From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (6 page)

I also have performed servile tasks, clad in Sidonian cloak, and wrought the day
’
s tale of wool with Libyan distaff. My hairy chest was girt by a soft breast band, and though my hands were calloused I proved a fitting girl
(apta puella).

(Prop., 4.9.47
–
50)

This is a reference to the time when he served Omphale, Queen of Lydia.
51
That story too deals with an inversion of sexual roles, for while Hercules spun, dressed as a girl, Omphale dressed herself up in his lionskin and club.
52
But the opposition will not be denied. For what Hercules is trying to do is effect a social inversion of the sexes. Though
‘
his chestwas girtwithasoft breastband
’
, itremained hairy
—
hirsutum
—
and his rough hands, though performing a woman
’
s task, were those of a man.

The priestess
’
reply is not easy to interpret. She reminds Hercules that the great seer Tiresias was punished
—
with blindness
—
for acci- dentally catching sight of Athene at her bath.
53
The problem here is one of connotation. If the priestess
’
words are taken at face value and we limit the poetic view to the story of Tiresias and Athene, the point she makes becomes fairly straightforward, even banal, a sim- ple threat: Tiresias went blind by invading the sphere of a goddess that was forbidden to men, so Hercules had better watch out or something of the same sort might happen to him. We could leave it at that. But I suggest that if we do so we would be missing a very important point. As a mythical figure Tiresias was known as much for his sexual inversion as for his blindness. And I suggest that this was what the name of Tiresias was supposed to conjure up. The point that the priestess makes then, is that the ritual divide between male and female is such that not even a biological sexual inversion can bridge the gap. The essential difference between the sexes, as manifested in cult and ritual, appears to have gone beyond social conventions, and also beyond biological differences. The boundary between life and death may be crossed on occasion with impunity, as Hercules had done, but nothing can lawfully cross this boundary. Male and female must remain polar opposites.

Nevertheless the poles do converge. In spite of the priestess
’
injunctions, Hercules forces his way into the sacred precinct and drinks the forbidden water. Moreover, he does it with apparent impunity. Again, as in the Cacus myth, he achieves his purpose by violence. But in this instance, as I have suggested, violence has a dif- ferent meaning and significance. In several myths that deal with the

issue of relations between men and women, violence is a recogniz- able theme. Bona Dea herself features in one. According to this story, her father Faunus sought to seduce the goddess. She rejected his advances and in a vain effort to force her to submit, he beat her with branches of myrtle.
54
The feature of beating must, I suggest, be understood in terms of ritually conceptualized violence. The myth of the Sabine women is another such story, and one that in the liter- ary tradition, at any rate, was an important part of the civic ideology and self-perception of the Roman state.
55
In order to provide wives for the citizens of his new state Romulus resorted to force. He invited the neighbouring Sabines to Rome, ostensibly to help cele- brate the rites of the Consualia, and at a crucial moment in the proceedings, when the attention of their guests was diverted by the ceremony, the Romans carried away the unmarried women by force in order to marry them. Thus the earliest legend that dealt with mar- riage in the context of the Roman state focused on violence. The point is always made in the various versions of the story that the Romans could not get wives by peaceable means, so that again, as in the Hercules-Bona Dea myth, violence becomes a necessary factor. St Augustine, whose very antipathy to the pagan religion can at times give valuable insight as to how it worked, records the belief that without violence a woman cannot cease to be a virgin.
56
The cultic perception that violence was the mediating factor between male and female is reflected in the social ritual of the wedding. The bride was torn from her mother
’
s arms by her bridegroom with a mock violence.
57
Even the carrying of the bride over the threshold might have been regarded as a representation of an act of violence.
58
Hercules
’
violence at the fountain of the Bona Dea must be under- stood in the light of this complex of myth and ritual.

It is important to be aware that violence in such a context had no destructive connotations as it did in the myth of Cacus. In all the examples I have cited violence achieved a desirable end. The rape of the Sabine women resulted in peaceful union between the Roman and the Sabine nations. Marriage was not only vital for the ordering of society and for its continuation, but was particularly important for the Roman male. For it was only by lawful marriage
—
iustum matrimonium
—
that he could have children that were legally his own. Macrobius
’
story of Faunus and Bona Dea has especially inter- esting implications. In this case violence does not have the desired effect. Despite the beating, Bona Dea does not succumb to her father
’
s incestuous desires. She is finally seduced by stealth when

Faunus changes himself into a snake for the purpose. Thus violence, which appears to be important in the mythical discourse about sex- ual relations, and which has been made a feature of the ritual designed to bring the sexes together, operates only when those rela- tions are perceived as lawful, as in marriage. In the case of Faunus, the failure of violence must be seen as a ritual expression of the implacably unlawful nature of sexual intercourse between father and daughter.

The myth of Hercules and Bona Dea also appears to suggest that the convergence was temporary. Male and female are polar oppo- sites that are forcibly drawn together, but are then pushed apart again. Or to put it another way, sexual intercourse might bring the sexes together, but only temporarily. The boundary that separates them is always ultimately reasserted. The result of Hercules violat- ing the rites of Bona Dea was, in effect, the reinforcement of the opposition by his excluding women from his own newly founded cult. And so we have, within a single ritual framework
—
for both these cults were important components of the state-sponsored reli- gion
—
two mutually exclusive categories
—
male and female. But it is a self-conscious exclusion. We are not left with two entirely separate cults. The cults of the
Ara Maxima
and Bona Dea give each other context and meaning within a crowded and
—
to the uninitiated
—
confusing polytheistic system.

The consensus of modern scholarly opinion on the December ritual of Bona Dea is that it was conducted by well-born matrons. Such women were not, however, the only participants although they did undoubtedly play a prominent part in the rites. The festival was held in the house of a magistrate and the women of his family clearly had a leading role to play. In 62 BC when Clodius was discovered in the house during the ceremony, it was Aurelia, Caesar
’
s mother, who took charge of the situation. She ordered the ceremonies to be sus- pended and Clodius evicted.
59
While Cicero does state that the rites were celebrated by women of the elite
—
nobilissimae feminae
60
—
other writers indicate that they were not the only women present. There certainly were slave girls at the festival for it was one of these that discovered Clodius
’
deception.
61
The third book of Ovid
’
s
Ars Amatoria
concerns courtesans, including freedwomen; these

women frequented the temple of the goddess, and it is reasonable to assume participated in the festival.
62
Moreover, Juvenal writes of
ancillae lenonum
being present.
63
The festival of Bona Dea was more likely than not celebrated by all members of the female sex, regardless of distinctions of status. Just as all women were excluded from the rites of Hercules, all women participated in the rites of the Bona Dea. However, although the cult incorporated the different sexual categories of women
—
matrons and prostitutes, including slaves
—
it was not blind to those distinctions. Propertius
’
choice of language in describing Bona Dea
’
s worshippers invites such an interpretation of the festival.

Nowhere in his poem does Propertius mention the Bona Dea by this name. Instead, he calls her the Women
’
s Goddess,
Feminea Dea
. Her worshippers are referred to throughout the poem as
puel- lae
. Could Propertius not have been writing about the Bona Dea at all, but of an entirely different goddess? The question might never have received a satisfactory answer if not for the passage in Macro- bius, which clearly refers to the Bona Dea and which contains a myth similar but not identical to the one in Propertius, which is made to account for the banning of women from the rites of the
Ara Maxima
.
64
Propertius and Macrobius are undoubtedly referring to the same tradition. Moreover Macrobius, whose purpose is the iden- tification of the Bona Dea with Maia, refers to her also as
dea femi- narum,
the goddess of women.

What can we infer from Propertius
’
use of
puellae
to designate the goddess
’
devotees? Does it add anything to our knowledge of the way in which the cult was perceived? The goddess was called
fem- inea dea;
why not call the women
feminae?
I suggest that a word like
femina,
a blanket term which essentially meant
‘
female
’
without regard to sexuality or sexual categorization would have been too weak in this context.
Puella,
and this is important, appears both to define and to transcend female sexual categorization. The word has been used to denote
‘
daughter
’
, with its connotations of youth and unmarried status;
65
‘
wife
’
i.e.
matrona;
66
more importantly,
‘
mis- tress
’
, which could refer either to a
matrona
67
or to a concubine; and finally even
‘
prostitutes
’
in the context of a brothel.
68
The only cate- gory which it cannot be made to include is one that was less impor- tant in Roman cult, that is old women. But Propertius does not overlook even this group. The priestess is an old woman, an
anus
.
69
Thus the use of the word
puella
is very suggestive. Not only does it emphasize the male-female polarity, but it projects the concept of

the female in terms of sexual status rather than in terms of simple gender. It also implies that in this instance the concept of sexual cat- egorization does not apply.
Puellae
has the effect of embracing all female categories at once. The boundaries that the Bona Dea draws are between male and female, not between the various categories of the female.

Propertius explicitly links in time the myths of Hercules-Cacus and Hercules-Bona Dea. Hercules
’
fateful thirst was caused by his battle with Cacus. Both Cacus and the laws governing the rites of Bona Dea are in a sense overcome by Hercules. And the
Ara Maxima
is made to represent both these victories. It was founded either by Her- cules himself to celebrate the recovery of the cattle, or, in another version, by Evander to celebrate the deliverance of the region from Cacus
’
reign of terror.
70
One of the earliest of its ritual features was the exclusion of all women from the altar. Indeed this fact is so fun- damental to perceptions of the cult that there is another myth to account for the phenomenon.
71

This chronological context of the founding of the
Ara Maxima
was not merely a poetic embellishment. The great age of the altar, the fact that it was founded before the city itself, was one of its defin- ing characteristics. It was arguably the earliest shrine of the civic religion. Propertius
’
account of the Hercules-Bona Dea story reminded his readers that Bona Dea
’
s cult, which was also believed to be very ancient, actually existed before the
Ara Maxima
was founded. In this section I argue that this chronological structure had profound implications for the way that the beginnings of Roman religion itself were perceived.

Bayet observes that one reason that the popular tradition of Her- cules
’
sojourn in Italy is particularly important is that the story can be connected very precisely to specific topographical evidence (Bayet 1926:127). Considering the cult from the perspective of the writers of the period of the late Republic and early Principate, we might add that the cult was also precisely related to a specific chronological perception. Hercules
’
arrival in Italy was an impor- tant chronological marker. For the Romans it marked, as it were, pre-Roman Rome in terms of time as well as space. From a purely topographical perspective, Hercules
’
adventures took place in

‘
Rome
’
. Cacus was killed on the Aventine, and it was at the foot of that same hill, in a place that was to become the
Forum Boarium,
that the
Ara Maxima
was founded.
72
In addition, all these events were perceived to have occurred in dim and distant antiquity, before Romulus had founded the city, or indeed Aeneas arrived in Italy. The story is always placed within this chronological context. From a religious point of view, it all happened before the foundations of Roman religion were laid first by Romulus, and then, more impor- tantly, by Numa.
73
The
Ara Maxima
existed in Republican times, and was regarded as an ancient and venerable Roman shrine, but it was also a tangible link back in time to a period before Rome was Rome.
74