The Discourse of Marriage in the Greco-Roman World [1 ed.] 0299328406, 9780299328405

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The Discourse of Marriage in the Greco-Roman World

Publication of this volume has been made possible, in part, through support from Amherst College, the Anonymous Fund of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the generous support and enduring vision of Warren G. Moon .

For

Lisa and

Lee

THE DISCOURSE OF

MARRIAGE IN THE

GRECO-ROMAN WORLD

Edited by

Jeffrey Beneker and Georgia Tsouvala

T h e Un i v e r s i t y o f Wi s c o n s i n Pr e s s

The University of Wisconsin Press 728 State Street, Suite 443 Madison, Wisconsin 53706 uwpress.wisc.edu Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road London EC1R 5DB, United Kingdom eurospanbookstore.com Copyright © 2020 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System All rights reserved. Except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any format or by any means—digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—or conveyed via the internet or a website without written permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. Rights inquiries should be directed to [email protected]. Printed in the United States of America This book may be available in a digital edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Beneker, Jeffrey, editor. | Tsouvala, Georgia, editor. Title: The discourse of marriage in the Greco-Roman world / edited by Jeffrey Beneker and Georgia Tsouvala. Other titles: Wisconsin studies in classics. Description: Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, [2020] | Series: Wisconsin studies in classics | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019050500 | ISBN 9780299328405 (cloth) Subjects: LCSH: Plutarch—Criticism and interpretation. | Classical literature—History and criticism. | Marriage in literature. | Marriage—Greece—History—To 1500. | Marriage—Rome—History—To 1500. Classification: LCC PA3003 .D573 2020 | DDC 880.09/3543—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050500

Contents

List of Illustrations

vii

Editions and Abbreviations

ix

Introduction: The Discourse of Marriage and Its Context

3

G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a

Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art

20

Violence in the Roman Wedding

68

Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Tradition of the Poetic Epithalamium

94

Rebecca H. Sinos

Karen Klaiber Hersch

Paolo Di Meo

Epicurus on Marriage

119

The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage”: Style and the Woman in Jerome, Against Jovinian 1

142

Marriage and Animal Exemplarity in Plutarch

178

Geert Roskam

Alex Dressler

Katarzyna Jazdzewska

v

Contents

Death Is Not the End: Spousal Devotion in Plutarch’s Portraits of Camma, Porcia, and Cornelia

199

Erotic Desire and the Desire to Marry in the Ancient Greek Novels

219

Contributors

245

Index

249

Index Locorum

259

Jeffrey Beneker

Silvia Montiglio

vi

Illustrations

Color plates after page 44 Plates 1a, 1b.  Red-figure pyxis in the manner of the Meidias Painter, Oxford Plate 2.   Red-figure pyxis in the manner of the Meidias Painter, Oxford (close-up of body) Plate 3.  Red-figure pelike, Athens Plate 4.  Fragmentary red-figure lekanis lid, Athens Plate 5.  Red-figure squat lekythos by the Apollonia Group, Sofia Plates 6a, 6b, 7.  Relief vase, Berlin Plate 8.  Red-figure pelike once in the Curtius collection, Rome

Figures Figure 1.  Black-figure amphora by the Medea Group, Amherst, MA 22 Figure 2.  Black-figure krater by Kleitios and Ergotimos, Florence 24 Figure 3.  Black-figure amphora by the Group of London B 174, London 25 Figures 4–5.  Red-figure kylix by the Amphitrite Painter, Berlin 26–27 Figure 6.  Red-figure loutrophoros by the Washing Painter, Athens 28 Figures 7–9.  Red-figure pyxis in the manner of the Meidias Painter, Oxford 29 Figure 10.  Relief vase, once in Berlin 35 Figure 11.  Red-figure amphoriskos by the Heimarmene Painter, Berlin 37 Figure 12.  Red-figure lebes gamikos by the Painter of Athens 1454, Athens 38 Figure 13.  Red-figure lebes gamikos by the Painter of Athens 1454, Athens 38

vii

Illustrations

Figure 14.  Red-figure loutrophoros, Berlin Figure 15.  Votive relief of the “funerary banquet” type, Athens Figure 16.  Votive relief of the “funerary banquet” type, Athens

viii

41 44 44

Editions and Abbreviations

Greek and Latin texts reproduced or translated in this volume come from the standard editions published in Oxford Classical Texts, the Teubner series, or the Loeb Classical Library unless otherwise noted. All translations are by the contributors unless otherwise noted. Abbreviations of ancient authors and works (other than Plutarch’s Moralia) follow the Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th ed.), the Greek-English Lexicon edited by Liddell, Scott, and Jones (9th ed.), the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd ed.), and the American Journal of Archaeology. Fragments of Sappho are numbered according to Campbell’s edition in the Loeb Classical Library (1982). Abbreviations of periodicals follow L’Année philologique. Following are the abbreviations of the works from Plutarch’s Moralia that are cited in this book. Amat. An viti.

Dialogue on Love (Amatorius) Whether Vice Is Sufficient to Cause Unhappiness (An vitiositas ad infelicitatem sufficiat) Brut. anim. On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational (Bruta animalia ratione uti) Con. praec. Marriage Advice (Coniugalia praecepta) De Alex. fort. On the Fortune and Virtue in Alexander the Great, 1–2 (De Alexandri magni fortuna aut virtute, i–ii) De am. prol. On the Love of Offspring (De amore prolis) De cap. ex inim. How to Benefit from One’s Enemies (De capienda ex inimicis utilitate) De comm. not. Against the Stoics on Common Conceptions (De communibus notitiis adversus Stoicos) De frat. amore On Brotherly Love (De fraterno amore)

ix

Editions and Abbreviations

De. Is. et Osir. De lat. viv. De prof. De sol. an. De Stoic. repugn. Mul. virt. Non posse

On Isis and Osiris (De Iside et Osiride) On Living Unknown (De latenter vivendo) On Progress in Virtue (De profectibus in virtute) On the Intelligence of animals (De sollertia animalium) On Stoic Contradictions (De Stoicorum repugnantiis) Virtues of Women (Mulierum virtutes) It Is Not Possible Even to Live Pleasantly according to Epicurus (Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum) Quaest. conv. Table Talk (Quaestiones convivalium) Quomodo adulat. How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend (Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur) Following are the abbreviations of the lexica and modern collections of texts that are cited in this book. CAF CPG DK FGrH LS LSJ OLD PHerc. SVF TrGF

Kock, T. 1880–88. Comicorum Atticorum fragmenta. 3 vols. Leipzig. Leutsch, E. L., and F. G. Schneidewin. 1839–51. Corpus paroemio­graphorum Graecorum. 2 vols. Göttingen. Diels, H., and W. Kranz. (1903) 1951–52. Fragmente der Vorso­kratiker. 6th ed. Berlin. Jacoby, F. 1923–58. Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin and Leiden. Long, A. A., and D. Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. 2 vols. Cambridge. Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, and H. Stuart Jones. (1843 ) 1996. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. Oxford. Glare, P. G. W., and C. Stray. (1982) 2012. Oxford Latin Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford. Papyri Herculanenses. von Arnim, H. 1903–5. Stoicorum veterum fragmenta. 3 vols. Leipzig. Snell, B., R. Kannicht, and S. Radt. 1971–85. Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta. 4 vols. Göttingen.

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The Discourse of Marriage in the Greco-Roman World

Introduction The Discourse of Marriage and Its Context G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a

Μετὰ τὸν πάτριον θεσμόν, ὃν ὑμῖν ἡ τῆς Δήμητρος ἱέρεια συ­νειργνυ­ μένοις ἐφήρμοσεν, οἶμαι καὶ τὸν λόγον ὁμοῦ συνεφαπτό­μενον ὑμῶν καὶ συνυ­μεναιοῦντα χρήσιμον ἄν τι ποιῆσαι καὶ τῷ νόμῳ προσῳδόν. ἐν μὲν γὰρ τοῖς μουσικοῖς ἕνα τῶν αὐλητικῶν νόμων ἱππό­θορον ἐκά­λουν, μέλος τι τοῖς ἵπποις ὁρμῆς ἐπεγερτι­κὸν ὡς ἔοικεν ἐνδιδόν τε περὶ τὰς ὀχείας· φιλοσοφίᾳ δὲ πολλῶν λόγων καὶ καλῶν ἐνόντων, οὐδενὸς ἧττον ἄξιος σπουδῆς ὁ γαμήλιός ἐστιν οὗτος, ᾧ κατᾴδουσα τοὺς ἐπὶ βίου κοινωνίᾳ συ­νιόντας εἰς ταὐτὸ πράους τε παρέχει καὶ χειροήθεις ἀλλήλοις.

Following the traditional custom, which the priestess of Demeter enjoined upon you as you were being locked away in the wedding chamber, I think that a speech also, pertaining directly to you and joining in with the marriage hymn, would make for a gift that is useful and in harmony with the melody. For in music there is a melody for the aulos called “The Breeding Horse,” a certain tune that stimulates horses and they capitulate, it seems, during the breeding season. And though there are many fine subjects in philosophy, none is more worthy of our study than this discourse of marriage, by which philosophy charms couples who embark upon a common life and makes them gentle and amenable toward each other. Plutarch, Marriage Advice, 138B

3

G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a

I

begin this introduction with the opening of Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, a treatise composed as a wedding gift for a newly married couple—and his former students—that contains more than forty precepts that the author hopes will improve the couple’s marriage. Plutarch appears to have genuinely believed in the importance of this discourse, returning to it in other philosophical works, such as his study of erotic love between spouses in Dialogue on Love, his examination of character (including spousal loyalty) in Virtues of Women, and in his touching Consolation to His Wife on the death of their young child. Plutarch also explored the marital relationship less directly in his biographies, through the narration of interactions between husbands and wives in many of the Parallel Lives. Included mainly to supplement the exploration of the character of his biographical subjects, descriptions of marriages and homelife nonetheless reveal Plutarch’s views of how a spouse—man or woman—should behave and how a household should be run. The essays in this book take as their starting point Plutarch’s commitment to exploring the marital relationship in a variety of literary forms. Our first step in assembling the essays was a panel sponsored by the International Plutarch Society and held during the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in 2013. While the panel fostered lively discussion, it also made us realize that in order to discuss Plutarch’s works on marriage in any depth, we needed to understand the cultural and intellectual context of his late first- and second-century CE milieu and the tradition of the discourse that came both before and after him. As a result, we enlarged the focus of the panel (only three of those initial presentations have been revised, expanded, and included here) in this volume. Although there is much more that could be written on the subject, this book can provide a lens through which one can appreciate how the discourse of marriage, as found in the different genres that might have been important to Plutarch or related to his writings—philosophy, art, epithalamium, epic, and the novel—developed over time.1 As a result, this volume will be of interest to students and scholars of classics, ancient history, philosophy, art, archaeology, and gender and women’s studies, as well as to those who are interested in the history of the family. For this study, we have assembled scholars who examine ancient views of marriage in important samples of the philosophy, literature, and art produced by Plutarch’s predecessors and contemporaries, as well as in some of his own works and in works that come after him. It is not our contention that these ancient works and authors had a direct influence on Plutarch (it is almost impossible to know what Plutarch read or saw in his daily life). Rather, we are seeking to explore the broader intellectual

4

Introduction

and cultural context of writing about marriage in the Greco-Roman world in the late Hellenistic period and the early Empire.2 It will become clear to the reader that the traditional chronology for the Hellenistic period (from the death of Alexander to that of Cleopatra) does not apply here, especially since the different Hellenistic kingdoms and the Greek confederacies on the mainland came under Roman military (but not necessarily cultural) control at different times.3 The military and political mechanism of the Romans on the Greek mainland, for example, arrived in the second century BCE with the establishment of the provinces of Macedonia and, later, Achaia. Hellenistic culture, art, and literature, however, remained dominant well into the Principate and the emergence of the so-called Second Sophistic.4 The arrangement of the chapters, therefore, is more topical and less chronological, and it veers between Greek and Roman authors based partly on our understanding of the intra- and interconnections of their works and Plutarch’s. The thread that ties all these chapters together is the discourse(s) about marriage, and how this discourse reflects changes over time in the Greco-Roman world of the late Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire. The ancient sources are more numerous and diverse in this period and, thus, attest to the variation in perspectives and the transformation of the institution over time. Such emphasis allows for a more nuanced discussion about the different ways in which marriage is represented by diverse kinds of artistic and literary sources (both surviving and fragmentary) than one might have encountered previously. The most important scholarship on Greco-Roman marriage includes Susan Treggiari’s volume Roman Marriage (1991) and Sarah Pomeroy’s edited collection of essays, Plutarch’s “Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Consolation to His Wife” (1999), both of which take a legal, “fact-based,” and historical approach to the topic. Since then, and while the international bibliography on matrimony has grown immensely, there have been three more recent books devoted to marriage in the ancient world that I discuss here briefly.5 Lena Larsson Lovén and Agneta Strömberg’s Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality (2010) examines marriage as an institution rather than as a philosophical topic or a subject for literature and art, and Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet’s Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century (2013) takes a theoretical look at Roman marriage and gender relations in the late first century CE, and so it deals with roughly the same time period as this volume. Its focus is on Rome and on Latin literature (primarily Pliny the Younger and Juvenal but also Statius, Martial, Tacitus, Quintilian, and Musonius Rufus) to discuss issues of

5

G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a gender and relations between men and women. Finally, Nikoletta Manioti’s volume Family in Flavian Epic (2016) discusses all kinds of familial roles and ties, including those of wife and husband, in Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus.6 While complementary in many ways to the aforementioned scholarship, our focus in this volume is the discourse of marriage rather than marriage as a legal, anthropological, or social institution per se. Furthermore, this volume deals with both Greek and Roman literature and highlights the diversity and change found in the literary, philosophical, and artistic representations of the marital relationship when the Hellenistic and Roman societies encountered each other militarily and politically in the late Hellenistic period and the early Empire. Not every ancient author was as deliberate or as direct as Plutarch about their engagement with the conjugal relationship, but all the texts and art examined in this volume reveal varying conceptions of an institution that was central to ancient social and political life, and which remains central to life in the modern world.

Survey of Chapters and Their Context Our collection begins with a study of the iconography of marriage on late Classical and early Hellenistic pottery. For more than twenty-five years, The Wedding in Ancient Athens by John Oakley and Rebecca Sinos (1993) has been the standard examination of the Athenian wedding and its rituals. In “Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art,” Rebecca Sinos broadens the lens by exploring the development of images that unite the themes of wedding representations on Athenian vase painting and of mystery cult initiation. The wedding is a ritual, Sinos posits, for which late Classical vase painting, in particular, exploits the artistic possibility of blurring the boundary between mortals and divine or heroic figures, and thus, it gives shape and form to the abstract message inherent in the ritual itself. This connection contributes to our understanding of the “wedding experience.” The great majority of wedding scenes on late Classical and early Hellenistic vases portray the wedding as an occasion when mortals are invested with divine presence (for example, that of Aphrodite, Eros, Pothos, or Himeros). References to the bride as Aphrodite or the groom as hero have been established in Classical wedding imagery, while Eleu­ sinian allusions entered the picture in the late Classical period. The Mysteries provided “an unusually close parallel to the wedding ritual, including preliminary sacrifices and baths; a procession involving songs, ceremonial mockery,

6

Introduction

and torches; entry into a structure excluding all but the initiates; and the experience of revelation, with the promise of a better life and afterlife for initiates,” similar to the experience of the groom in the nuptial chamber (θάλαμος) and the unveiling of the bride. According to Sinos, there is a “fundamental connection . . . between the aims of mystery cults and the iconographic strategies of wedding scenes” on paintings from the Classical through the late Hellenistic periods. From a visual representation of the wedding experience we move to symbolic imagery in Greek and Roman authors with Karen Klaiber Hersch’s chapter, “Violence in the Roman Wedding,” which investigates the violent component of the wedding ritual in Rome. In particular, Hersch elucidates how the mental and physical assault of the bride, in the form of abduction, lamentation, and the symbolic death of her previous life and identity, is connected to the Roman understanding of the foundation of the state and the gods that protect it. Literature (and to some extent art) entertain the possibility that many Romans associated the rituals of the wedding with the bride’s (symbolic) sacrifice on behalf of the state. By comparing Athenian and Roman wedding traditions, Hersch argues that the vis (force, violence), real or perceived, exercised on the bride during the nuptial ritual was a distinct Roman custom. The founding myths of Rome, and especially the rape of the Sabine women, served as models for the Roman wedding. The identity of the (Sabine) “brides” was subsumed in the foundation of the Roman city, and (marital) sex served the state through procreation.7 To the epithalamic tradition of Catullus detailing the transition of the unwilling, fearful bride into the possession of her new groom, Statius adds a new twist in his epithalamium for Violentilla and Stella: Venus’ message to the unwilling bride is not about a marriage of love, a union of the hearts, or marital concordia but about submission to the yoke of marriage and marital sex in the service of the state. Violence in the form of sexual penetration of the (virginal) bride by the groom, argues Hersch, was expected by the guests at a Roman wedding, as well as the cries of terror and pain of the bride in the wedding chamber, as a way to confirm the bride’s virginal state and to ensure, thus, legitimate progeny to the groom and the Roman state. While Hersch considers the epithalamium, among other genres, in Rome during the early Empire, Paolo Di Meo moves us to the Greek world and to Plutarch’s redeployment of themes found in this ancient genre. His chapter, “Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Tradition of the Poetic Epithalamium,” examines the relationship between Plutarch’s precepts on marriage and the

7

G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a literary tradition of the epithalamium, or wedding song. From Sappho to Catullus, and from Statius to Claudian, the epithalamium was produced well into the sixth century CE. The verse epithalamium was the basis of the creation of the epideictic genre of the wedding speech, similar to Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and to the rhetorical texts of the late imperial period. Although the epithalamic models follow either that of Sappho or that of Statius, the history of the epithalamium is characterized by a strong sense of tradition, which allows us to make certain judgments regarding the whole collection without regard to chronology or metrical structure. Therefore, Plutarch, like the poets and rhetors of the epithalamic tradition, acts like a teacher (both real and metaphorical) who gives advice to the young and inexperienced couple. In Marriage Advice, in both the prologue and the epilogue (as well as in single precepts), we find elements that are traced back to epithalamic models and motifs. For example, Plutarch describes plants with thorns, such as the rose and asparagus, that deter the lover, and insects such as bees that protect their honey with their sting; he invites the newlyweds to collaborate during their first intercourse and to transform their physical union into a harmonious relationship; and he invokes the gods that are present not only to inspire poets but also to take part in the festivities and to make the union of the couple stable and harmonious. Once the wedding rituals have been performed, and the couple has consummated its relationship in the wedding chamber while friends and family sing the epithalamic songs or give the wedding speech, the conjugal relationship must survive the daily grind of communal life and household management. The authors of the Empire focus on the purpose of marriage and provide a prescriptive way of life for the married couple, who may or may not come to terms with each other. The often-quoted fourth-century BCE Ps.Demosthenes’ Against Neaera 59 summarizes the purpose of marriage until recently: procreation. Marriage is a social and state institution grounded in the need to create progeny, heirs to the family property and name.8 By the Hellenistic period, however, some argued against the necessity to marry. Although the philosopher Epicurus (fourth to third century BCE) accepted the traditional view of marriage for procreation, he also argued against the institution or, rather, for its avoidance, except in certain circumstances. Geert Roskam in “Epicurus on Marriage” explains that the Epicurean understanding of marriage was based on the general principle of seeking the satisfaction of limited natural desires, which brings freedom from physical and mental pain and achieves tranquility and contentment (ἀταραξία). The avoidance of

8

Introduction

marriage, in Epicurus’ view, was the avoidance of harming (or being harmed by) a spouse or one’s children. If the spouse or the children were a source of misery and trouble, marriage could be understood as a source of pain, and to marry, then, would be the pursuit of pain; the premature death of a child (or children) could also mar one’s tranquility. Such reasoning may have convinced Epicurus that his pleasure and tranquility were better guaranteed by avoiding marriage and procreation. Under certain circumstances, however, marriage could yield more pleasure than pain. Roskam argues that these special circumstances must include significant advantages for the Epicurean philosopher, advantages that would balance the possible pain and trouble that a marriage and children could bring. Such circumstances could include financial reasons, such as inheritance, the presence of an heiress (ἐπίκληρος), or existing dynamics and relationships between extended families.9 The discourse over the usefulness and, even, spirituality of marriage is especially prolific in the early empire. The role that the institution of marriage plays in the creation of the state and Empire, and in its continuation, had been spelled out in Cicero’s On Duties: “Because the urge to reproduce is an instinct common to all animals, society originally consists of the couple itself [in ipso coniugio], next of the couple with their children, then of one house and all things held in common [communa omnia]. This is the beginning of the city and the seed-bed of the state” (1.54). The family unit and the begetting of children, who can become citizens, is by this argument the foundation of the city and the state. In the first century CE, Musonius Rufus prescribed (specifically, to husbands since they are thought to act on their sexual passions more easily than wives) sexual intercourse only in marriage “for the begetting of children, since that is lawful, but unjust and unlawful when it is mere pleasure-seeking, even in marriage” (12). The prescriptive role of the conjugal unit and its responsibility to the state was not heeded by all, however. Clearly by the late Hellenistic period, the upper classes were abstaining from marriage and were not producing the citizens the Roman Empire needed, as the laws against remaining unmarried at various points in Roman history, but especially under Augustus and the Julio-Claudians, show. Under the Julian Laws, Areius Didymus restated the Aristotelean position that a politeia is the coming together of a man and a woman according to the law for the procreation of children and community of life (Stob. 2.7.26). The conduct and purpose of the family unit were especially important under Augustus, who publicly memorialized the imperial family for the first time on a state monument, the Ara Pacis, although ultimately his legislation failed, as did the persistent idealization of the univira

9

G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a (the woman who had married only one husband) compared to the realities of the elites who pursued serial marriages and divorces, and even adultery, in order to advance their status. Authors in the first century CE moved toward “separate-but-equal” roles for the spouses in marriage. Musonius Rufus’ ideas about marriage (mid-first century CE), for example, in which a philosophical woman’s capacity for virtue is equal to that of a man, retained a traditional role for the wife in the conjugal relationship: she is a wife and a mother who is expected to nurse her children from her own breast and serve her husband with her own hands.10 Both Musonius Rufus and later Plutarch agreed that the foundation of marriage is the mutual affection and care expressed by the couple to each other and their offspring. But both authors, although they acknowledge the uxorial potential for virtue and seek an “elevated” form of the conjugal relationship based on companionship (κοινωνία, or societas in the expression of Cicero, Off. 5.65), nonetheless maintain the limited, traditional gender roles for a woman, as loyal wife and mother. Martha Nussbaum, in the title of her 2002 article, called the approach to a conjugal relationship that extends the role of the wife beyond that of a vessel for procreation to that of a caretaker and, possibly, a companion to her husband the “incomplete feminism” of Musonius Rufus. Alex Dressler engages directly with such modern and ancient discourses on marriage. While poets such as Juvenal and Martial continued the antimarriage tradition in their satires, the Stoic philosopher and poet Seneca proposed alternatives to traditional patriarchal marriage through his tragic female characters, as Dressler argues in “The Impossible Feminism of ‘Seneca, On Marriage’: Style and the Woman in Jerome, Against Jovinian 1.” Seneca’s “incomplete egalitarian marriage,” as it survived in Jerome’s Christian text, persisted into late Antiquity and the rise of Christianity. While Seneca allows for marriage for female self-realization, his tragedies and philosophical treatise, as the latter survives in Jerome, portray women who dislike marriage, even companionate marriage.11 Dressler argues that these women, not by themselves but in the various contexts in which we find them—in Jerome’s treatise Against Jovinian and in the context of Seneca’s other writings, especially his tragedies— bring the feminism that Nussbaum finds in Musonius Rufus nearer to “completion.” These tragic wives in Seneca’s works shoulder the negative effects of marriage, an institution they understand as a symbol of servitude. Instead of marrying for a second time, they seek violence against their own bodies by choosing death. Thus, in their assertion to self-destruction, they choose

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Introduction

abjection from the patriarchal system, a system that wants them to marry again. Nevertheless, female self-determination marks the impossibility of Senecan feminism—that is, of a “completed” feminism that not only theorizes the end of patriarchal marriage as a satirical reflex of some Roman women’s lifestyle choices but also actively practices the destruction of the institution through the agency of women. In Seneca, this “completed” feminism remains always only a possibility, according to Dressler. In general, he argues that Seneca proposes alternatives in marriage (for example, nontraditional power dynamics between husband and wife) and, eventually, to marriage. While Jerome’s Seneca supports celibacy, Jerome and Seneca (in his tragedies, at least) may even propose the obliteration of marriage. Inbuilt culturally gendered associations for both men and women in the context of marriage and marital values is the theme of Katarzyna Jazdzewska’s chapter, “Marriage and Animal Exemplarity in Plutarch.” Ancient authors, including Plutarch, develop animal stories and elaborate them into a model of temperate male sexual desires and, most often, uxorial values—wifely love, care, dedication, loyalty, and fidelity. Animal descriptions and mating behaviors are anthropomorphized and become moral examples for human behavior. Traditionally gendered male and female sexual behavior required the male animal or human to be the active agent in seduction and the sexual act, while the female was submissive and desirable. Thus, while men were advised to temper their lust, women were instructed to suppress outward expressions of sexual desire. According to Plutarch, this ability to temper (male) and suppress (female) desire distinguishes human from animal behavior. Furthermore, the most important aspects of marital life touched upon in animal stories include procreation, child rearing, sexual morality, and marital (in particular, wifely) loyalty and fidelity. Being in support of the need to procreate, which Plutarch accepts as natural, he admonishes those who do not marry and produce children as unnatural. Thus, Plutarch’s representation of animal reproduction is constructed in a way that validates the idea that procreation is the primary, natural purpose of marriage—and not pleasure. During the right season (preferably spring), sexual intercourse can fulfill successfully its reproductive goal when the wife becomes pregnant, at which point she modestly withdraws her sexual availability to her husband and focuses solely on the fetus. Following the impregnation of the wife, the couple rears its offspring by and while showing forethought, endurance, and self-control (probably in sexual activity). In general, in Plutarch’s works on animal mating behaviors, as well as in his works on conjugal relationships for humans (in Marriage Advice and Dialogue on

11

G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a Love), we are confronted with two prescriptive lenses in respect to marriage: one emphasizing the traditional, procreative function of the institution, and consequently subordinating the relationship between the (heterosexual) mates to their relationship with their children; and a second one, celebrating marriage as an idealized companionship (κοινωνία) relying on the husband’s and, espe­ cially, the wife’s love and care. Spousal devotion and loyalty are also topics discussed in Jeffrey Beneker’s chapter, “Death Is Not the End: Spousal Devotion in Plutarch’s Portraits of Camma, Porcia, and Cornelia.” Although elite marriages in Greece and Rome during the Empire continued to be made for procreation and the creation of heirs and heiresses, and for the betterment of one’s finances and status, a strong romantic element could be present, at least in the literary and philosophical representations of these marriages. By the second century CE, eros (sexual desire) is a prerequisite for a successful and virtuous marriage, according to Plutarch in Dialogue on Love (769F–770A).12 Procreation is the principal that moves everything, but conjugal eros combines the physical with the spiritual, and the personal with the public; that is, it creates harmony in one’s soul as well as children for the continuation of the species. In Plutarch, the promotion of marriage as an idealized companionship (κοινωνία) subordinates not only the heterosexual couple to the upbringing of the children but also the wife’s needs and ambitions to those of her husband. As much as Plutarch would have us believe that the wife is equal to her husband if she is σώφρων, φιλόσοφος, and φίλανδρος (husband-loving), the examples of Camma, Porcia, and Cornelia attest to something more nuanced and complicated. In fact, Plutarch does not expect a wife to act independently except in rare circumstances. Her behavior and virtue are “proper” when they are subordinate to the husband and his interests. In Plutarch, as in Xenophon (Oeconomicus, Cyropaedia) in the fourth century BCE, the husband continues to be the one who leads, teaches, and guides a virtuous but “incomplete” (in Aristotelian terminology) wife. She can act independently and take matters into her own hands when he is absent or dead but only as long as she continues to act in the interests of her husband and (his) household. So when the husband dies (or is murdered, as was Camma’s husband), the ideal wife continues the conjugal mission by remaining loyal and defending the husband’s interests: she takes revenge on her husband (as Camma did), or endures pain and suffering (as Porcia did), or dedicates herself to the appropriate upbringing of (his) children and, thus, ensuring the continuation of his line (as Cornelia did).

12

Introduction

Camma and, possibly, Porcia even commit suicide so they can be joined with their husbands in death as they had been in life. According to Plutarch, then, a widow’s life has no purpose unless she has children. By raising her husband’s children, however, she continues to protect and promote his interests. Cornelia, therefore, remains a univira, a model of spousal devotion even though a king asks for her hand, in order to fulfill her role in raising the children and continuing the husband’s line and household. By elevating these women and their behavior after the death of their husbands to a status of exempla for the Greek and Roman matronae of the early Empire, Plutarch idealizes and promotes a gendered and patriarchal model for marriage. Of course, these examples apply to the prescriptive world Plutarch creates in his works and do not necessarily reflect reality in the Roman Empire, where we know that not only did women continue to live and remarry after their husband’s death, but elite widows and widowers were forced by Augustan legislation to remarry after a short period of grieving. While erotic passion develops in the conjugal relationship according to Plutarch, the authors of the novels experimented with the idea of eros as a prerequisite to marriage. Silvia Montiglio discusses the intertwinement of erotic passion with marriage in the novels of the second, third, and fourth centuries CE in her chapter “Erotic Desire and the Desire to Marry in the Ancient Greek Novels.” In Leucippe and Clitophon, erotic desire is the initial driving force that brings the couple together, and it would have found satisfaction outside of wedlock if external forces (Artemis and Aphrodite) had not intervened. The desire for marriage, then, comes not from the young woman or man but from Artemis and Aphrodite, and also from the lovers’ fathers. Daphnis and Chloe further suggests that a desire to be forever together with one’s beloved is instinctual, but a desire to marry that person is not. Daphnis is the first to see that love and wedlock go together but also the first in the novels to have an active role in procuring his own marriage, to his beloved Chloe. In sharp contrast, An Ethiopian Story shows erotic desire finding complete fulfillment in the wedding night. This novel suggests that the couple is determined to be together and relatively independent of their families’ impediments, especially in the case of Theagenes, the young man who is in a foreign land and free from parental supervision. Both partners embrace the priest Calassiris’ point of view that their erotic passion be converted to wedlock, a lawful union (4.10.6). Both partners, therefore, are willing to marry, and abstain from premarital sex voluntarily. In Ephesian Tale, both the young man and woman have agency. Consent

13

G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a to both sex and marriage by both parties is a requirement in this novel alone: “it is necessary that the two parties be of one mind” (1.21.2). Chariclea cannot be given in marriage against her will. As Montiglio observes, on the one hand, Chariton (second[?] century CE) and Heliodorus (third century CE) bring instinctual erotic desire and the social institution of marriage together. On the other hand, Xenophon of Ephesus (second[?] century CE), Longus (third[?] century CE), and Achilles Tatius (fourth[?] century CE) keep erotic desire separate from wedlock, emphasizing the naturalness of erotic passion and the artificiality of the conjugal institution. To satisfy their passion, the protagonists have no choice but to tie the knot. Yet the only couple to internalize this proscriptive requirement is Chariton’s, for whom erotic love equals marriage from the first moment they feel sexual attraction to each other (though under the guidance of the priest). In the other novels, the protagonists’ desire has a life of its own, though outside forces inevitably tame it and steer it toward the ideal outcome, marriage.

Marriage in the Greco-Roman World of the Late Hellenistic Period and the Early Roman Empire As the world of the Greek poleis changed over time with the campaigns of Alexander and his successors, and the wars of the Roman consuls and generals, who brought the Hellenistic world under the sway of Rome and its empire, ideas and customs about the institution of marriage must have changed as well. We read in Plutarch’s Alexander and On the Fortune and Virtue in Alexander the Great that the Macedonian king incorporated Median and Persian customs into the wedding celebrations at Susa, where he and his officers married royal and elite Persian women in 324 BCE. It is unclear, however, whether Alexander’s successors continued the practice of combining Macedonian nuptial customs with those of the people they conquered or whether they continued to encourage intermarriage.13 On the Roman side, intermarriage was part of the fabric of Roman society as the foundation myths of Rome show; it is not a surprise that Romans intermarried with the conquered. How local marriage customs might have changed is not entirely clear, but the status of women visà-vis that of their Classical counterparts in both the Greek and Roman world had changed. The Hellenistic world stopped being a collection of independent citystates; instead it opened into a vast cosmopolis where ideas and people flowed. Both men and women moved around the Mediterranean more than ever before,

14

Introduction

and this mobility and uncertainty brought with them disadvantages and privileges that some, especially Greek but also Roman, women did not have before. Far removed from their original families, women and men needed to be protected with marriage contracts that spelled out the responsibilities of both spouses in the conjugal unit. And, as Theocritus’ poems show, elite women generally enjoyed greater freedom: they could, for example, take a stroll in public without male supervision, exhibiting their own and their family’s wealth. While Macedonian and Hellenistic queens, as well as late Roman Republican and imperial elite women of privileged citizen status, continued to be married off in their teens and used as pawns in the marriages that their kin arranged on their behalf, some acquired financial independence during the last four centuries BCE, which in turn allowed them to sometimes challenge the status quo. Their new status was not necessarily generally accepted, however. The socalled new woman of the late Republic and the early Empire, for example, who had agency in her own life could be feared and condemned as adulterous and unrespectable.14 For elite women, choices in marriage, as in the other areas of their lives, had to have the approval of their male kin, who continued to use them for their own political and economic alliances and advantages. Many marriages involved premenarchal brides being matched with considerably older grooms, as was customary in both Athens and Rome in all historical periods. Among the many results of such practice was that women could become widows at a young age, and in Rome, especially after Augustus’ laws, they were compelled by the state to marry again and continue to produce children. Serial monogamy was the norm rather than the exception. Although Greek and Roman male authors would exalt the univira in their works during the early Empire, in reality the pressure on a young widow to marry again and have children was likely to have been enormous, and it was coming both from her familial circle and from the laws of the state. Ironically, the benefit conferred on a free Roman mother of three children (or on a mother of four, if she was a freedwoman), established by Augustus to encourage procreation, formally freed women from tutelage. Whatever freedom a Roman woman (after mothering three children) or a financially independent Greek woman might have enjoyed, in reality her liberation was limited by controlling elders, parents, and male kin. Apuleius’ Apologia provides an excellent example of such intruders in a case brought against the author around 158 CE: a very rich woman, Pudentilla, decided to remarry with her older son’s support and encouragement. After her son Pontianus realized that his mother’s wealth could pass on to her new husband,

15

G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a Apuleius (and any stepsiblings), he encouraged his younger brother, their paternal uncle, and his own son-in-law to impeach Apuleius for seducing Pudentilla with charms and magic. The case was heard by Claudius Maximus, governor of the province of Africa, in Sabratha near Tripoli. Although we do not know the outcome of the trial, one can surmise from this example the limitations placed upon women, who could be wealthy and legally independent (suis iuris, and not under the patria potestas) but nonetheless not entirely autonomous. Romanticized emotional and sexual bonds between husband and wife are found in the philosophy, tragedy, and novels of the late first and second centuries CE. Perhaps it was due to the influence of Roman law, which required the consent of both bride and groom if they were sui iuris (or also of their parents, if still in their father’s power, [Ulp. Reg. 5.2]), or the change in the status of Greek and Roman elite women over time that a prescriptive emotional bond between husband and wife, as we find in Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love, or a passionate sexual bond between lovers, as in the Greek novels, became the ideal basis for a conjugal relationship. Consent or agency, as well as sexual attraction, for both men and women become important elements, especially in the novels of the second and third centuries CE.15 In some writers (Chariton, Heliodorus), erotic passion and marriage come together. In others (Xenophon of Ephesus, Longus, and later Achilles Tatius), erotic passion stands separate from marriage; sexual attraction is natural, and wedlock is a social construct. Should the lovers, then, do what comes naturally? Or should they follow the parameters set by convention, family, religion, or state? Can sex exist separate from marriage? Are the rules the same for men and women? In Chariton’s novel, state and religion require that, in order for the unwed couple to satisfy their sexual passion, they have no choice but to tie the knot. In this way, unconsummated erotic desire is allowed, but sex can exist only within the marital relationship (at least for the woman) and, thus, it can be regulated further not only by the family but now by the institutions of the state and even by religion. The reality of the second century CE, however, could differ greatly from the idealized relationships found in literature, as in the case of Regilla, an affluent Roman woman with education, imperial connections, and means, who was abused and murdered while pregnant by her husband, Herodes Atticus, a wealthy Greek man of education and status.16 It is difficult to know, then, where the ancient authors found real-life examples of the “companionate marriages” that they promoted. Perhaps, among freedmen and freedwomen or the lower classes, women and men had more liberty to create companionate partnerships out of mutual and reciprocal affection, attraction, desire, and

16

Introduction

commitment to parenthood and familial survival. But that is not the historical reality of the marital unions about which we have the most evidence (i.e., elite marriages).17 This tension—between sexual passion, on the one hand, and procreative marriage for the good of the family and state, on the other—will continue to assert itself in the discourse of ascetism in the late Roman Empire and in the Christianization of marriage in the Medieval period, and it will eventually find its way into the political discourse of the twenty-first century. Notes I would like to thank the reviewers of this volume for their comments; Ronnie Ancona, Lee L. Brice, and Sarah B. Pomeroy for their insights; as well as my coeditor, Jeffrey Beneker, for his scrupulous proofreading, prodding questions, and patience over a period quite longer than expected. Support for this project was provided by Illinois State University. 1. Other potential subjects include, for example, marriage in Greek and Roman comedy, marriage in Roman art during the Empire, Neopythagorean philosophy, medicine, or law. 2. The bibliography on the topic of marriage is large. One can read about the status of the scholarship on the topic in two broad chapters in the Blackwell Companions series: Cox 2011 (on Athenian marriage); Dixon 2011 (on Roman marriage). 3. For the historical background, see Gruen 1984. 4. On the Second Sophistic, see Goldhill 2001; Whitmarsh 2001. On the influence of Greek culture on Rome, see Gruen 1992; Wardman 2002; Spawforth 2012; Madsen and Rees 2014; Picón and Hemingway 2016. 5. For the different views of Roman Stoics, middle-Platonist, and early Christians on marriage and the relations between the husband and wife in the conjugal relationship, see Ramelli 2008, which focuses mainly on the teachings of Zeno, Hierocles, Stobaeus, Antipater, Musonius Rufus, Plutarch, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. 6. Two chapters in particular deal with marriage and the role of concordia and discordia in the conjugal relationship as well as in Flavian society and complement the readings in our volume: Buckley 2016; Newlands 2016. Karen Klaiber Hersch’s edited volume A Cultural History of Marriage in Antiquity (2020) was not published in time to be included in this discussion. 7. The rapio of the Sabine women, for example, in the foundation story of the Roman state and its political ramifications has been examined by Brown 1995; Miles 1995, 184; Tsouvala 2008, 709–11. 8. On marriage alliances and their economic and social realms, see Arist. Pol. 1304a4–17; Pomeroy (1975) 1995; Leese 2017. 9. One such special circumstance where marriage was allowed was the case in Epicurus’ own will, which made a provision for a future marriage between the

17

G e o r g i a Ts o u v a l a daughter of one of his own students, Metrodorus of Lampsacus, and another Epicurean philosopher. 10. See Nussbaum 2002. 11. For the term “companionate marriage,” see Treggiari 1991, 215–20. 12. See also Tsouvala 2014, 200–203; and what Susan Treggiari (1991) has described as “companionism,” a notion that combines sex, affection, and possible equality in a heterosexual relationship. 13. On Hellenistic marriage, see Vatin 1970. 14. For example, see the relevant chapters on Hellenistic and Republican women, and the excursus on the “new woman” in Fantham et al. 1994. On women in Hellenistic Egypt, see Pomeroy 1990. 15. With the expansion of Roman citizenship in 212 CE, when every free person in the Roman Empire came under the protection of Roman law, the right of consent (if it was part of Roman law at this time) was extended to all free persons, both women and men. 16. Pomeroy 2007. 17. I would like to thank Judith P. Hallett for making this point in correspondence.

Works Cited Brown, R. 1995. “Livy’s Sabine Women and the Ideal of Concordia.” TAPA 125:291–319. Buckley, E. 2016. “Over Her Dead Body? Marriage in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica.” In Family in Flavian Epic, edited by N. Manioti, 61–88. Leuven. Challet, C.-E. C. 2013. Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century. Vienna. Cox, C. A. 2011. “Marriage in Ancient Athens.” In A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, edited by B. Rawson, 231–44. New York. Dixon, S. 2011. “From Ceremonial to Sexualities: A Survey of Scholarship on Roman Marriage.” In A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, edited by B. Rawson, 245–61. New York. Fantham, E., H. P. Foley, N. B. Kampen, S. B. Pomeroy, and H. A. Shapiro. 1994. Women in the Classical World: Image and Text. New York. Goldhill, S. 2001. Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire. Cambridge. Gruen, E. S. 1984. The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome. Berkeley, CA. . 1992. Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome. Ithaca, NY. Leese, M. 2017. “An Economic Perspective on Marriage Alliances in Ancient Greece.” In Ancient Law, Ancient Society, edited by D. P. Kehoe and T. A. J. McGinn, 32– 45. Ann Arbor, MI. Lovén, L. L., and A. Strömberg. 2010. Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality. Newcastle upon Tyne.

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Introduction Madsen, J. M., and R. Rees, eds. 2014. Roman Rule and Latin Writing: Double Vision. Boston. Manioti, N., ed. 2016. Family in Flavian Epic. Leuven. Miles, G. B. 1995. Livy: Reconstructing Early Rome. Ithaca, NY. Newlands, C. 2016. “Fatal Unions: Marriage at Thebes.” In Family in Flavian Epic, edited by N. Manioti, 143–73. Leuven. Nussbaum, M. 2002. “The Incomplete Feminism of Musonius Rufus, Platonist, Stoic, and Roman.” In The Sleep of Reason, edited by M. Nussbaum and J. Sihvola, 283–326. Chicago. Oakley, J. H., and R. Sinos. 1993. The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison, WI. Picón, C. A., and S. Hemingway, eds. 2016. Pergamon and the Hellenistic Kingdoms of the Ancient World. New Haven, CT. Pomeroy, S. B. (1975) 1995. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York. . 1990. Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra. Detroit. , ed. 1999. Plutarch’s “Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Consolation to His Wife”: English Translations, Commentary, Interpretive Essays, and Bibliography. New York. . 2007. The Murder of Regilla: A Case of Domestic Violence in Antiquity. Cambridge, MA. Ramelli, I. 2008. “Transformations of the Household Theory between Roman Stoicism, Middle-Platonism, and Early Christianity.” Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scholastica 2–3:369–95. Spawforth, A. J. S. 2012. Greece and Augustan Revolution: Greek Culture in the Roman World. Cambridge, MA. Treggiari, S. 1991. Roman Marriage: “Iusti Coniuges” from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford. Tsouvala, G. 2008. “Integrating Marriage and Homonoia.” In The Unity of Plutarch’s Work: “Moralia” Themes in the “Lives,” Features of the “Lives” in the “Moralia,” edited by A. G. Nikolaidis, 701–18. Berlin. . 2014. “Love and Marriage.” In The Blackwell Companion to Plutarch, edited by M. Beck, 191–206. Oxford. Vatin, C. 1970. Recherches sur le mariage et la condition de la femme mariée à l’époque hellénistique. Paris. Wardman, A. 2002. Rome’s Debt to Greece. London. Whitmarsh, T. 2001. Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation. Oxford.

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art Rebecca H. Sinos

W

ell over one hundred years after their discovery, the most famous paintings of classical antiquity, the frescoes of Room 5 of the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii, remain a subject of active debate. The Villa’s current name derives from an interpretation of the frescoes as images of secret initiation rites, but it is also suitable for their enigmatic motifs. Upon entering the room, the visitor is confronted with an almost life-size image of Dionysus, the only figure in the room whose identity is undisputed, reclining against a seated female figure amid what appear to be scenes reflecting mystery cult. The most widely accepted interpretation of the frieze still holds that it depicts initiation into Dionysian mysteries.1 On other walls, however, female figures are engaged in various activities that have “something to do with a bridal initiation into marriage.”2 Or are the representations all possibly “pageants or tableaux accompanying festivals of Dionysus”?3 The search for meaning involves an examination of various sources that contribute to the messages inherent in these images, each source potentially offering layers of meaning. Here lies the reason for the complexity of art of the late Hellenistic period.4 A study of complex megalography such as we find in the Villa of the Mysteries is beyond my scope here. But the combination of themes in these frescoes seems to me worthy of attention in itself. In an early essay, Richard Seaford identified both wedding and initiatory themes in this frieze and argued that they are not in conflict or even fully distinguishable, since they represent ritual processes not only similar but so intertwined in the ancient

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art

understanding that they “interpenetrate each other.”5 More recently, Sho­ shanna Kirk has interpreted the frescoes with reference to the “convergence of the realms of Dionysus and Aphrodite” in vase paintings of South Italy and Sicily.6 Here I aim to explore the development of images that unite these two themes, the wedding and initiation into a mystery cult. I follow Seaford in his suggestion that the rituals of the wedding and of mystic initiation have much in common, and Kirk in her attention to vase painting’s capacity to join mortal and divine worlds as well as the spheres of different divinities. There is a fundamental connection, I believe, between the aims of mystery cults and the iconographic strategies of wedding scenes, which invites consideration also of why wedding iconography is notably attentive to links between human and divine models. Two fourth-century Athenian relief vases inspired my interest in this subject. Both offer a rare view of the wedding, in depicting the bride and groom within the bridal chamber. One (fig. 10) depicts the bride in the lap of another woman and the other (color plates 6 and 7) is the only scene, to my knowledge, in which the bride reveals herself to the groom. I hope to show that both gain resonance in association with mystery cults and their imagery, and that this resonance contributes to our understanding of the “wedding experience.” But before we can consider the images of these relief vases, we need a sense of the iconographic tradition that had developed by the fourth century BCE. In focusing on the wedding as portrayed in painting, we have the benefit of the extraordinarily rich resource of Attic vase paintings in which we can trace the development of specific wedding motifs. Athenian wedding scenes span the years from the late seventh through the fourth century BCE and provide visual testimony for every stage of the ceremony, from the wedding preparations and the procession taking the bride to her new home to the rituals welcoming the couple’s arrival at the home and celebrating the beginning of the bride’s life as a married woman. From Athens, the techniques, iconography, and probably painters, too, of these vases traveled to Italy and Sicily, extending the Athenian repertory under the influence of local traditions. To interpret any of these scenes, we need to supply the iconographic assumptions on which they depend in communicating to the viewer. Like the frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteries, their images are allusive rather than narrative, which makes literal interpretations too limiting or even misleading.7 They take much of their meaning from inherited associations, developed at Athens over roughly three hundred years of black- and red-figure vase painting.

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Rebecca H. Sinos

Figure 1.  Black-figure amphora by the Medea Group, Amherst, MA, Amherst College, Mead Art Museum AC 1950.59.

These vase paintings work through a language of symbols, often taken from life but offering connections transcending any literal interpretation. For example, on an amphora in the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College (fig. 1), a couple reclines on a banqueting couch; their hands, alternately open and shut, suggest that they are responding to the music of the pipes to which two men are dancing.8 The table in front of the couch holds a cup and food, including strips of meat such as often appear in banqueting scenes at this time (ca. 520 BCE). The furnishings, the food, and the custom of reclining for the banquet are all credible as representations of actual practices, and female companions often join the men in scenes of mortal banquets. But the couple here is larger in scale than the other figures in the scene, and the male figure is depicted with the ivy crown, long locks, and shaggy beard that belong to Dionysus (and to the satyrs who accompany him, when present) in other scenes painted by artists of this group and by their contemporaries. 9 The god’s identity is unmistakable when he is accompanied by these mythic

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art

companions. On the Amherst vase, however, the companions are mortals; the god does not hold his characteristic drinking horn or his distinctive cup, the kantharos; and there is no rampant vegetation such as accompanies the god in other scenes. The image is ambiguous, recalling the god but without any sure indicators of divinity; it alludes to Dionysus as the god who beyond all others enters into our world and suggests that a mortal drinker could embody Dionysus.10 Such an image is well suited to the Greek symposion, a ritual honoring the god whose sphere includes all the liquid forces of life, and an occasion when the boundaries between divine and mortal worlds seem permeable. In a world in which deities are anthropomorphic, there is an inherent potential for ambiguity. Vase paintings can use that potential to illustrate the same dissolution of boundaries suggested by the Dionysian ritual itself. Scenes such as this one suggest the ideal potential of an abundant feast in happy harmony, the most blessed condition for human life; the “most blessed of all mortal men” are those whose weddings to goddesses allowed them to celebrate in a feast among gods.11 We will return to the image of Dionysus reclining with a female companion who must be Ariadne, the mortal woman who gained immortality from Zeus after her marriage to this god.12 The wedding is another ritual for which vase paintings exploit this artistic possibility of blurring the boundary between mortals and divine or heroic figures, thus giving form to a message inherent in the ritual itself. Here I will provide a brief survey of the vases, providing seven examples to show the development of this imagery. Then we will enter the bridal chamber and I will introduce two vases of particular interest that deserve more attention in studies of wedding images.

Greek Wedding Scenes: A Survey of Seven Vases 1

Our earliest Athenian wedding scenes depict processions, the wedding rituals most public in their performance. Indeed, by far the majority of black-figure wedding scenes feature chariot processions. Early examples include scenes of the gods arriving to celebrate the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the subject of the main frieze of the François vase, a krater named for its excavator and famous for its dense mythological repertory (fig. 2, ca. 570 BCE).13

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Rebecca H. Sinos

Figure 2.  Black-figure krater by Kleitios and Ergotimos, Florence, Museo Archeologico 4209. After Furtwängler and Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, T.1.

2

The pattern used for these divine pairs standing on horse-drawn chariots serves also for scenes featuring the wedding procession of the bride and groom, the most popular wedding subject in black-figure vase painting. The bride and groom pose majestically on a horse-drawn chariot, sometimes identified by inscriptions or attributes as divine or heroic figures, but often there are no such markers and the accompanying figures with baskets and vessels of various kinds appear to be mortals, as in the procession on the amphora in London, dating to ca. 540–530 BCE (fig. 3).14 Yet we learn from later texts that the vehicle actually used in most Athenian weddings was not a chariot but a more comfortable, if less exalted, vehicle, a cart, as is confirmed by vase paintings of the sixth and fifth centuries.15 Like wedding songs praising the bridal couple as “like to the gods,” the chariot scenes represent them as resembling the gods and heroes for whom it is the expected vehicle.16 These ambiguous chariot scenes, like the Amherst banqueting scene, blend divine and mortal worlds.

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art Figure 3. Black-figure amphora by the Group of London B 174, London, British Museum 1868.0610.2 (B 174). © Trustees of the British Museum.

With the introduction of the red-figure technique, vase paintings of the wedding soon expand the repertory to include a wider range of scenes. While black-figure scenes had emphasized the public show of the wedding in their noble images of chariot processions, red-figure scenes come to reflect a different interest. The procession remains a popular subject, but the bride and groom now appear more often on foot, the groom leading the bride by taking hold of her hand or wrist. 3

On a cup in Berlin, for example, we see, instead of a glorious chariot procession, the arrival of the bride and groom at the bride’s new home, greeted with

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Rebecca H. Sinos

Figures 4–5. Red-figure kylix by the Amphitrite Painter, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Antikensammlung F 2530. Photographs by Johannes Laurentius.

torches by the groom’s mother (fig. 4, ca. 460–450 BCE).17 Behind them stands the bride’s mother, with torches from the bride’s house. The groom turns to look at his bride; her head inclines slightly, modestly, but her eyes turn up toward his gaze. The greater intimacy of this pose emphasizes the couple’s union. When we consider the vase as a whole, however, it is apparent that there is more here than a scene of marital union, since the depiction of this anonymous bride and groom bears comparison to a divine scene on the other side of the vase (fig. 5). By simply turning the vase around, we see a figure similar to our groom but mounted in a chariot with Hermes standing before him; this unbearded figure must be the god Apollo. The correspondences between the two scenes are unmistakable.18 Both processions head to the left, which is not the usual direction, and both scenes include a musician with a stringed instrument and a woman behind the procession holding a torch (in the divine scene, this must be Artemis). The god and bridegroom are almost alike in appearance and in dress (note that the bridegroom here is also unbearded), but Apollo has longer locks and his garment ends in squared-off tips. In both features he resembles closely the lyre player in the wedding scene. One of Apollo’s regular attributes is a lyre or kithara, as we see here in the hands of the

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Figure 5.

female figure in front of him, probably his mother, Leto, who often appears with her children. The status of the lyre player in the mortal scene is thrown into question. Is the god Apollo welcoming the couple to their new home? Here the overall likeness of the mortal scene to the divine one suggests the godlike appearance of the wedding group as a whole. Over the course of the fifth century, a divine element enters wedding imagery in the form of a significant new presence. The winged figure Eros, the divine embodiment of the sexual love over which Aphrodite presides, joins the picture in scenes depicting a wider range of wedding activities, including not only processions but also the bride’s preparation for the wedding, and the epaulia, the ritual celebration after the wedding night, featuring the bride in the company of her friends and family. 4

A vase of 430–420 BCE, a loutrophoros (bath carrier), depicts the procession conveying the bride’s bathwater (fig. 6).19 Again a woman with torches in both hands faces the figures advancing toward her, now led by a boy playing pipes. Behind him, and centered between the two handles of the vase, a girl carries a loutrophoros adorned with white fillets now barely visible, followed

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Rebecca H. Sinos

Figure 6.  Red-figure loutrophoros by the Washing Painter, Athens, National Archaeological Museum A 1453 (CC1225). After Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines, vol. 3, pt. 2, p. 1649, fig. 4861.

by a woman whose outer garment completely covers her arms and hands as well as her body. She tilts her head down, a gesture of modesty; this is the bride, as indicated by her pose and position as one of the two central figures on this side of the vase. Before her a wreath is suspended as though on a wall, an indicator of sacred space.20 Highlighting the sacred atmosphere is the figure of Eros, who appears in front of the loutrophoros with arms outstretched as he flies toward the vessel. 5

In scenes of the bride’s wedding preparations, multiple Erotes often join the women who adorn the bride. We see this combination of divinity and mortal women on a pyxis from about 420 BCE, now in Oxford, depicting a series of women adorning themselves or one another with jewelry, wreaths, and elegant sandals in an outdoor landscape marked by tufts and sprigs of vegetation (figs. 7–9, color plates 1a, 1b, 2).21 The woman who receives the most attention sits while a woman standing before her extends a necklace taken from a chest balanced on her left arm; two women behind stand watching, one leaning on the other, who holds a wreath. As we move around the vase, we see

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Figures 7–9.  Red-figure pyxis in the manner of the Meidias Painter, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum V 551 (G 302), © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Rebecca H. Sinos more groups of women with wreaths, jewelry, and a pair of elaborate sandals. Two figures of Eros participate in the scene, one extending a plate with gilded objects that must represent fruit (fig. 8), and the other a necklace (color plate 2); white pigment for their skin gives prominence to both figures. In addition, the lid of this elegant box is decorated with similar figures; the seated women here sit directly on the ground, drawing further attention to the natural setting (color plate 1b). The scene is so opulent, with gilded globules and strips of added clay, that even without the presence of Eros it might seem to represent goddesses; the repeated appearance of the god of erotic love assures that we are watching a scene imbued with a divine presence. We have entered the garden of Aphrodite, it seems; in fact, the seated woman on the pyxis lid, supporting herself with one hand while looking back over her shoulder, has the pose of Aphrodite herself on a different vase by this painter.22 On that vase the goddess’s identity is unmistakable as she leans on her own altar. The women emulating the goddess on the Oxford pyxis exist in a setting that suggests Aphrodite’s sphere. This is not simply a picture of a bride being attended by her friends but a portrayal of the divine potency of a fully adorned bride’s allure.23 John Beazley, in his publication of red-figure vases in America, objects that these erotic scenes are so cloyingly rich that “the heart longs for what is fresh, pungent and hard.”24 To an ancient audience, however, underlying the decorative qualities of late fifth-century wedding scenes is the “limb-loosening” power of the beauty they depict.25 We should bear in mind the inescapable coercion inherent in the Greek understanding of “love” as a divine force beyond control. Eros and other winged figures personifying Longing and Desire, in their association with the sphere of Aphrodite, introduce allusions to power against which no god or mortal can compete. Like the ethereal but piercing sound of a glass harmonica, purported to cause madness in the eighteenth century, the hardness of compulsion is latent within the brightness of these images. Another divine presence is included in some scenes of the Meidias Painter and his associates—Dionysus. His effect on Eros himself is apparent in the winged god’s participation in music that belongs to Dionysian cult. These are surprising scenes; Eros dances to the large drum associated with Dionysiac worship, the tympanon, or plays the pipes for women with the ever-suggestive tympanon resting below.26 Dionysian vigor is not out of place in this setting. 6

In the fourth century BCE, Athenian red-figure vases make more frequent use of various colors as well as gilded clay additions, in the style named for the

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site in the eastern Crimea where many examples have been found, Kerch, the ancient Panticapaeum. A wedding scene of this style appears on a pelike now in the National Archaeological Museum at Athens (color plate 3, ca. 350– 330 BCE).27 The bride in this scene has the place of honor; she sits on a throne at the center of the scene, surrounded by standing women and two figures of Eros, and turns her head toward the woman to the left, who holds up a highhandled basket. Not only the figures of Eros but also the bride and the woman who presents her with the ceremonial basket are distinguished by the color white. The woman with a mirror would be at home in scenes of bridal preparations, but the elaborate basket and the fully adorned bride in this pose belong to the epaulia, a ceremony held on the day following the wedding night. The lexicographer Pausanias concludes his description of this ceremony with a list of gifts given by the bride’s father, conveyed by the parade, led by a child wearing a white cloak and carrying a torch and a girl with a wool basket (kalathos), “and then the rest, bringing lidded bowls [lekanides], unguents, clothing, combs, chests, oil bottles [alabastra], sandals, boxes, myrrh, soap, and sometimes also the dowry.”28 Most of these gifts correspond to the accessories and activities of adornment seen in vase paintings of the bride’s wedding preparations; from now on, the ceremony suggests, these tools of Aphrodite will accompany the wedded woman in her married life.29 Both the bride and the woman holding the basket stand out not only for their white flesh but also for the colors of their clothing. Both wear a blue overgarment; the bride’s peplos beneath is still visible in traces of greenish-yellow on her chest.30 Added clay with gilding gives a luxuriant emphasis to many elements of this scene; the bride wears not only a gold necklace and jewelry but also gold ornaments on the cross-straps over her chest and a substantial gold crown, all represented by gilding on added clay. The basket, too, is marked out with gold and provides the strongest signal of the bride’s divine appearance; this distinctive basket belongs to the rituals honoring the gods, in sacrificial processions as well as in scenes featuring divinities.31 Its presentation here likens the bride to a goddess; again figures of Eros surround her, bringing to mind specifically the goddess Aphrodite. 7

The same identification of the bride with the goddess of sexual love occurs on a fragmentary Kerch lekanis lid in Athens (color plate 4a, ca. 330 BCE).32 Here the bride’s likeness to Aphrodite is suggested through her nudity, at a time when this goddess’ nude depiction has become famous in statuary.33 Her pose

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Rebecca H. Sinos displays her naked torso, emphasizing her passage into the sphere of Aphrodite. Again, she sits among women who stand to either side, some still carrying the gifts they bring. Among the vases are lebetes gamikoi, or wedding bowls; it is a scene of the epaulia. In her publication of this vase, Gisela Richter does not mention the bride’s nudity but identifies the woman on the right side of the bride as raising her hand in a “gesture of astonishment.”34 In fact, that woman’s raised hand supports her as she leans on the wall, but Richter’s remark suggests her recognition that the bride, a half-naked woman with a winged figure leaning on her leg, presents an astonishing likeness to the goddess Aphrodite. These examples have been selected to illustrate a strong tendency throughout Attic wedding scenes of all times to collapse the distinction between the mortal and divine by portraying the bride, the bridal couple, or the entire bridal group, through various means, as heroic or divine. From the mid-fifth century on, they link the bride in particular to the sphere of Aphrodite. Not all wedding scenes convey this message of transcendence; on a black-figure leky­thos by the Amasis Painter, for example, we see a bride and groom riding in a cart drawn by mules as they travel to their new home.35 Mundane scenes of this kind are quite rare, however. The great majority of wedding scenes exploit the potential to portray the wedding as an occasion when mortals are invested with divine presence. As we have seen, the wedding is not the only context in which the mortal and divine worlds coalesce, but it is the one ritual for which vase paintings are most persistent in that presentation, accomplished through the range of strategies we have seen.36

Within the Bridal Chamber The crucial space for the union at the heart of the wedding ritual, the bridal chamber or thalamos, appears sometimes in procession scenes as the destination for the procession, anticipating the actual union. A scene on a loutrophoros in Boston allows us to glimpse the wedding couch within the partially opened doors of the thalamos.37 As the bride and groom approach the bridal chamber, two small Erotes flutter about the bride’s head with adornments; ahead of them a woman throws up her hands, amazed by a child-sized figure of Eros who seems to have bounced off the bed.38 Within the chamber, the tip of a sword suspended on the wall is visible in the background. This is clearly a man’s room, an indicator of the new home the bride now enters.39 The wreath suspended in the background over the nuptial couch in a roughly painted

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black-figure scene attributed to the Castellani Painter marks the sacred quality of this space.40 From the Hellenistic period and later, literary descriptions mention tapestries suspended over the bridal bed, woven with scenes so beautifully detailed that they are a source of wonder. In Xenophon of Ephesus’ description of a wedding, the bride and groom spend the night under a tapestry depicting the wedding of Aphrodite and Ares, a divine image of inspiration suspended above the bride and groom; here we have another example, this time described in literature, of the correspondence between divine image and mortal wedding.41 Once the couple had entered the chamber designated for the wedding union, the doors were closed to the wedding guests and protected by a guard against further entry.42 Wedding scenes preserve the same barrier; a view of the couple within the wedding chamber is almost never seen in the repertory of Attic wedding images.43 There are two exceptions, two squat lekythoi decorated in relief, which depict the bride and groom together on the nuptial bed, or kline. These scenes were introduced to scholarly study of the wedding by Alfred Brückner in 1904 but have received very little attention in discussions of the wedding since then. The recent publication of these vases in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum provides illustrations and a full description of the betterpreserved vase.44 Their connection to the wedding is made clear through the appearance in both scenes of motifs associated with weddings on red-figure vases. On these originally colorful vases, mold-made appliqués were attached to the surface of the clay vase, producing an effect like that of relief sculpture. The decorative techniques developed in red-figure vase painting are applied to this surface; the figures’ clothing and flesh are painted and some details are gilded. Palmettes painted in red-figure fill the space under the handles of both vases, providing a decorative frame at either end of the figured scene. The addition of relief figures takes the enrichment of vase painting to a new level. These two fourth-century vases provide images offering insight into the bridal couple’s experience of the wedding, one suggestive of the bride’s experience and the other involving the bridegroom equally with the bride.

The Experience of the Bride For the bride, the wedding was a necessary and dramatic part of the transition from child to adult and from virgin girl to mother, taking her away from her home and separating her from her childhood friends. Scenes of the procession

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Rebecca H. Sinos emphasize her passage to a new home where she must begin anew as wife and mother, while scenes featuring the bride and other women engaged in prenuptial adornment, or the gifts that celebrate the bride after her wedding night, call attention to the physical transformation entailed in developing from parthenos to nymphe to gyne. The latter word designates most specifically a woman after she has brought forth the child that is the desired and expected result of the wedding.45 The bride’s need for encouragement as she enters this new phase is understandable. This is the subject of the relief scene in the first of our two relief vases. This little-known vase, once part of the Berlin collection, disappeared after World War II; it has long been available only through the drawings of Brückner’s publication (reproduced here as fig. 10, ca. 350 BCE).46 Recently, however, Denis Zhuravlev has kindly informed me that the vase is now housed in the State Historical Museum in Moscow. Although at present it is (once again!) badly broken, it is part of a joint Russian and German project to restore and publish vases that were moved to the Soviet Union in 1945. An exhibition of these vases in the State Historical Museum, with brief catalog, is scheduled to take place in Moscow in 2021; we can look forward to a full publication of the vases the next year. At this point, however, we rely upon Brückner’s illustrations and comments. The relief scene’s careful positioning between the edges of the palmettes and the adjustment of the contours of their tendrils to complement the arrangement of the figures attests to the fine execution of this vase’s decoration. Found in pieces, the vase was first restored with plaster for missing sections, which so obfuscated the original appearance that its description in Wilhelm Fröhner’s catalog mistakenly identifies the reclining figure as a “femme voilée,” one of the seated women as a man, and Eros as a sphinx.47 Before Brückner’s publication, the vase was disassembled to clarify the extent of the restorations; fortunately, all relief fragments proved to be original. Brückner notes that the scene’s interest in perspective suffers in the drawing but also indicates that it portrays the figures accurately; all the basic elements of the scene are clear enough. Brückner describes the male figure’s hair as yellow brown, his right arm as reddish, and his garment as pink. He leans on his left elbow; with his (now broken) right hand he sprinkles incense over the incense burner beside him. Behind, a figure of Eros sits on the ground also apparently making an incense offering; the object before him resembles the taller incense burners on both of the Kerch vases found with this one, and Eros’ body language in general seems

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Figure 10.  Relief vase, once in Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung VI 3249. Now in Moscow, State Historical Museum. After Brückner, Anakalypteria, T. 1.

to parallel that of the reclining man, indicating his involvement with something in front of him.48 Two women sit on a separate seat at the end of the couch, looking toward the reclining male figure. One of them, propping her chin on her left hand, sits in the lap of the other and gazes intently at the man. The other woman has placed an arm around her shoulders and has taken her hand, comforting the woman in her lap. Virtually the same pair of women appear as a relief appliqué on a South Italian vase now in Bern; apparently the mold used for our scene was replicated at least in part to manufacture relief attachments for export (color plate 4b).49 This second relief piece confirms the accuracy of our drawing for this section of the relief. Behind these women a separate appliqué represents another woman standing, looking on. Her gesture as she gazes thoughtfully at the scene is like that of the woman being comforted. The two similar gestures balance the repetition we see in the gestures of the male figure and Eros, a repetition that calls attention to both gestures: on the one side, the bride’s contemplative gaze, and on the other, the groom’s preparation for a divine presence. It is worth noting, too, that these repetitions would have been especially apparent to the ancient viewer, who saw the scene differently from our perspective in the rollout of the entire scene. By the time of this vase, men reclining in this pose appear not only in symposium scenes but also in the sculpted heroic banquet scenes known as “Totenmahl ” reliefs, which proliferate in fourth-century Athens (fig. 16). The

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Rebecca H. Sinos relief vase reflects the influence of this sculptural form, which typically portrays the hero reclining on a couch while his wife sits before him, either on a separate chair or on the end of the couch itself; often there is also an incense burner over which she crumbles incense. In hero reliefs, however, the hero is bearded and holds a drinking cup; there is a table beside him laden with food; a youth approaches bringing wine; and sometimes worshippers approach the heroic group with offerings. On our vase there is nothing to do with food and drink; this is not a banquet. The incense burner here receives not the woman’s offering but the man’s. There are no worshippers; instead we see a figure of Eros, whose presence indicates that this is not a heroic banquet but a wedding, a rare scene of the bridegroom on the nuptial couch. He is unbearded, like most bridegrooms on red-figure vases; his incense offering, in this setting, would be suitable for Aphrodite, but the likeness to hero reliefs allows for another possibility, that here the bridegroom is honoring his bride, a reverse of the usual pattern. 50 His position on the couch, with bare torso, is so reminiscent of the figures shown on hero reliefs as to impart to this bridegroom, too, a heroic appearance. In this nuptial setting we may interpret the seat at the end of the bridegroom’s couch as the parabustos, the supplemental couch mentioned by Pollux as a comfort to the bride.51 Here, she is not alone, as we might expect, but has the support, literally, of another woman. The woman being comforted must be the bride, whose veil is visible in the line covering her right side from the neck down to the missing piece below her right arm. The identity of the woman holding her is more difficult to determine. But comparison to other examples of this pose suggests an answer. A similar group appears on an amphoriskos (a miniature amphora) in Berlin, on which most figures are labeled (fig. 11, ca. 430–420 BCE).52 Here it is Aphrodite who places her arm around the woman seated in her lap with her left hand on her chin; Peitho, goddess of Persuasion, who stands behind her with a jewelry box; and the winged figure Himeros, Desire, who addresses a young man dressed for war. He must be Paris, and Helen must be the woman being counseled by Aphrodite. A woman to the left of these figures points toward them. She is identified as Nemesis, the mother of Helen but also the goddess of retribution; her dramatic gesture emphasizes what is to come. On their far right stands Heimarmene; named from the verb μείρομαι, she represents a personification of fate as parceled out to everyone. The scene places the two groups, Aphrodite accompanied by Persuasion in her encouragement to Helen, and irresistible Desire seducing Paris, between the two figures

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Figure 11.  Red-figure amphoriskos by the Heimarmene Painter, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung 30036. After Furtwängler and Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, T. 3, 170.2.

forecasting and proclaiming the results of this match. Nemesis points to what will come of their union; Heimarmene is a reminder of “what has been ordained already by the gods and fate.”53 Alan Shapiro suggests that the central figures here are copies of a now lost wall painting of Paris and Helen, the source of similar figures in surviving neo-Attic reliefs.54 But there is another model that may be primary here, as we will see. On our relief lekythos, the figures have no identifying features or inscriptions linking them to myth. And depictions of Paris’ “abduction” of Helen are so often infused with wedding imagery that she has been called “the mythological bride par excellence.”55 Indeed the pose of Aphrodite and Helen on the Heimarmene Painter’s amphoriskos is found also in another wedding scene. A fragmentary lebes gamikos in Athens depicts the bride seated in the lap of a woman who places a magnificent crown on her head (fig. 12, ca. 430– 420 BCE).56 The scene as a whole resembles epaulia scenes in its depiction of women bringing boxes and vessels of various kinds (fig. 13), but the adornment of the bride with her crown belongs more naturally to the preparations for the wedding. There is a ladder behind the bride; behind that, not visible in figure 12, another female figure is seated on a chair before a lebes gamikos mounted on a stand as a woman approaches with a chest and what appears to be another lebes gamikos.57 This complex scene combines different elements of wedding iconography rather than depicting a single moment in the ceremony. The bride here, like Helen in the Heimarmene Painter’s scene, receives counsel and

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Figure 12. Red-figure lebes gamikos by the Painter of Athens 1454, Athens, National Archaeological Museum, Collection of Vases, inv. no. A 1454 (CC 1228). The rights of the depicted monument belong to the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports (Law 3028/2002). The red-figure lebes gamikos by the Painter of Athens 1454 belongs to the responsibility of the National Archaeological Museum © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports / Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Figure 13.  Red-figure lebes gamikos by the Painter of Athens 1454, Athens, National Archaeological Museum 1454 (CC 1228). After Brückner, “Athenische Hochzeitsgeschenke,” pl. 5.2.

Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art

perhaps also comfort before her wedding but looks out rather than down, and shows little sign of anxiety except possibly through her wide eyes. The woman who holds her is sometimes assumed to be Aphrodite, as in the Heimarmene Painter’s scene. But no inscription assures that identification and, in this scene, it is not necessary that it is the goddess, unlike in the scene by the Heimarmene Painter, where the goddess is an essential part of Helen’s story. It seems more likely that here we see the bride’s mother with her daughter. The image of a daughter in the lap of her mother is attested already in the Iliad, when Aphrodite herself is held in the lap of her Homeric mother, Dione, and receives her comfort and counsel after Diomedes wounds her on the battlefield (5.370– 416). In the Heimarmene Painter’s scene, Aphrodite has usurped that maternal role.58 In fact, in another example of the mother/daughter pose on an Apulian vase of the early fourth century, Helen’s mother, Leda, named by an inscription, holds Helen. Here Helen is young, and the scene may represent her return from Theseus’ abduction, but the presence of Menelaus, identified by inscription, brings to mind the wedding to Menelaus that is to come.59 The mother’s comforting presence comes to the fore in that scene of the young Helen. The “bride” in the Heimarmene Painter’s scene, Helen, has been compared to Penelope in a pensive mood, an observation that gives due attention to Helen’s thoughtful look and also, in our relief vase, would apply to the bride’s intense gaze fixed on the man before her.60 But in scenes of unnamed women, like ours, the emphasis is at least equally on the powerful bond between mother and daughter, just as the girl is beginning the transition to becoming a mother herself. I emphasize this point because ancient sources give surprisingly little attention to the separation of the bride from her own family. The mother’s importance in preparing her daughter for the ceremony and escorting her to her new home is clear, both in art and in literary evidence, particularly in tragedy where we see the distress of mothers who cannot carry out this duty.61 But whereas in modern Greece it is the mother who sings the lament at her daughter’s departure, in antiquity, instead, we have songs of young women who bid farewell to their companion. The Hellenistic poet Theocritus provides a poignant example in his poem describing the vigil of the Spartan friends of Helen at her wedding to Menelaus (Id. 18). They stand outside the bridal chamber and sing of their separation from their companion; Helen is now an oiketis, a woman with her own household, and they will no longer have her company in their usual activities. They will remember her “as the suckling lambs yearn for the breast of the ewe who bore them” (41–42). Clearly the bride is becoming a woman in this image of her new relation to

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Rebecca H. Sinos her friends. It is a mythic example, of course, but the emphasis on the bride’s separation from the girls of her youth is consistent with our evidence for the actual ritual performance of the wedding, in which her friends accompany her in song all through the wedding night.62 This separation, too, is part of the change the bride must undergo, another part of her need for advice and encouragement. Wedding images featuring the mother/daughter pose cannot tell us the nature of the mother’s counsel, however; they emphasize simply the mother’s place in preparing the bride for her wedding night. Significantly, we see the same motif on a squat lekythos from Thracian Apollonia, a Kerch vase now in Sofia, featuring another mother holding her daughter on her lap (color plate 5, ca. 360–340 BCE); here the mother/daughter pair is none other than the august mother and daughter of Greek mythology, Demeter and her daughter Kore (to give Persephone the name she has in Attic testimony).63 As Claude Bérard has observed, the mother and daughter, the focus of all the other figures’ attention, are shown “dans un climat du grande tendresse réciproque,” looking off without regard to those around them, with a serenity that extends to the scene as a whole.64 Hermes and Iacchus, the Eleusinian torch bearer, frame the pair, with Triptolemus and Dionysus looking on from the right. This mother/daughter pair sustains a union with cosmic ramifications, but Per­sephone must return periodically to married life. Demeter not only supports her daughter in this scene but holds her with her left arm, not unlike the mother on our relief vase who takes the hand of her daughter; altogether, the pair is very similar to that on our relief vase.65 Also similar is a fourth-century marble statuette from Eleusis of the mother/daughter pair, for which a lost prototype, a monumental sculpted group of Kore and Demeter, has been suspected; these late fifth-century vases very likely reflect the influence of such a sculpted group.66 In any case, it seems very likely that such scenes would recall the most famous mother/daughter pair of mythology. The scenes of a mother holding her daughter are not the only link between the wedding ritual and Persephone’s experience. We have seen the emphasis on the bride’s separation from her friends. Mythology abounds in examples of young women snatched by gods from the circle of their friends; Peleus’ conquest of Thetis, for example, is a favorite in art.67 An unforgettable example is a mid-fourth-century painting on the wall of a royal tomb in Vergina, representing the abduction of Persephone by Hades from a soft meadow where she was picking flowers with her friends, as described in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter ; one of Persephone’s terrified companions cowers behind Hades’

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Figure 14.  Red-figure loutrophoros, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlungen F 2372. After A. Furtwängler, Die Sammlung Sabouroff, vol. 1, pl. 58.

chariot as he carries off his bride.68 Such mythic occurrences are evoked in some Athenian wedding depictions suggesting the abduction of the bride, the nymphe, whose name connects her to the irresistible nymphs of myth.69 Here I will mention only one vase with an exceptional depiction, a loutrophoros in Berlin (fig. 14, ca. 430–420 BCE).70 The figure of Eros, bringing a wreath to the bride, is present, with all that it signifies, and the smitten groom here actually lifts the bride to place her in a chariot. The realism of the groom’s action is remarkable; he hefts the bride with the help of his raised leg. A comic poet, too, mentions the placing of the bride in the cart, “swinging her in the air,” which supports the existence of such a wedding practice in life as well as art.71 It is also remarkable, however, how different the scene on the Berlin loutrophoros is from depictions of abduction. The bride’s stiffness is doll-like, as noted by Reeder; she does not protest but simply gives way to the ritual process.72 Abduction scenes, by contrast, emphasize the frightening experience, as in many depictions of Peleus’ conquest of Thetis that show her amid other Nereids fleeing from the scene, and as in the Vergina painting of Persephone. Yet Eros can join the scene, as we see on a fragmentary red-figure skyphos from Eleusis depicting Hades seizing Persephone while Eros, carrying a torch and a wreath, turns his head to watch.73 The sphere of Aphrodite encompasses and joins together all of these scenes.

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Rebecca H. Sinos Implicit in the wedding’s ritual and iconographic links to abduction is an ancient understanding of the bride’s experience. Not only her family but the friends she leaves behind represent a significant loss. Like Persephone, who in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter names each of her friends when she describes her abduction to her mother, the bride is taken from her comrades. She will no longer be part of the group of girls but now must enter the different world of women, as we have seen in Theocritus’ song of farewell to Helen.74 For this reason I would qualify Gloria Ferrari’s claim that, since according to Athenian law her transfer to her husband’s family is not irrevocable, the bride does not undergo the irrevocable change implicit in initiation.75 It is hard to imagine that a woman once married may resume her former place in ritual life with other unmarried girls, in view of the age as well as sex distinctions of ritual life in antiquity.76 The bride’s transfer from one man’s house to another, from the standpoint of the state, was a matter of community witness and was revocable; but we must imagine that her place in the cultic life of the community was determined by her relationship to the divine, which the wedding night altered forever. The images of the bride held by her mother, in fact, correspond to scenes on lebetes gamikoi of the bride holding a baby boy, pointing to the wedding ritual’s attention to the irrevocable contrast in the bride’s life before and after the wedding.77

The Experience of the Bridegroom In her examination of the betrothal and the anakalypteria, a word connoting the ceremony of the bride’s removal of her veil before her husband’s gaze, Ferrari argues persuasively that the Greek word for betrothal, engye, identifies the bride as a treasure kept in store for the groom until she is given to him in marriage. The bride’s unveiling, then, signals her emergence once she has been ushered forth from the place where she had been kept secure.78 The ritual was fundamental to the wedding; gifts presented on this occasion could serve as testimony to the legitimate status of the marriage.79 In black-figure vase painting, the gesture of holding the veil away from the face, although sometimes simply an indication of a woman of marriageable age, has as its primary association the bride’s unveiling at the wedding and is used to identify the bride, as in the depiction of Thetis on the François vase and in black-figure procession scenes (figs. 2–3). The bride’s unveiling is the subject of a second relief vase (ca. 370–360 BCE), this one found in Athens, revealing the bride and groom alone together

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in the bridal chamber. Fortunately, this vase survived World War II, was recovered from storage at the Flakturm Zoo, and reached safety in the Berlin Antikensammlung. We now have excellent photographs and a full description of its decoration in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum. It is not as carefully decorated as was the other relief vase; the palmette, painted after the relief was attached, overlaps its border on one side. The relief sections, however, are well preserved and provide an extraordinary view of the bride’s unveiling ritual (color plates 6a, 6b, and 7).80 As on the other vase, here too we see the nuptial couch with the bridegroom reclining, but in this case the bride joins him, sitting on the end of the couch (color plate 7). To either side there are separately attached figures imported from the iconography of bridal preparations. The woman on the left side lifts her himation from her shoulders, a display of the fine fabric, which was originally rose-colored (color plate 6a). The woman on the other side looks into a mirror as she adjusts the sakkos covering her hair (color plate 6b). These women do not participate in the central scene; they serve here to clarify the nuptial occasion and emphasize the adornment that signals the allure so important to representations of the bride. The bride’s himation, also once rose colored, has come away from her body almost entirely, covering only her right leg. She raises it up over her right shoulder, calling attention not only to the fabric but also to her naked body, even more conspicuous in contrast to the garment. She supports herself with her left hand as she leans back slightly, turning to face the groom. He reaches out and grasps her shoulder as he gazes at his bride. Again, the relief image calls to mind sculpted hero reliefs; indeed, the wife’s unveiling is often a part of those images, beginning with our earliest example, a fragment of a sixthcentury relief from Tegea, in which the hero’s wife sits on a chair at the foot of the bed (fig. 15).81 An Athenian hero relief closer in time to our relief vase shows a bride positioned on the couch somewhat similarly to our bride, but she is clothed as she turns to the groom (fig. 16, ca. late fourth century BCE).82 Our bride, lifting her garment from behind her while turning her head slightly to her left and pulling back her right leg, turns her head to the groom but her body is frontal, exposed to the viewer of the vase. Her pose bears a resemblance to a late fifth-century statue of Aphrodite sculpted by Callimachus; the gesture of lifting the garment, turn of the head, lowered left arm, and right leg drawn back are all similar. The Greek statue is lost, but it was widely copied in the Roman period in the form of statuettes as well as full-scale statues; it is identified today as the Louvre-Naples Venus (Louvre MA 525), after the most famous

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Figure 15. Votive relief of the “funerary banquet” type, Athens, National Archaeological Museum, Sculpture Collection, inv. no. Γ 55. The rights of the depicted monument belong to the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports (Law 3028/2002). The votive relief belongs to the responsibility of the National Archaeological Museum. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports / Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Figure 16.  Votive relief of the “funerary banquet” type, Athens, National Archaeological Museum, Sculpture Collection, inv. no. Γ 1503. The rights of the depicted monument belong to the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports (Law 3028/2002). The votive relief belongs to the responsibility of the National Archaeological Museum. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports / Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Plates 1a, 1b.  Red-figure pyxis in the manner of the Meidias Painter, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum V 551 (G 302). © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Plate 2.  Red-figure pyxis in the manner of the Meidias Painter, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum V 551 (G 302), close-up of body. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Plate 3.  Red-figure pelike, Athens, National Archaeological Museum, Collection of Vases, inv. no. A 1718 (CC 1857). The rights of the depicted monument belong to the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports (Law 3028/2002). The red-figure pelike belongs to the responsibility of the National Archaeological Museum. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports / Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Plate 4a. Fragmentary redfigure lekanis lid, Athens, National Archaeological Museum, Collection of Vases, inv. no. A 1190 (CC 1970). Photograph by Klaus Valtin von Eickstedt. The rights of the depicted monument belong to the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports (Law 3028/2002). The fragmentary red-figure lekanis lid belongs to the responsibility of the National Archaeological Museum. © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports / Archaeological Receipts Fund.

Plate 4b. South Italian relief lekythos, Bern, Univer­ si­tät Bern, Antiken­sammlung no. 315. © C. Steiner, Institut für Archäologische Wissenschaften, Universität Bern.

Plate 5.  Red-figure squat lekythos by the Apollonia Group, Sofia, National Museum, Antiquity Collection 7721. Photograph by Krassimir Georgiev.

Plate 6a

Plate 6b

Plates 6a, 6b, 7.   Relief vase, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Preussischer Kultur­ besitz, Antikensammlung F 2704. Photographs by Johannes Laurentius.

Plate 8.  Red-figure pelike once in the Curtius collection, Rome, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Archive A-VII-63-058.

Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art

Roman copy.83 The statue showed the goddess’ body covered in a diaphanous garment, but our bride’s bare white skin is completely revealed. We witness here a moment otherwise unattested in the surviving repertory of Athenian wedding imagery, the bride unveiling herself to the groom. As Ferrari has shown, the bride’s unveiling, the heart of the anakalypteria ceremony, represents the culmination of the bride’s journey from betrothal to marriage.84 In Ferrari’s understanding of this ritual, the bride uncovers herself to the bridegroom to carry out the contract made by her father at the betrothal. Like a treasure, kept in an underground storehouse, she emerges from her wrappings to be seen by the bridegroom, thus completing the transfer from one man to another. Our vase provides another perspective of the anakalypteria, with a focus on the bridal couple’s experience of the ritual. The bride’s revelation exposes the bridegroom to the divinely potent allure that by the time of our vase has become a dominant theme in wedding images, linking the bride to Aphrodite. We have already alluded to the irresistible effect of Hera on Zeus when he catches sight of her in Book 14 of the Iliad; in the scene of Hera’s unveiling on a metope of Temple E, dated to ca. 470 BCE, at Selinus in southern Sicily, the effect on Zeus is equally apparent.85 As Ernst Langlotz points out, the couple is united not only by his grasp of Hera’s arm but also by the suggestion in his pose that he opens himself equally to her; this image of unveiling in itself signals the couple’s union.86 He fixes his gaze on Hera, his lips parted in wonder. On our vase, the bridegroom’s gesture reaching out to touch the bride is not unlike Zeus’s in that metope. And here, too, we see his intense gaze at the bride. By the time of this vase’s production, not only had references to the bride as Aphrodite established a place in wedding imagery, but Eleusinian allusions were entering the picture, too, as we have seen. The bride’s unveiling, representing the culmination of the wedding, is a revelation of a “hidden treasure,” to use Ferrari’s image, to the bridegroom.87 The unveiling is all the more aweinspiring because the bride was previously hidden from view; it is a revelation of the unknown. This understanding of the bride brings to mind the revelation at the heart of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the culmination of the initiates’ experience. Eleusinian imagery cannot unveil to the uninitiated what is hidden, but images from the sanctuary do seem to allude to it; a remarkable example is a votive plaque of the fourth century BCE inscribed “Eucrates, for Demeter,” depicting eyes above the inscription and then, on a higher level separated by a border, the head of a goddess with red rays projecting from her face and

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Rebecca H. Sinos neck.88 These rays must indicate, as Kevin Clinton says, “light shooting from the image,” an allusion to the radiant vision revealed at Eleusis.89 Those involved in initiation, in Aristotle’s words, were required not “to learn anything [μαθεῖν τι]” but rather “to experience and to undergo a change of mindset [παθεῖν καὶ διατεθῆναι].”90 In the unveiling ritual of the wedding, the bride uncovers the radiance of the irresistible goddess of sexual love, Aphrodite, whose unearthly beauty is apparent in the Homeric Hymn as she stands by the couch of Anchises and manifests herself as a goddess, “shining forth” when she reveals her divine face.91 The bridegroom must simply succumb to the bride’s divine image. Like the initiate to the mysteries described by Aristotle, he does not need to learn anything but simply experiences the revelation.92 Aristotle goes on to state the result of this experience: the initiate undergoes “a change in his state of mind.” Perhaps the bridegroom’s rapt gaze indicates an effect that will last beyond the immediate encounter to achieve the wedding ideal of perfect harmony. Our scene is reminiscent, too, of another mythic model for the bride and bridegroom, Dionysus and Ariadne, the most frequently depicted divine couple, often shown together on the couch. By the time of our vase, depictions of this couple have evolved from scenes of sympotic festivity, emphasizing the couple’s erotic connection through Ariadne’s partial nudity (as in fig. 1), to calm scenes of the couple reclining in the presence of Eros, examples of “conjugal union and bliss.”93 Dionysus is the god who, as we have seen, loosens the boundaries between mortal and divine worlds; nothing in our scene would call him to mind specifically except the pose so often seen in images of Dionysus, the god who can recline even when sailing. This image of the bridegroom merges a gaze transfixed by the charms of Aphrodite with a banqueting pose evoking the life of the blessed.

Weddings and Mysteries Parallels between the wedding and mystery rites are to be expected since, like many ritual activities of ancient life, they involved similar elements of preparation and a procession to the place where the required actions will be performed.94 Sources for the Eleusinian initiation rituals suggest, however, that the great annual ceremony of initiation provided an unusually close parallel to the wedding ritual, including preliminary sacrifices and baths; a procession

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involving songs, ceremonial mockery, and torches; entry into a structure excluding all but initiates; and the experience of a revelation, with the promise of a better life and afterlife for initiates.95 We also have evidence providing an explicit connection between the experience of the bridal couple and that of successful initiates. Zenobius preserves an Athenian proverb, “They have fled the worse, they have found the better”; he claims it was recited at weddings by a boy crowned with thorns and acorns and carrying a liknon, a winnowing fan, full of bread.96 A mystery cult in Athens makes use of the same formula.97 The shared formula points to the common purpose of both rituals, to have passed on to something “better” than before, a passage into not only a new but a blissful life. In Odysseus’ words to Nausicaa we see the same association: “Nothing is better or more potent than when a man and a woman have a household together in harmony” (Od. 6.182–84); the successful and harmonious union of husband and wife is presented as the most blissful of human possibilities. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, after we hear that Demeter has shown to the Eleusinian leaders her sacred rites, things not to be transgressed, or investigated, or divulged, we hear nothing more of the secrets but learn the outcome of the rites. “The mortal who has seen these things” is ὄλβιος (happy, or blessed) and has a fate unlike those uninitiated men in the “moldering darkness” (480–82); “greatly blessed” is he “to whom Demeter and Persephone extend their love,” for the unstinting god Plutus will grace his home (486–89). Similarly, two fourth-century gold tablets from Pelinna, in Thessaly, where both Persephone and “the Bacchic One” have a part in the initiate’s rebirth, promise the bearer that he will be “τρισόλβιος” (thrice-blessed).98 This formula of supreme happiness, or μακαρισμός, belongs also to the traditional language of praise for the happiness of the bridegroom, who reaches the highest possible bliss for mortals through his wedding.99 In the aspiration to a better life, the wedding resembles mystery cults of all kinds, but the emphatic agricultural connection of the Eleusinian cult comes to mind most of all for the wedding at Athens, where the betrothal formula uses the language of cultivation in describing the aim, “for the ploughing of legitimate children.”100 Our relief vases use images informed by the wedding’s parallels with Eleu­ sinian experiences to direct attention to the experience of the bride and groom. The mother/daughter pose links the bride and her mother to the Eleusinian mother and daughter and their story of painful loss but also of the ultimate acceptance of the daughter’s fulfilment of her potential as a bride. At the same

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Rebecca H. Sinos time, inherent in the mythology of these goddesses is a softening of the boundaries between mortals and immortals, and the goddess’s lap becomes a potent symbol for initiates into the mysteries; we might compare the description of the initiatory experience, “I have sunk under the breast [or “into the lap,” kolpos] of the Lady, the Chthonian Queen” in a fourth-century gold tablet from a grave in Thurii in South Italy.101 The other vase depicts the bride’s unveiling to the bridegroom in a pastiche including images of the bride’s preparation, as in scenes of the bride’s acquisition of the potent tools of Aphrodite. We witness the bridegroom’s experience in the remarkable scene of the bride and groom together, as he receives the revelation of irresistible allure. “Whatever is beautiful [καλόν] inspires devotion [φίλον ἐστί],” sang the Muses and Graces at the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia.102 It is noteworthy that the bride, whose transformation through this ceremony is most apparent, provides the groom’s successful entry into the blessed life of harmonious union. The allusions inherent in these relief scenes represent part of the associative language apparent throughout the development of Athenian wedding iconography. Over the course of the years represented by the vases we have examined, from the sixth through fourth centuries BCE, these wedding scenes present motifs suggesting transparency between the mortal world and the divine, as though the wedding can dissolve the boundary separating these two realms. This tendency makes wedding imagery particularly suitable for representation of mystery initiations and even for the unspeakable experience at their heart that can be presented only at the distance of metaphor.103 Clearly this connection may have implications for the use of wedding pottery in contexts beyond the wedding itself, where the initiatory implications of the imagery are significant.104 The relief vase now in Moscow, in fact, was discovered in 1885 in a grave in Thracian Apollonia, as described in Fröhner’s catalog of the vases in the van Branteghem collection (no. 274); along with this vase, two more were discovered, each of them, according to Fröhner, in a marble sarcophagus containing a male skeleton.105 Both are Kerch vases of the same shape as ours, decorated with scenes of women; they feature motifs clearly linked to women’s activities before a wedding but with a focus on a figure descending a ladder (Eros in one case, a female figure in the other).106 Although we cannot be sure that our relief vase also belonged to a man’s burial, from its companions in the grave we learn that such perfume vessels with scenes of women’s nuptial activities had a place in antiquity outside the women’s rituals in which we see them in use in wedding scenes. As Eos Zervoudaki points out, in envisioning

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the ancient uses of vases such as these lekythoi featuring women’s wedding activities, we need to imagine that they were not only suitable for use as gifts for the bride but also for use in graves, for men as well as women.107 The connections inherent in these wedding scenes were amenable not only to their use as grave goods in Thrace and elsewhere but also to the inclusion of this iconography in the frescoes of Room 5 of the Villa of the Mysteries. We come still closer to that frieze on another vase, formerly in the collection of Ludwig Curtius, preserved now only in the form of two aquarelles in the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Rome.108 Here the mother/daughter pair is surrounded by Dionysian elements (color plate 8, ca. 350–330 BCE). It is a pelike in the Kerch style, a school of painting that produced our most striking imagery of Eleusinian mysteries as well as fine scenes of the wedding, as we have seen (color plates 4, 5, 8). Among them are scenes in which Eleu­ sinian deities are shown assembled in such tranquil poses that Bérard has suggested they had for the viewer “un vertu therapeutique,” communicating the cosmic harmony of the initiation experience.109 In this scene, too, the positions of the heads of the mother and daughter suggest that they look out from the scene with the contemplative gazes we see in figures in other Eleu­sinian images; understandably, Adolf Greifenhagen identifies the pair as Kore sitting in her mother’s lap.110 But here we see none of the other deities that identify the Eleusinian scene in color plate 5; nor does Demeter hold her scepter. Nothing in this scene excludes the possibility of a mortal bride in the lap of her mother.111 Whether the seated pair is mortal or divine, however, the dancers in this scene provide a contrast to the still pose of the mother/daughter pair. All three women are on their toes, with feet positioned to suggest their twirling to the percussive sound of krotala; the two framing the seated pair toss back their heads in the ecstatic gesture known from scenes of Bacchic revelry. Confirming the Dionysian connection is the tympanon to the left of the seated pair. We see here the same combination of realms noted by Margot Schmidt in a study of fourth-century Apulian vase paintings, which often introduce a variety of deities in a setting of paradisiacal calm somewhat like that of Athenian Eleusinian scenes. She concludes that Eros, “der grosse Verbinder” who knows no boundaries, appears in those scenes as the unifying factor, bringing together the Eleu­ sinian goddesses with Dionysus; likewise, Eros can join mortal and divine realms to allow initiates their desired entry into divine company.112 In this reading, the South Italian scenes’ combination of usually distinct divine elements

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Rebecca H. Sinos presents a potent message of transcendence. It is the same aim we see in Athenian wedding scenes, in their persistent suggestion of the permeability of the boundary between divine and human. Significantly, however, while South Italian vases and Athenian Eleusinian scenes often include Dionysus himself, in a stationary pose, the Curtius collection image depicts not the god but instead the ecstatic dancers who worship or accompany him. These dancers sometimes join the god at Eleusis, appearing, for example, with krotala and tympanon on a hydria with a Kerch Eleusinian scene that includes Dionysus seated on an omphalos.113 Such dancers also have a place in a scene of the mortal wedding, perhaps not surprisingly since, as we noted, Dionysian music enters into the world of Aphrodite in Meidian scenes.114 On the Curtius collection vase, the Dionysian dancers are closely draped in fabric, unlike the divine dancers who appear with the god himself. Yet the draped dancers, too, with the gestures of Dionysus’ companions and the music that belongs to the god, evoke his world; in fact, a krotala player very similar to ours appears in a scene of the wedding of Dionysus and Ariadne on a Kerch vase in Pella.115 The dance itself transforms these figures, as representatives of the sphere of Dionysus. The “interpenetration” of the mortal and divine worlds is evident in each of the Curtius scene’s elements. Mother and daughter could be divine or mortal; Erotes suggest the sphere of Aphrodite, which also unites both worlds. And now we add Dionysian dancers, who could belong to an Eleusinian scene or to a divine or mortal wedding, with the same unifying effect as Eros, and the promise of Dionysian ecstasy. Seaford’s claim that the wedding and Bacchic initiation rituals “interpenetrate” each other in the frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteries points to the fundamental similarity of these rituals as “rites of passage.” It is not simply transformation that links these rituals, however. Both the wedding and the initiation into the mysteries open for participants the possibility of entering a world of mortal and divine harmony, the blissful life. In the Villa of the Mysteries, the Dionysiac presence dominates the frescoes that face the viewer upon first entering the room. Images reflecting wedding preparations run along both sides. Some of these figures suggest the influence of traditions represented in Athenian wedding scenes; perhaps most striking are the Erotes in the scene of bridal adornment, although here they help the bride arrange her hair in the “six-part” style of the Roman wedding. Paired with the adornment scene in framing the south wall’s window, there is an ecstatic dance, a Dionysian element with a long history in Aphrodite’s sphere. These images convey the transcendent purpose of the scene as a whole, which

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is apparent from the moment one enters the room. From that beginning the viewer sees the end, the blissful life, the aim of the wedding and of initiations, here represented by Dionysus leaning against a seated female figure who must be Ariadne. He gazes up at her as he reaches out to embrace her with his arms; her head and much of her upper body is lost, but her remaining arm reaches down to return his embrace. This artistic realization of bliss is centered in the wedding, a ritual so significant in the human experience that it can even represent our hope for eternal happiness. Notes I am grateful to the editors of this volume for the invitation to submit this chapter and for helpful comments on it, and to John Oakley for his close reading and helpful suggestions on a previous draft. For help in obtaining images, I am indebted to Ines Bialas of the Berlin Antikensammlung, Elizabeth Bray of the British Museum, Steven Heim at Amherst College’s Frost Library, Alice Howard of the Ashmolean Museum, Daria Lan­zuolo of the German Archaeological Institute in Rome, Shaun Trujillo of Mt. Holyoke College, Lyudmil Vagalinski and Krastyu Chukalev of the Archaeological Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, Mila Waldman of the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, and Josy Luginbühl of the Institut für Archäologische Wissenschaften at Universität Bern. I also thank Kevin Clinton at Cornell University and Elena Kourakou at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens for their assistance with obtaining images. At Amherst College, I am grateful to Tom Murray for assistance in arranging the images and to Austin Sarat, associate provost and associate dean of the faculty, for funding to support the inclusion of color plates. 1. E.g., Ling 1991, 101–4, whose description provides a good overview of the frieze’s subjects; cf. Bragantini 2014, 312, who states “the only secure thing would seem to be the implausibility of the traditional reading, which holds that the scene represents an initiation into a mystery cult.” 2. Elsner 2007, 88. 3. Clarke 1991, 104–5. 4. There is general agreement that the frescoes date to the mid-first century BCE, but the works to which they have been compared in the search for their meaning include not only South Italian and Centuripe vase paintings but a great many other works, dating from the fifth century BCE to the third century CE and originating not only in Italy but also Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and North Africa; for a summary of proposals, see Davis 2000. 5. Seaford 1981, 66. I thank Joseph Carter for this reference. Today Seaford’s discussion of tribal initiation may seem dated, but the basic understanding that he sets forth remains a valuable contribution.

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Rebecca H. Sinos 6. Kirk 2000, 111–12. Kirk identifies Dionysus’ consort here as Aphrodite, however, which I think unlikely in view of the earlier appearance of Dionysus with Ariadne in this pose in a variety of media; see, e.g., Clarke 1991, 102. 7. See Clarke 1991, 105. 8. Amherst College, Mead Art Museum, AC 1950.59, attributed to a painter of the Medea Group, ca. 520 BCE; ABV 321.1; Para. 134.1; Beazley Addenda 2 87; BAPD 301682. 9. E.g., an amphora attributed to the Medea Group by Bothmer, depicting the return of Hephaestus led by Dionysus, in Madison, Elvehjem Museum of Art, Loan; BAPD 7878; cf. an amphora in Boston, on which satyrs are part of the banqueting scene, Museum of Fine Arts 01.80.52; ABV 242.35, 259.26; Para. 110, 114; Beazley Addenda 2 62; BAPD 301323; also another amphora possibly from the repertory of the Medea Group, excavated at Blera in Etruria, with Dionysus reclining alone while a satyr approaches bearing a krater, Studi Etruschi 58 (1992) T. LXXXIII,b. 10. On the ambiguity of these scenes, see Carpenter 1986, 43–35, 86–89, 113–14; Díez-Platas 2013; and the eloquent description in Ferrari 2003a of the “myth-history” presented on Attic vases. Henrichs 1993 summarizes well the points of connection between divine and human in Dionysus’ myth and rituals. Dionysiac scenes “evoke the euphoric state of suspension between two modes of being,” as suggested by Isler-Kerenyi 2007, 215; on this point see also, with reference to later images of Dionysus and Ariadne, Barr-Sharrar 2008, 118–22. 11. See, e.g., Pind. Pyth. 3.88–95, on Peleus, husband of Thetis, and Cadmus, husband of Harmonia. 12. See Schmitt-Pantel 2011 on the identity of the naked woman reclining with Dionysus. 13. Florence, Museo Archeologico 4209; ABV 76.1, 682; Para. 29; Beazley Addenda 2 21; BAPD 300000; illustrated fully in Shapiro et al. 2013. On the development of this processional pattern in Attic and other Greek vase painting, see Isler-Kerenyi 1997, 526, 536 n. 24. 14. The name vase for the Group of London B 174, London, British Museum 1868.0610.2 (B 174); ABV 141.1; Beazley Addenda 2 38; BAPD 310361. 15. See Krauskopf 1977. For literary sources, see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 28–33; for the cart, see also New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.11.1, attributed to the Amasis Painter; Oakley and Sinos 1993, figs. 68–70. 16. The chariot is ubiquitous as a wedding vehicle in literature as well as art; see, e.g., the heroic wedding in Sappho 44. 17. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung F 2530, attributed to the Amphitrite Painter; ARV 2 831.20, 1702; Beazley Addenda 2 295; BAPD 280254. On the increasing focus on the bond between the bride and groom on fifth-century vases, see Sutton 1997/98.

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art 18. See Steiner 2007 on the different possibilities in vase paintings’ connections through “repetition.” Sabetai 1997 notes parallels between brides and goddesses preparing for the wedding in red-figure scenes. 19. Loutrophoros-amphora by the Washing Painter, Athens, National Archaeological Museum A 1453 (CC1225); ARV 2 1127.18; Para. 453; Beazley Addenda 2 332; BAPD 214899; see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 15–16. Our earliest wedding scene appears on a late seventh-century Proto-Attic loutrophoros from the sanctuary of Nymphe (the Nymph or Bride), where it was probably dedicated by a bride after her wedding (Acropolis Museum NA 1957 Aa 189). It, too, features a procession led by someone carrying a vase of the same shape. Sabetai 2014 provides a useful summary of the decoration and uses of this shape of vessel; Mösch-Klingele 2006 provides a thorough discussion of its use and iconography in the fifth century BCE, with fine illustrations. For the earlier black-figure loutrophoroi, see Alexandridou 2011, 24–26. 20. Sabetai 1993, 150–61, in a generally informative discussion of this scene, argues on the basis of the vase’s shape that the procession brings bathwater to the bridegroom, but the assumption that the loutrophoros-hydria serves only the bride’s and a loutrophoros-amphora the groom’s bath seems unwarranted. In fact, a rare depiction of a young man bathing features a loutrophoros-hydria (red-figure hydria by the Leningrad Painter in Warsaw, National Museum 142290; ARV 2 571.76; Para. 390; BAPD 206567). 21. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum V 551 (G 302); ARV 2 1328.98, 1315; Para. 479; Beazley Addenda 2 364; BAPD 220654; attributed (“probably”) to the Meidias Painter himself rather than in his manner, as Beazley had said, by Burn 1987, 83. 22. On the namepiece of the Meidias Painter (also known as the “Hamilton vase”), a hydria in London, featuring the abduction of the daughters of Leucippus, British Museum 1772.3–20.30 (E224); ARV 2 1313.5, 1690; Para. 477; Beazley Addenda 2 361; BAPD 220497. For the comparison to our figure, see Burn 1987, 26–32, 83, and pls. 3–7; Aphrodite is identified by inscription in other Meidian scenes. 23. Textual evidence for such potency begins with Hera’s seduction of Zeus (Il. 14, 159–223) and Hesiod’s accounts of the creation of Pandora, the first bride (Theog. 573–80 and Op. 660–82); see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 19–21. In art, Eros and Aphrodite appear in scenes of the abduction of Helen early in the fifth century, such as the grand red-figure skyphos in Boston signed by Makron as painter and Hieron as potter (Museum of Fine Arts 13.186; ARV 2 458.1, 481, 1659; Para. 377, Beazley Addenda 2 243; BAPD 204681); Stafford 2013, 198–206, e.g., points to the links between this scene and images of the wedding. Eros and other members of Aphrodite’s divine retinue become a regular feature of wedding scenes in the second half of the fifth century. Kousser 2004 stresses both the hesitancy and the sure “success” (105) of the bride as depicted in vases from this time; the bride’s potency, ironically, may be heightened by honest hesitancy.

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Rebecca H. Sinos 24. Beazley 1918, 185. 25. Cf. Alcman’s description in a partheneion of a girl whose gaze conveying “limb-loosening longing” is “more melting than sleep and death” (fr. 3.61–62). 26. Eros plays the pipes on a squat lekythos in Paris (Louvre MNB2110; ARV 2 1313.14; Beazley Addenda 2 362; BAPD 220506) and dances on a hydria in Florence (Museo Archeologico 81948; ARV 2 1312.1; Para. 477, Beazley Addenda 2 361; BAPD 220493). 27. Found in Corinth, now in Athens, National Archaeological Museum A 1718 (CC 1857); BAPD 5702. 28. Quoted in Eustathius on Il. 24.29. Cf. the Etymologicum Magnum and Suda, s.v. ἐπαύλια; the Suda adds to the list of gifts chrysia (gold jewelry), which is also attested in Photius’ lexicon, s.v. ἐπαύλια and λεκανίς (covered bowl). 29. The accuracy of this description is suggested in a scene wrapping around the body of a pyxis now in Berlin, dating to 360–350 BCE; Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung 3373, from Eretria; BAPD 430. See Deubner 1900. 30. As indicated in the detailed description in the Athens CVA (Greece 2) by Karouzou 1954, 17–18. 31. Beside Aphrodite on a squat lekythos in London attributed to an artist in the manner of the Meidias Painter, for example (British Museum 1856.5–12.15 [E697]; ARV 2 1324.45, 1315; Para. 478; Beazley Addenda 2 364); an example in a sacrificial procession appears on a volute krater in Ferrara, Museo Nazionale di Spina 44894; ARV 2 1143.1, 1684; Para. 455; Beazley Addenda 2 334; BAPD 215141. We see this basket also in the epaulia scene on a lebes gamikos by the Marsyas Painter in St. Petersburg, Hermitage 15592; ARV 2 1475.1; Para. 495; Beazley Addenda 2 381; BAPD 230419. 32. Athens, National Archaeological Museum A 1190 (CC 1970), from the Kerameikos. Following Richter 1904–5, 242, it is identified by Schefold (1934, 4 n. 3) as a pyxis lid fragment (“vielleicht”; cf. BAPD 26161, “covered cup”), but its size (diameter 0.34 m) and shape suggest it belonged to a lekanis, a shape that earlier in the same article Richter identifies as a type of pyxis (235). Included among the vases depicted on this lid is another lekanis as well as a very differently shaped pyxis. 33. In his pose the Eros on our lekanis lid resembles Skopas’ roughly contemporary statue of Pothos; perhaps we should identify this winged figure accordingly, as suggested also by Lopes 2013, 409–10; Stewart 2013, 25. 34. Richter 1904/5, 242, appendix 2. 35. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art 56.11.1, attributed to the Amasis Painter; Para. 66; Beazley Addenda 2 45; BAPD 350478. 36. Scenes involving warriors are, after the wedding, most prone to this treatment. 37. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 03.802 (450–425 BCE); BAPD 15815; Oakley and Sinos 1993, 109–11, and figs. 105–7. The reverse features a bearded and younger man shaking hands, a gesture suited to the betrothal agreement, the engye, between the

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art bride’s father and the bridegroom (Oakley and Sinos 1993, 51, and fig. 1). Green 2014 provides a catalog with other scenes in which the wedding couch appears. 38. He is reminiscent of the baby sometimes presented to or held by brides, and perhaps of a custom of having the bride sleep with a male child before the wedding, no doubt with the aim of sympathetic magic (Callim. Aet. fr. 75 Pfeiffer, 1–5, 10–11; Poll. 3.39–40; Σ [T] at Il. 14.296, describing a custom at Naxos). We might compare the custom attested in parts of Greece today of rolling a child on the bridal bed. 39. Not all scenes mark the chamber as a man’s space; e.g., in a scene of the wedding of Heracles and Hebe the thalamos has a mirror on the wall (on a blackfigure tripod pyxis in Warsaw, National Museum 142319; BAPD 14077), and Peleus and Thetis, received at the thalamos by Chiron and his wife, Philyra, will spend the night in a room decorated with a swag under which a perfume bottle, an alabastron, is suspended (on a red-figure pointed amphora by the Copenhagen Painter, now identified as the painter Syriskos, in the Shelby White and Leon Levy Collection: New York Metropolitan Museum SL1990.1.21; BAPD 43937; Oakley and Sinos 1993, figs. 108–11). 40. St. Petersburg, Hermitage Ƃ1403; ABV 98.34; Para. 37; Beazley Addenda 2 26; BAPD 310034. 41. Xen. Ephes. 1.8; on these tapestries, see Vatin 1970, 211–28; Lane 1988. 42. Lexicographers add to our knowledge by noting the existence of a bed called the parabustos, which is set up in the bridal chamber “so that the girl does not grow frightened” (Poll. 3.43; cf. Harp. p. 238, citing Hyperides’ speech Against Patroclus). Pollux adds another detail, the custom of suspending a pestle at the entrance to the room (3.37). 43. For discussion of the meaning of Lucanian scenes of a couple on a kline, see Söldner 2007, 212–22. Hurschmann 1995 discusses scenes of embracing couples on Apulian vases. 44. Zimmermann-Elseify 2015; see also Reinsberg 1989, 65, fig. 20, and 66, fig. 21, which includes them in the account of wedding images. 45. The Greek word gyne is the same for “woman” and “wife”; Chantraine 1946– 47 indicates the use of the word “bride” (nymphe) for the whole period between childhood and motherhood, the ultimate transformation effected by the wedding, ideally through conception on the wedding night. Calame 1999, 125–29, examines the stages of the passage from kore or parthenos to nymphe and finally to gyne through specific literary examples. It is worth noting that conception in itself does not affect the transition; in Menander’s Samia, the pregnant but unmarried Plangon is still a parthenos (67). See further Sissa 1990, 87–104, on “hidden marriages.” 46. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung VI 3249; BAPD 9035163; Brück­ ner 1904, T. 1; Courby 1922, 134; Zervoudaki 1968, 29–30, no. 43; ZimmermannElseify 2015, 118, Beil. 24.3.

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Rebecca H. Sinos 47. See also the remarks of Furtwängler cited in Brückner 1904, Anmerkungen (for p. 3). 48. For the two incense burners on two squat lekythoi from this tomb, see Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung 3248 (ARV 2 1482.5, 1695; Beazley Addenda 2 382; BAPD 230497), and St. Petersburg, Hermitage 928 (ARV 2 1482.6, 1695; Beazley Addenda 2 382; BAPD 230498). 49. Bern, Universität Bern, Antikensammlung no. 315 (Gliwitzky-Moser 2007). That appliqué is only one centimeter shorter than the scene of our women, and its likeness to our vase is apparent in almost every detail. 50. For prenuptial incense, cf. Men. Sam. 158; Aphrodite receives wedding offerings from brides (Diod. Sic. 5.73.2; AP 6.207, 209) and grooms (AP 6.318); see also Plut. Con. praec. 138C–D. 51. Brückner 1904, 5; on the parabustos, see n. 42. 52. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung 30036, the name vase of the Heimarmene Painter; ARV 2 1173.1; Para. 459; Beazley Addenda 2 339; BAPD 215552. 53. Shapiro 1993, 194; see also Shapiro 1986, 9–14; 2005, 47–52, with references to the Nachleben of this motif. See also Smith 2011, 44–46, 154–55, and no. VP 16, with more bibliography. An allegorical meaning for Athens in the years of the Peloponnesian war is often suspected, but at least equally important is the scene’s significance to the lives of the individuals involved; it “expresses the more personal and intimate aspects of the cult of Aphrodite and Peitho” (Rosenzweig 2004, 27). 54. Shapiro 1986, 9–14. 55. Oakley 1995, 66–67. 56. Athens, National Archaeological Museum A 1454 (CC 1228), name vase of the Painter of Athens 1454; ARV 2 1178.1, 1685; Para. 460; BAPD 215616. 57. On the ladder in fig. 13, see also n. 106; see also Oakley and Sinos 1993, 39– 40. For the scene’s elements of bridal preparation, see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 18. In arguing that the “mother” here need not be Aphrodite, we suggested that the figure with the crown is the nympheutria, the woman who tends to the bride before and during the bridal procession. In view of the Apulian vase identifying Leda, and the Eleusinian scene in color plate 5, I now believe she represents the bride’s mother. 58. The presence of Aphrodite in a pose that belongs to the bride’s mother may accentuate the tension of this situation and contribute to Helen’s apparent misgivings. 59. Red-figure calyx krater from Taranto, Museo Nazionale Archeologico 52230; Trendall and Cambitoglou 1978–82, vol. 1, 39–41, no. 25, pl. 12.2. See also Sabetai 1993, 215, a discussion of a damaged plate by the Washing Painter (Athens, National Archaeological Museum A 14792; ARV 2 1133.197; BAPD 215007) that may represent two female figures posed like Helen and Aphrodite in the scene of the Heimarmene Painter. 60. On Penelope, see Buitron-Oliver and Cohen 1995, 47. Hygieia (Health) holds Paidia (Playfulness) similarly in a scene by the Meidias Painter, a hydria in Florence

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art (Museo Archeologico Etrusco 81948; ARV 2 1312.1; Para. 477; Beazley Addenda 2 361; BAPD 220493); Smith 2011, 54, suggests that in such a scene Paidia represents “Child­ rearing” and the importance of health in bringing up children. 61. E.g., Clytemnestra’s response to Agamemnon’s proposed wedding of their daughter in Eur. IA 607–741. 62. Sappho’s songs for the wedding include not just those in her book of Epithalamia but a waking song sung by parthenoi (fr. 30) and perhaps also her other songs with sad farewells; see Lasserre 1989; Contiades-Tsitsoni 1990, 68–109. For other songs of the bride’s friends, see Hague 1983, 1984. For the evidence of the all-night vigil, see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 37. 63. Sofia, National Museum, Antiquity Collection 7721, attributed to the Apollonia Group; BAPD 41041. 64. Bérard 2008, 88–89, figs. 5 and 6. 65. On Demeter’s gesture, see Peschlow-Bindokat 1972, 104. 66. On the Eleusinian statuette, see Furtwängler 1895; on the vase in Sofia and its relation to the statuette, see Peschlow-Bindokat 1972, 104, 138, 157; Metzger 1995, 10, and n. 35. Peschlow-Bindokat 1972, 138, notes the likelihood of a larger sculptural predecessor; see also Bianchi 1976, 21 no. 22, for the suggestion that the small sculpture is modeled on a larger group of the late fifth or first half of the fourth century. Such a fifth-century sculptural prototype may also lie behind the wall painting posited by Shapiro (n. 54), which then had its own influence on scenes of Helen. 67. Krieger 1973. 68. Miller 2014, 177–78, with bibliography and references to other tomb paintings of Persephone; on the history of earlier and later abduction scenes, see A. Cohen 2010, 187–236. 69. Sourvinou-Inwood 1973, 1987; Jenkins 1983; Oakley 1995, 65–67. Andò 1996 examines the wedding’s evocation of qualities apparent in mythic nymphs. See also Larson 2001, esp. 100–120. 70. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung F 2372; BAPD 9603. On the motif of “χεῖρ’ ἐπὶ καρπῷ” and the implication of the groom’s control, see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 32. The guard at the bridal chamber, intended, according to Pollux, to prevent women from helping the bride as she cries out (3.42), is an element suggesting the forcible taking of the bride; for other sources on this stage of the wedding, see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 37, 138 n. 106, and the chapters by Hersch and Di Meo in this volume. 71. Ararus Hymenaios, fr. 17 (CAF II 218). 72. Reeder 1995, 172. 73. Eleusis 1804; BAPD 7971; mentioned in ARV 2 647.1. The position of Eros’ legs suggests he is leaving the scene, but his presence is noteworthy; Tiverios 2009, 280–81, and fig. 7, identifies it as a unique occurrence. 74. Sappho’s songs with sad farewells belong to the same widespread and enduring tradition; see Hague 1983, 1984.

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Rebecca H. Sinos 75. Ferrari 2002, 193–94. Parker 2005, 227, notes that the “abundance of ritual roles assigned to parthenoi is striking”; these girls were seen as ideal servants of the gods. 76. In this respect the bride differs from nymphs such as Thetis, who never leaves the sea and the company of her companions there. Perhaps a goddess with transformative powers cannot suffer such transformation herself as to change her essential nature; the mythology of nymphs as a whole emphasizes their resistance to male approaches. 77. For the bride with a baby, see Kauffmann-Samaras 1988. 78. Ferrari 2002, 181–90; 2003b, 32–35. Her view need not imply a rejection of the understanding of the word’s application to the contractual “handshake”; it extends the range of its meaning, making the handshake even more significant if it encapsulates the image of the treasure house, linking it to the “hollow” of the palm. 79. Lysias fr. 7 Thalheim. 80. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung F 2704; BAPD 9035135; Zimmermann-Elseify 2015, 107–8, T.53, 54, and Beil. 17.1. 81. Athens, National Archaeological Museum Γ 55. 82. Athens, National Archaeological Museum Γ 1503. 83. See Kaltsas 2008, 114, for a useful brief discussion of the type. Neils 1983, 283, has identified the influence of this statue on an earlier vase by the Meidias Painter; on the Paris copy of this statue (Louvre MA 525), see Stewart 1990, vol. 1, 167, illustrated in vol. 2, 426. 84. On our relief vase, the unveiling is clear not only from the gesture, which can occur without such revelation, as we see in the woman behind the bride, but from the bride’s nudity and the groom’s response. Scenes in which women pull up their garments without such revelation do not represent unveiling but display the precious fabric that is probably a product of the woman’s own work. A fragmentary loutrophoros attributed to the Phiale Painter depicts a different pose, in a scene sometimes identified as representing the anakalypteria as well as the katachysmata, the showering of the couple with nuts, coins, and fruits to welcome them to the bridegroom’s home (e.g., in Oakley and Sinos 1993, 25–26). I now interpret the scene as combining with the katachysmata scene a separate moment of the wedding, the bride’s veiling as part of her adornment, performed by another woman, which is not the case for the anakalypteria. Cf. Hera’s unveiling gesture, which includes the receptive bridegroom in a metope from Temple E at Selinus on Sicily (see n. 86) and also on the east side of the Parthenon frieze. I agree with Ferrari 2003b, 32, that the ritual most naturally would follow the bridal procession, rather than occurring earlier, but cannot take up that subject here. On the fully veiled brides in wedding procession scenes in vase painting, see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 32, 137 n. 63. 85. See n. 23. 86. Langlotz 1963, 82, and pls. 105–8; in this limestone metope, Hera’s face and limbs, where her skin is visible, are sculpted in marble, producing an effect similar to that of white paint on vases.

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art 87. The claim of Llewellyn-Jones 2003, 231, 244–46, 253 nn. 100–102, that the passive bride “is unveiled” by her husband is based largely on the unnecessary assumption that the verbs in lexicographical passages are passive instead of middle; Lucian’s description of the painting of Roxana unveiled by Erotes (Her. 5) does not seem to me helpful here. Pollux alone uses an active voice for the man’s role, in a passage concerned not so much with the action of the unveiling ritual as with the gifts given to the bride by the groom at the ceremony (3.36; Llewellyn-Jones 2003, 253 n. 99). Cf. the fragment of the third-century BCE poet and librarian Euphorion, in reference to Zeus’ gift to Persephone when she is first seen by her husband, “after she draws aside the veil of her bridal dress” (fr. 107 Powell). Note, too, that these references need not indicate the bride’s display to more than the groom; the plural verbs associate “men” as the recipients for the unveiling with “brides”; the word “men” instead of “grooms” may simply recognize the brides’ previous seclusion from all men. The one exception is Anecdota Graeca (s.v. ἀνακαλυπτήρια in Bekker 1814, 200.6–8, 390.26–28), where the “men” are joined by “the banqueters”; this is also the one source connecting this ceremony with the bridal feast and very likely represents a conflation of two passages. But there is also the place and time of the presentation of anakalypteria gifts to consider; see Ferrari 2002, 186–87. 88. Athens, National Archaeological Museum 5256; votive eyes are found in sanctuaries of healing gods, and healing may be what this votive asks, but it is also possible that the initiate is seeking vision that is not physical; see Platt 2011, 69. 89. Clinton 1992, 90, 209, and fig. 78; see also Clinton 2004 on light and divine images associated with Eleusinian initiation. 90. Fr. 15 Ross, quoted by Synesius, Dio 8.48a. 91. Hom. Hymn Aphr. 174–75. Here it is her skin that shines in her divine beauty, frightening in its potency; Anchises had already succumbed to the goddess’ radiant clothes and garments, emphasized in the hymn even before her divine epiphany. 92. The bride, by contrast, may receive verbal counsel from her mother before her transformation through the wedding. 93. On the development of a focus on conjugal bliss, see Sabetai 2011; another fine example of such a scene appears on a fourth-century pelike in St. Petersburg, Hermitage 1891.555 (BAPD 16386), depicting the seated couple framed by satyrs as Eros crowns Ariadne. This shift accompanies a change in the god’s appearance; by the last quarter of the fifth century BCE, Dionysus is shown without a beard, the same change the bridegroom undergoes earlier in the century. 94. Similarities between wedding and funerary rituals, marriage and death, received much attention in ancient Greek literature and still do in modern scholarship; see Ferrari 2002, 190–94, for a useful summary. On the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and its relationship to Greek wedding rituals, see Foley 1994, 104–12; on the effect of a girl’s wedding on all generations of the women in her family, see Kledt 2004. 95. Here I have profited from the summary of Stehle 2007, 175–76, in her comparison to Thesmophoria rituals; most sources have been collected by Scarpi 2002.

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Rebecca H. Sinos Parker 2005, 327–68, provides a clear description with attention to the sources and their limits. See Clinton 1992 on iconography; many more images deserve attention, such as a red-figure column krater attributed to the Alkimachos Painter depicting a female initiate being led by the same “χεῖρ’ ἐπὶ καρπῷ” gesture (see n. 70) used in representations of the bride and groom on foot (Naples, Museo Nazionale 127930, ca. 460 BCE; ARV 2 532.53; Para. 384; BAPD 206031). So similar is this scene to wedding processions that it is sometimes identified as a bridal procession, but the “groom” holds a torch, suggesting the Eleusinian official called the Daidouchos, or “Torchbearer,” and the “bride” carries the ritual bundle of twigs often held by initiates. Simon 1997 elucidates the identity of figures in the Eleusinian scenes; see especially her comments on the value of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter in identifying the female figures (105). 96. Zenobius 3.98 (1.82–83 CPG). At the wedding, the verbs could represent the third-person plural, as translated here (“they”), or the first-person singular; if the latter, it would suggest that the speaker, and probably all those present, have entered the paradisiacal space of the wedding ritual. 97. Dem. De cor. 259. Likna appear already in sixth-century wedding processions (e.g. fig. 3), and the association of the formula with this highly symbolic tool may be equally ancient; see Dillon 2002, 338 n. 130, with the lexicographical and other sources for the formula. Cf. the tradition mentioned by Pollux, that the bride carried a barley roasting pan (1.246) or sieve (3.38). Wedding iconography suggests a long tradition of such symbolism, but I suggest here an interpenetration of wedding and mystery symbolism rather than attempting to determine the origin of the motif. 98. Graf and Johnson 2013, 36–37 (no. 26 a, b), 138–39; cf. Pindar fr. 137 Maehler; Sophocles fr. 837 Radt; for more on the μακαρισμός, see Richardson 1974, 310–14. 99. Preserved in Greek wedding songs of all ages, Hes. fr. 211.7; Eur. Phaeth. 240; Eur. Tro. 311; Ar. Pax 1333; Ar. Av. 1722; Sapph. fr. 112; Theoc. Id. 18.16. The bride is not described in this way (with the one exception of Cassandra’s song for her own wedding, the bride about to die, Eur. Tro. 321); the modern (perhaps now outmoded) custom of congratulating the bridegroom, but not the bride, is similar to this ancient forbearance. 100. Men. Dys. 842; Men. Pk. 1013–14; the commentary of Gomme and Sandbach 1973, 262, 470, 531, provides other sources and discussion of the complexity of the latter play’s use of Athenian legal language. 101. On mortals as “symbolic nurslings of the goddesses” based on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, see Foley 1994, 115; the tablet from Thurii mentioning “the kolpos of the chthonian queen” is in Naples, Museo Nazionale 111625; Graf and Johnston 2013, 12–13 (no. 5), 128–29; on the meaning of this phrase, see Bremmer 2013. 102. Thgn. 15–18; thus beauty “underpins the bond of philotes” (Calame 1999, 120–21). 103. As Plato recognized in Diotima’s language of love and birth-giving for the ascent and arrival at pure beauty, τὸ καλόν, in the Symposium.

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art 104. Two valuable studies bearing on this subject are Kokkou-Vyridi 2010 on the wedding vases found at Eleusis and Sabetai 2014 on the contexts of two shapes found in sanctuaries and houses, the loutrophoros and lebes gamikos. Cf. Arthur Trendall’s remarks on Sicilian vases of the Hellenistic era, “designed exclusively for funerary purposes” but with images associated with Dionysian cult and wedding ceremonies (1955, 165). Also noteworthy is the fragmentary black-figure loutrophoros, ca. 530 BCE, featuring a procession that may well represent the procession from Athens to Eleusis, found at Eleusis, Eleusis Archaeological Museum 471 (formerly 837); ABV 309.97; Para. 133; Beazley Addenda 2 83; BAPD 301576; see the discussion in Shapiro 1989, 82, and pl. 36d–f. 105. Fröhner 1892, 98, from a sarcophagus without an inscription, is now in Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Antikensammlung 3248 (ARV 2 1482.5, 1695; Beazley Addenda 2 382; BAPD 230497); Fröhner 1892, no. 99, St. Petersburg, Hermitage 928 (ARV 2 1482.6, 1695; Beazley Addenda 2 382; BAPD 230498), was found in a sarcophagus inscribed “Kallias Kratippo(u)” (Callias, son of Cratippus). Another lekythos said to have been found with the Berlin and St. Petersburg vases is now in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, no. 48.84 (BAPD 7782). All three were attributed to the Apollonia Group by Beazley (ARV 2 1482); see Kic 1983 for further information on the excavation and discoveries at Apollonia. Note that our vase in Sofia, color plate 5, was also found at this site. 106. For various interpretations of the ladder in these scenes, see Edwards 1984; Reitzammer 2016, 50–52. A ladder also appears in the scene on Athens A 1454 (fig. 13; see n. 57). 107. Zervoudaki 1968, 72. 108. DAI, Rome, Archiv A-VII-63-058 (our scene) and A-VII-63-057; Greifen­ hagen 1976, 42–46 (no. 22), figs. 37–38. The “bride” on this pelike appears to be nude, but Greifenhagen observes traces of faint yellow stripes that must come from the fine fabric of her garment. 109. Bérard 1987, 89; see also Bérard 2008, 93. 110. E.g., a pelike in St. Petersburg, Hermitage ST 1792; ARV 2 1476.1, 1695; Para. 496; Beazley Addenda 2 381; BAPD 230431; cf. also the scene depicted here in color plate 5. 111. Metzger 1995, 11, notes this multivalence. 112. Schmidt 1987, 165; Carpenter 2010 notes the prevalence, and effect, of Dionysus as bystander in Apulian scenes featuring other deities, scenes representing “an extension of Attic red-figure tradition” (336–37), but with the addition of gods who watch the scene unfold. In Attic red-figure scenes, as we see here, the surrounding figures have the same effect; they draw their meaning from the contexts to which they belong. See Metzger 1965, 5, on Attic vases with “imagerie religieuse ou cultuelle” and the need for “une vision globale” to understand them. 113. Lyons, Musée des Beaux Arts 689; BAPD 10935; Schefold 1934, 24, and no. 187. The god’s presence at Eleusis is attested only in art; there are no votives or inscriptions

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Rebecca H. Sinos identifying him as an Eleusinian deity, as noted by Tiverios 2010, 18 n. 5. But poetry provides a connection between Dionysus and Demeter; e.g., he is Demeter’s πάρεδρος in Pindar (Isthm. 7.4). And in art they are linked early on; Williams 1983 suggests that an Eleusinian connection explains the apparent link between Dionysus and Demeter in the procession to Peleus and Thetis’ wedding on a dinos by Sophilos (London, British Museum 1971.11–1.1; Para. 19.16bis; Beazley Addenda 2 10; BAPD 350099). 114. Hermitage 1881.167; BAPD 21460; Schefold 1934, 30, no. 284, T. 50. Cf. the scene on a fragmentary Kerch loutrophoros in St. Petersburg, in which ecstatic dancers precede a cart whose passengers include a girl holding a loutrophoros, Hermitage 1881.167 (KAB 81a); BAPD 21460; Schefold 1934, T. 50, Mösch-Klingele 2006, no. 63, Abb. 25 a–b (and Abb. 24 with close-up of bride). 115. Archaeological Museum 1976.770; BAPD 17709; Chevrillon et al.1989, 106– 8, and no. 42.

Works Cited Alexandridou, A. 2011. The Early Black-Figured Pottery of Attika in Context. Leiden. Andò, V. 1996. “Nymphe: La sposa e le Ninfe.” QUCC 52:47–82. Barr-Sharrar, B. 2008. The Derveni Krater: Masterpiece of Classical Greek Metalwork. Princeton, NJ. Beazley, J. D. 1918. Attic Red-Figured Vases in American Museums. Cambridge, MA. Bekker, I. 1814. Anecdota Graeca. Vol. 1. Berlin. Bérard, C. 1987. “Apocalypses éleusiniennes.” In Apocalypses et voyages dans l’au-delà, edited by C. Kappler, 127–55. Paris. . 2008. “Éleusis: Contempler les mystères.” In Image et religion dans l’antiquité gréco-romaine, edited by S. Estienne, D. Jaillard, N. Lubtchansky, and C. Pouza­ doux, 85–96. Naples. Bianchi, U. 1976. The Greek Mysteries. Leiden. Bragantini, I. 2014. “Roman Painting in the Republic and Early Empire.” In The Cambridge History of Painting in the Classical World, edited by J. J. Pollitt, 302–69. Cambridge. Bremmer, J. N. 2013. “Divinities in the Orphic Gold Leaves: Eukles, Eubouleus, Brimo, Kybele, Kore and Persephone.” ZPE 187:35–48. Brückner, A. 1904. Anakalypteria. BWPr 64. Berlin. . 1907. “Athenische Hochzeitsgeschenke.” MDAI 32:79–122. Buitron-Oliver, D., and B. Cohen. 1995. “Between Skylla and Penelope: Female Characters of the Odyssey in Archaic and Classical Greek Art.” In The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer’s “Odyssey,” edited by B. Cohen, 29–58. Oxford. Burn, L. 1987. The Meidias Painter. Oxford. Calame, C. 1999. The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece. Princeton, NJ.

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art Carpenter, T. H. 1986. Dionysian Imagery in Archaic Greek Art. Oxford. . 2010. “Gods in Apulia.” In The Gods of Ancient Greece: Identities and Transformations, edited by J. N. Bremmer and A. Erskine, 335–47. Edinburgh. Chantraine, P. 1946–47. “Les noms de mari et de la femme, du père et de la mère en grec.” REG 59–60:219–50. Chevrillon, O., et al. 1989. Eros grec: Amour des dieux et des hommes. Athens. Clarke, J. 1991. The Houses of Roman Italy 100 B.C.–A.D. 250: Ritual, Space, and Decoration. Berkeley, CA. Clinton, K. 1992. Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Stockholm. . 2004. “Divine Epiphanies in the Ancient World.” ICS 29:85–109. Cohen, A. 2010. Art in the Era of Alexander the Great: Paradigms of Manhood and Their Cultural Traditions. Cambridge. Contiades-Tsitsoni, E. 1990. Hymenaios und Epithalamion: Das Hochzeitslied in der frühgriechischen Lyrik. Stuttgart. Courby, F. 1922. Les vases grecs à reliefs. Paris. Daremberg, C., and E. Saglio. 1877–1919. Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines. 5 vols. in 9. Paris. Davis, J. M. 2000. “The Search for the Origins of the Villa of the Mysteries Frieze.” In The Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii: Ancient Ritual, Modern Muse, edited by E. Gazda, 83–95. Ann Arbor, MI. Deubner, L. 1900. “ΕΠΑΥΛΙΑ.” JdI 15:144–54. Díez-Platas, F. 2013. “The Symposiast Dionysos: A God Like Ourselves.” In Redefining Dionysos, edited by A. Bernabé, M. Herrero de Jáuregui, A. I. Jiménez San Cristóbal, and R. Martín Hernández, 504–25. Berlin. Dillon, M. 2002. Girls and Women in Greek Religion. New York. Edwards, C. 1984. “Aphrodite on a Ladder.” Hesperia 53:59–72. Elsner, J. 2007. Roman Eyes: Visuality and Subjectivity in Art and Text. Princeton, NJ. Ferrari, G. 2002. Figures of Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient Greece. Chicago. . 2003a. “Myth and Genre on Athenian Vases.” ClAnt 22:37–54. . 2003b. “What Kind of Rite of Passage Was the Ancient Greek Wedding?” In Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narratives, edited by D. B. Dodd and C. A. Faraone, 27–42. London. Foley, H. P. 1994. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays. Princeton, NJ. Fröhner, W. 1892. Collection van Branteghem: Catalogue des monuments antiques; Vases peints et terres cuits. Paris. Furtwängler, A. 1883–87. Die Sammlung Sabouroff: Kunstdenkmäler aus Griechenland. 2 vols. Berlin. . 1895. “Eleusinische Skulpturen.” MDAI 20:357–59. Furtwängler, A., and K. Reichhold. 1904–32. Griechische Vasenmalerei: Auswahl hervor­ ragender Vasenbilder. 3 vols. in 6 parts. Munich.

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Rebecca H. Sinos Gliwitzky-Moser, Y. 2007. “Eine rotfigurige Bauchlekythos mit polychromer Re­lief­ applike im Berner Institut für Archäologie.” HASB 20:15–25. Gomme, A. W., and F. H. Sandbach. 1973. Menander: A Commentary. Oxford. Graf, F., and S. Iles Johnston. 2013. Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets. 2nd ed. New York. Green, J. R. 2014. “Two Phaedras: Euripides and Aristophanes?” In Ancient Comedy and Reception: Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Henderson, edited by S. D. Olson, 94–131. Berlin. Greifenhagen, A. 1976. Alte Zeichnungen nach unbekannten griechischen Vasen. Munich. Hague, R. 1983. “Ancient Greek Wedding Songs: The Tradition of Praise.” Journal of Folklore Research 20:131–43. . 1984. “Sappho’s Consolation for Atthis, Fr. 96 LP.” AJP 105:29–36. Henrichs, A. 1993. “‘He Has a God in Him’: Human and Divine in the Modern Perception of Dionysus.” In Masks of Dionysus, edited by T. H. Carpenter and C. A. Faraone, 13–43. Ithaca, NY. Hurschmann, R. 1995. “Zum Motiv des ‘Hochzeitspaares auf der Kline.’” In Modus in Rebus: Gedenkschrift für Wolfgang Schindler, edited by D. Rössler and V. Stürmer, 60–65. Berlin. Isler-Kerényi, C. 1997. “Der François-Krater zwischen Athen und Chiusi.” In Athenian Potters and Painters: The Conference Proceedings, edited by J. Oakley, W. D. E. Coulson, and O. Palagia, 523–39. Oxford. . 2007. Dionysos in Archaic Greece: An Understanding through Images. Leiden. Jenkins, I. 1983. “Is There Life after the Wedding? A Study of the Abduction Motif in Vase Paintings of the Athenian Wedding.” BICS 30:137–45. Kaltsas, N. 2008. “Statuette of Aphrodite.” In Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens, edited by N. Kaltsas and A. Shapiro, 114–15. Athens. Karouzou, S. 1954. Corpus vasorum antiquorum. Grèce, fasc. 2; Athènes (Musée National), fasc. 2. Paris. Kauffmann-Samaras, A. 1988. “‘Mère’ et enfant sur les lébétès nuptiaux à figures rouges attiques du Ve s. av. J.C.” In Proceedings of the Third Symposium on Ancient Greek and Related Pottery, edited by J. Christiansen and T. Melander, 286–99. Copenhagen. Kic, W. 1983. “Squat Lekythoi by the Apollonia Painter.” Études et Travaux 13:179–84. Kirk, S. 2000. “Nuptial Imagery in the Villa of the Mysteries Frieze: South Italian and Sicilian Precedents.” In The Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii: Ancient Ritual, Modern Muse, edited by E. Gazda, 98–115. Ann Arbor, MI. Kledt, A. 2004. Die Entführung Kores: Studien zur athenisch-eleusinischen Demeterreligion. Stuttgart. Kokkou-Vyridi, K. 2010. Μελανόμορφα γαμήλια ἀγγεῖα ἀπὸ τὶς πυρὲς θυσιῶν στὸ ἱερὸ τῆς Ἐλευσίνας. Athens.

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art Kousser, R. 2004. “The World of Aphrodite in the Late Fifth Century B.C.” In Greek Vases: Images, Contexts and Controversies, edited by C. Marconi, 97–112. Leiden. Krauskopf, I. 1977. “Eine attisch schwarzfigurige Hydria in Heidelberg.” AA 92:13–37. Krieger, X. 1973. “Der Kampf zwischen Peleus und Thetis in der griechischen Vasenmalerei.” PhD diss., Universität Münster. Lane, E. N. 1988. “ΠΑΣΤΟΣ.” Glotta 66:100–123. Langlotz, E. 1963. Die Kunst der Westgriechen. Munich. Larson, J. 2001. Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore. Oxford. Lasserre, F. 1989. Sappho: Une autre lecteur. Padua. Ling, R. 1991. Roman Painting. Cambridge. Llewellyn-Jones, L. 2003. Aphrodite’s Tortoise. Swansea. Lopes, E. 2013. “Longing for Skopas at Samothrace.” In Skopas of Paros and His World, edited by D. Katsonopoulou and A. Stewart, 409–24. Athens. Metzger, H. 1965. Recherches sur l’imagerie athénienne. Paris. . 1995. “Le Dionysos des images Éleusiniennes du IVe siècle.” RA:3–22. Miller, S. 2014. “Hellenistic Painting in the Eastern Mediterranean, Mid-Fourth to Mid-First Century B.C.” In The Cambridge History of Painting in the Classical World, edited by J. J. Pollitt, 170–237. Cambridge. Mösch-Klingele, R. 2006. Die loutrophoros im Hochzeits- und Begräbnisritual des 5. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. in Athen. Bern. Neils, J. 1983. “A Greek Nativity by the Meidias Painter.” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 70:274–89. Oakley, J. H. 1995. “Nuptial Nuances: Wedding Images in Non-wedding Scenes of Myth.” In Pandora: Women in Classical Greece, edited by E. D. Reeder, 63–73. Baltimore. Oakley, J. H., and R. H. Sinos. 1993. The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison, WI. Parker, R. 2005. Polytheism and Society at Athens. Oxford. Peschlow-Bindokat, A. 1972. “Demeter und Persephone in der attischen Kunst.” JdI 87:60–157. Platt, V. 2011. Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature, and Religion. Oxford. Reeder, E. D., ed. 1995. Pandora: Women in Classical Greece. Baltimore. Reinsberg, C. 1989. Ehe, Hetärentum und Knabenliebe im antiken Griechenland. Munich. Reitzammer, L. 2016. The Athenian Adonia in Context: The Adonis Festival as Cultural Practice. Madison, WI. Richardson, N. J., ed. and com. 1974. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter. Oxford. Richter, G. 1904/5. “The Distribution of Attic Vases: A Study of the Home Market.” ABSA 11:224–42. Rosenzweig, R. 2004. Worshipping Aphrodite: Art and Cult in Classical Athens. Ann Arbor, MI.

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Rebecca H. Sinos Sabetai, V. 1993. “The Washing Painter: A Contribution to the Wedding and Genre Iconography in the Second Half of the Fifth Century B.C.” 2 vols. PhD diss., University of Cincinnati. . 1997. “Aspects of Nuptial and Genre Narrative in Fifth-Century Athens: Issues of Interpretation and Methodology.” In Athenian Potters and Painters: The Conference Proceedings, edited by J. H. Oakley, W. D. E. Coulson, and O. Palagia, 319–35. Oxford. . 2011. “Eros Reigns Supreme: Dionysos’ Wedding on a New Krater by the Dinos Painter.” In A Different God? Dionysos and Ancient Polytheism, edited by R. Schlesier, 137–60. Berlin. . 2014. “The Wedding Vases of the Athenians: A View from Sanctuaries and Houses.” Mètis 12:51–79. Scarpi, P., ed. 2002. Le religioni dei misteri. Vol. 1, Eleusi, Dionisismo, Orfismo. Milan. Schefold, K. 1934. Untersuchungen zu den Kertscher Vasen. Berlin. Schmidt, M. 1987. “Beziehungen zwischen Eros, dem dionysischen und dem ‘eleu­ sinischen’ Kreis auf apulischen Vasenbildern.” In Images et société en Grèce ancienne: Iconographie comme méthode d’analyse, edited by C. Bérard, C. Bron, and A. Pomari, 155–65. Lausanne. Schmitt-Pantel, P. 2011. “Dionysos, the Banquet, and Gender.” In A Different God? Dionysos and Ancient Polytheism, edited by R. Schlesier, 119–36. Berlin. Seaford, R. 1981. “The Mysteries of Dionysus at Pompeii.” In Pegasus: Classical Essays from the University of Exeter, edited by H. W. Stubbs, 52–68. Exeter. Shapiro, A. 1986. “The Origins of Allegory in Greek Art.” Boreas 9:4–23. . 1989. Art and Cult under the Tyrants in Athens. Mainz am Rhein. . 1993. Personifications in Greek Art: The Representation of Abstract Concepts 600–400 B.C. Zürich. . 2005. “The Judgment of Helen in Athenian Art.” In Periklean Athens and Its Legacy, edited by J. M. Barringer and J. M. Hurwit, 47–62. Austin, TX. Shapiro, A., M. Iozzo, and A. Lezzi-Hafter, eds. 2013. The François Vase: New Perspectives. Kilchberg, Zürich. Simon, E. 1997. “Eleusis in Athenian Vase-Painting.” In Athenian Potters and Painters: The Conference Proceedings, edited by J. H. Oakley, W. D. E. Coulson, and O. Palagia, 97–108. Oxford. Sissa, G. 1990. Greek Virginity. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge. Smith, A. 2011. Polis and Personification in Classical Athenian Art. Leiden. Söldner, M. 2007. Bios Eudaimon: Zur Ikonographie des Menschen in der rotfigurigen Vasenmalerei Unteritaliens; Die Bilder aus Lukanien. Ingelheim am Rhein. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1973. “The Young Abductor of the Locrian Pinakes.” BICS 20:12–21. . 1987. “A Series of Erotic Pursuits: Images and Meanings.” JHS 107:131–53. Stafford, E. 2013. “From the Gymnasium to the Wedding: Eros in Athenian Art and

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Wedding Connections in Greek and Roman Art Cult.” In Eros in Ancient Greece, edited by E. Sanders, C. Thumiger, C. Carey, and N. J. Lowe, 175–208. Oxford. Stehle, E. 2007. “Thesmophoria and Eleusinian Mysteries: The Fascination of Women’s Secret Ritual.” In Finding Persephone: Women’s Rituals in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by M. Parca and A. Tzanetou, 165–85. Bloomington, IN. Steiner, A. 2007. Reading Greek Vases. Cambridge. Stewart, A. 1990. Greek Sculpture. 2 vols. New Haven, CT. . 2013. “Desperately Seeking Skopas.” In Skopas of Paros and His World, edited by D. Katsonopoulou and A. Stewart, 19–34. Athens. Sutton, R. F. 1997/98. “Nuptial Discourse: The Visual Discourse of Marriage in Classical Athens.” JWalt 55/56:27–48. Tiverios, M. 2009. “Αγγεία-αναθήματα από το Μεγάλο Ελευσινιακό ιερό.” In Athenian Potters and Painters, vol. 2., edited by J. H. Oakley and O. Palagia, 280–90. Oxford. . 2010. “Άρτεμις, Διόνυσος και ελευσινιακές θεότητες.” In Sanctuaries and Cults of Demeter in the Ancient Greek World, edited by I. Leventi and C. Mitsopoulou, 17–41. Volos. Trendall, A. D. 1955. “A New Polychrome Vase from Centuripe.” BMMA 13(5):161–66. Trendall, A. D., and A. Cambitoglou. 1978–82. The Red-Figured Vases of Apulia. 3 vols. Oxford. Vatin, C. 1970. Recherches sur le mariage et la condition de la femme mariée à l’époque hellénistique. Paris. Williams, D. 1983. “Sophilos in the British Museum.” Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum 1:9–34. Zervoudaki, E. A. 1968. “Attische Polychrome Reliefkeramik des späten 5. und des 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr.” MDAI 83:1–88. Zimmermann-Elseify, N. 2015. Corpus vasorum antiquorum. Deutschland, Bd. 99; Berlin, Antikensammlung ehemals Antiquarium, Bd. 16, Attische Salbgefässe. Munich.

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Violence in the Roman Wedding Karen Klaiber Hersch

T

he well-discussed image of the shy, reluctant, or grieving bride who must be persuaded or indeed forced to wed is one common in Roman literature.1 The frequency of this motif suggests to us that most Romans may have expected to see at the wedding, at the very least, a public show of the trepidation of the bride, and also suggests that most Romans shared a belief that the only bride of value was a virgin who had to appear to be stolen from her family. While it is true that some sources, such as romantic novels both Greek and Roman, portray newlyweds as mutually joyful, the evidence spanning a number of centuries indicates that the validity of a Roman marriage hinged on the suffering of the bride: a public display at the wedding of the bride’s virginity, centering on her simulated abduction; her laments as she processed to her new home; and, following the wedding, her cries of pain issuing from the bedchamber as she, ideally, experienced sexual intercourse for the first time.2 I will examine in the following pages how the mental and physical assaults on the Roman bride in the form of abduction, lament, and symbolic death are closely connected to the Romans’ understanding of the foundation of their state and the gods who protected it. A clear emphasis on the essential Romanitas of the religious proceedings of the Roman wedding surfacing in literature (and to some extent art) compels us to entertain the possibility that in the eyes of many or most Romans, the wedding functioned as a sacrifice on behalf of the state. Scholars have argued that ancient depictions of Roman wedding rites show a transition for a virgin made smooth by rituals. Yet as the anthropologist Vincent Crapanzano astutely remarked of a (modern) circumcision ritual in Moroccan culture, “it is perhaps our longing for the fixed, the real collapsed

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into the symbolic, nature collapsed into ritual, that has led us in the West to see such rites as rites of passage, rites of smooth and continuous transition from one state to another, rather than violent rites of disjunction that are in essence, and perhaps in function, purposefully disjunctive.”3 To borrow terms from Crapanzano, a more violent and disjunctive rite of passage than the Roman wedding, I argue, can scarcely be imagined. The following examination of the sources will show that the Roman bride’s path was purposefully strewn with obstacles; the Roman wedding rituals represent a heightening of tensions that seem to have been designed to force, or aid, the bride in public weeping. Moreover, the violence against the bride, merely figurative in the rituals of the wedding, became reality after the wedding itself in the bedchamber as the bride suffered (perceived or real) violence (vis) at the hands of her groom. The Roman wedding ceremony, then, does not seem to have followed the trajectory of a rite of passage as it was famously defined by Arnold van Gennep, progressing in three stages of separation, transition, and incorporation; instead, the majority of the rites focusing on the bride seem to highlight separation alone.4 While the harassment and lamentation of brides, and even violence against them, is not unique to Romans, and have been identified in cultures worldwide, Roman wedding ritual appears to have been unique in antiquity in its emphasis on the historical and religious connections to the violence suffered by the bride.5 Comparisons of rituals from Greek and Roman weddings will reveal that, while Greeks understood the wedding as an emotionally and physically painful transition for a shy young bride, no satisfying comparanda or precedents exist in Greek literature or art mirroring the rituals that highlight violence in Roman wedding ceremonies. And, while Romans sought to display the distinct Romanness of their brides’ virginity through its connection to the state and its gods, we cannot identify a similar agenda in Greek writings.

Abductions in Wedding Ritual At least in its general outlines, the Athenian wedding provides a direct model for the Roman. The focal point of each wedding was a shy bride who, beautified by female attendants, was covered by special wedding garb, of which the veil was the signature identifying piece. The centerpiece of each ceremony was the public procession of the bride as she was led forth to her groom’s home by the glow of torches.6 Both Roman and Athenian brides are shown accompanied by a noisy throng of invited guests and onlookers, who generated further attention

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Karen Klaiber Hersch to the bride with music, singing, or chanting. Greeks and Romans themselves seem to have considered their ceremonies, viewed from any distance, as practically indistinguishable.7 Certainly, both cultures understood weddings as abductions. The Greeks examined in the etiological myth of Persephone the grief and violence inherent in each wedding and marriage, both representing abrupt and permanent ruptures in the lives of women. Persephone’s experience in one retelling of the myth, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, has been rightly viewed as an allegory of marriage and women’s resistance to it: Persephone, representing all brides, is snatched away from her cohort of maidens and hidden away from her grieving mother, who, despite her best efforts to reclaim her child, is only able to gain limited visitation rights.8 Yet Persephone’s abduction was not honored in Greek wedding rituals.9 Scattered examples of actual nuptial ritual highlighting the Greek bride’s unwillingness and abduction are difficult to find in Greek literature, and they come to us from epithalamia and antiquarian works. Importantly, these rites are not explained with references to their origins in Greek history or myth. Thus Pollux described a doorkeeper bellowing at maidens trying to help a bride resist (3.42), while Plutarch in his Roman Questions claims that Boeotians throw on the fire the axle of the wagon that brought the bride to her groom, to prevent her from leaving (29, 271D). We must then turn to Greek art to find abduction in the wedding. Scholars of Greek art have found a kind of intimated abduction at the Greek wedding or a remnant of an abduction ritual in depictions of the procession of the bride. Indeed, the groom’s grasp, a gesture called the χεῖρ’ ἐπὶ καρπῷ, seems by no means a tender gesture of affection and concord: the bride’s hesitation is clear, and she seems forcibly led.10 The forced march of the Greek bride has created much confusion. Wedding and abduction scenes in Greek art, often drawn from myth, can appear to be so similar that scholars cannot always securely categorize them.11 Yet no Greek author, to my knowledge, claims that commemorations of these mythological abductions are present in Greek wedding ritual itself.12 In contrast, Romans combined the motifs of abduction, war, and marriage into one myth, and placed this myth front and center in their wedding ritual.13 Every Roman wedding, it seems, was a reenactment of a forced mass marriage of maidens from neighboring communities (normally called Sabines) to the male population of Rome, engineered by Romulus in the eighth century BCE.14 These women became the first Roman wives and mothers, the ancestors of the Roman people. While Dionysius of Halicarnassus records just one rite in the

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“wedding” of the Sabines, the presenting of fire and water (Ant. Rom. 2.80), Livy’s famous account of the abduction of the Sabines (1.9) records no details of an actual wedding ceremony: their physical removal from their families by their captor-grooms represented the sum total of their mass wedding. Abduction alone, Livy’s retelling informs us, proves a wedding has occurred. Tellingly, antiquarians contemporary with Livy also identify the ritual commemoration of that foundational abduction in wedding ceremonies, and Roman jurists define the physical movement of a bride to her husband’s home (the abduction) as the legal sum total of a Roman wedding.15 If the “Sabine” elements of the Roman wedding were as numerous as Roman writers insist they were, then we certainly have good reason to argue that most onlookers understood that any given bride was celebrated as a beautiful, miserable captive.16 One of the first events in the Roman wedding was a play-acted abduction, a tableau in which the bride was physically removed from the embrace of one of her family members. Festus remarks simply that brides seem to be carried off in the Roman wedding ceremony because “evidently this act turned out so well for Romulus” and that the Roman bride “seems to be stolen from the lap of her mother or next closest relative” (364, 365L, s.v. rapi simulatur). We can only guess from Festus’ use of the presenttense simulatur (“she seems to be”) that Festus here records a custom still prevalent in the time of his writing, the second century CE. Roman antiquarians recorded other rites and accoutrements of the wedding that commemorated this Sabine abduction and that, in turn, seem to have reinforced the notion that the bride was a captive. For example, Festus remarks that the spear used to part the bride’s hair was connected to Juno Curitis, so named because in the language of the Sabines a spear was known as a curis; guesses that it is used because “by nuptial law, the one marrying is under the domination of the husband”; and notes the role of the spear in taking male captives (55L; see also 43L on curis). Plutarch follows Festus loosely, and begins with the explanation that the spear is used to commemorate the way “the first women married by force and war” (τοῦ βίᾳ καὶ μετὰ πολέμου γαμηθῆναι τὰς πρῶτας, Quaest. Rom. 87, 285C). Even the torches used to light the bride’s path were connected to the Sabines. Pliny the Elder thought that the wood once used to make wedding torches (spina alba) was selected because the “shepherds who stole the Sabine woman used it” (HN 16.75). Livy is perhaps most famous for his explanation of the wedding cry presumably still in use at the time of his writing. The cry “Talassio,” Livy claimed, was shouted as the choicest maiden was stolen for a certain Talassius (1.9.11).17

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Karen Klaiber Hersch Plutarch tells us that the bride was lifted over the threshold of her groom’s house by “the ones leading her forth” (οἱ προπέμποντες, Quaest. Rom. 29, 271D). Every explanation of this ritual offered by Plutarch highlights the force used on the bride: first, because the Sabine maidens were forced (ἁρπάσαντες οὕτως εἰσήνεγκαν) to enter their new homes in such a manner; next, because the Romans wanted the young women to appear to be forced to enter their new house and life, and to be unwilling to lose their virginity; and finally, because the bride’s guided—or forced—steps foretell the permanence of the union, for her forced entrance may signify that her exit from her home would have to be forced as well. The one ritual in which the groom might have participated was in presenting the bride with fire and water when she reached his home—about which Ovid tells us “so much is given to prisoners and forbidden exiles” (Fast. 4.787–92). This ritual may have served as a final reminder to the bride that, whosoever she was by birth, she had been reduced to the lowest status imaginable, and would now be in her new lodgings a nameless prisoner, a captive, a slave. Anyone might reasonably object that the explanations of wedding rituals we have discussed are no more than oft-repeated interpretations of arcane lore recorded by erring ancient writers making educated guesses about traditions they hardly understood. Anyone might also reasonably ask whether the average Roman would have apprehended the significance of these many bridal items. But the sheer number of elements referring to the Sabine women of marriageable age is impossible to ignore, and it seems likely that at every wedding, the Romans celebrated the might of male Romans over their hapless, powerless, fleeing prey.

The Gods of Abduction For all the importance assigned to the Sabine presence in wedding ritual, the Sabines themselves are conspicuously absent from the poetry of the wedding. Yet in Roman epithalamia too, abduction and lament arise as the sine quibus non of a wedding. While separation and misery are examined in Sappho’s poetry, these themes are not highlighted in the majority of the extant fragments of her epithalamia, which instead celebrate the beauty and good fortune of the bridal couple.18 One god appearing in Greek and Roman nuptial poetry, Hymenaeus, is not clearly associated with abduction in Greek sources. Hymenaeus is a wholly Greek import, yet because a detailed description of the god and his role at the

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Greek wedding is difficult to find, the problem of interpreting the significance of this god’s role (and his worship) among Greeks has long been a subject of argument and speculation.19 Euripides (Tro. 343) assigned the role of nuptial torchbearer to Hephaestus, not Hymenaeus, and while the god may enjoy chant directed to him, no Greek author shows him escorting brides.20 In Greek nuptial art, especially bridal preparation scenes, Eros rules.21 The earliest mention of Hymenaeus connects him directly with lament, but in Greek writings the performance of the Hymenaeus at weddings was emblematic of joy, not sorrow.22 Servius, in the longest written description we have of the god, described Hymenaeus as a youth of such great beauty that he was mistaken for a captive maiden (on Aen. 4.99). The god’s maidenly beauty enabled him to rescue actual maidens stolen by pirates, and he is also forever praised as the “liberator of virginity” (liberator virginitatis), starring in his own abduction myth like the Sabines.23 While at least some believed that he never got to enjoy his own marriage, he acts as an escort in Roman poetry, protecting the worthy bride’s virginity as far as her new groom’s bed.24 In Catullus’ abduction scene in his epithalamium (61), the bride is snatched (rapis) from her mother by Hymenaeus, a male god costumed as a bride.25 In this poem, the presence of the god Hymenaeus does not calm the bride’s fears or stop her tears. Catullus tells the reluctant, weeping bride, who is crying as she leaves her home (61.81), that she has no need to cry, for she excels all women in beauty (61.82–86). But then the poet seems exasperated by this very reluctance and demands that she submit to her husband’s desires lest he find another love (61.143–46). In poem 62 the poet has changed divine addressee, and instead of (or along with) the bride, a chorus of girls laments. The girls decry the actions of the evening star Hesperus, who tears a virgin bride from her mother’s embrace, and complain that the fate of the bride is no better than that of a prisoner of war (62.20–29). The chorus of boys in the same poem, however, celebrates Hesperus as a hero who brings wedded bliss (62.26–31). In poem 66, we discover a twist: Catullus reconsiders the show of maidenly modesty apparently on view at most Roman weddings. He asks bluntly why brides seem to hate Venus, for they mock their bridegrooms with false tears at the bedroom door (66.15–17). It may be that Catullus makes here a sly intratextual reference to the laments of the maidens in poems 61 and 62. Poem 66, at the very least, suggests that brides were expected to lament loudly at their weddings, and tells us that, to some Romans at least, these lamentations appeared to be feigned.

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Karen Klaiber Hersch Time had moved on and tastes had changed when Statius writes his epithalamium for Stella and Violentilla in the late first century, and genetrix Venus, whom the poet enlists to drag the bride to her groom, takes center stage, highlighting the bride’s maidenly unwillingness to wed.26 Interestingly, the bride Violentilla’s wedding to Stella may not have been her first, but it was necessary for the poet to depict even a twice-married woman as reluctant to wed.27 The goddess Venus descends on Violentilla, chiding her for her recalcitrance and bullying her to wed by invoking visions of lost youth and beauty while at the same time championing the groom Stella. Venus’ exhortation to the bride culminates in the painfully explicit message that, for Roman women, marrying and sex are necessary evils: the very goddess of love and sexual desire makes no mention of affection in convincing the bride to marry. While earlier she mentions Stella’s love and admiration for the bride (1.2.171), she ends her paean to marriage with examples of women forced to have sex for procreation (1.2.188–93). In this final plea for human togetherness, she says only that had she and Rhea Silvia not lain with Anchises and Mars, respectively, no Aeneas and Romulus would have come to be. Sex in the service of the state is Venus’ message—not love, nor a union of hearts, nor marital harmony encapsulated by the word concordia, nor even the benefits of legal marriage. Statius has already made clear that Anchises is but a distant memory, and Venus has now joined with Rhea Silvia’s rapist Mars (1.2.51–53).28 Statius intimates that Mars is no more tender toward Venus, for the poet describes Venus lying in her bed “worn out by the harsh embrace” of her bellicose mate (amplexu duro Getici resoluta mariti ). When Venus causes Violentilla to relent finally, Statius compares the bride’s beauty and modesty to that of other famous virgins, but in a way that may strike the modern ear as discordant. Statius claims that Violentilla in the bedchamber alone with Stella is as lovely as “Martian Ilia, overcome by sleep,” to Lavinia as Turnus beheld her, and to the Vestal Claudia Quinta as she proved her chastity (1.2.242– 46).29 The reader knows that none of the women Statius invokes are being married here: Rhea Silvia did not wed her ravisher Mars, Turnus will be killed and Lavinia will be joined eventually to Aeneas, and Claudia Quinta remained a virgin. Violentilla, like these chaste women of yore, must devote her body and mind to a higher purpose, not to her own insignificant desires. The transition of the unwilling, fearful bride into the possession of her new groom detailed in epithalamia has been carefully examined by modern scholars who claim that persuasion, not violence, is highlighted in these works. Catullus’ poem 61, it is argued, is an erotic work focused on the transfer of the

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desire of the bride from the god Hymenaeus to her human groom on her wedding night; moreover, in the context of poems 61 and 62, ritual serves to mediate the tension of a bride’s transition to her new home.30 Yet—while the rituals and accoutrements of the wedding ceremony may have served to invite the blessings of the gods or avert the envious gazes of malevolent onlookers— we could, with equal reason, argue that many of these same rituals highlighted and, perhaps, purposefully heightened the tension that the bride experienced and that would reach a crescendo in the bedchamber.31 Roman authors seem to demand that we understand the ceremony as a public harassing and parading of a carefully protected weeping virgin who must undergo an unpleasant and perhaps violent transition to womanhood. In epithalamia we are only given hints of the bride’s desires. Catullus’ bride is said to be cupida for her man (61.32), but cupida can easily mean that the bride is desirous for the state of marriage, the goal of a Roman girl’s life, whatever the state of her affection for her groom.32 We saw that in Statius’ poem, the agony of remaining unwed is sharply defined. Venus thrusts into Violentilla’s face the facts of life: submit to the yoke of marriage, Venus intones, or proceed directly to a lonely and unfulfilled old age (1.2.162–69). Brides, whatever their mental state, had at least to appear to be terrified and were expected to make a vocal (and insofar as possible, visual) display of sorrow. This ritualistic lament during her abduction, directly connected to Hymenaeus, was one critical proof of her untouched virginity and proved her a worthy protégée of the god, and so brought honor to her old and new families, and by extension to the Roman people.

Lament, Death, and the Veil A wedding represented a symbolic death, for upon marriage the bride left her home to be subsumed in a new home, never to return, as was Persephone’s lot.33 Marriage, ideally, represented an abrupt break between the bride and her natal family, and Greek authors noted both deep and superficial resemblances between funeral and wedding, conflating the two themes across genres.34 This literary conflation reached a crescendo in the Greek tragedians’ retellings of the unenviable fates of maidens who died at the threshold of marriage.35 The horror of their untimely deaths is both mitigated and excruciatingly intensified as authors refashioned victims of suicide and murder into the brides of Hades. Tragically deceased young women also populate the pages of Greek epigram in memorials to young girls real or imagined: Erinna writing in the

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Karen Klaiber Hersch fourth century BCE famously eulogized the dead bride Baucis, lamenting evil work of the god of the dead, the sad use of wedding-torches now used to light the bride’s pyre, and crying out to Hymenaeus that his happy songs are now dirges (Anth. Pal. 7.712). The Romans wholeheartedly adopted and then adapted the tragic figure of the bride of Hades, equally appalling in reality and pathetically appealing in art and fiction. From Pliny the Younger’s letter detailing the macabre beautifying of Minicia Marcella, a corpse who was meant to be a bride (5.16), to the funeral wedding of Psyche in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (Book 6), the apparent ease of interchangeability of funerary and nuptial rites was exploited by Roman authors too, to dramatic effect. Certainly the wedding itself appears to be a symbolic death of the individuality of a bride and of her previous life, and the veil of the bride seems to have added to this funerary aspect of every wedding. Underneath a veil, a bride may have appeared to be an anonymous body, no longer a person but a walking corpse concealed beneath a shroud.36 Both Greek and Roman brides wore veils, but the Romans once again claimed for an otherwise humble nuptial item a uniquely Roman brand of virtue. According to Festus, the bride’s veil ( flammeum) was a garment worn every day by the Flaminica Dialis.37 The evidence suggests that the bride was protected by this (probably) all-enveloping veil, one imbued with sacrality and connected to the bride’s protected virginity. The earliest mention of a Roman bride wearing a veil makes clear that this garment concealed completely the face, and perhaps the body, of the bride: Plautus’ play Casina hinges on the fact that the masculinity of a false male bride cannot be detected because of the flammeum. Later Lucan mourns that poor remarrying Marcia lacked a veil to shield her modesty and cover her face (2.360–64). A scholiast commenting on Juvenal opined that the veil was blood-colored to hide the bride’s blushes (note to 6.225). If the veil covered the bride as completely as these passages suggest, then, in order to make her maidenly unwillingness known to the onlookers, the bride would have been compelled to mime her sorrow by hanging her head dejectedly, or walking with timid, uncertain steps, or even by crying audibly. In mentioning tears and blushes, Roman authors connected the veil to obvious reluctance and lamentation.38 The Roman bride was compelled to cry, even if she felt inwardly joyful at the prospect of marrying, to placate an audience both human and divine.39 The legitimacy of Roman aristocratic bloodlines was proved to all onlookers by this public display of the bride’s virginity, and in turn the safety of the state was assured by this public proof of a virgin bride’s symbolic sacrifice and death.40

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“National” Virginity Thus far I have described seemingly shared beliefs cherished by Greeks and Romans regarding the themes of abduction, lament, and death present at their weddings. But as I have begun to note, one important difference separating Greek and Roman nuptial rites derives from statements made, or not made, by Greek or Roman authors about ethnic characteristics expressed in the rituals themselves. The evidence, both material and literary, suggests that Greeks were not as keen as Romans to attach historical and religious importance to the actions and garb of the bride. Ubiquitous at the Roman wedding, as we have seen, was the proclamation of an essential, fundamental Romanness of the otherwise invisible quality of virginity. It may be that Romans viewed each wedding as a reenactment of the abduction of the Sabines. But the costume of the Roman bride itself was also believed to indicate a distinctly Roman chastity and marital fidelity: her coiffure, imitating the hairstyle of the Vestal Virgins, was a badge of Roman virginity; her veil, imitating that worn by the Flaminica who was not allowed to divorce, made public her promise of marital fidelity.41 No Greek author, to my knowledge, makes similar claims. No Greek wedding rite or item of clothing is said to indicate uniquely Greek qualities of the bride’s purity, chastity, or the like; Greek brides were not normally adorned with items worn by Greek priestesses.42 Both cultures held up as their ideal the virgin bride, and a girl’s desirability as a bride seems to have existed in direct proportion to her virginity. Because the legitimacy of children was of primary importance, the focus of both ceremonies was not the bride herself as an individual human being but the state of her virginity. It may be argued that the virginity of the Greek bride too was tacitly but plainly on display in Greek art, in her downcast mien and submission to her groom’s hardy grasp, but nowhere do we get a sense that this is attached, for example, to Greek history or religion. Then, too, the gods commonly shown attending the Athenian bride in Greek art are not overseers of virginity per se: a bride is shown preparing for her wedding in the company of, or aided by, Erotes and Aphrodite.43 The rare examples of Greek bride-centered customs make clear that they are unique to a city or region, and in none is virginity a core issue. Moreover, Greek nuptial rituals, in direct contrast to Roman, are not rituals celebrated uniformly by the whole of Greece. Anyone might rightly observe that the scattered nature of Greek wedding customs reflects a lack of national unity in the Greek system of the polis: there was no unity of Greek wedding ritual because there was no political unity in Greece. But presumed ideas of Greek unity certainly come to the fore in criticisms of barbarians, in which the real or

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Karen Klaiber Hersch imagined sexual freedom of a given region’s women was often used to malign a given rival culture.44 It is, therefore, surprising that “national” qualities of Greek female virginity, chastity, and fidelity can be seen in implied comparisons with foreign women, for such “national” imperatives are not highlighted in the local Greek rituals of the wedding ceremony. Let us consider three well-known Greek rites. Plutarch credits Lycurgus, legendary lawgiver of Sparta, with instituting the unusual wedding customs of the Spartans.45 Brides were abducted when they were “ripe for marriage” and brought to their groom’s lodgings. There, dressed in men’s clothing with her hair shorn to imitate a man’s, the Spartan bride awaited her groom in the dark; after this first meeting the husband and wife were allowed only short visits together, to maintain “longing and desire” for one another. As for their Athenian counterparts, Plutarch notes that Solon declared that brides should eat a quince before retiring to bed with their new spouses. These two passages are significant for us here because Plutarch only identifies the originators of the rites; he does not claim that these great men were then, in any way, commemorated in Greek weddings of any century. In Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, we learn that among Boeotians, the bride wore a veil topped by an asparagus crown, to signify that the man who takes the trouble to wrangle with the asparagus’ thorns may enjoy the tender vegetable inside, just as he who puts up with the small annoyances of a new bride will see happy results (2, 138D–E).46 Plutarch then constructs nearly parallel similes for husbands and wives: men who do not have patience for minor arguments with their wives are like people who give up on grapes because some are sour, while newly married women who reject their husbands resemble fools who endure bee stings but do not bother to gather honey.47 Taken together with the prominent place sweet fruits have in the erotic and nuptial poems of Sappho, the few recorded Greek wedding customs centered on the bride are even more startlingly and significantly at variance with Roman.48 These customs were all local, confined to their poleis, but what is just as notable is the emphasis on sweetness in all the passages, as Plutarch explores marital happiness and positive experiences to come, on sweet words and mutual marital patience and pleasure. We might chalk up Plutarch’s positive message to changing attitudes among his contemporary Greeks concerning love and marriage.49 But modern scholars have detected in Greek nuptial ritual a sweetness and optimism: for example, James Redfield posits that the ceremony “provides our best guide to Greek conception of marital happiness, since in the ceremony is it predicted the couple will be happy.”50 Rebecca

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Sinos, too, in this volume argues that one chief connection between the rituals of the Greek wedding and those of mystery cults is the promise of a better life, for those marrying and undergoing initiation. Conversely, the themes of mutual sweetness and patience are decidedly not on display at any point in the rituals of the Roman wedding. A Roman man may offer his bride fire and water, but we have seen that here, the bride is likened to the lowest of the low, for so much is given even to prisoners. We may note further two items of Roman wedding paraphernalia representing the union of bride and groom. Festus, in the second century CE, claims that the spear used to part the bride’s hair was drawn from the body of a dead gladiator to indicate that the bond of man and woman should be as close as a weapon buried in flesh. Moreover, the strands of wool intertwined in the bride’s belt signified the fact that the groom was now “belted and bound” to her.51 Neither passage mentions mutual regard, nor sweetness or affection, but instead invokes (in the former example, painful) physical joining. Images of love and affection may be found in the idealized weddings of epithalamia, but any mention of love, patience, or sweetness is hard to find in any ritual of the Roman wedding. A Roman woman must endure her wedding as she must her ensuing marriage. Vis Thus far I have examined passages detailing the simulated abduction of the bride and her laments, and no author to my knowledge claims that these acts in any way represented physical harm against the bride. That is, no Greek or Roman source claims outright that any of these acts are, in themselves, physical assault. Lamentably, both Greek and Roman authors do make clear that sexual assault awaits the bride after the ceremony. An astute reader might object that in Rome, at least, a woman even after marriage remained part of her natal family, and her male relatives would protect her against harm at the hands of her husband.52 But as I hope to show in the following discussion, the very concept of violence against the bride occupied a unique position in Greek and Roman law and ritual. Harm to the bride in both cultures was at the same time acknowledged by all parties—the bride, groom, and both families—as assault but understood as a necessary act. Thus harm to the bride may best be described with the ghastly phrase “sanctioned assault,” for as we shall see, this harm was granted widespread approval in Greek and Roman song and story.

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Karen Klaiber Hersch Greek brides feared their wedding nights with reason. After the wedding, a scholiast on Theocritus’ epithalamium noted, songs were sung before the bedchamber to drown out the cries of the bride on the wedding night. Redfield, who claims that the Greek wedding was a joyous affair, acknowledges that “elements of the wedding ceremony imply that the wedding is after all a rape,” adducing passages describing the unwillingness of the bride we have examined above.53 Certainly beginning at the very dawn of Greek literature, we may find Greek authors equating marriage with sexual violence, and recently Kathy Gaca has reexamined these deeply rooted ideas of rape, servitude, and marriage in Greek and Roman antiquity. Investigating the disquieting evidence about the aftermath of ancient battle, Gaca notes that mass rape of conquered women, often resulting in the death of the victims, was a normal and expected practice in “populace-ravaging ancient warfare.”54 For women, the suffering of war began after the battle, and of most significance for our purposes, Gaca shows that the language to describe this sexual violence, as far back as Homer, was couched in terms of marriage.55 But again, while Greeks accepted the fact of sexual assault on the wedding night (and perhaps many nights thereafter, at the discretion of the groom), for Romans, this assault had deep connections to religion and the long history and continuance of the state. The rape of the bride features in the pages of Plautus, some of the earliest Roman literature that we possess. The climax of his play Casina centers on the expectations of a bride’s behavior in the bridal chamber: as a joke, a male slave is dressed as a bride, and when the slave groom enters the bedchamber, he is surprised and then frightened off by the demonic ferocity of the bride’s kicks and punches as she refuses his advances.56 What is interesting here is the slavegroom’s obvious belief that the resistance of this (admittedly false) bride, even tremendously fierce and harmful to him, is a normal reaction brought on by her terror of her first sexual experience, for we hear him trying to win the putative girl over, even calling her “my little wife.” Here we have the very intriguing suggestion that Romans conceived of the role of bride as one size fits all, regardless of class or, indeed, the status of the bride’s liberty: every Roman girl, slave or free, is meant to be a terrified virgin on her wedding night; or rather, every Roman girl is a captive slave, and is expected to show resistance to prove her chastity.57 Almost three centuries after Plautus’ death, Suetonius recorded just one detail of the wedding of the emperor Nero to his freedman Doryphorus. Suetonius writes that Doryphorus married Nero, just as Nero had married Sporus,

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and “imitated the screams and moans of virgins suffering violence” (voces quoque et heiulatus vim patientium virginum imitates, Nero 29). What interests us here is that this tale of the emperor playing the bride is presented by Suetonius at the end of a catalog of Nero’s vices as a crowning achievement in sexual depravity. Dressing as a woman and enjoying a wedding and the ensuing night with his groom was reprehensible, but what was really despicable was the fact that Nero usurped the role of Roman virgin, and a newly married one at that. By imitating a virgin bride, Nero deliberately mocked values held dear by many, if not most, Romans. For as we have seen, vocal expressions of the bride’s terror or pain (or both) served to ensure that the bride under consideration was a virgin like her Sabine foremothers, worthy of Hymenaeus’ guidance, and that any issue born to the groom was his. If Nero mocked the idea of the Roman bride’s expressions of pain, he mocked the legitimacy of the Roman family and by extension the Roman state and its gods as well. I have discussed these notable passages detailing the bride’s reluctance and consequent suffering for the very reason that they provide us with startlingly clear expressions of the cultural expectations of not merely pain but actual violence accompanying a Roman bride’s loss of virginity. Anyone might argue that the depictions of the suffering bride in Roman literature are suspect for the very reason that they are literary creations—and, in the case of the Casina, satirizations—of an ideal. But antiquarians and Christian apologists assure us of the religious significance of the violence visited on the bride. Macrobius suggests that the dividing days of the month (the Kalends, Nones, and Ides) and the days following the Nones were to be avoided because violence must not be done to anyone on festal days, and at a wedding “violence seems to be done to a virgin” (Sat. 1.15.21–22). He goes on to add that Varro claimed on such festival days one may “clean out old ditches, [but] not dig new ones,” and so it is more suitable for men to marry widows than virgins on festal days. What is important about this passage, besides the vulgar agricultural analogy, is the focus on the harm done to the bride. If Macrobius (and Varro) are right, the suffering of a newly made wife was the subject of a religious injunction and was, for this reason, perhaps, the most important item of discussion months or weeks before the ceremony itself.58 The fact that the groom must choose a suitable date for his wedding to avoid offending the gods suggests that such violence was not only commonplace but sanctioned and expected. And so, even before the wedding, violence against a newly married virgin may have been for many couples a carefully planned certainty and one with deep (if perhaps

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Karen Klaiber Hersch obscure) connections to Roman religion. The approval of the gods, paramount in the daily actions of the Romans, was partially met or perhaps even assured by this consideration of festal days. While Greeks may have showered the marrying couple with fruits and nuts, the Romans may have included a rite that pointed up the bride’s virginity, fertility, and rape in one ritual.59 Pliny the Elder tells us that nuts were thrown at a Roman wedding to symbolize the bride’s fertility, but the bride herself was not made a gift of them (HN 15.86). Rather, Pliny connects the sound of the falling nuts to the tripudium, which otherwise is a cadence associated with state rites.60 The presence of the tripudium gives us perhaps our clearest indication that the Romans viewed the wedding as a rite performed ultimately on behalf of the state. Servius adds that the common folk say that nuts were thrown at the wedding so that the happy shouts of children scrambling for these treats would drown out the sounds of the bride’s screams issuing from the bedchamber.61 Ironically then, the voice of the bride, suffering violence in order to have legitimate children and fulfill her mission as a new matrona, is muffled by the noise of children, the very creatures in hopes of which she suffers violence. Again, her screams are a guarantee that until this moment she has been untouched, and that the children she bears her husband will be his legitimate heirs, props to the state. Christian apologists claimed that a host of lesser-known divinities oversaw the violence against the bride. In one famous diatribe, Augustine mocks his foolhardy polytheistic neighbors who do homage to so many gods, whereas Jupiter with different epithets would do just as well. Violence against the bride is not the point of his diatribe; rather, Augustine is interested in singling out for special attention the gods whom his pagan brethren ask to accompany a virgin bride during the wedding ceremony and on her journey through the loss of virginity to womanhood, including Iugatinus, Virginensis, Mutunus Tu­tunus, Domiducus, Domitius, Manturna, Subigus, Prema, Pertunda, Venus, and Priapus (De civ. D. 4.11, 6.9). Significantly, Augustine uses the same term, vis, employed by Suetonius and, later, Macrobius for the assault on the bride, and he even suggests that the very name of the goddess Venus derives from the phrase vi non sine (“not without force”) because, he explains, a girl will not cease to be a virgin without force. Is this explanation to be dismissed as the painstaking effort of an apologist and antiquarian? Perhaps, but what we have here is the survival into the fourth century CE of something more than modest reluctance of the bride: the notion that a groom must cause the bride to suffer, and the gods oversee and delight in the process.62 Any god even remotely

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resembling the Greek Peitho, a comforting, coaxing deity, is significantly absent from Augustine’s list. Let us now reexamine Festus’ claim, mentioned above, about the bridal spear and its removal from a gladiator’s body. At first glance, Festus’ claim seems a silly misunderstanding or a fabrication from whole cloth; no other author makes such a claim. Did any Romans believe it? Certainly these uniquely Roman killers-for-entertainment are nowhere else mentioned in connection with the wedding. What interests us here is that, if the bride and groom are to be as closely joined as a spear and a bloody dead body, we are left in no doubt as to who is represented by the spear and who by the corpse. And how are they joined? The groom, or rather, his phallus, is the active, victorious killing spear; the bride is a passive, bloody dead heap. When Suetonius and Macrobius claim that a bride experienced vis, it seems that we do not commit an egregious anachronism when translating this vis with the term “rape.” For these Roman authors do not merely claim that the bride experienced pain upon her first experience of penetration but that the groom was compelled to cause pain by using force. While Roman authors use a variety of verbs to describe forced sex, these are often accompanied by vis.63 Livy, for example, in the first book of his History, describes the rape of Rhea Silvia by the god Mars with the phrase vi compressa Vestalis (1.4.1). So when we read of the vis suffered by the bride, we can be reasonably sure that the average Roman reader took this to mean that the bride suffered an attack and was expected to cry or scream. That the Romans conceived of rape as brutal sexual violation with potentially disastrous physical and psychological effects has been explored in recent studies of accounts of mythological rapes recounted by Ovid.64 In the fourth chapter of his monumental study of rape in antiquity, Georg Doblhofer proposes that mythological rapes are to be considered as a distinct category, for the gods seem to respect the human laws governing marriage. As we have seen, the rape of the bride also seems to have occupied its own unique category. The language used to describe the rape of the bride suggests that Romans acknowledged this act as forced sex, as assault, yet this acknowledged attack on the bride following the wedding was not apparently of interest to Roman scholars of the law.65 The party of interest in the case of rape was, by and large, the injured male party, the father or the husband of the raped woman. Therefore, sexual assaults of brides, like those committed against slaves, did not constitute crimes. Since the sexual assault on a slave and a bride seems to have been from a legal standpoint equivalent, it should not surprise us that we encounter

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Karen Klaiber Hersch the motif of misery, captivity, and slavery in accounts of weddings and marriages, from epithalamia to the allegory of marriage in the tale of the Sabine women. The laws of ancient Rome concerning rape within marriage seem not unlike the laws concerning marital rape in many modern societies.66 The Romans’ views were different in that they seem to have both acknowledged and demanded wedding-night rape, attached to it a religious and cultural significance, and demanded precisely that the bride not give consent to the sexual act.67 In their descriptions of the laments of brides before and during intercourse, authors simultaneously recognize that while the experience of forced sexual intercourse was terrible for any woman (virgin, matron, or even the fictional victims of myth), no one is legally harmed by a bride’s rape because her husband has the right—indeed, the responsibility—to bring about this suffering. The bride’s responsibility was to make known her pain. Of course, the rape of the bride in the bedchamber differed from any other rapes, in that the screams of the bride on that night alone seem to have been used as conclusive proof to anyone who cared to listen that the groom’s children would be legitimate. In the sources discussed above I noted that the bride was compelled by custom to proclaim her virginity again from the confines of her bedroom.68 It is possible that, if a couple was left alone together, some grooms refused to harm their new virgin brides, or that both bride and groom had already enjoyed one another sexually, and that in these cases the brides merely pretended to cry out in terror for the sake of piety and propriety. Statistics on how many Roman brides were actually virgins, or how many Roman brides actually did experience terror and pain because of sexual intercourse, are impossible to obtain.69 But if our ancient informants are correct, whatever the bride experienced, for the very reason that virginity is physically invisible, she seems to have been compelled to fashion her own virginity by making the real or imagined loss of it audible in a loud show of her putative deflowering. The Roman wedding may have represented a girl’s transition to womanhood, but as we have seen, her rite of passage was not made smooth or uncomplicated by the many rituals it comprised: quite the contrary. The rituals of the Roman wedding amounted to verbal and physical assault of the bride and served to make the transition to matronhood as painful as possible. It may be that these very rituals were carefully designed to completely overwhelm a, heretofore, sheltered girl with terror and shock in order to heighten the bride’s fears and elicit further tears and cries during and after the ceremony. The highlighting of separation and captivity in these rituals compels us to reevaluate

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the wedding as a rite of passage and urges us to conclude that the Roman wedding did not fulfill completely the specifications of van Gennep’s scheme. The rites of the wedding establish the bride in a permanent state of separation. Nor will she ever arrive at a state of incorporation in marriage. A Roman bride may be absorbed into a new household, but the Roman system of nomenclature, for example, makes clear that this bride would never be a full member of her new household: a woman retains her family name upon marriage. The fact that a Roman bride did not adopt her husband’s name upon marriage points less to her individual freedom but rather to the highlighting of her outsider status—a potent message highlighted at every turn in Roman wedding ritual. It seems that the focus on the bride as stolen captive was incorporated into wedding ritual precisely so that the bride knew full well what her status would be upon entering the new home: a hollow vessel in which a Roman family will be incubated.70

Conclusion We have only begun to examine here how Romans viewed the violence against the Roman bride—including her lament—as inextricably linked to the foundation and the continuation of the Roman state. But we may ask the extent to which a ritual terrorizing, subduing, and rape of an already terrified bride reflects larger patterns in our evidence of ideas and ideals about men and women’s roles in Roman society. In fact, we may want to view the utter psychological crushing of the bride in the wedding ceremony and sexual assault thereafter as part of a wider pattern of Roman male self-representation, in war and peace. For example, Leslie Cahoon in an influential article investigated Ovid’s use of military language to describe the pursuit of love, suggesting that Ovid’s lover in the Amores “regards a woman’s grief as a sexual attraction” and that Ovid “draws on an ancient equation of the sacking of a city with the assault on a woman’s chastity.”71 This latter theme we have examined above in Catullus’ epithalamia and found to be most forcefully expressed in the Romans’ own foundation myth of the abduction of the Sabine maidens.72 Recently Kurt Raaflaub has argued persuasively that Roman peace was a state obtained only after Rome had utterly destroyed its enemies. Peace is not a pact between equals, and it is to be understood precisely in terms of pacification, a “making others peaceful.”73 Incredibly, visual records of individual Roman men enacting such pacification in the most important spheres of their lives survive in the form of biographical sarcophagi dating from the second

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Karen Klaiber Hersch century CE. In one common three-panel style, the leftmost panel shows the deceased in military garb extending mercy to huddled conquered folk cowering at his feet; the central panel shows the deceased presiding or performing a sacrifice to the gods; in the third, rightmost panel, he extends a hand to his wife, her downcast gaze proclaiming her modesty and submission, while Concordia, the personification of harmony, embraces them both.74 The piety of the deceased man, both public and private, is publicized in each scene. We have examined the gods’ approval of the bride as a captive and perpetual outsider in her new home, and this literary motif is set in stone in these funerary monuments that baldly juxtapose the pacification of barbarian and wife. The ideal, pious Roman man secures peace with his fellow humans by crushing them in battle and in the bedroom; to maintain peace with the gods he offers due sacrifice. The goddess of harmony is shown giving her benediction to a Roman husband and wife who have duly fulfilled their purpose in marriage. The concordia of marriage may be a union of hearts, but to only one of these hearts the gods granted the role of primus inter pares. Notes Anything of value in this chapter springs from the hard work of the ever-patient Jeffrey Beneker and Georgia Tsouvala, and the helpful comments from the volume’s anonymous readers. 1. It is also common, to some extent, in Roman visual art, as noted below. 2. In a general study of the Roman wedding night, Treggiari 1994, 328, argues: “The bride and bridegroom were encouraged to begin their union harmoniously in the hope of children and of affectionate co-operation and sexual pleasure. The emphasis in the sources is on the couple’s mutual love and enjoyment of each other.” See also Montiglio in this volume. 3. Crapanzano 1980, 52. 4. Van Gennep 1909. 5. See Kligman 1988 on the conflation of marriage and death in Romania; Greenhill 2010 on the gendered focus of the rituals of the charivari (abasement of women is key); and Levaniouk 2012 on comparing laments in Russia and ancient Greece. 6. See Oakley and Sinos 1993, 26–34, on the procession. In Greek art, the bride is often conveyed to her new home in a chariot. See also Sinos in this volume. 7. For example, Lucretius’ description of the sacrifice of Iphigenia at the time of the Trojan War must have been understood as a clever attempt at an amalgam GrecoRoman wedding scene. 8. See Foley 1993.

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Violence in the Roman Wedding 9. Her abduction was, however, commemorated in pre-wedding rituals; see Redfield 2003. 10. Oakley and Sinos 1993, 32, claim that the grasp in art may refer to an abduction ritual and add that the term is never used in Greek literature to denote an abduction at a wedding in Greece (see 137 n. 71). Moreover, the presence of Peitho, the goddess of persuasion, in nuptial scenes (33) may function to negate or mitigate the otherwise clear intimation of violent abduction. See Sinos in this volume for a detailed discussion of abduction and depictions of the Greek wedding. 11. Oakley and Sinos 1993, 13, note that “to try to distinguish between weddings and abductions may be a modern rather than an ancient concern, one that requires drawing a clearer boundary than ancient iconography permits.” See Shapiro 2005 for a reevaluation of sympathetic views of Helen in Greek art. 12. While neither Persephone’s nor Helen’s abductions—by Hades, Theseus, or Paris—figure at all in the Greek wedding ceremony, Helen seems to surface in a Roman nuptial context in Aeneid 1.647–55, when Aeneas presents Dido with Helen’s garments. 13. Plutarch (Thes. 2.1) identifies the abduction of women as a significant link between Romulus and Theseus. 14. In one well-known version, Livy (1.9) tells us that Romulus, having founded Rome and having opened it to all men as an asylum, was without women with which to repopulate it. When his neighbors refused to bestow their daughters to Romulus and his ragtag band of refugees, Romulus devised a clever ruse. He invited the assorted communities to a celebration of the Consualia, and when all the guests were distracted, the men of Rome mounted a surprise attack, carrying off the surprised and unwilling maidens in attendance. 15. According to Pomponius, the procession of a woman to a man’s house could be used as proof a wedding had occurred (Digest 23.2.5). 16. “Wedding scenes” in Roman art may well be scenes encapsulating marriage, not depictions of the actual rituals of the wedding; see Hersch 2010, 212. 17. Cf. Plut. Pomp. 4.7–10. 18. However, in one fragment the bride laments her lost virginity (fr. 114). See also Di Meo in this volume. 19. Calame 1992, 121, claims that Hymenaeus was “the hero commemorated at every turn in the nuptial ritual” but notes too that Eros and Aphrodite persuade the bride to join with her groom. 20. See also Oakley and Sinos 1993, 11. The song called the hymenaios first appears in the Iliad (18.493). See too the comic wedding songs in Aristophanes’ Peace and Birds. 21. Oakley and Sinos 1993. See also Sinos in this volume. 22. Pindar Fr. 128c vv. 6–8: “Hymenaios, whom the last of the hymns took when at night his skin was first touched in marriage” (translation by Race 1997). Thomsen 1992 claims that a ritual lament to Hymenaeus could be found at Greek weddings.

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Karen Klaiber Hersch 23. Cf. Serv. on Aen. 1.651. On the influence of Greek poetry here, see, e.g., Williams 1958; Fedeli 1983; Thomsen 1992. It seems that Romans had long understood the god to be a safe chaperone of a virgin, for he appeared to be not wholly male. 24. For example, Ovid depicts Hymenaeus avoiding unworthy brides or illomened weddings, e.g., Ep. 14.25–29, 11.101–4, 21.157–68, and attending happy ones, e.g., Met. 10.1–10. On Hymenaeus in general, see Hersch 2010, 236–61. 25. Elsewhere we learn that brides are accompanied by children: Festus 282, 283L, s.v. patrimi et matrimi. Cf. Festus 282, 283L, s.v. matrimes. 26. Newlands 2002, 100. 27. Hersch 2007. 28. As Jeffrey Beneker (in personal correspondence, September 8, 2017) notes: “Aphrodite and Ares are linked as lovers in the Odyssey; the phrasing here might imply that Statius is joining them, too, in light of the Roman connection of marriage to the interests of the state.” 29. Ilia is another name for Rhea Silvia. 30. Thomsen 1992; Feeney 2013. Panoussi 2007, 278, in a compelling study remarks that “Catullus, by making ritual such an integral part of his poems, incorporates the doubts and anxieties at work during this important phase of transition in a young person’s life. At the same time, however, ritual also helps assuage anxieties and celebrates the benefits of marriage for the individual and society at large.” 31. I have not discussed here the so-called Fescennine verses, for the precise reason that no Roman author identifies them as exclusively bride-centered, or depicts them as assault, or even claims that they are terrifying to the bride. But it is easy to imagine that obscene jokes and songs might have had the combined effect of embarrassing and terrifying a sheltered girl. See Hersch 2010, 151–56, and Di Meo in this volume. 32. In support of this focus on being married, Sebesta 1994, 50, notes the dearth of evidence for the costume of the unmarried woman, and the abundance of evidence for that of the matron and bride. 33. This was a cross-cultural phenomenon, to be sure: see n. 5 in addition to Alexiou 2002. Funerary aspects of the actual Greek weddings may well have been used to avert the envy of the gods, for the youth and beauty of the bridal pair was a mighty temptation to jealous divinities; see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 11. See Sinos in this volume for further discussions of the divinity of the bridal pair and the presence of divinities in nuptial scenes in Greek art. 34. See Seaford 1987; Rehm 1994; Redfield 2003; Feeney 2013. 35. These maidens include Antigone, Iphigenia, Polyxena, and Cassandra, to mention only a few. 36. See Ferrari 2002, 72–86, for a compelling discussion of the veiled woman in Greek art and the complexity of the concept of αἰδώς (shame). Of Greek matrons, Ferrari notes: “Wrapped in αἰδώς, their eyes downcast, the wives wore their invisibility as a badge of honor” (209).

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Violence in the Roman Wedding 37. Festus 82L, s.v. flammeo. The priestess named the Flaminica was the wife of the Flamen Dialis, head priest of Jupiter. 38. Reinsberg 2006, 109–15, argues that the well-known tableaux on sarcophagi of married couples clasping hands do not in fact illustrate weddings. One panel that she does accept, with reservations, as a genuine depiction of a wedding shows a bride completely obscured by her veil. 39. Modern comparanda on the expected or forced lamentation of modern brides around the world are plentiful. For example, Kligman 1988, 335 n. 14, quotes a Romanian mother of the bride who cheerfully comments, “Don’t worry, if she doesn’t cry, I’ve got onions.” 40. See Redfield 2003 for an exploration of the sacrifice of Locrian maidens that is protective of the state. 41. Festus 454L, s.v. seni crinibus; Hersch 2010, 73–108. The Flaminica and the Vestals were likely the most recognizable priestesses in Rome. 42. Of course, the Greeks too sought the blessings of the gods and depict them attending to brides or overseeing wedding ceremonies. Plutarch, however, did claim that the bridal couple Pollianus and Eurydice were honored by the presence of the priestess of Demeter at their wedding (Con. praec. 138B), probably witnessing a melding of Greek and Roman traditions in his period. 43. Oakley and Sinos 1993, 12, remind us that Artemis, the protector of virgins, had been propitiated already at prenuptial rituals. 44. In one rare example of a cultural comparison, we may find a passing reference to (eventual) weddings: Herodotus’ portrayal of Lydian maidens prostituting themselves to raise money for their dowries (1.93). The ever-present, implied comparandum in these many examples of foreign women is, of course, the Athenian wife of the type created by Xenophon in his Oeconomicus, superior in her cloistered chastity and fidelity. 45. Plut. Lyc. 15.3–5. Plutarch here presents the Spartan wedding as a curiosity but not an object of scorn (as Herodotus depicts Lydian dowries); problematically, he records the Spartans’ wedding rite centuries after it was performed, if it was at all. See the claims of Timaeus, who doubted Lycurgus’ existence altogether (Cic. Att. 6.1.18; Leg. 2.15). 46. In Plutarch’s Theseus the asparagus is connected to heroes, virginity, rape, and pregnancy, when the maiden Perigune begs the asparagus to protect her from the approaching Theseus. He vows not to harm her, but his vow is followed immediately by sex, childbirth, and desertion (8.2). What first Plutarch seems to fashion as consensual sex is later, at the end of the Theseus, acknowledged as rape (29.1). 47. See further Di Meo in this volume. 48. See especially Sappho fragment 105. 49. Konstan 1994 traces the origin of changing Greek attitudes concerning women and, subsequently, attitudes about love and marriage, to the Hellenistic period; these ideas seem to culminate in the Greek novel. See further Montiglio in this volume.

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Karen Klaiber Hersch 50. Redfield 1982, 182. Oakley and Sinos 1993, 11–21, argue that in Athenian art, the primary message of pre-wedding preparation scenes is seduction, while in the wedding procession abduction is highlighted. 51. Festus 55L, s.v. hasta. Festus (55L, s.v. cingillo) ends by claiming that the belt symbolizes the fertility of the groom. 52. Thanks to an anonymous reader who thus objected. 53. Redfield 1982, 191. 54. Gaca 2012. 55. Gaca 2015, 286–88. 56. Judith P. Hallett (in personal conversation, 2019) cites Latin textual evidence to suggest that brides may have grasped at some agency in the midst of suffering by choosing anal penetration, perhaps also to delay the harm to their bodies that pregnancy would cause. She notes that we may observe at the dawn of Latin literature the reference to anal sex on the wedding night in Plautus’ Casina (922–31): “When I make sure that narrow passage is sealed off, I ask him to please enter another way” (ubi illum saltum video obsaeptum, rogo ut altero sinat ire); and much later, a bride is said to prefer anal penetration at Priapea 3.8–9: “which a maiden on her first night (wedding night) gives to her lustful husband, because in her inexperience she fears a wound in the other place” (quod virgo prima cupido dat nocte marito, / dum timet alterius volnus inepta loci ). 57. Of course, other issues are at work here: it will be revealed that the girl Casina is not in fact a slave. Nevertheless, a slave wedding is still the focus of the play. 58. Plutarch also claimed that widows marry on festival days but maidens do not because, “as Varro said, maidens are grieved when they marry, but older women rejoice, and at a festival one must do nothing while grieving, or because of force” (Quaest. Rom. 105, 289A–B). While it is true that maidens may grieve for a host of reasons, Plutarch’s use of the word “force” is important. Plutarch adds a final Sabine element, ending his explanation by noting that because the Sabine maidens were stolen during a festival, Romans believe that festival days are inauspicious for marrying maidens. 59. On the Greek rituals, see Oakley and Sinos 1993, 34. The very late Theopompus, writing in the fifth century CE, explains a rite called the καταχύσματα, in which Athenians poured nuts and fruits on the marrying couple’s heads (fr. 15). I did not include this ritual in my earlier discussion of fruits for the reason that this ritual is not bride-centered. 60. See Hersch 2010, 158, 226, where I begin to argue that the wedding was a state sacrifice. 61. Serv. on Ecl. 8.29: “the clamor of grabbing children is made so that the cry of a girl losing her virginity cannot be heard” (ut rapientibus pueris fiat strepitus, ne puellae vox virginitatem deponentis possit audiri ). 62. Lactantius (Div. inst. 1.20.30) and Augustine (De civ. D. 4.11, 6.9, 7.24) mention a rite in which a new bride was instructed to sit on a statue of the god Mutinus Titinus (Mutunus Tutunus); this act was performed so that, as Lactantius or Augustine

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Violence in the Roman Wedding say, “the god might seem to have taken her virginity first.” Yet this act is not associated with violence by either author, nor are the lamentations of the bride associated with this simulated defloration. 63. Doblhofer 1994, 5–7, notes that there is no term in antiquity that precisely equals the modern term “rape.” In his list of near-equivalents, the only terms that he translates using the modern term “to rape” (vergewaltigen) are vim (in)ferre and violare. He translates rapere as “abduction” (raub). In the case of Roman law, jurists were interested in which male party was harmed by sexual impropriety, so for example stuprum, or “illicit intercourse with an unmarried woman or widow of honorable social conditions,” does not denote rape; see Berger 1953, 719. Compare Papinian’s opinion at Digest 48.5.6.1. 64. E.g., Richlin 1992. 65. Notably, no Roman jurist claimed that sexual intercourse represented a consummation of legal marriage; see Hersch 2010, 55–58. 66. See Bourke 2007, which argues that until the end of the twentieth century, consent to marriage in the modern English-speaking world amounted to legal consent to all future sexual acts within the marriage. Caringella 2009 expands the argument, explaining that women were unable to retract their consent to sex within marriage, and that husbands could not, under the law, be found guilty of rape. 67. As Richlin 2014 points out in an insightful article on child-love in antiquity, to try to understand what “consent” means in a slave-owning society is particularly difficult. 68. Harlow and Laurence 2002, 30–31, argue that the only potentially private room in a Roman home was the cubiculum (bedroom). 69. See Sissa 2008 on views of sexuality and virginity. 70. As Ferrari 2002, 179–209, observes, the ancient Greek bride was depicted as a buried treasure to be given from one man to another. See also Redfield 1982, 2003. 71. Cahoon 1988, 295, 306. 72. One anonymous reader astutely observes that we may find no better expression of this expected conflation of weddings, war, and violence than in in Virgil’s depiction of Dido and Aeneas’ meeting in the cave (Aen. 4.166–72). 73. Raaflaub 2011. 74. Cf., for example, one well-preserved specimen now in Mantua, discussed by Reinsberg 2006, 78–79.

Works Cited Alexiou, M. 2002. Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Revised edition by D. Yatromanolakis and P. Roilos. Oxford. Berger, A. 1953. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law. Philadelphia. Bourke, J. 2007. Rape: Sex, Violence, and History. Emeryville, CA.

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Karen Klaiber Hersch Cahoon, L. 1988. “The Bed as Battlefield: Erotic Conquest and Military Metaphor in Ovid’s Amores.” TAPA 118:293–307. Calame, C. 1992. The Poetics of Eros. Princeton, NJ. Caringella, S. 2009. Addressing Rape Reform in Law and Practice. New York. Crapanzano, V. 1980. Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan. Chicago. Doblhofer, G. 1994. Vergewaltigung in der Antike. Stuttgart. Fedeli, P. 1983. Carme 61 di Catullo. Amsterdam. Feeney, D. 2013. “Catullus 61: Epithalamium and Comparison.” Cambridge Classical Journal 59:70–97. Ferrari, G. 2002. Figures of Speech. Chicago. Foley, H., ed. 1993. The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretive Essays. Princeton, NJ. Gaca, K. 2012. “Telling the Girls from the Boys and Children: Interpreting Παȋδεϛ in the Sexual Violence of Populace-Ravaging Ancient Warfare.” ICS 35–36:85–109. . 2015. “Ancient Warfare and the Ravaging Martial Rape of Girls and Women: Evidence from Homeric Epic and Greek Drama.” In Sex in Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World, edited by M. Masterson, N. Rabinowitz, and J. Robson, 278–98. New York. Greenhill, P. 2010. Make the Night Hideous: Four English-Canadian Charivaris, 1881– 1940. Toronto. Harlow M., and R. Laurence. 2002. Growing Up and Growing Old in Ancient Rome. London. Hersch, K. 2007. “Violentilla Victa.” Arethusa 40(2):197–205. . 2010. The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity. New York. Kligman, G. 1988. The Wedding of the Dead: Ritual, Poetics, and Popular Culture in Transylvania. Berkeley, CA. Konstan, D. 1994. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres. Princeton, NJ. Levaniouk, O. 2012. “Sky-Blue Flower: Songs of the Bride in Modern Russia and Ancient Greece.” In Donum natalicium digitaliter confectum Gregorio Nagy septuagenario a discipulis collegis familiaribus oblatum: A Virtual Birthday Gift Presented to Gregory Nagy on Turning Seventy by His Students, Colleagues, and Friends, edited by V. Bers, D. Elmer, and L. Muellner, n.p. Washington, DC. Newlands, C. 2002. Statius’ Silvae and the Poetics of Empire. Cambridge. Oakley, J., and R. Sinos. 1993. The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison, WI. Panoussi, V. 2007. “Sexuality and Ritual: Catullus’ Wedding Poems.” In A Companion to Catullus, edited by M. Skinner, 276–92. Malden, MA. Raaflaub, K. 2011. “Peace as the Highest End and Good? The Role of Peace in Roman Thought and Politics.” In Fines imperii—imperium sine fine? Römische Okkupationsund Grenzpolitik im frühen Prinzipat, edited by G. Moosbauer and R. Wiegels, 323–38. Rahden.

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Violence in the Roman Wedding Race, W. 1997. Pindar. Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA. Redfield, J. 1982. “Notes on the Greek Wedding.” Arethusa 15:181–202. . 2003. The Locrian Maidens. Princeton, NJ. Rehm, R. 1994. Marriage to Death: The Conflation of Wedding and Funeral Rituals in Greek Tragedy. Princeton, NJ. Reinsberg, C. 2006. Die Sarkophage mit Darstellungen aus dem Menschenleben. Vol. 1, pt. 3. Berlin. Richlin, A. 1992. “Reading Ovid’s Rapes.” In Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome, edited by A. Richlin, 158–79. New York. . 2014. “Reading Boy-love and Child-love in the Greco-Roman World.” In Sex in Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World, edited by M. Masterson, N. Rabinowitz, and J. Robson, 352–74. London. Seaford, R. 1987. “The Tragic Wedding.” JHS 107:106–30. Sebesta, J. 1994. “Symbolism in the Costume of the Roman Woman.” In The World of Roman Costume, edited by L. Bonfante and J. Sebesta, 46–53. Madison, WI. Shapiro, H. A. 2005. “The Judgment of Helen in Athenian Art.” In Periklean Athens and Its Legacy: Problems and Perspectives, edited by J. Barringer and J. M. Hurwit, 47–62. Austin, TX. Sissa, G. 2008. Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World. New Haven, CT. Thomsen, O. 1992. Ritual and Desire: Catullus 61 and 62 and Other Ancient Documents on Wedding and Marriage. Aarhus. Treggiari, S. 1994. “Putting the Bride to Bed.” EMC 38:311–31. van Gennep, A. 1909. Les Rites de Passage. Paris. Translated by M. B. Vizedom and G. L. Caffee as The Rites of Passage (London, 1960). Williams, G. 1958. “Some Aspects of the Roman Marriage Ceremonies and Ideals.” JRS 48:16–29.

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Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Tradition of the Poetic Epithalamium Paolo Di Meo

T

he treatise Marriage Advice (or Coniugalia Praecepta by its common Latin title) was composed by Plutarch as a wedding present for two of his former pupils, Pollianus and Eurydice.1 In this treatise he collected the principles (κεφάλαια) of his philosophical teachings on the theme of marriage that he had imparted to the two young people.2 The collection consists of a set of forty-eight precepts in the form of short similes (ὁμοιότητες), preceded by a prologue and followed by an epilogue in the form of a peroration. Plutarch chose the technique of similes so that the precepts would remain more easily engraved on the mind.3 The precepts are apparently not connected to each other so that they can be read and remembered as distinct short units.4 Each one contains exempla of various kinds (anecdotes, proverbs, quotes, and so on), associated either by analogy or by contrast with reflections and recommendations on the behavior that the bride and groom should avoid or imitate in order to have a quiet and serene conjugal life. It is the aim of this chapter to examine the relationship between Marriage Advice and the literary tradition of the wedding song, an aspect of the treatise that has been almost entirely disregarded in previous studies. We are inclined toward an analysis of this kind above all by some outward similarities. The treatise is indeed a gift, sent or read on the occasion of a marriage, to congratulate the spouses and wish them a happy life marked by harmony (ὁμόνοια): these features are also essential in the wedding song. But there is more.

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Although Plutarch’s work is a philosophical essay, the author tends from the beginning to link it to the sphere of music and song, presenting it as a sort of a homage of a poetic kind.5 This is clear in the very first lines from words such as ἐφήρμοσε (from the verb ἐφαρμόζω, which contains the word “harmony”), συνυμεναιοῦντα (which contains the name for the wedding song, hymenaios), προσῳδόν (literally “harmonious,” from ᾠδή, “song”), and from the mention of νόμοι, which is related to the music of the aulos.6 The link emerges even more clearly when philosophy is said to sing (κατᾴδουσα) through the wedding speech (λόγος γαμήλιος), and lastly when the author begs the Muses to assist Aphrodite, since it is their duty to make sure that the lyre and the cithara are tuned (ἡρμοσμένην) but also that there is harmony (ἐμμέλειαν) in spoken words in marriage. The musical images that Plutarch selects are aimed not only at creating effective metaphors of conjugal life but also at recalling a specific lyric context: that of the wedding song.7 It would be impossible to reconstruct here, even in brief, the history of this literary genre through the centuries that comprise antiquity.8 It will be nonetheless necessary to give some information that is essential to comprehend my argument. The epithalamium (or hymenaios) had a widespread diffusion in the Greco-Roman world and remained in use until late Antiquity and beyond.9 Yet this rich production has almost entirely been lost, if we consider, for instance, that the only intact Greek poem extant today is Theocritus’ Epithalamium of Helen (Id. 18). It is therefore clear how incomplete our documentation is, and this in turn prevents us from reconstructing the physiognomy of these songs with any precision. The first formalization of the wedding song was given by Sappho, the undisputed master in this field, who was a source of inspiration for all the authors after her.10 Besides the already cited idyll of Theocritus, the most markedly Sapphic epithalamia were those of Catullus (61–62), with which the genre reaches its peak also in Rome.11 A turning point in the evolution of this type of poetry was marked by Statius, who composed a wedding song that is substantially an epic-encomiastic poem (Silv. 1.2): although the Sapphic model is still present, the epithalamium changes and assumes chiefly panegyrical tones.12 It will be precisely the Statian type that will triumph in the following centuries, as is demonstrated by the rich production of the late Latin epithalamium (forth to sixth centuries CE), whose most important figure was Claudian.13 Moreover, the verse epithalamium was the basis for the creation of the epideictic genre of the wedding speech (ἐπιθαλάμιος or γαμήλιος λόγος), particularly important to us because it gives precious information on poetry

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Paolo Di Meo and because of the influence it will exert on poetry in turn.14 Of this prose genre we have the Ars Rhetorica of Pseudo-Dionysius of Halicarnassus (chapters 2, Μέθοδος γαμηλίων, and 4, Μέθοδος ἐπιθαλαμίου); the second treatise on the epideictic oratory (Περὶ ἐπιδεικτικῶν) ascribed to Menander Rhetor (the sections Περὶ ἐπιθαλαμίου and Περὶ κατευναστικοῦ); and four orations, one of Himerius (Or. 9) and two of Choricius of Gaza (Or. 5–6), to which we can now add the recently published Epithalamium for Meles and Antonina of Procopius of Gaza.15 We have, therefore, a collection of works that is fragmentary and at the same time heterogeneous, not only ranging from the archaic Greek lyric to the Latin poets of the late imperial period but also comprising rhetorical texts. Despite the collection’s diversity, it can nonetheless be considered a unitary system because it is the result of a coherent development. The history of the epithalamium is indeed characterized, maybe more markedly than other genres, by a sharp sense of respect for tradition. Even though the single works have unique features, in all authors there is a clear will to conform to a few recognized models, in primis Sappho and Statius. The dictates of rhetoric have rendered this conservative spirit even more pronounced. Therefore, we may base our argument on one occasion on a Greek lyric poet, then on a rhetor or a late Latin author. We can be indeed quite sure that we will find, for instance in Claudian, many elements that go back to Sappho or Hellenistic poetry, even if the extant documentation will not allow us to verify this fact entirely.16 Returning to Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, we find that the points of the treatise in which the influence of the epithalamium is most evident are the prologue and the epilogue, as if the wedding song was the frame within which the philosophical reflection develops. Yet in the individual precepts we also find elements that can be traced back to epithalamic models.

The First Part of the Prologue and the First Four Precepts We start from the very beginning of Marriage Advice : Μετὰ τὸν πάτριον θεσμόν, ὃν ὑμῖν ἡ τῆς Δήμητρος ἱέρεια συ­νειρ­γνυ­ μένοις ἐφήρμοσεν, οἶμαι καὶ τὸν λόγον ὁμοῦ συνεφαπτό­μενον ὑμῶν καὶ συνυμεναιοῦντα χρήσιμον ἄν τι ποιῆσαι καὶ τῷ νόμῳ προσῳδόν. ἐν μὲν γὰρ τοῖς μουσικοῖς ἕνα τῶν αὐλητικῶν νόμων ἱππόθορον ἐκά­ λουν, μέλος τι τοῖς ἵπποις ὁρμῆς ἐπεγερτικὸν ὡς ἔοικεν ἐνδιδόν τε περὶ τὰς ὀχείας· φιλοσοφίᾳ δὲ πολλῶν λόγων καὶ καλῶν ἐνόντων, οὐδενὸς ἧττον ἄξιος σπουδῆς ὁ γαμήλιός ἐστιν οὗτος, ᾧ κατᾴδουσα τοὺς ἐπὶ

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Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Poetic Epithalamium βίου κοινωνίᾳ συνιόντας εἰς ταὐτὸ πράους τε παρέχει καὶ χειροήθεις ἀλλήλοις.

Following the traditional custom, which the priestess of Demeter enjoined upon you as you were being locked away in the wedding chamber, I think that a speech also, pertaining directly to you and joining in with the marriage hymn, would make for a gift that is useful and in harmony with the melody. For in music there is a melody for the aulos called “The Breeding Horse,” a certain tune that stimulates horses and they capitulate, it seems, during the breeding season. And though there are many fine subjects in philosophy, none is more worthy of our study than this discourse of marriage, by which philosophy charms couples who embark upon a common life and makes them gentle and amenable toward each other. (138B)17

The verb Plutarch chooses in the opening to elucidate the action of his treatise is συνυμεναιόω, a hapax verb that includes the word for wedding song (hymenaios) and explicitly links Marriage Advice to the tradition of the wedding song. The presence of the aulos is particularly interesting. The wedding song was always accompanied by the music of the aulos and the phorminx, but the former seems to have been more often associated with nuptial music.18 It is then not by chance that Plutarch dwells precisely on the auletic nomoi, among which he selects the “Breeding Horse” (ἱππόθορος), a melody used to arouse sexual desire in male horses at the moment of mating.19 This is the element that recalls more directly the genre of the epithalamium. The reference to love between animals was indeed a topos in nuptial compositions. Rhetors recommend its use and testify that it was often adopted in wedding speeches.20 Of particular importance to us is a passage of Himerius’ Epithalamium of Severus, where the motif is expressed as follows: διὸ πρέπον ἂν καὶ ἡμῖν χορεύειν τῷ γάμῳ. ἅπτεται καὶ βουκόλος ἐν νάπαις σύριγγος, ὅταν ἴδῃ μόσχον, ὃν ἔθρεψεν, ὑπ’ Ἀφροδίτῃ τελού­ μενον· ἅπτονται δὲ καὶ οἱ τῶν ἵππων ποιμένες ᾠδῆς, ὅταν οἱ πῶλοι κατὰ φορβάδων τὰ τῶν ἵππων πράττωσιν.

So it would be fitting for me to join the chorus at his wedding. The cowherd in the glens takes up his pipe when he sees a young bull he has raised brought to full maturity under the guidance of

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Paolo Di Meo Aphrodite. Horsekeepers strike up a song when their colts start acting like adult males in their relations with mares. (76.52–56)

It is a place rich in poetical memories, where the rhetor openly asserts that he wants to undertake the task Sappho herself undertook in her epithalamia.21 We are not told the nature of the song (ᾠδή) performed by the herdsmen.22 The motif is nonetheless the same as in Plutarch: the use of music to arouse animals at the moment of coupling. A passage of Claudian’s Epithalamium of Honorius and Maria clarifies its meaning in a nuptial context and confirms its derivation from poetry: ante fores iam pompa sonat, pilentaque sacra praeradiant ductura nurum. calet obvius ire iam princeps tardumque cupit discedere solem: nobilis haud aliter sonipes, quem primus amoris sollicitavit odor, tumidus quatiensque decoras curvata cervice iubas Pharsalia rura pervolat et notos hinnitu flagitat amnes naribus accensis; mulcet fecunda magistros spes gregis et pulchro gaudent armenta marito. The procession is halted singing at the door; brightly gleams the holy chariot in which the new bride is to be carried. The prince burns to run and meet her and longs for the sun’s tardy setting. Even so the noble steed when first the smell that stirs his passions smites upon him proudly shakes his thick, disordered mane and courses over Pharsalia’s plains. His nostrils are aflame and with a neighing he greets the streams that saw his birth. His masters smile at the hope of their stud’s increase, and the mares take pleasure in their handsome mate. (10.286–94)23

This is a very elaborate simile in comparison with the passages of Plutarch and Himerius: the young bridegroom is likened to a colt impatient to couple for the first time in the presence of rejoicing herdsmen (magistros). As these texts show, such animal imagery must have been traditional.24 It refers to the most important moment of the wedding ceremony. The virgin bride is arriving in her new house together with the accompanying procession and will soon enter the bridal chamber, for the first time, with her partner.

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She is going to experience one of the most difficult and significant events of her life. Yet the test is no less challenging for the young man. It is as if he needs to be exhorted in order to overcome the initial reluctance of the bride. In epithalamia there was a long series of protreptic motifs to this purpose, of which we have a number of examples.25 Plutarch takes inspiration from this tradition and finds an appropriate metaphor for his discourse in the image of the horse and the νόμος used to urge it to mate: his discourse (λόγος) will work like the “Breeding Horse” (or “Rampant Stallion”) melody (νόμος ἱππόθορος), obviously integrating and reinterpreting it with the help of philosophy. A logical deduction is that Plutarch’s treatise is to be imagined as happening before the so-called consummatio matrimonii, as is immediately confirmed by the first four precepts. In precept 1, we are told that Solon ordered that the bride eat a quince before sleeping with her man: “Solon ordered that the bride should eat some quince before retiring to bed with the bridegroom. He meant to suggest (I suppose) that the first favor of lip and voice should be harmonious and sweet” (ὁ Σόλων ἐκέλευε τὴν νύμφην τῷ νυμφίῳ συγκατακλίνεσθαι μήλου κυδωνίου κατατραγοῦσαν, αἰνιττόμενος ὡς ἔοικεν ὅτι δεῖ τὴν ἀπὸ στόματος καὶ φωνῆς χάριν εὐάρμοστον εἶναι πρῶτον καὶ ἡδεῖαν, 138D). With this rule he wanted to suggest, in Plutarch’s personal interpretation, that the bride should use words that are “harmonious and sweet” (εὐάρμοστον καὶ ἡδείαν) with her partner. We note that the reference is to the first approach between newlyweds (πρῶτον).26 In precept 2, Plutarch describes the Boeotian custom of crowning the bride with a garland of asparagus, a plant that conceals sweet fruit among its thorns. ἐν Βοιωτίᾳ τὴν νύμφην κατακαλύψαντες ἀσφαραγωνιᾷ στεφανοῦσιν· ἐκείνη τε γὰρ ἥδιστον ἐκ τραχυτάτης ἀκάνθης καρπὸν ἀναδίδωσιν, ἥ τε νύμφη τῷ μὴ φυγόντι μηδὲ δυσχεράναντι τὴν πρώτην χαλεπότητα καὶ ἀηδίαν αὐτῆς ἥμερον καὶ γλυκεῖαν παρέξει συμβίωσιν. οἱ δὲ τὰς πρώτας τῶν παρθένων διαφορὰς μὴ ὑπομείναντες οὐδὲν ἀπολείπουσι τῶν διὰ τὸν ὄμφακα τὴν σταφυλὴν ἑτέροις προϊεμένων. πολλαὶ δὲ καὶ τῶν νεογάμων δυσχεράνασαι διὰ τὰ πρῶτα τοὺς νυμφίους ὅμοιον ἔπα­ θον πάθος τοῖς τὴν μὲν πληγὴν τῆς μελίττης ὑπομείνασι, τὸ δὲ κη­ρίον προεμένοις.

In Boeotia, when they veil the bride, they give her a garland of asparagus. This is a plant that gives the sweetest fruit from the

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Paolo Di Meo sharpest thorn, just as the bride will give a life of calm and sweetness to the man who does not shrink from, or feel distaste for, the first harsh and disagreeable impression. Men who cannot put up with a young girl’s first quarrels are like people who leave the ripe bunch to others because the unripe grape was tart. Many newly married girls also show distaste for their bridegrooms because of the first experience; they are like people who put up with the bee’s sting but let the honeycomb go. (138D–E)

With this reference, Plutarch invites the bridegroom not to surrender before the initial unwillingness and refusals of the bride: if he gives up, he will do like those who, after tasting sour grapes, leave the ripe ones to others. In the same way, the bride who puts up too strong a resistance is like someone who, after being stung by a bee, renounces the very sweet taste of honey. Once again, we note that the reference is to the initial stages of a conjugal relationship (τὴν πρώτην, τὰς πρώτας, τῶν νεογάμων, τὰ πρῶτα) and to the virginity of the brides (τῶν παρθένων). In precept 3, the newlyweds are urged to avoid friction and disagreements at the start of their marriage (ἐν ἀρχῇ) and ponder that also objects made of different parts joined together can easily break up at first (κατ’ ἀρχάς), whereas afterward, as time goes on, they develop such strong cohesion that it will be impossible to separate them. ἐν ἀρχῇ μάλιστα δεῖ τὰς διαφορὰς καὶ τὰς προσκρούσεις φυλάτ­τεσ­θαι τοὺς γεγαμηκότας, ὁρῶντας ὅτι καὶ τὰ συναρμοσθέντα τῶν σκευῶν κατ’ ἀρχὰς μὲν ὑπὸ τῆς τυχούσης ῥᾳδίως διασπᾶται προφά­σεως, χρόνῳ δὲ τῶν ἁρμῶν σύμπηξιν λαβόντων μόλις ὑπὸ πυρὸς καὶ σιδή­ ρου διαλύεται.

It is especially at the start that married couples should beware of differences and disputes. They should observe that jointed articles are easily broken at first by quite trivial accidents, whereas once the joints have become firm over time they can hardly be parted by fire or iron. (138E)

In precept 4, Plutarch reasons that fire easily spreads to stubble and fur, but just as easily burns out, if it is not given more substantial materials to keep it alight. In the same way, the fire of passion that is lit between newlyweds (τῶν

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Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Poetic Epithalamium νεογάμων) because of the beauty of their young bodies must not be considered stable and lasting if it does not evolve into spiritual (ἔμψυχον) love. ὥσπερ τὸ πῦρ ἐξάπτεται μὲν εὐχερῶς ἐν ἀχύροις καὶ θρυαλλίδι καὶ θριξὶ λαγῴαις, σβέννυται δὲ τάχιον ἂν μή τινος ἑτέρου δυναμένου στέγειν ἅμα καὶ τρέφειν ἐπιλάβηται, οὕτω τὸν ἀπὸ σώματος καὶ ὥρας ὀξὺν ἔρωτα τῶν νεογάμων ἀναφλεγόμενον δεῖ μὴ διαρκῆ μηδὲ βέ­ βαιον νομίζειν, ἂν μὴ περὶ τὸ ἦθος ἱδρυθεὶς καὶ τοῦ φρονοῦντος ἁψάμενος ἔμψυχον λάβῃ διάθεσιν.

As fire is easily kindled in chaff or tinder or rabbit fur, but also easily extinguished unless it takes hold of some other material capable of protecting and feeding it, so one must realize that the love of the newly married, blazing up quickly out of physical attraction, is not persistent or secure unless it settles in the character, lays hold of the mind, and acquires a life of its own. (138F)

These similes, aimed at encouraging a good approach and persistence in the relationship, all have precise counterparts in epithalamia. The closest parallels are in Claudian. In the Fescennines for Honorius, we read: iam nuptae trepidat sollicitus pudor. iam produnt lacrimas flammea simplices. ne cessa, iuvenis, comminus adgredi, impacata licet saeviat unguibus. non quisquam fruitur veris odoribus hyblaeos latebris nec spoliat favos, si fronti caveat, si timeat rubos; armat spina rosas, mella tegunt apes. crescunt difficili gaudia iurgio accenditque magis, quae refugit, Venus. Shame now overcomes the anxious bride; her veil now shows traces of innocent tears. Hesitate not to be close in your attacks, young lover, even though she opposes you savagely with cruel fingernails. None can enjoy the scents of spring nor steal the honey of Hybla from its hiding places if he fears that thorns may scratch his face. Thorns arm the rose and bees find a defense for their honey.

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Paolo Di Meo The refusals and coyness only increase the joy; the desire for that which flees is all the more inflamed. (14.2–11)

The anxiety of the bride (nupta) is stressed; but the young man is incited to fulfil his duty even if the young bride resists fiercely and fights back with her nails: those who fear the sting will renounce honey of the Hyblaean Mountains; those who fear thorns will renounce the perfume of the rose. In the Epithalamium of Palladius and Celerina, we find an incitement of the same type for both the bride and the groom. vivite concordes et nostrum discite munus. oscula mille sonent; livescant brachia nexu: labra ligent animos. neu tu virtute proterva confidas iuvenis; non est terrore domanda, sed precibus placanda tibi. concede marito tu quoque neu Scythias infensis unguibus iras exercere velis: vinci patiare, rogamus. sic uxor, sic mater eris. quid lumina tinguis, virgo? crede mihi, quem nunc horrescis, amabis. Live as one and fulfil all my rites. Give a thousand kisses, let arm be bruised with enfolding arm, and lips so join that soul may meet soul. And you, husband, do not put your confidence in rude lovemaking; your wife’s love cannot be won by threats, but must be gained by entreaty. And you, wife, yield to your husband and do not seek to show anger; do not use your nails as weapons like the women of Scythia. I beg you to submit to conquest; in this way you shall indeed be a wife, so a mother. Why are these tears in your eyes? Believe me, you shall love him whom now you fear. (25.130–38)

The young groom should not frighten and tame the woman with arrogance but try to soothe her with gentle persuasion. The bride, in turn, should yield to her man and not fight back with her nails in a fit of rage: if she gives in, she will be a wife and a mother, so why cry then? The mention of harmony, kisses and hugs, and the communion of souls adds a tone of intimacy to the song and brings us back to another passage of the Fescennine. adspirate novam pectoribus fidem mansuramque facem tradite sensibus.

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Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Poetic Epithalamium tam iunctis manibus nectite vincula, quam frondens hedera stringitur aesculus, quam lento premitur palmite populus, et murmur querula blandius alite linguis adsidui reddite mutuis. et labris animum conciliantibus alternum rapiat somnus anhelitum. Breathe a new loyalty into your breasts and let your senses kindle a flame that shall never be extinguished. May your clasped hands form a bond closer than that between ivy and leafy oak tree or poplar and pliant vine. May the frequent kisses that you give and receive be breathed more softly than those of plaintive doves, and when lips have united soul to soul, let sleep calm your throbbing breath. (14.16–24)

After encouraging the groom to “get on with the job” and overcome the resist­ ance of the bride (2–11), there is the invitation to make the new relationship intimate and transfer the fire of passion ( facem) to each other’s soul. Although there are some differences, it is easy to recognize the links between these epithalamic motifs and the first four precepts of Marriage Advice. The images that are used belong to the same sphere: for instance, those of plants with thorns (rose and asparagus) and honey protected by bees. The invitations to the bride and groom to collaborate on their first physical union (see precepts 1–3) and to immediately transform the physical union into a stable spiritual union (see precept 4) are identical. Plutarch and Claudian use and freely readapt a common stock of traditional motifs, which undoubtedly date back many centuries.

The Second Part of the Prologue Returning to the prologue of Marriage Advice, immediately after the mention of Hermes, Peitho, and the Graces, we find a request to the Muses to assist Aphrodite. ὧν οὖν ἀκηκόατε πολλάκις ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ παρατρεφόμενοι κεφάλαια συντάξας ἔν τισιν ὁμοιότησι βραχείαις, ὡς εὐμνημόνευτα μᾶλλον εἴη, κοινὸν ἀμφοτέροις πέμπω δῶρον, εὐχόμενος τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ τὰς Μού­ σας παρεῖναι καὶ συνεργεῖν, ὡς μήτε λύραν τινὰ μήτε κιθάραν μᾶλλον

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Paolo Di Meo αὐταῖς ἢ τὴν περὶ γάμον καὶ οἶκον ἐμμέλειαν ἡρμοσμένην παρέχειν διὰ λόγου καὶ ἁρμονίας καὶ φιλοσοφίας προσῆκον. καὶ γὰρ οἱ παλαιοὶ τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ τὸν Ἑρμῆν συγκαθίδρυσαν, ὡς τῆς περὶ τὸν γάμον ἡδο­ νῆς μάλιστα λόγου δεομένης, τήν τε Πειθὼ καὶ τὰς Χάριτας, ἵνα πεί­ θοντες διαπράττωνται παρ’ ἀλλήλων ἃ βούλονται, μὴ μαχόμενοι μηδὲ φιλονεικοῦντες.

I have therefore put together in the form of some brief similitudes, so that they are the more easily remembered, the main points of the teaching you have often heard in the course of your education in philosophy. These I send as a gift to you both, praying that the muses may assist Aphrodite in her work; for it is less their duty to tune the lyre or cithara than it is to ensure the tunefulness of marriage and home by discourse, harmony and philosophy. The ancients set Hermes at Aphrodite’s side, knowing that the pleasure of marriage needed his word more than anything, and with them they set Persuasion and the Graces, that married couples might gratify their desire with each other by persuasion, not in conflict or quarrelsomeness. (138C–D)

Plutarch asks these deities to guarantee harmony between the newlyweds by means of grace and the persuasive power of reason and speech (διὰ λόγου καὶ ἁρμονίας καὶ φιλοσοφίας).27 It would be nonetheless a mistake to consider these deities mere allegorical personifications of abstract notions. 28 On the one hand, there could be solemn religious reasons to justify their presence in a nuptial context.29 On the other hand, in the prologue of Marriage Advice, they also have a precise literary value, since they explicitly recall the tradition of the wedding song. In epithalamia, gods were an obliged presence and adorned songs from the very first lines. The rhetors, as always imitating poets, suggested making sure that grace (χάρις) was not lacking in the prooemia and to this end recommended selecting appropriate themes, including Aphrodite and her procession of Erotes.30 In fact, Aphrodite dominated all other gods by assuming the role of pronuba, the maid-servant of the bride. But the others could also take part in the ceremony and give their contribution to make the day unforgettable. It will suffice to read Statius’ Epithalamium of Stella and Violentilla as an example of the gods’ participation.

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Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Poetic Epithalamium procul ecce canoro demigrant Helicone deae quatiuntque novena lampade sollemnem thalamis coheuntibus ignem et de Pieris vocalem fontibus undam. .............................. ipsa manu nuptam genetrix Aeneia duxit lumina demissam et dulci probitate rubentem, ipsa toros et sacra parat cultuque Latino dissimulata deam crinem vultusque geneasque temperat atque nova gestit minor ire marita. nosco diem causasque sacri: te concinit iste— pande fores!—te, Stella, chorus; tibi Phoebus et Euhan et de Menalia volucer Tegeaticus umbra serta ferunt. nec blandus Amor nec Gratia cessat amplexum niveos optatae coniugis artus floribus innumeris et olenti spargere nimbo. See, the goddesses afar come down from tuneful Helicon and with ninefold torch toss ritual fire of marriage union and vocal wave from Pieria’s fount. . . . Aeneas’ mother with her own hand led the bride, whose eyes are downcast as she blushes sweetly chaste. She herself prepares the bed and the rites, dissembling her deity with Latian attire, and tempers hair and face and eyes, anxious to walk less tall than the newly wed. I learn the day and reason for the ceremony. It is you, Stella, you that choir (fling wide the gates!) is singing. For you Phoebus and Euhan and the flying Tegean from Maenalus’ shade bring garlands. Smiling Love and Grace ceaselessly scatter you with countless blossoms and fragrant shower as you embrace the snowy limbs of your longed-for bride. (Silv. 1.2.3–6, 11–21)31

The Muses are there with their melodious essence; Aphrodite takes care of the bride; Apollo, Dionysus, and Hermes (volucer Tegeaticus) bring garlands; Love and Grace cover the spouses with a cloud of flowers. More often, as in Plutarch, gods do not take part directly in the action but are only invoked to make the union of the new couple stable. As an example, we can read a passage of the Epithalamium of Helen of Theocritus.

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Paolo Di Meo Λατὼ μὲν δοίη Λατὼ κουροτρόφος ὔμμιν εὐτεκνίαν, Κύπρις δὲ θεὰ Κύπρις ἶσον ἔρασθαι ἀλλάλων, Ζεὺς δὲ Κρονίδας Ζεὺς ἄφθιτον ὄλβον.

Leto, nurse of children, grant you fair offspring, the Cyprian goddess mutual love, and Zeus, son of Cronos, prosperity without end. (Id. 18.50–52)32

In this example, Leto, Cypris, and Zeus will guarantee children, love, and wealth to the couple. Plutarch, however, seems to have a specific author in mind with his references to the particular gods in the prologue of Marriage Advice: Sappho. The mention of Aphrodite, the Muses, Peitho, and the Graces seems to draw especially from Sappho’s poetry, since she devoted herself almost entirely to the cult of these deities: many of Sappho’s epithalamia began with their names (fr. 103.3 and 103.5), and in another poem Aphrodite and Peitho appeared together as mother and daughter (fr. 90). As we shall see, the importance of Sappho for Plutarch’s treatise will be confirmed by the epilogue.33

The Main Part of the Treatise Let us now consider the main body of Marriage Advice with its similes. As I have already said, it is more difficult to find specific links with the epithalamium in them. It is in this part that Plutarch summarizes the teaching of philosophy and extends his reflection to the entire length of the conjugal relationship: it is therefore natural that he diverges more markedly from the genre of the wedding song in the main body of his treatise. Nonetheless, it is also possible to find some common points in this section. Apart from common elements that do not seem very significant, it is in the very fact that Plutarch acts like a teacher that we can see a close relation with the epithalamic tradition.34 The poets (or the choruses) indeed had the duty to impart knowledge and give advice to the young and inexperienced spouses. We have already seen some examples, when we examined precepts 1–4. We can add another parallel here: In fr. 158, Sappho counsels the bride “to guard against the idly-barking tongue when anger is spreading in the breast” (σκιδναμένας ἐν στήθεσιν ὄργας / μαψυλάκαν γλῶσσαν πεφύλαχθαι).35 This is an exhortation to restrain the tongue, when we are angry, since we risk speaking improperly ( μαψυλάκαν). Plutarch devotes several precepts to the theme of anger (nos. 37–40). 36 In precept 37 in particular, he stresses that “sensible wives keep quiet when their

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husbands shout in anger” (αἱ δὲ νοῦν ἔχουσαι γυναῖκες ἐν ταῖς ὀργαῖς τῶν ἀνδρῶν κεκραγότων . . . ἡσυχάζουσι, 143C).37 Sometimes, as in Plutarch’s treatise, the advice could be developed in the form of complete similes in epithalamia as well.38 A good example is in Catullus’ Epithalamium of Manlius and Arunculeia. non tuus levis in mala deditus vir adultera probra turpia persequens a tuis teneris volet secubare papillis, lenta sed velut adsitas vitis implicat arbores, implicabitur in tuum complexum. Your husband will not, lightly given to some wicked paramour, and following shameful ways of dishonour, wish to lie away from your soft bosom; but as the pliant vine entwines the trees planted near it, so will he be entwined in your embrace. (61.101–9)39

The hope for and exhortation to conjugal fidelity is expressed through a simile: the image of the vine (the woman) that clings tenaciously by entwining itself to a tree (the man). However, as we can see even from these few examples, there is an important difference between the technique Plutarch uses and the one we find in epithalamia: in the former, the precepts are never addressed directly to the spouses using “you”; in the latter, on the contrary, the dialogue with the spouses is always direct. This observation brings us back to a previous point. We have already noted that the influence of the genre of the wedding song is more visible in the prologue and the epilogue of Marriage Advice. Thus, it seems not by chance that it is precisely in those sections where Plutarch addresses Pollianus and Eurydice directly, incorporating not only the themes but also the form of the epitalamium to frame his treatise.

The Epilogue The epilogue coincides substantially with the last precept (48) but is shaped like a long peroration addressed to both spouses, and hence it is very different

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Paolo Di Meo from all the preceding precepts. The bride and the bridegroom are exhorted to avoid excessive luxury; then, the groom is advised to attend to the philosophical education of his wife. At this point, Plutarch makes the following observation. παιδίον μὲν γὰρ οὐδεμία ποτὲ γυνὴ λέγεται ποιῆσαι δίχα κοινωνίας ἀνδρός, τὰ δ’ ἄμορφα κυήματα καὶ σαρκοειδῆ καὶ σύστασιν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς ἐκ διαφθορᾶς λαμβάνοντα μύλας καλοῦσι. τοῦτο δὴ φυλακτέον ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς γίγνεσθαι τῶν γυναικῶν. ἂν γὰρ λόγων χρηστῶν σπέρματα μὴ δέχωνται μηδὲ κοινωνῶσι παιδείας τοῖς ἀνδράσιν, αὐταὶ καθ’ αὑτὰς ἄτοπα πολλὰ καὶ φαῦλα βουλεύματα καὶ πάθη κυοῦσι.

No woman can make a child without the part played by a man; the shapeless, fleshy masses formed in the womb as a result of corruption are called “moles.” One must take precautions against such developments in women’s minds also. If they do not receive seeds of good words or share their husband’s education, they conceive many strange and evil schemes and feelings on their own. (145D)

The comparison of male seed and seed of words is clear and justifies the idea that the husband should take care of the spiritual growth of his wife, since she would be unable to accomplish a procreation or to develop a “good” mind alone. But Plutarch’s decision to choose precisely the image of procreation— and, consequently, the medical one of uterine cancer—can be explained, in my opinion, only by the fact that he did not want to exclude a characteristic element of the epithalamium from his discourse: the wish for beautiful and happy offspring. We have already seen how it was expressed in Theocritus’ Epithalamium of Helena (“Leto, nurse of children, grant you fair offspring,” 18.50–51). It is, in fact, a widespread topos, which is usually formulated as the typical association “harmony between spouses = legitimate children” and is placed at the end of epithalamic works like a final salutation before the couple sleeps together for the first time.40 Plutarch could not avoid it, but he transforms the “beautiful and legitimate children,” generated by the physical harmony between husband and wife, into right and honest thoughts, the result of the spiritual harmony that philosophy sheds on the couple. Of even greater importance for the epithalamic nature of Marriage Advice is the last part of the epilogue. The treatise, in fact, ends with a quote from Sappho.

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Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Poetic Epithalamium εἰ γὰρ ἡ Σαπφὼ διὰ τὴν ἐν τοῖς μέλεσι καλλιγραφίαν ἐφρόνει τηλι­κοῦ­ τον ὥστε γράψαι πρός τινα πλουσίαν, κατθάνοισα δὲ κείσεαι, οὐδέ τις μναμοσύνα σέθεν ἔσεται· οὐ γὰρ πεδέχεις ῥόδων τῶν ἐκ Πιερίας, πῶς οὐχί σοι μᾶλλον ἐξέσται μέγα φρονεῖν ἐφ’ ἑαυτῇ καὶ λαμπρόν, ἂν μὴ τῶν ῥόδων ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν καρπῶν μετέχῃς, ὧν αἱ Μοῦσαι φέρουσι καὶ χαρίζονται τοῖς παιδείαν καὶ φιλοσοφίαν θαυμάζουσιν;

If Sappho was proud enough of her beautiful songs to write to a rich lady, When you are dead, there shall you lie, and there will be no memory of you, who have no share in roses that the Muses bear, will you not be able to have proud and splendid thoughts of yourself, if you have a share not in the roses, but actually in the fruit the Muses bear, and which they lavish upon those who admire education and philosophy? (145F–146A)

Here Plutarch quotes the famous Sapphic fragment 55. Addressing a rich woman, Sappho had asserted that wealth is not useful to obtain the most beautiful gifts one aspires to, fame and immortality, since they can be granted only by the Muses (ῥόδων τῶν ἐκ Πιερίας). Plutarch uses this quotation to convince Eurydice to disdain wealth and, instead, be proud to share in the “pleasant” fruit (μὴ τῶν ῥόδων ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν καρπῶν) that the Muses give to those who devote themselves to education and philosophy. The presence of Sappho, moreover, recalls the deities from whom the author asked for help in the prologue: the treatise, which began in the name of philosophy, Aphrodite and the Muses, now ends in the same way with an annular structure.41 But the Lesbian poet plays a role here that is far more important than it seems. She is indeed the undisputed master of the genre of the wedding song, as I have already said. The later poets took inspiration from her, imitating her openly. The rhetors did the same with even more enthusiasm.42 Marriage Advice recalls the tradition of the epithalamium from the beginning, as we have seen. With perfect circularity, it now ends with the very symbol of this tradition.

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Paolo Di Meo Sappho is presented in the epilogue as a female model that Eurydice should imitate.43 But she is even more: an archetype for Plutarch himself. In his treatise he tries to educate the spouses, but particularly the bride, to have an honest and noble behavior, to always act in an elegant and decorous way, to consider the care of one’s soul as the most important thing to which men and women should devote themselves with the upmost effort. As anyone can see, these are exactly the same fundamental values to the exaltation and divulgation of which Sappho herself dedicated most of her poetry: the values that represent the basis of the paideia she tried to impart to her companions in Lesbos many centuries before Plutarch.44

Conclusion It has become clear that Marriage Advice shows more than one point of contact with the tradition of the epithalamium. This is particularly evident in the prologue and the epilogue, in which Plutarch explicitly recalls the wedding song and Sappho, the undoubted master of the genre. The common features are, nonetheless, not confined to these two places but are present also in the core of the treatise. In particular, the first four precepts, which take place before the consummatio matrimonii, show their dependence on epithalamic models. In the others, however, it is also possible to recognize some similarities, above all the idea of teaching the newlyweds by means of advice and exhortation. In short, Plutarch has the model of the epithalamium firmly in his mind and decides to create his treatise as an answer or an addition to it. How should we evaluate his choice? He was not the first to produce a prose version of the wedding song. As we have seen, the rhetors had created a number of different types of wedding speeches, which were closely modeled on the wedding song. It is easy to notice that Plutarch knew and followed the precepts of rhetoric.45 This is particularly evident, once again, in the prologue and the epilogue, as emerges repeatedly in my analysis. Thus, Plutarch reuses the poetic epithalamium in the same way as the rhetors did and were ordered to do. These results, I feel, can help to better define the genesis and nature of Marriage Advice. Its creation seems indeed quite complex. Plutarch does not produce a purely philosophical treatise on the theme of marriage but a wedding gift for a certain couple that is a sort of a memorandum that gives practical and moral advice to the spouses.46 He does so by following the models of wedding speeches in rhetoric (and hence those of the wedding song) as far as he

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can. The result is a work with unique features in which the tradition of the epithalamium and that of philosophical reflection on marriage meet to generate what we can define as a “philosophical epithalamium.”47 This complex origin seems suitable to explain a number of distinctive features of Marriage Advice that have attracted the attention of scholars for a long time. Some remarkable elements have indeed been identified in the way in which Plutarch deals with the theme of marriage and the figure of the wife.48 The conjugal relationship is given a prominent position in the discussion and Plutarch talks about it in a very positive manner with a warmth and a passion that are not easy to find elsewhere. Thus, he diverges from the utilitarian conception and the cold analyses of marriage that are often found in other works (in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, for example). In Marriage Advice, the stress is on the harmony and intimacy between the spouses, and on the reciprocal respect they may have for each other. Marriage is regarded as the only union in which individuals can fully realize themselves. Moreover, in the way in which Plutarch considers wifehood, he diverges, to some extent, from the tradition that dominated antiquity. In Marriage Advice, the wife is treated with respect as a creature endowed with her own moral and intellectual integrity. This is particularly evident in the continuous reference to her education and the necessity that she devote herself to spiritual elevation. Plutarch’s ideas on marriage have been explained by the changing moral and cultural climate in which he lived, or by his personal convictions originating from the happy relationship he had with his wife.49 I do not believe that these reasons are sufficient. I feel that only the link with the epithalamic tradition can clarify many of the features of Marriage Advice satisfactorily. It is indeed precisely in the epithalamium that we find a characterization of woman and of marriage similar to Plutarch’s.50 In epithalamium we encounter repeated references to harmony and intimacy between spouses, on the one hand, and the virtues and education of the woman, on the other. In no other genre does woman receive complete dignity and a far greater exaltation than that reserved for the man. Marriage was the most significant moment in her life, a real rite of passage, which was a far more drastic change for her than for the man. The epithalamium had always had the purpose of celebrating especially the figure of the bride, and this fact gave the genre its typical character, which remained substantially unchanged even though it underwent frequent mutations. The focus was mainly on the first night of marriage, the loss of virginity, and the imminent pregnancy. From here the wedding song took its intimate and confidential character, its warm and passionate tone, and the general atmosphere

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Paolo Di Meo of joy and feasting. The same elements appear in the opening of Marriage Advice and again with the same intensity at its end. In this way they transfer their positive influence to the entire treatise, so that the profound philosophical reflection and the austere moralism emerging from many precepts also seem lighter and more independent from traditional and somewhat sexist ideas. Notes 1. Pollianus and Eurydice are descendants of two of the most noble families of Delphi; see Pomeroy 1999, 42–43. 2. The verb “you have heard” (ἀκηκόατε) in the second part of the prologue shows this. 3. He explains in the second part of the prologue that he uses similes “so that they are the more easily remembered” (ὡς εὐμνημόνευτα μᾶλλον εἴη). 4. They are only “apparently” unconnected, since it is possible to recognize subtle links that bind them together, as demonstrated by the penetrating analysis of Goessler 1999, 97–109. For the formal aspects of the treatise, see Tirelli 1991. 5. See Defradas, Hani, and Klaerr 1985, 313 n. 4, and, more generally, Burgess 1902, 181–83. 6. He is referring to songs played on the flute or accompanied by the flute; see also n. 18. 7. Notions like that of “harmony” (a leitmotiv in Plutarch’s work) can indeed easily be transferred from musical theory to the context of a conjugal relationship. For an analysis of musical metaphors in Marriage Advice, see, above all, Meriani 2007. 8. The bibliography on the wedding song is quite vast and often quite old. Here and in the following notes, I only cite some fundamental works. The best overviews are Mangelsdorff 1913; Keydell 1962. The most recent and complete monographs are Contiades-Tsitsoni 1990; Horstmann 2004. A very useful study of the ancient sources is Lyghounis 1991. For more information, see Di Meo 2009, in which I discuss the principal problems and provide further bibliography. 9. I use the terms epithalamium and hymenaios without substantial difference. For a discussion of the terminological problem, see the fundamental study of Muth 1954. On the hymenaios and the god Hymenaeus in a Roman context, see Hersch in this volume. 10. For a good overview of Sappho’s epithalamia, see Contiades-Tsitsoni 1990, 68–109. 11. A rather recent monograph dealing with both poems is Thomsen 1992. Otherwise, see Horstmann 2004, 68–79; Hersch in this volume. 12. For Statius, see Vollmer 1898, 232–62; Horstmann 2004, 79–88. 13. For the late Latin epithalamium, see, besides Horstmann 2004, the important studies of Morelli 1910; Pavlovskis 1965; Roberts 1989. For Claudian’s poems, see also

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Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Poetic Epithalamium the commentary of Charlet 2000, 51–81, 83–115. In the following pages, I refer to the standard edition of Hall 1985. 14. This point is well stressed by Webb 1997, 362–64. 15. For these very important works, see Volkmann 1885, 352–56; Russell 1979; Russell and Wilson 1981, 135–59, 309–23, 362–81; Horstmann 2004, 88–96; Penella 2005; 2007, 141–55; Amato 2011–12; 2014, 345–445. In this chapter, I have relied on the following editions: Babbitt 1928 (Plutarch); Usener and Radermacher 1899, 260–66, 269–71 (Pseudo-Dionysius); Spengel 1856, 399–412 (Menander); Colonna 1951 (Himerius); Foerster and Richtsteig 1929 (Choricius). Unless otherwise noted, I use the following translations: Russell 1993 (Plutarch); Russell and Wilson 1981 (PseudoDionysius and Menander); Penella 2007 (Himerius). 16. This aspect is at best stressed by the important articles of Reitzenstein 1900, esp. 90–102; and Wheeler 1930. 17. This translation comes from Tsouvala in this volume. 18. See, e.g., Plut. Quaest. conv. 666F: “The wedding table is betrayed by the loud sound of the hymenaios, the torches and the flutes” (ἡ δὲ γαμήλιος τράπεζα κατήγορον ἔχει τὸν ὑμέναιον μέγα βοῶντα καὶ τῆν δᾷδα καὶ τὸν αὐλόν). See also Meriani 2007, 564– 65. The aulos is a wind instrument, a sort of double-reeded flute; the phorminx is a string instrument, similar to the lyre. 19. For this custom we are well informed by Plutarch himself and others; see esp. Meriani 2007, 565–66. 20. See Penella 2005, 139. 21. See Himer. 76.47–48: “The duty [done by Sappho] must now be done by me” (ἡμῖν δὲ καὶ ἀναγκαῖον τὸ σπούδασμα). 22. It is not easy to decide whether it is solely vocal or also accompanied by musical instruments, as seems more probable. The same doubt remains for the nomos cited by Plutarch, since the word could be used for both solely musical pieces and works that also included lyrics. See LSJ, s.v. νόμος (II); Meriani 2007, 564. 23. Translations of Claudian are from Platnauer 1922, slightly adapted. 24. On the importance of animal metaphors and stories in relation to marriage, see Jazdzewska in this volume. 25. See, e.g., Theoc. Id. 18.9–15; Catull. 61.191–235. On the example of poetry, rhetoric will create a specific speech to this aim, the λόγος κατευναστικός. See Men. Rhet. 405.19–24: “Poets make up their bedroom poems out of exhortations and encouragements to enter the bridal chamber. We should not depart much from this model, for the bedroom speech is an exhortation to intercourse” (οἱ μὲν οὖν ποιηταὶ διὰ τοῦ παρορμᾶν ἐπὶ τὸν θάλαμον καὶ προτρέπειν προάγουσι τὰ κατευναστικὰ ποιήματα, καὶ ἡμαῖς δὲ οὐ πόρρω τούτων στησόμεθα, ἀλλὰ παροξυνοῦμεν καὶ προτρεψόμεθα· ἔστι γὰρ ὁ κατευναστικὸς προτροπὴν πρὸς τὴν συμπλοκήν). On this point, see Penella 2005,

140. 26. For a discussion of precepts 1 and 2, see also Hersch in this volume. 27. See Defradas, Hani, and Klaerr 1985, 314.

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Paolo Di Meo 28. This concept is well stressed by Stafford 1999. 29. Regarding the joint cult of these deities and its significance, see PirenneDelforge 1991; Stafford 1999. 30. See, e.g., Men. Rhet. 400.1–6: “Do not let your prooemia lack grace, however. . . . Let them have (so far as possible) pleasing thoughts appropriate to the subject; if not, at least pretty and charming words—alcoves, hymen, marriage, Aphrodite, Cupids—so that they may be both suitable to the subject and highly pleasing to the audience” (μὴ ἀμοιρείτω μέντοι τὰ προοίμια χάριτος. . . . ἀλλ’ ἐχέτω μὲν ἐννοίας ἡσίστας ὡς ἔνι μάλιστα πρεπούσας τῇ ὑποθέσει· εἰ δὲ μή, ὀνόματα γοῦν ἑπαφρόδιτα καὶ κεχαρισμένα παστάδων, ὑμεναίων, γάμων, Ἀφροδίτης, ἐρώτων, ἵνα καὶ οἰκεῖα γένηται τῇ ὑποθέσει καὶ τοῖς ἀκούουσιν ἥδιστα). 31. Translation by Shackleton Bailey 2015. 32. Translation by Gow 1952. 33. The bibliography on Sappho’s poetry is obviously too vast to give even a very short list of works here. For the aim of my chapter, it will suffice to refer to the recent monograph by Ferrari 2010. 34. On common elements that are less significant, I am thinking, for instance, of the use of mythological exempla in precept 21 (140F–141A), a common feature also in the epithalamium (see Penella 2005, 138); or of the idea that the moral qualities of a woman and not her wealth and beauty are important when choosing a wife (cf. precept 24 [141C] with Claud. Epith. Hon. 10.23–25). 35. Translation by Campbell 1982. According to Merkelbach 1957, 5 n. 4, who follows a suggestion of Schadewaldt 1950, 54, this fragment may come from an epithalamium and be addressed to both the bride and the groom, as a comparison with Ar. Pax 1346–47 shows. The parallel I propose here with Plutarch’s Marriage Advice seems to confirm the epithalamic origin of the fragment and, at the same time, identifies the recipient of the advice with the bride alone, as Schadewaldt 1950 has suggested. 36. For these precepts, see Goessler 1999, 107. 37. If the parallel between Sappho and Plutarch could be pushed further, we could infer that Sappho’s phrase “σκιδναμένας ἐν στήθεσιν ὄργας” may have referred also to the husband’s anger, not only to that of the wife. 38. See, e.g., precept 3. 39. Translation by Cornish in Cornish, Postgate, and MacKail 1913. 40. Cf., e.g., Catull. 61.211–30; [Claud.] Epith. Laur. 5.85–87; Chor. Or. 6.51. See Penella 2005, 139, for references to rhetorical doctrine. 41. See Defradas, Hani, and Klaerr 1985, 320–21; Goessler 1999, 98–99. 42. To the text of Himerius cited in n. 21, we can add, e.g., Chor. Or. 5.19–20. 43. See Pomeroy 1999, 57. 44. For these aspects of Sappho’s activity as a poet and “schoolmistress,” it is very useful to refer once again to the reappraisal of her work made by Ferrari 2010, esp. 33–37.

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Plutarch’s Marriage Advice and the Poetic Epithalamium 45. In general, on the relationship of Plutarch and rhetoric, see Jeuckens 1907. 46. Therefore, it does not surprise us that some fundamental topics of the philosophical debate are absent from it. I am thinking, for instance, of the concern to place marriage within the wider context of the state and natural order; see Patterson 1999, 135–36. 47. This genre is represented in late Antiquity by Sidonius Apollinaris’ Epithalamium of Polemius and Araneaola; see Horstmann 2004, 316–17. 48. The most important study on this aspect is Foucault 1990, 145–85 (chapter 5, “The Wife”), to which I would like to add several studies from the decades after Foucault that discuss similar topics: Aguilar 1990–91; Montano 1991; Auberger 1993; Nikolaidis 1997; Wohl 1997; MacNamara 1999; Mazzoni Dami 1999; Patterson 1999; Pomeroy 1999, 33–42; Ramelli 2000; Boulogne 2005; Wiemer 2005; Beneker 2008; Tsouvala 2008. 49. See Goessler 1999, 115: “If we look for the sources of Plutarch’s view of marriage, we find the influence of the traditional treatises on love and marriage on the one hand, and on the other the general influence of the times, but there is a third and no less significant element: Plutarch’s own experience and emotional life.” 50. See Wheeler 1930 for a good overview of the characteristics of the epithalamium.

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Epicurus on Marriage Geert Roskam

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he grammarian Gavius identified the Latin words caelibes (unmarried men) and caelites (gods) as based on the same root (cael-) on the ground that both bachelors and gods are free of the heaviest burdens.1 This is an ingenious position, to say the least. Many will no doubt reject it (and not merely on etymological grounds), but quite a few may well sympathize, tongue in cheek, with Gavius’ point of view, even without endorsing his linguistic argument. And among the latter were no doubt several distinguished ancient philosophers. In antiquity, indeed, marriage and philosophy were not the most loyal and understanding couple. Sometimes, their relationship was quite good, as in the days of later Stoicism (Antipater of Tarsus and Musonius) and Middle Platonism (Plutarch). But quite often, philosophers were less enthusiastic about marriage. Socrates was married, to be sure, but his marital problems were famous enough. Plato preferred a sharing of wives (Resp. 5, 457c10–466d5), which was rejected by Aristotle (Pol. 1261a4–1262b36) but defended by the early Stoics (Diog. Laert. 7.131 = SVF 1.269 and 3.728). In all likelihood, Epicurus sided with the opponents of marriage. The broad outlines of his view are fairly clear, although there remain a few recalcitrant problems about some significant aspects of his position. The first concerns our principal source, a short passage from Diogenes Laertius that is transmitted in the manuscripts as follows: “And indeed the sage will both marry and rear children, as Epicurus says in his Diaporiai and in his On Nature. And sometimes he will marry according to a circumstance in his life, etc.” (καὶ

μὴν καὶ γαμήσειν καὶ τεκνοποιήσειν τὸν σοφὸν ὡς Ἐπίκουρος ἐν ταῖς Διαπορίαις καὶ ἐν ταῖς Περὶ φύσεως, κατὰ περίστασιν δέ ποτε βίου γαμήσειν κτλ., 10.119 =

fr. 19 Us.). According to this text, which is testis unus in this respect, Epicurus

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Geert Roskam straightforwardly recommended marriage and child-rearing, but there is ample reason to assume that something went wrong in the transmission of this sentence. The latter part about the sage’s marriage in exceptional circumstances naturally seems to imply that Epicurus was generally opposed to marriage, and this is in fact what we learn from several other sources. Accordingly, most scholars are in favor of changing the text here and replace the καὶ μὴν καί at the beginning with καὶ μηδὲ καί or οὐδὲ μὴν καί.2 By the introduction of a negation, Epicurus thus turns from an enthusiastic champion of marriage to a principled but open-minded opponent and the latter, I believe, is exactly what he was. That this is indeed his position is not only suggested by some well-known passages in polemical sources (which we shall soon examine in detail) but also by a few passages in later Epicureans that are usually ignored. Lucretius provides only a little information. He concludes book 4 of On the Nature of the Universe with a lengthy attack on the passion of love but seems to acknowledge a new concept of amor that shares some important characteristics with marriage (1030–1287). Yet the whole passage is far too vague to allow for strong conclusions, and Lucretius’ ironic stance rather seems to point to a certain skepticism about marriage.3 Somewhat more information can be derived from Philodemus. In the fourth book of his On Music, he deals with the use of music at a wedding. Against the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon, he argues that it is not music but poetry that is useful in such contexts, adding the proviso “if at least one would say that marriage is simply something good” (εἰ δὴ καὶ γάμος ἁπλῶς ἀγαθὸν ἂν λέγοιτο, 119.35–37). This is in the first place an intelligent piece of anti-Stoic polemic. For a Stoic like Diogenes of Babylon should indeed place marriage among the indifferents, not among the good (SVF 3.163–64 and 494). At the same time, however, the proviso may well reflect Philodemus’ own Epicurean skepticism. This may be confirmed by another passage from On Economy, where he attacks Theophrastus’ use of a verse from Hesiod’s Works and Days. According to Hesiod, a man should first have a house and a woman (γυναῖκα, 405). Theophrastus apparently understood this as a reference to a married wife, but Philodemus objects that Hesiod was thinking of a female slave, as in fact appears from the following verse, which was ignored by Theophrastus (Oec. 8.24–40, with reference to Hes. Op. 406: “you should purchase the woman, not marry her,” κτητὴν οὐ γαμετήν).4 This learned criticism both demonstrates Philodemus’ wide reading and erudition (cf. his allusion to many commentators, “πολλῶν . . . φασκόντων,” in 8.37–38) and Theophrastus’ lack of it. Moreover, it is an interesting illustration of the well-known Epicurean

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strategy of using previous literature in support of one’s own philosophical insights: Philodemus can indeed show that even Hesiod apparently had at least some reservations about marriage.5 And he goes on to specify that a married wife should not be a man’s first concern, for it is in fact perfectly possible to live a happy life without her (γίνεσθαι δυναμένης εὐδαίμονος ζωῆς καὶ χωρὶς αὐτῆς, 9.1–3). The whole passage shows the same cool reservation about marriage that returns in other sources as well. This harvest gathered from later Epicureans is, I grant, not particularly impressive, and while it may help in confirming the need of emendation in the key passage from Diogenes Laertius quoted at the beginning of this chapter, it throws no further light on the question of why the Epicureans were so opposed to marriage. But before examining Epicurus’ arguments in more detail and introducing a few additional sources, an important clarification has to be made. We should understand what Epicurus himself understood by “marriage.” His frame of reference and conception of marriage strongly differ from ours, and it is of paramount importance to take this difference into account, something that is not always done in contemporary scholarship. First, marriage has, in Epicurus’ view, nothing to do with love. In fact, love is not even regarded as a distinctive or necessary characteristic of marriage in Epicurean sources. An analogous conclusion holds true for Epicurus’ attitude toward sex. Epicurus’ fairly negative position toward sexual intercourse is not directly related to his critical view of marriage, for theoretically it is perfectly possible to favor sex (with a concubine or someone else) and reject marriage.6 Marriage, then, is not automatically associated with love or sex; it is inextricably intertwined, however, with having children. This close connection between marriage and children is strongly rooted in the Greek tradition, as appears from well-known arguments such as that of Ps.-Demosthenes, who straightforwardly identifies συνοικεῖν (living in wedlock) and παιδοποιεῖν (begetting children) and goes on to explain that “we keep mistresses [ἑταίρας] for the sake of pleasure, concubines [παλλακάς] for the daily care of our persons, but wives [γυναῖκας] to bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our households” (59.122).7 A similar view of marriage returns in Xenophon (Mem. 2.2.4), and the direct link between marriage and children also appears in many sources on Epicurus’ view. We already found it in the quoted key passage from Diogenes Laertius (10.119) and it also occurs in Philodemus (Mus. 4, 38.38–39), Epictetus (3.7.19 = fr. 525 Us.), Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 2.23.138.3–4 = fr. 526 Us.), Theodoretus (Graec. aff. cur. 12.74), and Lactantius (Inst. 3.17.5 = fr. 526 Us.). This implies that Epicurus’ view of child-rearing is directly relevant

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Geert Roskam for a correct understanding of his position toward marriage. Accordingly, many arguments in the remainder of this chapter will have to do with children. When sex or love will occasionally intrude in the discussion, it is only to be quickly discarded.

The Argument against Marriage Two sources provide interesting additional information about the reason why Epicurus was generally opposed to marriage. The first is Clement of Alexandria: Δημόκριτος δὲ γάμον καὶ παιδοποιίαν παραιτεῖται διὰ τὰς πολλὰς ἐξ αὐτῶν ἀηδίας τε καὶ ἀφολκὰς ἀπὸ τῶν ἀναγκαιοτέρων. συγκατατάττε­ ται δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ Ἐπίκουρος καὶ ὅσοι ἐν ἡδονῇ καὶ ἀοχλησίᾳ, ἔτι δὲ καὶ ἀλυπίᾳ τἀγαθὸν τίθενται.

Democritus rejected marriage and child-rearing because they are a source of many displeasures and because they distract from more necessary things. And Epicurus sides with him, as well as all those who place the good in pleasure and freedom from disturbance and also in freedom from pain. (Strom. 2.23.138.3–4 = fr. 526 Us.)8

The second source is Jerome: Epicurus voluptatis assertor, quamquam Metrodorus discipulus eius Leontium habuerit uxorem, raro dicit sapienti ineunda coniuga, quia multa incommoda admixta sunt nuptiis. . . . grave autem esse viro sapienti venire in dubium, utrum bonam an malam (sc. uxorem) ducturus sit. Epicurus, the champion of pleasure—although his disciple Metro­ dorus married Leontion—says that the sage should rarely marry, because marriage involves many troubles. . . . And it is troublesome for the sage to be in doubt whether he is going to marry a good or a bad woman. (Adv. Jovinian. 1.48 = 1 Bickel = 45 Haase = 23 Vottero)

Unfortunately, both passages are rather short, yet they contain some useful clues for the reconstruction of Epicurus’ position.

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Marriage as a Source of Misery

Epicurus apparently rejected marriage because he regarded it as a source of great trouble. That much misery can be caused by the wife is suggested by Jerome: the sage can never know in advance whether his wife will be good or bad. This testimony, however, should be approached with some caution. First, it is strongly influenced by the point of view of Jerome’s source, that is, Seneca’s On Marriage. The context of this passage shows that Epicurus’ view is looked at from a Stoic perspective (characterized by a distinction between the indifferents and the good), and moreover, this Stoic bias is even further distorted by a second one, viz. Jerome’s own misogynist convictions.9 In more Epicurean terms, we could rephrase Jerome’s words by saying that the Epicurean sage can never know in advance whether his wife will not ruin his precious tranquility of mind by her annoying behavior. To make this general statement somewhat more concrete, we may have a brief look at the many marriage contracts that have reached us from antiquity; most were written in the Hellenistic and Roman periods.10 Many of them contain stipulations about the duties of the future husband: he has to respect and maintain his wife, should refrain from extramarital affairs, and should never have children with other women. No less interesting are the duties of the future wife: she should not bring shame on her husband by her bad conduct, nor damage his good name, and she should be obedient and stay at home. This can be seen as a catalog of possible risks against which the involved parties want to protect themselves but also as a list of potential sources of unhappiness. We know that Epicurus tried to avoid injuries that come from other people (βλάβαι ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, Diog. Laert. 10.117 = fr. 536 Us.). It is clear by now that these ἄνθρωποι may include one’s own wife. Epicurus’ avoidance of marriage is then one example of his attempt to avoid such βλάβαι ἐξ ἀνθρώπων. An intelligent echo of this point of view can be found in Alciphron. In a fictitious letter to Lamia, the courtesan and mistress of Demetrius Poliorcetes (4.17), Leontion, the famous Epicurean hetaira, makes a complaint about Epicurus. The latter always makes advances to her, while Leontion herself is in love with Timarchus. In the course of this letter, orthodox Epicurean doctrines are repeatedly given an unexpected turn. At a certain moment, Leontion tells how Epicurus wants to be a new Socrates and how he wants to make her his Xanthippe (4.17.3).11 Leontion, needless to say, is not amused. Several things are going on here. The emulation of Socrates by the persona of Epicurus in

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Geert Roskam Alciphron is at odds with Epicurus’ criticism of Socrates but yields interesting opportunities.12 Since the matrimonial problems of Socrates and Xanthippe were widely known, a mere allusion suffices to recall the various possible problems and risks that a marriage entails, and this is precisely Epicurus’ core argument against marriage. In that sense, Alciphron’s Epicurus has obviously chosen the wrong paradigm. But there is more to it than this. Leontion reorients Epicurus’ argument toward her own female perspective. It is not only the wife who can be a source of misery for her husband but also vice versa. In this particular case, it is Epicurus, the man, who is the source of βλάβαι for Leontion (as Socrates, the negligent husband, was for Xanthippe). Leontion thus adopts the Epicurean view and here turns out to be more Epicurean than Epicurus himself (at least as he has been represented by Alciphron). The telling case of Socrates and Xanthippe was indeed grist to Epicurus’ mill, but there were no doubt many other examples that he could use in support of his view. Adelmo Barigazzi suggests that Epicurus’ attacks on love were based on his familiarity with history; later Epicureans, such as Philodemus, pointed to history in support of their ideal of a sequestered life (Rhet. II, 209, col. vi, 28–30 S.).13 It cannot be excluded that Epicurus adopted basically the same attitude also in his rejection of marriage and that he pointed to concrete examples derived from everyday life and from history to strengthen his point. Literature could be an obvious source as well—after all, tragedies and comedies (e.g., of Epicurus’ peer Menander) were full of marital problems; and of course, there already existed a philosophical tradition.14 We already saw that Clement connected Epicurus’ position with that of Democritus. Thales likewise declared himself an opponent of marriage (Plut. Sol. 6.1–6), as did Antiphon the sophist.15 To the potential troubles caused by the wife should be added those caused by the children. As pointed out earlier, procreation was regarded as the main purpose of marriage. But if these children should be regarded as a source of misery, marriage may well be understood as a pursuit of pain. We may think here primarily of all the troubles that the rearing and education of the children entail but also of their bad attitude and behavior. In the spurious Alci­ biades II, it is argued how some people pray to have children and then, when the latter prove to be utterly bad, spend their whole lives in pain (142b4–7).16 Finally, (the fear of ) a child’s premature death—which was always a real risk in antiquity—can greatly mar a man’s tranquility of mind. All such considerations may have convinced Epicurus that his pleasure was better guaranteed by an unmarried life without children.

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Of course, possible objections could be raised against this position. Clement of Alexandria, for instance, argues that the possession of children is a good thing since the loss of them is among the main evils (Strom. 2.23.142.2). Plutarch’s counterargument has more depth: he points out, against Thales, that “it is irrational and ignoble to renounce the acquisition of what we want for fear of losing it” (Sol. 7.1).17 Moreover, nobody can completely protect himself against the death of relatives and friends (7.2–4). Consequently, we must not be fortified against death of children by childlessness but by reason (7.6). This is a pertinent objection, but whether or not it would have persuaded Thales, it would in any case fail to convince Epicurus. The latter carefully calculated his pleasures and pains and concluded that having children would seriously undermine his self-sufficiency: there are simply too many factors that are no longer under his rational control. Of course, not all pains can be avoided—friends die in the Epicurean Garden as elsewhere—but one can at least try to minimize them as much as possible. An Unnatural and Unnecessary Desire

And that is not all. In the passage quoted earlier, Clement of Alexandria also alludes to another argument: marriage and children distract from more necessary things. This position may be connected with Epicurus’ famous distinction between three kinds of desires: those that are natural and necessary, those that are natural but not necessary, and those that are neither natural nor necessary (RS 29; Sent. Vat. 20; cf. Epist. ad Men. 127). Here we come across a difference between sex and marriage. Whereas sex should be connected with the class of natural but unnecessary desires, marriage presumably falls within the domain of unnatural and unnecessary desires, for everything that distinguishes marriage from other sexual unions (such as concubinage) is rooted in the polis. Marriage did not have the monopoly on sex and child-rearing, but it held the monopoly on producing legitimate children that could later as full citizens assume their duties in their polis.18 And thus, marriage was never an entirely private business but was also important for the political community as a whole. And in this specific orientation, marriage was for Epicurus probably not fundamentally different from seeking social distinction, honor, or power, which should also be classified as motivated by unnatural and unnecessary desires. Even the desire to have children should not be regarded as natural and necessary. Epicurus’ view of man rests on the presupposition that we are not social beings by nature (Them. Or. 26.324a = fr. 551 Us.) but that everyone

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Geert Roskam only takes care of himself (Lactant. Div. inst. 3.17.42 = fr. 523 Us.) and acts sua causa (Cic. Fam. 7.12.2; cf. also Lactant. Div. inst. 3.17.39 = fr. 581 and 3.17.42 = fr. 540 Us.). The radical conclusion of this view is that even parental love for offspring is not natural, a provocative position that caused the vehement polemical reactions of Plutarch and Epictetus.19 I shall soon come back to this; here it suffices to note that in such an Epicurean view, children can often distract from what is much more useful, viz. the satisfaction of limited natural desires. It is the focus on what nature really wants that brings about freedom from pain (ἀπονία) and from mental disturbance (ἀταραξία), and everything that draws the sage away (cf. Clement’s term ἀφολκή) from this is a potential source of misery. A Positive Alternative

Whereas the two passages from Clement and Jerome provide relevant information about Epicurus’ position, they nevertheless give us a one-sided picture, in that they only explain its negative pole. Something similar can be observed concerning Epicurus’ political views. In that case as well, several authors mention Epicurus’ arguments against participation in political life but usually ignore Epicurus’ positive alternative and his enthusiasm about the pure and safe pleasures of an unnoticed life.20 The same holds true in this case. Only one ancient source alludes in the most general and vague way to the fact that Epicurus did not confine himself to a mere negative rejection of marriage and child-rearing but also developed a positive alternative: “To the man who hates his wife, the blessings of celibacy are enumerated; to one who has bad children, childlessness is recommended” (qui odit uxorem, huic enumerantur caelibatus bona; habenti malos liberos orbitas praedicatur, Lactant. Div. inst. 3.17.5 = fr. 526 Us.). Lactantius is not the most reliable source for Epicurus’ philosophy, and his clear-cut schematic staccato of short doctrines in this passage is greatly oversimplifying. Yet it is far from improbable that Epicurus indeed sang the praise of his own ideal and did not focus merely on what the sage lacks (wife and children) but also on what he gains. And among the bona caelibatus are tranquility of mind, independence, self-sufficiency, and, of course, all the pleasures derived from the company of likeminded friends.

When Marriage Might Be Acceptable The evidence discussed so far suggests that Epicurus was quite straightforward in his rejection of marriage and children. In fact, his position was far more

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nuanced. According to the key text from Diogenes Laertius with which we began, the sage will sometimes (ποτέ) marry according to a circumstance in his life (κατὰ περίστασιν βίου). This is confirmed by the term raro in Jerome’s testimony. Such qualifications are typical of Epicurus’ philosophical approach.21 Although it may at first sight seem remarkable that they have even left traces in generalizing and simplifying doxographical accounts such as that of Dioge­ nes Laertius, on closer inspection this distinct preference for qualifications, exceptions, and restrictions is the direct consequence of the fait primitif of Epicurus’ thinking. For if pleasure should be considered as the final goal and as the only criterion to evaluate every single action (RS 25), the Epicurean philosopher has to judge in every concrete case which course will yield most pleasure in the short and in the long run. This judgment is the task of φρόνησις (prudence) and Epicurus is quite consistent when he calls this φρόνησις an even more precious thing than philosophy itself (Epist. ad Men. 132). General insights, concisely phrased and collected in convenient lists such as the Principal Doctrines or the Vatican Sayings, may help in establishing the ideal course, but in every concrete situation, it is φρόνησις that ultimately decides whether these general rules still apply. And exceptions are always possible: the Epicurean sage will sometimes (si quid intervenerit) engage in politics (Sen. Dial. 8.3.2 = fr. 9 Us.; cf. Cic. Resp. 1.10 and 1.11), he will occasionally (ἐν καιρῷ) pay court to a king (Diog. Laert. 10.120 = fr. 577 Us.), and he will sometimes (ποτέ) die for a friend (Diog. Laert. = fr. 590 Us.). A similar cautious qualification returns in our context concerning marriage. It should be clear by now that this willingness to allow for exceptions should be understood as Epicurus’ acknowledgment of the importance of φρόνησις in the assessment of every single case. According to Diogenes Laertius, Epicurus discussed this particular problem concerning marriage in his Diaporiai. Now we know that he dealt in this work with several difficult dilemmas. For instance, he raised there the notorious question whether the sage will break the law if he can be sure that he will never be detected (Plut. Adv. Col. 1127D = fr. 18 Us.). Such violation of the law may well yield him interesting advantages, yet it would be opposed to his general appreciation of the existing legislation, and thus requires at least a careful and well-considered calculus.22 In the same work, he discussed the problem whether an old and impotent sage still derives pleasure from touching the fair (Plut. Non posse 1094E = fr. 21 Us.). This fragment is often ignored in discussions of Epicurus’ view of sexual intercourse, although the mere fact that Epicurus raised and examined the question in his work shows that he did not find

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Geert Roskam such problems trivial or irrelevant. In fact, questions such as these often challenge the foundations of Epicurus’ thinking by introducing possible unwelcome implications or objections. In all likelihood, the same holds true for Epicurus’ discussion of marriage in the Diaporiai. We saw that Epicurus as a rule regarded marriage as a source of many troubles, yet he probably recognized that, under particular circumstances, marriage may well yield more pleasure than pain. This, as usual, requires a careful calculus. The question then is what such circumstances may be and when the sage may decide to marry. Several possible answers to this problem can be found in ancient sources; others have been suggested by modern scholars. Let us have a look at all of them, beginning with the ancient sources. Ancient Suggestions

Epictetus indignantly rejects Epicurus’ view because it cannot be applied universally: if everyone would follow Epicurus’ advice and refrain from marriage and child-rearing, there would simply be no polis at all (3.7.19). Epictetus’ rhetorical question πόθεν οἱ πολῖται (Where are the citizens to come from?) points to an obvious difficulty, of course, yet it is not evident that it would also convince Epicurus. First, Epictetus’ concern reflects his own Stoic point of view, not that of Epicurus. He questions the very existence of an Ἐπικου­ ρείων πόλις (a state of Epicureans), but Epicurus is not interested at all in such a large-scale polis. He did not wish to create new citizens that have to administer the political system of their polis. Second, as things are, the Epicureans are a small minority. Epictetus’ problem of the depopulation of the polis thus proves to be entirely imaginary. The problem would only occur when everyone (including the profanum vulgus) would strictly follow Epicurus’ general rules. This is obviously an unreal scenario, which Epicurus did not even pursue.23 Accordingly, he would probably not have been disturbed by Epictetus’ objection, and in any case, it is rather unlikely that the phrase κατὰ περίστασιν βίου in Diogenes Laertius would point to the unreal situation of an Ἐπικουρείων πόλις in which the Epicureans would be forced to marry and rear children in order to safeguard the very existence of their polis and ultimately even of the human race. In an interesting passage from Dialogue on Love, Plutarch attacks some “illtempered men who have never fallen in love” (ἀνδρῶν δυσκόλων καὶ ἀνεράσ­ των, 767C). These have often been identified as the Epicureans, and although

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there are no cogent reasons to assume that Plutarch has only the Epicureans in mind, they certainly qualify as possible members of the group of ἄνδρες ἀνέ­ ραστοι.24 Plutarch then goes on to mention two reasons why such men may still decide to marry: acquiring a dowry and having children (767C–D). As to the dowry, it is far from evident that an Epicurean would marry because of the financial gain this would bring him. For the Epicurean philosopher knows how to limit his desires to what is natural and necessary, he is basically selfsufficient (Sent. Vat. 44, 45, and 77; Epist. ad Men. 130; fr. 476 Us.), and moreover he can in exceptionally bad circumstances always rely on the support of his friends (Sent. Vat. 34). Of course, the money of a rich dowry could be of some help, but why would the sage marry if he does not strictly need this money and if he risks undermining his tranquility? It is often argued that financial gain cannot persuade the Epicurean sage to break the law.25 Would it then persuade him to marry? All in all, the general possibility of financial gain as such does not seem to hide behind the general phrase of κατὰ περίστασιν βίου. What about Plutarch’s second suggestion? Will the Epicurean sage marry because he wants to have children? We already saw that Epicurus did not regard parental love for offspring as natural. At this point, though, some clarification is in order. Demetrius Laco explains Epicurus’ view as a denial that parental love is necessary. In other terms, he equates “natural” with “necessary” and argues that parental love is voluntary, thus mitigating the provocative aspect of Epicurus’ position.26 Furthermore, Epicurus never said that parents do not love their children, and John Rist definitely goes too far in claiming that Epicurus even advised parents to abandon newborn children.27 This extreme view is (only) supported by a passage from Epictetus (“let us not take up children,” μὴ ἀναιρώμεθα τέκνα, 1.23.7), but the latter is probably an unjustified polemical exaggeration. There is, in any case, some evidence that Epicurus was himself fond of children.28 Bertrand Russell suggests that Epicurus “liked children against his better judgment,” but in my view, such fondness of children has in itself nothing that is inconsistent with Epicurus’ philosophy.29 Epicurus may in fact derive many pleasures from playing with children or observing their spontaneous reactions without having to take care of their upbringing. However, this attention and affection for children does not suffice as an incentive to marry. For even if the Epicurean philosopher really wants to have children himself (rather than enjoy those of others), he can still beget them by concubines. We may here recall Plutarch’s malicious suggestion that Epicurus

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Geert Roskam begot, together with Polyaenus (one of Epicurus’ most important students, according to Diog. Laert. 10.24), a child by an unnamed hetaira from Cyzicus (Non posse 1098B). This looks like polemical slander, but there can be little doubt that many distinguished members of the Garden indeed begot children.30 We may well wonder then whether there is any apparent reason why an Epicurean would prefer to father children on a married wife rather than on a concubine. There are a couple of possible reasons: (1) A marriage would guarantee that his children are legitimate and eligible to be enrolled as full citizens (provided of course that the parents are citizens themselves). From the orthodox Epicurean perspective, however, this advantage would usually be of minor importance, and it might even be a hindrance to the extent that full citizenship would make it more difficult to live unnoticed. (2) A law of Solon stated that sons who were born from concubines were not obliged to support their fathers (Plut. Sol. 22.4), yet this need not be decisive, for the Epicurean can be confident that his community will assume this task. Neither Epictetus nor Plutarch thus puts us on the right track. What about the suggestion in Diogenes Laertius that Metrodorus, Epicurus’ famous friend, “was in love with Leontion” (ἐρασθῆναι Λεοντίου, 10.6)? Here we can be brief: the passage belongs to a longer section in which Diogenes lists several polemical charges, and the blunt claim that Metrodorus really loved Leontion may well be the result of one such polemical distortion. For the Epicurean sage neither regards love as something divine (Diog. Laert. 10.118; cf. Phld. Mus. 4, 119.42–43) nor falls in love himself (Diog. Laert. 10.118 = fr. 574 Us.). Lucretius’ demystifying discussion of love at the end of his fourth book (4.1030– 1287) should be understood in this perspective too. All this implies that, if the sage marries κατὰ περίστασιν βίου, this will be a marriage without love.31 Yet we may insist here: What if the Epicurean meets a like-minded soul? What if he happens to meet what Plato’s Aristophanes called his other half (Symp. 192b5–c2)? We may at this point recall a parallel from another school. Although Diogenes the Cynic was opposed to marriage (Diog. Laert. 6.54), Crates and Hipparchia were married (6.96). Of course, that was a marriage sui generis—Crates called it a “marriage of dogs” (Suda 3, 182.14–15 Adl.: κυνογαμίαν)—but could the Epicureans then, mutatis mutandis, not opt for a ὑογαμία, a “marriage of pigs”? Probably they could, but the question remains why they would do so and prefer marriage to concubinage. To pursue a social sanctioning of their relationship? To take care that their children will be full citizens? It is doubtful whether such motivations are compelling from an orthodox Epicurean point of view.

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Modern Suggestions

Since all of these ancient sources throw no light on Epicurus’ nuanced position, we should turn to the attempts of modern specialists. Alberto Grilli tries to establish a parallel with Epicurus’ political philosophy and therefore points to a passage in Plutarch’s On Tranquility of Mind (465F–466A = fr. 555 Us.).32 Plutarch there recalls that Epicurus allows ambitious men to engage in politics because inactivity would be more painful to them. In Grilli’s view, an analogous argument can be constructed with regard to marriage: as an exception to the general rule, the men who are really fond of women (φιλογύναικες) should marry because they will be greatly disturbed if they do not satisfy the desires that are rooted in their very nature.33 Yet I am not sure whether this is indeed what Epicurus wanted to say. First, I have argued elsewhere that the passage from Plutarch is an unreliable source for Epicurus’ political philosophy.34 But even apart from that, its argument cannot be rephrased as a valuable reason for marriage, since such Epicurean φιλογύναικες could always turn to concubines. Finally, the phrase κατὰ περίστασιν βίου seems to refer to an external circumstance rather than an internal disposition. An entirely different explanation is put forward by Claude Vatin. In his view, the Epicurean sage will marry because he wants to bow to the existing social customs. For the Epicurean sage, in other words, marriage is not so much a civic duty as a troublesome way to conform himself to the prevailing social behavior.35 Now it is true that we should not underestimate the importance that Epicurus attached to a certain conformism. He indeed warns against offending other people (RS 39; Plut. Adv. Col. 1127DE = fr. 134 Us.) and emphasizes that the sage should give some thought for his good reputation (Diog. Laert. 10.120a = fr. 573 Us.). And we can easily see why this is so: the sage will need this caution in order to safeguard the security (ἀσφάλεια) that he in turn needs for his tranquility of mind. Epicurus, then, has only little sympathy for the Cynics who impudently rejected all social conventions through their shameless behavior (cf. Diog. Laert. 10.8 and 10.119). Nevertheless, this concern for cautious conformism should not be overemphasized and it certainly did not force Epicurus to substantially change his fundamental convictions. We know of enough provocative statements to conclude that he did not hesitate to question widespread convictions.36 Accordingly, it is unlikely that the sage’s decision to marry would be based on conformism alone. In my view, the solution should be sought elsewhere. The phrase κατὰ περίστασιν βίου refers neither to an inner disposition nor to a concern for

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Geert Roskam conformism but to a specific situation where a marriage somehow yields important advantages that compensate for possible pains and troubles. Ancient philosophers often tended to ignore the concrete reality of daily life or even tried to force facts into conformity with their doctrines (cf. Plut. De prof. 75F), but Epicurus could seldom be blamed for that. He often showed himself to be an excellent and sober-minded observer of real life. In this context, he no doubt realized that questions of inheritance, the presence of an heiress (ἐπί­ κληρος), or existing balances and relations between different families could entail situations in which marriage may be the best solution. Several arguments in this chapter have already shown that such cases would be rather exceptional for an Epicurean sage, who is supposed to be self-sufficient and independent, yet they have not demonstrated that they can never occur. Toward a Better Solution?

The safest course to find what kind of situations Epicurus may have in mind is to examine the concrete praxis of the Epicureans themselves.37 The presence of many hetairai in the Garden then illustrates the general rule.38 Marriage seems less frequent. The ancient sources inform us about four cases: • • • •

Case 1: Leonteus and Themista Case 2: Metrodorus and Leontion Case 3: Epicurus’ will Case 4: Idomeneus and Batis

Little doubt exists about the first case: Leonteus and Themista were indeed married and they were distinguished members of the Garden. But it is of course perfectly possible that they were already married before they met Epicurus and that they saw no reason to divorce after they joined the Epicurean community in Lampsacus. Moreover, Epicurus may well have influenced Leonteus’ thinking of his marriage, for Philodemus informs us that he had Mammarion as a beloved (PHerc. 1005, 6.16; the term ἐρωμένη, or beloved, was perhaps being used in a loose sense). But we lack further relevant information. Case 1, then, offers little help in clarifying the meaning of the phrase κατὰ περίστασιν βίου. Case 2 is much more problematic, for ancient sources disagree about the question whether Metrodorus and Leontion were married. Jerome, in the passage from Against Jovinian quoted earlier, claims that the two were indeed married, but this claim is part of a polemical argument. Jerome—or his source,

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Seneca—tries to detect an inconsistency between Epicurus’ doctrines and Metrodorus’ deeds, and it is far from impossible that the relationship between Metrodorus and Leontion is characterized as a marriage precisely in order to make such an argument. In other words, although Leontion might have been Metrodorus’ concubine in real life, she might have become his wife in the polemical works of Epicurus’ opponents. However, some support for Jerome’s claim that Metrodorus and Leontion were married may come from Plutarch, who refers to the reactions of Metrodorus’ mother and sister “on his marriage” (ἐπὶ τοῖς γάμοις αὐτοῦ, Non posse 1098B). Yet Plutarch’s tone in this passage is deeply sarcastic. Since the previous sentence deals with the Epicureans’ promiscuous relations with hetairai, the suggestion may well be that these are the kind of “marriages” that Epicurus’ followers pursue. In short, the reliability of the information is once again uncertain due to the polemical context of the passage. A third source, finally, seems more objective. Diogenes Laertius characterizes the relation between Metrodorus and Leontion as a concubinage (10.23). Moreover, in the same passage he refers to the marriage of Metrodorus’ sister, which suggests that he is careful in his use of terms. It is difficult to gain certainty on this matter, but I am inclined to side with Diogenes. The implication is that case 2 is no longer relevant in our context. Cases 3 and 4, however, provide interesting information. In his will, Epicurus stipulated that his heirs should take care of the sons of Metrodorus and Polyaenus, as long as they philosophize and live together with Hermarchus, and they should also care for Metrodorus’ daughter.39 If the latter comes of age, she should be given in marriage to a member of the school selected by Hermarchus, provided she is well ordered and obedient to Hermarchus (Diog. Laert. 10.19). Tad Brennan has rightly underlined the relevance of Epicurus’ will for a better understanding of his thinking about marriage, yet his discussion raises several problems.40 In his view, Epicurus’ position was less nuanced than our sources suggest. I do not infer from this [i.e., the evidence of the will], however, that in his formal treatments of the topic he propounded lists of exceptional circumstances; indeed, he may never have mentioned the possibility of exceptions at all. The evidence of D.L. 10.119 might just as easily reflect later Epicurean attempts to make sense of the will itself, or comparable informal comments. In his treatises, he may have said things that seemed to express a universal prohibition; this would explain the impressions of later readers.

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Geert Roskam But his will shows that he made allowances. I am inclined to think that it is philosophically consistent for him to do so.41

Several objections can be raised against this view. First, Diogenes Laertius mentions that Epicurus discussed the issue in his Diaporiai, and we saw that this work indeed contained several discussions of complicated and challenging issues. It is unlikely that Epicurus would in such cases merely have stuck to strict universal rules, even more so since all kinds of qualifications and restrictions very frequently occur in the extant fragments from his works. I find it very difficult to believe that all such qualifications should be traced back to later epigones: they rather seem to be the necessary consequence of Epicurus’ philosophy. That does not mean that Epicurus indeed “propounded lists of exceptional circumstances.” In all likelihood, he never did, for such casuistry would be of limited help anyhow and can never replace the working of an individual’s φρόνησις. Second, Epicurus’ position in his will is at first sight less evident than Brennan suggests, and, to say the very least, some explanation is needed of why it is “philosophically consistent.” Why should an Epicurean philosopher be forced to ruin his own pleasure and marry Metrodorus’ daughter while Metrodorus himself has long been disintegrated into atoms and is no longer concerned about his daughter’s fate? What can have motivated Epicurus to make such a request? I would interpret Epicurus’ view as a token of kindness toward Metrodorus, inspired by gratitude and loyalty. Another passage from the will shows that Epicurus found it important that all the old members of his school (his so-called συμφιλοσοφοῦντες) who benefited him did not lack anything necessary for their maintenance (Diog. Laert. 10.20). Apparently, Epicurus extended this gratitude to his dead friend Metrodorus, through the care for his living children. The traditional objection that such concerns are diametrically opposed to Epicurus’ view of death is not pointless but ignores the significant pleasures that Epicurus can derive in the hic et nunc from his knowledge that he has now done everything that lies in his power to benefit his friends even post mortem.42 Yet this is more than a friendly service to the dead Metrodorus alone. All members of the Garden can henceforth imitate the master’s example and take care for the well-being of their dear friends and relatives after their own death. With his will, Epicurus thus initiated (or corroborated) a tradition of attentive care for the surviving relatives of the dead members of his school, and this may well have removed an important potential source of worry. Again, one may

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object here that such feelings of anxiousness about the future fate of one’s relatives are foolish in an Epicurean perspective, but Epicurus knew the depths of the human psyche and was often willing to take such unnecessary fears into account.43 In that sense, his care for Metrodorus’ children also reflects his concern for the internal cohesion in his community.44 Relevant in this respect is Epicurus’ great and repeated insistence that his provisions only hold as long as the children behave appropriately. It is no coincidence that this proviso is repeated more than once.45 Conduct that betrays friendship and breaks off the bonds with the Epicurean community implies the end of the Epicureans’ commitment. If the care for Metrodorus’ daughter thus indirectly benefits the whole community, it obviously also benefits herself. In arranging a marriage for her, Epicurus is not primarily thinking of her husband’s happiness but of her own security and well-being. Moreover, we face a special circumstance in this case. Since Metrodorus’ son had obviously not yet come of age, the closest living male relative may well have been Metrodorus’ brother Timocrates, the greatest enemy of the Garden.46 We can understand that Epicurus would want to avoid that Timocrates would gain authority over the girl at all costs. If she later decides to prefer her uncle to the συμφιλοσοφοῦντες of the Garden, that would obviously mean the end of the latter’s loyalty, but as long as she stays with the Epicurean community, she can be sure of protection, friendship, and even a marriage. This specific situation may give us an idea of what a concrete περίστασις βίου may look like. At this point, we can briefly turn to Case 4: Metrodorus gave his sister Batis to Idomeneus to marry (Diog. Laert. 10.23). Again, this may well reflect Metrodorus’ concern for the security of his sister, given the fact that Idomeneus was both a distinguished citizen in Lampsacus (Str. 13.1.19) and a member of the Epicurean community there. Further details about their marriage are lacking, except for the fact that Idomeneus, like his friend Leonteus, was reputed to have a beloved (PHerc. 1005, 6.14–15 on Nikidion). Yet we should return to Epicurus’ will. I argued that it showed both concern for the Epicurean community and an accurate assessment of the peculiar situation of Metrodorus’ daughter. But there is one person who has so far been completely ignored in our discussion: the poor Epicurean philosopher who has to marry the girl and thus harm his tranquility of mind. Of course, we may presume that Hermarchus will make a well-considered choice (Diog. Laert. 10.19), but even so, should we conclude that Epicurus here consciously sacrifices a member of his own community because it is better that one man should

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Geert Roskam perish than that a whole community should dwindle? Here our sources remain silent and do not even seem to make room for an argumentum e silentio: we do not know how it all ended, whether Hermarchus made the right choice, what became of Metrodorus’ daughter, whether she married at all, or how she understood and lived her marriage. But it is perhaps not unreasonable to presume that the Epicurean husband was not only facing trouble and affliction, or even that he may have derived some pleasures from being the son-in-law of one of the Garden’s greatest coryphaei and from receiving the gratitude and appreciation of his fellows and friends. If that is true, this exceptional case may at least give us a hint about the specific περίστασις βίου that can occasionally persuade the Epicurean philosopher to marry. And, strikingly enough, the case would not refute Epicurus’ general view but rather be the exception that tellingly proves the rule.

Conclusion Epicurus would probably have agreed with Euripides’ verse that “children and a wife are a great tyranny for a man” (TrGF 5.1, fr. 543), and he was perfectly consistent in not marrying. He was interested in safeguarding his own independence and self-sufficiency as much as possible, in order to secure his pleasure and tranquility of mind, and marriage and children did in his view not contribute to that end. Yet he was broad-minded enough to allow for possible exceptions and even made provisions in his will for a marriage of Metrodorus’ daughter with an Epicurean philosopher. One final question: Was Epicurus right in his evaluation of marriage? In a 2008 article, several scholars examined the applicability of Epicurus’ philosophy to the present day.47 Is Epicurus still a reliable guide for us? They concluded that he can be followed on some points and should be distrusted on others. Among the latter is his view of marriage. It would lead us too far to summarize all the details of their careful research, but the result shows that nowadays, married people are happier than singles, even if they later divorce (and remarry). On this point at least, Epicurus’ view seems to have been superseded. Or has it? The main problem with the article’s analysis is that the authors assume a modern conception of marriage, not that of Epicurus. The authors, for instance, never deal with the difference between marriage and concubinatus, nor with the important qualifications that can be found in Epicurus’ thinking. In other words, they start from a greatly oversimplified and partly erroneous understanding of Epicurus’ philosophy. The article only shows that

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we, in the present circumstances, should opt for a different value scale, or that our φρόνησις will come to a different evaluation. In short, the insights that the article contains are true challenges for all Epicuri redivivi, and it would be most interesting to see how they would put them into practice. The original Epicurus is long dead, and he does not care. Notes 1. Quintilian (1.6.36) also points to the relevance of the Greek term ἠΐθεος (unmarried youth) in this context; cf. Isidore of Seville 10.34. 2. See the discussions in Chilton 1960; Gigante 1962, 380–81; Brennan 1996, 348–49. 3. See Brown 1987, 88–91, 122. 4. And not by him alone: both ancient and modern commentators often reject the verse as spurious; see West 1978, 260, for a discussion. 5. On using earlier literature to support one’s ideas, see Erler 2006. 6. On Epicurus’ negative view of sex, see Diog. Laert. 10.118; Epicurus, Sent. Vat. 51; see also the excellent discussion of Brennan 1996, 346–48. Cf. Lucretius’ radical conviction that one “better casts the collected liquid into any body” (et iacere umorem coniectum in corpora quaeque, 4.1065) than confine oneself to one beloved. Flacelière 1959, 211, draws a parallel with Plutarch: “they beget in the first body they come upon” (οἷς ἔτυχε σώμασιν ἐναπογεννήσαντες, Amat. 767D). 7. Translation by Murray 1939. 8. This passage from Clement is in all likelihood the source of the passage in Theodoretus Graec. aff. cur. 12.74. 9. See the excellent discussion of Bellandi 2004; and Dressler in this volume. 10. Much relevant information is collected and discussed in Vatin 1970, 163–80; Yiftach-Firanko 2003, esp. 187–91. 11. Xanthippe was Socrates’ wife. 12. Epicurus’ position toward Socrates has been examined very well. See, e.g., Riley 1980; Kleve 1983; Vander Waerdt 1989, 253–59; Clay 2003; Opsomer 2013. 13. Barigazzi 1988, 99; on Philodemus, see Roskam 2007b, 107. 14. On marital problems, cf. Stob. 4.22b. 15. See Stob. 4.22b.66 = fr. 87 B 49 DK (with reference to Hes. Theog. 610–12); discussion in Pendrick 2002, 308–88. 16. Cf. also Juv. 10.350–53, with the rich commentary of Campana 2004, 354–56. 17. Translation by Perrin 1914. 18. Cf. Oakley and Sinos 1993, 9: “Thus the word gamos was used for the wedding ceremony that distinguished publicly recognized sexual relationships from sexual relationships that had no legitimate status in the community. It was part of a process

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Geert Roskam that established the family units (oikoi ) through which citizenship was passed on and legitimate heirs were produced.” Cf. also Patterson 1998, 131: “Marriage should be understood as the composite process that resulted in the establishment of a legitimate household and underlay the legitimate participation of the Athenian in his or her polis.” 19. For Epictetus, see 1.23.3–10. Plutarch dealt with the issue in his short work On Love of Offspring; see Roskam 2011. 20. Cf. Roskam 2007a, 28–30; 2007b, 47–48. 21. On the importance of the many qualifications in Epicurus’ philosophy, see Roskam 2007a, 36; 2007b, 148. 22. I deal with the issue in Roskam 2012, where all the relevant bibliography can be found. 23. This appears from a saying that has been transmitted in a manuscript from Paris (Parisinus 1168 = fr. 187 Us.); cf. also fr. 208, 209, 489 Us. On Diogenes of Oenoanda, fr. 56, I, 1–12 (on the “Golden Age”), see Roskam 2007b, 134–35. 24. They have been identified as Epicureans by Flacelière 1954; 1959, 211; Brown 1987, 113; Barigazzi 1988, 100. 25. See Roskam 2012, 35, with further references. 26. PHerc. 1012 66.5–68.10; cf. Puglia 1988. 27. Rist 1972, 134; 1980, 123. 28. See esp. Sent. Vat. 62; cf. the famous fragment from a letter to Apia, attributed to Epicurus (fr. 176 Us.), Polyaenus, or Hermarchus (fr. 2 LA); see the discussion in Longo Auricchio 1988, 109–11. 29. Russell 1961, 253. 30. Metrodorus: Diog. Laert. 10.19; Polyaenus: Diog. Laert. 10.19; Idomeneus: Plut. Adv. Col. 1117D–E, and cf. Sen. Ep. 98.9; Leonteus: Diog. Laert. 10.26. 31. Cf. Flacelière 1954, 78. 32. Grilli 1971. 33. Basically the same position is adopted by Flacelière 1954, 76 n. 2, and Arkins 1984, 141, who both establish an interesting parallel with a passage from Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians (7.8–9). 34. Roskam 2007b, 53–54. 35. Vatin 1970, 32: “Aussi le sage ne se mariera-t-il qu’en pensant que cela fait partie des ennuis de la vie. Il doit agir ainsi pour vivre conformément aux coutumes de la société des hommes. Pour l’épicurien, le mariage est donc un moyen de ne pas se singulariser plus qu’un véritable devoir civique.” 36. E.g. Ath. 7.280a and 12.546f (= fr. 409 Us.): “the beginning and root of every good is the pleasure of the belly”; 12.547a (= fr. 512 Us.): “I spit on the good and those who vainly admire it if it produces no pleasure.” See also Plut. Non posse 1098C–D (= Metrod. fr. 41 K.) and 1100D, and Adv. Col. 1125D.

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Epicurus on Marriage 37. The same strategy is to be followed with regard to the exceptional circumstances under which the Epicurean sage engages in politics; see therefore Roskam 2007a, 38–40. 38. On the women in the Epicurean Garden, see Gordon 2004, 2012; Di Fabio 2017. Both point to ancient evidence that women in the Garden were not merely regarded as sexual partners but were also taken seriously as philosophers. This raises the question of how these Epicurean women may have thought about the issue of marriage from their female point of view. Typically enough, though, our ancient sources contain no information about this. 39. The same concern for Metrodorus’ children appears from the famous last letter that Epicurus wrote on his deathbed (Diog. Laert. 10.22 = fr. 138 Us.); it is actually the only request that he makes to his addressee: ἐπιμελοῦ τῶν παίδων Μητροδώρου. 40. Brennan 1996, 349–50; cf. Brown 1987, 120. 41. Brennan 1996, 350. 42. See esp. Cic. Fin. 2.100–103, and the thorough discussion of Warren 2004, 162–99; cf. also Roskam 2007a, 114–15, on Plut. De lat. viv. 1129A. 43. Cf. Roskam 2007a, 35–36; 2007b, 49. 44. This concern also appears from other passages from his will; see esp. Clay 1973, 1984; Warren 2004, 39–41. 45. See Diog. Laert. 10.19: “so long as they philosophize and live with Hermarchus” (φιλοσοφούντων αὐτῶν καὶ συζώντων μεθ᾿ Ἑρμάρχου) and “so long as she behaves orderly and obeys Hermarchus” (οὔσης αὐτῆς εὐτάκτου καὶ πειθαρχούσης Ἑρμάρχῳ:); and 10.21: “as long as they behave orderly” (εὐτακτούντων αὐτῶν). 46. On Timocrates’ polemic, see Sedley 1976; Roskam 2007a, 43–49. 47. Bergsma, Poot, and Liefbroer 2008.

Works Cited Arkins, B. 1984. “Epicurus and Lucretius on Sex, Love and Marriage.” Apeiron 18:141–43. Barigazzi, A. 1988. “L’amore: Plutarco contro Epicuro.” In Aspetti dello stoicismo e dell’epicureismo in Plutarco: Atti del II convegno di studi su Plutarco, Ferrara, 2–3 aprile 1987, edited by I. Gallo, 89–108. Ferrara. Bellandi, F. 2004. “Epicuro, Seneca e il matrimonio del sapiens: Sul frammento 23 Vottero = 45 Haase del De matrimonio di Seneca.” MD 53:175–82. Bergsma, A., G. Poot, and A. Liefbroer. 2008. “Happiness in the Garden of Epicurus.” Journal of Happiness Studies 9:397–423. Brennan, T. 1996. “Epicurus on Sex, Marriage, and Children.” CPh 91:346–52. Brown, R. D. 1987. Lucretius on Love and Sex: A Commentary on “De Rerum Natura” IV, 1030–1287 with Prolegomena, Text, and Translation. Leiden.

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Geert Roskam Campana, P. 2004. D. Iunii Iuvenalis Satura X. Firenze. Chilton, C. W. 1960. “Did Epicurus Approve of Marriage? A Study of Diogenes Laertius X, 119.” Phronesis 5:71–74. Clay, D. 1973. “Epicurus’ Last Will and Testament.” AGPh 55:252–80. . 1984. “The Cult of Epicurus: An Interpretation of Philodemus, On Epicurus (PHerc. 1232) and other Texts.” In Atti del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia, vol. 2, 677–79. Naples. . 2003. “The Trial of Socrates in Herculaneum.” CErc 33:89–100. Di Fabio, T. 2017. “Donne epicuree: Cortigiane, filosofe o entrambe?” Bollettino della Società Filosofica Italiana 221 (2): 19–36. Erler, M. 2006. “Interpretatio medicans: Zur epikureischen Rückgewinnung der Literatur im philosophischen Kontext.” In Antike Philosophie verstehen / Understanding Ancient Philosophy, edited by M. van Ackeren and J. Müller, 243–56. Darmstadt. Flacelière, R. 1954. “Les Épicuriens et l’amour.” REG 67:69–81. . 1959. “Plutarque et l’épicurisme.” In Epicurea in memoriam Hectoris Bignone: Miscellanea philologica, 197–215. Genoa. Gigante, M. 1962. “Note Laerziane.” PP 17:371–81. Gordon, P. 2004. “Remembering the Garden: The Trouble with Women in the School of Epicurus.” In Philodemus and the New Testament World, edited by J. T. Fitzgerald, D. Obbink, and G. S. Holland, 221–43. Leiden. . 2012. The Invention and Gendering of Epicurus. Ann Arbor, MI. Grilli, A. 1971. “Epicuro e il matrimonio (D. L. X,119).” RSF 26:51–56. Kleve, K. 1983. “Scurra atticus: The Epicurean View of Socrates.” In Syzêtêsis: Studi sull’epicureismo greco e romano offerti a Marcello Gigante, vol. 1, 227–53. Naples. Longo Auricchio, F. 1988. Ermarco: Frammenti. Naples. Murray, A. T. 1939. Demosthenes: Orations. Vol. 6. Cambridge, MA. Oakley, J., and R. Sinos. 1993. The Wedding in Ancient Athens. Madison, WI. Opsomer, J. 2013. “The Lives and Opinions of Socrates and Stiplo as Defended by Plutarch against the Insidious yet Ignorant Attacks of Colotes.” Aetia 3:2–23. Patterson, C. B. 1998. The Family in Greek History. Cambridge, MA. Pendrick, G. J. 2002. Antiphon the Sophist: The Fragments. Cambridge. Perrin, B. 1914. Plutarch: Lives. Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA. Puglia, E. 1988. “L’amore per i figli nella dottrina di Epicuro (Dem. Lac., PHerc. 1012, coll. LXVI 5—LXVIII).” In Proceedings of the XVIII International Congress of Pa­ pyrology, Athens, 25–31 May 1986, edited by V. G. Mandelaras, 249–55. Athens. Riley, M. T. 1980. “The Epicurean Criticism of Socrates.” Phoenix 34:55–68. Rist, J. M. 1972. Epicurus: An Introduction. Cambridge. . 1980. “Epicurus on Friendship.” CPh 75:121–29. Roskam, G. 2007a. A Commentary on Plutarch’s “De latenter vivendo.” Leuven. Roskam, G. 2007b. Live Unnoticed (Λάθε βιώσας): On the Vicissitudes of an Epicurean Doctrine. Leiden.

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Epicurus on Marriage . 2011. “Plutarch Against Epicurus on Affection for Offspring: A Reading of De amore prolis.” In Virtues for the People: Aspects of Plutarchan Ethics, edited by G. Roskam and L. Van der Stockt, 175–201. Leuven. . 2012. “Will the Epicurean Sage Break the Law if He Is Perfectly Sure That He Will Escape Detection? A Difficult Problem Revisited.” TAPA 142:23–40. Russell, B. 1961. History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. London. Sedley, D. N. 1976. “Epicurus and His Professional Rivals.” In Études sur l’Épicurisme antique, edited by J. Bollack and A. Laks, 119–59. Lille. Vander Waerdt, P. A. 1989. “Colotes and the Epicurean Refutation of Skepticism.” GRBS 30:225–67. Vatin, C. 1970. Recherches sur le mariage et la condition de la femme mariée à l’époque hellénistique. Paris. Warren, J. 2004. Facing Death: Epicurus and His Critics. Oxford. West, M. L. 1978. Hesiod: Works and Days. Oxford. Yiftach-Firanko, U. 2003. Marriage and Marital Arrangements: A History of the Greek Marriage Document in Egypt, 4th Century BCE—4th Century CE. Munich.

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The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage” Style and the Woman in Jerome, Against Jovinian 1 Alex Dressler

If then at first, wise Nature had Made Woemen eyther good or bad Then some wee might hate, and some chuse: But since She did them so create, That wee may neyther Love, nor hate, Only thys rests: All, all may use. John Donne, “Communitie” (in Mueller 2015)

These aren’t accidents; they’re throwing themselves into the road! Throwing themselves into the road gladly to escape all this hideousness. [Heckles pedestrian] Throw yourself into the road, darling, you haven’t got a chance! Bruce Robinson, Withnail and I (1987)

T

he social historian Susan Treggiari introduced the idea of “companion ism” into the discussion of the Roman system of sex and gender in her

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indispensable treatment of Roman marriage. According to Treggiari, the “distinctive components” of this concept, which she compares with “fashionable” recommendations about legal coupledom prior to “the so-called ‘sexual revolution’ of the 1960s,” are “sexual intercourse and companionship.”1 Drawing on anthropological literature, Treggiari does not define the “companionship” of “companionate marriage,” but the meaning can be inferred from her discussion of the more optional relationship of concubinage in Rome: based on inscriptional evidence, this relationship involves a degree of mutual respect (or “honor”), combined with “a stable sexual and presumably affective relationship,” perhaps “equality,” and no necessary legal or reproductive dimensions (for companionate marriage, as compared with concubinage, there would of course be legal dimensions).2 The moral philosopher Martha Nussbaum has argued that the most historically progressive treatments of marriage in the broad period of Treggiari’s discussion, such as those of Musonius Rufus (first century CE), seem to emphasize just this combination of sex, affection, and possible equality.3 According to Nussbaum, what makes companionate marriage distinctive is the historical background out of which it developed, the patriarchal society of Rome and the notorious power that it accorded male heads of house.4 Although Musonius marks an advance on such a society, and although Romans themselves claimed distinctive liberality in their treatment of women, Nussbaum concludes that the “feminism of Musonius Rufus” was “incomplete”: it recognized women’s equal capacity for virtue but only called for this newly recognized capacity to remain engaged in traditional tasks, “nursing her children from her own breast . . . and . . . serving her husband with her own hands!”5 To judge by the fragments of a lost philosophical treatise, written by the first-century CE classical philosopher, poet, and politician Seneca, and surviving in a later fourth-century Christian text by Jerome, the incompletely egalitarian conception of marriage persisted for the rest of Roman antiquity; its rectification, in the patriarchal conditions of Roman culture, only comes with the antimarital development of asceticism in the course of the institutionalization of Christianity in the fourth century. At the same time, the exuberant misogyny of the “Fathers” is hardly (at any rate not “completely”) feminist.6 The source for the fragments “on marriage” that we attribute to a lost treatise by Seneca is, ironically, the antimarriage tractate of two books written by Jerome, Against Jovinian.7 Jovinian, a late fourth-century monk, thought that companionate marriage was a preferable form of Christian coupledom and refused to award social and religious capital to men and women who

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Alex Dressler opted for the sort of celibacy that Jerome advocated.8 We could say Jovinian was “liberal” in the modern US sense of the word in that he did not privilege any one particular lifestyle choice for women but accorded them several options for how to live, as far as marriage was concerned. In a more historically specific way, we could say he was “liberal” because, by deprivileging virginity, he challenged the hierarchy that was developing in the institution of the church: according to Jovinian, celibates and sex partners would be accorded equal status in heaven, and so should be accorded equal honor on earth.9 Jerome mined Seneca’s treatise, not for examples of virtuous wives from the “pagan” world but for women who refused marriage—but who happened to be married once.10 Turning from a primarily Christian discussion of the disadvantages of marriage, which frequently just lists the “defects” of women, Jerome proceeds to explain that even the pagans valued celibacy above marriage, and he supports this with pages and pages of classical exempla that he attrib­ utes to Seneca, among others, and in which scholars detect countless features of Senecan style.11 On a straightforward reading of this material, Seneca does indeed appear to support Nussbaum’s contention about Musonius, Seneca’s contemporary. Taken to the letter, as we will see, Seneca makes allowances for women’s use of marriage for self-realization, but he does not call for any alteration in women’s obligatory consignment to marriage, while, in his other philosophical works, his praise of virtuous women functions by comparing them with all the other terrible women who fill his society: whence the customary commonplaces of misogyny.12 What is different about the Senecan women in Jerome, Against Jovinian, however, is how much they themselves seem to dislike marriage. Aligned in the recoverable writing with the very authors of the “diatribes” in which they appear, these sometimes fictional but often historical women critique the institution of patriarchal marriage, especially within the context of Jerome’s radical asceticism.13 In this part of the chapter, I will argue that these women, not by themselves but in the various contexts in which we find them—in Jerome’s treatise Against Jovinian and in the context of Seneca’s other writings, especially his tragedies—bring the feminism that Nussbaum finds in Musonius nearer to “completion.” In addition to Treggiari and Nussbaum, my approach derives from the seminal work of the French classicist Nicole Loraux, Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman; from Chiare Torre, a more recent Italian scholar who has dedicated a whole monograph to the reconstruction of Seneca’s supposedly lost treatise; and from the great feminist classicist Amy Richlin.14 Following Torre, I supplement discussion of Seneca’s lost philosophical treatise with insights from

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reading the tragedies, where married women find themselves in extreme situations that bring the constraints of conventional marriage to the breaking point.15 Adopting Loraux’s understanding of the relationship of women and violence in Greek tragedy, I suggest that antisocial action on the part of women in tragedy can be understood as a form of attack against the patriarchal norms of the genre and the society.16 Finally, following Richlin in her work on satirical and invective poetry and in her attempts to recover real women’s experience from the silence of the literary record, I explore the possibility of taking the clever quips of the virtuous wives that we find in Jerome’s Seneca as real criticisms of the institution of marriage, even companionate marriage, as it was practiced in ancient Rome, from the perspective of real women.17 Combing the results of these approaches, I reconstruct three strata of Seneca’s ideology of marriage: Christian, tragic, satirical. Many approaches to the last of these in the first century CE extend the spirit or tone of satire to nearly all aspects of contemporary thought and writing; what distinguishes my extension of the genre is that the supposition of satire in Seneca-in-Jerome, if it corresponds to historical reality, promises to advance our understanding of women’s subjectivity in a period in which we have virtually no fragments of women writers.18 The context of the reception of Seneca’s treatise in Jerome of course constitutes the Christian stratum of Seneca’s ideology of marriage, but this is not as anachronistic as it sounds because the Christian stratum, anti-marital and ascetical as it is, brings out the latent, critical aspects of Seneca’s philosophical asceticism. We should think here of the spurious correspondence of Seneca and St. Paul, which Jerome knew and believed authentic, calling the putatively reformed pagan “our Seneca,” “of life most self-controlled” (continentis­ simae; read: celibate).19 The tragic stratum of Seneca’s ideology of marriage starts with the basic assessment of all mentions of marriage in Seneca’s tragedies as “the symbol of servitude. . . . In Seneca, the metaphor designates everything that threatens individual freedom. . . . The yoke of marriage is pejorative.”20 Where this tragic stratum of the Senecan ideology of marriage persists in Jerome, the Christian reception of the classical philosopher assimilates him to another nonphilosophical theorist of companionate marriage: here I mean the sensational prose compiler of often gory exempla, Valerius Maximus, whom Jerome recalls maybe even more than Seneca. The feminist elucidation of Valerius provided by the cultural historian Rebecca Langlands will help discern further critical tendencies in Seneca-in-Jerome.21 Looking at some really explicit

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Alex Dressler examples of women engaged in violence in Valerius will also show how far Seneca could have gone, and how far, following Valerius perhaps more than Seneca, Jerome did. My reconstruction of the satirical stratum of Seneca’s ideology of marriage is paradoxically more speculative than the tragic and Christian strata—at least as I intend to reconstruct it, following the essay that Richlin dedicated to the exposition of the few lines that remain of Rome’s one lost female satirist, Sul­picia: “If we take Sulpicia seriously as a satiric writer,” Richlin explains, then the fragment of her work that we can recover from other male texts “may be part of a poem On Marriage. The topic was a favorite of the rhetorical schools . . . and it is pleasant to imagine that, at least once, a woman replied.”22 In the Senecan fragments “on marriage” that we find in Jerome, however, women really do reply, again and again. Because Jerome’s preservation evinces a clearer anti-marital commitment from the women’s remarks, it becomes possible to consider them genuinely critical statements alongside those of Richlin’s Sulpicia. These women treat a range of satirical topoi, free from the masculine perspective that Seneca adds elsewhere: women are acknowledged more for their wealth than their personality,23 men can prohibit women from practicing philosophy and realizing their inherent capacity for virtue,24 and opportunities to do so usually require death and open them to further inconveniences. As the speaker explains, “I will never do it (get married) again, for if I find a good husband, like I had before, I don’t want to worry about losing him, and if I find a bad one, why after the good, should I have to put up with the worst [ post bonum pessimum sustinere]?”25 When she calls a future possible husband “the worst,” the speaker raises questions about the value of the former husband, who now appears to fall short of “the best” by being just “good”; is this then “the best” that marriage has to offer? Marcella the Elder justifies her resist­ ance to marriage even less: “Asked by her mother whether or not she liked getting married . . . she said: ‘So much that I hope I don’t again [ita valde ut amplius nolim].’”26 A certain Senecan style makes these women virtuosic satirists but also lets them get away with independence. In two out of three strata of Seneca’s ideology of marriage, the tragic and the satirical, the literary character of the genre by which they are constituted has certain consequences—some positive and some negative from a feminist perspective. On the one hand, if the female satirists of “Seneca, On Marriage,” are the theorists of a radical feminist critique of marriage, then the women

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from the tragedies, and from the more violent and vivid prose descriptions of rampaging women elsewhere in Jerome, Against Jovinian, are the practitioners.27 Seneca’s feminism and, thus, the feminism of pre-Christian imperial philosophy proves impossible when the author accepts some link between theory and practice, or philosophy and literature, where his own moral progress is concerned but never definitively connects the philosophy and the tragedies, and therefore the theory and the practice of attacking patriarchy, where women are concerned.28 On the other hand, to participate in satire as a woman in early imperial Rome is already a radical thing for a woman to do.29 This is another consequence of the literary character of the tragic and satirical strata of the Senecan fragments pertaining to marriage. The very form of the participation of the women’s quips, the critical compression of language that employs the dominant values of society against itself, their more spectacular acts of devotion to their dead husbands, not to mention concern with personal appearance expressed in most of the fragments—all point to a more general aesthetic dimension of marriage in imperial philosophy, in broad and narrow senses of the term “aesthetic.”30 In a narrow sense, the clever apothegms of the exemplary wives of Jerome’s Seneca may be considered a specific form of aesthetic activity, similar or even identical to the literary production of satire in classical Latin, poetic or otherwise. This properly aesthetic, literary, or artistic dimension of the activity of the women of Jerome’s Seneca is implied as soon as Jerome begins listing the examples of proto-celibate pagan ladies believed to derive from Seneca: “The modesty [ pudicitia] of Penelope is the poem [carmen] of Homer. Laodamia, too, is a constant subject of song [cantatur] in the mouths of the poets: when her husband died, she refused to go on living” (Adv. Iovinian. 1.45, 275a15– b3 = 3 Bickel = 53 Vottero).31 In the narrow sense of aesthetics, associated with art and literature, women’s virtue is just poetry. In the broader sense of aesthetics, associated with beauty and appearances, the married women of Seneca-in-Jerome use self-expression to essentially fuse aesthetic value, beautiful appearance, with ethical value, goodness.32 The old Greek commonplace of the beautiful and the good, kalon kagathon, is given new currency in Roman culture, through the acerbic genre of satire of all things; the bond between literary excellence and moral goodness, poetry and virtue, is reestablished, not “in the mouths of the poets” but in the mouths of the women themselves.33

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Roman Women’s Useless Being: Lifestyle and the Aesthetics of Existence Before proceeding to sort out the three strata of Seneca’s ideology of marriage, there is one more consequence of the predominantly aesthetic character of the strata. This is the relevance of an old discussion that on some readings inaugurated contemporary interest in gender and sexuality in the Greco-Roman world, and on others opportunistically derailed them from their basis in concrete historical knowledge, especially where women were concerned: the late turn to classical Greco-Roman and particularly imperial philosophy by the poststructuralist French thinker Michel Foucault.34 With unabashed masculinism, Foucault discovered in the male philosophers of the early Empire, especially Seneca, a new way of doing ethics, a new way of understanding right and wrong.35 Marking a third way between the two dominant forms of ethics in Euro-American culture, the ethics of obligation (deontology, heteronomy) and the ethics of self-realization (introspection, autonomy), Foucault found in Greco-Roman philosophy of the early Empire what he called an “aesthetics of existence,” which, in “one’s” relation with a spouse at least, would teach him “to live a beautiful life,” and which he, like the later Christian women discussed in the newly published fourth volume of the History of Sexuality, would pursue by “choice and not law [choix, et non pas loi ].”36 The classical sources on which Foucault based his earlier published discussions comprise the same material mined by Treggiari and Nussbaum for their discussion of companionism and feminism, and it is the same material for which I will posit a sociologically informed counterpart, namely the concept of lifestyle as a primary feature of at least Senecan Stoicism.37 The ironic consequence of this supposition is that Foucault’s “aesthetics of existence,” which has every appearance of being a thoroughly masculinist construct with little historical credibility, can help recover aspects of women’s experience otherwise excluded from the historical record.38 Maybe scholars are right to question Foucault’s broader claim that Hellenistic ethics and its imperial Roman developments constituted an “aesthetics.”39 I will argue that, at least in the specific matter of marriage, the French philosopher may have been more right than he knew. The dominant feminist response to this possibility has been to reject most of what Foucault said about Roman philosophy because he was so singularly uninterested in the opportunities for the “care of the self ” that it afforded women.40 Another, no less feminist response would be to show how, because marriage was “aesthetic” in the

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sense of inessential or “useless” in the ultimate ethical point of view of Stoicism, it afforded women opportunities for ethical development in a patriarchal society that sought to instrumentalize them.41 In fact, the tragic stratum that Chiare Torre discerns in Seneca’s ideology of marriage in the extant philosophical works is integrally related to this aesthetic dimension of Hellenistic ethics that I am sure we can recover from Jerome, Against Jovinian. Torre illustrates the extreme “indifference” to people and things from daily life that characterizes hardcore Stoicism, as exemplified elsewhere in Seneca by the philosopher Stilbo: “After his country was captured, his children were lost, and his wife was lost, when he was walking out of the conflagration of his community, alone but still happy [beatus], he answered Demetrius . . . who was asking him what he lost: ‘All my goods are with me . . . I lost nothing’” (Ep. 9.18).42 This is the extreme, even “tragic” expression of one of the core tenants of Stoic ethics, called the “theory of indifferents,” whereby nothing is good or bad but the virtue of the moral agent makes it so. In its classical form, the theory of indifferents extends this condition of moral indifference from objects of daily use to people of use: slaves, friends, one’s wife, one’s children, oneself.43 With one surprisingly unclassical word, Jerome introduces the catalog of virtuous “pagan” wives with a formal exposition of just this core Stoic tenet: Many are the inconveniences mixed up with marriages. Wealth, political office, good physical health, and everything else that we call “indifferents” are neither good nor bad. Insofar as they are positioned in the middle region [meditullio], they become good or bad only in action or in effect [usu et eventu vel bona vel mala fiunt]. In just the same way, wives stand in the borderland between the good and the bad [ita et uxores sitas in bonorum malorumque con­ finio]. (Adv. Iovinian. 1.48, 280b3–8 = 1 Bickel = 45 Haase = 23 Vottero)

Since wives are quite literally objects of indifference, how the aspiring wise man uses them makes them what they are (at least to him), but because of the fundamental worthlessness of the product, philosophically speaking, he can use them in a variety of ways.44 It is exactly this notion of the “indifference” of women that John Donne cynically adapted to seventeenth-century English love poetry, as quoted in the first epigraph of this chapter.

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Alex Dressler What distinguishes the women of Seneca and Jerome from the satirical Stoicism adopted by Donne is the extent to which women in Jerome’s Seneca adopt this cynical attitude for themselves, toward themselves, and toward their husbands. Unlike Nussbaum’s Musonius, the satirical women of Seneca, On Marriage assume, even if they do not openly acknowledge, the negative effects of marriage, the unattractiveness of husbands, and their own dispensability within the marriage economy. The most recent scholar to tackle Seneca’s lost treatise, Liz Gloyn, suggests that Senecan marriage is unusual because it allows both spouses opportunities for moral development where Roman marriage traditionally “served as a means of procreation, power consolidation and property transfer.” 45 To the extent that Seneca looks beyond these basic facts of kinship and descent, his idea of marriage certainly feels modern, and to the extent that modernity gave rise to values of personal flourishing and equality of the sexes, Seneca exhibits some basic feminist characteristics.46 The On Marriage of Gloyn’s Seneca exhibits a life-affirming, pro-woman specification in Stoic terms of Treggiari’s companionate marriage (à la Nussbaum). Consider one example: When she was asked why she wouldn’t marry again after the death of her husband, Cato’s younger daughter, Marcia, said that she could not find a man who wanted herself more than her wealth [qui se magis vellet, quam sua]. After she said this with discernment [quo dicto eleganter], Marcia pointed out that it was more common for wealth to be selected [elegi ] in wives than honor [ pudicitiam], and many men do not marry their wives with their eyes as much as they tally them with their fingers [non oculis, sed digitis . . . ducere]. (Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.46, 275c = 22 Bickel = 72 Haase = 44 Vottero, emphasis added)

Supporting modern efforts to rehabilitate Roman marriage and marital theorists, Marcia makes a clever joke that excludes property and family connections from the Roman’s consideration of spousal prospects.47 What Gloyn does not discuss, and what distinguishes Marcia’s representation of Roman marriage from those of modern scholars, is the role that aestheticization plays in it. Ironically, the tradition surrounding this anecdote vacillates on whether or not it was Marcia who so valued herself (perhaps it was Porcia); most scholars blame Jerome for the mistake (“the auctor,” as Seneca will say elsewhere, “is the subject of debate”: see p. 158).48 But the controversy

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only highlights the paradox of women’s self-assertion, the means by which they could assert themselves, and the one dimension in which that assertion could remain: style. For the means by which a woman can value herself in the context of Stoic value theory is exactly what “Marcia” employs, a form of provocative compression in the selection of words: se, sua.49 With this woman’s quip, the Stoic theory of lifestyle that Seneca develops applies to women, and maybe even occurred to a woman: Marcia/Porcia uses a selection of language to construe (men’s) life as an oeuvre.50 While the word that the speaker uses for selection of wives (elegi ) is colorless enough, it is the correct technical term for ethical choice in Roman Stoicism: electio.51 In Seneca it especially occurs in the specific context of what we can only call lifestyle. You see, when I put on decent clothing, or take a walk in the proper way, or dine as I should, it’s not the dining or the walking or the clothing that is good but my intention in each case is to maintain the measure that conforms to reason. Let me elaborate: selecting clean clothing is something a person ought to do, because a human is by nature a clean and seemly [read: elegant, elegans] animal. Accordingly, while clean clothing is not in itself a good, the act of selecting it [electio] is, because goodness is present not in the thing but in the quality of the selection [electio]. (Ep. 92.11–12)52

Where Aristotle would define the human being as a “political animal,” or an animal that lives in cities, the Stoic Seneca calls it a clean and elegant animal, an animal with style. Introducing the quip of Marcia/Porcia in Jerome, the word eleganter suggests that woman’s representation of men’s vicious choices is itself a virtuous specimen of those choices, not in its moral content but rather in its function: eleganter marks Marcia’s/Porcia’s fulfilment of positive criteria for lifestyle.53 By identifying her language as “elegant,” or well chosen (eleganter), especially in the context of the woman’s own description of the bad lifestyle choices of Roman men (elegi, electio), Seneca suggests that a good choice of words is itself a good moral action, even an essentially human action: animal elegans.54

Seneca’s Satirical Women When it comes to marriage in Seneca-in-Jerome, it is easy to overlook this positive aesthetic dimension because, even though most of the passages emphasize

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Alex Dressler choice and appearance, they do so, consistent with Seneca’s own choice for satirical expression and perhaps a reflexive cultural misogyny, with examples of things going wrong. Torre calls this “mimesis e contrario.”55 In other words, Seneca-in-Jerome rarely offers positive examples of marital practice even as he indicates how such action could happen. Seneca further reports that he had known a certain man of refinement [ornatum hominem] who, before going out into public, would bind his chest with his wife’s brassiere and at no point of time whatsoever could stand to miss her presence; unless the other touched it with his lips, never a drink did man and wife imbibe, and other things too were they doing, no less silly, in all of which the unreflective violence of burning passion burst out. The source of love was surely fine, but its size was unattractive. The nobility of the cause makes no difference when the symptom is insanity. (Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 281a312 = 4 Bickel = 83–84 Haase = 26 Vottero)

Only here in the apparent fragments of the treatise, as Liz Gloyn discerns, does Seneca suggest that the female subject of the philosophy of lifestyle can also be its agent : “unless the other touched it with his lips, never a drink did man and wife imbibe.”56 With the addition of the wife, all the poor lifestyle choices assigned to the husband (alligabat . . . poterat . . . vir) become the choices of the wife as well (et uxor hauriebant . . . facientes). Here, consistent with the accessory character of women’s virtue, its location along with wives in the “middle region” of ethical theory (p. 149), the husband’s refinement (ornatum hominem) provides the context for the wife’s agency; for women, the connection between ethics and aesthetics is the condition of virtually virtuous (even if sometimes actually vicious) action. Seneca endows this woman-centered continuity of ethics and aesthetics, mores and ornamentum, with symbolic form when he envisions its effects in society. Again, it is a matter of aesthetics, or a beautiful appearance, and again consistent with the satirical attitude of Seneca’s women, that the beautiful appearance only arises contrafactually or “e contrario.” When the vestal virgin Claudia was suspected of adultery and was clinging to the statue of the Idean Mother in a shallows of the Tiber, it is said that to demonstrate her honor [ pudicitia] she

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The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage” moved a boat with a strap, after many thousands of men had been unable to pull it. “Still, it would have been better for that woman,” said the uncle of the poet Lucan, “if what took place had been a beautiful accessory [ornamentum] of demonstrated honor, and not protection for it when it was in question.” (Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.41, 271a = 10 Bickel = 63 Haase = 32 Vottero)

Using an exemplum after the fashion of metaphor to bring a point “before the eyes,” Seneca marks this mimetic intensification of things as an alternative to the existing order.57 One need not detail the extent to which tests of women’s purity are a patriarchal institution.58 In the midst of this institution, Seneca imagines, contrafactually, the possibility of a different order of things in which the virtue of the woman reveals itself not in effect but in pure appearance— beauty alone: “had it been [ fuisset] an embellishment [ornamentum] of demonstrated honor [exploratae . . . pudicitae].” This contrafactual dimension of pudicitia appears in a related fragment, the so-called laus pudicitiae: “[pudicitia] valorizes the woman who is poor, ennobles the affluent, compensates the unattractive, and embellishes the beautiful [exornat pulchram].” With a tricolon that has convinced most scholars of the authenticity of this fragment, Seneca continues: She has done well by her elders, not sullying their blood with secret offspring. She has done well by her children, not making them blush about their mother or have doubts about their father. She did well above all by herself, reclaiming herself from the insult and injury of a foreign body. For no greater disaster attends being captive than being carried away by someone else’s sexual desire [aliena libidine trahi]. (Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 282a = 29 Bickel = 78 Haase = 50 Vottero)59

The most stringent critic of the fragments, Fernand Delarue, rightly sees in this climactic passage of the ode to women’s virtue the same crescendo that a more romantic reader, Alfonso Traina, had identified first.60 The triumph of the inner I that sets itself as the unrenouncable aim of human activity celebrates itself in the ascending rhythm of a period in [Seneca’s] de Otio (3.5): “This, to be sure, is demanded from a human being, that he help fellow human beings: if possible,

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Alex Dressler many; if less possible, a few; if less still, those close at hand; if less still, himself [si fieri potest, multis, si minus, paucis, proximis, si minus, sibi].”61

The same period rhythmically ascends in the climax of Seneca’s ode to women’s self-control: “had done well by her elders . . . well by her children . . . well above all by herself ” (bene de maioribus . . . bene de liberis . . . bene impri­ mis de se). The final term in both cases is that most elusive property of Seneca’s philosophy, “the self.”62 The difference between the instances that Traina adduces and the present fragment is that in the fragment the “I” in question, the “self,” belongs to a woman. Conscious of the rarity of women’s perspectives in Latin literature, we should not ignore this pregnant reflexivity (se, sibi). At the same time, it would be naive to ignore its studiously ambiguous relation to expression.63 Did Seneca intend to recognize women’s achievement of virtue in subjectivity even as the language that he shared with men distorted his intention and revealed her subjectivity only through (perhaps a man’s) body?64 Or did he recognize women’s subjectivity, not because this was his “intention” but because he was himself “carried away” (trahi) by the figures of speech that he elsewhere uses for himself—Traina’s tricolon of appropriation (vindicatio)? The possibility of woman’s virtue in Seneca appears to be a product of the same activity that unified ethics and aesthetics in the “elegant” declaration of Marcia/Porcia— an accident of patriarchy, intensifying its logic, reversing it, and containing it all at once. Women’s virtue here emerges both because and in spite of patriarchy. Compared with the earlier married ladies of Seneca-in-Jerome, another Roman woman has more reason to avoid her husband, and although she does not exit marriage in this exemplum, she expresses her disdain with equal flair and with equal relevance to questions of lifestyle. “One day this old man with a rickety body [a certain Duillus] heard in some argument that he was mocked for his bad breath. He took himself home, angry, and when he complained to his wife how she never advised him to cure this fault [vitium], she said: ‘I would have but I assumed the mouths of all men smelled like that’” ( Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.46, 275b11–c1 = 20 Bickel = 70–71 Haase = 42 Vottero).65 The last uncomfortably onomatopoeic formulation ( fecissem . . . nisi putassem omnibus viris sic os olere) is one of a trio of breath-related (generally satirical) reflections on personal aesthetics in Latin literature.66 Of a certifiably Senecan appearance, Victoria Rimell suggests that such sibilance makes the reader enact the aspiration of halitosis and the hissing of contempt: quid putas illos oluisse.67 In

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Catullus, such expressions of attitude are part of a durable and systematic “aesthetics of social performance.”68 The wife of Duillus adopts this style with impunity, uses the expectations of patriarchy, especially of women’s renunciation of personal pleasure, against it, and thus attracts the attention of the moralist.69 Considerations of lifestyle extend beyond mere style in the case of women and enter into considerations of conduct, where their effect is to limit women’s options in familiar ways.70 Again in his praise of his mother in the consolation To Helvia, Seneca heaps the commonplace attacks on female luxury.71 Like Musonius, Seneca deplores a woman’s choice to terminate a pregnancy; unlike Musonius, he considers the issue in terms of personal appearance: “You didn’t hide your gravidity like other women whose appeal [commendation] comes entirely from their appearance [ forma], and you . . . never dashed the hopeful conception of children from your insides.”72 Likewise, all but the strictest and most historically conservative marriage—marriage of a woman to a single man (in Tertullian’s word, univiratus)—becomes ideal.73 Finally, we find the usual tirades against women’s all-too-numerable sexual excess. In On Benefits, Seneca writes: “Certain famous and noble ladies count their age not by the years of the consuls but by the number of their husbands.”74 All these find parallels in what is ostensibly the most misogynistic text of classical Latin ( Juvenal, Satire 6), so it is not surprising that these parts of Seneca’s treatise enter Jerome, Juvenal’s Christian congener, intact.75 As often happens in Seneca, and to some extent in Jerome, we get the clearest idea of what the author deems good from what he deems bad (again: mimesis e contrario). What is not from Jerome (and is, therefore, a little feminist) is the Senecan tendency to extend such restrictions on women’s lifestyle to men so extensively that one begins to feel, with Foucault, that the point was never (primarily) the regulation of women’s behavior.76 This symmetry of misogyny and misandry, in the name of reforming men, already appeared in the “elegantly stated” quip of Marcia/Porcia about the poor lifestyle choices (electio) of Roman husbands (pp. 150–51). There, by preferring wealth (sua) to character (se), Roman husbands mixed up quantity and quality. The same mistake was made by the women who were criticized in On Benefits; Seneca writing “on marriage” now includes the formulation of the woman herself.77 “Marcia’s” construal of construal (eleganter . . . elegi) characterizes Seneca’s ideology of marriage in another, more paradoxical way, and this reveals the usefulness of another properly aesthetic mechanism, figurative language or metaphor, for good living.78 In the passage from On Benefits that parroted “Marcia’s” apothegm to masculinist effect, Seneca suggested that the rate of

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Alex Dressler women’s adulteries had accelerated to the point of transforming the institution of marriage: “It is a superannuated and outdated woman who does not know that ‘marriage’ is just another name for one (long-term) extramarital affair.”79 In the fragment concerning Marcia/Porcia in Seneca-in-Jerome, Seneca blames men for this metaphorical transformation: “The marriages of some men have followed fast on their adulteries, and—disgraceful business!—the very men who had stolen women’s sense of honor ( pudicitiam) then taught it.”80 Similarly, and again e contrario, we read: “Nothing is uglier [ foedius] than to love a wife as a mistress [quasi adulteram].”81 Love (amare) is evidently “love,” whether its object is one’s “lawfully” married partner or one’s mistress, or one’s lawfully married partner as one’s mistress. Because of the storied laws against bachelordom at various points in Roman history, “the better part of the poor,” writes Seneca, “are led [conduci­ tur] in[to the name of ] marriage for evading the law. How can he who is taken in marriage [nupsit] legislate behavior and . . . maintain the authority of husband?”82 The precise substitution of the word for marrying as a woman ([uxor] nupsit) for the usual words for (a man) marrying a woman (e.g., vir duxit mulierem/uxorem, cf. conducitur above) is a metaphor. Here, it denotes the space of difference and possibility that, however Seneca felt about it, marks an alternative to the dominant form of patriarchal marriage, or the marriage of male dominance, established in the distance between the ground of normal marriage and the figure of nupsit.83 Most of these metaphorical reconfigurations of material facts occasion the disapproval of the moralist; they nevertheless outline, again e contrario, the essential role of aesthetic devices, or the manipulation of appearances (here, specifically figuration, metaphor), in specifically female self-fashioning. While again it is remarkable that men are faulted in the fragments pertaining to marriage where women are responsible in other works, the significance of this, as with “Marcia’s” joke and Seneca’s redeployment in On Benefits, is not primarily that it challenges male dominance.84 On the contrary, what this demonstrates is the freedom to construe reality differently, this time on the basis of collectively shared representations, even within the confines of a patriarchal system: “The paradoxical transposition of marriage and adultery, presented by the author as a reality and adopted, at the same time, as a literary figure . . . [is] here considered in its more properly social aspect: this transposition in fact unhinges the most elementary bases of civil life and creates an alter­ native social order.”85 Although it is here shown in a negative light, we learn precisely how ways of thinking and ways of speaking—we learn, then, how

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styles of representation—are themselves constituents of ethical life: felicitous phrasing here constitutes alternatives to the normal and normative modes of being in a patriarchal system. There is thus no fundamental difference between styles of expression (rhetoric, poetics, aesthetics, etc.) and styles of living (ethics as aesthetics).86 The apothegm of Marcia/Porcia, moreover, features a combination of tradition and originality that elsewhere characterizes Seneca’s theory of literary production: “even if it is apparent where a thing has been taken from, it may yet appear to be different from that from which it was taken” (Ep. 84.5).87 In the context of Marcia’s critique, such selection of words (eklogê onomatôn) or care over speaking (cura dicendi) exemplifies a certain idea of “care of the self:” “the often fragile concern to provide the self with pleasure and nourishment in an environment that is perceived as not particularly offering them.”88 This concept of the care of the self, fused here with aesthetics in the narrow sense of art and literature, was developed by Foucault in his study of the dominant subjects of Greco-Roman philosophy, men of property. But it actually appears more at home in the experience of Roman women, their de facto property.89 Combining the values of the dominant society that subjects them to heteronomy with their own efforts at self-determination, or autonomy, the women of Jerome’s Seneca fulfil the emancipatory potential of the Foucauldian project.90 A controversy concerning one fragment makes the narrowly aesthetic dimension of women’s virtue more apparent. They say that Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus, was distinguished for honor [insignis pudicitiae]. When she was queen of Caria and was proclaimed in the praise of fine poets and writers of history, she was elevated most of all for this: she always loved her dead husband as though he were alive, so much that she executed a tomb of amazing size and beauty to the point that, even all the way up to today, all sumptuous sepulchers are called “Mausolea” from his name. (Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.44, 274a = 15 Bickel = 37 Vottero)

The controversy concerning this fragment pertains to the name of the fateful tomb: was any big tomb, in Neronian Rome, called a mausoleum, or was it (by one tendentious transfer) the exclusive name of just Augustus’ tomb? The resolution to the dilemma demonstrates the affinity of ethics and aesthetics, whereby women can express virtue virtually, in matters that are really indifferent, but where the expression counts because it constitutes style. Seneca knew such art

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Alex Dressler shrines to dead men were called mausoleums, suggests Torre, because he himself participated in the extension of the term.91 Seneca and Artemisia are thus engaged in a single continuous long-term, even transgender expression of women’s virtue (insignis pudicitiae).92 A characteristic paradox of Senecan sociology explains the opening of virtue to women through the opening of the expression of virtue to women. Artemisia’s virtue in the exemplum is not exhausted in its expression, or éclat. Rather, the social context of Seneca’s world, at least as he describes it, the “alternative social order” that he and the women in Jerome constantly critique, has debased the expression of virtue.93 As a result of this debasement (for which Seneca often blames women), the philosopher finds things so mixed up that the paltry “goods” of everyday life are considered (the) Good while true Goodness, which for a Stoic is virtue alone, has become “bad.”94 Seneca again signals this reversal of moral affairs with Traina’s tricolon of vindicatio when he claims for “liberal arts,” or the “art of life,” philosophy, the exact opposite of what an art, as a skill, should produce—some effect. Democritus said: “One person is worth a population to me, and a population is worth one person.” He spoke well, too, whoever it was (for the author is the subject of debate [ambigitur enim de auctore]), when he was asked what was the point of practicing an art that would reach so few, and he said: “A few is enough for me, one is enough for me, none is enough for me [mihi pauci, satis est unus, satis est nullus].” (Sen. Ep. 7.10–11)

The philosophers’ acceptance of the “uselessness” of art in the eyes of his corrupt society is the first step in opening virtue to women.95 The corollary to this in the context is that to realize virtue in a world turned upside down, one must abandon (at least the standards of ) the world.96 The emblem of this abandonment in Ep. 7 is not the pithy aristocrat, Democritus, but the speaker of the apothegm who tellingly disappears behind his (or her) own speech: am­ bigitur . . . de auctore. For women, a more powerful device, not the disappearance of identity but perhaps paradoxically the disappearance of her very being, is necessary to secure aesthetic success: “When the same woman [‘Marcia’], was mourning for her husband and the ladies asked what day would bring the end of mourning, she said: ‘The one that also brings the end of life [quem et vitae].’”97

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Artemisia effaces herself in a more concrete act of expression: first and above all, in the persistence of her love beyond the life of her partner—that is, in death; second, as a corollary to this, in the aesthetic production whereby symbolic products (honor, praise, poetry, history, art) replace the material properties of life in common (marriage), wealth, health, and the rest. We heard in an earlier fragment of the affectively symmetrical but oversexed and fetishistic husband and wife whom Seneca knew: “the source of their love was certainly fine [nobilis], but its size was unattractive [deformis].”98 With Artemisia it is precisely this “fineness,” identified as beauty ( pulchritudinis), that, compared with the size of her work (mirae magnitudinis), makes the difference. In the figure of the Mausoleum, then, we find the fateful combination of female agency, lifestyle, death, and beauty, while, after comparison with the other fragment, beauty becomes salient against the background of ugliness (deformis). At the same time, Seneca’s women suggest, not just for men in the European erotic tradition that David Halperin has surveyed but maybe also for women, and not just for sex but maybe also for marriage: the best partner, not lover, is a dead one, and especially a dead man.99

“Anywhere, Anywhere out of the World”: The Impossible Feminism of Seneca’s Tragic Wives In this section, I discuss the tragic dimensions of the Senecan fragments supposed to reside in Jerome against the background of Seneca’s actual tragedies; I suggest that Jerome’s attempt to synthesize diverse styles in his pastiche of classical sources marks the limits of those sources and points to where the world that constituted them could have been different.100 In other words, comparison of Jerome, Seneca’s prose, Seneca’s tragedies, and Valerius Maximus, a contemporary of Seneca’s father to whom Jerome’s treatise may owe more in spirit or style than it does in (Senecan) substance, will further delineate the aims and limits of pre-Christian imperial philosophical treatments of marriage. In the Christian, or perhaps idiosyncratic, sections of Jerome’s work, women participate in many more violent situations than they did (or would) in Seneca’s philosophy. Embracing one another, the women dove into the well, to save their maidenhood with death [virginitatem morte servarent]. . . . She killed herself [se interfecit], claiming that although her body

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Alex Dressler remained untouched, accepting another husband would be like consummating marriage a second time, since she was taken as a wife by the earlier man in mind [mente nupsit]. . . . Most enthusiastically, all of them died for their honor [ pro pudicita]. . . . A tyrant fell in love with a maiden [virginem]: after her father had been killed, she fled to the temple of Diana and clutched the statue; unable to be extracted even by violence [nec vi posset avelli ], she was hacked down [confossa est] in the same place. . . . Unwilling to survive the loss of their honor, they murdered one another with reciprocal wounding. . . . They fled disgrace [turpitudinem] with death, providing all maidens with the image [exemplum] that honor is a greater concern for noble minds than life [magis pudici­ tam curae esse quam vitae]. (Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.41, 271b–272c)101

Such dense descriptions of women and violence owe less to Seneca’s prose than they do to another pre-Christian author of exemplary wives, the earlier first-century Tiberian litérateur Valerius Maximus. In the works of this author, Rebecca Langlands has demonstrated a paradoxical connection between violence and sexual equality.102 Like Jerome, Va­ lerius associates violence against women with women committing violence and thus assuming a positively active and historically “masculine” position. That the same applies to Jerome and not to Seneca-in-Jerome is significant. Equally significant, marriage drives Jerome’s women, not just to violence against themselves but also to violence against other women, and even against men: “Greek historians also tell us about another, Theban woman: after a Macedonian enemy ruined her, she hid her suffering somewhat, cut the throat of that rapist of her maidenhood after he fell asleep, and then killed herself with joy [cum gaudio], because she did not want to live after the death of her chastity but also not to die before she took her stand as her own avenger [sui ultor existeret]” ( Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.41, 272c–273a). The woman elated with murder and death resembles the Medea of Seneca’s tragedy more than the decorous women of Jerome and Seneca’s philosophy: “The scrap of vengeance [ultionis] you enjoy [gaudes],” Medea declares, “how small it is!”103 These resemblances between the Christian and classical texts ( Jerome and Valerius) bring out the differences of the classical texts and themselves (Seneca the philosopher and Seneca the tragedian, as well as Seneca in propria persona and Seneca-in-Jerome). At the same time, the differences between the classical

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texts and themselves mark the impossibility of Senecan feminism—that is, of a “completed” feminism that not only theorizes the end of patriarchal marriage as a satirical reflex of some Roman women’s lifestyle choices but also actively practices the destruction of the institution through the agency of women. In Seneca, this “completed” feminism remains always only a possibility—a conceptual consequence of the two different kinds of writing, tragic and philosophical, and (lest we think the impossibility of the feminism is just an artifact of genre), of tragic and satirical strains within the philosophical. Women can be satirists, as we have seen, or they can be violent revolutionaries (as we are about to see), but they cannot be both. For Seneca, then, the masculine and feminine forms of virtue, as Gretchen Reydams-Schils suggests, remain, in the false formulation of political reactionaries, separate but equal (virtus≠pudicita).104 “Marcia” may be, but Medea is not, a philosopher.105 The index of the difference between the classical and Christian author, and then between the classical author and himself in his different writings, is the touchstone of Roman conceptions of female agency, the glorious suicide of the mytho-historical Lucretia. Like the catalog of Jerome’s women just surveyed, the celebrated survivor of sexual assault appears at her best when things are at their worst, an agent in her own destruction (suicide), and eventually in Roman history, because she has been “destroyed” (raped) by another.106 Va­ lerius wrote: “The prince of women’s honor in Rome [Romanae pudicitiae], Lucretia—she of manly spirit, allotted by a cruel twist of fate to a woman’s body . . . —killed herself with a sword and with her spirited self-destruction, delivered herself to the cause of the Roman people acquiring a republican government in exchange for a monarchy” (6.1.1). Like Valerius, Jerome’s Seneca may also “begin” with Lucretia: “I will pass to Roman women,” writes the Christian author, with a few words and phrases that scholars attribute to the Stoic, “and I will put Lucretia first, she who, ‘unwilling’ to go on, erased the stain ‘of ruined honor [ pudicitia]’ of her body with blood.”107 A few pages later, Jerome more amply quotes “the quotation [vox] of the most learned man” (Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 281c–282a = 29 Bickel = 79 Haase = 50 Vottero, §2): “First and foremost womanly honor must be retained [pudicitiam . . . retinen­ dam]. Without it, every manly excellence falls in ruin [virtus ruit].” Seneca’s invocation of Lucretia in the better-preserved context of the Con­ solation to Marcia confirms the complex hierarchy that undergirds Roman philosophical masculinism at the same time as it demarcates the impossibility of Senecan feminism.

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Alex Dressler I know what you will say: “You have forgotten that you are consoling a woman; you list the precedents of men.” But who ever said that Nature dealt a bad hand to the character of women and squeezed their capacity for manly excellence [virtutes] into a corner? Believe me: they have the same energy and the same capacity for the noble [honesta], if they only want it; once they get used to it, they suffer [patiuntur] pain and hardship just the same. In what city do we mean? In the city where Lucretia and Brutus threw the king from Roman heads. To Brutus we owe freedom. To Lucretia, we owe Brutus. (ad Marciam 16)

With the mix of stereotypy and exceptionalism that characterizes Roman exemplarity, but with a revealing lack of vivid or exemplary description, the woman’s modesty gives rise to the man’s vindication of her in the terms that he would elsewhere use to vilify her, suffering and passivity (patiuntur).108 At the same time, Seneca suggests that these are not defining but rather acquired characteristics, while the man in the passage (Brutus) depends on the woman (Lucretia).109 The Senecan account is, finally and most concretely, devoid of the “sensational lustre” that on Langlands’ description characterizes Valerius and that Jerome intensifies. Seneca seems to allude to this extreme agency with phrases such as “the noble” (honesta), but (at least in the philosophy) he never actually admits it.110 From a feminist perspective, the omission of vivid descriptions of women’s experience of violence in the fragments of Seneca that pertain to marriage is both good and bad.111 On the one hand, pudicitia gives Seneca scope to explore female agency (and perhaps even the local elimination of patriarchal institutions: husbands, rapists, monarchies); it even leads him to endow women with subjectivity and interiority (cf. Traina’s tricolon: pp. 153–54). On the other hand, it provides Seneca with precise limits to female agency, both to its location (below male agency) and to its representation (occlusion). Thus, when he introduces women’s honor in the laus pudicitae above, Seneca (via Jerome) writes: Consulships make men luminous; eloquence carries their name into eternity; glory in war and triumphs over strange races beatifies them; many are the things that show their genius, illustrious in themselves. The specifically female virtue is honor [muliebris proprie virtus pudicitia est]. It was this that made Lucretia equal to

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The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage” Brutus, or perhaps even better: Brutus learned his incapacity for slavery from a woman [non posse servire a femina didicit]. (Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 282a–b = 29 Bickel = 79 Haase = 50 Vottero)112

The combination of different and ostensibly opposed forms of virtue (virtus pudicita) in a single clause of identity (est) simultaneously raises and exorcises the specter of sexual equality. Women’s virtue is the same as, and different from, men’s virtue—separate but “equal.” Against the background of the tragedies, then, and in contrast with the holy or wild women of Jerome, women in Seneca have two options: resist marriage in the keen self-fashioning of clever expressions as a matter of lifestyle (when things are “good”) or resist it in mortal distinction (when things are “bad”): the first is represented by “Marcia,” Cato’s wife or daughter (one or the other: pp. 150–51); and the second by Medea. Conspicuously absent from these alternatives is love. The only time this appears in Senecan accounts, outside of the perverse lovers of shared cups and undergarments (§3), is when one or preferably both spouses are dead or dying.113 Seneca reminds his mother of her sister who rescued her husband’s corpse from a shipwreck: “The songs of all ennoble her who gave herself in lieu of her partner [Alcestis], but it is something more, risking one’s life to procure the grave of one’s husband [discrimen vitae sepulcrum viro quaerere]. Greater is the love that redeems less for equal danger” (Helv. 19.5). Confirming Torre’s recognition of the full-blown “tragedy” of the episode, in Seneca’s actual tragedy The Trojan Women, Andromache expresses the exact sentiment on which Seneca’s aunt acted, giving “herself in lieu [se . . . uicariam]” of her husband, when she (Andromache) calls the body of dead Hector simply hers (Tro. 414): “that brute [Achilles] pulled away my person [mea membra] with his speeding chariot.”114 The most literally dramatic example of this tendency occurs in the same play, in Polyxena’s spectacular marriage to Achilles “in the manner of a theater”—off a tower, and onto his pyre.115

Conclusion: Violence and Satire The example of Andromache is the closest that Seneca comes to admitting reciprocity and equality between men and women, and it is significant that it is the closest he comes to linking Greek and Roman women (cf. Alcestis and his aunt), and tragedy and philosophy.116 The expression in the case of Polyxena is explicitly aestheticized, “in the manner of a theater,” where (feminine) virtue

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Alex Dressler again resides in the manipulation of appearance. Cutting in various ways across the poetry and prose, this appearance of virtue never quite encompasses the full-blown agency of women: we never see the women in Seneca’s philosophy actively exercising virtue in the vivid destruction of patriarchal impediments presented by Valerius Maximus or Jerome. What appears instead is women using satire for passive resistance in the pursuit of virtue as a way of life; what appears is style and the woman. It is, then, in the form of appearance, the indifferent epiphenomenon of things neither good nor bad, that Seneca opens a space for the possibility of women’s virtue. The contents of this space remain a question, but that it was opened, even negatively, in imperial philosophy at all demonstrates something more profound than evidence of this or that positive relation between this or that Roman man and Roman woman or between Roman men and Roman women in general: it shows the lengths to which people equipped with a supple literary tradition will go to imagine freedom and equality, even if they prefer death. Short of death, it shows the extent to which the literary tradition, as a part of everyday life in the living satire of the lost women of Jerome’s Seneca, offers even unequal participants in itself opportunities for virtue. Say what you will about Artemisia and “Marcia,” the women had style. Notes 1. Treggiari 1991, 504. For a selection of notable scholarship since Treggiari, see Hemelrijk 1999, 6–65; Cantarella 2002; Centlivres Challet 2013, esp. chapters 2–4. For philosophy in particular, see Reydams-Schils 2005, 143–45. 2. Treggiari 1991, 52, cf. 235, and above all 245, on “harmony” (concordia) in marriage: “Despite some suggestion in the evidence . . . and in the theorists that concordia is achieved by the subordination of the wife, the epitaphs also associate it with equality.” For a review of the anthropological literature, see Hirsch and Wardlow 2006, 4. 3. Nussbaum 2002, following Treggiari 1991, 183–228. For an example from Musonius Rufus, see the discussion of fr. 13A Lutz in Treggiari 1991, 12–13. 4. Nussbaum 2002, 302–8; Reydams-Schils 2005, 162–63. On patriarchy in Roman marriage and philosophy, see Treggiari 1991, 15–16; Dressler 2016, 9–11, respectively. 5. Nussbaum 2002, 301 (exclamation in original). See, e.g., Plut. Amat. 754D vis-à-vis 754A, with Stadter 1999; cf. Ramelli 2016, 158, with some disagreement in Reydams-Schils 2005, 155–58. On Roman treatment of women, see Nep. Pref. 2.1; August. De civ. D. 18.9; cf. Plut. Con. praec. 143A. 6. This is not to say that the asceticism of late Antique Christianity was antifeminist tout court but that the new avenues for female self-expression, which were opened

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The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage” by the renunciation of marriage, the alternatives to which were Jovinian’s renewed emphasis on companionism (Hunter 2007, 269–84; cf. Delarue 2001, 163 f., 172–73; Gloyn 2017, 79–80) or Augustine’s reactionary insistence on wifely submission (see esp. Ep. 262 to Ecdicia, in Clark 1996, 13–31), could always reinscribe the misogyny of more traditional patriarchal marriage, even without the marriage: see Duval 2003, 29– 30; Clark 2005, 32–39. 7. On the setting of Seneca’s On Marriage in Jerome’s Against Jovinian (hereafter, in references Adv. Iovinian.), see Vottero 1998, 135–67, 22–31 (esp. 26–29), 247–88 (esp. 279–81); Adkin 2000, 127–28; Torre 2000, 77–93. For ease and completeness, I refer to the fragments from this work using the system of the Patrologia Latina, vol. 23 (= Migne 1845, 206–338), first by chapter and section of the original work, and then, when necessary, by the column and letter of the Patrologia Latina, adding where applicable the number of the fragment in the three primary editions of Seneca: Haase 1878; Bickel 1915; Vottero 1998. 8. Adv. Iovinian. 1.3, 214b: “There is one reward [remunerationem] in the kingdom of heaven for all who maintain their baptism”; cf. 215a: merita, iniuriam, with Duval 2003, 75–77. 9. On Jovinian, see Duval 2003, 25–95; Hunter 2007, 15–83. See also the supporting discussion in Cooper 1996, 53–62; Ruether 1998, 38–43; Brown 2012, 282–85. Note also Foucault 2018, 151: élitiste. 10. On the Christian context, see Clark 1993, 52–53. 11. E.g., Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 282b: unicubas . . . inter matronas decus. The scholarly assumption that Seneca wrote a book, perhaps a few, On Marriage, comes from the comment with which Jerome concludes the bulk of the catalog of virtuous women (1.49, 280c4–7 = 81 Haase = T 22 Vottero, that is, testimonium, not fragment): “So wrote Aristotle and Plutarch and our Seneca in (his?) books (entitled?) ‘on marriage’ (Scripse­ runt Aristoteles et Plutarchus et noster Seneca de matrimonio libros), and from these we have taken a few of the above examples, and the others that we will add below.” 12. In Adv. Jovinian. 1.13, 230c, Jerome disavows these but then pursues it anyway: 1.27–28, 47–48. 13. On Senecan “diatribe,” see Griffin 1976, 13–16. 14. Loraux 1987; Torre 2000; especially Richlin 2014b, 2014c. 15. See e.g., Torre 2000, 52–54. 16. Loraux 1987, 3. 17. Richlin 2014c, 113–14. 18. Rimell 2015, 135, 143, 146, 166–69, 173, 175, 187, with Wilson 2001, 175–76; Roller 2015, 65–66; cf. Griffin 1976, 16. For the assimilation of Seneca’s epistolary style to the dialogues, the genre of the supposedly lost treatise On Marriage, see Vottero 1998, 9–10; Roller 2015, 58, 62. For Jerome as a satirist, see Duval 2003, 99–101. 19. Jer. De vir. ill. 12.850, 629a, with Colish 1990, 83–85; and Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 2.10–14; cf. Foucault 2018, 150–52, 178–85, 200–202, 217. In fact, the other tendency in

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Alex Dressler Seneca, namely companionism, approximates later, proto-Jovinian calls for traditional household order, against asceticism—and against the autonomy of women (Hunter 2007, 91)—in the so-called pastoral letters of “Paul” (Eph. 5.28, trans. NRSV): “He who loves his wife loves himself [uxorem diligit, seipsum diligit].” In Ep. 104.2, Seneca describes a similar relationship with his own wife, Paulina: “she gets me to love myself more affectionately [diligentius amem]”; for a “companionate” reading of this, see Reydams-Schils 2005, 171–76. See further Clark 1993, 130–38. Here and following, I use bold type to emphasize key words in the Latin. 20. Armisen-Marchetti 1989, 91. 21. See the section “‘Anywhere, Anywhere out of the World’” in this chapter. 22. Richlin 2014c, 113, 121, with Braund 1992. For the fragment of Sulpicia, see Courtney 1993, 361; cf. Hemelrijk 1999, 163–64. For the first Sulpicia, Rome’s only female love poet, see the poems once attributed to Tibullus: [Tib.] 3.13–18, with Richlin 2014c, 110–11. On Roman women writing, see Hemelrijk 1999, 206–9; Richlin 2014c, 121–29. 23. See the next section of this chapter. 24. Cf. Plut. Con. praec. 138D. 25. Adv. Iovinian. 1.46, 275a = 25 Bickel = 75 Haase = 46 Vottero. 26. See also Adv. Iovinian. 1.46, 276a–b = 27 Bickel = 76 Haase = 48 Vottero. For further examples of the inconveniences discussed in this paragraph and more, see Sen. Ep. 22.2 (to Eustochium) and Helv. 20; and Ambrose, On Virgins 1.6 with Clark 1993, 98–99. 27. On Roman aestheticization of violence against women, see Edwards 2007, 12–13. 28. For the reconciliation of the tragedies and the philosophy in other matters, see Schiesaro 2003, 20–21; Ker 2005, 27–28; Gunderson 2015, 105–6. On the relation of theory and practice in Seneca, see Dressler 2012, 148–51. 29. Cf. Clark 1993, 4, on Proba. 30. Porter 2010, 40; on personal appearance, see Clark 1993, 110–18; Olson 2008, esp. 108–12. 31. Langlands 2006, 31 f., effectively problematizes any English translation of the keyword, pudicitia. I use “honor” and “modesty” throughout, but I know these are inadequate translations. For more on pudicitia, see n. 95. 32. The beauty in question is, of course, not physical. See, e.g., Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 281a1–3 = 3 Bickel = 81–82 Haase = 25 Vottero: “Absolutely the most oppressive guard must be kept on beautiful wives [uxorum pulichritudini ],” with Foucault 2018, 168, 170–71. See Jer. Ep. 22.1; cf. Ambrose, Concerning Virgins 1.7–8 vis-à-vis 10; and Sen. Ep. 115.6–7: “We will be able to discern virtue even when it is covered over by the body [virtutem etiam obrutam corpore], even in the face of poverty, even with squalor and famine besetting it; we will perceive, I declare, that beauty, even as it lies covered in filth [pulchritudinem illam quamvis sordido obtectam]”; cf. Sen. Ep. 66.4, 95.61, with Dressler 2016, 137–40.

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The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage” 33. On kalos kagathos, see n. 41. 34. See Skinner 1996. 35. For background to this paragraph, see Nehamas 1998, 176–79; Kelly 2013, 250–51. 36. Foucault 1984, 341; 2018, 187, with 195–96 and 200–201. See, in general, Larmour, Miller, and Platter 1998; Foucault 1994a; 1994b; 1994c; 1994d; 2005, 251–54; Detel 2005. According to Foucault 1985, 10–11: “What I mean by the phrase [“arts of existence”] are those intentional and voluntary actions by which men [sic] not only set themselves rules of conduct, but also seek to transform themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria.” Foucault 2018, 154–76, esp. 167–68, suggests that the initial attempt to navigate between the mandatory universal celibacy prescribed by the Encra­tites and the more “liberal” Jovinian response (e.g., Adv. Iovinian. 1.14, 232b– 234a, cf. 2.7) aimed precisely to appropriate for virginity this status of a lifestyle choice (more presently), and an exercise in freedom—especially for women; see also Foucault 2018, 185–93. 37. E.g., Foucault 1986, 148–49, 160; see also n. 70. Bourdieu 1987, 170, defines lifestyle as a combination of “the two capacities which define the habitus,” which Bourdieu understands as the internalized matrix of acceptable actions that constitutes individuals in their interaction with society: first, “the capacity to produce classifiable practices and works”; second, “the capacity to differentiate and appreciate these practices and products (taste).” Examples of the first (works) include women’s “virtuous” social commentary in early imperial Rome; examples of the second (taste) include the evaluative judgments about men and marriage expressed in that social commentary. See further Loesberg 2005, 112, 158–59; McGushin 2007, xvi–xviii, 103–4, 115–24, 134; cf. Bénatouïl 2007, 182–83. 38. On the (in)utility of Foucault for the study of Greco-Roman women, see Richlin 1998. 39. For further documentation, see Dressler 2016, 14 n. 48. 40. E.g., Foucault 1986, 83. 41. Cf. Hallett 1984, esp. chs. 1–3. The provocative exposition of “Roman Women’s Useless Knowledge” in Habinek 1998, 122–36, suggests the title for this section. The “uselessness” of art appears to be a modern conceit (e.g., Oscar Wilde: “All art is quite useless”), but see Chrysippus, quoted and translated by Graver 2017, 141 n. 51 (Plut. De Stoic. repugn. 1044D): “the peacock exists for the tail, not the tail for the peacock.” The opposite of utility in ethical and aesthetic discourse is pleasure (delectatio); see, e.g., Jer. Adv. Jovinian. 2.8–9. On the Stoic development of the familiar Greek equivalence of ethical and aesthetic goodness (kalos kagathos), see Bett 2010; and Graver 2017, 119, 121– 22, 124–25, in which note pulchritudo and decorum; with further discussion and documentation in Dressler 2016, 212–20, 238–39; and Graver 2017, 127–28, 144–45, in which note kallos (in addition to kalos: see Konstan 2014, 31–35); cf. Ramelli 2016, 162–63. 42. See Torre 2000, 48–49.

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Alex Dressler 43. Diogenes Laertius 7.101–3. Writing as Theophrastus, Jerome suggests that the dangers to which a good wife would be liable should discourage the sage from marrying (Adv. Iovinian. 1.47, 277a): “He keeps all who are and all who ever were good with himself, directing his emancipated soul wherever he wants”; cf. Sen. Ep. 64.9–10; Foucault 2018, 163, 180–84. 44. Torre 2000, 21–22, 42–54, at 50: “What matters is not marrying; what matters is marrying well”; cf. Reydams-Schils 2005, 148–53; Ramelli 2016, 162–63. Torre 2000, 144–47, argues this fragment is corrupt even though such “use” (khrêsis, usus) of people is the letter of the law in the old Stoa (Bénatouïl 2007, 271–75) and persists in comparably inoffensive forms in modern thought: Johnson 2010, 94–105 (but see Foucault 2018, 355–57). On the Roman philosophical background, see Graver 2017, 129–31, 143–44. On the legal background in the law of marriage and property, see Treggiari 1991, 17–18, and cf. 25–28. See also Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 281b–c = 7 Bickel = 87 Haase = 29 Vottero, with Torre 2000, 66–67; Gloyn 2017, 77; and, in general, see Edwards 1993, 34–62. Weber (1991) 2010, 138–39, implicitly identifies “lifestyle” as a perquisite of disposable income (or inequality), an economically informed modern counterpart to the Stoic notion of indifferents; cf. Habinek 1998, 137–38, 142–43. On this passage, see also Roskam in this volume. 45. Gloyn 2017, 76, with background in Treggiari 1991, 8–10; Vottero 1998, 286– 87; Reydams-Schils 2005, 147: “In this context, arguing for alternative criteria of selection [of partners] constitutes a meaningful challenge to prevailing norms.” Cf. Duval 2003, 27–28. 46. Warner 1999, 122: “In the anthropological literature, the main debate about marriage is whether its primary function in nonmodern society is to establish alliances between men, or lines of descent. In modern societies, marriage has less and less to do with either of these aspects of kinship systems.” 47. For the authenticity of this fragment, in view of a Plutarchan parallel (Con. praec. 141C, in which note no pun), Bickel 1915, 64–65, refers to the policy adopted in the case of the os olere fragment: see n. 66. Delarue 2001, 174, following Frassinetti 1955, 178, is sure that the prosopographical error (Marcia or Porcia, and if Porcia, which?) invalidates Senecan authorship, but not so Vottero 1998, 269–70. Either way, the pun is Senecan (see Ben. 3.16.12; OLD, s.v. duco, 29), as is the incorporation of apothegms through exempla (Bickel 1915, 292; Vottero, 1998, 269–70). In addition, it may be dangerous, not just for reasons of evidence but on feminist grounds, based in due distrust of past scholars’ treatment of “evidence” pertaining to women, to discount a strong quotation that is female in authority, if not authorship (for this distinction, see Meade 1987, 115); for something like that with this very quip, see Bickel 1915, 301–2, in which note the comparandum of Julia’s jokes from Macrobius, with Richlin 2014c, 121–23, 125–26. 48. For more on the identity of this woman, whom I will call “Marcia” or Marcia/ Porcia, see, in addition to the previous note, Bickel 1915, 289–300; Vottero 1998, 269; Treggiari 2007, 149–50. For Porcia, see Beneker in this volume.

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The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage” 49. On the characteristic Senecan juxtaposition se/sua, see Traina 1974, 53, 83–84, with Torre 2000, 125 n. 101; Ker 2005, 34–37. 50. On life as an oeuvre (Foucault 1985), see n. 36. 51. Cf. Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.47, 278b = 59 Haase = 54 Vottero, §13 (iudico eligas); and Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 281a–b = 5 Bickel = 85 Haase = 27 Vottero, §1; cf. Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.47, 277a (electio); also 1.47, 278b; Bickel 1915, 361. For Stoic “selection,” see Diog. Laert. 7.105 = Long and Sedley 1987, hereafter LS, by section and testimoium, hence LS 58B = von Arnim 1903–5, hereafter SVF, by section and testimonium, hence SVF 3.119; Stob. 2.76, 9–15 = LS 58K; and SVF 3.190–6. See further Inwood 1985, 201– 15; Inwood 2005, 265–66; Barney 2003, 314, with White 2010; cf. Kidd 1971, 165–68, with Plut. De comm. not. 1070F–71E = LS 64C1–2. 52. Translation by Long and Graver 2015. 53. Contesting the dominant reading, which he notes, Migne 1845, 275, followed by Haase 1878, 432, omits the key word, eleganter, which describes “Marcia’s” apothegm and plays a similar role elsewhere in Seneca: e.g., Ep. 91.19, 97.6, 13, 116.5; cf. Julia’s joke in Macrobius 2.5.6, with Richlin 2014b, 97. Bickel 1915, 25, 387, accepts it, as does Vottero 1998: Indeci dei vocabuli latini, s.v. eleganter. 54. For the practice corresponding to this theory, see Ep. 5.2, with Diog. Laert. 6.8 and Pl. Symp. 173b1–2, 174a4, with Scarpat 1975, 92–94; and Zanker 1995, 198–266. 55. Torre 2000, 62; cf. Dressler 2012, 159–60. 56. Gloyn 2017, 96, 98–99. 57. See Lowrie 2009, 72, with Dressler 2016, 46. 58. See, e.g., Ormand 2010. 59. On this passage, see Torre 2000, 161. 60. Delarue 2001, 170–71. 61. Traina 1974, 19. 62. See Bartsch 2015; Dressler 2016 (ch. 5). On this Christian elaboration of this specifically feminine “care of the self,” see Foucault 2018, 174–75, 202–5, 214. 63. Cf. Dressler 2016, 173–81. 64. Contesting Torre 2000, 75 (cf. 57, 59, 72–73), Gloyn 2017, 94 n. 53, denies that we can discern “the faint outlines of a female sapiens.” 65. Delarue 2001, 169, in a withering comment. 66. Hor. Sat. 1.2.27 (pastilles Rufillus olet, Gargonius hircum); Sen. Ep. 86.12 (“liquet mihi inmundissimos fuisse.” quid putas illos oluisse). The Senecan authorship in Jerome is debated because a similar (unpunning) phrase occurs in an anecdote about Hiero in Plutarch (De cap. ex inim. 90B); but see Bickel 1915, 60–61. 67. Rimell 2015, 185–86. 68. Krostenko 2001, 267, 286–87. 69. See Richlin 2014b, 91–93, 99–108. 70. Olson 2008, 89–92. Weber (1992) 2010, 143–44, 148, combined lifestyle (Lebensstil, Stilisierung des Lebens), life conduct (Lebensfuhrung), and life chances

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Alex Dressler (Lebenschancen); see also Abel and Cockerham 1993, 553. Such an analysis underlies the description of companionate marriage in Treggiari 1991, 504. 71. Helv. 17.3–5, with Torre 2000, 57–58. 72. Helv. 16.3–4, with Torre 2000, 58–59; and McAuley 2016, 192–94; cf. Muson. fr. 16 Lutz with Nussbaum 2002, 308–9. 73. Seneca married twice: on the double standard, see Treggiari 1991, 234–36; and for the term, see Tert. De monog. 8.13.17. On Seneca’s marriages, see Gloyn 2017, 100. For the praise of univiratus in the lost treatise, see Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.44–46 = 2, 18, 22–28 Bickel = 72–77 Haase (part) = 52, 40, 44–49 Vottero; cf. Torre 2000, 119–20. Martial presents the lost female satirist Sulpicia as a “one-man woman” (univira, 10.35.1–2); maybe she used the “honorific” to legitimate optional singledom, too: Richlin 2014c, 117. 74. Sen. Ben. 3.16.2, with Torre 2000, 62–67. On the kind of humor (which could be worse), see Richlin 2014a, 56–58. 75. For a contestation of Juvenal’s misogyny, see Centlivres Challet 2013, 134. Parallels fill the problematic “Senecan” selection from “Theophrastus” in Jerome (Adv. Iovinian. 1.47, 276b–278b = 47–59 Haase = pp. 388–90 Bickel = 54 Vottero, §10): the proverbial term “rare bird” (Juv. 6.165, with Vottero 1998, 285); eunuchs (54 Vottero, §5, with Juv. 6.366–78; cf. Sen. Ep. 114.6; Prov. 3.10, with Gloyn 2017, 99–100; cf. Juv. 6.224–30, with Vottero 1998, 250, 259, cf. 247–48). On the Senecan consanguinity of Juvenal and Jerome, see Adkin 2000; Delarue 2001, 168, 187. 76. Foucault 1986, 148–49. 77. Richlin 2014c, 121: “The phenomenon whereby women are disparaged by the men who imitate them is historically familiar.” 78. Cf. Torre 2000, 62–67. On the practical role of metaphor in Stoic value theory, see Bartsch 2009, esp. 195, 213; Dressler 2012, 157–60, with Henderson 2005, 79: “All imagery, as such, may mislead.” Cf. Plut. Con. praec. 138C (homoiotêtes, i.e., “similes” as a part of philosophy), with Foucault 1994d. 79. Sen. Ben. 3.16.3: Infrunita et antiqua est, quae nesciat matrimonium vocari unum adulterium. 80. Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 281b9–11 = 6 Bickel = 86 Haase = 28 Vottero. 81. Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.49, 281b = 5 Bickel = 84 Haase = 27 Vottero; for additional examples, see Dressler 2016, 197–98. Cf. Jerome in propria persona (Adv. Iovinian. 1.14, 233b–c): “It is more acceptable to be a prostitute [viz. wife] to one man, than many. . . . For where there are multiple husbands [maritorum], there the husband [vir] who is literally one [ proprie unus] ceases to be so.” The idea that patriarchal marriage is a form of prostitution is a commonplace of radical feminism: e.g., MacKinnon 1989, 17–18. 82. Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.49 = 7 Bickel = 87 Haase = 29 Vottero. 83. See Treggiari 1991, 5–6; Gloyn 2017, 84–85. 84. Cf. Jer. Adv. Jovinian. 1.48, 280a = 14 Bickel = 68 Haase = 36 Vottero. 85. Torre 2000, 63; cf. 158–59.

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The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage” 86. In Bourdieu 1987, 176–77, the aesthetic production of art and literature is only the most concentrated form of “the intention of purifying, refining and sublimating facile impulses and primary needs,” which constitutes the “stylization of life”; cf. Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.13, 230b: “If death is . . . the end of marriage, why not turn necessity into choice [necessitate non in voluntatem vertimus]?” See also Kelly 2013, 258–59, on Foucault 1985, 150–51, with Foucault 2018, 187–88, 193, 200–201, in which note trans­ figuration, transfigurer (cf. Sen. Ep. 6.1, with Edwards 1997). 87. Translation by Long and Graver 2015. 88. Sedgwick 2003, 138, with Dressler 2016, 251. For “selection of words,” see Cic. De or. 3.149; Hor. Ars P. 46–48, with Mankin 2001, 235. For “care for speaking” (cura dicendi), see Quint. Inst. 1.9.1, 3.2.1, and esp. 8.17.1–18.1 (cura verborum). See also Sen. Ep. 84.5: ingenii nostra cura. 89. See, e.g., Clark 1993, 6–27, 52–62. 90. For the debt of Foucault’s concept of “critical agency” in the aesthetics of existence to aesthetics proper (e.g., painting), see again Kelly 2013. For an account of Roman women’s self-fashioning that implicitly recognizes the contradictions at work in it, see Olson 2008, 92–93. 91. Bickel 1915, 328, with Torre 2000, 107 n. 36. 92. The formulation appears to be Jerome’s: see also Adv. Iovinian. 1.32, 255b–c, unmentioned among the instances of “ecclesiastical diction” detected in the putative fragments of Seneca by Bickel 1915, 327–28, but see 144–45. 93. Torre 2000, 63. 94. See Rudich 1997, 2–7. For the closest connection between women’s actions, men’s self-expression, and social decadence, see Sen. Ep. 114, with Frassinetti 1955, 181; Gloyn 2017, 99–100; cf. Graver 1998; Dressler 2016, 137–39. 95. Specifically, the valorization of pudicitia, which Seneca defines as a quintessentially inward virtue, is an inverse function of a revaluation of the traditional source of value, public life: Foucault 1986, 81–105; 2018, 214–15, with Milnor 2015, 239–40; cf. Sen. Ben. 4.12.4, with Torre 2000, 164 n. 234; Plut. Con. praec. 139E–F. Paradoxically, pu­ dicitia is associated throughout classical Latin with display (Langlands 2006, 56–61), and this may problematize the linear genealogy of the concept implied in Foucault (even as the concern with aesthetics, or appearance, “beautiful memories” is eminently Foucauldian) and rejected by Jerome (to whom display also matters: Duval 2003, 79–80). 96. Williams 2006, 159–61, 165–66; Gunderson 2015, 102f. The phrase in parentheses marks the difference between philosophical and Christian forms of asceticism. 97. Jer. Adv. Jovinian. 1.46, 275a = 23 Bickel = 73 Haase = 44 Voterro, §2. In Valerius, Artemisia becomes herself the mausoleum (-a?) of Mausolus (4.6, ext. 1): “She herself eagerly desired [concupierit] to become the living and breathing tomb of Mausolus, by the testimony of those who say she drank a decoction sprinkled with the dead man’s bones.” Note here again the displacement of her gender in the expression of authorship (eorum testimonio qui . . . tradunt).

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Alex Dressler 98. See pp. 151–52. 99. Halperin 2006, esp. 16–18. 100. The quotation in this section’s title is from Baudelaire 1869, 140–41, with Hood 1872, 29. 101. The passages quoted here and the following excerpts cover two printed pages of Bickel 1915, 383–84; and Migne 1845, 271–72. 102. Langlands 2006, 160–89. 103. Sen. Med. 896, translated by Bartsch 2017, 44; cf. Sen. Phoen. 17: mater et gaudens malo. For the near certainty of gaudio (and not gladio) in Jerome, see Bickel 1915, 375; cf. Nicetas of Remesiana, On the Symbol 12 (mortem cum gaudio), and Jer. Commentary on Ezekiel 11.36 ( gladio) = PL 25, 337a, on Ezekiel 36.5 ( gaudio). 104. See Reydams-Schils 2005, 167–68; Foucault 2018, 156–57; cf. Gunderson 2015, 79–83, 86–87. 105. This is why her appropriation of philosophy provokes: Bartsch 2006, 262–65, with Loraux 1987, 89; see also Gunderson 2015, 112–16. 106. Livy 1.57–9, with Langlands 2006, 91–96. 107. Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.46, 275b = 19 Bickel = 69 Haase = 41 Vottero, with Vottero 1998, 264–65, and Mauch 1997, 96–97. 108. On such exemplarity, see Lowrie 2008; Langlands 2015; on patientia, see Dressler 2016, 87–95. 109. See Langlands 2004, 123–25; Dressler 2016, 32–33. 110. Langlands 2006, 153. 111. See also Gunderson 2015, 101–2, of the spectacular death of Seneca’s aunt (more presently): “what one most admires about her is her invisibility.” 112. On this passage, see Torre 2000, 164. 113. Torre 2000, 52–54. Of course, this is the category in which Seneca’s own wife, Paulina, falls in Tacitus’ account of the suicide: Tac. Ann. 15.63–64, with Ker 2009, 17–39; and Gloyn 2017, 101–31; cf. Reydams-Schils 2005, 171–75. 114. Torre 2000, 51–53; cf. Bickel 1915, 332; Ker 2009, 122–25. With Seneca’s description of his aunt, cf. Jer. Ep. 1.13: “Though in danger herself, she reclaims another who is also in danger [alium vindicat periclitantem].” 115. Tro. 1123–48, at 1126 (theatri more), in which note also 1139 (“Beauty at the end shines more than usual [splendet extremus decor]”) and 1151 (virago); “Polyxena is presented as a transgendered figure,” according to Benton 2002, 39. 116. Extending this “outsourcing” even beyond Greece, the full realization of women’s virtue appears more conspicuously in the philosophy, again in death, when Jerome’s Seneca invokes the “Indian” institution of sati, or widows’ willful immolation of themselves with their husband’s corpse (Adv. Iovinian. 1.44, 274b = 2 Bickel = 52 Vottero), again with a pronounced emphasis on appearance: victrix in habitu or­ natu­que pristino (a conqueror woman dressed in her former style). In the same fragment, the impossibility of Senecan feminism bears a philological trace: in the phrase

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The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage” testimonium castitatis, the first word may be Senecan but the second is conspicuously Jerome’s (Bickel 1915, 184–85; Delarue 2001, 169; Gloyn 2017, 84). Earlier Roman attestations of Indian women’s self-immolation (Prop. 3.13.15–22; Val. Max. 2.6.14) also emphasize female agency: victrix, with Heckel and Yardley 1981, 307. Note, in Valerius especially, the emphasis on the woman’s uncanny joy that anticipates Seneca and Jerome: victrix gaudio exultans, with p. 160; and Loraux 1987, 42–48. On the impossibility of extracting subaltern agency from such scenes of violence against women, see Spivak (1988) 2010, 62–68.

Works Cited Abel, T., and W. C. Cockerham. 1993. “Lifestyle or Lebensführung? Critical Remarks on a Mistranslation of Weber’s ‘Class, Status, Party.’” Sociological Quarterly 34(3):551–56. Adkin, N. 2000. “Jerome, Seneca, Juvenal.” Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire 78(1):119–28. Armisen-Marchetti, M. 1989. Sapientiae facies: Étude sur les images de Séneèque. Paris. Barney, R. 2003. “A Puzzle in Stoic Ethics.” OSAPh 24:303–40. Bartsch, S. 2006. The Mirror of the Self. Chicago. . 2009. “Senecan Metaphor and Stoic Self-Instruction.” In Seneca and the Self, edited by S. Bartsch and D. Wray, 190–217. Cambridge. . 2015. “Senecan Selves.” In Cambridge Companion to Seneca, edited by S. Bartsch and A. Schiesaro, 187–98. Cambridge. . 2017. “Medea.” In Seneca: The Complete Tragedies, vol. 1, edited by E. Asmis, S. Bartsch, and M. Nussbaum, 3–49. Chicago. Baudelaire, C. 1869. Oeuvres complètes de Charles Baudelaire. Vol. 4, Petits poèmes en prose: Les paradis artificels. Paris. Bénatouïl, T. 2007. Faire usage: La pratique du stoïcisme. Paris. Benton, C. 2002. “Split Vision: The Politics of the Gaze in Seneca’s Troades.” In The Roman Gaze: Vision, Power, and the Body, edited by D. Frederick, 31–56. Baltimore. Bett, R. 2010. “Beauty and Its Relation to Goodness in Stoicism.” In Ancient Models of Mind: Studies in Human and Divine Rationality, edited by D. N. Sedley and A. Nightingale, 130–52. Cambridge. Bickel, E. 1915. Diatribe in Senecae Philosopi Fragmenta. Vol. 1, Fragmenta de matrimo­ nio. Leipzig. Bourdieu, P. 1987. Distinction. Cambridge, MA. Braund, S. 1992. “Juvenal—Misogynist or Misogamist?” JRS 82:71–86. Brown, P. 2012. Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West. Princeton, NJ. Cantarella, E. 2002. “Marriage and Sexuality in Republican Rome: A Roman Conjugal

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The Impossible Feminism of “Seneca, On Marriage” . 2017. “Honor and the Honorable: Cato’s Discourse in De Finibus 3.” In Cicero’s De Finibus: Philosophical Approaches, edited by J. Annas and G. Betegh, 118–46. Cambridge. Griffin, M. T. 1976. Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics. Oxford. Gunderson, E. 2015. The Sublime Seneca. Cambridge. Haase, F. 1878. L. Annaei Senecae Opera Quae Supersunt. Vol. 3. Leipzig. Habinek, T. 1998. The Politics of Latin Literature. Princeton, NJ. Hallett, J. 1984. Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society. Princeton, NJ. Halperin, D. 2006. “The Best Lover.” In Dead Lovers: Erotic Bonds and the Study of PreModern Europe, edited by B. Dufallo and P. McCracken, 8–21. Ann Arbor, MI. Heckel, W., and J. Yardley. 1981. “Roman Writers and the Indian Practice of Suttee.” Philologus 125:305–11. Hemelrijk, E. 1999. Matrona docta: Educated Women in the Roman Élite from Cornelia to Julia Domna. London. Henderson, J. 2005. Morals and Villas in Seneca’s Letters. Cambridge. Hirsch, J., and H. Wardlow. 2006. “Introduction.” In Modern Loves: The Anthropology of Courtship and Companionate Marriage, edited by J. Hirsch and H. Wardlow, 1–34. Ann Arbor, MI. Hood, T. 1872. Poems of Thomas Hood. New York. Hunter, D. G. 2007. Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy in Ancient Christianity: The Jo­ vinianist Controversy. Oxford. Inwood, B. 1985. Ethics and Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford. . 2005. Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome. Oxford. Johnson, B. 2010. Persons and Things. Cambridge, MA. Kelly, M. 2013. “Foucault on Critical Agency in Painting and the Aesthetics of Existence.” In A Companion to Foucault, edited by C. Falzon, T. O’Leary, and J. Sawicki, 243–63. Malden, MA. Ker, J. 2005. “Seneca, Man of Many Genres.” In Seeing Seneca Whole, edited by K. Volk and G. Williams, 19–42. Leiden. . 2009. The Deaths of Seneca. Oxford. Kidd, I. G. 1971. “Stoic Intermediates and the Ends for Man.” In Problems in Stoicism, edited by A. A. Long, 150–72. London. Konstan, D. 2014. Beauty. Oxford. Krostenko, B. 2001. Cicero, Catullus, and the Language of Social Performance. Chicago. . 2004. “A Woman’s Influence on a Roman Text: Marcia and Seneca.” In Women’s Influence on Classical Civilization, edited by F. McHardy and E. Marshall, 115–26. London. Langlands, R. 2006. Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome. Cambridge. . 2015. “Roman Exemplarity: Mediating between General and Particular.” In Exemplarity and Singularity: Thinking through Particulars in Philosophy, Literature, and Law, edited by M. Lowrie and S. Lüdemann, 68–80. New York.

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nimal stories are abundant in ancient literature of the imperial period. They were gathered and transmitted by authors who were more interested in their moral instructiveness and entertaining character than their zoological accuracy, and they provided malleable material for ancient moralists.1 Descriptions of animal behaviors were frequently anthropomorphized and moralized through the use of ethical vocabulary, and served as a see-through veil behind which the reader could easily perceive equivalent human behaviors and, in consequence, receive a particular moral message. Though seemingly descriptive, they are actually paraenetic in nature: they convey ethical judgments, praise certain behaviors as “natural,” and reject others as contrary to nature. In Plutarch such a moralization of zoology is justified by the presumption that animal nature is not non-moral: Plutarch and his interlocutors in dialogues perceive moral qualities as being entrenched in nature and claim that animals possess virtues such as courage, temperance, prudence, and justice.2 In On the Intelligence of Animals, one of the speakers says that in ants, nature has “a small mirror” (μικρὸν κάτοπτρον) of great and noble things, and that one finds among these insects a reflection of every virtue (πάσης ἀρετῆς ἔμφασις, 967D).3 Plutarch uses animal stories repeatedly in the context of marriage and marital virtues, most prominently in On the Love of Offspring but also in On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational and On the Intelligence of Animals. These three texts differ in their format and main preoccupations. On the Love of

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Offspring focuses on parental love (φιλοστοργία) and examines it in both animals and men.4 Before Plutarch, the topic was discussed by philosophers of different affiliations—Stoics, Epicureans, and Middle Platonists—who scrutinized the relation between nature and φιλοστοργία, and examined its place in the ethical system.5 On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational is a humorous work that interacts with genres such as the philosophical dialogue, the Aesopic fable, the comedy, and the Menippean satire.6 The main interlocutors in the dialogue are Odysseus and Gryllus, a pig that was once a man, who argues that the lives of animals are superior to those of people. On the Intelligence of Ani­ mals is also a dialogue, the core of which consists of a speech “contest” between two young men, Aristotimus and Phaedimus, who argue whether land or water animals are wiser. At the end of the dialogue, however, the judges of the contest propose to combine the two speeches into a single argument for animal rationality. The text is considerably longer than either On the Love of Offspring or On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational and contains a great deal of miscellaneous animal lore, not concerned with any specific moral aim. In all three works, descriptions of animals and their mating behaviors are anthropomorphized and moralized through the persistent employment of ethical vocabulary; animal habits are not reported or described but shaped after the ideal human model—and then used as exemplars.7 The most prominent aspects of marriage touched upon in animal stories include procreation, childrearing, sexual morality, and marital (in particular, wifely) loyalty. In On the Love of Offspring, Plutarch introduces the subject of marriage as follows. ὅρα περὶ τοὺς γάμους ὅσον ἐστὶν ἐν τοῖς ζῴοις τὸ κατὰ φύσιν. πρῶτον οὐκ ἀναμένει νόμους ἀγαμίου καὶ ὀψιγαμίου, καθάπερ οἱ Λυκούργου πολῖται καὶ Σόλωνος, οὐδ’ ἀτιμίας ἀτέκνων δέδοικεν, οὐδὲ τιμὰς διώκει τριπαιδίας, ὡς Ῥωμαίων πολλοὶ γαμοῦσι καὶ γεννῶσιν, οὐχ ἵνα κλη­ρο­ νό­μους ἔχωσιν ἀλλ’ ἵνα κληρονομεῖν δύνωνται.

Observe to what extent there exists in animals conformity to nature in regard to their marriages. In the first place, they do not wait for laws against celibacy or late wedlock, as did the citizens of Lycurgus and Solon, nor fear loss of civil rights because of childlessness, nor pursue the honors of the ius trium liberorum, as many Romans do when they marry and beget children, not that they may have heirs, but that they may inherit. (493E)8

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska The application of the human-world term γάμος (marriage) to animals encourages an interpretation of their mating and procreative behaviors within the context of human marriage; at the same time, it indicates that nature is the bedrock of the human institution of marriage. The concept of the naturalness of marriage also appears in Aristotle and later with consistency in Stoic texts of the imperial period, which extend the principle of the naturalness of marriage to an imperative to marry.9 However, Stoic authors do not refer to animals mating in order to illuminate the nature of human marriage. On the contrary, when Musonius Rufus argues that the production of children is not the sole purpose of marriage, he emphasizes that they may result from any, not necessarily marital, intercourse, just as in the case of animals.10 Plutarch’s passage clearly associates marriage with the production of offspring, which is consistent with the prevalent ancient perception of the marital union as centered on procreation. Although the first sentence informs readers that they are about to learn about animal behaviors, they are at the outset presented with things animals do not do: the passage starts off as a censure of the corruption of human societies, both contemporary and in the past, which need special laws to incite people to marry and have children.11 This is a common feature of the ancient moralizing use of animal παραδείγματα (examples): praise of animals is usually accompanied by a rebuke of humankind. Plutarch’s message is clear: marriage and the production of children are natural and good; people who do not marry and do not procreate fail to follow nature and need admonition. In the sentences that follow those quoted earlier, Plutarch succinctly describes how nature guides animals in their “marriages.” ἔπειτα μίγνυται τῷ θήλει τὸ ἄρρεν οὐχ ἅπαντα χρόνον· ἡδονὴν γὰρ οὐκ ἔχει τέλος ἀλλὰ γέννησιν καὶ τέκνωσιν· διὰ τοῦτ’ ἔτους ὥρᾳ, ἣ πνοάς τε γονίμους ἔχει καὶ πρόσφορον ὀχευομένοις κρᾶσιν, ἦλθεν εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ τῷ ἄρρενι τὸ θῆλυ χειρόηθες καὶ ποθεινόν, ἡδείᾳ μὲν ὀσμῇ χρωτὸς ἰδίῳ δὲ κόσμῳ σώματος ἀγαλλόμενον, δρόσου καὶ βοτάνης ἀνάπλεων καθαρᾶς· αἰσθόμενον δ’ ὅτι κύει καὶ πεπλήρωται, κοσμίως ἄπεισι καὶ προνοεῖ περὶ τὴν κύησιν καὶ σωτηρίαν τοῦ ἀποτεχθέντος. ἀξίως δ’ οὐκ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν τὰ δρώμενα, πλὴν ὅτι γίνεται ἕκαστον αὐτῶν ἐν τῷ φιλοστόργῳ ταῖς προνοίαις ταῖς καρτερίαις ταῖς ἐγκρατείαις.

In the next place, the male does not consort with the female during all seasons, for the end and aim is not pleasure, but procreation

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Marriage and Animal Exemplarity in Plutarch and the begetting of offspring; therefore it is in the season of spring, which has procreative breezes and a temperature suitable to intercourse, that the female, rendered submissive and desirable, comes to consort with the male, exulting, as she does, in the pleasing odor of her flesh and the peculiar adornment of her body, and filled with dew and clean grass; but when she perceives that she is pregnant and sated, she modestly retires and takes thought for the birth and safety of her offspring. But it is impossible to recount the procedure in a manner worthy of the subject, except to say that each of the pair is as one in their affection for their offspring, in their forethought, their endurance, and their self-control. (De am. prol. 493E–494A)

Plutarch’s representation of animal reproductive behaviors is shaped in a way that validates the idea of procreation as the primary, natural purpose of marriage. The vast diversity within the animal kingdom is glossed over; Plutarch’s exemplary male and female animals are abstractions rather than real creatures. Are these birds? Quadrupeds? The reader is left wondering. Detailed inquiry into the subject of animal procreation is rejected as improper (ἀξίως δ’ οὐκ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν τὰ δρώμενα), presumably because a meticulous zoological excursus would be out of place in a work of such character, and in order to remain true to the principle of discretion when dealing with the topic of sexuality. 12 As a result, behind a seemingly ethological report, we find a proclamation of support for strict sexual regulation and a censure of human offences against sexual morality: the statement that animals do not copulate at all times but only in spring conveys praise of periodic abstinence and commendation of subordinating the sexual act to reproductive ends.13 When sexual intercourse fulfills its reproductive aim and the female becomes pregnant, she withdraws modestly (κοσμίως) and focuses solely on the forthcoming progeny. Both the male and the female are represented as being deeply engaged in the process of rearing offspring (they reveal προνοία, καρ­ τερία, ἐγκράτεια: forethought, endurance, and self-control), which is con­sist­ ent with the assertion that the ultimate goal of both the male and female is reproduction. The term ἐγκράτεια seems to refer to sexual restraint: once conception occurs, there is no need nor justification for sexual activity to continue. We encounter an explicit verbalization of this idea in On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational. Gryllus argues that the lives of animals are superior to those of men, as they are controlled mostly by “essential desires and pleasures”

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska with a small admixture of “not necessary, but natural” ones (989F). The discussion of animal mating comes in the section dedicated to scent and the sense of smell. ἀλλὰ κάπρους τε σύες καὶ τράγους αἶγες καὶ τἄλλα θήλεα τοὺς συν­ νόμους αὐτῶν ταῖς ἰδίαις ὀσμαῖς ἐπάγεται, δρόσου τε καθαρᾶς καὶ λειμώνων ὀδωδότα καὶ χλόης, συμφέρεται πρὸς τοὺς γάμους ὑπὸ κοινῆς φιλοφροσύνης, οὐχὶ θρυπτόμεναι μὲν αἱ θήλειαι καὶ προϊσ­ χό­μεναι τῆς ἐπιθυμίας ἀπάτας καὶ γοητείας καὶ ἀρνήσεις, οἱ δ’ ἄρρε­ νες ὑπ’ οἴστρου καὶ μαργότητος ὠνούμενοι μισθῶν καὶ πόνου καὶ λατρείας τὸ τῆς γενέσεως ἔργον, ἄδολον δὲ σὺν καιρῷ καὶ ἄμισθον Ἀφροδίτην μετιόντες, ἣ καθ’ ὥραν ἔτους ὥσπερ φυτῶν βλάστην ἐγεί­ ρο­υσα τῶν ζῴων τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν εὐθὺς ἔσβεσεν, οὔτε τοῦ θήλεος προ­ σιε­μένου μετὰ τὴν κύησιν οὔτε πειρῶντος ἔτι τοῦ ἄρρενος.

But sows attract boars and nannies bucks, and other female creatures their consorts by means of their own special odors; scented, as they are, with pure dew and grassy meadows, they are attracted to the nuptial union by mutual affection. The females are not coy and do not cloak their desires with deceits or trickeries or denials; nor do the males, driven on by the sting of mad lust, purchase the act of procreation by money or toil or servitude. No! Both parties celebrate at the proper time a love without deceit or hire, a love which in the season of spring awakens, like the burgeoning of plants and trees, the desire of animals, and then immediately extinguishes it. Neither does the female continue to receive the male after she has conceived, nor does the male attempt her. (Brut. Anim. 990C–D)

The passage bears a striking resemblance to the one from On the Love of Off­ spring quoted earlier, and it conveys the same sexual morality by presenting the restriction of sexual relations for procreative ends as natural and good. In this respect, both passages seem to reflect a doctrine of procreationism, which we find expressed by other imperial period authors, including the Stoic Musonius Rufus, who advised his audience to engage only in sexual acts that occur within marriage and with the aim of reproduction.14 The moral doctrine also converges with the ancient concern that frequent sexual activity, on the part of both the man and woman, lessens the probability of conception, and that women should abstain from sex during pregnancy.15

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In his moralization of animal mating, Plutarch might have been inspired by Plato, in whose Laws the Athenian Stranger says: φημὶ τὸ μὲν ἡμέτερον νόμιμον ἀτεχνῶς δεῖν περὶ αὐτῶν τούτων πο­ ρεύεσθαι λέγον ὡς οὐ δεῖ χείρους ἡμῖν εἶναι τοὺς πολίτας ὀρνίθων καὶ ἄλλων θηρίων πολλῶν, οἳ κατὰ μεγάλας ἀγέλας γεννηθέντες, μέχρι μὲν παιδογονίας ἠίθεοι καὶ ἀκήρατοι γάμων τε ἁγνοὶ ζῶσιν, ὅταν δ’ εἰς τοῦτο ἡλικίας ἔλθωσι, συνδυασθέντες ἄρρην θηλείᾳ κατὰ χάριν καὶ θήλεια ἄρρενι, τὸν λοιπὸν χρόνον ὁσίως καὶ δικαίως ζῶσιν, ἐμμέ­ νοντες βεβαίως ταῖς πρώταις τῆς φιλίας ὁμολογίαις· δεῖν δὴ θηρίων γε αὐτοὺς ἀμείνους εἶναι.

My position, therefore, is that the law must go ahead and insist that our citizens’ standards should not be lower than those of birds and many other wild animals which are born into large communities and live chaste and unmarried, without intercourse, until the time comes for them to breed. At the appropriate age they pair off; the male picks a wife, and female chooses a husband, and forever afterwards they live in a pious and law-abiding way, firmly faithful to the promises they made when they first fell in love. Clearly our citizens ought to reach standards higher than the animals. (Lg. 840D–E)16

It is proposed here that the lawgiver making laws about marriage consider animals as models. As in Plutarch, we are presented with an idealized and anthropomorphized image of the behaviors of some unspecified, abstract animals. This fantasy description is fashioned with the same moral message in mind as Plutarch’s passages: strict sexual regulation and marital loyalty are entrenched in nature’s order. It is remarkable that in On the Intelligence of Animals we encounter a very different perception of marriage than in On the Love of Offspring and On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational. This perception occurs in a description of the kingfisher.17 The account begins as an encomium of the bird, which is praised for, among other things, a patently anthropomorphic “love for husband,” τὸ φίλανδρον (De sol. an. 982E–F), which has two manifestations.18 The first is the devotion of the bird to her mate: “If it is proper to speak briefly of her several virtues, she is so devoted to her mate that she keeps him company, not for a single season, but throughout the year. Yet it is not through wantonness that she admits him to her company, for she never consorts at all with any

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska other male; it is through friendship and affection, as with any lawful wife” (εἰ δὲ δεῖ καὶ περὶ ἑκάστης τῶν ἀρετῶν ἃς ἔχει βραχέα φάναι, φίλανδρος μὲν οὕτως ἐστίν, ὥστε μὴ καθ’ ἕνα καιρὸν ἀλλὰ δι’ ἔτους συνεῖναι καὶ προσδέχεσθαι τὴν τοῦ ἄρρενος ὁμιλίαν, οὐ διὰ τὸ ἀκόλαστον (ἄλλῳ γὰρ οὐ μίγνυται τὸ παράπαν) ἀλλ’ ὑπ’ εὐνοίας ὥσπερ γυνὴ γαμετὴ καὶ φιλοφροσύνης, De sol. an. 983A). The female kingfisher is praised for “keeping company” with her “husband” throughout the year rather than only over one season; the phrasing indicates that this includes sexual relations. The willingness of the female to stay with the male and copulate with him throughout the year is interpreted as a sign of her love and friendship (εὐνοία, φιλοφροσύνη) toward him. Unlike in On the Love of Offspring and On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational, where the subordination of sexuality to procreation was commended as natural and proper, here sexual intimacy is represented as having the potential to strengthen the bond between the mates. Marriage is celebrated as a partnership between a husband and a wife also in a second story that illustrates the kingfisher’s love for husband: “When by reason of old age the male becomes too weak and sluggish to keep up with her, she takes the burden on herself, carries him and feeds him, never forsaking, never abandoning him; but mounting him on her own shoulders, she conveys him everywhere she goes and looks after him, abiding with him until the end” (ὅταν δὲ διὰ γῆρας ἀσθενὴς ὁ ἄρρην γένηται συνέπεσθαι καὶ βαρύς, ὑπολαβοῦσα γηροφορεῖ καὶ γηροτροφεῖ, μηδαμοῦ προϊεμένη μηδὲ καταλείπουσα χωρίς, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ὤμοις ἐκεῖνον ἀναθεμένη καὶ κομίζει πανταχόσε καὶ θεραπεύει καὶ σύνεστιν ἄχρι τελευτῆς, De sol. an. 983A–B). This is an embellished and anthropomor-

phized version of a traditional account of the bird’s care for her aged “husband.”19 The age disparity between the male and female kingfisher implied by the story, perplexing from a zoological viewpoint, reflects the typical age difference in antiquity between newlyweds. The hapax γηροφορεῖν (“to carry someone old”) is coined in analogy to γηροτροφεῖν (“to take care of an elderly person”), a verb usually used in reference to children taking care of their parents, and carrying connotations of a duty and a moral obligation. In Plutarch’s works on animals, then, we find two different perceptions of marriage: one emphasizing its procreative function and, consequently, subordinating the relationship between the mates to their relationship with the offspring; the other celebrating marriage as relying on the husband’s and wife’s love and mutual care. How do these perspectives compare to conceptions of marriage verbalized by Plutarch elsewhere? In both Marriage Advice and Dia­ logue on Love, we find a conception of marriage analogous to the one underlying the kingfisher story. In Marriage Advice, marriage is understood as βίου

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Marriage and Animal Exemplarity in Plutarch κοινωνία, a sharing of life (138C); marriage for the sake of procreation or dowry is explicitly considered of lower value than one in which people love each other (142F). We encounter a similar perspective in Dialogue on Love, where, remarkably, marriage for either dowry or for the sake of procreation alone are frowned upon (767C–D).20 Moreover, Plutarch in the same treatise reaches for an animal comparison in order to devaluate marriages aimed solely at reproduction: “Others want children more than a wife: like cicadas who eject their seed into a squill or something of the sort, they are quick to fecundate the first body they come upon. When they have reaped the fruit, they are ready for divorce; or, if the marriage stands, they pay no attention to it, so little do they care for giving or receiving love” (οἱ δὲ παίδων δεόμενοι μᾶλλον ἢ γυναικῶν, ὥσπερ οἱ τέττιγες εἰς σκίλλαν ἤ τι τοιοῦτο τὴν γονὴν ἀφιᾶσιν, οὕτω διὰ τάχους οἷς ἔτυχε σώμασιν ἐναπογεννήσαντες καὶ καρπὸν ἀράμενοι χαίρειν ἐῶσιν ἤδη τὸν γάμον, ἢ μένοντος οὐ φροντίζουσιν οὐδ’ ἀξιοῦσιν ἐρᾶν οὐδ’ ἐρᾶσθαι, Amat.

767D). Although later Plutarch presents procreation as an important component of marriage (Amat. 770A–B), he emphasizes here the gap between the animalistic biology of reproduction, on the one hand, and the refinement of human love, on the other. The “spiritualization” of human marriage we find in Marriage Advice and Dialogue on Love, as well as in the kingfisher passage, is reminiscent of Musonius Rufus, who argued that procreation, though important, is not the chief purpose of marriage.21 δεῖ δὲ ἐν γάμῳ πάντως συμβίωσίν τε εἶναι καὶ κηδεμονίαν ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικὸς περὶ ἀλλήλους, καὶ ἐρρωμένους καὶ νοσοῦντας καὶ ἐν παντὶ καιρῷ, ἧς ἐφιέμενος ἑκάτερος ὥσπερ καὶ παιδοποιίας εἶσιν ἐπὶ γάμον. ὅπου μὲν οὖν ἡ κηδεμονία αὕτη τέλειός ἐστι, καὶ τελέως αὐτὴν οἱ συ­ νόντες ἀλλήλοις παρέχονται, ἁμιλλώμενοι νικᾶν ὁ ἕτερος τὸν ἕτε­ρον, οὗτος μὲν οὖν ὁ γάμος ᾗ προσήκει ἔχει καὶ ἀξιοζήλωτός ἐστι· καλὴ γὰρ ἡ τοιαύτη κοινωνία

But in marriage there must be above all perfect companionship and mutual love of husband and wife, both in health and in sickness and under all conditions, since it was with desire for this as well as for having children that both entered upon marriage. Where, then, this love for each other is perfect and the two share it completely, each striving to outdo the other in devotion, the marriage is ideal and worthy of envy, for such a union is beautiful. (Muson. 13A)22

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska Musonius and Plutarch (in the kingfisher story, Dialogue on Love, and Marriage Advice) agree in this respect: the foundation of marriage is the mutual affection and caring expressed by a man and a woman. The implicit valorization of sexual intimacy present in the kingfisher description also has a parallel in Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, in which the bedroom is hinted at as the place that strengthens the relationship between a husband and a wife: Aphrodite is called the best physician of marital disagreements (143D–E).23 Ancient moralizing descriptions of animal behaviors frequently differentiate between the behaviors of female and male animals. While in some cases gender representation may reflect empirical observations (we may imagine this to be the case of descriptions of domestic animals), it is to be expected that for the most part we are dealing here with gender construction. Let us consider the three similar passages describing animal “marriages” that I quoted earlier: the one from Plato’s Laws, and the two from Plutarch’s On the Love of Offspring and On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational. Plato evidently strives for a certain gender symmetry: in his account, the male animal picks a partner, the female animal picks a partner, and they live together. In On the Love of Off­ spring, on the other hand, Plutarch assigns male and female animals different roles, reflecting a traditional gender perception. Even though Plutarch says that the male does not approach the female in all seasons, nonetheless the male animal is the active agent (μίγνυται τῷ θήλει τὸ ἄρρεν οὐχ ἅπαντα χρόνον). The female comes to him χειρόηθες καὶ ποθεινόν, “submissive and desirable”; the adjectives stress, on the one hand, her desirability and, on the other, her consent.24 She is coming to him (ἦλθεν εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ τῷ ἄρρενι τὸ θῆλυ), which further emphasizes her willingness but is also evocative of the prevalent virilocality of ancient marriages, in which a new bride usually moved in with her husband or his family. This conventional outlook is, however, challenged in On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational. Here female animals are represented as subjects of desire: they entice the males with their odors and, unlike human women, do not “act modestly” and do not cover up their desire (ἐπιθυμία) with “deceits, tricks, and denials” (ἀπάτας καὶ γοητείας καὶ ἀρνήσεις). Women’s suppression of outward signs of desire is presented here as an exclusively human practice, a convention endorsed by humankind rather than a natural female behavior. We may suspect that the conspicuous difference between the traditional gender perception of On the Love of Offspring and the more unorthodox one in On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational is due to the different generic conventions in which the texts operate: the comic literature and parody with which

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On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational interacts is more accommodating to representation of female eroticism. The disparity between the two texts demonstrates well the malleability of the zoological material, which, adjusted accordingly, could convey a variety of perspectives and morals. Animal stories transmitted by ancient authors frequently had inbuilt gender perceptions. We have already seen how in Plutarch’s account of the female kingfisher, she is praised for her “love for husband.” This is a good example of gendered discourse. Plutarch develops the potential of the kingfisher story and elaborates it into a model of uxorial virtues—of wifely love, care, and dedication. It is instructive to compare his treatment with Aelian’s, who, after narrating the story of the female’s kingfisher care for her older partner, comments: “Women however look down upon those who are ageing, and cast their eyes on youths. And husbands are eager after girls and take no notice of their elderly legal wives: creatures gifted with speech are not ashamed to live more unreasonably than unreasoning animals” (ἄνθρωποι δὲ καὶ τῶν ἀνδρῶν ὑπογηρώντων καταφρονοῦσι καὶ πρὸς τὰ μειράκια ἀφορῶσι· καὶ οἱ γήμαντες περὶ τὰς νέας ἠνέμωνται, τῶν ἀφηλικεστέρων γαμετῶν ὤραν μὴ τιθέμενοι, καὶ οὐκ αἰδοῦνται οἱ ἔμφωνοι τῶν ἀλόγων ζῴων βιοῦντες ἀλογώτερον, NA 7.17).25 Aelian’s comment

transcends the gendered character of the story: he universalizes the message of the story and emphasizes marital loyalty as a virtue of both a wife and a husband. Plutarch’s praise of uxorial devotion in the kingfisher description resonates with an animal story concerning female crows, which appears in On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational. Addressing Odysseus, Gryllus argues that animals possess the virtue of temperance (σωφροσύνη, ἐγκράτεια). He decides to show that both Odysseus and Penelope are inferior to animals in this respect. First he rejects Odysseus’ claim to chastity. σὺ δὲ σπεύδεις ἀκοῦσαι τὸ περὶ τῆς σωφροσύνης, ἐπεὶ σωφρονεστάτης μὲν ἀνὴρ εἶ γυναικός, ἀπόδειξιν δὲ σωφροσύνης αὐτὸς οἴει δεδω­κέ­ ναι, τῶν Κίρκης ἀφροδισίων περιφρονήσας. καὶ τούτῳ μὲν οὐδε­νὸς τῶν θηρίων διαφέρεις πρὸς ἐγκράτειαν· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐκεῖνα τοῖς κρείτ­το­ σιν ἐπιθυμεῖ πλησιάζειν ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς ἡδονὰς καὶ τοὺς ἔρωτας πρὸς τὰ ὁμόφυλα ποιεῖται.

But you are eager to hear about temperance, since you are the husband of a model of chastity and believe that you yourself have given a proof of self-control by rejecting the embraces of Circe. And in this you are no more continent than any of the beasts; for

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska neither do they desire to consort with their betters, but pursue both pleasure and love with mates of like species. (Brut. anim. 988F–989A)

Then Gryllus attacks Penelope’s claim. τὴν δὲ Πηνελόπης σωφροσύνην μυρίαι κορῶναι κρώζουσαι γέλωτα θήσονται καὶ καταφρονήσουσιν, ὧν ἑκάστη, ἂν ἀποθάνῃ ὁ ἄρρην, οὐκ ὀλίγον χρόνον ἀλλ’ ἐννέα χηρεύει γενεὰς ἀνθρώπων· ὥστε σοι τὴν καλὴν Πηνελόπην ἐννάκις ἀπολείπεσθαι τῷ σωφρονεῖν ἧς βούλει κορώνης.

As for the chastity of Penelope, the cawing of countless crows will pour laughter and contempt upon it; for every crow, if her mate dies, remains a widow, not merely for a short time, but for nine generations of men. It follows that your fair Penelope is nine times inferior in chastity to any crow you please. (Brut. Anim. 989A–B)

Gryllus argues that the virtue of self-restraint has a counterpart in the animal world. This claim is supported by two arguments: first, animals mate only within their species; and second, crows remain loyal to their deceased partners.26 Yet, while both Odysseus and Penelope are said to reveal σωφροσύνη, the passage reflects an asymmetry in ancient perceptions of husbandly and wifely virtue. Odysseus manifests his self-control by rejecting the love of Circe, but his rejection does not seem to be motivated by his marital loyalty to Penelope. Penelope, on the other hand, as the comparison to the female crows indicates, is praised for her rejection of suitors, which is motivated by uxorial devotion to Odysseus.27 The story of the devotion of female crows to their deceased partners naturalizes wifely loyalty, which, by preventing them from seeking a new partner, overpowers the generative imperative of nature. 28 It is noteworthy that this conceptual asymmetry of the male and female σωφροσύνη is reflected in the English translation of the Loeb edition: for Odysseus σωφρο­ σύνη is rendered as “self-control” and for Penelope it becomes “chastity.” The affection and care for the offspring demonstrated by animals is a recurrent topic in ancient animal lore.29 In On the Love of Offspring, Plutarch argues against Epicurus, who considered parental love not as a natural affection but one founded on the principle of utility. In a dramatic gesture, he imagines

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diverse animals gathered in a theater, able to understand human language— though not to speak—and showing by their emotions (πάθη) that their affection for offspring is natural and selfless. ἀλλ’ εἰ λόγου γένοιτο τοῖς θηρίοις σύνεσις καὶ τοῦτό τις εἰς κοινὸν θέατρον συναγαγὼν ἵππους καὶ βόας καὶ κύνας καὶ ὄρνιθας ἀναφθέγ­ ξαιτο μεταγράψας, ὡς “οὔτε κύνες ἐπὶ μισθῷ σκύλακας φιλοῦσιν οὔθ’ ἵπποι πώλους οὔτ’ ὄρνιθες νεοττοὺς ἀλλὰ προῖκα καὶ φυσικῶς” ἐπι­ γνωσ­θήσεται τοῖς ἁπάντων πάθεσιν ὡς εὖ καὶ ἀληθῶς λεγόμενον. αἰσχρὸν γάρ, ὦ Ζεῦ, τὰς θηρίων γενέσεις καὶ λοχείας καὶ ὠδῖνας καὶ τεκνοτροφίας φύσιν εἶναι καὶ χάριν, τὰς δ’ ἀνθρώπων δάνεια καὶ μισ­ θοὺς καὶ ἀρραβῶνας ἐπὶ χρείαις διδομένους.

But if beasts could come to understand speech and someone should bring together to a common theatre horses and cows and dogs and birds and should revise this speech and say, “Dogs do not love their pups, nor horses their colts, nor birds their nestlings, for pay, but gratuitously and naturally,” it would be recognized by the emotions of them all that this was well and truly spoken. For it is shameful—great Heaven!—that the begetting and the pains of travail and the nurture of beasts should be “nature” and “a free gift,” but that those of men should be loans and wages and cautionmoney, all given on condition of a return! (De am. prol. 495A–B)

This fanciful, highly rhetorical passage imparts on the reader the message that it would be shameful if people were to be found inferior to animals in respect to parental love. The animal stories Plutarch brings in next include a kingfisher building a miraculous nest, a dogfish receiving her already born offspring back into her body, a bear licking unformed cubs and molding them into proper shape, a partridge distracting a hunter away from her young, a hen defending chicks from dogs and snakes, and three animals from Homer: a lion, a bird, and a dog (494A–F).30 The examples demonstrate the wisdom and art (σοφία καὶ τέχνη) that animals exhibit in childbirth and child-rearing (λοχείαι καὶ ἀνατροφαί). The principle behind Plutarch’s choice of these stories is varietas, which emphasizes the universality of parental affection among animals. Its power is manifested in birds, fish, and quadrupeds, in wild and tame animals, and in dangerous and timid ones. While Plutarch makes no explicit distinction between motherly and fatherly love (he maintains that both the

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska male and the female reveal great affection and forethought for their progeny: they are “one in their affection for their offspring”), the animal stories represent, for the most part, female animals’ care for their offspring. Although the grammatical gender of the nouns is not a reliable indication of the biological gender of an animal, in the majority of cases there is little doubt that the animal portrayed is a mother: the kingfisher (ἡ ἀλκυών) makes the nest after it is impregnated, the dogfish (ὁ γαλεός) takes the young that she bore back into her body, the bear (ἡ ἄρκτος) is taught by nature “not only to bear, but to fashion her cub.” Plutarch speaks of a hen (ἀλεκτορίς) rather than a cock (ἀλέκτωρ). When the noun permits a dual gender, the feminine is used (ἡ ὄρνις, ἡ κύων— both Homeric; ἡ πέρδιξ). The only example that does not implicate the female sex is the Homeric description of a lion, which leads the young into the woods. It is clear that the zoological material Plutarch had at hand favored motherly affection and did not comply with his explicitly professed views. In On the Intelligence of Animals, we find three types of stories visualizing animals’ love for their offspring: animals building their nests (e.g., 966D–E: swallows), animals protecting and feeding their offspring (e.g., 971F–972A: hedgehogs bringing grapes to their young; 981F: water animals guarding their eggs; 982B: a tortoise guarding her eggs), and animals teaching their young various skills (e.g., 962F: swallows teaching their chicks to keep the nest clean; 971C: partridges teaching their young how to trick a hunter; 973A–B: nightingales teaching their young to sing). Some of these stories are developed into small vignettes of family life, such as the one about the hedgehog bringing grapes home and distributing them to its children so that they could “have their share of them” (τοῖς σκύμνοις χρῆσθαι καὶ λαμβάνειν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ ταμιευο­ μένοις παραδίδωσι, 972A). The participle ταμιευομένοις, from ταμιεύω (to deal out, dispense), makes the reader visualize a parent dividing food among children. In another passage (962E), we learn that a male dove takes care of the nest, sits on the eggs, and feeds the young. He also supervises the female: if she is absent from the nest for too long, “the male strikes her and brings her back to the eggs and offspring” (κόπτων ὁ ἄρρην εἰσελαύνει πρὸς τὰ ᾠὰ καὶ τοὺς νεοττούς, 962E). The story celebrates paternal affection, which is less frequently present, as we have seen, in Plutarch’s animal stories than maternal love; it also approves of the male’s supervision of female behavior. The majority of animal stories in Plutarch have a paraenetic character. In On the Love of Offspring and On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational, they reflect the moral authority of nature: the reader finds what is “natural,” and therefore

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proper conduct, depicted in them. In fact, the idealization of nature present in these two works excludes the possibility of “bad” animal behavior that would provide a parallel to human moral offences. On the Intelligence of Animals differs from the other two works also in this respect: this text claims that animals have vices (962D), and, in accordance with this presumption, we find stories demonstrating reprehensible animal behaviors. To this category belong accounts of animals driven by intemperate sexual desires, accounts unparalleled in On the Love of Offspring and On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational, which argued that animal sexuality is well ordered and by nature subordinated to procreation. In On the Intelligence of Animals, Aristotimus, one of the speakers, observes: “The loves of many animals are wild and furious, while others have a refinement which is not far from human and an intercourse conducted with much grace” (Ἔρωτες δὲ πολλῶν οἱ μὲν ἄγριοι καὶ περιμανεῖς γεγόνασιν, οἱ δ’ ἔχοντες οὐκ ἀπάνθρωπον ὡραϊσμὸν οὐδ’ ἀναφρόδιτον ὁμιλίαν, 972D–E).31 The passage implies the value of the human type of love over the animal type. It is remarkable that all the examples that follow this statement, which are instances of “refined” animal love, concern animals falling in love with people (972D–F), even though the possibility of such unnatural liaisons was explicitly denied by Gryllus, as we have seen earlier. Elsewhere in the text, however, we find descriptions of animal behaviors spurred by their “wild” erotic passions. ἐπεὶ δείγματά γε πολλὰ κοινωνίας καὶ ἀνδρείας καὶ τοῦ πανούργου περὶ τοὺς πορισμοὺς καὶ τὰς οἰκονομίας ὥσπερ αὖ καὶ τῶν ἐναντίων, ἀδικίας δειλίας ἀβελτερίας, ἔνεστιν αὐτοῖς. . . . ὃ δὴ καὶ δῆλόν ἐστι, παραβαλλομένων πελαργοῖς ἵππων ποταμίων (οἱ μὲν γὰρ τρέφουσι τοὺς πατέρας οἱ δ’ ἀποκτιννύουσιν ἵνα τὰς μητέρας ὀχεύωσι) καὶ περι­ στεραῖς περδίκων· οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀφανίζουσι τὰ ᾠὰ καὶ διαφθείρουσι, τῆς θηλείας, ὅταν ἐπῳάζῃ, μὴ προσδεχομένης τὴν ὀχείαν.

For just as there are many examples in animals of social instincts and bravery and ingenuity in ways and means and in domestic arrangements, so, on the other hand, there are many examples of the opposite: injustice, cowardliness, stupidity. . . . This is clear also if you contrast hippopotamuses with storks: the latter support their fathers, while the former kill them in order to consort with their mothers. The same is true if you compare doves with partridges; for the partridge cock steals the eggs and destroys them

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska since the female will not consort with him while she is sitting. (De sol. an. 962D–E)32

The stories about hippos and partridges are apotreptic: they showcase the transgressive behaviors of male animals, spurred by their desires, and visualize the destructive power of erotic passions. In partridges, the passions work against the procreative power of nature, while in hippos they lead to the violation of two essential taboos in Greek culture: patricide and incest. The examination of animal lore in Plutarch’s On the Love of Offspring, On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational, and On the Intelligence of Animals demonstrates that he consistently uses animal stories to illuminate the nature and essence of human marriage, marital virtues, and the relations between the spouses.33 The stories are employed in this capacity regardless of the overarching perspective concerning the relationship between the human and animal worlds, whether the animal world is represented as a model for people or the human world transcends the biology of animals. They provide flexible, diversified material that could be used to support antithetical arguments, and they share this feature with other types of παραδείγματα, which constituted an important element of Greco-Roman moralizing texts.34 An analysis of Plutarch’s works allows us to identify two different perspectives on the institution of marriage conveyed through animal stories. The first one, which emphasizes the connection between the human and animal worlds, perceives of marriage as a relationship focused on reproduction and commends subservience of sexuality to procreative ends (On the Love of Offspring, On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational ). This perspective, backed by the passage of Plato’s Laws and relying on the moral authority of nature, has an alluring simplicity and works well within a discourse whose aim is to rebuke, admonish, and shame people who deviate from the right path. The second perspective highlights a caring relationship between a man and a woman as the essence of the conjugal union (On the Intelligence of Animals). It is this second perspective that we find in Plutarch’s works that are specifically focused on love and marriage, Dialogue on Love and Marriage Advice. It should be added that Plutarch’s ethical perspective is focused on institutionalized marriage and does not appear to extend to various, less formal arrangements between men and women in antiquity. We have also seen that the stories Plutarch uses tend to represent female and male animals differently; in this respect they have built-in cultural gender perceptions. On the one hand, the most celebrated and amazing stories about

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marital fidelity concern females (the kingfisher, the crow); on the other, reports of intemperate and destructive sexual desires—though relatively rare— are about male animals (the hippo, the partridge). Such a gendered perception was, in fact, widespread until the nineteenth century: Charles Darwin considered male promiscuity the norm but described females as passive and faithful, despite having known examples that proved this not to be true.35 Notes 1. The main sources of the zoological lore in the imperial period are Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, Philo of Alexandria’s On Animals, Plutarch’s works on animals, the poems on fishing and hunting (Halieutica and Cynegetica) by two poets called Oppian, and Aelian’s On the Nature of Animals. As Popa 2016, 288, observes, these authors “were not devoted to the study of animals per se; but they pursued ‘zoology’ to emphasize the practical relevance of animals to us . . . , to examine whether rationality is limited to humans, and to delight readers with exotic marvels or morally edifying accounts of various animals.” 2. E.g., Brut. anim. 987B–C, 988F; De sol. an. 967D–E. 3. The mirror metaphor was also used by Plutarch in reference to historical narratives: for instance, in Aemilius Paullus he compares the lives of virtuous men to a mirror that allows the reader to improve his life (1.1–4). See also De prof. 85A–B; for a discussion, see Duff 1999, 30–34; Zadorojnyi 2010. 4. The work is probably either unfinished or fragmentarily preserved. Its genre and aims have been the subject of scholarly dispute: the text is variously identified as a fragment of a larger treatise, a rhetorical work, a diatribe, and an anti-Epicurean polemic. See Roskam 2011, 176–78, for discussion of previous scholarship and the status quaestionis. 5. See, e.g., Plut. Quaest. conv. 634E, where a certain Timagenes is said to have asked the philosopher Athenodorus whether love for children is a natural phenomenon. In De sol. an. 962A we read that the Stoics held that love for children is the foundation of social life and justice. For the meaning of φιλοστοργία and the philosophical application of the concept, which, besides denoting parental love, may also refer to marital love and love for one’s relatives or friends, see Roskam 2011, 178–84; for the philosophical background of Plutarch’s work, Roskam 2011, 184–88. 6. For different interpretations of the text, see, e.g., Hirzel 1895, 132; Usener 1887, lxx and 295, fr. 456; Bergua Cavero 1991; Fernández Delgado 2000; Bréchet 2005. 7. Cf. Gilhus 2006, 72. 8. The Greek text of Plutarch’s works comes from the editions of the Teubner series. Translations of Plutarch are from the Loeb Classical Library. 9. See, e.g., Arist. Eth. Nic. 1162a16–19; Arist. Pol. 1252a24–31. Musonius Rufus

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska observes that “marriage, if anything, is in accordance with nature” (κατὰ φύσιν, εἴ τι ἄλλο, καὶ τὸ γαμεῖν φαίνεται ὄν, 14.2); Hierocles the Stoic states that nature (φύσις) “seems to exhort us to marriage” (ἔοικε . . . παρακαλεῖν ἡμᾶς ἐπὶ τὸν γάμον ἐξοτρύνουσα, Stob. 4.22). Musonius Rufus and Hierocles certainly had Hellenistic-period forerunners, as fragments of works dedicated to marriage of Antipater of Tarsus and Ps.Ocellus Lucanus indicate; for a discussion and translation of these fragments, see Deming 2004, 66–72, 221–37. Cf. also Ulpian: “Jus naturale is that which nature has taught to all animals; for it is not a law specific to humankind but is common to all animals—land animals, sea animals, and the birds as well. Out of this comes the union of man and woman which we call marriage, and the procreation of children, and their rearing. So we can see that the other animals, wild beasts included, are rightly understood to be acquainted with this law” (Digest 1.1.1.3; translation by Watson 1985). For the theme of marriage in imperial-period philosophy, in particular its popularity in Middle Stoicism, see Ramelli 2008, which includes a discussion of the possible influences of Middle-Stoic doctrines on Plutarch (390–93); and Tsouvala in this volume. 10. Muson. 13a: ἀλλ’ οὔπω τοῦτο [γένεσις] ἱκανὸν τῷ γαμοῦντι, ὃ δὴ καὶ δίχα γάμου γένοιτ’ ἂν συμπλεκομένων ἄλλως, ὥσπερ καὶ τὰ ζῷα συμπλέκεται αὑτοῖς. Cf. also [Ocell.] De univ. nat. 46: “One should not engage in sexual intercourse like irrational animals” (οὐ δεῖ ὁμοίως τοῖς ἀλόγοις ζῴοις προσέρχεσθαι τοῖς ἀφροδισίοις ; Greek text from Thesleff 1965). 11. Plutarch refers to laws that were established to prevent men from not marrying or marrying late (νόμους ἀγαμίου καὶ ὀψιγαμίου), which, as he says in Lys. 30.5, were introduced in Sparta; and to Roman laws that deprived childless people of privileges (ἀτιμίαι ἀτέκνων) and granted special privileges to parents of three or more children (ius trium liberorum or τίμαι τριπαιδίας). Cf. also De frat. amore 491E, where Plutarch advises that one should be troubled if his brother is unmarried and childless and should encourage him to marry. 12. Cf. Plut. De am. prol. 495C–D: “When it comes to the processes of procreation, it is impossible to describe them in a fitting manner, and perhaps it would not be decent to fix our attention too precisely upon the names and designations of these forbidden topics” (τὰ δὲ περὶ τὴν γένεσιν ἀξίως οὐκ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν οὐδ’ εὐπρεπὲς ἴσως λίαν ἀκριβῶς τῶν ἀπορρήτων ἐμφύεσθαι τοῖς ὀνόμασι καὶ τοῖς ῥήμασιν). There were, to be sure, genres in which detailed physiological descriptions of animal procreation were at home—Aristotle’s zoological works provide an example—but authors of literary texts are frequently reluctant to use terminology pertaining to the sphere of human sexuality. 13. For an ancient discussion on the proper timing (season included) of intercourse for the purpose of conception, see Sor. Gyn. 1.36: “Just as every season is not propitious for sowing extraneous seed upon the land for the purpose of bringing forth fruit, so in humans too not every time is suitable for conception of the seed discharged during intercourse.” (Καθάπερ ἐπὶ τῶν ἔξωθεν σπερμάτων οὐ πᾶς καιρὸς ἐπιτήδειος πρὸς

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Marriage and Animal Exemplarity in Plutarch τὸ κατὰ τῆς γῆς αὐτὰ βληθέντα καρποὺς ἐνεγκεῖν, οὕτως οὐδὲ ἐπὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων [ὁ] πᾶς καιρὸς ἐπιτήδειος πρὸς σύλληψίν ἐστι τῶν ἐν ταῖς μίξεσιν μεθιεμένων σπερμάτων); and

Sor. Gyn. 1.41: “But some ancients have also defined the proper periods as determined by external factors. Thus the time of the waxing moon has been considered propitious. . . . Furthermore they say that spring is the supreme season for conception to take place” (τινὲς δὲ τῶν παλαιῶν καὶ τοὺς ἀπὸ τῶν ἔξωθεν καιροὺς ὥρισαν· ἐπιτήδειον γὰρ εἶναι τὸν καιρὸν πληρουμένης τῆς σελήνης. . . . ἔτι δὲ κράτιστον καιρὸν εἶναι πρὸς τὸ γενέσθαι σύλληψιν τὸν ἐαρινόν). Translation by Temkin 1991.

14. “Men who are not wantons or immoral are bound to consider sexual intercourse justified only when it occurs in marriage and is indulged in for the purpose of begetting children, since that is lawful, but unjust and unlawful when it is mere pleasure-seeking, even in marriage” (χρὴ δὲ τοὺς μὴ τρυφῶντας ἢ μὴ κακοὺς μόνα μὲν ἀφροδίσια νομίζειν δίκαια τὰ ἐν γάμῳ καὶ ἐπὶ γενέσει παίδων συντελούμενα, ὅτι καὶ νόμιμά ἐστιν· τὰ δέ γε ἡδονὴν θηρώμενα ψιλὴν ἄδικα καὶ παράνομα, κἂν ἐν γάμῳ ᾖ, Muson. 12.1;

text and translation by Lutz 1947); for discussion, see Gaca 2003, 82–93; and Dressler in this volume. Cf. also [Ocell.] De univ. nat. 44: “First, however, it is necessary to comprehend this: we have sexual intercourse not for the sake of pleasure, but the procreation of children” (πρῶτον μὲν τοῦτο διαλαβεῖν, ὅτι οὐχ ἡδονῆς ἕνεκα πρόσιμεν ἀλλὰ τέκνων γενέσεως; text from Thesleff 1965; translation by Deming 2004). For Pythagorean procreationism, which seems to have influenced the Roman Stoics, see Gaca 2003, 94–116. 15. Rousselle 1988, 39–42. Ancient authorities did not agree on whether a woman should abstain from sex during pregnancy; such was the advice of Plutarch’s contemporary, Soranus (Gyn. 1.46, 56). Aristotle observes that a woman and a mare, unlike other animals, do not avoid intercourse during pregnancy (Hist. an. 585a3–7). 16. Translation by Saunders 2004. For Plato’s strict regulation of the sexual lives of the citizens in the Laws, see Gaca 2003, 47–48, 105–7. 17. For a detailed discussion of the kingfisher story, see Jazdzewska 2015. 18. The term appears in other works by Plutarch in reference to faithful wives (e.g., Quomodo adulat. 57D; Brut. 13.4; Mul. virt. 257E; An viti. 499C; Amat. 769C); see also Stadter 1999; and Beneker in this volume. 19. The traditional account is known to us from Antig. HM 23.1 and Ael. NA 7.17; see also n. 28. 20. Nikolaidis 1997, 46–47; Goessler 1999, 110; Tsouvala 2014, 200–201. 21. On spiritualization of marriage in Plutarch, see Goessler 1999, 110. 22. Text and translation by Lutz 1947. 23. See Nikolaidis 1997, 47–50. 24. For χειροήθης, cf. Xen., Oec. 7.10, where the term is applied to Ischomachus’ wife. For a discussion of female desire in ancient texts and their tendency (by no means, however, universal) to underplay it, see Konstan 1994; Goldhill 1995, 112–61; and Hersch in this volume. For the importance of women’s consent, see Harris 2015.

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska 25. Translation by Scholfield 1959. 26. It is clear that Gryllus is using zoological material selectively to support his thesis: stories about animals falling in love with people circulated in antiquity and Plutarch himself includes them in his other texts (De sol. an. 972D–F). For a discussion of this type of animal stories in Aelian, see Smith 2013. 27. The polysemy of the term σωφροσύνη and its different connotations when used in reference to men and to women are discussed by Rademaker 2005. See also Beneker in this volume. 28. It is noteworthy that Aelian in his account of the fidelity of crows emphasizes mutual fidelity of both the male and the female: “And those who are accurately informed about them assert that if one dies, the other remains in widowhood” (λέγουσι δὲ οἱ τὰ ὑπὲρ τούτων ἀκριβοῦντες ὅτι κἂν ἀποθάνῃ τὸ ἕτερον, τὸ λοιπὸν χηρεύει, NA 3.9; trans. Scholfield 1959). For other examples of mutual animal fidelity in Aelian, see, e.g., NA 3.5 (pigeons) and 3.44 (ringdove). 29. Cf., e.g., Ael. NA 1.18. 30. For the kingfisher, see Jazdzewska 2015; dogfish: Arist. Hist. an. 565b24–32; Plut. De sol. an. 982A (see also Thompson 1947, 39–41); bear: Plin. HN 8.54; Ael. NA 2.19; partridge: Arist. Hist. an. 613b17–21; Plin. HN 10.51, Ael. NA 3.16; Plut. De sol. an. 971C. 31. Helmbold’s Loeb translation reads “some animals” rather than “many animals.” I have modified the translation to match the Greek in Hubert’s Teubner edition. 32. Cf. Arist. Hist. an. 613b (partridge); Antig. Car. HM 39 (partridge); Ael. NA 3.16 (partridge), 7.19 (hippo and partridge); Plut. De. Is. et Osir. 364A (hippo). 33. See also Di Meo’s observation in this volume that animal imagery is a recurring topos in wedding compositions. 34. For the history of the term and for παραδείγματα in ancient rhetorical theories, see Alewell 1913; Price 1975; Fiore 2016; for Plutarch’s use, see Brenk 2008. 35. Birkhead 2008, 303.

Works Cited Alewell, K. 1913. Über das rhetorische ΠΑΡΑΔΕΙΓΜΑ: Theorie, Beispielsammlungen, Verwendung in der römischen Literatur der Kaiserzeit. Leipzig. Bergua Cavero, J. 1991. “Cinismo, ironía y retórica en el Bruta ratione uti de Plutarco.” In Estudios sobre Plutarco: Paisaje y naturaleza; Actas del II Simposio Español sobre Plutarco (Murcia 1990), edited by J. García López and E. Calderón Dorda, 13–19. Madrid. Birkhead, T. 2008. The Wisdom of Birds: An Illustrated History of Ornithology. London. Bréchet, C. 2005. “La philosophie de Gryllos.” In Les Grecs de l’antiquité et les animaux: Le cas remarquable de Plutarque, edited by J. Boulogne, 43–61. Lille. Brenk, F. E. 2008. “Setting a Good Exemplum: Case Studies in the Moralia, the Lives as Case Studies.” In The Unity of Plutarch’s Work: “Moralia” Themes in the

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Marriage and Animal Exemplarity in Plutarch “Lives,” Features of the “Lives” in the “Moralia,” edited by A. G. Nikolaidis, 237–53. Berlin. Deming, W. 2004. Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI. Duff, T. E. 1999. Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice. Oxford. Fernández Delgado, J. A. 2000. “Le Gryllus, une ethopée parodique.” In Rhetorical Theory and Praxis in Plutarch: Acta of the 4th International Congress of the Interna­ tional Plutarch Society, July 3–6, 1996, edited by L. van der Stockt, 171–82. Leuven. Fiore, B. 2016. “Paul, Exemplification, and Imitation.” In Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook, vol. 1, edited by J. P. Sampley, 169–95. London. Gaca, K. L. 2003. The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity. Berkeley, CA. Gilhus, I. S. 2006. Animals, Gods and Humans: Changing Attitudes to Animals in Greek, Roman and Early Christian Ideas. New York. Goessler, L. 1999. “Advice to the Bride and Groom: Plutarch Gives a Detailed Account of His Views on Marriage.” In “Plutarch’s Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Consolation to His Wife,” edited by S. B. Pomeroy, 97–115. New York. Goldhill, S. 1995. Foucault’s Virginity: Ancient Erotic Fiction and the History of Sexuality. Cambridge. Harris, E. M. 2015. “Yes and No in Women’s Desire.” In Sex in Antiquity: Exploring Gender and Sexuality in the Ancient World, edited by M. Masterson, N. Sorkin Rabinowitz, and J. Robson, 298–314. New York. Hirzel, R. 1895. Der Dialog: Ein Literarhistorischer Versuch. Vol. 2. Leipzig. Jazdzewska, K. 2015. “‘Like a Married Woman’: The Kingfisher in Plutarch’s De Sol­ lertia Animalium and in the Ps.-Platonic Halcyon.” Mnemosyne 68:424–36. Konstan, D. 1994. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres. Princeton, NJ. Lutz, C. E. 1947. “Musonius Rufus: ‘The Roman Socrates.’” YCS 10:3–147. Nikolaidis, A. G. 1997. “Plutarch on Women and Marriage.” WS 110:27–88. Popa, T. 2016. “Zoology.” In A Companion to Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome, vol. 1, edited by G. L. Irby. 281–95. Malden, MA. Price, B. J. 1975. “Paradeigma and Exemplum in Ancient Rhetorical Theory.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley. Rademaker, A. 2005. Sophrosyne and the Rhetoric of Self-Restraint: Polysemy & Persua­ sive Use of an Ancient Greek Value Term. Leiden. Ramelli, I. 2008. “Transformations of the Household Theory between Roman Stoicism, Middle-Platonism, and Early Christianity.” Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica 100:369–95. Roskam, G. 2011. “Plutarch Against Epicurus on Affection for Offspring: A Reading of De amore prolis.” In Virtues for the People: Aspects of Plutarchan Ethics, edited by L. van der Stockt and G. Roskam, 175–201. Leuven.

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Katarzyna Jazdzewska Rousselle, A. 1988. Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity. Translated by F. Pheasant. Oxford. Saunders, T. J. 2004. Plato: The Laws. Rev. ed. London. Scholfield, A. F. 1959. Aelian: On Animals. Vol. 3. Cambridge, MA. Smith, S. D. 2013. “Monstrous Love? Erotic Reciprocity in Aelian’s De natura ani­ malium.” In Erôs in Ancient Greece, edited by E. Sanders, C. Thumiger, C. Carey, and N. Lowe, 73–90. Oxford. Stadter, P. A. 1999. “Philosophos kai Philandros: Plutarch’s View of Women in the Moralia and the Lives.” In Plutarch’s “Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Con­ solation to His Wife,” edited by S. B. Pomeroy, 173–82. New York. Temkin, O. 1991. Soranus’ Gynecology. Baltimore. Thesleff, H. 1965. The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period. Åbo. Thompson, D. W. 1947. A Glossary of Greek Fishes. London. Tsouvala, G. 2014. “Love and Marriage.” In A Companion to Plutarch, edited by M. Beck, 191–206. Malden, MA. Usener, H. 1887. Epicurea. Leipzig. Watson, A. 1985. The Digest of Justinian. 3 vols. Philadelphia. Zadorojnyi, A. V. 2010. “ὥσπερ ἐν ἐσόπτρῳ: The Rhetoric and Philosophy of Plutarch’s Mirrors.” In Plutarch’s Lives: Parallelism and Purpose, edited by N. Humble, 169– 95. Swansea.

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Death Is Not the End Spousal Devotion in Plutarch’s Portraits of Camma, Porcia, and Cornelia Jeffrey Beneker

I

n the collection of essays edited by Sarah Pomeroy and focused on the treatises Marriage Advice and A Consolation to his Wife, several scholars examine Plutarch’s conception of the marital relationship from various angles.1 Though they each have different theses and take different approaches, there exists an essential unanimity that Plutarch recognizes a woman’s capacity for virtue but also that he would not expect a wife to act independently of her husband except in rare circumstances.2 Lin Foxhall describes the situation most completely. In Plutarch’s works, women (not only wives) are found to exercise their virtues in two scenarios. In one, they “display virtue in proper (i.e., subordinate) relation to men.” This is the characteristic experience of the woman as wife in Plutarch: she is expected to be a partner to her husband but nonetheless operate under his direction, and then only after having been trained by him. “The second,” Foxhall continues, “occurs where the male side of what ought to be an equation is absent, flawed, or inadequate. Women’s power and virtue in an active sense are portrayed as freestanding (i.e., not operating under male control) and positive only when there is some fatal defect in the proper male principle which ideally ought to be controlling, leading, and guiding women.”3 This second scenario is thus defined as the negative of the first. Ideally, a man will lead a woman as she exercises her virtue; in his absence, a woman may take matters into her own hands.

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Jeffrey Beneker In this chapter, I focus on a particular virtue of women as it is narrated by Plutarch, that of moderation (sophrosyne), and how it manifests itself in a wife’s devotion to her husband. This devotion, which ideally is mutual, results in a tightly bonded couple and a well-ordered household. Moreover, a wife’s sophrosyne often coexists with other virtues (for example, love of one’s children and high-mindedness) that allow her to act as a true partner to her husband. If the husband is removed from this equation, however, the truly moderate (sophron) wife is nonetheless expected to maintain her devotion post mortem. In fact, her power to act, described above as freestanding and positive, continues to be limited by this devotion, and Plutarch appears to have believed that, in ideal circumstances, the virtuous wife would choose to die along with her husband. He makes this belief apparent in the story of Camma, a married Galatian woman who resisted adultery and then, when her pursuer killed her husband, avenged his murder before taking her own life. Even though Camma is a legendary, perhaps fictional, character, Plutarch relates her story twice in the Moralia, finding her important as an exemplum of spousal virtue and behavior. Moreover, the moral example set by Camma reappears in Plutarch’s portraits of Porcia, wife of Brutus, and Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi.4 While Plutarch does not make specific reference to Camma in writing about these women, he does employ the principle of her story—a sophron devotion maintained even after her husband’s death—to draw his portraits of the two historical figures. In the case of Porcia, he exploits the popular but false tradition of her suicide to emphasize her role as committed partner to Brutus, and for Cornelia, who does not (and indeed cannot) commit suicide following her husband’s death, Plutarch nonetheless demonstrates that she possessed the same character as the other women by narrating her refusal to remarry and her commitment to raising her husband’s children. All three women, in Plutarch’s telling of their stories, reflect the ideal of sophrosyne and spousal devotion that perseveres even beyond the lives of their husbands. Before turning to Plutarch, I must note briefly that he was not the only or the first ancient author to see suicide or widowhood as the virtuous wife’s proper response to her husband’s death. The Roman univira, the woman who took only one husband in her entire life, was idealized in legend, if not in practice, for demonstrating pudicitia (that is, sophrosyne) as both a married woman and a widow.5 In a passage that is probably derived from Seneca’s On Marriage, Jerome extolls pudicitia as the signature virtue of the wife: “It was this virtue that made Lucretia equal to Brutus, or perhaps made her even better. . . . It made Cornelia equal to Gracchus; it made Porcia equal to the

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other Brutus; Tanaquil is even more famous than her husband” (Adv. Iovinian. 1.49).6 Two of the women mentioned here, Cornelia and Porcia, also appear in Plutarch’s Lives and are the focus of this chapter. But Plutarch included all three in the introduction to his Virtues of Women, where he claims that comparing the lives and deeds of men and women is an effective means of judging their qualities. Thus, he argues, we may judge “whether Semiramis’ natural tendency to accomplish great deeds was of the same character and type as Se­sostrius’; whether Tanaquil’s cleverness was like that of King Servius; whether Porcia’s judgment was like that of Brutus, or Timoclea’s was like that of Pe­ lopidas” (243C). He goes on to suggest that everyone, man or woman, displays his or her virtue uniquely: “For Achilles was brave in one way, and Ajax in another; Odysseus’ judgment was different from Nestor’s; Cato was not just in the same way as Agesilaus; Eirene did not love her husband as Alcestis loved hers; and Cornelia was not high-minded in the same manner as Olympias” (243C–D). Clearly Plutarch was working within a tradition that idealized Cornelia and Porcia (among others) for their virtues, including pudicitia or sophrosyne, and employed them as exempla to discuss the virtues of women in general.7 To these Roman women, however, Plutarch adds Camma. He is, in fact, our earliest and fullest source for her story, which becomes for him a fundamental example of the sophron wife who maintains her devotion even after her husband’s death.8 I continue this chapter with a reading of Camma’s story as it appears in Dialogue on Love.

Camma in Dialogue on Love Plutarch tells Camma’s story twice over a period of about twenty years, and both versions tell us quite a lot about how he conceived of a wife’s devotion to her husband. In Virtues of Women, the story is self-contained and features the more developed description of Camma’s character. I will look at that version later in the chapter. I begin with the briefer and earlier version found in Dia­ logue on Love (767C–768D).9 In this instance, Plutarch adduces Camma in support of his general argument that erotic love inspires a sense of oneness in a married man and woman. This devotion brings with it “moderation [of sexual desire] with respect to each other, which is essential to a marriage” (σωφροσύνη πρὸς ἀλλήλους, ἧς μάλιστα δεῖται γάμος, 767E) and which is opposed to a selfrestraint that is imposed by custom and maintained through shame or fear. That is to say, the married couple that feel mutual erotic attraction will forsake other lovers voluntarily, and the modesty that they practice with respect

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Jeffrey Beneker to extramarital relationships becomes fundamental to the unity of their household.10 Plutarch goes on to reinforce this point with arguments and examples that culminate in this general statement about the loyalty of women in particular: “The noble woman [ἡ δὲ γενναία γυνή] who has been united to her lawful husband through erotic love would endure assaults by bears and serpents before submitting to the touch of or intercourse with another man” (768B). Plutarch’s phrasing implies a natural aversion to sexual relations with another man, which he characterizes as even stronger than the natural instinct for self-preservation. Thus, in Plutarch’s characterization, the sophron wife who feels eros for her husband would find it essentially impossible to consent to a relationship with another man. Plutarch’s declaration of the noble wife’s extreme devotion leads him directly to the anecdote of the Galatian Camma as an illustration of his point. Plutarch assumes that she is both sophron and erotically attached to her husband, and thus we encounter no further development of her character.11 Plutarch, then, proceeds directly to the story’s central conflict, which is a test of that uxorial devotion. Camma, in fact, proves faithful to her husband, Sinatus, twice: once while he is alive, and once when he is dead. She is beautiful, Plutarch tells us, and this fact causes the politically powerful Sinorix to be captured by desire for her (ἐρασθείς). Sinorix is compelled to kill Sinatus, however, because “he could neither force nor convince the woman [to be his lover] as long as her husband was alive” (768B).12 This briefly told element of Camma’s story, which amounts to a preliminary test of her devotion, is in itself enough to prove the point of Plutarch’s general argument: if Camma is bound by eros to her husband, Sinatus, she would logically be moved by neither words nor force to share Sinorix’s bed. However, in explaining Sinorix’s motivation for killing Sinatus, and especially in his use of the phrase “so long as her husband was alive,” Plutarch establishes a false assumption on the part of Sinorix, who clearly does not understand the nature of the couple’s relationship. He believes, therefore, that he can seduce Camma once her husband is dead. He quickly discovers his mistake. Camma, in fact, demonstrates an even higher level of devotion, remaining faithful to her husband even after Sinorix kills him. First, she finds solace in her service to Artemis, taking up the duties of an ancestral priesthood. This particular source of comfort is perhaps significant, since Camma as a widow has devoted herself to a celibate deity and, by implication, is likely practicing celibacy herself. In fact, although many kings and other powerful leaders are courting her, she declines to entertain any of them. When Sinorix boldly approaches her to propose marriage, however, she

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accepts his offer and leads him to the altar of Artemis to confirm their engagement through the ritual of libation and drinking from a shared cup. But the cup contains poison, and Camma drinks first before sharing with Sinorix, thus ensuring her death as well as his. In her final speech, she makes clear both her satisfaction in avenging her husband’s murder but also, and primarily, her continued devotion: “‘O dearest husband,’ she said. ‘I went on living without you in my grief, awaiting this day. But now, rejoice and receive me. For on your behalf I have taken revenge against this most evil of men, and I have gladly become your partner in life, and his in death’” (“ταύτην” εἶπεν “ἐγὼ τὴν ἡμέραν, ὦ φίλτατ’ ἄνερ, προσμένουσα σοῦ χωρὶς ἔζων ἀνιαρῶς· νῦν δὲ κόμισαί με χαίρων· ἠμυνάμην γὰρ ὑπὲρ σοῦ τὸν κάκιστον ἀνθρώπων, σοὶ μὲν βίου τούτῳ δὲ θανάτου κοινωνὸς ἡδέως γενομένη,” Amat. 768D). Camma addresses Sinatus as “husband” even after his death, and she defends herself for remaining alive without him, seeming to assume that a truly devoted wife would have ended her life immediately upon his death. She expects, moreover, that the separation has caused grief to Sinatus (“But now, rejoice”), and now that she has avenged his death, she expects that they will be reunited (“and receive me”). Camma’s death, strictly speaking, is unnecessary for her revenge. It must, therefore, be a further demonstration of her loyalty, an extreme response to the idea of sexual intercourse with another man that is even more definitive than her simple refusal of Sinorix’s advances while her husband was alive, or her declining offers from other powerful men after his death. As an example of uxorial devotion inspired by erotic love, however, Camma’s actions are also ambiguous because they mix murder and vengeance with spousal attachment.13 The story would have provided clearer evidence if Camma had demonstrated her loyalty post mortem without having the additional motivation of seeking justice. We cannot be too critical, however, since the anecdote serves its purpose in the dialogue, which is to reinforce the argument for marital eros with an example of a wife’s extreme devotion. Camma, indeed, preferred a certain death, such as comes from facing the “assaults by bears and serpents,” to sharing Sinorix’s bed.

Porcia, Wife of Brutus Camma could well have been fictional, invented by Plutarch or discovered by him in the course of his reading. If she was real, her revenge and suicide had at least become a legend, more important to Plutarch as an exemplum than for the reality of her existence. Porcia, however, was undoubtedly a real person

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Jeffrey Beneker who played a small but critical role in historical events. Nonetheless, Plutarch draws upon an idealized conception of marriage as he shapes her image in the Parallel Lives. He was also, as we have seen, building on a tradition that had already made her an exemplum cast in the mold of women like Camma. In Brutus 13, he narrates a scene between husband and wife that establishes Porcia’s character in terms recognizable from the anecdote of Camma, and in reporting Porcia’s death (Brut. 53; Cat. Min. 73), he again has recourse to the notion of uxorial devotion that leaves a widow with no real option but suicide upon the death of her husband. Camma’s story, in fact, is likely to have had some influence on the depiction of Porcia: Plutarch wrote Dialogue on Love around the same time as Brutus, and so he certainly knew of the anecdote when writing about the marriage of Porcia and Brutus.14 Porcia’s story also allows us to examine a direct literary influence, since, as I have argued elsewhere, Plutarch appears to have looked to the character of Panthea in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia in drawing his portrait of Porcia.15 There are, in fact, many similarities in the characterizations of all three women. In my earlier study, I found that the Cyropaedia had directly influenced Plutarch. In a speech that Xenophon gives to Panthea, she expresses her noble character, and especially her devotion to her husband, Abradatas. After hearing her words, Abradatas prays to Zeus that he “appear to be a husband worthy of Panthea” (φανῆναι ἀξίῳ . . . Πανθείας ἀνδρί, 6.4.9). This scene, I argued, is recreated in Brutus when Porcia confronts her husband about the plot against Caesar and demands to be involved in matters that are obviously troubling her husband (13.4–10). In order to prove her competence, however, she first stabs herself in the thigh, inflicting a wound that results in pain, fever, and a great flow of blood. At the height of her agony she addresses her husband in a calm voice, stating her intellectual credentials and making clear her devotion. Then, after revealing her wound, she demonstrates that her character and intellect are strong enough even to withstand bodily pain. Brutus is amazed, praying to the gods in words identical to those of Abradatas, asking, too, “that he appear to be a husband worthy of Porcia” (ἀνδρὶ Πορκίας ἀξίῳ φανῆναι, 13.11). Plutarch, I argued, is quoting Xenophon and so asking the reader to see Porcia in the same light as Panthea. There is, however, more to this story. In their speeches to their husbands, both Panthea and Porcia argue that they are devoted spouses, worthy of partnership but also willing to endure personal harm as proof of their devotion. Panthea, for instance, declares that “if any other wife ever honored her husband above her own life, I believe that you know that I am one of these

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women” (Xen. Cyr. 6.4.5). The emphasis on the woman’s life as being of lesser value than her spousal devotion is reminiscent of what we saw with Camma. At this point in Panthea’s story, however, while her husband, Abradatas, is still living, there is no need for drastic action. Instead, an oath will suffice: “Nonetheless, since I have such feeling for you, as you already know, I swear to you on my philia and yours that I would rather die together with you, who are a noble man, than to go on living with you, both of us having been shamed” (ὅμως δὲ οὕτως ἔχουσα πρὸς σὲ ὥσπερ σὺ οἶσθα, ἐπομνύω σοι τὴν ἐμὴν καὶ σὴν φιλίαν ἦ μὴν ἐγὼ βούλεσθαι ἂν μετὰ σοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀγαθοῦ γενομένου κοινῇ γῆν ἐπιέσασθαι μᾶλλον ἢ ζῆν μετ’ αἰσχυνομένου αἰσχυνομένη, Xen. Cyr. 6.4.6). In

addition to repeating her willingness to die, Panthea emphasizes the couple’s common purpose. Her use of the adverbial “together” (κοινῇ) resonates with Camma’s declaration that she was a “partner in life” (βίου . . . κοινωνός) with Sinatus. Moreover, Panthea’s connection to Abradatas is based on philia, admittedly a different sort of affection than the eros that Camma felt for Sinatus. Nonetheless, both spouses feel a devotion that originates in an emotion rather than one that is enforced by convention or a sense of duty.16 We can easily see how a model such as Panthea would have been attractive to Plutarch as he drew his portrait of Porcia, especially if he was aiming at a Camma-like ideal of uxorial devotion. When he introduces Porcia, therefore, he describes her as philosophos and philandros (φιλόσοφος δ᾽ ἡ Πορκία καὶ φίλανδρος οὖσα, Brut. 13.4).17 Both of these adjectives are significant. Philandros establishes Porcia as loving her husband, echoing Panthea’s declaration of the philia she felt for Abradatas and likewise grounding her devotion in emotional attachment rather than a social or legal obligation. Philosophos establishes the intellectual bond between her and Brutus, whose philosophical training is emphasized by Plutarch, and it also brings to the fore the training she received from her father, Cato the Younger.18 In her speech to Brutus, Porcia trades on this training to claim her right to partnership as well: “I am the daughter of Cato, and I was married into your household, Brutus, not like the concubines in order to share only your bed and your table, but to be a partner [κοινωνός] in both good and painful circumstances” (Brut. 13.7). Here the Greek term is identical to what we find in the story of Camma, not necessarily an indication of direct borrowing but revealing a common conception of the two wives’ relationships to their husbands and the role they play in their marriages.19 Panthea, we recall, swore an oath to die along with her husband. As Xenophon’s story unfolds, she is given the chance to fulfill her promise. After Abradatas dies in battle, Cyrus the king declares that he will honor Panthea “for the

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Jeffrey Beneker sake of her sophrosyne and all her virtue” (σωφροσύνης ἕνεκα καὶ πάσης ἀρετῆς, Xen. Cyr. 7.3.12) and will escort her to any man she chooses. Panthea responds with her own declaration, saying that she will not conceal to whom she wishes to go, and soon thereafter, she commits suicide on top of her husband’s body (Xen. Cyr. 7.3.14).20 Panthea and Camma, therefore, are cut from the same cloth. With regard to Porcia, we read in Brutus that some ancient authors claimed that Porcia committed suicide following her husband’s demise. These accounts are not universally accepted, however, and in fact are suspect even to Plutarch. Even so, when it came to narrating Porcia’s death, he found these dubious stories valuable enough to include and, in light of his conception of the virtue of women like Camma and Panthea, perhaps even preferable. Plutarch did not include a death scene for Porcia in either his Lives or Moralia. He does, however, twice discuss her death, in Brutus and Cato Minor. The fuller version appears at the end of Brutus, where Plutarch narrates the aftermath of Brutus’ death, including this report of Porcia’s reaction: “Nicolaus the philosopher (as well as Valerius Maximus) records that Porcia, Brutus’ wife, was wishing to die. None of her friends would allow it, however, but they remained by her side and watched her carefully. And so, she seized some coals from the fire, swallowed them down, and held her mouth closed. In this way, she killed herself ” (Πορκίαν δὲ τὴν Βρούτου γυναῖκα Νικόλαος ὁ φιλόσοφος ἱστορεῖ καὶ Οὐαλέριος Μάξιμος βουλομένην ἀποθανεῖν, ὡς οὐδεὶς ἐπέτρεπε τῶν φίλων , ἀλλὰ προσέκειντο καὶ παρεφύλαττον , ἐκ τοῦ πυρὸς ἀναρπάσασαν ἄνθρακας καταπιεῖν, καὶ τὸ στόμα μύσασαν, οὕτω διαφθαρῆναι, Brut. 53.5).21

Like Camma and Panthea, then, Porcia is said to have committed suicide following her husband’s death. As soon as he relates this account, however, Plutarch reveals that it is likely to be false: he cites a letter from Brutus (who was obviously alive at the time of writing) in which he mentions Porcia’s death, thus proving that Porcia never actually was a grieving widow. Moreover, as John Moles indicates in his commentary, there is other ancient evidence to support the suggestion that Brutus outlived his wife.22 Plutarch, it seems, was right to doubt Nicolaus’ account. But if he knew that Nicolaus was wrong, why did he mention the suicide? Moles suggests that he was “reluctant to give up so good a story” and that even when Plutarch hesitates to endorse the evidence of Brutus’ letter unequivocally—he adds “if indeed it’s genuine” (εἴπερ ἄρα τῶν γνησίων ἐστίν, Brut. 53.7) after describing its contents—he is not demonstrating “critical acumen, but rather an artistic reluctance to ditch” the more dramatic version.23

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Moles is certainly right in principle, but the story of Porcia’s suicide was probably more than just good in Plutarch’s view. He likely believed that it revealed the truth about Porcia, even if it was not historically accurate. In other words, although Porcia did not, in fact, die in the way and for the reasons reported by Nicolaus, Plutarch believed that she would have done so, if she had outlived her husband. There must have circulated a general characterization of Porcia’s superiority to bodily pain (as reflected, for example, in Brutus 13) and her devotion to Brutus. Nicolaus or his source would have based the false account of her suicide upon this characterization, perhaps relying on another story, like that of Camma or Panthea, as a model. In this way, Porcia’s death, even before reaching Plutarch, may have undergone inventive reconstruction and typecasting, and Plutarch’s fondness for stories of extreme uxorial devotion would have made the idea of Porcia’s suicide attractive to him. As a parallel, we may consider how Plutarch handles the problem of Solon’s visit to Croesus. In response to those who argue based on chronology that the visit could not have occurred, he both attacks the accuracy of their calculations and makes an argument based on his general understanding of Solon’s character. ἐγὼ δὲ λόγον ἔνδοξον οὕτω καὶ τοσούτους μάρτυρας ἔχοντα καὶ (ὃ μεῖζόν ἐστι) πρέποντα τῷ Σόλωνος ἤθει καὶ τῆς ἐκείνου μεγα­λοφρο­ σύνης καὶ σοφίας ἄξιον, οὔ μοι δοκῶ προήσεσθαι χρονικοῖς τισι λεγο­ μένοις κανόσιν, οὓς μυρίοι διορθοῦντες, ἄχρι σήμερον εἰς οὐδὲν αὑ­ τοῖς ὁμολογούμενον δύνανται καταστῆσαι τὰς ἀντιλογίας.

I do not think it right to dismiss a story so famous and so well attested, and (even more significant) one that is in accord with Solon’s character and worthy of his greatness of mind and wisdom, all on account of some so-called chronological principles, which are being updated by countless people, even as they have remained unable till now to resolve their disagreements. (Sol. 27.1)

Plutarch offers no positive historical evidence for the meeting of Solon and Croesus. Instead, he casts doubt on the ability of others to disprove the meeting conclusively, and he insists that the story is worth telling because it relates character traits that he knows from other, presumably indisputable, sources.24 In the case of Porcia, conversely, Plutarch is more trusting of the letter that

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Jeffrey Beneker undermines the story of her suicide than he is of the “so-called chronological principles” that called Solon’s meeting with Croesus into question. Nonetheless, he allows the story of Porcia’s suicide to enter his readers’ minds, to color their impression of Porcia and to convey a sense of her character and devotion. In fact, in arguing that the letter contradicting Nicolaus appears to be genuine, Plutarch claims that it, too, accurately represents his general impression of Porcia, since it contains evidence of, among other characteristics, “the erotic love felt by his wife” (τὸν ἔρωτα τῆς γυναικός, Brut. 53.7). This erotic attachment places Porcia in the same category as Camma, and, in light of Camma’s story, could by itself explain why Plutarch found the story of Porcia’s suicide credible, if unhistorical. But Plutarch might well have inferred that Porcia’s loyalty unto death was motivated by more than just eros. In the Cato Minor, for instance, he describes her as “lacking neither sophrosyne nor courage” (οὔτε σωφροσύνης οὔτ’ ἀνδρίας ἀπολειφθεῖσα, 73.6). Sophrosyne, we recall from Dialogue on Love, was also a characteristic of the ideal married couple who felt eros for each other, and it became the basis for their voluntary exclusion of other lovers; it was characteristic of Panthea as well. Porcia’s sophrosyne may explain why, when Plutarch mentions her death in Cato Minor, he allows the suicide version of the story to stand uncritically, declaring simply that she “gave up her life in a manner worthy of her nobility and virtue, as I have written in my account of Brutus” (προήκατο τὸν βίον ἀξίως τῆς εὐγενείας καὶ ἀρετῆς, ὡς ἐν τοῖς περὶ Βρούτου γέγραπται, 73.6).25 Plutarch, it seems clear, preferred to imagine Porcia as dying by her own hand as an immediate response to the death of her husband. In sum, Porcia’s intellectual and ethical capacity, which includes sophrosyne, would certainly allow her to experience erotic desire while at the same time keeping it within the proper bounds of her marriage. She could be expected, like the generic noblewoman, Camma, of Dialogue on Love, to forgo other lovers. And, with Camma and Panthea in mind, Plutarch might easily imagine that Porcia would feel the desire to end her life after her partner had lost his. She lays the foundation for just this sort of decision in the course of her speech to Brutus when she claims that she was married to Brutus not merely to share his bed but to be his partner (κοινωνός) in both good and bad circumstances. Given this intellectual and ethical foundation, Plutarch probably felt justified in transmitting the story of Porcia’s suicide, finding it “in accord with her character” as with the story of Solon and Croesus, even if he knew it to be inaccurate.

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Camma in Virtues of Women Plutarch introduced the first version of Camma’s story in Dialogue on Love to illustrate the narrow point about the strength of the devotion that arises from eros moderated by sophrosyne. About two decades later, in Virtues of Women, Plutarch’s aim was to demonstrate female virtue more generally. 26 Thus, the Camma we meet in the later version is more broadly drawn as a character. Moreover, she possesses qualities that we find in both the earlier Camma as well as Porcia and Panthea. Plutarch introduces her as follows: ὁ Σινάτος γυναῖκα παρθένον ἔσχε Κάμμαν ὄνομα, περίβλεπτον μὲν ἰδέᾳ σώματος καὶ ὥρᾳ, θαυμαζομένην δὲ μᾶλλον δι’ ἀρετήν· οὐ γὰρ μόνον σώφρων καὶ φίλανδρος, ἀλλὰ καὶ συνετὴ καὶ μεγα­ λόφρων καὶ ποθεινὴ τοῖς ὑπηκόοις ἦν διαφερόντως ὑπ’ εὐμενείας καὶ χρηστότητος.

Sinatus married a parthenos named Camma, who attracted attention with the form of her body and her beauty, but was admired even more for her virtue, for not only was she sophron and phi­ landros, but she was also intelligent, high-minded, and especially beloved by her servants because of her goodwill and kindness. (Mul. Virt. 257E–F)

In light of the previous discussion, Camma’s fundamental virtues, sophrosyne and philandria, set specific expectations. These are the qualities that connect her to the Camma in Dialogue on Love (though with philia standing in for eros, as it did with Panthea) and that will drive her to reject Sinorix’s advances, avenge her husband’s murder, and take her own life. Plutarch does not call her philosophos, but she does possess the intellectual and personal qualities that would allow her to be a partner to her husband and run their household skillfully. The adjective megalophron, which might also be translated as “generous,” and the goodwill and kindness that she demonstrated toward the servants could indicate a smoothly running household. These latter qualities were unnecessary in the earlier version of Camma’s story, and so Plutarch either left them out there or added them here. If he added them, it must have been to give the reader the sense that Camma was a full partner (κοινωνός) to her husband, something Camma herself overtly claims in the earlier version.

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Jeffrey Beneker That claim of partnership in Dialogue on Love comes in the speech Camma makes after tricking Sinorix, which she addresses to her dead husband, Sinatus. Plutarch also assigns her a speech in Virtues of Women, but in this instance Camma addresses Artemis and Sinorix.

“μαρτύρομαί σε” εἶπεν, “ὦ πολυτίμητε δαῖμον, ὅτι ταύτης ἕνεκα τῆς ἡμέρας ἐπέζησα τῷ Σινάτου φόνῳ, χρόνον τοσοῦτον οὐδὲν ἀπο­λα­ύ­ ουσα τοῦ βίου χρηστὸν ἀλλ’ ἢ τὴν ἐλπίδα τῆς δίκης, ἣν ἔχουσα κατα­ βαίνω πρὸς τὸν ἐμὸν ἄνδρα. σοὶ δ’, ὦ πάντων ἀνοσιώτατε ἀν­θρώ­πων, τάφον ἀντὶ θαλάμου καὶ γάμου παρασκευαζέτωσαν οἱ προσήκοντες.”

“Most revered of deities,” she said, “you are my witness that I continued living after my husband’s murder for the sake of this day, and for all that time I enjoyed nothing good in my life except the hope of justice. And now that I’ve obtained it, I am going down to my husband. But for you, most unholy of all men, let your people prepare you a tomb in place of a bridal chamber and a marriage.” (Mul. virt. 258B–C)

In making Camma call upon Artemis (as witness) and Sinorix (as victim) rather than her husband, Plutarch here puts more emphasis on the act of vengeance than on the spousal devotion that arises from eros and sophrosyne. As in the earlier version, however, Camma again justifies her decision to live on after Sinatus’ death and then claims that she will rejoin her husband.27 In her final words, a direct address to the man who tried to replace her husband, she reveals her trick, and in the story’s finale, we read how Camma remains alive long enough to confirm the death of Sinorix before dying herself. Because of the focus on vengeance, Plutarch omits Camma’s overt claim of partnership with Sinatus and the expectation that he also feels grief at their separation. I suggested above, however, that the partnership is represented in Camma’s intelligence and managerial skills. Moreover, Camma’s claim that she is going down to Sinatus suggests a closeness, and perhaps a full-fledged koinonia, that remains intact even in death, much as Panthea’s promise to show Cyrus to whom she wished to go also makes clear her continued devotion to Abradatas, and Porcia’s false suicide demonstrates her commitment to Brutus. Whether real or fictional, then, Camma’s story served Plutarch for many years as a vehicle for thinking about a virtuous and erotic marital partnership, and it

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provided him with a model for conceiving of the character of at least one historical figure.

Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi In the final section of this chapter, I consider the actions of another sophron woman who was famous in Plutarch’s day, though not as a wife but as a mother. Cornelia, memorialized by Roman authors and by a statue that bore the inscription “Mother of the Gracchi,” was known especially for raising her sons, Tiberius and Gaius.28 This is her primary role in Plutarch’s Gracchi as well, and yet Plutarch has also shaped her character in several ways that make her similar to his Camma and Porcia. There are, of course, important differences in these women’s circumstances. Camma and Porcia (and Xenophon’s Panthea, too) appear not to have had children, which leaves them free to take their own lives once their husbands have died. Cornelia, conversely, outlives her husband but does not commit suicide. Her reputation, moreover, even before reaching Plutarch, had already been shaped by Roman notions of the matrona, who was expected to be faithful to her husband and his household, which included remaining a widow and raising his children after his death.29 Despite Cornelia’s well-established reputation, however, we still find a Plutarchan coloring to her portrait in the Gracchi. Plutarch begins to draw that portrait in the introduction to those Lives, where he tells an anecdote ostensibly to demonstrate the elder Tiberius’ good character. Tiberius, he writes, had been elected censor once and consul twice, and he celebrated two triumphs for his military achievements. Even so, he was more highly regarded for his virtue (λαμπρότερον ἦν τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀρετῆς ἀξίωμα), and this aspect of his reputation earned him the privilege of marrying Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Africanus, even though he and Scipio had been at odds politically (Gracch. 1.1–3). Having made this claim, Plutarch introduces the following anecdote as evidence: λέγεται δέ ποτε συλλαβεῖν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τῆς κλίνης ζεῦγος δρακόντων, τοὺς δὲ μάντεις σκεψαμένους τὸ τέρας, ἄμφω μὲν οὐκ ἐᾶν ἀνελεῖν οὐδ’ ἀφεῖναι, περὶ δ’ ἑκατέρου διαιρεῖν, ὡς ὁ μὲν ἄρρην τῷ Τιβερίῳ φέροι θάνατον ἀναιρεθείς, ἡ δὲ θήλεια τῇ Κορνηλίᾳ. τὸν οὖν Τιβέριον, καὶ φιλοῦντα τὴν γυναῖκα, καὶ μᾶλλον αὐτῷ προσήκειν ὄντι πρεσβυ­ τέρῳ τελευτᾶν ἡγούμενον ἔτι νέας οὔσης ἐκείνης, τὸν μὲν ἄρρενα

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Jeffrey Beneker κτεῖναι τῶν δρακόντων, ἀφεῖναι δὲ τὴν θήλειαν· εἶθ’ ὕστερον οὐ πολλῷ χρόνῳ τελευτῆσαι, δεκαδύο παῖδας ἐκ τῆς Κορνηλίας αὐτῷ γεγονότας καταλιπόντα.

It is reported that he once captured a pair of snakes in his bed. The seers, once they had examined the sign, did not allow Tiberius to kill both snakes or to let both go, but said that he must choose between them: if the male snake were killed, it would mean death for Tiberius, and if the female snake were killed, it would mean death for Cornelia. Then Tiberius, who loved his wife and believed that it was more fitting for him than for her to die, since he was older and she was still young, killed the male snake and let the female go. Just a short time later he died, leaving behind twelve children born to him by Cornelia. (Gracch. 1.4–5)

Thus, Tiberius proves true to the reputation for virtue that won him marriage into Africanus’ family. No one, least of all Cornelia, could fail to admire his noble decision. Valerius Maximus, who includes a version of this anecdote in his collection under the heading De amore coniugali (4.6), makes this point explicitly, introducing Cornelia at the end of his version to reinforce Tiberius’ excellence: “And so, I do not know whether I would call Cornelia more fortunate because she had had such a husband, or more pitiable because she had lost one such as him” (itaque Corneliam nescio utrum feliciorem dixerim quod talem virum habuerit an miseriorem quod amiserit, 4.6).30 Plutarch mentions Cornelia at the end of his version as well but conceives of her differently. In Plutarch’s mind, she is not Tiberius’ admirer but the mother of the twelve children who remain with her in the household. “Mother of the Gracchi” will, of course, become Cornelia’s claim to fame, and so Plutarch pivots immediately to a demonstration of the character that allowed her to achieve this title: “Cornelia then took charge of the children and the household, and she showed herself to be so sophron, child-loving, and great-souled that Tiberius was thought to have reasoned quite rightly when he chose to die in place of such a wife” (Κορνηλία δ’ ἀναλαβοῦσα τοὺς παῖδας καὶ τὸν οἶκον, οὕτω σώφρονα καὶ φιλότεκνον καὶ μεγαλόψυχον αὑτὴν παρέσχεν, ὥστε μὴ κακῶς δόξαι βεβουλεῦσθαι τὸν Τιβέριον ἀντὶ τοιαύτης γυναικὸς ἀποθανεῖν ἑλόμενον, Gracch. 1.6). Thus Valerius’ “such a husband” becomes for Plutarch

“such a wife.” With twelve children to raise, there is no question of Cornelia taking her own life. Even so, we may recognize several traces of the model

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established by those wives who did. Cornelia is sophron, which is the fundamental character trait of the devoted wife, and she demonstrates her ongoing partnership by assuming responsibility for the children and household in the absence of her husband. Tiberius, moreover, was said to have made his decision because he “loved his wife” (φιλοῦντα τὴν γυναῖκα), a sign of the philia that knit together the marriages of Camma, Porcia, and Panthea. We might assume that the feeling was mutual, though we do not find Cornelia described as philandros. Instead, Plutarch claims that she is philoteknos, loving of her children, who naturally become the exclusive object of her philia once Tiberius is gone. And finally, she is called megalopsychos (great-souled), an adjective that, like the megalophron that was applied to Camma, might be translated as “generous” and hint at good relations with her household servants. Plutarch, then, portrays Cornelia as a character similar to, if not identical with, his Camma and Porcia. In Dialogue on Love, Plutarch claims that the sophron wife who feels eros for her husband will naturally resist adultery. That, of course, is the point of the story of Camma, who refuses to remarry after Sinatus’ death “even though many kings and rulers were courting her” (μνωμένων πολλῶν βασιλέων καὶ δυναστῶν αὐτήν, Amat. 768E). In Gracchi, once Plutarch describes Cornelia’s character, he inserts an anecdote to establish her loyalty along the same lines: “She even refused King Ptolemy when he was offering to share his crown and was proposing marriage” (ἥ γε καὶ Πτολεμαίου τοῦ βασιλέως κοινουμένου τὸ διάδημα καὶ μνωμένου τὸν γάμον αὐτῆς ἠρνήσατο, 1.7). Plutarch is our only source for Ptolemy’s offer, which has been interpreted as unhistorical and as serving “to underline the integrity of Cornelia and her family.”31 Read in the light of Camma and Porcia, however, we can see that this anecdote, though very brief, carries a meaning that is more personal than political. Cornelia’s refusal to marry Ptolemy further marks her as a devoted spouse. The refusal of both Cornelia and Camma to marry even a king—“many kings,” in Camma’s case—establishes their devotion as extreme. And Ptolemy’s offer to “share his crown” (κοινουμένου τὸ διάδημα) raises the notion of partnership that is fundamental to the marriages of both Camma and Porcia. In this instance, however, the partnership is to be rejected in favor of loyalty to the existing household and children. Ptolemy’s courtship is probably a fiction, but in this situation Plutarch is once again concerned more with character than history. As with Porcia’s suicide, he must have felt justified in repeating the anecdote on slender evidence or even inventing it himself, since an idealized wife like Cornelia would certainly have refused such an offer had it actually been made.

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Jeffrey Beneker Despite the typical character and behavior that we find in the mother of the Gracchi, we must not lose sight of the fact that Plutarch does not introduce Cornelia into the Gracchi as a character in her own right. He is writing the biography of two of her sons, and thus the noble death of her husband and her able management of the household in his absence set the stage for Tiberius and Gaius. Plutarch makes this point in the conclusion to the introduction: “She raised them so zealously that, although they were agreed to have the best natural disposition of all Romans, with respect to their virtue they appeared to have gained more through their education than their natures” (Gracch. 1.7). Thus, we see in the brief portrait of Cornelia the practical value of the uxorial devotion that was modeled for its own sake by Camma. The senior Tiberius was virtuous and might well have passed his natural qualities down to his sons, but it was their mother’s nurturing that made them into the political leaders they turned out to be. And that nurturing was available to them because of Cornelia’s extreme and enduring devotion to her husband. Much like Porcia’s claim to partnership in her husband’s conspiracy against Caesar, Cornelia’s dedication to her marriage was in support of a larger purpose that lay beyond her household and involved her, albeit indirectly, in important historical events. Ever the teacher, Plutarch certainly hoped that his readers would admire the idealized virtue and yet grasp the practical value in the stories of all three women. In this way, Camma, Porcia, and Cornelia were made to stand alongside the great men of the Parallel Lives, whose character might be imitated even if their accomplishments could not be matched. Notes Support for this project was provided by the University of Wisconsin–Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. 1. Pomeroy 1999. 2. In that volume’s conclusion, the authors reinforce a general view of Plutarch’s ethics; cf. Blomqvist 1997; Nikolaidis 1997; Walcot 1999; Beneker 2012, 17–39; Tsou­ vala 2014. On women following the direction of men, see Dressler in this volume. 3. Foxhall 1999, 147–48. 4. Plutarch wrote about Camma before he wrote about Porcia and Cornelia. On the dating, see nn. 9 and 14. 5. See Treggiari 1991, 233–36. 6. On this passage, see Treggiari 1991, 219–20, and Dressler in this volume. Jerome also praises wives who were said to have committed suicide upon the deaths of their husbands (1.43–45).

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Death Is Not the End 7. In addition to sophrosyne, Plutarch made loving one’s husband (φιλανδρία) and being high-minded (μεγαλοφροσύνη) characteristic virtues of his ideal wives. 8. The only other ancient version of Camma’s story, by Polyaenus (Strat. 39), appears to be based on Plutarch’s; see Stadter 1965, 23 and 103 n. 262; Péré-Noguès 2012, 160–61. 9. Jones 1966, 69–72, shows that Dialogue on Love was written after 96 CE, while Virtues of Women dates to ca. 115. 10. Plutarch advises fidelity to the young couple in Marriage Advice (precepts 43– 44, 144B–D), but his rationale there is based on the need for the husband to maintain his reputation outside the house and sensitivity to the pain that infidelity causes the wife. See Goessler 1999, 108; Patterson 1999, 130. 11. This fact sets the anecdote apart from the version found in Virtues of Women, where Plutarch describes Camma’s character in more detail. 12. Stadter 1965, 105–6, suggests that Camma’s story was derived from a historical, rather than a fictional, source, and that Sinorix’s murder of Sinatus was likely politically motivated, though Plutarch leaves this element out in both his versions; see also Görgemanns et al. 2005, 180 n. 389. In his commentary on Dialogue on Love, Martin 1978, 530, notes that “Plutarch tells a story involving Sinatus, a tetrarch in Galatia, who is murdered by Sinorix (also a Galatian tetrarch).” Martin’s omission of Camma brings to the fore the potential historicity of this anecdote but distorts Plutarch’s use of it. Tanga 2019, 190–92, discusses the historical and literary background to the story in more detail. 13. I do not think that Camma commits suicide to avoid prosecution for the murder of Sinorix. Such a motivation would make her speech disingenuous and her actions self-serving, and they would not support Plutarch’s larger argument. 14. See again Jones 1966, 69, who dates Brutus to after 99 CE, a few years later than Dialogue on Love. 15. Beneker 2012, 114–20. 16. See further Beneker 2012, 31–39, on Plutarch’s views of the roles played by eros and philia in a well-ordered marriage. 17. I follow Stadter 1999, 181 n. 27, in rejecting Sintenis’ emendation of φιλόσοφος to φιλόστοργος. 18. The introduction to the Dion-Brutus (Dion 1.3–4) establishes philosophical training as an important theme in this pair of Lives; cf. Beneker 2012, 89–90. 19. On the wife as philandros and koinonos, see Jazdzewska in this volume. 20. Panthea is also cited as an example of a loyal wife by Jerome (Adv. Iovinian. 1.45). See also Dressler in this volume. 21. Cf. Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F99; Val. Max. 4.6.5. Delvaux 1993 argues that Plutarch probably did not read the anecdote in Valerius Maximus but found the reference in another source. (Thanks to Christopher Pelling for including this citation in his notes to Moles’ commentary.) 22. Moles 2017, 384, in his comments on Brut. 53.6.

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Jeffrey Beneker 23. Moles 2017, 384; see also Moles 1997, 159–61, for a more detailed discussion. 24. On “psychological reconstruction” in Plutarch, see Russell 1963; Pelling 1990 (= 2002, 143–70); Beneker 2012, 59–64. On the Solon–Croesus episode, see further Pelling 1990, 19–21 (= 2002, 143–44); Duff 1999, 312–14. 25. Porcia’s active role in her own death (προήκατο τὸν βίον) is typically read as a reference to her suicide in Brut. 53.5; cf. Ziegler and Gärtner 1993, ad loc. Moles 2017, 383, lists the other ancient accounts of Porcia’s death, which all give suicide as the cause, and which he suggests derive from Nicolaus. 26. For dating, see n. 9. 27. For more on the differences between the two versions, see the discussion of Tanga 2019, 195. 28. On her reputation in antiquity, see Pomeroy (1975) 1995, 149–50; Bauman 1992, 42–45; Hemelrijk 1999, 64–67; Dixon 2007, 1–14. The date of her statue is uncertain, but the inscription belongs to the Augustan period; see Kajava 1989. 29. For further bibliography, see Treggiari 1991, 233–36; Hemelrijk 1999, 14 n. 28, 64 n. 28. 30. Cicero relates this anecdote twice in On Divination (1.36, 2.62), but he does not comment on the character of Tiberius or Cornelia. See, in general, Barnard 1990, 388, which argues that the anecdote “seems to be pure folklore with no possible kernel of truth.” 31. Hemelrijk 1999, 64 n. 28, summarizing the argument of Günther 1990; see also Dixon 2007, 7 n. 17. There is disagreement about which of the Ptolemies would have made the offer.

Works Cited Barnard, S. 1990. “Cornelia and the Women of Her Family.” Latomus 49(2):383–92. Bauman, R. A. 1992. Women and Politics in Ancient Rome. New York. Beneker, J. 2012. The Passionate Statesman: Eros and Politics in Plutarch’s “Lives.” Oxford. Blomqvist, K. 1997. “From Olympias to Aretaphila: Women in Politics in Plutarch.” In Plutarch and His Intellectual World, edited by J. M. Mossman, 73–97. London. Delvaux, G. 1993. “Valére Maxime, cité par Plutarque, via Paetus Thraséa.” Latomus 52(3):617–22. Dixon, S. 2007. Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi. Women of the Ancient World. New York. Duff, T. E. 1999. Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice. Oxford. Foxhall, L. 1999. “Foreign Powers: Plutarch and Discourses of Domination in Roman Greece.” In Plutarch’s “Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Consolation to His Wife”: English Translations, Commentary, Interpretive Essays, and Bibliography, edited by S. B. Pomeroy, 138–50. New York. Goessler, L. 1999. “Advice to the Bride and Groom: Plutarch Gives a Detailed Account

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Death Is Not the End of His Views of Marriage.” In Plutarch’s “Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Consolation to His Wife”: English Translations, Commentary, Interpretive Essays, and Bibliography, edited by S. B. Pomeroy, 97–115. New York. Görgemanns, H., B. Feichtinger, F. Graf, W. Jeanrond, and J. Opsomer, eds. 2005. Plutarch: Dialog über die Liebe. SAPERE. Tübingen. Günther, L.-M. 1990. “Cornelia und Ptolemaios VIII: Zur Historizität des Heiratsantrages (Plut. TG 1,3).” Historia 39:124–28. Hemelrijk, E. A. 1999. Matrona docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna. New York. Jones, C. P. 1966. “Towards a Chronology of Plutarch’s Works.” JRS 56:61–74. Kajava, M. 1989. “Cornelia Africani f. Gracchorum.” Arctos 23:119–31. Martin, H. 1978. “Amatorius (Moralia 748E–771E).” In Plutarch’s Ethical Writings and Early Christian Literature, edited by H. D. Betz, 442–537. Leiden. Moles, J. L. 1997. “Plutarch, Brutus and Brutus’ Greek and Latin Letters.” In Plutarch and His Intellectual World, edited by J. M. Mossman, 141–68. London. . 2017. A Commentary on Plutarch’s “Brutus”: Histos Supplement. Newcastle upon Tyne. Nikolaidis, A. G. 1997. “Plutarch on Women and Marriage.” WS 110:27–88. Patterson, C. B. 1999. “Plutarch’s Advice to the Bride and Groom: Traditional Wisdom through a Philosophic Lens.” In Plutarch’s “Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Consolation to His Wife”: English Translations, Commentary, Interpretive Essays, and Bibliography, edited by Sarah B. Pomeroy, 128–37. Oxford. Pelling, C. 1990. “Truth and Fiction in Plutarch’s Lives.” In Antonine Literature, edited by D. A. Russell, 19–52. Oxford. . 2002. Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies. Swansea. Péré-Noguès, S. 2012. “Chiomara, Camma, et autres princesses . . . Une histoire des femmes dans les sociétés «celtiques» est-elle possible?” Pallas 90:159–76. Pomeroy, S. B. (1975) 1995. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York. , ed. 1999. Plutarch’s “Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Consolation to His Wife”: English Translations, Commentary, Interpretive Essays, and Bibliography. New York. Russell, D. A. 1963. “Plutarch’s Life of Coriolanus.” JRS 53:21–28. Stadter, P. A. 1965. Plutarch’s Historical Methods: An Analysis of the “Mulierum Virtutes.” Cambridge, MA. . 1999. “Philosophos kai Philandros: Plutarch’s View of Women in the Moralia and Lives.” In Plutarch’s “Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Consolation to His Wife”: English Translations, Commentary, Interpretive Essays, and Bibliography, edited by S. B. Pomeroy, 173–82. New York. Tanga, F. 2019. Plutarco: La virtù delle donne (Mulierum virtutes); Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione italiana e note di commento. Brill’s Plutarch Studies 3. Leiden.

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Jeffrey Beneker Treggiari, S. 1991. Roman Marriage: “Iusti Coniuges” from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford. Tsouvala, G. 2014. “Love and Marriage.” In A Companion to Plutarch, edited by M. Beck, 191–206. Malden, MA. Walcot, P. 1999. “Plutarch on Women.” Symbolae Osloenses 74:163–83. Ziegler, K., and H. Gärtner. 1993. Plutarchus: Vitae Parallelae, II.1. Leipzig.

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Erotic Desire and the Desire to Marry in the Ancient Greek Novels Silvia Montiglio

T

he so-called Greek novels (or romances), the extant specimens of which date from the first to the third or fourth century CE, are stories of two young persons who fall madly in love with each other and, either before or after a long series of adventures abroad, are eventually united in wedlock. This entwinement of marriage with passion is a staple of the genre and is remarkable for ancient standards.1 The power of love as the driving force of marriage for the novels’ protagonists is underscored by a number of facts. First, in no case has their union been arranged before they meet. In the one instance, Xenophon of Ephesus’ An Ethiopian Story, where a marriage is the result of a familial decision, the hero and the heroine have already fallen in love before the marriage is arranged. Second, the parents pose no obstacle, or at the most, a weak one, to the union. Though, as we shall see, they do not embrace the novelistic idealization of marriage for love, they also take no decisive action to thwart their children’s unions. When they make alternative marriage plans, those are quickly shattered and the two families always end up endorsing the union that their children desire.2 Third, the novels’ protagonists have never loved before meeting their destined partner and will never love another person thereafter. In Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe and in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, the hero seems to have had some sexual experience, but love was not in the picture (at least there is no mention of it).3 Both the boy and the girl marry their first sweetheart, who will also be their last.4 To buttress the ideal of mutual irreplaceability in love is the absence in the genre of happy second marriages. The

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Silvia Montiglio heroines of Chariton and Xenophon and the hero of Achilles Tatius are pushed into second unions (all thinking that their loved one is dead), but passion there is all by the side of the other party.5 The two women in particular are extremely reluctant to remarry, and Xenophon’s heroine in the end cannot bear it and attempts suicide.6 The emotional asymmetry that characterizes these unions and the apparent impossibility of imagining harmoniously affectionate second marriages put on novelistic love the seal of an unqualifiable foreverness: you and never another. But how does erotic longing intersect with marital aspirations in the protagonists’ feelings? Do the youth and the maiden scream in their heart, as soon as they fall head over heels for each other, “I will marry you or else die”? This is far from being always the case. Even in this conservative genre, which cannot conceive any other happy ending to a love story but marriage, being in love is not tantamount to yearning to tie the knot.7 The protagonists “must” wed, but their desire for each other could take deviant directions, which writers in various ways play up but in the end forestall, always reconfiguring erotic passion as a determination to marry. In this chapter, I investigate the dynamics between the two poles, focusing on the main couple and on the novels that are fully extant, and, among these, privileging the narratives in which the union is sanctioned when the journey and its trials are over.8

Marrying at the Beginning or at the End of the Journey The interplay between the force of eros and the call to institutionalize it varies considerably from the two earlier novels, Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe and Xenophon of Ephesus’ An Ephesian Tale, where love is crowned with marriage before the adventures begin, to the three later ones, Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, and Heliodorus’ An Ethiopian Story, in which marriage happens only at the end.9 It is true that there are reasons to downplay this difference in the placement of marriage. Where it occurs early, it has to be recelebrated in the conclusion. The initial bond is vulnerable and can even be put into question. Callirhoe remarries. She is still in love with her first husband, but to the outside world that union is no more binding than the second. People around her debate which one of her two spouses is more legitimate. Even when she recovers her beloved and the two return to their country, the couple must be confirmed as husband and wife by Callirhoe’s father and the community.10 Xenophon’s heroine, Anthia, almost remarries, and both she and her husband Habrocomes

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on several occasions are hard pressed to dispose of their spouse and to be joined in wedlock with rivals—rather than just to have sex with them. The protagonists’ status as a married couple is unstable. More important, in both novels their marriage does not bring peace to either them or the community but is—paradoxically for an institution that should foster personal and social integration—disruptive for both.11 Callirhoe is seemingly killed as a consequence of her union with Chaereas, and this tragedy sets off the adventures. In Xenophon, the couple’s fathers respond to an oracle by both joining their children in matrimony and sending them off into the world: that is, they tie the wedding to a predictably perilous journey. Marriage does not shield the pair from dangers but initiates them. One reason that unions celebrated early are vulnerable and bring instability is narratological: the story cannot end at the beginning. A second reason is ideological, related to the educational purport of the genre. The novelistic plots follow the pattern of rites of passage in narrating the coming-of-age of two young persons; and since wedlock, especially for the girl, is the destination of this educational journey, the couple can truly settle down only when it is completed and they have gone through their ordeals.12 But the differences that the position of marriage in the narrative entails are still significant. In the first group the happy ending, with remarriage, is a recovery; in the second, it is a discovery. In the first it is a return; in the second, a transformation.13 The heroine’s virginity at the end of the journey matters only in the later set.14 And besides, novels that place the wedding after the adventures allow a much more sustained dialogue between the protagonists’ erotic desire and their marital intentions.15 It is in these novels that the hero and the heroine spend time together on the road (or in the fields, in the case of Daphnis and Chloe), whereas the married protagonists are hardly in each other’s company during the adventures. Being together causes unmarried couples both to conceive a mutual desire to wed and to come to grips with their sexual desire, which arguably (and in some cases clearly) increases in the course of their companionship and is also known to them to be mutual. When they marry, the protagonists of the earlier novels, Chaereas and Callirhoe and An Ephesian Tale, do not know for certain that their bride or groom reciprocates their passion.16 Conversely, in the second group the hero and the heroine discover that their love is returned early on, so when at last they marry they have agreed to the union. They have also been aware of alternative paths of fulfilment and have chosen not to take them, though they have enjoyed enough freedom to do so. How do novelists

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Silvia Montiglio suggest those paths, then cut them out of their narratives and of the lovers’ minds, causing them to think only of marriage? The core of this chapter will address these issues. First, however, I will briefly examine the unions in the earlier two novels. Chaereas and Callirhoe and An Ephesian Tale Even in the novels in which the hero and the heroine are united early, the writer finds ways, if not to sustain a tension between erotic desire and marriage aspirations, at least to highlight the characters’ disposition toward wedlock. Chariton’s protagonists are keen on marriage as soon as they fall in love. They meet at a street corner, he coming back from the gymnasium and she on her way to the temple of Aphrodite. Once there, she falls at the feet of the goddess and asks her: “Give me as husband the man you have shown to me” (δὸς ἄνδρα τοῦτον ὃν ἔδειξας, 1.1.8).17 Though anêr means both “man” and “husband,” translators generally prefer the second reading.18 The aristocratic Callirhoe, the daughter of the general Hermocrates, cannot possibly want just to possess Chaereas but instantly longs to be wedded to him. And the lad has identical feelings. Withering away from love sickness, he resolves to tell his parents that “he loves and will not live if he does not obtain Callirhoe in marriage” (1.1.8). Eros calls for gamos. Xenophon’s hero and heroine, by contrast, do not think about wedlock when they fall in love. With a phrase that recalls Callirhoe’s prayer, Habrocomes demands of Eros: “Give me Anthia!” (1.4.5). But he does not say “as wife” ( gynaika). Xenophon is clearly reworking Chariton: the phrase is in the mouth of the hero, not the heroine, and does not seem to convey a desire to marry. As to the girl, she feels frustrated in her erotic urges rather than bridal hopes: “I am crazy about Habrocomes, who is handsome, but proud. Will there be a limit to my desire [ἐπιθυμίας] . . . ? The man I love is haughty and I am a well-guarded virgin. Whom will I find to help? In whom can I fully confide? Where will I see Habrocomes?” (1.4.6–7). Epithymia, desire or lust, is the first label Anthia gives to her passion, which she is ready to satisfy outside wedlock.19 She feels confined, and like an elegiac puella she would wish to find a go-between and a confidante, who would help her meet Habrocomes again. Anthia’s desire explodes as soon as she sees the young man: “Eyes wide open, she let Habrocomes’ beauty flow in, and already she ignored a virgin’s propriety, and said something for Habrocomes to hear, and stripped as much of her body as she could, for Habrocomes to see” (1.3.2). This is not the

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deportment of a maiden clad in modesty but of an unbridled lover, driven by the senses.20 As mentioned earlier, the protagonists of Xenophon wed subsequent to their fathers’ interpretation of an oracular pronouncement. They are happy to find out that they are going to marry (1.7.4), but they have not expressed a desire to do so either to their families (which can be accounted for by their passivity) or even to themselves, in their nightlong lamentations and prayers. While Chariton attributes to his protagonists the “appropriate” inclination from the very start, Xenophon mobilizes a deus ex machina to steer the strongly erotic passion of his duo in the direction required by society and the novelistic genre. Leucippe and Clitophon Leucippe and Clitophon is almost entirely a first-person narrative, the story of Clitophon told by himself to another young man, who reports it. I cannot delve here into the complex hermeneutic problems that this narrative stance entails, but there are indications that readers are not supposed to believe all Clitophon says.21 As far as sex and marriage go, he himself admits to doctoring events to his advantage when he tells his adventures, which include a peccadillo, to the father of his fiancée: “I gave the fact a turn to push my continence” (8.5.2), namely, by detailing his prolonged abstinence but leaving out one episode that would disprove it (8.5.3). The omission is geared to please his future father-in-law. On the other hand, Clitophon might be confident that an emphasis on his erotic proclivities will delight his internal audience, the young listener (and for us the reporter) of his story. For this audience is “erotically disposed” (1.2.1). Clitophon has no compunction to disclose to him that lust rather than a desire to marry took possession of him when he met Leucippe. He sets out to pursue her, feeling incited or justified by a story of sexual violence, the myth of Apollo’s attempted rape of Daphne.22 And upon receiving a lesson in seduction from his cousin Clinias, he worries: “I fear that my success might be the beginning of greater troubles” (1.11.1). Clitophon’s undisclosed hope is that a brief and casual relationship will cure his erotic itch, and his fear is that it might not. In this (unfortunate) case, he is aware that he cannot marry Leucippe because he was promised to another (1.11.2; see also 2.5.2); but in spite of his worry that consummation might increase rather than slake his passion, he still arranges to have sex with the coveted girl and does not try to eschew the

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Silvia Montiglio planned marriage.23 Admittedly this fact alone does not mean he would not wish to become Leucippe’s husband but only that he is too timid to fight his father or even to confess his passion. Since he cannot get around to doing this, he plots to approach the girl with the help of more enterprising friends. Yet shyness vis-à-vis his father does not seem to be the whole story, for when he does not act but talks to or about himself, that is, when he is free to let his feelings out, he does not say, “If only I could marry Leucippe!” but dwells on her appearance (1.4.2–4, 1.6.1) and dreams about touching and kissing her (1.6.5). His fantasies and visions are lustful, not romantic. He gets lucky, for his betrothed is conveniently kidnapped on the eve of their wedding (2.18). But even with this obstacle out of the way, and despite his expressed relief at the turn of events (2.18.6), he does not make any move to marry Leucippe. Is it still because of timidity? With his father this might be so; but he is far from shy with the girl, to whom he proposes sex right after his marriage has been called off. By now the fellow (if we believe him) has shed his initial bashfulness to become a bold soldier of love (2.10.3). He has already gone as far as deep kisses and voluptuous embraces, and once he would have done more if a disturbance had not interfered (2.10.4). As soon as his fiancée is disposed of, he is on the attack again: “How long are we going to stop at kisses, dearest? This was the beginning, but now let us add something truly erotic. Come, let us tie each other in an unbreakable bond of fidelity! If Aphrodite initiates us into her mysteries [μυσταγωγήσῃ], no other god will have more power!” (2.19.1–2). And he keeps pressing the girl until she agrees to make love. Clitophon dresses consummation up as the most binding ritual. Does his wording mean that he is more committed than he was initially? Or is he pretending?24 He might be romanticizing the act of love to the girl—as he has learned from his cousin, maidens do not like talk of sex (1.10.3–5)—by casting it as the ultimate pledge of mutual fidelity. In any case, what he seems to desire is at the most a lasting relationship in the style of an elegiac lover, not marriage. The “mysteries of Aphrodite” would be enough to sanctify the union. Moving on to Leucippe, it is virtually impossible to gauge the nature of her desire(s), because Clitophon’s first-person narrative selects what serves him best and is additionally vitiated by hindsight knowledge. He makes us believe that she is pleased with his talk of love (1.19.1), but there are hints that she might not be.25 A fact, though, remains: at last she does agree to sex without having any prospect of marriage (2.19.2) and welcomes Clitophon to her bedroom.26 They would have made love but for her mother’s sudden appearance,

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caused by a frightening dream. Only serendipity (with respect to generic conventions) or bad luck (from the characters’ point of view) prevents them from consummation. The two elope. What is their goal? Ancient Greek readers are unlikely to connect this flight to an inclination to marry. It is abduction, not elopement, that in the Greek as in Roman imagination can symbolize or conjure up wedlock.27 Two examples among many are Hades carrying off Persephone in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, or, closer in time to Achilles Tatius, the episode in Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love in which Ismenodora asks her friends to kidnap her young beloved, to bring him into her house, and to deck him in finery for the nuptials (754E–755A). Initiating a wedding by abduction was also a reallife practice, which the emperor Constantine attempted to stop with an edict in 326 CE.28 Simple flights from home, on the other hand, are driven by erotic desire. To stay within the novels, in Xenophon two couples (Thelxinoe and Aegialeus, and Hippothous and Hyperanthes) elope, in the case of the first, not to marry but to save the girl from marrying another man, while the second pair of lovers are two men fleeing from a rival. Achilles Tatius backs this symbolic association of wedlock with abduction rather than elopement: the youth who delivers Clitophon from his engagement kidnaps the girl in order to marry her, counting on a city law according to which the penalty for kidnapping a virgin is to make her a wife (2.13). Readers conditioned by these and more reminiscences, both inside and outside the novels, are likely to interpret the flight of Clitophon and Leucippe as a gesture driven by love but not by a desire to marry. In addition, toward the end of the novel Clitophon says as much. In recounting their adventures to Sostratus, Leucippe’s father, he admits that they eloped “as lover and beloved” (8.5.7). But the truth seems to be not even this. They flee primarily to avoid problems and they make up their minds to leave not in unison but independently of each other (2.25, 2.30). Though he hopes that she will come with him and is ready to stay if she does not (2.27.3), they decide on flight from their separate quarters, not to be together but to escape from certain punishment.29 While they do not have marriage in mind, he at least still thinks of sex. They sail to Egypt, where at some point they happen to be assigned to the same house. Hardly have they stepped inside than he embraces her and “was ready to play the man” (4.1.2); but she rejects him, causing his protestations. His argument to push lovemaking demonstrates that it is consummation rather than long-term commitment that he has in mind, at least now, for in a

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Silvia Montiglio nutshell he tells her, “Haven’t you seen how many dangers have beset us already? Let’s take advantage of this lull before fate’s cruelty resumes!” (4.1.3, abridged). What will happen next, whether the two will be together or not, even whether they will be alive, matters little compared to the pressing urge for sex. Clitophon’s disposition is no different from the lustful inclination of his rival Charmides, who finds it hard to wait for Leucippe’s favors because war does not grant one the leisure to postpone one’s desire (4.7.3). But why does Leucippe push Clitophon off now? She explains: when, the night before, she was threatened with death, Artemis appeared to her in a dream and reassured her, adding, “You will remain a virgin until I escort you as a bride. No one else but Clitophon will be your husband” (4.1.4). This is the first time that the prospect of marriage is drawn. From now on both protagonists will consider themselves married (see, e.g., 6.15.3, 6.16.6), but initially the wish for a legal union comes from Leucippe—rather, from the goddess. Her conditions are not even entirely to the girl’s liking: “I was displeased with the postponement, but pleased with the hopes for the future” (4.1.4). These are startling words. Clitophon could have put them into Leucippe’s mouth self-servingly, to show that she was as erotically disposed as he. But I doubt this, because after all she had agreed to sex not long before.30 Overtly at least, to curb her appetite it takes a divine injunction and the promise of marriage as a reward. Clitophon remembers a parallel dream, which he narrates to the maiden. He was eager to pray to Aphrodite but found her temple closed. A woman as beautiful as the goddess’ statue explained to him, “You cannot go in now, but if you wait a little I will not only open the door but also make you the priest of the goddess” (4.1.6–8). This vision stops his advances. The impulse toward chastity comes, once again, from without. More amusing still, Clitophon would have disregarded the dream altogether or given it another interpretation, if Leucippe had agreed to lovemaking. We shall also notice that while both dreams have inhibitory effects, their content is profoundly different. The maiden is guaranteed marriage, the youth a privileged access to the goddess of love. To preside over Leucippe is Artemis pro­ nuba whereas Clitophon will follow the divine queen of erotic pleasure, who prevents him from enjoying her delights now but promises more for the near future. Do these joys include marital sex? Presumably, but they certainly consist of sex tout court, regardless of institutional imprimatur. If he abstains now, his erotic itches will be satisfied; whether in marriage or not is apparently irrelevant. In fact, most critics take the dream to foreshadow his peccadillo

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with Melite, the beautiful woman with whom he associates while he believes Leucippe dead.31 Clitophon does not have to give up sex altogether but to give it up at this juncture, that is, to preserve Leucippe, in order to enjoy her at last but another woman first and outside wedlock. In light of these dreams, we readers smile when Clitophon tells Sostratus that he and Leucippe eloped as lovers but during the journey “behaved like philosophers,” becoming “brother” and “sister” because “we did not want the wedding to take place without her father’s presence” (8.5.7–8). We know which powers are behind the pair’s philosophical abstinence. Clitophon, fairly enough, admits to Sostratus that he does not deserve praise for the preservation of Leucippe’s virginity (8.5.6), but he omits mention of the double dream that caused it to be preserved, and instead gives Leucippe the credit (8.5.6). To summarize so far: in this novel erotic desire is the initial driving force that brings the couple together and it would have found satisfaction outside wedlock if external forces had not intervened. The desire to marry, on the other hand, does not come from within, but, alongside the requirement of chastity, it is instilled in the pair (especially in the girl) from above and abruptly. Marriage is the will of Artemis. And, I will now add, it also becomes the will of the lovers’ fathers, and just as abruptly. Shortly before Clitophon agrees to make a compact with Melite, he discovers that his father, Hippias, would have given him Leucippe, whom he thinks dead, in marriage. His cousin shows up in Egypt and tells him that “on the same day after our flight” a letter from Sostratus had reached Hippias, betrothing the two children. Clitophon’s father was distressed by the unfortunate coincidence (5.10.3–5). This extraordinary turn of events plays into the absurd, haphazard manner in which many things happen in this novel, even more than in others. Narratologically the letter’s untimely arrival is also necessary to prevent the plot from short-circuiting, to draw the prospect of the happy ending but let it lie in an unforeseeable future. As is often the case in the novels, what is good for the plot is bad for its characters (see 5.11.2). Furthermore, the sudden betrothal in absentia has two important implications for the relationship between the protagonists’ wedding-to-be and their own desire for it. First, the compact showcases a remarkable feature of novelistic unions: parents tend not to espouse the generic ideal of marriage for romantic love but to make wedding arrangements regardless of their children’s inclinations.32 The one novel in which a father instantly goes along with his daughter’s wishes is The Story of Apollonius King of Tyre, a Latin narrative that idealizes not romantic love but the affection between father and daughter. Among the

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Silvia Montiglio novelistic marriages that are concluded without a parent seeking his child’s agreement, two glaring examples are those of Chaereas and Callirhoe and of Habrocomes and Anthia. In Xenophon the fathers unite their children without consulting them. In Chariton Chaereas’ father, though he is informed of his son’s passion, takes no step to further it. It is Chaereas’ friends who plead with Callirhoe’s father to agree to the union, and he does so, but without inquiring about his daughter’s own wishes. Achilles pushes to extremes the indifference to the young persons’ feelings that fathers display in making marriage plans. Leucippe’s father, who initiates the betrothal, does it out of the blue, from far away (he is in Byzantium while Hippias is in Tyre) and for no apparent reason, let alone from knowledge of his daughter’s love. Second, the episode throws an ironic light on Clitophon’s disposition toward marriage. Learning from his cousin that his father is about to come to fetch him, he decides to avoid him and to escape once again (5.11.4). His cowardliness is more justified than on earlier occasions because of his elopement with Leucippe and the death that apparently it has caused her, but the narrative, his narrative, puts his refusal to meet his father and his agreement to meet Melite (5.11.5–12.2) weirdly back to back. As soon as he expresses his resolve to flee, two more friends appear and push him to accept the woman’s offer of herself and all her substance.33 He agrees reluctantly, but he agrees, and when he goes to meet her he is, as he admits, quite pleased with her beauty (which even much later, at the time when he tells his story and he is supposedly married to Leucippe, he takes care to describe to his listener, 5.13.1–2). Arguably we would expect a thoroughly committed fiancé to be in deeper mourning and to remain firm in his refusal as he has been for four months (5.11.6) rather than surrendering at this very juncture. The tight sequencing gives the impression that Clitophon can fall into Melite’s arms only after discovering that marriage with Leucippe has been approved. Clitophon postpones sexual congress with his wife, Melite, until they reach Ephesus—but, lo and behold, at this point Leucippe turns up. And it is now that Clitophon at last agrees to have sex with Melite. To be sure, he apparently yields because she promises to help reunite him with Leucippe; his narrative of the act, though, sends mixed signals about his true disposition. On the one hand, he feels he has to be apologetic even to his “erotically disposed” listener: intercourse with Melite was not marriage, gamos, but a medicine, pharmakon, for an aching soul (5.27.2–3). Even in his self-serving account, however, he cannot hide that he enjoyed the experience (5.27.4). Is he still

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savoring it when he recounts it as a married man? Pleasure (hedone) is the last word with which he describes it, and the last word of the book. Readers are sent back to the end of Book 2, which is taken up by a men-only debate on the greater desirability of women or boys. Not surprisingly, hedone is a recurring term in the debate and appears again in the last line of the book. Both talk of sex and the sex act pleasantly linger in Clitophon’s memory and earn the word hedone a prominent position in the segmentation of his narrative.34 As these two episodes (among others) demonstrate, this novel does not shrink from putting erotic activity onto the page. Readers, therefore, are pulled up short when they reach the narrative of the wedding and are not granted entrance into the couple’s bedroom, as they are in Xenophon’s novel (1.8–9) and in Longus’ (4.40). In Achilles’ story there is no wedding night, no mention of pleasure fulfilled. After their reunion, the two retire twice but before their nuptials, assumingly in separate quarters (8.7.2, 8.18.5).35 Leucippe and Clitophon have acted on their erotic urges outside wedlock, and then they have received divine orders to abstain, with the promise of marriage as a reward for her and of sex without and within marriage for him. He gets the former. But do they enjoy their hotly desired and regretfully postponed carnal union on their wedding night?36 Daphnis and Chloe In articulating the interplay between erotic desire and desire to marry, Longus faces a major difficulty: since Daphnis and Chloe do not even know what love is, how do they develop a commitment to legalize their passion in allegiance to generic and social expectations? When love strikes, the children long to see each other again and again and are intent on understanding their symptoms and finding means to assuage them. The old shepherd and musician Philetas, a semimythic character dear to Eros and the first to tell Daphnis and Chloe that their condition is termed “love” and to teach them how to treat it, does not mention marriage as a possible remedy but only, though with a vague and misleading formulation, the sexual congress: “There is no other cure [φάρμακον] for love . . . but kissing, embracing, and lying together naked” (2.7.7). He also undermines his own status as a married man. When he was young, Eros “gave him” Amaryllis (2.5.3)—in marriage (since he has children)—but he does not say so.37 Furthermore, the self-portrait he draws for his listeners is only of a youth sick with

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Silvia Montiglio love, who displays all the symptoms they do, calls the gods for help, and is desperate to obtain the woman he is mad about (2.7.5–6). He omits to add that marriage put an end to his amorous pangs. Philetas’ lesson and his self-presentation thus push the pair in the direction of nonmarried love, a direction that Daphnis pursues further when he receives his second lesson from the adulterous Lycaenion, who offers him the cure that will “stop [his] troubles” (3.17.3) by initiating him into the act of love. He is eager to apply the lesson with Chloe instantly, but fear of hurting her stops him. Before Daphnis learns what to do exactly when “lying together naked,” he and Chloe have sworn oaths of fidelity to each other. Fidelity is a requirement of marriage and foreshadows its coming; yet the two do not make a wish to be wedded but only to be forever together. He says, “I will not live alone without Chloe, not even one day”; and she affirms, “I will love Daphnis in life or in death” (2.39.1–2). The two do not aspire to be united in wedlock because, even though they now know that they are in love, they do not know that matrimony alone will allow them to abide by their oaths and be always with each other. Chloe’s first contact with the idea of marriage does not help her associate it with love. While winter locks her indoors and forces her to be without Daphnis, her supposed mother teaches her a woman’s tasks, “going on about marriage” (3.4.5), even as she and Daphnis are praying for spring to return in order to be together. Mention of wedlock looks to the ending.38 But the institution is still unconnected to the girl’s feelings, and references to it clash with her current preoccupations and longing. The prospect of marriage becomes a real obstacle when, in the following summer, from mere talk it begins to take shape. Many suitors ask Chloe’s putative parents for her hand. She is pained by this and hides the facts from Daphnis, but when he presses her, she finally explains that she will be wedded in the fall. His response marks a crucial turn in the couple’s development of marital inclinations. At first he gives voice to despair: “He told her that he would die, and not only he but also the flocks, if Chloe was no longer their shepherdess” (3.26.1); but a fraction of a second later, he explains that “he had the thought of trying to persuade her father and counted himself one of the suitors” (3.26.1). Initially both Daphnis and Chloe think of her impending wedding only as the end of their companionship. They do not realize that they could prevent their parting by marrying each other. But Daphnis becomes enlightened, and for the first time their marriage, rather than Chloe’s to another suitor, enters the couple’s minds and the plot.

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Talk of marriage functions as a motor of the action when the couple’s erotic growth has reached an impasse. Because Daphnis, after his sexual initiation, becomes afraid of hurting Chloe physically, he behaves with more reserve, asking her not to undress (3.24.3). What would happen if the marriage engine were not started? The two would not make love, so the threat of a non-novelistic development is averted, but they would not make any progress toward desiring wedlock either, simply because they have not seen any rapport between the conjugal state and their longing for each other. Talk of marriage makes Daphnis see the connection, or rather realize that only as husband will he be able to keep the woman he loves. Chloe agrees that Daphnis should ask for her hand. Before approaching her so-called father, though, “he found the courage to speak to Myrtale [his putative mother], revealed his love and talked about marriage” (3.26.2–3). This is the first time that one of the protagonists links love and wedlock. Now that Daphnis has understood this novelistic compound, the plot veers toward the expected direction. Daphnis and Chloe suggests that a desire to be forever together with another person is instinctual but that a desire to marry that person is not. For Daphnis to feel that desire, he must understand that short of marrying Chloe he will lose her. The first to see that love and wedlock go together is the boy rather than the girl because, uniquely in the genre, Daphnis has an active and decisive role in securing his marriage. After explaining his intentions to his putative mother, he makes a formal request to Chloe’s father (3.29–30.1), displaying eloquence and self-confidence (of course, he can count on being well received, since he is offering him a handsome sum of money that he has miraculously found). Though he shares the dejection and fatalism of the other novelistic heroes and relies on divine help even more than they, he has more freedom of action and movement because of the environment and conditions in which he is brought up. He believes himself to be a shepherd and, like a shepherd, he has to earn a bride by his skills and means. Daphnis’ self-assurance includes his sentiment of being already Chloe’s husband when he learns that the two families agree to the union. He rushes to give her “the good news of the marriage, and from now on he kissed her publicly, as his wife” (3.33.1). He also feels already entitled to ignore his wife’s wishes if they go against his, for he picks an apple that hangs at the very top of a tree though Chloe tries to prevent him: “Angry at being ignored, she left and went over to the flocks” (3.34.1). Daphnis had already gained the upper hand in the relationship, not least thanks to his erotic initiation, but this is the first

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Silvia Montiglio time that he disregards Chloe’s request. It is also the first time that she becomes annoyed at him and goes away. Are we to imagine scenes in this mold in their married life? We might. But Longus keeps his novel on the tracks of an ideal romance even in the snapshot he gives us of the couple’s life after marrying: the picture of an idyllic, pastoral existence (4.39). The story, though, does not end with this prolepsis but with a wedding night filled with lovemaking. In addition to applying once again Philetas’ remedies—“lying down they embraced each other and kissed”—“Daphnis did some of the things Lycaenion taught him.”39 The naughty reader might wonder which things exactly, and why only some? But there is another, more important question the novel leaves unanswered: how did Daphnis figure out that the act he dreaded so much for fear of hurting Chloe is the one a husband is expected to perform on his wedding night? How did he shed his fear and learn that sex and marriage go together, as he learned that marriage and love do? The text here contains “an amnesia,” as it has aptly been called.40 Daphnis might have understood that he was supposed to deflower Chloe on her wedding night from his father’s words, “is she still a virgin?” (4.31.3), for the question resonates with Lycaenion’s speech explaining that she was made a woman when she lost her virginity (3.19.2). The question also ties defloration and marriage but implicitly, in a veiled, indirect manner, which leaves the driving forces behind Daphnis’ sexual initiative unexplained. In sharp contrast to Achilles Tatius, however, Longus does show erotic desire finding its complete fulfilment in the frame of a marriage celebration. An Ethiopian Story Daphnis and Chloe is exceptional among the novels in featuring two young persons who have to discover both what love is and that marriage is required to satisfy it. In Heliodorus’ An Ethiopian Story, the main characters are ignorant of love but in another way: neither the youth, Theagenes, nor the maiden, Chariclea, though aware of the existence and the nature of the passion, have ever been touched by even the slightest hint of it. Heliodorus’ novel shares this feature with Xenophon’s An Ephesian Tale. (The male heroes of Chariton and Achilles Tatius have had some sexual experience, with men in Chariton, and with prostitutes and a courtesan in Achilles Tatius.)41 The discovery of love, however, elicits diametrically opposite responses in the two texts. At its onslaught Habrocomes, in Xenophon’s novel, feels a surge of desire, which pushes him to demand of Eros, “Give me Anthia” (1.4.5), while she would be

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ready to have an affair if she could. In stark contrast, Chariclea and Theagenes convert erotic longing into marriage aspirations with seamless naturalness and almost instantly. Their helper, the priest Calasiris, directs their thoughts toward wedlock as soon as they confess their passion. Theagenes has felt contempt even for married love (3.17.4). When he falls for Chariclea, Calasiris, promising his assistance, mentions the marital bond alongside erotic passion as if the two made one: the maiden might “despise even the name of Aphrodite and marriage, but everything must be attempted on your account” (3.17.4). Theagenes quickly turns from desiring her to desiring to wed her, though the switch is impulsive, hot-blooded. As he learns that she reciprocates, he wants to rush to her, but the priest stops him with the warning that such behavior would earn him a death sentence. He rejoins: “Even death does not matter if I obtain Chariclea, but if you think it best, let us go to her father and ask her in marriage” (4.6.6). In the same breath Theagenes declares himself ready to make a bold move to possess Chariclea (what exactly he means by “obtain” is not clear: would he abduct her?) and another to approach her putative father with a formal request for her hand. This young man is far less timid than Clitophon, Habrocomes, or even Chaereas, who discloses his passion to his parents but does not venture beyond that. Theagenes’ readiness to take action at this juncture evinces two characteristics of this novel: the aggressive determination of the couple to be together and their relative independence from family impediments, especially in the case of the young man, who is in a foreign land and free from parental supervision. The discovery that Chariclea’s father has another husband in mind does not stop him. He firmly rebuts that she will marry him and no other: “No one else shall take Chariclea to the bridal couch while I am alive” (4.6.7). The maiden needs much more time to admit to her passion and to admit it into her heart, but when she can no longer oppose love, she embraces Calasiris’ point of view that marriage is the only acceptable transfiguration of carnal desire: “Consider what is best to do in your circumstance. Never to experience love in the first place is a fortune, but once caught, it is wisest to make a virtuous decision. If you also are willing to believe this, you can thrust away the shameful reputation attached to lust [ἐπιθυμίας ] and choose the covenant of a lawful union, converting your malady into wedlock” (4.10.6). The scene is modeled after the dialogue between Phaedra and her nurse in Euripides’ Hippolytus.42 After she recovers from the shocking revelation of her mistress’ passion, the nurse has second thoughts and sets out to further it. She

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Silvia Montiglio tells Phaedra: “You love. What is strange about that? You are in the company of many mortals” (Eur. Hipp. 439). Calasiris makes the exact same argument, though with psychological finesse he changes “many mortals” into “many illustrious ladies and maidens who otherwise were models of virtue” (4.10.5): “models of virtue” like Chariclea, that is. The parallel with Euripides’ episode brings into sharp relief the proper direction Chariclea’s passion will take in contrast to Phaedra’s, whose nurse urges her, “dare to love” (Eur. Hipp. 476) and tries to help her illicit desire. Adultery would be the pharmakon to Phaedra’s passion (Eur. Hipp. 479), whereas marriage will treat Chariclea’s. The priest of Isis, who has exiled himself from Memphis to resist the allurement of lust (ἐπι­θυμίαν, Hel. 2.25.4) and knows that his charge suffers from the same condition (ἐπιθυμίας, 4.10.6) even more intensely than he did then, takes the shameful edge off erotic passion by suggesting its legalization. Readers will appreciate Calasiris’ steering also against the backdrop of Philetas’ instructions in Longus, for Eros’ devotee, as we have seen, offers sex tout court as remedy to the pain of erotic passion.43 Notice also the subtly different meaning that Calasiris attaches to marriage in dealing with each protagonist. Knowing that the young man, though initially averse even to wedded love, has totally capitulated, he mentions matrimony as an unmarked fact, belonging in the realm of Aphrodite. Conversely, when he handles Cha­riclea he does not bring it in as the natural outcome of love but as its cure. This unglamorous packaging of marriage as therapy is carefully tailored to the only novelistic heroine for whom a life of virginity is by definition the best. Chariclea was set on it, and agrees to wed not because marriage is a good thing but because it allows her to cope with and redirect her passion.44 Calasiris works around the modesty of both lovers by mentioning wedlock right away to both, and with the maiden by further casting it as the only remedy to the unwanted erotic urges that have taken possession of her. Though Chariclea is visibly conflicted, the proposal fills her with more joy than shame: she does not oppose marriage but wonders whether the parties involved, her father and the young man, will agree. Her reaction to Calasiris’ objection that “your putative father has another husband in mind” matches Theagenes’ response to the same warning: “Either I will be Theagenes’ wife, or I will meet a fatal destiny” (4.11.3). She is in the same situation as Clitophon: both face the obstacle of a parent who is set on a different match. But Clitophon arranges to circumvent his father’s plans by having an affair, while Cha­riclea instantly agrees to marry the loved one in spite of her father’s plans. She and Theagenes are unwaveringly committed to wedlock and leave with

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this aim. Their resolve sets them once again in sharp contrast to Clitophon and Leucippe, who depart without any such commitment but develop it, as we have seen, only subsequent to divine intervention. The determination of Helio­dorus’ protagonists to tie the knot also endows their elopement with the connotations of a ceremonial gesture, which it does not have in Achilles’ novel. The flight begins with a ritual abduction, symbolic of marriage. Chariclea is assaulted with fanfare in her house (4.17), whereas Leucippe leaves her home behind on the sly, the obstacles having been put out by a drugged drink (Ach. Tat. 2.31). The symbolism of marriage that underlies Chariclea’s kidnapping comes to the fore also from its timing: it happens when her father was arranging for her wedding (4.15.3–4). The elopement that replaces the ceremony is thus its equivalent. In addition, the flight is not a centrifugal movement, away from home, as in Achilles, but it initiates Chariclea’s homeward-bound journey, to Ethiopia. It severs her from her adoptive father to take her back to her birthplace and to her biological father, who is the most entitled to conclude her marriage. Another key difference from Achilles’ novel is that in Heliodorus the couple feel bound to chastity. They do not need divine injunctions to behave “like philosophers.” Just as willingness to marry comes from the characters themselves, so does the resolution to abstain from premarital sex. The first thing Chariclea demands of Calasiris when they leave and she is about to find herself alone with Theagenes is that he swear to “have no intimate relations with me until we reach my family and my house or else, if a god forestalls this, that he will make me his wife when I give my full consent, or not at all” (4.18.5). The request offends Theagenes, who feels that an oath prevents him from showing his strength of character (4.18.6). The youth is as set as the maiden on not consummating before getting married.45 Heliodorus, though, has the good sense and the sensibility to show both characters in the grip of desire even if they are firm in reining it in. This is true especially for Theagenes, again appropriately, since a man’s arousal cannot be dissimulated as easily as a woman’s. During a prolonged, tight embrace the manliness of this chaste hero awakens (5.4.5). But it is enough for Chariclea to remind him of the oath to restrain him. Unlike Clitophon, he does not indulge in his itches because, if he is a slave to love, he is the master of pleasure (5.4.5). He does not nurture thoughts of sex but suffers spikes of desire only in his body. And Chariclea? Heliodorus never attributes patent erotic urges to this worshiper of virginity, beyond her initial and long-lasting struggle. Once she has admitted to her passion and converted it into a desire to marry, she does

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Silvia Montiglio not seem to feel, like Leucippe, that postponement of lovemaking is hard. Or does she? The second alternative that she presents to Theagenes, “or when I give my full consent,” gives us pause, for it betrays the pulsing of erotic desire. The pronouncement shows Chariclea in control of her sexual life. Her emphasis on mutual consent resonates with the importance of this principle in this novel’s ideals of marriage. The couple’s agreement to wed emerges as a value already in Chariton and in Xenophon, but this value does not inform the protagonists’ union, for they do not even learn about each other’s feelings and are joined in wedlock by happenstance. The unions signed by expressed mutual consent in those novels are the heroines’ second marriages (though mutual consent, as we have seen, does not mean mutual love): Callirhoe gives herself to Dionysius and Anthia to Perilaus. In the first instance the woman’s free choice provides an argument in favor of that marriage’s legal validity.46 To counter Chaereas’ claim that “her father gave her to me,” Dionysius replies that “she gave herself to me” (5.8.5). Chaereas’ point, though, appears stronger, for his supporters endorse it (6.1.2), whereas those who stand by Dionysius do not repeat his (6.1.3).47 More important, the unions of Callirhoe with Dionysius and of Anthia with Perilaus are doomed to fail, or even, in the latter case, never to materialize on account of the bride’s attempted suicide (3.6.4–5).48 Agreement on marriage between the protagonists is the norm in the three novels in which they spend time together, but only Heliodorus insists on this requirement. Chariclea will wed the man she chooses, period.49 Her foster father, who has marriage plans for her, knows that his powers are limited (4.7.9). Intriguingly, the first to embrace the ideal of consent in abstract as well as in concrete terms is a rival, Thyamis, the first man we meet among the several who lust after Chariclea but opt for a civilized union rather than rape. Asking her for her hand, he makes a point of obtaining her agreement, and this even though he is her captor and the leader of a pirate band: “For marriage, it is necessary that the two parties be of one mind” (1.21.2). By putting this ethical principle in the mouth of an outlaw who has Chariclea in his power, Heliodorus both underscores this character’s high-mindedness and suggests from the start that Chariclea cannot be given away against her will.50 The high valuation of consent in this novel’s conception of marriage seems to reflect postclassical ideals and laws. From the Hellenistic period onward women were entitled to sign marriage contracts; by the third century CE a desideratum for married unions was the emotional, rather than just the legal, agreement to it between the two parties; and by the fourth century the affection expressed in a mutual consent to marry had found its way into the law.51

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Chariclea’s insistence that her union with Theagenes may occur “when I give my full consent” must be read in this context, since it foregrounds the same requirement, consent, as the decisive criterion for intimacy. But coming from a heroine who is so obsessed with purity that she is afraid of losing it even in her dreams (6.8.6), her admission that she might agree to carnal union without family endorsement is startling. This seems to be Heliodorus’ way of letting her desire speak without making it sound too explicit and loud. There is the “when,” which might mean “never,” and the alternative of sex on the road is only a remote prospect, which—hopefully—she will not have to consider. This is the one and faint suggestion that Chariclea is prey to erotic urges after reconfiguring them as a desire to marry. Of all novelistic couples, she and Theagenes spend the longest time together during the journey. And they hardly touch each other. It is true they are almost never alone.52 Calasiris, their friend Cnemon, or someone else is in their company, unwittingly playing chaperon. Again sensibly, Heliodorus avoids multiplying situations in which Theagenes’ manliness would be aroused and Chariclea would have to remind him of the oath. She maintains that she had to rebut his advances often (1.25.4), and this might be true (though the context, a spirited defense of her chastity, might suggest that she exaggerates); but referring summarily to The­age­nes’ sexual readiness is not the same as displaying it scene after scene. The pair refrain even from kissing, except in dramatic circumstances, such as when she has cunningly agreed to marry a rival (1.26.2), when they recover each other unexpectedly (2.6.3), are alone in a cave (5.4.4–5), or feel that doom is impending (7.14.4).53 The Persian Achaemenes, a pretender to Chariclea’s hand, refuses to believe that she is Theagenes’ fiancée rather than his sister, as he had been told, because they never embrace, kiss, or sleep together (7.28.6). This remark, to be sure, brands the Persian as lecherous and a barbarian (respectable Greek betrotheds do not sleep together), but it still underscores this couple’s abstinence. The novel’s final book plays up both the protagonists’ commitment to marry and their sexual purity by elaborating on the paradox of a chaste marriage. Once Chariclea is recognized by her father, Hydaspes, and saved from impending sacrifice, she pleads with him to spare Theagenes as well, explaining that her life is bound together with his (10.19.2), and in reply to her father’s refusal, she asks that she herself be Theagenes’ slayer. This wish cannot be granted either, because by custom the person who performs the sacrifice must have a wife or a husband whereas she is a virgin (10.21.2). Chariclea objects that she does have a husband, but her father wonders how this could be, since

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Silvia Montiglio a virginity test has proven her pure (10.22.3). Hydaspes’ reasoning is commonsensical: virginity and marriage do not mix. He repeats this to Theagenes, when the young man, in turn, asks to be killed by Chariclea: “The slayer must be a married woman, not a virgin.” He cannot believe Theagenes’ claim that “she has a husband” because the test has revealed her a virgin (10.33.1–2). Hydaspes does not know the truth but the reader, who knows it, sees highlighted in these rejoinders a leitmotif in this couple’s proclivities: Theagenes and Chariclea have both cultivated chastity and considered themselves married all along their journey.54 Their union is sanctified at the very end of the novel, which Heliodorus like Longus devotes to the wedding night. Lovemaking, though, has no place in it. The celebration climaxes in a solemn investiture rather than in a carnal union.55 Chariclea becomes the priestess of the Moon and Theagenes the priest of the Sun. They and their escorts drive into the city, where “the more mystic parts of the nuptials . . . were to be performed” (τῶν ἐπὶ τῷ γάμῳ μυστικωτέρων . . . τελεσθεσομένων, 10.41.3). The image of love’s mysteries is common and appears also in Chariton and in Achilles. Chariton like Heliodorus applies it to the wedding night, but to bring out the erotic initiation that takes place in it. He has Chaereas write to Callirhoe: remember “the bridal couch and that mystic night, when for the first time you knew a man, I a woman” (4.4.9). As to Achilles, he uses the metaphor repeatedly for lovemaking both within marriage and outside it.56 In sharp contrast to both novelists, Heliodorus erases all suggestion of sex from his mysteries. They are a rite the content of which is left so vague as to blur the metaphorical meaning of the image and bring it back to its literalness: these mysteries will be . . . mysteries; they will be religious rather than erotic.57 Furthermore, they lie in the future. While Longus ends his novel with verbs in the aorist tense, describing what happened on the wedding night, in Heliodorus the culminating rites are still to come. In narrated time, the wedding ends with a priestly coronation and an august procession—and stops outside the bedroom.

Conclusion Marriage is not a natural bond, and no novelist pretends it is. Chariton and Heliodorus, however, bring the instinctual affection of love and the social custom of marriage close together, the first by collapsing love and a wish to marry, the second by channeling love toward marriage as soon as the protagonists admit their passion. On the other hand, Xenophon, Achilles Tatius, and

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Longus keep the protagonists’ desire for each other separate from their marrying inclinations, emphasizing, especially Longus, the naturalness of erotic longing and the artificiality of the institution that is called upon to crown it. To satisfy their passion, the hero and the heroine of an ideal novel have no other choice but to tie the knot. Yet the only couple who seem to have internalized this requirement instantly are Chariton’s, for whom love equals marriage from the very first moment they fall in love. In the other novels the protagonists’ desire has a life of its own, though outside forces inevitably steer it toward its only viable outcome, wedlock. Notes Heartfelt thanks to Jeffrey Beneker and Georgia Tsouvala for inviting this contribution and to Jeffrey Beneker for his careful editing. 1. The exceptionality, though, should not be exaggerated. Eros is a prerequisite for fully successful and virtuous marriages, according to Plutarch (see Beneker 2008; 2012, ch. 1; Tsouvala in this volume), and real-life marriages, at least in Rome, could have a strong romantic component (though this is not manifest in wedding rituals: see Hersch in this volume): see Treggiari 1991, 104, 119–22, 247–61. An epitaph for a wife in Treggiari 1991, 247, could come straight from a novel. On the complications involved in assessing historical changes in marital affection, see Garnsey and Saller 1987, 132–33. 2. In Heliodorus, only Chariclea’s family gives its approval. Theagenes’ parents are completely absent from the plot. 3. When he meets Leucippe, Clitophon is engaged to another woman owing to his father’s will. He does not dislike her but there is no intimation that he is in love with her. 4. A possible exception to the rule of everlasting love is the couple of Achilles Tatius: see Repath 2005. 5. The compact of Clitophon with Melite in Achilles Tatius is not a second marriage legally because he and Leucippe are only betrothed, but the detail is a technicality. 6. On widows and suicide in Plutarch, see Beneker in this volume. 7. An intriguing exception is the love affair of Thelxinoe and Aegialeus in Xenophon of Ephesus. The two are barred from marriage but escape to live together happily abroad. Their choice, however, costs them the comforts of life and earns them the death penalty at home. 8. On more general aspects of novelistic marriage, see Egger 1990; 1994 (strongly focused on law); Konstan 1994 (with a keen eye also for secondary characters); Cooper 1996, ch. 2 (though its discussion does not include Xenophon of Ephesus and Heliodorus); Swain 1996, 119–30 (which contextualizes the novelistic idealization of marriage within the political and intellectual climate of the period); Lalanne 2006. Liviabella

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Silvia Montiglio Furiani 1988 studies the representation of marriage in Achilles Tatius in the context of contemporary practices. A full investigation of the mirroring of Roman laws on adultery in the genre is Schwartz 2017. 9. Another novel following the former pattern is the fragmentary Ninus Romance, where the marriage is hastened by the necessities of war. On the tension between desire and shyness in this text, see Anderson 2009. 10. See Lalanne 2006, 251. 11. See Whitmarsh 2011, 37–38. 12. See especially Lalanne 2006, which notes that the heroines’ behavior during the adventures is similar, whether they are married or not (229). 13. See Whitmarsh 2011. See also Lalanne 2006, 118. 14. See Lalanne 2006, 77. 15. Konstan 1994, 85, notes that the temptation of premarital sex exists only in the novels in which the couple is wed at the end. 16. This is true especially for Chariton’s protagonists, whereas those of Xenophon might suspect that their love is mutual, for when they first meet they have a hard time separating and turn around to look at each other (1.3.3), and subsequently they see each other again (1.5.3–4). But Anthia’s soliloquy (1.4.6) and her insecurity in the presence of Habrocomes’ female admirers (1.5.4) suggest she is far from certain of his love. Things, however, sit differently for the Ninus Romance, whose protagonists know that their love is mutual. 17. The texts of the novels are Gaselee 1917; Rattenbury and Lumb 1960; Reeve 1982; Reardon 2004; O’Sullivan 2005. The English titles are those in Reardon 1989b. 18. Reardon 1989a; Goold 1995; Roncali 1996. Molinié 1979 is not as clear-cut (donne-moi l’homme que tu m’as fait voir). 19. See Egger 1990, 349. 20. See further Montiglio 2014, 178–79. 21. For a perceptive discussion and further bibliography, see de Temmerman 2014, ch. 3. 22. See 1.5.5–7, with Goldhill 1995, ch. 2. Clitophon’s lustfulness is often noted. See, e.g., de Temmerman 2014, 155–66. 23. Only when the celebration is imminent does he think of ways to get out (2.12.1). 24. See de Temmerman 2014, 166. 25. See de Temmerman 2014, 194. 26. Already when Clitophon narrates at length their love games at dinner (2.9), it is hard to imagine that he makes it all up. 27. See Hersch in this volume, which also points out that in actual ritual, abduction is a staple of Roman (rather than Greek) custom. 28. See Clark 1993, 11; Schwartz 2017, 216–17, with further references. 29. See 2.30, on Leucippe, with de Temmerman 2014, 188.

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Erotic Desire and the Desire to Marry in the Ancient Greek Novels 30. For the same reason, I do not think that the dream is supposed to have been made up by Leucippe; cf. Lalanne 2006, 208. In addition, Artemis turns out to protect the couple in fact and to further their marriage. 31. See de Temmerman 2014, 167, with further references. 32. See Egger 1990, 328; 1994, 268–69, which points out that even Callirhoe, who has gone through the adventures of a novel herself, makes marriage plans for her son without considering his feelings. 33. It is not quite clear whether Melite wants Clitophon as husband or as permanent lover: see Gaselee 1917, on 5.11.6. I tend to agree with Liviabella Furiani 1988, 273, which reads the union as a proper marriage with a religious character. 34. For the term “segmentation,” i.e., the division of a narrative into sense-making units, see Fowler 1997. 35. See Montiglio 2016, 214. 36. The anticlimactic wedding has puzzled critics. According to Repath 2005, together with other features of the narrative it suggests that the marriage turned out to be unhappy. See also de Temmerman 2014, 156. 37. See Morgan 2004, 181 n. 3. 38. See Morgan 2004, 202 n. 5. 39. Hunter 1996, 380 n. 56, observes that Philetas’ remedies appear in reverse order, evoking the sanctioned and regular lovemaking of a married couple. 40. Konstan 1994, 88. 41. Nonetheless, as suggested earlier, no novelistic protagonist seems to have been in love before meeting the other protagonist. 42. For a recent comparison of the two episodes, see Bird 2019. 43. It is true that the vague phrasing “lying together naked” could be taken to limit sexual activity to foreplay, but Daphnis and Chloe do not stay at that: at least once they seem to be able to fill in the missing information instinctively (2.11.3) and later they seek what to do while lying naked together (3.14.2–5). In any case, the suggested remedy is purely physical. 44. See also Whitmarsh 2011, 153. Notice that Chariclea relates to Calasiris’ mention of marriage but not of love (4.11.1). After her elopement, she still feels that losing to love is losing her virtue, even if she remains pure (1.25.4). Her attachment to virginity might stem from her life history: she has grown up motherless and in the company of philosophers. Marrying would mean giving up the life she knows and enjoys (Egger 1990, 283). Her commitment to lifelong chastity is l’air du temps, in pagan and Christian ideals alike (Egger 1990, 284, 351–52; Clark 1993; Goldhill 1995, 1–4; Kuefler 2007; Whitmarsh 2011, 154), but encratic virgins already populate Greek myth (Lalanne 2006, 226). 45. Persinna, Chariclea’s mother, in the letter that she places by her when she exposes her recommends “chastity” (sophrosyne) as the only virtue that distinguishes a woman (4.8.7). These words “confront Chariclea . . . with a powerful appeal for

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Silvia Montiglio physical temperance in erotic pursuits” (Anderson 1997, 313) and perhaps play into her demand that Theagenes swear an oath to chastity. However, Persinna’s recommendation is perfectly in line with Chariclea’s worshipping of virginity, with Theagenes’ own purity and, more important, with his response to Chariclea’s request: he did not need to swear an oath to stay chaste. In other words, Persinna’s recommendation does not function as an external agent redirecting the protagonists’ inclinations, as do the dreams in Achilles Tatius, but agrees with those. 46. See Konstan 1994, 74–75. 47. The queen of Persia reassures Callirhoe that she will have the power to choose the husband she wants (5.9.3), and the local women exhort her to favor one or the other (6.1.4–5) as if her marriage were her decision. In fact, though, she has no saying. It is again serendipity that reunites her with Chaereas. 48. See also Egger 1994, 269. 49. See Egger 1994, 269–70, 279 n. 45. 50. Thyamis is also of noble status: he is the son of Calasiris and eventually inherits his priesthood. 51. See especially Egger 1994, 266–67; Kuefler 2007. See also Saller 1993. 52. See also Egger 1990, 248. 53. At 7.7.7 they stay embraced but do not kiss, perhaps because they are in front of a crowd. 54. See, e.g., 7.26.4. On Chariclea, see also Konstan 1994, 95. 55. See also Lalanne 2006, 119. 56. See 1.2.2, 1.7.1, 1.9.7, 2.19.1, 2.37.5, 5.15.6, 5.16.3, 5.25.6, 5.26.3, 5.26.10, 5.27.4. 57. Konstan 1994, 95, suggests, “There is perhaps a hint in the text of a divorce between sex and marriage.” See also Goldhill 1995, 119; Anderson 1997, 311; Lalanne 2006, 119.

Works Cited Anderson, M. 1997. “The ΣΩΦΡΟΣΥΝΗ of Persinna and the Romantic Strategy of Heliodorus’ Aethiopica.” CP 92:303–22. . 2009. “The Silence of Semiramis: Shame and Desire in the Ninus Romance and Other Greek Novels.” Ancient Narrative 7:1–27. Beneker, J. 2008. “Plutarch on the Role of Eros in Marriage.” In The Unity of Plu­ tarch’s Work: “Moralia” Themes in the “Lives,” Features of the “Lives” in the “Moralia,” edited by A. G. Nikolaidis, 689–99. Berlin. . 2012. The Passionate Statesman: Eros and Politics in Plutarch’s “Lives.” Oxford. Bird, R. 2019. “Heliodorus’ Charicleia and Euripides’ Hippolytus: Surviving S¯oph­ ro­syn¯e.” In Some Organic Readings in Narrative, Ancient and Modern, edited by I. Repath and F.-G. Hermann, 193–210. Groningen. Clark, G. 1993. Women in Late Antiquity: Pagan and Christian Life-Styles. Oxford.

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Erotic Desire and the Desire to Marry in the Ancient Greek Novels Cooper, K. 1996. The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity. Cambridge, MA. de Temmerman, K. 2014. Crafting Characters: Heroes and Heroines in the Ancient Greek Novel. Oxford. Egger, B. 1990. “Women in the Greek Novel: Constructing the Feminine.” PhD diss., University of California, Irvine. . 1994. “Women and Marriage in the Greek Novels: The Boundaries of Romance.” In The Search for the Ancient Novel, edited by J. Tatum, 260–80. Baltimore. Fowler, D. 1997. “Second Thoughts on Closure.” In Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature, edited by D. H. Roberts, F. M. Dunn, and D. Fowler, 3–22. Princeton, NJ. Garnsey, P., and R. Saller. 1987. The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture. Berkeley, CA. Gaselee, S. 1917. Achilles Tatius: Leucippe and Clitophon. Cambridge, MA. Goldhill, S. 1995. Foucault’s Virginity: Ancient Erotic Fiction and the History of Sexuality. Cambridge. Goold, G. P. 1995. Chariton: Callirhoe. Cambridge, MA. Hunter, R. L. 1996. “Longus, Daphnis and Chloe.” In The Novel in the Ancient World, edited by G. L. Schmeling, 361–86. Leiden. Konstan, D. 1994. Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres. Princeton, NJ. Kuefler, M. 2007. “The Marriage Revolution in Late Antiquity: The Theodosian Code and Later Roman Marriage Law.” Journal of Family History 32:343–70. Lalanne, S. 2006. Une éducation grecque: Rites de passage et construction des genres dans le roman grec ancien. Paris. Liviabella Furiani, P. 1988. “Gamos e kenogamion nel romanzo di Achille Tazio.” Euphrosyne, Nova Série 16:271–80. Molinié, G. 1979. Le roman de Chairéas et Callirhoé. Paris. Montiglio, S. 2014. “The Senses in Literature: Falling in Love in an Ancient Greek Novel.” In A Cultural History of the Senses in Antiquity, edited by J. Toner, 163–81. London. . 2016. The Spell of Hypnos: Sleep and Sleeplessness in Ancient Greek Literature. London. Morgan, J. R. 2004. Longus: Daphnis and Chloe. Translated with an introduction and commentary. Oxford. O’Sullivan, J. N. 2005. Xenophon Ephesius De Anthia et Habrocome Ephesiacorum Libri V. Leipzig. Rattenbury, R. M., and T. W. Lumb. 1960. Héliodore: Les Éthiopiques. Paris. Reardon, B. P. 1989a. “Chaereas and Callirhoe.” In Collected Ancient Greek Novels, edited by B. P. Reardon, 17–124. Berkeley, CA.

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Silvia Montiglio . 1989b. Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley, CA. . 2004. Chariton Aphrodisiensis De Callirhoe Narrationes Amatoriae. Leipzig. Reeve, M. D. 1982. Longus Daphnis et Chloe. Leipzig. Repath, I. 2005. “Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon: What Happened Next?” CQ 55:250–65. Roncali, R., ed. 1996. Il romanzo di Calliroe. Milan. Saller, R. 1993. “The Social Dynamics of Consent to Marriage and Sexual Relations: The Evidence of Roman Comedy.” In Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies, edited by A. E. Laiou, 84–104. Washington, DC. Schwartz, S. 2017. From Bedroom to Courtroom: Law and Justice in the Greek Novel. Ancient Narrative, Supplementum 21. Groningen. Swain, S. 1996. Hellenism and Empire: Language,Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, AD 50–250. Oxford. Treggiari, S. 1991. Roman Marriage: “Iusti Coniuges” from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford. Whitmarsh, T. 2011. Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance. Cambridge.

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Contributors

Jeffrey Beneker is a professor of classics at the University of Wisconsin– Madison. His publications include The Passionate Statesman: Eros and Politics in Plutarch’s “Lives” (2012), a coauthored edition and translation of the progymnasmata of Nikephoros Basilakes for the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library (2016), and Plutarch: How to Be a Leader (2019). Since 2010, he has been head of the US section of the International Plutarch Society. Paolo Di Meo is an independent scholar. He received his PhD from “Gabriele

D’Annunzio” University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy. His publications include “Pantenide! Chi era costei? Una nota a Marziale 7, 69,” Quaderni urbinati di cultura classica 117 (2017): 119–28; “Epitalamio ed Imeneo: L’idillio 18 di Teocrito,” Aevum Antiquum 9 (2009): 171–88; and “A proposito di un’‘agnizione’ (Catullo, c. 101, 1),” Rivista di Filologia e Istruzione Classica 135 (2007): 423–37.

Alex Dressler is an associate professor of classics at the University of

Wisconsin–Madison. He is the author of Personification and the Feminine in Roman Philosophy (2016), in addition to numerous articles on feminism and the ancient novel, exemplarity and ancient rhetoric, tragedy and psychoanalysis, comedy and ancient aesthetic theory, and elite Christianity of the late fourth century. Other publications include “Plautus and the Poetics of Property: Reification, Recognition, and Utopia,” Materiali e discussioni 77 (2016): 9–56; and “Seeing (Not) Seeing: The Phenomenology of Deviant Standpoint as a Function of Gender and Class in Paulinus of Nola, Poems 18,” EuGeStA 8 (2018): 203–42.

Karen Klaiber Hersch , an associate professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Classics at Temple University, was the recipient of an Arthur Ross Pre-Doctoral Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome (2000–2001). Her research interests include all aspects of Roman religion, history, women, and imperial literature. She is the author of The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (2010); “Violentilla Victa,” Arethusa 40, no. 2 (2007): 197–205;

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Contributors “Ethnicity and the Costume of the Roman Bride,” in Gender Identities in Italy in the First Millennium BC, edited by E. Herring and K. Lomas (2009), 135–41; “The Woolworker Bride,” in Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality, edited by L. Larsson Lovén and A. Stromberg (2010), 122–36; and “Introduction to the Roman Wedding: Two Case Studies,” Classical Journal 109, no. 2 (2013): 223–33. She is the editor of a new volume on marriage in Greek and Roman antiquity, A Cultural History of Marriage in Antiquity (2020), and is currently at work on articles on the fourth book of Virgil’s Aeneid, worthy women in Petronius’ Satyrica, and a new monograph about Rome’s fifth queen, the Etruscan prophet and kingmaker Tanaquil.

Katarzyna Jazdzewska is an associate professor at the Institute of Literary

Studies at Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, Poland. Her research interests include Greek literature of the imperial period (Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, Philostratus, Lucian), the genre of dialogue in antiquity, and animal exemplarity in ancient moralizing texts. Her recent publications include “Indications of Speakers in Ancient Dialogue: A Reappraisal,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 138 (2018): 249–60; “Plutarch’s ‘Greek Questions’: Between Glossography and Problemata-Literature,” Hermes 146 (2018): 41–53; “Laughter in Plato’s and Xenophon’s Symposia,” in Plato and Xenophon: Comparative Studies, edited by G. Danzig, D. Johnson, and D. Morrison (2018), 187–207; and “Entertainers, Persuaders, Adversaries: Interactions of Sophists and Rulers in Philostratus’ Lives of Sophists,” in Intellectual and Empire in Greco-Roman Antiquity, edited by Philip R. Bosman (2019), 160–77.

Silvia Montiglio is the Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics at Johns

Hopkins University. Her publications include Silence in the Land of Logos (2000), Wandering in Ancient Greek Culture (2005), From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought (2011), Love and Providence: Recognition in the Ancient Novel (2012), The Spell of Hypnos: Sleep and Sleeplessness in Ancient Greek Literature (2016), and The Myth of Hero and Leander: The History and Reception of an Enduring Greek Legend (2018).

Geert Roskam is a professor in the Faculty of Arts at Catholic University, Leuven, in Belgium. He has published numerous articles and chapters on Plutarch and ancient philosophy. His books include Plutarch’s “Maxime cum principibus philosopho esse disserendum”: An Interpretation with Commentary (2009), Live Unnoticed: On the Vicissitudes of an Epicurean Doctrine (2009), A Commentary on Plutarch’s “De latenter vivendo” (2007), and On the Path to Virtue: The Stoic Doctrine of Moral Progress and Its Reception in (Middle-) Platonism (2005).

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Contributors

Rebecca H. Sinos is the Edwin F. and Jessie Burnell Fobes Professor in Greek

in the Department of Classics at Amherst College. Her publications include The Wedding in Ancient Athens (1993, with John H. Oakley). Her research interests include Greek iconography, religion, and vase painting.

Georgia Tsouvala is an associate professor of history at Illinois State Univer-

sity. She is the coauthor of Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History (2018) and A Brief History of Ancient Greece (2020) and the coeditor of New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-Roman World (forthcoming). Her research interests and publications include Plutarch, the discourse of love and marriage, and the history of Roman Greece and of Greco-Roman women.

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Index

Page numbers in italics refer to figures; pl refers to plate.

abduction: in Catullus’ epithalamium, 73; of daughters of Leucippus, 53n22; evoked in Greek wedding depictions, 41, 70, 90n50; of Helen, 37, 39, 53n23, 87n12; Hymenaeus, 72–73, 75; as part of the Roman wedding ritual, 7, 68, 70–72, 75, 77, 79, 240n27; of Per­sephone, 40–42, 47–48, 57n68, 70, 87n12, 225; in Plu­tarch’s The­ seus, 87n13; of Sabine women, 71–73, 77, 84, 85, 90n58; in Statius’ epithalamium for Stella and Violentilla, 74; symbolic of marriage, 235; of Thetis, 23, 24, 40, 41, 52n11, 55n39, 62n113; wedding by, 225 Abradatas (in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia), 204–6, 210 adornment, bridal, 31, 32, 34, 37, 43, 50, 58n84, pl1, pl2 adultery: of elites, 10, 15; in Hippolytus (Euripides), 234; in Plutarch, 200, 213; in Seneca, 152, 155–56, 170n79 Aeneas, 74, 87n12, 91n72 aesthetics: of existence, 148, 167n36, 171n90, 171n95; Seneca-in-Jerome and marital, 147–59, 163–64

agency: in ancient Greek novels, 13–14, 16; in An Ephesian Tale (Xenophon of Ephesus), 13–14; of women, 11, 15, 90n56, 152, 159, 161–62, 164, 172n116 Amasis Painter, 32, 44, 52n15, 54n35 Amphitrite Painter, 26, 27, 52n17 amphoriskos, 36, 37, 37 animal mating, 11, 97, 179–83, 188 Antipater of Tarsus, 17n5, 119, 193n9 Aphrodite (Venus): accompanies bride through loss of virginity, 82; and Ares 33, 88n28; Charreas and Callirhoe, 222; in epithalamia, 7, 73–75, 98, 104–6; An Ethiopian Story, 233, 234; goddess of sexual love, 27, 31, 46; hero reliefs, 36; Leucippe and Cli­ tophon, 13, 224, 226; mysteries, 21, 224; Plu­tarch’s Marriage Advice, 95, 103–4, 109, 186; statue of, 43; wedding imagery, 6, 30–32, 36–39, 43– 46, 48, 50, 77, pl3, pl4; wedding ritual, 87n19 Apollo, 26–27, 105, 233 Apollonia (Thrace), 40, 48, 61n105 Ariadne, 23, 46, 50, 51, 52n6, 52n10, 59n93

249

Index Aristotle, 46, 119, 151, 165n11, 180, 194n12, 195n15 Artemis: in Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, 13, 226, 227, 241n30; depicted in wedding scenes, 26, 89n43; in Plutarch’s story of Camma, 202– 3, 210 Artemisia (wife of Mausolus), 157, 158, 159, 164, 171n97 ascetism, 17, 143–45, 164n6, 165n19, 171n96 aulos, 3, 95, 97, 113n1 autonomy (self-determination), female, 11, 144, 148, 157 banquet, 22, 24, 35–36, 44, 46, 52n9, 59n87 Batis, 132, 135 “Breeding Horse, The” (melody), 3, 97–99 bridal chamber (thalamos): bride’s cries coming from, 68, 69, 75, 80, 82, 84; in Catullus’ poem, 113n25; depicted on vases 21, 32–33, 42–43, 55n39, pl6, pl7; in epithalamia, 98–99, 74; experience of revelation in, 7; in Me­nan­ der Rhetor, 113n25; in Plautus, 80; in Pollux, 55n42, 57n70; in Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, 3, 97; in The­ocritus’ Idylls, 39, 113n25 Brutus: in Plutarch, 200–201, 204, 205– 7, 208, 210, 215n14; in Seneca-inJerome, 162–63 Brutus (Plutarch), 204, 205, 206–7, 208, 215n14 Castellani Painter, 33 Cato Minor (Plutarch), 206, 208 celibacy, 11, 126, 143–44, 147, 167n36, 179, 202 Chaereas and Callirhoe (Chariton), 14, 16, 219–21, 222–23, 228, 236, 238–39 chastity: of Greek women, 77, 78, 89n44; of Leucippe and Clitophon, 226–27;

of Odysseus and Penelope, 187–88; in Ovid’s Amores, 85; revanche and suicide after loss of, 160; of Roman brides, 80; of The­agenes and Cha­ri­ clea, 235, 237–38, 241–42nn44–45; of Vestal Claudia Quinta, 74, 152–53 child(ren): childlessness, 9, 11, 125, 126, 179, 194n11; desire to have, 125–26, 129, 185, 193–94n9; lawful way of begetting, 7, 9, 82, 84, 121, 123, 125, 130; legitimate, 47, 77, 108; as part of wedding ceremony, 31, 55n38, 82, 90n61; procreation of, 11–12, 15, 34, 121, 179–80, 195n14; raising, 11–13, 56n60, 119–20, 122, 128, 179, 189– 90; and role of wife, 10, 143, 153–54, 155, 200, 211–13; as source of misery, 9, 122, 124–25, 126, 136; taking care of Metrodorus’, 133–35, 139n39; and “theory of indifferents,” 149 Circe, 187–88 cithara, 26, 95, 104 Clement of Alexandria, 17n5, 122, 125 community, Epicurean, 125, 130, 132, 134– 36, 137n18, 139n38 companionate marriage, 10, 12, 16, 142– 43, 145, 148, 150, 185 concubinage, 121, 125, 129–31, 133, 143, 205 conformism, 131–32 consent: legal, 84, 91nn66–67; mutual, 14, 16, 236–37; in On the Love of Offspring (Plutarch), 186; of a Roman bride on her wedding night, 84; Roman law of, 16, 18n15; of sophron wife, 202 Consolation to His Wife, A (Plutarch), 4, 5, 199 contract, marriage, 15, 45, 123, 236 crow, 188, 193 Cyropaedia (Xenophon), 12, 204–6

250

Index Daphnis and Chloe (Longus), 13–14, 16, 220, 221, 229–32, 238–39 dancers, Dionysian, 49, 50, 62n114 death, symbolic, 7, 68, 75, 76 Demeter: Eleusinian Mysteries, 45–50, 61n113; Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 40, 42, 47, 59nn94–95, 60n101, 70, 225; and Persephone (Kore), 40–42, 47–48, pl5, pl8; priestess of, 3, 89n42, 97 Democritus, 122, 124, 158 desire: in animal stories, 181–82, 186, 188, 191–93; Epicurus and, 8, 125–26, 129; erotic, 13–14, 16, 208, 220–39; female, 195n24; gratify, 104; for marriage, 13, 129–31, 185, 219–39; personification of, 30, 36; sexual, 11–12, 16, 73–75, 78, 97, 102, 153 Dialogue on Love (Plutarch): Camma, 201– 3, 204, 208, 209–10, 213; emotional bond (love) between spouses, 16, 184– 86, 192; erotic love, 4, 12, 201, 208, 213; men who have never fallen in love, 128–29; wedding by abduction, 225 Diogenes Laertius, 119, 121, 127, 128, 130, 133–34 Dionysus: and Aphrodite, 21; and Ariadne, 23, 46, 50, 51; cult, 30; dancers, 49, 50, 62n114; and Demeter, 61– 62n113; depicted on vases, 22–23, 30, 40, 49–50; in epithalamia, 104; frescos of Villa of the Mysteries, 20, 49, 50–51; music, 30, 50; mysteries, 20 divorce, 10, 77, 132, 136, 185 dowry, 31, 89n44, 129, 185 Eleusinian mysteries, 6, 45–47, 49–50, 56n40, 59n89, 59n95, 61n113 Eleusis: marble statuette from, 40, 57n66; wedding vases from, 41, 61n104 engye, 42, 54n37

epaulia, 27, 31, 32, 37, 54n31 Ephesian Tale, An (Xenophon of Ephesus), 13–14, 16, 220–21, 229, 232, 236, 238–39 epithalamium: bridal couple praised as “like to the gods,” 24; Catullus 7, 8, 73, 74–75, 85, 95, 107; Claudian, 8, 95, 98, 101–3, 112–13n13; comic, 87n20; motif of bridal misery and harm, 70, 72, 79–80, 84; obscene, 88n31; “philosophical,” 110–11, 115n47; Sappho, 57n62, 57n74, 72, 96, 98, 109–10, 111n10; similarity with Mysteries, 6, 46–47. See also hymenaios Epithalamium of Helen (Theocritus), 39– 40, 42, 80, 95, 80, 105–6, 108 Epithalamium of Manlius and Aruncleia (Catullus), 73, 74–75, 107 Epithalamium of Severus (Himerius), 96, 97–98 Epithalamium of Stella and Violentilla (Sta­tius), 7, 8, 74, 95, 98, 104–5 epithymia. See lust Ergotimos. See François vase Eros: in abduction scenes, 41; in Daphnis and Chloe, 229, 234; in An Ephesian Tale, 222, 232; unifies mortal and divine, 49–50; in wedding scenes, 6, 27–32, 34–36, 41, 46, 48, 73, 77, pl2, pl3 eros: in ancient Greek novels, 13–14, 16, 220–39; conjugal, 12, 13, 239n1; in Dialogue on Love (Plutarch), 202–3, 205, 208, 213; in Virtues of Women (Plutarch), 209, 210 Ethiopian Story, An (Heliodorus), 13–14, 16, 220, 232–38 feminism: and companionship, 148; incomplete, 10, 143; radical, 170n81; Senecan, 11, 142–63, 172n116

251

Index fidelity: bond of, 224; marital, 77, 107, 193, 215n10; mutual animal 196n28; oaths of, 230; wifely, 11, 78, 89n44, 193 François vase, 23, 24, 42 friendship, 135, 184 gamos, 137n18, 222, 228 Garden (Epicurean), 125, 130, 132, 134–36, 137n18, 139n38 gender: in Plutarch, 11, 13, 186–87, 190, 192–93; relations, 5–6; roles for women, 10; and sexuality, 142–43, 148; studies, 4 Gracchi (Plutarch), 211–14 gyne, 34, 55n47 Hades: abduction of Persephone, 40–42, 47–48, 57n68, 70, 87n12, 225; bride of, 75–76 harmony: Concordia, personification of, 86; marital, 12, 47, 74, 102, 164n2; in Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, 3, 94– 95, 97, 104, 108, 111, 112n7; wedding, mysteries and, 23, 46, 49–50 hedone. See pleasure Heimarmene Painter, 36–37, 39, 56n59 heiress, 9, 12, 132 Helen: abduction of, 37, 39, 53, 87nn11– 12; depicted on vases, 36–37, 39, 56nn58–59; Theocritus’ Epithala­ mium of Helen, 39, 42, 95, 105–6, 108 Hephaestus, 52n9, 73 Hera, 45, 53n23, 58n84, 58n86 Hermarchus, 133, 135–36, 138n28 Hesiod, 53n23, 60n99, 120–21 hetaira, 123, 130, 132, 133 Himeros, 6, 36 Homeric Hymn to Demeter, 40, 42, 47, 59nn94–95, 60n101, 70, 225

honor: and concubinage, 143; equal for celibates and sex partners, 144; seeking, 125, 179; and the veil, 88n36; and virginity, 75, 144 See also pudicitia hydria, 50, 53n20, 53n22, 54n26, 56n60 Hymenaeus, 72–73, 75, 76, 81, 87n19, 87n22, 88n24 hymenaios, 57n71, 87n20, 87n22, 95, 97, 112n9, 113n18. See also epithalamium Idomeneus, 132, 135, 138n30 incense burner, 34, 36, 56n48 independence: of the Epicurean sage, 126, 132, 136; from family, 13, 233; women’s, 12, 15–16, 146, 199 indifferents (theory of ), 120, 123, 149, 157, 164 inheritance, 9, 24, 132, 179 ius trium liberorum, 179, 194n11 jewelry, 28, 30, 31, 36, 54n28. See also adorn­ment, bridal Juvenal, 5, 10, 76, 155, 170n75 Kerch vases, 31–32, 34–35, 40, 48–50, 62n114, pl3, pl4, pl5, pl8 kingfisher, 183–87, 189, 190, 193, 195n17, 196n30 kithara. See cithara Kleitios. See François vase kline, 33, 55n43 koinonia (κοινωνία), 10, 12, 184–85, 191, 210 Kore. See Persephone krotala, 49, 50 ladder scene, 48, 56n57, 61n106 lamentation of the bride, 7, 69, 72–73, 76, 89n39, 91n62 law: against bachelordom, 9, 13, 156, 179– 80, 194n11; Athenian, 42; Augustus’,

252

Index 9, 13, 15; breaking the (Epicurus’ philosophy), 127, 129; concerning rape, 83–84, 91n63, 91n66; of consent, 16, 18n15, 236; Julian, 9; nuptial, 42, 71, 183; of Solon, 130, 179; stimulating procreation, 9, 179–80, 194n11; for widow to remarry, 13, 15 lebes gamikos, 37, 38, 54n31, 61n104 Leda, 39, 56n40 Leges (Plato), 183, 186, 192, 195n16 Leonteus, 132, 135, 138n30 Leontion, 122, 123–24, 130, 132–33 Leto, 27, 106, 108 Leucippe and Clitophon (Achilles Tatius), 13, 16, 219–20, 223–29, 232, 238–39 lifestyle choice: definition of Foucault, 167n37; in Max Weber, 168n44, 169n70; of Roman women, 11, 144; Senecan Stoicism, 148, 151, 152, 154– 55, 159, 161, 163; virginity as, 167n36 loutrophoros, 27–28, 28, 32, 41, 41, 53nn19– 20, 58n84, 61n104, 62n114 loyalty: Camma’s, 203; Cornelia’s, 213; Epicurus and, 134, 135; marital, 11, 179, 183, 187, 188; Porcia’s, 208; spousal, 4, 11, 12, 103, 188, 202 Lucretius, 86n7, 120, 130, 137n6 lust: in An Ephesian Tale (Xenophon of Ephesus), 222; in An Ethiopian Story (Heliodorus), 233–34, 236; in Hippolytus (Euripides), 233–34; in Leucippe and Clitophon (Achilles Tatius), 223–24, 226, 240n22; in On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational (Plutarch), 182; temper, 11 Lycurgus, 78, 89n45, 179 lyre, 26–27, 95, 104 Marriage Advice (Plutarch): Boeotian wedding ritual, 78, 99–100; composed as wedding gift, 3–4, 94, 110;

gods and muses, 8, 103–6, 109; music, 95–97, 112n7; theme of conjugal relationships, 11, 106–7, 192, 199, 215n10; theme of educating woman, 111; theme of first intercourse, 8, 99– 103, 111; theme of love between animals, 96–98, 184–86; theme of procreation, 108, 111 Medea Group, 22, 52nn8–9 Meidias Painter, 29, 30, 53nn21–22, 54n31, 56n60, 58n83 metaphor: of horse, 97–99, 189; of love’s mysteries, 48, 238; mirror (Plutarch), 178, 193n3; Senecan, 145, 153, 155, 156, 170n78 Metrodorus of Lampsacus, 17n9, 122, 130, 132–36, 138n30, 139n39 misogyny, 123, 143–44, 152, 155, 164n6, 170n75 mockery, ceremonial, 6, 59 moderation. See sophrosyne Moralia (Plutarch), 200, 206 music: to arouse animals when coupling, 3, 95, 97–98, 113n22; depicted on vases, 22, 22, 26, 26, 30; Dionysian, 50; in Plutarch’s Marriage Advice, 3, 95, 97, 112n7; at wedding, 70, 120. See also epithalamium Musonius Rufus: ideas about marriage, 17n5, 119, 164, 180, 185–86, 193n9; incomplete feminism in, 10, 143–44; marital sex for procreation, 9, 182; woman’s choice of abortion, 155 mystery cult: of Aphrodite, 21, 224; Dionysian, 20, 21; Eleusinian, 6, 45–47, 49–50, 56n40, 59n89, 59n95, 61n113; and imagery, 20–21, 51n1; initiation, 6–7, 20–21, 48, 50; love’s, 238; rites, 6, 21, 23, 32, 46–47, 59n95, 79; symbolism, 60n97; Villa of the Mysteries’ frescos, 20–21, 49, 50–51

253

Index myth: abduction of Persephone, 40–41, 47–48, 57n68, 70, 87n12, 225; abduction of Sabine women, 7, 17n7, 71–73, 77, 84, 85, 90n58; Apollo and Daphne, 223; Dionysus and Ariadne, 23, 46, 50, 51; founding of Rome, 7, 14, 85; Hera and Zeus, 45; Hyme­ naeus’ abduction, 73; nymphs, 34, 41, 55n45, 57n69, 58n76; Odysseus and Nausicaa, 47; Paris and Helen, 36– 37; Peleus conquest of Thetis, 23, 24, 40, 41, 52n11, 55n39, 62n113; wedding of Aphrodite and Ares, 33; wedding of Helen and Menelaus, 39 Nemesis, 36–37 nuptial chamber. See bridal chamber nymphe, 34, 41, 55n45, 57n69, 58n76 oath: of Daphnis and Chloe (Longus), 230; of Panthea (Xenophon’s Cyropaedia), 205; of Theagenes (Heliodorus’ An Ethiopian Story), 235, 237, 242n45 Odysseus: and Nausicaa, 47; in On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational (Plutarch), 179, 187–88; in Virtues of Women (Plutarch), 201 Oeconomicus (Xenophon), 12, 89n44, 111, 195n24 On the Fact That Beasts Are Rational (Plutarch), 178–79, 181–84, 186–87, 190–92 On the Intelligence of Animals (Plutarch), 178–79, 183, 190–92 On the Love of Offspring (Plutarch), 178– 79, 182–84, 186, 188–92 pain: of the bride, 7, 68, 81, 83–84; of erotic passion, 234; freedom from (Epicurus), 8–9, 122, 124–25, 126,

128, 131–32; of the ideal wife (Plutarch), 12, 204, 205, 207; of infidelity, 215n10; men and women suffer equal (Seneca), 162; and suffering of the widow, 12 Painter of Athens 1454, 38, 56n56 Panthea (Xenophon’s Cyropaedia), 204– 6, 207, 208–9, 210, 211, 213, 215n20 parabustos, 36, 55n42 Parallel Lives (Plutarch), 4, 204, 206, 208, 211–14 parental love, 126, 129, 179, 188–90, 193n5 Paris, 36–37, 87n12 parthenos, 34, 55n45, 57n62, 58n75, 209 Peitho, 36, 56n53, 83, 87n10, 103, 106 Peleus and Thetis, 23, 24, 40, 41, 52n11, 55n39, 62n113 Pelike, 31, 49, 59n93, 61n108, 61n110 Penelope, 39, 56n60, 147, 187–88 Persephone (Kore): abduction, 40–42, 70, 75, 87n12, 225; and Demeter, 40–42, 47–48, pl5, pl8; Eleusinian mysteries, 47; in Euphorion, 59n87; tomb paintings of, 40, 41, 57n68 philandros, 12, 183–84, 187, 205, 210, 213, 215n19 philia, 205, 209, 213, 215n16 Philodemus, 120–21, 124, 132, 137n13 philosophos, 205, 209 pipes (musical instrument), 22, 27, 30, 54n26, 97 pleasure: and animal mating, 11, 98, 180– 81, 186–88; Epicurus, 9, 122, 124–29, 134, 136; marital, 78, 86n2, 104; to provide the self with, 157; renunciation of personal, 155; sexual, 121, 226, 228–29, 235; unjust sexual, 9, 181–82, 195n14 polis, 77, 125, 128, 138n18 Polyaenus of Lampsacus, 130, 133, 138n28, 138n30

254

Index Polyxena, 88, 163, 172n115 Pothos, 6, 54n33 pregnancy, 11, 55n45, 89n46, 90n56, 111, 155, 181–82 premarital sex, 13, 235, 240n15 preparation, wedding: Athenian wedding scenes, 21, 27–28, 31, 37, 43, 50, 90n50, pl3; Greek nuptial art, 73; similarity with mystery rites, 46, 48, pl4, pl5, pl8 procession: bride’s, 21, 56n40, 69–70, 87n15; chariot, 23–25, 24, 25, 27 ; in epithalamia, 98, 104; Mysteries ritual, 6, 46, 59n95, 61n104, 61n113; sacrificial, 31, 54n31; wedding, 24– 27, 25–28, 32–34, 42, 46–47, 58n84, 90n50, 238 procreation: in animal stories, 11, 179–82, 184, 191; Epicurus’ philosophy on, 8–9, 124–26, 128, 129–30, 136; laws encouraging, 9, 15, 179–80, 194n11; and marriage, 8, 10–12, 108, 150, 180, 185; serving the state through, 7; sex for, 74, 182, 195n14 pronuba, 104, 226 prudence (φρόνησις), 127, 134, 137, 178 pudicitia, 147, 150, 152–53, 156–58, 161–63, 171n95, 200–201. See also sophrosyne pyxis, 28, 29, 30, 54n29, 54n32, 55n39 qualifications in Epicurus’ philosophy, 127, 134, 136, 138n21 rape: of bride, 80, 82–84, 85; of conquered women, 80; of Daphne by Apollo, 223; in An Ethiopian story (Heli­odorus), 236; mythological, 83; of Sabine women, 7, 17n7, 71–73, 77, 85, 90n58; and suicide, 161 Respublica (Plato), 119 restriction: in Epicurus’ philosophy, 127,

134; Senecan, 155; on sexual relations (Plutarch), 182 revelation of the initiated, 7, 45–47, 58n84 Rhea Silva, 74, 83, 88n29 rite (ritual): bride’s unveiling, 7, 42–43, 45–46, 58n84, 59n87, pl6, pl7; of consummation, 102, 105, 224, 238; epaulia, 27, 31, 32, 37, 54n31; funerary, 59n 94, 76; initiation, 20–21, 51; of libation and drinking from shared cup, 203; mystery, 6, 21, 23, 32, 46– 47, 59n95, 79; nuptial, 6–8, 23, 40– 42, 68–72, 75–79, 82–85, 235; of passage, 40, 42, 50, 69, 84, 111, 221; state, 82 Romulus, 70–71, 74, 87nn13–14 Sabine women: abduction and rape of, 7, 17n7, 71–73, 77, 84, 85, 90n58; brides, 7, 70; presence in wedding ritual, 71–72, 77, 81, 84 Sappho: epithalamia, 8, 72, 78, 95, 96, 98, 112n10; influence on Marriage Advice (Plutarch), 106, 108–10 satire: Juvenal, 10, 155; Martial, 10; Menippean, 179; Seneca-in-Jerome, 11, 145–47, 150, 152–59, 161, 164 self-determination (autonomy), female, 11, 144, 148, 157 self-restraint, sexual, 181, 188, 201 self-sufficiency (Epicurus), 125, 126, 136 separation: of the bride, 39–40, 69, 72, 84–85; from dead husband, 203, 210 slave: bride reduced to status of, 72, 80, 83–84; Brutus and (Seneca-inJerome), 163; to love (Heliodorus’ An Ethiopian Story), 235; instead of marrying, 120; moral indifference to using (Stoic ethics), 149; wedding of (Plautus’ Casina), 80, 90n57 smell: bad, 154, 182; that stirs passion, 98

255

Index societas. See koinonia (κοινωνία) Socrates, 119, 123–24, 137nn11–12 Solon, 78, 99, 130, 207–8, 216n24 sophrosyne: 200–202, 205–6, 208–13, 215n7, 241n45. See also pudicitia; virtue spear, bridal, 71, 79, 83 St. Paul, 138n33, 145, 165n19 suicide: attempt, 172n113, 220, 236; brides of Hades, 75–76; Camma, 13, 203, 206, 211, 215n13; Lucretia, 161; Pan­ thea, 206, 211; Paulina (Seneca’s wife), 172n113; Porcia, 13, 200, 206– 8, 210, 211, 213, 216n25; proper response of virtuous wife, 200, 204, 214n6, 239n6 Sulpicia, 146, 166n22, 170n73 Symposium (Plato), 60n103, 130 thalamus. See bridal chamber Thales, 124, 125 Theophrastus, 120, 168n43, 170n75 Thetis: on François vase, 42; and Peleus, 23, 24, 40, 41, 52n11, 55n39, 62n113; resistance to men, 58n76 torch: depicted on vases with wedding scenes, 25–27, 26–28 ; part of Mysteries, 7, 46–47; part of wedding rituals, 7, 31, 46–47, 69, 71, 113n18, 60n95; wedding torch, 71, 76 torchbearer: Eleusinian, 40, 60n95; Eros, 41; Hephaestus, nuptial, 73 tragedy: Greek, 75, 145; marital problems in, 124; mother’s role at daughter’s wedding in, 39; romanticized spousal bonds in, 16; Seneca’s, 10, 11, 144– 47, 159–63 tranquility of mind: Epicurus’ philosophy, 8–9, 123–24, 126, 131, 135, 136; Plutarch, 129, 131 tympanon, 30, 49, 50

univira(tus), 9, 13, 15, 155, 170n73, 200 unmarried: animals (Plato’s Laws), 183; couples in ancient Greek novels, 221; girls, 42; laws against remaining, 9, 13, 15, 179–80, 194n11; life, 124; men (caelibes), 119, 126, 194n11; pregnant but, 55n45; remaining (Epicurus), 124–25, 126, 129–31; women, 88n32, 91n63; youth, 137n1 unveiling of the bride, 7, 42–43, 45–46, 48, 58n84, 59n87, pl6, pl7. See also veil of the bride Valerius Maximus: Artemisia, 171n97; De amore coniugali, 212; death of Porcia, 206; in Jerome, 145–46, 159–62, 164, 173n116 veil of the bride, 36, 69, 76–78, 88n36, 89n38, 99, 101. See also unveiling of the bride vengeance, 12, 160, 203, 210 Venus. See Aphrodite Vergina painting of Persephone, 40, 41 Vestal Virgin(s), 74, 77, 83, 89n41, 152 Villa of the Mysteries, 20–21, 49, 50–51 virginity: Artemis, protector of, 89n43; asparagus and, 89n46; bride’s, 7, 33, 68–69, 73, 98, 100; in Daphnis and Chloe (Longus), 232; in An Ephesian Tale (Xenophon of Ephesus), 222; in An Ethiopian Story (Heliodorus), 234, 235, 237–38, 241n44, 241–42n45; Greek female, 77–78; Hymenaeus, “liberator of,” 73, 75, 88n23; Jovin­ian deprivileging of, 144; in Leucippe and Clitophon (Chariton), 225, 226, 227; as lifestyle choice, 167n36; loss of, 111; ritual deflowering, 90–91n62; in Sta­tius’ epithalamium for Stella and Vio­lentilla, 74; unwillingness to loose, 72, 75, 76, 80–82, 84, 90n61;

256

Index veil to protect bride’s, 76; Vestal Virgins, 77, 152 virtue: expressed by bride’s veil, 76–78; of Camma (Plutarch), 200, 206, 209; of Chariclea (Heliodorus, An Ethiopian Story), 234, 241nn44–45; of the Gracchi (Plutarch), 214; marital (Aelian, De natura animalium), 187; marital (Plutarch), 178, 188, 192, 192; of moral agent (Stoic ethics), 149; of Panthea (Plutarch), 205–6; in Plutarch’s animal stories, 178, 183– 84, 187–88; of Porcia (Plutarch), 208; in Seneca’s Epistulae, 166n32; of Ti­ be­rius (Plutarch), 211–12; of wives (Plutarch), 10, 12, 187, 188, 199–200, 215n7; of women in Musonius Rufus,

10, 143; of women in Plutarch, 111, 199, 200–201; of women in Senecain-Jerome, 146, 147, 152–54, 157– 58, 161–64, 200. See also sophrosyne; pudicitia Virtues of Women (Plutarch), 4, 195n18, 201, 209, 210, 215n9, 215n11 Washing Painter, 28, 53n19, 56n59 wedding song. See epithalamium wedding speech, 8, 95–96, 97, 104, 110 wreath in wedding scenes, 28, 30, 32–33, 41 Xanthippe (Socrates’ wife), 123–24, 137n11 Zeus, 23, 45, 53n23, 59n87, 106, 204

257

Index Locorum

Ach. Tat. 1.2.1: 223 1.2.2: 242n56 1.4.2–4: 224 1.5.5–7: 240n22 1.6.1: 224 1.6.5. 224 1.7.1: 242n56 1.9.7: 242n56 1.10.3–5: 224 1.11.1: 223 1.11.2: 223 1.19.1: 224 2.5.2: 233 2.9: 240n26 2.10.3: 224 2.10.4: 224 2.12.1: 240n23 2.13: 225 2.18: 224 2.18.6: 224 2.19.1: 242n56 2.19.1–2: 224 2.19.2: 224 2.25: 225 2.27.3: 225 2.30: 225 2.37.5: 242n56

4.1.2: 225 4.1.3: 226 4.1.4: 226 4.1.6–8: 226 4.7.3: 226 5.10.3–5: 227 5.11.2: 227 5.11.4: 228 5.11.5–12.2: 228 5.11.6: 228 5.13.1–2: 228 5.15.6: 242n56 5.16.3: 242n56 5.25.6: 242n56 5.26.3: 242n56 5.26.10: 242n56 5.27.2–3: 228 5.27.4: 228, 242n56 8.5.2: 223 8.5.3: 223 8.5.7: 225 8.5.7–8: 227 8.7.2: 229 8.18.5: 229 Aelian NA 1.18: 196n29 2.19: 196n31 3.5: 196n28

259

Index Locorum Aelian NA (continued) 3.9: 196n28 3.16: 196n30, 196n32 3.44: 196n28 7.17: 187, 195n19 7.19: 196n32 Alciphron 4.17: 123 4.17.3: 123 Alcman Fragments Fr. 3.61–2 PMG: 54n25 Ambrose De virginitate 1.6: 166n26 1.7–8: 166n32 Anecd. Bekk. 200.6–8: 59n87 390.26–28: 59n87 Anth. Pal. 6.207, 209: 56n50 6.318: 56n50 7.712: 76 Antigonus of Carystus HM 23.1: 195n19 39: 196n32 Antiphon Fragments Fr. 87 B 49 DK Ararus Hymenaios 17 (CAF II 218): 57n71 Ar. Av. 1722: 60n99 Pax 1333: 60n99 Arist. Eth. Nic. 1162a16–19: 193n9 Fragments Fr. 15 Ross: 59n90 Hist. an. 565b24–32: 196n30 585a3–7: 195n15

613b: 196n32 613b17–21: 196n30 Pol. 1252a24–31: 193n9 1261a4–1262b36: 119 1304a4–17: 17n8 Apuleius Met. Book 6: 76 Athenaeus 7.280a: 138n36 12.546f: 138n36 12.547a: 138n36 August. De civ. D. 4.11: 82, 90n62 6.9: 82, 90n62 7.24: 90n62 18.9: 164n5 Ep. 262: 165n6 Callim Aet. 75.1–3: 55n38 Catull. 61: 95 61.32: 75 61.81: 73 61.82–86: 73 61.101–9: 107 61.143–46: 73 61.191–235: 113n25 61.211–30: 114n40 62: 95 62.20–29: 73 62.26–31: 73 66.15–17: 73 Chariton 1.1.8: 222 3.6.4–5: 236 4.4.9: 238 5.8.5: 236 5.9.3: 242n47

260

Index Locorum 6.1.2: 236 6.1.3: 236 6.1.4–5: 242n47 Choricius of Gaza Or. 5–6: 96 5.19–20: 114n42 6.51: 114n40 Cic. Att. 6.1.18: 89n45 De or. 3.149: 171n88 Div. 1.36: 216n30 2.62: 216n30 Fam. 7.12.2: 126 Fin. 2.100–103: 139n42 Leg. 2.15: 89n45 Off. 1.54: 9 5.65: 10 Resp. 1.10: 127 1.11: 127 Claudian Carmina Minora, XXV Epith. Palladio et Celerinae 25.130–38: 102 Fescennina de Nuptiis Honorii Aug. 10.23–25: 114n34 10.286–94: 98 14.2–11: 101–2 14.16–24: 102–3 [Claud.] Epith. Laur. 5.85–87: 114n40 Clem. Al. Strom. 2.23.138.3–4: 121, 122 2.23.142.2: 125

Dem. De cor. 259: 60n97 Demetrius Laco PHerc. 1012 66.5–68.10: 138n26 Digest of Justinian 1.1.1.3 (Ulpian): 194n9 23.2.5 (Pomponius): 87n15 48.6.6.1 (Papinian): 91n63 Diod. Sic. 5.73.2: 56n50 Diogenes of Oenoanda 56, I, 1–12: 138n23 Diog. Laert. 6.54: 130 6.8: 169n54 6.96: 130 7.101–3: 168n43 7.105: 169n51 7.131: 119 10.6: 130 10.8: 131 10.19: 133, 135, 138n30, 139n45 10.20: 134 10.21: 139n45 10.22: 139n39 10.23: 133, 135 10.24: 130 10.26: 138n30 10.117: 123 10.118: 130, 137n6 10.119: 121, 131, 133 10.120: 127, 131 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.80: 71 Epictetus 1.23.3–10: 138n19 1.23.7: 129 3.7.19: 121, 128 Epicurus Epist. Men. 127: 125

261

Index Locorum Epicurus, Epist. Men. (continued) 130: 129 132: 126 Fragments Fr. 9: 127 Fr. 18: 127 Fr. 19: 119 Fr. 21: 127 Fr. 134: 131 Fr. 138: 139n39 Fr. 176: 138n28 Fr. 187: 138n23 Fr. 208: 138n23 Fr. 209: 138n23 Fr. 409: 138n36 Fr. 476: 129 Fr. 489: 138n23 Fr. 512: 138n36 Fr. 523: 126 Fr. 525: 121 Fr. 526: 121, 122, 126 Fr. 536: 123 Fr. 540: 126 Fr. 551: 125 Fr. 555: 131 Fr. 573: 131 Fr. 574: 130 Fr. 577: 127 Fr. 581: 126 Fr. 590: 127 RS 25: 126 29: 125 39: 131 Sent. Vat. 20: 120 34: 129 44: 129 45: 129 51: 137n6 62: 138n28 77: 129

Euphorion 107 (49, Powell): 59n87 Eur. Hipp. 439: 234 476: 234 479: 234 IA 607–741: 57n61 Phaeth. 240: 60n99 TrGF 5.1, Fr. 543: 136 Tro. 311: 60n99 321: 60n99 343: 73 1123–48: 172n115 1139: 172n115 1151: 172n115 Eust. Il. 24.29: 54n28 Festus 43L: 71 55L: 71, 90n51 83L: 76 364: 71 365L: 71 454L: 89n41 Harp. Lexicon of the Ten Orators 238 Dindorf: 55n42 Heliod. Aeth. 1.21.2: 236 1.25.4: 237, 241n44 1.26.2: 237 2.25.4: 234 3.17.4: 233 4.6.6: 233 4.6.7: 233 4.7.9: 236 4.8.7: 241–42n45 4.10.5: 234

262

Index Locorum 4.10.6: 13, 233, 234 4.11.1: 241n44 4.11.3: 234 4.15.3–4: 235 4.17: 235 4.18.5: 235 4.18.6: 235 5.4.4–5: 237 5.4.5: 235 6.8.6: 237 7.7.7: 242n53 7.14.4: 237 7.26.4: 242n54 7.28.6: 237 10.19.2: 237 10.21.2: 237 10.22.3: 238 10.33.1–2: 238 10.41.3: 238 Hermarchus 2 LA: 138n28 Herodotus 1.93: 89n44 Hes. Fragments Fr. 211.7: 60n99 Op. 405: 120 406: 120 Theog. 573–80 610–12, 137n15 Himer Or. 19 76.47–48: 113n21 76.52–56: 97–98 Hom. Il. 5.370–416: 39 14.159–223: 53n23 18.493: 87n20 Od. 6.182–84: 47

Hom. Hymn Aphr. 174–75: 59n91 Hom. Hymn Dem. 480–82: 47 486–89: 47 Hor. Ars P. 46–48: 171n88 Sat. 1.2.27: 169n66 Isidore of Seville 10.34: 137n1 Jer. Adv. Iovinian. 1.3, 214b: 165n8 1.13, 230b: 171n86 1.13, 230c: 165n12 1.14, 232b–234a: 167n36 1.14, 233b–c: 170n81 1.27–28, 47–48: 165n12 1.32, 255b–c: 171n92 1.41, 271a: 152–53 1.41, 271b–272c: 159–60 1.41, 272c–273a: 160 1.43–45: 214n6 1.44, 274a: 157 1.44, 274b: 172n116 1.44–46: 170n73 1.45: 215n20 1.45, 275a15–b3: 147 1.46, 275a: 166n25, 171n97 1.46, 275b: 172n107 1.46, 275b11: 154 1.46, 275c: 150 1.46, 276a–b: 166n26 1.47, 276b–278b: 170n75 1.47, 277a: 168n43, 169n51 1.48: 122 1.48, 280a: 170n84 1.48, 280b3–8: 149 149: 170n82, 200–201 1.49, 280c4: 165n11

263

Index Locorum Jer., Adv. Iovinian. (continued) 1.49, 280c4–7: 165n11 1.49, 281a–b: 169n51 1.49, 281a1–3: 166n32 1.49, 281a312: 152 1.49, 281b: 170n81 1.49, 281b–c: 168n44 1.49, 281b9: 170n80 1.49, 281c–282a: 161 1.49, 282a: 153 1.49, 282a–b: 162–63 1.49, 282b: 165n11 2.8–9: 167n41 2.10–14: 165n19 De vir. ill. 12.850, 629a: 165n19 Ep. 1.13: 172n114 22.1: 166n32 Juv. 6.165: 170n75 6.224–30: 170n75 6.366–78: 170n75 10.350–53: 137n16 Lactant. Div. inst. 1.20.30: 90n62 3.17.5: 121, 126 3.17.39: 126 3.17.42: 126 Livy 1.4.1: 83 1.9: 71, 87n14 1.9.11: 71 1.57–9: 172n106 Fragments Fr. 114: 87n18 Longus 2.5.3: 229 2.7.5–6: 230 2.7.7: 229 2.11.3: 241n43

2.39.1–2: 230 3.4.5: 230 3.14.2–5: 241n43 3.17.3: 230 3.19.2: 232 3.24.3: 231 3.26.1: 230 3.26.2–3: 231 3.29–30.1: 231 3.33.1: 231 3.34.1: 231 4.31.3: 231 4.39: 232 4.40: 229 Lucian Her. 5: 59n87 Lucr. 4.1030–1287: 120, 130 4.1065: 137n6 Lys. Fragments Fr. 7:58n79 Macrob. Sat. 1.15.21–22: 81 Martial 10.35.1–2: 170n73 Men. Dys. 842: 60n100 Pk. 1013–14: 60n100 Sam. 67: 55n45 158: 56n50 Men. Rhet. 400.1–6: 114n30 405.19–24: 113n25 Metrod. Fragments Fr. 41: 138n36 Muson. 12: 9 12.1: 195n14

264

Index Locorum 13A: 185, 194n10 14.2: 193–94n9 Nep. Pref. 2.1: 164n5 Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F99: 215n21 [Ocellus] De univ. nat. 44: 195n14 46: 194n10 Ovid Epigr. 11.101–4: 88n24 14.25–29: 88n24 21.157–68: 88n24 Fast. 4.787–92: 72 Met. 10.1–10: 88n24 Paul 1 Cor. 7.8–9: 138n33 [Paul] Eph. 5.28: 165–66n19 Philodemus Mus. 4, 38.38–39: 121 4, 119.35–37: 120 4, 119.42–43: 130 Oec. 8.24–40: 120 8.37–38: 120 9.1–3: 121 PHerc. 1005 1005, 6.14–15: 135 1005, 6.16: 132 1012, 66.5–68.10: 138n26 Rhet. II, 209, col. vi, 28–30 S.: 124 Phot. Lexicon s.v. ἐπαύλια: 54n28 s.v. λεκανίς: 54n28

Pind. Fragments Fr. 137 (Maehler): 60n98 Fr. 128c vv. 6–8: 87n22 Isthm. 7.4: 62n113 Pyth. 3.88–95: 52n11 Pl. Alcibiades II 142b4–7: 124 Lg. 840D–E: 183 Resp. 5, 457c10–466d5: 119 Symp. 173b1–2: 169n54 174a4: 169n54 192b5–c2: 130 Plautus Cas. 2.360–64: 76 922–31: 90n56 Pliny the Elder HN 8.54: 196n30 10.51: 196n30 15.86: 82 16.75: 71 Pliny the Younger Ep. 5.16: 76 Plut. Mor. Adv. Col. 1117D–E: 138n30 1125D: 127, 138n36 1127D: 127 1127D–E: 131 Amat. 754A: 164n5 754D: 164n5 754E–755A: 225

265

Index Locorum 495A–B:189 495C–D: 194n12 De cap. ex inim. 90B: 169n66 De comm. not. 1070F–71E: 169n51 De frat. amore 491E: 194n11 De Is. et Osir. 364A: 196n32 De lat. viv. 1129A: 139n42 De prof. 75F: 132 85A–B: 193n3 De sol. an. 962A: 190, 193n5 962D: 191 962E: 190 962F: 190 966D–E: 190, 191–92 967D: 178 967D–E: 193n2 971C: 196n30 971F–972A: 190 972A: 190 972D–E: 191 972D–F: 191, 196n26 973A–B: 190 981F: 190 982A: 196n30 982B: 190 982E–F: 183 983A: 184 983A–B: 184 De Stoic. repugn. 1044D: 167n41 De tranq. anim. 465F–466A: 131 Mul. virt. 243C: 201

Plut., Mor., Amat. (continued) 767C–D: 128–29, 185 767C–768D: 201 767D: 137n6, 185 767E: 201 768B: 202 768D: 203 768E: 213 769C: 195n18 769F–770A: 12 770A–B: 185 An viti. 499C: 195n18 Brut. anim. 987B–C: 193n2 988F: 193n2 988F–989A: 187–88 989A–B: 188 989F: 181–82 990C–D: 182 Con. praec. 138B: 3, 89n42, 97 138C: 170n79, 184–84 138C–D: 56n50, 103–4 138D–E: 78, 99–100, 146 138F: 101 139E–F: 171n95 140F–141A: 114n34 141C: 114n34, 168n47 142F: 185 143A: 164n5 143C: 106–7 143D–E: 186 144B–D: 215n10 145D: 108 145F–146A: 109 146: 166n26 De am. prol. 493E: 179 493E–494A: 180–81 494A–F: 189

266

Index Locorum 243C–D: 201 257E: 195n18 257E–F: 209 258B–C: 210 Non posse 1094E: 127 1098B: 130, 133 1098C–D: 138n36 1100D: 138n36 Quaest. conv. 643E: 193n5 666F: 113n18 Quaest. Rom. 271D: 70, 72 285C: 71 289A–B: 90n58 Quomodo adulat. 57D: 195n18 Vit. Aem. 1.1–4: 193n3 Brut. 13: 204, 207 13.4: 195n18, 205 13.4–10: 204 13.7: 205 13.11: 204 53: 204 53.5: 206, 216n25 53.6: 215n22 53.7: 206, 207 Cat. Min. 73: 204 73.6: 208 Dion 1.3–4: 215n18 Gracch. 1.1–3: 211 1.4–5: 210–11 1.6: 212 1.7: 213, 214

Lyc. 15.3–5: 89n45 Lys. 30.5: 194n11 Pomp. 4.7–10: 87n17 Sol. 6.1–6: 124 7.1: 125 7.2–4: 125 7.6: 125 22.4: 130 27.1: 207 Thes. 2.1: 87n13 8.2: 89n46 29.1: 89n46 Poll. 1.246: 60n97 3.36: 59n87 3.37: 59n42 3.38: 60n97 3.39–40: 55n38 3.42: 57n70, 70 43: 55n42 Polyaenus Strat. 39: 215n8 Priapea 3.8–9: 90n56 Prop. 3.13.15–22: 172–73n116 Ps.-Demosthenes 59.122: 120 Quint. 1.6.36: 139n1 1.9.1: 171n88 3.2.1: 171n88 8.17.1–18.1: 171n88 Sappho Fr. 30: 57n62 Fr. 44: 52n16

267

Index Locorum Sappho (continued) Fr. 55: 109 Fr. 90: 106 Fr. 96: 57n74 Fr. 103.3: 106 Fr. 103.5: 106 Fr. 105: 89n48 Fr. 112: 60n99 Fr. 158: 106 Schol. ad Iliadem 14.296 Schol. ad Juvenal 6.225: 76 Sen. ad Marciam 16: 162 Ben. 3.16.2: 170n74 3.16.3: 168n47, 170n79 4.12.4: 171n95 De otio 3.5: 153 Dial. 8.3.2: 127 Ep. 5.2: 151 6.1: 171n86 7.10–11: 158 9.18: 149 22.2: 166n26 64.9–10: 168n43 66.4: 166n32 84.5: 157, 171n88 86.12: 169n66 91.19: 169n53 92.11–12: 151 95.61: 166n32 97.6, 13: 169n53 98.9: 138n30 104.2: 165–66n19

114.6: 170n75 115.6–7: 166n32 116.5: 169n53 Helv. 16.3–4: 170n72 17.3–5:170n71 19.5: 163 20: 166n26 Med. 896: 172n103 Phoen. 17: 172n103 Prov. 3.10: 170n75 Tro. 414: 163 1123–48: 172n115 Serv. Aen. 1.651: 88n23 4.99: 73 Ecl. 8.29: 90n61 Soph. Fragments Fr. 837 (Radt): 60n98 Sor. Gyn. 1.36: 194n13 1.41: 194–95n13 1.46: 195n15 1.56: 195n15 Statius Silvae 1.2: 95 1.2.3–6, 11–21: 104–5 1.2.51–53: 74 1.2.162–69: 75 1.2.171: 74 1.2.188–93: 74 1.2.242–46: 74 Stob. 2.7.26: 9

268

Index Locorum 2.76, 9–15: 169n51 4.22: 193–94n9 4.22b: 137n14 4.22b.66: 137n15 13.1.19: 135 Strabo 13.1.19: 135 Suetonius Nero 29: 81 SVF 1.269 3.163–64: 120 3.494 3.728 494: 120 Synesius Dio 8.48a: 59n90 Tac. Ann. 15.63–64: 172n113 Tert. De monog. 8.13.17: 170n73 Them. Or. 26.324a: 125 Theoc. Id. 18: 95 18.9–15: 113n25 18.16: 60n99 18.50–51: 108 18.50–52: 105–6 Theodoretus Graec. aff. cur. 12.74: 121, 137n8 Theopomp. Fragments Fr. 15: 90n59 Thgn. 15–18 (West, IE 2): 60n102

[Tib.] 3.13–18: 166n22 Ulp. Reg. 5.2: 16 Val. Max. 2.6.14: 172–73n116 4.6: 212 4.6.5: 215n21 6.1.1: 161 Verg. Aen. 1.647–55: 87n12 4.166–72: 91n72 Xen. Cyr. 6.4.5: 205 6.4.6: 205 6.4.9: 204 7.3.12: 206 7.3.14: 206 Mem. 2.2.4: 121 Oec. 7.10: 195n24 Xen. Ephes. 1.3.2: 222 1.3.3: 240n16 1.4.5: 222, 232 1.4.6: 240n16 1.4.6–7: 222 1.5.3–4: 240n16 1.5.4: 240n16 1.7.4: 223 1.8–9: 229 Zen. 3.98 (1.82–83 CPG): 60n96

269

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