chapter IV: CXXXVIII
Panel 1: This happened to me! Sort of. I was about 2 years old, out walking with my mother nowhere in the vicinity of either Rome or Greece, when I found a big heavy coin on the ground. It turned out to be a quite ancient Athenian coin. I’ll have to dig it out of the keepsake box and get a photo of it. I was very likely wearing my hair like the little girl in the panel.
I’m totally going to count this comic as hitting the “updates three times a week” goal for the week. I’d like to get into a regular MWF pattern so you’ll know when to look for an update (Twitter will have update news, too). That still-ongoing illustration project is keeping me busy, but the more I draw for that, the more revved up I’ve been for drawing Romans.
Hey, just thought I’d tell tell you how much I love you’re comic. It’s actually really educational as well. The little interesting side notes on Roman culture and law are great, though I’ve always been more of a Hellenist personally.
Just one thing I’m curious about in regards to Mus and Menander and that whole area. I was under the impression that male same sex relationships were pretty widely tolerated at that particular point in Roman History. Of course, the Roman’s always had quite strange ideas about sex and the power dynamic that should be involved, but I just wandered what you’re opinion was.
Hi – Thanks! I’m glad the notes have been interesting. I’ve been making sure to transfer the notes from the old website to this one, and I might even add a few more.
You’re so right about the power dynamic. I think of Roman society around this time as a bit like, say, someplace very conservative in the US–with a twist that makes any idea that Romans thought of homosexuality the same way as modern people very much off the mark. Two adult men might even have a de facto marriage, but depending on the circumstances the reaction might range from turning a blind eye to disapproval to open hostility. A lot of it had to do with class, age, and power.
The “blind eye” might be turned toward very young men–boys will be boys, youthful indiscretions will happen–though it could come back to sully your reputation if anyone thought you kept it up for too long. A physical relationship with a young slave was just something to be expected–men will be men, and slaves are there to be used. Carrying on with an adult male–this was generally seen as undesirable. Behaving as what Romans considered being the “passive” partner–this was scandalous, unmanly, unseemly, and downright disgusting. Assumptions about that could ruin one’s reputation.
Mus’s relationship with Menander is already marginal, and Menander is getting a bit too grown up to be someone’s bit on the side. Men who lived an “effeminate” lifestyle–setting up a household together, even dressing too stylishly–were sometimes derided, sometimes tolerated by their communities, sometimes considered to have put on foreign airs (even worse!). There was a distrust of anything that didn’t support the norm of Roman society as one large family headed by virile patriarchs doing their duty.
An example from a little later on is the relationship between the emperor Hadrian and his young slave Antinous. Tolerated while Antinous was a child and a teenager, but it began to become scandalous as Antinous neared full adulthood. There are all sorts of wild theories as to whether he was murdered to remove him from a position of influence, murdered to restore the emperor’s manly reputation, or whether he might have sacrificed himself willingly to the gods after deciding for himself that he was too old to remain in the relationship.
Typically, women’s relationships barely factored into societal panic over other people’s private lives.
Thanks that’s really informative. I remember about Antinous now, there was a exhibition on Hadrian and Antinous at the British Museum last year. I seem to remember that he was deified after his death? He’s credited with leading to an imitation of Hellenic culture in Rome also if I remember rightly.
I also seem to remember that Cicero made certain accusation about Julius Caesar at some point as well.
As I said very interesting, both the history and the story. Thank you for both.
Yes–Cicero tended to go for insulting one’s manhood, Roman style (which, to be fair, everyone else went for, too). He accused Julius Caesar of dallying with a foreign ruler in his youth. People already thought Julius Caesar was a bit too careful with his personal grooming. (Horrors.)
And yes also about Antinous being deified. Museums are flooded with statues of him portrayed in Hellenic perfection. The portraits of him as a boy and younger teen from before his deification have more of a “Roman” feel, now that you mention it, so there’s clearly an influence there as well.