From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (16 page)

To begin with it will be helpful to analyse the function of Ceres in marriage. She was intimately connected with the marriage cere- mony. In poetic expression the symbol of the torch was used to evoke the wedding. Virgil describes Amata
’
s frenzied efforts to pre- vent Lavinia
’
s marriage to Aeneas thus:

…
et natam frondosis montibus abdit

quo thalamum eripiat Teucris taedasque moretur.

[She] hides her daughter in the leafy mountains, thereby to rob the Teucrians of their marriage and to delay the torches [i.e. the wedding].
98

Ovid also uses the metaphor of the torch to express the belief that weddings that were celebrated while cult was being offered to the dead
—
i.e. during the festivals of the Feralia and the Caristia
—
were unlucky,

dum tamen haec fiunt, viduae cessate puellae: expectet puros pinea taeda dies,

nec tibi, quae cupidae matura videbere matri comat virgineas hasta recurva comas.

But while these rites are being performed, ye ladies change not your widowed state. Let the torch of pine wait till the days are pure. And O thou damsel who to thy eager mother shalt appear all ripe for marriage, let not the bent back spear comb down thy maiden hair.
99

Propertius has Cornelia speak of her transition from maiden to wife in this way:

mox, ubi iam facibus cessit praetexta maritis
…

And soon when the maiden
’
s garment yielded to the torches of marriage
…
100

The torch was evidently a commonly accepted metonymy for mar- riage. The torch of marriage was connected explicitly with Ceres:

Facem in nuptiis in honorem Cereris praeferebant. At weddings the torch was carried in honour of Ceres.
101

The central element in the ceremony of a Roman wedding was the nocturnal procession in which the new bride was conducted to her husband
’
s home
—
the
deductio ad domum
. This part of the cere- mony was important for two reasons. I have already observed that no ceremony, religious or legal was necessary for a marriage to be valid. All that was necessary
—
provided the parties had legal capac- ity to marry
—
was intent
—
affectio maritalis
.
102
Strictly speaking a marriage need not even be consummated to be legal. However it was essential that the wife take up residence in her husband
’
s home; this was a
sine qua non
of a valid Roman marriage.
103
The
deductio ad domum
constituted public notice of the marriage and the new status of the bride. It signified that the subsequent co-habitation of the couple was a valid marriage, that legal capacity to marry had been established, and that
affectiomaritalis,
something impossible to demonstrate, must be assumed. It left no room for doubt that the woman was henceforth a
matrona
and that her children would be subject to the
patria potestas
of her husband or his
paterfamilias
.

Although ceremonies accompanying a first marriage often differed from those accompanying remarriages, the
deductio
was a common feature in both.
104

The most striking feature of the
deductio
was the torches.
105
The number of torches probably depended on the size and splendour of the procession. Their purpose was of course functional, but at least one had a symbolic value.
106

Patrimi et matrimi pueri praetextati tres nubentem deducunt; unus qui facem praefert ex spina alba, quia noctu nubebant; duo qui tenent nubentem.

Three young boys whose parents were still alive, led the bride; one headed the procession with a torch of white pine
—
for the Romans celebrated marriages by night
—
and two held the bride
’
s hands.
107

According to Pliny the
spina alba,
white pine, was
‘
the most auspi- cious tree for supplying wedding torches, because according to the account of Masurius, it was used for that purpose by the shepherds who carried off the Sabine women
’
.
108
I suggest that it was the torch made of
spina alba,
carried at the head of the procession and evoca- tive of the story of the Sabine women
—
the original
matronae
—
that also constituted a sacred symbol of Ceres. It was to this torch that Festus was referring when he said that a torch was carried in honour of Ceres at weddings. It would appear that Ceres was perceived to be particularly concerned with the status of the bride, the new
matrona
. In this section I shall show that Ceres
’
connection with the wedding was directly related to her concern for lawful sexual inter- course as defined by marriage. The
matrona
was the embodiment of such a definition. A man
’
s sexuality was not at all constrained by marriage. Marital fidelity was never a requirement for a husband. It was imperative for his wife.

There was only one temple of Ceres in Rome.
109
But it was dedi- cated not just to Ceres alone, but to the triad, Ceres, Liber and Lib- era.
110
Each deity occupied a separate
cella
within the building. The most important festival of Ceres, the Cerialia, was likewise held in honour not just of Ceres, but of the triad.
111
The three deities were closely associated. It is helpful to analyse that association in terms of the concepts of gender and sexuality.

Liber
’
s connection with viticulture and wine has been widely stud-

ied.
112
He was credited with the discovery of wine and its introduc- tion into society. We saw in connection with the use of wine at the festival of the Bona Dea, that wine was a symbolic expression of masculinity; it represented the male principle. The cult of Liber sup- ports that hypothesis. Augustine, for example, described the cult of Liber thus:
‘
I come now to the rites of Liber, a god whom they have put in charge of moist seeds; this includes not only the juice of fruits, among which wine somehow holds first place, but also the semen of animals.
’
113
In charge of wine and semen Liber represented male- ness. Libera, the third member of the triad is presented as the perfect female counterpart of Liber. As Liber was to the male, Libera was to the female:
‘
Under the name of Liber let him preside over the seeds of men, and as Libera over the seeds of women.
’
114

But Liber and Libera represent not simply the principles of mas- culinity and femininity, but sexual intercourse itself.

They say that the god Liber gets his name from Liberating, because it is through his favour that males in intercourse are liberated from or relieved of, the semen which they emit. For women they say that the same service is performed by Libera, whom they also identify with Venus; for they think that the woman also emits seed. Hence in the temple of Liber they dedi- cate to the god the male sexual organs and in the temple of Libera, the corresponding female organs.

(Aug.,
de Civ. D.,
6.9)
115

Liber and Libera were complementary deities. But there was also a third element to the cult
—
Ceres. Ceres was, moreover, its most prominent figure. I suggest that her function was that of ordering and regulating the sexuality that Liber and Libera represented. To put it another way, the concept of sexual intercourse as represented by the couple Liber-Libera was mediated by Ceres. In terms of gen- der and sexuality the cult of the triad represented not simply sexual intercourse, but intercourse regulated by marriage.

Ovid recorded a belief that Liber was the discoverer not only of wine but also of honey.
116
I argued, following Detienne, in connec- tion with the representation of honey at the festival of the Bona Dea, that honey was used as a symbolic expression of the ideal of chastity within marriage. I wish to suggest here that this myth of Liber might most usefully be read in those terms. That is, that the male sexuality of Liber was contained within the concept of marriage. Even though

men were free to have relations with women other than their wives, a man
’
s relationship with his wife, as we shall see, was ritually mediated.

The story that Liber discovered honey was very likely an aetiolog- ical myth that was meant to explain the practice of sacrificing cakes infused with honey at the Liberalia.
117
The Liberalia, celebrated on 17 March was, as far as we can tell, in honour of Liber only.
118
Nei- ther Ceres nor Libera are mentioned in connection with this festival. The Liberalia marked a Roman male
’
s rite of passage from boyhood to manhood; it was the day on which boys, with much ceremony and celebration, formally adopted the
toga virilis
.
119
Historians describing this transition tend to stress
—
and rightly so
—
the politi- cal, military, legal and financial responsibilities that the new adult male would henceforth assume.
120
It is noted only in passing that for men the ceremony of formally donning the
toga virilis
was equiva- lent to marriage for women. The suggestion is that marriage, while of crucial importance to women, was less important to men. Empiri- cally this is true. The consequences of the formal transition from childhood to adulthood were very different for men and for women. But from an ideological perspective it was marriage that marked the transition from childhood to adulthood for both men and women.
Conubium,
as we have seen, was a
sine qua non
of a valid Roman marriage. Another necessary factor was puberty.

There could be no legal marriage in Rome between persons under the age of puberty. The male must be
pubes,
the female
viripotens
. In the earliest law, however, it is impossible to speak of
‘
an age of puberty,
’
since puberty was determined by actual inspection of the body. Out of respect for their mod- esty, this practice was at a remote period discontinued in the case of girls and the fixed age of twelve settled upon; but boys continued to be examined, probably in connection with the
tirocinium fori
when they assumed the dress and political privi- leges of men.

(Corbett 1930:51)
121

Technically a boy was not considered a man until he was considered capable of sexual intercourse. And in connection with the formal transition into adulthood, capacity for intercourse was equivalent to the legal capacity for marriage. Before a boy was regarded as a man, ready to take on the multifarious privileges and responsibili-

ties of legal adulthood, his fitness for marriage had either to be demonstrated or assumed.

The ceremonies that accompanied a boy
’
s coming of age and a bride
’
s wedding day had at least one significant symmetrical feature. On the day that a Roman boy put aside his
toga praetexta
for the
toga virilis
he also wore a specially woven tunic, the
tunica recta,
so called because it was woven on an old-fashioned loom, from top to bottom, with the weaver standing rather than seated.
122
A bride on her wedding day also wore the
tunica recta
. She also symbolically discarded the
toga praetexta
of her childhood.
123

We do not know how rigidly social practice adhered to these tradi- tions. Although the day of the Liberalia was by tradition the day on which boys adopted the
toga virilis
it was possible to hold the cere- mony on some other day.
124
Similarly the tradition of wearing the
tunica recta
may or may not have been regularly observed. But the important thing is that the traditions existed. The
tunica recta,
the garment ideally worn by both boys and girls while they were under- going the rite of passage into two very different sorts of adult world, marks the symmetry of perception with which the transitions were regarded. Just as the bride
’
s
tunica recta
evoked the circumstances of a boy
’
s rite of passage, the boy
’
s evoked a bride
’
s. Marriage was as much part of a boy
’
s future as of a girl
’
s. The difference was that it was the only future for a girl. To return to the Liberalia, I suggest that the tradition that a boy assume the
toga virilis
on that day, was meant as a ritual statement that he was now physically capable of marriage. In keeping with his varied duties as a citizen he was expected on that day, accompanied by his friends, to visit the major temples in Rome, of which the temple of Ceres, Liber and Libera was just one.
125
But the day on which the ceremony took place was meant specifically to evoke Liber and sexuality limited and regu- lated by marriage; this idea was inherent also in the garment that was worn on the occasion, the
tunica recta
.

In the rest of this section I shall explore a fundamental difference in the way that Roman religion categorized men and women in terms of their sexuality. Put succinctly, women were polarized into two starkly contrasted groups according to how their sexuality was expressed: wives, whose sexuality was constrained and regulated; and prostitutes who were promiscuous. Men were not categorized in this way. As far as rituals of gender and sexuality were concerned, men constituted a single group. Nevertheless, religious ideology con- structed an asymmetry in the way that men related to the two female