Masculinity, Appearance, and Sexuality: Dandies in Roman Antiquity

Olson, Kelly

doi:10.7560/jhs23202

Cited by 27 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 6 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Petersen 1998, 41-71 on the male body and masculinity. 23 McDonnell 2006, 165-166; this is illustrated in the studies of Connolly 1998;Edwards 1997;Gleason 1995;Gunderson 2000;Olson 2014;Richlin 1997a. 24 Gunderson 2000, 7-8, 61.…”

Section: Hegemonic Masculinity and Other Masculinities In Roman Societymentioning

confidence: 98%

Commending a freedman. Virtues and masculinities in the recommendation letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger

Hagelin

2021

OpAthRom

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article explores Roman freedmen’s masculine positions expressed as virtues, qualities, and ideals in the recommendation letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger. It discusses whether there were specific freedman virtues, qualities, and ideals and what consequences their existence or absence had for freedmen’s constructions of masculinity. A critical close reading of the texts is applied, combined with theories of masculinity, where hegemonic masculinity is a key concept. It is concluded that there were no virtues or qualities that were specific or exclusive to freedmen. A distinct set of virtues for freedmen did not exist in Late Republican and Early Imperial Rome, since much the same behaviour and qualities are seen as manly and desirable for freedmen as for freeborn male citizens of high birth. However, freedmen cannot comply with the hegemonic masculinity in full, since they cannot embody the Roman masculine ideal of the vir bonus and cannot be associated with the Roman cardinal virtue virtus, which was central in the construction of masculinity in the Roman world. This illustrates the complex Roman gender discourse and, on the whole, the social complexity of Roman society.

show abstract

Section: Hegemonic Masculinity and Other Masculinities In Roman Societymentioning

confidence: 98%

Commending a freedman. Virtues and masculinities in the recommendation letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger

Hagelin

2021

OpAthRom

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…2.33 and Dion 57.15.1. On silk as a morally questionable material see Parker (2008) 170, andOlson (2017) 108. See also ThlL VII.II, 1373, 77-80: ratione vix satis perspicua significatur sive subtegmen sive instrumentum quoddam, quo stamina ad subtegmen inserendum separari possunt.…”

Section: A Color For the Satiristsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…78 -Cf. Sinfield (1994) 27, andOlson (2014) of identity, then it may indeed supply us with a valuable element to flesh out a more problematic type of the cinaedus, otherwise conspicuous by his powerless silence and insistently canonical derision in literary texts for his hopeless erotic proclivities towards both sexes 80 . If we take seriously the argument that galbinus-hued clothing provides an insight into a specific "cinaedic attitude", which is revealed by the choice of items of clothing reflective of how a woman's anatomy was constructed and linked to her emotional life, then the cinaedi's outfit demands to be interpreted as an identity-position, not just as a matter of behavioral esthetics 81 .…”

Section: Clothing Color and Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…-See, for instance,Braund (1996) 149: "The colour is associated with women [...] and with effeminates".4 -Such seems to be the argument ofHopman (2003) 569: "Viridis is the general term for green, whether light (galbinus) or dark (prasinus), and green is a marker of bad taste and sexual deviance when worn by men". 5 -Cf.Olson (2008) 11-14, and(2017) 138-145. Green was not only a feminine color, but often associated with bad taste.6 -As Walters (1998) 149 points out Juvenal's second satire hinges on the themes of secrecy and disclosure, i.e.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Cinaedus Galbinatus: Cultural Perception of the Color “Green” and its Gender Association with Pathici in Rome

Gazzarri

2019

Eugesta

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Unlike Greek, where a word for the color green, if not absent, is certainly inconspicuous, the Latin language possesses a basic term: viridis (connected to virere “to be vigorous”, vis “strength”, and vir “man/male”, cf. n. 24). Like Greek χλωρός, galbinus corresponds to a hue between yellow and green. Unlike viridis, galbinus, when referring to persons, is utilized mainly to describe women and cinaedi. Because of the lack of effective mordants and the difficulty of mixing yellow and blue, the color green did not enter the Roman wardrobe until the early empire. Even then it became a color not for the objects encountered in everyday life, but for those witnessed at unusual occasions and events. Furthermore, ancient medical lore describes the hue on the color spectrum between green and yellow as typical of a variety of gynecological pathologies, which were eventually grouped by early modern doctors under the heading of “χλώροσις”. Whether cinaedi purposefully elected galbinus as their hue of choice, or such representation stemmed merely from the imaginations of caustic Roman satirists, this otherwise exclusively feminine element of ancient fashion suggests that its connection with cinaedi involves a more public dimension to their identity than the passive role ascribed to them during the sexual act, at least as they are defined by constructivist scholarship. Rather, the link with this color seems to be part of their identity, which is not limited to the moment of sexual submission; indeed, it defines cinaedi as figures also identified with constructions of women, their esthetics and sensitivity, and more crucially their physiology. The galbinus attire, while reinforcing the interpretation of cinaedi as a gender-deviant marginal group, simultaneously invites a more complex assessment of these individuals: one that possibly involves the notion of identity.

show abstract

“…Las vestimentas podían indicar feminidad por su tejido, su color, la longitud de sus mangas y el entallado en la cintura. Véase a este respecto Bartman, 2001;Bittarello, 2011;olson, 2014olson, . 7.…”

unclassified

La vulva de Atis = The vulva of Attis

Ezquerra

Gómez

Murcia

2019

Arys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Resumen: La iconografía de la vestimenta de Atis es muy variada. Uno de los tipos más característicos es la imagen del dios con el vestido abierto mostrando, con frecuencia, el sexo. La forma en la que se abre la túnica no deja lugar a dudas: representa una vulva. Es sugerente imaginar que esa forma alude al momento del mito en el que se produce la eviración. El Carmen 63 de Catulo es un buen material propedéutico para el problema. Más allá de la constatación de la ambigüedad sexual del dios cercenado, lo interesante en este caso es que la ambigüedad se resuelve mediante un mecanismo ideológico de oposición de contrarios: lo que no es claramente viril, aparenta femenino. En consecuencia, la representación de la vestimenta es aprovechada para resolver un conflicto de los observadores que soportan mal la indefinición genérica: la pérdida del sexo masculino se reviste con la marca genital femenina.Abstract: The iconography of Attis’ clothing is varied. One of the most characteristic types is the image of the god with the open dress showing often his sex. The way the tunic is opened leaves no doubt: it represents a vulva. It is suggesting imagining that this form alludes to the moment of the myth whereby the castration takes place. Catullus’s Carmen 63 is a good propaedeutic material for the problem. Beyond the verification of the sexual ambiguity of the emasculated god, the interesting point in this case is that the ambiguity is resolved by means of an ideological mechanism of opposition of opposites: what is not clearly virile, seems feminine. Consequently, the representation of the clothing is used to resolve a conflict generated in the observers who badly endure generic lack of definition: the loss of the male sex is clothed with the female genital mark.Palabras clave: Androginia, Atis, Cibeles, Frigia, vulva.Key words: Androgyny, Attis, Cibeles, Phrygia, vulva.

show abstract

Masculinity, Appearance, and Sexuality: Dandies in Roman Antiquity

Cited by 27 publications

References 6 publications

Commending a freedman. Virtues and masculinities in the recommendation letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger

Commending a freedman. Virtues and masculinities in the recommendation letters of Cicero and Pliny the Younger

Cinaedus Galbinatus: Cultural Perception of the Color “Green” and its Gender Association with Pathici in Rome

La vulva de Atis = The vulva of Attis

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About