From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (4 page)

The conditions for procreation are two: fire and water. Thus these are used at the threshold in weddings, because there is union here. And fire is male, which the semen is in the other case, and water is the female because the embryo develops

from her moisture, and the force that brings their binding

(vinctio)
is Venus.

(Varro,
Ling.,
5.61)

The perception of the dichotomy of male and female in terms of fire and water was diffused throughout what I have called the cultural system. The social rituals of marriages and funerals embodied the symbolism as did legal ritual and indeed legal discourse. There are other references
13
but one is particularly striking, because it is so obviously untrue on the level of experience that it can only reflect a very strong ritual belief. Macrobius refers to a passage in Aristotle, where the philosopher maintains that women rarely become drunk, but old men often do. Aristotle gives no reason for this. The reason that is vouchsafed in Macrobius is that women
’
s bodies are full of moisture. This is evinced by the smoothness and sheen of a woman
’
s skin, but above all by her repeated purgings which rid her body of superfluous moisture. This enables a woman to imbibe with relative impunity because the wine becomes diluted by the abundance of moisture in her body and its force is diminished. Old men on the other hand are extremely dry creatures and wine takes a powerful hold on them.
14

Most important in terms of the present argument is the fact that the opposition of male and female in Roman religion, as it was ritual- ized in the cults of the
Ara Maxima
and of Bona Dea, is expressed in the aetiological myths connected with these cults in terms of the opposition of fire and water. The symbol of fire, in fact, plays a very important role, as I shall show in the first two sections that follow, in the myth of the founding of the
Ara Maxima
as well as in the explanation for the exclusion of women from its rites.

The story of Hercules and Cacus provides a framework for an analy- sis of the story of Hercules and Bona Dea. It reveals important attributes of Hercules which are treated differently in the story of Hercules and Bona Dea. The very same attributes, which in the Cacus story align Hercules on the side of strength against cunning, light against darkness, and life against death, in the Bona Dea story align him on the side of male against female.

To begin with, I shall focus on two versions of the story of Her-

cules and Cacus
—
Virgil
’
s and Ovid
’
s.
15
The story constituted the aetiological myth of the founding of the
Ara Maxima,
which, it is important to note, was still an important place of sacrifice at the time these accounts were written. The narrative details are, in both Virgil and Ovid, almost identical. In both cases the action takes place in remote antiquity
—
long before the founding of the City of Rome, before even the arrival of Aeneas in Italy, during the reign of the Arcadian king, Evander. This very early setting of the myth is of critical importance; I shall return to it later in this chapter. For now the relevant details are that Hercules arrives in Italy, having com- pleted the tenth of the twelve labours imposed on him by Eurystheus

—
the theft of the cattle of Geryon.
16
He comes bringing the cattle with him. Cacus is described by both poets as a fire-breathing figure of monstrous proportions, who lived in a cave on the Aventine hill, emerging at will to ravage the surrounding countryside. The inhabi- tants of the area lived in mortal terror of him.
17
With great cunning, he steals some of Hercules
’
beasts (in Virgil eight, in Ovid two) by dragging them backwards into his cave, thus obscuring the evidence of their footprints. Hercules discovers the whereabouts of his cattle only when he hears them lowing. Infuriated by the theft, he rushes to recover them by force and a terrible battle ensues in which the fires of Cacus are pitted against the superhuman strength of Hercules, but in vain. Cacus is slain and Hercules not only recovers his cattle, but becomes the liberator of the surrounding land from the monster
’
s reign of terror. To commemorate the incident, he sets up an altar, the
Ara Maxima,
at which the Romans henceforth sacrifice to him.
18

The parallelism between Hercules and Cacus is striking and forms an important element in the story. To begin with, they both possess enormous size and physical strength. True, this is not explic- itly stated of Hercules in either Virgil
’
s version or Ovid
’
s, but by the time of Augustus when both poems were written, it is reasonable to assume that the poets and their public perceived Hercules as he was perceived in the Greek context, where his outstanding attribute was his great physical size and strength. By stressing Cacus
’
physical power both writers seem to wish to point out a parallel between the monster and Hercules. Another parallel feature is the theft of the cattle. Cacus steals Hercules
’
cattle, but they were stolen cattle in the first place. The myth, however, seems to make a distinction between the two thefts, for Hercules
’
is ignored while Cacus
’
is seen as a crime in keeping with his habitually obnoxious behaviour.
19
A fur-

ther point of similarity is that both are the sons of gods
—
Hercules of Jupiter, Cacus of Vulcan. This stress on the parallel features shared by Hercules and Cacus is neither accidental nor idiosyncratic. Its function is to throw into sharper focus the battle that takes place between them, which in both versions is the point and main sub- stance of the story.

But if the similarity between the two is important, even more so is the difference. A conflict implies antagonism and the points of antagonism between Hercules and Cacus are seen by Virgil, at least, as points of opposition. Virgil tells the tale in a way that invests this opposition with the significance of a cultic feature.

The physical focus of the conflict is Cacus
’
cave. This is where he hides the cattle and himself when Hercules seeks to destroy him. He shuts himself in by barricading the entrance with rock. The cave however is not merely a place of refuge for Cacus, nor is it simply the setting for the scene of the fight. It is an important element in the myth and is directly associated with the monster, sharing many of his attributes and thereby helping to define his function. The cave is Cacus and Cacus is the cave. Virgil
’
s description of the cave was meant to evoke in the readers
’
mind the classical notion of the underworld. The lack of sunlight was the most important and the most terrifying feature of the underworld in Graeco-Roman thought.
20
Virgil deliberately exploits this idea in his description of Cacus
’
cave.

hinc spelunca fuit, vasto summota recessu, semihominis Caci facies quam dira tenebat,
solis inacessam radiis;

Here was once a cave, receding to unfathomed depth,
never visited by the sun’s rays,
where dwelt the awful shape of half human Cacus;
2
1

Even more evocative is the simile used to describe the effect of Her- cules hurling a huge rock through the roof of the cave:

at specus et Caci detecta apparuit ingens regia et umbrosae penitus patuere cavernae, non secus ac si qua penitus vi terra dehiscens infernas reseret sedes et regna recludat

pallida, dis invisa, superque immane barathrum cernatur, trepidant immiso lumine Manes.

But the den of Cacus and his huge palace stood revealed, and, deep below, the darkling cave lay open: even as though beneath some force, the earth, gaping open deep below, should unlock the infernal abodes and disclose the pallid realms abhorred of the gods, and from above the vast abyss be descried, and the ghosts tremble at the inrushing light.
22

By comparing the effect of Hercules breaching the roof of the cave to the effect of sunlight should it penetrate the underworld, Virgil makes a clear statement of association between the cave and the underworld.

So far the equation is clear: cave=underworld. But Cacus too, as I have already suggested, is part of the equation, which must then be rendered cave=underworld=Cacus. Consider now the different treatment by the two poets of the axis along which the fight takes place. In Virgil the fight between Hercules and Cacus takes place on the vertical axis, in Ovid on the horizontal. In Ovid, we find Cacus blocking the entrance to his cave with crags, a barrier so strong that
‘
twice five yoke of oxen could scarcely move it
’
.
23
But Hercules, with his powerful shoulders that once bore the weight of the world, can and does shift the mass, thereby succeeding in reaching and destroying Cacus.
24
Thus the action takes place on the horizontal axis. Ovid gives no indication that Cacus or his cave, which Her- cules breaches from the front, is to be compared with the under- world, or indeed, is to be invested with any symbolic significance at all. It is simply a cave. Not so in Virgil, whose cave is meant to sig- nify much more than a monster
’
s lair. In Ovid, Cacus blocks up the entrance to the cave with rocks
—
enormous pieces of rock, perhaps, but still just rock. In Virgil, the barrier is a single rock suspended in iron, a contrivance of Cacus
’
father, Vulcan.
25
Against this barrier Hercules
’
mightiest efforts fail. Therefore the physical strength of Hercules which Virgil
’
s readers knew was ultimately going to pre- vail against Cacus, proves to be no match for Vulcan
’
s divine cun- ning, and so Hercules is defeated on the horizontal axis. In making Hercules thus try and fail on the horizontal axis, Virgil skilfully directs the reader
’
s attention to the manner in which Hercules does breach Cacus
’
fortress
—
from above, i.e. along the vertical axis, by hurling a rock through the roof of the cave, and breaching it from above. In the poetic discourse the opposition between Hercules and Cacus is seen in terms of the opposing concepts of the
‘
above
’
and the
‘
below
’
, Hercules representing the
‘
above
’
and Cacus the

‘
below
’
. This opposition, I suggest, reinforces the association of Cacus with the underworld and at the same time, confers on Her- cules associations of the world above
—
the world which contains sunlight. The defeat of Cacus is poetically expressed by the descrip- tion of sunlight pouring into the cave from above and destroying the darkness of the cave.

This fundamental opposition between Hercules and Cacus is very important. The parallel features of the two protagonists in this drama are the more readily discernible, but are important only in so far as they throw into clearer focus the opposition. Take for exam- ple the feature of physical power. Hercules
’
weapon in this conflict is indeed his strength. But Cacus, while possessing physical strength, also possesses and uses against Hercules a quality which I shall call devious cunning. Both poets stress this factor in Cacus
’
character. For example, the dragging of the cattle backwards into the cave so that the evidence of the footprints might be obscured, is so consis- tently described in all the extant literary versions of the myth, that we may regard it as an accepted feature of the story rather than a poetic interpretation.
26
Indeed this device of Cacus succeeded in fooling Hercules, who was only alerted to the theft
—
Virgil
—
and to the whereabouts of the missing cattle
—
Ovid
—
when he heard them lowing. Virgil takes this generally accepted feature of Cacus
’
charac- ter
—
i.e. devious cunning
—
and uses it to project an opposition between Hercules and Cacus that will eventually define Hercules
’
cultic position after he is accepted as a god. It is Cacus
’
devious cun- ning represented by the divinely constructed barrier with which Cacus barricades himself in the cave, which causes Hercules to fail along the horizontal axis.
27
Hercules
’
strength is no match for this cunning device. Frustrated, he rages to and fro, then spurred on by fury he takes up a mighty crag and hurls it onto the cave from above. Thus Virgil moves the conflict onto the vertical plane, projecting the important opposition between the above and the below. Signifi- cantly the factor that pushes the conflict onto a different plane and thereby focuses the spotlight, as it were, onto the opposition is the quality of cunning that is peculiar to Cacus.

If Cacus
’
cunning caused Hercules to fail on the horizontal axis, what helped him succeed on the vertical? There are two other attributes of the antagonists that must be considered, this time attributes which are at the same time parallel and dichotomous. Apart from his strength and cunning, but complementing them, is Cacus
’
ability to belch forth fire at will.
‘
At will
’
are the operative

words here. Cacus
—
both poets make this clear
—
is able to control his fire-breathing. This puts the attribute on a par with devious cun- ning. Both are controllable attributes which may be measured and manipulated at will. Not so in the case of Hercules. Hercules
’
sec- ond attribute is his anger, his uncontrollable fury when he discovers the theft of his cattle and is frustrated in his attempts to recover them. The language Virgil chooses to describe Hercules
’
anger is highly significant. He seems to be deliberately equating Hercules
’
wrath with Cacus
’
fire-breathing. For example the adjectives
furens (animis)
and
fervidus (ira)
connote fire and heat.
28
In the line,
hic vero Alcidae furiis exarserat atro/felle dolor,
29
exarserat
is in poetic terms equal to fire-breathing. So on one symbolic level Hercules and Cacus appear to share the same attribute. But the fact that in Cacus it is controllable, while in Hercules it is not, renders it dichotomous rather than parallel. Again the device of a real opposition is ren- dered more effective by an apparent similarity.