Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire (14 page)

Cato dressed Lucius down hard in the Senate. It was “a disgrace,” the censor hissed, for him to intoxicate himself with “wine and lust” and then kill for the sport of it, especially when the purpose of the murder was to entertain “an acknowledged wanton.” Nothing could be less Roman.

Roman men such as Cato believed women were already hardwired for weakness and immorality, and were getting worse. Tens of thousands of husbands had failed to return home from war, leaving their wives wealthier for their grief. In the absence of men, women were busy managing family fortunes and developing habits of conspicuous consumption. Many also took advantage of opportunities for sexual liaisons. By law, all women were supposed to be controlled by one man or another throughout their lives. When no male family members were around to do the job, the state appointed guardians for them. The problem was that the guardians were often unwilling to make the efforts necessary to keep their wards in line. With their new resources and increased autonomy, women were riding around the city in carriages, wearing ostentatious clothing, and not even troubling to hide their sexual adventures.

That made them targets. Women’s sexual habits probably hadn’t changed much over the years, but they were now harder to ignore. As Rome adjusted to its preeminent position in the world, much of the blame for the state’s moral growing pains was placed on its females and especially its newly empowered matrons. Women (and men who had sex like women) were pinned as the real source of the problem in the bacchanalian scandal, for example. The strength of Rome would depend on keeping women in line and preventing the corrupting influence of femininity in men.
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Delusional nostalgia played a big role in shaping moral attitudes toward women. Romans had a persistent fear that wealth and comfort had made them go bad. “Since the day when Roman poverty perished, no deed of crime or lust has been wanting to us,” wrote the first-century satirist Juvenal. “Filthy lucre first brought in amongst us foreign ways; wealth enervated and corrupted the ages with foul indulgences.” The women of the new Rome were compared, almost always unfavorably, to an idealized past of rural virtue when people lived in “chilly caves.” Back then, according to Juvenal, “acorn-belching” husbands had iron control over their families, and simple “hill-bred” wives lined their beds not with imported silk but with leaves, straw, and hides.

Before men became weak and women loose, a husband could beat his wife to death for something as minimal as drinking wine. What’s more, the virtuous women of the past preferred to die rather than let themselves be taken by the wrong men.
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Legends of female honor usually involved wellborn women undergoing extraordinary pains in defense of their virtue. Their sacrifices usually benefited their families, but the extreme sufferings of the saintly Lucretia enriched Rome itself: Her violent modesty sparked both the overthrow of Rome’s corrupt early kings and the founding of the cherished Republic.

Lucretia had unwittingly participated in a contest among a group of princes as to whose wife was the most virtuous. The men went around to each of their houses at night to catch their wives by surprise. Most of the women were banqueting the night away, but only Lucretia was doing what a good wife should be doing when alone: spinning wool. Satisfied with his victory, Lucretia’s husband, the consul Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, invited his royal mates to stay at his house and dine. During the visit, one of the guest princes soon had something besides food on his mind: The sight of the virtuous Lucretia made her irresistible to Sextus Tarquinius, son of the murderous Roman king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (“Tarquin the Arrogant”). Sextus decided then and there that he loved her, and that she must be his—though he had an odd way of showing his affection.

A few days later, Sextus went to Lucretia’s bed while she slept. “Burning with love,” he rousted her. “Be still, Lucretia!” he whispered. “I am Sextus Tarquinius. My sword is in my hand. Utter a sound and you die!” He confessed his love for her and begged her to make love to him. She refused. Finally, when he threatened to kill her and then place a dead slave next to her body to make it appear as though she had committed adultery, she allowed Sextus to take her. After he left the house she called her husband and father to tell them what happened. She made them promise to take proper revenge. Then she pulled out a knife, proclaiming, “I am innocent of fault, but I will take my punishment. Never shall Lucretia provide a precedent for unchaste women to escape what they deserve!” With these words, she fell onto the blade.

Lucretia’s family’s grief quickly turned to rage. They took their revenge and then some, parading her bloody corpse around the forum and inciting a violent revolt that brought down Tarquinius Superbus and ended Rome’s monarchy. Lucretia’s unshakeable virtue became the crucible in which the Republic—the essence of Roman freedom from tyranny—was forged.

No less archetypal was the legend of Verginia, the irresistible young virgin who refused to submit to the lust of the powerful Appius Claudius Crassus. Appius took his revenge by having her arrested on her way to school and falsely accused of being from slave stock. (As a slave’s descendant, she would be available for ravishment.) The outcome of the subsequent trial over her status was never in doubt: Appius was the judge. Even the histrionics of Verginia’s father, who arrived at the trial from out of town at the last minute and accused Appius of “rushing into random fornication” like a wild animal, could not change the outcome. All he could get from the judge was a few minutes alone with his daughter before she was to be punished.

Once granted their moment aside, Verginia’s father took a large knife from his cloak and pointed it toward her. “This is the only way, my daughter, in which I can deliver you to freedom,” he said, and stabbed her through the heart. Removing the wet knife from Verginia’s chest, he turned to Appius and called out: “By this blood, Appius, I bring down vengeance on your head.” The arrogant Appius would indeed be brought down in the aftermath of this affair.

THESE WERE TOUGH acts to follow. Next to Lucretia, Verginia, and the hide-clad cavewomen of old, any female looked morally shaky—but that was the standard by which they were judged. In 195 BC, the issue of women’s looks and behavior came to a head. Debate broke out over a set of rules collectively called the Oppian Law, which curbed women’s flashy habits and taxed their wealth. However, the issue was really about female sexual license. The Oppian Law had been passed in 215 BC, in the turmoil following Rome’s loss to Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae. Female ownership of gold was limited to half an ounce; the rest of it went to the treasury. Women were also barred from wearing expensive clothing or traveling in carriages, except to religious festivals. Twenty years later, well after the war against Carthage had been won and with Rome at relative peace, women were pushing for the repeal of these rules.

As senators gathered to decide whether or not to keep the law, crowds of angry women jeered them. To the lawmakers’ horror, the mob had been growing for two days, swollen by women pouring in from nearby towns. Inside the Senate, Cato scolded his brethren for letting matters get so far out of hand. Because they had given their women a taste of independence, he said, men’s liberties were now in danger of being “crushed and trampled on.” The Oppian Law, Cato continued, was minor next to traditional Roman rules curbing women’s excessive behavior. If the Senate allowed the rules to be repealed, it would be a slippery slope to equality of the sexes, or worse. “Give loose rein to their uncontrollable nature and to this untamed creature and expect that they will themselves set bounds to their license . . . it is complete liberty, or rather if you want to speak the truth, complete license they desire . . . From the moment they become your equals, they will become your masters.”

Cato’s appeal was passionate, but the Oppian Law was nevertheless repealed. Mark one small victory for women’s rights in Rome. The Senate voted away curbs on women’s spending, but the senators did so knowing that women were still subject to the authority of men. Moreover, if women were now allowed to wear gold or trim their clothing in expensive purple dyes, Roman men did not let up on their efforts to quell females’ “uncontrollable nature,” particularly through religion. Soon after the repeal of the Oppian Law came the witch hunt against the cult of Bacchus. Other, less violent religious measures were taken as well.

Construction of the temple of Venus the Compliant, for example, was funded by fines against women for adultery, and meant to stand as a warning to unfaithful wives. There was also the shrine to Plebeian Chastity, built for the same purpose but geared toward lower-class women. Still another pro-fidelity cult was instituted in honor of Venus Verticordia (the “Changer of Hearts”). The woman responsible for consecrating the statue in Venus’s honor, Sulpicia, was credited as being the most faithful wife in the city. It is impossible to know how successful these efforts were at influencing married women to remain loyal to their husbands. Most likely, women made their vows and then did what they were already disposed toward doing. In any event, it seems clear that many men remained dissatisfied. According to Juvenal, who should be taken with several big grains of salt for exaggerating to make a point:

Did you even wonder why some women make crude remarks and lewd gestures as they pass the Temple of Chastity? That’s where they stop every night to relieve themselves—and piss on the goddess. Then they strap a phallus on the statue and take turns riding it. Next morning, some husband on his way to work slips in the puddle . . . [In the temple of Bona Dea, they] drive themselves crazy; they shriek and writhe—worshipers of Phallus. And sex. They moan, they quiver with lust; there’s a steady stream running down their legs. The aristocratic matrons challenge the professional whores—and win . . . If they can’t find any men, they raid the stables and rape the donkeys.

Juvenal enjoyed making satiric attacks on Roman women, highborn and otherwise. They were all hussies to him. But he took no shots at the Vestal Virgins, the priestesses whose sexual restraint was indispensable to the safety of Rome. The Vestals were too important, and the consequences of their broken chastity vows too terrible, to ever be humorous.
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VIRGINITY’S PRICE: THE VESTAL VIRGINS AND THE FATE OF ROME

The primary goal of Roman sex law was to channel female sexual behavior, not forbid it outright. Women were expected to marry and produce legitimate children. Total abstinence was never part of the plan, with the exception of six priestesses whose untouched bodies symbolized Rome’s unbroken walls, and whose holy virginity ensured the safety of the city. It took just a single sexual detour by one of them to transform stability into chaos. When that happened, there were meticulous rituals in place to purge the curse and restore hope: Failed Vestals were buried alive in an underground chamber, and it was left to Vesta, the goddess they served, to decide whether they lived or died.

For minor offenses, a Vestal risked being whipped in private by Rome’s highest priest, the pontifex maximus. But a Vestal’s violation of her vow of chastity was a public curse. All participated in the expiation. Immediately after her conviction, the guilty priestess was flogged and then bound in thick cloth to muffle her cries. Churning like a larva, she was put on a litter bed and carried through the forum. Thousands watched in tearful silence as she passed. “No other spectacle is more appalling,” wrote Plutarch of such sights, “nor does any other day bring more gloom to the city than this.” The crowd’s somber mood came not from the woman’s imminent death—gory public executions were common enough—but from terror at what might result from the Vestal’s loss of virginity.

The procession ended near the Colline Gate, just inside one of the city’s walls, where the burial chamber awaited. The room was supplied with furniture, a lamp, and bits of food, milk, and oil. The Vestal was unfastened from her coverings except for a veil over her face. As her soiled body stood in the wind, an object of grief and scorn, the pontifex maximus stretched his hands toward heaven, muttered some prayers, and then sent her down into the hole. As soon as she was underground, attendants sealed the room with stones and spread earth around it so that no traces of it, or her, remained.

Technically, this was not an execution. No one shouldered the responsibility of killing a Vestal, even a guilty one. The few provisions supplied to the accused priestess absolved the priests for her death and gave Vesta the opportunity to hand down the ultimate ruling. If the Vestal was, in fact, found by the goddess to have broken her chastity vow, Vesta rebalanced the celestial scales by letting her starve and suffocate. If she was innocent, Vesta could lift her up and restore her. Of the ten or so Vestal Virgins who endured this process over the centuries, none was resurrected. Their guilt was confirmed beyond doubt and Rome was saved, at least until the next Vestal misbehaved.

ONLY GIRLS BETWEEN six and ten years old who were deemed perfect in all respects were eligible for service in Vesta’s temple. No marks, lisps, or other defects were allowed. Both parents had to be alive and married, with no divorce, scandal, or slave blood clouding their lineage. Selected girls underwent an elaborate initiation process that put them in service to Vesta and Rome and no one else. All Roman women belonged to one man or another, but not the Vestals. They alone were free from male control, because they were the sisters, daughters, and wives of the city itself.

They were taken from their homes to Vesta’s temple in the forum, where they lived for at least thirty years. Vesta was the goddess of the hearth, and of the earth itself. The perpetual flame that burned in the
Atrium Vestae
, or the “House of the Vestals,” was the fulcrum of Roman life. Just as early Rome’s daughters tended the flames of their families’ homes, the Vestals kept Rome’s fire alive. They also maintained a storehouse of holy substances and took care of dozens of other ritual duties. For that, the priestesses received extraordinary privileges. They were allotted prime seats at the theater and games, and rode in ornate carriages with bodyguards to move people out of their way. Even consuls had to step aside. If, during their travels around town, they encountered a criminal about to be executed, the man’s life was spared. However, anyone with the nerve to pass under a Vestal’s carriage would be killed. When Vestals died, they were among the very few inhabitants of Rome whose burial was permitted within the city’s sacred precincts.