Lesbia: a Construction of the Elite
Male's Desire
The poems of Catullus which specifically refer to or address Lesbia are
few: only eleven. Some of these poems reflect on the sexual relationship
between lover and poet with subtly erotic language ("a thousand kisses"),
in contrast with other poems of aggressive themes of penetration in which
the most obscene and explicit language is used. His corpus spans their
relationship from its inception to its end and also spans the variety of
emotions felt by the speaker of the poem, from intoxicating love to anger
and resentment. However, Lesbia is not the only lover within Catullus'
work. There is also a boy names Juventus. Both names, Lesbia and
Juventus, fall under what can be called categorizations of lovers of
leisure and cultus, reflecting a life of luxury, specific to the private
realm and the banquet, Hellenistic in source. Although Lesbia was thought
to have truly existed and was actually a woman named Clodia, the victim
of Cicero's diatribe in Pro Caelio,, no evidence can prove that Catullus
himself did have an affair with her. The boy, Juventus, can also be
considered a construction, because he falls under Greek epigram's
stereotype of the desirable passive noble boy. Both Lesbia and Juventus
represent desired passive partners of privileged love in Roman
aristocratic ideology, under which Catullus wrote. Whether or not they
were actually Catullus' lovers is irrelevant to understanding what types
of sexual partners were preferred by aristocratic males in relationships
outside of marriage. Lesbia and Juventus were epitomes of sexual desire.
Therefore, to wonder who Lesbia was is to wonder who Juventus was, the
latter a topic never approached in scholarly discourse. Lesbia is a
fictional woman with traits taken from the married noble woman and the
sexually loose freedwoman.
A hierarchical organization of sexual objects in antiquity was based on
the social status of the passive partner, the basest being the slave,
either a domestic or a prostitute, who by coercion, not by will, is
subjected to sexual penetration. The concubine, also a slave, falls into
the same category, but her life was less likely to involve violence since
she was embedded into her master's familia, and was treated better. The
roles of the concubine, prostitute, and courtesan, all represent
different levels of a sexual social hierarchy. The slave has no rights
and is always present in the house, visible and available to the master
on a daily basis. The prostitute also has no rights and lives in the
public realm of the brothel. Those who are not slaves, either freed or
freeborn, are the next class, but the social structure of the free is
also hierarchical. One could be freeborn but live the life of a slave in
poverty, less suited to float among elite circles, such as farmers or
urban menial workers. In contrast, one could be freed and, despite the
status of former slave, comfortably partake in activities suited for the
aristocracy because of previous close ties with one's patron and his
milieu. A life of luxury requires a woman in close proximity to the
lifestyles of the wealthy for desired sexual partners.
The freedwoman possessed characteristics of people of higher status and
was therefore more suitable as a participant of an elite male's
lifestyle. However, the stigma of being a former slave must have been
crippling to the progress of status for the wealthy freedman or
freedwoman behaving like an aristocrat. The freedwoman, as slave and as a
freed slave, was not expected to adhere to the moral guidelines set for a
freeborn woman and was the only ideal partner for elevated, but
promiscuous and permitted sexual behavior. The next in the hierarchy was
a woman from freeborn society, who as a type, was prohibited from sexual
involvement outside of marriage. Sexual affairs with her would be
immoral, unethical and illegal according to Julian Law (passed before
Catullus' time). The matrona was idealized more as a wife than as a
lover. Of course, literature attests to the promiscuity of noble women,
an example being Clodia of Cicero's Pro Caelio. Evidently, the boundaries
between the wealthy freedwoman lover and the libertine freeborn woman is
never made clear. The term meretrix has been used to designate a woman
either freed or freeborn, involved in numerous extramarital love affairs
with men of high society. Catullus designed Lesbia to conform to both
standards of desirability. She is a matron because she is married (poem
83) and is also of noble status, but she partakes in multiple
extramarital sexual affairs (poem 72).
The object of the elite male's desire is a construction of parts. The
qualities which make a woman sexually desirable are derived from features
of matrona and lupa, conforming to the elite male's vision of sex and
love. These two polarities which are also formed in visual art, are not
reflections of reality, but are symbolic of the male gaze's tendency to
categorize woman, "the other", into two governable entities. There is the
idealized matron. Her behavior (her virtue symbolized by the image of
spinning and weaving) and her appearance (her stola, her simple beauty)
define her status as a non-sexual object. The roles which have been given
to her by her husband confine her to the domestic sphere with her
familia. She is idealized as faithful and devoted to her husband as his
lifetime companion. Her sexuality must be suppressed by her fertility,
which is her primary function. Sexual passion between a man and wife were
not popularized themes. Roman morality's power over social hierarchies
dictates the indispensability of these dichotomies, which act as
exemplars to the Roman public. Patriarchal restrictions of sexual conduct
are imposed on all citizens, especially on the upper-class woman. The
matrona is what every woman should strive to be.
The basest of all women lack the virtues of the matron. She is
ungovernable and base because she is purely sexual. Ideally, this woman
is uncivilized, uneducated and should serve only to satisfy the
insatiable libidos of Roman men. The female sexual object has no home.
She belongs to the public realm, the brothel. Her fertility is not a
redeeming quality. Her function is purely sexual and she is integral to
society because of the male's hunger for sexual release. Her ungovernable
nature necessitates aggression and brutal force. So that she is less
threatening to the moral fiber of Rome, she could only be a slave, a
prostitute. Horace's account of Cato implies these polarities when he
differentiates the public, legitimate sex of the brothel from private,
immoral, extra-marital sex with a domestic woman. The former is sexual,
the latter domestic and fertile. Both types of women have been
constructed to suit the ideal and the unreal.
Desire necessitates a figure which is situated in between the polarities
of matron and prostitute, domestic and public, civilized and uncivilized.
The elite male's erotic ideal is shaped by a life of luxury and leisure,
a highly privatized aspect of life, separated from the public political
realm of the Forum. Erotic desire requires an environment which allows
the coexistence of two disparate worlds, where elements of the matrona,
the domestic sphere, the cultured elite urban world intermingle with the
vulgar features of the prostitute, the public sphere of the streets, and
the rustic uncivilized plebeian world. The courtesan or meretrix is the
chief ideal in the demi-monde of erotic desire. She is comprised of
select qualities of the two realms, lingering in between the norms of
utility and the vices of pleasure. Since she is a generalization, not a
reality, the courtesan's exact role in the demi-monde is ill-defined and
apparently limited. Latin love elegy has used this type of woman as chief
actor in failed mock love affairs. She manifests herself in different
forms and under a variety of guises. Catullus' Lydia is thought to be the
first immortalized female lover, sexually promiscuous, yet still
respectable.
Catullus' followers such as Horace and Ovid, who wrote love poetry,
approached the ideal of the female lover rather differently. One could
say that the corruption of Lesbia as a trope began when the Republic
finally toppled and Rome became an empire. Perhaps the change of ideals
brought on by the stability of the empire and the lack of military
participation by noble Roman males changed the outlook on sex and love
and the constructions became more illbred. Unlike Horace and Ovid,
Catullus approaches his love for Lesbia as a lifelong commitment, even
though he himself is not monogamous. Within his poetry, there are
intimations of a deep faith and love which is usually characteristic to
nuptial union. Here we see once again the mixture of marriage with a
purely sexual relationship. In poetry after Catullus, the epitomes are
portrayed more clearly as debased women, like Propertius' Cynthia. Even
passionate love in Catullus is mixed with sexual desire. Lydia is the
manifestation of a product of two worlds, the elite marriage and the
elite sexual object.
To the main page
The Life of Catullus
Examples of Catullan poetry
The Life of Luxury
Power in Roman Relationships
A list of works cited