of
discrediting a male rival.84 In the later empire, when the legitimacy
of imperial rule was so often brought into question, the accusation of
sexual passivity may have also surfaced more frequently, especially
since it was supposed that sexual relations between emperor and adopted
heir had often cemented the imperial succession.85
What can be seen for the first time in writings of the later
empire, however, is an attempt to translate the social sanctions against
sexual passivity into legal prohibitions. In the judicial opinion of
Ulpian, for example, a man "whose body has been opened like a woman's"
suffered infamia, that legal category of unmanliness.86 In the opinion
of Paulus, no male should endure sexual penetration for any reason, even
the threat of death, because "for decent [men] a fear of this kind ought
to be worse than the fear of death."87 Paulus suggested that any man
84See Richlin, Garden of Priapus; idem, "Not Before

Homosexuality;" Edwards, "Mollitiat Reading the Body,” chap. 2 in
Politics of Immorality.
85See Joseph Williams, "The Entitlement of the Usurpers of the

Roman Empire from Augustus to Domitian," (Ph.D. dissertation: University
of Iowa, 1982), 17-20.
86Dig. (my translation here) 3.1.1: "Remouet autem a postulando

pro aliis et eum, qui corpore suo muliebria passus est." Included in
the section on infamia; Watson translates the phrase as "catamite." See
above, chap. 1, on infamia.
87Dig. 4.2.8: "Quod si dederit ne stuprum patiatur uir sed mulier,

hoc edictum locum habet, cum uiris bonis iste metus maior quam mortis
esse debet." Watson translates uiris bonis as "decent people.”
149
who had submitted sexually to another should have half of his goods
confiscated.88 These legal opinions gradually became codified as law.
The anxiety surrounding sexual passivity in men in the later
empire also meant that for the first time the legal and social sanctions
against such acts were extended to the active partner, who despite his
manly penetration, participated in the feminization of his partner. A
fourth-century imperial constitution denounced men "who have the
shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the part of a
woman's, to the sufferance of an alien sex."89 An epigram of Ausonius,
although intended as satire, made the same point:
"Three men are in a bed together: two are committing

stuprum, and two are having stuprua committed against them."
"I think that makes four." "You are wrong: give the ones on
either side a single offense [crimen] and the one who is in
the middle two, because he is doing it and having it done to
him."90
Stuprum was the ancient legal term for any type of sexual misconduct.91
Ausonius used it here in an active sense (stuprua committunt, "they are
88Paulus Sent. 2.26.13: "Qui voluntate sua stuprum flagitiumque

impurum patitur, dimidia parte bonorum suorum multatur, nec testamentum
ei ex maiore parte facere licet." Note that this opinion is only
reconstructed from the Lex romana Visigothorua, but this does admit to
its perpetuation.
89Cod. Theod. 9.7.6: "Omnes, guibus flagitii usus est virile

corpus muliebriter constitutum alieni sexus damnare patientia, nihil
enim discretum videntur habere cum feminis, huiusmodi scelus spectante
populo flammae vindicibus expiabunt." For a possible alternative
interpretation of this law, see below, chap. 4.
90Auson. Epigr. 43: "'Tris uno in lecto; stuprum duo perpetiuntur

/ et duo committunt.' 'Quattuor esse reor.' / 'Falleris: extremis da
singula crimina et ilium / bis numera medium, qui facit et patitur.'"
My translation here.
91Cf. these definitions: Dig. 50.16.101: "Inter 'stuprum' et

'adulterium' hoc interesse quidam putant, quod adulterium in nuptam,
stuprum in uiduam committitur. sed lex lulia de adulteriis hoc uerbo
indifferenter utitur." Cf. ibid. 48.5.35 (34): "Stuprum committit, qui
150
committing stuprua”) when it involved the action of the penetrating
partners, and used it in a passive voice to refer to the penetrated
partners (stuprua perpetiuntur, "they are undergoing stuprum"). Both
are criaina ("offenses").92 One later imperial legal definition of
stuprum punished the unlawful penetration of a man alongside the
penetration of a woman.93
Even in the otherwise conservative condemnations of sexual
passivity in men, later Roman writings included new sexual prohibitions
- penalties for the sexual penetrators of sexually passive men - into
their definition of impudicitia, those actions inappropriate for men.
The intended result is obvious: to shore up an eroding masculine
identity with new and wider prohibitions against sexual passivity. In
narrowing the field of activities included within the realm of
pudicitia, however, and restricting men's sexual freedom, the same
liberam mulierem consuetudinis causa, non matrimonii continet, excepta

uidelicet concubina. Adulterium in nupta admittitur: stuprum in uidua
uel uirgine uel puero committitur." Cf. also ibid. 48.5.6: "Bex stuprum
et adulterium promiscue et KataxphcmiaBTepov appellat. sed proprie
adulterium in nupta commititur, propter partum ex altero conceptum
composito nomine: stuprum uero in uirginem uiduamue committitur, quod
Graeci q>8opdv appellant.”
92In another epigram, Ausonius referred to the penetrating partner

as the oolitor ("miller"), from a common metaphor comparing sex to the
grinding of grain, while his penetrated partner was called a semiuir.
Auson. Bpigr. 101: "Semivir uxorem duxisti, Zoile, moecham; / o quantus
fiet quastus utrimque domi, / cum dabit uxori molitor tuus et tibi
adulter, / quantum deprensi damna pudoris emuntl" See Souter, Glossary
of Later Latin, 255; Adams, Latin Sexual Vocabulary, 153.
930ig. 48.5.9 (8): "Qui domum suam, ut stuprum adulteriumue cum

aliena matre familias uel cum masculo fieret, sciens praebuerit uel
quaestum ex adulterio uxoris suae fecerit: cuiuscumque sit condicionis,
quasi adulter punitur." There are problems with this law as it
survives, the fact that it punishes the accomplice is one of these.
Cantarella (Bisexuality, 143-4) believes the cum masculo to be a post-
classical alteration of the classical phrase cum puero.
151
writers who sought to present the new sexuality as manly contributed to
the crisis of masculinity.
To understand how the crisis relates to the restrictions placed on
men's sexuality, it is important to realize that earlier Roman writers
had also used the concept of pudicitia to describe women's sexual
behavior, but used it in very different ways than for men. The pudica
("sexually modest [woman]") was she who kept her virginity before
marriage, preserved her sexual behavior exclusively to her husband
within marriage, and remained sexually chaste out of devotion to her
husband after marriage. This was the sexual ideal for women. Later
Roman writings define pudicitia in exactly the same way for men. In
doing so, they obscure again the distinction between men and women,
assimilating them in the arena of sexuality, and thus reveal again the
crisis of masculinity.
The clearest example of this assimilation of men's and women's
sexuality is adultery. In earlier Roman law, adultery was only an
offense of sex with a married woman; although both men and women could
be prosecuted as adulterers, only the marital status of the woman had a
juridical significance. No prohibition existed against a married man
who had sex outside of his marriage, unless he did so with an unlawful
partner. Moreover, according to the system of patria potestas, adultery
- as with other forms of illegal sex - was primarily an offense
committed against the man under whose authority the guilty woman lived.
The laws against adultery had the effect of reinforcing a woman's sexual
purity within marriage, confining her sexual expression solely to her
152
husband, while leaving her husband's sexual conduct largely
unregulated.94
In the later Roman empire, however, married men came to be subject
to restrictions similar to those placed on married women. A belief that
men should bebound by the same principles as women actuallycame first
from the writings of some of the Stoic philosophers of the early
empire.95 It was only in the later empire, however, that this belief
was translated into law. Ulpian suggested that in determining the guilt
of an adulterous woman:
A judge ought to keep before his eyes and to inquire into

whether the husband by his own chaste life [pudice uiuens]
was also setting his wife an example of cultivating sound
morals; for it appears the height of injustice that a
husband should demand of his wife a purity [pudicitia] which
he does not show himself.96
Her standard of sexual behavior was also his.
The changing standards of men's behavior required a new
vocabulary. The Latin language imported a Greek-borrowed term, moechia,
to use for the broader category of extramarital sex, and a moechus was
94A detailed discussion of this can be found in Treggiari, Roman

Marriage, 262-319. She does suggest (at p. 263) that while "grammarians
identify the adulter with the married man, the word is more generally
used of any illicit lover and especially of the lover of a married
woman" and (at pp. 163-4) that "the juristic usage is closer to the norm
in making adulterium an extra-marital sexual relationship of a married
woman."
95See discussions in Foucault, "Wives," part 5 of Care of the

Self', and in Rouselle, "Adultery and Illicit Love,” chap. 5 in Porneia.
96Dig. 48.5.14 (13): "ludex aduterii ante oculos habere debet et

inquirere, an maritus pudice uiuens mulieri quoque bones mores colendi
auctor fuerit: periniquum enim uidetur esse, ut pudicitiam uir ab uxore
exigat, quam ipse non exhibeat..."
153
specifically a married man who engaged in moechia.97 The term
muliercularius, from a law of Constantine restricting divorce, has also
been interpreted to mean a married man who had sex outside of marriage,
but its meaning is not that clear.98 A fourth-century law referred to
sacrilegi nuptiarum ("the disrespectful of marriage"), perhaps as a
gender-neutral synonym for adulterers.99
Beyond the specifics of these legal and terminological changes was
the new reality, which bound men and women by the same sexual morality.
A panegyric which the future emperor Julian wrote to his predecessor,
Constantius II, declared: "For all that is forbidden to women by the
laws [against women's adultery] that safeguard the legitimacy of
97Souter, Glossary of Later Latin, 254. Latin had imported the

verb, moechari, several centuries earlier, but the noun was first used
by Tertullian, and used in the new sense: see below, chap. 7, for
examples of the contrast between adulterium and moechia.
98Treggiari (Roman Marriage, 299-309) uses the term as the basis

for an argument on the "double standard" of late Roman law on adultery.
See above, however, on the ambiguity of the term muliercularius, not
necessarily to be translated as "the husband's womanizing" as in
Treggiari (p. 319). The term is not otherwise attested, and the tone of
the law, if interpreted as preserving the double standard, would seem to
be contradicted by another of Constantine's laws, Cod. Theod. 9.7.2:
"Quamvis adulterii crimen inter publica referatur, quorum delatio in
commune omnibus sine aliqua legis interpretatione conceditur, tamen ne
volentibus temere liceat foedare conubia, proximis necessariisque
personis solummodo placet deferri copiam accusandi, hoc est patrueli
consobrino et consanguineo maxime fratri, quos verus dolor ad
accusationem impellit. ...Extraneos autem procul arceri ab hac
accusatione censemus." This is specifically a repeal of Augustus' lex
Julia de adulteriis.
99Cod. Theod. 11.36.4: "Quod deinceps in huiussmodi criminibus

convenit observari, ut manifestis probationibus adulterio probato
frustratoria provocatio minime admittatur, cum pari similique ratione
sacrilegos nuptiarum tamquam manifestos parricidas insuere culleo vivos
vel exurere iudicantem oporteat.”
154
offspring, your reason ever denies to your passions."100 Julian called
this attitude "the fairest example of modesty [oaxppoovvri], not to men
only but to women also."101 As has been pointed out, ooxppoovvri was the
usual Greek translation for the Latin pudicitia.102
If men's reason denied them their former right to engage in
extramarital sex in order to limit their sexual partners to their wives,
it also curtailed their traditional freedom to exploit their household
slaves for sex. Men who owned slaves had often made use of them for
sexual purposes in the past.103 Sex with slaves was sex "close at hand
and easily obtainable."104 While the possibility of such relationships
100Julian or. 1.47A: "6oa yap ^Keivaic dutaYopeuouoiv oi v6|ioi tod

yvtioiouq qweaGai toix; JtaiSaq IrêXo|1evoi, rau ta 6 Xayoq dnayopEUEi taiq
EJtiOupAaiq nctpit ooi."
101Juiian or. 1.46D: ".. .p6vov jtafj&Scvypa Jtpoq oaxppoouvriv

wapacxEiv k&XXigtov, Kai yuvatfji 8e xffe Jtpoq toiiq avSpaq Koivcoviaq. ■
102Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 233 n. 19.
103Historians of Roman slavery are particularly reticent about

this. See the discrete mentions in Alan Watson, Roman Slave Law
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1987), 119; and Keith Bradley,
Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1994), 28,
49, 138. Longer discussions can be found in Kolendo ("Esclavage et la
vie sexuelle"); and Marcel Morabito (Les rdalitds de 1 'esclavage d'apr&s
le Digeste [Paris: Belles lettres, 1981], 191-201), both of whom
nonetheless only concentrate on sexual relationships between male
masters and female slaves. For homosexual master-slave relationships,
see John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay
People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the
Fourteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980), 78;
verstraete, "Slavery and the Social Dynamics;” and Williams,
"Homosexuality and the Roman Man," passim. Williams (ibid., 20) writes:
"a Roman man might make sexual use of his own slaves, both male and
female, without any fear of criticism, and with no distinction [in
social approval] drawn between the two."
104Hor. Sat. (ed. and trans. D. Fairclough, LCL) 1.2.116-9:

"...tument tibi cum inguina, num, si / ancilla aut verna est praesto
puer, impetus in quern / continuo fiat, malis tentigine rumpi? / non ego;
namque parabilem amo Venerem facilemque.”
155
remained legally open to men of the later Roman nobility, and continued
in discreet practice throughout the period, it was considered a weakness
and a fault according to the new morality and the new pudicitia.105
In his autobiographical poem, Faulinus of Pella offered this
comment on sex with slaves:
lest I should heap heavier offences on my faults, I checked

my passions with this chastening rule: that I should never
seek an unwilling victim, nor transgress another's rights,
and, heedful to keep unstained my cherished reputation,
should beware of yielding to free-born loves though
voluntarily offered, but be satisfied with servile amours in
my own home; for I preferred to be guilty of a fault rather
than of an offence, fearing to suffer loss of my good
name.106
Paulinus excluded three possibilities: first, rape, since his partner
would be unwilling; second, adultery, since it would transgress a
husband's rights; third, sex with a free-born partner, since it would
damage his own reputation. As a result, he engaged in sex with his
household slaves, adding that while it was a culpa ("fault"), it was no
crimen ("offense"), as the first three were.107 Moreover, it would not
damage his reputation, he added, and he might have equally added that
neither would it transgress another's rights since the slaves were from
105This trend in the discouragement of the sexual use of slaves is

noticed by Verstraete ("Slavery and the Social Dynamics," 235), who
mistakingly attributes it to "the triumph of the erotophobic ideology of
the Christian church."
106Paulinus of Pella Eucharisticus 11. 159-68: "Attamen in quantum

lasciua licentia cauto / stricta coherceri potuit moderamine freni, /
congererem grauiora meis ne crimina culpis, / hac mea castigans lege
incentiua repressi, / inuitam ne quando ullam iurisue alieni / adpeterem
carumque memor seruare pudorem / cedere et ingenuis oblatis sponte
cauerem, / contentus domus inlecebris famulantibus uti, / quippe reus
culpae potius quam criminis esse / praeponens famaeque timens incurrere
damna."
107On rape, see below, "Appendix to Chapter Three: Rape."
156
his household, nor was the consent of slaves relevant since they were
legally chattel and not persons.108
Paulinus' remarks reflected the reluctant use of the sexual
services of slaves in the later empire. This reluctance may be related
to a greater appreciation for the personhood of slaves or for their
value in this period of a declining agricultural population, slave
revolts, and foreign raids, as Paulus implied: "He depreciates the value
of a slave who persuades him to take to flight or to commit theft, or
who corrupts his morals or his body."109 As here, corraptio
("corruption") is the term most often used to describe sexual relations
with a slave, and a term with implications of damage or spoilage of
property. Corruption may also be the result of the sexual experience of
the slaves. Paulus used the term elsewhere to refer to the deflowering
of a female slave and the penetration of a male slave, implying the
first encounter.110
The concern for the damage done to a slave, however, appears to
result not from the productivity or resale value of the slave, but from
its effects on the moral atmosphere in the home. Paulus described not
only "the hurt done to the essential quality [substantia]" of a
108On the issue of the slave's consent, see the odd wording in
Dig. 11.3.2: "uel luxuriosum uel contumacem fecit: quiue ut stuprum
pateretur persuadet."
109Paulus Sent. 1.13.5: "Deteriorem servum facit qui fugam

suaserit et qui furtum, et qui mores eius corpusve corruperit." Cf.
Dig. 11.3. On the recognition of the humanity of slaves: Bradley,
Slavery and Society at Rome, chap. 7. On the population decline, see
above.
110Dig. 1.18.21: "...de seruo corrupto uel ancilla deuirginata uel

seruo stuprato..."
157
corrupted slave, but also a "perversion [euersio] of the whole
household.”111 The context for his statement is unclear. It may be a
reference to the blurring of the distinctions between the social
classes, especially if children were born from the union, although Roman
law had dealt with the offspring of male master-female slave sexual
relationships from early times with precision.112 His statement is more
likely a reference to the rupture of the marital bond, as emphasized in
later Roman discussions of pudicitia.113 As such, the statement
certainly fits with the greater restrictions on men's sexual behavior.
Legal sources recognized the constraints which the new
prohibitions against sex with one's own slaves placed on the individual
male, but defended these constraints nonetheless. Ulpian wrote with
disdain of "a master [who] has behaved with cruelty to his slave, or
[who] forces him into a life of shame and vice [ad inpudicitiam
turpemque]." He continued!
The powers of masters over their slaves ought to remain

unimpaired, nor should any man's rights be taken from him;
but it is in the interest of the masters that relief from
l n Dig. 1.18.21: "...si actor rerum agentis corruptus esse dicetur

uel eiusmodi homo, ut non ad solum iacturam aduersus substantiam, sed ad
totius domus euersionem pertineat..."
112See Horabito, Rdalitds de 1 'esclavage, 191-201. Roman legal

tradition gave all children the social status of their mother, and this
was confirmed in later Roman law: Cod. Theod. 14.7.1: "De quorum
agnatione haec forma servabitur, ut, ubi non est aequale coniugium,
matrem sequatur agnatio, ubi vero iustum erit, patri cedat ingenua
successio." The population shortage in the later empire did complicate
this somewhat for certain professions: see above, chap. 2.
113See below, chap. 7, for Salvian of Marseilles' charged

description of the household in which the female slaves usurp the place
of the materfamilias.
158
cruelty, hunger, or intolerable outrage should not be

refused to those who justly cry out.114
Diocletian and Maximian maintained that even if he did not become
infamous [infamis], a man's reputation suffered when he used his female
slaves for sex; his fault, they added, was intemperance.115
Several laws of the later empire imposed the restriction on the
slave-owner that his slave ne prostituatur ("not be prostituted").116 A
close relationship existed between prostitution and the sexual
exploitation of slaves, since most prostitutes, again both male and
female, were slaves owned by the men or women who ran the brothels in
which they worked.117 Exhortations similar to those against sex with
114Mosaicarum et Romanarum legam collatio 3.3.1: "Si dominus in

seruum saeuierit uel ad inpudicitiam turpemque uiolationem conpellat...
Dominorum quidem potestatem in suos seruos inlibatam esse opportet nec
quiqam hominum ius suum detrahi: sed dominorum interest, ne auxilium
contra saeuitiam uel famen uel intolerabilem iniuriam denegetur his, qui
iuste deprecantur." Quoted with remarkably exact wording above and in
Dig. 1.6.2: "Si dominus in seruos saeuierit uel ad impudicitiam
turpemque uiolationem compellat..."
115Cod. lust. (ed. T. Mommsen [Berlin: Weidmann, 1954]; trans. S.

Scott, The Civil Law, vols. 12-5 [Cincinnati: Central Trust, 1932])
9.9.25(24): "Etsi libidine intemperatae cupiditatis ex actorum lectione
exarsisse te cognitum est, tamen cum ancillam comprehendisse et non
liberam stuprasse detectum sit, ex huiusmodi sententia gravatum potius
opinionem tuam quam infamia adflictam esse manifestum est."
116Dig. 18.1.56: "Si quis sub hoc pacto uendiderit ancillam, ne

prostituatur et, si contra factum esset, uti liceret ei abducere, etsi
per plures emptores mancipium cucurrerit, ei qui primo uendit abducendi
potestas fit." Cf. ibid. 18.7.6: "Si uenditor ab emptore cauerit, ne
serua manumitteretur neue prostituatur..." Cf. also ibid. 21.2.34: "Si
mancipium ita emeris, ne prostituatur et, cum prostitutum fuisset, ut
liberum esset..." Cf. also ibid. 37.14.7: "Diuus Uespasianus decreuit,
ut, si qua hac lege uenierit, ne prostitueretur et, si prostituta esset,
ut esset libera..." Cf. also ibid. 40.8.6: "tantundem dicendum est et
si hac lege emerit, ne prostituatur, et prostituerit." See Morabito
(Rdalitds de 1'esclavage, 191-3) who discusses these and other laws.
1170n the Roman prostitution of females: Catherine Salles, Les

bas-fonds de l ’antiquitd (Paris: R. Laffont, 1982), 125-228; Evans, War,
women and Children, 137-42. On the Roman prostitution of males:
Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 65-80
159
slaves voiced disapproval of men who frequented prostitutes. The new
pudicitia had removed yet another sexual outlet for men.
The increasing distaste for prostitution is evident in much of the
writing of the later Roman empire. Although prostitution remained legal
throughout the history of the empire, the author of the Bistoria Augusta
claimed that the early third-century emperor Severus Alexander had
considered outlawing it:
but he feared that such a prohibition would merely convert

an evil recognized by the state into a vice practised in
private - for men when driven on by passion are more apt to
demand a vice which is prohibited.118
Nonetheless, prostitution is described in terms of "evil" and "vice,"
and the moral underpinings of this description are very much in keeping
with the later Roman ideal of men’s sexuality. Severus Alexander may
well have investigated the possibility of criminalizing prostitution,
perhaps as a way of distancing himself from the infamous reign of his
cousin and predecessor, Blagabalus, who both spent time with prostitutes
and from time to time dressed as one.119 Instead, he continued to
passim; Cantarella, Bisexuality, 101-221 passim; Williams,

"Homosexuality and the Roman Han," passim.
118S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 24.4: "habuit in animo ut exoletos vertaret,

quod postea Philippus fecit, sed veritus est ne prohibens publicum
dedecus in privatas cupiditates converteret, cum homines inlicita magis
prohibita poscant furore iactati." Magie translates exoleti as
"catamites." It is unfortunately impossible to confirm whether
prostitution was prohibited during the reign of Philip the Arab, as
implied here, since the life of Philip the Arab is missing from the
extant Bistoria Augusta. There is no confirming evidence to that fact.
119S.H.A. Beliogab. 26.3-5: "Omnes de Circo, de theatro, de

Stadio, et omnibus locis et balneis meretrices collegit in aedes
publicas et apud eas contionem habuit quasi militarem, dicens eas
conmilitiones, disputavitque de generibus schematum et voluptatem.
adhibuit in tali contione postea lenones, exsoletos undique collectos et
luxuriosissimos puerulos et iuvenes. et cum ad meretrices muliebri
ornatu processisset papilla eiecta, ad exsoletos habitu puerorum qui
prostituuntur. post contionem pronuntiavit iis quasi militibus ternos
160
collect the tax on prostitution, as did all the Roman emperors until the
sixth century.120 For economic purposes, at least, prostitution
continued to be tolerated.
Severus Alexander did enact a law ordering that if a female slave
sold under the ne prostituatur condition was made to serve as a
prostitute, she could be immediately freed.121 In the fifth century,
the Christian emperor Theodosius II extended this law, ordering any
slave forced into prostitution to be freed.122 Similarly, he ordered
that any father who prostituted his children forfeit his patria potestas
over them.123 Such laws, even if it is difficult to believe that they
could ever have been enforced, do provide proof for a remarkable shift
aureos donativum petiitgue ab iis ut a dis peterent ut alios haberent

ipsi commendandOB.*
120S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 24.3: "lenonum vectigal et meretricum et

exsoletorum in sacrum aerarium inferri vetuit, sed sumptibus publicis ad
instaurationem theatri, Circi, Amphitheatri, Stadii deputavit." The tax
was called the chryaargyron. See Thomas McGinn, "The Taxation of Roman
Prostitutes," Helios 16 (1989): 79-110.
121Cod. lust. 4.56.1: "Praefectus urbis amicus noster earn, guae

ita venit, ut, si prostituta fuisset, abducendi potestas esset ei, cui
secundum constitutionem divi Hadriani id competit, abducendi faciet
facultatem: quod si eum patientiam accommodasse contra legem guam ipse
dixerat, ut in turpi guaestu mulier haberetur, animadverterit, libertate
competente secundum interpretationem eiusdem principis perduci earn ad
praetorem, cuius de liberali causa iurisdictio est, ut lis ordinetur,
iubebit. nec enim tenor legis, guam semel comprehendit, intermittitur,
guod dominium per plures emptorum personas ad Primum gui prostituit sine
lege simili pervenit."
122Wov. Iheodosii 18.1: "si guis posthac mancipia tarn aliena guam
propria aut ingenua corpora gualibet taxatione conducta prostituere
sacrilega temeritate temptaverit, in libertatem prius miserrimus
mancipiis vindicatus vel ingenuis personis conductione inpia liberatis
gravissime verberatus huius urbis finibus, in gua vetitum nefas
crediderit exercendum, ad exemplum omnium emendationemgue pellatur..."
123Cod. Theod. 15.8.2: "Lenones patres et dominos, gui suis filiis

vel ancillis peccandi necessitatem inponunt, nec iure frui dominii nec
tanti criminis patimur libertate gaudere."
161
in the Koman moral stance from earlier traditions of male sexual
behavior. All worked to hold men to a standard of pudicitia remarkably
like that of women.
The final area of changing sexual mores which must be examined was
the custom which the Greeks called naiSepaona ("boy-love, pederasty").
In pederasty, an adolescent male chose an older male mentor who educated
and trained him for manhood, and also - at least some of the time and
for a temporary period of several years - penetrated him sexually.124
Despite Roman cultural attitudes which stigmatized it as an effeminate
custom found only in the Hellenized eastern Mediterranean, Rome had its
own pederastic traditions and practices.125 The cultural acceptability
of pederasty may have been encouraged by contact with the Hellenistic
east, or it may have been easier for Romans to describe such practices
with Greek terms, to use Greek literary models to document their
feelings about such practices, or to denounce such practices as a Greek
vice. The Christian writer Tertullian, for example, in describing the
sexual penetration endured by a slave-boy, mentioned merely that he was
utitur Graeco ("used as a Greek").126 An attempt to criminalize
1240n Greek miSepouma, see esp. Kenneth Dover, Greek Homosexuality

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978); see also Foucault, Use of
Pleasure} David Halperin, et al., Before Sexuality; Cantarella,
Bisexuality.
1250n Roman homosexuality: Cantarella, Bisexuality; and Williams,

"Homosexuality and the Roman Man," both refer in detail to the earlier
bibliography. Richlin, "Not Before Homosexuality," is an important more
recent work.
126Tert. (Opera, ed. CCSL 1-2; trans. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson,

ANCL 11-3) Ad nat. 1.16.14-5: "Pusio honeste natus fortuita neglegentia
comitum ultra ianum progressus iter praetereuntibus tractus domo
excidit: gui eum nutrierat Graeculus, uel a limine Graeculo more
captauerat, uel a limine Graeculo more captauerat intrans. Inde mutatus
162
pederasty in the late republic, the lex Scafnjtinia, apparently went
mostly unenforced by the early empire.127
Pederasty had always troubled at least some Romans because of the
challenge to masculine identity inherent in men being penetrated
sexually, even if only while adolescents. To them, once a man had been
penetrated - even as an adolescent - he was spoiled, and he remained
somewhat effeminate all his life.128 When the masculinity of men was
generally in question, however, as it was in the later empire, society
could no longer afford the luxury of tolerating any penetration of
males. As a result, traditions of the sexual penetration of youths
became increasingly problematic in the later empire, and increasingly
seen as a violation of pudicitia.
The problem of pederasty may be clarified by using the example of
a Roman commenting on the practice among barbarians. Ammianus
Marcellinus described the pederastic sexual customs of the Taifali, an
otherwise unknown group of northern barbarians who travelled with the
Goths. He wrote:
a se aetate Romam in uenalicio refertur. Emit inprudens pater et utitur

Graeco..."
127Most historians interpret the law as prohibiting the sexual

penetration of free-born youths: Michael Gray-Fow, "Pederasty, the
Scantinian Law, and the Roman Army,” Journal of Psychohistory 13 (1986):
449-60; Williams, "Homosexuality and the Roman Man," 142-86. Richlin
("Not Before Homosexuality," 569-71) argues, however, that it forbad
sexual passivity in adult males, and Williams ("Homosexuality and the
Roman Man," 172) also alludes to the possibility of this interpretation.
On its enforcement in the early empire: Juv. 2.44 and Suet. bom. 8.3.
1280n this point: Ramsey MacMullen, "Roman Attitudes to Greek

Love,” Bistoria 31 (1982): 484-502. MacMullen also lists the numerous
references by Roman authors to homosexuality as a Greek importation, but
fails to see this as a cultural projection which did not accurately
reflect the facts.
163
I have been told that this people of the Taifali are so sunk
in gross sensuality that among them boys couple with men in
a union of unnatural lust, and waste the flower of their
youth in the polluted embraces of their lovers. But if a
young man catches a boar single-handed or kills a huge bear,
he is exempt therefore from the contamination of this lewd
intercourse.129
The language that Ammianus used says much more about his contemporaries
within the empire than those outside it. What he was describing was
known throughout the Mediterranean world and not only in the north, and
he was likely as familiar with pederasty from local custom as from
reports about barbarians.
One main difference separated the Taifali from the inhabitants of
the Roman empire - and we must read between the lines to appreciate this
- and that is the manly action of hunting which ended the sexual
relationship. The Roman world had no similar end-point to turn the
youth unambiguously into a man. Roman men - this is an unspoken
contrast - continued such unseemly sexual effeminacy into adulthood
because they did not prove their manliness. The lack of an end-point to
pederasty meant men who continued their sexual passivity into adulthood,
depilating themselves and painting their faces to appear younger.130
l29Amn Marc. 31.9.5: "hanc Taifalorum gentem... ac turpem obscenae

uitae flagitiis ita accepimus mersam, ut apud eos nefandi concubitus
foedere copulentur maribus puberes aetatis uiriditatem in eorum pollutis
usibus consumpturi. porro si gui iam adultus aprum exceperit solus uel
interemerit ursum immanem, colluuione liberatur incesti." This is taken
as evidence of pederastic homosexuality among Germans by Bernard
Sergent, L 'homosexuality initiatique dans 1 'Europe ancienne (Paris:
Payot, 1986), esp. chap. 9.
130On depilation: e.g. S.H.A. Beliogab. 31.7: "in balneis semper

cum mulieribus fuit, ita ut eas ipse psilothro curaret, ipse quogue
barbam psilothro accurans, quodque pudendum dictu sit, eodem quo
mulieres accurabantur et eadem hora. rasit et virilia subactoribus suis
ad novaculam manu sua, qua postea barbam fecit."
164
The trouble with pederasty, as Elagabalus and Commodus and others
proved, was that a man might not know when to stop. In the later
empire, the bigger question of masculinity lay behind the problem of
pederasty.
The shift in attitudes toward pederasty in the later empire meant
that the adult partners in pederastic relationships also fell under the
same sanctions as the active partner in adult homosexual relationships.
Such a shift of attitudes is apparent in descriptions of the sexual
encounters of emperors in the imperial biographies. Cassius Dio's
idealized depiction of the early second-century ruler Trajan, for
example, required this apology:
I know, of course, that he was devoted to boys and to wine,

but if he had ever committed or endured any base or wicked
deed as the result of this, he would have incurred censure;
as it was, however, he drank all the wine he wanted, yet
remained sober, and in his relations with boys he harmed no
one.131
Both actions were minimized, although recognized as faults. A century
and a half later, though, historian Aurelius Victor admitted to Trajan's
fondness for wine in apologetic tones, but passed over in complete .
silence his pederastic pursuits. Perhaps such behavior could no longer
be dismissed as easily in the later fourth century as it had been in the
early third century.132
131Cass. D io 68, 7 . 4 : " m i 018a |i£v 5xi m i Jteoi |ieip & taa tcai xepi otvov
dcjroDS&KEi. itXX' e i p iv x i £k xouxcov fj aicxp& v tj kockov t|£8e8paKEi f|
exejiovBei, £jriryopiav fitv eTxe, vuv 8£ xoG xe oivou SictKbpax; &jiive m i vf|<ptov f|v,
ev xe xoiq JtaiSiKotQ ouSeva £X \)jrijC E v."
132Aur. Vic. Caes. 13.10: "Quin etiam vinolentiam, quo vitio uti
Nerva angebatur, prudentia molliverat, curari vetans iussa post
longiores epulas."
165
Trajan's successor Hadrian, whom Cassius Dio had praised at
length, was criticized in the Historia Augusta for having "wept like a
woman [muliebriter]” at the death of his boy-lover, Antinous.133 There
is no indication that Hadrian was the passive sexual partner in the
relationship; still, his behavior was condemned as nimia uoluptas
("excessive sexual desire").134 Perhaps because of the seeming
incongruity between Hadrian's abilities and the unmanliness of his
sexuality, Aurelius Victor dismissed as ruoores mali ("evil gossip") the
notion of a sexual relationship between him and Antinous.135
Examples of the denunciation of adult pederasts abound. The
emperor Carinus was a freguens corruptor iuventutis ("frequent corruptor
of youth"), which the author of the Bistoria Augusta went on to define
as the "evil use of the enjoyment of his own sex."136 Ausonius offered
the opinion that if the transmigration of souls truly existed, a
pederast deserved to be reincarnated as a bug.137 Attempts were again
133S.H.A. Hadr. 14.5-6: "Antinoum suum, dum per Nilum navigat,

perdidit, quern muliebriter flevit."
134S.H.A. Hadr. 14.7: "...et nimia voluptas Hadriani."
135Aur. Vic. Caes. 14.7-9: "Hinc orti rumores mali iniecisse

stupra puberibus atque Antinoi flagravisse famoso ministerio neque alia
de causa urbem conditam eius nomine aut locasse ephebo statuas. Quae
quidem alii pia volunt religiosaque: quippe Hadriano cupiente fatum
producere, cum voluntarium ad vicem magi poposcissent, cunctis
retractantibus, Antinoum obiecisse se referunt, hincque in eum officia
supra dicta. Nos rem in medio relinquemus quamquam in remisso ingenio
suspectam aestimantes societatem aevi longe imparilis."
136S.H.A. Carus et Carinus et Ifuoerianus 16.1: "...Carinus, homo

omnium contaminatissimus, adulter, frequens corruptor iuventutis (pudet
dicere quod in litteras Onesimus rettulit), ipse quoque male usus genio
sexus sui."
137Auson. Epigr. 73: "'Pythagora Euphorbi, reparas qui semina

rerum / corporibusque novis das reduces animas, / die, quid erit Marcus
iam fata novissima functus, / si redeat vitam rursus in aeriam?' / 'quis
166
made to criminalize pederasty, beginning in the third century. The
jurist Paulus wrote:
Anyone who debauches a boy under the age of seventeen, or

commits any other outrage on him, whether he is abducted by
him or by a corrupt companion; or who solicits a woman or a
girl, or does anything for the purpose of corrupting their
chastity, or offers his house for that purpose, or gives
them any reward in order to persuade them, and the crime is
consummated, shall be punished with death; if it is not
consummated, he shall be deported to an island, and his
profligate accomplices shall suffer the extreme penalty.138
After a long absence, moreover, references to the lex Scantinia begin
again to appear in the later imperial sources.139
Some later Roman writers still continued to describe the beauty of
the adolescent male, but shared with their contemporaries an anxiety
Marcus?' 'feles nuper pullaria dictus, / corrupit totum qui puerile

secus, / perversae Veneris postico vulnere fossor, / Lucili vatis sub
pilo pullo premor.' 'non taurus, non mulus erit, non hippocamelus, / non
caper aut aries, sed scarabaeus erit.'" The phrase "sub pilo pullo
premor" is uncertain (Green, 407 n. 8).
138Paulus Sent. 5.4.14: "Qui puero praetextato stuprum aliudve

flagitium, abducto ab eo vel corrupto comite, persuaserit, mulierem
puellamve interpellaverit, quidve corrumpendae pudicitiae gratia
fecerit, domum praebuerit, pretiumve, quo id persuadeat,dederit,
perfecto flagitio capite punitur, imperfecto in insulam deportatur.
corrupti comites summo supplicio afficiuntur." See the close wording in
Dig. 47.11.1. Cf. Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and
Homosexuality, 70-1) who writes: "...the rise of Roman legal actions
against homosexual behavior can be dated precisely to the third century
A.D., when a series of laws was enacted regulating various aspects of
homosexual relations..."
139Tert. De monogamia 12: "Omnia licent episcopis, sicut ille

uester Vtinensis nec Scantiniam timuit.” cf. Auson. Epigr. 99: "luris
consulto, cui vivit adultera coniunx, / Papia lex placuit, lulia
displicuit. / quaeritis, unde haec sit distantia? semivir ipse /
Scantiniam metuens non metuit Titiam." Cf. also Prudent. Perist. 10 11.
210-5: "sed, credo, magni limen amplectar lovis, / qui se citetur
legibus vestris reus, / laqueis minacis implicatus Iuliae / luat severam
victus et Scantiniam, / te cognitore dignus ire in carcerem." Note that
they are all Christian writers. Boswell (Christianity, Social
Tolerance, and Homosexualiy, 63-71) even suggests that it is possible
that the law never existed but was a legal fiction of the 3rd century C.
E ., but this is not probable.
167
about the manliness of such attraction, and its relationship to a
discredited form of sexual desire. Claudian wrote in his panegyric to
the young emperor Honorius:
The women of Rome never tire of gazing at those blooming

cheeks, those crown&d locks, those limbs clothed in the
consul's jasper-studded robes, those mighty shoulders, and
that neck, beauteous as Bacchus' own, with its necklaces of
Red Sea emeralds.140
Even though Claudian was the one who recognized the beauty of the
emperor, he attributed the longing to "the women of Rome." A similar
discomfort with the adult male's appreciation for youthful beauty may be
found in an anonymous poem. The poet suggested to a nameless young man
that "while nature was deciding whether to make you a boy or a girl,
beautiful one, you were made a boy who is almost a girl.”141 The poet
was thus rescued from the implication of pederasty because the object of
his affections was only ambiguously male. Ausonius addressed a youth as
"Adonis" and "Ganymede," and added that he was at that age when "already
you ceased to seem either a boy or a girl."142 Ausonius' poems on the
beauty of Narcissus have a similar tone: one included the figure of
140Claud. Cons. Hon. 6 11. 560-4a: "conspicuas turn flore genas,

diademate crinem / membraque gemmato trabeae uiridantia cinctu / et
fortes umeros et certatura Lyaeo / inter Erythraeas surgentia colla
zmaragdos / mirari sine fine nurus..." Cf. another poem, in which
Claudius compares Honorius to Adonis, the example par excellence of the
handsome adolescent: Claud. Fescennina dicta Bonorio augusto et Mariae
11 1. 16: "Venus reuersum spernit Adonidem..."
141Ps.-Auson. Epig. varia 13: "Dum dubitat natura marem faceretne

puellam, / factus es, o pulcher, paene puella, puer."
142Auson. Epigr. 53: "Laeta bis octono tibi iam sub consule pubes
/ cingebat teneras, Glaucia adulte, genas. / et iam desieras puer anne
puella videri, / cum properata dies abstulit omne decus. / sed neque
functorum socius miscebere vulgo / nec metues stygios flebilis umbra
lacus, / verum aut Persephonae Cinyreius ibis Adonis / aut Iovis Elysii
tu Catamitus eris.” Cf. Auson. Opuscula 17.4: "ora puer prima signans
intonsa iuventa..."
168
Echo, but the other two imagined a male admirer who gazed at Narcissus
in the same way he gazed at h i m s e l f . 1 4 *3
The reformulation of male pudicitia in the later empire virtually
necessitated the abandonment of any same-sex relationships - between
adult men or between a man and a boy - as failings, regardless of the
masculine role played or the type of sexual activity enjoyed.
Nemesianus really represented the end of a tradition when he described
two shepherds who compared their loves: one for Meroe formosa ("the
beautiful Mero£") and the other for fonnosus Iollas ("the handsome
Iollas") as "the same passion for different sexes."144 Again, beneath
the surface of the condemnations is a medical belief, as evidenced in
Oribasius, that sex with men was more vigorous and more tiring than sex
with women, and more to be avoided to preserve the body's health.145 If
procreative sex could be excused because of familial or demographic
obligations, homosexual sex had no such justification. As a result, the
ancient dichotomy in homosexual relations between penetrator and
penetrated - emphasized in recent secondary literature on homosexuality
143Auson. Epigr. 108: "Si cuperes alium [n.b.], posses, Narcisse,

potiri; / nunc tibi amoris adest copia, fructus abest." Cf. ibid. 109:
"Quid non ex huius forma pateretur amator, [n.b.] / ipse suam gui sic
deperit effigiem?" Cf. ibid. 110: "Commoritur, Narcisse, tibi
resonabilis Echo, / vocis ad extremos exanimata modos, / et pereuntis
adhuc gemitum resecuta querellis / ultima nunc etiam verba loguentis
amat."
144Nemesianus Bucolica (ed. H. Williams [Leiden: E. J. Brill,

1986]) 4 11. 38a,72b,4-5: "hue, Meroe formosa, ueni..." "...plus est
formosus iollas." "nam Mopso Meroe, Lycidae crinitus iollas / ignis
erat; parilisgue furor de dispare sexu..."
1450ribasius Collectio medica 6.38: "Hooov ]iev eioi piaioi ai Jtpbq xb

GfjXu Yivdjievai- 816 Kai fjccov Xbjrnpav al Si npbq xb appev ouvxovoi jiev- jiovetv
5^ ]iei^6v(aq dvayKaôvoiv." see Rousselle, Porneia, 14.
169
- was largely abandoned in late antiquity in favor of a condemnation of
both roles. A new vocabulary of sexual vice appeared - like stuprum cum
masculo ("sexual misconduct with [another] man") - which did not
distinguish between manly and unmanly roles in homosexual sex, but
subjected both to censure and both to legal impediments.146
The later Roman notion of pudicitia required men not only to keep
their bodies free from penetration but also to refrain from a whole
series of penetrative acts: with other men, boys, slaves, prostitutes,
women other than their wives. An individual wanting to preserve his
manliness was still required to penetrate, but penetrate only his wife.
In turn, an unmanly man was not merely one guilty of sexual passivity
but a man tainted by any sort of sexual impropriety or license. Already
at the end of the second century, Marcus Aurelius had written that "sins
of desire, in which pleasure predominates, indicate a more self-
indulgent and womanish disposition."147 Later Roman writers returned
repeatedly to this theme, exhorting men to flee from lust as from "a
146Dig. 48.5.9 (8), quoted above. Cantarella (Bisexuality, 143-4)

believes the cum masculo to be an alteration from the era of Justinian
of the classical phrase stuprum cum puero, which is significant. See
also discussion below, chap. 7. Cantarella (Bisexuality, 188-9) writes:
"...the ancient recognition of male bisexuality was disappearing in any
case [even before the conversion of the Mediterranean to Christianity]:
the new rule was heterosexuality based on reproduction. Christian
preaching then took its place in this framework, and found that the
ground had been made still more fertile by stoic teaching, which
exhorted individuals to control their passions, dominate their impulses,
and channel their sexuality towards procreation, within a vision of
life where the spirit, in order to be free, had to dominate the flesh,
sexuality could only be understood in this manner, and homosexuality was
therefore condemned."
147Marcus Aurelius Ad se ipsum 2.10: ".. .6 8e tcax’eJti9b|uav

apapxavtov, TjSovfjg T|xx<f>nevog dKoXaaxoxEpog jrtog <pa'ivExai Kai GriXuxepog ev
xatq apapxiatq."
170
beast, opening its capacious jaws.”148 Physiognomic portrayals of the
oversexed man complemented these ideas.149
By exhorting men to rise above their physical natures and bodily
desires, later Roman writers offered men an opportunity to exercise
greater rationality and self-control in their very bodies, and thus
demonstrate their manliness in a concrete and unmistakable manner. Even
while the new social attitudes were translated into the ancient gendered
language of manliness and effeminacy, however, and writers stigmatized
certain sexual behaviours previously commonplace among men as unmanly,
the distinctions between men's and women's sexuality were becoming
blurred by the assimilation of the pudicitia of both sexes. In an era
of masculine crisis, men were judged by a new and feminine standard of
sexual modesty.
148Claud. Cons. Bon. 4. 11. 250-4: "quae, uelut inmanis reserat

dum belua rictus, / expleri pascigue nequit: nunc uerbere curas /
torquet auaritiae, stimulis nunc flagrat amorum, / nunc gaudet, nunc
maesta dolet, satiataque rursus / exoritur caesaque redit pollentius
hydra.” On lust as an animalistic emotion: Marc. Aur. Ad se ipsum 4.28;
Iambi. De uita Pythagorica 31[213].
149De physiognomia liber 106: "Nunc autem primo dicendum est de

inuerecundis. Qui inuerecundis est ita esse debet: patulis oculis
lucidis, palpebris crassis et sanguinolentis, aliquanto incuruus,
scapulis in acutum eminentibus, non tarn erectus, <sed> pronior, mobilis,
aspersus rubore, sublucente intrinsecus sanguinolento colore, uultu
rotundo, pectore superius retracto, inferiore palpebra magis crassa. Et
quibus caput in modum mallei prolixum est et prominet ante ac retro, et
quibus cutis oris tensa est, inuerecundi sunt." Cf. ibid. 112:
"Libidinosi, id est intemperantes libidinum, ita sunt: color albus,
corpus hispidum rectis capillis, partes oris hispidae directis et
solidis capillis et nigris, item tempora hispida s.imilibus capillis.
Oculos habebunt pigriores, humidos, crura tenuia, neruis intenta atque
hispida, uentrem pinguem, mentum reflexum <ad> nares ita ut inter nares
et mentum caua sit quaedam planities, et quibus uena in brachiis est, et
qui in palpebris capillos raros et defluentes habent."
Appendix to Chapter Three:
Rape
Early Roman law prosecuted cases of rape as a type of iniuria
("injury"), although possibly also as adtemptatio pudicitiam ("attempt
against sexual modesty") or as per uim stuprum ("sexual offense through
force”). As with adultery or other offenses committed against an
indivual under the authority of a paterfamilias, the injury was
considered as inflicted against the husband or father of the victim.150
The rape of adult men who were not under patria potestas - that is, not
minors - was punishable by death from at least the beginning of the
third century.151 The rape of women, however, was specificially
prohibited only from the early fourth century, in a law issued by
Constantine.152 As has been pointed out, the law made no
differentiation between rape and seduction, that is, between an
unwilling partner and a partner who was originally unwilling but whose
consent was eventually obtained.153 It has also been suggested that
150See Gardner, Women in Roman Law, 117-20.
151Paulus Sent. 2.26.12: "Qui masculum liberum invitum

stupraverit, capite punitur." See also the discussion of this by
Richlin, "Not Before Homosexuality,” 561-6.
152Cod. Theod. 9.24.1: "Si guis nihil cum parentibus puellae ante
depectus invitam earn rapuerit vel volentem abduxerit patrocinium ex eius
responsione sperans, guam propter vitium levitatis et sexus mobilitatem
atgue consili a postulationibus et testimoniis omnibusgue rebus
iudicariis antigui penitus arcuerunt, nihil ei secundum ius vetus prosit
puellae responsio, sed ipsa puella potius societate criminis obligetur."
172
rather than prohibiting rape per se, the law might have been
invalidating so-called abductive marriages, in which the sexual act
between the prospective couple circumvented the families' negotiations,
and possibly the families' opposition to the match.154 If this is true,
the unlawfulness of the sexual act remained, since it was committed
without the consent of the woman’s father.
In any case, the severity of the punishments in later Roman law
may well point to an intensified awareness of rape as a serious sexual
transgression by men. Rapists - or men who abducted women for the
purpose of sex - were to be executed without possibility of appeal.155
Even clarissimi, the men of the senatorial rank, were warned in law that
they would suffer the same penalty for rape as those of lesser rank.156
If a man killed a rapist when protecting either himself or a member of
his family, he was acquitted of any charge of homicide.157 In the
context of the increased social disorder of the later empire, these laws
may have been a necessary reminder of the limits of men's sexual
behavior.
153Denise Grodzynski, "Ravies et coupables: un essai

d 'interpretation de la loi IX,24,1 du Code Thdodosien," Melanges de
1 'dcole frangaise de Rome: Antiquitd 96 (1984): 697-726.
154Judith Evans-Grubbs, "Abduction Marriage in Antiquity: A Law of

Constantine (CTh IX. 24. 1) and its Social Context," Journal of Roman
Studies 79 (1989): 59-83.
155Cod. Theod. 9.24.1: "Raptor autem indubitate convictus si

appellare voluerit, minime audiatur."
156Cod. Theod. 9.1.1: "Quicumque clarissime dignitatis virginem

rapuerit... publicis legibus subiugetur neque super eius nomine ad
scientiam mostram referatur nec fori praescribtione utatur."
157Dig. 48.8.1: "Item diuus Hadrianus rescripsit eum, qui stuprum

sibi uel suis per uim inferentem occidit, dimittendum."
Chapter Four
You whom the male sex has discarded:
Eunuchs in the Later Empire and Hale Anxiety
The crisis of masculinity touched all aspects of later Roman life.
Nothing documents this crisis more effectively than the status of
eunuchs, whose presence in the third, fourth, and early fifth century
became increasingly problematic. Eunuchs figured prominently as anti
symbols of masculine identity and authority. They served as cultural
touch-stones for men's anxiety in discussions of gender and its relation
to the areas of public and private crisis we have studied: sexual
difference, family life and sexual behavior, and political and military
leadership. In each of these areas, the existence of the eunuch
reflected the contemporary cultural anxieties about male identity, but
also intensified these anxieties. Indeed, the eunuch embodied the
crisis of masculinity.
174
1. A third type of humanity:
Eunuchs as an intermediate Sex
Roman cultural notions of masculine identity, as we have seen,
relied heavily on the dichotomy between male and female. The changes to
the foundations of male identity in the later empire, however, which
blurred the distinctions between masculine and feminine in public and
private life, greatly upset these cultural notions. Hen were threatened
by a feminized image of themselves. The sexual ambiguity which was a
possibility for any man was particularly visible in the eunuch, who
existed in many ways as an intermediate sex.
Certainly a large part of the disquiet regarding eunuchs was that
it was far less easy to ignore their gender ambiguity than that of other
persons. In the case of hermaphrodites, for example, Roman law assigned
a male identity based on the presence of the external genitals, unlike
hermaphrodites, eunuchs could not be arbitrarily assigned a traditional
gender, and since their sterility meant that they could neither father
children, neither could they function as males. The eunuch had suffered
the excision precisely of the external genitalia which marked maleness.
They were perpetually "other," a status reinforced by odd rumors like
that repeated by Cassius Dio: toxic vapors from a hole in the ground in
Asia killed all living things except eunuchs.1
icass. Dio 6 8 .2 7 .3 : "EtSov £ya> xoioOxov gxepov ev'l£pajt6Xei tpq ’Aoiai;,

Kai £jreip<k9iiv auxoS 8i’ dpvecov, aDtdq xe i)7repK\)ya<; Kai auxoq ifxbv xo Jiveupa'
k(xxcxkekX.eix<x( xe ja.p ev OEâpEvfj xivi, Kai dsaxpov vitEp auxot* doKoSoprixo,
(pOsipEi xe navxa xa epyuxa 7tX.f|v xcbv avdp&xcov xajv xa aiSoia ajtoxExjnipdvtov.
175
The amputation of the genitals of the eunuch also questioned the
fixed nature of sexual identity in an unsettling way. Unlike other
persons of ambiguous sex, eunuchs changed their sexual identity at the
moment of castration. The medical texts of the later empire referred to
how castration led to a loss of "virility (avSpeia), which is to say,
masculinity (dcppevottjs);"2 how it "robs the patient of his strength;"3 and
how eunuchs had "a feminine voice, womanly words, all limbs and joints
without vigor, lax, and dissolute."4 If it were possible, however, to
alter one's sexual identity by means of a surgical manoeuver, "laying
violent hands as it were upon nature and wresting her from her ordained
course,"5 in the words of Ammianus Harcellinus, then perhaps the
masculine-feminine dichotomy, which formed so much of the backbone of
Roman culture, and which was being questioned by the crisis of
ou |xf|v rai tt|v aixiav aoxoo auvvofiaat ix®. Xiy<o 8fe & xe elSov dx; eTSov Kai &
f]KO\>oa ox; ijKObca."
2Oribasius Collectio aedica 22.2.14: "Exi 8£ xtov |kx|1T10^vx(j)V xouq

opxeiq aveu xou vaOaai xtk £xi8i8up.i8os ouSev piv x&cxei xo OTteppaxiKbv
ayYetov, dxoXXuxav 8e x©v ^cooov ai) x6 oxepfiaiveiv îovov 6p|iaiov “yap fjv xouxo
ye toiq duppoSioicav anexecOai pouXopevot<;- akXit Kai f| avSpeia xe Kai, ax; av
eixoi xiq, dppevoxiiq."
3Caelius Aurelianus Tardarurn passionurn 1.4: "item eunuchismos

vires amputat..."
4De physiognomia liber 40: "...a Polemone quidem auctore

referuntur, qui eunuchum sui temporis fuisse hunc hominem descripsit.
Nomen quidem non posuit, intelligitur autem de Fauorino eum dicere.
Huic cetera corporis indicia huiusmodi assignat: tensam frontem, genas
molles, os laxum, ceruicem tenuem, crassa crura, pedes plenos tamquam
congestis pulpis, uocem femineam, uerba muliebria, membra et articulos
omnes sine uigore, laxos et dissolutos."
sAmm. Marc. 14.6.17: "...uelut uim iniectans naturae eandemque ab

instituto cursu retorquens..."
176
masculinity, was again disrupted. The eunuch was therefore a daily
challenge to Roman notions of gender.6
The long tradition of animosity toward the practice of castration
in Roman society is certainly linked to the questions which the gender
of the eunuch raised. Castration was outlawed within the Roman empire,
and there were many civil penalties against the producers of eunuchs.
Roman law by the third century is very clear on this point. The jurist
Paulus considered the castration of any man against his will as
deserving of capital punishment.7 The jurist Marcian felt that forced
castration could be prosecuted under the laws against assault.8 Ulpian,
however, believed the law against assault to apply equally to the doctor
performing the operation, but also to men who castrated themselves or
who were voluntarily castrated.9 Again, as with all of the opinions of
6See Kathryn Ringrose ("Living in the Shadows: Eunuchs and Gender

in Byzantium," in Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in
Culture and Bistory, ed. G. Herdt [Hew York: Zone, 1994]) for these
issues in the eastern Mediterranean and esp. in a later period.
7Paulus Sent. 5.23.13: "Qui hominem invitum libidinis aut

promercii causa castrandumve curaverit, sive is servus sive liber sit,
capite punitur; honestiores publicatis bonis in insulam deportantur."
®Dig. 48.8.3: "et qui hominem libidinis uel promercii causa

castraverit, ex senatus consulto poena legis Cornelia punitur. Legis
Cornelias de sicariis et ueneficis poena insulae deportatio est et
omnium bonorum ademptio. sed solent hodie capite puniri, nisi
honestiore loco positi fuerint, ut poenam legis sustineant: humiliores
enim solent uel bestiis subici, altiores uero deportantur in insulam."
9Dig. 48.8.4: "Idem diuus Hadrianus rescripsit: 'Constitutum

quidem est, ne spadones fierent, eos autem, qui hoc crimine arguerentur,
Corneliae legis poena teneri eorumque bona merito fisco meo uindicari
debere, sed et in seruos, qui spadones fecerint, ultimo supplicio
animaduertendum esse: et qui hoc crimine tenentur, si no adfuerint, de
absentibus quoque, tamquam lege Cornelia teneantur, pronuntiandum esse,
plane si ipsi, qui hanc iniuriam passi sunt, proclamauerint, audire eos
praeses prouinciae debet, qui uirilitatem amiserunt: nemo enim liberum
seruumue inuitum sinentemue castrare debet, neue quis se sponte
castrandum praebere debet. at si quis aduersus edictum meum fecerit,
177
the jurists, these opinions became increasingly authoritative in the
later empire, until they had acquired the force of law.10 Many emperors
were also recorded as forbidding castration within the empire, but their
prohibitions must have been largely ineffective.11 That eunuchs existed
throughout the later Roman empire is beyond dispute; among other things,
this fact demonstrates how laws could often be ignored with impunity.
Roman law is much more vague on the question of what to do with
eunuchs once they were produced. This is a reasonable concern on some
level, since so many of the rights of law in the Roman patriarchy
accrued only to adult males; because of the sexual ambiguity of eunuchs,
however, issues of masculine privilege were more confused. The crux of
the issue was whether eunuchs could assume the legal status of "whole"
adult males, in such questions as the end of the age of minority,12 the
privilege of writing wills,13 including testatory bequests to posthumous
medico quidem, qui exciderit, capitals erit, item ipsi qui se sponte
excidendum praebuit.'"
10See, e.g., Nov. Just. (ed. with Cod. Just.) 9.25.1-2 [142]: "De
iis qui eunuchos faciunt;" or Nov. Leoais (ed. with Cod. lust.) 60: "Qua
poena castratores affici debeant."
11Cod. lust. 4.42.1: "Si quis post hanc sanctionem in orbe Romano
eunuchos fecerit, capite puniatur..." Cf. Cod. lust. 4.42.2: " Romanae
gentis homines sive in barbaro sive in Romano solo eunuchos factos
nullatenus quolibet modo ad dominium cuiusdam transferri iubemus: poena
gravissima statuenda adversus eos, qui hoc perpetrare ausi fuerint..."
12Gai. Inst. 1.196: "Masculi autem cum puberes esse coeperint,

tutela liberantur: puberem autem Sabinus quidem et Cassius ceterique
nostri praeceptores eum esse putant, qui habitu corporis pubertatem
ostendit, id est eum, qui generare potest; sed in his, qui pubescere non
possunt, quales sunt spadones, earn aetatem esse spectandam, cuius
aetatis puberes fiunt; sed diuersae scholae auctores annis putant
pubertatem aestimandam, id est eum puberem esse existimant, qui Xllll
annos expleuit."
13Paulus Sent. 3.4A.2: "Spadones eo tempore testamentum facere

possunt, quo plerique pubescent, i. e. anno decimo octavo." Note that
178
heirs,14 the right to adopt children,15 and the capacity to act as legal
guardians to women and minors.16 Likewise, since all other adults
before the year 320 were required by law to marry and have children, or
face punitive fines, the law considered whether eunuchs had this same
obligation.17
So the sexual ambiguity of eunuchs had practical as well as
theoretical considerations. The phallic economy of the Roman gender
system, as it was applied for example to hermaphrodites, might lead us
to expect that eunuchs would not be treated as "whole" males. Indeed,
they were denied certain masculine rights; nonetheless, they retained
other masculine rights, and on any given question, legal opinion might
change. They had a confused legal status, and this both reflected and
encouraged their intermediate nature.
this ruling conflicting with that of Gaius (n. above) regarding the age
of puberty for eunuchs.
14Dig. 28.2.6: "Sed et quaesitum, an is, qui generare facile non

possit, postumum heredem facere possit, et scribit Cassius et Iauolenus
posse: nam et uxorem ducere et adoptare potest: spadonem quoque posse
postumum heredem scribere et Labeo et Cassius scribunt: quoniam nec
aetas nec sterilitas ei rei impedimento est. Sed si castratus sit,
Iulianus Proculi opinionem secutum non putat postumum heredem posse
instituere, quo iure utimur."
lsGai. Inst. 1.103: "Illud uero utriusque adoptionis commune est,

quod et hi, qui generare non possunt, quales sunt spadones, adoptare
possunt." Cf. the later Nov. Leonis 26-7; Inst. lust. 1.11.9-10.
16Dig. 27.1.15: "cxaSovxa xeipoxovTicouaiv £juixpoJtov o\)8e)uav yap

exei JiapaiGoiv, <bq 5e1kvu oiv Sidxaîq xa>v auxoKpaxdpcov lepTipou Kai
Avxtovivou." Only the Greek translation of this law survives.
17Dig. 28.2.6, quoted above. Cf. the later Nov. Leonis 98: "De
poena eunuchorum, si uxores ducant.” For more on the legal position of
eunuchs, see Gaetano Sciascia, "Eunucos, castratos e 'spadones' no
direito romano," in Variety giuridiche. Scritti brasiliani di diritto
romano e moderno (Milan: Dott. A. GiuffrA, 1956).
179
At least some of the confusion regarding eunuchs in Roman law
sprang from the confusion about the exact nature of castration. The
jurist Ulpian attempted to clarify:
The name of eunuch is a general one; under it come those who

are eunuchs by nature [natura spadones], those who are made
eunuchs [thlibiae thlasiae], and any other kind of eunuchs
[aliud genus spadonum].18
The Greek words inserted into the Latin text help us to understand the
meaning of his distinctions, because they referred to the different
methods for castration. Thlibia was from the Greek QXiflo) ("to press
hard or confine”), and referred to the tying off of the testicles to
sever the vas deferens; likewise, thlasia was from the Greek BXaco ("to
crush”), which was the other typical way to disable the testicles.19
Such procedures would sterilise the individual but leave the appearance
of his genitals mostly indistinguishable from other males. These types
of eunuchs are differentiated from the natura spadones ("eunuchs by
nature") who were individuals born perhaps with undeveloped sex organs
or whose sex organs did not develop at puberty, and whose genitals
differed in appearance from those of other males. Such men were usually
grouped together with castrated men. The "other kinds of eunuchs" used
the Latin word spado which was also Greek-borrowed, from oirdteo ("to tear
or rend”), and these likely referred to men with amputated penises or
18Dig. 50.16.128: "Spadonum generalis appellatio est: quo nomine

tarn hi, qui natura spadones sunt, item thlibiae thlasiae, sed et si quod
aliud genus spadonum est, continentur."
19See Rouselle, Porneia, 122.
R eproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
180
who had had their entire genitalia removed.20 Other authors were not so
precise in their terminology, but the different procedures are all
attested in late antiquity.21
The various methods of castration are precisely the source of the
gender anxiety surrounding eunuchs in late antiquity. First, the
precise status of the individual eunuch's castration - whether the
amputation of the penis, the amputation of the penis and testicles, or
the disabling of the testicles or vas deferens - remained a mystery to
all but his most intimate associates. Equally mysterious, as a result,
was the type of sexual activity in which an individual eunuch might
participate. Some eunuchs, probably those with undeveloped genitals,
may not have experienced sexual desire at all. Those eunuchs whose
penises were still intact, however, might still achieve erections and
engage in masculine - that is, penetrative - sexual acts even without
the possibility of procreation.22 Those eunuchs whose penises had been
disabled were believed still to have sexual desires, but being
frustrated in their masculine desire for penetration, were obliged to
satisfy these desires in other, vaguely expressed but sexually passive
20Dig. 48.8.5: "Hi quoque, qui thlibias faciunt, ex constitutione

diui Hadriani ad Ninnium Hastam in eadem causa sunt, qua hi qui
castrant.”
21For a later source, see Faulus Aegineta, Compendium medici (ed.

I. Heiberg [Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1921]) 6.65: "Ilepi E\>vouxtO)lo0."
22Attested by John Cassian Conlationes (ed. E. Pichery, SC 54;

trans. Fr. Robert, 2 vols. [London: Thomas Richardson, n.d.]) 12.9:
"Primum ergo est, quod per somni quietem mentis uigore laxato obseruari
nequaquam ualeat illius conmotionis obreptio, secundo, quod etiam urinae
collectio, cum uesicae capacitatem quiescentibus nobis indesinenti
confluxu interni umoris oppleuerit, excitet membra marcentia, quod etiam
paruulis uel spadonibus eadem nihilominus lege contingit."
181
and therefore unmanly ways.23 The confusion about the sexuality of
eunuchs was, by extension, a confusion about whether they should be
considered adult or child - that is, sexually mature or immature. More
importantly, the confusion made it impossible to know whether they
should be considered male or female - that is, as sexual penetrators or
as sexually penetrated. The sexuality of eunuchs only heightened their
intermediate nature.
In moral terms, eunuchs also retained their intermediate status.
Writers often portrayed them as the equivalent of women, and the
stereotypes of their character are virtually the same as those of women:
carnal, irrational, voluptuous, fickle, manipulative, deceitful.24
23E.g., John Cassian Conlationes 12.10: "Quod autem ineuitabilem

esse conmotionem carnis hoc adstruere uoluistis indicio, quod ea ne ipsi
quidem eunuchi carere demptis genitalibus possunt, sciendum est non eis
carnales aestus nec effectum libidinis, sed solam satiuae generationis
deesse uirtutem.” Cf. Tert. Adv. Marcionem (ed. and trans. E. Evans
[Oxford: Clarendon, 1972]) 1.29: "Quae libidinis infrenatio in
castrations?"
24Examples abound. S.H.A. Gordiani tres 23.7: "...et ipse pro

parte aliquantulum saperet nec per spadones ac ministros aulicos matris
vel ignorantia vel coniventia venderetur." Ibid. 24.2: "evasisse nos
gravem temporum maculam, qua per spadones et per illos qui amici tibi
videbantur (erant autem vehementes inimici) omnia vendebantur..." Ibid.
25.1: "nisi di omnipotentes Romanum tuerentur imperium, etiam nunc per
emptos spadones velut in hasta positi venderemur.” Cf. Amm. Marc.
18.5.4: "Rebus per Mesopotamiam in hunc statum deductis Palatina cohors
palinodiam in exitium concinens nostrum inuenit tandem amplam nocendi
fortissimo uiro auctore et incitatore coetu spadonum, qui feri et acidi
semper carentesque necessitudinibus ceteris diuitias solas ut filiolas
iucundissimas amplectuntur." Ibid. 14.11.3: "isdemque residui regii
accessere spadones, quorum ea tempestate plus habendi cupiditas ultra
mortalem modum adolescebat inter ministeria uitae secretioris per
arcanos susurros nutrimenta fictis criminibus subserentes..." Ibid.
15.2.10: "Perductus est isdem diebus et Gorgonius, cui erat thalami
Caesariani cura commissa, cumque eum ausorum fuisse participem
concitoremque interdum ex confesso pateret, conspirations spadonum
iusticia concinnatis mendaciis obumbrata periculo euolutus abscessit.”
Ibid. 21.16.16: "uxoribus et spadonum gracilentis uocibus et palatinis
quibusdam nimium quantum addictus ad singula eius uerba plaudentibus et,
quid ille aiat aut neget, ut assentiri possint, obseruantibus." Cf.
Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 420-la: "non uita spondente fidem, sed inertia
182
These are the vices also of the unmanly, and eunuchs are called molles,
effeminati, semiuires, the whole host of terms for failed men. Eunuchs
were so much associated with vice that when Ammianus Marcellinus found
one - the eunuch advisor to Julian, Eutherius - who exhibited a manly
type of virtue, he felt compelled to offer a lengthy excuse for his
praise of him:
Turning over the copious records of the past, I have not

found any eunuch with whom I could compare him. There were
some in old times who were loyal and honest, though very
few, but their characters were spotted in other ways. Mixed
with the acquired or natural good qualities which any of
them possessed was rapacity, or contemptibly brutal manners,
or a propensity to inflict harm, or excessive obsequiousness
to the great, or the haughtiness which arises from the
possession of power.25
tutum / mentis pignus erat." Ibid. 2 11. 191-2: "ille iter ingratum,
uanos deflere labores, / quos super eunuchi fastus, quae probra
tulisset."
25Amm. Marc. 16.7.4,8: "Res monuit super hoc eodem Eutherio pauca
subserere forsitan non credenda ea re, quod, si Numa Pompilius uel
Socrates bona quaedam dicerent de spadone dictisque religionum adderent
fidem, a ueritate desciuisse arguebantur. sed inter uepres rosae
nascuntur et inter feras nonnullae mitescunt... cui spadonum ueterum
hunc comparare debeam, antiquitates replicando complures inuenire non
potui. fuerunt enim apud ueteres licet oppido pauci fideles et frugi,
sed ob quaedam uitia maculosi. inter praecipua enim, quae eorum quisque
studio possiderat uel ingenio, aut rapax et feritate contemptior fuit
aut propensior ad laedendum uel regentibus nimium blandus aut potentiae
fastu superbior.” Matthews (Roman Empire of Ammianus, 25) believes that
Eutherius was one of the sources for Ammianus' history; see also his
further remarks on eunuchs in the later empire (ibid., 274-7). See also
Thomas Weidmann ("Between Men and Beasts: Barbarians in Ammianus
Marcellinus," in Past Perspectives: Studies in Greek and Roman
Historical Writing, ed. I. Moxon, et al. [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1986]) who examines how Ammianus emphasizes the
marginality of eunuchs inter alia by comparing them frequently to
animals.
183
Eunuchs were the opposite of uirtus in both morally and anatomically. A
physiognomic text assured its readers that they were all eager for evil
deeds.26
The intermediate status of eunuchs contributed to the social role
they played in later Roman society. They could associate with women and
participate in feminine activities even in the most intimate of domestic
surroundings, but also travelled freely among men and in public and held
offices and wielded authority reserved to men. Ostracized from true
membership in both masculine and feminine genders, they were nonetheless
somewhat tolerated in both male and female environments.
Writers of the later empire devised a whole new language for the
intermediate nature of the eunuch. According to the author of the
Bistoria Augusta, the Roman emperor Severus Alexander is said to have
referred to eunuchs as a tertium genus Jiominum ("third type [gender] of
humanity").27 Julian called Eusebius, the eunuch advisor to his
predecessor, an dtvSpAyvvog ("man-woman, androgyne”).28 The poet Claudius
Mamertinus described eunuchs as "exiles from the society of the human
race, belonging neither to one sex nor the other as a result of some
26De physiognomia liber 40s "Hunc dicit impatientia libidinem quae

turpia sunt omnia passum esse et egisse quae passus est, praeterea
maledicum, temerarium, sed et maleficiis studentem; nam et letiferum
uenenum dicebatur clanculo uenditare."
27S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 23.7: "idem tertium genus hominum eunuchos

esse dicebat nec videndum nec in usu habendum a viris sed vix a feminis
nobilibus." There is no Latin term which corresponds to our modern
definition of gender, but genus ("type") is the term from which our
English word gender is derived, through Old French genre/gendre.
28Julian Ep.âd senaturn populumgue Athenarum 272D: "&AX eiq âpiv

evoq dvSpoyuvou, too KaxaKoifucnofl, Kai jrpocexi xou xtbv paYeipcov ejiixporcou
xov &ve\|n6v, xov Kaiaapa, xov xfjq aSetaplfe av8pa Yev6pevov..."
184
congenital abnormality or physical injury."29 The poet Claudian called
Eutropius, a consul under Arcadius, "you whom the male sex has discarded
and the female will not adopt."30
The problematization of eunuchs is not only because of this
interstitial space they were felt to inhabit, neither male nor female.
Rather, as a result of the crises of masculinity in the later Roman
empire, many men were feeling like eunuchs, emasculated and removed from
the uirtus which they believed made them men. The presence of eunuchs
highlighted the many tensions and disruptions of later Roman life and
underlined the drastic changes to masculine identity in precisely those
areas which caused the greatest anxieties. The eunuch was a symbol of
everyman.
2. He used him in every way like a wife:
Eunuchs in Family Life and Domestic Sexuality
One of the many later Roman legal opinions concerning castration
made mention of a senatusconsultua which fined a master who castrated
his own slave with loss of half his property.31 Notwithstanding the
29Claudius Mamertinus Gratiarua actio Juliano Augusto 19.4: "Nec

viros quidem sed mulierculas exambibant; nec feminas tantum sed spadones
quoque, quos quasi a consortio humani generis extorres ab utroque sexu
aut naturae origo aut clades corporis separavit."
30Claud. In Eutropium 1 1. 467: "...alter quos pepulit sexus nec

suscipit alter..."
31Dig. 48.8.6: "Is, qui seruum castrandum tradiderit, pro parte

dimidia bonorum multatur ex senatus consulto, quod Neratio Prisco et
Annio Uero consulibus factum est." Cf. Cass. Dio 68.2.4: "^vopoGeTijaE
8e ikXXa te Kal xepi xoG pt| evvoDx'iÊcQai tiv a a8£X.<pt8fjv yoqietv."
185
fact that the master-slave relationship lay typically beyond the pale of
imperial jurisdiction, the law represents a further regulatory incursion
by the state into the later Roman dlite household, restricting the
rights of the slave-owner. The law also reads much like others
forbidding the prostitution or corruption of slaves.
What the law only partially disguises is the social reality behind
it: that Roman masters commonly castrated their male slaves for various
household purposes, a practice minimally controlled by the laws against
castration. In another legal opinion, the jurist Faulus ruled against a
master's right to forbid his freed slave from having children. A master
would presumably have done this in order to receive the man's
inheritance, since in the absence of children, a freedman's natural heir
was his former master. Nonetheless, Paulus exempted from the
jurisdiction of this law masters who obliged childlessness from
castrated former slaves. One wonders both how frequent the practice
was, that Paulus felt compelled to offer this exception to his ruling,
and whether the possibility of inheriting from a freedman who died
childless encouraged masters to castrate their slaves before freeing
them.32
Both laws demonstrate the possibility of eunuch slaves in later
Roman households. In fact, there is much evidence for their presence in
32Dig. 37.14.6: "Adigere iureiurando, ne nubat liberta uel liberos

tollat, intellegitur etiam is, qui libertum iurare patitur. ...Quamuis
nulla persona lege excipiatur, tamen intellegendum est de his legem
sentire, qui liberos tollere possunt. itaque si castratum libertum
iureiurando quis adegerit, dicendum est non puniri patronum hac lege."
I am grateful to Michael Benecick for suggesting to me the second of
these possibilities.
186
large numbers, despite the laws forbidding castration and the unease
felt toward eunuchs. Ammianus Marcellinus' account of the slaves in a
typical noble household included cloth-weavers, kitchen staff, and "a
crowd of eunuchs, young and old."33 "Crowds of eunuchs," "armies of
eunuchs," and "troops of eunuchs" surrounded wealthy women of the later
empire, as the Christian writer Jerome complained.34 The author of the
Historia Augusta recorded without comment that the late-third-century
emperor Aurelian "limited the possession of eunuchs to those who had a
senator's ranking, for the reason that they had reached inordinate
prices."35
Populations of the eastern Mediterranean had made use of eunuchs
as domestic slaves from ancient times. In the western Mediterranean,
however, the presence of eunuchs is attested only in small numbers
before the third century C.E.36 various factors encouraged the
exportation of eunuchs westward in the later empire: the extension of
Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire, the
intermarriage of ethnic Romans with other nationalities in the empire,
33Amm. Marc. 14.6.17: "...postrema mulitudo spadonum a senibus in

pueros desinens obluridi distortague liniamentorum..."
34Hieron. Epist. 22.16: "...quas eunuchorum greges saepiunt..."

Cf. ibid. 54.13: "Noli ad publicum subinde procedere, et spadonum
exercitu praeeunte uiduarum circumferri libertate." Cf. ibid. 130.4:
"Incredibilis animi fortitudo, inter gemmas et sericum, inter eunuchorum
et puellarum cateruas, et adultationem ac ministeria familiae
perstrepentis, et exquisitas epulas, quas amplae domus praebebat
abundantia..."
35S.H.A. Aurel. 49.8: "eunuchorum modum pro senatoriis

professionibus statuit, idcirco quod ad ingentia pretia pervenissent."
36See Peter Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven and freigelassene in der

griechisch-rdmischen Antike (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980).
187
the general migration westward, the Roman administration of the eastern
provinces, the eastern dynasties on the imperial throne, and the removal
of the imperial court to Constantinople. Romans nonetheless preserved
their belief in the eastern origins of castration: Ammianus Marcellinus
repeated a legend that the Assyrian gueen Semiramis had begun the
practice.37
Many of the slaves in dlite Roman households in the west seem to
have been of eastern and often foreign birth. A loop-hole in the Roman
laws against castration permitted this evasion of the anti-castration
penalties. For example, Constantine's law against castration,
significantly addressed to the commander of the army in Mesopotamia,
forbade only the making of eunuchs in orbe Romano ("in the Roman
empire").38 A law of the fifth-century eastern emperor Leo I referred
to the horror of "men of the Roman race, who have been made eunuchs . .
. in a barbarous country" but then granted permission "to all traders to
buy or sell, wherever they please, eunuchs of barbarous nations who have
been made such outside the boundaries of Our Empire."39 As a result,
37Amm. Marc. 14.6.17: "...quisquam, cernens mutilorum hominum

agmina detestetur memoriam Semiramidis reginae illius ueteris, quae
teneros mares castrauit omnium prima..."
38Cod. lust. 4.42.1: "Imp. Constantinus A. Ursino duci

Mesopotamiae. Si quis post hanc sanctionem in orbe Romano eunuchos
fecerit, capite puniatur: mancipio tali nec non etiam loco, ubi hoc
commissum fuerit domino sciente et dissimulante, confiscando.”
39Cod. lust. 4.42.2: "Romanae gentis homines sive in barbaro sive

in Romano solo eunuchos factos nullatenus quolibet modo ad dominium
cuiusdam transferri iubemus: poena gravissima statuenda adversus eos,
qui hoc perpetrare ausi fuerint, tabellione videlicet, qui huiusmodi
emptionis sive cuiuslibet alterius alienationis instrumenta
conscripserit, et eo, qui octavam vel aliquod vectigalis causa pro his
susceperit, eidem poenae subiciendo. Barbarae autem gentis eunuchos
extra loca nostro imperio subiecta factos cunctis negotiatoribus vel
188
most of the eunuchs we know individually were easterners. Ammianus
Marcellinus, for example, described Eutherius' origins:
He was born in Armenia. His parents were free, but at any

early age he wsa captured by members of a neighbouring
hostile tribe, who castrated him and sold him to some Roman
merchants, by whom he was brought to Constantine's palace.40
Eunuchs frequently bore eastern-sounding names of Greek or barbarian
origin.41
In Roman households, as in eastern households, eunuchs performed a
variety of domestic tasks. These tasks typically included guardianship
of women and children: the eunuch's supposed inability to engage in
penetrative sex made them eminently suitable for protecting the
pudicitia of such persons. Cassius Dio related with horror an incident
in which an early third-century prefect had had over a hundred men
castrated, not only prepubescent boys but also grown men, bearded,
married, and with their own children, so that his virgin daughter would
be above reproach in all her dealings with these men, who were her
attendants and teachers.42 The emperor Julian's tutor was a Scythian
quibuscumque aliis emendi in commerciis et vendendi ubi voluerint

tribuimus facultatem."
40Amm. Hare. 16.7.5: "natus in Armenia sanguine libero captusque a

finitimis hostibus etiamtum paruulus abstractis geminis Romanis
mercatoribus uenundatus ad palatium Constantini deducitur..."
41See Guyot, Eunuchen als Sklaven, esp. "Prosopographie der

Hofeunuchen," 181-233.
42Cass. Dio 7 6 .1 4 .4 -5 : "Koixoi m i ekeTvo xpocOfjoo), 8xi avBfxSjtouq

£k<xt6v EuyEVEiq fcimaiobq £££xeiiev oikoi, Kai xovxo obSsiq fyicov xpoxofl
TEX.EUxfjoai auxov tô9eto- naoav yap ek toutou xf|v te rcapavopiav auxov Kai
Eôuaiav av tiq KaxapdOoi. e^xejie 5k ou xaiSaq povov oi>5e jiEipaKia, itXXa Kai
avSpaq, Kai Sgxiv ovc auxcav Kai yvvaiKaq ixovxac, Sneoq t| nXauxiXXa ti
OuyaxTK) auxov, f|v o Avxamvoq pExa xavx EyrpE, oi’ euyouj^cov xf|v xe dXXtiv
0EpajiEiav Kai xa JtEpi xfjv povciKTiv xfiv xe Xowtfiv 0Eiopiav e^jj. Kai EiSopEv xouq
auxouq &v0pa>jrovq Euvouxouq xe Kai av8paq, Kai Jiaxfepaq Kai adpxeiq, EKXopiaq
xe Kai JHoycoviaq. ”
189
eunuch who had also taught his mother.43 According to Jerome, eunuchs
frequently acted as porters for women, carrying them in sedan chairs
when they travelled in public.44
The poet Claudian called the eunuch's ability of safeguarding the
chastity of a man’s wife and children, "[his] one virtue."45 Claudian
made this judgment in the course of a long harrangue against the most
powerful eunuch in the empire of his day, Gutropius, grand chamberlain
and consul of the eastern empire. The poem, In Eutropium, has been
called "the cruellest invective in all ancient literature."46 From the
western empire and therefore safely out of Gutropius' political reach,
Claudian launched a literary attack on behalf of his own patron,
Stilicho, the magister militum of the west, the purpose of which was to
discredit Gutropius both as a man and as a politician. The poem relies
on earlier Latin models, but encorporates entirely new elements - some
invented and some based on historical events - in order to defame
43Julian Misopogon 352B: ".. .EUVO$XOC rjv, i>nb

xeSpanfievoq JtdtJiJKp, tf)v )iT)xepa xf|v 8jt(oq ay&Yoi 5i& xtov<;0|j.Tipo\) Kai
faaioSou Jtoirmaxcov."
44Hieron. Epist. 66.13: "...sed tamen audio: quae inmunditias

platearum ferre non poterant, quae eunuchorum manibus portabantur et
inaequale solum molestius transcendebant..." Cf. ibid. 22.16:
"Praecedit caueas basternarum ordo semiuir..." Cf. also ibid. 54.13:
"Noli ad publicum subinde procedere, et spadonum exercitu praeeunte
uiduarum circumferri libertate." Cf. also ibid. 108.7: "...femina
nobilis, quae prius eunuchorum manibus portabantur..."
45Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 98b-9: "...cumque omnibus unica uirtus

/ esset in eunuchis thalamos seruare pudicos..."
46Alan Cameron, Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of

Honorius (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), 126.
190
Eutropius, but central to the attack was the fact that Eutropius was a
eunuch.47
In order to humiliate Eutropius, Claudian reminded his readers of
the man's former domestic duties:
he [found] himself handed over to a son-in-law as part of

the bride's dowry. Thus he [became] a lady's-maid, and so
the future consul and governor of the East would comb his
mistress' locks or stand naked holding a silver vessel
wherein his charge could wash herself. And when overcome by
the heat she threw herself upon the couch, there would stand
this patrician fanning her with bright peacock feathers.48
There was apparently little dishonor involved in a woman being naked in
the presence of her eunuch slaves, so removed were they from a masculine
identity. The Christian Jerome criticized the practice in which women
might bathe together with eunuchs, because the latter still have "the
spirits of men," but he was stricter than most, and also felt that
Christian virgins should not even see themselves naked.49 Moreover,
470n Claudian and his career, both literary and political, see
Cameron, Claudian, esp. chap. 6, "Eutropius," for the political
situation, and chaps. 10 and 11, "Techniques of the poet" and "Doctus
poeta," for Claudian*s literary models. On the former point, see also
Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, 87-153. On the latter point, see
also Annette Eaton, The Influence of Ovid on Claudian (Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America, 1943); and Severin Roster, Die invektive
in der griechischen und rSmischen Literatur (Meisenheim am Gian: Anton
Hain, 1980), esp. "Gegen Eutrop," 314-51. Detailed commentaries on the
poem may also be found in Helge Schweckendick, Claudians Invektive gegen
Eutrop (In Eutropium): ein Kommentar (Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1992);
and Jacqueline Long, "Claudian's 'In Eutropium': Artistry and
Practicality in Slandering a Eunuch," (Ph.D. dissertation: Columbia
University, 1989).
48Claud. in Eutropium 1 11. 104-9: "...dotalem genero

nutritoremque puellae / tradidit. Eous rector consulque futurus /
pectebat dominae crines et saepe lauanti / nudus in argento lympham
gestabat alumnae; / et cum se rapido fessam proiecerat aestu, /
patricius roseis pauonum uentilat alis."
49Hieron. Epist. 107.11: "Scio praecepisse quosdam, ne uirgo

Christi cum eunuchis lauet, ne cum maritis feminis; quia alii non
deponant animos uirorum, aliae tumentibus uteris praeferant foeditatem.
191
because of the familiarity of eunuchs with women's bodies but their
association with men, they might be called upon to act as investigators
of the virginity of potential brides, a custom about which the Christian
Lactantius also complained.50
The assignment of these kinds of duties assumed that eunuchs could
not engage in sexual activity, a somewhat unreliable conclusion and the
basis of the complaints of Jerome and Lactantius. Several later Roman
sources made note of the discrepancy between ideal and reality when it
came to eunuchs as suitable guardians for women's honor. Claudian, for
example, recorded how:
[Eutropius] was master of every strategem for the undoing of

chastity. No amount of vigilance could protect the
marriage-bed from his attack . . . None could arrest the
attention of a maid-servant [from her mistress] with so neat
a touch as he, none twitch aside a dress so lightly and
whisper his shameful message in her ear. Never was any so
skilled to choose a scene for the criminal meeting, or so
clever at avoiding the wrath of the cuckold husband should
the plot be discovered.51
The wanton lack of self-control in sexual matters was both a sign of the
eunuch's unmanliness, but also a humiliating reminder of a husband's
Mihi omnino in adulta uirgine lauacra displicent, quae si ipsam debet

erubescere, et nudam uidere non posse."
50Lactant. De mortibus persecutors 38.2: "Eunuchi lenones

scrutabantur omnia. Ubicumque liberalior facies erat, secendendum
patribus ac maritis fuit. Detrahebantur nobilibus feminis vestes
itemque virginibus et per singulos artus inspiciebantur, ne qua pars
corporis regio cubili esset indigna."
51Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 79b-89: "...officiique capax omnesque

pudoris / hauserat insidias. custodia nulla tuendo / fida toro; nulli
poterant excludere uectes: / ille uel aerata Danaen in turre latentem /
eliceret. fletus domini fingebat amantis, / indomitasque mora, pretio
lenibat auaras / lasciuasque iocis; non blandior ullus euntis / ancillae
tetigisse latus leuiterque reductis / uestibus occulto crimen mandare
susurro, / nec furtis quaesisse locum nec fraude reperta / cautior elusi
fremitus uitare mariti."
192
failure, either to satisfy his wife sexually, or at least to guard her
against sexual attachments with other men. In this way, the eunuch
figured as a symbol of men's broader marital and sexual anxiety. The
scene which Claudian described, in which a wife conspires with a eunuch
against her husband, even if imaginary, must be interpreted in the
context of the pressures surrounding men's participation in marriage,
the growing independence of women, and the new sexual morality. In such
an adulterous fantasy, the eunuch could do with impunity what other
males could no longer do, since the eunuch had no manly reputation at
risk. The eunuch represented the wanton man.
Castration triggered other masculine fears, related to the
unmanliness of homosexuality. Although ignored by most historians of
castration as well as by most historians of homosexuality, Roman males
often castrated their male slaves so as to prolong their youthful beauty
for pederastic relations with them.52 Considering the Roman cultural
emphasis on the attractiveness of youth, the widespread knowledge of
52E.g., Peter Browe, Zar Geschichte der Entmannung: Eine

Religions- und Rechtsgeschichtliche Studie (Breslau: Mttller and Seiffer,
1936), p. 45, who calls the idea ekelerregender ("nauseating") and
passes over it in his survey of the history of castration. Cf. John
Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 82; and
idem, Same-Sex unions in Pre-Modern Europe (New York: Villard, 1994),
80-1, who uses the marriage of Nero and Sporus as an e.g. of the social
acceptance of homosexual relationships, but does not mention that Sporus
was a eunuch. Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and
Homosexuality, 67 n. 25) does briefly mention castration in the Roman
world, but does not tie it to homosexuality. Two exceptions are Guyot,
Eunuchen als Sklaven, 59-66 on what he calls Lustknaben ("pleasure-
boys”); and David Greenberg, The Construction of Homosexuality (Chicago:
University of Chicago, 1988), 120-3. The latter writes (p. 123): "When
performed early in life, castration prolonged the boyish beauty the
ancients considered desirable; consequently eunuchs were in great demand
as homosexual partners." See also early discussion in Richard Hillant,
Les eunuques & travers les ages (Paris: vigot, 1908), 133-6.
193
castration, and the traditionally absolute control of the master over
slaves, it should not be too surprising to find that the practice of
castration for sexual purposes was commonplace. The jurists Paulus and
Marcian both implied that sex was as likely a motive for the castration
of a slave as sale.53 Considering, too, however, the later Roman
restrictions both on homosexual behavior and on the use of slaves for
sexual purposes, it should also not be surprising to find this sort of
behavior problematized; it was prohibited in both of the legal opinions
of Paulus and Marcian.
Beyond legal obstacles to sex with castrated slaves were other
cultural expressions of disapproval. Again, Claudian is particularly
instructive. He ridiculed the sexual history of Eutropius, which he
claimed had included sexual service to several masters.
he is dragged from one Assyrian mart to another; next in the

train of a Galatian slave-merchant he stands for sale in
many a market and knows many diverse houses. Who could tell
the names of all his buyers? Among these Ptolemy, servant
of the post-house, was one of the better known. Then
Ptolemy, tired of Eutropius' long service to his lusts,
gives him to Arinthaeus; - gives, for he is no longer worth
keeping nor old enough to be bought.54
53Paulus Sent. 5.23.13: "Qui hominem invitum libidinis aut

promercii causa castrandumve curaverit, sive is servus sive liber sit,
capite punitur; honestiores publicatis bonis in insulam deportantur."
Cf. Dig. 48.8.3: "...et qui hominem libidinis uel promercii causa
castrauerit, ex senatus consulto poena legis Corneliae punitur.”
54Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 58-64a: "inde per Assyriae trahitur

commercia ripae; / hinc fora uenalis Galata ductore frequentat /
permutatque domos uarias. quis nomina possit / tanta sequi? miles
stabuli Ptolemaeus in illis / notior: hie longo lassatus paelicis usu /
donat Arinthaeo; neque enim iam dignus haberi / nec maturus emi."
Platnauer (1.142 n. 1) believes that stabulum ("post-house") may be a
veiled referend to prostibulum ("brothel"); but Schweckendiek (Claudians
Invektive, 70) believes it to be a military establishment.
194
Not content to describe Eutropius' reaching an age at which he was no
longer sexually desirable, Claudian continued by acerbly comparing the
sexual association of the two to a marriage, with Eutropius as the wife
discarded from the home. In an age in which the law was continually
curbing a man's ability to dismiss an unwanted wife, such a statement
had deep cultural resonance. Claudian managed to mock in the same
breath both the relationship and Eutropius' masculine identity:
How the scorned minion wept at his departure, with what

grief did he lament that divorce1 "Was this your fidelity,
Ptolemy? Is this my reward for a youth lived in your arms,
for the bed of marriage and those many nights spent together
in the inn? Must I lose my promised liberty? Do you leave
Eutropius a widow, cruel wretch, forgetful of such wonderful
nights of love? How hard is the lot of my kindt When a
woman grows old her children cement the marriage tie and a
mother's dignity compensates for the lost charms of a wife.
Me Lucina, goddess of childbirth, will not come near; I have
no children on whom to rely. Love perishes with my beauty;
the roses of my cheeks are faded.55
Eutropius had failed not only as a man, by the constantreference to his
feminine roles as wife and widow, but had even failed as a woman,
incapable of true marriage or the children which reward a true woman's
service. The mention of childlessness, in this period of declining
birth-rates, again touched a cultural nerve.
It is ultimately impossible to decide how frequently men engaged
in sexual relations with eunuchs, although the evidence would suggest
55Claud. In £utropium 1 11. 64b-76a: "cum fastiditus abiret, /

quam gemuit, quanto planxit diuortia luctui / 'haec erat, haec,
Ptolomaee, fides? hoc profuit aetas / in gremio consumpta tuo lectusque
iugalis / et ducti totiens inter praesaepia somni? / libertas promissa
perit? uiduumne relinquis / Eutropium tantasque premunt obliuia noctes,
/ crudelis? generis pro sors durissima nostril / femina, cum senuit,
retinet conubia partu, / uxorisque decus matris reuerentia pensat. / nos
Lucina fugit, nec pignore nitimur ullo. / cum forma dilapsus amor;
defloruit oris / gratia." I have changed the archaic "thou," "thee,"
and "thine” in Platnauer's translation to modern English.
195
that they were commonplace. Even the emperor Domitian, who first
outlawed castration, had "himself entertained a passion for a eunuch
named Earinus," Cassius Dio wrote, and Titus "also had shown a great
fondness for eunuchs."56 More detailed was the description of the
marriage of Nero to the eunuch Sporus: "he used him in every way like a
wife."57 Nero "formally 'married' Sporus," according to Cassius, "and
assigned the boy a regular dowry according to contract; and the Romans
as well as others publicly celebrated their wedding."58 Or again:
[Sporus] had been solemnly married to him in Greece,

Tigellinus giving the bride away, as the law ordained. All
the Greeks held a celebration in honour of the marriage,
uttering all the customary good wishes, even to the extent
of praying that legitimate children might be born to them.59
Cassius took his information on the relationships of Nero, Titus, and
Domitian largely from the early-second-century imperial biographies by
Suetonius, although his account is much more detailed on the inclusion
of the traditional aspects of marriage.60 Aurelius Victor repeated
56C a s s . D i o 6 7 . 2 . 3 : " K a i 8 i a x o u x o , K a iJ te p K a i a u x b q ’E a p iv o v x iv o c
e v v o u x o b feptov, 8pcoq, fe jte iS f] K a i 6 T ix o q io x u p & q jc e p l x o ix ; ^ K x o p ia q £ o ic o u 5 a K E i,
OCTITIYOpEDCEV E Jti EKEIVOD \jP p E l p T |5 e v a EXl £V Xfl TCOV PtOpaUOV d p x f j EKXfcpVEGGai."
C f. S ta t. Silv. 3 .4 ; H a rt. Epig. 9 .1 1 ,1 3 ,1 6 ,3 6 .
57C a s s . D io 6 2 . 2 8 . 3 : " . . . to t te a X X a cbq y u v a t K i a u x a j d x p t ]T o . . . "
58C a s s . D io 6 2 . 2 8 . 3 : " . . .£i;eXEv>8epcp y E y a p rip e v o q , K a i J tp o tK a aux^p

K a x a a u y y p a c p fiv EVEipe, K a i x a b q y a p o u q ccprov o t|p o c l< jt o i xe a X X o i K a i a o x o i o i
‘P o o p a io t fecopxaoav. ■
59C a s s . D i o 6 2 . 1 3 . 1 : ” . . .e v x f}* E X X a 8 i K a x a o u p fio X a io v , £K 8 6vxo q

a v x o v x o u T iy E X X iv o o , (b c jte o 6 v o jio q e k £ X £ 0e. K a i xoi>q y a p o u q a u x m v jra v x E q o i
"EXXr]VEq feco pxao av, x a xe aA .X a o i a E iK o q t]v EJtiXEyovxEq, K a i y j't ja io u q a q > io i
J ia iS a q y £ v v i] 0 f jv a i E U X ^p E V O t" C a s s iu s a l s o n o t e s a n d com m ents u p o n
N e r o ' s m a r r ia g e a s " w if e " t o t h e fre e d m a n P y th a g o ra s ( i b i d . : " k o k xou xou
o v v e y iv o v x o & p a xq> N & p a m n u G a y o p a q p e v <nq d v f|p , Z n 6 p o q 5e (bq \ | / o v t | . " ) .
See d i s c u s s i o n s i n B o s w e l l, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and
Homosexuality, 8 2 ; a n d id e m , Same-Sex Unions, 8 0 - 1 .
60On N e r o : S u e t . Her. ( e d . J . R o l f e , L C L ) 2 8 : "P u e ru m S p o ru m

e x s e c t i s t e s t i b u s e t i a m i n m u lie b r e m n a t u r a m t r a n s f i g u r a r e c o n a t u s cum
196
these features of the marriage in his biography, but then added that it
was "of no great account" because of Nero's many other evil deeds.61
Aurelius Victor's dismissal of this event as being of "no great
account" is curious, because his history followed on the heels of a law
on the very subject of the marriage of two males, enacted in 342 by the
Christian emperors Constantius II and Constans:
When a man marries in the manner of a woman, a woman who

wants to offer herself to men, where sex has lost its place,
where the offence is that which is not worth knowing, where
Venus is changed into another form, where love is sought but
not seen [the crime should be punished with death].62
The law is vague, and various opinions have been offered as to its
translation and interpretation.63 All of the secondary literature
dote et flammeo per sollemnia nuptiarum celeberrimo officio deductum ad

se pro uxore habuit...” Keith Bradley (Suetonius' Life of Nero: An
Historical Commentary [Bruxelles: Latomus, 1978], 161-2) suggests that
it may have been a Mithraic ceremony which only appeared to be similar
to a wedding, but this is not how it is described. On Titus: Suet. Tit.
7: "Praeter saevitiam suspecta in eo etiam luxuria erat, quod ad mediam
noctem comissationes cum profusissimo quoque familiarium extenderet; nec
minus libido propter exoletorum et spadonum greges..."
61Aur. Vic. Caes. 5.5-6: "Qui dum psallere per coetus Graecorum
invento in certamen coronae coepisset, eo progressus est, uti neque suae
neque aliorum pudicitiae parcens, ad extremum amictus nubentium virginum
specie, palam senatu, dote data, cunctis festa more celebrantibus in
manum conveniret lecto ex omnibus prodigiosis. Quod sane in eo levius
aestimandum." For more on Aurelius Victor's view of Nero: Waltraud
Jakob-Sonnabend, Untersuchungen zum Nero-Bild der SpStantike
(Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1990), 5-40.
62Cod. Theod. (my translation here) 9.7.3: "Cum vir nubit in

feminam, femina viros proiectura quid cupiat, ubi sexus perdidit locum,
ubi scelus est id, quod non proficit scire, ubi Venus mutatur in alteram
formam, ubi amor quaeritur nec videtur, iubemus insurgere leges, armari
iura gladio ultore, ut exquisitis poenis subdantur infames, qui sunt vel
qui futuri sint rei." Boswell (Same-Sex Unions, p. 86, n. 163) has for
the Latin: "Cum vir nubit in feminam viris porrecturam, quid cupiat..."
He also refers his readers to his discussion in Christianity, Social
Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 123 n. 9.
63Pharr (Theodosian Code, 231) implies that it condemns homosexual

imitations of marriage, and offers the unclear reading: "When a man
'marries' in the manner of a woman, a woman about to renounce man, what
does he wish..." Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and
197
interprets it as attempting to prohibit homosexual marriages, although
the language seems overly complicated for that purpose, and it has been
recently argued that many homosexual relationships preferred the
language of brotherhood or friendship to the feminization of one of the
parties, and used ceremonies of fraternal adoption to effect a legal
bond with legal consequences for the transmission of inheritances.64
It is possible, however, that what the legislators had in mind
were precisely those sexual relationships best known through marriages
between men and eunuchs, in which the castration of one of the parties
provided the context for the feminization of the castrated man. This
interpretation may explain the condemnation of the "sex [which] has lost
Homosexuality, 123) says that by means of it "gay marriages, which had

hitherto been legal (at least de facto) and well known, were outlawed in
a curiously phrased statute which some authors have regarded as entirely
facetious." He does not indicate which authors believe this, but it is
the opinion of D. S. Bailey (Homosexuality and the Western Christian
Tradition [London: Longmans, 1955], 71), who also ascribes it to w. G.
Holmes (The Age of Justinian and Theodorat A Bistory of the Sixth
Century A.D. [London: George Ball, 1912]). Holmes writes (vol. 1, p.
121) that the phrasing of the law "almost suggests that it was enacted
in a spirit of mocking complacency." Holmes means perhaps the reference
to marriage, which Boswell (Same-Sex Onions, passim) takes seriously.
Boswell translates the law in his earlier work as: "When a man marries
a woman who offers herself to men..." Williams ("Homosexuality and the
Roman Han," 295 and 428 n. 5) connects this law to the marriage of Nero,
and suggests "that whatever negative reactions they might have expected,
some men did in fact participate in ceremonies of marriage to other men
and considered those men their husbands, and that the existence of such
marriages was fairly well known. . . On the other hand, male marriages
certainly had no legal status or general cultural approval." He
translates thus: "When a man marries as a woman — a woman who is going
to offer a man what he desires..." Boswell (Same-Sex Unions, 85-7)
situates the law within changing social customs, and writes (p. 85):
"the tendency toward more and more ascetic public morality, and
insistence on traditional sex roles, produced . . . an extravagantly
worded and highly propagandistic law forbidding same-sex weddings — at
least those involving traditional gender roles." He revises his
translation as: "When a man marries (a man) as if he were a woman, what
can he be seeking..."
64Williams, "Homosexuality and the Roman Man," 292-334; Boswell,

Same-Hex Onions, 53-107.
198
its place" and in which "Venus is changed into another form," since the
wording of this passage parallels the idea of mutability from a later,
sixth-century law, in which Leo I referred to eunuchs as "transformed
into entirely different beings than when they came from the hands of
their Creator."65
If the law of 342 is understood as prohibiting the marriage of men
with eunuchs, then a subsequent law of the year 390 is given a new
social context. The second law extended the death penalty from men who
married eunuchs to men who had any sex at all with eunuchs, condemning
men "who have the shameful custom of condemning a man's body, acting the
part of a woman's, to the sufferance of an alien sex (for they appear
not to be different from women)."66 It is notable that, like those laws
forbidding the castration or corruption of one's slaves, the force of
this law was directed against the men who performed the action rather
than those who were subjected to it.67
Neither the law of 342 nor the law of 390 mentioned eunuchs
explicitly, and this fact may prove the undoing of this interpretation.
The language of feminization may instead refer simply to sexual
65Nov. Leonis 60: ”...mutilent, et creaturam aliam, quam qualis

conditoris sapientiae placuit, in mundum introduceret intendant.”
66Cod. Theod. 9.7.6: "Omnes, quibus flagitii usus est virile

corpus muliebriter constitutum alieni sexus damnare patientia, nihil
enim discretum videntur habere cum feminis, huiusmodi scelus spectante
populo flammae vindicibus expiabunt."
67Bailey (Homosexuality, 72) notes: "If it is interpreted strictly

according to the letter, it would appear to be aimed either at the
active sodomist (thus reinforcing the jurists [against corruptors of
boys], and supplementing the provisions of the former statute [9.7.3],
which penalizes the catamite), or at those who procure men or boys for
the purpose of prostitution. On the other hand, the wording is such
that it could be construed as relating to any homoexual act..."
199
passivity in an adult male or male prostitution, and these two laws may
only be attempting to reinforce earlier proscriptions against these
activities. Still, given the confusion about the gender role of eunuchs
and their common presence in dlite households of the later Roman empire,
it is possible that formal marriages were being performed between men
and those "whom the male sex has discarded," in Claudian's words.
Indeed, Claudian's dismissive account of Eutropius' relationship with
Ptolemy may refer to such a marriage, and its antipathy may be related
to that of the late-fourth-century legislators.68
Although the custom of castration provided Roman householders with
a method for the maximized sexual enjoyment of their male slaves, it
could not escape the growing problematization of the sexual use of
slaves or of their participation in homosexual activity, even within the
private sphere of familial life. The growing movement against
castration was a reminder of this intrusion of new social values into
the Roman family. Moreover, the presence of men, even castrated men, in
intimate association with either the men or the women of a Roman
household created as many problems, real or imagined, as it solved. The
eunuch only pointed to the restrictions which later Roman men faced.
68It should be noted that there are mentions in the classical

literature of marriage between two men where there is no indication that
either is castrated, and yet in which one man is considered as a woman.
See, e.g., Mart. Epigr. (ed. W. Ker, LCL) 12.42: "Barbatus rigido nupsit
Callistratus Afro / hac qua lege viro nubere virgo solet. / praeluxere
faces, velarunt flammea vultus, / nec tua defuerunt verba, Talasse,
tibi. / dos etiam dicta est. nondum tibi, Roma, videtur / hoc satis?
expectas numquid ut et pariat?"
200
3. What in a man is honorable is disgraceful in an emasculate:
Eunuchs in the Military and Public Administration
In a carefully euphemistic passage in Claudian's invective against
the eunuch consul, Eutropius, the poet alluded to a connection between
Eutropius' sexual depravity and his lofty position of influence in the
empire. Although the passage is ostensibly about his generous patronage
of the aristocracy, Claudian implied that Eutropius' generosity with
sexual favors provided the real cause for his success:
He ever loves novelty, ever size, and is quick to taste

everything in turn. He fears no assault from the rear;
night and day he is ready with watchful care; soft, easily
moved by entreaty, and, even in the midst of his passion,
tenderest of men [mollissimus], he never says 'no,' and is
ever at the disposal even of those that solicit him not.
Whatever the senses desire he cultivates and offers for
another's enjoyment. That hand will give whatever you would
have. He performs the functions of all alike; his dignity
loves to unbend. His meetings and his deserving labours
have won him this reward, and he receives the consul's robe
in recompense for the work of his skillful hand."69
Like many others, Claudian resented the political power wielded by
eunuchs in the later empire. Eunuchs holding prestigious imperial
offices served as visible signs of the increasing autocracy of the
emperor, his isolation from aristocratic control, the extension of the
69Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 360b-70: "semper noua, grandia semper

/ diligit et celeri degustat singula sensu. / nil timet a tergo;
uigilantibus undique curis [sic] / nocte dieque patet; lenis facilisque
moueri / supplicibus mediaque tamen mollissimus ira / nil negat et sese
uel non poscentibus offert. / quidlibet ingenio subigit traditque
fruendum; / quidquid amas, dabit ilia manus; communiter omni / fungitur
officio gaudetque potentia flecti. / hoc quoque conciliis peperit
meritoque laborum, / accipit et trabeas argutae praemia dextrae."
Again, I have changed Platnauer's "thou wouldst" to "you would." For a
commentary on the erotic euphemisms, see Schweckendiek, Claudians
Invektive, 94-6.
201
bureaucracy, and the other political shifts of the third, fourth, and
later fifth century. As men's public and military status declined, the
successes of eunuchs became emblematic of the reversal of fortunes
precipitated by the crisis of masculinity, and a convenient scapegoat
for the rancor of the dlite classes.70
Eunuchs had long served in courts of the ancient and hellenistic
kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean. In some ways, their influence
with kings was merely an extension of their domestic duties, working as
mediators between women and men and between servants and masters of the
royal households; however, castrated men made suitable ministers-of-
state for other reasons. First, because they were typically slaves or
freedmen raised from humble origins to these positions of authority,
they did not have the factional loyalties or family alliances which
created obligations for men of the nobility, and they were not prone to
the nepotism of the aristocracy. Second, because they could not produce
children, there was no possibility that they would try to pass their
office or possessions to sons as inheritances, leaving these positions
firmly in the monarch's control of appointment. Third, eunuchs posed no
threat of usurpation, since even if they might desire to take the
70What follows owes much to the following: Keith Hopkins, "Eunuchs

in Politics in the Later Roman Empire," Proceedings of the Cambridge
Philological Society 189 (1963): 62-80; revised as "The Political Power
of Eunuchs," chap. 4 in idem. Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 1978); Guyot, "Die Hofeunuchen im Rdmischen Reich
im 4. Jahrhundert," chap. 7 in Eunuchen als Sklavent and Dirk
Schlinkert, "Der Hofeunuch der SpMtantike: ein gef&hrlicher
Aussenseiter?" Hermess Zeitschrift fiir klassische Philologie 122 (1994):
342-59.
202
throne, they could found no dynasty to rival the succession to the
established ruler.
The Roman emperors did not long ignore the convenience of eunuchs
in positions of responsibility. Already in the early empire, a few
eunuchs served in the imperial household in some reigns.71 It is from
the third century, however, that eunuchs became a regular and dominant
presence in imperial administrations. Their arrival in large numbers is
attributed above all to the reign of Elagabalus, which is possible: in
addition to being the putative son of the emperor Caracalla, he was the
heir to a rich and influential family of Emesa, Syria, which certainly
would have had eunuch servants.72 It is equally possible, however, that
eunuchs had entered the imperial service a few years earlier during the
reign of Caracalla, whose empress Plautilla had been reared by a troop
of over a hundred eunuchs.73
The association of the emperor Elagabalus with the arrival of
eunuchs in Rome may simply be a reflection of his bad reputation. The
author of the Historia Augusta, who of course wrote his history long
after eunuchs had become a major power in the empire, considered it a
sign of Elagabalus' unmanliness that he relied so heavily on eunuchs in
his bureaucracy, and a sign of the manliness of his cousin and
successor, Severus Alexander, that he dismissed from office the whole
lot of them, and was alleged to have said: "I will not permit slaves
71See Guyot, "Die Hofeunuchen im Romischen Reich vom 1. bis zum 3.

Jahrhundert," chap. 6 in Eunuchen als Sklaven.
72See Turcan, HSliogabale, for a biography and family history.
73Cass. Dio 76.14.4-5, quoted above.
203
purchased with money to sit in judgment on the lives of prefects and
consuls and senators.”74
The point of the episode in the Historia Augusta is clearly to
underline the disruption of the social order which results from the
inappropriate exercise of authority. The unsuitable rule of an
effeminate like Elagabalus paralleled his delegation of authority to men
equally unfit to hold office because of their emasculation and low
birth. Alexander functioned as the moral opposite to Elagabalus.
According to the Historia Augusta, he was "nurtured from his earliest
boyhood in all excellent arts, civil and military,"75 and "temperate in
the use of love, [so that] he would therefore have nothing to do with
male prostitutes."76 Alexander restored all things to their proper
place:
He removed all eunuchs from his service and gave orders that
they should serve his wife as slaves. And whereas
Elagabalus had been the slave of his eunuchs, Alexander
reduced them to a limited number and removed them from all
duties in the Palace except the care of the women's baths;
and whereas Elagabalus had also placed many over the
administration of the finances and in procuratorships,
Alexander took away from them even their previous
positions.77
74S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 66.4: "Ego de praefectorum et consulum et

senatorum capitibus mancipia aere empta iudicare non patior."
75S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 3.1: "Alexander igitur... a prima pueritia

artibus bonis imbutus tarn civilibus quam militaribus..."
76S.H.A. Alex. Sev. (my translation here) 39.2: "usus Veneris in

eo moderatus fuit, exsoletorum ita expers..."
77S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 23.4-6: "eunuchos de ministerio suo abiecit et

uxori ut servos servire iussit. et cum Heliogabalus manicipium
eunuchorum fuisset, ad certum numerum eos redegit nec quicquam in
Palatio curare fecit nisi balneas feminarum. cum plerosque eunuchos
rationibus et procurationibus praeposuisset Heliogabalus, hie illis et
veteres sustulit dignitates.”
204
The contrast was obvious: the true place for eunuchs was not with the
men but with the women. The familiar tension in Roman culture between
manliness and unmanliness in the guise of public and private spheres was
played out here in the appointments of eunuchs.
Moreover, the greater use of eunuchs in the later Roman imperial
bureaucracy is linked both to the increasing autocracy of later Roman
rule and to the exclusion of the old nobility from political power.78
Ancient writers were well aware of these links between the power of the
emperors and the eunuchs on the one hand, and the impotence of the
traditional noble classes on the other. The author of the Historia
Augusta, for example, concluded his biography of Severus Alexander with
these comments:
it must be added, furthermore, that he never had eunuchs in

his councils or in official positions — these creatures
alone cause the downfall of emperors, for they wish them to
live in the manner of foreign nations or as the kings of the
Persians, and keep them well removed from the people and
from their friends, and they are go-betweens, often
delivering messages other than the emperor's reply, hedging
him about, and aiming, above all things, to keep knowledge
from him.79
78Hopkins ("Eunuchs in Politics," 76) writes: "...the tension

between an absolutist monarch and the other powers of the state; the
seclusion of a divine emperor behind a highly formalized court ritual;
the need of both parties for intermediaries; the exploitation by eunuchs
of this channel for the appropriation to themselves of some of the power
of controlling the distribution of favours; the non-assimilability of
eunuchs into the aristocracy; the cohesive but non-corporate nature of
their corps; and the expertise which resulted from permanence of their
positions as compared with the amateurish, rivalrous and individualistic
strivings of aristocrats: all these factors in combination and in
interaction can account for the increasing power with which eunuchs were
invested, and the continuity with which they, as a body, held it.”
79S.H.A. Alex. Sev. 66.3: "hue accedit quod eunuchos nec in

consiliis nec in ministeriis habuit, qui soli principes perdunt, dum eos
more gentium aut regum Persarum volunt vivere, qui eos a populo et
amicis summovent, qui internuntii sunt aliud quam respondetur saepe
referentes, claudentes principem suum et agentes ante omnia, ne quid
205
The battle between noblemen and eunuchs over access to the emperor
had already been lost by the time these words were penned, and virtually
all fourth- and fifth-century emperors associated themselves with
powerful eunuch ministers.80 These eunuchs held a variety of titles but
it was especially as praepositus sacri cubiculi ("grand chamberlain")
that they exerted the greatest dominance.81 By the early fourth
century, the grand chamberlain held the right of senatorial rank and the
title of clarissimus; in 384, his rank was raised to the level of
illustris, to which prefects belonged.82 From 422, grand chamberlains
took the title of eminentissimus, which only the magister militum and
the praetorian prefects also held.83
sciat." Cf. ibid. 45.5: "quod genus hominum idcirco secreta omnia in
aula esse cupiunt, ut soli aliquid scire videantur et habeant unde vel
gratiam vel pecuniam requirant.”
80See Guyot (Eunuchen ala Sklaven, 130-76) who lists the names of
eunuchs associated with all of the fourth-century emperors from
Constantine I to Valentinian II, which refers readers to a
prosopographical index at the back of his book. See also Rodolphe
Guilland (Recberches sur les institutions byzantines, 2 vols. [Berlin:
Akademie, 1967] 1.176-8) who continues the list through the fifth
century; and J. E. Dunlap, The Office of the Grand Chamberlain in the
Later Roman and Byzantine Empires (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan,
1924).
810ther offices reserved to eunuchs in the fourth and fifth

centuries are listed and discussed by Guilland, Recherches, 1.198-380
passim.
82Cod. Theod. 7.8.3: "Ab hospitalitatis munere domum privatorum

nullus excuset praeter eos, qui ex praefectis summum sibi fastigium
dignitatis agendo pepererunt, et ex magistris equitum ac peditum, quos
decursi actus inlustrat auctoritas, adque ex comitibus consistorianis,
qui participantes augusti pectoris curas agendo claruerunt, ex
praepositis quoque sacri cubiculi, quos tanta et tarn adsidua nostri
numinis cura inter primas posuit dignitates..."
83Cod. Theod. 6.8.1: "Qui sacri cubiculi nostri fuere praepositi

vel nunc esse coeperunt vel quos postea sors ad adscendendi huius gradum
fastigii devocarit, ea dignitate fungantur, qua sunt praediti, qui
eminentissimam praetorianam vel urbanam meruerint praefecturam aut certe
militarem magisterium potestatem."
206
That eunuchs should receive the same ranks and the associated
privileges as those accorded the men of the ancient nobility was the
source of great resentment. Claudian said with disgust:
Nothing so cruel as a man raised from lowly station to

prosperity . . . he vents his rage on all, that all may deem
he has the power. . . Being a eunuch also he is moved by no
natural affection and has no care for family or children.84
Claudius Mamertinus noted with disgust how "[e]ven the illustrious
representatives of the old families . . . [would] fawn upon the most
degraded and infamous creatures of the imperial court."85 "Were it not
that the mighty gods watch over the Roman empire," the author of the
Historia Augusta remarked, "even now we should be sold by bought eunuchs
as though we were the slaves.”86
The highest honor accorded a eunuch was clearly the elevation of
Eutropius to the honorific office of consul for the year 399, the event
which produced the acrimonious response by Claudian. Determined to
defend traditional Roman ways against this latest insult - or so he
claimed - the poet piled insult after insult onto Eutropius, "an old
84Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 181-8: "asperius nihil est humili cum

surgit in altum: / cuncta ferit dum cuncta timet, desaeuit in omnes / ut
se posse putent, nec belua taetrior ulla / quam serui rabies in libera
terga furentis; / agnoscit gemitus et poenae parcere nescit, / quam
subiit, dominique memor quern uerberat odit. / adde quod eunuchus nulla
pietate mouetur / nec generi natisue cauet.”
85Claudius Mamertinus Gratiarum actio Juliano Augusto 19.4: "Ita

praeclara ilia veterum nomina sordidissimum quemque ex cohorte
imperatoria et probrosissimum adulabant."
86S.H.A. Gordiani tres 25.1: "nisi di omnipotentes Romanum

tuerentur imperium, etiam nunc per emptos spadones velut in hasta positi
venderemur.” Since hasta was the pole set up to indicate a slave
auction, I have changed Magie's translation "as though under the hammer"
to "as though we were the slaves."
207
woman in a consul's robe who gives a woman's name to the year."87
Claudian made use of the whole arsenal of established anti-effeminate
and misogynistic ideology for his purposes. "No country has ever had a
eunuch for a consul or judge or general," he wrote; "what in a man is
honourable is disgraceful in an emasculate.''88 Or again: "Had a woman
assumed the [symbol of authority called the] fasces, though this were
illegal it were nevertheless less disgraceful.1,89 Or yet again: "If
eunuchs shall give judgement and determine laws, then let men card wool
and live like the Amazons, confusion and licence dispossessing the order
of nature."90 With these words, Claudian linked the rise of eunuchs to
the decline of true men.
Among the many worries to which the consulship of Eutropius gave
rise, Claudian included the military fate of the empire. "What kind of
wars can we wage now that a eunuch takes the [symbols of authority
called the] auspices?" he asked.91 In this, of course, he was alluding
to a familiar source of male anxiety in the later Roman empire.
87Claud. In Eutropium 1 1. 10: "...ostentatur anus titulumque

effeminat anni."
88Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 296b-8a: "numquam spado consul in orbe

/ nec iudex ductorue fuit. quodcumque uirorum / est decus, eunuchi
scelus est."
89Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 320-la: "sumeret inlicitos etenim si

femina fasces, / esset turpe minus."
90Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 497-9: "eunuchi si iura dabunt

legesque tenebunt, / ducant pensa uiri mutatoque ordine rerum / uiuat
Amazonio confusa licentia ritu."
91Claud. in Eutropium 1 11. 493b-4a: "nam quae iam belli geramus /

mollibus auspiciis?"
208
Claudian was particularly upset that Gutropius had been placed in charge
of martial campaigns, writing:
Our enemies rejoiced at the sight and felt that at last we

were lacking in men. Towns [in the empire] were set ablaze;
walls offered no security. The countryside was ravaged and
brought to ruin. . . Yet Eutropius (can a slave, an
effeminate, feel shame . . ?), Eutropius returns in triumph.
The troops are mutilated, squadrons like their amputated
leader, maniples of eunuchs . . . Great is his self-esteem;
he struggles to swell out his pendulous cheeks and feigns a
heavy panting; his lousy head dust-sprinkled and his face
filthier in the sun, he sobs out some pitiful complaint with
voice more effeminate than effeminacy's self and tells of
battles.92
He ended with the quip: "Leave arms to men."93 Nevertheless, there is
considerable evidence for the use of eunuchs in military campaigns,
either as generals themselves, like Eutropius who, despite Claudian's
sullen intimation, had defeated the Huns in battle in 398. As with
their elevation to civil commands, eunuchs in charge of troops posed no
threat to the imperial succession, and this was especially important in
a period in which generals had so often led coups against the state.94
92Claud. In Eutropium 1 11. 242b-4,252-62: "gaudet cum uiderit

hostis / et sentit iam desse uiros. incendia fumant, / muris nulla
fides, squalent populatibus agri / ... / ille tamen (quid enim seruum
mollemque pudebit? / aut quid in hoc poterit uultu flagrare ruboris?) /
pro uictore redit; truncum uexilla secuntur / et turmae similes
eunuchorumque manipli, / Hellespontiacis legio dignissima signis. /
obuius ire cliens defensoremque reuersum / complecti. placet ipse sibi
laxasque laborat / distendisse genas fictumque inflatus anhelat, /
puluere respersus tineas et solibus ora / squalidior, uerbisque sonat
plorabile quiddam / ultra nequitiam fractis et proelia narrat..." I
have replaced Magie's "There follows companies of foot, squadrons like
their general" and his "face bleacher whiter by the sun" with my own
translations, "The troops are mutilated, squadrons like their amputated
leader” and "face filthier in the sun," according to Hall's emendation
of Platnauer's text, on the emendations, see also schweckendiek,
Claudians Invektive, 83-4.
93Claud. In Eutropium 1 1. 281a: "arma relinque uiris."
94Guilland (Recherches, 1.170) generalizes from the Byzantine

evidence, but his comments are likely applicable to the earlier period:
"...les basileis estimaient prudent de confier le commandement en chef
209
To see military commands given to eunuchs, low-born and unmanly
foreigners, must have been galling to Roman men of the upper classes,
reluctant as they were to take part in war themselves.
One example of the machinations of a typical eunuch minister must
suffice to demonstrate the power of the position. Ammianus Marcellinus
provided a detailed account of the career of Eusebius, grand chamberlain
under Constantius II. Eusebius made his first appearance at the mutiny
of the soldiers at Ch&lon in Gaul in 354, when Constantius sent him with
money from the imperial treasury, "which he distributed secretly among
the authors of the agitation." Ammianus added drily: "This quieted the
unrest of the troops."95 Eusebius next appeared as one of several
eunuchs at the court who falsely accused Ursicinus, master of the
infantry, of preparing to usurp the throne, although the true motive,
according to Ammianus, was that ursicinus refused to donate to Eusebius
an estate in Antioch.95 After the accusation, Constantius sent Eusebius
de leurs armdes A des eunuques... Un eunuque victorieux n 'dtait pas A

craindre, alors qu'un gdndral victorieux pouvait toujours devenir un
prdtendant redoutable. Les soldats, cependant, ne semblent pas avoir eu
grande confiance dans ces stratAges eunuques qu'on leur imposait et qui,
le plus souvent, d'ailleurs, les conduisirent A la ddfaite.”
95Amm. Marc. 14.10.5: "...Eusebius praepositus cubiculi missus est

Cabyllona aurum secum perferens, quo per turbulentos seditionem
concitores occultius distributo et tumor consenuit militum et salus est
in tuto locata praefecti." Cabyllona is identified as modern-day ChAlon
in France.
96Amm. Marc. 14.11.2-3: "...inter quos erat Arbitio ad insidiandum

acer et flagrans et Eusebius tunc praepositus cubiculi effusior ad
nocendum, id occurrebat caesare discedente vrsicinum in oriente
perniciose reliquendum, si nullus esset, qui prohibet, altiora
meditaturum." Ibid. 18.3: "...quod omnium solus nec opes eius augebat
ut ceteri et domo sua non cederat Antiochiae, quam molestissime
flagitabat."
210
together with Arbitio, master of the cavalry, to investigate the alleged
treason. Ammianus described their actions:
...both these were men of careless arrogance, equally

capable of injustice and cruelty, without any thorough
investigation, without drawing any distinction between
innocent and guilty, they sentenced some to exile after
being beaten or tortured, reduced others to the ranks, and
condemned to rest to capital punishment. Then, having
filled the cemeteries with corpses, they returned as if from
a successful [military] campaign, and reported their
exploits to the emperor.97
The cruelty of the men may have been accurately represented;
nonetheless, it also reminded the readers of their complete lack of
manly virtue. Even Arbitio himself, Ammianus claimed, was too afraid of
Eusebius' power to come to Ursicinus' aid.98 When Ursicinus, in his own
defence, reproached the emperor for having "allowed himself to be
dictated to by eunuchs," the remark so angered Constantius that he
immediately dismissed Ursicinus from his office.99 Ammianus' point is
clear: the power of the eunuch Eusebius was fearsome.
The next time we hear of Eusebius is also the last: his career
ended together with his life, and both at the death of his patron,
Constantius II. Julian, who blamed the chamberlain for the death of his
brother Gallus, had him condemned to death as soon as he took command of
97Amm. Marc. 15.3.2: "ad quos audiendos Arbitio missus est et

Eusebius cubiculi tunc praepositus, ambo inconsideratae iactantiae,
iniusti pariter et cruenti. qui nullo perspicaciter inquisito sine
innocentium sontiumque differentia alios uerberibus uel tormentis
afflictos exsulari poena damnarunt, quosdam ad infimam trusere militiam,
residuos capitalibus addixere suppliciis. impletisque funerum bustis
reuersi uelut ouantes gesta rettulerunt ad principem erga haec et
similia palam obstinatum et grauem."
98Amm. Marc. 20.2.3: "...ne offenderetur Eusebius, cubiculi tunc

praepositus..."
99Amm. Marc. 20.2.4: "...dumque ad spadonum arbitrium trahitur...”
211
the empire.100 It was an end typical for eunuchs, linked as they were
to individual emperors.101 "This man, who had been raised from the
lowest station to a position which enabled him almost to give orders
like those of the emperor himself," Ammianus concluded, "in consequence
had become intolerable. Fate threw him headlong, as if from a lofty
cliff."102
Ultimately, the prosperity and prestige of the eunuchs was an
indictment of all Roman men of the upper classes. If men feared
100Julian Ep. ad senatum populumque Athenarum 2720: "itW’eiq %apiv

kvbq av8poyuvou, xoO Kaxaicpi|i.icxou, tcai jcpocexi xou xcov nayeipcov ^mxpojtou
xov avei|/i6v, x6v icaiaapa, xov xfjq &5cX.<pf|q 6v5pa yevdjicvov, xov xfjq (WetapiSuq
Jtaxepa, ou K ai a m bq Jtpoxepov t{v ayayfyievoq xf|v a8e>i<pf|v..." Amm. Hare.
22.3.12: "Eusebium super his, cui erat Constantiani thalami cura
commissa, alte spirantem addixere et dirum poenae letali..." Arbitio,
although tried for attempted usurpation, was acquitted. Ibid. 16.6.1:
"in comitatu uero Augusti circumlatrabat Arbitionem inuidia uelut summa
mox adepturum decora cultus imperatorii praestruxisse instabatque ei
strepens immania comes verissimus nomine arguens coram, quod a gregario
ad magnum militiae culmen euectus hoc quoque non contentus ut paruo
locum appeteret principalem."
101Cf. the fate of Eutropius as decribed in Cod. Tbeod. 9.40.17:

"Omnes res Eutropi, qui quondam praepositus sacri cubiculi fuit, aerarii
nostri calculis adiunximus, erepto splendore eius et consulatu a taetra
inluvie et a commemoratione nominis eius et caenosis sordibus vindicato,
ut eiusdem universis actibus antiquitatis omnia mutescant tempora nec
eius enumerations saeculi nostri labes appareat nec ingemiscant aut qui
sua virtute ac vulneribus Romanos fines propagant vel qui eosdem
servandi iuris aequitate custodiunt, quod divinum praemium consulatus
lutulentum prodigium contagione foedavit. Patriciatus etiam dignitate
atque omnibus inferioribus spoliatum se esse cognoscat, quas morum
polluit scaevitate. Omnes statuas, omnia simulacra, tarn ex aere quam ex
marmore seu ex fucis quam ex quacumque materia quae apta est
effingendis, ab omnibus civitatibus oppidis locisque privatis ac
publicis praecipimus aboleri, ne tamquam nota nostri saeculi obtutus
polluat intuentum. Adhibitis itaque fidis custodibus ad Cyprum insulam
perducatur, in qua tua sublimitas relegatum esse cognoscat, ut ibidem
pervigili cura vallatus nequeat suarum cogitationum rabie cuncta
miscere."
102Amm. Hare. 22.3.12: "...quern ab ima sorte ad usque iubendum

imperatoria paene elatum ideoque intolerabilem humanorum spectatrix
Adrastia aurem, quod dicitur, uellens monensque ut castigatius uiueret,
reluctantem praecipitem tamquam e rupe quadam egit excelsa."
212
eunuchs, like Arbitrio before Eusebius, it was because they feared the
power of the emperor beyond them. Claudian recognized this, and at the
end of his poem, turned his venomous pen against his contemporaries.
"Will this corrupt age never stiffen up?" he asked, alluding with double
entendre to the masculine ideal of duritia.103 ”0 people worthy of such
a senate, senate worthy of such a consul! To think that all these bear
arms and use them not, and that, among so many, these swords do not
bring to mind their manly sex with indignation!"104 Consequently, he
put the full weight of responsibility for the barbarian invasion on the
unmanly men of the empire, not the eunuchs but all Roman men:
It is neither on their own valour or numbers that they rely;

it is our own cowardice urges them on, cowardice and the
treason of generals, through whose guilt our soldiers now
flee before their own captives, whom, as Danube's stream
well knows, they once subdued; and those now fear a handful
who once could drive back all.105
In the end, the disgraceful effeminacy of the eunuchs merely
pointed to the general failure of late Roman masculine ideals. The
intermediate status of the eunuch revealed the tentative nature of the
Roman sexual division into masculine and feminine categories, and
exposed how easy it was for a man to slip into unmanliness. The
103Claud. In Eutropium (my translation here) 2 11. 113b-4a:

"numquam corrupta rigescent / saecula?" Interestingly, Platnauer's
translation reads: "Will this corrupt age never learn true manliness?"
104Claud. In Eutropium 2 11. 137-9: "o patribus plebes, o digni

consule patresl / quid, quod et armati cessant et nulla uirilem / inter
tot gladios sexum reminiscitur ira?” I have reworded the last phrase,
which Platnauer translates awkwardly as "that manly indignation reminds
us not of their sex those many thighs bear a sword!"
105Claud. In Eutropium 2 11. 580-3: "nec ui nec numero freti; sed

inertia nutrit / proditioque ducum, quorum per crimina miles / captiuis
dat terga suis, quos teste subegit / Danubio, partemque timet qui
reppulit omnes.” I have changed Platnauer's opening "•Tis" to "It is."
213
presence of the eunuch in the later Roman household reminded men of all
of the limitations on their sexual behavior. The power of the eunuch in
politics and in the military, held only at the will of the emperor,
mirrored the nobility's loss of power. The eunuch was a reflection of
the unmanliness of all men.
Part II
Trans formation
Chapter Five:
The manliness of faith:
Christians and Masculinity
"The Holy Spirit will come over you," the angel Gabriel announced
to the virgin Mary in Jerome's Latin translation of the Gospel of Luke,
"and the uirtus of the Most High will overshadow you: because of this,
the holy one who will be born from you will be called the son of God."1
Jerome's use of the term uirtus for the Greek Svvoytig ("power, strength,
ability”) instead of the usual Latin translation uis, signalled that the
Christian reformulation of masculinity would take place literally at the
origin and heart of Christianity. Elsewhere, Jerome recapitulated this
point: "Christ is the uirtus of God."2
1Luke (Lt. ed. Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Clementinam nova

editio, ed. A. Colunga and L. Turrado [Madrid: Biblioteca de autores
cristianos, 1985]; Gk. ed. Novum Testamenturn Graece, ed. E. Nestle, et
al. [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979]; Hb. ed. Biblia
Hebraica Stuttgartensia, ed. A. Alt et al. [Stuttgard: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 1977]; trans. The Jerusalem Bible) Luke 1.35:
"Spiritus sanctus superueniet in te, et uirtus Altissimi obumbrabit
tibi. Ideogue et quod nascetur ex te sanctum, uocabitur Filius Dei.1
Hoc Gabrihel dixerat." The Latin translation of the bible will be
quoted in my notes, although references will be made to the Greek and
Hebrew texts. Cf. the similar wording in Jerome's Bomilia de nativitate
Domini (ed. CCSL 78).
2Hieron. Tractatus de Psalmo LXXXIII (ed. CCSL 78): "Ibunt de

uirtute in uirtutem. Possumus et aliter dicere. 'Xpistus Dei uirtus et
Dei sapientia.' Qui hie habuerit uirtutem, et ibi habebit ipsara
uirtutem. Ibunt de uirtute in uirtutem."
215
Describing Christ as uirtus reminds us both of the traditionalism
and of the innovation in Christian definitions of masculinity. On the
one hand, Latin Christians participated in the same Roman tradition as
had their pagan antecedants, and shared many of the same cultural
assumptions about gender and sexual difference. A conservatism is
palpable in many of the Christian sources. On the other hand, Latin
Christians also had an alternative source for their ideals of
masculinity, derived from their Jewish and eastern Christian
antecedents, and in this sense they brought a fresh cultural perspective
to the west. As we shall see, Latin Christians used both tradition and
innovation as an integral part of their response to the crisis of
masculinity.
1. Virtue always as his companion and ally:
The Christian Transformation of Uirtus
The Christian use of the term uirtus shared much in common with
traditional pagan use, including the notion of uirtus as masculine
excellence.3 In a treatise dedicated to the subject of virtue, De Iacob
et vita beata ("On Jacob and the Happy Life"), Ambrose of Milan
described how important virtue was:
30n this point: Volkmar Hand, Augustin und das klassisch romische
SelbstverstSndnis. Bine Untersucbung iiber die begriffe Gloria, Virtus,
Iustitia und Res Publica in De Civitate Dei (Hamburg: Helmut BusRe,
1970); Eisenhut, "Virtus in der friihchristlichen Literatur," in virtus
Romana; Peter Brown, "The Saint as Exemplar in Late Antiquity," chap. 1
in Saints and Virtues, ed. J. Hawley (Berkeley: University of
California, 1987).
216
What indeed is lacking to the man who possesses the good and
has virtue [uirtus] always as his companion and ally? In
what role of life is he not most powerful? In what poverty
is he not rich? In what lowly status is he not noble? In
what leisure is he not industrious? In what weakness not
vigorous? In what infirmity not strong? In what quiet of
sleep not active? . . . in what solitude is he not in a
crowd? The happy life surrounds him, grace clothes him, the
garment of glory makes him radiant. . . When can he appear
to be downcast? "His citizenship is in heaven." when can
he appear not to be handsome? He conforms himself to the
likeness of the beautiful and only good; although weak in
his members, he is strong in his spirit.4
The virtuous man is here the typical Roman ideal: strong, handsome,
powerful, rich in possessions and honors.
Other Christian writers shared Ambrose's opinion on uirtus.
Augustine of Hippo stressed how the Christian virtues were none other
than those which the ancient pagan writers had outlined: prudence,
fortitude, temperance, and justice.5 As virtues, however, they existed
only in the ideal man:
Âmbrose De Jacob et vita beata (ed. CSEL 32.2; trans. M. McHugh,

FC 65) 1.8.39: "Quid enim deest ei qui illud bonum possidet et habet
sibi semper comitem sociamque uirtutem? in quo statu non potentissimus?
in qua paupertate non diues? in qua generis ignobilitate non clarus?
in quo otio non laboriosus? in qua debilitate non uegetus? in qua
infimitate non fortis? in qua somni quiete non feriatus, quern etiam
quiescentem uirtus propria non relinquit? in qua solitudine non
stipatus, quern uita beata circumdat, quern uestit gratia, quern gloriae
amictus inlustrat? non minus enim otiosus quam cum operatur beatus, nec
minus dormiens quam uigilans gloriosus, quia non minus dormiens quam cum
uigilat incolomis et sanus est. quando autem feriatus uideri potest,
cuius mens semper operatur? quando autem solus, qui cum illo bono
semper est, de quo ait propheta: replebimur in bonis domus tuae? quando
abiectus, cuius conuersatio in caelo? quando non decorus, qui ad illius
decori et solius boni se conformat similitudinem, qui etiamsi membris
solutus sit, tamen mente se erigat?"
5August. De libero arbitrio (ed. and trans. F. Tourscher

[Philadelphia: Peter Reilly, 1937]) 1.13: "Considera nunc, utrum tibi
videatur esse prudentia appetendarum et vitandarum rerum scientia.
Videatur. Quid, fortitudo nonne ilia est animae affectio, qua omnia
incommoda et damna rerum non in nostra potestate constitutarum
contemnimus? Ita existimo. Porro temperantia est affectio coercens et
cohibens appetitum ab iis rebus, quae turpiter appetuntur, an tu aliter
putas? Immo ita ut dicis sentio. Jam justitiam quid dicamus esse, nisi
217
In [the happy man] then are all the virtues, which no man
uses wrongly. For though [the virtues] are important and
and primary in man, they are yet the proper qualities of
each individual man. It is understood well enough that they
are not common to all.6
The pursuit of virtue was the same as the search for the soul's
perfection or God's love, Augustine declared.7
Even in the midst of this appreciation for traditional uirtus,
however, Christian belief also required a certain distance from
traditional notions of masculine success. Despite his praise of the
happy life which virtue attracted, Ambrose also recognized that "those
things which seem to be good, as riches, abundance, joy without pain,
are [even] a hindrance to the fruits of blessedness," using as his proof
Jesus' teaching that Christians would be "blessed when men revile you
and persecute you and say all kinds of calumnies against you."8 In
another place, again commenting on the Beatitudes, Ambrose added that it
virtutem qua sua cuique tribuuntur? Nulla mihi alia justitiae notio
est."
6August. De libero arbitrio 2.19: "In eo sunt etiam virtutes

omnes, quibus male uti nemo potest. Nam haec quamvis magna in homine et
prima sint, propria tamen esse uniuscujusque hominis, non communia,
satis intelligitur."
7August. De ooribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus

Hanichaeorum (ed. CSEL 90) 1.6.9: "Nemo autem dubitauerauit quod uirtus
animam faciat optimam.” Cf. ibid. 1.15.25: "Quod si uirtus ad beatam
uitam nos ducit, nihil omnino esse uirtutem affirmauerim nisi summum
amorem dei."
Âmbrose De officiis ministrorurn (ed. M. Testard, 2 vols. [Paris:

Belles lettres, 1984-92]; trans. H. de Romestin, NPNF 10) 2.5.16: "Sed
et ilia quae uidentur bona, diuitias, satietatem, laetitiam expertem
doloris, detrimento esse ad fructum beatitudinis. Dominico declaratum
iudicio liquet, cum dicitur: "Vae uobis diuitibus quia habetis
consolationem uestram! vae uobis qui saturati estis quia esurietisl"
Et illis qui rident, quia lugebunt, si ergo non solum adminiculo non
sunt ad uitam beatam corporis aut externa bona, sed etiam dispendio
sunt.■'
218
was only "when the patronage of pleasure or the fear of pain is
despised” that "a blessed life can rise up," since "the first of these
one abhors as poor and effeminate [infractum et molliculum], and the
other as unmanly and weak [euiratum et infirmum]."9 The Beatitudes in
particular and the Christian tradition as a whole, indeed, presented a
challenge to Christian men to view their virtue as different from the
expectations of this world.
There were many biblical precedents for the rejection of secular
expectations of masculine accomplishment and of uirtus as generally
understood. An important example, and the one which served as the focus
for Ambrose's treatise on virtue, was the ancient story of the twin
brothers, Jacob and Esau.10 The story is a complex web of inversions of
expectation: the younger of the twins and the unmanly one - he stayed
among the tents with his mother and learned to cook - received the
inheritance of his father in place of his elder and manly brother. This
inversion served as the basis for patristic writers to symbolize how the
Jewish religion was superceded by the Christian religion, encouraging
Christians to see themselves as Jacob figures. Ambrose, for instance,
declared that "Jacob was superior in virtue [to Esau].”11 Obviously,
9Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 2.3.9: "Restat igitur ut spreto

patrocinio uoluptatis aut doloris metu - quorum alterum quasi infractum
et molliculum, alterum quasi euiratum et infirmum despuit - in ipsis
doloribus uitam beatam eminere demonstret. Quod facile doceri potest
cum legerimus: 'Beati estis cum uobis maledicent et persequentur et
dicent omne malum aduersus uos propter iustitiam. Gaudete et exsultate
quoniam merces uestra copiosa est in caelo. Sic enim persecuti sunt et
prophetas qui erant ante uos.'”
10The story is found in Gen. 25:20-34 and 27:1-45.
Âmbrose Epist. (ed. CSEL 82; trans. H. de Romestin, NPNF 10)

63.100: "Et tamen cum superior esset Iacob uirtute...”
219
different factors were at work in Christian definitions of virtue and
its relationship to masculinity.
Another example of the inversion of masculine virtue in Christian
tradition was that of the apostle Paul, who at the conclusion of one
lengthy passage recounting his sufferings for the Christian religion,
declared:
I shall be very happy to make my weaknesses my special boast

so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is
why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults,
hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for
Christ's sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.12
Paul's use of the paradox of strength through weakness is significant.
He often used paradoxes to describe the Christian reality: weakness is
strength, foolishness is wisdom, death is triumph. Paul became an
example for all Christians: "Take me for your model, as I take
Christ."13 Paul's use of paradox remained an important part of the
Christian message. A Christian man called before the tribunal of a
pagan emperor in the third century relied on this paradox of Christian
masculinity in his defence, according to his fifth-century biographer:
I know that you, godless man, cannot grasp the mystery...

You think this foolishness, you wise men of the world, but
the supreme Father chose the foolish things of the world so
that he who is foolish in respect of the world might be wise
in the knowledge of God.14
122 Cor. 12.9-10: "Libenter igitur gloriabor in infirmitatibus

meis, ut inhabitet in me virtus Christi. Propter quod placeo mihi in
infirmitatibus meis, in contumeliis, in necessitatibus, in
persecutionibus, in angustiis pro Christo: cum enim infirmor, tunc
potens sum."
131 Cor. 11.1: "Imitatores mei estote, sicut et ego Christi."
14Prudent. Perist. 10 11. 584-90,608-10: "hie nempe vester

Christus haud olim fuit, / quern tu fateris ipse suffixum cruci. / haec
ilia crux est omnium nostrum salus, / Romanus inquit: hominis haec
redemptio est. / scio incapacem te sacramenti, inpie, / non posse caecis
220
It was through the paradox that Christian leaders shaped their
response to the crisis of masculinity. If weakness was strength and
foolishness wisdom, then perhaps manliness could also be found in
unmanliness. Perhaps the reconciliation between masculine expectation
and masculine reality was also possible through the creation of a
counter-masculinity which was encouraged by paradox rather than
frustrated by it. The search for manliness in unmanliness became the
foundation for the Christian transformation of masculinity. This new
masculinity, we shall see in what follows here and in the succeeding
chapters, relied heavily on the contrasts between what the world or
pagan tradition considered manly or what it considered unmanly, and the
Christian belief about these things.
To embrace the Christian transformation of masculinity required
first the abandonment of secular and traditional notions of masculine
success. Chromatius of Aquileia, writing in the late fourth century,
contrasted secular and Christian notions of virtue:
It is the perfect virtue, brothers, [and] after the service

of all justice, to receive reproaches from men on account of
the truth, stricken with torments, taking as our example
that of the prophets, who, beaten by various methods for the
sake of justice, conformed themselves to the passion of
Christ and were made worthy of [their] rewards.15
sensibus mysterium / haurire nostrum... / Stultum putatis hoc, sophistae

saeculi; / sed stulta mundi summus elegit Pater, / ut stultus esset
saeculi prudens Dei."
15Chromatius of Aquileia Sermo de octo beatitudinibus (ed. CCSL 9)

9.1: "Perfecta uirtus est, fratres, post totius iustitiae
ministrationem, propter ueritatem opprobria ab hominibus sustinere,
affligi cruciatibus, morte denique affici, nec terreri, proposito nobis
exemplo prophetarum, qui, diuersis modis propter iustitiam lacerati,
passionum Christi conformes et praemii esse meruerunt."
221
The rejection of secular ideals in the Christian search for uirtus also
found a voice in the writings of Proba, a mid-fourth-century Christian
poet and one the earliest extant female Christian writers. As a writer
expressly of male accomplishments and possibly also as a woman, Proba
was able to view the new Christian masculinity from a unique vantage
point, which permitted her to see its innovation clearly. She recorded
how she turned away from remembering the secular accomplishments of men
after her conversion:
I have catalogued the different slayings, monarchs' cruel

wars, and battle lines made up of hostile relatives. I sang
of famous shields, their honor cheapened by a parent's
blood, and trophies captured from no enemy; bloodstained
parades of triumph "fame” had won, and cities orphaned of so
many citizens, so many times. I do confess. It is enough
to bring these errors back to mind.16
Despite the rejection of pagan notions of masculine success, however,
Proba did not reject uirtus. She put these words into the mouth of
Jesus, when recounting the episode in which he told the rich, young man
what he must do to be saved: "Do learn, 0 lad, contempt for wealth, and
also mold yourself as worthy even of God; and what uirtus is, you will
be capable of knowing."17 Uirtus was still an important goal, even if
Christian teaching had altered its meaning.
16Proba Cento (ed. and trans. E. Clark and D. Hatch [Ann Arbor:
Edwards, 1981]) 11. 3-8: "diuersasque neces, regum crudelia bella /
cognatasque acies, pollutos caede parentum / insignis clipeos nulloque
ex hoste tropaea, / sanguine conspersos tulerat quos fama triumphos, /
innumeris totiens uiduatas ciuibus urbes, / confiteor, scripsi: satis
est meminisse malorum..."
17Proba Cento w . 522-3: "disce, puer, contemnere opes et te

quoque dignum finge deo, et quae sit poteris cognosere uirtus." Clark
and Hatch, pp. 72-5. Clark and Hatch translate uirtus as "virtue and
manliness." The incident is recorded in Hark 10.17-22.
222
2. And suddenly I was a man:
Masculinity and the Question of Christian Androgyny
Some scholars have recently argued that part of the Christian
innovation in gender and sexual difference involved the separation of
the concept of uirtus as virtue or moral excellence from its
etymological origins in masculinity. In other words, Christianity
sponsored a genderless ideal for humanity unrelated to sexual
differences, an ideal in which any individual - male or female - might
aspire to uirtus. After all, among the earliest recorded sayings of
Christianity on gender is that from Paul's letter to the Galatians,
which scholarship has shown to be part of an even earlier formula only
quoted by him:
All baptized in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in

Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and
Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are
one in Christ Jesus.18
To situate this passage within Pauline theology, as it has been
interpreted by religious scholars, is to see it as representing an
eschatological hope. Christ, by his incarnation, began the restoration
of humanity to its mythical origins before social and ethnic categories
and before the division into sexes. The passage functions as a comment
on the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, expressing the Christian hope that
18Gal. 3.27-8: "Quicumque enim in Christo baptizati estis,

Christum induistis. Non est Iudaeus, neque Graecus: non est servus,
neque liber: non est masculus, neque femina. Omnes enim vos unum estis
in Christo Iesu."
223
all might be returned to the days before sin and death, when Adam and
Eve were still just Adam.19 A western writer, in a letter ascribed to
Clement of Rome, interpreted the eschatological hope behind the saying
in this ways
In response to someone who asked him when his kingdom would

come, the Lord himself declared: "When the two become one,
when the exterior becomes like the interior, and when
between male and female there will be neither male nor
female."20
The notion of an originally genderless Christianity has been
widely received in recent years, and has influenced the ways in which
scholars have interpreted Christian teachings on gender. Some have even
suggested that Christian ideology abandoned altogether the pagan system
of dividing humanity morally between the sexes - men as virtuous and
woman as vicious - and replaced this gendered binarism with a moral
binarism, in which uirtus lost entirely its association with masculinity
and was defined only in terms of the excellence of faith.21 A corollary
19See Wayne A. Meeks, "The Image of the Androgyne: Some uses of a

Symbol in Earliest Christianity," History of Religions 13 (1974): 165-
208.
20Ps.-Clem. Epist. quae dicitur II (ed. K. Bihlmeyer, Die

Agostolischen Vater [TubingenJ. C. B. Mohr, 1924] 1)( 12.2:
"e7tepa)TT]0Eiq yap auxoq o Kupioc ujio tivoj;, noxe têi auxou f] fkxaiA.Eia, eutev
’"Oxav icxai xa ovo ev, Kai xo e|(0 cog xo eoco, Kai x6 apoev fiExa xfj<; 9r|taiaq,
otfxe apoev ou'xe 9t)A.u. •"
21Stuart Schneiderman (An Angel Passes: How the Sexes became

Undivided [New York: New York University, 1988]) writes (p. 17):
"whereas sexual identity and the ethical systems of pagans tended to see
the primary division on a horizontal axis [between male and female], as
in the division between right and left, Christianity substituted a
vertical division in which the moral became dissociated from the
division of the sexes. And one might even say that within the
Christianized West this division passes for a division of the sexes.
...Where all humans are unsexed in the sense that their identity is not
based on being on either side of a horizontal division, equality reigns.
In place of a sexual division there arises a division between the moral
and the immoral, the liberated and the unliberated."
224
of this notion of a genderless Christianity is the scholarly opinion
that Christians also abandoned the pagan emphasis on masculinity.22
The symbol for this androgynous or genderless ideal in early
Christianity was the uita angelica ("angelic life"). The theme of the
angelic life, as described by Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, is often
cited by modern scholars in support of their interpretation.23 These
scholars also find some support in the writings of patristic scholars.
Tertullian, for example, the first Christian to write in Latin, wrote
that the angelic life awaiting Christians in heaven superceded
traditional ideas of gender:
I have to return after death to the place where there is no

more giving in marriage, where I have to be clothed upon
rather than to be despoiled, - where, even if I am despoiled
of my sex, I am classed with angels - not a male angel, nor
a female one. There will be no one to do aught against me,
nor will they then find any male energy in me.24
Scholars of a genderless Christianity find support for their
argument in the many stories of holy women who abandoned their gender
roles and became men. The stories of these female transvestite saints
strengthen the argument that Christianity attempted to erase gender. It
22Schneiderman (An Angel Passes, 261) writes: "Christianity has

not done very well with the question of masculinity. It has tended to
denounce most of what would be considered in other cultures as manly,
without providing a very interesting or compelling substitute. The
question of manliness is simply left to the side...."
23Matt. 22.30: "In resurrectione enim neque nubent, neque

nubentur: sed erunt sicut angeli Dei in caelo."
24Tert. Adv. Valent. 32.5: "...illuc habeo deuertere post

excessum, ubi omnino non nubitur, ubi superindui potius quam despoliari
habeo, ubi, etsi despolior, sexui meo deputor, angelis non angelus, non
angela. Nemo mihi quicquam faciet, quern et tunc masculum inuenient."
Tertullian is rebutting the Valentinian belief in a type of "spiritual
procreation" after death. The biblical reference is to Matt. 22.30.
225
is not surprising that these stories have been a popular theme in modern
historiography and that there is an extensive secondary literature on
the topic.25 Scholars have noted how strong these traditions were in
the eastern Mediterranean, although most of the stories of these women
also spread to the west. In the legends, women assumed male clothing
and a male persona for various reasons, but always to support their
desire for Christian salvation. Most agree that there is little
historical evidence for the lives of these women who disguised
25Hermann Usener, "Legenden der Pelagia,” in Vortrage und AufsStze

(Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1907); Marie Delcourt, "Le complexe de Diane
dans 1 ’hagiographie chrdtienne," Revue de l'histoire des religions 153
(1958): 1-33; John Anson, "The Female Transvestite in Early Monasticism:
The Origin and Development of a Motif,” viator 5 (1974): 1-32; Meeks,
"The Image of the Androgyne;” Vern Builough, "Transvestites in the
Middle Ages," American Journal of Sociology 79 (1974): 1381-94; Evelyn
Patlagean, "L'histoire de la femme ddguisde en moine et Involution de
la saintete fdminine A Byzance," studi Medievali, 3rd ser. 17 (1976):
597-623; Zoja Pavlovskis, "The Life of St. Pelagia the Harlot:
Hagiographie Adaptation of Pagan Romance," Classical Folia 30 (1976):
138-49; Elena Giannareli, La tipologia femminile nella biografia e
nell'autobiografia cristiana del IVo secolo (Rome: istituto storico
italiano per il medio evo, 1980); Sebastian Brock, "Clothing Metaphors
as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition," in Typus,
Symbol, Allegorie bei den dstlichen VAtern und ihren Parallelen im
Mittelalter, ed. M. Schmidt and C. Geyer (Regensburg: Pustet, 1981);
Susan Ashbrook Harvey, "Women in Early Syrian Christianity," chap. 18 in
Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt (Detroit:
Wayne State University, 1983); Marvin Meyer, "Making Mary Male: The
Categories 'Male* and 'Female' in the Gospel of Thomas," New Testament
Studies 31 (1985): 554-70; Ruth Albrecht, Das Leben der heiligen Makrina
auf dem Hintergrund der Thekla-Traditionen. Studien zu den Vrspriingen
des weiblichen MSncbtums im 4. Jahrbundert in Kleinasien (Gtittingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986); Sebastian Brock and Susan Ashbrook
Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient (Berkeley: University of
California, 1987); Benedicta Ward, Harlots of the Desert: A Study of
Repentance in Early Monastic Sources (Kalamazoo: Cistercian
Publications, 1987); Peter Brown, Body and Society, 323-38; Ruth Mazo
Karras, "Holy Harlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend," Journal of
the History of Sexuality 1 (1990): 3-32; Elizabeth Castelli, "'I Will
Make Mary Male': Pieties of the Body and Gender Transformation of
Christian women in Late Antiquity,” in Body Guards: The Cultural
Politics of Gender Ambiguity, ed. J. Epstein and K. Straub (New York:
Routledge, 1991).
226
themselves as men,26 although one must not assume that women like this
did not exist, since the phenomenon of women disguising themselves as
men is common enough in later historical periods,27 and the freedom of
action and movement which is a central theme to these stories was
certainly a powerful motive for women's behavior generally in this
period.28
There are no examples of holy female transvestites in the Latin
west. It is possible that some Christian women attempted to appear as
men: in Milan in 390 both bishop Ambrose and the emperor Valentinian II
condemned women who cut their hair, but this is ambiguous evidence at
best.29 The early legend of St. Perpetua, possibly an autobiography
written at the beginning of the third century, does offer something of a
26Delcourt ("Complexe de Diane," 31), who coined a Freudian-type

term for this activity, the Diana complex, was criticized for taking the
idea as an expression of female behavior. Anson ("Female Transvestite,"
5) believed the stories to be the written fantasies of male monks, and
this has been generally accepted by most historians after him.
27For examples of women passing as men in early modern Europe, see

R. Dekker and L. van de Pol, The Tradition of Female Transvestism in
Early Modern Europe (London: MacMillan, 1989); or for American history
see Jonathan Ned Katz, "Passing Women: 1782-1920," in Gay American
History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (New York: Harper & Row,
1976); for a historical overview see Bullough and Bullough, Cross
Dressing.
28See Salisbury, Church Fathers, Independent Virgins.
29Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.46.223: "Ait enim apostolus

quasi interrogans: 'Decet mulierem non uelatam orare Deum? Nec ipsa
natura docet uos quod uir quidem si comam habeat, ignominia est illi?' -
quoniam contra naturam est. Et iterum dicit: 'Mulier uero si capillos
habeat, gloria est illi' - est enim secundum naturam - 'quoniam quidem
capilli pro uelamine sunt' - hoc est enim naturale uelamen. Personam
igitur et speciem nobis natura ipsa dispensat, quam seruare debemus,
utinamque et innocentiam custodire possemus nec acceptam nostra malitia
mutaret." Cf. Cod. Theod. 16.2.27: "Feminae, quae crinem suum contra
divinas humanasque leges instinctu, ab ecclesiae foribus arceantur.
...adeo quidem, ut episcopus, tonso capite feminam si introire
permiserit, deiectus loco etiam ipse..."
227
parallel experience. The author recorded a dream she had had - her
readers know that it happened shortly before her martyrdom, if she did
not - that involved her transformation into a man. In the dream, she
saw herself as a wrestler in the arena, a startingly manly image:
My clothes were stripped off, and suddenly I was a man. My

seconds began to rub me down with oil (as they are wont to
do before a contest). Then I saw the Egyptian on the other
side rolling in the dust... We drew close to one another
and began to let our fists fly. My opponent tried to get
hold of my feet, but I kept striking him in the face with
the heels of my feet. Then I was raised up into the air and
I began to pummel him without as it were touching the
ground. Then when I noticed there was a lull, I put my two
hands together linking the fingers of one hand with those of
the other and thus I got hold of his head. He fell flat on
his face and I stepped on his head. The crowd began to
shout...30
One scholar, in her analysis of this episode in the passion of Perpetua,
concludes that "the possibility that women can 'become male'. . .
reveals the tenuousness and malleability of the naturalized categories
of male and female" despite the fact that such a movement marks "the
transcendance of gendered differences . . . only by reinscribing the
traditional gender hierarchies of male over female, masculine over
feminine." Still, she argues, "these discourses do not simply
rearticulate the hegemonic gendered order, nor do they simply
30Passio sanctarum Perpetvae et Felicitatis (ed. and trans. H.

Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972])
10: "Et exspoliata sum, et facta sum masculus. Et coeperunt me
favisores mei oleo defrigere, guomodo solent in agonem: et ilium contra
Aegyptium video in afa voluntantem. ...Et adcessimus ad invicem, et
coepimus mittere pugnos. Ille mihi pedes adprehendere volebat; ego
autem illi calcibus faciem caedebam. Et sublata sum in aere, et coepi
eum sic caedere quasi terram non calcens. At ubi vidi moram fieri,
iunxi manus, ut digitos in digitos mitterem. Et adprehendi illi caput,
et cecidit in faciem; et calcavi illi caput. Et coepit populus
clamare..."
228
deconstruct it; rather, they stretch its boundaries and, if only for a
moment, call it into question."31
The careful ambiguity in these words is far closer to the truth
than blanket statements about a genderless Christianity. For Christians
did not abandon the traditional pagan notion of sexual differentiation
but adapted it to their purposes. Christian notions of morality and
immorality were therefore overlaid onto already existing parallels
between virtue and masculinity on the one hand and vice and femininity
on the other, even if they occasionally twisted these ideas into new
shapes. As a result, Christian ideology in the west continued the old
belief that masculinity was innately superior to femininity.
The genderless nature of early Christianity in fact seems often
merely to be an attempt at a womanless Christianity. Most discussions
of Pauline theology of "no more male or female" focus on the tensions
which existed even in earliest Christianity between the eschatological
hope in the erasure of gender, and the historical necessity which
required the continuation of sexual distinctions and the hierarchy of
gender roles.32 But few remark that the very passage in which Paul
31Castelli, "I Will Make Mary Male," 33.
32See Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza, "Neither Male Nor Female:

Galatians 3:28 - Alternative Vision and Pauline Modification," chap. 6
in In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian
Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1989). Discussions of Pauline views of
women include: Robin Scroggs, "Paul and the Eschatological Woman,"
Journal of the American Academy of Religion 40 (1972): 283-303; idem,
"Paul and the Eschatological Woman: Revisited," Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 42 (1974): 532-7; Elaine Pagels, "Paul and Women: A
Response to Recent Discussion," Journal of the American Academy of
Religion 42 (1974): 538-49; Patrick Ford, "Paul the Apostle: Male
Chauvinist?" Biblical Theology Bulletin 5 (1975): 303-11; G. W. Trompf,
"On Attitudes Toward Women in Paul and Paulinist Literature: 1
229
referred to the abandonment of male and female is followed by one in
which he exhorted Christians to see themselves as "sons of God," in
other words, firmly within a masculine and patriarchal framework.33
The equation of Christian morality and masculinity is also clear
enough in the assumption of male identity by the holy transvestite
women. One such saint, Eugenia - known in the west through the Latin
version of her life which may have been written by Rufinus - declared:
So great is the virtue of [Christ's] name, that even women

standing in fear of him might obtain a masculine dignity.
Nor might either sex be found superior in faith, since the
apostle Paul, who is the teacher of all Christians, says that
with the Lord there is no difference between male and female,
but all of us are one in Christ. His precept I have adopted
with a fervent spirit, and from the confidence which I have
in Christ, I did not want to be a woman, but preserving an
immaculate virginity while the whole intention of my soul, I
have acted in Christ constantly as men do. For I have not
weakly assumed an appearance of honor, so that as a man I
might seem to be a woman, but as a woman, I have acted as men
do, embracing boldly the virginity which is in Christ.34
Corinthians 11:3-16 and Its Context," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 42

(1980): 196-215.
33Gal. 4:4-7: "Ad ubi venit plenitudo temporis, misit Deus Filium
suum factum ex muliere, factum sub lege, ut eos, qui sub lege erant,
redimeret, ut adoptionem filiorum reciperemus. Quoniam autem estis
filii, misit Deus Spiritum Filii sui in corda vestra clamantem: Abba,
Pater. Itaque iam non est servus, sed filius. Quod si filius, et
haeres per Deum." While the Latin filii in the plural can mean
"children," its use in the singular in the final line of the text makes
it clear that it is a masculine usage. The Greek uses the singular vidg.
34Vita sanctae Eugeniae (ed. PL 73) 15: "Tanta enim est virtus
nominis ejus, ut etiam feminae in timore ejus positae virilem obtineant
dignitatem; et neque ei sexus diversitas fide potest inveniri superior,
cum beatus Paulus apostolus; magister omnium Christianorum, dicat quod
apud Dominum non sit discretio masculi et feminae, omnes enim in Christo
unum sumus. Hujus ergo normam animo fevente suscepi, et ex confidentia
quam in Christo habui, nolui esse femina, sed virginitatem immaculatam
tota animi intentione conservans, virum gessi constanter in Christo.
Non enim [infirmiter] honestatis simulationem assumpsi, ut vir feminam
simularem; sed femina viriliter agendo, virum gessi, virginitatem quae
in Christo est fortiter amplectendo." On Rufinus as author: Anson,
"Female Transvestite," 12; cf. his trans. of part of this passage (p.
23). The PL edn. has infrunitam where I read infirmiter.
230
Many of the female transvestites are depicted as prostitutes before
their conversion, in what has been suggested was a symbolic parallelism
between their feminine immorality on the one hand, and their masculine
virtue on the other. When Perpetua became a man, she became a wrestler,
among the stereotypes of the manliest of men.35
Virtually all biographies of holy women of the third, fourth, and
early fifth century - all written by men - began with an avowal of their
spiritual masculinity. The biography of Melania the Younger contained
the following declaration: "In truth, she had been detached from the
female nature and had acquired a masculine disposition, or rather, a
heavenly one."36 Ambrose, in writing of the virgin martyr, Agnes, wrote
that she was "in virtue above nature," meaning her feminine nature.37
Ambrose's use of Judith as a role model for women of his day had a
similarly masculine flavor, as he described how she - a woman -
triumphed over a man.38 Prudentius referred to the martyr Eulalia's
35For further discussion of this episode, see F. J. Ddlger, "Der

Kampf mit dem Agypter in der Perpetua-vision. Das Martyrium als Kampf
mit dem Teufel," Antike und Christentum 3 (1932): 177-88.
36Vita Helaniae lunioris (ed. D. Gorce, SC 90; trans. E. Clark

[New York: E. Mellen, 1984]) 39: "Kai yap aXl]0(Oq rapeXl]M)0£l xb
YuvaiKEiov pfeTpov, wal <pp6vt]|ia avSpetov paAAov 8k ovp&vtov £k£k?i)to. "
37Ambrose De uirginibus (ed. F. Gori [Milan: Bibliotheca

Ambrosiana, 1989] 14.1; trans. H. de Romestin, NPNF 10) 1.2.5: "Deuotio
supra aetatem, uirtus supra naturam, ut mihi uideatur non hominis
habuisse nomen, sed oraculum martyris, quo indicauit quid esset futura."
38Ambrose, De officiis ministrorum 3.13.82-5, too lengthy to

quote. One should note that he never referred to her virtue as uirtus
but used instead honestas.
231
"holy courage" and "bold spirit" when "female as she was she challenged
the weapons of men."39
When making generalizations about gender and Christian virtue,
patristic writers continued the conflation of excellence and
masculinity. Augustine, quoting Paul's statement on "no more
distinctions between male and female," explained it as meaning that
"women too have some virile quality whereby they can subdue feminine
pleasures, and serve Christ and govern desire.”40 Elsewhere, he
exhorted a masculine self-confidence of all Christians: "Have a manful
[uirili] mind, and believe what you believe."41
Because of the conflation of uirtus as both manliness and virtue,
Latin Christian writers neither abandoned the social implications of the
uneven division of the sexes nor even seriously questioned them, but
accepted the misogynistic conclusions concerning traditional notions of
sexual difference. Augustine even thought it heresy to believe that the
division between the sexes was not from God, but were the result of
39Prudent. Perist. 3 11. 31-5: "infremuit sacer Eulaliae /

spiritus, ingeniique ferox / turbida frangere bella parat, / et rude
pectus anhela Deo / femina provocat arma virum.”
40August. De vera religione (ed. CCSL 32; trans. J. Burleigh

[South Bend, Indiana: Gateway, 1953]) 41.78: "Vincamus ergo huius
cupiditatis uel blanditias uel molestias. Subiugemus nobis hanc
feminam, si uiri sumus. Nobis ducibus et ipsa erit melior nec iam
cupiditas, sed temperantia nominabitur. Nam cum ipsa ducit, nos autem
sequimur, cupiditas ilia et libido, nos uero temeritas et stultitia
nuncupamur. Sequamur Christum caput nostrum, ut et nos sequatur, cui
caput sumus. Hoc et feminis praecipi potest non maritali, sed fraterno
iure, quo iure in Christo nec masculus nec femina sumus. Habent enim et
illae uirile quiddam, unde femineas subiugent uoluptates, unde Christo
seruiant et imperent cupiditati."
41August. De libero arbitrio 1.2: "Virili animo esto, et crede

quod credis: nihil enim creditur melius, etiamsi causa lateat cur ita
sit."
232
sin.42 Lactantius, in arguing the unreasonableness of pagan philosophy,
used as an example that "Plato [in The Republic] threw open the senate
to women, allowing them to serve in the wars, to become magistrates, and
to hold military commands. How great will be the unhappiness of that
city," Lactantius concluded, "where women fill the places of menl”43
Even if they might justify such cultural notions in innovative
ways, Christian male writers shared with their pagan counterparts
ancient cultural notions of the innateness of masculine superiority and
feminine inferiority. Tertullian, for example, drew on the myth of Adam
and Eve when discussing the natural subordination of women to men, in a
treatise against women who are consecrated virgins unveiling themselves
in churches as a sign of their special status. He wrote:
...females, subjected as they are throughout to men, [should

not therefore] bear in their front an honourable mark of
their virginity [i.e., being unveiled], whereby they may be
looked up to and gazed at on all sides and magnified by the
brethren, [while] so many men-virgins . . . should carry
their glory in secret, carrying no token to make them, too,
illustrious. . . How, then, would God have failed to make
any such concession to men more [than to women], whether on
the ground of nearer intimacy, as being 'His own image,' or
on the ground of harder toil? But if nothing [has been thus
conceded] to the male, much more [should nothing be
conceded] to the female.44
42August. De continentia (ed. CSEL 41; trans. H. McDonald, FC 16)

10.24: "de sexu masculi et feminae guid dicit filius perditionis? guod
utergue sexus non ex deo sit, sed ex diabolo. quid ad haec dicit uas
electionis? 'sicut,' inguit, 'mulier ex uiro et uir per mulierem, omnia
autem ex deo' [1 Cor. 11.12]."
43Lactant. Epit. div. inst. (ed. and trans. E. Blakeney [London:

S. P. C. K., 1950]) 38: "Quin etiam feminis curiam reseravit; militiam,
et magistratus, et imperia permisit. Quanta erit infelicitas urbis
illius, in qua virorum officia mulieres occupabunt!”
44Tert. De uicginibus uelandis 10: "Sic nec de aliguibus

insignibus. Ceterum satis inhumanum, si feminae quidem per omnia uiris
subditae honorigeram notam uirginitatis suae praeferant, qua
suspiciantur et circumspiciantur et magnificentur a fratribus, uiri
233
Tertullian's point, if made in a rather complicated manner, is that
since men - who are above women because they are closer to God's image -
have no token of their virgin status when in church, neither should
women. It is apparent, however, that Tertullian's analysis owed as much
to Roman notions of the sexual differences between men and women as it
did to an understanding of Genesis. Augustine, in similar comments on
the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, offered the suggestion that "no
doubt [the devil] start[ed his temptation] with the inferior of the
human pair,''45 taking this description of women as a given.
Christian cultural notions about masculinity were linked to,
informed by, and responsible for Christian medical notions about sexual
differences. Tertullian, in a treatise on the nature of the human soul,
wrote:
The soul, being sown in the womb at the same time as the
body, receives likewise along with it its sex; and this
indeed so simultaneously, that neither of the two substances
[that is, body or soul,] can be alone regarded as the cause
of the sex. . . The truth is, the seminations of the two
substances are inseparable in point of time, and their
effusion is also one and the same, in consequence of which a
community of gender is secured to them; so that the course
of nature, whatever that be, shall draw the line [between
the two sexes]."46
autem tot uirgines, tot spadones uoluntarii, caeco bono suo incedant,
nihil gestantes quod et ipsos faceret illustres. ...Quomodo ergo non
magis uiris aliquid tale Deus in honorem subscripsisset, uel quia
familiariori scilicet imagini suae, uel quia plus laboranti? Si autem
nihil masculo, multo magis feminae." Many of the additions in square
brackets in this passage were added by Roberts and Donaldson.
45August. De civ. D. 14.11: "...eoque per angelicam praesentiam

praestantioremque naturam spiritali nequitia sibi subiecto et tamquam
instrumento abutens fallacia sermocinatus est feminae, a parte scilicet
inferiore illius humanae copulae incipiens, ut gradatim perueniret ad
totum, non existimans uirum facile credulum nec errando posse decipi,
sed dum alieno cedit errori."
46Tert. De anim. 36:2,4: "Anima in utero seminata pariter, ut in

causa sexus neutra substantia teneatur. ...Vtriusque autem substantiae
234
Even at the beginning of the third century, Tertullian was able to point
out by contrast two opposing Christian beliefs he considered heresies:
one holding that the sex of the body determined that of the soul, the
other holding that the sex of the soul determined that of the body.47
Following Tertullian, Christian writers continued the belief that
men's and women's sexual difference was based on the spiritual nature of
their souls. In commenting upon the Genesis myth of the creation of
Adam and Eve, these writers carried on an important debate about whether
men alone, or women too, were created in the image of God. Lactantius
believed that "when [God] had first made the male in his own likeness,
he then also formed the female in the image of the human being."48
Augustine offered a similar opinion, suggesting that while humanity as a
whole is made after God, women as a sex are not.49 Men could be
indiscreta semina et unita suffusio eorum communem subeunt generis

euentum, qua lineas duxerit quaecumque ilia est ratio naturae."
47Tert. De anim. 36:2-3: "Si enim in seminibus utriusque

substantiae aliquam intercapedinem eorum conceptus admitteret, ut aut
caro aut anima prior seminaretur, esset etiam sexus proprietatem alteri
substantiae adscribere per temporalem intercapedinem seminum, ut aut
caro animae aut anima carni insculperet sexum, quoniam et Apelles, non
pictor, sed haereticus, ante corpora constituens animas uiriles ac
muliebres, sicut a Philumena didicit, utique carnem ut posteriorem ab
anima facit accipere sexum. Et qui animam post partum carni superducunt
utique ante formatae, marem aut feminam de came sexum praeiudicant
animae.”
48Lactant. Div. inst. (ed. CSEL 19; trans. M. McDonald, FC 49)

2.12.1: "Cum ergo marem primum ad similitudinem suam finxisset, turn
etiam feminam configurauit ad ipsius hominis effigiem, ut duo inter se
permixti sexus propagare sobolem possent et omnem terram multitudine
obplere.” See the discussion of this question in Clark, Women in Late
Antiquity, 120-6.
49August. De trinitate (ed. CCSL 50) 12.7.10, too lengthy to

quote. Augustine's comments generally on women are discussed in an odd
interpretation by Kari Borresen, "in Defence of Augustine: How Femina is
Homo," Augustiniana 40 (1990): 411-28.
235
synonymous with human beings, therefore, he argued elsewhere, because
they are "the more important sex."50 Why God would let himself be born
of a woman, Augustine felt it important to discuss, was a mystery,
although it may have been to bolster the worth of the female sex.51
Augustine also participated in a discussion on the exact nature of
the glorification of human bodies after their final resurrection from
the dead. His comments are revealing about the Christian interpretation
of gender:
some people suppose that women will not keep their sex at
the resurrection; but, they say, they will all rise again as
men. . . For my part, I feel that theirs is the more
sensible opinion who have no doubt that there will be both
sexes in the resurrection. . . Thus while all defects will
be removed from those bodies, their essential nature will be
preserved. [Because] a woman's sex is not a defect; it is
natural. . . He who established the two sexes will restore
them both.52
50August. De civ. D. 20.21: "Virorum autem pro eo posuisse illos

interpretes, quod est 'hominum,' manifestum est. Neque enim quisquam
dicturus est praeuaricatrices feminas in illo supplicio non futuras; sed
ex potiore, praesertim de quo femina facta est, uterque sexus accipitur.
Verum, quod ad rem maxime pertinet, cum et in bonis dicitur: 'Veniet
omnis caro,' quia ex omni genere hominum populus ille constabit (non
enim mnes homines ibi erunt, qundo in poenis plures erunt), - sed, ut
dicere coeperam, cum et in bonis caro et in malis membra uel cadauera
nominantur..." Cf. idem, Diuersae quaestiones (ed. CCSL 44A) 11:
"...quia uirum... qui sexus honorabilior est..."
51August. Contra Fansturn Manichaeum (ed. CSEL 25) 26.7: "cur autem
ilia omnia in carne ex utero feminae adsumpta pati uoluerit, summa
consilii penes ilium est: siue quod utrumque sexum, quern creauerat,
etiam hoc modo commendandum honorandumque iudicauit adsumendo formam
uiri et nascendo de femina, siue aliqua alia causa."
52August. De civ. D. 22.17: "Nonnulli propter hoc, quod dictum

est: 'Donee occurramus omnes <in unitatem fidei,> in uirum perfectum, in
mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi,' et: 'Conformes imaginis filii
Dei,' nec in sexu femineo resurrecturas feminas credunt, sed in uirili
omnes aiunt, quoniam Deus solum uirum fecit ex limo, feminam ex uiro.
Sed mihi melius sapere uidentur, qui utrumque sexum resurrecturum esse
non dubitant. Non enim libido ibi erit, quae confusionis est causa.
Nam priusquam peccassent, nudi erant, et non confundebantur uir et
femina. Corporibus ergo illis uitia detrahentur, natura seruabitur.
Non est autem uitium sexus femineus, sed natura, quae tunc quidem et a
236
Augustine was reacting against the view that "no more male or female”
meant "no more female." Jerome's opinion on the subject was that the
glorified body was male:
Will there be the sexual difference between male and female

or not [in the life-to-come]? If there will be, then it
follows that there will be marriage and sex and
reproduction. If there will not be, if sexual difference is
suppressed, then it is not the same bodies which will rise
up, "for the earthy dwelling-place weighs down the soul
which worries about many things," but subtle and spiritual
ones, for as the Apostle [Paul] says, "an animal body is
planted, but a spiritual body arises."53
Even the uita angelica, as imagined by most Latin writers, was a male
one.54
concubitu et a partu inmunis erit; erunt tamen membra feminea, non

adcommodata usui ueteri, sed decori nouo, quod non alliciatur
aspicientis concupiscentia, quae nulla erit, sed Dei laudetur sapientia
atque dementia, qui et quod non erat fecit et liberauit a corruptione
quod fecit."
53Hieron. Epist. 108.23: "Diuersitas quoque sexus maris ac feminae

erit, an non erit? Si erit, sequentur et nuptiae, et concubitus, et
generatio. si non erit, sublata diuersitate sexus, eadem corpora non
resurgent: 'Adgrauat enim terrena habitatio sensum multa curantem'
[Wisd. 9.25]; sed tenuia et spiritalia, dicente Apostolo: 'Seminatur
corpus animale, resurgit corpus spiritale' [1 Cor. 15.44]." Jerome
continued at length on this topic.
54In a sermon on the resurrection, e.g., Peter Chrysologus

attempted to explain how the risen Christ appeared to women before men;
in his view, the angel to whom Christ appeared before the women counted
as male. Peter Chrysologus Sermones (ed. CCSL 24a; trans. G. Ganss, FC
17) 80: "Putasne Petri, lohannis, discipulorum omnium absentia uritur,
castigatur ignauia, quod resurgenti Christo mulieres primae, solae,
peruigiles ardenter occurrant, ipsa etiam uirilis portio sic notatur, ut
ad resurrectionis gloriam muliebris praecurrat infirmitas? Absit,
fratres; est istud causa, non casus; mysterium, non euentus; ordo, non
culpa; nam mulier hie uirum sequitur, non praecedit, ubi uir surgit in
Christo. Sentias ergo Petrum non mulieribus cessissa, sed Christo; non
ancillae, sed domino; sacramento, non somno; ordini, non timori.
Denique iam uir est in Christo, quando ad mulieres angelus uenit, ut
quantum praecellit deus angelum, tantum uir mulierem praecederet in
honore." Cf. Hieron. Epist. 107.7, too lengthy to quote, in which he
suggested that Mary was frightened of the angel Gabriel's presence
before her at the Annunciation because she was unused to being alone
with a man.
237
The exact nature of masculinity and femininity and its relation to
other aspects of human existence and even to human destiny and
salvation, was obviously a matter of no small debate among Christians.
Latin Christian writers showed little attempt to conceptualize a
genderless humanity. Rather, their works constantly reaffirmed the
separate identities of men and women, and conflate sexual and moral
differences. Their world was divided into the idealized masculine
portion which included the Christian saved, and the abominable feminine
portion of the unredeemed and unworthy.
3. Nothing effeminate attains to praise:
The Christian Critique of Unmanliness
From its origins onward, then, western Christianity accepted an
accomodation with traditional Roman notions of the sexual hierarchy. In
perpetuating the superiority of the masculine over the feminine,
however, Christian writers also perpetuated the manly-unmanly dichotomy
within male identity. Having accepted the association of masculinity
with virtue and femininity with vice, they had no other way of dealing
with the vicious man - not only the sinful Christian, but also the
heretic and the pagan - except to see him as effeminate. Christian
ideology cast sin as effeminacy.
The ease with which Christian writers adopted the old divisions of
men into the manly and the unmanly becomes clear from even a cursory
examination of Christian texts. Within a discussion of the suitability
238
of certain men for clerical office in the later fourth century, Ambrose
declared:
The voice [of the Christian priest], too, should not be

languid, nor feeble, nor womanish [femineum] in its tone . .
. It should preserve a certain quality, and rhythm, and a
manly [uirilem] vigour. . . I cannot approve of a soft or
weak [molliculum et infracturn] tone of voice, or an
effeminate gesture of the body.55
In this short passage, Ambrose managed to use many of the words
traditionally associated with unmanliness. He concluded: "Let us follow
nature. The imitation of her provides us with a principle of training,
and gives us a pattern of virtue [honestas].1,56
Ambrose's qualification about manly voices is merely one example
of how Christian rhetoric of the later Roman period reinforced the long
standing Roman cultural belief that what was inferior was effeminate. A
discussion of virtue in a letter to Christians elicited this principle
for conduct from Ambrose which any pagan Roman might have voiced:
"Nothing effeminate [molliculum], nothing feeble attains to praise."57
It was not only what was inferior that was effeminate but also what was
evil. Paulinus of Milan wrote contemptuously of the emperor-usurper
55Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.19.84: "Vox ipsa non remissa,

non fracta, nihil femineum sonans qualem multi grauitatis specie
simulare consuerunt, sed formam quamdam et regulam ac sucum uirilem
reseruans. Hoc est enim pulchritudinem uiuendi tenere, conuenientia
cuique sexui et personae reddere; hie ordo gestorum optimus, hie ornatus
ad omnem actionem accommodus. Sed ut molliculum et infractum aut uocis
sonum aut gestum corporis non probo, ita neque agrestem ac rusticum."
56Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.19.84: "Naturam imitemur: eius

effigies, formula disciplinae, forma honestatis est."
57Ambrose Epist. 63.97: "Quarum virtutem laudem miramur, earum

studeamus adipisci industriam et quas praedicamus in aliis eas in nobis
taciti recognoscamus. Nihil molliculum, nihil infractum ad laudem
pervenit...”
239
Maximus and "the imperial power which he had wickedly seized, in the
manner of a woman, [and which] he laid down through fear."58
Christians were much like their pagan contemporaries in dividing
men into two groups - the praiseworthy and the reprehensible - and then
defining these two groups respectively as the manly and the unmanly.
Prudentius, the Christian poet of the early fifth century, gave an
example of precisely this binary classification of men in his version of
the martyrdom of Agnes. Prudentius' account has Agnes refusing to marry
but then referring to her martyrdom in the arena as a symbolic marriage
with the gladiator who was about to kill her:
When Agnes saw the grim figure standing there with his naked
sword her gladness increased and she said: "I rejoice that
there comes a man like this, a savage, cruel, wild man-at-
arms, rather than a listless, soft, womanish [mollis] youth
bathed in perfume, coming to destroy me with the death of my
honour. This lover, this one at last, I confess it, pleases
me. I shall meet his eager steps half-way and not put off
his hot desires. I shall welcome the whole length of his
blade into my bosom, drawing the sword-blow to the depths of
my breast...59
The violent sexuality - which must surely have been as evident to its
fifth-century audience as to modern readers - was one more aspect of the
58Paulinus of Milan Pita sancti Ambrosii (ed. and trans. M.

Kaniecka, PS 16) 19: "sed ille cum paenitentiam declinat superbo
spiritu, non solum futuram sed etiam praesentem salutem amisit regnumque
quod male arripuerat femineo quodam modo timore deposuit, ut
procuratorem se reipublicae non imperatorem fuisse confiteretur."
59Prudent. Perist. 14 11. 67-78: "ut videt Agnes stare trucem

virum / mucrone nudo, laetior haec ait: / "exulto talis quod potius
venit / vesanus, atrox, turbidus armiger, / quam si veniret languidus ac
tener / mollisque ephebus tinctus aromate, / qui me pudoris funere
perderet. / hie, hie amator iam, fateor, placet: / ibo inruentis
gressibus obviam, / nec demorabor vota calentia: / ferrum in papillas
omne recepero / pectusque ad imum vim gladii traham." See the analysis
of this legend by Martha Malamud, "Saint Agnes and the Chaste Tree,"
chap. 6 in A Poetics of Transformationi Prudentius and Classical
Mythology (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 1989).
240
manliness of the gladiator. The juxtaposition of these two masculine
types serves no real purpose to the story of Agnes' martyrdom, but it
does act to cement these stereotypes in the Christian mind, placing such
ideas in Agnes' mouth and relying on her sanctity to support their claim
to veracity.
Prudentius condemned the effeminate man "bathed in perfume," and
this type of statement was typical of the relationship between luxury
and effeminacy in Christian polemic. The temptation to luxury and the
stuggle with it was in many ways a symbol of the human condition,
Lactantius wrote, and mirrored the individual's choice between manliness
and unmanliness.60 The extravagant clothing popular in the later empire
- and men's anxiety about it - gave Christian writers ample fuel for
their indictment of men's behavior, and they often linked it to the
crisis of masculinity. Prudentius, for example, after discussing
women's propensity to the follies of fashion, added:
But even he who is the head and ruler of the woman's person,
who governs the weak portion cut from his own flesh and
bears lordship over the delicate vessel, lets himself go in
indulgence. One sees strong men, no longer young, turn
effeminate [mollescere] in their self-refinement, though the
creator made their bodies rude and their limbs hard with
bones to stiffen them; but they are ashamed to be men [sed
pudet esse viros]. They seek after the greatest vanities to
beautify them, so that in their lightmindedness they
dissipate their native [i.e., masculine] strength. . . One
man is seen chasing hot-foot after luxuriant tunics, and
weaving downy garments with strange threads from many-
coloured birds, another shaming himself by spreading
60Lactant. Div. inst. 6.3.1-3: "Duae sunt uiae per guas humanam
uitam progredi necesse est, una guae in caelum ferat, altera guae ad
inferos deprimat: guas et poetae in carminibus et philosophi in
disputationibus suis induxerunt. et guidem philosophi alteram uirtutem
esse uoluerunt, alteram uitiorum... exoriri autem uiam praecipitem,
nunc saxis asperam nunc obductam sentibus nunc gurgitibus intercisam uel
torrentibus rapidam, ut laborare haerare labi cadere sit necesse."
241
womanish scents with perfumed paints and foreign powder. . .

What grief to think that nature's native laws should go
down, and her gifts be carried away captive by a tyrant
passion1 Every power is perverted in its action, because
men turn to opposite purposes all that the omnipotent gave
them to possess.61
Men's love of luxury not only threatened their superiority over women,
but the entire gendered and moral division of humanity.
The master of the rhetoric of gender and morality was Tertullian,
who became a model for later Latin writers. According to Tertullian,
"the will to please" through one's clothing and appearance was in fact
"a defect of nature."62 He devoted an entire treatise to the
problematics of clothing and masculinity, which he called De pallio ("On
the [Ascetic's] Mantle"), because he felt that only the mantle of the
philosopher, adopted by Christian ascetics, was honorable clothing.63
The treatise has its own odd logic. The abandonment of the ancient
styles of clothing were responsible at least in part for the disastrous
61Prudent. Amartigenia 11. 279-86,293-7,304-7: "quid quod et ipse

caput muliebris corporis et rex, / qui regit invalidam propria de carne
resectam / particulam, qui vas tenerum dicione gubernat, / solvitur in
luxum? cernas mollescere cultu / heroas vetulos, opifex quibus aspera
membra / finxerat et rigidos duraverat ossibus artus, / sed pudet esse
viros, quaerunt vanissima quaeque / quis niteant, genuina leves ut
robora solvant. I ... I hunc videas lascivas praepete cursu / venantem
tunicas, avium quoque versicolorum / indumenta novis texentem plumea
telis, / ilium pigmentis redolentibus et peregrino / pulvere femineas
spargentem turpiter auras. I ... I pro dolort ingenuas naturae
occumbere leges, / captivasque trahi regnante libidine dotes 1 /
perversum ius omne viget, dum quidquid habendum / omnipotens dederat
studia in contraria vertunt."
62Tert. De cultu feminarum 2.8.2: "Siquidem et uiris propter

feminas, ut feminis propter uiros, uitio naturae ingenita est placendi
uoluntas, propriasque praestigias formae et hie sexus sibi agnoscat..."
63Tert. De pallio, too lengthy to quote. Cap. 1 connects the

change in clothing styles to the collapse of the empire; cap. 2 and 3
describe the process of change in nature; cap. 4 condemns the
transvestism of the ancient pagan gods and heroes; cap. 5 and 6 praises
the pallium.
242
military situation of the empire. Still, mutation was the destiny of
all things of nature, both clothing styles and empire. The changes
which brought about the decline of empire, however, were especially
shameful ones, because they turned men into women, and the transvestism
that the pagan legends and histories described - Achilles, Hercules,
Alexander the Great - was imitated even by some of the Homan emperors.
Therefore, modern clothing styles were detestable. "Such garments
[were] as alienate from nature and modesty," he concluded, that one
should be permitted "just to eye fixedly and point at with the finger
and expose to ridicule by a nod" the individual who wore them.64
The blurring of the categories of male and female was not
Tertullian's only concern, although he did argue for the separation of
the sexes.65 In a work on the veiling of Christian virgins, for
example, he rested his argument on the need for such a separation.
"Behold two diverse names, Han and Woman," he wrote, "two laws, mutually
64Tert. De pallio 4.8: "Tales igitur habitus, qui de natura et

modestia transferunt, et acie figere et digito destinare et nutu tradere
merito sit."
65Tert. De uirginibus uelandis 7: "Proinde uiderit saeculum

aemulum Dei, si ita uirgini caesum capillum decori mentitur, quemadmodum
et puero permissum." Tertullian's point is that virgins are included in
the category of women, among those who must be veiled, just as boys are
included in the category of men, who must cut their hair, according to
the same biblical prescription. 1 Cor. 11:13-5: "Vos ipsi iudicate:
decet mulierum non velatam orare Deum? Nec ipsa natura docet vos, quod
vir quidem si comam nutriat, ignominia est illi: mulier vero si comam
nutriat, gloria est illi: quoniam capilli pro velamine ei dati sunt, si
quis autem videtur contentiosus esse: nos talem consuetudinem non
habemus, neque Ecclesia Dei."
243
distinctive; on the one hand [a law] of veiling, on the other [a law] of
baring."66
The problem of effeminacy worried Tertullian most of all, and the
decline of men into the category of women. "I find no dress cursed by
God," he wrote elsewhere, "except a woman's dress on a man."67 There
was indeed a biblical prohibition against men's cross-dressing, but it
condemned equally the transvestism of either sex.68 The effeminate
clothing which men wore, however, was particularly loathsome because it
was the first step in a feminization of the entire male body. Thus
Tertullian also spoke out against the various beautification procedures
used by men:
to cut the beard too sharply; to pluck it out here and

there; to shave round about [the mouth]; to arrange the
hair, and disguise its hoariness by dyes; to remove all the
incipient down all over the body; to fix [each particular
hair] in its place with [some] womanly pigment; to smooth
all the rest of the body by the aid of some rough powder or
other.69
66Tert. De uirginibus uelandis 8.3: "Ecce duo diuersa nomina, uir

et mulier. Omnis utergue. Duae leges obnoxiae inuicem, hinc uelandi,
inde nudandi."
67Tert. De idololatria 16: "Nullum denique cultum a deo maledictum

inuenio, nisi muliebrem in uiro. Maledictus enim, inquit, omnis qui
muliebribus induitur. Toga uero etiam appellatione uirilis est."
68Deut. 22.5: "Non induetur mulier veste virili, nec vir utetur
veste feminea: abominabilis enim apud Deum est qui facit haec." See the
discussion of this passage below, chap. 8.
69Tert. De cultu feninarurn 2.8.2: "...barbam acrius caedere,

interuellere, circumradere, capillum disponere et decolorare, canitiem
primam quamque subducere, totius corporis lanuginem pigmento quoque
muliebri distringere, cetera pulueris cuiusdam aspritudine leuigare..."
Cf. Cyprian De lapsis (ed. and trans. M. Bdvenot [Oxford: Clarendon,
1971]) 6: "Corrupta barba in uiris..." Cf. also ibid. 30: "Qui...
cumque scriptum sit: 'Non corrumpetis effigiem barbae uestrae,' barbam
uellit et faciem suam comit, et placere nunc cuiquam studet qui Deo
displicet?" cf. also idem, Ad Quirinum (ed. CCSL 3) 3.84: "Item non
uellendum. Non corrumetis effigiem barbae uestrae."
244
To make matters worse, men would also "take every opportunity for
consulting the mirror [and] to gaze anxiously into it" over the course
of the day, like a stereotypical woman.70 Such behavior not only gave
men the appearance and mannerisms of women, although that was
distressing enough, but it also softened their moral complexions along
with their physical complexions. Hence, Tertullian argued that "such
delicacies as tend by their softness and effeminacy to unman the
manliness of faith are to be discarded," because the Christian,
especially in an age of persecution, was called to toughness and
strength.71 The effeminate Christian, having lost his manliness, could
not but fail when his virtue was tested.
The toughness of the Christian faith to which Tertullian referred
reminds us that even while Christian writers condemned unmanliness in
others, they also tended to reserve the language of manliness for
themselves. The prophet Elijah was a popular model for the manliness of
true belief, although the reason is unclear. Perhaps it was because of
his forcefulness in dealing with his enemies, perhaps because of the
miraculous powers attributed to him, or perhaps because of his bodily
assumption into heaven.72 Patristic writers were clear about his
manliness. He "had nothing in him that was soft or effeminate [molle
atgue muliebre]," Jerome declared, "but was totally manly and tough
70Tert. De cultu feminarum 2.8.2: "...turn speculum omni occasione

consulere, anxie inspicere..."
71Tert. De cultu feminarum 2.13: "Discutiendae sunt enim deliciae,

quarum mollitia et fluxu fidei uirtus effeminari potest." Cf. idem, De
paenitentia 11.
72The story of Elijah is related in 1 Kings 17.1-2 Kings 2.1.
245
[uirile et rigidurn]," even adding that he was "a rather hairy man.”73
When Ambrose recounted Elijah's flight from the wicked queen, Jezebel,
he was quick to defend the prophet's manliness: "To be sure, it was not
a woman that such a great prophet was fleeing," Ambrose wrote, ”[a]nd it
was not death that he feared." Rather, Ambrose continued, "he was
fleeing worldly enticement and the contagion of filthy conduct and the
impious acts of an unholy and sinful generation.''74
The ability to find manliness in Christian ideology was a key
factor in the Christian transformation of masculinity and in its
resolution of the crisis of masculinity. We must remember that
Tertullian's was not the only voice with which early Latin Christianity
spoke. The condemnation of women who refused to wear veils in the
churches because they no longer saw themselves as women, for example, as
well as the denunciation of men who took great pains with their
appearance, reminds us that there were alternative opinions about how
Christianity affected gender identity. The ideas of this opposition
must be reconstructed from the rebuttals of their intellectual enemies.
Nonetheless, such a reclamation can provide an interesting variation to
the opinion of the predominant writers.
73Hieron. De Exodo, in uigilia Paschae (ed. CCSL 78): ”...et

Helias nihil in se habens molle atque muliebre, sed totum uirile et
rigidum (homo quippe hirsutus erat)..."
74Ambrose De fuga saeculi (ed. CSEL 32.2; trans. M. McHugh, FC 65)

6.34: "utique non mulierum fugiebat propheta tantus, sed hoc saeculum
nec mortem timebat, qui se obtulerat requirenti et qui dicebat ad
dominum: recipe animam meam, taedium uitae istius sustinens, non
cupiditatem, sed fugiebat saecularum inlecebram et conuersationis
maculosae contagionem et impiae ac praeuaricatricis nationis
sacrilegia."
246
Examples of alternatives to the dominant opinion in the area of
masculinity can be found in the stories of unexpectated gender reversals
in saintly men. These are in many ways literary parallels to the
eastern stories of women-becoming-men, and might have been a literary
reaction to them. Both genres share numerous features, including a
practical rather than theological justification for the cross-dressing,
which is nevertheless given a spiritual explanation after the fact, and
the frequent association of such a gender transformation with the
religious transformation of baptism or approaching martyrdom.75 The
stories also share certain elements with pagan legends of transvestite
heroes.76 Nonetheless, the legends of holy men-who-become-women reminds
us of the innovations in masculinity which Latin Christianity
encouraged. It is perhaps noteworthy, in this regard, that while both
stories are set in the east, where gender reversals were obviously more
common or at least more accepted, both come from western sources.
The first example of male transvestism is that found in the legend
of the martyrdom of Sergius and Bacchus. Sergius and Bacchus were
soldiers who served in the Roman army under the western emperor
75Centering these stories on the liminality of baptism and

martyrdom may be a particularly masculine form of describing reality;
see Caroline Walker Bynum, "Women's Stories, Women's Symbols: A Critique
of Victor Turner’s Theory of Liminality," in Anthropology and the Study
of Religion, ed. R. Moore and F. Reynolds (Chicago: Center for the
Scientific Study of Religion, 1984).
76See Pavolvskis, "Life of St. Pelagia," who examines the

comparisons between the legends of transvestite females and pagan tales.
The connection with legends of transvestite males has not been studied,
but the dozens of pagan stories of transvestism and androgyny have been
collected by Marie Delcourt, Hermaphrodite. Mythes et rites de la
bisexualitd dans l ’Antiguitd classigue (Paris: Presses universitaires de
France, 1958).
247
Maximian.77 According to the legend, the two had refused to sacrifice
to Zeus, whereupon:
The emperor’s countenance was transformed with anger;

immediately he ordered their belts cut off, their tunics and
all other military garb removed, the gold tores taken from
around their necks, and women's clothing placed on them; thus
they were to be paraded through the middle of the city to the
palace . . . But when they were led into the middle of the
marketplace the saints sang and chanted together . . . this
apostolic saying: 'denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and
putting off the form of the old man, naked in faith we
rejoice in you, Lord, because you have clothed us with the
garment of salvation, and have covered us with the robe of
righteousness; as brides you have decked us with women's
gowns.78
77I am grateful to Prof. Boswell both for having called this story
to my attention and for having provided me with a translation of the
biography from the manuscript of his book, Sane-Sex Unions, before its
publication. He obviously thought it to be a legend of eastern origin,
using the Greek text for his translation. Maximian, however, was only
one of several competing claimants to the imperial throne in 309, the
traditional date of the execution of Sergius and Bacchus, and his area
of jurisdiction at that time was only Gaul. Furthermore, as Boswell
points out (p. 147, n. 172), one of the earliest references to the cult
of Sergius is by Gregory of Tours (Bistoria Francorua 7.31), who
believed the relics of the saint to have been in Bordeaux.
Nevertheless, the text of their martyrdom itself places their execution
in Syria, and as Boswell records, the popularity of the cult in the
Greek east eventually far surpassed that of the Latin west (p. 155), and
this may have influenced his opinion as to its origins, as well as his
doubts about the accuracy of the name Maximian for the emperor
responsible for the martyrdom, since, as Boswell states (p. 375, n. 2),
it could as easily have been Maximin Daia, the eastern emperor ruling
over Egypt and Syria from 305 to 313.
78Acta SS. Sergio et Baccho MM. (ed. AASS 7 Oct.; trans. Boswell,
Same-Sex Unions, 379): "Indignatus itaque imperator mutavit vultum suum,
et jussit confestim zonas eorum incidi, et exutos clamidibus et quaeque
erant miliciae vestes, simul et torques aureas de cervicibus eorum
auferri, et induit eos colubilia muliebria, et ita per mediam civitatem
usque ad palatium pertrahi gravissimas in cervicibus catenas portantes.
Cumque Sancti Dei traherentur per medium forum, cantantes simul
dicebant: ...et verbum illud Apostolicum: Quatenus abnegantes omnem
impietatem et saecularem cupiditatem et exuto veteris hominis habitu,
nudi in fide exultemus in te, Domine, quia induisti nos vestimento
salutis, et tunica laetitiae circumdedisti nos. Sicut sponsam adornasti
nos muliebribus stolis, conjunge nos tibi per confessionem."
248
There is an important difference between this legend and those of the
female transvestites: here the transvestism is coerced rather than
voluntary. Still, the men's acceptance of their new gender role and
their identification of it with God's plan for them, links it to the
legends of transvestite women.
More importantly, the story can be linked in key ways to the
Christian model of a paradoxical masculinity. Using the contemporary
prejudice against effeminacy, the pagan persecutors attempted to
humiliate the men - or at least, this is how the anonymous hagiographer
described it - by embodying their religious "otherness'' as gendered
"otherness," emphasizing the irrationality and unnaturalness of both.
Their Christian faith, however, inverted these symbols, instead of
humiliating them, the men's cross-dressing embodied their "embrace" of
the Christian god as his brides. The quotation in this context of
several phrases of the apostle Paul and the prophet Isaiah,79 all
focused on the radical nature of Christian transformation, highlighted
the counterintuitiveness of this masculinity and its rupture from
traditional expectations of manliness and unmanliness, in this way, the
legend reinforced many of the more general themes of Christian
masculinity.
79Titus 2.12: "...erudiens nos ut abnegantes impietatem, et

saecularia desideria: sobrie, et iuste, et pie vivamus in hoc
saeculo...” Col. 3.9-10: "Nolite mentiri invicem, expoliantes vos
veterem hominem cum actibus suis, et induentes novum eum, qui renovatur
in agnitionem secundum imaginem eius qui creavit ilium..." Isa. 61.10:
"...quia induit me vestimentis salutis, et indumento iustitiae
circumdedit me, quasi sponsum decoratum corona, et quasi sponsam ornatam
monilibus suis."
249
The second example of male transvestism comes from Ambrose's
treatise, De uirginibus ("Concerning Virgins"). Ambrose admitted that
he was repeating the tale from another source, but named neither of the
story's protagonists.80 According to the story, a virgin of Antioch
during the time of persecutions had refused to marry, and therefore was
suspected of secret Christian beliefs. Faced with the choice of
sacrificing to the pagan gods or being placed in a brothel, she chose
the latter, relying on God's protection. "A great rush of wanton men is
made to the place," Ambrose continued, the first chosen to enter her
room being "a man with the aspect of a terrible warrior."81 The
soldier, however, was a fellow Christian, and suggested to the
frightened woman:
Let us change our attire, mine will fit you, and yours will
fit me, and each for Christ. Your robe will make me a true
soldier, mine will make you a virgin. You will be clothed
well. I shall be unclothed even better that the persecutor
may recognize me. Take the garment which will conceal the
woman, give me that which shall consecrate me a martyr. Put
on the cloak which will hide the limbs of a virgin, but
preserve her modesty. Take the cap which will cover your
hair and conceal your countenance.82
80The discovery of a long-lost treatise by Athanasius of

Alexandria (De uirginibus, ed. E. von der Goltz [Leipzig: J. C.
Hinrichs, 1905]) demonstrates how much Ambrose borrowed, including this
story. For more information on the two saints, who can be identified as
Theodora and Didymus, AASS 28 April. Cf. also the similar legend of
Antonina and Alexander, AASS 3 May.
81Ambrose De uirginibus 2.4.27 and 28: "Ingens petulantium

concurus ad fornicem... et ecce uir militis specie terribilis irrupit."
82Ambrose De uirginibus 2.4.29: "Cui miles: 'He quaeso paueas,

soror. Frater hue ueni saluare animam, non perdere. Serua me, ut ipsa
serueris. Quasi adulter ingressus, si uis, martyr egrediar. Vestimenta
mutemus; conueniunt mihi tua et mea tibi, sed utraque Christo. Tua
uestis me uerum militem faciet, mea te uirginem. Bene tu uestieris, ego
melius exuar, ut me persecutor agnoscat. Sume habitum qui abscondat
feminam, trade, qui consecret martyrum. Induere clamidem quae occultet
membra uirginis, seruet pudorem. Sume pileum qui tegat crines,
250
The exchange was made, and Ambrose, interrupting his tale, added: "Let
the characters be also considered, a soldier and a virgin, that is,
persons unlike in natural disposition, but alike by the mercy of God."83
After the virgin made her escape, a second man described as "more
shameless" entered the room. Ambrose continued:
But when he took in the state of the matter with his eyes, he
said [to the other men assembled outside the room], What is
this? A maiden entered, now a man is to be seen here. . . I
had heard but believed not that Christ changed water into
wine; now He has begun also to change the sexes. Let us also
depart hence whilst we still are what we were. . . I came to
a house of ill-fame, and see a[n honorable] surety. And yet
I [also] go forth changed, for I shall go out chaste who came
in unchaste.84
Eventually both the soldier and the virgin were martyred.
While the focus of the story was clearly the woman and how she
became masculinized physically and spiritually by her virtue, the
willingness of the soldier to be feminized for virtue's sake is surely
abscondat ora: solent erubescere qui lupanar intrauerint. Sane cum

egressa fueris, ne respicias retro, memore uxoris Loth, quae naturam
suam, quia impudicos licet castis oculis respexit, amisitl Nec uereare,
ne quid pereat sacrificio. Ego pro te hostiam deo reddo, tu pro me
militem Christo, habens bonam militiam castitatis, quae stipendiis
militat sempiternis, 'loricam iustitiae,' quae spiritali munimine corpus
includat, 'scutum fidei,' quo uulnus repellas, 'galeam salutis': ibi
enim est praesidium nostrae salutis, ubi Christus, quoniam mulieris
caput uir, uirginis Christus.'"
83Ambrose De uirginibus 2.4.30: "Addantur personae, miles et

uirgo, hoc est dissimiles inter se natura, sed dei miseratione
consimiles..."
84Ambrose De uirginibus 2.4.31: "At illi, qui uidebant oculis et

non uidebant, ceu raptores ad agnam lupi, fremere ad praedam. Vnus qui
erat immodice districtior introiuit. Sed ubi hausit oculis rei textum
'quid hoc, inquit, est? Puella ingressa est, uir uidetur. Ecce non
fabulosum illud 'cerua pro uirgine,' sed quod uerum est, miles ex
uirgine. Ad etiam audieram et non credideram, quod aquas Christus in
uina conuertit: iam mutare coepit et sexus. Recedamus hinc, dum adhuc
qui fuimus sumus. Numquid et ipse mutatus sum qui aliud cerno quam
credo? Ad lupanar ueni, cerno uadimonium, et tamen mutatus egrediar,
pudicus exibo qui adulter intraui.'"
251
as interesting. Although here the man's cross-dressing was voluntary,
there is an obvious parallel with the story of Sergius and Bacchus in
the juxtaposition of usual notions of manliness and unmanliness, as
demonstrated by the individual's celebration of his transvestism as a
preparation for martyrdom. Again, the story is set against other
radical Christian reversals: water into wine, disrepute into honor, and
men into women.
These may not have been stories of which Tertullian and other
patristic writers would have approved. The overwhelming antipathy of
the church fathers to gender ambiguity in men would seem to support such
a judgement. That Ambrose would repeat a story about a holy
transvestite man, however, is noteworthy. Ambrose, more than any other
patristic writer, incorporated feminine or at least unmasculine imagery
into his texts. For example, he often made use of the feminine image of
the church from the biblical Song of Songs as bride of Christ, which
required each man to see himself at least on some level as a woman.85
Indeed, the whole notion of a God imagined as male required his male
believers to take a unmanly posture, as has been shown from biblical
texts.86 Ambrose wrote that Christians were also like flowers in a
garden,87 or a spiritual choir,88 and the Christian soul was delicate as
85See discussion below, chap. 7. For earlier patristic writers,

see Karl Delehaye, Ecclesia Hater chez les p&res des trois premiers
si&cles (Paris: Cerf, 1964).
86See Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, God's Phalluss And Other Problems

for Men and Monotheism (Boston: Beacon, 1994).
87Ambrose Expositio euangelii secundum Lucam (ed. CCSL 14) 7.128:

"Sunt enim horti quidam diuersarum pomiferi uirtutum iuxta quod scriptum
est: hortus clausus soror mea sponsa, hortus clausus, fons signatus, eo
quod ubi integritas, ubi castitas, ubi religio, ubi fida silentia
252
a sparrow.89 We should not attribute any modern attitude on gender to
Ambrose, or any cultural distance radically different from his
contemporaries: Ambrose also wrote strongly against effeminate
mannerisms in Christian clerics and in pagan actors, and who denounced
unmanliness in any form.90 Instead, it is important to see that even
within a context of traditional ideas about masculinity, Christianity
provided a context for improvisation and innovation.
The stories of the saintly men who wore women's clothing were not
intended to blur the boundaries between the genders, but to reinforce
the opposite by the juxtaposition of appearance and reality. They
secured the connection between virtue and masculinity and between vice
and femininity. The true effeminates in both stories were not the
secretorum, ubi claritas angelorum est, illic confessorum uiolae, lilia

uirginum, rosae martyrum sunt." Ambrose continued by explaining why he
chose the particular flower for the different types of Christians. Cf.
John Cassian, Conlationes 1.1: "...abbatem Hoysen, qui inter illos
egregios flores suauius non solum actuali, uerum etiam theoretica
uirtute fragrabat..."
"Ambrose Expositio euangelii secundum Lucam 7.838: "Haec est enim

symphonia, guando concinit in ecclesia diuersarum aetatem atgue uirtutum
uelut uariarum cordarum indiscreta concordia psalmus, respondetur, amen
dicitur. Haec est symphonia, quam sciuit et Paulus. Et ideo ait:
psallema spiritu, psallam et mente. Haec de parabola praesenti
putauimus esse tractanda."
"Ambrose Expositio euangelii secundum Lucam 7.113: "Possumus

tamen hie discutere aliguod intellegentiae spiritalis arcanum,
praesertim cum hoc uideatur absurdum, ut homines potius hominibus guam
passeribus conparentur. Videntur enim quinque isti passeres guinque
esse corporis sensus, tactus odoratus gustus uisus auditus, qui modo
passerum si terrenarum sordium rimentur inluuiem atque ex incultis locis
ac faetidis cibum quaerant, delictorum suorum laqueis occupati ad
superiorum operum fructus, quibus epulantur animi, reuolare non possunt.
Est enim lenocinantis quidam laqueus uoluptatis, qui nostrorum uestigiis
animorum quaedam uincla subnectat, ut si igneum uigorem puritatemque
naturae terrenae materiae sensus hebetauerit, luxuriae pretio saecularis
addictum sub quadam uitiorum auctione constituat."
90See above on the effeminate clerics and below on pagan actors.
253
soldiers dressed in women's clothing, but their persecutors consumed by
the womanly passions of lust and anger. Similarly, the martyrdom which
ended both accounts sealed the manly virtue of the male transvestites.
Their willingness to undergo the humiliation of transvestism only
heightened their true manliness.
The stories of the Christian male transvestites, then, should
remind us both that Christian notions of masculinity were not so simple
as from all to nothing, and also that it was not so easy to dismiss
cultural notions of manliness and unmanliness, even within a Christian
context. As will be documented in succeeding chapters, Christians did
much that was considered unmanly: their willingness to suffer violence
and death for their religion without fighting back, their flight from
the world and its political concerns, and their reluctance to engage in
the degrading passions of sex and even the worldly affections of
marriage and family life. All of these things signalled not their
effeminacy but their Christian uirtus.
4. The disgrace with which he was laden:
The Christian Critique of Roman Paganism
The new Christian masculinity, which identified itself with
virtuous manliness, offered individual Christians the freedom to
criticize various aspects of pagan masculinity as unmanliness. The
condemnation of contemporary morals was a time-honored Roman literary
convention, and so the idea of this critique was itself an extremely
conservative one. Nonetheless, by linking such unmanliness to the
254
practice of paganism, Christians pursued this traditional critique in
novel directions.
It is easy to demonstrate this confluence of traditionalism and
innovation. Ambrose wrote of his contemporaries that they "have devoted
themselves to pleasures, luxury, robbery, gain, or honours.”91
Augustine complained that the vain desires of the wicked man meant that
his whole life [is] tossed restless in varying and

contradictory moods, here by anxiety, there by empty and
unreal delights: here by the dread of losing something that
is loved, there by eagerness of acquiring what is not
possessed, here by the pain of some injury done, there by
the urge of a wrong to be avenged: on either side the greed
to gather in, extravagance to waste, ambition to promise,
pride to puff up, envy to annoy, sloth to cover over,
willfulness to wrangle, submissiveness to wrong.92
Salvian of Marseilles wrote of the men of the mid-fifth century that
many fill their time "with litigation, with slander and plunder, with
wine-bibbing and over-indulgence at feasts, with forgery and perjury,
with adultery and homicide."93 These were all familiar accusations.94
91Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.16.61: "Isti igitur qui in

deliciis, qui in luxuria, rapinis, quaestibus, honoribus studia
posuerunt sua, spectatores magis sunt quam proeliatores: habent lucrum
laboris, fructum uirtutis non habent. Fouent otium, astutia et
improbitate aggerant diuitarum aceruos, sed exsoluent, seram licet,
nequitiae suae poenam. Horum requies in infernis, tua uero in caelo,
horum domus in sepulcro, tua in paradiso."
92August. De libero arbitrio 1.11: "...cum interea cupiditatum

illud regnum tyrannice saeviat, et variis contrariisque tempestatibus
totum hominis animum vitamque perturbet, hinc timore, inde desiderio;
hinc anxietate, inde inani falsaque laetitia; hinc cruciatu rei amissae
quae diligebatur, inde ardore adipiscendae quae non habebatur; hince
acceptae injuriae doloribus, inde facibus vindicandae: quaqua versum
potest coarctare avaritia, dissipare luxuria, addicere ambitio, inflare
superbia, torquere invidia, desidia sepelire, pervicacia concitare,
afflictare subjectio, et quaecumque alia innumerabilia regnum illius
libidinis frequentant et exercent..."
93Salvian De gubernatione Dei 4.9: "non sufficiunt enim multis

consuetudinarii reatus, non sufficiunt lites, non calumniae non rapinae,
non sufficiunt uinolentiae non sufficiunt comessationes, non sufficiunt
255
An excellent example of Christian rhetoric's use of the twin
threads of novelty and conservatism can be seen in the Christian
reaction to the theatrical spectacles and gladiatorial games.95 Leaders
in the Christian communities sought to undermine the popularity of the
public entertainments, which frequently attracted their own
coreligionists as well as pagan spectators, by stigmatizing it as
unmanly. In their condemnations, they often concentrated on the arousal
of base emotions during the performances. Tertullian, describing the
fascination which the games drew upon for their popularity, called
gladiators the kind of persons "to whom men prostitute their souls."96
In his Confessions, Augustine described a friend named Alypius who was
attracted to the gladiatorial shows, in terms of unmanly addiction and
falsitates non sufficiunt periuria, non sufficiunt adulteria non

sufficiunt homicidia..."
94For classical comparisons: Edwards, Politics of Immorality.
95The ludi ("games") included a whole range of gladiatorial and

athletic contests, wrestling and acrobatics, tragic and comedic plays,
mime and pantomime shows, public re-enactments of mythical or historical
scenes, and more. For e.gs. of descriptions of such spectacles in later
Roman sources, see Apul. Met. 4.13 and 10.29-34; Cass. Dio 66.25; S.H.A.
Gallieni duo 8. Generally on the Christian critique of the pagan Roman
public performances, see Werner Weismann, Kirche und Schauspiele. Die
Schauspiele im Urteil der lateinischen KirchenvSter unter besonderer
Beriicksichtigung von Augustin (Wtirzburg: Augustinus, 1972); or Michel
Matter, "Jeux d 'amphitheatre et reactions chrdtiennes de Tertullien A la
fin du Ve si&cle,” in Spectacula: actes du colloque tenu A Toulouse et A
Lattes les 26, 27, 28, et 29 mai 1987, ed. C. Domergue, et al. (Paris:
Imago, 1990).
96Tert. De spectaculis 22: "...arenarios illos amantissimos,

quibus uiri animas, feminae autem illis etiam corpora sua
substernunt..."
256
loss of emotional self-control.97 with dramatic flourish, he described
the scene:
When they arrived at the arena, the place was seething with
the lust for cruelty. They found seats as best they could
and Alypius shut his eyes tightly, determined to have
nothing to do with these atrocities. If only he had closed
his ears as welll For an incident in the fight drew a great
roar from the crowd, and this thrilled him so deeply that he
could not contain his curiosity. Whatever had caused the
uproar, he was confident that, if he saw it, he would find
it repulsive and remain master of himself. So he opened his
eyes, and his soul was stabbed with a wound more deadly than
any which the gladiator, whom he was anxious to see, had
received in his body. He fell, and fell more pitifully than
the man whose fall had drawn that roar of excitement from
the crowd. The din had pierced his ears and forced him to
open his eyes, laying his soul open to receive the wound
which struck it down. . . When he saw the blood, it was as
though he had drunk a deep draught of savage passion.
Instead of turning away, he fixed his eyes upon the scene
and drank in all its frenzy, unaware of what he was doing.
He revelled in the wickedness of the fighting and was drunk
with the fascination of bloodshed.98
Augustine concluded: "He watched and cheered and grew hot with
excitement."99 Because the emotional frame of mind associated with a
97August. Confessiones (ed. CCSL 27; trans. R. Pine-Coffin

[London: Penguin, 1961]) 6.7: "Gurges tamen morum Carthaginiensium,
quibus nugatoria feruent spectacula, absorbuerat eum insania
circensium.”
"August. Confessiones 6.8: "Quod ubi uentum est et sedibus quibus

potuerunt locati sunt, feruebant omnia immanissimis uoluptatibus. Ille
clausis foribus oculorum interdixit animo, ne in tanta mala procederet.
Atque utinam et aures obturauissetI Nam quodam pugnae casu, cum clamor
ingens totius populi uehementer eum pulsasset, curiositate uictus et
quasi paratus, quidquid illud esset, etiam uisum contemnere uincere,
aperuit oculos et percussus est grauiore uulnere in anima quam ille in
corpore, quern cernere concupiuit, ceciditque miserabilius quam ille, quo
cadente factus est clamor; qui per eius aures intrauit et reserauit eius
lumina, ut esset, qua feriretur et deiceretur audax adhuc potius quam
fortis animus et eo infirmior, quo de se praesumpserat, qui debuit de
te. Vt enim uidit ilium sanguinem, immanitatem simul ebibit et non se
auertit, sed fixit aspectum et hauriebat furias et nesciebat et
delectabatur scelere certaminis et cruenta uoluptate inebriabatur. Et
non erat iam ille, qui uenerat, sed unus de turba, ad quam uenerat, et
uerus eorum socius, a quibus adductus erat."
"August. Confessiones 6.8: "Spectauit, clamauit, exarsit,

abstulit inde secum insaniam, qua stimularetur redire non tantum cum
257
fondness for the games - often referred to as insanity and loss of self-
control - could be implicitly contrasted with the rationality expected
of men, it was effeminate. The unmanliness of fondness for the games is
not far beneath the surface here, and Alypius is the loser in the manly
interior struggle.
The relationship of gender to the Christian censure of the public
performances is especially apparent in references to the theatrical
shows. Much more problematic than the violence of the gladiatorial
contests - and therefore more interesting for our purposes - were the
gender violations visible on the Roman stage. The violations were two
fold: first, men often played women's parts, and second, all actors wore
masks which hid their faces. In both cases, graceful movements of hands
and bodies were an integral part of theater and necessary for the
showing either of femininity or of emotion.100 In addition to these
reasons, the content of some plays - especially comedic ones - was
graphically sexual.
For all of these reasons, Christian writers condemned the theater
and its performers as unmanly. Tertullian, who dedicated an entire
treatise to the problem of public shows, wrote:
Then, too, as in [the Judaeo-Christian] Law it is declared

that the man is cursed who attires himself in female
illis, a quibus prius abstractus est, sed etiam prae illis et alios
trahens."
100See Richard Beacham, "Tragedy, Mime, and Pantomime," in The

Homan Theatre and its Audience (New York: Routledge, 1991). Beacham
adds (p. 138) a cautionary note: "The mime frequently satirized
Christianity and its practices... [and] this caused it to be fiercely
denounced in such extravagant terms that it becomes difficult to
separate fact from hyperbolic rhetoric."
258
garments, what must be [the] judgement of the pantomine, who

is even brought up to play the womanI101
Lactantius voiced a similar opinion:
What of the stage? is it less vile? there comedy discourses

of debaucheries and illicit loves, tragedy of incest and
parricide. The lewd gestures of actors, whereby they
imitate loose women, actually teach the lusts expressed in
their dances. The farce too is a school of iniquity, in
which shameful things are done by representation, so that
things that are true are accomplished without any sense of
shame.102
The hagiographical theme of the conversion of the actor in mid
performance - as in the legend of Genesius, who is said to have accepted
Christianity in the midst of an anti-Christian play - reinforced the
sinfulness of the stage.103
The unmanlines of the actor was a central trope in Christian
tracts against the theater. Novatian complained of "a man [of the
stage] soft beyond effeminacy, devoted to the art of expressing words
with his hands,” calling such a man an ”I-don't-know-what, neither man
101Tert. De spectaculis 23: "Ceterum cum in lege praescribit

maledictum esse qui muliebribis uestietur, quid de pantomino iudicabit,
qui etiam muliebribus curuatur?” Note that Roberts and Donaldson add
"His" before Law and before judgement. There are other planks to the
platform of Tertullian's critique of the shows; one of these, for
instance, is the distraction which the shows offer from more important
tasks. Cf. ibid. 25: "Sed tragoedo uociferante exclamationes ille
alicuius prophetae retractabit et inter effeminati tibicinis modos
psalmos secum comminiscetur, et cum athletae agent, ille dicturus est
repercutiendum non esse.”
102Lactant. Epit. div. inst. 58.5-6: "quid? scaena num sanctior,

in qua comoedia de stupris et amoribus, tragoedia de incestis et
parricidiis fabulatur? histrionum etiam impudici gestus, quibus infames
feminas imitantur, libidines, quas saltando exprimunt, docent, nam
mimus corruptelarum disciplina est, in quo fiunt per imaginem, quae
pudenda sunt, ut fiant sine pudore, quae uera sunt."
103See Bertha von der Lage, Studien zur Genesiuslegende (Berlin:

R. Gaertners, 1898).
259
nor woman."104 Cyprian bemoaned the fact that on the stage ”[m]en
emasculate themselves; all the honor and vigor of their sex are
enfeebled by the disgrace of an enervated body, and he gives more
pleasure there who best breaks down the man into woman.”105 Lactantius
asked:
The shameless motions of the actors also; what else do they

teach and arouse but the passions? Their enervated bodies,
softened to womanish step and apparel, belie shameless women
with their dishonorable gestures.106
Ambrose contrasted "the movements of the dissolute bodies of actors"
with the vigorous mannerisms of true men.107
The Christian emperors, acting out of such sentiment against
spectacles and the performers in them, banned many public performances.
104Novatian De spectacalis (ed. CCSL 4; trans. R. DeSimone, FC 67)

6: "Huic dedecori condignum dedecus superducitur, homo fractus omnibus
membris et uir ultra muliebrem mollitiem dissolutus, cui ars sit uerba
manibus expedire. Et propter unum nescio guem nec uirum nec feminam
commouetur ciuitas tota, ut desaltentur fabulosae antiquitatem
libidines.”
105Cyprian Ad Donaturn (ed. CCSL 3a; trans. R. Deferrari, FC 36) 8:

"Adhuc deinde morum quanta labes, quae probrorum fomenta, quae alimenta
uitiorum, histrionicis gestibus inquinari, uidere contra foedus iusque
nascendi patientiam incestae turpitudinis elaboratum: euirantur mares,
honor omnis et uigor sexus eneruati corporis dedecore mollitur plusque
ilic placet, quisque uirum in feminam magis fregerit. In laudem crescit
ex crimine et peritior quo turpior iudicatur.”
106Lactant. Div. inst. 6.20.29: "histrionum quoque inpudicissimi

motus quid aliut nisi libidines et docent et instigant? quorum eneruata
corpora et in muliebrem incessum habitumque mollita inpudicas feminas
inhonestis gestibus mentiuntur."
107Ambrose Expositio euangelii secundum Lucam 6.8: "...neque enim

histrionicos fluxi corporis motus deus morum censor exigeret aut
indecoros crepitus uiris plaususque femineos imperaret, ut tantum
prophetam deduceret ad ludibria scaenicorum et mollia feminarum. ...Est
sane, est quidam proprius bonorum actuum factorumque plausus, cuius
sonus in orbem exeat et bene gestorum resultet gloria, est honesta
saltatio, qua tripudiat animus, et bonis corpus operibus eleuatur,
quando in salicibus organa nostra suspendimus."
260
Constantine made gladiatorial contests illegal, saying that
"[s]anguinary exhibitions are not proper in the midst of civil
tranquillity and domestic peace.”108 Later emperors also forbade actors
from being admitted to communion in Christian churches, except at the
end of their lives, after which, if they chanced to survive, they could
under no circumstances return to the stage.109 The law also prevented
Christian women and boys from associating with actors;110 banned a
spring festival called the aaiuaa because of its indecency;111 and
rejected the presentation on Sundays of "any spectacles which were
devised to effeminate the spirit [ad oolliendos animos]...”112
These laws, it must be noted, were apparently mostly ignored:
Augustine recorded his companion Alypius' addiction to gladiatorial
games in the city of Milan during the 370s, long after Constantine's law
108Cod. Just. 11.43.1/11.44.1: "Cruenta spectacula in otio civili

et domestica quiete non placent. quapropter omnino gladiatores esse
prohibemus."
109Cod. Theod. 15.7.1: "Scaenici et scaenicae, qui in ultimo vitae

ac necessitate cogente interitus inminentis ad dei summi sacramenta
properarunt, si fortassis evaserint, nulla posthac in theatralis
spectaculi conventione revocentur."
110Cod. Theod. 15.7.12: "...et ut nulla femina nec puer thymelici

consortio inbuantur, si Christianae religionis esse cognoscitur."
111Cod. Theod. 15.6.2: "Ludicras artes concedimus agitari, ne ex

nimia harum restrictione tristitia generetur. Illud vero quod sibi
nomen procex licentia vindicavit, maiumam, foedum adque indecorum
spectaculum, denegamus.” This replaced a law issued by the same
emperors three years earlier, which had permitted the aaiuaa if decency
was respected, ibid. 15.6.1: "Clementiae nostrae placuit, ut maiumae
provincialibus laetitia redderetur, ita tamen, ut servetur honestas et
verecundia castis moribus perseveret.”
112Cod. Theod. 2.8.23: "Die dominico, cui nomen ex ipsa reverentia

inditum est, nec ludi theatrales nec equorum certamina nec quicquam,
quod ad molliendos animos repertum est, spectaculorum in civitate aliqua
celebretur." Pharr adds a note (Theodosian Code, 45 n. 16) that oollire
might mean "relax" here.
261
banning them,113 and Salvian, writing from Marseilles in the middle of
the fifth century, still criticized the immorality of the public games.
"Indeed," he wrote, "it would take long to speak about all these snares
now, namely the amphitheaters, music halls, public processions, jesters,
athletes, tumblers, pantomimes and other monstrosities, which disgust me
to talk about."114
Whether the legislation against the games and plays sprang from
specifically Christian sentiment or not is difficult to say. Many pagan
writers of a Stoic philosophical bent used the same negative assessments
of the violence and passion of the arenas and stages to censure their
contemporaries.115 The Bistoria Augusta and the Roman history of Dio
Cassius implied a smear on the reputations of several emperors by
insinuating their frequent association with actors, mimes, gladiators,
and members of other scurrilous professions.116 Neither were the gender
violations of actors solely a cause for Christian concern. The pagan
emperor Julian also complained of the effeminacy of theatre performers,
113See above.
114Salvian De gubernatione Dei 6.3: "et quidem quia longum est

nunc de omnibus dicere, amphitheatris scilicet odiis lusoriis pompis
athletis petaminariis pantomimis ceterisque portentis, quae piget
dicere, quia piget malum tale uel nosse, de solis circorum ac theatrorum
impuritatibus dico."
115See above, chap. 2. For earlier Roman criticism: Harold

Harris, "Greek Athletics in the Roman World," in Sport in Greece and
Rome (Ithaca, New York: Cornell university, 1972).
116S.H.A. Gallieni duo 21.5-6: "...multa etiam ab eo gesta, quae

ad virtutem, plura tamen quae ad dedecus pertinebant. nam et semper
noctibus popinas dicitur frequentasse et cum lenonibus, mimis scurrisque
vixisse.” Cf. ibid., Tyranni triginta 9: "...cum Gallienus vino et
popinis vacaret cumque se lenonibus, mimis et meretricibus dederet ac
bona luxuriae continuatione deperderet..." Cf. also Cass. Dio 64.2.1.
262
calling them "boys who in their beauty emulate women, and men who have
not only their jaws shaved smooth but their whole bodies, too."117
Christians always linked the gender violations of the actors to
the immorality of the subject-matter of the plays and festivals, namely,
the history and mythology of ancient Rome and frequently the violent
crimes or sexual exploits of the gods. Tertullian wrote:
Are we not, in like manner, enjoined to put away from us all

immorality [impudicitia]? On this ground, we are excluded
from the theatre, which is immodesty's own peculiar abode,
where nothing is in repute but what elsewhere is
disreputable.118
He even wondered how the pagans could consider such re-enactments as
pious or useful:
when the likeness of a god is put on the head of an

ignominious and infamous wretch, when one impure and trained
up for the art in all effeminacy, represents a Minerva or a
Hercules, is not the majesty of your gods insulted, and
their deity dishonoured [constupratur, lit. a sexual
defilement]?119
Behind the critique of Roman theatre and the pagan festivals,
therefore, was an ever greater condemnation of the pagan gods and the
117Julian Misopogon 345D-346A: "...jraiS&pioc xepi k&X.A.ou<;

a]iiXX,coneva xatq yovaiîv, &v5pa<; &jiE\|ntaflpivou<; oftu xaq yvAQouq ]i6vov, ctXXa.
xai ajtav x b acacia.. . ■
118Tert. De spectaculis 17: "Similiter et impudicitiam omnem

amoliri iubemur. Hoc igitur modo etiam a theatro separamur, quod est
priuatum consistorium inpudicitiae, ubi nihil aliud probatur quam quod
alibi non probatur." Beacham (Roman Theatre, 136) writes: "Their very
popularity may have encouraged presenters [of shows] to take
liberties... pushing licence to its limits..."
119Tert. Apol. 15.3: "Ipsum quod imago dei uestri ignominiosum

caput et famosum uestit, quod corpus impurum et ad istam artem
effeminatione productum Mineruam aliquam uel Herculem repraesentat,
nonne uiolatur maiestas et diuinitas constupratur plaudentibus uobis?"
Cf. idea, De spectaculis 10: "Quae priuata et propria sunt scaenae de
gestu et corporis flexu mollitiam Veneri et Libero immolant, illi per
sexum, illi per fluxum dissolutis."
263
myths about them. These denunciations also used the rhetorical strategy
of attacking the unmanliness of pagan religion. Salvian linked the
paganism intimately with the immorality:
Minerva is worshipped and honored in the gymnasia, Venus in

the theaters, Neptune in the circuses, Mars in the arena,
Mercury in the wrestling schools . . . Whatever is of an
impure nature is done in the theaters. Whatever is
luxurious, in the wrestling schools. Whatever is
immoderate, in the circuses. Whatever is mad, in the arena
pits. Here there is wantonness, there lasciviousness. Here
there is intemperance, there insanity.120
Armed with the myths of the sexual adventures of the pagan gods,
Christian writers made the most of such tales for reinforcing the
effeminate imagery of paganism. Ambrose wrote of the "unchaste love" of
Neptune and the "disgrace with which [Jupiter] was laden."121 All of
the gods fell under attack, but Bacchus, a god of celebration also known
in the western Mediterranean as Liber, was an obvious choice for
especial vilification. Sidonius Apollinaris, for instance, depicted
Bacchus as "all languorous; his proud neck sweated with exuded
wine...”122 Prudentius described how he "abandon[ed] himself to
120Salvian De gubernatione Dei 6.11: "colitur namque et honoratur

Minerua in gymnasiis Venus in theatris Neptunus in circis Mars in
harenis Mercurius in palaestris, et ideo pro gualitate auctorum cultus
est superstitionum. guicguid inmunditiarum est hoc exercetur in
theatris, guicguid luxuriarum in palaestris, guicguid immoderationis in
circis, guicguid furoris in caueis. alibi est impudicitia alibi
lasciuia, alibi intemperantia alibi insania..." Cf. Peter Chrysologus
Sermo 155, too lengthy to guote. Generally on the Christian polemic
against pagan myths, see R. P. C. Hanson, "The Christian Attitude to
Pagan Religions up to the Time of Constantine the Great,” in Studies in
Christian Antiquity (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1985).
121Ambrose De uirginibus 3.7: "Dent igitur Neptuno dominatum

furoris, ut adstruant crimen incesti amoris. ...Dent etiam Ioui fulmina
guae non habuit, ut testificentur guae habuit obprobria."
122Sid. Apoll. Burgus Pontii Leontii 11. 25-6: "marcidus ipse

sedet curru; madet ardua ceruix / sudati de rore meri..."
264
indulgence in company with his emasculate [semiuiro] following."123
Lactantius described how he "was conquered most shamefully by lust and
passion."124 Firmicus Maternus precisely suggested that he "was a
pervert and served the lustful desires of [men together with] his
halfmen lackeys [who were] his associates in debauchery, shame, and
lust."125 Hercules, the ancient hero who nonetheless kept a boy-lover,
Hylas, and who was forced to wear women's clothing during his
enslavement to the evil queen, Omphale, fell under similar attacks at
the hands of Christian writers.126
123Prudent. c. Symm. 1 11. 122-6: "Thebanus iuuenis superatis fit

deus Indis, / successu dum uictor ouans lasciuit et aurum / captiuae
gentis reuehit spoliisque superbus / diffluit in luxum cum semiuiro
comitatu / atque auidus uini multo se proluit haustu..." This may be a
reference to eunuch-priests; see below, chap. 8.
124Lactant. Div. iast. 1.10.8: "...maximus ab amore ac libidine

turpissime uictus est."
125Firmicus Maternus De errore profanarum religionum (ed. R.

Turcan [Paris: Belles lettres, 1982]; trans. C. Forbes, ACW 37) 6.7:
"Neque enim effeminatus consensum uirorum potuit diutius sustinere.
[Effeminatum] cinaedum enin eum fuisse et amatorum seruisse libidinibus
Graecorum gymnasiis decantatur. Nec fuga eius Lycurgus tantum est
exilioque contentus, sed timens ne fugiens et ab aliis receptus
ludibriosa scelerum suorum etiam in alia regione conderet semina,
succinctus ferro patriae dedecus minaci persequitur edicto. Tunc Liber,
proiectis infulis quas pampineis coronarum circulis inligabat, cum
semiuiro comitatu fugiens - soli enim eum secuti sunt stuprorum et
flagitiorum ac libidinum socii - per omnes oras uicinim maris cum summa
trepidatione desperationis errauit." I have amended to "men" the point
at which Forbes actually has "homosexuals."
126Tert. Ad nat. 2.14.7: "...et ob decori pueri amissionem

foede desertam militiam Argonautarum." Cf. Auson. Epigr. 97:
"Adspice, quam blandae necis ambitione fruatur / letifera
experiens gaudia pulcher Hylas. / oscula et infestos inter
moriturus amores / ancipites patitur Naidas Eumenidas." Cf. also
Prudent, c. Symm. 1 11. 116-9: "Herculeus mollis pueri famosus
amore / ardor et in transtris iactata efferbuit Argo, / nec maris
erubuit Nemea sub pelle fovere / concubitus et Hylan pereuntem
quaerere caelebs." Cf. also Lactant. Epit. div. inst. 7:
"...indutus ipse feminea veste atque ad pedes mulieris abjectus,
pensa quae faceret accepit."
265
The lifestyle and sexual escapades of Jupiter were another
frequent object of Christian ridicule. Augustine called him "a seducer
of the wives of others, and a shameless lover and ravisher of a
beautiful boy."127 This last offence, the rape of the youth Ganymede,
brought particular ironic delight to Christian writers. Lactantius,
noting Jupiter's "injury to his own sex,” added: "We shall see whether
he who does these things is maximus; at any rate, he is not optimus.”128
An anonymous writer noted that had Jupiter been a Roman subject, he
would have been criminally guilty for his abduction of Ganymede.129
Firmicus Maternus concurred, concluding that any individual "may declare
that his gods authorize him to do whatever is today most severely
punished by the laws of Rome."130
The Christian polemic against paganism attempted to demonstrate
how the effeminacy of the old myths affected those men who believed in
127August. De civ. D. 4.25: "iste alienarum dicitur adulter

uxorum, iste pueri pulchri inpudicus amator et raptor.”
128Lactant. Div. inst. 1.10.13: "haec qui facit, uiderimus an

Maximus, certe Optimus non est..." He added that the Roman use of the
eagle as its symbol is an unfortunate reminder of that episode: ibid.
1.11.29: "nam quod aliud argumentum habet imago Catamiti et effigies
aquilae, cum ante pedes Iovis ponuntur in templis et cum ipso pariter
adorantur, nisi ut nefandi sceleris ac stupri memoria maneat in
aeternum?"
129Ps.-Tert. De execrandis gentium diis (ed. and trans. with

Tert.): "Pueros ingenuos attaminauit: Lex Cornelia transgressi foederis
ammissam, nouis exemplis, noui coitus sacrilegum damnaret."
130Firmicus Maternus De errore profanarum religionum 12.2:

"Adulterio delectatur aliquis: louem respicit et inde cupiditatis suae
fomenta conquirit. . . Puerorum aliquis delectatur amplexibus:
Ganymedem in sinu Iouis quaerat . . . ut per deos suos sibi licere dicat
quicquit hodie seuerissime Romanis legibus uindicatur.” Cf. on this
episode of Jupiter and Ganymede also Tert. Ad Nat. 2.13.18; Commodian
Instructiones 1.6; Prudent, c. Symm. 1 11. 69-70.
266
them. Prudentius, for example, writing of Maximian, one of the last
pagan emperors, questioned how this "lord of power [could be] yet
himself in vassalage to figures of stone [and could] prostitute himself
to his gods and make himself over to them?"131 The same associations of
the old religion with unmanliness and shameful sexual behavior - in the
identification of paganism with prostitution - can also be seen in the
language of the laws of the Christian emperors prohibiting the ancient
practices.132
Finally, Lactantius offered this critique of the old pagan
worship:
But among the gods we see that there are women, too:
therefore, they are not gods. Let him who can shatter this
argument. For condition so follows condition that it is
necessary to admit the conclusion. And no one can shatter
this argument: of the two sexes one is stronger, one weaker,
for the males are more robust, the females more weak.
Weakness, however, does not apply to divinity; therefore,
there is no female sex [in divinity]. To this is added the
131Prudent. Perist. 3 11. 81-4: "Maximianus, opum dominus / et

tamen ipse cliens lapidum, / prostituat voveatque suis / numinibus caput
ipse suum..."
132Nov. Theodosii 3.1: "Hinc perspicit nostra dementia paganorum

quoque et gentilis inmanitatis vigiliam nos debere sortiri, qui naturali
vesania et licentia pertinaci verae religionis tramite discedentes
nefarios sacrificiorum ritus et funestae superstitionis errores occultis
exercere quodammodo solitudinibus dedignatur, nisi ad supernae
maiestatis iniuriam et temporis nostri contemptum eorum scelera
professionis genere publicentur. Quos non promulgatarum legum mille
terrores, non denuntiati exilii poena conpescunt, ut, si emendari non
possint, mole saltern criminum et inluvie victimarum discerent abstinere.
Sed prorsus ea furoris peccatur audacia, iis inproborum conatibus
patientia nostra pulsatur, ut si oblivisci cupiat dissimulare non
possit. Quamquam igitur amor religionis numquam possit esse securus,
quamquam pagana dementia cunctorum suppliciorum acerbitates exposcat,
lenitatis tamen memores nobis innatae trabali iussione decrevimus, ut,
quiccumque pollutis contaminatisque mentibus in sacrificio quolibet in
loco fuerit conprehensus, in fortunas eius, in sanguinem ira nostra
consurgat."
267
final conclusion of the previous argument, that they are not

gods, since there are women among them.133
Here is to be found the misogynistic conclusion of the link between
religion and gender in the anti-pagan tracts: paganism is of the stuff
of women, Christianity of men. Christian writers, attempting to show
the irrationality of paganism, strengthened the underpinings of a
feminine ignorance beneath traditional religion. Augustine poked fun at
the proliferation of gods in Roman belief:
But how can I give a list, in one passage of this book, of

all the names of their gods and goddesses? The Romans had
difficulty in getting them into the massive volumes . . .
They could not even find the goddess called Segetia adequate
on her own, to the responsibility for the crops from start
to finish. Instead, they decided that the corn when sown
should have the goddess Seia to watch over it as long as the
seeds were under ground; as soon as the shoots came above
the ground and began to form the grain, they were under the
charge of the goddess Segetia; but when the corn had been
reaped and stored the goddess Tutilina was set over them to
keep them safe. Would not anyone think that Segetia should
have been competent to supervise the whole process from the
first green shoots to the dry ears of corn? But that was
not enough for men who loved a multitude of gods - and so
much so that their miserable soul disdained the pure embrace
of the one true God and prostituted itself to a mob of
demons.134
133Lactant. Div. inst. 1.16.14-7: "in diis autem uidemus et

feminas esse: ergo dii non sunt, dissoluat hoc argumentum si quis
potest, ita enim res rem sequitur, ut haec ultima necesse sit
confiteri. sed ne illud quidem dissoluet aliquis: ex duobus sexibus
alter fortior est, alter infirmior; robustiores enim mares sunt, feminae
imbecilliores. imhecillitas autem non cadit in deum, ergo nec feminae
sexus. huic additur superioris argumenti extrema ilia conclusio, ut dii
non sint, quoniam in diis et feminae sunt.”
134August. De civ. D. 4.8: "Quando autem possunt uno loco libri

huius commemorari omnia nomina deorum et dearum, quae illi grandibus
uoluminibus uix comprehendere potuerunt singulis rebus propria
dispertientes officia numinum? ...Nec saltern potuerunt unam Segetiam
talem inuenire, cui semel segetes commendarent, sed sata frumenta,
quamdiu sub terra essent, praepositam uoluerunt habere deam Seiam; cum
uero iam essent super terram et segetem facerent, deam Segetiam;
frumentis uero collectis atque reconditis, ut tuto seruarentur, deam
Tutilinam praeposuerunt. Cui non sufficere uideretur ilia Segetia,
quamdiu seges ab initiis herbidis usque ad aristas aridas perueniret?
268
Not without significance did Augustine concentrate his attack on the
goddesses, since they best represented the conjunction of the feminine
nature and spiritual ignorance. Augustine also used the metaphor of
paganism as prostitution, contrasting it with the "pure embrace" of the
Christian god. Such condemnations also cemented the bonds in the
Christian imagination between the true religion and manly intelligence
and self-control.
Ultimately, this series of paradoxes, contradictions, and
condemnations - in the context of the crisis of masculinity in the later
Roman empire - enabled Christianity to attract adherents. Indeed, the
very success of Christianity in the third, fourth, and early fifth
centuries may be in no small part the result of such an effective
reformulation of the arenas of masculinity. Here, one may compare the
importance of the new options open to aristocratic Roman women in the
conversion of the empire to Christianity, which has already been well
established in the historical literature.135 These options included
both practical and symbolic freedoms available to women who embraced
Non tamen satis fuit hominibus deorum multitudinem amantibus, ut anima

misera daemoniorum turbae prostitueretur, unius Dei ueri castum
dedignata complexum." Augustine gives other examples ad nauseam; see
Mary Madden, The Pagan Divinities and their Worship as Depicted in teh
Works of Saint Augustine Exclusive of the City of God, Patristic
studies, vol. 24 (Washington, DC: catholic university of America, 1930).
135See above, introduction. Cf. the comments of Flore Dupriez, La

condition fdminine et les p&res de l'&glise latine (Montreal: Paulines,
1982), p. 89: "Le christianisme mit A l'honneur des vertues dites
'feminines' de douceur, de patience, d'amour des autres, de gdnerosite
du pardon, de soumission A la volonte divine. On sait combien de femmes
rdpondaient avec enthousiasme A cet ideal, moins nouveau pour elles que
pour les homines. De 1A, sans doute, une nouvelle source d'agressivite
pour les homines incapable de se ddpartir de leur volonte de puissance.
On se souviendra de s. JdrOme qui reconnaissait bien malgrd lui qu'il
devait se rabattre sur un auditoire essentiellement fdminin, parce que
les hommes n'dtaient gu&re rdceptifs A sa predication."
269
Christian belief, especially freer lifestyles in which asceticism
replaced familial obligations, and a freedom of identity which valued
women as individuals, and in which virtue could be exercised as
authority. According to such an analysis, the growth of Christianity
among women was the result of a productive reformulation of female
social roles and identity.136
Such freedoms, both practical and ideological, were equally
available to men. The ability of Christian writers to channel the
crisis of masculinity into new modes of thought, which represented both
a continuity with men's traditional self-image but also presented a new
model for masculine identity, was the key to surmounting the challenges
which traditional masculinity faced in this period of crisis. Christian
masculinity, based on the Christian paradox of counter-masculinity,
managed both to respond to the crisis in meaningful terms, but also to
preserve the manliness of individual identity, proved a winning
combination, at least in demographic terms.
Crucial to this reformulation of masculinity was the particular
ability of Christian ideology to rescue the Roman sense of uirtus, and
by so doing provide a space in which Roman men might view themselves no
longer as unmanly failures, even in the context of the declining
militarism of the empire, their collapsing political and familial
136lmportant early articles include: Jo Ann McNamara, "Sexual

Equality and the Cult of Virginity in Early Christian Thought," Feminist
Studies 3 (1976): 145-58; idem, "Wives and Widows in Early Christian
Thought," International Journal of Women's Studies 2 (1979): 575-92;
Rosemary Radford Ruether, "Mothers of the Church: Ascetic Women in the
Late Patristic Age,” in Women of Spirit, ed. R. Ruether and A.
McLaughlin (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979). See above,
introduction, for more recent literature.
270
authority, and the restrictions on their sexual lives. Christianity's
innovations in the arena of masculinity can therefore be best understood
when set alongside the public and private areas of gender crisis for men
of the later Roman empire - militarism, political authority, familial
authority, and sexual behavior. Through such concepts as a spiritual
militarism, which interiorized the martial identity of the Roman male, a
collegial ecclesiastical authority which created a counter-balance to
the power of the autocratic state, and the renunciation of family life
and sexuality through an extension of the familiar Roman ideal of self-
control, Roman males could regain their sense of status and reject an
effeminate image of themselves.
Such influence was a two-way street. In equal measure, the areas
of masculine anxiety in later Roman culture helped to shape and direct
the development of Christian doctrine in the west. By emphasizing those
aspects of belief which corresponded to traditions meaningful to Roman
men, the new Christian masculinity which evolved from the third to fifth
centuries stressed a militaristic image of itself, the absoluteness of
its authority, and the centrality of its ascetic familial and sexual
regime to religious belief. Indeed, and not surprisingly, these are the
areas of greatest Christian intellectual and literary activity in this
period in the west. He must therefore examine these facets of men's
lives.
Chapter Six:
When the exterior becomes like the interior:
Christian Masculinity and the Transformation of Men's Public Lives
Both masculine identity and the male authority which derived from
it continued in importance in the later Roman empire. In men's public
lives, even in the midst of the crises of military and political life,
men sought new ways to perpetuate their identity and authority, and
especially to resolve their anxieties around the problem of unmanliness.
Christian ideology provided a passage through the crisis.
First, the reluctance of men of the later Roman nobility to engage
in physical combat found reinforcement in the Christian pacifist
tradition. This reluctance to wage war, however, was understood as
manly resistance and as disciplined obedience to the commands of God,
and from this understanding was created the model of the miles Christi
("soldier of Christ"). From the martyrs, who represented the best and
bravest soldiers of Christ, the image grew to encompass all Christian
men, whose daily struggles against sin and temptation - against the
unmanliness within themselves - was identified as warfare against evil.
Second, the reluctance of men of the nobility to enter political
life because of the power of the later Roman emperors, his army
officials, and his bureaucracy, found a new interpretation in the
272
Christian exhortation to flee the world. The Christian understanding of
submission to God and his authority paralleled the submission to
imperial authority. This submission seriously undermined the power of
the emperor, however, since it was felt that God exercised his power
through the Christian bishops - who were men of the Roman nobility - and
not through the imperial state. Christian notions of obedienced
bolstered this rival system of authority.
The transformation of men's public lives through Christian
ideology in general involved important reversals of expected masculine
roles: the soldier who became so by refusing to participate in war, and
the public official who exercised power through a rejection of
governmental authority. Both transformations are evidence of the
Christian counter-masculinity in action. Also important to men's roles
in these reversals, however, was the interiorization of these aspects of
public life, which permitted the new masculinity to survive the collapse
of the exterior - that is, the Roman empire and its government.
1. Meek in the face of injuries and insults:
Patience and Pacifism
Christian writers were well aware of the disastrous military
predicament of the later Roman empire by the fifth century.1 indeed,
Christian writers penned some of the most dramatic descriptions of the
1Generally on this question, see R. P. c . Hanson, "The Church and

the Collapse of the Western Roman Empire," in idem, Studies in Christian
Antiquity (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1985). For pagan responses to
the military crisis, see above, chap. 2.
273
barbarian invasions. Jerome, upon learning of the sack of the city of
Rome in 410 at the hands of the Goths, cried:
a dreadful rumour came from the West. Rome had been

beseiged and its citizens had been forced to buy their lives
with gold. Then thus despoiled they had been beseiged again
so as to lose not their substance only but their lives. My
voice sticks in my throat; and, as I dictate, sobs choke my
utterance. The City which had taken the whole world was
itself taken.2
After the middle of the century, Sidonius Apollinaris used similar
pathos when writing "of the cruel fortune that hath long harassed us,"
concluding that "[a]mid those calamities, that universal destruction, to
live was death."3 Other Christian writers echoed these sentiments.
Salvian of Marseilles, writing about the middle of the fifth
century, even used the experience of the barbarian invasions to drive
home a point about the immorality of the Christian Roman population,
claiming that God had permitted the attacks because of the people's many
sins. He wrote:
Among chaste [pudici] barbarians, we are unchaste

[impudici]. I say further: the very barbarians are offended
2Hieron. Epist. (trans. here P. Schaff and H. Wace, NPNF 6)

127.12: "Dum haec aguntur in Jebus, terribilis de Occidente rumor
affertur, obsideri Romam, et auro salutem civium redimi, spoliatosque
rursum circumdari, ut post substantiam, vitam guogue perderent. Haeret
vox, et singultus intercipiunt verba dictantis. Capitur Urbs, guae
totum cepit orbem..." Cf. idem, Commentarii in Ezechielem, praefatio
(ed. PL 25): "Postguam vero clarissimum terrarum omnium lumen exstinctum
est, immo Romani imperii truncatum caput: et, ut verius dicam, in una
Urbe totus orbis interiit, obmutui et humiliatus sum, et silui a bonis,
et dolor meus renovatus est: concaluit cor meum intra me, et in
meditatione mea exarsit ignis [Psalm 38.4]..." Cf. also idem, Epist.
123.15-6, too lengthy to guote.
3Sid. Apoll. Panegyricus...Avito 11. 532-8: "guam nos per varios

dudum fortuna labores / principe sub puero laceris terat aspera rebus, /
fors longum, dux magne, gueri, cum guippe dolentum / maxima pars fueris,
patriae dum vulnera lugens / sollicitudinibus vehementibus exagitaris. /
has nobis inter clades ac funera mundi / mors vixisse fuit." The
address was delivered in 456.
274
by our impurities. Fornication of Goths is not lawful among

the Goths. Only the Romans living among them can afford to
be impure by prerogative of nation and name. I ask: What
hope is there for us before God? We love impurity; the
Goths abominate it. We flee from purity; they seek it.
Fornication among them is a crime; with us a distinction and
an ornament.4
The accusation is almost assuredly groundless. Still, it reminds us
that Christian writers linked the military catastrophe of theirera to
the unmanliness of the Romans in the same way that pagan writers had.
It also reminds us that Christian writers might have exaggerated the
catastrophe for their purposes, which we will see were to highlight the
futility of a military response to the crisis of the empire.
The response of Augustine of Hippo to the barbarian invasions is
noteworthy. He had certainly learned of the horrors of the sack of the
city of Rome.5 He was aware, too, of the accusations of some of the
pagans, who blamed the Roman abandonment of the traditional gods as the
cause of the military disasters of the empire. Augustine's reply to
this accusation was two-fold. First, he asserted that it was in fact
because of the Christian god's providence that the destruction was
4Salvian De gubernatione Dei 7.6: "...inter pudicos barbaros

impudici sumus. plus adhuc dico: offenduntur barbari ipsi impuritatibus
nostris. esse inter Gothos non licet scortatorem Gothum: soli inter eos
praeiudicio nationis ac nominis permittuntur impuri esse Romani, et
guae nobis, rogo, spes ante deum est? impudicitiam nos diligimus Gothi
execrantur: puritatem nos fugimus illi amant: fornicatio apud illos
crimen atque discrimen est apud nos decus." Cf. ibid. 4.12-4, too
lengthy to quote.
5August. De excidio urbis Romae sermo (ed. CCSL 46) 3: "Horrenda

nobis nuntiata sunt: strages factae, incendia, rapinae, interfectiones,
excrutiationes hominum. verum est, multa audiuimus, omnia gemuimus,
saepe fleuimus, uix consolati sumus; non abnuo, non nego multa nos
audisse, multa in ilia urbe esse commissa." Cf. idem, Sermones (ed. PL
38) 296.9, too lengthy to quote.
275
somewhat mitigated.6 Second, he demonstrated that the violence and
victimization of warfare was nothing new to Roman history, but was a
natural consequence of the libido dominandi ("lust for domination”)
which had dominated the Roman cultural mentality.7 Indeed, in
Augustine's analysis, even if the motive for waging war could be just,
its effects were always dire and among the tragedies of life.8
eAugust. De civ. D. 1.1: "Sic euaserunt multi, qui nunc

Christianis temporibus detrahunt et mala, quae ilia ciuitas pertulit,
Christo inputant; bona uero, quae in eos ut uiuerent propter Christi
honorem facta sunt... illud uero, quod eis uel ubicumque propter
Christi nomen uel in locis Christi nomini dicatissimus et amplissimus ac
pro largiore misericordia ad capacitatem multitudinis electis praeter
bellorum morem truculenti barbari pepercerunt..." Cf. ibid. 1.7:
"Quidquid ergo uastationis trucidationis depraedationis concremationis
adflictionis in ista recentissima Romana clade commissum est, fecit hoc
consuetudo bellorum; quod autem nouo more factum est, quod inusitata
rerum facie inmanitas barbara tarn mitis apparuit, ut amplissimae
basilicas implendae populo cui parceretur eligerentur et decernerentur,
ubi nemo feriretur, unde nemo raperetur, quo liberandi multi a
miserantibus hostibus ducerentur, unde captiuandi ulli nec a crudelibus
hostibus abducerentur: hoc Christo nomini, hoc Christiano tempore
tribuendum quisquis non uidet, caecus, quisquis uidet nec laudet,
ingratus, quisquis laudanti reluctatur, insanus est."
7August. De civ. D. 3.14: "Libido ista dominandi magnis malis

agitat et conterit humanum genus. Hac libidine Roma tunc uicta Albam se
uicisse triumphabat et sui sceleris laudem gloriam nominabat..."
8August. De civ. D. 19.7: "...sed hoc quam multis et quam

grandibus bellis, quanta strage hominum, quanta effusione humani
sanguinis comparatum est? Quibus transactis, non est tamen eorundem
malorum finita miseria. Quamuis enim non defuerint neque desint hostes
exterae nationes, contra quas semper bella gesta sunt et geruntur: tamen
etiam ipsa imperii latitudo peperit peioris generis bella, socialia
scilicet et ciuilia, quibus miserabilius quatitur humanum genus, siue
cum belligeratur, ut aliquando conquiescant, siue cum timetur, ne rursus
exsurgant." Such a statement is an important antidote to much of the
secondary literature on Augustine and war, which details his concept of
the just war, but neglects to document his fundamental opposition to
war. Those authors who emphasize Augustine's role in the development of
the Christian concept of just war include: Roland Bainton, "The Theory
of the Just War in the Christian Roman Empire," chap. 6 in Christian
Attitudes Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-
evaluation (New York: Abingdon, 1960); Frederick Russell, "St. Augustine
and the Just War in the Early Middle Ages," chap. 1 in The Just War in
the Middle Ages, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, ser. 3,
276
Considering the emphasis on militarism among Roman men, it is curious
that Augustine and his Christian contemporaries were able to distance
themselves from the failure of the empire and from its militaristic
tradition, without at the same time sacrificing their masculine
identity. Yet this is precisely what they did.
To understand this response, it is important first of all to
appreciate the strong anti-militaristic tradition in the earliest
Christianity of the west. This anti-militarism appears especially in
the hagiographical stories of individual Christians in the Roman army.
Maximilian, as he was inducted into the army at Tebessa in Mauretania in
295, refused to join, saying: "I cannot serve because I am a
Christian."9 when Martin of Tours, already a soldier, was converted to
Christianity about 356, he resigned when faced with battle, declaring
that "combat is not permitted to me."10 The anti-militarism of
Christianity also appears in early western writers. Tertullian took a
vol. 8 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1975); Joseph Joblin,

"Formation de la tradition occidentale sur la guerre: conscience, ordre
politique et ordre moral," chap. 3 in L'tglise et la guerre. Conscience,
violence, pouvoir (Paris: Desclde de Brouwer, 1988). Nonetheless,
Augustine believed, at least early in his literary career (ca. 388),
that a soldier did not commit sin. August. De libero arbitrio 1.4: ”Si
homicidium est hominem occidere, potest accidere aliquando sine peccato:
nam et miles hostem, et judex vel minister ejus nocentem, et cui forte
invito atque imprudenti telum manu fugit, non mihi videntur peccare, cum
hominem Occident."
9Acta Maximiliani (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, The Acts of the

Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972]) 1.2: "mihi non licet
militare, quia Christianus sum." Cf. ibid., 1.3: "Non possum militare;
non possum malefacere. Christianus sum."
10Sulpicius Severus Vita sancti Martini (ed. J. Fontaine, SC 133;

trans. G. Walsh, et a!., FC 7) 4.3: "...pugnare mihi non licet." For
dating of the incident, see Walsh, 108 n. 1.
277
rigid stance against Christian involvement in war.11 Hippolytus of Rome
took a similar position in decrees intended as binding on Christians.12
Scholars examining the Christian prohibition on military service
have offered various explanations for it. Some see it as part of a
general pacifism in Christian ideology, which precluded any
participation in war.13 Others see its origins in the Christian
condemnation of idolatry, since occasional ritual worship of the emperor
was required of all soldiers until the year 312.14 There is no need to
11Tert. De idololatria 19.1-3: "At nunc de isto quaeritur, an

fidelis ad militiam conuerti possit et an militia ad fidem admitti,
etiam caligata uel inferior quaeque, cui non sit necessitas immolationum
uel capitalium iudiciorum. Non conuenit Sacramento diuino et humano,
signo Christi et signo diaboli, castris lucis et castris tenebrarum; non
potest una anima duobus deberi, deo et Caesari. Et uirgam portauit
Moyses, fibulam et Aaron, cingitur loro et Iohannes, agmen agit et Iesus
Naue, bellauit et populus, si placet ludere. Quomodo autem bellabit,
immo quomodo etiam in pace militabit sine gladio, quern dominus abstulit?
Nam etsi adierant milites ad Iohannem et formam obseruationis
acceperant, si etiam centurio crediderat, omnem postea militem dominus
in Petro exarmando discinxit. Nullus habitus licitus est apud nos
illicito actui adscriptus." Cf. Tert. De corona 11, too lengthy to
quote. Stephen Gero ("Miles Gloriosus: the Christian and Military
Service according to Tertullian," Church History 39 [1970]: 285-98)
argues for a gradual hardening in opinion over the course of
Tertullian's literary career.
12Hippolytus Traditio apostolica (ed. B. Botte, SC 11) 16: "Miles

qui est in potestate non occidet hominem. Si iubetur, non exequetur
rem..." This is an extremely problematic text. Issues of dating,
authorship, and a comparative analysis with other early church
regulations can be found in C. J. Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude
to War (London: Headley, 1919), 119-28.
13The classic work arguing for a tradition of Christian pacifism

is Cadoux, Early Christian Attitude to War. Modern representatives of
this school include Roland Bainton, "The Pacifism of the Early Church,"
chap. 5 in Christian Attitudes; and G. S. Windass, "The Early Christian
Attitude to War," Irish Theological Quarterly 29 (1962): 235-47.
14The classic argument for this case is Adolf Harnack, Militia

Christi. Die christlichen Relgion und der Soldatenstand in der ersten
drei Jahrhunderten (Tiibingen: j. C. B. Mohr, 1905); for more recent
scholarship, see John Helgeland, "Christians and the Roman Army, A.D.
173-337," Church History 43 (1974): 149-63.
278
rehearse the arguments of these scholars, who all see a change after
312. After that date, whether through a falling away from the early
pacifism, or because of the end of emperor worship, or because of the
growing Christian domination of public life, including the army,
Christians regularly served as soldiers.15
It is not necessary entirely to reconcile these opinions; rather,
one must respect the possibility that different Christians had various
viewpoints according to diverse traditions of interpretation and
specific cultural interactions, and that these viewpoints might have
contradicted each other. Still, one might consider that there existed a
broad path in Christian attitudes - both before and after the year 312 -
in which militarism was permitted and yet not encouraged.16 According
to such a perspective, it does not matter that there were numerous
Christian soldiers in the Roman army from the second century onwards,
which seems indisputable. Nor does it matter that the army was
thoroughly Christian by the end of the fourth century, which also seems
likely. Yet it was not the Christian members of the army, but the men
who refused to be made soldiers, like Maximilian, or the soldiers who
15Emphasizing the shift from pacifism to militarism in

Christianity resulting from the conversion of Constantine is John
Friesen, "War and Peace in the Patristic Age," in w. Swartley, ed.,
Essays on War and Peace: Bible and Early Church (Elkhard, Indiana:
Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1986).
16Edward Ryan, "The Rejection of Military Service by the Early

Christians," Theological Studies 13 (1952): 1-32, argues for both
"rigorist” and "neophyte" positions, the latter more lax on Christian
military service.
279
refused continued service, like Martin, who were seen as the Christian
ideal.17
Sources even from the period after 312 confirm this pacifist
ideal. Pope Leo the Great, writing in the middle of the fifth century,
called military service "free from fault," although he believed that
refusal to fight was better, and that a public penance should be
required for soldiers after the end of their secular career.18 Several
church councils and popes argued for a ban on former soldiers becoming
Christian priests, precisely because the sinful nature of the former
could not be reconciled with the holiness expected of the latter.19 A
few Christian writers, Augustine foremost among them, argued for no
moral relevance to soldiering as a profession, but even he felt war to
be a necessary evil at best.20 These sources all recognize that
military service was a part of life for Christians of the later Roman
170n the presence of Christians in the Roman army of the 2nd and
3rd centuries: Helgoland, "Christians and the Roman Army;" Jean-Michel
Hornus, "Christian Soldiers and Soldier Saints," chap. 4 of It is not
Lawful for me to Fightt Early Christian Attitudes Toward War, Violence,
and the State, trans. A. Kreider and 0. Coburn (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald
Press, 1980). On the Christianization of the army in the 4th century:
Heim (Virtus, 229-66) emphasizes the importance of a religious
solidarity between the emperor, whether pagan or Christian, and his
troops.
18Leo Epist. (ed. PL 54; trans. E. Hunt, FC 34) 167.14: "Unde qui
relicta singularitatis professione, ad militiam vel ad nuptias devolutus
est, publicae poenitentiae satisfactione purgandus est: quia etsi
innocens militia, et honestum potest esse conjugium, electionem meliorem
deseruisse transgressio est.” The letter was addressed to bishop
Rusticus of Narbonne.
19See discussion in Hornus, It is not Lawful, 190-3.
20E.g., August. Epist. (ed. CSEL 57) 189.4: "Noli existimare

neminem Deo placere posse, qui in armis bellicis militat." The letter
was addressed to Boniface, a military commander in North Africa and a
Christian.
280
empire, but they also hold up the refusal to participate in war as
exemplary and a higher ideal.
The Christian ambivalence toward military service - permitting it
but recommending against it - can perhaps be better understood by
placing it within the context of the tension between traditional and
emerging ideals of masculinity. This tension derived at least in part
from the incompatibility between war, when seen as a sign of Roman
manliness, and the Christian ideal of non-violent passivity, the virtue
known as patientia ("patience”). Tertullian, who devoted a whole
treatise to the encouragement of patience, called it summa uirtus ("the
height of virtue”).21 This ideal contrasted sharply with the myth of
the Roman as aggressor, driven by the libido dominandi of which
Augustine wrote.22 Christians of the western Mediterranean in the
third, fourth, and early fifth centuries had to find their way between
these opposing ideals.
Cyprian, the mid-third-century bishop of Carthage, also devoted an
entire treatise to the subject of patience.He tried to define it in
pragmatic, realistic terms, and understood it as an overarching attitude
of forbearance to all of life's ills:
when anyone is born and enters the abode of this world, he

begins with tears. Although even then inexperienced and
21Tert. De patientia 1.7: "Bonum eius etiam qui caeca uiuunt

summae uirtutis appellatione honorant..." An extended discussion of the
concept of patience in Tertullian can be found by Claude Rambaux, "La
patience," chap. 6 in Tertullien face aux morales des trois premiers
si&cles (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1979). See above, chap. 1, for a
discussion of the conflation between the meanings of uirtus as moral
excellence and ideal masculinity.
22For the traditional and pagan ideal of Roman military aggression

as an aspect ofmanliness, see above, chap. 2.
281
ignorant of all things, he can do nothing else at his birth

except weep, with natural foresight he laments the
anxieties and labors of this mortal life, and at its very
beginning, by weeping and lamentations his young soul
testifies to the trials of the world which he is entering.
For he toils and labors as long as he lives here. Nothing
else can relieve those who labor and toil more than the
consolation derived from patience.23
It is easy to see how a philosophy offering such consolation would have
been attractive to men of the later Roman aristocracy, fraught with a
sense of their helplessness in the collapsing empire.24 The
idealization of such impotence as the virtue of patience offered at
least a method for Roman men to begin to make sense of their lives
through Christian ideology. Cyprian, continuing in a later passage in
the same work, touched on the very areas of crisis in men's public and
private lives as examples where patience was useful:
it is that same patience which tempers anger, bridles the

tongue, governs the mind, guards peace, rules discipline,
breaks the onslaught of lust, suppresses the violence of
pride, extinguishes the fire of dissension, restrains the
power of the wealthy, renews the endurance of the poor in
bearing their lot, guards the blessed integrity of virgins,
the difficult chastity of widows, and the indivisible love
of husbands and wives. It makes men humble in prosperity,
brave in adversity, meek in the face of injuries and
insults.25
23Cyprian De bono patientiae (ed. CCSL 3a; trans. R. Deferrari, FC

36) 12: "Vnde unusquisque cum nascitur et hospitio mundi huius
excipitur, initium sumit a lacrimis et quamuis adhuc omnium nescius et
ignarus nihil aliud nouit in ilia ipsa prima natiuitate quam flere.
Prouidentia naturali lamentatur uitae mortalis anxietates, et labores et
procellas mundi, quas ingreditur in exordio, statim suo ploratu et
gemitu rudis anima testatur. Sudatur enim quamdiu istic uiuitur et
laboratur, nec sudantibus et laborantibus possunt alia magis quam
patientiae subuenire solacia..."
24For the crisis of men's public lives resulting from the

declining military strength of the empire and from the exclusion of men
of the upper classes from much of the political power in the later
empire, see above, chap. 2.
25Cyprian De bono patientiae 20: "Patientia est quae nos Deo et

commendat et seruat: ipsa est quae iram temperat, quae linguam frenat,
282
Patience was a resignation to the lot of the later Roman male.
Christian writers did not describe patience only in terms of
passivity or resignation, but also with metaphors of triumph and
success. Cyprian dealt at length with the model of patience provided by
Jesus, who had, he reminded his readers, still overcome the world,26 and
referred likewise to patience with the image of firmitas
("steadfastness").27 Endurance in suffering was, as Cyprian and
Tertullian reminded their readers, a virtue with many biblical
precedents, and these became the foundation for the Latin Christian
idealization of patience as triumph, and a key to the transformation of
Roman masculinity during the fall of the Roman empire.
The ideals of patience are visible, above all, in the deaths of
the Christian martyrs who, during the time of the third-century
persecutions, served in many ways as visible signs of Christian
perfection. Indeed, earliest Christianity was noted for the willingness
guae mentem gubernat, pacem custodit, disciplinam regit, libidinis

impetum frangit, tumoris uiolentiam comprimit, incendium simultatis
extinguit, coercet potentiam diuitum, inopiam pauperum refouet, tuetur
in uirginibus beatam integritatem, in uiduis laboriosam castitatem, in
coniunctis et maritatis indiuiduam caritatem. Facit humiles in
prosperis, in aduersis fortes, contra iniurias et contumelias mites..."
26Cyprian De bono patientiae 12: "...et uirtute patientiae

perferenda Domino ipso instruente et dicente: Haec locutus sum uobis, ut
in me pacem habeatis, in saeculo autem pressuram: sed fidite, quoniam
ego uici mundum."
27Cyprian De bono patientiae 16: "Quid deinde, ut non iures negue

maledicas, ut tua ablata non repetas, ut accepta alapa et alteram
maxillam uerberanti praebeas, ut fratri in te peccanti dimittas, ut
diligas inimicos tuos, ut pro aduersariis et persecutoribus precem
facias? Poterisne ista perferre nisi patientiae et tolerantiae
fimitate?" In this brief passage, Cyprian quotes from Luke 6:27-30;
Matt. 5:39-44 and 18:21-2.
283
of its adherents to risk death.28 Their perfection came from their
patience, as Cyprian claimed, giving the example of St. Stephen, revered
as the first of the martyrs:
So it was most fitting that the first martyr for Christ who,
in preceeding by his most fitting death the martyrs that
were to come, was not only a preacher of the Lord's
suffering but also an imitator of His most patient
[patientissimae] gentleness.29
The more violent the attacks on Christians, Cyprian maintained, the more
patient should be the individual's response.30 In another work, Cyprian
addressed the persecutors directly: "no one of us [Christians] fights
back when he is apprehended, nor do our people avenge themselves against
your unjust violence though numerous and plentiful."33
Patience, martyrdom, and Christian endurance in suffering were
obviously contrary to traditional Roman standards of masculine military
achievement. Pagan critics of Christianity were quick to point out the
unmanliness inherent in such a passive acceptance of violence and death.
2B0n the perfection of the martyrs: Marcel Viller, "Martyre et

perfection," Revue d'ascdtique et de mystique 6 (1925): 3-25. On the
willingness of Christians to face death: Arthur Droge and James Tabor,
"The Crown of Immortality," chap. 6 in A Noble Death: Suicide and
Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (San Francisco: Harper,
1992).
29Cyprian De bono patientiae 16: "Sic esse oportuit primum

martyrum Christi qui martyras secuturos gloriosa morte praecurrens non
tantum praedicator esset dominicae passionis sed et patientissimae
lenitatis imitator."
30Cyprian De bono patientiae 12: "Si autem qui diabolo et mundo

renuntiauimus pressuras et infestationes diaboli et mundi crebrius ac
uiolentius patimur, quanto magis patientiam tenere debemus qua adiutrice
et comite omnia infesta toleremusl"
31Cyprian Ad Demetrianum (ed. CCSL 3a; trans. R. Deferrari, FC 36)

17: "Inde est enim quod et nemo nostrum quando adprehenditur reluctatur
nec se aduersus iniustam uiolentiam uestram quamuis nimius et copiosus
noster populus ulciscitur."
284
Or at least, this viewpoint is preserved in the hagiographical sources -
all written by Christians - in which the stigma of Christian pacifism is
often included as an aspect of the pagan antagonism, when the martyrs
of Lyons in 177 were brought into the arena just before their deaths,
the crowd taunted them as ignoble [dyevvcis] and unmanly [avav^xii].32
When Martin of Tours refused to fight, his commander ridiculed his
reluctance as cowardice, saying that "it was fear of the battle which
was to occur the next day that was causing him to refuse participation,
not any religious motive."33
A few Christians were willing to accept this label of weakness and
unmanliness as part of the humility required by patience, and to leave
the retribution and response to God. As Cyprian wrote, the ultimate
victory of God made the individual's victory unimportant.34 Others
tried to find ways both to remain true to their Christian values and to
counter pagan imputations of unmanliness, and perhaps also their own
concerns about it. They made frequent reference to the paradox of the
Christian reversal of symbols, in which weakness was strength, to
support their claim that passivity could be victory. They called
32Eusebius Bistoria ecclesiastica (ed. G. Bardy, SC 31 and 41)

5.1.35: "... rcpoodti m i "ujto xcbv £6vfiv ovei8i^6hevoi diq &Yevvei<; m l
avavSpoi..."
33Sulpicius Severus Vita sancti Martini 4.4: "Turn uero aduersus

hanc uocem tyrannus infremuit dicens eum metu pugnae, quae postero die
erat futura, non religionis gratia detrectare militiam."
34Cyprian Ad Demetrianum 17: "Patientes facit de secutura ultione

securitas. Innocentes nocentibus cedunt, insontes poenis et cruciatibus
acquiescunt certi et fidentes quod inultum non remaneat quodcumque
perpetimur quantoque maior fuerit persecutionis iniuria tanto et iustior
fiat et grauior pro persecutione uindicta. Nec umquam impiorum scelere
in nostrum nomen exurgitur, ut non statim diuinitus uindicta comitetur."
285
apparent or expected notions of masculine success misguided, and
contrasted them with true manliness. In doing so, they created a
manifesto for a Christian counter-masculinity in militarism.
2. We conquer in dying:
Militarism and Martyrdom
The number of Latin Christian writers who attempted to defend
their manliness, despite the seeming weakness of patience, demonstrates
how important the preservation of a masculine identity was to Christians
of this period. The height of Christian patience was martyrdom, and so
it is in the accounts of the martyrs that the manliness of pacifist
Christians is most apparent, indeed, the Christian martyrs represent
the new military ideal.
As early as the beginning of the third century, Tertullian
defended the manliness of pacifist Christians: "For what wars should we
not be fit, not eager, even with unequal forces, we who so willingly
yield ourselves to the sword, if in our religion it were not counted
better to be slain than to slay?"35 In other words, Christians would
have made the best soldiers, exactly because of their steadfastness in
enduring, had their religious beliefs not discouraged them from
participating in war. In his biography of St. Martin of Tours,
35Tert. Apol. 37.5: "Cui bello non idonei, non prompti fuissemus,
etiam impares copiis, qui tarn libenter trucidamur, si non apud istam
disciplinam magis occidi liceret quam occidere?"
286
Sulpicius Severus drew upon the same motif, defending Martin's manliness
despite his pacifism:
Martin undismayed [by the emperor's charge of cowardice],

was made all the bolder by the attempt to intimidate him.
"If my act is set down to cowardice rather than to faith,"
he said, "I shall stand unarmed tomorrow before our lines.
In the name of the Lord Jesus and protected only by the sign
of the cross, without shield or helmet, I shall penetrate
the enemy's ranks and not be afraid.36
The emphasis on the manliness of the martyrs was evident, above
all, in the military parallels which Latin writers used to describe the
martyrs. Indeed, the Christian counter-masculinity can clearly be seen
in the manly posture of the miles Christi ("soldier of Christ”). The
origins of this image are uncertain, though Paul had briefly used some
military metaphors in earliest Christianity.37 There are other, Roman,
Hellenistic, and Jewish uses of the image of life as a battle, which
might have been in circulation in the western Mediterranean.38
Tertullian was the first western writer to use the image of the
soldier extensively, and he did so precisely in order to defend the
manliness of Christians. Its first appearance occurs exactly in an
36Sulpicius Severus Vita sancti Martini 4.5: "At Martinus

intrepidus, immo illato sibi terrore constantior: si hoc, inguit,
ignauiae ascribitur, non fidei, crastina die ante aciem inermis astabo
et in nomine Domini Iesu, signo crucis, non clipeo protectus aut galea,
hostium cuneos penetrabo securus."
37The author of the second letter to Timothy, probably not the

apostle Paul himself but written under his name, had used the phrase. 1
Tim. 2.3: KaXbgoTpan&rqgXpioroulôov, translated in the Vulgate as bonus
miles Christi Iesu. On the military metaphor, see also: Rom. 6.13; 2
Cor. 10.3-4; 1 Thess. 5:8.
38See A. Jaubert, "Les sources de la conception militaire de

l'figlise en 1 Clement 37," Vigiliae Christianae 18 (1964): 74-84; see
also E. Nielson, "La guerre considdrde comme une religion et la religion
comme une guerre," Studia Theologica 15 (1961): 93-112.
287
apologetic of Christian suffering which Tertullian directed at pagan
critics:
it is quite true that it is our desire to suffer, but it is

in the way that the soldier longs for war. No one indeed
suffers willingly, since suffering necessarily implies fear
and danger. Yet the man who objected to the conflict, both
fights with all his strength, and when victorious, he
rejoices in the battle, because he reaps from it glory and
spoil. It is our battle to be summoned to your tribunals,
that there, under fear of execution, we may battle for the
truth. But the day is won when the object of the struggle
is gained. This victory of ours gives us the glory of
pleasing God, and the spoil of life eternal. . . Therefore
we conquer in dying; we go forth victorious at the very time
we are subdued.39
The paradox to which Tertullian alluded, that in their seeming defeat
they conquer, is simply the first example of the paradoxical model of
masculinity in Latin Christian thought. In refusing to be soldiers,
Christians were in fact showing themselves to be more militaristic and
therefore more masculine than their pagan counterparts. The idea was a
radical reworking of the traditional Roman military identity. In a work
addressed to the potential martyrs themselves, Tertullian returned to
this same theme, and counselled those Christians imprisoned in the
latest round of persecutions by the Roman government to count their
39Tert. Apol. 50: "Ergo, inquitis, cur querimini, quod uos

insequamur, si pati uultis, cum diligere debeatis, per quos patimini
quod uultis? Plane uolumus, uerum eo more, quo et bellum miles. Nemo
quidem libens patitur, cum et trepidare et periclitari sit necesse.
Tamen et proeliatur omnibus uiribus et uincens in proelio gaudet qui de
proelio querebatur, quia et gloriam consequitur et praedam. Proelium
est nobis, quod prouocamur ad tribunalia, ut illic sub discrimine
capitis pro ueritate certemus. Victoria est autem, pro quo certueris,
obtinere. Ea uictoria habet et gloriam placendi Deo et praedam uiuendi
in aeternum. Sed occidimur. - Certe, cum obtinuimus. Ergo uincimus,
cum occidimur, denique euadimus, cum obducimur." Cf. idem, De oratione
19: "Si statio de militari exemplo nomen accepit (nam et militia Dei
sumus), utique nulla laetitia siue tristitia obueniens castris stationes
militum rescindit."
288
hardships as a type of military discipline of their uirtus for the
battle ahead of their approaching deaths.40
Tertullian's use of the military metaphor to describe Christians
also bears an interesting parallel to the connection between militarism
and religion in Mithraism.41 Tertullian had a certain familiarity with
the religion, and is in fact our best source of information about the
cult in the west. At one point he wrote: "if I remember Mithra[ism] on
this point,"42 when referring to an aspect of the religion, which some
have interpreted to mean that he had been an adherent of Mithraism
before his conversion to Christianity. At the least, the statement
implies a prior acquaintance with Mithraism, possibly derived from his
father, who might have been an army official.43 It has also been
40Tert. Ad aartyras 3.1-3: "Sit nunc, benedicti, career etiam

Christianis molestus. Vocati sumus ad militiam Dei uiui iam tunc, cum
in sacramenti uerba respondimus. Nemo miles ad bellum cum deliciis
uenit, nec de cubiculo ad aciem procedit, sed de papilionibus expeditis
et substrictis, ubi omnis duritia et inbonitas et insuauitas constitit.
Etiam in pace labore et incommodis bellum pati iam ediscunt, in armis
deambulando, campum decurrendo, fossam moliendo, testiudinem densando.
Sudore omnia constant, ne corpora atque animi expauescant de umbra ad
solem et sole ad gelum, de tunica ad loricam, de silentio ad clamorem,
de quiete ad tumultum. Proinde uos, benedicti, quodcumque hoc durum
est, ad exercitationem uirtutem animi et corporis deputate."
41The suggestion was first made by Harnack, Militia Christi. See

the more recent works by Emilienne Demougeot, "'Paganus,' Mithra et
Tertullien," Texte and untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen
Literatur, vol. 78 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1961); and W. Rordorf,
"Tertullians Beurteilung des Soldatenstandes," Vigiliae Christianas 23
(1969): 105-41.
42Tert. De praescr. haeret. 40.4: "et, si adhuc memini Mithrae,

signat illic in frontibus milites suos."
43Harnack (Militia Christi, 52) links Tertullian's usage to his

father's occupation. See, however, T. D. Barnes ("Tertullian'sFather,”
chap. 3 in Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study [Oxford:
Clarendon, 1971]) who reviews the evidence and disputes its veracity,
arguing that there is no proof of it and that therefore it should not be
assumed.
289
suggested that Tertullian may have chosen the military image for its
potential for popularity among the Roman population of Carthage, many of
whom were descendants of soldiers retired onto estates there.44
Tertullian explicitly contrasted the Mithraic soldier of his god with
the Christian soldier of the true god, but noted the similarities
between the two, complaining of how the enemies of Christianity ape
certain religious truths.45
The image of the soldier of God, however, functioned for
Tertullian in exactly the same manner as it had for the Mithraists: to
give a military flavor to religious devotion when describing the victory
of individual salvation. In this context, Tertullian's use of the term
miles Dei solely to refer to martyrs, those individuals for whom the
victory of salvation was assured, is noteworthy.46
44Demougeot, "'Paganus,' Hithra et Tertullien," 357.
45Tert. De corona 15: "Quern et bonus miles eligendo in caelesti

ordinatione profecit. Erubescite, commilitiones eius, iam non ab ipso
iudicandi, sed ab aliquo Mithrae milite. Qui cum initiatur in spelaeo,
in castris uere tenebrarum, coronam interposito gladio sibi oblatam,
quasi mimum martyrii, dehinc capiti suo accommodatam monetur obuia manu
a capite pellere et in humerum, si forte, transferre dei dicens Mithran
esse coronam suam, statimque creditur Mithrae miles, si deiecerit
coronam, si earn in deo suo esse dixerit. Atque exinde numquam coronatur
idque in signum habet ad probationem sui, sicubi temptatus fuerit de
sacramento. Agnoscamus ingenia diaboli, idcirco quaedam de diuinis
affectantis, ut nos de suorum fide confundat et iudicet."
46ln one place, Tertullian called martyrdom a second baptism, of

blood instead of water, assuring salvation. This has interesting
parallels with the baptismal-type ceremony of Mithraism, called the
taurebolium, in which initiates were drenched in the blood of a
slaughtered bull. Tert. Scorpiace 6.9: "Prospexerat et alias deus
inbecillitates condiciones humanae, aduersarii insidias, rerum
tallacias, saeculi retia, etiam post lauacrum periclitaturam fidem,
perituros plerosque rursum post salutem, qui uestitum obsoletassent
nuptialem, qui faculis oleum non praeparassent, qui requirendi per
montes et saltus et umeris essent reportandi. Posuit igitur secunda
solacia et extrema praesidia, dimicationem martyrii et lauacrum
sanguinis exinde secuturum." In another place, Tertullian stressed the
290
The soldier was also a uniquely masculine image, another parallel
with Mithraism, which was open only to men. Women were certainly among
the early martyrs, and they might be praised for their courage and
willingness to suffer evil.47 The hagiographer of Blandina, the female
martyr of Lyons, described her strength and courage at great length.48
Nevertheless, at no point did any patristic writer or hagiographer ever
call women "soldiers of Christ."
The real importance of the symbol, one might suppose, was not in
its origins but in its meaning and uses for Christian ideology. The
qualities which the ancient Romans had so admired in soldiers could be
emphasized as the qualities which the Christian martyrs exhibited. For
example, a parallel might be established between the eagerness of
soldiers for battle and the eagerness of Christians for martyrdom.49
theme of individual salvation in defending the military images retained

by the Christians from the Old Testament to Marcion, the leader of a
group of Christians who rejected the sacred quality of the writings of
the Jewish bible. Tert. Adv. Marcionea 4.20: "Age nunc, qui militarem
et armatum bellatorem praedicari putas, non figurate nec allegorice, qui
bellum spiritale adversus spiritales hostes spiritali militia et
spiritalibus armis spiritaliter debellaturus esset, cum invenis in uno
homine multitudinem daemonum, legionem se professam, utique spiritalem,
disce et Christum expugnatorem spiritualium hostium spiritaliter armatum
et spiritaliter bellicosum intellegendum, atque ita ipsum esse qui cum
legione quoque daemonum erat dimicaturus; ut et de hoc bello psalmus
possit videri pronuntiasse, Dominus validus, dominus potens in bello.
Nam cum ultimo hoste morte proeliatus per tropaeum crucis triumphavit."
See above, chap. 2, for more details of the Mithraic religion.
470n the women martyrs, see Stuart Hall, "Women among the Early
Martyrs," in Martyrs and Martyrologies, Studies in Church History, vol.
30, ed. D. wood (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993); Chris Jones, "Women, Death,
and the Law during the Christian Persecutions," in ibid; and W. H. C.
Frend, "Blandina and Perpetua: Two Early Christian Heroines," in Town
and Country in the Early Christian Centuries (London: Variorum, 1980).
48Eusebius Bistoria ecclesiastica 5.1.17-9, too lengthy to quote.
49Tert. Ad scapulam 5.1-2: "Crudelitas uestra gloria est nostra,

vide tantum ne hoc ipso, quod talia sustinemus, ad hoc solum uideamur
erumpere, ut hoc ipsum probemus, nos haec non timere, sed ultro uocare.
291
Tertullian's use of the term sacramenturn ("military vow of loyalty,
sacrament") for Christian baptism is another example of the use of the
military metaphor for Christians. Several scholars have analyzed the
military roots of this term in detail, noting among other facts that the
term was by Tertullian*s day already used to describe the rite of
initiation into other religions, notably the eastern religions.50 Such
an oath of initiation had been part of the Mithraic religion, where the
military aspects of the cult served to emphasize the analogy between
participation in the cult and participation in war.51 Tertullian
himself wrote that "we were called to the warfare of the living God in
our very response to the sacramental words [of baptism]."52
Arrius Antoninus in Asia cum persequeretur instanter, omnes illius

ciuitatis Christiani ante tribunalia eius se manu>facta obtulerunt. Turn
ille, paucis duci iussis, reliquis ait:~£1 SeiXot, £i Geteie 6tJto8vifcJK£iv,
Kprtyivobq {3po%ob£ fexeTE* Hoc si placuerit et hie fieri, quid facies de
tantis milibus hominum, tot uiris ac feminis, omnis sexus, omnis
aetatis, omnis dignitatis, offerentibus se tibi? Quantis ignibus,
quantis gladiis opus eritl Quid ipse Carthago passura est, decimata a
te, cum propinquos, cum contubernales suos illic unusquisque cognouerit,
cum uiderit illic fortasse et tui ordinis uiros et matronas, et
principales quasque personas, et amicorum tuorum uel propinquos uel
amicos?"
50Adolf Kolping (Sacramentum Tertullianeum [Regensberg:

Regensbersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1948]) who provides a detailed list
of classical uses of the term, as well as uses in early Latin
translations of the bible; see also Dimitri Michaelides (Sacramentum
chez Tertullien [Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1970]) who points to the
links between the uses of the term as military oath, as dedication or
consacration to a purpose, and its use for the ritual sign of such a
dedication in the mystery religions.
51See discussion in M. J. Vermaseren, Mithras, The Secret God,

trans. T. and V. Hegew (Hew York: Barnes and Noble, 1963), 129-36. An
exemplary text of such a Mithraic initiation is discussed by F. Cumont,
"Un fragment de rituel d'initiation aux mystores," Harvard Theological
Review 26 (1933): 151-60.
52Tert. Ad martyras 3.1: "Vocati sumus ad militiam Dei uiui iam

tunc, cum in sacramenti uerba respondimus."
292
The model of the Christian soldier carried important ramifications
for masculine identity. As an ideal of manliness, the miles Christi
could take on himself all of the military vocabulary of traditional
masculinity: the bravery, scorn of luxury, and self-sacrifice even to
the point of death, everything associated with the vita militaris. The
difference between the secular soldier and the Christian soldier lay in
his attitude toward victory. While a secular soldier who did not win
the battles in which he fought was no good soldier, the Christian
soldier won the battle by remaining passive in the face of violence and
gained the victory in the very act of defeat. The figure of the soldier
of Christ preserved for pacifist and suffering Christians a heroic and
manly self-image in what might otherwise have been considered an unmanly
action.53
The stories of the military martyrs demonstrate the paradox of
manliness found in passivity. Montanus and Lucius, imprisoned during
the persecution in Carthage in 259, recorded their experiences in
confinement as a battle for Christ:
The torments we suffered in prison go beyond anything we

could describe. It is not that we are afraid to tell how
bad it really was. The more intense the temptation, the
more powerful is the one who conquers it within us; indeed,
it is not a struggle, but rather a victory under the shield
of the Lord. To God's servants it is easy to be killed; and
hence death is nothing when the Lord crushes its sting,
conquers its struggle, and triumphs by the trophy of the
cross.54
53Tert. De patientia 8.2: "Fatigetur inprobitas patientia tua:

quiuis ictus ille sit dolore et contumelia constrictus, grauius a domino
uapulabit; plus improbum ilium caedes sustinendo: ab eo enim uapulabit
cuius gratia sustines.”
5iPassio sanctorum Montani et Lucii (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo,

The Acts of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972]) 4.3-5:
293
Julius the Veteran, who was killed in the persecution of 304, was asked
by his former colleagues to offer incense to the emperor as god. Julius
replied:
1 went on seven military campaigns, and never hid behind

anyone nor was I the inferior of any man in battle. My
chief never found me at fault. And now do you suppose that
I, who was always found to be faithful in the past, should
now be unfaithful to higher orders?55
Interestingly, Julius here defended his secular record as a soldier: he
was brave in battle and obedient to his superiors, as a good soldier
should be. Of course, it was exactly Julius' bravery and obedience - to
the Christian god - which required him after twenty-seven years in the
army to take a stand against the pagan sacrifices.
The literary sources drew these same parallels between the
military metaphor and Christian manliness. Lactantius, writing at the
end of the period of persecution in the early fourth-century, made the
parallels explicit:
If someone, who in this earthly military service keeps faith

toward his king by some outstanding deed, becomes more
acceptable and dearer to him if he should live afterwards,
and, if he should die, attains supreme glory because he met
his death for his leader, how much more ought faith to be
kept with the Commander of all, who is able to pay the
"...tormenta carceris nulla affirmatione capiuntur, nec ueremur

atrocitatem loci illius ut est dicere. quo enim temptatio grandis est,
eo maior est ille qui earn uincit in nobis, et non est pugna, quia est
domino protegente uictoria. nam et occidi seruis Dei leue est, et ideo
mors nihil est, cuius aculeos comminuens contentionemque deuincens
dominus per trophaeum crucis triumphauit."
55Passio Inli Veterani (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, The Acts of

the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972]) 2.2: "septies in bello
egressus sum, et post neminem retro steti nec alicius inferior pugnaui.
princeps me non uidit aliquando errare, et modo putas me, qui in
prioribus fidelis fueram repertus, in melioribus infidelem posse
inueniri?"
294
reward of virtue, not only to the living, but also to the

dead?56
No Christian writer presented the manly image of the martyr as
soldier better than the late-fourth-century poet, Prudentius, in his
poetic accounts of the martyrs, the Liber peristephanon ("Book of the
Crowned").57 The first book contained the familiar theme through the
legend of two soldier-comrades, Emeterius and Chelidonius of Calahorra
in northern Spain. Prudentius made extensive use of the contrasts
between traditional and Christian masculinity: "They abandoned Caesar's
ensigns, choosing the standard of the cross."58 Their executions were
"an honourable way of death and one that becomes good men."59 By means
of their sufferings and deaths "the virtue that is in the martys beat
down the filthy devil, constrain, torture, burn, enchain him.”60
56Lactant. Div. inst. 5.19.25: "Nam si is qui in hac terrestri

militia regi suo fidem seruat in aliguo egregio facinore, si post
uixerit, acceptior fit et carior, si perierit, summam consequitur
gloriam, quod pro duce suo mortem occubuerit, quanto magis imperatori
omnium deo fides seruanda est, qui non tantum uiuentibus, sed etiam
mortuis praemium potest uirtutis exsoluere?"
57The heroic stance of the martyrs in the Liber Peristephanon has

been noted and compared in style and content to various classical poets
by Ilona Opelt, "Der Christenverfolger bei Prudentius," Philologus 111
(1967): 242-57; and Anne-Marie Palmer, "Egregiae Animae," chap. 5 in
Prudentius on the Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989). Generally on
Prudentius' works, their influences and contexts: Palmer, Prudentius;
Malamud, Poetics of Transformation; and Michael Roberts, Poetry and the
Cult of the Martyrs: The Liber Peristephanon of Prudentius (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan, 1993).
58Prudent. Perist. 11. 34: "Caesaris vexilla linquunt, eligunt

signum crucis..."
59Prudent. Perist. 1 1. 25: "hoc genus mortis decorum est, hoc

probis dignum viris..."
60Prudent. Perist. 1 11. 106-7: "his modis spurcum latronem

martyrum virtus quatit, / haec coercet, torquet, urit, haec catenas
incutit..."
295
In the other books of the Liber peristephanon, such manly imagery
is repeated, even though the saints depicted were not soldiers.
Prudentius depicted the Roman martyr Lawrence in this way:
In [his] warfare Lawrence did not gird a sword on his side,

but turned back the foe's steel against its wielder. in
making war on God's indomitable witness, the devil was
stabbed himself.61
With s imilar words, Prudentius wrote of the martyr Vincent: "Victorious
in a cruel death, you then after death in like triumph trample
victoriously on the devil merely with your body."62 indeed, Prudentius
addressed Vincent as miles invictissime ("most invincible of soldiers")
and fortissimorum fortior ("bravest of the brave"), in an obvious
contrast between the apparent reality of the martyr's defeat, and the
true reality of his spiritual conquest.63
The manly image of the martyrs had other uses. Tertullian
contrasted the duritia of the deaths of true Christians with the
mollitia of the death - in bed - of even a pagan pseudo-martyr such as
Socrates.64 If not in effeminate softness, the pagan showed his true
colors in the unmanly fury with which he persecuted Christians.
61Prudent. Perist. 2 11. 501-7: "sic dimicans Laurentius / non

ense praecinxit latus, / hostile sed ferrum retro / torquens in auctorem
tulit. / dum daemon invictum Dei / testem lacessit proelio, / perfossus
ipse concidit..."
62Prudent. Perist. 5 11. 541-4: "in morte victor aspera, / turn

deinde post mortem pari / victor triumpho proteris / solo latronem
corpore." I have changed the translator's "thou dost" to "you" and
"thy" to "your."
63Prudent. Perist. 5 11. 293-4: "o miles invictissime, /

fortissimorum fortior..."
64Tert. De anim. 55: "Agnosce itaque differentiam ethnici et

fidelis in morte, si pro deo occumbas, ut paracletus monet, non in
mollibus febribus et in lectulis, sed in martyriis...*
296
Prudentius, even while stressing the complete submissiveness of the
martyr Romanus, "unresisting, ask[ing] to be bound, and of his own
accord turn[ing] his hands round behind him,"65 nonetheless had the
saint ridicule his torturers precisely for their lack of manliness:
"What want of manly [non virile] strength! What delicate [molles]
hands 1 To think that in this long time you have failed to demolish the
fabric of one poor perishing bodyl"66 Pope Leo the Great, in a sermon
written for the feast of the martyrdom of Lawrence, made repeated
references to the weakness of the torturers:
You gain nothing, you accomplish nothing, savage cruelty!

The mortal matter is subjected to your inventions, but when
Lawrence climbs to the sky, you lose. Your flames could not
overcome the flame of the love of Christ, and the fire which
consumed without proved weaker than the fire which burned
within. Persecutor! You became the slave of the martyr
when you raged against him [servisti...cum saevisti]; you
added to his glory when you added to his suffering.67
This type of rhetoric had important uses. Armed with their
counter-masculinity, Christian writers could not only present their
martyr-heroes as manly, but from the same basis could attack the pagan
persecutors of their heroes as unmanly. By reversing the associations
65Prudent. Perist. 10 11. 69-70: "it non resistens seque vinciri

petit / flexas et ultro torquet in tergum manus."
66Prudent. Perist. 10 11. 801-3: "o non virile robur, o molles

manus! / unam labantis dissipare tarn diu / vos non potesse fabricam
corpusculi!"
67Leo Sermnes (ed. R. Dolle, SC 200) 85.4 in natali sancti

Laurentii martyris: "Nihil obtines, nihil proficis, saeva crudelitas.
Substrahitur inventis tuis materia mortalis, et Laurentio in caelos
abeunte tu deficis. Flammis tuis superari caritatis Christi flamma non
potuit, et segnior fuit ignis qui foris ussit quam qui intus accendit.
Servisti, persecutor, martyri, cum saevisti; auxisti palmam, dum aggeras
poenam."
297
of the Roman military masculinity, identifying it with pacifism,
Christians helped to create a new masculine ideal.
3. Your weapons are fasts, your battle is humility:
The Interior Battle against Sin
From the martyrs, the image of the soldier of Christ was
eventually extended, as indeed, the image of the vita militaris had been
extended, to any man. Instead of battling physical persecutors, writers
encouraged the Christian man to battle his interior weakness. In part,
this was the necessary consequence of the end of persecution in 312,
although the image of the interior battle against sin predated the peace
of the fourth century. The extension of the military image also
permitted individual Christians to see themselves as soldiers without
facing the supreme sacrifice demanded of the martyrs.
Cyprian was an important writer for the extension of the notion of
the military identity to all Christians. Although writing in a period
of intensified persecutions in the middle of the third century, he
relied much more on preparedness for martyrdom rather than death itself
as defining the Christian soldier:
For he cannot be a soldier fitted for the war who has not
first been exercised in the field. . . If [the devil] finds
Christ's soldier unprepared, if unskilled, if not careful
and watching with his whole heart; he circumvents him if
ignorant, he deceives him incautious, he cheats him
inexperienced. But if a man, keeping the Lord's precepts,
and bravely adhering to Christ, stands against him, he must
298
needs be conquered, because Christ, whom that man confesses,

is unconquered.68
In this sense, any Christian individual, martyr or not, could be a
soldier of Christ. Cyprian added:
If persecution should fall upon such a soldier of God, his

virtue [uirtus], prompt for battle, will not be able to be
overcome. Or if his call should come to him before, his
faith shall not be without reward, seeing it was prepared
for martyrdom; without loss of time, the reward is rendered
by the judgment of God. In persecution, the warfare, - in
peace, the purity of conscience, is crowned.69
The use of the term sacramentum for baptism, which Cyprian adopted from
Tertullian, helped to strengthen this idea that a military-type oath
bound all Christians, whether martyr or not.
That it was Cyprian who first extended this military metaphor is
significant, given his personal history. Instead of facing martyrdom in
68Cyprian Ad Fortunatum (ed. CCSL 3; trans. R. Wallis, ANCL 13.2)

praefatio 2: "Neque enim idoneus potest esse miles ad bellum qui non
exercitatus in campo prius fuerit... Si inparatum inuenerit Christi
militem, si rudem, si non sollicito ac toto corde uigilantem,
circumuenit nescium, fallit incautum, decipit inperitum. Si uero quis
dominica praecepta custodians et fortiter Christo adhaerens contra eum
steterit, uincatur necesse est, quia Christus quern confitemur inuictus
est." The differences between an actual martyr and a potential martyr
are not always clear; several scholars have examined the uses of the
terminology of martyrdom, including: H. A. M. Hoppenbrouwers (Recherches
sur la terminologie du martyrs de Tertullien A Lactance, Latinitas
Christianorum Primaeva, vol. 15 [Nijmegen: Dekker & van de vegt, 1961])
who discusses inter alia the use of the term miles Christi in Tertullian
(pp. 71-3), Cyprian (pp. 149-51), and anonymous, mid- and late-third-
century acts of the martyrs (pp. 161 and 175-6).
69Cyprian Ad Fortunatum 13: "Si talem persecutio inuenerit Dei

militem, uinci non poterit uirtus ad proelium prompta. Vel si
arcessitio ante praeuenerit, sine praemio non erit fides quae erat ad
martyrium praeparata: sine damno temporis merces iudice Deo redditur: in
persecutione militia, in pace conscientia coronatur." Cf. ibid. 13:
"...in persecutione militia, in pace conscientia coronatur." Cf. also
idem, De lapsis (ed. and trans. H. Bdvenot [Oxford: Clarendon, 1971]) 2:
"Adest militum Christi cohors Candida, qui persecutionis urgentis
ferociam turbulentam stabili congressione fregerunt, parati ad
patientiam carceris, armati ad tolerantiam mortis."
299
the Decian persecution of 249-250, he had fled the city. This action
was viewed as cowardice and abandonment of his responsibilities as
bishop, especially by a large group of near-martyrs, the confessors, who
had been imprisoned and sentenced to death, but who had been freed after
the period of persecution ended, before the sentences had been carried
out. For much of the remainder of his career, Cyprian downplayed the
authority of these confessors in favor of episcopal authority.70 The
universalization of the military image of the Christian life may even
have been a conscious part of this strategy to deny to the confessors an
important part of their authority.
This extension of the symbol of the soldier of Christ was
especially popular after the end of persecution, when the risk of
martyrdom no longer existed. This is the exact point of a sermon of
Pope Leo the Great, who urged his audience not to abandon the fortitude
which they had acquired "in the times when the kings of this world and
all of the secular powers raged with a cruel impiety against the people
of God," but to "be vigilant and beware of the perils which are born
from the very quietness of peace." He continued:
The enemy himself, who was ineffective in open persecutions,

now uses hidden arts to our destruction: so that those whom
he did not make flee by striking them with afflictions, he
70For details and consequences of Cyprian's flight: Peter

Hinchliff, Cyprian of Carthage and the Unity of the Christian Church
(London: Macmillan, 1974); and Michael M. Sage, Cyprian (Philadelphia:
The Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975). See also the discussion
below. For more on the image of the soldier of Christ in the writings
of Cyprian: Josd Capmany Casamitjana, ’Miles Christi' en la
espiritualidad de san Cipriano (Barcelona: Casulleras, 1956); and
Edelhard Hummel, The Concept of Martyrdom according to St. Cyprian of
Carthage (Washington, DC: Catholic university of America, 1946). Hummel
notes (p. 24) without irony the view of Cyprian that a Christian could
be prepared for martyrdom even when he flees from persecution.
300
now makes fall away by love of luxury. . . The terror of

proscriptions he has changed to the fire of avarice, and
those whom he did not destroy with condemnations, he
corrupts with desire.71
Leo considered the Christian who resisted sin as brave and true a
soldier of Christ as the martyr who faced death. The Christian poet
Commodian concurred: "if you conquer by your good deeds, you are in that
way a martyr."72
It is easy to see how such an idea was attractive to Christian
men, since it permitted any of them to view their daily struggles as
part of a larger battle between good and evil. Such an idea made them
the equivalent of the martyrs by being comparable followers of the dux
caelestis militiae ("commander of the heavenly army"), as Ambrose
described Jesus.73 Each man might say to himself what Hilary of Arles
71Leo Sermones 36.3: "Hanc fortitudinem, dilectissimi, non illis

tantum temporibus necessariam fuisse credimus, quibus reges mundi et
omnes saeculi potestates cruenta impietate in Dei populum saeviebant,
cum ad maximam pertinere gloriam suam dicerent, si de terris nomen
Christianum auferrent; nescientes Ecclesiam Dei per furorem suae
crudelitatis augeri; quoniam in suppliciis et mortibus beatorum
martyrum, qui putabantur minui numero, multiplicantur exemplo. ...Sed
quia tempestas priorum turbinum conquievit, et dudum cessantibus
praeliis quaedam videtur arridere tranquillitas, vigilanter cavenda sunt
ilia discrimina quae de otio ipsius pacis oriuntur. Adversarius enim,
qui in apertis inefficax persecutionibus fuit, tecta nocendi arte
desaevit: ut quos non perculit ictu afflictionis, lapsu dejiciat
voluptatis. ...Terrorem proscriptionum in avaritiae mutat incendium, et
quos damnis non fregit, cupiditate corrumpit." These points are
repeated ibid. 40.2; 18.1-2; and 39.
72Commodian Instructiones (ed. J. Durel [Paris: Ernest Leroux,

1912]) 2.21: "Nunc si benefactis uinceris, martyr in illo..." See also
Edward Malone, "Spiritual Martyrdom in the Early Latin Fathers,” chap. 2
in The Monk and the Martyrs The Monk as the Successor of the Martyr
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1950). Commodian's use
of the image in this way may help to date him to the period after the
persecutions.
73Ambrose Expositio euangelii secundum Lucam 1.14: "Arma enim

spiritalia et fortia deo ad destruendas munitiones militibus Christi
debent semper esse praesentia, ne cum uenerit dux caelestis militiae,
301
said to his saintly predecessor, Honoratus: "In truth, I believe that no
one disputes that only the occasion of martyrdom was lacking in you, and
not the spirit for it."74
Similarly, the fight against sin and temptation might take on a
cosmic significance when construed in the fashion of a metaphysical war
against the devil and his armies of demons. Cyprian often returned to
the refrain that the true enemy of all Christians was the devil:
circling about each one of us, and just as an enemy,

beseiging an enclosed people, he explores the walls [of our
town] and tries to find out if any part of our members is
less stable and less faithful, by which he might,
approaching, penetrate to the interior [of the town].75
It could well be, indeed, that the magnification of the role of the
devil in Latin Christianity, while also influenced by dualist sects like
the Manichaean religion, owed much to the military analogy of sin and
temptation, requiring its own commander and legions.76 The popularity
of the image of opposing spiritual armies, moreover, may have
situ nostrorum offensus armorum a legionum suarum nos societate

discernat."
74Hilarius Senno de vita sancti Honorati (ed. M.-D. Valentin, SC

235) 38.4: "Et uere puto neminem diffiteri tibi ad martyrium tempus, not
animum defuisse."
75Cyprian De zelo et livore (ed. CCSL 3a; trans. R. Deferrari, FC

36) 2: "Circuit ille nos singulos et tamquam hostis clausos obsidens
muros explorat et temptat an sit pars aliqua membrorum minus stabilis et
minus fida, cuius aditu ad interiora penetretur." See also Hummel,
Concept of Martyrdom, 56-90; Capmany Casamitjana, Miles Christi, 255-85.
76E.g. the renunciation of the devil at the moment of baptism

became a standardized important part of the rite in the third century,
under Gnostic influence, according to Henry Ansgar Kelly, "The
Renunciation of Satan," chap. 6 in The Devil at Baptism: Ritual,
Theology, and Drama (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1985).
302
intensified the role of the Antichrist as the future enemy of
Christians.77
Individual Christian participants in such battles, in turn, could
perceive themselves as heroic fighters in an invisible but consequential
war. The seasons of the church and the commemorative feasts of the
martyrs continually reminded Christian audiences of the military flavor
of their lives.78 By the fourth century and afterwards, the theme of
the war of the soul against sin could be found in virtually anywriter.
Peter Chrysologus devoted a sermon to the subject:
[The devil] conquers us in abundance, takes possession of us

in pleasure, gorges himself at our feasts, and whenever
luxury does not let go of us, lust arouses us, a pagan
procession carries us off, ambition compells us, wrath urges
us, fury fills us, hatred kindles within us, desire inflames
us, cares concern us, profits seize us... because then
virtues die, vices live, pleasure runs forth, respectability
perishes, mercy disappears, and greed abounds, confusion
reigns, order succumbs, and discipline lies prostrate.
These very things war against the soldier of Christ; these
77Lactant. Div. inst. 7.26: "Diximus paulo ante, in principio

regni sancti fore, ut a Deo princeps daemonum vinciatur. Sed idem, cum
mille anni regni, hoc est septem millia coeperint terminari, solvetur
denuo, et custodia emissus exibit; atque omnes gentes, quae tunc erunt
sub ditione justorum, concitabit, ut inferant bellum sanctae civitati;
et colligetur ex omni orbe terrae innumerabilis populus nationum, et
obsidebit, et circumdabit civitatem." See Gregory Jenks, The Origins
and Early Development of the Antichrist Myth (Berlin: w. de Gruyter,
1991), esp. 81-3; Bernard McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the
Human Fascination with Evil (San Francisco: Harper, 1994); and Horst
Dieter Rauh, Das Bild des Antichrist im Mittelalter (Munster:
Aschendorff, 1973), 102-52.
78Hieron. Senno de guadragesima (ed. CCSL 78; trans. M. Gwald, FC

57): "Quomodo miles semper exercetur ad proelium et simulatis ictibus
ueris postea uulneribus praeparatur, ita omnis quidem Christianorum uita
indiget abstinentia, sed maxime quando hostis prope est, et praeparatum
aduersum nos exercitum ducit inimicus. Omni seruis Dei tempore
ieiunandum est, sed tunc amplius cum ad immolationem agni, ad mysterium
baptismi, ad Christi carnem et sanguinem praeparamur." Cf. Peter
Chrysologus, Sermones 12.1: "Quoniam ieiunii uernum et tempus bellorum
spiritalium cernimus aduenisse, sicut Christi milites deposito corporis
animaeque torpore uirtutem procedamus ad campum, ut membra, quae sunt
nobis hiemali otio mollita, exercitio caelestium roborentur armorum."
303
very things are the cohorts of Satan and the legions of the
devil...79
The image was especially popular with poetic writers. Commodian
wrote: "Lust overtakes you: it is war, fight against it. Greed tempts
you: do not listen to it, and you have won the war."80 Prudentius used
the image to its fullest effect. In his allegory of the fight against
sin, called the Psychomachia ("Battle of the Soul”), the personified
forces of good battle their corresponding vices, all depicted in bloody
detail. He addressed Christ as the commander-in-chief of the virtues:
You yourself command relieving squadrons to fight the battle in

the body close beset, you yourself arm the spirit with pre
eminent kinds of skill whereby it can be strong to attack the
wantonness in the heart and fight for you, [and] conquer for
you. The way of victory is before our eyes.81
79Peter Chrysologus Sermones 12.3: "Est quidem diabolus... Capit

ille satietatem, uoluptatem percipit, expletur epulis, quando non luxus
scluitf libido stiisul»tr pnmna rspit, imnoi iif AfnfrHtin, urûst ira.
furor implet, succendit inuidia, cupiditas inflammat, curae sollicitant,
lites uexant, lucra capiunt... quando moriuntur uirtutes, uiuunt uitia,
misericordia deficit, abundat auaritia, regnat confusio, succumbit ordo,
prosternitur disciplina. Ista, ista militant aduersum militem Christi;
istae sunt Satanae cohortes, istae diaboli legiones..." Cf. ibid. 38 (on
the endurance of wrongs), 101 (on resisting fear of physical death), 116
(on warfare against vice), and 133 (on the apostle Andrew as a warrior
in the heavenly army).
80Commodian Instructiones 2.22: "Libido praecipitat: bellum est,

cumpugna cum illo. / Luxuria suadet: abutere, bellum uicisti." Cf.
ibid. 2.12: "Militiae nomen cum dederis, freno teneris. / Incipe tunc
ergo: dimitte pristina gesta, / Luxurias uita, quoniam labor inminet
armis; / Imperio Regis omni uirtute parendum / Tempora postrema si uis
pertingere laeta. / Ilia bonus miles semper exspecta fruenda,/ Blandire
noli tibi, desidias omnis omitte; / Vt tuo praeposito cottidie praesto
sis ante, / Sollicitus esto, matutinus signa reuise. / Cum uideris
bellum, agonia sume propinqua; / Haec gloria Regia, militem uidere
paratum. / Rex adest optato; propter spem dimicat uestram; / Ille parat
dona, ille pro uictoria laetus / Suscipit et proprium satellem dedicat
esse. / Tu tibi praeterea in delictis parcere noli. / Impiger esto
magis, ut reddat famam pro morte."
81Prudent. Psychomachia 11. 14-8: "ipse salutiferas obsesso in

corpore turmas / depugnare iubes, ipse excellentibus armas / artibus
ingenium, quibus a ludibria cordis / oppugnanda potens tibi dimicet et
tibi vincat. / vincendi praesens ratio est..." I have changed the
304
Tertullian's link between militarism and baptism also provided a
context in which fourth- and fifth-century writers could remind their
audiences that all Christians, having taken the oath of baptism, had
declared their preparedness for the war against evil. In a discussion
of baptism, Jerome, for example, called the rite God's "protection and
shield," adding that "the enemy wars against us and never retreats, even
in defeat, but always lies in ambush, ready to shoot his arrows at the
upright of heart from his secret hiding place.”82 in a homily addressed
to Christian catechumens, Jerome repeated this idea:
You, too, who are going to receive baptism, begin your

preparation for tomorrow. They, who are going into battle,
prepare themselves carefully beforehand. Each one sees
whether he has a shield, a two-edged sword, or a spear;
whether he needs arrows; whether his horse has been put into
condition; he prepares his equipment and weapons ahead of
time that he may be ready to fight. Your weapons are fasts;
your battle is humility.83
translator's "thou thyself dost" to "you yourself" and "Thee" to "you."

See the discussion of this work in Malamud, "Words at War," chap. 3 in
Poetics of Transformation.
82Hieron. Dialogus aduersus Pelagianos (ed. CCSL 80; trans. J.

Hritzu, FC 53) 3.1: "Sed impugnat inimicus, nec uictus recedit, sed
semper in insidiis est ut sagittet in occulto rectos corde." Cf. his
remarks on baptism to a convert from Mithraism. Hieron. Epist. 107.2:
"...ante paucos annos propinguus uester Graccus, nobilitatem patritiam
nomine sonans, cum praefecturam regeret urbanam, nonne specu Mithrae, et
omnia portentuosa simulacra, quibus Corax, Cryphius, Miles, Leo, Perses,
Heliodromus, Pater initiantur, subuertit, fregit, exussit, et his quasi
obsidibus ante praemissis, inpetrauit baptismum Christi?"
83Hieron. Tractatus in Marci evangelium (ed. CCSL 78; trans. M.

Ewald, FC 57) 9: "Vos qui recepturi estis baptismum, iam die crastina
praeparate uos similiter. Qui ituri sunt ad pugnam, diligenter ante se
praeparant. Videt si scutum habeat, si spatham habeat, si habeat
hastam, si sagittas habeat, si equus ipsius refectus est: ut pugnare
possit, ante praeparat armaturam. Vestra anna, ieiunia sunt: uestra
pugna, humilitas est." Cf. August. Sermones 210.2: "Sive ergo continuo
post Baptismum, sive quodlibet intervallo temporis interposito, quando
simile praelium corpus impleat de castigatione militiam, et animus
impetret de humiliatione victoriam."
305
Examples of Christian funerary sculpture from the later Roman empire
also demonstrate how baptism was compared to battle, and perhaps testify
to its popularity of the idea outside of literary circles.84
Christian writers did generally recognize the irony in describing
non-violence in militaristic terms, but placed this within the context
of the general paradox of Christian masculinity. Sulpicius Severus, in
probably the most famous example of this disjunction of image and
reality, had Martin of Tours say: "I am a soldier of Christ; it is not
permitted to me to fight."85 A similar disjunction appears in the story
of the martyrdom of Marcellus: "it is not fitting that a Christian, who
fights for Christ his Lord, should fight for the armies of this
world."86 Peter Chrysologus wrote: "The meek Warrior is to subdue the
Devil, the gentle Victor is to reduce the pride of the world, the
peaceful Fighter is to blot out the discords of nations."87 Tertullian
had first embraced this paradox: "let [the devil] find you armed and
fortified with concord; for peace among you is battle with him."88
84M. C. Pietri, "Le serment du soldat chrdtien. Les Episodes de la

militia christi sur les sarcophages,” Melanges d 'archdologie et
d'histoire 74 (1962): 649-64.
85Sulpicius Severus Vita sancti Martini 4.3: "Christi ego miles

sum: pugnare mihi non licet."
86Acta Marcelli (ed. and trans. H. Musurillo, The Acts of the

Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972]) 4.3: "Agricolanus dixit:
Proiecisti arma? Marcellus respondit: Proieci. non enim decebat
Christianum hominem militiis saecularibus militare, qui Christo domino
militat.”
87Peter Chrysologus Sermones 170: "...ut diabolum mitis bellator

expugnet, ut mundi superbiam mansuetus uictor inclinet, ut discordias
gentium pacificus auferat praeliator..."
88Tert. Ad martyras 1: "...sed inueniat munitos et concordia

armatos: quia pax uestra bellum est illi."
306
Augustine wrote of the martyrs: "they overcame the world not by
resisting but by dying."89 All this was the example of Christ, who
conquered the world with "our fearfulness rather than his power," as
Pope Leo reminded his listeners in a sermon.90
One final point remains. Spiritual militarism left little concern
for the actual state of the defenses of the empire, of only secondary
importance in a symbolic universe which measured victory by internal
rather than external success. As Ambrose wrote: "The church conquers
hostile forces not with physical weapons but with spiritual ones."91 It
is in this context, then, that Augustine's comments on war and violence,
and the general Christian reaction to the disintegration of the western
empire, should be situated. Augustine, who believed that military
service was permissible to Christian men, nevertheless left little doubt
about the real battle of Christians:
Those who serve God with the highest self-discipline . . .

renouncing all these worldly activities, have a more
prominent place before Him: "But everyone hath his proper
"August. De civ. D. 22.9: "quia et ipsi martyres huius fidei

martyres, id est huius fidei testes, fuerunt; huic fidei testimonium
perhibentes mundum inimicissimum et crudelissimum pertulerunt eumque non
repugnando, sed moriendo uicerunt..."
90Leo Sermones 54:4 de passiones "Venerat enim in hunc mundum

dives atque misericors negotiator e caelis, et commutatione mirabili
inierat commercium salutare, nostra accipiens, et sua tribuens, pro
contumeliis honorem, pro doloribus salutem, pro morte dans vitam; et cui
ad exterminationem persequentium poterant plusquam duodecim millia
angelicarum servire legionum, malebat nostram recipere formidinem quam
suam exercere potestatem."
91Ambrose De viduis (ed. F. Gori [Milan: Bibliotheca Ambrosiana,

1989]) 8.49: "Ecclesia autem non armis saecularibus vincit adversarias
potestates, sed armis spiritalibus..." For more on Ambrose's attitude
toward war, which he was able to justify by separating the physical and
spiritual realms, see Louis Swift, "St. Ambrose on violence and War,"
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association
101 (1970): 533-43.
307
gift from God, one after this manner and another after
that." Thus, some fight for you against invisible enemies
by prayer, while you strive for them against visible
barbarians by fighting. Would that one faith were found in
all, for there would be less striving and the Devil and his
angels would be overcome more easilyI92
Augustine wrote his own treatise on patience. In it, he returned
to the problems of military decline, but placed these among the troubles
which should not concern the patient man. These problems included: "the
bitterness and uncertainty of wars, the strokes of terrific blows and
dreadful wounds,"93 and "highway robbers, all of whom spend sleepless
nights lying in wait for travelers."94 He reminded his readers of the
example of the martyrs:
in the body, they were fettered, they were imprisoned, they

were beset with hunger and thirst, they were tortured, cut
to pieces, lacerated, burned, butchered. Yet, with a
faithfulness that remained unmoved, they subjected their
minds to God while they suffered in the flesh whatever
cruelty came into the minds of their assailants.95
92August. Bpist. 189.5: "Majoris guidem loci sunt apud Deum, gui
omnibus istis saecularibus actionibus derelictis, etiam summa
continentia castitatis ei serviunt; Sed unusguisgue, sicut Apostolus
dicit, proprium donum habet a Deo; alius sic, alius autem sic. [1 Cor.
7.7] Alii ergo pro vobis orando pugnant contra invisibiles inimicos;
vos pro eis pugnando laboratis contra visibiles barbaros. Utinam una
fides esset in omnibus, guia et minus laboraretur, et facilius diabolus
cum angelis suis vincereturt” Written in 418, after the sack of Rome.
"August. De patientia (ed. CSGL 41; trans. L. Meagher, FC 16)

3.3: "pecuniae, gloriae, lasciuiae cupidos uidemus, ut ad desiderata
perueniant adeptisgue non careant, soles, imbres, glacies, fluctus et
procellosissimas tempestates, aspera et incerta bellorum, inmanium
plagarum ictus et uulnera horrenda non ineuitabili necessitate, sed
culpabili uoluntate perferre."
94August. De patientia 5.4: "guid de latronibus dicam, guorum

omnes cum insidiantur uiatoribus, noctes perpetiuntur insomnes, atgue ut
transeuntes excipiant innocentes, sub gualibet caeli asperitate nocentem
animum corpusgue defigunt?"
"August. De patientia 8.10: "...et in corporibus uincti sunt,

inclusi sunt, fame ac siti affecti sunt, torti sunt, secti sunt,
dilaniati sunt, incensi sunt, trucidati sunt - et pietate inmobili
308
Augustine concluded his treatise with these words: "in return for what
we have patiently endured here [on earth] we will there [in heaven]
enjoy eternal happiness."96
This example could be didactic even if the age of the martyrs had
passed. The Christian associates of Augustine in North Africa were
suffering tortures not only at the hands of brigands and rebellious
groups, but also by bands of Circumcellians. A splinter group related
to the Donatist Christians, the Circumcellians engaged in extra-legal
acts of violence against their opponents.97 Augustine wrote to a
Donatist bishop about them, one of our chief sources for the
Circumcellians. In the letter, Augustine - whose churches in the
controversy had the support of the imperial government and its policing
forces - complained how the Circumcellians depicted themselves as
martyrs:
You say that you suffer persecution, and we are beaten by

your armed bands with clubs and swords; you say that you
suffer persecution, and our homes are robbed and ravaged by
your armed bands; you say that you suffer persecution, and
our eyes are put out by your armed bands with lime and
vinegar.98
subdiderunt deo mentem, cum paterentur in ca me guidguid exguirenti

crudelitati uenit in mentem."
96August. De patientia 29.26: "non dabit finem sempiternae

felicitati, gui donat temporalem patientiam uoluntati..."
970n the Circumcellions: W. H. C. Frend, "Circumcellions and

Monks," Journal of Theological Studies 20 (1969): 542-9, reprinted in
Town and Country; Henry Chadwick, "Augustine on Pagans and Christians:
Reflections on Religious and Social Change," in History, Society, and
the Churches: Essays in Honor of Owen Chadwick, ed. D. Beales and G.
Best (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1985), reprinted in Heresy and
Orthodoxy in the Early Church (London: Variorum, 1991).
"August. Epist. (ed. PL 33) 88.8: "Vos dicitis pati

persecutionem; et nos ab armatis vestris fustibus et ferro concidimur.
Vos dicitis pati persecutionem; et nostrae domus ab armatis vestris
compilando vastantur. Vos dicitis pati persecutionem; et nostri oculi
309
Augustine responded by claiming that it was the "Circumcellians [who]
are raging against us with a persecution of a new sort and of
unspeakable cruelty."99 More interesting than the Circumcellians'
rejection of Christian pacifism - Augustine also believed that war was
justifiable, after all - is both parties' attempts to describe the
actions against them as persecution, and thus to assume for themselves
the label of martyr. It also reminds us that among some Christians,
militarism was not only a non-violent metaphor.
Perhaps his experience with the Circumcellians gave Augustine his
perspective on the larger military problems of the empire. In
correspondence with an Italian priest in 409 - before the sack of Rome -
Augustine had been voicing ideas which would be found in The City of
God. This letter began:
Indeed, the whole world is afflicted with such great

disasters that there is scarcely a part of the earth where
such things as you have described are not being committed
and lamented. . . I am sure you know what cruelties were
perpetuated in parts of Italy and Gaul, and reports are
beginning to come in now from many of the Spanish provinces,
which had long seemed immune to these calamities. But why
go so far afield? Right here in our neighborhood of Hippo,
which the barbarians have not touched, the brigandage of
Donatist clerics and Circumcellions has so ravaged our
churches that the deeds of barbarians might be less
destructive.100
ab armatis vestris calce et aceto exstinguuntur." On the regular use of

torture by the later Roman government: Laurent Angliviel de la
Beaumelle, "La torture dans les Res gestae d'Ammien Marcellin," in
Institutions, socidtd et vie politique dans 1 'empire romain au IVe
si&cle ap. J.-C., ed. M. Christol, et al. (Rome: ficole frangaise de
Rome, 1992).
"August. Epist. 88.1: "Clerici et Circumcelliones vestri novi

generis et inaudite crudelitatis persecutione in nos saeviunt."
100August. Epist. 111.1: "Totus guippe mundus tantis affligitur

cladibus, ut pene pars nulla terrarum sit. ubi non talia, gualia
scripsisti, committantur atgue plangatur. ...Janivero guae modo in
regionibus Italiae, guae in Galliis nefaria perpetrata sint, etiam vos
310
"These are sorrows to be mourned over," Augustine continued, but "not
wondered at."101 Instead, Augustine took a different tack:
You say that good and faithful and holy servants of God have
fallen by the sword of barbarians. What difference does it
make whether they are set free from the body by fever or by
the sword? What God looks for in His servants is not the
circumstances of their departure, but what they are like
[morally] when they come to Him.102
In another sermon, devoted to explaining the sack of Rome, Augustine
contrasted the temporary sufferings of the victims of the sack of Rome
with the eternal ones of the damned in hell, for these are the true
tortures to fear and the sufferings to be avoided.103
The manly self-image of Christian men did not depend on the
successes of the armies of the empire, but on the victories of an
interior struggle. The popularity of the Christian counter-masculinity
we can directly relate to this redirection of the military image inward.
Here was a masculine image which could no longer be threatened with a
sinking into effeminacy by the collapse of Roman borders and the
latere non arbitror; de Hispanis quoque tot provinciis, quae ab his

malis diu videbantur intactae, coeperunt jam talia nuntiari. Sed quid
longe imus? Ecce in regione nostra Hipponensi, quoniam earn barbari non
attigerunt, clericorum donatistarum et Circumcellionum latroncinia sic
vastant ecclesias, ut barbarorum fortasse facta mitiora sint."
101August. Epist. 111.2: "Plangenda sunt haec, non miranda..."
102August. Epist. 111.6: "Bonos dicis Dei servos et fideles et

sanctos, gladio barbarorum peremptos. Quid autem interest, utrum eos
febris an ferrum de corpore solverit? Non qua occasione exeant, sed
quales ad se exeant Dominus attendit in servis suis..."
103August. De excidio urbis Romae sermo 4: "Cogita quoslibet

cruciatus, extende animum in quaslibet poenas humanas; compara ad
gehennam et leve est omne quod pateris. Hie temporalis, ibi aeternus
est, et qui torquet et qui torquetur. Numquid adhuc patiuntur qui illo
tempore passi sunt quo Roma vastata est? Dives autem ille adhuc apud
inferos patitur. Arsit, ardet, ardebit; veniet ad iudicium, recipiet
carnem, non ad beneficium, sed ad supplicium. Illas poenas timeamus, si
Deum timemus."
311
Invasion of foreign troops, because it did not depend on outside
variables such as these, but on the integrity of interior borders.
Roman men who were Christians could continue to aspire to a vita
militaris of steadfastness and courage, and wage victorious wars of
conquest, even in the final years of the western empire, but redefined
in Christian terms of sin, suffering, and salvation.
4. All that is reckoned noble is empty:
The Christian Flight from the World
Christian leaders, like their pagan and secular counterparts,
often criticized the extravagant wealth and idle leisure of the nobility
of their day. They were also concerned that the upper classes were
wasting their potential in the private pursuit of luxury. Unlike the
pagan writers, however, Christian writers did not blame this waste and
idleness on the political impotence of the Roman dlite, but rather
suggested that all secular pursuits were meaningless. In place of the
pursuit of luxury, they advocated in place of both a complete withdrawal
from the world.
Complaints about luxury among Christians was a perennial feature
of patristic writings. As early as middle of the third century, Cyprian
blamed the large numbers of Christian apostates at the start of the
Decian persecution on the greed of the Christian population of Carthage.
As a result, it had lost the discipline necessary to face hardships:
Each one was intent on adding to his inheritance.

Forgetting what the faithful used to do under the Apostles
312
and what they should always be doing, each one with

insatiable greed was absorbed in adding to his wealth.104
Their contempt for their Christian duties, he claimed, was visible even
in their faces: "Men had their beards plucked, women their faces
painted."105 Not even the clergy was free from fault, having "left
their sees, abandoned their people, and toured the markets in other
territories on the look-out for profitable deals," in the process of
which they had even "acquired landed estates by fraud, and made profits
by loans at compound interest."106
Later Christian writers agreed had the laxity which Cyprian had
noticed had only increased in the period after the persecutions. When
Christianity was socially and politically encouraged, after which more
and more members of the Roman aristocracy had converted to the religion,
all discipline was lost. Valerian, bishop of Cimelium on the
Mediterranean coast of Gaul, writing in the middle of the fifth century,
believed that the lifestyle which many Christians led was a guarantee of
sin: "drunkenness and covetousness," "rushing torrents of sins well[ing]
forth, and drag[ging] along to the depths a great part of the human
104Cyprian De lapsis 6: "Studebant augendo patrimonio singuli et,

obliti quid credentes aut sub apostolis ante fecissent aut semper facere
deberent, insatiabili cupiditatis ardore ampliandis facultatibus
incubabant."
105Cyprian De lapsis 6: "Corrupta barba in viris, in feminis forma

fucata..."
106Cyprian De lapsis 6: "Episcopi plurimi... derelicta cathedra,

plebe deserta, per alienas provincias oberrantes negotiationis
quaestuosae nundinas aucupari; esurientibus in ecclesia fratribus,
habere argentum largiter velle, fundos insidiosis fraudibus rapere,
usuris multiplicantibus faenus augere."
313
race."107 Augustine complained that there were some "who consider that
happiness is nothing else but the enjoyment of earthly pleasures," but
dismissed them as no better than animals.108
No stronger critic of the luxury of the upper classes in this
period set his pen to paper than Salvian of Marseilles, who issued a
long harrangue against the morals of his contemporaries entitled De
gubernatione Dei (”0n the Governance of God"). "Who among the rich," he
asked, "with a few exceptions, is not tinged with all manner of
crime?"109 He placed the blame for such vice squarely on the Roman
government and its representatives:
what is the life of the curiales but injustice? What is the

life of government officials but slander? What is the life
of all connected with the army but pillage?110
It was impossible for a member of the nobility to lead a good Christian
life, he maintained, because of the social pressures from his peers:
Indeed, what is this, what state of affairs exists, when a

noble, if he begin to be converted to God, immediately loses
his rank among the nobility? in what account is the honor
of Christ held among a Christian population where religion
socially degrades a man?111
107Valerian Homilia 6: "Frequenter diximus, dilectissimi,

ebrietatem et cupiditatem quosdam fontes esse vitiorum, ex quibus quidam
torrentes praecipitati peccatorum nascuntur, qui secum maximam partem
humani generis in profundum trahunt..."
108August. De utilitate ieiunii 2: "Illi homines proni ad terram,

pastum atque laetitiam de sola came requirentes, pecoribus
comparantur..."
109Salvian De gubernatione Dei 4.3: "et quis, ut superius dixi,

diuitium praeter paucos non cunctis criminibus infectus est?"
110Salvian De gubernatione Dei 3.10: "...quid aliud curialium quam

iniquitas, quid alius officialium quam calumnia, quid aliud omnium
militantium quam rapina?"
111Salvian De gubernatione Dei 4.7: "lam uero illud quale, quam

sanctum, quod si qui ex nobilibus conuerti ad deum coeperit, statim
314
He also repudiated the clergy as "given over to worldly vices under the
appearance of religion," and "candidates for new honors and purchasers
of power far more ample than they previously possessed."112
Ambrose of Milan dedicated several treatises to the vanity of
riches. De Tobia ("On Tobias") drew its title from the pious and honest
merchant father in the biblical book of Tobit. In it, Ambrose condemned
the practice of usury by recounting at length the story of a rich man
who had overextended himself financially and brought his life to
ruin.113 De Nabutha ("On Naboth") was named after the impoverished
fanner in the bible who was murdered so that the wicked rulers Ahab and
Jezebel might confiscate his land. In this work, Ambrose asked:
who of the rich does not daily covet the goods of others?
Who of the wealthy does not strive to drive off the poor man
from his little acre and turn out the needy from the
boundaries of his ancestral fields? Who is content with his
honorem nobilitatis amittit? aut quantus in Christiano populo honor

Christi est, ubi religio ignobilem facit?"
112Salvian, De gubernatione Dei 5.10: "atque hoc uidelicet laici

tantummodo non quidam etiam clericorum, saeculares tantummodo non multi
etiam religiosi, immo sub specie religionis uitiis saecularibus
mancipati... sciunt me uerum loqui et testimonium mihi etiam
conscientia sua dicunt, cum multi alii turn praecipue illi nouorum
honorum religiosi ambitores et post acceptum paenitentiae nomen
amplissimae ac prius non habitae potestatis emptores."
113Ambrose De Tobia (ed. and trans. L. Zucker, PS 35) 5.19:

"oneratur mensa peregrinis et exquisitis cibis, adhibentur nitentes
ministri magno empti pretio, sumptu maiore pascendi, bibitur in noctem,
dies conuiuio clauditur, ebrietati deficit, surgit ille uini plenus,
uacuus opum, dormit in lucem, euigilans somnium putat. etenim ut in
somnis sibi uidetur subito diues ex paupere, sic etiam egenus ex diuite
dum defluit interim pecunia, usura superfluit. tempus minuitur, faenus
augetur: thensaurus exinanitur, sors accumulatur. paulatim conuiuae se
subtrahunt, sponsores conueniunt: mane faenerator pulsat ad ianuas,
queritur dies solutionis transisse praescriptos, iniuriis uigilantem
adoritur, in somnis dormientem excitat. non noctes quietae, non dies
suauis est, non sol iucundus."
315
own? What rich man's heart is not set on fire by a

neighbor's possession?114
Ambrose declared this lifestyle inimical to their very nobility:
Take care, therefore, 0 rich man, lest in you the merits of

your ancestors be put to shame, lest perchance also it be
said to them: "Why have you appointed such an heir, why have
you chosen such a one?" Not in golden ceilings nor in
tables of porphyry is the merit of an heir.115
Like traditional moralists, Ambrose saw such pleasure taken in goods as
feminizing. The rich man's wife, for instance:
...will urge [her husband] to purchase female ornaments and

finery . . . She will impose upon [him] the necessity of
expenditures that she may drink from a goblet set with
stones, sleep on a purple couch, recline on a silver sofa,
and load her hands with gold and her neck with strings of
gems. Even in shackles do women delight, provided they be
fastened with gold. . . Even if half their patrimony be
asked, they do not spare expense while they are indulging
their cupidity.116
The problem for Ambrose, however, was that such cupidity, if natural to
women, was equally apparent in men. "Let not Jezebel," Ambrose warned
114Ambrose De Nabuthae (ed. and trans. H. McGuire, PS 15) 1.1:

"quis enim diuitum non cottidie concupisciet aliena? quis
opulentissimorum non exturbare contendit agellulo? suo pauperem atque
inopem auiti ruris eliminare finibus? quis contentus est suo? cuius
non inflammet diuitis animum uicina possessio?" A study of the issues
of social reform in Ambrose's De Nabuthae may be found by Vincent vasey,
The Social ideas in the Works of St. Ambrose A Study on De Nabuthe
(Rome: Institutum patristicum "Augustinianum," 1982).
115Ambrose De Nabuthae 13.54: "caue igitur, diues, ne in te

erubescant tuorum merita maiorum, ne forte et illis dicatur: "cur talem
instituistis, cur talem elegistis heredem?" non in auratis laquearibus
nec in porphyreticis orbibus heredis est meritum." The biblical story
of Naboth may be found in 1 Kings 21.
116Ambrose De Nabuthae 5.25: "...sed fortasse redeas domum, cum

uxore conferas, ilia te hortetur ut redimas uenundatum. immo magis
hortabitur, ut mundum muliebrem conferas, unde potes uel paruo pauperem
liberare. ilia tibi inponet sumptuum necessitatem, ut gemma bibat, in
ostro dormiat, in argentea sponda recumbat, auro onerat manus, ceruicem
monilibus. delectantur et conpedibus mulieres, dummodo auro ligentur.
...uel si dimidium patrimonii petatur, non parcunt dispendio, dum
indulgent cupiditati." The passage is in the second person singular,
Ambrose rhetorically addressing the imagined husband.
316
his male reader, using the biblical queen as his symbol of greed, "dwell
with you."117
Ambrose's response to the idleness and rapaciousness of the upper
classes was not to encourage them to devote themselves to civic duties
and public life. Instead, in a small treatise which he entitled De fuga
saeculi ("On Flight from the World"), he recommended movement away from
society and its problems, but suggested it be extended to include the
renunciation of their wealth and property. He wrote: "let us flee from
here, where there is nothing, where all that is reckoned noble is empty,
andwhere the one who thinks himself to be something is nothing, yes,
nothing at all.”118 He added:
But this is the meaning of flight from here - to die to the

elements of this world, to hide one's life in God, to turn
aside from corruptions, not to defile oneself with objects
of desire, and to be ignorant of things of this world. For
the world lays sorrows of various kinds upon us, it empties
when it has filled, and it fills when it has emptied. And
all such proceedings are empty and vain, and there is no
profit in them.119
"Such a flight,” Ambrose concluded, "does not know the chill of fear,
the dread of death, the despondency of anxiety, the idle life of
debauchery, the festivals of licentiousness, the stupefaction of
117Ambrose De Nabuthae 11.49: "non tibi cohabitet Iezabel ilia

feralis auaritia, guae tibi curenta persuadeat, guae cupiditates tuas
non reuocat, sed inpellat..."
118Ambrose De fuga saeculi 5.25: "Fugiamus ergo hinc, ubi nihil

est, ubi inane est omne guod esse magnificum putatur, ubi et gui se
putat aliguid esse nihil est et omnino non est."
119Ambrose De fuga saeculi 7.38: "sed hoc est fugere hinc, mori
elementis istius mundi, abscondere uitam in deo, declinare corruptiones,
non attaminare cupiditates, nescire guae sint mundi istius, gui nobis
uarios iniungit dolores, exinanit cum repleuerit, cum exinaniuerit
replet. et haec omnia inania et uacua, in guibus nullus solidus est
fructus."
317
insensibility."120 These assurances were designed with the worries of
men of the dlite classes in mind.
The flight from the world which Ambrose advocated was a direct
abdication of the political authority so central to traditional Roman
definitions of masculine identity. Indeed, the rejection of public life
and the authority which it had given to the individual figured
prominently in the contemporary crisis of masculinity.121 The challenge
to Christian writers was to construct a manly image for the abdication
from political office and public life: this was done by means of a
paradox of finding honor and authority through the very repudiation of
honor and authority, or at least through a radial reinterpretation of
the meaning of honor and authority. Moreover, the chief rival to the
manly public image of the Roman nobility was the autocracy of the later
imperial government, to which an effeminate subjection was necessary.
The rejection of the traditional aspects of Roman power gave Christian
men of the nobility, especially as bishops of the local churches, a new
source of masculine identity and a competing source of authority to the
state.
Ambrose's own life, as shaped by his biographer and former notary,
Paulinus of Milan, was an ideal example of such a new Christian
masculinity. Through a careful hagiographic construction of the
significant events of Ambrose's life, Paulinus created a new model of
120Ambrose De fuga saeculi 6.32: "fuga haec nescit frigus timoris,

tremorum mortis, contractionem sollicitudinis, dissolutionis otia,
lasciuiae ferias, torporem lentitudinis..."
121See above, chap. 2.
318
the political Roman man.122 He began his assessment of Ambrose by
stressing how typical was Ambrose's early career, with its formal
education and pursuit of the cursus honorurn:
And when after being instructed in the liberal disciplines

he had departed from the city [of Rome] and had taken up his
profession in the court of the Praetorian Prefect, he
pleaded his cases so brilliantly that he was chosen by the
Right Honorable Probus, then Praetorian Prefect, to act as
his advisor. After this he received the dignity of the
consulship so that he should rule over the provinces of
Liguria and Aemilia, and he came to Milan.123
After the sudden death of the bishop of Milan, the people of that city
chose Ambrose spontaneously as successor, despite its canonical
irregularity and his extreme reluctance.124 Once he had renounced the
world himself, however, he frequently denounced the worldly lifestyle of
the later Roman aristocracy:
For he lamented vehemently whenever he saw that avarice was

flourishing, the root of all evil, which can be diminished
neither by abundance nor want, and was increasing more and
122For other examples of movement from political office to

ecclesiastical office: W. H. C. Frend, "Paulinus of Mola and the Last
Century of the Western Empire,” Journal of Roman Studies 59 (1969): 1-
11, reprinted in Town and Country; Sivan, Ausonius; Harries, Sidonius
Apollinaris; Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats, chap. 9.
123Paulinus of Milan Vita sancti Ambrosii 2.5: "Sed postquam

edoctus liberalibus disciplinis ex urbe egressus est professusque in
auditorio praefecturae praetorii, ita splendide causas perorabat ut
eligeretur a uiro illustri Probo, tunc praefecto praetorii, ad consilium
tribuendum. post quod consularitatis suscepit insignia ut regeret
Liguriam Aemiliamque prouincias, uenitque Mediolanum." A detailed study
of this source and its author has been done by fsmilien Lamirande, Paulin
de Milan et la "Vita Ambrosii." Aspects de la religion sous le Bas-
Empire (Paris: Desclde/Montrdal: Bellarmin, 1983).
124See below for a discussion of gender issues in Ambrose's

reluctance to be made bishop. For biographical details, see Neil
McLynn, Ambrose of Milant Church and Court in a Christian Capital
(Berkeley: University of California, 1994). McLynn (chap. 1, "The
Reluctant Bishop") presents a very different scenario for Ambrose's
elevation than that presented by Paulinus. See Thomas Ring, Auctoritas
bei Tertullian, Cyprian und Ambrosius (Wurzburg: Augustinus-Verlag,
1975) for a more specific discussion of authority.
319
more among men, especially among those who had been placed
in authority, so that it was a most difficult task for him
to prevent it among these, because all things were being
torn asunder for gain.125
Ambrose's political office as bishop of Milan offered him the
platform from which to launch his attack on the feminizing effects of
luxury. The bishop was more than a social critic, however. We will see
that the role of bishop became the focus for a renewal of men's
political power - and through it, their masculine identity - in the
later empire. Such was the weight of the office that Ambrose wept
whenever he learned of the death of a fellow-bishop, according to
Paulinus, "because it was difficult to find a[nother] man who might be
regarded as worthy of the high dignity of the episcopacy."126 The
authority of the office was especially evident, moreover, in relations
with the emperor.
5. I made you emperor:
Christians and the Authority of the State
Ambrose's authority as bishop of Milan resulted in several
conflicts with the western emperors. For most of Ambrose's time in
office, the western emperors reigned from Milan - first, Gratian, then
125Paulinus of Milan vita sancti Ambrosii 41: "Ingemiscebat enim

uehementer cum uideret radicem omnium malorum auaritiam pullulare, guae
negue copia negue inopia minui potest, magis magisgue increscere in
hominibus et maxime in iis, gui in potestatibus erant constituti, ita ut
interuendiendi illi apud illos grauissimus labor esset, guia omnia
pretio distrahebantur.”
126Paulinus of Milan Vita sancti Ambrosii 40: "...guia difficile

esset inuenire uirum gui summo sacerdotio dignus haberetur."
320
the minor valentinian II and his mother Justina, then Theodosius I and
his son Honorius - and this put the two parties in close contact for a
variety of political and religious controversies. In each, Ambrose
stressed the strength of his position against that of the state.127
Issues of gender lay at the heart the relative positioning of
bishop and emperor. In his biography of Ambrose, Paulinus linked the
opposition to the bishop's authority in a dispute over control of the
basilica to the cunning of the empress Justina, and her use both of her
feminine wiles and of the public insecurities of the men around her:
[Ambrose] withstood countless insidious attacks of the

above mentioned woman Justina, who, by bestowing offices
and honors, aroused the people against the holy men. And
the weak were deceived by such promises, for she promised
tribuneships and various other offices of authority to
those who would drag him from the church and lead him
into exile.128
Augustine of Hippo, who was present in Milan at the time, noted in his
autobiography the fortuitous discovery of the relics of the martyrs
127Relations were mostly smooth with Gratian, who had helped

Ambrose to gain his office. He came to frequent loggerheads with
Valentinian II and Justina, however. In 382 he successfully prevented
the restoration of the pagan altar to the goddess of victory in the
Roman senate. In 385 the two factions quarrelled often over Ambrose's
successful denial of a basilica for worship to the Arian Christians,
which included the imperial family. The death of Valentinian, and the
annexation of the west by the eastern emperor Theodosius I, brought
little change in the relative positions of bishop and emperor. In 389,
Ambrose persuaded the emperor to rescind an order obliging Christians in
an eastern town to rebuild the Jewish synagogue they had destroyed. A
year later, after Theodosius had ordered the massacre of a large number
of persons in Thessalonica, Ambrose forced the emperor to beg
forgiveness in a public rite of penance. See McLynn, Ambrose.
128Paulinus of Milan Vita sancti Ambrosii 12: "Ordinato itaque

Catholico sacerdote, Mediolanum reuertitur ibique supradictae Iustinae
mulieris innumeras insidias sustinuit, quae muneribus atque honoribus
aduersus sanctum uirum oblatis populum excitabat. sed infirmi talibus
promissis decipiebantur, promittebat enim tribunatus et diuersas alias
dignitates iis qui ilium de ecclesia raptum ad exsilium perduxissent."
321
Protasius and Gervasius by Ambrose, which he then translated to the
altar of his cathedral in order to strengthen his claim to the building.
The act was done, Augustine wrote, "to thwart a feminine fury, but
[also] a royal one."129
Ambrose's exploitation of the cult of the martyrs was no mere
aside in the war against Justina. The cult of martyrs was, in fact,
part of a larger process of the transformation of society, in which the
leaders of the established Christian church appropriated the authority
of martyrs. This appropriation happened both temporally, through the
celebration of feasts in honor of martyrs in the church's liturgical
calendar, but also geographically, by means of the erection of shrines
to the martyrs across the empire. Ambrose's role in this process has
been described as "revolutionary," because by such acts as the
translation of relics to the altar of his churches, he brought the cult
of the martyrs directly under episcopal control.130 Throughout his
129August. Confessiones (my translation here) 9.7.16: "Tunc

memorato antistiti tuo per uisum aperuisti, quo loco laterent martyrum
corpora Protasii et Geruasii, quae per tot annos incorrupta in thesauro
secreti tui reconderas, unde oportune promeres ad cohercendam rabiem
femineam, sed regiam."
130Markus, End of Ancient Christianity, 97-106 and 139-55. This

discovery took place in 386; in 393 Ambrose discovered at Bologna the
remains of the martyrs Vitalis and Agricola, which he had transfered to
the church there, and in 395 he discovered and transfered to another
church in Milan the remains of the martyrs Nazarius and Celsus (Paredi,
Ambrose, 254). Ambrose is not, then, incidentally associated with the
movement which condemned the visits of Christians to cemeteries to honor
the dead there. Augustine related that his mother, Monica, was used to
the practice in North Africa, but ended it because of Ambrose's
condemnation. See August. Confessiones 6.2.2: "Itaque cum ad memorias
sanctorum, sicut in Africa solebat, pultes et panem et merum attulisset
atque ab ostiario prohiberetur, ubi hoc episcopum uetuisse cognouit, tam
pie atque oboedienter amplexa est..." The ritual was also condemned by
other contemporary church leaders, including Zeno of Verona, Tractatus
1.15.6; and Gaudentius of Brescia, Tractus IV in Exodnm,
322
career, Ambrose continued to find and take control of the remains of
discovered martyrs.
The role of gender is central to Ambrose's response to Justina,
and to his general sponsorship of the cult of martyrs. Specifically,
Ambrose relied on the manly image of the martyrs to bolster episcopal
authority in the context of his struggle with the imperial government.
In a letter to his sister about the discovery and translation of the
relics, Ambrose made the connection between the martyrs and their
manliness clear, emphasizing the martyrs' military might as soldiers of
Christ:
[God] has stirred up for us the spirits of the holy martyrs,

when [God's] church needs greater protection. Let all know
what sort of champions I desire, who are able to defend, but
desire not to attack. These have I gained for you, 0 holy
people, such as may help all and injure none. Such
defenders do I desire, such are the soldiers I have, that
is, not soldiers of this world, but soldiers of Christ. . .
the more powerful their patronage is the greater safety is
there in it. . . Let them come, then, and see my attendants.
I do not deny that I am surrounded by such arms.131
Such masculine imagery played an important role in the reclamation of
the martyrs, and were a useful foil to the feminine machinations of
Justina.
131Ambrose Epist. 22.10: "Gratias tibi, domine Iesu, quod hoc

tempore tales nobis sanctorum martyrum spiritus excitasti, quo ecclesia
tua praesidia maiora desiderat. Cognoscant omnes quales ego
propugnatores requiram qui propugnare possint, impugnare non soleant.
Hos ego acquisivi tibi, plebs sancta, qui prosint omnibus, noceant
nemini. Tales ego ambio defensores, tales milites habeo hoc est non
saeculi milites sed milites Christi. Nullam de talibus invidiam timeo
quorum quo maiora eo tutiora patrocinia sunt. Horum etiam illis ipsis
qui mihi eos invident opto praesidia. Veniant ergo et videant
stipatores meos, talibus me armis ambiri non nego.” Also on Ambrose's
role in the development of the cult of saints, see Antoon Bastiaensen,
"Paulin de Milan et le culte des martyrs chez saint Ambroise," in
Giuseppe Lazzati, ed., Aabrosius Episcopus (Milano: University Cattolica
del Sacro Cuore, 1976), vol. 2, pp. 143-50; or Lamirande, "Le culte des
martyrs,” chap. 9 in Paulin de Milan.
323
In some ways, the kind of relationship Ambrose had with the
emperor reflected a long history of suspicion between church and
state.132 With the beginning of the fourth century, the imperial
government no longer represented a force directed to the eradication of
Christianity, although even the brief reign of Julian renewed fears of
persecution and apocalyptic thought.133 The adherence of the later
Roman state to Christianity, Ambrose noted, served in fact as a
collective atonement for the earlier persecutions.134 The piety of the
later Roman emperors had sometimes resulted in a triumphalism, in which
the power of God was seen as directing the emperor's actions, and in
which the Roman empire functioned as a foretaste of the heavenly
kingdom, but this was mostly an eastern perspective.135
132An excellent view of this suspicion is presented by Klaus

Wengst, Pax Romana. Anspruch und Wirklichkeit (Munich: C. Kaiser, 1986).
133For the relationship between an earlier Latin Christian writer

and the state: Charles Guigenbert, Tertullien. Etude sur ses sentiments
£ l ’dgard de 1 'Empire et de la socidtd civile (Paris: Ernest Leroux,
1901); or Richard Klein, Tertullian und das rdmische Reich (Heidelberg:
C. Winter, 1968). For apocalyptic thought: Jenks, Origins, 99-112;
Pelikan, Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, 123-32.
134Ambrose De fide (ed. CSEL 78) 2.16.139-41: "Nec ambiguum,

sancte imperator, quod, qui perfidiae alienae poenam excipimus, fidei
catholicae in te vigentis habituri sumus auxilium. Evidens enim antehac
divinae indignationis causa praecessit, ut ibi primum fides Romano
imperio frangeretur, ubi fracta est deo. Non libet confessorum neces,
tormenta, exilia recordari, impiorum sacerdotia, munera proditorum."
135See Jaroslav Pelikan, The Excellent Expire (San Francisco:

Harper and Row, 1987). Cf. Lactant. De mortibus persecutorum 46:
"Propinquantibus ergo exercitibus, jam futurum propediem praelium
videbantur. Turn Maximinus ejusmodi votum Jovi vovit, ut si victoriam
cepisset, Christianorum nomen extingueret, funditusque deleret. Tunc
proxima nocte Licinio quescenti adsistit Angelus Dei, monens ut ocius
surgeret, atque oraret Deum summum cum omni exercitu suo; illius fore
victoriam, si feeisset." Cf. ibid. 52: "Celebremus igitur triumphum Dei
cum exulatatione, victoriam Domini cum laudibus frequentemus, diurnis
nocturnisque precibus celebremus; celebremus, ut pacem post annos decern
324
In the west, one does not find among the patristic writers the
type of heroic militarism found either in the east or in earlier pagan
and contemporary secular panegyrics. It was always made clear that the
real power of the empire belonged to God, who was merely assisted by the
emperor. Prudentius described the emperor Honorius' defeat of the Goths
at the beginning of the fifth century in this ways
To lead our army and our power we had a young warrior

[Honorius] mighty in Christ, and his Companion and father
[-in-law] Stilicho, and Christ the one God of both. It was
after worship at Christ's altar and when the mark of the
cross was imprinted on the brow, that the trumpets sounded.
First before the dragon-standards went a spear-shaft raising
the crest of Christ before them.136
Ambrose shared this perspective. While he saw God's intervention in the
defeat of the forces of the pagan usurper of the west, Eugenius, at the
hands of the Christian emperor, Theodosius I,137 he also argued with
plebi suae datam confirmet in saeculum." Cf. the victory of Constantine

as described by Lactant. Div. inst. 1.1. Cf. also Eusebius, Bistoria
ecclesiastica 10. See also Heim, Virtus, 307-47.
136Prudent. c. Symm. 2 11. 709-14: "dux agminis imperiique /

Christipotens nobis iuvenis fuit, et comes eius / atque parens Stilicho,
Deus unus Christus utrique. / huius adoratis altaribus et cruce fronti /
inscripta cecinere tubae: prima hasta dracones / praecurrit, quae
Christi apicem sublimior effert."
137Ambrose Explanatio Psalmi (ed. CSEL 64) 35.25: "ergo primo

iniusti uitam exposuit, postea sacramenta diuinae cognitionis adiunxit,
ut timentes deum iniquitatem et iniustiam declinemus. ...ideo
uigilantum est semper, castra domini munienda, quia nocte aduenit
inimicus et aduersarius, quando somno sensus tenetur, cibo corpus
distenditur, orandum, ut iustitia dei praetendit in nobis, quae in
infimitate positos faciat fortiores, ut possit unusquisque nostrum
dicere: cum infirmior, tunc potens sum." The same victory is describe
also in similar terms by August. De civ. D. 5.26: "...alium tyrannum
Eugenium, qui in illius imperatoris locum non legitime fuerat
subrogatus... cum a Theodosii partibus in aduersarios uehemens uentus
iret... Quid autem fuit eius religiosa humilitate mirabilius, quando in
Thessalonicensium grauissimum scelus..." Cf. also idem, Contra Faustum
Manichaeum 22.76.
325
equal fervor that a Christian military victory had much to do with
worship and little to do with heroism.138
The limitation of imperial authority was a constant theme for
Ambrose. He was the first to record a legend that the nails from Jesus'
crucifixion - Constantine's mother, Helena, was supposed to have
discovered them - had been melted down to add to a crown and horse-bit
as symbols of state.139 The conclusion which Ambrose drew from the
legend, however, shows his general regard for the imperial throne: "A
crown made from the cross, that faith may shine forth; reins likewise
from the cross, that power may rule, and that there may be just
moderation, not unjust caprice.”140 The point of his story was less the
honors of the imperial rule and more the limitations which the piety of
the emperors imposed upon them.
138Ambrose De fide 2.16.142: "Non hie aquilae militares neque

volatus avium exercitum ducunt, sed tuum, domine Iesu, nomen et cultus,
non hie infidelis aliqua regio, sed ea quae confessores mittere
solet..."
139Ambrose De obitu Theodosii (ed. and trans. M. Mannix, PS 9) 47-

8: "Quaesivit clavos quibus crucifixus est Dominus et invenit. de uno
clavo fraenos fieri praecepit, de altero diadema intexuit; unum ad
decorem, alterum ad devotionem vertit. ...utroque usus est Constantinus
et fidem transmisit ad posteros reges. principium itaque credentium
imperatorum, sanctum est quod super fraenum; ex illo fides ut persecutio
cessaret, devotio succederet. Sapienter Helena quae crucem in capite
regum locavit, ut crux Christi in regibus adoretur. non insolentia ista
sed pietas est, cum defertur sacrae redemptioni." This legend also
appears in Socrates Ecclesiasticus, Bistoria ecclesiastics 1.17.
140Ambrose De obitu Theodosii 48: "in vertice corona, in manibus

habena. corona de cruce ut fides luceat; habena quoque de cruce ut
potestas regat, sitque iusta moderatio non iniusta praeceptio.”
Generally, despite serious problems of religious partiality, see Claudio
Morino, Church and State in the Teaching of St. Ambrose, trans. M. J.
Costelloe (Washington, DC: Catholic university of America, 1969).
326
These limitations consisted of nothing more than the extent to
which the emperor was willing to be obedient to the authority of God.
Ambrose praised the emperor Valentinian II for having once remarked: "I
owe love to a parent, but still more do I owe obedience to the Author of
salvation.1,141 Patristic writers assured their readers that divine
authority was made manifest through the church and its bishops, whose
commands were those of God and were therefore just and eternal, and
could not be corrupted or perverted like the commands of the state.142
Therefore must the emperor submit to the church.
The submission of the autocratic rule of the later Roman emperors
to the hierarchy of the bishops of the Christian church, even if
incomplete and subject to reversals, ranks as one of the greatest shifts
in authority in the period. Issues of masculinity were never far
beneath the surface of the relationship between emperor and bishop.
141Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani (ed. and trans. T.

Kelly, PS 58) 20: "postulet parens Roma alia quaecumque desiderat.
debeo affectum parenti, sed magis obsequium debeo salutis Auctori.”
This was in the context of a discussion on taxation.
142August. De libero arbitrio 1.6: "Cum ergo duae istae leges ita
sibi videantur esse contrariae... Quid ilia lex quae summa ratio
nominatur, cui semper obtemperandum est, et per quam mali miseram, boni
beatem vitam merentur, per quam denique ilia, quam temporalem vocandam
diximus, recte fertur, recteque mutatur, potestne cuipiam intellegenti
non incommutabilis aeternaque videri? An potest aliquando injustum
esse, ut mali miseri, boni autem beati sint: aut ut modestus et gravis
populus ipse sibi magistratus creet, dissolutus, vero et nequam ista
licentia careat... simul etiam te videre arbitrior in ilia temporali
nihil esse justum atque legitimum, quod non ex hac aeterna sibi homines
derivarint..." Gerald Bonner argues that Augustine1s experience with
the Donatists had made him particularly cognisant of the discrepancies
between the rival authorities of church and state. See G. Bonner, "Quid
imperatori cum ecclesia? St. Augustine on History and Society,"
Augustinian Studies 2 (1971): 231-51; reprinted in God's Decree and
Man's Destiny: Studies on the Thought of Augustine of Hippo (London:
Variorum, 1987).
327
Indeed, the origins and development of episcopal power form an integral
part of the reformulation of masculine identity in this period. At the
time of a controversy over the erection of the pagan altar of Victory in
the Roman senate, Ambrose relied heavily on the manly language of
militarism in a letter sent to the emperor: "As all men who live under
the Roman sway engage in military service under you, the Emperors and
Princes of the world, so too do you yourselves owe [military] service to
Almighty God and our holy faith."143 When the emperor threatened to use
military might himself to force Ambrose to hand over a basilica to the
Arians, Ambrose replied: "Do not, 0 Emperor, lay on yourself the burden
of such a thought as that you have any imperial power over those things
which belong to God. Exalt not yourself, but submit yourself to
God."144
The twin themes of exaltation and submission appear as a refrain
in Ambrose's writings on authority. According to his biographer, after
Theodosius had ordered the Christian community of Callinicum to rebuild
the Jewish synagogue they had destroyed, Ambrose dared to deliver a
sermon in the presence of the emperor, speaking in the voice of God:
I made you emperor from the lowest, I delivered the army of

your enemy to you, I gave to you the troops which he had
prepared as his army against you, I brought your enemy into
your power, I placed one of your seed on the throne of the
143Ambrose Epist. 17.1: "Cum omnes homines gui sub dicione Romana
sunt vobis militent imperatoribus terrarum atque principibus, turn ipsi
vos omnipotenti deo et sacrae fidei militatis."
144Ambrose Epist. 20.19: "Respondeo: "Noli te gravare, imperator,

ut putes te in ea guae divina sunt imperiale aliguod ius habere." "Noli
te extollere sed si vis diutius imperare esto deo subditus..." This is
related in a letter about the incident which he wrote to his sister,
Marcellina, a consecrated virgin living in Rome.
328
empire, I made you triumph without labor, and do you give

triumphs to my enemies over me?145
The presumptive ability to speak on behalf of God, to an emperor with
the military and political might of Theodosius, was the cornerstone of
Ambrose's episcopal authority. Ambrose himself made a comparison with
the prophet Nathan's words to king David,146 in a reference both to the
biblical tradition of God's prerogative in choosing whom he wills as
ruler but also, significantly, to the notion of the prophet as
mouthpiece of divine authority.
Patristic writings made clear their opinion in turn that the
appropriate stance of the emperor was one of submission to God through
his bishops. In 395, during an address delivered at the funeral of
Theodosius, Ambrose made proud mention of Theodosius' public repentance
for the massacre which he had ordered at Thessalonica:
He threw on the ground all the royal attire which he was

wearing; he wept publicly in the church, for his sin which
had stolen upon him by the deceit of others; he prayed for
pardon with groans and with tears. That which brings a
blush to private citizens, the Emperor did not blush to do,
that is, to perform penance publicly; nor did a day pass
145Paulinus of Milan Vita sancti Ambrosii 23s "Postea uero quam

Mediolanum reuersus est, posito imperatore in ecclesia de eadem causa
tractauit in populo. in quo tractatu introduxit Domini personam
loquentis imperatori: 'Ego te ex ultimo imperatorem feci, ego tibi
exercitum inimici tui tradidi, ego tibi copias quas ille aduersum te
exercitui suo praeparauerat dedi, ego inimicum tuum in potestatem tuam
redigi, ego de semine tuo supra solium regni constitui, ego te
triumphare sine labore feci; et tu de me inimicis meis donas triumphos?'
cui descendenti de exedra imperator ait: 'Contra nos proposuisti hodie,
episcope.'"
146Ambrose Epist. 40.22: "Et quid tecum posthac Christus loquetur?

Non recordaris quid David sancto per Nathan prophetam mandaverit? Ego
te de fratribus tuis minorem elegi etde privatoimperatorem feci." The
story is from 2 Sam. 7.1-17.
329
afterwards on which he did not grieve for that mistake of

his.147
When bishop Ambrose spoke for God, the emperor Theodosius humbled
himself before him, not blushing though he was humilitated as a man.
This, too, paralleled an episode in the life of king David. A
comparison of Theodosius' penance, as described by Ambrose, and David's
penance, as described by Salvian of Marseilles, is striking in its
similarities:
The guilty man acknowledged his sin, was humbled, filled

with remorse, confessed and wept. He repented and asked for
pardon, gave up his royal jewels, laid aside his robes of
cloth of gold, put aside the purple, resigned his crown. He
was changed in body and appearance. He cast aside all his
kingship with its ornaments.148
In the Christian political perspective, submission was the true nature
of kingship; authority belonged to the church. It is perhaps
significant in this regard that Ambrose was the first Christian writer
to dedicate a treatise to the virtue of penitence.149
The emphasis on submission created a feminized role for imperial
rule, and a masculinized role for the Christian church. Here, ancient
Roman cultural traditions on the relation of gender to authority were
147Ambrose De obitu Theodosii 34: "stravit omne quo utebatur

insigne regium, deflevit in ecclesia publice peccatum suum, quod ei
aliorum fraude obrepserat, gemitu et lacrymis oravit veniam. quod
privati erubescunt non erubuit Imperator, publice agere poenitentiam
neque ullus postea dies fuit quo non ilium doleret errorem."
148Salvian De gubernatione Dei 2.4: "agnoscit scilicet reus

culpam, humiliatur compungitur, confitetur luget, paenitet deprecatur,
gemmas regias abdicat crispantia auro textili indumenta deponit, purpura
exuitur diademate exhonoratur, cultu et corpora mutatur, totum regem cum
ornatibus suis abdicit..." The biblical episode is related in 2 Sam.
12.1-15.
149Ambrose De paenitentia (ed. R. Gryson, SC 179). Cf. the

detailed discussion in Gryson, Pretre selon saint Ambroise, 275-90.
330
significant. In most Christian writings, exegesis on the myth of the
sin of Adam and Eve in the garden of paradise also served to attribute a
relation of masculine dominance and feminine submission both to the
origins of humanity and to God's design.150 Augustine, in commenting on
the story from Genesis, for instance, felt that authority was
appropriate to men and submission to women:
And just as in man's soul there are two forces, one which is
dominant because it deliberates and one which obeys because
it is subject to such guidance, in the same way, in the
physical sense, woman has been made for man. in her mind
and her rational intelligence she has a nature the equal of
man's, but in sex she is physically subject to him in the
same way as our natural impulses need to be subjected to the
reasoning power of the mind, in order that the actions to
which they lead may be inspired by the principles of good
conduct.151
in another place, he extended this analogy, comparing the subordination
of "the feminine to the masculine" to that "of the corporal creature to
the spiritual creature, of the irrational to the rational, of the
terrestrial to the celestial" and "of that which is worth less to that
which is worth more."152 Ambrose, also commenting on the fall of Adam
and Eve, concluded that it was for this reason that the Greek word voug
150See esp. Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York:
Vintage Books, 1988), for a detailed examination of patristic exegesis
on the myth.
151August. Confessiones 13.32.47: "Et quemadmodum in eius anima

aliud est, quod consulendo dominatur, aliud, quod subditur ut
obtemperet, sic uiro factam esse etiam corporaliter feminam, quae
haberet quidem in mente rationalis intellegentiae parem naturam, sexu
tamen corporis ita masculino sexui subiceretur, quemadmodum subicitur
appetitus actionis ad concipiendam de ratione mentis recte agendi
sollertiam."
152August. De Genesi ad litteram (ed. CSEL 28) 8.23.44:

"...subdidit primitus omnia sibi, deinde creaturam corporalem creaturae
spirituali, irrationalem rationali, terrestrem coelesti, femineam
masculinae, minus valentem valentiori, indigentiorem copiosiori."
331
("mind, intelligence") was masculine in gender, and afcrihjcns ("sensual
perception") was feminine - that is, since Eve was tempted by her
senses, which as part of the physical world were inferior to the
metaphysical realm. Because of the fall, therefore, the human senses
must be subjected to the mind.153
Of course, this whole discussion was contradicted by the many
influential women in both the secular and religious life of the later
Roman empire. In government, women like Justina dominated the
government as empresses, in both eastern and western halves, despite
their official exclusion from imperial authority.154 within the early
Christian churches, too, again both eastern and western, women exercised
important offices as deaconesses, wives of priests, even prophetesses,
although these roles were mostly eliminated in the fourth century, in
large part because of the perceived relationship between masculinity on
the one hand and authority and public life on the other.155 Instead,
women gained positions of spiritual power largely through ascetic
153Ambrose De paradiso (ed. PL 14) 2.11: "Namque ante nos fuit,

gui per voluptatem et sensum praevaricationem ab homine memoraverit esse
commissum, in specie serpentis figuram accipiens delectationis, in
figura mulieris sensum animi mentisgue constituens, quam aiodtpnv vocant
Graeci: decepto autem sensu praevaricatricem secundum historiam mentem
asseruit, quam Graeci vow vocant. Recte igitur in Graeco vovg viri
figuram accepit, aio9r)<ng mulieris."
154See Holum, Theodosian Empresses.
155See McNamara, A New Song; Karen Torjesen, "When the Church Goes
Public," chap. 6 in When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the
Early Church and the Scandal of their Subordination in the Rise of
Christianity (San Francisco: Harper, 1993).
332
renunciation and the practice of humility.156 Roman empresses, too,
ruled through humility and personal asceticism.157
The Christian tradition on the practice of male authority, in
contrast to that of women, included many continuities with earlier forms
of authority. Here we can see the transformation of the familiar
patterns of public life at work. The rural holy man, like his pagan
predecessor, made authoritative pronouncements because of his closeness
to the divinity and because he, like God himself, was both intimate and
remote, both father and judge.158 In the cities, the new Christian
dlite continued some elements of traditional Roman authority: the
classical education and the rhetorical skills which it provided, the
importance of decorum in public, and the reliance on a wide network of
friends and allies and the old system of patronage. Christian leaders
also subverted some elements of these traditions: they rejected a
classical education in favor of an education focused on Christian,
156See Elizabeth A. Clark, "Ascetic Renunciation and Feminine

Advancement: A Paradox of Late Ancient Christianity," Anglican
Theological Review 63 (1981): 240-57; reprinted in idem, Ascetic Piety
and Women's Faitht Essays on Late Ancient Christianity, Studies in Women
and Religion, vol. 1 (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen, 1986); and idem,
"Authority and Humility: A Conflict of Values in Fourth-Century Female
Monasticism," Byzantinische Forschungen 9 (1985): 17-33; reprinted in
ibid.
157See Holum, Theodosian Empresses.
158Peter Brown, "The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late
Antiquity, " Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 80-101; reprinted in
idem, Society and the Holy in Late Antiguity (Berkeley: university of
California Press, 1982), 103-52. Brown notes only briefly the context
of gender: "...his rise was a victory of men over women, who had been
the previous guardians of the diffuse occult traditions of their
neighbourhood." (p. 151). For a comparison between the Christian holy
man and the 9eiogavtjp ("divine man") of Hellenistic pagan religion, see
Gail Paterson Corrington, The "Divine Man”: Bis Origin and Function in
Hellenistic Popular Religion (Berne: Peter Lang, 1986).
333
especially biblical texts, and they advocated for the poor and powerless
as new "political” allies who might gain heavenly favor for them.159
Other features of ecclesiastical male leadership blended with more
traditional forms of political office. The old networks of the
aristocratic families, which had always provided methods of patronage
and advancement for men, became an integral part of the structure of the
Christian church. That these alliances were put to theological or
ecclesiastical purposes rather than political has perhaps disguised
their many similarities.160 Self-discipline as a key factor in
political authority also continued to inspire men, and the blurring of
clerical and ascetic lifestyles in this period added the greater
authority of a blameless life to the leaders of the western churches.161
159Peter Brown, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a

Christian Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992),
especially chap. 2, "Paideia and Power," 35-70. Also on the comparisons
and contrasts between pagan and Christian models of authority, see Robin
Lane Fox, "Bishops and Authority, chap. 10 in Pagans and Christians in
the Mediterranean World from the Second Century A.D. to the Conversion
of Constantine (London: Penguin, 1986).
160See Elizabeth A. Clark (The Origenist Controversy: The Cultural

Construction of an Early Christian Debate [Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University, 1992]) who, especially in chap. 1, analyses the role played
by previously existing marital and familial alliances in delineating the
factions of theological controversies in the east.
1610n this point: Philip Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the

Church in the Age of Jerome and Cassian (Oxford: Oxford University,
1978). Brown ("Rise and Function," 139 and 152) notes two differences
in the west: the "unchallenged" position of the clergy as
representatives of spiritual power, and the power of the bodies of the
martyrs, that is, the holy dead rather than living men. On this topic,
see also Peter Brown, "Eastern and Western Christendom in Late
Antiquity: A Parting of the Ways," in Society and the Boly, 166-95,
where he notes, inter alia, how ”[i]n the west the precise locus of the
supernatural power associated with the holy was fixed with increasing
precision [in the episcopacy by] Cyprian of Carthage..." (p. 178).
334
Through the ecclesiastical hierarchy, Roman men of the upper
classes could rediscover political influence, directed into new
channels. Traditional notions of male dominance and female submission,
moreover, gave leaders in the Christian churches a position of manly
authority over the emperor and the state. Indeed, it is probably not
too much to suppose that the rapid expansion of the Christian hierarchy
in this period - a fifth-century law noted how "the number of the clergy
is being superabundantly augmented" - reflected the transformation of
men's public lives from secular to ecclesiastical office.162 This
authority demanded its own price from Christian men.
6. He who are weak little men:
Obedience, Humility, and Christian submission
The authority which Christian men exercised contained an important
paradox: they, like Christian women, exercised authority only to the
extent that they were themselves willing to humble themselves and submit
to God. There was a feminine aspect to male authority within the
hierarchy of the leaders of the churches, even as they demanded a
feminine submission from their imperial counterparts. Nonetheless, it
was the recognition of this feminine aspect which permitted the male
leaders of the churches to circumvent the crisis of masculinity in
public life.
162Nov. Valentiniani 3.1: "...cum numerositas ex abundanti

clericatus augetur...”
335
The feminine nature of men's submission to God has been forcefully
argued in a recent work on political thought and Augustine:
God stands at the apex of the pyramid of moral authority;

men, women, children, and beasts follow in approximately
that order. The "masculine" symbolizes activity, authority,
and power in Augustine's world. The "feminine" receptivity,
obedience, and docility. ...Augustine internalizes the
voice of Monica with respect to his god. Specifically...
Augustine enacts the traditional code of a devout woman with
respect to this god and the traditional code of an
authoritative male with respect to human believers and
nonbelievers below him.163
This enactment is called Augustine's "Monician conversion," since it
parallels perfectly his mother Monica's relationship to her husband: her
absolute obedience and patience toward him, which became the basis for
her authoritative relationship to the other wives of her town. This is
how Augustine described his mother - and her place in the chain of
authority - in his autobiography:
It was you [0 God] who taught [my mother] to obey her

parents rather than they who taught her to obey you, and
when she was old enough, they gave her in marriage to a man
whom she served as her lord. ...Though he was remarkably
kind, he had a hot temper, but my mother knew better than to
say or do anything to resist him when he was angry. ...Many
women, whose faces were disfigured by blows from husbands
far sweeter-tempered than her own, used to gossip together
and complain of the behaviour of their men-folk. My mother
would meet this complaint with another - about the women's
tongues. ...[S]he told them that ever since they had heard
the marriage deed read over to them, they ought to have
regarded it as a contract which bound them to serve their
husbands [as slaves], and from that time onward they should
remember their condition and not defy their masters.164
163William Connolly, The Augustinian Imperative: A Reflection on

the Politics of Morality, Modernity and Political Thought, vol. 1
(London: Sage, 1993), 58. See also W. Elledge, "Embracing Augustine:
Reach, Restraint, and Romantic Resolution in the Confessions," Journal
for the Scientific Study of Religion 27 (1988): 72-89.
164August. Confessiones 9.9.19: "Educata itaque pudice ac sobrie

potiusque a te subdita parentibus quam a parentibus tibi, ubi pleni
annis nubilis facta est, tradita uiro seruiuit ueluti domino... Erat
uero ille praeterea sicut beniuolentia praecipuus, ita ira feruidus.
336
The comparison between voluntary submission and servile
obligation, as made by Monica regarding marriage, was frequently used to
describe the individual's relationship to God. Christian writers might
rail against the abuses of fellow human beings under the institution of
slavery, but its existence provided a powerful metaphor for the
Christian life.165 Salvian of Marseilles often returned to the theme:
When a slave performs only those of his master's commands

which he likes to perform, he is not following his master's
will, but his own. If we who are weak little men do not
wish to be held entirely in contempt by our slaves whom
their slavery makes our inferiors but whom their humanity
makes our equals, how unjust it is for us to despise our
heavenly Master?166
Jerome even complained that bishops and priests tended to forget that
lay Christians were fellow slaves with them, and not their own
Sed nouerat haec non resistere irato uiro, non tantum facto, sed ne
uerbo quidem. ...Denique cum matronae multae, quarum uiri mansuetiores
erant, plagarum uestigia etiara dehonestata facie gererent, inter arnica
conloquia illae arguebant maritorum uitam, haec earum linguam, ueluti
per iocum grauiter admonens, ex quo illas tabulas, quae matrimoniales
uocantur, recitari audissent, tamquam instruments, quibus ancillae
factae essent, deputare debuisse; proinde memores conditionis superbire
aduersus dominos non oportere."
165For the opinions of Ambrose on slavery, see Vasey, Social

Ideas; see also Gervase Corcoran, Saint Augustine on Slavery (Rome:
institutum Patristicum "Augustinianum," 1985); and Richard Klein, Die
Sklaverei in der Sicht der Bischdfe Ambrosius und Augustinus (Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner, 1988). Klein links slavery as a theological motif in the
writings of Augustine and Ambrose to their general views of the human
condition, and in particular, to Augustine's development of the doctrine
of original sin.
166Salvian De gubernatione Dei 3.7: "quando enim seruus ex domini

sui iussis ea facit tantummodo quae uult facere, iam non dominicam
uoluntatem implet sed suam. si ergo nos, qui homunculi imbecilli sumus,
contemni tamen a seruis nostris omnino nolumus, quos etsi nobis
seruitutis condicio inferiores humana tamen sors reddit aequales, quam
inique utique caelestem dominum contemnimus..." Cf. ibid. 3.9; 4.3.
337
slaves.167 Christian writers also made use of the paradox that
enslavement to God provided freedom, exploiting the notion of power
through submission.168
Christian submission to God could be expressed not only by means
of a class-based master and slave parallel, however, but also by means
of a gendered woman-to-man analogy. The feminine aspect to Christian
submission can best be seen in the Latin patristic exegesis on the
biblical Song of Songs. The allegorical understanding of the erotic
poem as a symbol for the relationship between God and his people was
already established in Jewish and eastern Christian commentary.169 The
church was the bride of Christ, all Latin writers agreed. The soul was
also often represented as the bride of Christ, and such a metaphor was
aided by the feminine gender of the noun anima ("soul”).
The twin symbols, church as collective bride and soul as
individual bride, are often intertwined, and became a frequent occasion
for unexpected reversals of masculine and feminine imagery by Latin
writers, since they permitted male writers to adopt a feminine interior
in relation to the masculine Christian God or to Christ. Augustine
regretted not waiting for "the bridegroom of my soul" when he lapsed
into heresy, but acted instead, he wrote, like Dido in Vergil's Aeneid,
167Hieron. Coamentaria in epistolam ad Titum (ed. PL 26) 1.7:

"Sciat itaque episcopus et presbyter, sibi populum conservum esse, non
servum."
168See Ulrich Faust, Christo servire libertas est. Zam

Freiheitsbegriff des Ambrosius von Mailand (Salzburg: A. Pustet, 1983).
169See the gendered analysis of Eilberg-Schwartz, God's Phallus.
338
abandoning her marital fidelity.170 "I used to lie at Jesus' feet,"
Jerome wrote, comparing himself to the repentant prostitute of the
Gospel story, "I bathed them with my tears, I wiped them with my
hair.”171
The champion of the image was Ambrose, who used the bridal
metaphor in most of his treatises. A passage from De aysteriis ("On the
Mysteries") provides an example of his language on the subject:
But Christ, beholding His Church . . . says, "Behold, thou

art fair, My love, behold thou art fair, thy eyes are like a
dove's . . . " And farther on: "Thy teeth are like a flock
of sheep . . . " The Church is likened to a flock of these,
having in itself the many virtues of those [Christian] souls
. . . The Church is beautiful in them. So that God the Word
says to her: "Thou art all fair, My love, and there is no
blemish in thee . . . ” And the Church answers Him, "Who
will give Thee to me, my Brother . . ? If I find Thee
without, I will kiss Thee . . . " You see how, delighted
with the gifts of grace, she longs to attain to the
innermost mysteries, and to consecrate all her affections to
Christ.172
170August. Confessiones 1.13.21: "Quid enim miserius misero non

miserante se ipsum et flente Didonis mortem, quae fiebat amando Aenean,
non flente autem mortem suam, quae fiebat non amando te, deus, lumen
cordis mei et panis oris intus animae meae et uirtus maritans mentem
meam et sinum cogitationis meae? Non te amabam et fornicabar abs te..."
Cf. ibid. 4.4.9; 4.15.26.
171Hieron. Epist. (trans. here C. Mierow, ACW 33) 22.7: "Itaque

omni auxilio destitutus ad Iesu iacebam pedes, rigabam lacrimis, crine
tergebam..." Cf. Peter Chrysologus Sermones 93 and 95, too lengthy to
quote.
172Ambrose De aysteriis (ed. CSEL 73; trans. H. de Romestin, NPNF

10) 7.37-40: "Christus autem videns ecclesiam suam... dicit: Ecce
formonsa es, proxima mea, ecce es formonsa, oculi tui sicut columbae...
Et infra: Dentes tui sicut grex tonsarum... Harum gregi conparatur
ecclesia, multas in se habens animarum virtutes... In his formonsa est
ecclesia. Unde ad earn verbum deus dicit: Tota formonsa es, proxima mea,
et repraehensio non est in te... Cui respondet ecclesia: Quis dabit te,
frater...Inveniens te foris osculabor te... Vides, quemadmodum
delectata munere gratiarum ad interiora cupit mysteria pervenire et
omnes sensus suos consecrare Christo?" The passage quotes extensively
from the Song of Songs. A discussion of Ambrose's use of the image of
the bride of Christ, including its origins with Hippolytus and Origen,
although without the perspective of gender, may be found in Anne-Lene
339
The sexual relationship is often explicit, as in De patriarchis ("On the
Patriarchs"): "He alone is the husband of the Church, He is the
expectation of the nations, and the prophets removed their sandals while
offering to Him a union [copula] of nuptial grace."173 The spouse of
Christ received from him "the seed of heavenly doctrine."174 in a
letter to his sister about the rebuilding of a synagogue destroyed by
Christians, Ambrose dwelt on the theme of kissing Jesus:
The Synagogue has not a kiss, but the Church has, who waited
for Him, who loved Him, who said: "Let Him kiss me with the
kisses of His mouth." For by His kisses she wished
gradually to quench the burning of that long desire, which
had grown with looking for the coming of the Lord, and to
satisfy her thirst by this gift. . . [One], then, kisses
Christ who confesses Him: "For with the heart man believeth
unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation.” [Anyone], again, kisses the feet of Christ
who, when reading the Gospel, recognizes the acts of the
Lord Jesus, and admires them with pious affection, and so
piously [one] kisses, as it were, the footprints of the Lord
Jesus as He walks. We kiss Christ, then, with the kiss of
communion: "Let [the one] that reads understand."175
Fenger, AspeJcte der Soteriologie und Bkklesiologie bei Ambrosius von

Mailand (Berne: Peter Lang, 1981), 105-11.
173Ambrose De patriarchis (ed. CSEL 32.2; trans. H. McHugh, FC 65)

4.22: "...ipse est solus uir ecclesiae, hie est expectatio gentium, huic
deferentes copulam gratiae nuptialis calciamentum suum soluerunt
prophetae..."
174Ambrose De fide 3.10.72: "Solus ergo Christo est sponsus, cui

ilia veniens ex gentibus sponsa ante inops atque ieiuna, sed iam Christi
messe dives innubat, quae manipulos fecundae segetis verbique reliquias
gremio legal mentis interno..." See Fenger, Aspekte der Soteriologie,
108.
17SAmbrose Epist. 41.14-5: "Non habet synagoga osculum, habet

ecclesia quae expectavit, quae dilexit, quae dixit: Osculetur me ab
osculis oris sui. Diuturnae enim cupiditatis ardorem quern adventus
dominici expectatione adoleverat osculo eius volebat stillanter
extinguere, hoc explere sitim suam munere. ...Osculatur ergo Christum
qui confitetur; corde enim creditur ad iustitiam, ore autem confessio
fit ad salutem. Osculatur autem pedes Christi qui evangelium legens
domini Iesu gesta cognoscit et pio miratur affectu ideoque religioso
osculo velut quaedam deambulantis domini lambit vestigia, osculemur
Christum communionis osculo, qui legit intellegat." I have changed the
use of the masculine pronoun from the translation where the Latin does
340
In a curious metamorphosis of personhood, the church as "she" becomes
"anyone" which becomes "we" in a growing intimacy between Ambrose as
writer and the bride of his text.
Paradoxically, this feminine and interior submissiveness was the
basis for the individual's public and masculine authority. An excellent
example of this juxtaposition of public manliness and private effeminacy
can be seen at work in the reluctance with which - at least according to
their biographers - the saintliest of men were ordained to the
episcopacy. A letter by Cyprian, for example, recognizing the election
of Cornelius as bishop of Rome, demonstrated this appreciation for this
paradox, juxtaposing private and public spheres in Cornelius' feminine
attributes and his manly authority:
the episcopate itself he neither asked for nor desired,

still less did he - like others whose self-importance is
swollen with arrogance and pride - thrust himself into it.
He was quiet, and humble as ever, and such as those arewont
to be who are chosen by God for this post. With thenatural
modesty of his virginal chastity, and with his inborn
humility and habitual Belf-effacement, so far from resorting
to violence, as some do, in order to be made bishop, it was
only under pressure that he reluctantly accepted the
episcopate.176
not indicate sex, and replaced "readeth” with "reads." Fenger (Aspekte
der Soteriologie, 106) argues that Ambrose used the kiss of Jesus as a
symbol of the incarnation both in its physicality and in its union of
human and divine.
176Cyprian Epist. (ed. CSEL 3.2; trans. M. Bdvenot [Oxford:

Clarendon, 1971]) 55.8: "tunc deinde episcopatum ipsum nec postulauit
nec uoluit, nec ut ceteri quos adrogantiae et superbiae suae tumor
inflat inuasit, sed quietus alias et modestus et quales esse consuerunt
qui ad hunc locum diuinitus eliguntur, pro pudore uirginalis
continentiae suae et pro humilitate igenitae sibi et custoditae
uerecundiae non ut quidam uim fecit ut episcopus fieret, sed ipse uim
passus est ut episcopatum coactus esciperet." On the selection of
bishops: Richard Hanson, "The Church in Fifth-Century Gaul," in Studies
in Christian Antiquity (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1985); or Henry
Chadwick, "The Role of the Christian Bishop in Ancient Society," in
Heresy and Orthodoxy.
341
In the hands of the hagiographers of the bishops of the church, this
became a common trope. Sulpicius Severus maintained that it was through
a ruse that Martin had been made bishop of Tours.177 Augustine was
similarly conscripted into service for the church, when "he was standing
in the congregation quite unconcerned and with no idea of what was going
to happen to him," although, "as he used to tell us, he used to keep
away from churches where the bishopric was vacant," and "wept copiously"
when chosen.178
Ambrose, as his hagiographer presented him, also demonstrated this
topos of humility. He resisted the popular acclaim which made him
bishop of Milan to the point of ordering several prisoners to be
tortured and entertaining prostitutes, in order to show his
unsuitability for the life. He tried equally unsuccessfully to flee the
town at night.179 In his own writings, Ambrose claimed an utter lack of
177Sulpicius Severus Vita sancti Martini 4.9.1: "Sub idem fere

tempus, ad episcopatum Turonicae ecclesiae petebatur; sed cum erui
monasterio suo non facile posset, Rusticus quidam, unus e ciuibus,
uxoris languors simulato ad genua illius prouolutus, ut egrederetur
obtinuit."
178Possidius of Calama Sancti Augustini vita (ed. PL 32; trans. F.

Hoare, The Western Fathers [New York: Harper and Row, 1965]) 4:
"...quoniam et idem in populo securus et ignarus quid futurum esset
astabat: solebat autem laicus, ut nobis dicebat, ab eis tantum ecclesiis
quae non haberent episcopus, suam abstinere praesentiam - eum ergo
tenuerunt, et, ut in talibus consuetum est, episcopo ordinandum
intulerunt, omnibus id uno consensu et desiderio fieri perficique
petentibus, magnoque studio et clamore flagitantibus, ubertim eo flente:
nonnullis quidem lacrymas ejus, ut nobis ipse retulit, tunc superbe
interpretationibus, et tanquam eum consolantibus ac dicentibus, quia et
locus presbyterii, licet ipse majore dignus esset, appropinquaret tamen
episcopatui; cum ille homo Dei, ut nobis retulit, majori consideratione
intelligeret et gemeret, quam multa et magna suae vitae pericula de
regimine et gubernatione Ecclesiae impendere jam ac provenire spectaret,
atque ideo fleret.”
179Paulinus of Milan Vita sancti Ambrosii 3.6-9: "perrexit ad

ecclesiam; ibique cum alloqueretur plebem, subito uox fertur infantis in
342
interest in such a powerful position in a passage which, in its very act
of self-abnegation, demonstrated his utter suitability for the office:
watch, Lord, over your present [munus], keep in your care

the gift which you have given me despite my resistance. X
am, without a doubt, the least of all the bishops and the
poorest in merits. But because even I have undertaken some
work for your holy church, take care of the fruits of this
work. Him whom you have called to the priesthood, although
he ran from it to his peril, do not permit him to perish,
now that he is a priest.180
After their consecration, men chosen as bishops had an authority
which was denied to women. When Ambrose intervened in the election of a
bishop of Sirmium near to Milan, a consecrated female virgin of the
Arian sect and thus, Paulinus of Milan noted, an associate of the
empress Justina, attempted to pull him off the episcopal throne in the
cathedral and "drag him to a group of women, so that he might be beaten
by them and driven from the church."181 He delivered this retort:
populo sonuisse: "Ambrosium episcopum." ad cuius uocis sonum totius

populi ora conuersa sunt adclamantis: "Ambrosium episcopum." ...tunc
contra consuetudinem suam tormenta personis iussit adhiberi. quod cum
faceret, populus nihilominus adclamabat: "Peccatum tuum super nos."
...publicas mulieres publice ad se ingredi fecit ad hoc tantum, ut uisis
his populi intentio reuocaretur. at uero populus magis magisque
clamabat: "Peccatum tuum super nos." At ille cum uideret nihil
intentionem suam proficere posse, fugam parauit egressus. Cf. Ambrose
Epist. 63.65: "Quam resistebam ne ordinarerl Postremo cum cogerer
saltern ordinatio protelaretur1 Sed non valuit praescriptio, praevaluit
impressio."
180Ambrose De paenitentia 2.8.73: "Serva, Domine, munus tuum,

custodi donum quod contulisti etiam refugienti. Ego enim sciebam quod
non eram dignus vocari episcopus, quoniam dederam me saeculo huic. Sed
gratia tua sum quod sum; et sum quidem minimus omnium episcoporum et
infimus merito; tamen quia et ego laborem aliquem pro sancta Ecclesia
tua suscepi, hunc fructum tuere, ne quern perditum vocasti ad
sacerdotium, eum sacerdotum perire patiaris."
181Paulinus of Milan Vita sancti Aobrosii 3.11: "Sirmium uero cum

ad ordinandum episcopum Anemium perrexisset ibique lustinae tunc
temporis reginae potentia et multitudine coadunata de ecclesia
pelleretur, ut non ab ipso sed ad haereticis Arianus episcopus in eadem
ecclesia ordinaretur; essetque constitutus in tribunali, nihil curans
eorum quae a muliere excitabantur, una de uirginibus Arianorum
343
Even if I am unworthy of so great an episcopal office, yet

it does not become you or your profession to lay hands on
any bishop whatsoever; wherefore, you should fear the
judgment of God lest something may happen to you.182
Ambrose's biographer confirmed the bishop's premonition, and added that
"the event confirmed his words; on the following day he conducted her
dead to the grave[,] repaying kindness for insult."183
Yet their humility and their denial of ambition gave Christian
church leaders an authority over their secular counterparts and a
position of political power unknown to other men. Humility such as they
possessed was a prerequisite for ordination to clerical office.184
Humility was the new mark of distinction which erased the old grades of
nobility and education:
Finally, today both noble and ignoble, learned and

unlearned, poor and rich alike draw near to the grace of
God. In the reception of that grace, pride takes no
precedence over humility, over the one who knows nothing and
who possesses nothing.185
impudentior ceteris, tribunal conscendens apprehenso uestimento

sacerdotis cum ilium attrahere uellet ad partem mulierum, ut ab ipsis
caesus de ecclesia pelleretur..."
182Paulinus of Milan Vita sancti Ambrosii 3.11: "...audiuit [the

Arian woman], ut ipse solitus erat referre: 'Etsi ego indignus tanto
sacerdotio sum, tamen te non conuenit uel professionem tuam in
qualemcunque sacerdotem manus inicere; unde debes uereri Dei iudicium ne
tibi aliquid eveniat.'"
103Paulinus of Milan Vita sancti Ambrosii 3.11: "quod dictum

exitus confirmavit; nam alio die mortuam ad sepulcrum usque deduxit
gratiam pro contumelia rependens."
184Ambrose Epist. 63.65: "Et tamen neophytus prohibetur ordinari

ne extollatur superbia. Si dilatio ordinationi defuit, vis cogentis
est, si non deest humilitas competens sacerdotio, ubi causa non haeret,
vitium non imputatur."
185Augu8t. Sermones 250.1: "Denique hodie ad gratiam Domini

pariter accedunt nobiles et ignobiles, doctus et imperitus, pauper et
dives. Ad istam gratiam accipiendam non se praeponit superbia
humilitati, nihil scienti, nihil habenti."
344
The feminine interior of the Christian bishop was much preferable
to the unmanly political submission of his secular counterpart, because
it gave rather than eroded masculine authority. Christian leaders could
use their feminine interiors to enact a manly posture towards their
subordinates, from whom they exacted a submission like the one which
they had themselves made to God. The members of the Christian hierarchy
promoted obedience as a great virtue for men outside the episcopal
structure. "Nothing is so pleasing to God as obedience," Jerome began
in a homily on the topic for the benefit of his community of monks,
"[it] is the highest and the only virtue."186 Augustine admitted that
some Christians were embarrassed to think of humbling themselves before
another Christian, but he rejected this as vain and sinful.187 Indeed,
it was Augustine who refined the principle of Christian submission to
the church, as has been argued, in his City of Godi
Augustine explains that obedience, not autonomy, should have

been Adam's true glory, "since man has been naturally so
created that it is advantageous for him to be submissive,
but disastrous for him to follow his own will, and not the
will of his creator." Admitting that "it does, indeed, seem
something of a paradox, " Augustine resorts to paradoxical
language to describe how God "sought to impress upon this
creature, for whom free slavery [libera servitus] was
expedient, that he was the Lord."188
186Hieron. De oboedientia (ed. CCSL 78; trans. M. Ewald, FC 57):

"Nihil sic Deo placet guomodo oboedientia... Hoc dico, quia hie in
nobis summa et sola est uirtus oboedientiae."
187August. Sermones 211.4: "Non erubuerunt peccare, et erubescunt

rogare: non erubuerunt de iniquitate, et erubescunt de humilitate."
188Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, 108; quoting from August.
De civ. D. 14.12,15: "Sed oboedientia commendata est in praecepto, quae
uirtus in creatura rationali mater quodam modo est omnium custosque
uirtutum; quando quidem ita facta est, ut ei subditam esse sit utile;
perniciosum autem suam, non eius a quo creata est facere uoluntatem.
...Quia ergo contemptus est Deus iubens, qui creauerat, qui ad suam
imaginem fecerat... sed uno breuissimo atque leuissimo ad oboedientiae
345
Augustine's theories of the corruption of original sin on the human will
could be translated into terms of ecclesiastical dominance and
regulation.189 They also exacted a "Monician conversion" from each
individual Christian.
The separation between clerical and lay status within Christian
society strengthened the requirement of obedience to the church
hierarchy. The proliferation of laws demanding respect for clerics is
one instance of this separation. Bishops could not be brought into
secular courts.190 Any injury to a bishop, priest, or church required
the death penalty.191 A bishop had the power to expel from office any
priest who was judged unworthy of office.192 No frivolous charges might
salubritatem adminiculauerat, quo earn creaturam, cui libera seruitus

expediret, se esBe Dominum commonebat..."
189Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, 144-5.
190Constitutiones Siraondianae (ed. and trans. with Cod. Theod.)

3: "Graviter admodum mota est, nostra dementia quaedam ab his, qui
episcoporum sibi nomina vindicant, perpetrata et contra leges non minus
divinas quam humanas inproba temeritate conmissa, vexatos etiam
nonnullos orthodoxorum clericos, quorum aetas huis iniuriae ac
sacerdotium repugnabat, fatigatos itineribus, quaestionariis deditos,
adque haec omnia per eos commissa, qui ad tegumenta frontis sacerdotii
nominis titulos praeferebant."
191Cod. Theod. 16.2.31: "Si quis in hoc genus sacrilegi

proruperit, ut in ecclesias catholicas inruens sacerdotibus et ministris
vel ipsi cultui locoque aliquid inportet iniuriae... Adque ita
provinciae ministrorum, loci quoque ipsius et divini cultus iniuriam
capitali in convictos sive confessos reos sententia noverit vindicandam
nec expectet, ut episcopus iniuriae propriae ultionem deposcat, cui
sanctitas ignoscendi solam gloriam dereliquit." Cf. Constitutiones
Siraondianae 14.
192Cod. Theod. 16.2.39: "Quemcumque clericum episcopus suus malae

vitae esse probaverit et eum de gradu suo pro morum pravitate deiecerit,
vel si ipse clericus sua voluntate professionem reliquerit clericatus,
continuo a iudice curialibus adiungatur..." Cf. ibid. 16.2.41 and
Constitutiones Siraondianae 9.
346
be brought against bishops.193 Some laws made explicit mention of the
"high distinction” of the clergy which made their crimes so much the
worse, and the "reverence for religion and the priesthood" which
prompted these sorts of laws.194
The reason for distinction of and reverence for the clergy is that
they represented the new public man. They exercised a manly authority
in both their actions and their lives. When Sidonius Apollinaris
recommended a man named Biturgans to the people of Bourges to become
their bishop, he listed the qualities which he felt demonstrated
Biturigans' bonus uiratus ("upright manliness") and made him such an
excellent candidates
He is constant in times of adversity, faithful in times of

uncertainty, moderate in prosperity; simple in dress, genial
in converse, an equal among his comrades, pre-eminent as a
counsellor; well-proven friendships he strenuously pursues,
staunchly maintains, and guards to the end; a quarrel
declared against him he conducts honourably, ever slow to
credit it and quick to lay it down.195
193Constitutiones Siraondianae 15: "Non cassum veterum prudentia

constituit quod adpetitam innocentiam solaretur et purgatis repperit
ultionem, ne libera calumniantis intentio insontes adfligeret. Terret
quidem rerum proposita poena criminibus et facit accusatorem vindictae
contemplatione cautiorum, ne quisquam solis aliquando inimicitiarum
stimulis incitatus ingerat non probanda iudicibus. Quae fori aequitas,
responsis veterum et legum nostrarum aeternitate solidata, cunctis est
delata personis, debet clericis nunc prodesse, quos non nisi apud
episcopos convenit accusari."
1940n the "high distinction": Nov. Valentiniani 23.1: "Clericos

vero, quos tarn diri operis constiterit auctores, dignos credimus maiore
supplicio: vehementias enim coercendus est quern peccasse mireris, scelus
omne gravius facit claritudo personae. Intolerandum, nimis execrabile,
non ferendum induere nomen et titulum sanctitatis et abundare
criminibus." On the "reverence for religion": ibid. 35.1: "Quod his
religionis et sacerdotii veneratione permittimus."
195Sid. Apoll. Epist. 7.9: "...in adversis constans in dubiis

fidus in prosperis modestus, in habitu simplex in sermone communis, in
contubernio aequalis in consilio praecellens; amicitias probatas enixe
347
There is not much here to distinguish Biturigans from the ancient Roman
public figure. There is more, however, which makes it clear that
Biturigans was a new Christian man: "A man to be desired in the highest
degree because he desires so little for himself, he seeks not to assume
the priesthood but to deserve it."196 Biturigans - if we can believe
Sidonius - with a feminine modesty only reluctantly took upon himself a
public presence. He joined in himself the manliness and unmanliness of
the Christian cleric, and this is what made him ideally suited to the
office.
To find the origins of this mixture of masculine and feminine in
the Christian clergy, we must look back from the generation of Ambrose
and Augustine to one of the earliest Christian writers in the west:
Cyprian of Carthage. Cyprian's career as bishop of Carthage was brief -
it lasted only a decade, from 248 to 258 - but fundamental in the
development of episcopal authority. He have already seen how Cyprian
was key to the downplaying of the authority of the martyrs and
confessors. Scholars have viewed in Cyprian's writings a movement in
Christian ideology from charismatic to institutional authority.197 Not
expetit, constanter retinet, perenniter servat; inimicitias indictas

honeste exercet, tarde credit, celeriter deponit..."
196Sid. Apoll. Epist. 7.9: "...maxime ambiendas, quia minime

ambitiosus, non studet suscipere sacerdotium, sed mereri."
197Roberts ("The Martyr as Bishop and Teacher,” chap. 4 in Poetry

and the Cult of Martyrs) mentions how Cyprian brought together in
himself both types of authority. See also H. H. C. Frend, "The Church
of the Roman Empire (313-600),” in The Layman in Christian Bistory, ed.
S. Neill and H.-R. Weber (London: SCM, 1963), reprinted in Town and
Country.
348
surprisingly, intersections of gender and authority also figure
prominently in Cyprian's life and writings.
Before his conversion to Christianity and subsequent ordination,
Cyprian - like Ambrose after him - was supposed to have led a life of
worldly ambition as a rhetor.198 There is an alternative tradition,
however, which painted Cyprian as a magician. Prudentius, for example,
described him thus:
He was pre-eminent among young men for skill in perverse

arts, would violate modesty by a trick, count nothing holy,
and often practise a magic spell amid the tombs to raise
passion in a wife and break the law of wedlock. But all at
once Christ checked this great rage of self-indulgence,
scattered the darkness from his heart, drove out its frenzy,
and filled it with love of Him, giving him the gift of faith
and of shame for his past behaviour. And now his face and
his elegant style changed from their former fashion; his
countenance lost the softness of its skin and went over to
an austere look, the flowing locks were clipped short, his
speech was sober, he looked for the hope of Christ, holding
to his rule, living according to his righteousness, and
seeking to fathom our doctrine.199
The veracity of the account is not as important as its hagiographic
usefulness* the emphasis on the immorality of his life-style before his
198Hieron. De viris illustribus (ed. E. Richardson [Leipzig: J. C.

Hinrichs, 1896]) 67: "Cyprianus Afer primum gloriose rhetoricam
docuit..." See G. W. Clarke, "The Secular Profession of St. Cyprian of
Carthage," Latomus 24 (1965): 633-8.
199prudent. Perist. 13 11. 21-32: "unus erat iuvenum doctissimus

artibus sinistris, / fraude pudicitiam perfringere, nil sacrum putare, I
saepe etiam magicum cantamen inire per sepulcra, / quo geniale tori ius
solveret aestuante nupta. / luxuriae rabiem tantae cohibet repente
Christus, / discutit et tenebras de pectore, pellit et furorem, / inplet
amore sui, dat credere, dat pudere facti. / iamque figura alia est quam
quae fuit oris et nitoris: / exuitur tenui vultus cute, transit in
severam, / deflua caesaries conpescitur ad breves capillos, / ipse
modesta loqui, spem quaerere, regulam tenere, / vivere iustitia Christi,
penetrare dogma nostrum.” Clark ("Secular Profession," 637 n. 4) argues
that this is the result of a confusion between Cyprian of Carthage and
Cyprian of Antioch. See, however, the descriptions of Cyprian in
Hieron. In Ionaa 3; and August. Sermones 312.
349
conversion, and the transformation to sobriety and restraint resulting
from it, exemplified the Christian transformation. In other words, the
change from effeminate extravagance to manly temperance represented the
preconditions necessary for Cyprian to hold true authority within the
church.200
Shortly after his consecration as bishop and because of having
fled the city during the Decian persecution, Cyprian faced the concerted
opposition by the confessors of Carthage, those individuals whose
personal charism as near-martyrs lent them great authority. These
confessors had been acting together as the city's Christian government
in Cyprian's absence, and had performed various episcopal functions, for
example, issuing certificates of forgiveness on behalf of the lapsed
Christians.201 Cyprian's purpose, in the treatise entitled be lapsi
("On the Lapsed [Christians]"), written in 251 while he was in hiding,
was to assert his own authority over that of even those men who had been
willing to undergo martyrdom. It was the beginning of the episcopal
control of the cult of the martyrs.
To assert his authority, Cyprian had to wrest the masculine image
from the martyrs and near-martyrs, and use it himself. While the
200Palmer (Prudentius, 236) writes that Prudentius' account "has

the advantage both of supplying the bishop with some interesting details
for his early life (about which little was otherwise known), and of
highlighting by contrast the Christian achievements of his later years.”
Malamud ("Dubious Distinctions," chap. 5 in Poetics of Transformation)
notes the sexual ambiguities in the passage.
201See Hinchliff (Cyprian of Carthage) and Sage (Cyprian) above

for biographical details.
350
confessors were indeed "the bright army of the soldiers of Christ,"202
Cyprian admitted, not even their "spiritual triumphs" could mend the
split caused by the sins of those who abandoned their religion.203 The
rending of the unity of the community was a wound which made itself felt
even in Cyprian's body. Through this embodiment, Cyprian presented
himself as a martyr like any other:
Believe me, my brothers, I share your distress, and can find

no comfort in my own escape and safety; for the shepherd
feels the wounds of his flock more than they do. Hy heart
bleeds with each one of you, I share the weight of your
sorrow and distress. I mourn with those that mourn, I weep
with those that weep, with the fallen I feel I have fallen
myself. My limbs too were struck by the arrows of the
lurking foe, his raging sword pierced my body too. When
persecution strikes, no soul can escape free and unscathed:
when my brethren fell, my heart was struck and I fell at
their side.204
The passage also cleverly presented Cyprian as the church itself. Not
only did Cyprian share in the glory and manly reputation of the
confessors - even while safe in his hiding place - but he was something
which the confessors were not: the feminine embodiment of the church.
This permitted him to represent the whole community, and beyond it, God:
202Cyprian De lapsis 2: "Adest militum Christi cohors Candida, qui

persecutionis urgentis ferociam turbulentam stabili congressione
fregerunt, parati ad patientiam careeris, armati ad tolerantiam mortis."
203Cyprian De lapsis 4: "Has martyrum caelestes coronas, has

confessorum glorias spiritales, has stantium fratrum maximas eximiasque
virtutes maestitia una contristat: quod avulsam nostrorum viscerum
partem violentus inimicus populationis suae strage deiecit.”
204Cyprian De lapsis 4: "Doleo, fratres, doleo vobiscum, nec mihi

ad leniendos dolores meos integritas propria et sanitas privata
blanditur, quando plus pastor in gregis sui vulnere vulneretur. Cum
singulis pectus meum copulo, maeroris et funeris pondera luctuosa
participo. Cum plangentibus plango, cum deflentibus defleo, cum
iacentibus iacere me credo. Iaculis illis grassantis inimici mea simul
membra percussa sunt, saevientes gladii per mea viscera transierunt.
inmunis et liber a persecutionis incursu fuisse non potest animus, in
prostratis fratribus et me prostravit adfectus."
351
If, however, anyone in his impatience of delay thinks that

he can condone the sins of all, presuming thus to override
the Lord's commands, so far from benefiting the lapsed his
rashness does them harm. To disregard His decree is to call
down His anger . . . [and to] treat[] the Lord with contempt
. . . by wholesale remissions and condonations of sin,
against the will of the Judge. . . Suppose the martyrs do
want something done; if it is good and lawful, if it is not
something against God Himself that God's bishop is expected
to do, then let him accede readily and with all deference to
their wishes - provided of course that the petitioner
observes a becoming modesty.205
To refuse to obey Cyprian is to refuse to obey God. To separate divine
from episcopal from masculine authority is impossible; they are the same
in intention and expression. Such was the power of the Monician
conversion: while it entailed a feminine posture toward God, it allowed
a masculine posture toward everyone else.
In various letters, Cyprian insisted that membership in the church
was nothing more than submission to its bishop,206 and that disobedience
of the bishop equalled disobedience of God himself.207 The duty of the
205Cyprian De lapsis 18: "Ceterum si quis praepropera festinatione

temerarius remissionem peccatorum dare se cunctis putat posse aut audet
Domini praecepta rescindere, non tantum nihil prodest sed et obest
lapsis. Provocasse est iram non servasse sententiam nec misericordiam
prius Domini deprecandum putare, sed contempto Domino de sua facilitate
praesumere. ...Et quemquam posse aliquis existimat remittendis passim
donandisque peccatis bonum fieri contra iudicem velle, aut prius quam
vindicetur ipse alios posse defendere? Mandant aliquid martyres fieri:
si iusta, si licita, si non contra ipsum Deum a Dei sacerdote facienda.
Sit obtemperantis facilis et prona consensio, si petentis fuerit
religiosa moderatio."
206Cyprian Epist. 49.1: "...calliditate eius circumductos se

commisisse quoque schismati et haeresis auctores fuisse ut paterentur ei
manum quasi in episcopatum inponi. qui cum haec et cetera eis fuissent
exprobata, ut abolerentur et de memoria tollerentur deprecati sunt."
The letter was in response to several presbyters who had appealed to
Rome, calling into question the legitimacy of Cyprian’s authority.
207Cyprian Epist. 66.1: "Ego te, frater, credideram tandem iam ad

paenitentiam conuerti, quod in praeteritum tam infanda tarn turpia tarn
etiam gentilibus execranda aut audisses de nobis temere aut credidisses.
...mores nostros diligenter inquirere et post Deum iudicem qui
352
average Christian was merely to obey; with this in mind, he called upon
the lapsed to repent:
You must beg and pray assiduously, spend the day sorrowing
and the night in vigils and tears, fill every moment with
weeping and lamentation; you must lie on the ground amidst
clinging ashes, toss about chafing in sackcloth and
foulness.208
Cyprian reinforced and intensified his ideas about episcopal authority
inhis De ecclesiae catholicae unitate ("On the Unity of the Catholic
Church").209 In it, Cyprian reminded the confessors of their lack of
authority and their feminine standing in relation to himself:
He is a confessor: let him be humble and peaceful, let his

actions show modesty and self-control, so that, as he is
named a confessor of Christ, he may imitate the Christ whom
he confesses. For if Christ said: "He that extolleth
himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall
be exalted," andif He Himself, the Word and the power and
the wisdom of God His Father, was exalted by the Father
because He humbled Himself on earth, how can arrogance
appeal to Him who not only enjoined on us humility by His
law, but was Himself rewarded for His humility by His Father
with the most glorious of all names?210
sacerdotes facit te uelle non dicam de me - guantus enim ego sum? - sed
de Dei et Christi iudicio iudicare. hoc est in Deum non credere, hoc
est rebellem aduersus Christum et aduersus euangelium eius existere...
nam credere quod indigni et incesti sint qui ordinantur quid aliud est
quam contendere quod non a Deo nec per Deum sacerdotes eius in ecclesia
constituantur."
208Cyprian De lapsis 35: "Orare oportet inpensius et rogare; diem

luctu transigere, vigiliis noctes ac fletibus ducere, tempus omne
lacrimosis lamentationibus occupare; stratos solo adhaerere cineri, in
cilicio et sordibus volutari..."
209For the dating of this treatise and Cyprian's other works, see
Sage, Cyprian, 377-83.
210Cyprian De ecclesiae catholicae unitate (ed. and trans. M.

Bfivenot [Oxford: Clarendon, 1971]) 21: "...confessor est: sit humilis et
quietus, sit in actu suo cum disciplina modestus ut, qui Christi
confessor dicitur, Christum quern confitetur imitetur. Nam cum dicat
ille: "Qui se extollit humiliabitur et qui humiliat se exaltabitur," et
ipse a Patre exaltatus sit quia se in terris sermo et virtus et
sapientia Dei Patris humiliavit, quomodo potest extollentiam diligere
qui et nobis humilitatem sua lege mandavit, et ipse a Patre amplissimum
nomen praemio humilitatis accepit?" Sage (Cyprian, 210-1) remarks on
353
Cyprian also emphasized the masculine nature of the episcopal authority,
pointing to its unity within all the churches as evidence of its divine
origin:
He established by His own authority a source for that

oneness having its origin in one man alone. No doubt the
other Apostles were all that Peter was, endowed with egual
dignity and power, but the start comes from him alone, in
order to show that the Church of Christ is unique. . . Now
this oneness we must hold to firmly and insist on -
especially we who are bishops and exercise authority in the
Church - so as to demonstrate that the episcopal power is
one and undivided too.211
Here Peter - as head of the apostles and founder of the church according
to western Christian tradition - functioned symbolically as the male
body of the Christian community, for the purposes of masculine
authority, in much the same way as the bride from the Song of Songs
functioned as the female body in relation to the male God.
The honorific function of Peter was clearly as important for
Cyprian as the jurisdictional role of Rome, which considered itself as
the see of Peter in a particular and unique way.212 Ambrose's writings
the downplaying of the spiritual authority of the martyrs because it

weakened his own position.
21Cyprian De ecclesiae catholicae unitate 4-5: "...unitatis

eiusdem originem ab uno incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit. Hoc
erant utique et ceteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio
praediti et honoris et potestatis, sed exordium ab unitate profisiscitur
ut ecclesia Christi una monstretur. ...Quam unitatem tenere firmiter et
vindicare debemus maxime episcopi, qui in ecclesia praesidemus, ut
episcopatum quoque ipsum unum adque indivisum probemus." This passage
is problematic because there are two versions of it, the other of which
speaks of the primatus (”primacy") of Peter. It has been argued that
the passage quoted here represented a later clarification of the text by
Cyprian himself, who removed the language of primacy because of Roman
overuse of the authority it implied. See Hinchliff, Cyprian of
Carthage, 107-12. See also below for the development of papal
authority.
212See Robert Eno, The Rise of the Papacy, Theology and Life
Series, vol. 32 (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1990). Eno
discusses Cyprian’s role in the honorific primacy of the papacy (pp. 57-
354
on Rome and the authority of Peter over a century later can in fact be
interpreted in much the same way: as the symbol of the male authority of
the episcopacy. In the context of the unity of belief and of its
enforcement, Ambrose declared: "Therefore, where Peter is, there is the
church."213 For Ambrose, the "primacy [of Rome is one] of convention,
not of honor, a primacy of faith, not of order.”214 It would be later
in the fifth century and even beyond that Roman bishops would aduce the
primacy of Rome from Petrine language, although again, the purpose
behind the pope's embodying himself as Peter was one of authority.
Christian bishops also functioned symbolically as the body of
Christ, which was also - according to biblical precedent - a powerful
metaphor for the church. Again, Cyprian played an important role in the
initiation of a connection between the church as body of Christ and
priestly privilege.215 In perhaps his most famous statement, Cyprian
wrote: "The priest truly functions in the place of Christ who imitates
what Christ did," and referred to the eucharistic meal as a sacrifice to
65). See also Henry Chadwick, "Pope Damasus and the Peculiar Claim of
Rome to St. Peter and St. Paul," in Neotestaaentica et Patristica: eine
Freundesgabe, Rerrn Prof. Dr. Oscar Cullmann iiberreicht (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1962), reprinted in Bistory and Thought of the Early Church
(London: Variorum, 1980).
213Ambrose Explanatio psalmorum 40.30: "ubi Petrus, ibi ergo

ecclesia..."
214Ambrose De incarnationis dominicae sacramento (ed. PL 16) 32:

"Primatum confessionis utigue, non honoris, primatum fidei non ordinis."
215See R. P. C. Hanson ("Office and the Concept of Office in the

Early Church," in idem, Studies in Christian Antiquity [Edinburgh: T.
and T. Clark, 1985]) who writes that the "increasing emphasis upon the
importance of ordination finds its climax in the thought of Cyprian of
Carthage" (pp. 127-8).
355
God which the sacramental authority of the priest effected.216 Indeed,
the function of the priest as imago Christi ("the image of Christ") was
key for Cyprian's writings.217
The laity, too, functioned as Christ-like symbols, but in a
different and complementary fashion. "Let them imitate the Lord,"
Cyprian wrote, "who [even] at the time of his passion, did not become
proud, but rather more humble."218 The priest was the authoritative and
masculine Christ; the layman was the submissive and feminine Christ.
The laity, according to Cyprian, "conscious of the divine precept, with
meekness and patience obeys the priests of God, and thereby becomes
deserving before the Lord by obedient and holy deeds."219 Indeed,
Cyprian wrote that "the Church is in the bishop, and if anyone is not
with the bishop, that person is not in the Church."220
216Cyprian Epist. 63.14: "...ille sacerdos vice Christi vere

fungitur qui id quod Christus fecit imitatur et sacrificium uerum et
plenum tunc offert in ecclesia Deo patri...”
217See John Laurance, 'Priest' as Type of Christ: The Leader of

the Eucharist in Salvation History according to Cyprian of Carthage,
Theology and Religion, ser. 7, vol. 5 (Berne: Peter Lang, 1984), which
includes a lengthy section on sacerdotal authority (pp. 195-221).
218Cyprian Epist. 14.2: "Imitentur Dominum qui sub ipso tempore

passionis non superbior sed humilior fuit..."
219Cyprian Epist. 19.1: "Paenitentiam autem ille agit qui diuini

praecepti memor mitis et patiens et sacerdotibus Dei obtemperans
obsequiis suis et operibus iustis Dominum promeretur."
220Cyprian Epist. 66.8: "Unde scire debes episcopum in ecclesia

esse et ecclesiam in episcopo et si qui cum episcopo not sit in ecclesia
non esse." Cf. ibid. 73.21: "quod si haeretico nec baptisma publicae
confessionis et sanguinis proficere ad salutem potest, quia salus extra
ecclesiam non est..." Cf. also ibid. 33.1: "...quando ecclesia in
episcopo et clero et in omnibus stantibus sit constituta."
356
It was as a layman that the emperor owed obedience to the
hierarchy of the sacerdotal church, and that the power of the state was
subject to the authority of the episcopal church. If we return to
Ambrose and his relations with the emperors, we can seethis made clear
in a letter to Valentinian II:
When have you heard, most gracious Emperor, that laymen gave
judgment concerning a bishop in a matter of faith? Are we
so prostrate through the flattery of some as to be unmindful
of the rights of the priesthood, and do I think that I can
entrust to others what God has given me? If a bishop is to
be taught by a layman, what will follow? Let the layman
argue, and the bishop listen, let the bishop learn of the
layman. But undoubtedly, whether we go through the series
of the holy Scriptures, or the times of old, who is there
who can deny that, in a matter of faith, - in a matter I say
of faith, - bishops are wont to judge of Christian emperors,
not emperors of bishops.221
Such opinions were the key to the new balance of power in the state.
If the emperor and his officials were subject to the bishops of
the church - to whom true authority belonged and to whom obedience was
required - Christian men of the nobility would not suffer from their
lack of influence with the state. It was ultimately less powerful.
Augustine depicted the state as insignificant and as a concession to
221Ambrose Epist. 21.4: "Quando audisti, clementissime imperator,

in causa fidei laicos de episcopo iudicasse? Ita ergo quadam adulatione
curvamur, ut sacerdotalis iuris simus immemores et quod deus donavit
mihi hoc ipse aliis putem esse credendum? Si docendus est episcopus a
laico quid sequatur? Laicus ergo disputet et episcopus audiat,
episcopus discat a laico. At certe si vel scipturarum seriem divinarum
vel vetera tempora retractemus, quis est qui abnuat in causa fidei, in
causa inquam fidei, episcopus solere de imperatoribus Christianis, non
imperatores de episcopis iudicare?" See Claudio Morino, "Superior
Dignity of the Priesthood," chap. 2 in Church and State, 19-28. See
also Roger Gryson (Le prStre selon saint Aobroise [Louvain:
Orientaliste, 1968], 98) who writes: "La fagon nette et tranchde dont
saint Ambroise oppose les clercs aux laics traduit un sentiment trds vif
de la superiority des premiers sur les seconds. Les tdmoignages de
cette mentality sont nombreux dans le comportement et dans les dcrits du
docteur milanais."
357
violence and disorder: "[All] that this world offers," he wrote,
"whether the peaks of power or the bare necessities of life, God
dispenses freely to good and evil alike. . . Among these gifts is
dominion, of whatever extent."222 For Ambrose, all worldly honors
belonged to the devil.223 "We priests have our own nobility," he wrote,
"which is preferable to that of prefects and consuls; we have, I say,
the glories of the faith which cannot perish.”224
It is in the context of the Christian reorientation of public
responsibility that Ambrose's important work, De officiis mlnistrorum
("On the Duties of Servants [of God]"), should be placed. In many ways
the work was a Christian redaction of Cicero's De officiis ("On the
Duties [of Roman Citizens]"), that is, a guide for the functioning of
the individual man within society.225 Nonetheless, Ambrose included a
222August. De civ. D. 5.26: "Cetera uero uitae huius uel fastigia

uel subsidia, sicut ipsum mundum lucem auras, terras aquas fructus
ipsiusque hominis animam corpus, sensus mentem uitam, bonis malisque
largitur; in quibus est etiam quaelibet imperii magnitudo, quam pro
temporum gubernatione dispensat." See Robert Markus, Saeculum: Bistory
and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge
University, 1970); or Richard Dougherty, "Christian and Citizen: The
Tension in St. Augustine's De ciuitate dei," in Collectanea
Augustiniana. Augustine: "Second Founder of the Faith," ed. j.
Schnaubelt and F. Van Fleteren (Berne: Peter Lang, 1990).
223Ambrose Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam 4.28: "Docemur hie

inanis ambitionis flabra despicere, quod omnis dignitas saecularis
diabolicae subiaceat potestati, ad usum fragilis et inanis ad fructum.”
224Ambrose De exhortatio virginitatis (ed. PL 16) 12.82: "habemus

enim nos sacerdotes nostram nobilitatem praefecturis et consulatibus
praeferendam; habemus, inquam, fidei dignitates, quae perire non
norunt."
225For a comparison of Cicero and Ambrose, see Peter Cirsis

(Ennoblement of Pagan Virtues: A Comparative Treatise on Virtues in
Cicero's book De officiis and in St. Ambrose's book De officiis
ministrorum [Rome: Gregorian University, 1955]) who nonetheless ignores
these important differences.
358
number of purposely unclassical virtues. Ambrose even began his
treatise with a disclaimer which served to highlight his own modesty,
and paradoxically, to intensify his authority: "I only desire . . that,
in the endeavour to teach, I may be able to learn."226 This is followed
by exhortations successively to silentium ("silence"),227 humilitas
("humility"),228 misericordia ("mercy"),229 and uerecundia
("modesty").230 These virtues, which Cicero would only have considered
unmanly and effeminate - but which were central to a Christian
masculinity - Ambrose followed by the more conventional, more
Ciceronian, and more traditionally manly exhortations to sobrietas
226Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.1.3: "Non igitur mihi

apostolorum gloriam uindico - guis enim hoc nisi quos ipse Filius elegit
Dei? - non prophetarum gratiam, non uirtutem euangelistarum, non
pastorum circumspectionem; sed tantummodo intentionem et diligentiam
circa Scripturas diuinas opto adsequi quam ultimam posuit apostolus
inter officia sanctorum; et hanc ipsam ut docendi studio possim discere.
Vnus enim uerus magister est, qui solus non didicit quod omnes doceret;
homines autem discunt prius quod doceant, et ab illo accipiunt quod
aliis tradant."
227Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.2.6: "Ideo sancti Domini, qui

scirent quia uox hominis plerumque peccati adnuntia est et initium
erroris humani sermo est hominis, amabant tacere."
228Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.5.19: "Ita fit ut etiam

humilitatem custodiat. Si autem nolit humilior uideri, talia tractat et
dicit ipse secum: 'Hie ergo ut me contemnat et in conspectu meo loquatur
talia aduersum me quasi non possim ego ei aperire os meum? Cur non
etiam ego dicam in quibus eum maestificare possim? Hie ergo ut mihi
iniurias faciat quasi uir non sim, quasi uindicare me non possim? Hie
ut me criminetur quasi ego non possim grauiora in eo componeret'"
229Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.11.38: "Bona etiam

misericordia quae et ipsa perfectos facit quia imitatur perfectum
Patrem. Nihil tam commendat christianam animam quam misericordia..."
230Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.18.67: "Pulchra igitur uirtus

est uerecundiae et suauis gratia, quae non solum in factis sed etiam in
ipsis spectatur sermonibus, ne modum progrediaris loquendi, ne quid
indecorum sermo resonet tuus." The discussion continues at great
length.
359
("sobriety"),231 fortitudo ("fortitude"),232 prudentia ("prudence"),233
and largitas ("generosity").234
In the Christian reformulation of political authority, the
rejection of public honor worked paradoxically to bolster the
individual's manly self-image. Instead of pursuing the traditional
Roman pursuit of the cursus honorurn, a man should pursue humility,
Ambrose wrote, which could serve as an antidote to any honor.235
Augustine agreed, writing that:
231Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.20.86: "Vnde prudenter

facitis conuenire ecclesiasticis, et maxime ministrorum officiis
arbitror, declinare extraneorum conuiuia uel ut ipsi hospitales sitis
pergrinantibus uel ut ea cautione nullus sit opprobrio locus. Conuiuia
guippe extraneorum occupationes habent, turn etiam epulandi produnt
cupiditatem. Subrepunt etiam fabulae frequenter de saeculo ac
uoluptatibus; claudere aures non potes, prohibere putatur superbiae.
Subrepunt etiam praeter uoluntatem pocula; melius est tuae domui semel
excuses quam alienae frequenter; et ut ipse sobrius surgas, tamen ex
aliena insolentia condemnari non debet praesentia tua."
232Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.35.175: "Nunc de fortitudine

tractemus quae uelut excelsior ceteris diuiditur in res bellicas et
domesticas.” This is merely the beginning to an extended discussion of
fortitude which extends to 1.41.216. Cf. Cic. Off. 1.23.
233Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 2.13.66: "Omnia igitur operatur

prudentia, cum omnibus bonis habet consortium." Cf. Cic. Off. 2.11.
234Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 2.21.109: "Largitas enim duo

sunt genera: unum liberalitatis, alterum prodigae effusionis. Liberale
est hospitio recipere, nudum uestire, redimere captiuos, non habentes
sumptu iuuare; prodigum est sumptuosis effluescere conuiuiis et uino
plurimo; unde legisti: "Prodigum est uinum et contumeliosa ebrietas."
Prodigum est popularis fauoris gratia exinanire proprias opes; quod
faciunt qui ludis circensibus uel etiam theatralibus et muneribus
gladiatoriis uel etiam uenationibus patrimonium dilapidant suum ut
uincant superiorum celebritates, cum totum illud sit inane quod agunt,
quandoquidem etiam bonorum operum sumptibus immoderatum esse non
deceat." Cf. Cic. Off. 2.16.
235Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 2.24.119-20: "Ergo bonis

actibus et sincero proposito nitendum ad honorem arbitror et maxime
ecclesiasticum ut neque resupina adrogantia uel remissa neglegentia sit
neque turpis adfectatio et indecora ambitio. Ad omnia abundat animi
directa simplicitas satisque se ipsa commendat. In ipso uero munere
360
what is to be treasured is not a place of honour or powerin

this life . . . but the task itself that is achieved by
means of that place of honour and that power - if that
achievement is right and helpful, that is, if it serves to
promote the well-being of the common people.236
Neither, however, should all be rejected for "a life of leisure,"
especially "so leisured as to take no thought in that leisure for the
interest of [one's] neighbour."237 Instead, Augustine added, the best
life should be a mixture of task for social welfare and leisure for
study: in short, he concluded, the life of a bishop. For thesereasons,
he noted, the glory of the Christian bishops was directly proportionate
to their rejection of secular honors.238 Nonetheless, such glory was
not merely spiritual, since bishops from the fourth century regularly
received the honorific ranking of other important nobles and
officials.239
neque seueritatem esse duram conuenit nec nimiam remissionem ne aut

potestatem exercere aut susceptum officium nequaquam implere uideamur."
236August. De civ. D. 19.19: "In actione uero non amandus est

honor in hac uita siue potentia, quoniam omnia uana sub sole, sed opus
ipsum, quod per eundem honorem uel potentiam fit, si recte atque
utiliter fit, id est, ut ualeat ad earn salutem subditorum, quae secundum
Deum est..."
237August. De civ. D. 19.19: "Nec sic esse quisque debet otiosus,

ut in eodem otio utilitatem non cogitet proximi..."
238August. De civ. D. 19.19: "Propter quod ait apostolus: Qui

episcopatum desiderat, bonum opus desiderat. ...Itaque ab studio
cognoscendae ueritatis nemo prohibetur, quod ad laudabile pertinet
otium; locus uero superior, sine quo regi populus non potest, etsi ita
teneatur atque administretur ut decet, tamen indecenter appetitur. Quam
ob rem otium sanctum quaerit caritas ueritatis; negotium iustum suscipit
necessitas caritatis.”
239Cod. lust. 1.3.21: "Ad similitudinem tarn episcoporum orthodoxae

fidei quam presbyteri et diaconi ii, qui honorario titulo illustrem
dignitatem consecuti sunt, per substitutos periculo suarum facultatem
curiae muneribus satisfacere non vetentur." See Gryson, PrStre selon
saint Anbroise, 106-11.
361
Within this context, the church’s gradual appropriation of civic
management in the fifth century, while a response to the disintegration
of the state, can be seen at least in part as an extension of the bishop
as having replaced the magistrate in political power. Having their
allies in the living bishops and in the deceased saints, Christians had
no longer any symbolic need of the prestige and honorific roles of Roman
public life, as much as some might still try to accumulate them. From
this vantage-point, Prudentius could refer to the martyr Lawrence "the
permanent consul for the heavenly city of Rome,”240 and Leo the Great
could add that "by [Lawrence's] words and patronage, we are confident
always to be aided."241
The Christian transformation of masculinity reversed traditional
gender roles of masculine authority and feminine submission towards a
new paradox of masculine identity. This reversal was a paradox of
public life as forceful as that which had encouraged militarism through
patience. The result of such ideas was the establishment of a new focus
of public life for the men of the upper classes, removed from political
power in the government. Offering to later Roman men the option of a
new type of public authority in the hierarchy of the church, Christian
leaders helped to rechannel masculine energies away from the pursuit of
bureaucratic offices or the vain ostentation of rural seclusion.
240Prudent. Perist. 2 11. 556-60: "videor videre inlustribus /

gemmis coruscantem virum, / quern Roma caelestis sibi / legit perennem
consulem.”
241Leo Sermones 85 in natali sancti Laurentii martyris: "Cujus

oratione et patrocinio adjuvari nos sine cessatione confidimus..."
362
Authority, even if newly Christian, thus remained an important masculine
pursuit for the noble classes of the later empire.
Chapter Seven:
Who is so much a master of a servant as he was of his body?
Christian Masculinity and the Transformation of Men's Private Lives
Christian writers of the later Roman empire, like their pagan
counterparts, recognized the problems brought about by the changing
structures of family authority and sexual morality. Lactantius, writing
about the perversion of sex and marriage in his day, complained about
the men who married for "the basest gain,” that is, the lands and monies
of their own or their wives' families' inheritances, and those who
married for "filthy works of obscene lustfulness," refusing to acquiesce
to the procreative purpose of marriage, according to God's "unfathomable
design," but instead seeking delights in illicit actions.1- Both of
these offenses were familiar to pagan intellectuals of the later Roman
empire.
The response of Christian leaders to these problems, however, went
beyond complaint. Although they shared the opinions of pagan
âctant. De opificio Dei 13.2: "Quod ad hanc rem attinet, queri

satis est homines impios ac profanos summum nefas admittere, qui diuinum
et admirabile dei opus ad propagandam successionem inexcogitabili
ratione prouisum et effectum uel ad turpissimos quaestus uel ad obscenae
libidinis pudenda opera conuertunt..." Because of the numbers of
examples in the chapter, I have had to restrict my use of the original
texts in the footnotes to central ones.
364
intellectuals about what constituted appropriate sexuality and what did
not, they did not only focus on the unmanliness of men who engaged in
inappropriate acts. Instead, Christian tradition provided them with a
basis from which to construct a new ideology of masculinity, in which
the renunciation of sex could be understand as manliness.
The Christian renunciation of sex also meant the discouragement of
marriage. Indeed, Christian writers of late antiquity emphasized all of
the disadvantages of marriage, both practical and spiritual, in their
frequent discussions of sexuality. Still, they believed that marriage
was a permissible if not ideal practice, and argued - against what might
be expected - that those Christian leaders who rejected sex and marriage
altogether were not only wrong, but unmanly. By the perpetuation of
marriage, however, Christian writers of the Latin west were able to
demonstrate that men's status and identity needed to be preserved. So
although they created novel symbols of masculine success, they continued
to justify the place for masculine authority.
1. To bring under subjection the members of the body:
Christian Sexual Transgression
Christian writers on the whole had no place for the traditional
Roman male's pursuit of sexual pleasures before, during, or after
marriage. The types of immoral sexual behaviors, as pagan writers had
identified them, easily found their counterparts in Christian
condemnations of certain sexual acts. Indeed, Christians seemed to have
added no real new sexual transgressions to the list already created in
365
the later empire: they condemned a husband's adultery, sex between men
and their slaves, sex with prostitutes, and homosexuality - both active
and passive partners. In short, they adopted wholescale the later Roman
sexual morality as they inherited it, if they attributed this morality
to their religion.
Christian opposition to adultery was an obvious example of the
exact correspondance between pagan cultural attitudes and the teachings
of the Latin churches. All extant Latin Christian writers who wrote on
the subject of marriage or sexual relations condemned adultery.2
Tertullian often returned to the theme. "All things are held in common
between us [Christians]," he said in an apologetic treatise, "except
[our] wives."3 Ambrose explained that a Christian man must "guard
[him]self" against "the adulterous woman that is another's."4
Christians included adultery among those offenses of which
everyone disapproved. Augustine, for instance, noted that it was
"believed by all peoples and nations that adultery is evil."5 Divine
2See the discussion on Christian attitudes toward adultery by

Philip Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianiation of
Marriage During the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1994), 122-6.
3Tert. Apol. 39:11: "Omnia indiscreta sunt apud nos praeter

uxores. ” Cf. idem, De patientia 12:5; Ad uxorem 2.3; De monogamia 9.4;
ibid. 9.8. cf. also his complaints that bishop Callixtus of Rome was
offering forgiveness to adulterers; Tert. De pudicitia 1.6-9 and 1.20-1.
4Ambrose De fuga saeculi 6.35: "haec est mulier aliena et

fornicaria, a qua te ut custodias adhortatur nec declines ad uias
saeculi cor tuum...” The passage is from Prov. 7.5. Cf. idem, De
Abraham (ed. PL 14) 1.2.7.
5August. De libero arbitrio 1.3: "None sane ideo malum est, quia
vetatur lege: sed ideo vetatur lege, quia malum est. ...omnibusque
populis atque gentibus credendum esse clamo, malum esse adulterium..."
Cf. Ambrose De fuga saeculi 3.15.
366
law also condemned it, as Salvian wrote: "The Lord said that the lewd
glances of the lusting man do not fall short of the crime of adultery."6
In fact, while both Jesus and Paul had spoken about adultery, the
statements of neither required an interpretation of adultery other than
according to its traditional Roman sense: the sinfulness of sex with a
married woman.7 The anonymous Christian writer known as Ambrosiaster
recognized this limitation on the meaning of the biblical passages on
adultery, although even he rejected extramarital sexual affairs for men,
using other passages in support of his argument.8
Still, the Christian writers of the Latin west clearly intended
the prohibition against adultery to limit married men's sexual behavior
to their wives, and not only to limit married women's sexual behavior.
As early as the end of the second century, an anonymous Christian author
6Salvian De gubernatione Dei 3.8: "idcirco itaque ait dominus

petulcos impudicorum hominum intuitus noxa adulterii non carere..." Cf.
Ambrose De Iacob et vita beata 1.3.10.
7Jesus said that even desiring another man's wife was equal to it,
and that a wife could be dismissed for it (Matt. 5.27-8,31-2; the Greek
text used the term xopveia ["sexual thing”], which is a broader concept
than adultery, even than the wife's infidelity, and it may even have had
other meanings, e.g., if she acted as a prostitute). Paul included
adulterers in his list of individuals who could not enter heaven, but
without defining the term (1 Cor. 6.9). Reynolds (Marriage in the
Western Church, 125) adds that "examples of men's impunity in
prosecutions for adultery continued at least into the early fifth
century in Christian practice."
8Ambrosiaster Ad Corinthios prima (CSEL 81.2) 7.11: "et ideo non

subiecit sicut de muliere dicens: quodsi disceserit, manere sic, quia
viro licet ducere uxorem, si dimiserit {uxorem} peccantem, quia non ita
lege constringitur vir sicut mulier; caput enim mulieris vir est." See
the discussion of this fact in Reynolds (Marriage in the Western Church,
183) who notes Ambrosiaster's general conservatism, but does not quote
the following: Ambrosiaster Ad Corinthios prima 7.4: "Mulier sui
corporis potestatem non habet, sed vir; similiter et vir sui corporis
potestatem non habet, sed mulier. hoc dicit quod neque viro neque
mulieri liceat corpus suum aliis (alii) tradere."
367
wrote: "He who wishes to have a chaste wife must himself observe
chastity [ato^wvEiv] ."9 The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, written
at the beginning of the third century, declared that "if any man has a
wife, or a woman has a man, they should be taught to be content, the man
with the woman and the woman with the man."10 At the beginning of the
fourth century, Lactantius emphasized this same point, adding that "it
is evil to exact that which you yourself are not able to exhibit," and
that "when a wife falls into such a marriage, aroused by the very
example, she thinks that she should either imitate it or get revenge."11
Ambrose,12 Jerome,13 and Augustine14 all denounced men's extramarital
9Ps.-Clement Bomiliae (ed. PG 2) 13.18: " O coxppova yuvauca exeiv

OeXoav Kai avxoq coxppoveu.."
10Hippolytus Traditio apostolica IS: "Si autem aliguis habet

mulierem, vel mulier virum, doceantur contenti esse vir muliere et
mulier viro."
1âctant. Div. inst. 6.23: "iniguum est enim ut id exigas quod

praestare ipse non possis. ...et uxor cum in tale incidit matrimonium,
exemplo ipso concitata aut imitari se putat aut uindicari." This is
part of a much larger discussion on adultery and married men.
12Ambrose De Abraham 1.4.25: "Sed et vos moneo, viri, maxime gui

ad gratiam Domini tenditis, non commisceri adulterino corpori (gui enim
se jungit meretrici unum corpus est) nec dare hanc occasionem divortii
mulieribus. ...Omne stuprum adutlerium est, nec viro licet guod mulieri
non licet." Cf. ibid. 1.7.59; 2.11.78. For further discussion, see
William Dooley, "Adultery," chap. 9 in Marriage according to St.
Ambrose, Studies in Christian Antiguity, vol. 11 (Washington, DC:
Catholic University of America, 1948).
13Hieron. Epist. 77.3: "Praecepit Dominus uxorem non debere

dimitti, excepta causa fornicationis, et si dimissa fuerit, manere
innuptam. Quidquid uiris iubetur, hoc conseguenter redundat ad feminas.
Neque enim adultera uxor dimittenda est, et uir moechus tenendus."
14August. De bono conjugali (ed. CSEL 41; trans. C. Wilcox, FC 27)

4.4: "huius autem fidei uiolatio dicitur adulterium, cum uel propriae
libidinis instinctu uel alienae consensu cum altero uel altera contra
pactum coniugale concumbitur." Cf. idem, De adulterinis coniugiis (ed.
CSEL 41) 1.8.8; idem, De bono conjugali 7.
368
sexual relationships. In general, Christians read into Jesus' and
Paul's commands what their culture believed to be moral sexually.
Christian prohibitions against sex with household slaves follow
this same pattern: restrictions on men's sexual behavior understood as
divine prohibitions. Lactantius argued that fidelity of marriage
required that a husband "may not wish to have besides a slave or free
concubine."15 Salvian of Marseilles complained at length about "how
corrupt was the way of life" of married men who exploited their slaves
for sexual purposes. He continued:
The mother of the house is not far removed from the

lowliness of female slaves when the father of the house is
the husband of maids. Who among the rich Aquitainians was
not like this? Whom did not these shameless maids consider
rightly their adulterers or husbands?16
Christian leaders equally condemned men who consorted with
prostitutes. Cyprian offered the opinion that a man who visited
brothels was worse than one who sacrificed to the pagan gods, since the
latter acted under compulsion, while the former performed his actions
freely, "profaning his own dedicated body and God's own Temple in the
15Lactant. Div. inst. 6.23: "...ut cum quis habeat uxorem, neque
seruam neque liberam habere insuper uelit, sed matrimonio fidet seruet."
16Salvian De gabernatione Dei 7.4: "Cogitat forte aliquis non ita

ad plenum esse ut loquor: habuisse enim illic matres familias ius suum
et dominarum honorem potestatemque tenuisse. uerum est. habuerunt
quidem multae integrum ius dominii, sed nulla ferme impollutum ius
matrimonii, et nos modo non quaerimus quae mulierum potestas, sed quam
corrupta uirorum fuerit disciplina. quamuis nec potestatem quidem illic
matres familias integram habuisse dicam, quia quaecumque ius conubii
inuiolatum ac saluum non habet nec dominii saluum habet. haud multo
enim matrona abest a utilitate seruarum, ubi pater familias ancillarum
maritus est. quis autem Aquitanorum diuitum non hoc fuit? quern non
sibi ancillae impudicissimae aut adulterum aut maritum iure duxerunt?"
369
abominable filth of the sewer and the slimy dives of the masses."17
Lactantius assured his readers that it was the devil who had established
brothels "so that he might hold in mockery those who do it as much as
those who have to suffer it."18
The arguments of the church fathers generally show that they were
trying to turn the tide of men's sexual morality, in favor of the new
and more rigorous code of sexual restraint. Ambrose, in condemning men
who had sex with prostitutes, specifically rejected the suggestion -
perhaps commonly made - that it was only natural that men would seek
outlets for their sexual drives.19 Jerome, too, insisted that no man
might "deny that there is sacrilege in lust who has polluted the members
of Christ and the living sacrifice pleasing to God by shameful
intercourse with the victims of public vice."20 It may be that some men
were denying exactly what Jerome insisted was sinful.
Christian opposition to homosexuality is a final example of the
confluence between Christian teaching of the later Roman west and
17Cyprian Epist. 55.26: "...ille matrimonii expugnator alieni uel

lupanar ingressus ad cloacam et caenosam uoraginem uulgi sanctificatum
corpus et Dei templum detestabili conluuione uiolauerit..." Cf.
Didascalia apostolorum 62.
18Lactant. Div. inst. 6.23: "ac ne quis esset qui poenarum metu
abstineret alieno, lupanaria quoque constituit [adversarius ille
noster]; et pudorem infelicium mulierum publicauit, ut ludibrio haberet
tarn eos qui faciunt quam quas pati necesse est."
19Ambrose De Abraham 2.11.78: "Vel quia viri licito se errare

credunt, si solo se abstineant adulterio, meretricios autem usus tanquam
legi naturae suppetere putant..."
20Hieron. Epist. (trans. here C. Mierow, ACW 33) 14.5: "...neget

sacrilegium in libidine, sed is qui membra Christi et hostiam uiuam
placentem Deo cum publicarum libidinem uictimis nefaria conluuione
uiolauit...”
370
earlier pagan developments in sexual morality. Here, however,
Christians had a clearer biblical precedent for their condemnations,
since Paul's writings had condemned both the active and passive partners
in homosexual activity: ipaevoKoitai ("[men] who have sex with men);
translated into Latin as masculorum concubitores, and n&katcoi ("soft,
effeminate [men]”), in Latin molles.2^
Latin patristic writers certainly condemned homosexual activity
generally without bothering to distinguish between roles or specific
acts. Host often, their concern is its violation of the natural
principles of sex. An anonymous third-century poet attributed any
homosexual desire to the devil's intervention in human affairs, who
induced men "to transgress nature's covenants, and stain pure bodies,
manly sex, with an embrace unnameable, and uses feminine."22 One might
interpret this statement as referring only to a passive use, and indeed,
like their pagan counterparts, Christians especially abhorred the
passive use of a man's body. Augustine, for example, argued that for a
man to swear falsely was worse than for him to be sexually penetrated by
another man, since Jesus had clearly stated that what "goes into the
mouth does not make a man unclean; it is what comes out of the mouth
211 Cor. 6.9; 1 Tim. 1.10. There are some problems in

interpretation of these terms, and therefore in their original meaning.
Such problems are beyond the scope of this study, however, but see
Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, especially
appendix 1, "Lexicography and Saint Paul"; see also William Petersen,
"Can APZENOKOITAI be translated by Homosexuals?" Vigiliae Christianae 40
(1986): 187-91.
22Ps.-Tert. Carmen aduersus Marcionem 1 11. 19-24: "...ardentes

etiam, calida dulcedine captos, / foedera naturae transcendere, corpora
munda / complexu infando, sexum maculare uirilem, / femineos usus uulgi
contamine mixtos / illicitos, castosgue sinus generique dicatos, / in
coitum obscenum pro luxu suasit habere."
371
that makes him unclean."23 But his point only works if the second half
of the equation - to be sexually penetrated - is thought to be a
horrendous thing.
Christian writers made it clear that both partners were guilty of
the violation of nature and of gender. Novatian described how
impudicitia "procures for itself even from the bodies of men, not simply
a new pleasure, but, from men, through men, extraordinary and revolting
monstrosities against nature itself.”24 Cyprian condemned the men who
"with frenzied lusts rush against men."25 Lactantius equally condemned
"men who sex as given by God does not suffice, but who also profanely
and wantonly abuse their own sex," adding that it was "against nature
and against the institute of God."26 Salvian of Marseilles denounced
precisely the opinion that "[t]hey who subdued men to the worst infamy
of feminine use believed that they were possessors of great manly
strength," because they were the penetrators. He continued
sarcastically: "Since they were brave men, they could change men into
23August. De aendacio (ed. CSEL 41; trans. M. Muldowney, FC 16)

and Contra mendacinm (ed. CSEL 41; trans. J. Jaffee, FC 16), too lengthy
to quote; both quoting Matt. 15.11.
24Novatian De bono pudicitiae (ed. CCSL 4; trans. R. DeSimone, FC

67) 3.5: "Quae plerumque extra sexum ardens, dum se non continet intra
concessa, parum sibi putat satisfactum, nisi in uirorum quoque
corporibus non uoluptatem nouam quaerat, sed extraordinaria et
portentuosa contra ipsam naturam ex uiris per uiros monstra conquirat.”
25Cyprian Ad Dona turn 9: "Libidinibus insanis in uiros uiri

proruunt."
26Lactant. Div. inst. 6.23: "his obscenitatibus animas... idem

etiam mares maribus adplicuit et nefandos coitus contra naturam
contraque institutum dei machinatus est. sic imbuit homines et armauit
ad nefas omne. ...nihil amplius istos appellare possum quam impios et
parricidas, quibus non sufficit sexus a deo datus, nisi etiam suum sexum
profane ac petulanter inludant."
372
women1 How criminal this was!"27 Christian leaders made a blanket
condemnation of homosexual behavior.
In fact, Christian writers relied so much in fact on the
repugnance of homosexuality that they often used the immorality of it as
a central feature of their general critique of traditional and pagan
culture: its philosophy, its rulers, and its mythology. Tertullian, in
ridiculing Greek philosophy, contrasted Socrates, "who was pronounced a
corruptor of youth" with a Christian man, "[who] confines himself to the
female sex."28 The Roman emperors were a favorite target for charges of
immorality.29 The homosexual, especially pederastic escapades of the
27Salvian De gabernatioae Dei 7.20: "certe hoc apud Romanos iam

pridem tale existimatum est, ut uirtus potius putaretur esse quam
uitium, et illi se magis uirilis fortitudinis esse crederent, qui maxime
uiros feminei usus probrositate fregissent. unde etiam illud fuit, quod
lixis puerorum quondam exercitus prosequentibus haec quasi bene meritis
expeditionibus stipendia laboris decernebantur, ut quia uiri fortes
essent, uiros in mulieres demutarent. pro nefas!" This part of a
larger discussion (ibid. 7.11-23) in which Salvian blamed the barbarian
invasions on the sexual sins of the Roman people.
28Tert. Apol. 46.10: "Ceterum si de pudicitia prouocemur, lego

partem sententiae Atticae in Socratem: corruptor adulescentium
pronunciatur. Christianus ad sexum nec femina mutat.” Contrast this
with his sympathetic opinion of Socrates in idem, Ad nat. 1.4.6. Cf.
also his opinion of the Flatonists: idem, De anim. 54-55. Tertullian's
point is that contrary to the opinion of some, such pagans would not be
among those included among the pre-Christian righteous who would be
admitted to heaven at the end of time.
29Nero: Leo Sermones 82.6: "...tempore, quo jam omnis innocentia,

omnis pudor, omnisque libertas sub Neronis laborabat imperio. Cujus
furor per omnium vitiorum inflammatus excessum, in hunc eum usque
torrentem suae praecipitavit insaniae..." Hadrian: Prudent, c. Symm. 1
11. 271-7: "quid loquar Antinoum caelesti in sede locatum, / ilium
delicias nunc divi principis, ilium / purpureo in gremio spoliatum sorte
virili, / Hadrianique dei Ganymedem, non cyathos dis / porgere sed medio
recubantem cum love fulcro / nectaris ambrosii sacrum potare Lyaeum, /
cumque suo in templis vota exaudire marito?" otho: Auson. caesares 11.
13-4: "mollis Otho, infami per luxum degener aevo, / nec regno dignus
nec morte Vitellius ut vir." Heliogabalus: ibid. 11. 138-9: "Tunc etiam
Augustae sedis penetralia foedas, / Antoninorum nomina falsa gerens?"
Maximian: Lactant. De mortibus persecutorum 8.5: "Iam libido in homine
373
gods were similarly maligned as evidence of the foolishness of pagan
mythology, especially Jupiter, who "held the wretched Ganymede in his
foul embrace.”30
The problem with such a heritage, as Firmicus Maternus suggested,
was that contemporary Romans used such cultural precedents to justify
their own immoral actions.33 Behind this lay not only the difference
between the sexual aggressiveness of ancient masculine models and the
new model sexual restraint advocated by pagans and Christians. Sexual
transgression functioned for Christians as a potent symbol of the need
for a cultural transformation.
Christians' denunciation of specific sexual activities reflected
their concern about the relationship of the sexual morality of the new
religion and the perpetuation of a manly self-image. Pagan anxiety
about the assimilation of men's and women's sexual behavior proved
pestifero non modo ad corrumpendos mares, quod est odiosum ac

detestabile, verum etiam ad violandas primorum filias.”
30Prudent. c. Symm. 1 11. 69-70: "armigero modo sordidulam curante

rapinam / conpressu immundo miserum adficiens catamitum..." Cf. Tert.
Ad nat. 2.10.11 and 2.13.18; Ps.-Tert. De execrandis gentium diis;
Lactant. Div. inst. 1.11; Commodian Instructiones 1.6. Cf. Hercules:
Prudent, c. Symm. 1 11. 116-9: "Herculeus mollis pueri famosus amore /
ardor et in transtris iactata efferbuit Argo, / nec maris erubuit Nemea
sub pelle fovere / concubitus et Hylan pereuntem quaerere caelebs." Cf.
Tert. Ad nat. 2.14.7: "...et ob decori pueri amissionem foede desertam
militiam Argonautarum.” cf. also Apollo: Lactant. Div. inst. 1.10:
"Quid Apollo..? Idem formosum puerum et dum amat, violavit; et dum
ludit, occidit."

"Muliebria patitur aliquis et effeminato corpori solacium quaerit:
videat Liberum amatori suo post mortem etiam promissae libidinis praemia
imitatione flagitiosi coitus repensantem. Si qui monstruoso cupiditatis
ardore in paternae necis armatur exitium, a love sumat exordium. Qui
fraternum desiderat sanguinem, Corybantum sequatur institutum, et
incestum desiderantibus a love sumantur exempla: cum matre concubuit,
sororenr duxit uxorem, et ut integrum facinus impleret incesti, filiam
quoque animo corruporis adgressus est."
374
incapable of providing an adequate justification for sexual self-
restraint, given the classical tradition. Christians, who were better
able to distance themselves from their cultural traditions, turned to
the teachings of their religion and interpreted so as to offer an
alternative justification for the new sexual code, in this way, they
could forge a new masculine identity removed from the sexual behavior of
the ancients.
2. The spirit, like a charioteer, curbs the impetus of the flesh:
The Manly Heroism of Sexual Renunciation
The Christian call for men to exercise sexual restraint
corresponded in many ways to already existing medical notions of the
dangers of sex and the weakness of the body controlled by lust. These
notions called to mind unfortunate connotations of unmanliness: fear of
bodily harm was a sign of cowardice, not courage. Christian writers,
while they shared common cultural notions of the power of sexual desires
over the individual, had a very different basis from which to understand
sexual abstinence. Above all, the Christian model of sexual
renunciation as manly heroism created an environment in which men might
abandon sex without abandoning their masculine identity.
An excellent example of such a Christian reformulation is
Ambrose’s funerary portrait of the emperor Valentinian II. Given his
numerous struggles against the authority of the state, it may seem odd
to use Ambrose’s description of an emperor to illustrate the new
masculine sexuality. His turbulent relationship with Valentinian,
375
however, merely highlights the artificial and stylized image of the
oration. Once Valentinian was dead, Ambrose could safely depict him as
he wished he had been. Valentinian's sexual life - as Ambrose
remembered it for his own didactic motives - can therefore stand as an
image of the new Christian man.
Ambrose began his funeral oration in a typically panegyric way,
idealizing all aspects of the emperor's life and reign. He was
courageous in war;32 he subjects loved him dearly.33 .Ambrose even
glossed over Valentinian's Arian Christian upbringing and the fact that
he was not baptized before his death,34 and emphasized instead the
restrictions which he placed on paganism as a sign of the sincerity of
his Christianity,35 so much so that he even suggested that Valentinian
32Ambrose Liber de consolatioae Valentiniani 2: "sed ille non

passus, cum audiret Alpes Italiae hoste infestari barbaro, maluit
periclitari se, si Gallias derelingueret, quam nostro deesse periculo.
magnum crimen agnoscimus imperatoris, quod Romano subvenire voluit
imperio! haec causa mortis, quae plena laudis. solvamus bono principi
stipendiarias lacrimas; quia ille nobis solvit etiam mortis suae
stipendium."
33Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani 21: "Quid de amore

provincialium loquar, vel quo eos ipse complectebatur, vel qui ab his
consultori suo rependebatur, quibus nihil umquam indici passus est?
praeterita, inquit, non queunt solvere, nova poterunt sustinere? hoc
laudant provinciae Iulianum. et ille quidem in robusta aetate, iste in
processu adulescentiae; ille plurima repperit, et exhausit omnia; iste
nihil invenit,et omnibus abundavit."
34Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani 51: "Sed audio vos

dolere, quod non acceperit sacramenta baptismatis. dicite mihi quid
aliud in vobis est, nisi voluntas,nisi petitio? atqui etiam dudum hoc
voti habuit, ut cum in Italiam venisset, initiaretur; et proxime
baptizari se a me velle significavit, et ideo prae ceteris causis me
acciendum putavit. non habet ergo gratiam quam desideravit, non habet
quam poposcit? et quia poposcit, accepit. et unde illud est: Iustus
quacumque morte praeventus fuerit, anima eius in requie erit.”
35Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani 52: "solve ergo servo

tuo munus tuae gratiae, quam ille numquam negavit, qui ante diem mortis
templorum privilegia denegavit, his urgentibus quos revereri posset.
376
was like Christ and that he died a martyr.36 These descriptions all
echoed the extravagant praise of pagan panegyrics.
Whenever Ambrose commented upon Valentinian's sexuality, the
Christian - and stylistic - nature of the text becomes clear.
Discussing Valentinian's youth, Ambrose conceded that "[t]he yoke of the
Word [of God] can seem heavy on account of the burdens of discipline,
the rigor of amendment, the weight of abstinence and the curbing of
lust,"37 but said that Valentinian easily accepted this yoke. He
related a tale of a beautiful actress whom the young emperor had brought
to court, a woman to whom all of his companions had become lustfully
enthralled. When she arrived, "he never gazed at her or saw her," so
that "he might teach the youths to refrain from the love of a woman whom
he himself, who could have kept her in his power, had spurned."
Ambrose's concluded: "as yet he had no wife; yet as though bound by
wedlock, he thus gave proof of his chastity." He added: "Who is so much
a master of a servant as he was of his own body? Who is so much a judge
of others as he was the censor of his own youthful age?”38
adstabat virorum caterva gentilium, supplicabat senatus: non metuebat

hominibus displicere ut tibi soli placeret in Christo, gui habuit
Spiritum tuum, quomodo non accepit gratiam tuam?"
36The metaphor of Valentinian as the bridegroom from the Song of

Songs appears throughout the text. Ambrose Liber de consolatione
Valentiniani 58: "Valentinianus meus, 'iuvenis meus, candidus et
rubeus,' habens in se imaginem Christi; talibus enim prosequitur
Gcclesia in Canticis Christum." Cf. ibid. 53,63.
37Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani 11: "potest grave

Verbi iugura videri propter onera disciplinae, austeritatem correctionis,
pondus abstinentiae, restrictionemque lasciviae..." Cf. ibid. 13.
38Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani 17: "Scenicae

alicuius forma ac decore deperire Romae adulescentes nobiles
nuntiabatur: iussit earn ad comitatum venire. ...deductam tamen numquam
aut spectavit aut vidit. postea redire praecepit, ut et omnes
377
When he described Valentinian's marriage, Ambrose made obvious the
elegiac nature of the text. The emperor deferred his marriage as long
as he could, he claimed, enjoying only the pious and chaste love of his
sisters.39 When the necesssities of state obliged him to marry,
however, he became the model husband: "For he himself was also faithful
in the Lord, pious and meek and pure of heart; he was also chaste in
body, who had no intercourse with any woman other than his wife."40
Ultimately, although "he died at an early age," "he died a veteran in
the campaigns of virtue."41 valentinian was both modest and manly.
The manliness of sexual renunciation was a point frequently made.
When Ambrose praised his brother Satyrus, he attributed to him a sexual
modesty more typical of the women of his day than of men:
if perchance he had, coming on a sudden, met some female

relative, he was as it were bowed down and sunk to the
earth, though he was not different in company with men, he
seldom lifted up his face, raised his eyes, or spoke; when
he did one of these things, it was with a kind of bashful
modesty of mind [pudico mentis pndore], with which, too, the
chastity of his body [castimonia corporis] agreed.42
cognoscerent irritum eius non esse mandatum, et adulescentes doceret ab

amore mulieris temperare, quam ipse qui potuit habere in potestate,
despexerat. et haec fecit, cum adhuc non haberet uxorem, et tamen
exhiberet sui tamquam vinctus coniugio castitatem. quis tarn dominus
servi, quam ille sui corporis fuit? quis tarn aliorum arbiter, quam ille
suae censor aetatis?"
39Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani 38: "ideo nuptias

differebat, quia pius eum vestrae gratiae pascebat affectus."
40Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani 74: "fuit enim et

ipse fidelis in Domino, pius atque mansuetus, puro corde; fuit etiam
castus corpore, qui praeter coniugium nescierit feminae alterius
consuetudinem.”
41Ambrose Liber de consolatione Valentiniani 46: "Esto tamen

dolendum sit quod primaeva obierit aetate; gratulandum tamen quod
virtutum stipendiis veteranus decesserit."
42Ambrose De excessu fratris Satyri (ed. CSEL 73; trans. H. de

Romestin, NPNF 10) 1.52: "Sed numquam superflua fundamenta virtutis;
378
Ambrose was not trying to emphasize the effeminacy of his brother's
sexual restraint, despite its similarities with ideals for women, but
that it represented the fundamenta uirtutis ("fundaments of virtue") for
either sex. Jerome also concluded that "among us [Christians], what is
not permitted to women, is equally not permitted to men; and the same
servitude controls both in a like manner."43 Obviously, the blurring of
gender boundaries did not trouble Christians in the same way as it had
pagans. How Christian writers effected this conceptual reversal of
traditional expectations of men's sexual behavior, and created a manly
model of male chastity and sexual modesty, is key to the redefinition of
masculinity.
To begin, Christian writers overwhelmingly preferred a theological
to a medical terminology for discussing the nature and origin of lust
and the struggle of the individual soul against its body's desires.
This is ultimately what made the difference in their understanding of
the place of sex in men's lives. By means of an exegesis on the fall of
pudor enim non revocat, sed commendat officium. Itaque velut quadam
virginali verecundia suffusus ora, cum vultu adfectum proderet, si forte
aliquam subito veniens offendisset parentem, veluti depressus et quasi
demersus in terram, licet in ipso nequaquam dissimilis coetu virorum,
rarus adtollere os, elevare oculos, referre sermonem. Quod pudico
quodam mentis pudore faciebat, cum quo castimonia quoque corporis
congruebat. Etenim intemerata sacri baptismatis dona servavit, mundo
corpore, purior corde, non minus adulterini sermonis obprobrium quam
corporis perhorrescens, non minorem ratus pudicitiae reverentiam
deferendam integritate verborum quam corporis castitate." Note that I
have changed de Romestin translation of pudico mentis pudore as "bashful
modesty of heart."
43Hieron. Epist. 77.3: "Aliae sunt leges Caesarum, aliae Christi:

aliud Papinianus, aliud Paulus noster praecipit. Apud illos in uiris
pudicitiae frena laxantur, et solo stupro atque adulterio condemnato,
passim per lupanaria et ancillulas libido permittitur: quasi culpam
dignitas faciat, non uoluptas. Apud nos, quod non licet feminis, aeque
non licet uiris; et eadem seruitus pari condicione censetur."
379
humanity and the origin of sin from the first chapters of the book of
Genesis, the church fathers managed to construct a framework for
understanding lust and sex as the result of weakness rather than its
cause.44
The champion of the link between lust and the fall of humanity was
Augustine of Hippo.45 In his early writings, Augustine questioned the
place of sexuality at all in the original plan of God for humanity.
Although the bible stated that God wanted Adam and Eve to "be fruitful
and multiply," Augustine preferred to interpret this statement as
referring to an intellectual fertility rather than a physical one. In
this opinion he was simply following earlier patristic writers.46 Only
44See esp. Brown, Body and Society; Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the
Serpent. See also Karen Torjesen, "Sin is a Sexually Communicable
Disease," chap. 8 in When women Were Priests. Salisbury (Church
Fathers, Independent virgins, esp. chap. 1, "The Early Fathers on
Sexuality: The Carnal World," and chap. 2, "The Early Fathers on
Virginity: The Spiritual World") provides an interesting point of
comparison by examining the patristic theories of sexuality and their
effects on women's identity.
45Much has been written in recent years about Augustine's

philosophy of sex; a list of only the most recent includes: Smile
Schmitt, Le mariage chrdtien dans 1 'oeuvre de saint Augustin. Une
thdologie baptismale de la vie conjugale (Paris: fitudes augustiniennes,
1983); Peter Brown, "Augustine: Sexuality and Society," chap. 19 in Body
and Society; Philip Reynolds, "Augustine's Theology of Marriage," part 3
of Marriage in the Western Church.
46August. De bono conjugali 2.2: "...quod scriptum est: 'inplete

terrain et dominamini eius,' id est, ut plenitudine et perfectione uitae
ac potestatis id fieret, ut ipsum quoque incrementum et multiplicatio,
qua dictum est: 'crescite et multiplicamini,' prouectu mentis et copia
uirtutis intellegatur, sicut in psalmo positum est: 'multiplicabis me in
anima mea in uirtutem'..." Cf. Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. (ed. PL 23) 1.16
and 1.29. Cf. also Ambrose De institutione uirginis et sanctae Mariae
virginitate perpetua (ed. PL 16) 5.36.
380
after the first sin by Adam and Eve did God permit them sexual abilities
with which to propagate themselves.47
Augustine eventually changed his mind on this subject, and in his
later writings expressed the opinion that Adam and Eve would indeed have
had sex even if they had not sinned, but their encounters would have
been orderly and completely devoid of lust.48 Lust was therefore both
the evidence of and punishment for the original sin.49 Indeed, lust was
the only part of original sin which even baptism could not erase; rather
it remained like a convalescence after illness.50 Our inability to
47August. De bono conjugali 2.2: "...nisi posteaquam causa peccati

futura erat in morte decessio; siue corpus non spiritale illis
hominibus, sed primo animale factum erat, ut oboedientiae merito postea
fieret spiritale ad inmortalitatem capessendam non post mortem, quae
inuidia diaboli intrauit in orbem terrarum et facta est poena
peccati...H
48August. De Genesi ad litteram 9.3: "Si autem quaeritur, ad quam

rem fieri oportuit hoc adiutorium, nihil aliud probabiliter occurrit
quam propter filios procreandos... tamen non uideo, quid prohibere
potuerit, ut essent eis etiam in paradiso honorabiles nuptiae et torus
inmaculatus hoc deo praestante fideliter iusteque uiuentibus eique
oboedienter sancteque seruientibus, ut sine ullo inquieto ardore
libidinis, sine ullo labore ac dolore pariendi fetus ex eorum semine
gigneretur..." Cf. idem, De nuptiis et concupiscentia (ed. CSEL 42)
1.5. See the thorough examination of this question in Reynolds,
Marriage in the Western Church, 241-51. Only after their fall from
grace did Adam and Eve experience lust and sexual modesty; this is why
they created garments for themselves to hide their genitals: see idem,
De civ. D. 14.17.
49August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.24.27: "...tamen, cum

uentum fuerit ad opus generandi, ipse ille licitus honestusque
concubitus non potest esse sine ardore libidinis, ut peragi possit quod
rationis est, non libidinis. qui certe ardor, siue sequatur siue
praeueniat uoluntatem, non tamen nisi ipse quodam quasi suo imperio
mouet membra, quae moueri uoluntate non possunt, atque ita se indicat
non imperantis famulum, sed inoboedientis supplicium uoluntatis nec
libero arbitrio, sed inlecebroso aliquo stimulo commouendum et ideo
pudendum."
50August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.25.28: "Si autem

quaeritur, quomodo ista concupiscentia carnis maneat in regenerato, in
quo uniuersorum facta est remissio peccatorum... quamuis autem reatu
suo iam soluto manet tamen, donee sanetur omnis infirmitas nostra
381
control our bodies and their desires was a fitting reward for our
disobedience to God.51
The association of sexual desire with sin was no innovation of
Augustine; the same links can be seen in virtually every patristic
author. Tertullian included "the lusts of the flesh, and disbelief, and
wrath" as those qualities which "are accounted to the common nature of
all men, while yet the devil still has designs upon nature.”52
Lactantius wrote of how "in our innermost parts, [the devil] sets going
and incites stimuli, and he arouses and inflames that natural ardor."53
Important to emphasize here are the links which are implied in
such a philosophy between sin and sex, because it also assumed a
parallel link between sinlessness and sexlessness. Sexual desires were
merely the result of human weakness. Human perfection, in contrast,
consisted in the avoidance of sex, and the desire for a return to the
innocence of original humanity, understood both in terms of innocence
proficiente renouatione interioris hominis de die in diem cum exterior

induerit incorruptionem; non enim substantialiter manet, sicut aliquod
corpus aut spiritus, sed affectio est quaedam malae qualitatis, sicut
languor.”
51August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.6.7: "Ibi homo primitus

dei lege transgressa aliam legem repugnantem suae menti habere coepit in
membris et inoboedientiae suae malum sensit, quando sibi dignissime
retributam inoboedientiam suae carnis inuenit.” Cf. idem, De civ. D.
14.15.
52Tert. Adv. Marcionem 5.17: "Apparet communi naturae omnium

hominum et delicta et concupiscentias carnis et incredulitatem et
iracundiam reputari, diabolo tamen captante naturam, quam et ipse iam
infecit delicti semine illato.”
53Lactant. Div. inst. 6.23: "...turn in intimis uisceribus stimulos

omnes conturbat [adversarius ille noster] et commouet, et naturalem
ilium incitat atque inflammat ardorem, donee inretitum hominem
implicatumque decipiat." Cf. Novatian De cibis iudaicis (ed. CCSL 4;
trans. R. DeSimone, FC 67) 4.3. Cf. also Ambrose De fuga saeculi 4.17.
382
from guilt and in terms of innocence from the knowledge and practice of
sex. The use of the term castitas ("chastity"), which in a classical
sense had meant guiltlessness, was the Christian preferred term for
sexual abstinence, and is thus indicative of the implications of moral
superiority in sexual renunciation. Chastity subsumed all of the sexual
virtues of pudicitia - virginity before marriage, sexual moderation and
fidelity during marriage, and sexual continence in widowhood after
marriage - and gave them a Christian flavor.54
The chaste man, in consequence, was not someone afraid of its
physical dangers, although these were considered real enough. Indeed,
it may not be too much to suppose that ancient medical notions of the
wasting effects of sexual licence may have encouraged the Christian
placement of sexual desire at the heart of the debilitation caused by
sin.55 Instead, the chaste man was an ideal Christian, a man who
resisted the temptation to sin. As Ambrose declared that his brother
Satyrus had "preserved the gifts of holy baptism inviolate" through his
virginity.56 The martyr Felix likewise thanked God at the moment of his
execution for three things: first, that he had kept his virginity.57
54E.g., Ambrose De uiduis 4.23: "Docemur itaque triplicem

castitatis esse virtutem: unam conjugalem, aliam viduitatis, tertiam
virginitatis..."
55E.g., Tert. De anim. 27, too lengthy to quote.
56Ambrose De excessu fratris Satyri 1.52: "Etenim intemerata sacri

baptismatis dona servavit..." Cf. the assimilation of virginity and
baptism by Hieron. Epist. 49.20: "Nullus se decipiat... Prima est
uirginitas a natiuitate, secunda uirginitas a secunda natiuitate."
51Passio sancti Felicis episcopi (ed. H. Musurillo, The Acts of

the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972] 30: "Felix episcopus
eleuans oculos in caelum, clara uoce dixit: Deus, gratias tibi.
383
The association of sexual renunciation with Christian perfection
in turn helped to give it a masculine flavor and appeal, women were
already tied culturally to physicality and weakness in long-standing
cultural tradition; as objects of sexual desire they could equally stand
in Christian symbolism as figures for lust. "The enticements of sin
pursue us and lust pursues us," Ambrose wrote, "flee from it as from a
frenzied mistress.”58 Jerome recounted an incident in which an unnamed
martyr, tied up and sexually fondled by a prostitute against his will,
bit off his tongue and spat it at her in order to repulse her
advances.59 She was merely a symbol of temptation, but he was a hero.
Men, in contrast to women, represented rationality and strength in
cultural tradition. In the Christian mind, therefore, sexual abstinence
became a distinctly masculine notion. Resistance to sexual desire was
the manly self-discipline which all desired. "A virtuous man," wrote
Augustine, was one who remained "in manly control of sensual
appetite."60 The military metaphor reinforced the links between sexual
continence and manliness. Jerome used it:
The voice of the Lord is as one exhorting and urging his

soldiers to the reward of pudicitia. "Whoever can accept,
guinquaginta et sex annos habeo in hoc saeculo. virginitatem custodiui,

euangelia seruaui, fidem et ueritatem praedicaui."
58Ambrose De fuga saeculi 4.17: "persequuntur enim nos peccatorum

inlecebrae, persequitur libido: sed tu fuge tamquam furiosam dominam..."
59Hieron. Vita sancti Pauli primi eremitae (ed. PL 23) 3, too

lengthy to quote.
60August. Contra Faustum Manichaeurn 22.50: "itaque uir

temperantissimus, ut plane uir, quia tarn uiriliter feminis utebatur, ut
delectationi carnali non subiceretur, sed dominaretur..."
384
accept," [meaning] whoever can fight, fight, conquer and

triumph.61
Augustine used the military metaphor repeatedly in a long letter to
Laetus, who had been considering abandoning chastity for marriage.
Instead, Augustine argued, Laetus must remain ready for battle and not
abandon his fight before the final victory.62
The traditional language of the mind's mastery of the body also
made frequent appearances in patristic writings on the pursuit of
chastity. This was also a particularly masculine language, and
according to the conventions of masculine self-control. Witness
Novatian's choice of words:
The spirit must discipline the stings of the flesh. It must

curb the violent impulses of the flesh. The spirit has
received the power at will to bring under subjection the
members of the body. The spirit, after a manner of
speaking, like a tried and true charioteer, curbs with the
reins of the heavenly precepts the impetus of the flesh
which exceeds the just limitations of the body. For it
fears that the chariot of the body when driven beyond its
limits will dash to destruction both itself and the
charioteer.63
The mastery of the spirit by the body, in contrast, was unmanly:
Its adversary, impurity [impudicitia], must always be

abhorred. It makes lewd sport of it victims, sparing neither
bodies nor souls. For once impurity has mastered one's moral
61Hieron. Commentarium in euangelium Matthaei (ed. CCSL 77) 3:

"Quasi hortantis uox Domini est et milites suos ad pudicitiae praemium
concitantis: 'Qui potest capere capiat' [Matt. 1 9 . 1 2 ] , qui potest
pugnare pugnet, superet ac triumphet." c f . idem, Adv. Iovinian. 1 . 2 0 .
62August. Epist. (ed. CSEL 57) 243, too lengthy to quote. Cf.
idem, De continentia 5.13 and 14.31.
63Novatian De bono pudicitiae 14: "Coerceat animus stimulos

carnis, refrenet impetum corporis. Accepit enim hanc potestatem, ut
illi ad imperium eius membra seruirent et quasi legitimus ac perfectus
auriga ultra corporis metas extollentes se carnis impetus caelestium
praeceptorum habenis reflectat, ne ultra terminos suos currus iste
corporis raptus in periculum suum secum et ipsum rapiat aurigam."
385
control, it bends the entire man under the yoke of its

wantonness. . . Impurity is the foe of continence. . .
impurity is the mother of impenitence, the ruin of one's
better years and a stigma on one's lineage. It violates
fidelity to one's own blood and family.64
Ambrose suggested that the virtuous man should be able to control his
body the way a musician controlled an instrument, so that he might bring
out of it only harmonious sounds.65
Such traditional language also explains the numerous parallels
between the Christian life and the life of a gladiator, despite the
overwhelming Christian disapproval of the arena sports.66 Augustine
compared the struggle for chastity to an athletic competition:
Behold where the stadium is; behold where the wrestling

grounds are; behold where the racecourse is; behold where
the boxing ring isl . . .If you wish so to fight that you
do not beat the air in vain but so as to strike your
opponently manfully, then chastise your body and bring it
into subjection that, abstaining from all things and
64Novatian, De bono pudicitiae 3.3-4: "Sed ut uirtus ista et in

uiris probata semper et a feminis appetenda, sic inimica eius
impudicitia semper est detestanda, obscenum ludibrium reddens ministros
suos nec corporibus parcens nec animis. Debellatis enim propriis
moribus totum hominem suum sub triumphum libidinis mittit, blanda prius,
ut plus noceat dum placet, exhauriens rem cum pudore, hostis
continentiae, frequenter perueniens ad sanguinem cupiditatum infesta
rabies, incendium conscientiae bonae, mater impaenitentiae, ruina
melioris aetatis, contumelia generis, expugnans sanguinis et familiae
fidem, alienis affectibus suos inserens filios, in aliena testamenta
sobolem ignoti et corrupti generis inducens." Cf. Prudent. Liber
Cathermerinon 7 1. 21.
65Ambrose De bono mortis (ed. PL 14) 6.25: "...justi autem anima

utitur corpore ut instrumento aut organo, quae velut praeclara artifex
quo vult obsequium corporis ducit et effingit de eo speciem quam elegit,
et eas quas voluerit, facit in eo resonare virtutes, pangens nunc
modulos castitatis, nunc modulos temperantiae, sobrietatis carmen,
integritatis dulcedinem, virginitatis suavitatem, gravitatem
viduitatis."
66See the discussion of this question in Weismann, Kirche und

Schauspiele, 180-5.
386
contending lawfully, you may in triumph share the heavenly

prize and the incorruptible crown.67
The discipline of the men of the arena was no stricter, Ambrose
maintained, than the sexual continence which a Christian imposed upon
himself.68 The martyrs were the best and most successful Christian
athletes. Prudentius described the martyrdom of Vincent in this way:
Now they have reached the wrestling-ground where the prize

is glory, where hope contends with cruelty, and martyr and
torturer face each other and join in the critical
struggle.69
Similarly, references to the unmanliness of sexual excess are
sprinkled throughout the writings of the church fathers. Tertullian
called the desire for sex infirmitas carnis ("an infirmity of the
flesh"), and linked it to war-time defeat:
For, of course, that infirmity is more capable of excuse

which has fallen in battle, than that which has fallen in
67August. Sermones 216.6: "Ecce ubi est stadium vestrum, ecce ubi
lucta certantium, ecce ubi cursus currentium, ecce ubi ferientium
pugillatus. Si vultis perniciosissimum colluctatorem fidei lacertis
elidere; prosternite mala, complectimini bona, si vultis sic currere,
ut comprehendatis; fugite iniguum, consequimini justum. Si vultis sic
pugillare, ut non aerum caedatis, sed hostem viriliter feriatis;
castigate corpus vestrum, et in servitutem redigite, ut ab omnibus
abstinentes ac legitime certantes, bravii coelestis et incorruptae
coronae participes triumphetis." Cf. idem, De uera religiose 45.83.
68Ambrose De Belia et ieiunio (ed. and trans. M. Buck, PS 19)

21.79: "numquid athleta otio uacat, cum semel dederit certamini nomen
suum? exercetur cottidie, unguitur cottidie. ipse cibus ei agonisticus
datur, disciplina exigitur, castimonia custoditur. et tu dedisti nomen
tuum ad agonem Christi, subscripsisti ad conpetitionem coronae:
meditare, exercere, unguere oleo laetitiae, unguento exinanito. cibus
tuus cibus sobrietatis sit, nihil habeat intemperantiae, nihil luxuriae,
potus tuus parcior, ne quid ebrietatis obrepat, custodi corporis
castimoniam, ut possis esse habilis ad coronam..." This was part of a
larger discussion (ibid. 21.78-80) in which Ambrose compared the
Christian life to an athletic contest.
69Prudent. Perist. 5 11. 213-6: "ventum ad palaestram gloriae; /

spes certat et crudelitas, / luctamen anceps conserunt / hinc martyr,
illinc carnifex."
387
the bed-chamber; that which has succumbed on the rack, than

that which has succumbed on the bridal-bed; that which has
yielded to cruelty, than that which has yielded to appetite;
that which has been overcome groaning, than that which has
been overcome in heat.70
Throughout the fathers can be found the traditional contrasts of
masculine duritia and effeminate mollitia. For Tertullian, a man's
desire to remarry after the death of a first wife was an effeminate lack
of self-discipline.71 Cyprian claimed that it was the devil who "offers
to the eyes seductive forms and easy pleasures" so that "he may relax
and enervate [soluat et molliat] Christian vigor.”72
The Christian goal of castitas was equally enjoined upon Christian
women, in much the same ways that the Roman virtue of pudicitia had been
enjoined upon men and women. Unlike the feminization of the sexually
modest pagan male, however, the pursuit of virginity remained an
expressly manly goal. Numerous references to women who chose lives of
sexual renunciation describe them as having become men. "A virgin is no
70Tert. De monogamia 15: "Vtique enim illam magis excusari capit

quae in proelio cecidit quam quae in cubiculo, quae in equuleo succubuit
quam quae in lectulo, quae crudelitati cessit quam quae libidini, quae
gemens deuicta est quam quae subans." I have removed numerous square
brackets from the text of the translation.
71Tert. De pudicitia 2: "Talia et tanta sparsilia eorum, quibus et

Deo adulantur et sibi lenocinantur, effeminantia magis quam uigorantia
disciplinam..."
72Cyprian De zelo et livore 2: "Offert oculis formas inlices et

faciles uoluptates, ut uisu destruat castitatem. Aures per canora
musica temptat, ut soni dulcioris auditu soluat et molliat christianum
uigorem." Cf. Hieron. Epist. 49.21: "Volumus opipare comedere, uxorem
haerere conplexibus et in numero uirginum ac uiduarum regnare cum
Christo: idem ergo praemium habebit fames et ingluuies, sordes et
munditiae, saccus et sericum?” Cf. also Ambrose Liber de consolatione
Valentiniani 13.
388
longer called a woman," Jerome simply stated.73 Augustine maintained
that "[w]omen too have some virile quality whereby they can subdue
feminine pleasures, and serve Christ and govern desire."74 Ausonius
wrote of his aunt: "[Your] feminine sex was always hateful to you, and
out of it sprang a love of consecrated virginity."75
The masculinization of virgin women makes sense on one level. So
much of a Roman woman's social role depended on her functioning as
daughter, wife, and mother. A woman who abandoned these roles in
perpetual virginity thereby abandoned much of what it was to be a woman.
Furthermore, a woman who lost the trappings of femininity uncovered the
fundamental nature within her which was masculine. This understanding
was very much in keeping with the misogyny of the Roman gender system,
in which men stood as universal human figures. Constant reminders for
virgin women to remain humble demonstrate the ability of women to find a
sense of masculine authority and accomplishment in sexual renunciation,
73Hieron. De perpetua virginitate beatae Mariae adv. Heluidium

(ed. PL 23) 20: "Virgo jam mulier non vocatur."
74August. De vera religione 41.78: "Vincamus ergo huius

cupiditatis uel blanditias uel molestias. Subiugemus nobis hanc
feminam, si uiri sumus. Nobis ducibus et ipsa erit melior nec iam
cupiditas, sed temperantia nominabitur. Nam cum ipsa ducit, nos autem
sequimur, cupiditas ilia et libido, nos uero temeritas et stultitia
nuncupamur. Sequamur Christum caput nostrum, ut et nos sequatur, cui
caput sumus. Hoc et feminis praecipi potest non maritali, sed fraterno
iure, quo iure in Christo nec masculus nec femina sumus. Habent enim et
illae uirile quiddam, unde femineas subiugent uoluptates, unde Christo
seruiant et imperent cupiditati.”
75Auson. Parentalia (my translation here) 6 11. 7-10: "feminei

sexus odium tibi semper, et inde / crevit devotae virginitatis amor, /
quae tibi septenos novies est culta per annos; / quique aevi finis, ipse
pudicitiae.”
389
as well as men's discomfort with it.76 Theological notions about Mary,
the mother of Jesus, cemented the link between sexlessness and
sinlessness, and Latin writers participated in the emerging theological
discussions of the sinless life and perpetual virginity of Mary.77
Men had similar biblical role models for their sexual
renunciation. According to Jerome, Joseph, the step-father of Jesus,
and John the Baptist were both virgins.78 The apostles were either all
virgins, or at least sexually continent within marriage.79 Jerome even
suggested that Jesus loved John best of all his disciples because he was
a virgin.88 Of course, Jesus was also a virgin, a fact to which
76See McNamara, A Sew Song; Clark, Women in Late Antiquity.
77E.g., Ambrose De uirginibus 2.2.6: "Sit igitur uobis tamquam in

imagine descripta uirginitas uita Mariae, e qua uelut speculo refulget
species castitatis et forma uirtutis." see also the discussion by G.
Jouassard, "On portrait de la sainte Vierge par saint Ambroise," La vie
spirituelle 26 (1954): 477-89. Cf. August. De sancta uirginitate (ed.
CSEL 41; trans. J. McQuade, FC 27) 2.2. For Jerome's role in the debate
over the perpetual virginity of Mary, see Demetrius Dumm, The
Theological Basis of Virginity according to St. Jerome (Latrobe,
Pennsylvania: St. Vincent Archabbey, 1961), 91-6.
780n Joseph: Hieron. De perpetua virginitate beatae Mariae adv.

Heluidium 19: "Tu dicis Mariam virginem non permansisse: ego mihi plus
vindico, etiam ipsum Joseph virginem fuisse per Mariam, ut ex virginali
conjugio virgo filius nasceretur. Si enim in virum sanctum fornicatio
non cadit, et aliam eum uxorem habuisse non scribitur: Mariae autem,
quam putatus est habuisse, custos potius fuit, quam maritus:
relinquitur, virginem eum mansisse cum Maria, qui pater Domini meruit
appellari." On John the Baptist: Hieron. Adv. lovinian. 1.26: "...ut a
Propheta virgine, virgo Dominus et annuntiaretur, et baptizaretur."
79Hieron. Epist. 49.21: "...apostoli uel uirgines uel post nuptias

continentes; episcopi, presbyteri, diaconi aut uirgines eliguntur aut
uidui aut certe post sacerdotium in aeternum pudici..." Cf. idem, Adv.
Iovinian. 1.26.
80Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.26: "...Si autem obnixe contenderit,

Joannem virginem non fuisse, et nos amoris praecipui causam virginitatem
diximus, exponat ille, si virgo non fuit, cur caeteris Apostolis plus
amatus sit."
390
patristic writers made continual reference. As Jerome put it, Christ
was "a virgin from a virgin, someone uncorrupted from someone
uncorrupted... therefore is virginity of divinity and blessedness."81
The equality of men and women in the realm of sexual behavior was
for Christians, then, no obstacle to overcome and no sign of
unmanliness, as understood by traditional conventions. Part of the call
to all persons to renounce sin and seek perfection, it was an indication
of true masculinity. In the same way, Christians were not concerned
about the proliferation of sexual transgressions, the way their pagan
counterparts were, since the latter only confirmed the existence of the
fallen nature of humanity and its need for Christian redemption. The
pursuit of sexual renunciation, in contrast, was not only idealized as
heroic and virile, but also seen part of the realm of thedivine. Such
a view, however, would also require a radicalreinterpretation of the
place of marriage in human society.
3. The love of a woman effeminates a man's spirit:
The Christian Renunciation of Marriage
in the De exhortatione castitatis ("Concerning the Exhortation to
Chastity"), Tertullian listed all of the practical justifications which
a man might give for getting married. He would need someone to
administer his domestic affairs. He would like someone with whom he
81Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.8: "Ille virgo de virgine, de

incorrupta incorruptus... Illud divinitatis est et beatitudinis..." Cf.
ibid. 1.16: "...ibi in Christum renascimur virginem, qui et natus ex
virgine, et renatus per virginem est." Cf. also ibid. 1.39.
391
might share his daily worries. He dismissed all such claims, however,
saying that the households of unmarried persons fared just as well as
those of married persons, and that any justifications for marriage were
merely "excuses by which we colour our insatiable carnal appetite."82
Tertullian's claim, that marriage was no more than an excuse for
sexual license, was made toward the end of his life, in which he had
taken a stand for a much more narrowly defined idea of Christian virtue.
For Tertullian, this more rigorist stand meant that marriage could be
described in even harsher terms:
Because [the apostle Paul] said that married persons are

concerned about pleasing each other, and not therefore about
morals - for he would not revile something which was a good
concern - but worried about their appearance and dress to
indecent softness [ad inlecebras moliendas], but these
things are of the carnal nature of lust, which is the cause
of stuprum. Is it not obvious therefore that stuprum has an
affinity with marriage, since what is found in it belongs
also to stuprum?83
Marriage was "soft" that way that all immoral things were "soft."
Since Christians believed that all sexual activity - or at least
all sexual activity possible since the original sin - was the result of
82Tert. De exhortatione castitatis 12: "Scio, guibus causationibus

coloremus insatiabilem carnis cupiditatem. Praetendimus necessitates
adminiculorum: domum administrandam, familiam regendam, loculos claues
custodiendas, lanificium dispensandum, uictum procurandum, curas
communicandas. Scilicet solis maritorum domibus bene est. Perierunt
caelibum familiae, res spadonum, fortunae militum aut peregrinantium
sine uxoribus. Non enim et nos milites sumus - eo guidem maioris
disciplinae, guanto tanti imperatoris...”
83Tert. De exhortatione castitatis (my translation here) 9.1: "Si

penitus sensus eius interpretemur, non aliud dicendum erit matrimonium
quam guasi speciem stupri. Cum enim dicat maritos hoc in sollicitudine
habere, guemadmodum sibi placeant, not utigue de moribus - nam bonam
sollicitudinem non suggillaret - sed de cultu et ornatu et omni studio
formae ad inlecebras moliendas sollicitos intellegi uelit, de forma
autem et cultu placere carnalis concupiscentiae ingenium sit, guae etiam
stupri causa est, ecguid uidetur tibi stupri affine esse matrimonium,
guoniam ea in illo deprehenduntur, guae stupro competunt?”
392
the fallen nature of humanity, it stands to reason that marriage would
be discouraged. After all, it was as an institution which permitted sex
and even required it for the purposes of familial continuity. Even if
most patristic writers did not go so far as Tertullian and call marriage
a type of stuprum, the writers of the western Christian tradition
generally downplayed the role of marriage. It was a remedium
infirmitatis ("remedy for infirmity"), associated with weakness and
unmanliness.84
Jesus was supposed to have said that "at the resurrection men and
women do not marry" but "are like the angels in heaven."85 The theme of
the uita angelica was a powerful factor in the Christian reluctance to
marry, linked as the idea was to personal salvation and the lifeafter
death.86 Paul emphasized the practical advantages to celibacy.87 His
comments provided a point of comparison with pagan traditions, which had
advocated celibacy as part of a uita philosophica free from the day-to-
day problems of family life. Christian writings against marriage might
either emphasize Jesus' words and the spiritual advantages of celibacy,
84E.g., Ambrose De uirginibus 1.6.24: "Ibi remedium infirmitatis,

hie gloria castitatis. Ilia non reprehenditur, ista laudatur.” See
Elizabeth A. Clark, "Antifamilial Tendencies in Ancient Christianity,"
Journal of the Bistory of Sexuality 5 (1995): 356-80.
85Matt. 22.30; Mark 12.25; Luke 20.35-6.
86E.g., Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.36: "Quod alii postea in coelis

futuri sunt, hoc virgines in terra esse coeperunt. Si angelorum nobis
similitudo promittitur (inter angelos autem non est sexus diversitas),
aut sine sexu erimus, quod angeli sunt: aut certe quod liquido
comprobatur, resurgentes in proprio sexu, sexus non fungemur officio."
Cf. idem, Coomentarii in epistolam ad Bphesios (ed. PL 26) 3.5. For
more on the symbol of the angelic life, see chap. 5.
871 Cor. 7.25-8.
393
or Paul's words and the mundane advantages. They might also present
their ideas as either Christian innovation or an extension of the long
tradition of misogamy in Roman culture.88
Jerome is an excellent example of a writer who used both Christian
innovation and Roman tradition in his anti-marital stance. This stance
is especially apparent in his treatise, Adversus Jovinianum ("Against
Jovinian"), a vitriolic reply to a man who had suggested that celibacy
had no advantage over the married state.89 Jerome chose a three-fold
but traditional attack against the suggestion. First, he attempted to
demonstrate how Greek, Roman, and even barbarian myths all recognized
the superiority of virginity to marriage.90 Second, marriage was
debitum ("a debt”) and uinculi ("chains"), and brought with it many
constraints; it was not unlike slavery.91 He listed numerous examples
88E.g., August. De civ. D. 19.5: "Sed in huius mortalitatis

aerumna quot et quantis abundet malis humana societas, quis enumerare
ualeat? quis aestimare sufficiat? Audiant apud comicos suos hominem
cum sensu atque consensu omnium hominum dicere: 'Duxi uxorem; quam ibi
miseriam uidi! Nati filii, alia cura.' Quid itidem ilia, quae in amore
uitia commemorat idem Terentius...” On the misogamistic tradition:
Katharina Wilson and Elizabeth Makowski, Wykked Wyves and the woes of
Marriaget Misogamous Literature from Juvenal to Chaucer (Albany, New
York: state University of New York, 1990).
89For secondary literature on the debate between Jerome and

Jovinian, see J. N. D. Kelly, Jerome: Bis Life, Writings, and
Controversies (London: Duckworth, 1975), especially chap. 17, "The
Champion of Chastity"; Rousseau, Ascetics, Authority, and the Church;
and D. Hunter, "Resistance to the Virginal Ideal in Late-Fourth-Century
Rome: The Case of Jovinian," Theological Studies 48 (1987): 45-64.
90Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.41: "...percurram breviter Graecas et

Latinas Barbarasque historias, et decebo virginitatem semper tenuisse
pudicitiae principatum."
91Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.7: "Sed quia qui semel duxit uxorem,
nisi ex consensu, se non valet abstinere, nec dare repudium non
peccanti, reddat conjugi debitum; sponte quippe se alligauit, ut reddere
cogeretur. ...Petrus Apostolus experimentum habens conjugalium
uinculorum." Cf. ibid. 1.12; 1.13; idem, Commentarii in Matheum
394
from pagan history and literature in which married couples had fallen
into serious disagreements or had caused each other terrible griefs to
demonstrate its constraints. Third, marriage was pointless. It was
supposed to extinguish arbor libidinis ("the flame of desire") but in
fact only intensified it, and turned men into irrational beasts and
slaves to licentiousness.92
If Jerome denounced marriage with traditional arguments, his
praise of celibacy was purely Christian. In strong language, Jerome
claimed the difference between marriage and virginity to be the same as
that between not sinning and doing good, or that between doing good and
doing better.93 When compared to marriage, celibacy was like gold to
silver, the fruit of the tree to its root or leaf, or the grain of the
field to the stalk or stubble of the plant.94 Ultimately, Jerome
concluded significantly, marriage and sexual relations "effeminate a
man's spirit [animumque virilem effeminat],"95
3.19.10. Cf. also Ambrose De uirginitate 33. Cf. also August.

Ennarationes in Psalmos (ed. CCSL 40) 149.15.
92Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.9: "Tolle ardorem libidinis, et non

dicit [Paulus Apostolus] 'melius est nubere.'" Cf. ibid. 1.7.
93Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.13s "Tantum est igitur inter nuptias et

virginitatem, quantum inter non peccare, et bene facere; immo ut levius
dicam, quantum inter bonum et melius." Cf. Ambrose De uirginibus
1.6.24.
94Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.3s "...sed ita nuptias recipimus, ut

virginitatem, quae de nuptiis nascitur, praeferamus. Numquid argentum
non erit argentum, si aurum argento prestiosius est? Aut arboris et
segetis contumelia est, si radici et foliis, culmo et aristis, poma
praeferantur et fructus? ut poma ex arbore, frumentum e stipula, ita
virginitas e nuptiis.
95Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.28s "Non hie de meretrice, non de

adultera dicitur, sed amor mulieris generaliter accusatur, qui semper
insatiabilis est, qui exstinctus accenditur, et post copiam rursum inops
395
Jerome's treatise against Jovinian was not well received by his
readers in Rome, and this reminds us that not all Christians shared his
opinions on marriage.96 Nonetheless, the bishops of the church
hierarchy generally supported Jerome, and it was Jovinian and not Jerome
who was eventually declared a heretic by the bishops assembled at Rome.
Although Jovinian still had some adherents at the end of the fourth
century, neither he nor his followers are mentioned after this period.
Although there were other isolated defences of the equality of marriage
with celibacy after him, such beliefs apparently died out among
Christian groups in the west in the early fifth century.97
The association of marriage with weakness and effeminacy may help
to explain why the faction which promoted the equality of marital and
celibate life-styles never reached the level of popularity and numerical
support for it to have triumphed over the faction which subordinated
est, animumque virilem effeminat, et excepta passione quam sustinet,

aliud non sinit cogitare." Cf. Ambrose De Isaac et anima 1.2.
96Hieron. Epist. 49.2: "Reprehendunt in me quidam, quod in libris

quos aduersum louinianum scripsi nimius fuerim uel in laude uirginum uel
in suggillatione nuptarum, et aiunt condemnationem quodammodo esse
matrimonii, in tantum pudicitiam praedicari, ut nulla posse uideatur
inter uxorem et uirginem conparatio derelinqui. Ego si bene problematis
memini, inter louinianum et nos ista contentio est, quod ille exaequet
uirginitati nuptias, nos subiciamus; ille uel parum uel nihil, nos
multum interesse dicamus. Denique idcirco, te post Dominum faciente,
damnatus est quod ausus sit perpetuae castitati matrimonium conparare.
Aut si id ipsum uirgo putatur et nupta, cur piaculum uocis huius Roma
audire non potuit? Virgo a uiro, non uirgo a partu. Medium esse nihil
potest: aut mea sententia sequenda est aut Iouiniani.”
97E.g., Ambrose condemned two itinerant preachers, possibly

followers of Jovinian, in a letter to the Christian community at
vercellae, written in about 396 c. E. Ambrose Epist. 63.7: "Audio enim
venisse ad vos Sarmationem et Barbatianum vaniloquos homines, qui dicant
nullum esse abstinentiae meritum, nullam frugalitatis, nullam
virginitatis gratiam, pari omnes aestimari pretio, delirare eos qui
ieiuniis castigent carnem suam ut menti subditam faciant."
396
marriage to celibacy. The heretical nature of theologians like Jovinian
- that is, their variance from the mainstream of Christian ideology, as
understood by their contemporaries - was reflected in their inability to
reinterpret Roman cultural anxieties surrounding marital and sexual
behavior in a meaningful way. Jerome's approach was much more
successful, ultimately. He represented Jovinian as a voluptuary, and
even if this were not true, its cultural resonances were loud.98
Likewise, Ambrose, in condemning followers of Jovinian, labelled them
delicati ("dainty men") and Epicure! ("Epicureans"), saying that they
tempted others to reject what they themselves were unable to sustain.99
98Hieron. Adv. Jovinian. 2.36: "...id est, vitia sequimur, non

virtutes: Epicurum, non Christum; Jovinianum, non Apostolum Paulum.
Quod multi acguiescunt sententiae tuae, indicium voluptatis est; non
enim tarn te loguentem probant, quam suis favent vitiis. In circulis
platearum quotidie fictus hariolus stultorum nates verberat, et obtorto
fuste dentes mordentium quatit, nec tamen deest qui semper possit
induci? et pro magna sapientia deputas, si plures porci post te
currant, quos gehennae succidiae nutrias? Post praeconium tuum, et
balneas, quae viros pariter et feminas lavant, omnis impatientia quae
ardentem prius libidinem, quasi verecundiae vestibus protegebat, nudata
est et exposita: quae ante in occulto erant, nunc in propatulo sunt."
Cf. Pope Siricius' description of Jovinian in his Epist. (ed. PL 13)
7.1: "...pudicitiae adversarius, luxuriae magister, crudelitatibus
pascitur; abstinentia puniendus, odit jejunia, ministris suis
praedicantibus dum dicit esse superflua, spem non habens de futuris...”
"Ambrose Epist. 63.8 and 9: "An quicquam tarn reprobum quam quod
ad luxuriam ad corruptelam ad lasciviam provocat, quam incitamentum
libidinis, illecebra voluptatis, incontinentiae fomes, incendium
cupiditatis? Quae istos Epicureos nova scola misit? ...Hoc delicati
non potuerunt ferre, abierunt. Deinde volentes redire non sunt recepti.
Pleraque enim audieram quae deberem cavere, monueram, nihil profeceram.
Effervescentes itaque disseminare talia coeperunt quibus incentores
essent vitiorum omnium miserabiles. Perdiderunt utique quod ieiunarunt,
perdiderunt quod se aliquo continuerunt tempore. Nunc itaque diabolico
studio invident aliorum operibus bonis, quorum ipsi fructu exciderunt."
397
The celibate life, in contrast, was the manly life: "For no soldier goes
to battle with a wife."100
At the turn of the fifth century, Augustine of Hippo entered the
debate with Jovinian's followers about the relationship of marriage to
the chaste life. His treatise on the subject, De bono conjugali ("On
the Good of Marriage") defended the permissibility of marriage but also
maintained its inferiority to sexual abstinence. Like Jerome, he used
metaphors to describe the relationship of celibacy to marriage: it was
like the respective brilliance of the sun and the moon, or the differing
brightness of two stars.101 He tried to stay clear of some of Jerome's
extravagant language, and so avoid the public reaction to Jerome's work.
Augustine argued that "marriage and continence are two goods, the second
of which is better,"102 although he maintained throughout his writings
that evil never was more than a lesser good. He also contrasted the
command of God in the period before Christ, when the patriarchs maried
even several wives without sinning, with that of his own days, when a
man "does better who does not marry even one wife, unless he cannot
100Hieron. Epist. (trans. here C. Mierow, ACW 33) 22.21: "Nemo

enim miles cum uxore pergit ad proelium." Cf. ibid. 151.8: "ne relictis
omnibus saecularibus actionibus susciperet cingulum militiae
Christianae, uinculum praepediebat uxorium..."
101August. De bono uiduitatis (ed. CSEL 41) 6.9: "Disce itaque

bonum tuum, immo memento quod didicisti, bonum tuum plus laudari, quia
est aliud bonum, quo sit hoc melius, quam si aliter hoc bonum esse non
posset, nisi illud malum esset aut omnino non esset. ...in caelo ipso
sua luce sol lunam superat, non uituperat, et 'Stella ab Stella differt
in gloria,' non dissidet in superbia." Augustine is commenting on 1
Cor. 15.41-2.
102August. De bono conjugali 8.8: "non ergo duo mala sunt conubium
et fornicatio, quorum alterum peius, sed duo bona sunt conubium et
continentia, quorum alterum est melius..." Cf. ibid. 23.28.
398
control himself."103 Moreover, "in our day, it is true, no one perfect
in piety seeks to have children except spiritually."104
In a companion treatise, De sancta uirginitate ("On Holy
Virginity"), written at the same time, Augustine clarified his view that
virginity was the Christian ideal. Indeed, to support his position, he
claimed that virgins were rewarded in heaven in unique ways for their
sexual renunciation.105 There existed, he asserted, a hierarchy of
unspecified rewards in which virgins received a greater share than
married persons in the same way in which martyrs received a greater
reward than non-martyrs.106
The comparison of virgins with martyrs was telling: it emphasized
the perfection of both, the sacrifice involved in both, and the
manliness of both. The host of problems which marriage entailed - the
difficult choice of finding a compatible bride and a suitable familial
alliance, the exchange of the resources for marriage payments and gifts,
103August. De bono coniugali 15.17: "...nunc melius faciat qui nec

unam duxerit, nisi se continere non possit..." See the discussion of
this problem in Schmitt, Mariage chrdtien, 32-4. Cf. Hieron. Adv.
Iovinian. 2.4.
104August. De bono coniugali 17.19: "nunc quippe nullus pietate

perfectus filios habere nisi spiritaliter quaerit..." Cf. Hieron. Adv.
Iovinian. 1.16; 1.48.
105August. De sancta virginitate 23.23: "...et contra humana

uanitas inpia temeritate contendit eos, qui hoc faciunt, praesentem
tantummodo necessitatem molestiarum coniugalium deuitare, in regno autem
caelorum amplius quidquam ceteris non habereI" For an investigation of
the origins of this view, see Elizabeth A. Clark, "Vitiated Seeds and
Holy Vessels: Augustine's Manichaean Past," in Ascetic Piety and women's
Faith: Essays in Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston, New York: E.
Mellon, 1985).
106August. De sancta virginitate 27.27: "gaudia propter uirginem

Christi non sunt eadem non uirginem, quamuis Christi; nam sunt aliis
alia, sed nullis talia."
399
and many others - could all be surmounted by abandoning the whole
affair. Through a rejection of the effeminizing effects of marriage,
that is, the interior weakness and bodily indulgence which it was
believed to make manifest, a Christian man could prove his manliness.
4. A kind of alienation from dear ones:
The Christian Renunciation of Family Life
Patristic writers did not only discourage the sexual relations
which followed from marriage, but also the affectional relations which
followed from it. Christian authors, following the statement of Jesus
that "if any man comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife,
children, brothers, sisters . . . he cannot be my disciple," advocated
an emotional detachment from family ties.107 Instead, they exhorted
Christians to favor other, less physical and more spiritual forms of
human bonds, especially friendships, for emotional support. In this
way, they redirected individuals outside of their own families and into
the broader Christian community, which became an alternative to familial
affections and familial loyalties.
Familial affections were assumed. Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine
all wrote of the love between parents and their children.108 Breaches
107Luke 14.26; Matt. 10.37; Mark 10.29-30.
10SFor Ambrose: Expositio euangelii Lucae 1.30: "diuinum igitur

munus fecunditas est parentis, agant itaque patres gratias, quia
generauerunt, filii, quia generati sunt; matres, quia coniugii praemiis
honorantur; stipendia enim militiae suae filii sunt." For Jerome:
Epist. 117.4: "Ilia te diu portauit, diu aluit, et difficiliores
infantiae mores blanda pietate sustinuit. Lavit pannorum sordes et
inmundo saepe foedata est stercore. Adsedit aegrotanti, et quae te
400
of such affection were equally counted as unnatural: Ambrose wrote of a
father who sold his children into slavery to pay his debts; this was an
action within the limits of patria potestas, although Ambrose condemned
it as heartless.109
Still, the church fathers made it clear that the individual owed
greater love to God than ever to any family member. As Ambrose wrote,
"one who has God as his portion should care for nothing except God,"
even if this should include a "renunciation of family, and a kind of
alienation from dear ones."110 Jerome argued that the biblical command,
"Honor your father," only applied "if you do not separate yourself from
your true father [in heaven]."111
Similarly, a wife's primary loyalties were not to her husband,
when Tertullian described the truly Christian marriage, for example, in
propter te sua fastidia sustinuerat, tua quoque passa est. Ad hanc

perduxit aetatem, ut Christum amares, docuit.” For Augustine: De civ.
D. 20.21: "Haec dieit Dominus: ...Quern ad modum si quern mater
consoletur, ita ego uos consolabor..." Augustine is quoting Isa. 26.19.
Cf. also Petrus Chrysologus Sermones 1-10 (on the theme of the prodigal
son, which are filled with images of a father's love); and Salvian
Epist. 4 (addressed to his parents with great affection).
109Ambrose De Tobia 8.30: "uendit plerumque et pater liberos

auctoritate generationis, sed non uoce pietatis et ad auctionem
pudibundo uultu miseros trahit dicens: 'soluite, filii, gulae meae
sumptum, soluite paternae mensae pretium; uomite quod non deuorastis,
reddite quod non accepistis, hoc meliores, quod uestro pretio redimitis
patrem, uestra seruitute paternam emitis libertatem.'"
110Ambrose De fuga saeculi 2.7: "ergo cui deus portio est nihil
debet curare nisi deum, ne alterius impediatur necessitatis munere.
quod enim ad alia officia confertur, hoc religionis cultui atque huic
nostro officio decerpitur. haec enim est uera est sacerdotis fuga,
abdicatio domesticorum et quaedam alienatio carissimorum, ut suis se
abneget qui seruire deo gestit."
111Hieron. Epist. 54.3: "'Honora patrem tuum,' sed si te a uero

patre non separat. Tam diu scito sanguinis copulam quam diu ille suum
nouerit creatorem..." Cf. idem, Bomiliae 85.
401
a treatise dedicated to his wife, he emphasized a mutuality of the two
parties before God:
How shall we ever be able adequately to describe the

happiness of that marriage which the church arranges, the
Sacrifice strengthens, upon which the blessing sets a seal,
at which angels are present as witnesses, and to which the
Father gives His consent? For not even on earth do children
marry properly and legally without their fathers' permission
How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who
are one in hope, one in desire, one in the way of life they
follow, one in the religion they practice. They are as
brother and sister, both servants of the same Master.112
The important relationship was the one of obedience to God, who was
given all of the absolute power of the ancient paterfamilias.
Patristic writers often used biblical examples as models of
detachment from family life and obedience to God. Abraham was typically
presented as the ideal of the man who loved God more than his family,
because he had been willing to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's
command.113 Cyprian praised him for this:
Thus Abraham pleased God because, in order to please God, he

neither feared to lose his son nor refused to commit
parricide . . . The fear of God and faith ought to make you
ready for all things. Though is should be the loss of
private property, though it should be the constant and
violent affliction of the members by wasting diseases,
though it should be the mournful and sorrowful tearing away
112Tert. Ad uxorem (trans. here w. Le Saint, ACW 13) 2.8: "Vnde

<uero> sufficiamus ad enarrandam felicitaatem eius matrimonii, quod
ecclesia conciliat et confirmat oblatio et obsignat benedictio, angeli
renuntiant, pater rato habet? Nam nec in terris filii sine consensu
patrum rite et iure nubunt. Quale iugum fidelium duorum unius spei,
unius uoti, unius disciplinae, eiusdem seruitutisl Ambo fratres, ambo
conserui; nulla spiritus carnisue discretio, atquin uere duo in carne
una. Vbi caro una, unus et spiritus: simul orant, simul uolutantur,
simul ieiunia transigunt, alterutro docentes, alterutro exhortantes,
alterutro sustinentes." Cf. Paulinus of Nola, Epist. 18.5.
113This episode is found in Gen. 22.1-12.
402
from wife, from children, from departing dear ones, let not
such things be stumbling blocks for you.114
The other patriarchs functioned in much the same way. When discussing
Rebecca's favoring of Jacob over Esau, Ambrose began by arguing that
parents should love all children equally, but ended with the claim that
"with that pious mother, God's mysterious plan was more important than
her offspring."115
The lives of the early Christian martyrs also presented similar
models of the renunciation of family. Martyrs were always
dispassionately detached from their families of birth. The anonymous
author of the Latin passion of Zrenaeus of Sirmium, for instance, wrote
such a scene into the account:
Irenaeus' relatives arrived and when they saw him under

torture they began to entreat him. His children kissed his
feet and begged, "Father, have pity on yourself and on ust"
Then the married women [of his household] urged him to
yield, weeping for his youth and his good looks. He was
hard pressed by the weeping and mourning of all his
relatives, the groans of his servants, the wailing of
neighbours, and the crying of his friends . . . But, as has
been said, he was gripped by a much stronger passion,
keeping before his eyes the words of the Lord, who said:
114Cyprian De mortalitate (ed. CCSL 3a; trans. R. Deferrari, FC

36) 12: "Sic Abraham Deo placuit, quia ut placeret Deo nec amitere
filium timuit nec gerere parricidium recusauit. ...Ad omnia te paratum
facere timor Dei et fides debet. Sit licet rei familiaris amissio, sit
de infestantibus morbis adsidua membrorum et cruenta uexatio, sit de
uxore, de liberis, de excedentibus caris funebris et tristis auulso: non
sint tibi scandala ista..." Cf. Paulinus of Nola Epist. 24.2; Valerian
Homeliae 18.2; and August. Contra Faustum Manichaeum 22.30-40. In this
last work, Augustine also defended the biblical accounts of Abraham's
sexual relationship with one of his slaves, and his lying to the Pharoah
of Egypt that Sarah was his sister and not his wife.
115Ambrose De Iacob et vita beata 2.2.6: "sed et Rebecca non quasi

filium filio, sed quasi iustum praeferebat iniusto. etenim aput matrem
piam mysterium pignori praeponderabat: ilium non tarn fratri praeferebat
quam offerebat domino, quern sciebat conlatum sibi munus posse seruare.”
Cf. the theme of parental favoritism again in Ambrose De Ioseph (ed.
CSEL 32.2) 2.5.
403
Whoever shall deny me before men, I too will deny him before
my Father who is in heaven. And so, despising all of them,
Irenaeus made no reply to anyone: for he was in haste to
attain the hope of his heavenly calling.116
Similarly, in the account of the martyrdom of Perpetua and her
companions, Perpetua's father played a critical role, but the demands of
her religion voided his authority over her and his affection for her:
"Daughter," he said, "have pity on my grey head - have pity

on me your father, if I deserve to be called your father, if
I have favoured you above all your brothers, if I have
raised you to reach this prime of your life. Do not abandon
me to the reproach of men. This of your brothers, think of
your mother and your aunt, think of your child . . . " This
was the way my father spoke out of love for me, kissing my
hands and throwing himself down before me.117
The whole point of these tender depictions was to highlight the fact
that true Christians must reject such affection. In this context, the
contrast between the behavior of Irenaeus as a Christian paterfamilias
116Passio sancti Irenaei episcopi Sirmiensis (ed. H. Musurillo,

The Acts of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972]) 3.1-3:
"Aduenientes uero parentes eius, uidentes eum torqueri precabantur eum,
hinc pueri pedes eius amplectentes dicebant: Miserere tui et nostri,
pater, inde uxores lugentes uultum et aetatem eius precabantur.
parentum uero omnium luctus et fletus erat super eum, domesticorum
gemitus, uicinorum ululatus et lamentatio amicorum, qui omnes clamentes
ad eum dicebant: Tenerae adolescentiae tuae miserere, sed, ut dictum
est, meliore cupiditate detentus, sententiam domini ante oculos habens
quae dixit, Si quis me negauerit coram hominibus, et ego negabo eum
coram patre meo qui in caelis est, omnes ergo despiciens nulli eorum
respondit. festinabat enim ad supernae spem uocationis peruenire." Cf.
ibid. 4.5-7.
117Passio sanctae Perpetuae et Felicitatis 5: "Miserere, filia,

canis meis; miserere patri, si dignus sum a te pater vocari; si his te
manibus ad hunc florem aetatis prouexi, si te praeposui omnibus
fratribus tuis: ne me dederis in dedecus hominum. aspice fratres tuos,
aspice matrem tuam et materteram, aspice filium tuum qui post te uiuere
non poterit. depone animos; ne uniuersos nos extermines. nemo enim
nostrum libere loquetur, si tu aliquid fueris passa. haec dicebat quasi
pater pro sua pietate basians mihi manus et se ad pedes meos iactans et
lacrimans me iam non filiam nominabat sed dominam. et ego dolebam casum
patris mei quod solus de passione mea gauisurus non esset de toto genere
meo."
404
with that of Perpetua's father as a traditional paterfamilias is
significant.
In place of familial affections, Christian writers often
emphasized the bonds tying all members of the Christian community. In
the Latin translation of the passion of Phileas of Thmuis in Egypt, for
example, the anonymous author described how all those around Phileas
"begged him to have regard for his wife and concern for his children,"
but that "it was like water wearing away a rock," since Phileas
"rejected what they said, claiming that the apostles and the martyrs
were his kin."118 A symbolic genealogy took shape, in which God as
father and the church as mother presided over an extended family of
saints, martyrs, and living Christians.119
Although the paternal authority within this Christian family
belonged to God, the men of the ecclesiastical hierarchy functioned as
God's representatives and were therefore authorized to act as surrogate
fathers. In this manner, Ambrose compared himself to a paterfamilias of
sorts:
For I love you, whom I have begotten in the Gospel, no less

than if you were my own true sons. For nature does not make
us love more ardently than grace. We certainly ought to
118Passio beati Phileae episcopi de ciuitate Thmui (ed. H.

Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972])
6.4: "Aduocati et officium una cum curatore et cum omnibus propinguis
eius pedes ipsius complectebantur rogantes eum ut respectum haberet
uxoris et curam susciperet liberorurn. ille uelut si saxo immobili unda
adlideretur, garrientium dicta respuere, Deum in oculis habere, parentes
et propinguos apostolos et martyres ducere."
119See Delahaye, Ecclesia Mater.
405
love those who we think will be with us for ever more than
those who will be with us in this world only.120
The paternal authority and affection which celibate men relinquished
could be supplanted to a certain degree through the undertaking of
episcopal authority and the love of the Christian community.
Similarly, the discouragement of affection between family members
was replaced by a greater devotion to the bonds of friendship. Foremost
among these friendships were the ties between two men. Hale friendships
had always held an esteemed place in Roman culture: misogyny and the low
status of women had also encouraged men to support each other for
emotional support and intellectual stimulation, instead of relying on
their wives.121 Christian texts of late antiquity often showed male
pairs in intense partnerships. The benefits provided by one companion
to another contributed to the moral and spiritual development of both,
as well as to their mutual support. "[H]ow much more closely in
cohabitation and conversation are two [male] friends together,"
Augustine claimed in a discussion of male friendship, "than a man and a
woman?"122
120Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.7.24: "...neque enim minus

uos diligo quos in Euangelio genui, quam si coniugio suscepissem. Non
enim uehementior est natura ad diligendum quam gratia. Plus certa
diligere debemus quos perpetuo nobiscum putamus futuros quam quos in hoc
tantum saeculo."
121A discussion of classical models of friendship, as well as

their appropriation by Christian patristic writers, can be found in
Pierre Fabre, Saint Paulin de sole et 1 'amitid chrdtienne, Biblioth&que
des icoles Frangaises d'Ath&nes et de Rome, vol. 167 (Paris: Boccard,
1949); updated recently by Carolinne White, Christian Friendship in the
Fourth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1992).
122August. De Genesi ad litteram 9.5: "Aut si ad hoc adiutorium

gignendi filios non est facta mulier uiro. ad quod ergo adiutorium
facta est? si, quae simul operaretur terrain, nondum erat labor, ut
406
Examples of such male friendships are numerous. Pontius,
biographer of Cyprian, described such a relationship between the bishop
and another man:
[Cyprian] had a close association [contubernium] among us

with a just man, and of praiseworthy memory, by name
Caecilius, and in age as well as in honour a presbyter, who
had converted him from his worldly errors to the
acknowledgment of the true divinity. This man [Cyprian]
loved with entire honour and all observance, regarding him
with an obedient veneration, not only as the friend and
comrade of his soul, but as the parent of his new life. And
at length [Caecilius], influenced by his attentions, was, as
well he might be, stimulated to such a pitch of excessive
love, that when he was departing from this world, and his
summons was at hand, he commended to [Cyprian] his wife and
children; so that him whom he had made a partner in the
fellowship of his way of life, he afterwards made the heir
of his affection.123
Prudentius, in his account of the martyrs Emeterius and Chelidonius,
used similar language of affection and support to describe their
friendship and how it gave them the courage to endure their tortures.124
adiumento indigeret, et, si opus esset, meliuB adiutorium masculus

fieret. hoc de solacio dici potest, si solitudinis fortasse taedebat.
quanto enim congruentius ad conuiuendum et conloquendum duo amici
pariter quam uir et mulier habitarent? quodsi oportebat alium iubendo,
alium obsequendo pariter uiuere, ne contrariae uoluntates pacem
cohabitantium perturbarent, nec ad hoc retinendum ordo defuisset, quo
prior unus, alter posterior, maxime se posterior ex priore crearetur,
sicut femina creata est. an aliquis dixerit de costa hominis deum
feminam tantum, non etiam masculum, si hoc uellet, facere potuisse?
quapropter non inuenio, ad quod adiutorium facta sit mulier uiro, si
pariendi causa subtrahitur."
123Pontius vita et passio sancti Caecilii Cypriani (ed. PL 3;

trans. R. Wallis, ANCL 8) 4: "Erat sane illi etiam de nobis contubernium
viri justi et laudabilis memoriae Caecilii et aetate tunc et honore
presbyteri, qui earn ad agnitionem verae divinitatis a saeculari errrore
correxerat. Bunc toto honore atque omni observantia diligebat,
obsequenti veneratione suspiciens, non jam ut amicum animae coaequalem,
sed tanquam novae vitae parentem. Denique ille, demulsus ejus
obsequiis, in vocatus est, ut de saeculo excedens, arcessitione jam
proxima commendaret ille conjugem ac liberos suos, ut quern fecerat de
sectae communione participem postmodum faceret pietatis haeredem."
124Prudent. Perist. 1 11. 52-7: "hie duorum cara fratrum

concalescunt pectora, / fide quos per omne tempus iunxerat sodalitas. /
stant parati ferre quidquid sors tulisset ultima, / seu foret praebenda
407
Indeed, many of the martyrs were remembered in male pairs: Marian and
James, Nabor and Felix, Gervasius and Protasius.125 John Cassian,
before his establishment of an ascetical community in southern Gaul, had
travelled to Egypt with a companion, Germanus. This is how he described
their relationship:
we said that we were united in brotherhood, not one of birth

but a spiritual one, and that from the very beginning of our
renunciation, an inseparable comradeship had united us.126
A man might have several of these intense friendships over the
course of a lifetime. Jerome, for example, shared a home with a man
named Bonosus in Rome during his studies there; the two later moved to
Trier together as "raw recruits" in the heavenly army.127 Jerome later
ceruix ad bipennem publicam / verberum post vim crepantum, post catastas

igneas, / sive pardis offerendum pectus aut leonibus.”
125Passio sanctorum Mariani et lacobi (ed. H. Musurillo, The Acts

of the Christian Martyrs [Oxford: Clarendon, 1972]) 1.4: "quis enim
dubitet quae nobis in pace uitae communitas fuerit, quando nos indiuidua
dilectione uiuentes unum tempus persecutionis inuenerit?" Cf. Paulinus
of Milan Vita sancti Ambrosii 14: "Per idem tempus sancti martyres
Protasius et Geruasius se sacerdoti reuelauerunt. erant enim in
basilica positi in qua sunt hodie corpora Naboris et Felicis martyrum;
sed sancti martyres Nabor et Felix celeberrime frequentabantur, Protasii
uero et Geruasii martyrum ut nomina ita etiam sepulcra incognita erant,
in tantum ut supra eorum sepulcra ambularent omnes qui uellent ad
cancellos peruenire quibus sanctorum Naboris et Felicis martyrum ab
iniuria sepulcra defendebantur."
126John Cassian Conlationes 16.1: "percontatus primum utrumnam

essemus germani fratres audiensque a nobis quod non carnali, sed
spiritali essemus fraternitate deuincti, nosque ab exordio
renuntiationis nostrae..." Cf. his comments about friendship generally
(ibid. 16.3). Cf. also Paulinus of Nola Epist. 40.3 (addressed to
Sanctus and Amandus) and Sid. Apoll. Propempticon ad libellum 11. 26-30
(about Iustinus and Sacerdos).
127Hieron. Epist. (trans. here C. Mierow, ACW 33) 3.5: "Scis ipse
[Domine]... ut ego et ille a tenera pariter infantia ad florentem usque
adoleuerimus aetatem, ut idem nos nutricum sinus, idem amplexus fouerint
baiulorum et, cum post Romana studia ad Rheni semibarbaras ripas eodem
cibo, pari frueremur hospitio, ut ego primus coeperim uelle te colere.
Memento, quaeso, istum bellatorem tuum mecum quondam fuisse tironem."
408
shared a similar relationship with Rufinus before some unknown incident,
in Jerome's words, "wrenched me, cleaving to you with tenacious
affection, from your side."128 Jerome called a third man, Innocentius,
"the half of my soul," using the ancient metaphor for male
friendships.129 Augustine had his share of such friendships, too, as
recorded in his Coafessionst first, before his conversion with an
unnamed fellow Manichaean in North Africa;130 then, after his
conversion, a more restrained relationship with Alypius in Milan, whom
he nonetheless called frater cordis mei ("the brother of my heart").131
Such friendships, while they were intended to promote the
spiritual development of the two men, might degenerate into alliances
for sin. A certain threat always existed that these intense friendships
128Hieron. Epist. (trans. here C. Mierow, ACW 33) 3.2-3: "Credas

mihi uelim, frater, non sic tempestate iactatus portum nauta prospectat,
non sit sitientia imbres arua desiderant, non sic curuo adsidens litori
anxia filium mater expectat. Postquam me a tuo latere subitus turbo
conuoluit, postquam glutino caritatis haerentem inpia distraxit auulsio,
'tunc mihi caerulus supra caput adstitit imber,' tunc 'maria undique et
undique caelum.'" As Mierow indicates (p. 31), Jerome is here quoting
in part from Verg. Aen. 3.194 and 5.9. On the friendship of Rufinus and
Jerome, see also Hieron. Epist. 4 and 5. Cf. the regret about the
rupture of the relationship between Jerome and Rufinus by August. Epist.
(ed. PL 33) 73.6.
129Hieron. Epist. (trans. here C. Mierow, ACW 33) 3.3:

”...Innocentium enim, partem animae meae, repentinus febrium ardor
abstraxit." Cf. August. Confessiones 4.6.11: "Bene quidam dixit de
amico suo dimidium animae suae." The expression can be found in Hor.
Carm. (ed. C. Bennett, LCL) 1.3.8: "...reddas incolumen, precor, / et
serves animae dimidium meae."
130August. Confessiones 4.4.7: "In illis annis, quo primum tempore

in municipio, quo natus sum, docere coeperam, comparaueram amicum
societate studiorum nimis carum, coaeuum mihi et conflorentem flore
adulescentiae. Mecum puer creuerat et pariter in scholam ieramus
pariterque luseramus."
131August. Confessiones 9.4.7: "...etiam Alypium, fratrem cordis

IR61 • • •
409
would become sexual relationships. Valerian, discussing this
possibility, said that some men "to excuse away the odium of this
detestable error, pretend that this is sport," but he suggested that "of
two such men I do not know whom to call more unfortunate: the one who
lives by deforming someone else, or the one who has prostituted his body
to wantonness and handed it over to mockery."132 Such a sexual
friendship seems to have been the case between Augustine and his first
companion, as he later regretted:
I cared for nothing but to love and be loved. But my love

went beyond the affection of one mind for another, beyond
the arc of the bright beam of friendship. Bodily desire,
like a morass, and adolescent sex welling up within me
exuded mists which clouded over and obscured my heart, so
that I could not distinguish the clear light of true love
from the murk of lust. . . I muddied the stream of
friendship with the filth of lewdness and clouded its clear
waters with hell's black river of lust.133
Equally, the friendships might have been the occasion for carousing and
sexual libertinism, as seems to have been the case with Jerome, whose
132Valerian Bomeliae 10:1: "In quo loco ad excusandam exsecrabilis

erroris invidiam, aliquanti forte lusum praetendant, et poenalibus
causis laetitiae nomen imponant. ...In quo loco, dilectissimi, quern ex
duobus infeliciorem judicem, nescio: utrum ilium qui aliena deformatione
vivit, an istum qui corpus suum ludibrio prostituit et illusionibus
tradidit."
133August. Confessiones 2.2.2 and 3.1.1: "Et quid erat, quod me

delectabat, nisi amare et amari? Sed non tenebatur modus ab animo usque
ad animum, quatenus est luminosus limes amicitiae, sed exhalabantur
nebulae de limosa concupiscentia carnis et scatebra pubertatis et
obnubilabant atque obfuscabant cor meum, ut non discerneretur serenitas
dilectionis a caligine libidinis. ...Venam igitur amicitiae
coinquinabam sordibus concupiscentiae candoremque eius obnubilabam de
tartaro libidinis..." The sexual nature of this relationship has been
noted by historians of homosexuality: see Boswell, Christianity, social
Tolerance, and Bomosexuality, 135; or Greenberg, Construction of
Homosexuality, 224. It has also been assumed by some psycho-analytic
historians: see, e.g., James Dittes, "Continuities between the Life and
Thought of Augustine," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 5
(1965): 130-40.
410
youthful companions became associates in his debauchery.134 The
vehemence of the patristic denunciations of homosexuality and
fornication may be related to this threat regarding such relationships,
and their function as emotional alternatives to marital relationships.
The way in which these relationships supplanted marriage may also help
to explain the creation of specific Christian rituals to honor them.135
Christian men who eschewed marriage might just as easily form
intense emotional relationships with women. The Christian view of the
virtue of the sexless life allowed for the possibility of male-female
relationships in a way no other religion or philosophy of the period
did, or so it has been argued.136 In the east, these unions had often
taken the form of sexlesB cohabitations between male and female
celibates known as o w e io d tK T o i (’[those] brought together”), translated
into Latin as subintroducti. Bishops of the eastern churches had
condemned such relationships by the fourth century.137 In the west,
relationships of this sort existed, but equally common were the sort
134Hieron. Epist. 49:20: "Virginitatem autem in caelum fero non

quia habeo, sed quia miror quod non habeo. ingenua et uerecunda
confessio est, quo ipse careas id in aliis praedicare." Cf. ibid. 7.3
and 7.4; idem, Homiliae 86.
135The comparison of these male friendships to marriages was

recently made by Boswell, Same-Sex Unions. As he relates (pp. 24-5), it
is ultimately impossible to know whether there was a sexual element to
these unions, but that it is certainly clear that they were part of
important emotional bonds.
136See Rosemary Rader, Breaking Boundaries: Male/Female Friendship

in Early Christian Communities (New York: Paulist, 1983).
137Elm (Virgins of God) examines these relationships in detail

among other options for female ascetic lifestyles in fourth-century Asia
Minor and Egypt; see also the discussion below on sexless marriages in
the west.
411
that Jerome enjoyed with the woman he called "my Paula.”138 Jerome
instructed the widow Paula and her daughters in the Christian faith, and
she in turn probably financed his studies and writing career. They
travelled together to the holy sites of Judaea and Egypt, and eventually
established monasteries near to each other in Bethlehem.139 Not only
did Jerome participate in a life-long correspondence with Paula, but he
also wrote to her family to encourage and instruct them in much the way
that any step-father might.140 They never lived together, however, even
chastely.
Again, there were concerns that these unions might deteriorate
into clandestine sexual relationships, perhaps even more easily than
male friendships. This was rumored about Jerome's friendships with
women.141 Jerome in turn spread rumors about the association of his
former friend, Rufinus, with various women whom Jerome mocked as
mulierculae ("petty women”) and Amazonae ("Amazons”).142 He called
138Hieron. Epist. 39.2: "...mi Paula..." This was in a letter

consoling Paula about the death of her daughter Blesilla. Kelly
(Jerome, 91-103) discusses his relationships with Paula, Blesilla, and
other women, and describes the many letters which Jerome wrote to them.
139Hieron. Epist. 108, too lengthy to quote, is a funeral oration

for Paula, depicting their life-long friendship.
140E.gs., all too lengthy to quote, include: Hieron. Epist. 22 (to

Paula's daughter Eustochium to congratulate her on her decision to
remain a virgin); ibid. 66 (to Pammachius to console him at the death of
his wife Paulina, another daughter of Paula); and ibid. 107 (to Laeta, a
daughter-in-law of Paula, with advice on how to raise her infant
daughter, also named Paula).
141Hieron. Epist. 45, too lengthy to quote, is dedicated entirely

to refuting such accusations.
142Hieron. Epist. 133.4: "Cum haec se ita habeant, quid uolunt

miserae mulierculae oneratae peccatis, quae circumferuntur omni uento
doctrinae, semper discentes et numquam ad scientiam ueritatis
peruenientes; et ceteri muliercularum socii, prurientes auribus, et
412
Rufinus "a Cato publicly but a Nero privately," and a Sardanapalus.143
Jerome also condemned the cohabitation of sexually continent couples in
principle.144 Legislation of the Christian emperors also restricted
such relationships, and one law enacted in this regard said that
"ecclesiastics or men of the churches or whoever that want themselves to
be known by the name of [sexual] continents should not enter into the
homes of widows or minor women."145 While both male-male and male-
female friendships might satisfy the personal longing for emotional
intimacy, their participants had to guard themselves constantly against
a sexual involvement which might destroy the lofty and manly ideal of
the celibate lifestyle.
The problematics of marital and familial relations provided the
context in which men of the third, fourth, and early fifth centuries
were willing to adopt the Christian renunciation of marriage and the
ignorantes quid audiant, quid loquantur, qui uetustissimum coenum, quasi

nouam suscipiunt temperaturam..." Cf. idem, Dialogus adversus
Pelagianos 1.26: "Verum tu tantae es liberalitatis et fauorem tibi apud
Amazonas tuas concilias, ut in alio loco scripseris: 'Scientiam legis
etiam feminas habere debere,' cum Apostolus doceat tacendum esse
mulieribus in Ecclesia et, si quid ignorant, domi uiros suos debere
consulere.” Jerome was paraphrasing 1 Cor. 14.34-5.
143Hieron. Epist. 125.18: "...procedebat in publicum: intus Nero,

foris Cato. Totus ambiguus, ut ex contrariis diuersisque naturis, unum
monstrum nouamque bestiam diceres esse conpactum..." Cf. idem,
Conimentarii in Abacuc prophetam ad Chromatium (ed. CCSL 76A) 2 prologusi
"Sibilet igitur excetra, et Sardanapalus insultet, turpior uitiis quam
nomine..." Cf. idem, Conimentarii in Naum prophetam (ed. CCSL 76A)
3.8.12; idem, Epist. 54.13.
144Hieron. Epist. 125.6: "Videas nonnullos accintis renibus, pulla

tunica, barba prolixa, a mulieribus non posse discedere, sub eodem
conmanere tecto, simul inire conuiuia, ancillas iuuenes habere in
ministerio, et praeter uocabulum nuptiarum, omnia esse matrimonii."
145Cod. Theod. (my translation here) 16.2.20: "Ecclesiastici aut

ex ecclesiasticis vel qui continentium se volunt nomine nuncupari
viduarum ac pupillarum domos non adeant..."
413
family. The traditional language of manliness and unmanliness aided in
the popularization and assimilation of these cultural innovations, and
their configuration as part of a new masculine identity. The celibate
replaced the husband and father.
5. Unchaste perversity in the name of religion:
The Place of Sex and Marriage in Polemics against the Heretics
As anxious as Christian writers like Ambrose, Jerome, and
Augustine were to distance themselves from intellectuals like Jovinian,
and as much as they wanted to promote the inferiority of marriage and
sexual expression to celibacy and virginity, they were equally anxious
not to be seen to condemn marriage altogether. Even if marriage was the
easy road to the military camp of the saints when compared to the more
difficult path of virginity, Ambrose declared, both routes had the same
destination.146 Yet it is not self-evident why this position should
have won out over the complete renunciation of marriage. In an era in
which heroic sexual self-denial was promoted as manly and virtuous,
indeed, one might expect a forceful condemnation of marriage altogether
as unworthy of the true Christian; but that is not the position which
these men supported.
146Ambrose Epist. 14.40: "Bona etiam [via] matrimonii plana et

directa longiore circuitu ad castra sanctorum pervenit, ea plurimos
recipit. Sunt ergo virginitatis praemia, sunt merita viduitatis, est
etiam coniugali pudicitiae locus. Gradus singularum sunt et increments
virtutum."
414
If the renunciation of marriage and family life offered such
opportunities for masculine success and Christian perfection, why did
Roman men support - that is, choose to join in overwhelming numbers -
the faction which permitted sex and marriage to the weak over the
faction which outlawed both? In other words, how was it that the total
condemnation of marriage and sexual relations was unable to provide
acceptable or comprehensible solutions to the crisis of later Roman
masculinity that the permissibility of marriage was? The reasons for
the success of this middle position reveal much about how the Catholic
writers won the loyalty of the men of the later Roman empire. Also
significant are the ways in which opponents in this debate, on either
side, could be painted as unmanly. It points out, as a result, much
about the nature of the Christian transformation of masculinity.147
"I assign to continence and virginity preference over marriage,"
Tertullian had written as early as the begining of the third century, in
an opinion which was shared by many, "yet without prohibiting
marriage."148 This middle ground between the condemnation of marriage
and its encouragement became the standard by which much of western
orthodoxy on the subject of marriage, sex, and family life was judged.
Tertullian's refusal to condemn marriage entirely may have been
147A useful theoretical approach to this problem is provided by

Edwin Schur, The Politics of Deviance: Stigma Contests and the Uses of
Power (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1980). See also
Samuel Laeuchli (Power and Sexuality: The Emergence of Canon Law at the
Synod of Elvira [Philadelphia: Temple University, 1972]) who looks at
the relationship between identity and prohibition in early 4th-century
Spain.
148Tert. Adv. Marcionem 5.15: "...continentiam et virginitatem

nuptiis anteponens, sed non prohibitis."
415
influenced by purely practical concerns, especially the civil laws,
which until the beginning of the fourth century denied family
inheritances to unmarried persons. Indeed, Tertullian specifically
contrasted the laws of Rome with the law of Christ, saying that the
latter promised an inheritance equally to celibate and childless persons
as to married persons with children.149 For persons living beyond the
edict of the emperor Constantine, who ended the requirement of marriage
probably because of Christian influence, however, there was no similar
restraint.150
Through their writings which admitted the possibility of marriage,
Christian writers of the western Mediterranean were attempting to
distance themselves from eastern variants of Christian belief, which
prohibited all marital and sexual behavior. These eastern groups shared
much with the western writers: a belief in the heroic and rational
nature of the choice for sexual continence, a concern for the
distractions and baser urges given into by the married, and a frequent
reference to the holy example of Christ and Mary.151
149Tert. De monogamia 16: "Aliud est, si et apud Christum legibus

Iuliis agi credunt, et existimant caelibes et orbos ex testamento Deo
solidum non posse capere."
150See the discussion of this law above, chap. 3. The question of

the influence of Christian beliefs on Constantine's law ending the
restrictions on unmarried and childless persons is discussed in detail
by Judith Evans-Grubbs ("Munita Coniugia,” 229-38) who believes that
Christian influence was the likeliest source for the repeal of this law,
but who also suggests that a continued opposition by the aristocracy to
the restrictions inherent in the law may have been a factor in its
repeal.
151Brown (Body and Society) describes the attitudes of these

groups to sex: pp. 92-102 on the Encratites, pp. 103-21 on the Gnostics,
pp. 197-202 on the Manichaeans.
416
At least one of these eastern groups, the Manichees, had a large
following in the western Mediterranean, although the extent and
popularity of Manichaeanism in the west is not entirely clear to modern
scholars. It certainly had impressive numbers of adherents in North
Africa, where Augustine, for instance, was a member of the religion for
almost a decade. After his conversion, he took the Manichaean threat to
Catholic Christianity seriously enough to devote several treatises to
the refutation of its doctrine, and engaged in several public debates
against leaders of the Manichees.152 Circles of Manichaean or at least
Manichaean-type Christians were also scattered through Italy, Spain, and
Gaul, and it was their presence there and the controversy surrounding it
which led to the execution for heresy of Priscillian, bishop of
Avila.153 Ambrose, who objected to the execution of Priscillian, spoke
1520n the extent of Manichaeanism: Peter Brown, "The Diffusion of

Manichaeism in the Roman Empire," in Religion and Society in the Age of
Saint Augustine (London: Faber, 1977). On Augustine's description of
the Manichees: Frangois Decret, "Saint Augustin, tdmoin du manichdisme
dans l'Afrigue romaine,” in Internationales Symposion fiber den Stand der
Augustinus-Forschung, ed. C. Mayer and K. Chelius (Wurzburg: Augustinus-
Verlag, 1989). The presence of Manichaeanism in North Africa is
attested as early as 287 C. E., when Diocletian and his fellow-emperors
ordered Julian, the proconsul of Africa, to eradicate the religion there
(Codex Gregorianus 14.4.1, ed. Gustavus Haenel, Codicis Gergoriani et
Codicis Bermogeniani Fragments, vol. 2, part 1 of E. Booking, ed.,
Corpus Juris Romani Anteiustiniani [Bonn: Adolph Mark, 1837]).
1530n Priscillian and the controversy: Henry Chadwick, Priscillian

of Avila (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976). The presence of the Manichees in
Spain is attested by Philaster of Brescia Diuersarum hereseon liber (ed.
CCSL 9) 61.5: ”[Manichei]... qui et in Hispania et quinque prouinciis
latere dicuntur, multosque hac cottidie fallacia captiuare." The
presence of the Manichaeans in Rome is attested by a law of 425 C. E.,
expelling them from that city: Cod. Theod. 16.5.62: "Manichaeos
haereticos schismaticos sive mathematicos omnemque sectam catholicis
inimicam ab ipso aspectu urbis Romae exterminari praecipimus, ut nec
praesentiae criminosorum contagione foedetur.”
417
out nevertheless against the Manichaeans and others who condemned
marriage altogether.154
The support for Manichaeanism in the west must not be
underestimated. Nor must the possibility be excluded that Manichaean
beliefs encouraged the same types of masculine transformation that
Christianity sponsored generally. The Manichee myth of the struggle
between the powers of Light and the powers of Darkness encouraged the
type of military identity to which the soldier of Christ was a parallel;
the place of sexuality within this struggle as the evidence of evil and
the ability of the individual to transcend the desires of the self both
also paralleled the orthodox ideal of sexual renunciation.155
The triumph of the orthodox or Catholic Christians over their
Manichaean rivals was at least in part due to the ramifications for
masculine identity and authority of the total renunciation of marriage
and family life. Christians permitted an institution, marriage, and a
set of behaviors, sexuality, which were considered a sign of weakness.
They did so because the existence of marital and familial roles helped
to separate men's from women's identities and to perpetuate the male
154Ambrose Expositio euangelii Lucae 4.10: "uidet [diabolus]

integrum et inlibatum castimoniae uirum: suadet ut nuptias damnet, quo
eiciatur ab ecclesia et studio castitatis a casto corpore separetur."
Cf. idem, De uirginibus 1.7.34.
1550n the Manichaean religion and its beliefs: S. N. C. Lieu,

Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China (Manchester:
Manchester University, 1985); and idem, Manichaeism in Mesopotamia and
the Roman East (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994). August. Contra Fausturn
Manichaeum 6.3, too lengthy to quote, described the beliefs of the
Manichaeans about sex and the body in order to refute them. The
opposition of forces is emphasized, e.g., in the description by
Philaster of Brescia, Diuersarum hereseon liber 61, too lengthy to
quote.
418
domination of women, in this way, the crisis of masculinity within the
family and in sexual behavior could be surmounted not by abandoning
both, but by placing both within a new Christian context.156
There were certainly theological motives for the orthodox desire
to permit marriage.157 Christian writers who condemned the Manichaeans
156There are, of course, numerous factors involved in both the

appeal and rejection of Manichaenism. See Henry Chadwick, "The
Attraction of Mani," in Heresy and Orthodoxy in the Early Church
(London: Variorum, 1991). Brown (Body and Society, 143) believes that
heresies were ultimately those sects which did not establish a
distinciton between a rigorous or ascetic and a moderate or lay life
style, preventing their assimilation to the larger society.
157Even while Jesus spoke in favor of the abandonment of marital

and familial expectations, for example, he also spoke about the
indissolubility of marriage on earth and the error of divorce (Mark
10.5-9; Luke 16.18; Matt. 19.9). Of course, the orthodox leaders also
influenced which gospels were accepted as the authentic teachings of
Jesus, and why other gospels, in which Jesus denounced marriage
altogether, were rejected (e.g., Acts of Thomas 12). These writings
were understandably accepted as authentic by eastern groups supporting
the total condemnation of marriage. At the same time as marriage was
being discounted as inferior to celibacy, the authority of the orthodox
gospels also provided the basis for an extended legal formulation of the
rights and responsibilities of Christian marriage by late ancient
writers (see esp. Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church). Likewise,
while the Pauline and Petrine writings of the Mew Testament had
encouraged Christians not to marry, they had also established "household
codes" in which wives were exhorted to obey husbands, slaves their
masters, and children their parents: a continuation of the general lines
of the social hierarchy (Col. 3.18-25; Eph. 5.21-6.9; 1 Pet. 2.18-3.7).
The authenticity of the authorship of these texts is much debated by
modern religious scholars. Early Christian texts took up this theme of
an idyllic home life in traditional terms for Christians (e.g., Ps.-
Clement Homiliae 13.18.2-3). In an important passage for the
development of a Christian sense of marriage, Paul even compared the
relationship between husband and wife to that between Christ and the
church, as two separate persons joined into one body by means of a
mystical marriage. He had called it nwrtepiov ("a mystery"), but Latin
writers called it sacramentum ("a sacred [military] vow") (Eph. 5:22-
32). See above, chap. 6, on the origins of the Christian idea of
sacramenturn. Reynolds (Marriage in the Western Church, 280-311)
examines the question of why Augustine would use the term sacramentum
for marriage, and suggests that it was through a comparison with baptism
in its divine origin and indellible bond. Moreover, Pauline texts which
praised virginity in excess were likewise pronounced inauthentic (e.g.,
Acts of Paul and Theda 5-6).
419
and other groups which rejected sex and marriage did not confine their
rebuttals to theological texts, however but often made use of the
cultural dichotomy of manliness and unmanliness in the critique of their
opponents. Tertullian described his opposition to these groups as an
athletic or gladiatorial contest:
In a combat of boxers and gladiators, generally speaking, it

is not because a man is strong that he gains the victory, or
loses it because he is not strong, but because he who is
vanquished was a man of no strength; and indeed this very
conqueror, when afterwards matched against a really powerful
man, actually retires crest-fallen from the contest. In
precisely the same way, heresies derives such strength as
they have from the infirmities of individuals - having no
strength whenever they encounter a really powerful faith.158
Interestingly, Tertullian depicted himself and his supporters as the
manly and heroic party - the winners of the gladiatorial contest - even
though it was the other side of the debate which championed the sexless
ideal. Tertullian's condemnation of Marcion, the leader of an eastern
group which also required complete sexual renunciation, he similarly
described as a battle.159
Christian writers also often accused those who opposed them of
immorality, despite their advocacy of complete sexual renunciation.
indeed, they used the same sorts of descriptions of sexual licence
158Tert. De praescr. haeret. 2.7-8: "In pugna pugilum et

gladiatorum plerumque non quia fortis est uincit quis aut quia non
potest uinci, sed quoniam ille qui uictus est nullis uiribus fuit: adeo
idem ille uictor bene ualenti postea comparatus, etiam superatus
recedit. Hon aliter haereses de quorundam infirmitatibus habent quod
ualent, nihil ualentes si in bene ualentem fidem incurrant."
159Tert. Adv. Marcionem 3.5: "His proluserim quasi de gradu primo

adhuc et quasi de longinquo. Sed et hinc iam ad certum et cominus
dimicaturus video aliquas etiam nunc lineas praeducendas, ad quas erit
dimicandum, ad scripturas scilicet creatoris." Cf. Ps.-Tert. Carmen
adv. Marcionem 4 11. 3-9.
420
associated with effeminacy in their condemnation of the Manichees and
groups like them, as they had used in condemning those who advocated the
equality of marriage and celibacy. Jerome, who believed that
Priscillian of Avila was a Manichee teacher, accused him of secret
sexual sins and religious rituals involving sex with women of ill-
repute.160 Philaster, a fourth-century bishop of Brescia, near Milan in
Italy, depicted the Manichees as nefandae turpitudini seruientes
("slaves to nefarious things of shamefulness").161 Pope Leo the Great,
in the mid-fifth century, accused them of "multiple perversities," "the
mixing of all kinds of sordid things," "a multitude of crimes," "sacred
rites as obscene as they are nefarious," and "an execrable thing which
our ears can scarcely bear to hear," the last of which he clarified as
the sexual use of a young girl, "at most, ten years of age." "In this
sect," Leo concluded, "no sexual modesty [pudicitia] is to be found, no
righteousness [iionestas], no chastity [castitas].”162
Pope Leo's accusations, when repeated before the Roman Senate and
added to the confessions of a Manichaean leader, prompted the government
of the western emperor Valentinian III to issue a ban against the
religion, a clear example of the influence of Christian ideology over
160Hieron. Epist. 133.3: "Priscillianus in Hispania pars Manichei

(de turpitudine cuius te discipuli diligunt plurimum, uerbum
perfectionis et scientiae sibi temere uindicantes); soli cum solis
clauduntur mulierculis, et illud eis inter coitum amplexusque decantant:
'turn pater omnipotens fecundis imbribus aether coniugis in gremium
laetae descendit; et omnis magnus alit, magno commixtus corpore,
foetus.’"
161Philaster of Brescia, Diuersarum hereseon liber 61.3: "...et

nefandae turpitudini seruientes."
162Leo Sermones 16.4, too lengthy to quote. Cf. ibid. 24.4.
421
the legislative practice of the later empire. The law used the same
sort of language of unmanliness, and alleged that the Manichaeans
exercised an "unchaste perversity, [which] in the name of religion,
commits crimes that are unknown and shameful even to brothels."163 This
was only the last of a long series of secular laws against the
Manichaean religion.164 Christian emperors enacted similar restrictions
against other Christian groups which condemned marriage.165
The charge of secret sexual immorality against these anti-sex
churches is an interesting one. Some of the accusations, like those
made by Augustine, who said that the Manichees permitted sexual
16W . Valentiniani 18.1: "Nee dissimulationem crimina nuper

detecta patiuntur. Quae enim et quam dictu audituque obscena in iudicio
beatissimi papae Leonis coram senatu amplissimo manifestissima ipsorum
confessione patefacta sunt? adeo ut eorum quoque qui diceretur
episcopus et voce propria proderet et omnia scelerum suorum secreta
perscriberet. Quod notitiam nostram latere non potuit, quibus tutum non
est neglegere tarn detestandam divinitatis iniuriam et inpunitum
relinquere scelus, quo non solum corpora deceptorum, sed etiam animae
inexpiabiliter polluntur. ...Neque enim aliquid nimium in eos videtur
posse decerni, quorum incesta perversitas religionis nomine lupanaribus
quoque ignota vel pudenda committit."
164Cod. Theod. 16.5.3 (punishing its teachers); ibid. 16.5.7

(confiscating Manichaean estates, prohibiting bequests and invalidating
wills); ibid. 16.5.9,11 (confiscating the property of its leaders and
forbidding assemblies); ibid. 16.5.18 (repeating above penalties); ibid.
16.5.35 (punishing all Manichaeans as criminals); ibid. 16.5.38
(prohibiting any discussion of Manichaean ideas); ibid. 16.5.41
(absolving from any of these penalties those Manichaeans who convert to
orthodox Christianity); ibid. 16.5.43,59 (repeating all above
penalties); ibid. 16.5.64 (expelling all Manichaeans from cities); and
ibid. 16.5.65 (prohibiting them from all branches of the imperial
services except as soldiers in the army and reconfirming above
penalties).
165Cod. Theod. 16.5.6,8,11,12,13,31,34,36,58,59,60,61,65 and

16.6.7 (all against the Eunomianae ["Well-Ordered (in Sexual
Behavior)"]); ibid. 16.5.7,9,11 (against the Encratitae ["(Sexually)
Continent"] and Apotactitae ["Renouncers (of Marriage)"]); all with
similar penalties to those above against the Manichaeans.
422
alternatives to procreative intercourse, may have been true.166 Others
made ad homiaem attacks.167 The point of these accusations was clear to
their opponents: the falsehood of their doctrines meant that even the
leaders of groups condemning sex had not the integrity to practise what
they preached. Augustine had himself witnessed, he wrote, groups of
carousing Manichees even among the electi ("chosen") - the living
Manichaean saints - harrassing women in the streets of Carthage.168
Their deviance from mainstream beliefs, moreover, was part and parcel of
their sexual irregularity. As John Cassian phrased it, heretical
beliefs were simply a form of spiritual fornication.169
Such accusations, whether true or not they were true - and it is
impossible to decide this - had an important rhetorical function. If
the Manichees and other groups opposing marriage could be presented as
clandestinely indulgent in sexual matters, rather than as representative
166August. De moribas ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus

Manichaeorurn 2.18.65: "Nonne uos estis qui nos soletis monere, ut
quantum fieri posset, obseruaremus tempus quo ad conceptum mulier post
genitalium uiscerum purgationem apta esset eoque tempore a concubitu
temperaremus, ne carni anima implicaretur? Ex quo illud sequitur, ut
non liberorum procreandorum causa, sed satiandae libidinis habere
coniugem censeatis. Nuptiae autem, ut ipsae nuptiales tabulae clamant,
liberorum procreandorum causa marem feminamque coniungunt; quisquis
peccatum, prohibet utique nuptias, et non iam uxorem sed meretricem
feminam facit, quae donatis sibi certis rebus uiro ad explendam eius
libidinem iungitur. Non autem matrimonium est ubi datur opera ne sit
mater; non igitur uxor."
167E.g., Tert. Adv. omnes haereses 6: "[Marcion] ...propter

stuprum cuiusdam uirgines ab ecclesiae communicatione abiectus."
168August. De moribas ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus

Manichaeorum 2.19.68, too lengthy to quote.
169John Cassian Conlationes 14.11: "Quodsi inmunditiam huius

quoque fornicationis effugerit, habebit quartam, quae haeretici dogmatis
adulterio perpetratur."
423
of the sexless ideal, then orthodox Christians could continue to see
themselves, despite permitting the indulgence of marriage, as the truly
continent, as the closest to Christian perfection, and as the manliest.
Charges of effeminate sexual indulgence could serve important
theological ends, separating not only the manly from the unmanly, but
the orthodox from the heretical.
6. A friendly and genuine union of one ruling and the other obeying:
Masculine Authority in Marriage and Family Life
The accusations of effeminacy against those who condemned marriage
describes the orthodox Christian position, but does not explain it. The
permissibility of marriage, however, had an important function in the
new Christian masculinity. This function was nothing less than the
preservation of the traditional authority of a man over his wife and
children, and with that authority the preservation of masculine
identity. Such traditions and such issues of masculine identity had
been brought into serious question by the groups advocating total
celibacy and sexual renunciation. Without marriage and family life, as
we will see, there was little point to patriarchal power, since a
woman's social roles were effectively eliminated. Upholding the moral
permissibility of marriage, even while relegating it to an inferior
status, aided in the important task of retaining the distinction between
men and women. The place of Christian marriage was to keep separate the
categories of masculinity and femininity.
424
Augustine, who was a key player in the whole debate on marriage,
was obliged as a result of his ideas to defend himself on a charge of
heresy. Julian of Eclanum accused him of an incomplete conversion from
his earlier theological errors and of a Manichaean-style belief in the
evil of sex and marriage.170 Augustine's response, a work entitled De
naptiis et concupiscentia ("On Marriage and Sexual Desire"), clarified
his position regarding the relationship between marriage, sexuality, and
sin, and is an important work on the place of Christian marriage. It is
also an important document for Christian masculinity.
According to Augustine, the positive value of marriage could be
found in what he called variously its three fructus ("fruits”) or or
bona ("goods"), but which he also called its three uincula ("chains").
First was the begetting of children, called fecunditas ("fecundity") or
proles ("offspring"). Second was the exclusive nature of the
relationship between husband and wife, called tides ("fidelity") or
pudicitia ("modesty"), which precluded sexual expression outside of the
relationship, including not only adultery but also divorce and
remarriage. Third was the idea that the relationship symbolized the
love between Christ and the church.171 If we examine each of the three
170On this debate: M. Lamberigts, "Julian of Aeclanum: a Plea for

a Good Creator," Augustiniana 38 (1988): 5-24.
171August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.10.11: "Quoniam sane non

tantum fecunditas, cuius fructus in prole est, nec tantum pudicitia,
cuius uinculum est fides, uerum etiam quoddam sacramentum nuptiarum
commendatur fidelibus coniugatis - unde dicit apostolus, 'uiri, diligite
uxores uestras, sicut et Christus dilexit ecclesiam' [Eph. 5.23] - huius
procul dubio sacramenti res est, ut mas et femina conubio copulati
quamdiu uiuunt inseparabiliter perseuerunt nec liceat excepta causa
fornicationis a coniuge coniugem dirimi." Cf. ibid. 1.11.13. There is
an extensive secondary literature on this topic: J. Doignon, "La
relation fides-sacramentum dans le De Bono Coniugali de Saint Augustin:
425
uincula in turn, we will see that they provide important clues to the
value of marriage from an orthodox Christian perspective. Each also
provides a plank in a platform of male authority and masculine identity
within marriage.
First, proles. All Christian writers agreed that the only
appropriate use of sex, even within marriage, was for the purpose of
procreation. Lactantius called marriage a "divine and admirable work of
God, foreseen and planned by His unfathomable design for the propagation
of the race," but complained that some men's "obscene lustfulness
[meant] that they no longer seek anything from this most holy
institution of sex other than empty and sterile pleasure.”172 What he
understood by this "sterile pleasure" was oral sex between married
couples, and he declaimed against men "who defile the most sacred part
of their bodies,"173 and against "those whose most loathsome passion and
execrable madness spares not even the head."174 Cyprian similarly
un schdma de gradatio hdritd de Tertullien,” Ephemerides theologicae

Lovanienses 59 (1983): 91-8; F. Gil Hellin, "Los Bona Matrimonii de san
Agustin," Revista agustiniana de espiritnalidad 23 (1982): 129-85;
Schmitt, Mariage chrdtien.
172Lactant. De opificio Dei 13.2: "Quod ad hanc rem attinet, gueri

satis est homines impios ac profanos summum nefas admittere, qui diuinum
et admirabile dei opus ad propagandam successionem inexcogitabili
ratione prouisum et effectum uel ad turpissimos quaestus uel ad obscenae
libidinis pudenda opera conuertunt, ut iam nihil aliud ex re sanctissima
petant quam inanem et sterilem uoluptatem."
173Lactant. Div. inst. 5.9: "...qui corpora sua libidinibus

prostituant, qui denique inmemores quid nati sint, cum feminis patientia
certent, qui sanctissimam quoque corporis sui partem contra fas omne
polluant et profanent, qui uirilia sua ferro metant..."
174Lactant. Div. inst. 6.23: "...de istis loquor quorum teterrima

libido et execrabilis furor ne capiti quidem parcit."
426
complained that some married couples engaged in that which "it is a
crime even to see”: the sin committed with the mouth.175
Nevertheless, the Catholic church fathers did not only discourage
"sterile" sexual acts within marriage, but also procreative ones. As
Augustine explained it in his response to Julian, all sexual desire
embodied the tragedy of the human predicament: ever since human beings
had rebelled against God, their flesh had ever after rebelled against
their will. The lack of control over one's body and its desires, and
the influence which the body's demands perversely exerted over the mind,
mirrored the brokenness of the human relationship with God. Marriage,
which was an attempt to bring some order back to this rebellion of the
body and to re-establish the domination of the will, was of benefit only
so as long as it kept to this purpose.176 Augustine therefore spoke out
against married couples who "make intemperate use of their [conjugal]
right," even wondering "whether this situation should be called a
marriage."177 The best marriages were probably the ones which involved
175Cyprian Ad Donatum 9: "0 si possis in ilia sublimi specula

constitutus oculos tuos inserere secretis, recludere cubiculorum
obductas fores et ad conscientiam luminum penetralia occulta reserare:
aspicias ab inpudicis geri quod nec possit aspicere frons pudica, uideas
quod crimen sit et uidere, uideas quod uitiorum furore dementes gessisse
se negant et gerere festinant. ...Nono mireris quae locuntur huiusmodi:
ore illo quicquid iam uoce delinquitur minus est." Cf. Ambrose
Enarratio Psalmi 37.33; August. De bono conjugali 11.12; idem, De civ.
D. 22.22.
176August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.5 (on how Adam and Eve

experienced no sexual desire before their rebellion against God); ibid.
1.6 (on how the rebellion of the flesh is evidence of this rebellion
against God); ibid. 1.7 (on how the goods of marriage cannot redeem
this); and ibid. 1.15 (on the requirement of procreation as
justification for marriage), cf. idem, De bono conjugali 3.3.
177August. De bono conjugali 5.5: "Solet etiam quaeri, cum

masculus et femina, nec ille maritus nec ilia uxor alterius, sibimet non
filiorum procreandorum, sed propter incontinentiam solius concubitus
427
little or no sex, because they were the most orderly in a physical sense
and the most caring in a rational sense.178
Questions of gender were not far from this discussion of the place
of sex within marriage. Above all, patristic writers seemed anxious to
defend the manliness of men who chose not to enjoy the sexual rights due
to them within marriage. Thus, as Ambrose wrote, childlessness was no
evidence of a lack of virility:
He recognize that it happens that both infirm men have

children, and strong men have none; slaves have them, but
not masters; the poor have them, but those who are powerful
do not. . . men should themselves understand instead that to
have children or not to have them has nothing to do with
potency [potentia] but with paternal property [paterna
proprietas], and that to procreate is not according to the
power [potestas] of our will but is [only] according to a
condition [gualitas] of the body.179
"My sowing [semen] is a hundred times more fertile," Jerome claimed in a
similar but particularly self-conscious comment on the parable of Jesus
causa copulantur ea fide media, ut nec ille cum altera nec ilia cum
altero id faciat, utrum nuptiae sint uocandae. et potest guidem
fortasse non absurde hoc appellari conubium, si usque ad mortem alicuius
eorum id inter eos placuerit et prolis generationem, quamuis non ea
causa coniuncti sint, non tamen uitauerint, ut uel nolint sibi nasci
filios uel etiam opere aliquo malo agant, ne nascantur." Cf. ibid. 6.5-
6.
178August. De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.11.12: "...immo firmius

erit, quo magis ea pacta secum inierunt, quae carius concordiusque
seruanda sunt, non uoluptariis corporum nexibus sed uoluntariis
affectibus animorum."
179Ambrose De fide 4.8.81-2: "Denique in ipso usu nostrae

infirmitatis frequentis evenire cognoscimus, ut et infirmi filios
habeant et non habeant fortiores, habeant servi et non habeant domini,
habeant inopes et non habeant qui potentes sunt. Sed si dicunt et hoc
infirmitatis esse, quia homines volunt filios habere nec possunt,
quamvis humana non sint conferenda divinis, intelligant tamen inter
ipsos quoque homines non potentiae esse, sed paternae proprietatis
habere filios vel non habere, nec in potestate nostrae voluntatis esse
generare, sed in corporis qualitate. Nam si esset potentiae, utique
potentior multos haberet. Ergo non est potentiae habere filios vel non
habere."
428
on the spread of the gospel, which he related to childlessness.180 It
is not difficult to understand how, in the religious environment in
which Augustine's views on marriage triumphed over those of Julian, the
married men could be considered manly especially if they rejected sexual
relations with their wives. Augustine called this kind of marriage
exempla perfectionis ("an example of perfection").181
A recent study on these non-sexual marital relationships - called
spiritual marriages - refers to them as "a protected, but uncomfortable,
middle ground between celibacy and marriage in Christian practice."182
Its author attributes the impetus for such marriages to "the
destabilization of [the husband's] authority and the construction of new
[family] roles," and to "the church['s] growing progressively less
sympathetic toward female efforts to act autonomously."183 The decline
of patria potestas and women's independence within the family were
180Hieron. Epist. 22.19: "Nubat et nubatur ille qui in sudore

faciei comedit panem suum, cui terra tribulos generat et spinas, cuius
herba sentibus suffocatur: meum semen centena fruge fecundum est."
181August. Epist. 31.6; "Hanc ergo Christi gloriam etiam oculis

nostrorum hominum cupimus admoveri, in uno conjugio proposita utrique
sexui calcandae superbiae, non desperandae perfectionis exempla." The
letter was addressed to Paulinus of Nola and his wife Therasia,
themselves participants in such a sexless marriage. Cf. his letter to
Pinianus and Melania the Younger: Epist. 124.1.
182Dyan Elliott, Spiritual Marriage: Sexual Abstinence in Medieval

Wedlock (Princeton: Princeton University, 1993), 50.
183Elliott, Spiritual Marriage, 55-6. The first factor is worth

quoting in full, although I have disagreements with its interpretation:
"The husband's relative foot-dragging bespoke his closer association
with social position and public life, which a change to chastity
undercut, while a woman's eagerness bespoke resistance to her physical
implication in a system where the dividends were, admittedly, low. But
the husband generally only complied with his wife's request after his
will had been broken by external forces, undoubtedly this kind of
'psychic emasculation' contributed to the destabilization of his
authority and the construction of new roles."
429
precisely the two greatest areas of male preoccupation within marriage
even before the Christian conversions.184 The usefulness of the
institution of the spiritual marriage can be seen, then, in its ability
to deal with the crisis in men's authority over women.
The reaffirmation of a husband's authority over his wife despite
their equality as Christians is always at the forefront of the patristic
texts on spiritual marriage. Pelagius, a fifth-century teacher in Rome,
wrote to a married woman named Celantia who wished to begin a spiritual
marriage, that "first of all, [your] husband should be given all
authority, and the entire household should learn from you how much honor
is owed to him." "Show by your obedience," he continued, "that he is
lord, [and] by your humility that he is great."185 Pelagius chided her
for attempting to force a spiritual marriage upon her husband:
it is a dangerous matter to promise what is in another's

power . . . Now I have heard and seen for myself that . . .
the practice of chastity, I am sorry to say, has simply led
to adultery. For while one party abstains even from what is
licit, the other party falls into what is illicit. In such
a case I do not know who deserves the greater censure, who
deserves the greater blame: the one who committed
fornication after his wife rejected him, or the wife who by
rejecting her husband presented him, in a certain way, with
the opportunity for fornication.186
184See the discussion above, chap. 3.
185Pelagius Ad aatronem Celantiam (ed. PL 22; trans. David Hunter,

Marriage in the Early Church [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992]) 26:
"Servetur in primis viro auctoritas sua, totaque a te discat domus,
quantum illi honoris debeat. Tu ilium dominum obsequio tuo, tu magnum
ilium tua humilitate demonstra, tanto ipsa honoratior, futura, quanto
ilium amplius honoraveris. 'Caput enim,' ut ait Apostolus, 'mulieris
est vir' [Eph. 5:23]...”
186Pelagius Ad aatronem Celantiam 28: "Tu vero quasi oblita

foederis nuptialis, pactique hujus ac juris immemor, inconsulto viro
vovisti Domino castitatem. Sed periculose promittitur quod adhuc in
alterius potestate est. Et nescio quam sit grata donatio, si unus
offerat rem duorum. Multa jam per hujusmodi ignorantiam et audivimus,
430
It is obvious that Pelagius was not concerned with Celantia's reasons
for wanting to renounce sex, nor with its possible effects on her
spiritual well-being or development. Instead, Pelagius' concern was
with her husband and his authority over her.
Augustine, despite his opposition to Pelagius on most matters,
agreed with him on this point. "[Your husband] should not have been
defrauded of the debt you owed him of your body," he wrote to a woman
named Ecdicia, "before his will joined yours in seeking the good which
surpasses conjugal chastity," managing in the same sentence both to
praise sexless marriage and to condemn Ecdicia's choice of it.187
Others might have a bit more nuanced notions of the imbalance of marital
rights, but all were in general agreement with Augustine that marriage
could be described as 'a kind of friendly and genuine union of the one
ruling and the other obeying."188
Second, fides. The fidelity expected of married persons became
for patristic writers another opportunity for reiterating masculine
authority. When Christian leaders condemned adultery as inimical to
et vidimus scissa conjugia, guodgue recordari piget, occasione

castitatis adulterium perpetratum. Nam dum una pars se etiam a licitis
abstinet: altera ad illicita delapsa est. Et nescio in tali causa, guis
magis accusari, guis amplius culpari debeat, utrum ille gui repulsus a
conjuge fornicatur, an ilia guae repellendo a se virum, eum fornicationi
guodammodo objicit."
187August. Epist. (ed. here CSEL 57) 262.2: "negue enim corporis
tui debito fraudandus fuit, priusguam ad illud bonum, guod superat
pudicitiam coniugalem, tuae uoluntati uoluntas guogue ejus accederet..."
Cf. idem, De bono conjugali 6.6.
188August. De bono conjugali 1.1: "poterat enim esse in utrogue

sexu etiam sine tali commixtione alterius regentis, alterius obseguentis
amicalis guaedam et germana coniunctio." Cf. August. De civ. D. 19.14.
See below, appendix to chap. 7, "Spiritual Marriage and Eguality between
Husband and Wife."
431
their view of marriage, they frequently made reference to its breach of
the fides of marriage.189 Similarly, Christian condemnations of
divorce indicated that marital fidelity was a life-long proposition.190
The problem of marital fidelity is most clearly seen, however, in
patristic discussions of remarriage. Remarriage was closely bound up
with the indissolubility of marriage, since remarriage was often felt to
be the impetus for and consequence of divorce, and since it was often
presented as being a form of adultery. Remarriage symbolized the
falling away from the ideal of marital fidelity.
The contrast of manliness and unmanliness was an important element
of the Christian condemnation of remarriage. Single marriage was a sign
of personal integrity, Tertullian claimed in De monogamia ("On Single
Marriage”), and after the example of Christ, who was monogamous in
spirit with the church, although physically a virgin.191 Remarriage, in
189See discussion above.
190See discussion by Reynolds (Marriage in the Western Church,

126-31), who gives as two examples: Ambrose (Expositio evangelii Lucae
8.5: "dimittis ergo uxorem quasi iure sine crimine et putas id tibi
licere, quia lex humana non prohibet. sed diuina prohibet; qui
hominibus obsequeris, deum uerere. audi legem domini, cui obsequuntur
etiam qui leges ferunt: 'quae deus coniunxit homo non separet' [Matt.
19.6]."); and August. (De nuptiis et concupiscentia 1.10.11: "...unde
dicit apostolus: 'uiri, diligite uxores uestras, sicut et Christus
dilexit ecclesiam' - huius procul dubio sacramenti res est, ut mas et
femina conubio copulati quamdiu uiuunt inseparabiliter perseuerent nec
liceat excepta causa fornicationis a coniuge coniugem dirimi.”).
Theologians generally argued for the equality of men's and women's
positions in divorce, although according to secular law there were
significant differences between men’s and women’s rights of divorce; see
above, chap. 3.
191Tert. De monogamia 5: *...perfectior Adam, id est Christus, eo

quoque nomine perfectior qua integrior, uolenti quidem tibi spado
occurrit in came, si uero non sufficis, monogamus occurrit in spiritu,
unam habens ecclesiam sponsam, secundum Adam et Euae figuram..."
432
contrast, was the result of carnality and sexual incontinence, and a
confession of weakness.192 Later orthodox writers, while willing to
accept the possibility of a second or subsequent marriages, discounted
them as progressively inferior to the ideal of marital fidelity.193 In
a letter to a widow considering remarriage, Jerome counseled her not to
remarry "and return like a dog to its vomit."194 Instead, he challenged
her:
"Why plead your patrimony as an excuse [for remarriage], or

the insolence of your slaves [managed by a woman alone]?
Confess your shame [turpitudo]. Mo woman takes a husband in
order not to sleep with him. And if it is not your sexual
urge are not inciting you [to marry], what a great insanity
it is to prostitute your chastity in the manner of a whore
in order to increase your wealth, and for the sake of a
thing vile and perishable, to let your sexual integrity
[pudicitia], which is precious and eternal, be polluted?195
192Tert. De monogamia 1: "Haeretici nuptias auferunt, psychici

ingerunt. Illi nec semel, isti non semel nubunt. Quid agis, lex
creatoris? Inter alienos spadones et aurigas tuos tantumdem quereris de
domestico obsequio quantum de fastidio extraneo. Proinde et te laedunt
qui abutuntur quemadmodum qui non utuntur. Verum neque continentia
eiusmodi laudanda, quia haeretica est, neque licentia defendenda quia
psychica est. Ilia blasphemat, iste luxuriat; ilia destruit nuptiarum
Deum, ista confundit."
193Hieron. Adv. Iovinian. 1.4: "...quamet nuptiis, sic eas

licitas asserens, ut secunda et tertia matrimonia. Sed et digamis et
trigamis adversarius est, ibi ponens scortatores quondam et
libidinosissimos post poenitentiam, ubi duplicata et triplicata
matrimonia; nisi quod in eo digami et trigami dolere non debent, quia
idem scortator et poenitens in regno coelorum etiam virginibus
adaequatur." Cf. August. De bono uiduitatis 4.6.
194Hieron. Epist. 54.4: "Quid angustiarum habeant nuptiae

didicisti in ipsis nuptiis, et quasi coturnicum carnibus usque ad
nausiam saturata es. Amarissimam choleram tuae sensere fauces,
egessisti acescentes et morbidos cibos, releuasti aestuantem stomachum:
quid uis rursus ingerere, quod tibi noxium fuit? 'canis reuertens ad
uomitum et sus ad uolutabrum luti.' Bruta quoque animalia et uagae aues
in easdem pedicas retiaque non incidunt."
19sHieron. Epist. 54.15: "Quid obtendis patrimonium, quid

superbiam seruulorum? confitere turpitudinem. Nulla idcirco ducit
maritum ut cum marito non dormiat. Aut si certe libido non stimulat,
quae tanta insania est in morem scortorum prostituere castitatem ut
433
In Jerome's opinion, remarriage showed the woman at her most vicious.
Patristic authors emphasized the contrast between the honor of
widowhood and the dishonor of remarriage, and the underlying contrast
between the strength of sexual continence and a concession to sexual
weakness. Ambrose196 and Augustine197 both used these parallels of honor
and dishonor, extolling the pudicitia of widowhood and the impudicitia
of remarriage. Ambrose even claimed that widows could "surpass[] the
usual nature of the weakness of the[ir] sex by the devotion of the mind
[to their deceased husband],” using the biblical examples of manly women
such as Judith and Deborah in evidence.198 For the most part, however,
Christian writers used the symbolic equation of remarriage with
inferiority to reinforce traditional sexual and marital roles. The
discussion of remarriage was usually directed at women - who were much
likelier to outlive their husbands than their husbands to outlive them -
and presented an opportunity for men to speak directly to women in
traditional language about men's and women's roles within marriage.199
augeantur diuitiae, et propter rem uilem atque perituram, pudicitia quae

et pretiosa et aeterna est polluatur?"
196Ambrose De uiduis 1.1: "Et propemodum non inferioris uirtutis

est eo abstinere coniugio, quod aliquando delectauerit, quam coniugii
oblectamenta nescire. in utroque fortes, ut eas et coniugii non
poeniteat, cui fidem seruent, et coniugalia oblectamenta non alligent,
ne uideantur infirmae, quae sibi adesse non possint.”
197August. De bono uiduitatis 4.6: "non damnari secundas nuptias,

sed inferior honorari.” Cf. idem, De bono conjugali 24.32.
198Ambrose De uiduis 7.37: "Sed nec fortitudo bonae uiduae deesse

consueuit. Haec enim uera est fortitudo, quae naturae usum, sexus
infirmitatem mentis deuotione transgreditur, qualis in ilia fuit, cui
nomen ludith... et praecipue Debboram, cuius nobis prodidit scriptura
uirtutem.” Cf. ibid. 8.44,51.
199See above, chap. 3, on the average respective ages of men and

women in marriage.
434
In particular, patristic writers revived the ancient tradition of
a women's life-long reverence for her husband: the Roman custom of the
uniuira ("one-man woman"). The legal restrictions on unmarried persons
in the early empire had deprived this tradition of much meaning, but the
repeal of these restrictions allowed a renewal of this moral ideal for
women. Of course, the image of the uniuira existed as a feminine ideal
only in the sense that a devoted widow provided a witness for the virtue
of her late husband. Late ancient writers demonstrate how the value of
the uniuira was a reflected one. Ambrose wrote: "she has not lost her
man, who demonstrates chastity [after his death]; nor is a she widowed
of her companion, who does not change the name of her husband [through
remarriage]."200 When discussions of remarriage were directed at men,
against their taking of a second wife, this reflected value is ignored.
The third-century writer Hinucius Felix argued that a man who married
only once demonstrated the control of his mind over his desires; the
question of the honor due his spouse is absent.201
Christian criticism of remarriage also often returned to the issue
of masculine authority. Rather than questioning the place of domination
in a marriage of Christian equals, patristic writers used a husband's
authority to discourage women from remarrying. Tertullian, who was
married, devoted a treatise to persuading his wife not to remarry after
200Ambrose De excessu fratris Satyri 2.13: "Non amisit virum, quae

exhibent castitatem: non est viduata conjugio, quae non mutavit nomen
mariti." Note: PL has "amasit" for "amisit."
201Minucius Felix Octavius (ed. PL 3) 31.5: "At nos [Christiani]

pudorem non facie sed mente praestamus. Unius matrimonii vinculo
libenter inhaeremus, cupiditate procreandi aut unam scimus, aut nullam."
435
his death. He attempted to place doubts in her mind about the
desirability of such a prospect, saying that if she entered a future
marriage, she would be forced to submit to her husband's authority.
Especially if he were a pagan, she would be unable to participate in
those charitable actions which would assure her salvation:
Who would allow his wife to run around the streets to the
houses of strangers and even to the poorest hovels in order
to visit the faithful? Who would willingly let his wife be
taken from his side for nightly meetings, if it be
necessary? Who, then, would tolerate without some anxiety
her spending the entire night at the paschal solemnities?
Who would have no suspicions about letting her attend the
Lord's Supper, when it has such a bad reputation? Who would
endure her creeping into prison to kiss the chains of the
martyrs? Or even to greet any of the brothers with a kiss?
Or to wash the feet of the saints? To desire this? Even to
think about it?202
Thehusband's right to do this was unquestioned. Jerome, in a similar
vein, assured the widow Furia that her second husband would be a tyrant
and enemy to the children of her first marriage.203
A noteworthy source in this debate over remarriage is a letter
written by Jerome about the widow Fabiola. She was a political ally of
his, and when she was attacked for having married twice, he decided to
defend her. First, he downplayed the spiritual value of her first
marriage: "It should be said that her first husband had so many vices
202Tert. Ad uxorem 2.4: "Quis autem sinat coniugem suam

uisitandorum fratrum gratia uicatim aliena et quidem pauperiora quaeque
tuguria circuire? Quis nocturnis conuocationibus, si ita oportuerit, a
latere suo adimi libenter feret? Quis denique sollemnibus Paschae
abnoctantem securus sustinebit? Quis ad conuiuium dominicum illud, quod
infamant, sine sua suspicione dimittet? Quis in carcerem ad osculanda
uincula martyris reptare patietur? Iam uero alicui fratrum ad osculum
conuenire, aquam sanctorum pedibus offere, de cibo, de poculo inuadere
desiderare, in mente habere?
203Hieron. Epist. 54.15: "Superducit mater filiis non uitricum,

sed hostem, non parentem, sed tyrannum."
436
that not even a whore or vile slave could put up with them."204 Then,
he excused her responsibility for the remarriage, and even represented
it as the most sensible choice:
She was an adolescent, and could not be loyal to her

widowhood. She saw that the law of her members was refusing
the law of her mind, and that she was pulled chained and
captive toward sex. She judged it better to confess openly
her frailty, and to undergo the rather wretched cloud of
[second] marriage, than under the glory of being a one-man
woman [uniuira], to act like a whore.205
He contrasted her with other women:
Who would believe it, in a time accustomed to neglegent

widows, who when they have shaken off the yoke of [marital]
servitude, comport themselves freely, go to the baths,
wander around the streets, wearing the faces of whores?205
Finally, and most importantly, he showed that she had repented of her
error and submitted herself to clerical authority:
After the death of her second husband she changed herself:

she wore sackcloth, she acknowledged publicly her error, and
with the whole of Rome watching, at the Easter vigil in the
former Lateran Palace . . . she stood among the ranks of the
penitents, and with the bishop, priests, and the whole
people crying with her, and with her hair disheveled, her
face pale, and her hands and neck filthy, she submitted.207
204Hieron. Epist. 77.3: "Tanta prior maritus uitia habuisse

narratur, ut ne scortum quidem et uile mancipium ea sustinere posset."
205Hieron. Epist. 77.3: "Adulescentula erat, uiduitatem suam

seruare non poterat. videbat aliam legem in membris suis repugnantem
legi mentis suae, et se uinctam atque captiuam ad coitum trahi. Melius
arbitrata est aperte confiteri inbecillitatem suam, et umbram quandam
miserabilis subire coniugii, quam sub gloria uniuirae exercere
meretricium."
206Hieron. Epist. 77.4: "Quis hoc crederet... quo tempore solent

uiduae neglegentes, iugo seruitutis excusso, agere se liberius, adire
balneas, uolitare per plateas, uultus circumferre meretricios..."
207Hieron. Epist. 77.4: "...ut post mortem secundi uiri in semet

reuersa, ...saccum indueret, errorem publice fateretur; et tota urbe
spectante Romana, ante diem Paschae in Basilica quondam Laterani...
staret in ordine paenitentum, episcopo, presbyteris, et omni populo
conlacrimanti, sparsum crinem, ora lurida, squalidas manus, sordida
colla submitteret?"
R eproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
437
The power which the clerical hierarchy exercised over Fabiola was as
absolute as any exercised by a Roman husband. Jerome's response to
Fabiola's remarriage demonstrates how one type of masculine authority
might easily supplant another, and how moral exhortations might undo the
legal independence of widowed women in the later empire. In such cases,
male authority was rescued by a redirection of male privilege.
Third, sacramentua. Exegesis on the mystical union between Christ
and the Christian church became, in the hands of the patristic writers,
another opportunity for conservative comments about women's relation to
men. For example, while depictions of the church as bride of Christ
might make important theological points, they also often reinforced
traditional ideals of women. Cyprian wrote that "[t]he spouse of Christ
cannot be defiled, she is inviolate and chaste; she knows one home
alone, in all modesty she keeps faithfully to one chamber."208 Ambrose
wrote that Christ "is able to certify the virginity of the Church in the
purity of [the Christian] people."209 In a like way, each consecrated
female virgin was a bride of Christ, in the popular conceit of the day,
20eCyprian De ecclesiae catholicae unitate 6s "Adulterari non

potest sponsa Christi, incorrupta est et pudicat unam domum novit, unius
cubiculi sanctitatem casto pudore custodit."
209Ambrose Epist. 63.37: "Nec potest dubitare quisquam quod

ecclesia virgo sit, quam etiam in Corinthiis despondit apostolus Paulus
'virginem castam assignare Christo.' in superiore igitur epistula dat
consilium et existimat bonum esse munus virginitatis, ut nullis
instantis saeculi turbetur necessitatibus, nulla illuvie coinquinetur,
nullis exagitetur procellis; in posteriore sponsor est Christo, quod
virginitatem ecclesiae in illius plebis consignare possit integritate."
438
and her purity and fidelity was due to him the way it would be to any
husband.210
Commentary on the mystical marriage of Christ and the church was
definitely used to justify the authority of the Christian husband. A
wife "should with a humble mind regard Christ in her spouse," Paulinus
of Nola wrote, "so that, woven in like a joint, she might grow into his
holy body, and so that her husband might be her head, whose head is
Christ."211 Pelagius suggested that a Christian woman should honor her
Christian husband even more than she would a pagan one precisely because
he represented Christ to her.212 Representing a Christian husband as
Christ multiplied his authority over her beyond the capacity for
description, although it tempered that authority with affection.
Ambrose wrote:
Let a wife show deference, not be a slave to her husband;

let her show herself ready to be ruled not coerced. She is
not worthy of wedlock who deserves chiding. Let a husband
also guide his wife like a steersman, honour her as the
210For numerous examples, see Dumm, Theological Basis of

Virginity, 74-9. E.g., Hieron. Epist. 22.25: "zelotypus est Iesus, non
uult ab aliis uideri faciem tuam. Excuses licet atgue causeris:
'...nisi te cognoueris et omni custodia seruaueris cor tuum, nisi oculos
iuuenum fugeris, egrederis de thalamo meo, et pasces haedos gui staturi
sunt a sinistris.'”
211Paulinus of Nola Carmina (my translation here) 25 11. 145-7:

"...ingue uicem mulier, sancto sit ut aegua marito, / mente humili
Christum in coniuge suscipiat, / crescat ut in sanctum texta conpagine
corpus, / ut sit ei uertex uir, cui Christus apex.” Paulinus is guoting
here in part from the Eph. 5.21-3. Cf. Ambrose De uiduis 13.81;
Ambrosiaster Ad Corinthios prima 7.11.
212Pelagius Ad matronem Celantiam 26: "'Caput enim,' ut ait

Apostolus, 'mulieris est vir [Eph. 5.23]': nec aliunde magis religuum
corpus ornatur, guam ex capitis dignitate. Unde idem alibi dicit:
'Mulieres subditae estote viris, sicut oportet sint viris, ut et si gui
non credunt verbo, per mulierem conversationem, sine verbo lucrifiant [1
Pet. 31].' Si ergo etiam gentilibus maritis debetur honor jure
conjugii, guanto magis reddendus est Christianis."
439
partner of his life, share with her as a joint heir of

grace.213
The example of the patriarchs of the Old Testament also provided a
model of traditional marital life: men should choose their wives and not
the reverse, as Isaac chose Rebecca;214 he should chose her on the basis
of her morals, not her appearance, as Abraham chose Sarah.215 Hen
should also guard their wives closely, especially against the sight of
other men who might tempt them to sin; had Potiphar been more careful of
his wife around the handsome patriarch, Joseph, he might have prevented
her unseemly attempt to seduce him.216
The enumeration of the purposes of marriage - proles, fides, and
sacramentum - each provided different opportunities for patristic
reinterpretations of men's role in marriage, and a renewed emphasis on
213Ambrose Epist. 63.107: "Mulier viro deferat, non serviat,

regendam se praebeat, non coercendam. indigna est coniugio quae digna
est iurgio. Vir quoque uxorem tamquam gubernator dirigat, tamquam
consortem vitae honoret, participet ut coheredem gratiae." Cf. August.
De moribus ecclesiae catholicae 1.30.63.
214Ambrose De Abraham 1.9.91 and 93: "Expetita magis debet videri

a viro, quam ipsa virum expetisse. ...cum veniret Rebecca, vidit Isaac
deambulantem; et cum interogasset quis esset, cognito quod ipse esset
cui duceretur uxor, descendit, et caput suum obnubere coepit, docens
verecundiam nuptiis praeire debere: inde enim et nuptiae, dictae, quod
pudoris gratia puellae se obnuberent." Cf. August. Contra Faustum
Manichaeum 22.46.
215Ambrose De Abraham 1.2.6: "Non enim tarn pulchritudo mulieris,

quam virtus ejus et gravitas delectat virum. Qui suavitatem quaerit
conjugii, non superiorem censu ambiat, quam necessitates non teneant
maritales: si non monilibus ornatam, sed moribus."
216Ambrose De Joseph patriarchs (ed. CSEL 32) 5.22: "iam si qua

petulantibus aspexit oculis, crimen est solius quae male uidit, non
huius qui male nollet uideri, nec in eo quod uisus est culpa est. non
erat in potestate seruuli ut non uideretur: maritus debuit cauere uxoris
oculos. si ille nihil timebat de coniuge, arbitrabatur iste testimonium
esse castimoniae, non remissionem incuriae. discant tamen etiam uiri
cauere oculos feminarum..."
440
the authority of the husband. This conservatism existed even within a
general framework of the discouragement of marriage. It should not be
concluded that the bolstering of men's authority was the sole intent or
result of discussions of marital relations; rather, the inclusion of
issues of masculinity within theological reflections on marriage and
family life demonstrate only how pervasive such gendered concerns were.
Behind the concern for men's authority in Christian writings
defending marriage lay the crisis of masculinity. It is the key to
understanding why orthodox Christians were so anxious to defend marriage
and men's authority within it. Here, the crisis in men's identity can
be best approached from the perspective of women's identity, which was
more tightly bound with their social roles as family members. These
roles were taken very much for granted. Jerome said that it was a young
woman's officiua ("duty") to become a mother.217 Ambrose, commenting on
the Genesis myth, wrote that ”[i]t was therefore as a helper that woman
was given to man, so that she might give birth,"218 and ”[m]en have
their duties, and women have their separate offices; the generation of
human succession belongs to a woman [because] it is impossible to a
man.''219
217Hieron. Homiliae 77, too lengthy to quote.
218Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 1.28.134: "Ad adiumentum ergo

mulier data est uiro quae generaret, ut homo homini adiumento foret."
Cf. Augustine's similar comments above.
219Ambrose De Cain et Abel (ed. PL 14) 1.10.46: "Habent sua munia

viri, habent mulieres sexus sui officia discreta. Generatio ista
successionis humanae mulierem decet, impossibilis eadem viro."
441
The perpetuation of men's and women's separate identities relied
on the perpetuation of at least some parts of traditional family life.
In Christian communities which had abandoned sex altogether, the
distinctions between men's and women's social roles were mostly lost,
and men and women shared identical ascetic roles and identical Christian
identities. In essence, there were no more women. Even Jerome made the
claim that uirgo ("virgin") was derived from uir ("man").220
A complete rupture with marital and familial traditions would have
required a much more radical reformulation of men's identity than was
acceptable to most western Christian writers. Patristic writers were
concerned that Christians not abandon completely male and female
identities, and this meant not abandoning men's and women's social
roles. Even if Christian exegetes of the later Roman empire argued
sexual renunciation made human persons the equivalent of the angels, or
even superior to the angels,221 it was clear that individuals ought to
imitate the uita angelica only to the extent that they abandoned sexual
activity, and not sexual identity. Jerome commented:
just as among angels there is neither male nor female, so

let us also, who shall be as angels, begin to be right now
on earth what has been promised shall be in heaven. . . When
I say: 'Let us begin to be [angels] here on earth,' I am not
doing away with the nature of the sexes; but I am doing away
with lust and copulation between husband and wife.222
220Hieron. Epist. 49.2: "Virgo a uiro..." See above, chap. 5.
221Novatian De bono pndicitiae 7.2: "Virginitas aequat se angelis;

si uero exquiramus, etiam excedit, dum in carne luctata uictoriam etiam
contra naturam refert quam non habent angeli."
222Hieron. Apologia contra Rufinum (ed. CCSL 79; trans. J. Hritzu,

FC 53) 1.29: "Sed, dices, mouent me quae sequuntur: 'Foueamus igitur et
uiri uxores, et animae nostra corpora, ut et uxores in uiros, et corpora
redigantur in animas, et nequaquam sit sexuum ulla diuersitas; sed,
442
In other words, men must still be men, and women be women. Furthermore,
the misogyny which dismissed women as inferior to men - and thus
different from them - had to continue even in Christian marriage.
Augustine wrote:
in the same woman a good Christian [man] loves the being

that God has created, and . . . wishes her to be transformed
and renewed, while he hates the corruptible and mortal
relationship and marital intercourse . . . He loves her
insofar as she is a human being, but . . . hates her under
the aspect of wifehood.223
If Christian leaders suggested possible benefits to marriage, even
while they preferred its renunciation, these benefits were appreciated
in the context of and influenced by the contemporary crisis of
masculinity. Christian men enjoyed the best of both worlds in an era in
which social changes had brought men's marital relations into question.
They might renounce marriage altogether as part of a heroic self-
sacrifice of sexual desire, still participating in the male control of
women by means of moral authority and ecclesiastical sanction. Even if
quomodo apud angelis futuri sumus, iam nunc incipiamus esse quod nobis
in caelestibus repromissum est.' Recte mouerent, nisi post priora
dixissem: 'Iam nunc incipiamus esse quod nobis in caelestibus
repromissum est.' Quando dico: Hie esse incipiamus in terris, non
naturam tollo sexuum, sed libidinem et coitum uiri et uxoris aufero..."
223August. De sermone Domini in monte (ed. CCSL 35; trans. M.

Kavanagh, FC 11) 1.15.41: "Itaque si aliquem bene christianum, qui tamen
habet uxorem, quamuis cum ea filios generet, interrogem, utrum in illo
regno habere uelit uxorem; memor utique promissorum dei et uitae illius,
ubi corruptibile hoc induet incorruptionem, et mortale hoc induet
immortalitatem [1 Cor. 15.53-4], iam magno uel certe aliquo amore
suspensus cum execratione respondebit se uehementer id nolle. Rursus si
interrogem, utrum uxorem suam post resurrectionem accepta angelica
immutatione, quae sanctis promittitur, secum ibi uiuere uelit; tarn
uehementer se id uelle quam illud nolle respondebit. Sic inuenitur
bonus christianus diligere in una femina creaturam dei, quam reformari
et renouari desiderat, odisse autem coniunctionem copulationemque
corruptibilem atque mortalem, hoc est diligere in ea quod homo est,
odisse quod uxor est."
443
they did marry, however, they might find support for their authority in
the Christian concerns about sex and fidelity within marriage and in the
metaphor of husband as Christ. Christian pronouncements about marriage
thus provided a crucial component of the later Roman transformation of
masculinity.
444
Appendix to Chapter Seven:
Spiritual Marriage and Equality between Husband and wife
In her study of spiritual marriage, Dyan Elliott contrasts the
views of Augustine, who "clearly reiterates the moral... [that] release
from the conjugal debt [of sexual relations] in no way impairs the
husband's authority over the wife,"224 with the views of others of his
day, who saw it as transforming the marital bond from male domination
and female submission into an equality between Christian siblings.
Paulinus of Nola, she argues by way of example - who was himself a
partner in a sexless marriage - felt that "the chaste spouse who has
achieved the status of sister is no longer subject to her husband."225
Jerome, she notes, also believed that the renunciation of marital sex
224Elliott, Spiritual Marriage, 58. Elliott cites as evidence

from August. Seroones 51.13.21: "Nonne sunt conjuges qui sic vivunt, non
quaerentes ab invicem fructum carnis, non exigentes ab invicem debitum
concupiscentiae corporalis? Et tamen ilia subjecta est viro, quia sic
decet; et tanto subjectior, quanto castior...” Nonetheless, this may be
an oversimplified view of Augustine's opinion. Cf. his letter addressed
to Paulinus of Nola: August. Epist. (ed. here CSEL 34) 27.2: "uidetur a
legentibus ibi coniunx non dux ad mollitiem uiro suo, sed ad
fortitudinem redux in ossa uiri sui, quam in tuam unitatem redactam et
redditam ete spiritalibus tibi tanto firmioribus, quanto castioribus...”
225Paulinus of Nola Carnina (ed. CSEL 30; Elliott's translation)

11. 167-9: "grande sacramentum, quo nubit eclesia Christo / et simul est
domini sponsa sororque sui. / sponsa quasi coniunx, soror est, quia
subdita non est." See Elliott, Spiritual Marriage, 53 n. 12.
445
turned "a wife into a sister, a woman into a man, a subject into an
equal."226
Even these authors, however, advocated strongly for the
continuation of male authority in marriage. This can be demonstrated if
one views the passages which she quotes in their context. Paulinus made
his remarks in an epithalamium ("marriage hymn") which he had composed
for the wedding of Julian of Eclanum: the same bishop who condemned
Augustine's notion of original sin. Other comments which Paulinus made
in the hymn are more ambiguous about the relative position of husband
and wife. He wrote that a wife "should with a humble mind regard Christ
in her spouse, so that, woven in like a joint, she might grow into his
holy body, and so that her husband might be her head, whose head is
Christ."227
The same ambiguity can be seen in Paulinus' other writings on
spiritual marriage. He honored Melania the Younger and her husband
Pinian - one of the most famous couples in a sexless marriage in his day
- with a poem. Nonetheless, it was Pinian who was given a heroic
stature as "victor of his own body.”228 In various letters Paulinus
226Hieron. Epist. (Elliott's translation here) 71.4s "Habes tecum

prius in carne, nunc in Spiritu sociam, de coniuge germanam, de femina
uirum, de subiecta parem, quae sub eodem iugo ad caelestia simul regna
festinet." See Elliott, Spiritual Marriages, 53 n. 12.
227Paulinus of Nola Carmina 25 11. 145-8: "...inque uicem mulier,

sancto sit ut aequa marito, / mente humili Christum in coniuge
suscipiat, / crescat ut in sanctum texta conpagine corpus, / ut sit ei
uertex uir, cui Christus apex.”
228Paulinus of Nola Carmina 21 11. 247-50: "...corporis victor

sui, / pulsoque regno diaboli e membris suis / iam spiritali pace
peccati iugum / fidelis animae casta libertas terit...”
446
praised Melania, granted, but in entirely masculine terms: "What a woman
she is, if one can call so virile a Christian a woman!"229
Paulinus also wrote several letters to another spiritual couple,
Severus and Bassula. In one letter, he called them "both animated by a
single vocation, and the faith which brings you together 'into a perfect
man' empties you [both] of your sex."230 when discussing the question
of the veiling of virgins in church, Paulinus said to Severus:
So hair is unbecoming to a man, but a glory to a woman. For

she is no one's head, but the embellishment of her husband
by the adornment of her virtue. We might say that she is
placed at the base to support that body's chain which is
linked to God by the head of Christ, to Christ by the head
of man, and to man by the head of woman. But Christ makes
woman also belong to the head at the top by making her part
of the body and of the structure of the limbs, for "in
Christ we are neither male nor female."231
While a virgin "leaves behind the boundaries of her womanly weakness,
and aspires to human perfection," she still must cover her head.232
In yet another letter to a couple in a sexless marriage, Paulinus
argued that a good wife "does not lead her husband to effeminacy and
229Paulinus of Nola Epist. (ed. CSEL 29; trans. P. Walsh, ACW 36)
29.6: "at quam tandem feminam, si feminam dici licet, tarn uiriliter
Christianaml" Cf. ibid. 45.2: "...sicut proprior uel aequalior animae
eius spiritus altius intellexisti et perfectae in Christo feminae salua
uirilis animi fortitudine...”
230Paulinus of Nola Epist. 31.1: "quia in utroque uestrum una

ratio manet et sexum euacuat fides, qua in uirum perfectum ambo
concurritis."
231Paulinus of Nola Epist. 23.24: "itaque uiro dedecens, feminae

decus est, quae nemini caput est, sed honestatis cultu ornat uirum et
corporis seriem, quae a capite Christi deo et uiri Christo et mulieris
uiro texitur, quasi in fundamentum locata sustentat. sed earn quoque per
consortium corporis membrorumque texturam participem et summi capitis
facit Christus, in quo 'nec masculus nec femina' sumus."
232Paulinus of Nola Epist. 23.25: "...et ideo tunc magis excitat

temptatoris inuidiam, cum in uirum perfectum spirans exit terminos
infirmitatis suae."
447
greed, but brings [him] back to self-discipline and courage." Still, he
was making obvious use of the traditional language of masculinity, and
the husband was the focus of the comment. Indeed, such a wife "is
worthy of admiration because of her great emulation of God's marriage
within the Church," Paulinus maintained, and if she participated in
manly duritia, becoming like "the bones of her husband,” she was still
subsumed into his body.233
The views of Jerome on the inferiority of women are too well known
to need repeating. It is noteworthy, however, that Jerome's statement
about the equality of husband and wife which Elliott quotes was
addressed to a man - Lucinus of Baetica in southern Spain - in the
context of the praise of his choice of a spiritual marriage.
Immediately following the passage quoted above, Jerome compared Lucinus
to the patriarch Joseph in the household of Potiphar, as having
successfully slipped away from an infamous embrace of a lustul woman.234
Elliott concludes that the late ancient discussion of spiritual
marriage was as much about the respective roles of man and woman in the
marital state as it was about sex, and this is certainly true.
Christian marriages, even when they did not include the weakness of
233Paulinus of Nola Epist. 44.3: "illic et coniunx, non dux ad

mollitudinem uel auaritiam uiro suo, sed ad continentiam et fortitudinem
redux in ossa uiri sui, magna ilia diuini cum ecclesia coniugii
aemulatione mirabilis est, quam in tuam unitatem reductam ac redditam
spiritalibus tibi tanto firmioribus quanto castioribus nexibus caritas
Christi copulat, in cuius corpus transitus a uestro."
234Hieron. Epist. 71.3: "Ioseph cum tunica Aegyptiam effugere non

potuit. ...Loquitur sapientissimus uir: 'qui tangit picem, inquinabitur
ab ea.' Quamdiu uersamur in rebus saeculi, et anima nostra possessionum
ac reditum procuratione deuincta est, de Deo libere cogitare non
possumus."
448
sexual activity, demonstrated the masculine authority which was so much
in question in the later empire. This opinion overrode all others.
Chapter Eight:
Altars raised to a eunuch god:
Castration and Religious Anxiety
The eunuch - as a feminized male - was a powerful reminder of the
anxieties facing the later Roman man.1 The eunuch also symbolized the
religious transformation of the empire. Christian writers denounced the
castration of men as typical of all that was wrong with pagan culture.
At the same time, the authority of Jesus' saying that Christians should
"castrate themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,” required a
radical reinterpretation of the eunuch. Latin writers condemned early
Christian experiments with physical castration, but encouraged a tamed
notion of castration by representing the monk as a manly eunuch. The
eunuch did not only serve as a symbol of the crisis of masculinity, as a
result, but also a symbol of its transformation.2
2There was apparently no female equivalent to castration practised

in late antiquity, either by pagans or Christians, but on the
relationship between the preservation of virginity and physical
mutilation in women, see Jane Tibbetts Schulenberg, "The Heroics of
Virginity: Brides of Christ and Sacrificial Mutilation,” in Women in the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. M. Rose (Syracuse, Hew York:
Syracuse University Press, 1986). Generally on physicality and
religious symbolism in early Christianity, see John Gager, "Body Symbols
and Social Reality: Resurrection, Incarnation and Asceticism in Early
Christianity," Religion 12 (1982): 345-63.
450
1. What sort of monstrous and unnatural thing is all this?:
The Christian Response to Pagan Castration
Christian writers were strongly opposed to the common use of
eunuchs in later Roman culture. Jerome ridiculed the overly refined
Christian women of his day "who could not bear the unevenness of the
streets" and so were carried in litters by eunuchs.3 One even brought
her eunuchs with her into St. Peter's basilica, he noted with disgust.4
Christian writers also shared the same stereotypes about the characters
of eunuchs that other Romans did. When a eunuch official of the emperor
Valentinian II threatened Ambrose's life - during the dispute over
control of a basilica - Ambrose replied: "then I shall suffer as bishops
do, you will act as do eunuchs."5
if a Christian woman rejected an association with eunuchs, the
church fathers counted this as a sign of her holiness. Jerome praised
his friend, Paula, exactly for this, and mentioned it in letters to
3Hieron. Epist. 66.13: "...sed tamen audio: quae inmunditias

platearum ferre non poterant, quae eunuchorum manibus portabantur et
inaequale solum molestius transcendebant..."
4Hieron. Epist. 22.32: "Vidi nuper - nomina taceo, ne saturam

putes - nobilissimam mulierum Romanarum in basilica beati Petri
semiuiris antecedentibus, propria manu, quo religiosor putaretur,
singulos nummos dispertire pauperibus."
sAmbrose Epist. 20.28: "Denique etiam speciale expressione

Calligonus praepositus cubiculi mandare mihi ausus est: 'He vivo tu
contemnis Valentinianum? Caput tibi tollo.' Respondi: 'Deus permittat
tibi ut impleas quod minaris, ego enim patiar quod episcopi, tu facies
quod spadonis.'”
451
other female acquaintances, doubtless as an example to them.6 Of Paula
and her associates he wrote:
Their separation from men was so complete that it separated

them even from eunuchs, so as to give no occasion to evil
tongues, who are accustomed to tearing down the saints in
order to reassure the delinquent.7
Similarly, he praised Christian virgins who refused to bathe with
eunuchs.8 Behind these comments was the common fear that eunuchs might
still engage in sex with women in private. Tertullian also said as
much, but imputed it to pagan women:
A great many of them, even those of noble birth and blessed

with wealth, unite themselves promiscuously with mean and
base-born men whom they have found able to gratify their
passions or who have been mutilated for purposes of lust.9
It was not the presence of eunuchs in family life or even in
public office which most horrified Christian writers, however. Even
more horrifying was their presence in Roman religion: namely, the
eunuch-priests of Mater Deurn ("the Mother of the Gods"). Among the
eastern religions which attracted followers in the west in the later
6Hieron. Epist. 108.7: "...femina nobilis, quae prius eunuchorum

manibus portabatur, asello sedens profecta est." Cf. ibid. 130.4:
BIncredibilis animi fortitudo, inter gemmas et sericum, inter eunuchorum
et puellarum cateruas, et adulationem ac ministeria familiae
perstrepentis, et exquisitas epulas, quas amplae domus praebebat
abundantia, appetisse earn ieiuniorum laborem, asperitatem uesticum,
uictus continentiam." Cf. also ibid. 66.13, too lengthy to quote.
7Hieron. Epist. 108.20: "A uiris tanta separatio, ut ab spadonibus

quoque eas seiungeret, ne ullam daret occasionem linguae maledicae, quae
sanctos carpere solita est in solacium delinquendi."
sHieron. Epist. 107.11: "Scio praecepisse quosdam, ne uirgo

Christi cum eunuchis lauet, ne cum maritis feminis; quia alii non
deponant animos uirorum, aliae tumentibus uteris praeferant foeditatem."
9Tert. Ad uxorem (trans. here W. Le Saint, ACW 13) 2.8.4:

"Pleraque et genere nobiles et re beatae passim ignobilibus et
mediocribus simul coniunguntur aut ad luxuriam inuentis aut ad licentiam
sectis." The CCSL edn. has changed the "sectis" of ms. A to "selectis."
452
empire - alongside Mithraism, Manichaeanism, and Christianity itself -
the cult of the Mother of the Gods was apparently a popular one. For
the church fathers, the use of castration in this cult was proof enough
of the decadence of Roman paganism.
Lactantius explained association of the Mother of the Gods with
castration in this ways "The mother of the gods loved a beautiful youth,
but, having discovered him with a mistress, she emasculated him and
rendered him a half-man [semiuir]."10 Prudentius made reference to the
same story:
Or shall I go to [the goddess] Cybele's pine-grove? No, for

there stands in my way the lad who emasculated himself
because of her lust, and by a grievous wound cutting the
parts of shame saved himself from the unchaste goddess's
embrace, a eunuch for whom the Mother has to lament in many
a rite.11
The most common names associated with this myth were the Phrygian
pair, Cybele and Attis, although in the syncretic environment of the
later Roman empire, a whole host of gods and goddesses were associated
with this myth: Isis and Osiris, Venus and Adonis.12 As with most
10Lactant. Div. inst. 1.17: "Deum Mater et amauit formosum

adulescentem et eundem eum paelice deprehensum exsectis uirilibus
semiuirum reddidit et ideo nunc sacra eius a Gallis sacerdotibus
celebrantur." Cf. idem, Epit. div. inst. 8.6: "Mater [Magna] ipsa post
fugam et obitum uiri guum in Phrygia moraretur, uidua et anus formosum
adulescentem in deliciis habuit et, quia fidem non praestiterat,
ademptis genitalibus effeminauit. ideo etiam nunc Gallis sacerdotibus
gaudet."
11Prudent. Perist. 10 11. 196-200: "an ad Cybebes ibo lucum

pineum? / puer sed obstat gallus ob libidinem / per triste vulnus perque
sectum dedecus / ab inpudicae tutus amplexu deae, / per multa Matri
sacra plorandus spado."
12See, e.g., Auson. Epigr. 32: "Ogygia me Bacchum vocat, / Osirin

Aegyptos putat; / Mysi Phanacen nominant, / Dionyson Indi existimant; /
Romana sacra Liberum, / Arabica gens Adoneum, / Lucaniacus Pantheum."
Cf. Apul. Met. 11.5: "...cuius numen unicum multiformi specie, ritu
vario, nomine multiiugo totus veneratur orbis. Inde primigenii Phryges
453
ancient myths, complex layers of legend are overlaid one upon the other.
The key event of the lamentation of the goddess was related in
complicated ways to other myths. The parallels were strengthened by the
association of each legend with annual spring rites of death and
resurrection and of lamentation and rejoicing.13
It would be unnecessarily complicated here either to untangle the
various threads of these myths or to describe in detail the rites of
these religions; other historians have attempted this project.14 It
Pessinuntiam deum matrem, hinc autocthones Attici Cecropeiam Minervam,

illinc fluctuantes Cyprii Paphiam Venerem, Cretes sagittiferi Dictynnam
Dianam, Siculi trilingues Stygiam Proserpinam, Eleusinii vetusti Actaeam
Cererem, Iunonem alii, Bellonam alii, Hecatam isti, Rhamnusiam illi, et
qui nascentes dei Solis incohantibus illustrantur radiis Aethiopes
utrique priscaque doctrina pollentes Aegyptii, caerimoniis me propriis
percolentes, appellant vero nomine reginam Isidem."
13Amm. Marc. 22.9.15: "euenerat autem isdem diebus annuo cursu

completo Adonea ritu uetere celebrari, amato veneris, ut fabulae
fingunt, apri dente ferali deleto, quo in adulto flore sectarum est
indicium frugum." Cf. Lactant. Div. inst. 1.21: "Isidis Aegyptiae sacra
sunt, quatenus filium paruulum uel perdiderit uel inuenerit. nam primo
sacerdotes eius deglabrato corpora pectora sua tundunt lamentantur,
sicut ipsa cum perdidit fecerat: deinde puer producitur quasi inuentus
et in laetitiam luctus ille mutatur.” Cf. idem, Epitome div. inst.
18.5-6: "Isidis sacra nihil aliud ostendunt nisi quemadmodum filium
paruum qui dicitur Osiris perdiderit et inuenerit. nam primo sacerdotes
ac ministri derasis omnibus membris tunsisque pectoribus plangunt dolent
quaerunt adfectum matris imitantes, postmodum puer per Cynocephalum [=
Anubis] inuenitur. sic luctuosa sacra laetitia terminantur."
14See most recently Turcan, Cultes orientaux, chap. 1, "La Grande

M&re et ses eunuques." There is also a considerable amount of
scholarship by Maarten J. Vermaseren on the cult: see his Cybele and
Attis: The Myth and the Cult (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977); also his
Legend of Attis; he has also collected together many of the literary and
inscriptional references to the cult in his Corpus Cultus Cybelae
Attidisgue (CCCA) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977-1989). The most detailed
examination of the cult still remains, however, Henri Graillot, Le culte
de cyb&le: m&re des dieux, & Rome et dans 1'empire romain (Paris:
Fontemoing, 1912). There is also an older but still important article
by A. D. Nock, "Eunuchs in Ancient Religion," Archiv fur
Religionswissenschaft 23 (1925): 25-33; see, however, the strong
disagreement with this last work by Rousselle, Porneia, in her chap. 7,
"Salvation by Child Sacrifice and Castration."
454
will suffice to say that self-castrating priests, called galli in the
west,15 figured prominently in the ritual worship of this network of
religions. This is a fact often disregarded or at least underemphasized
by modern descriptions of the cults, some of which claim that the
practice had died out by the later empire.
The presence of eunuchs in the worship of the Mother of the Gods
was not a fact which Latin Christian writers ignored, however, and they
give plenty of evidence that the practice was in full force in their
day. Lactantius, when describing the myth of Cybele, concluded by
saying that "her sacred rites now are celebrated by [eunuch] priests.”16
Tertullian likewise asked: "Why is a male mutilated in honour of the
Idaean goddess, unless it be that the youth who was too disdainful of
her advances was castrated, owing to her vexation at his daring to cross
her love?17 Prudentius asked the same question: "Why does the
Berecynthian priest mutilate and destroy his loins?"18
15The origin of the term is unclear. It could come from a

derogatory parallel with galli ("roosters, cocks"), a parallel which was
noted with humor and was perhaps related to the high pitch of eunuch
voices sounding like crowing. Alternately, it could have been extended
from Galli ("Gauls"), since Phrygia like Galatia in Asia Minor, had
received large Gallic settlements at the start of the Common Era. Some
thought them named after a Mount Gallus in Bithynia, also in Asia Minor.
See Herodian Basileia Istoria 1.11.2; Pliny HN 5.17; Ov. Fast. 4.361-4.
16Lactant. Div. inst. 1.17, quoted above. McDonald (p. 69)

translates "galli" as "Gallic priests," which I have replaced with
"[eunuch] priests."
17Tert. Ad nat. 2.7.16: "Cur Idaeae masculus amputatur, si nullus

illi fastidiosus adulescens libidinis frustratae dolore castratus est?"
18Prudent. c. Symm. 2 11. 51-2: "cur Berecyntiacus perdit truncata

sacerdos / inguina, cum pulchrum poesis castraverit Attin?”
455
Ancient pagan writers offered various answers to this question:
their explanations for the connection between castration and the cult of
the Mother of the Gods. Ammianus Marcellinus called it "an event which
symbolizes the reaping of the crops at harvest."19 The emperor Julian,
who was a devotee of the cult, tried to reconcile the myth with neo-
Platonic philosophy. He explained the practice as a symbol of the
renunciation of physical matter required of the soul before it could
ascend to the spiritual realm, and a metaphor for personal redemption.20
Christian writers, however, had their own interpretations.
Without exception, they used the rite as a symbol of the depravity of
pagan religion. Prudentius, for example, saw it as evidence of the
violence of paganism. Imagining a conversation between the soon-to-be
martyr Romanus and the pagan emperor Galerius, Prudentius included a
lengthy critique of the castration ritual:
There are rites in which you mutilate yourselves and maim

your bodies to make an offering of the pain . . . and itis
the barbarity of the wounds that earns heaven. Another
makes the sacrifice of his genitals; appeasing the goddess
by mutilating his loins, he unmans himself and offers her a
shameful gift; the source of the man's seed istorn awayto
give her food and increase through the flow ofblood. Both
19Amm. Marc. 22.9.15: "euenerat autem isdem diebus annuo cursu

completo Adonea ritu uetere celebrari, amato veneris, ut fabulae
fingunt, apri dente ferali deleto, quo in adulto flore sectarum est
indicium frugum." Cf. August. De civ. D. 7.25: "Et Attis ille non est
commemoratus nec eius ab isto interpretatio requisita est, in cuius
dilectionis memoriam Gallus absciditur. Sed docti Graeci atque
sapientes nequaquam rationem tarn sanctam praeclaramque tacuerunt.
Propter uernalem quippe faciem terrae, quae ceteris est temporibus
pulchrior, Porphyrius, philosophus nobilis, Attin flores significare
perhibuit, et ideo abscisum, quia flos decidit ante fructum. Non ergo
ipsum hominem uel quasi hominem, qui est uocatus Attis, sed uirilia eius
flori comparauerunt."
20Julian Or. 5.165B-166A, too lengthy to quote. These aspects are

discussed at length by Giulia Gasparro, Soteriology and Mystic Aspects
in the Cult of cybele and Attis (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985).
456
sexes are displeasing to her holiness, so he keeps a middle

gender between the two, ceasing to be a man without becoming
a woman. The Mother of the Gods has the happiness of
getting herself beardless ministers with a well-ground
razorI21
Behind this attack is a veiled defence of the practice of Christian
martyrdom, which was also bloody and which was also believed to earn
salvation. The difference, however, was in the voluntary nature of the
action. Some might have accused the early Christians of seeking out
martydom, but Prudentius contrasts the martyrs’ sufferings with the
sufferings of the eunuch priests: "But this blood of ours flows from
your barbarity [and not from our own]."22
It was not only the violence of the action which horrified
Christians, though. Implied in Prudentius' condemnation of castration
is a contrast between the manliness of the Christian martyrs and the
unmanliness of the pagan eunuch-priests. Other sources make it clear
that what revolted Christians was the violation of men's physical
identity and the masking of that violation as a religious obligation.
Lactantius, for example, wrote:
21Prudent. Perist 10 11. 1059-75: "sunt sacra quando vosmet ipsi

exciditis, / votivis et cum membra detruncat dolor. / cultrum in
lacertos exerit fanaticus / sectisque Matrem bracchiis placat deam, /
furere ac rotari ius putatur mysticum; / parca ad secandum dextra fertur
inpia, / caelum meretur vulnerum crudelitas. / ast hie metenda dedicat
genitalia, / numen reciso mitigans ab inguine / offert pudendum semivir
donum deae: / illam revulsa masculini germinis / vena effluenti pascit
auctam sanguine. / uterque sexus sanctitati displicet, / medium retentat
inter alternum genus, / mas esse cessat ille, nec fit femina. / felix
deorum mater inberbes sibi / parat ministros levibus novaculis."
22Prudent. Perist. 10 11. 1091-3: "at noster iste sanguis ex

vestra fluit / crudelitate, vos tyrannide inpia / exulceratis innocentum
corpora." The emphasis on blood and its connection with castration in
this passage also reminds us that ancient medicine believed semen to be
only purified blood.
457
Those public rites ought to be judged of no lesser insanity

than that kind of religious function, one example of which
is that of the Mother [of the Gods], whereby men themselves
make propitiation with their own sex organs - for with such
mutilation they make themselves neither men nor women.23
Tertullian mocked those individuals "not indeed third in the way of
religious rite, but a third race in sex, and made up as it is of male
and female in one.”24 Augustine ridiculed the "amputation of virility"
in the cult of the Mother of the Gods, in which "the sufferer was
neither changed into a woman nor allowed to remain a man."25
Even more distressing to Christian polemicists was the sort of
behavior exhibited by the eunuch priests. This aspect of the cult of
the Mother of the Gods has also been neglected by historians, but is
clear from the sources. After their castration, the eunuch-priests
dressed as women and - together with female cultic prostitutes - offered
their sexual services to male worshippers at the shrines. For the
individual who visited one of the shrines, to have sex with one of the
eunuch-priests or with one of the women-attendants was to honor the
Mother of the Gods.
For Christians who denounced the cult, the sexual debauchery was
proof of the perversity of paganism. Firmicus Maternus condemned the
23Lactant. Div. inst. 1.21: "ab isto genere sacrorum non minoris
insaniae iudicanda sunt publica ilia sacra, quorum alia sunt Matris
[Deum], in quibus homines suis ipsi uirilibus litant - amputato enim
sexu nec uiros se nec feminas faciunt..."
24Tert. Ad flat. 1.20.4: "Habetis et uos tertium genus, etsi non de

tertio ritu, attamen de tertio sexu: illud aptius de uiro et femina
uiris et feminis iunctum." Tertullian's reference to the "third race”
is obscure.
25August. De civ. D. 7.24: "...hie ita amputatur uirilitas, ut nec

conuertatur in feminam nec uir relinquatur."
458
priests of the Carthaginian goddess Tannit, to whom he referred by her
Latin epithet Caelestis ("the Heavenly One"). His denunciation is worth
quoting at length:
Animated by some sort of reverential feeling, they actually

have made this element [air] into a woman. For, because air
is an intermediary between sea and sky, they honor it
through priests who have womanish voices. Tell me, is air a
divinity if it looks for a woman in a man, if its band of
priests can minister to it only when they have feminized
their faces, rubbed smooth their skin, and disgraced their
manly sex by donning women's regalia? In their very temples
one may see scandalous performances, accompanied by the
moaning of the throng: men letting themselves be handled as
women, and flaunting with boastful ostentatiousness this
ignominy of their impure and unchaste bodies. They parade
their misdeeds in the public eye, acknowledging with
superlative relish in filthiness the dishonor of their
polluted bodies. They nurse their tresses and pretty them
up woman-fashion; they dress in soft garments; they can
hardly hold their heads erect on their languid necks. Next,
being thus divorced from masculinity, they get intoxicated
with the music of flutes and invoke their goddess to fill
them with an unholy spirit so that they can ostensibly
predict the future to fools. What sort of monstrous and
unnatural thing is all this? They say they are not men, and
indeed they aren't; they want to pass as women, but whatever
the nature of their bodies is, it tells a different story.26
All of this is a prelude to an attack on paganism itself:
Ponder too what sort of divinity it is which finds it such a

delight to sojourn in an impure body, which clings to
26Firmicus Maternus De errore profanarum religionum 4.1-2:

"Effeminarunt sane hoc elementum nescio qua ueneratione commoti. Nam
quia aer interiectus est inter mare et caelum, effeminatis eum
sacerdotum uocibus prosecuntur. Die mihi: hoc numen est quod in uiro
feminam quaerit, cui aliter seruire sacerdotum suorum chorus non potest,
nisi effeminent uultum, cutem poliant et uirilem sexum ornatu muliebri
dedecorent? videre est in ipsis templis cum publico gemitu miseranda
ludibria, uiros muliebria pati et hanc impuri et impudici corporis labem
gloriosa ostentatione detegere. Publicant facinora sua et contaminati
corporis uitium cum maxima delectationis macula confitentur. Exornant
muliebriter nutritos crines et delicatis amicti uestibus uix caput lassa
ceruice sustentant. Deinde cum sic se alienos a uiris fecerint,
adimpleti tibiarum cantu uocant deam suam, ut nefario repleti spiritu
uanis hominibus quasi futura praedicant. Quod hoc monstrum est quodue
prodigium? Negant se uiros esse, et non sunt: mulieres se uolunt credi,
sed aliud qualiscumque qualitas corporis confitetur.”
459
unchaste members, which is appeased by the contamination of

a polluted body.27
Augustine of Hippo also devoted several sections of his work, The
City of God, to "the obscene practices of this depraved cult,"28 in
which "effeminates consecrated to the Great Mother, who violate every
canon of decency in men and women" could be seen "in the streets and
squares of Carthage with their pomaded hair and powdered faces, gliding
along with womanish languor."29 He denounced the gender violations of
the cult: "for men to be treated as women is not in accordance with
nature; it is contrary to nature."30 But his attack was part of a
larger critique of traditional Roman religion, and against those who
believed they were worshipping a god:
by means of senseless or even monstrous images, by human

sacrifices, by the garlanding of genitals, by the commerce
of prostitution, by the amputation and mutilation of sexual
organs, by the consecration of effeminates, by the
celebration of festivals with spectacles of degraded
obscenity.31

"Considerandum est etiam quale sit numen quod sic impuri corporis
delectatur hospitio, quod impudicis adhaeret membris, quod polluta
corporis contaminations placatur."
28August. De civ. D. 2.5: "...istos, qui flagitiosissimae

consuetudinis uitiis oblectari magis quam obluctari student..."
29August. De civ. D. 7.26: "Itidem de mollibus eidem Matri Magnae

contra omnem uirorum mulierumque uerecundiam consecratis, qui usque in
hesternum diem madidis capillis facie dealbata, fluentibus membris
incessu femineo per plateas uicosque Carthaginis etiam a propolis unde
turpiter uiuerent exigebant..."
30August. De civ. D. 6.8: "Verum tamen quoquo modo sacra eius

interpretentur et referant ad rerum naturam: uiros muliebria pati non
est secundum naturam, sed contra naturam."
31August. De civ. D. 7.27: "Si autem stoliditate uel monstrositate

simulacrorum, sacrificiis homicidiorum, coronatione uirilium pudendorum,
mercede stuprorum, sectione membrorum, abscisione genitalium,
consecratione mollium, festis inpurorum obscenorumque ludorum unum uerum
460
The eunuch priests provided further proof of the irrationality of pagan
belief, and the insanity of those who "should try to convince anyone
that they perform any holy action through the ministry of such persons
[homines].32
It should be noted that Christians were not the only ones who
objected to this cult. Indeed, Augustine quoted from Seneca to
demonstrate how respectable Romans had always condemned such unnatural
practices.33 Apuleius, in the middle of the second century, had also
mocked the sexual indulgence and gender ambiguity of the eunuch priests,
even though he seemed genuinely sympathetic to the worship of the Mother
of the Gods. Be called the eunuchs cinaedi, had them call each other
puellae ("girls"), and-accused them of the seduction of local men more
for fun than for religious reasons.34 Claudian, in order to discredit
the status of eunuchs everywhere in his polemic against Eutropius, even
asked a question which he must surely have known to be false: "[H]ave we
Deum, id est omnis animae corporisque creatorem... bis peccat in Deum,

quod et pro ipso colit, quod non est ipse, et talibus rebus colit,
qualibus nec ipse colendus est nec non ipse."
32August. De civ. D. 6.7: "Persuadeant cui possunt se aliquid

sanctum per tales agere homines, quos inter sua sancta numerari atque
uersari negare non possunt." For homines, the translator has "men,"
which I have replaced with "persons."
33August. De civ. D. 6.10: "De ipsis uero ritibus crudeliter

turpibus quam libere scripsitl 'Ille, inquit, uiriles sibi partes
amputat, ille lacertos secat? Dii autem nullo debent coli genere, si
hoc uolunt...’"
34Apul. Met. 7.26: "...statimque illinc de primo limine proclamat,

'Puellae, servum vobis pulchellum en ecce mercata perduxi.' Sed illae
puellae chorus erat cinaedorum, quae statim exsultantes in gaudium
fracta et rauca et effeminata voce clamores absonos intollunt..."
461
ever seen a temple built or altars raised to a eunuch god?"35 It is
true that several of the emperors of the second and third centuries had
been associated with the cult, and had supported it financially at
Rome.36 Nonetheless, the emperor Elagabalus' devotion to the religion -
which might help to explain his transvestism, sexual passivity, and the
rumor that he had castrated himself - lent it a further unsavory
reputation.37
We must be careful not to mistake the distaste of writers, either
pagan or Christian, for a more general Roman attitude toward the cult or
its priests. It is possible that while men of the upper classes
denounced the eunuch-priests and their religion, men of the lower
classes found a useful sexual outlet in their visits to the shrine.
Tertullian in fact complained of "the vulgar superstition of popular
idolatry" which took the castration myth seriously.38 After all,
someone was attending the shrines and participating in the processions
which so dismayed the authors of our sources. Decent Christians could
3sClaud. In Eutropium 1 1. 326: "...eunuchi quae templa dei, quas

uidimus aras?”
36E.g., late-third-century emperor Claudius II Gothicus: S.H.A.

Diuus Claudius 4.2: "nam cum esset nuntiatum IX Kal. Aprilis ipso in
Sacrario Matris sanguinis die Claudium imperatorem factum, neque cogi
senatus sacrorum celebrandorum causa posset, sumptis togis itum est ad
Apollinis Templum..."
37See Turcan, Bdliogabale; and esp. Martin Frey, "Kulthandlungen

Elagabals in den Quellen," chap. 2 in Untersuchungen zur Religion und
zur Religionspolitik des Kaisers Elagabal (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1989).
38Tert. Adv. Marcionem 1.13: "Ipsa quoque vulgaris superstitio

communis idololatriae, cum in simulacris de nominibus et fabulis veterum
mortuorum pudet, ad interpretationem naturalium refugit, et dedecus suum
ingenio obumbrat, figurans... et Magnam Matrem in terram seminalia
demessam, lacertis aratam, lavacris rigatam."
462
not avoid seeing the revolting displays of the eunuchs as they passed by
in the streets, and be thereby corrupted, Augustine claimed,39 but this
claim was perhaps in part to excuse his own admission that as a young
man he had "thoroughly enjoyed the most degrading spectacles" of the
Mother of the Gods.40
For Christian writers, however, the condemnation of the pagan
eunuchs could become the focus for a panoply of other critiques: the
blurring of the sexes following from an abandonment of what was natural,
the irrationality of pagan belief and practice, the violence of the
Roman spirit, or the sexual license of the inhabitants of the empire.
The polemic against pagan eunuchs thus formed an integral part of a more
general Christian critique of traditional Roman culture. Pagan writers
worried that the eunuch represented the later Roman male; Christian
writers assured them that he did.
39August. De civ. D. 2.26: "Nonnullae pudentiores auertebant

faciem ab impuris motibus scaenicorum et artem flagitii furtiua
intentione discebant.”
40August. De civ. D. 2.4: "Veniebamus etiam nos aliquando

adulescentes ad spectacula ludibriaque sacrilegiorum, spectamus
arrepticios, audiebamus symphoniacos, ludis turpissimis, qui diis
deabusque exhibebantur, oblectabamur, Caelesti uirgini et Berecynthiae
matri omnium..."
463
2. Practices with which they dishonor their own bodies:
Biblical Traditions on Castration
Christians who condemned the eunuch-priests had another basis for
their denunciation of the cult: biblical tradition. Christians of late
antiquity could see the hostility toward the Mother of the Gods and her
eunuch-priests in their sacred texts. Nonetheless, Christians were also
obliged to come to terms with several ambiguities in these sacred texts
regarding the place of eunuchs in religion. Patristic discussions of
the biblical traditions on castration reveal much of the anxieties
surrounding the relationship between the new religion and the new
masculinity.
Ancient Israel - just as most other areas of the Mediterranean
world - had its own traditions of the worship of a divine Mother and her
consort-son. By the time the Old Testament was set into writing, the
Hebrew goddess was worshipped under the name Asherah and her son under
the name Tammuz, although several scholars have recently suggested that
in earlier times, her consort had been El, the God who became known as
Yahweh.41 According to the interpretation of these scholars, the
41See Raphael Patai, The Hebrew Goddess, 3rd ed. (New York: Ktav,
1990); Saul Olyan, Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel, SBL
Monograph Series, no. 34 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988); Richard Pettey,
Asherah: Goddess of Israel (New York: Peter Lang, 1990). For related
studies, see also William Reed, The Asherah in the Old Testament (Fort
Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1949); and R. A. Oden, Studies
in Lucian's De Syria Dea (Missoula, Montana: University of
Montana/Scholars Press, 1977). I use the term "Old Testament" only
because this is how the patristic sources referred to the Jewish Tanakh.
464
worship of the female deity was not a Canaanite corruption of an
original monotheism - as it is presented in the biblical sources - but
an ancient form of the religion abandoned by reformers of the
Deuteronomic period.
The hostility of the biblical texts to the worship of the Hebrew
goddess extended to her priests, known as qedeshim ("sacred, holy
[men]") or as kelebhim ("dogs"). It seems that the qedeshim were sacred
prostitutes who had sex with the men who visited the shrines. While
this interpretation has been disputed - because of lack of evidence and
not because of contrary evidence - no one doubts that the female
equivalents to the qedeshim, the qedeshoth ("sacred, holy [women]") were
prostitutes.42 Rigorists of the Deuteronomic reforms perpetually rid
their religion of aspects of Goddess worship which they referred to as
42Beatrice Brooks ("Fertility Cult Functionaries in the Old

Testament," Journal of Biblical Literature 60 [1941]: 227-53) examines
the evidence for the qedeshim; also supplied by Greenberg (Construction
of Homosexuality, "Male Cult Prostitution," 94-106; "The Hebrews," 135-
41). Her conclusions were questioned by Eugene Fisher ("Cultic
Prostitution in the Ancient Near East? A Reassessment," Biblical
Theology Bulletin 6 [1976]: 225-36), who sees it only as a later
interpretation, and by Mayer Gruber ("The qades in the Book of Kings and
in other Sources," Tarbiz 52 [1983]: 167-76), who thinks of the qedeshim
as "Canaanite cultic singers." I find these rebuttals unconvincing.
First, no one seems to doubt that the qedeshah were female prostitutes:
Joan Westenholz, "Tamar, Qedesa, Qadistu, and Sacred Prostitution in
Mesopotamia," Harvard Theological Review 82 (1989): 245-66; or Mayer
Gruber, "The Hebrew Qedesah and Her Canaanite and Akkadian Cognates,"
chap. 2 in M. Gruber, The Motherhood of God and Other Studies (Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1992). Second, there is the derogatory use of the term
kelebh, a term also linked with zonah ("[secular] prostitute"): D.
Winton Thomas, "Kelebh 'Dog': Its Origins and Some Usages of it in the
Old Testament," vetus Testamentum 10 (1960): 410-27. See also the
discussion by Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and
Homosexuality, 99) who believes that the qedeshim were male prostitues
but that ”[t]here is no reason to assume that such prostitutes serviced
persons of their own sex;" considering the sexual freedoms which ancient
Jewish women exercised, however, this interpretation must be rejected.
465
toebhah ("abomination").43 These abominations included annual spring
time rituals of mourning for the death of Tammuz, but also much more.
In fact, there is evidence for all of the sorts of activities with which
we are already familiar: castration, passive homosexuality, and
transvestism.44 Some scholars have rejected a link between these
activities and the priests of the Hebrew goddess, but the prohibition
against castration is linked to public ritual, and both the passive
homosexuality and the transvestism are called toebhoth
("abominations”).45
It is not necessary here to discuss in further detail these
ancient condemnations or their precise meanings. Instead, we need only
point to the fact that Latin Christians, in translating and reading
these texts, extrapolated from them about the contemporary forms of the
431 Kings 14:24; 15.12; 2 Kings 23.7.
44Mourning for Tammuz: Ezek 8.14; castration: Deut. 23.1; passive

homosexuality: Lev. 18.22; transvestism: Deut. 22.5. For discussion of
these texts, see: Saul Olyan, "'And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the
Lying Down of a Woman': On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus
18:22 and 20:13,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1994): 179-206;
Daniel Boyarin, "Are There Any Jews in 'The History of Sexuality'?"
Journal of the History of Sexuality 5 (1995): 333-55; and Michael
Satlow, "'They Abused Him Like a Woman': Homoeroticism, Gender Blurring,
and the Rabbis in Late Antiquity," Journal of the History of Sexuality 5
(1994): 1-25.
45Both Greenberg (Construction of Homosexuality, "The Hebrews,"

190-202) and Olyan ("And with a Male You Shall Not Lie") reject any
connection between these texts and male cultic prostitution; Olyan
(ibid., 181-2 n. 6) also rejects the existence of male cultic
prostitution. He suggests instead (ibid.) that the term toebhah
connotes "the violation of a socially constructed boundary, the
undermining or reversal of what is conventional, the order of things as
the ancient might see it." Yet all of its uses from texts of this
period refer to religious violations, except one (Deut. 25.16: cheating
in measurements); moreover, this not preclude the fact that what the
qedeshim were doing - through their castration, transvestism, and
passive homosexuality - was considered a "violation," "undermining or
reversal."
466
worship of the Mother of the Gods. Key to this focus was Jerome's
translation of the passages in question. He translated the Hebrew
proper name Tammuz by the Greek Adonis, for example, in a belief that
both were merely localized names for the same god.46 He consistently
translated the term qedeshim with the Latin effeminati, hardly a literal
translation but one again which tied the biblical descriptions which
referred to the eunuch-priests of his day.47 The term toebhah he
translated as abominatio (literally, "ill-omened"), which implied a
ritual or religious violation.48 These translations provided an
authoritative precedent for the Christian denunciation of the
contemporary galli.
Christians, however, had an even more authoritative text for the
condemnation of the eunuchs in the writings of Paul. Paul referred in
his letter to the Romans to the practice of homosexuality, which is
generally understood to have been a condemnation of homosexuality per
se. If situated in its proper historical context, however, it is clear
that the passage was tied to the specifics of the eunuch cult:
...they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a

worthless imitation, for the image of mortal man, of birds,
46Ezek. 8.14: "Et introduxit me per ostium portae domus Domini

quod respiciebat ad aquilonem, et ecce ibi mulieres sedebant plangentes
Adonidem."
471 Kings 14:24: "...sed et effeminati fuerunt in terra,

feceruntque omnes abominationes gentium, quas attrivit Dominus ante
faciem filiorum Israel." Cf. 1 Kings 15.12: "...et abstulit effeminatos
de terra, purgavitque universas sordes idolorum, quae fecerant patres
eius." 2 Kings 23.7: "Destruxit quoque aediculas effeminatorum, quae
erant in domo Domini..."
48This is also the sense of the LXX translation of the term,

psikvyfia, from /3SeXiooa ("to make loathsome"), in turn from pSvXXco ("to
fear").
467
of quadrupeds and reptiles. That is why God left them to

their filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they
dishonor their own bodies... That is why God has abandoned
them to degrading passions: why their women have turned from
natural intercourse to unnatural practices and why their
menfolk have given up natural intercourse to be consumed
with passion for each other, men doing shameless things with
men and getting an appropriate reward for their
perversion.49
Here were all the elements of the Christian invective against the cult:
beginning with a repudiation of paganism in general, followed by a
condemnation of the gender violations of the cult of the goddess, that
is, the "practices with which they dishonor their own bodies," followed
in turn by an attack against cultic prostitution, the "unnatural
practices" of the women and the men "consumed with passion for each
other," and ending with a denunciation of castration as the "appropriate
reward for their perversion." In other words, since the priests of the
goddess acted like women they deserved the castration which turned them
into women.
This interpretation of Paul's statements is unrecognized by modern
historians and religious and biblical scholars.50 The gender violations
49Rom. 1.23-7: "Et mutaverunt gloriam incorruptibilis Dei in

similitudinem imaginis corruptibilis hominis, et volucrum, et
quadrupedum, et serpentium. Propter quod tradidit illos Deus in
desideria cordis eorum, in immunditiam, ut contumeliis afficiant corpora
sua in semetipsis... Propterea tradidit illos Deus in passiones
ignominiae. Nam feminae eorum immutaverunt naturalem usum in eum usum
qui est contra naturam. Similiter autem et masculi, relicto naturali
usu feminae, exarserunt in desideriis suis in invicem, masculi in
masculos turpitudinem operantes, et mercedem, quam oportuit, erroris sui
in semetipsis recipientes."
S0E.g., rejected by Robin Scroggs (The New Testament and

Homosexuality: Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate
[Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983]) who oddly sees it as a critique of Greek
customs of pederasty, and who is as a result unable to explain the final
part of the passage (pp. 115-6): "Finally, the ambiguous last phrase
calls for attention... Either Paul is hinting as physical disease
(perhaps venereal)... or he counts the distortion of homosexuality
468
of the cult - men acting as women - were the focus of the critique, and
this was the dominant theme in patristic comments on the passage.51 In
this context, it also functioned as a Pauline reiteration of the book of
wisdom, with which it shares many similarities.52
The gender ambiguity of the eunuch-priests provided a powerful
symbol for the perversion of their beliefs, and biblical writers of the
itself as the punishment." This interpretation is also rejected by

Boswell (Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 108) for
three incorrect reasons. First, Boswell states that if it were cultic
prostitution, Paul would have also condemned the female prostition
associated with the goddess. Paul does just that, however, and the
phrase "their women have turned from natural intercourse to unnatural
pratices" is exactly a condemnation of prostitution and not lesbianism,
as usually understood; it is only understood as lesbianism by a false
parallel with the following phrase "men doing shameless things with
men". Second, Boswell writes that "it is clear that the sexual behavior
itself is objectionable to Paul, not merely its associations," which is
true, but this is precisely why it proves the falsehood of pagan
religion for Paul. Third, Boswell adds that "most importantly, Paul is
not describing cold-blooded, dispassionate acts performed in the
interest of ritual or ceremony," but this hardly seems an accurate
description of those incidents of ritual prostitution, most of which
describe the prostitutes, like Lucian, De Syria Dea (ed. and trans. H.
Attridge and R. Oden, Society of Biblical Literature, Texts and
Translations, vol. 9 [Missoula, Montana: University of Montana/Scholars
Press, 1976]) 43, as "frenzied and deranged" [teipov&q te ko?i <ppevopXa0eei;].
Boswell is also then forced to refer to the "mysterious reference" at
the end of the passage (p. 113 n. 72). Interestingly, Boswell
attributes the theory to Berman van de Spijker (Die
gleichgeschlechtliche Zuneigung. Homotropie: Homosexualitat, Homoerotik,
Homophilie- und die Katholische Moraltheologie [Freiburg: Walter-Verlag
Olten, 1968], 82) but this author in fact rejects this interpretation at
that place. Van de Spijker attributes it in turn to Robert wood
("Homosexual Behavior in the Bible," One Institute Quarterly 5 [1962]:
10-9 at 16), but this author does not even discuss this interpretation.
The true origins of this interpretation are therefore unknown.
51E.g., Tert. De corona 6: "...ut cum ad Romanos, natura facere

dicens nationes ea quae sunt legis, et legem naturalem suggerit et
naturam legalem. Sed et in [priore] epistolae parte, naturalem usum
conditionis in non natura[lem m]asculos et feminas inter se demutasse
affirmans ex retributione erroris in uicem poe[nae, utiqu]e naturali
usui patricinatur."
52Especially Wisd. of Sol. 14.12-31, although again, I have seen

no modern commentaries linking the two passages.
469
New Testament exploited this for other purposes. Because of the
animosity toward eunuchs and the unmanliness that they represented,
biblical writers linked castration to circumcision - another genital
mutilation which they rejected - in various passages. In the context of
a debate over the necessity of circumcision for Christians, which he
opposed, Paul said: "Tell those who are disturbing you I would like to
see the knife slip [when they circumcize each other]."53 Elsewhere, he
warned his readers to "Beware of dogs I" and to "Watch out for the
cutters I" adding that "We are the real people of the circumcision,"
"without having to rely on a physical operation."54 The author of the
book of Revelation included "dogs” among those who would be denied
entrance to heaven, alongside the impure and the worshippers of idols.55
Jerome dutifully translated the term "dogs" with the Latin canes, which
is how he also translated the Hebrew kelebhim, and he must have
appreciated the connection.56
53Gal. 5:12: "Utinam et abscindantur [anoKoy/ovrai] qui vos

conturbant."
54Phil. 3.2-4: "Videtes canes (Kuvog), videtes malos operarios,

videte concisionem (rpv Kataxopfiv). Nos enim sumus circumcisio, qui
spiritu servimus Deo, et gloriamur in Christo lesu, et non in carne
fiduciam habentes..."
55Rev. 22.15: "Foris canes (tcuveg), et venefici, et impudici

(nopvoi), et homicidae, et idolis servientes (eiScololdTpai) et omnis qui
amat et facit mendacium."
56Circumcision was also linked to castration in Roman law.

Modestinus mentioned a rescript of the emperor Antoninus Pius exempting
Jews who circumcized their sons from any charge of castration, although
all others risked such a penalty. There must have been some confusion
about any sort of genital mutilation. Dig. 48.8.11: "Circumcidere
ludaeis filios suos tantum rescripto diui Pii permittitur: in non
eiusdem religionis qui hoc fecerit, castrantis poena irrogatur." The
Historia Augusta said that his predecessor Hadrian had driven the Jews
to revolt by denying them the right to castrate their sons. S.H.A.
470
Nevertheless, there was an equally strong alternative tradition in
earliest Christianity, which viewed the eunuch not as a despised symbol
of apostacy and gender disruption but as a laudatory symbol of self-
sacrifice and familial and sexual renunciation. This image was
attributed to Jesus himself. The Gospel of Matthew, for example, had
Jesus respond to a question on the advisability of marriage by saying:
There are eunuchs born that way from their mother's womb,
there are eunuchs made so by men and there are eunuchs who
have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.57
This three-part sort of categorization was not unique to Jesus. He
might recall the Roman jurist Ulpian's division of eunuchs into three
s imilar categories.58 The Mishnah, which shared with Jesus a hellenized
Jewish perspective, also divided eunuchs into three categories:
congenital eunuchs, eunuchs made so by men, and persons of indeterminate
anatomical sex, possibly hermaphrodites.59
Jesus' reference to the "eunuchs born that way" is likeliest to
have been a depiction of men with congenitally undeveloped sex organs.
Such men - especially their rights in marriage - were the subject of
Hadr. 14.2: "moverunt ea tempestate et ludaei bellum, quod vetabantur

mutilare genitalia." Cassius Dio says more reliably (69.12-4) that the
revolt happened because Hadrian had dedicated a temple to Jupiter on the
site of the former Temple. See also the curious discussion of the
origins of the rite of castration as a sign of manliness in David Bakan,
And they took themselves wives: The Emergence of Patriarchy in Western
Civilization (New York: Harper and Row, 1979), 140-7.
57Matt. 19.12: "Sunt enim eunuchi, qui de matris utero sic nati
sunt: et sunt eunuchi, qui facti sunt [ei>vovxio9rfoav] ab hominibus: et
sunt eunuchi, qui seipsos castraverunt [evvovxicavtewotig] propter regnum
caelorum. Qui potest capere capiat."
58See above, chap 4.
59Tractate Zavim (ed. and trans. P. Blackman, 7 vols., 2nd ed.

[New York: Judaica, 1983]) 2.1.
471
some discussion in the Mishnah.60 The "eunuchs made so by men" likely
referred to those men castrated for administrative positions in royal or
imperial courts, who were certainly commonplace in the hellenized
eastern half of the Roman empire of Jesus' day. The presence of such
men in earlier Jewish history is a fact for which there are many
biblical attestations.61 The mention of both of these groups of men in
a discussion of marriage is relatively unproblematic. It is Jesus'
final category, the "eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the
kingdom of heaven," which is more difficult to interpret. At the very
least, it represented a radical call for a departure from marital
obligations, and this was in keeping with other sayings of Jesus on the
family.62
Jesus' statement also fit with an earlier prophetic tradition,
represented in the book of Isaiah, in which the future was imagined as
obliterating the requirements of marriage. According to Isaiah:
Let no eunuch say, "And I, I am a dried-up tree." For

Yahweh says this: To the eunuchs who observe my sabbaths,
and resolve to do what pleases me and cling to my covenant,
I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and
60Tractate Yevamoth 8.1-6.
61Gen. 39.1 (Potiphar, the official of the Pharoah in Egypt whose

wife tried to seduce the patriarch Joseph); Jth. 12.10-5 (Bagoas, the
charge d'affaires of the Assyrian commander Holofernes); Jer. 38.7-13
and 39.15-8 (Ebedmelech, courtier to king Zedekiah, perhaps the same man
as the nameless commander of the defenders of Jerusalem at the time of
the prophet Jeremiah); Dan. 1.3-21 (Ashpenaz, who trained the prophet
Daniel to serve at Nebuchadnezzar's court); and 1 Chron. 28.1 (nameless
functionaries of king David's court).
62E.g., Matt. 19.29: "Et omnis qui reliquerit domum, vel fratres,
aut sorores, aut patrem, aut matrem, aut uxorem, aut filios, aut agros
propter nomen meum, centumplum accipiet, et vitam aeternam possidebit."
472
a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an

everlasting name that shall never be effaced.63
At least one school of Christian thought argued that this future had
arrived with Jesus. The ideas can be seen in the record of the baptism
of the Ethiopian eunuch by the apostle Philip, not coincidentally
involving a reading of the book of Isaiah. The incident symbolized the
new enclusiveness of the Christian community.64
Christian writers used this incident as the basis for an
appropriation of the Ethiopian eunuch as a symbol of themselves.
Patristic commentary on this passage, for instance, interpreted the
eunuch as an everyman figure, and often used the story as the jumping-
off point for discussions of baptism.65 The fountain where Philip was
supposed to have baptized the eunuch even became somewhat of a
pilgrimage site in late antiquity.66 Jerome, in writing of the
63Isa. 56:3-5: "Et non dicat eunuchus: Ecce ego lignum aridum.
Quia haec dicit Dominus eunuchis: Qui custodierint sabbata mea, Et
elegerint quae ego volui, Et ternuerint foedus meum, Dabo eis in domo
mea et in muris meis Locum, et nomen Melius a filiis et filiabus: Nomen
sempiternum dabo eis, Quod non peribit."
64Acts 8.26-39: "Angelus autem Domini locutus est ad Philippum,

dicens: Surge, et vade contra meridianum, ad viam quae descendit ab
lerusalem in Gazam: haec est deserta. Et surgens abiit. Et ecce vir
Aetiops, eunuchus, potens Candacis reginae Aethiopum, qui erat super
omnes gazas eius, venerat adorare in lerusalem: et revertebatur sedens
super currum suum, legensque Isaiam prophetam..." Clarice Martin ("The
Function of Acts 8:26-40 Within the Narrative Structure of the Book of
Acts: The Significance of the Eunuch's Provenance for Acts 1:8c" [Ph.D
Dissertation, Duke university, 1985]) discusses the significance of the
Ethiopian nationality of the eunuch for this theme of enclusiveness,
especially the fact that he is the first non-Jewish convert to
Christianity recorded in Acts, but not his status as a eunuch.
65See William Lawrence, "The History of the Interpretation of Acts

8:26-40 by the Church Fathers Prior to the Fall of Rome" (Ph.D.
Dissertation: Union Theological Seminary, 1984).
66E.g., Hieron. Epist. 46.13: "uidere fontem in quo a Philippo

eunuchus est tinctus?”
473
incident, refers consciously to this process of reclamation, writing of
"the holy eunuch," then correcting himself, "or rather the man, since
that is what scripture calls him."67 Through this incident, Christians
were invited to see themselves as eunuchs.
Seeing themselves as eunuchs, especially as "eunuchs who have made
themselves that way for the kingdom of heaven," however, required a
careful maneuvering between manliness and unmanliness. The attempt by
Jesus - and by Isaiah before him - to exonerate the image of the eunuch,
may only have been meant as hyperbole. It did provide a powerful symbol
for Christian men of the rejection of marriage and family, however, and
even of the rejection of sexuality and traditional gender roles.
Nonetheless, the similarities of Jesus' exhortation to castration
and the type of self-castration which the eunuch-priests practised must
not be ignored. It may have been a conscious reference to the cult.
Jerome complained that a shrine to the god Tammuz existed near the
birth-place of Christ in Bethlehem; how long before that it had existed
is impossible to know.68 Even if Jesus himself was not familiar with
the religion, however, his followers certainly were, and the image of
the eunuch-priests were always in their minds.
Christian men did identify themselves as eunuchs. This fact can
be demonstrated through the virtually hundreds of repetitions of the
67Hieron. Epist. 53.5: "In Actibus apostolorum sanctus eunuchus,

immo uir - sic enim eum scriptura cognominat - cum leget Esaiam... ”
68Hieron. Epist. 58.3: "Bethleem nunc nostram, et augustissimum

orbis locum de quo psalmista canit: 'ueritas de terra orta est,' lucus
inumbrabat Thamuz, id est Adonidis, et in specu ubi quondam Christus
paruulus uagiit Veneris amasius plangebatur."
474
phrase in patristic writings. Indeed, to be a "eunuch for the sake of
the kingdom of heaven” became in effect a short-hand reference to the
new masculinity sponsored by Christianity. Its usefulness as a symbol
of masculinity, however, required the removal of any taint of
unmanliness from the eunuch: not an easy task to accomplish, but one
which Latin Christians succeeded in doing by distancing the symbol of
the eunuch from the reality of castration.
3. Some who look upon it as a holy deed:
Christian Traditions on Castration
Jesus - or at least the teachings of the earlyChristian community
which were ascribed to Jesus - provided an authoritativebasis fora
reclamation of the symbol of the eunuch. Throughout late antiquity,
Christians disagreed on whether his remarks on "eunuchs who make
themselves that way" should be interpreted literally or figuratively.
This debate, in light of the problematic gender position of the eunuch,
can help to illuminate what were the Christian understandings of
masculine identity. In particular, western reactions to an earlier
eastern tension over these questions of castration and gender ambiguity
reveal much of the distinctiveness of Latin Christian definitions of
masculinity.
Western Christians were certainly aware that voluntary castration
was taking place among Christians in the eastern Mediterranean. As
early as the middle of the second century, Justin Martyr, writing at
Rome, mentioned an Alexandrian Christian who had had himself castrated.
475
Interestingly, Justin did not express either surprise or disapproval.69
Augustine, in his list of Christian heresies, mentioned an eastern sect
- called after its founder the Valesians - which required castration of
its members. Augustine dismissed them as "thinking [wrongly] that they
ought to serve God in this way."70 Augustine's knowledge of this group,
it should be noted, derived not from his experience with them, but from
a Latin translation of a work on the same theme by Epiphanius of Salamis
on Cyprus.71
The legends of the holy female transvestites provides some
anecdotal evidence on the numbers of Christian eunuchs. The women-
disguised-as-men are sometimes accompanied by eunuch attendants when
they enter male monasteries; sometimes, they introduce themselves as
eunuchs. Neither action seems to arouse any curiosity or suspicion.
The origin of these stories is problematic; still, they may indicate
something about the presence of eunuch-monks in eastern communities.
These eunuchs were commonplace, if only as literary types.72
A nineteenth-century historian remarked on the similarity of these
stories of transvestite saints to eastern cults of the Mother of the
69Justin Martyr Apologia (ed. A. Blunt [Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1911]) 29.2-3, too lengthy to quote. For information
on traditions of castration in eastern Christianity, I am grateful to
Rebecca Krawiec for her unpublished paper, "'Eunuchs who have made
themselves eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven': Mt. 19:12 and
the Role of Eunuchs in Second to Third Century Asceticism.”
70August. De haeresibus (ed. CCSL 46) 37: "Valesii et seipsos

castrant et hospites suos, hoc modo existimantes deo se debere seruire.
Alia quoque haeretica docere dicuntur et turpia, sed quae ilia sint nec
ipse commemorauit Epiphanius, nec usquam potui reperire."
71Epiphanius Adv. haereses (ed. PG 41), too lengthy to quote.
476
Gods, and believed them to be merely legends of this goddess retold as
Christian stories. He also felt that this explained the frequent
association of these women with prostitution, transvestism, and eunuch
attendants.73 This interpretation has been rejected by most scholars.
Nonetheless, there were many similarities between Christianity as it
developed in late antiquity and the cult of the Mother of the Gods. A
few scholars have noted on the one hand the growing resemblances between
Christ and Attis/Adonis/Tammuz - the god who experienced death and
resurrection and enjoyed a spring-time commemoration of that series of
events - and on the other hand the new reverence offered to Mary as both
mother of God and perpetual virgin: both titles of the goddess.74 These
resemblances may have also encouraged the self-castration of Christian
men or the conversion of already castrated eunuchs to Christianity.75
Probably the most famous example of a voluntary Christian eunuch
was Origen of Alexandria. Eusebius, whose Ecclesiastical History
73Hermann Usener, "Legenden der Pelagia." He noted, for instance,

that most of the names of these saints were also epithets of the
goddess: Pelagia ("of the sea"), Anthusa ("of flowers"), Margarita ("the
pearl”), Porphyria ("the purple one").
74See Arthur Evans, "Dionysos and Christ,” chap. 7 of The God of

Ecstacy: Sex Roles and the Madness of Dionysos (New York: St. Martin's,
1988); or Geoffrey Ashe, The virgin: Mary's Cult and the Re-emergence of
the Goddess (London: Arkana, 1976).
75Firmicus Maternus, for example, despite his maligning of the

priests of the Mother goddess, still called upon them to convert to
Christianity. Firmicus Maternus De errore profanarum religionun 4.3:
"Cum cohors uestra ad tribunal iudicantis dei accesserit, nihil uobiscum
referetis quod deus qui uos fecit agnoscat. Abicite hunc tantae
calamitatis errorem et studia profanae mentis aliquando deserite.
Nolite corpus quod deus fecit scelerata diaboli lege damnare;
calamitatibus uestris, dum adhuc tempus patitur, subuenite.
Misericordia dei diues est, libenter ignoscit. Relictis nonaginta nouem
ouibus amissam quaerit unam et reuerso pater prodigo filio et uestem
reddit et parat cenam."
477
provided the account of Origen's action for western Christians - having
been translated into Latin by Rufinus - described his actions in
indulgent tones:
Origen did a thing that provided the fullest proof of a mind

youthful and immature, but at the same time of faith and
self-mastery. The saying 'there are eunuchs who made
themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake; he took
in an absurdly literal sense, and he was eager both to
fulfil the Saviour's words and at the same time to rule out
any suspicion of vile imputations on the part of
unbelievers. For in spite of his youth he discussed
religious problems before a mixed audience [of men and
women].76
That Eusebius might praise Origen's "faith and self-mastery" at the same
time as he criticized his "youthful[ness] and immatur[ity]" is strong
evidence for the ambiguous relationship not only between the Christian
tradition and Origen, but also between the Christian tradition and
castration.
Origen's self-castration must have played a role in his eventual
disrepute - linked as castration was to issues of masculine authority -
although a role which has not been emphasized by historians.77 The same
Epiphanius who had denounced the Valesians also led the opposition to
the religious philosophy of Origen and was instrumental in the
condemnation of Origen's ideas, despite their popularity and influence.
Jerome, who early in his career had praised Origen, later joined in his
condemnation, partly on the grounds of his self-castration. Jerome
76Eusebius Bistoria ecclesiastica (trans. here G. Williamson [New

York: Dorset, 1965]) 6.8, too lengthy to quote.
77E.g., Elizabeth Clark (The Origenist Controversyi The Cultural

Construction of an Early Christian Debate [Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1992]) does not mention origen's castration,
although the debate on sexual differences plays a role in the
controversy (see her pp. 123-4, 175-7).
478
still continued to use the allegorial schema of biblical interpretation
that Origen had championed, as did Ambrose in his writings.
Voluntary Christian self-castration was not only found in isolated
cases: individuals like Origen or heretical sects like the Valesians.
The first canon of the Council of Nicaea in 325 refused to permit the
ordination of men who had castrated themselves. It was obviously felt
by the mostly eastern bishops assembled that this was a problem
requiring a general prohibition.78 The numerous references to
castration in western Christian writings, moreover, all of which
encouraged a figurative rather than literal understanding of Jesus'
exhortation to become eunuchs, demonstrate its wide-spread popularity
even in the west. In support of this position, it could be noted that
more than a century before the council of Nicaea, the Apostolic
Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome had issued a similar prohibition against
self-castration.79
Latin Christians were much more conservative about gender identity
and sexual difference than their eastern counterparts, as has been
suggested. It is not surprising, then, that the stigma against eunuchs
78Council of Nicaea (ed. G. Alberigo et al., Conciliorum

oecumenicorum decreta (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1991]) carjon 1: " E i x iq iv
vocqj i>no ia x p to v e xe ip ovpyT iG T i f f i)Jt6 pap{J&pa>v el;e x{iT |0ii, o v x o £ p e v e x to e v x<p
jcX.r|pq>- e i 5 £ x iq u y ia iv c o v e a u x o v E êxE pe, x o u x o v kcu ev xcp KkTjjjMp fe ^ E x a ô p e v o v
X E J ta u o G a i J tp o c rjK E i, ic a i etc xou S e u p o p t]S E v a xtb v x o io n x c o v ^ p ^ v a i J rp o o d y e o B a i.
“ flo J tE p Se xoCxo rtp o 8 t]X o v , o x i ir e p i xa>v ejcixt]5e\)6vx(ov xb x p a j p a tc a i x o X p rn v x to v
e a o x o u q e K x e p v e iv e ip i] x a i, o n x o x ; e i x iv E q u jt o P a p p d p to v tj ujco S ecjroxco v
e u v o b x io 0 T |c a v , e v p io K O iv x o 8e a £ io i, x a o q x o io u x o u q e iq k X fip o v jr p o o ie x a i o
K a v t o v . " See also the discussion by H. J. Schroeder, The Disciplinary
Decrees of the General Councils (St. Louis, Missouri: B. Herder, 1937),
esp. 18-9.
79Hippolytus Traditio apostolica 16: "Meretrix vel homo luxuriosus

vel qui se abscidit, et si quis alius facit rem quam non decet dicere,
reiciantur; impuri enim sunt."
479
was generally greater in the west than in the east, and the western
tradition was much more strenuously opposed to voluntary castration than
that of the east. This opposition only made the appropriation of the
symbol of the eunuch that much more problematic. How to situate the
eunuch within the Christian reformulation of western masculinity became
a substantial project of Latin patristic writers.
The first step in the reclamation of the eunuch was the divorcing
of the image of castration from its physiological reality. This meant
giving a meaning to Jesus' words which would distance them from a
physical interpretation. As early as Tertullian this process was
underway. Tertullian applied the image of spiritual castration to the
renunciation of sex within marriage: "How many . . . who by equal mutual
consent cancel the debt of matrimony - voluntary eunuchs for the sake of
their desire after the celestial kingdom?"80 In short, Tertullian tied
the passage to Paul's comments on celibacy, and this was a strategy
which later writers also used.
Nevertheless, Tertullian's attitude toward physical castration was
mixed. He mocked his theological rival, Marcion, as no better than a
eunuch in his total repudiation of sex, and ridiculed Marcion's
80Tert. Ad uxorem 1.6: "Quot item, qui consensu pari inter se

matrimonii debitum tollunt, uoluntarii spadones pro cupiditate regni
caelestis?" Cf. idem, De cultu feminarum 2.9: "Non enim et multi ita
faciunt et se spadonatui obsignant, propter regnum dei tarn fortem et
utique permissam uoluntatem sponte ponentes?" Tertullian's use of the
image of the eunuch, and his attempt to distinguish the Christian
tradition from pagan castration, is also discussed by George Sanders,
"Les galles et le gallat devant 1'opinion chrdtienne," in M. de Boer,
ed., Bommages A Maarten vermaseren (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978).
480
admiration for eunuchs.81 Nonetheless, he also rejoiced that while
according to Mosaic Law, the sexual continence of "eunuchs and barren
persons used to be regarded as ignominious," in the Christian era they
"not only have lost ignominy, but have even deserved grace, being
invited into the kingdom of the heavens."82 He both questioned the
effectiveness of castration for removing sexual desire, but also praised
those persons, "both of men and women, whom nature has made sterile,
with a structure which cannot procreate," seeing the latter as a
foretaste of the absence of sexual desire in heaven.83
Throughout Tertullian's writings, castration was a powerful
symbol. Christians must "castrate" themselves from the traditional
Roman liberties of repeated marriage; Christians have also been "trained
81Tert. Adversus Marcionem 1.1: "Quis enim tarn castrator carnis

castor quam qui nuptias abstulit?" The reference is to an ancient myth
that a beaver will chew off its own testicles and spit them at a
pursuing enemy. Cf. Apul. Met. 1.9: "...mutavit in feram castorem, quod
ea bestia captivitati metuens ab insequentibus se praecisione genitalium
liberat..." Cf. Tert. Adv. Marcionem 1.29: "Non tinguitur apud ilium
caro nisi virgo, nisi vidua, nisi caelebs, nisi divortio baptisma
mercata, quasi non etiam spadonibus ex nuptiis nata." Cf. idem, Adv.
Valentinianos 30.3: "Et quid facit spadones, quos uidemus apud illos?"
Cf. also Ps.-Tert. Carmen adv. Marcionem 5 11. 55-61.
82Tert. De monogamia 7: "...quoniam spadones et steriles

ignominiosi habebantur. ...et spadones non tantum ignominia caruerunt,
uerum et gratiam meruerunt inuitati in regna caelorum..."
83Tert. Adv. Marcionem 1.29: "Quis denique abstinens dicetur

sublato eo a quo abstinendum est? ...Quae libidinis infrenatio in
castratione?" Cf. idem, De resurrectione mortuorum 61.6-7: "Nos quoque,
ut possumus, os a cibo excusamus; etiam sexum a congressione subdueimus.
Quot spadones uoluntarii, quot uirgines Christi maritae, quot steriles
utriusque naturae infructuosis genitalibus structi? Nam si et hie iam
uacare est et officia et emolumenta membrorum temporali uacatione, ut in
temporali dispositione, nec homo tamen minus saluus est, proinde homine
saluo, et quidem magis tunc ut in aeterna dispositione, magis non
desiderabimus quae iam hie non desiderare consueuimus."
481
by God to castrate the world" from its sins.84 Even Jesus himself was
"more perfect on this account as well as on others, that He was more
entirely pure - and He stands before you, if you are willing to copy
Him, as a voluntary eunuch in the flesh."85 Christ in fact "opens the
kingdoms of the heavens to eunuchs, as being Himself, withal, a eunuch,"
according to Tertullian, who also wondered "what purpose can be served
by loins, conscious of seminal secretions, and all the other organs of
generation in the two sexes," after the glorification of the body in the
resurrection from the dead.86
Although Tertullian's opinions about castration were his own, the
ambiguous rejection of physical castration and praise of spiritual
castration remained. This can be seen especially in comments on another
admonition of Jesus, also recorded in the Gospel of Matthew:
If your right eye should cause you to sin, tear it out and
throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part
of you than to have your whole body thrown into hell. And
if your right hand should cause you to sin, cut it off and
84Tert. De exhortatione castitatis 7: "Ecce enim in uetere lege

animaduerto castratam licentiam saepius nubendi." Cf. idem, De cultu
feminarum 2.9: "Nos sumus, in guos decurrerent fines saeculorum, nos
destinati a deo ante mundum in extimatione temporali. Itague castigando
et castrando, ut ita dixerim, saeculo erudimur a deo."
85Tert. De moaogamia 5: "...perfectior Adam, id est Christus, eo

guogue nomine perfectior gua integrior, uolenti guidem tibi spado
occurrit in carne." Note that the translation reads "a voluntary
celibate in the flesh." I have also removed some of the sguare brackets
from the translation.
86Tert. De monogamla 3: "...ipso Domino spadonibus aperiente regna

caelorum, ut et ipso spadone..." Again, the translation is misleading:
"as being Himself, withal, a virgin..." Cf. idem, De resurrectione
mortuorum 60: "Quo renes, conscii seminum, et religua genitalium
utriusgue sexus et conceptum stabula et uberum fontes, decessuro
concubitu et fetu et educatu?"
482
throw it away; for it will do you less harm to lose one part
of you than to have your whole body go to hell.87
It is possible that Christian advocates of physical castration used this
passage in support of their position. Opponents of castration, whose
writings are the only ones which survive, certainly used it to argue
against the practice.
The focus in the patristic commentary on this saying of Jesus is
almost always the temptation to sexual behavior and the importance of
excising sexual desires. It is always stressed, however, that this
excision should be a metaphorical one. John Cassian, for example, wrote
that:
we must not suppose, that by these words [Jesus] intends we

should do violence to ourselves, that we should cut off a
hand or a foot, or the genitals; but that we should destroy
promptly, through our love and zeal for sanctity, that body
of sin with all its members, which is inherent in our
nature.88
Salvian of Marseilles believed that it was "not that any man should
deprive himself of his limbs," but that we should be ready to cut off
87Matt. 8.29-30: "Quod si oculus tuus dexter scandalizat te, erue

eum, et proiice abs te: expedit enim tibi ut pereat unum membrorum
tuorum, quam totum corpus tuum mittatur in gehennam. Et si dextra manus
tua scandalizat te, abscide earn, et proiice abs te: expedit enim tibi ut
pereat unum membrorum tuorum, quam totum corpus tuum eat in gehennam."
88John Cassian Conlationes 12.1: "Neque enim beatus apostolus ad

abscisionem manuum aut pedem aut genitalium inmiti nos praeceptione
conpellit, sed corpus peccati, quod utique constat ex membris,
quantocius destrui zelo perfectae desiderat sanctitatis." Note also
that Fr. Robert's translation has "any other part of the body" instead
of "the genitals.” Cf. ibid. 1.20: "Satis enim est absque unius
praecepti membro, id est operatione uel fructu in ceteris sanum
firmumque durare et tamquam debilem introire in regnum caelorum, quam
cum soliditate mandati incidere in aliquod scandalum, quod perniciosa
consuetudine separans nos a districtionis regula atque adrepti propositi
disciplina inducat in tale dispendium, quod nequaquam futura detrimenta
conpensans omnes praeteritos fructus totumque operationis nostrae corpus
gehennae faciat ignibus concremari."
483
"certain intimacies of domestic relationships” for the sake of
salvation.89 valerian argued that "to pluck out one's eye is this: to
correct one's vices, to extinguish the desires of the flesh, and to
check lasciviousness of life by pursuing displinary control."90 This
allegorical understanding, ironically of the same sort which Origen had
championed, permitted the distancing of Christian leaders from the
physical mutilations which such passages at first glance suggested.
Similarly, western writers offered a host of alternative meanings
for the "eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the
kingdom of heaven,” which accorded with their exhortations to sexual
renunciation. Depending on the rhetorical needs of the moment, eunuchs
89Salvian De gubernatione Dei 3.8: "unde est illud etiam, quod in

sequentibus ait dominus: 'si scandalizat te oculus tuus, erue eum, et si
scandalizat te manus tua, abscide earn: expedit tibi ut pereat unum
membrorum tuorum, quam totum corpus tuum mittatur in gehennam.' si
igitur iuxta dei uerbum in gehennam scandalis trahimur, recte profecto,
ut gehennam uitare possimus, etiam manibus nostris nos oculisque
multamus, non quod membris suis quis priuare se debeat, sed, quia tarn
necessariae nobis sunt quaedam domesticorum obsequiorum necessitudines,
ut his quasi oculis interdum aut manibus utamur, recte nobis praesentium
ministeriorum officia subtrahimus, ne aeterni ignis tormenta patiamur;
ubi enim de ministerio agitur et uita, rectius profecto Christiano est
ministerio carere quam uita."
"valerian Homelia 17.6: "Ad haec sane expugnanda evangelica

institutione opus est, quae dicit: 'Si te scandalizat oculus tuus, erue
eum.' Hoc est oculum eruere, vitia castigare, desideria carnis
exstinguere, et disciplinae studio vitae lasciviam deprimere." Cf.
ibid. 6.6: "Nam ita docet evangelista dicens: 'Si te scandalizat oculus,
erue eum.' Nemo, dilectissimi, in hoc credat hujus sententiae stare
rationem, quasi Dominus humanum corpus deformare velit, quod ad
similitudinem suam plasmavit et ad speciem suae dignationis instituit:
hoc est oculos eruere, quae sunt in homine turpia resecare, et viles
actus emendatione compescere, castigatis illecebris truncare luxuriam,
et bono conscientiae manus improbae cupiditatis abscindere Ille autem
manus suas incidii, qui in se infidelitatis tela confregerit, et justo
judicio infidelitatis calamos amputarit.”
484
might be virgins,91 continent persons,92 women in sexless marriages,93 or
widows.94 These statements pushed the meaning of castration continually
further from the literal and toward the allegorical. According to such
fluid definitions, being a eunuch could function as a short-hand for
general Christian perfection, as Jerome implied in one letter. "For
when you . . . made yourself a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of
heaven's sake," he asked one man, "what else did you seek to achieve
than the perfect life?"95
The assimilation of the symbol of the eunuch to Christian
perfection, of course, linked it ironically to Christian manliness.
This connection between castration and manliness is true even though the
91Hieron. Bpist. 55.4: "Ad gups Dominus: 'qui potest,' inguit,

'capere, capiat'; statimque sub exemplo trium eunuchorum uirginitatis
infert beatitudinem quae nulla carnis lege retinetur.” Cf. Prudent.
Amartigenia 1. 957: "...Candida uirginitas animum castrata recisum."
92August. De continentia 2.5: "Ac per hoc ilia, quae in

genitalibus membris pudicitia refrenatis solet maxime ac proprie
continentia nominari...”
93Hieron. Bpist. 123.10: "Si enim multae in coniugio, uiuentibus

adhuc uiris, intellegunt illud Apostoli: 'Omnia licent, sed non omnia
expediunt,' et castrant se propter regna caelorum, uel a secunda
natiuitate post lauacrum ex consensu, uel post nuptias ex ardore
fidei..."
94Ambrose De officiis ministrorum 12.6.27: "Quid etiam tarn decorum

quam ut uidua uxor defuncto coniugi fidem seruet? Quid etiam hoc
utilius quo regnum caeleste acquiritur? 'Sunt enim qui se castrauerunt
propter regnum caelorum.'"
95Hieron. Bpist. (trans. here C. Mierow, ACW 33) 14.6: "Nam cum
derelicta militia castrati te propter regnum caelorum, quid aliud quam
perfectam sectatus es uitam?" Cf. Hieron. Bpist. 66.8: "'Si uis,'
inquit, 'perfectus esse, uade, uende omnia quae habes, et da pauperibus,
et ueni, sequere me. Si uis perfectus esse': semper grandia in
audientium ponuntur arbitrio. Et ideo uirginitatem apostolus non
imperat, quia Dominus disputans de eunuchis qui se castrassent propter
regna caelorum, ad extremum intulit: 'qui potest capere capiat.' Non
est enim uolentis neque currentis sed miserentis Dei. 'Si uis perfectus
esse': non tibi inponitur necessitas ut uoluntas praemium consequatur."
485
image of castration was also extended to women. Nonetheless, such a
movement requires some explanation. To begin, it may be that voluntary
castration in eastern Christian circles began as a direct repudiation of
a traditional masculine identity. Origen, for example, wrote that only
a man who rid himself of his ^vSpixaq IxiQvpiai; ("virile desires") could
become a xaig ("boy") before Christ.96 Prom this perspective, self
castration could be seen as part of the many attempts which some eastern
Christians made to eradicate sexual differences.97 The blurring of
gender imagined in the stories of holy women dressed as men and passing
as eunuchs found its parallel in the dozens of eastern stories of holy
eunuchs.98
There is only one similar story of a holy eunuch which can be
found in a western author, that of the Egyptian abbot Serenus by John
Cassian. Cassian wrotet
an Angel appeared to him in a vision by night; and opening

his body, took therefrom a piece of flesh all on fire, which
he cast away; then closing the wound, left the part sound as
before. Then he said to the holy Abbot: "Behold the
incentives of the flesh have been extracted from your loins;
960rigen Coamentaria in evangelium secundum Hatthaeum (PG 13)

13.16, too lengthy to quote. This passage was known in the west through
a translation by Rufinus.
97See above, chaps. 5 and 7.
98See Browe, Geschichte der Entmannung, 20. Many of Browe's

examples were from late antiquity: Nereus and Achilleus (AASS 12 May),
Calocerus and Parthenius (AASS 19 May), Prothus and Hyacinthus (AASS 11
September), Indes (Nicephorus Callistus, Ecclesiastica Bistoria [PG 145]
7.6), Tigrius (AASS 12 January; Sozomen Historia ecclesiastica [PG 67]
8.24), Boethazat and Azat (Henologium Basilianum Graecorum [PG 117] 20
November and 14 April), Melito of Sardes (Eusebius Bistoria
ecclesiastica 5.24). The sources for theese stories are also discussed
by Baudouin de Gaiffier, "Palatins et eunuques dans quelques documents
hagiographiques," Analecta Bollandiana 75 (1957): 17-46.
486
and you have obtained this day perfect and perpetual

chastity, which you desired so ardently by prayer."99
Cassian seemed uncomfortable with the idea of circulating this legend:
"Of this distinguished privilege bestowed upon him by the Almighty," he
added, "we have now said sufficient."100 More importantly, Cassian made
it clear that what was praiseworthy about Serenus' behavior was that he
waited for God to act, and did not attempt to perform the deed himself:
For he believed that it was much easier for God to humble

and subdue the rebellious flesh by His grace, than for man
to stifle its stings, no matter to what means he might have
recourse (by potions or medications or even by cutting with
a blade); since the Almighty can confer that purity of mind
which is far more sublime than any it is possible to obtain
by mere human industry and natural exertion.101
In the hands of Cassian, then, a castration story became a manifesto
against self-castration, and Serenus' saintly perfection was revealed
not in his physical attributes but in his interior disposition.102
"John Cassian Conlationes 7.2: "Cumque petitioni coeptae

supplicatione iugi ac lacrimis indefessus insisteret, adueniens ad eum
angelus in uisione nocturna eiusque uelut aperiens uterum quandam
ignitam carnis strumam de eius uisceribus auellens atgue proiciens
suisque omnia ut fuerant locis intestina restituens: ecce, inquit,
incentiua tuae carnis abscisa sunt et obtinuisse te noueris hodierno die
perpetuam corporis puritatem quam fideliter poposcisti."
100John Cassian Conlationes 7.2: "Haec de gratia dei, quae

memorato uiro peculiariter adtributa est, breuiter dixisse sufficiat."
101John Cassian Conlationes 7.2: "...quod se nouerat non laborum

merito, sed dei gratia consecutum, ardentius animatus ad hoc quoque
similiter obtinendum, credens multo facilius hos stimulos carnis
radicitus deum posse conuellere, quos etiam humanae artis industria
nonnumquam solet quibusdam poculis uel medicamentis seu ferri sectione
detrahere, quandoquidem illam spiritus puritatem, quae sublimior est
quamque inpossibile est humano labore uel studio conprehendi, suo munere
contulisset." Note that Fr. Robert neglects to translate the phrase in
parentheses.
102Michel Foucault ("The Battle for Chastity," in P. Ari&s and A.

Bdjin, eds., Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present
Times [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985]) argues generally for an
interiorization of sexuality in Cassian's writings. Cf. also the
interiority of Cassian's approach to nocturnal emissions, discussed by
487
Western writers used the eunuch not for the purposes of gender
erasure, but as a symbol of the manliness and perfection of sexual
restraint. Jerome stated this outright, writing to defend the manliness
of the girding of one's loins advocated in the bible:
"With your loins girt," Scripture says, and to the apostles

Christ gives the command: "Let your loins be girt about and
your lamps burning." John [the Baptist], too, wears a
leathern girdle about his loins; and there was nothing soft
or effeminate in [the prophet] Elias either, but every bit
of him was hard and virile (he certainly was a shaggy man);
he, too, is described as having worn a girdle of leather
about his loins.103
It is possible that Christian advocates of self-castration also used
these passages in their defense, since tying up the scrotum to sever the
vas deferens was a common and relatively safe method of castration.104
Jerome was obviously hoping to avoid any confusion in interpreting so
precisely the biblical injunction.
The dichotomy between manliness and unmanliness can also be seen
in Ambrose's comments against castration:
great is the grace of continence in them [who do not

castrate themselves], because it is the will, not
incapacity, which makes a man continent. For it is seemly
to preserve the gift of divine working whole. . . The case
is not the same of those who mutilate themselves, and I
touch upon this point advisedly, for there are some who look
upon it as a holy deed to check by the evil violence of this
David Brakke, "The Problematization of Nocturnal Emissions in Early

Christian Syria, Egypt, and Gaul," Journal of Early Christian Studies
(forthcoming 1995). I am grateful to David Brakke for an advance copy
of his article.
103Hieron. Bomilia de Exodo in vigilia Paschae (ed. D. Morin

[Oxford: J. Parker, 1897]; trans. M. Ewald, FC 57): "'Lumbi,' inquit,
'vestri adcincti.' Et apostolis dicitur: 'Sint lumbi vestri adcincti,
et lucernae ardentes in manibus vestris.' Et Iohannes zona pellicia
cingitur; et Helias nihil in se habens molle atque muliebre, sed totum
virile et rigidum (homo quippe hirsutus erat), cingulum habuisse
describitur." Cf. idem, Epist. 22.11; Paulinus of Nola, Epist. 24.14.
104See the discussion by Rouselle, Porneia, 122-3.
488
sort. . . but then consider whether this tends not rather to

a declaration of weakness than to a reputation for strength.
. . No one, then, ought, as many suppose, to mutilate
himself, but rather gain the victory [over lust]: for the
Church gathers in those who conquer, not those who are
defeated. . . For why should the means of gaining a crown
and of the practice of virtue be lost to a man who is born
to honour, equipped for victory? how can he through courage
of soul mutilate himself?105
Ambrose's claims for the men who do not castrate themselves were all
symbols of manliness: strength, victory, honor, courage.
In sum, Latin-speaking Christians of the western Mediterranean
might be said to have rejected physical castration because of its many
connotations of unmanliness, not least of which was the long antipathy
to eunuchs in Roman culture as failed men. The challenge for writers of
the patristic period was both to remain true to what they believed to be
the teaching of Jesus, that Christian men must see themselves as
eunuchs, and their own desire to retain a masculine identity, and their
view of themselves as manly individuals in an unmanly society. The
separation of the image of castration from its practice provided the key
for the reconciliation of these seeming opposites. The creation of a
distinct group of Christian "eunuchs," separated from the rest of men by
105Ambrose De uiduas 13.75-7: "'Et sunt spadones qui se ipsos

castrauerunt'; uoluntate utique, non necessitate, et ideo magna in iis
continentiae gratia; quia uoluntas facit non infirmitas continentem.
Nam decet integrum diuini operis seruare munus. Nec illis forte parum
sit lubrico corporis non teneri; nam si erepta est subeundi istius palma
certaminis, erepta etiam materia periculi; et quamuis non queunt
coronari, non queunt tamen uinci. ...Non eadem causa eorum qui in se
ipsos ferro utuntur, quo non imprudenter defleximus. Sunt enim qui
uirtutis loco ponant, ferro culpam compescere. De quibus etsi nostram
nolumus proferre sententiam, quamuis sint statuta maiorum, considerent
tamen ne quis id ad professionem infirmitatis trahat, non ad gloriam
firmitatis. ...Nemo igitur, ut plerique arbitrantur, se debet
abscidere, sed magis uincere; uictores enim recipit ecclesia, non
uictos. ...Cur enim coronae occasio et uirtutis usus eripitur homini,
qui natus ad laudem est, ad uictoriam praeparatus, qui potius uirtute
animi castrare se possit?"
489
the perfection of their masculine life-style, would take this symbolism
one step further.
4. Necessity makes another a eunuch, my own choice makes me so:
Monks as Manly Eunuchs
The identification of the spiritual eunuch not only as a positive
representation of all Christian men but as a symbol of the holiest of
Christian men can best seen in discussions of the evolving institutions
of monasticism in the later Roman west. This new lifestyle appeared
just at the time when the new Christian masculinity began to dominate
the west. Its supporters argued that it was a representation of the
ideal Christian life, and a model of perfection.106 The monk embodied
many of the central issues of late ancient masculinity in both public
and private life - military service, public authority, familial
obligations, and sexual behavior - but from a new Christian perspective.
It might well be said that the monk was the eunuch in the new Christian
masculinity.
Monasticism was still relatively new in the western Mediterranean
even in the final decades of the Roman empire in the west. Still, the
combination of withdrawal from the responsibilities of the world and the
ascetical discipline of the body found its admirers. Latin Christians
began with visits by western aristocrats to the desert communities of
Egypt and Asia Minor in the fourth century. By the fifth century,
106See esp. the discussion of this question by Markus, End of

Ancient Christianity, chaps. 3, 4, and 5.
490
however, Latin-speaking monastic communities were founded both in the
holy places of Palestine - like that which Jerome led in Bethlehem - and
along the coasts of the western Mediterranean - like that which John
Cassian founded on an island near Marseilles.107
Issues of gender were never far from the central questions of
monasticism. In a certain way, writers of the monastic life recognized
that monks had abdicated their masculine roles, and along with that,
part of their masculine identity. "Go then and so live in your
monastery, free from all stain of defilement," Jerome urged the monk
Rusticus, "that you may come forth to Christ's altar as a virgin steps
from her bower."108 Augustine's words to a group of monks made their
gender ambiguity a point of discussion. He mocked the unmanliness of
those monks who refused to cut their hair, in defiance of the precept of
Paul who said that for a man to have long hair was frcqua ("a
disgrace").109 Augustine wrote:
How lamentably ridiculous is that other argument, if it can

be called such, which they have brought forward in defense
of their long hair. They say that the Apostle forbade men
to wear their hair long, but, they argue, those who have
107There is a limitless secondary literature on monasticism. On

the origins of western monasticism in particular, however, see Rousseau,
Ascetics, Authority, and the Church; or Henry Chadwick, "The Ascetic
Ideal in the History of the Church," in Heresy and Orthodoxy in the
Early Church (London: Variorum, 1991). For an example of an
aristocratic western pilgrim, see E. Hunt, "St. Sylvia of Aquitaine: The
Role of a Theodosian Pilgrim in the Society of East and West," Journal
of Theological Studies 23 (1972): 351-73.
108Hieron. Epist. 125.17: "Ita ergo age et uiue in monasterio, ut

clericus esse merearis, ut adulescentiam tuam nulla sorde conmacules, ut
ad altare Christi quasi de thalamo uirgo procedas...”
1091 Cor. 11.14-5: "Nec ispa natura docet vos, quod vir quidem si
comam nutriat, ignominia [ftnfi(a] est illi: mulier vero si comam nutriat,
gloria est illi: quoniam capilli pro velamine ei dati sunt."
491
castrated themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven

are no longer men. 0 astonishing madness1 . . They have
[also] heard, or at least have read, what was written: "For
all you who have been baptized into Christ, have put on
Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
slave nor freeman; there is neither male nor female." Yet
they do not know that this was said according to the
concupiscence of carnal sex, because in the interior man,
where we are renewed in the newness of our minds, there is
no sex of this sort. Therefore, let them not deny that holy
people are men because they do nothing of a sexual
nature.110
We should not miss the fact that Augustine was opposing what was
apparently a developed exegetical tradition on the relationship between
monasticism and the renunciation of male identity.
Still, what distinguished monks from eunuchs and other gender
ambiguous individuals - at least in the minds of the patristic writers
describing and advocating monastic renunciation - was the very fact that
monks retained a masculine identity. Their identity, moreover, was
apparent in exactly those areas of public and private life where the
gender ambiguity of physical eunuchs was so disturbing. Monks
symbolized the wholesale adoption of the new Christian masculinity.
The manliness of monks is apparent first of all in their
relationship to the military identity of Roman men. "When you forsook
military service and made yourself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's
110August. De opere monachorum (ed. CSEL 41; trans. M. Muldowney,

FC 16) 32.40: "lam illud, si dici potest, quam luctuose ridiculum est,
quod rursus inuenerunt ad defensionem crinium suorum. uirum, inquiunt,
prohibuit apostolus habere comam; qui autem 'se ipsos castrauerunt
propter regnum caelorum,' iam non sunt uiri. o dementiam singularem!
...audierunt enim uel legerunt quod scriptum est: 'quicumque in Christo
baptizati estis, Christum induistis, ubi non est iudaeus neque graecus,
non seruus neque liber, non masculus neque femina,' et non intellegunt
secundum carnalis sexus concupiscentiam hoc esse dictum, quia in
interiore homine, ubi renouamur in nouitate mentis nostrae, nullus sexus
huius modi est. non ergo propterea se negent uiros, quia masculino sexu
nihil operantur."
492
sake," Jerome wrote to a monk named Heliodorus, "what else did you seek
to achieve than the perfect life?"111 Jerome did not mention
Heliodorus' monastic vows or enclosure; indeed, he did not need to
mention them, since the abandonment of military service and the
spiritual self-castration both functioned to represent this moment.
Pagan writers of the late ancient west had considered it problematic for
eunuchs to engage in the waging of warfare because they were no longer
men. Christian writers condemned military activity on the part of
monks, but for a very different reason: because they were more than men.
Pope Leo the Great condemned the man "who abandons his [monastic] state
and throws himself into military service" because he was giving up
"better things."112 Unlike eunuchs, monks were not obliged to abandon
warfare because they were not suited to it but because it was not suited
to them.
Nonetheless, monks strongly participated in the spiritual warfare
against the devil and against sin. John Cassian's writings return again
and again to this theme.113 Monks were in this way the ideal soldiers
111Hieron. Epist. 14.6: "Nam cum derelicta militia castrati te

propter regnum caelorum, quid aliud quam perfectam sectatus es uitam?"
112Leo Epist. 167.14: "Propositum monachi proprio arbitrio aut

voluntate susceptum deseri non potest absque peccato. Quod enim quis
vovit Deo, debet et reddere. unde qui relicta singularitatis
professions, ad militiam vel ad nuptias devolutus est, publicae
poenitentiae satisfactione purgandus est: quia etsi innocens militia, et
honestum potest esse conjugium, electionem meliorum deseruisse
transgressio est."
113John Cassian Conlationes 1.2 (each profession has its

hardships: soldiers must endure warfare, monks must endure bodily
deprivations); ibid. 1.5 (monks are like archers, who are only
successful if they are not distracted from their targets); ibid. 4.6
(temptations are like skirmishes which prepare one for major battles);
ibid. 4.7 (our bodies and souls wages battles against each other); ibid.
5.14 (the vices are our military enemies); ibid. 6.10 (monks, like
493
of Christ, exactly because of their refusal to participate in war, and
more and more after the period of persecutions this title of address was
reserved to them.114 The perfect example of the monk as soldier was
Martin of Tours, as described by his biographer, Sulpicius Severus.
Only by abandoning a military career did Martin find the real strength
to conquer all kinds of demons and natural forces.115 Moreover, Martin
used the military metaphor himself - at least this is what Sulpicius
claimed - to describe the monastic life. When one of his monks, who had
also been a soldier, wished to return to his wife, Martin made this
speech:
No women should enter into the camp of men. A battle array

of soldiers should hold itself apart. A woman should remain
far from them and live by herself, in her own tent. An army
becomes contemptible if its cohorts of men are mingled with
a horde of women.116
The military identity denied to physical eunuchs was granted to those
spiritual eunuchs who remained men.
soldiers, must both act with their right hands and protect themselves
with their left hands); ibid. 24.25 (our sufferings are warfare).
114E.g., August. De opere monachorum 28.36: "o serui dei, milites

Christi..." See Malone, Monk and the Martyr.
115Sulpicius Severus Vita sancti Martini 14 (Martin's prayers

bring angels to destroy a pagan temple); ibid. 15 (when the pagans
attempted to revenge themselves against him, they are unable to wound
him); idem, Epist. ad diaconum Aurelium (Martin a bloodless martyr);
idem, Dialogi 2.3 (Martin suffered the blows of mule-drivers, but they
find that the mules then refuse to move).
116Sulpicius Severus Dialogi (ed. PL 20; trans. G. Walsh et al.,

EC 7) 2.11: "Martinus autem conversus ad nos (sicut eum frequens fratrum
turba vallaverat): Mulier, inquit, virorum castra non adeat; acies
militum separata consistat; procul femina in suo degens tabernaculo sit
remota: contemptibilem enim reddit exercitum, si virorum cohortibus
turba feminea misceatur. Miles in acie, miles pugnet in campo: mulier
se intra murorum munimenta contineat."
494
In the arena of public authority, monks also achieved greater
successes than eunuchs. "It is necessity that makes another a eunuch,"
Jerome declared in a letter to his friend Eustochium, "[but] my own
choice [uoluntas] makes me so."117 Jerome recognized in this
declaration how aptly the symbolism of castration applied to the freedom
he felt in his monastic vocation. Despite the requirement of absolute
obedience to the abbot of the community, however, whom Jerome told a
monk named Rusticus that he should "fear as if he were a master,"118
monastic life was not seen generally in unmanly servile metaphors.
Indeed, as Cassian wrote, "he who submits his will to the judgment of
his brothers has far greater fortitude than he who is attached to his
own will."119 The self-directed freedom offered by the monastic life
was an important theme in writings of the period.
One has only to think of Augustine's Confessions, in which he
described his decision, like that of an increasing number of later Roman
men, to become an ascetic and thus to abandon both his incipient
political career and his impending marriage. For Augustine, it was this
former life which was the servitude of the will:
[Victorinus] found the means of devoting himself entirely to

you. I longed to do the same, but I was held fast, not in
fetters clamped upon me by another, but by my own will,
which had the strength of iron chains. The enemy held my
117Hieron. Epist. (trans. here C. Mierow, ACW 33) 22.19: "Alium

eunuchum necessitas faciat, me uoluntas."
118Hieron. Epist. 125.15: "...praepositum monasterii timeas ut

dominum...”
119John Cassian Conlationes 16.23: "Sciendum sane generaliter

ilium partes agere fortiores qui uoluntati fratres suam subicit
uoluntatem, quam cum qui in deferendis suis definitionibus ac tenendis
pertinacior inuenitur."
495
will in his power and from it he had made a chain and

shackled me. For my will was perverse and lust had grown
from it, and when I gave in to lust habit was born, and when
I did not resist the habit it became a necessity. These
were the links which together formed what I have called my
chain, and it held me fast in the duress of servitude.120
In like vein, when he left for the country-house where he was to set up
a monastic community, he wrote of "my release from the profession of
rhetoric."121
The submission to authority, which Roman men resented and which
was required of men with increasing severity, could be cut short by the
entrance into a monastery. Even the clerical life did not offer the
same degree of withdrawal from the world as did the monastic life, which
recreated an ideal society in miniature within its confines.122 In this
way, the monk avoided the fate of the eunuch, whose elevation to
political office was condemned as an aberration. In contrast, monks
became more and more desirable for positions of leadership in the church
and in society, even if they usually demonstrated the same humble
unwillingness in receiving such offices as did their clerical
counterparts.122 When compared with "the sadness and weariness with
120August. Confessiones 8.5: "Sed ubi mihi homo tuus Simplicianus

de Victorino ista narrauit, exarsi ad imitandum: ad hoc enim et ille
narrauerat. ...Cui rei ego suspirabam ligatus non ferro alieno, sed mea
ferrea uoluntate. Velle meum tenebat inimicus et inde mihi catenam
fecerat et constrinxerat me. Quippe ex uoluntate peruersa facta est
libido, et dum seruitur libidini, facta est consuetudo, et dum
consuetudini non resistitur, facta est necessitas. Quibus quasi ansulis
sibimet innexis - unde catenam appellaui - tenebat me obstrictum dura
seruitus."
121August. Confessiones 9.4: "Et uenit dies, quo etiam actu

soluerer a professione rhetorica, unde iam cogitatu solutus eram."
122See Markus, End of Ancient Christianity, chap. 11.
123See Markus, End of Ancient Christianity, chaps. 12, 13,and14.
496
which those are punished who take delight in the world,” John Cassian
suggested that the monk gained what would be the envy of any Roman
nobleman:
We receive in like manner the wealthy multiplication of

houses and lands, when, renouncing in love to Jesus Christ
our own dwelling, we possess in our own innumerable
Monasteries spread over the earth . . . [and] when parting
with ten or twenty slaves who serve us only with regret and
with little fidelity, we see ourselves surrounded by a
number of persons, not only free but some of them of noble
birth, eagerly and willingly tendering to us their
services?124
The monk retained the masculine public authority and enjoyed the
masculine status of wealth and property which the eunuch could not.
The flight from marriage and the family again offered monks an
opportunity to be both eunuchs and manly men. If physical castration,
with the resulting inability to participate in marriage and family life,
became in part the cause of its condemnation by pagan writers, the same
abdication of marital and familial responsibilities became, for monks, a
point in its favor. "Castrating themselves from their wives in order to
imitate the chastity of virgins," is how Jerome described monks and
other ascetics, as well as clerics, and he contrasted them with saeculi
homines ("the men of this world”).125 What he could not understand, as
124John Cassian Conlationes 24.26: "...Si autem et pro irae ac

furoris perturbatione iugem patientiae lenitatem, pro sollicitudinis ac
distentionis angore securitatis guietem, pro infructuosa saeculi huius
poenaligue tristitia salutaris tristitia fructum... Multiplicata etiam
domorum atgue agrorum possessione ditabitur, guisgue una domo pro
Christi dilectione reiecta innumera monasteriorum habitacula tamguam
propria possidebit, in guacumgue orbis parte uelut in suae domus iure
succedens. Quomodo enim non centuplum et si domini nostri sententiae
superadici aliquid fas est plus guam centumplum recipit, qui decern uel
uiginti seruorum ministeria infida et coacticia derelinquens tot
ingenuorum ac nobilium spontaneo fulcitur obseguio?”
125Hieron. Epist. 49.2: "Si saeculi homines indignantur in minori

gradu se esse guam uirgines, miror clericos et monachos et continentes
497
he explained to his friend Pammachius, was the reason why his adversary,
Jovinian, who was also a monk, could not see for himself that the
rewards of the monastic life were far superior to those of married life.
The renunciation of marriage and family life which monasticism
offered was certainly an advantage, argued pope Leo the Great, since
although "marriage can be honorable," the monastic life was better.126
Hilary of Arles, who recorded the life of Honoratus, noted how
Honoratus' parents had opposed his entrance into the monastery, as a
result of which "he thought of himself as a son of God."127 John
Cassian similarly related the story of an Egyptian monk, Theonas, who
had abandoned his wife of five years to enter a monastery. When he
returned home to urge her to embrace the monastic life with him, she
refused, saying that he would be responsible for her sinning by
deserting her again, but he maintained that his renunciation of the
world was necessary and left. Cassian concluded that he could "neither
pronounce in favour or against its adoption," but had "merely made a
id non laudare quod faciunt. Castrant se ab uxoribus suis ut imitentur

uirginum castitatem, et id ipsum uolunt maritos esse quod uirgines?"
126Leo Epist. 167t "Propositum monachi proprio arbitrio aut

voluntate susceptum deseri non potest absque peccato. Quod enim quis
vovit Deo, debet et reddere. unde qui relicta singularitatis
professione, ad militiam vel ad nuptias devolutus est, publicae
poenitentiae satisfactions purgandus est: quia etsi innocens militia, et
honestum potest esse conjugium, electionem meliorum deseruisse
transgressio est."
127Hilary of Arles Serao de vita sancti Honorati 8.3-4: "Tota hinc

parentum persecutio suscitatur. Tunc solum et primum patri contumax
fuit, cum Dei patris filius esse contendit..."
498
simple narration of what really passed," and only added that no one
could argue with the present holiness of Theonas.128
The multitude of problems awaiting the later Roman male who
married and led a family were nowhere to be found in the new family
which was the local monastic community. Jerome continued in his letter
to the monk Rusticus: "The superior of the monstery you will . . . love
as a father. What[ever] precepts he gives you will believe to be
wholesome for you."129 The restrictions on paternal authority, which
had problematized men's participation in marriage and family life in the
later empire, did not exist within the monastery. The spiritual
castration of the monks permitted them a rewardingly absolute fatherhood
in the new masculinity.
Finally, sexual behavior also both obscured and highlighted the
differences between monks and eunuchs. Honks like Jerome were most
anxious to distinguish themselves from the "destructive chastity" of the
pagan eunuchs, while at the same time they were obliged to recognize its
many similarities.130 "[The Lord] praised the blessedness of virginity
128John Cassian Conlationes 21.1 (on the first abandonment by

Theonas of his wife), 21.8 (on his return home), 21.9 (on her refusal
and his second abandonment of her) and 21.10: "Ego autem, qui non meam
super hac re sententiam prompsi, sed rei gestae historiam simplici
narratione conplexus sum, aequum est, ut sicut mihi de eorum qui hoc
factum probant laude nihil uindico, ita eorum qui id inprobant non
pulser inuidia. Habeat ergo suum de illo ut diximus unusquisque
iudicium: sed moneo, ut ita censuram sui castiget examinis, ne se
aequiorem aut sanctiorem diuino credat esse iudicio, quo in eum etiam
apostolicarum conlata sunt signa uirtutum..."
129Hieron. Epist. (trans. here F. Wright, LCL) 125.15:

"...praepositum monasterii timeas ut dominum, diligas ut parentem,
credas tibi salutare, quidquid ille praeceperit..."
130Hieron. Epist. 123.7: "Quod quidem obseruat, et gentilitas, in

condemnationem nostri, si hoc non exhibeat ueritas Christo, quod tribuit
499
by the example of the three [types of] eunuchs," Jerome claimed in yet
another letter, adding quickly that it was "not at all restricted by the
law of the flesh.”131 The castration which monastic life involved can
be seen in particular in the writings of John Cassian, who wrote at
greatest length about sexual behavior and monks.
Cassian's Conferences were a highly stylized but practical guide
for monks, written under the guise of conversations Cassian had had in
his youth with the saintly abbots of Egypt. Sexual desire was only one
of a number of concerns about the monastic life, but it was a prominent
one, and useful for our purposes in defining the monk as a manly eunuch.
The longest discussion of sexual matters begins when Cassian had his
young friend Germanus ask: "Living in the flesh can we remain so free
from the body's passions that we will never feel their goading
fires?"132 The answer that Cassian provided to this question is a
resounding "No." He acknowledged that "there are persons who without
this great care and this rigorous fasting, experience not at all or very
little what you are lamenting [i.e., sexual desires] . . . either
through temperament or through old age."133 A man's body could never be
mendacium diabolo; qui et castitatem repperit perditricem. Hierophanta

apud Athenas euirat uirum, et aeterna debilitate fit castus."
131Hieron. Epist. 55.4: "Ad quos Dominus: 'qui potest,' inquit,

'capere, capiat'; statimque sub exemplo trium eunuchorum uirginitatis
infert beatitudinem quae nulla carnis lege retinetur."
132John Cassian Conlationes (trans. here C. Liubheid [New York:

Paulist, 1985]) 11.14: "...sed utrum ita eius possit perpetuitas
obtineri, ut numquam libidinis titillatio integritatem nostri cordis
infestet, et ita ualeamus ab hac passione carnal! in carne degentes
peregrinari, ut numquam incentiuorum aestibus aduramur, uolumus
edoceri."
133John Cassian Conlationes 22.3: "...licet nos necesse sit

confiteri interdum etiam absque ulla mentis industria uel per temperiem
500
an accurate judge of his inward character, because it betrayed even his
most pious intentions: the build-up of urine in the bladder during sleep
caused erections even in eunuchs and in young boys far too young to have
sexual thoughts.134
The presence of sexual desire in the individual, therefore, did
not betray his weakness but his manliness, since he was forced to
continue to struggle against his own body. The juxtaposition of these
two elements - exterior and interior - was made all the more striking in
that Cassian declared sexual desire to be an internal warfare in which
lust battled with patience for the human soul. In this battle, the
meekness of the monk was his only defence.135 It was precisely in this
battle, however, that the monk proved his manliness. After describing
the few men untroubled by sexual thoughts, Cassian continued by bringing
into question their manliness:
But there is a great difference between the peace of the

cowardly which is obtained without warfare, and without
corporum uel per aetatis maturitatem quosdam rarius sordidari uel certe
fluxus istius egestione non pollui."
134John Cassian Conlationes 12.9: "Perpetuam quidem corporis

puritatem ex parte aliqua experti sumus a uigilantibus posse per dei
gratiam possideri, et conmotionem carnis districtionis rigore atque
iudicio resistente uigilantibus posse non contingere non negamus. Utrum
autem et dormientes hac inquietudine carere possimus uolumus edoceri.
Duabus namque de causis possibile hoc esse non credimus: quas licet
absque uerecundia nequeamus effari, tamen, quoniam hoc medicinae ipsius
necessitas cogit, quaesumus ut cum uenia tui, si qua forte inuerecundius
fuerint denudata, suscipias. Primum ergo est, quod per somni quietem
mentis uigore laxato obseruari nequaquam ualeat illius conmotionis
obreptio, secundo, quod etiam urinae collectio, cum uesicae capacitatem
quiescentibus nobis indesinenti confluxu interni umoris oppleuerit,
excitet membra marcentia, quod etiam paruulis uel spadonibus eadem
nihilominus lege contingit. Unde fit ut, si non oblectatio libidinis
uulnerat mentis adsensum, confusione tamen earn humiliet turpitudo
membrorum."
135John Cassian Conlationes 12.6, too lengthy to quote.
501
contending with enemies; and that of the valiant which is

the fruit of their labour, and the price of their victory.
The fortitude of the latter, who have subdued their vices by
the opposite virtues, may be regarded almost as a prodigy -
a miracle; whilst the tranquility of the former which is the
effect of their temperament, and which leaves them in
tepidity and slothfulness, appears to me to deserve rather
compassion than praise.136
This insistence upon the interior manliness of monks was perhaps
necessary for another reason: because of the similarity of their bodies
to those of eunuchs. For if Jerome might complain that a eunuch priest
was "chaste [only] because of [his] perpetual debility,”137 it must be
remembered that the limited diet of monks, a diet shared by the eunuch-
priests, would have in most cases caused chronic if not permanent
impotence.138 in Cassian's own words, the individual became "formed by
the purity of chastity itself, so that when even the natural movements
of the flesh had become dead, he never again suffered that obscene
flux."139
Cassian tied the individual's manly fight against his own body to
the monk's general comportment, and indeed, to monasticism itself. "The
spirit rejoices," he wrote, "when the body is squalid, clothed in mean
136John Cassian Conlationes 22.3: "Sed alterius meriti est qui

pacem inerti felicitate consequitur, alterius qui triumphum gloriosis
uirtutibus promeretur: huius enim potentia uitiorum omnium debellatrix
digna miraculo est, ilium, quern boni necessitas in sua tuetur ignauia,
dignum magis dixerim miseratione quam laude."
137Hieron. Epist. 123.7: "Quod quidem obseruat, et gentilitas, in

condemnationem nostri, si hoc non exhibeat ueritas Christo, quod tribuit
mendacium diabolo; qui et castitatem repperit perditricem. Hierophanta
apud Athenas euirat uirum, et aeterna debilitate fit castus.”
138Rousselle, Porneia, chap. 10.
139John Cassian Conlationes (my translation here) 12.7:

"...scilicet ut eo usque mens nostra castitatis ipsius puritate
formetur, ut etiam ipso naturali motu carnis emortuo ilium obscenum
liquorem omnino non perferat."
502
apparel, and lodged in some remote and inaccessible part of the desert;
and [when it] dreads the contagion of wordly society."140 For all monks,
the adoption of an image of eunuchhood did not necessitate the
abandonment of an image of manliness; indeed, it enhanced it, because
the constant comparisons between monks and eunuchs also revealed their
differences.
In larger terms, the physical eunuch had proved the failure of the
traditional model of masculinity to survive the collapse of the ancient
world in the western Mediterranean. The monk, in contrast, proved the
triumph of the new man. In his body and its actions - his renunciation
of warfare, politics, marriage, and sex - he demonstrated the appeal of
the new masculinity. From within his monastery, the Christian male
might survive the collapse of the ancient world.
140John Cassian Conlationes 4.11: "Lauacris ilia nitescere et

cotidianis adulantium cuneis adpetit constipari, hie squalore sordium et
inaccessibilis heremi uastitate congaudet cunctorumque mortalium
praesentiam perhorrescit."
Conclusion
The New Masculinity
By the middle of the fifth century in the western Mediterranean, a
new masculinity had come into being. From early beginnings in third-
century apologetics - defending Christian men's reluctance to
participate in violence, politics, marriage, and the family - it had
grown to full flowering in a systematic theology on warfare, the state,
and sexuality. Its influence was pervasive among the upper classes, but
its effects were felt throughout society. The new masculinity had
reordered reality.
In part, the new masculinity had resulted from blind social
forces. The barbarian invasions had forced Roman men to reinterpret
their military identity. The autocracy and bureaucracy of the later
imperial state had likewise obliged men to revise the ways they
exercised public authority. The restrictions on a father's rights
within marriage and the family had similarly required a new
understanding of men’s private authority. Finally, the changes to
sexual norms necessitated a new perspective on the place of sexuality in
men's lives. The new masculinity had come out of a real crisis in
masculinity.
504
Also in part, however, the new masculinity had been the result of
the conscious efforts of certain individuals. Among these individuals,
Tertullian and Cyprian stand out in the third century, Ambrose and
Jerome in the fourth, and Augustine and Salvian in the fifth. They had
themselves felt the effects of the crisis of masculinity in different
ways. These men had themselves chosen not to participate in the
military, in political office, in marriage, and in sexual relationships,
or had abandoned their participation in these institutions, in
justifying their reluctance or in generalizing from their personal
experiences, they created a new masculinity which discounted these
aspects of life.
Their Christian beliefs offered the possibility of a radical
reinterpretation of masculinity. Warfare was unimportant because true
Christians passively endured sufferings and even death; when they
fought, they fought against sin. Political ambitions were equally
unimportant because true authority came from God and was exercised by
Christian bishops and not by emperors. The limitations on family life
and the authority of fathers were insignificant, because God was the
true father of all Christians and they owed their primary obedience to
him. Finally, marriage and sexual behavior were acceptable but inferior
to the heroic ideal of celibacy and virginity. The new masculinity was
in many ways the opposite of the old masculinity.
In other ways, very little had changed between the old and new
ideals of masculinity. Men still relied on a military identity, even if
they thought of themselves as "soldiers of Christ.” They still
emphasized the exercise of public authority through the office of
505
Christian bishop. Men who married still described marriage as the
husband's domination and the wife's submission. Men who did not marry
had a heroic and masculine image of themselves as detached from the base
desires of their bodies. The focus of the new masculinity was still,
ultimately, a manly identity and manly authority.
The new masculinity, moreover, perpetuated the old tradition of
dividing men into the manly and the unmanly. The exact actions which
defined a man as either manly or unmanly had been altered, even
reversed, but the division remained. The link between manliness and
virtue also remained firm, therefore, as did the link between effeminacy
and vice, even if the notions of virtue and vice were overlaid with
Christian ideas of perfection and sin. To conceive of sinful men as
womanly also perpetuated the misogyny of the old masculinity.
Nonetheless, the misogyny of the new masculinity had changed. The
numbers of virtuous Christian women who identified themselves or were
identified as men did represent a shift in attitudes toward women, and
blurred somewhat the boundaries between the sexes. The few examples of
men who saw feminine aspects within themselves, even if only in their
love for a male God, also represented an innovation of the new
masculinity. Christian ideology created a new framework for social
roles and personal sexual identity, even while it continued others
undisturbed.
The image of the eunuch is therefore key to understanding
masculinity in this period. The presence of eunuchs in large numbers in
public and private life in the later empire - when combined with the
disturbing question of their sexual identity - became a symbol of the
506
crisis of men's identity. The Christian tradition which encouraged men
to be "eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven," however, allowed
men to accept the unmanliness of their new identity - at least in
traditional terms - and to establish a new masculinity. The presence of
Christian "outsiders" in its monks helped in this process of
trans formation.
The new masculinity was not without its opponents. Indeed,
insofar as it became the hegemonic form of masculinity by the end of
late antiquity, it sponsored the creation of alternative masculinities
at the same time that it tried to repress them. In part, this
opposition was to the dominance of what had become known as Catholic
Christianity. The Circumcellians of North Africa, who combined being
"soldiers of Christ" with active violence, were one example. The
Manichaeans, who rejected sex and marriage as sinful, were another. In
addition to these types of concerted opposition, however, there were
individual and less vocal opponents: Catholic Christian men who joined
the army, sought political office, married and had families. What these
men thought about their lives and their identity as men is unknown.
From its position of hegemony, though, the new masculinity had a
long history in western Europe. Christian writers continued to present
it as the manly ideal in the centuries that followed this period. The
same notions of the battle against sin and the heroism of sexual and
marital renunciation can be found in the writings of most early medieval
Christian writers. Caesarius of Arles and Gregory the Great both wrote
at length on these subjects; both men used their positions as bishops as
a basis for their authority in doing so. Benedict of Nursia's rules for
507
the communities of monks which he founded emphasized the manliness of
monks.
New social forces, however, were also present in early medieval
Europe. In large part, the domination of the western Mediterranean from
the middle of the fifth century by Germans - the Vandals in North
Africa, the Visigoths in Spain, the Franks and Burgundians in Gaul, and
the Ostrogoths in Italy - required further innovations to the masculine
ideals of this later period. The Germanic overlords had traditions of
masculine identity and authority very different than the Roman and
Romanized Christian populations living with them. Interactions with the
Germans were tense, and the different images of manliness often played a
major role in the conflicts between the two groups. A desire to convert
the Germans to Catholic Christianity, however, obliged the Roman
intellectuals of early medieval Europe to reshape their ideas of
masculinity to accommodate these German traditions, a process which
would take several centuries.
Ultimately, the history of masculinity is the history of
constantly shifting social relations. Only a brief period has been
examined here, but we have seen momentous changes to the notion of what
constituted a man. The crisis and transformation of masculinity formed
a central part of the larger transformation of society from antiquity to
the Middle Ages.
Appendix:
Reign Dates of the Later Roman Emperors1
Aemilianus 253 West
Alexander 308-311 Africa
Anthemius 467-472 West
Antoninus Pius 138-161
Arcadius 395-408 East
Attalus 408-415 West
Aurelian 270-275
Aureolus 268 Italy
Avidius Cassius 175 East
Avitus 455-456 West
Balbinus 238 Italy
Basiliscus 475-476 East
Bonosus 276-280 Gaul
Carcalla 211-217
1For ease of reference, the emperors have been arranged in

alphabetical order. Numerous sources list the emperors in chronological
order. Where appropriate, emperors who reigned only in the west or east
or only in regions are indicated. Note that many of the emperors were
usurpers or co-rulers or otherwise share regnal years with other
emperors. Reign dates of earlier emperors named in the text are also
included.
509
Carinus 283-285 West
Carus 282-283
Claudius Gothicus 268-270
Clodius Albinus 193-197 Britain and Gaul
Commodus 177-192
Constans 333-350 West
Constans II 408-410 West
Constantine I 306-337
Constantine II 317-340 West
Constantine III 407-411 West
Constantius I 293-306 West
Constantius II 351-361
Constantius III 421 West
Crispus 317-325
Dalmatius 335-337 West
Decius 249-251
Diadumenian 217-218
Didius Julianus 193 Italy
Diocletian 284-305
Elagabalus 218-222
Eugenius 392-394 West
Firmus 372 West
Florian 276
Galerius 293-311 East
510
Gallienus 253-268
Gallus 350-354 East
Geta 198-211
Gildo 397 Africa
Glycerius 473 West
Gordian I 238 Africa
Gordian II 238 Africa
Gordian III 238-244
Gratian 375-383 West
Hadrian 117-138
Herennius 250-251
Honorius 395-423 West
Ingenuus 260 Pannonia
John 423-425 West
Jovian 363-364
Jovinus 412-413 West
Julian 355-363
Julius Nepos 473-480 West
Leo I 457-474 East
Leo II 474 East
Libius Severus 461-465 West
Licinianus 317-323 East
Licinius 308-324 East
Macrianus 260-261
511
Magnentius 350-353 West
Magnus Maximus 383-388 West
Majorian 457-461 West
Marcian 450-457 East
Marcian II 479 East
Marcus Aurelius 161-180
Marius 268 Gaul
Martinianus 324 East
Maxentius 307-312
Maximian 285-310 West
Maximin 305-313 East
Maximinus I Thrax 235-238 West
Maximus 235-238 West
Maximus 383-387 West
Nepotianus 350 Italy
Numerian 283-284
Odaenath 260-266 Palmyra
Olybrius 472 West
Opellius Macrinus 217-218
Pertinax 193
Pescennius Niger 193-194
Petronius Maximus 455 West
Philip the Arab 244-249
Postumus 260-268 Gaul
512
Probus 276-282
Procopius 365-366 East
Quietus 260-261
Regalianus 260 Illyricum
Romulus Augustulus 475-476 West
Septimius Severus 193-211
Severus the Tetrarch 305-307
Severus Alexander 222-235
Tacitus 275-276
Tetricus Junior 270-273 Gaul
Tetricus Senior 270-273 Gaul
Theodosius I 379-395
Theodosius II 408-450 East
Trebonianus the Gaul 251-253
Valens 364-378 East
valentinian I 364-375 West
Valentinian II 383-392 West
Valentinian III 425-455 West
valerian I 253-260
Valerian II 253-258
Vetranio 350 Illyricum
Victorinus 268-270 Gaul
Zeno 474-491 East
Zenobia 266-273 Palmyra
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Muldowney, FC 16.
_. De patientia. Edited in CSEL 41. Translated by L. Meagher,

FC 16.
_. De sancta virginitate. Edited in CSEL 41. Translated by J.

McQuade, FC 27.
_. De sermone Domini in monte. Edited in CCSL 35. Translated by

M. Kavanagh, FC 11.
. De trinitate. Edited by CCSL 50.
. De utilitate ieiunii. Edited in CCSL 46.TranslatedbyM.

Muldowney, FC 16.
. De vera religione. Edited in CCSL 32. Translated by J.

Burleigh. South Bend, Indiana: Gateway, 1953.
. Diversae quaestiones. Edited in CCSL 44A.
. Ennarationes in Psalmos. Edited in CCSL 40.
______ . Epistulae. Edited in part in CSEL 57. Edited in full in PL

33.
______ . Sermones. Edited in PL 38. Translated by M. Muldowney, FC

38.
Aurelius Victor. Liber de caesaribus. Edited by F. Pichlmayr. Leipzig:

Teubner, 1993.
516
Ausonius. The Works of Ausonius. Edited by R. Green. Oxford:

Clarendon, 1991. Translated by H. White, LCL.
Caelius Aurelianus. Gynaecia. Edited by M. Drabkin and I. Drabkin.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1951.
______ . Tardarum passionum. Edited by I. Drabkin. Chicago:

university of Chicago Press, 1950.
Chromatius of Aguileia. Sermo de octo beatitudinibus. Edited in CCSL

9.
Claudian. Carmina. Edited by J. Hall.Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1985.

Translated by M. Platnauer, LCL.
Claudius Mamertinus. Gratiarum actio suo Iuliano imperatori. Edited by

D. Lassandro. Turin: Pavaria, 1992. Translated by S. Lieu.
Liverpool: Liverpool University, 1986.
Codex Gregorianus. Edited by GustavusHaenel. Vol. 2, Part1 Corpus

Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani. Edited E. BOcking. Bonn: Adolph
Mark, 1837.
Codex Iustinianus. Edited by T. Mommsen. Berlin: Weidmann, 1954.

Translated by S. Scott. The civil Law. vols. 12-5. Cincinnati:
Central Trust, 1932.
Codex Theodosianus. Edited by T. Mommsen and P. Meyer. Berlin:

weidmann, 1905. Translated by C. Pharr. Princeton: Princeton
University, 1952.
Commodian. Instructiones. Edited by J. Durel. Paris: Ernest Leroux,

1912.
Cyprian. Ad Demetrianum. Edited in CCSL 3a. Translated by R.

Deferrari, FC 36.
______ . Ad Dona turn. Edited in CCSL 3a. Translated by R. Deferrari,

FC 36.
______ . Ad Fortunatum. Edited in CCSL 3. Translated by R. Wallis,

ANCL 13.2.
______ . Ad Quirinum. Edited in CCSL 3.
_. De bono patientiae. Edited in CCSL 3a. Translated by R.

Deferrari, FC 36.
_. De ecclesiae catholicae unitate. Edited and translated by M.

Bdvenot. Oxford: Clarendon, 1971.
_. De lapsis. Edited and translated by M. BSvenot. Oxford:

Clarendon, 1971.
517
______ . De mortalitate. Edited in CCSL 3a. Translated by R.

Deferrari, FC 36.
______ . De zelo et livore. Edited in CCSL 3a. Translated by R.

Deferrari, FC 36.
______ . Epistulae. Edited in CSEL 3.2. Translated by M. Bdvenot.

Oxford: Clarendon, 1971.
De physiognomia liber. Edited by A. Jacques. Paris: Belles lettres,

1981.
Digesta Iustiniani. Edited by T. Mommsen and P. Krueger and translated

by A. Watson. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1985.
Dio Cassius. Epitome historiae romanae. Edited and translated by E.

Cary, LCL.
Epiphanius of Salamis. Adversus haereses. Edited in PG 41.
Eusebius of Caesarea. Historia ecclesiastica. Edited by G. Bardy, SC

31 and 41.
Firmicus Maternus. De errore profanarum religion um. Edited by R.

Turcan. Paris: Belles lettres, 1982. Translated by C. Forbes,
ACW 37.
Gaius. Institutiones. Edited and translated by w. Gordon and 0.

Robinson. Ithaca, New York: Cornell university, 1988.
Hieronymus/Jerome. Adversus Iovinianum. Edited in PL 23.
______ . Apologia contra Rufinum. Edited in CCSL 79. Translated by J.

Hritzu, FC 53.
______ . Commentarii in Abacuc prophetam ad Chromatium. Edited in CCSL

76A.
______ . Commentarii in epistolam ad Ephesios. Edited in PL 26.
______ . Commentarii in epistolam ad Titum. Edited in PL 26.
______ . Commentarium in evangelium Matthaei. Edited in CCSL 77.
______ . Commentarii in Ezecbielem. Edited in PL 25.
_. De Exodo, in vigilia Paschae. Edited in CCSL 78. Translated

by M. Ewald, FC 57.
_. De oboedientia. Edited in CCSL 78. Translated by M. Ewald,

FC 57.
_. De perpetua virginitate beatae Mariae adversus Belvidium.

Edited in PL 23.
518
De viris illustribus. Edited by E. Richardson. Leipzig: J.

C. Hinrichs, 1896.
_. Dialogus aduersus Pelagianos. Edited in CCSL 80. Translated

by J. Hritzu, FC 53.
Epistulae. Edited by J. Labourt. 8 vols. Paris: Belles

lettres, 1949-63. Translated in part by P. Schaff and H. Wace,
NPNF 6. Translated in part by C. Mierow, ACW 33. Translated in
part by F. Wright, LCL.
. Homilia de nativitate Domini. Edited in CCSL 78.
_. Sermo de quadragesima. Edited in CCSL 78. Translated by M.

Ewald, FC 57.
. Tractatus de Psalmo LXXXIII. Edited in CCSL 78.
______ . Tractatus in Marci evangelium. Edited in CCSL 78. Translated

by M. Ewald, FC 57.
______ . Vita sancti Pauli primi eremitae. Edited in PL 23.
Hilary of Arles. Sermo de vita sancti Bonorati. Edited by M.-D.

Valentin, SC 235.
Hippolytus. Traditio apostolica. Edited by B. Botte, SC 11.
Horace. Carmina. Edited and translated by C. Bennett, LCL.
Horace. Satires. Edited and translated by D. Fairclough, LCL.
Iamblichus. De vita Pythagorica. Edited and translated by J. Dillon

and j. Hershbell. Society of Biblical Literature, Texts and
Translations, no. 29. Atlanta: Scholars, 1991.
Institutiones Iustiniani. Edited by P. Birks and G. McLeod. Ithaca,

New York: Cornell University, 1987.
John Cassian. Conlationes. Edited by E. Pichery, SC 54. Translated by

Fr. Robert [no last name]. 2 vols. London: Thomas Richardson,
[n.d.]. Translated in part by C. Liubheid. New York: Paulist,
1985.
Julian. Orationes. Edited and translated by W. Wright, LCL.
Justin Martyr. Apologia. Edited by A. Blunt. Cambridge: Cambridge

university, 1911.
Lactantius. De mortibus persecutorum. Edited and translated by J.

Creed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.
______ . De opificio Dei. Edited by M. Perrin, SC 213. Translated by

M. McDonald, FC 54.
519
. Divinae institutiones. Edited in CSEL 19. Translated by M.

McDonald, FC 49.
. Epitome divinae institutionum. Edited and translated by E.

Blakeney. London: S. P. C. K., 1950.
Leo the Great, Pope. Epistulae. Edited in PL 54. Translated by E.

Hunt, FC 34.
______ . Sermones. Edited by R. Dolle, SC 200.
Lucian. De Syria Dea. Edited and translated by H. Attridge and R.

Oden. Society of Biblical Literature, Texts and Translations,
vol. 9. Missoula, Montana: University of Montana/Scholars, 1976.
Marcus Aurelius. Ad se ipsum. Edited by J. Dalphen. Leipzig: Teubner,

1979. Translated by M. staniforth. London: penguin, 1964.
Martial. Epigrams. Edited and translated by W. Ker, LCL.
Minucius Felix. Octavius. Edited in PL 3.
Mosaicarum et Romanarum legum collatio. Edited and translated by M.

Hyamson. Oxford: Oxford university, 1913.
Nemesianus. Cynegetica. Edited by H. Williams. Leiden: E. J. Brill,

1986.
. Bucolica. Edited by H. Williams. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986.
Novatian. De bono pudicitiae. Edited in CCSL 4. Translated by R.

Desimone, FC 67.
______ . De cibis iudaicis. Edited in CCSL 4. Translated by R.

Desimone, FC 67.
. De spectaculis. Edited in CCSL 4. Translated by R. DeSimone,

FC 67.
Oribasius. Collectio medica. Edited by U. Bussemaker and C. Daremberg.

6 vols. Paris: L'imprimerie nationale, 1851-76.
Origen. Commentarii in evangelium secundum Matthaeum. Edited in PG 13.
Pacatus. Panegyricus dictus Theodosio imperatori. Edited by D.

Lassandro. Turin: Pavaria, 1992. Translated by C. Nixon.
Liverpool: Liverpool University, 1987.
Passio beati Pbileae episcopi de ciuitate Tbmui. Edited and translated

by H. Musurillo. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1972.
Passio Iulii Veterani. Edited and translated by H. Musurillo. The Acts

of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972.
520
Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis. Edited and translated by H.

Musurillo. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: clarendon,
1972.
Passio sancti Felicis episcopi. Edited and translated by H. Musurillo.

The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972.
Passio sancti Irenaei episcopi Sirmiensis. Edited and translated by H.

Musurillo. The Acts of the Christian Martyrs. Oxford: Clarendon,
1972.
Passio sanctorum Mariani et Iacobi. Edited and translated by H.

1972.
Passio sanctorum Montani et Lucii. Edited and translated by H.

1972.
Paulinus of Milan. Vita sancti Ambrosii. Edited and translated by M.

Kaniecka, PS 16.
Paulinus of Nola. Carmina. Edited in CSEL 30.
Paulinus of Nola. Epistulae. Edited in CSEL 29. Translated by P.

Walsh, ACW 35-6.
Paulinus of Pella. Eucharisticus. Edited by C. Moussy, SC 209.

Translated by H. Isbell. London: Penguin, 1971.
Paulus. Sententiae. Edited by L. Arndts. In Corpus Juris Romani

Anteiustiniani, edited E. Bttcking. Bonn: Adolph Mark, 1841.
Paulus Aegineta. Compendium medici. Edited by I. Heiberg. Leipzig: B.

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Pelagius. Ad matronem Celantiam. Edited in PL 22. Translated by D.

Hunter. Marriage in the Early Church. Minneapolis: Fortress,
1992.
Peter Chrysologus. Sermones. Edited in CCSL 24a. Translated by G.

Ganss, FC 17.
Philaster of Brescia. Diuersarum hereseon liber. Edited in CCSL 9.
Plotinus. Enneadi. Edited by V. Cilento. Naples: Bibliopolis, 1986.
Pontius. Vita et passio sancti Caecilii Cypriani. Edited in PL 3.

Translated by R. Wallis, ANCL 8.
Possidius of Calama. Sancti Augustini vita. Edited in PL 32.

Translated by F. Hoare. The western Fathers. New York: Harper
and Row, 1965.
521
Proba. Cento. Edited and translated by E. Clark and D. Hatch. Ann

Arbor: Edwards, 1981.
Prudentius. Works. Edited and translated by H. Thomson, LCL.
Pseudo-Clement. Epistulae quae dicitur II.Edited by K. Bihlmeyer, Die

Apostolischen vMter. Tiibingen: J. c.B. Mohr, 1924.
Pseudo-Clement. Bomiliae. Edited in PG 2.
Salvian of Marseilles. De gubernatione Dei. Edited in CSEL 8.

Translated by J. O'Sullivan, FC 3.
Scriptores Historiae Augustae. Edited and translated by D. Magie, LCL.

Translated in part by A. Birley. Lives of the Later Caesars.
London: Penguin, 1976.
Seneca. Controversiae. Edited by L. H&kanson. Leipzig: Teubner, 1989.

Translated by H. Winterbottom, LCL.
Sidonius Apollinaris. Works. Edited and translated by W. Anderson,

LCL.
Siricius. Epistulae. Edited in PL 13.
Suetonius. XII Caesares. Edited and translated by J. Rolfe, LCL.
Sulpicius Severus. Dialogi. Edited in PL 20. Translated by G. Walsh

et al., FC 7.
______ . Vita sancti Martini. Edited by J. Fontaine, SC 133.

Translated by G. Walsh, et al., FC 7.
Tertullian. Opera. Edited in CCSL 1. Translated by A. Roberts and J.

Donaldson. 3 vols. ANCL 11-3. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1869.
______ . Adversus Marcionem. Edited and translated by E. Evans.

Valerian. Homilia. Edited in PL 52. Translated by G. Ganss, FC 17.
Vegetius. Epitome rei militaris. Edited by C. Lang. Leipzig: Teubner,

1885. Translated by N. Milner. Liverpool: Liverpool University,
1993.
Vita Melaniae Iunioris. Edited by D. Gorce, SC 90. Translated by E.

Clark. New York: E. Mellen, 1984.
Vita sanctae Eugeniae. Edited in PL 73.
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The Crisis and Transformation of

Masculinity in the Later Roman West

Mathew Stephen Kuefler

Masculinity experienced a crisis and a transformation in later Roman

antiquity. In the period from the beginning of the third century C. E.

of themselves. The crisis disrupted the established categories of

empire challenged men's military identity, and the autocracy of late

domination challenged the ideals of masculine public authority. The

patria potestas in later Roman law and the problematization of men's

sexual behavior both placed new restrictions on men's actions. The

presence of eunuchs in large numbers in the vest in late antiquity

highlighted the crisis of masculinity. As men who were no longer men,

they symbolized the threatened male identity precisely in the areas of

provides a context for the conversion of Roman men to Christianity.

transformation. Christians had inherited very different traditions of

sexual difference and of men's identity, traditions which they used to

transform masculinity in late antiquity. In public life, Christian

writers rejected the importance of physical battles, emphasizing in

in ecclesiastical office, in private life, Christian writers focused on

the heroism of sexual and familial renunciation, and discounted marriage

figured prominently in Christian writings, both as a negative symbol of

pagan decadence but also as a positive symbol of the Christian

renunciation of traditional notions of manliness, and monks represented

Roman west successfully met the crisis.

Introduction: The Study of Masculinity in the Western

Part One: Crisis

1. Their loss is disgraceful:

2. My concern was for luxury:

Chapter 3: Nor should any man's rights be taken from him:

1. Husbands also shall be admonished:

2. A purity which he does

Chapter 4: You whom the male sex has discarded:

Part Two: Transformation

Chapter 5: The manliness of faith:

3. Nothing effeminate attains to praise:

4. All that is reckoned noble is empty:

6. A friendly and genuine union of

Appendix to Chapter 7: Spiritual Marriage

Chapter 8: Altars raised to a eunuch god:

1. What sort of monstrous and

2. Practices with which they

Conclusion: The New Masculinity 503

Appendix: The Roman Emperors of Late Antiquity 508

Bibliography of Primary Sources 513

Bibliography of Secondary Sources 522

a great and close friend

who has taught me more than anyone else

what it means to be a man.

I owe so many thanks to so many individuals. First of all, I am

part of my inspiration for this study, as well as the particular idea of

greater opportunity to benefit further from his friendship and learning.

I am very fortunate in having found such a kind and diligent successor

for my advisor in Thomas Head, whose efforts on my behalf have been

without parallel, and so to him also go many thanks.