From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (5 page)

Turning now to the conflict itself, it appears that in Ovid
’
s ver- sion, Cacus uses fire
(flamma)
as a weapon.
30
But once he is defeated by Hercules, the flame turns to smoke mixed with blood.
31
The metaphor, here, is quite straightforward. The dying flame gives out smoke, and since one that dies is mortal
—
apropos, one recalls that Virgil calls Cacus
semihomo
32
—
the smoke is mixed with blood. In Virgil, however, as I shall show, the metaphor is richer and more complex. Virgil takes it further, and uses it to give greater emphasis to the fundamental dichotomy that is already apparent between Hercules and Cacus.

When Cacus
’
cave is breached from above in Virgil
’
s story, the primary effect is to let the sunlight into this frightful place that had been
‘
inaccessible to the rays of the sun
’
. Cacus, being a fire- breathing monster, naturally
—
or so one would think
—
reacts to this situation by belching out those fires which Ovid portrays merely as a weapon. Virgil
’
s interpretation of the story differs subtly. Here, Cacus belches out not
flamma,
as in Ovid, nor
ignis,
which Virgil has already told us was his wont
33
but
fumus,
smoke.
34
But
fumus
is not a weapon, in the sense of something with which to harm the enemy, but a cunning device intended to deceive. By filling the cave with dense smoke
(ingentem fumum),
Cacus restores it to its former state of blackness and inaccessibility to light and sight
(caligine caeca)

35
. Fire
(ignis)
is mingled with the smoke, but the primary feature is the smoke, and the primary intention is to recreate the illusion of the underworld. Virgil describes this phenomenon as follows:

ille autem, neque enim fuga iam super ulla pericli, faucibus ingentem fumum, mirabile dictu, evomit involuitque domum caligine caeca,

prospectum eripiens oculis, glomeratque sub antro fumiferam noctem commixtu igne tenebris.

He, the while, for now no other escape from peril was left, belches from his throat dense smoke, wondrous to tell! and veils the dwelling in blinding gloom, blotting all view from the eyes, and rolling up in the cave
’
s depth smoke-laden night, its blackness min- gled with flame.
36

The opposition is plain. The cunning of Cacus with all its associa- tions of darkness and the underworld is opposed to the strength of Hercules with its associations of light and the world above. Her- cules
’
light
—
identified here with sunlight
—
is a darkness-destroying light, just as Cacus
’
fire is a darkness-creating fire. And while Her- cules
’
strength, by itself, could not overcome Cacus
’
cunning, his strength combined with light vanquished Cacus
’
cunning combined with darkness. The dichotomy is now complete, its logic intact. Darkness, obfuscation, and the world below are opposed to bright light, clear vision and the world above. But which world above? In the classical vision, which the Romans shared, there were two: the earthly abode of mortals and the heavenly abode of immortals. Where did Hercules belong? In the chronology of this myth Her- cules is still a mortal. But I suggest that Virgil is looking forward to his eventual apotheosis and defining its terms. The following image,

desuper Alcides telis premit, omniaque arma advocat et ramis vastisque molaribus instat.

Alcides hurls missiles from above, calling all weapons to his aid, and rams upon him boughs and giant millstones
37

is a poetically projected image of Hercules hurling missiles onto his foe from above. But it might also have conjured up a corresponding image of Jupiter hurling thunderbolts. It is a reasonable assumption that this would have been part of the cultural perceptions of Virgil
’
s public. And on the strength of that assumption I suggest that Her- cules was here perceived as belonging to the world of the immortals, although technically he was still a man.

It was not Hercules
’
strength that finally triumphed over Cacus; it was his passion, violent and uncontrollable. It was a passion that was rewarded because Evander, in gratitude for the destruction of Cacus, who had terrorized his people for so long, instituted a cult in Hercules
’
honour to commemorate the incident.
38
One of the most ancient and honoured foci of Roman sacrifice, the
Ara Maxima
and its cult, was perceived to have been instituted long before the found- ing of the city itself. In fact some of its ritual features recalled the
‘
Greek
’
origin of the cult.
39
The violence, represented here by the fury of Hercules, which in the last resort caused the founding of this cult, was also responsible for one of its most important features
—
the exclusion of all women from its rites. This is where the Bona Dea enters the story.

The fact that all women were strictly excluded from any participa- tion in the rites at the
Ara Maxima
was sufficiently noteworthy even in antiquity, to warrant more than one attempt at aetiological myth making.
40
One of these myths is particularly important in terms of this study. There are two existing references to the story
—
one in Propertius and the other in Macrobius.
41
The story, briefly, is as fol- lows. Hercules is overcome with a terrible thirst after his epic battle with Cacus. Wandering about in search of water, he comes upon a grove of women celebrating the rites of Bona Dea. He begs the women for water, but is refused because, as it is politely explained to him, it is unlawful for a man to taste of that water. Enraged by the refusal he takes the water by force
—
note here too the notion of vio- lence, to which I shall return later in the discussion
—
but in order to punish the women for their inhospitable behaviour he banishes them from his newly established rites for all eternity. A frivolous lit- tle story perhaps, but it holds out an opportunity to make some sense of a ritual restriction that might otherwise be cast on the heap of historical imponderables.

Up until the telling of the founding of the
Ara Maxima
Propertius
’
story tallies broadly with other extant literary versions of the myth.
42
Propertius, however, takes the story further. Alcides, he relates, wastorturedbythirst, but
‘
teemingearthsuppliednowater
’—
terraque non ullas feta ministrat aquas.
43
Feta terra:
rich, fertile, teeming, pregnant and therefore female earth. The reader
’
s initial

impression is that of sharp contrast, antagonism almost, between the hot dry Hercules and the teeming earth with all its connotations of moisture. Thus the reader is confronted instantly and simultane- ously with two sets of contrasts: male and female; dry heat and moisture. Having established this opposition, Propertius proceeds to reinforce it on the cultic level. Hercules comes across a grove,

femineae loca clausa deae fontesque piandos, impune et nullis sacra retecta viris.

The secret place of the Goddess of Women, with holy foun- tains and rites ne
’
er revealed to men save to their cost.
44

Propertius chooses to emphasize three
‘
facts
’
about the grove: it was sacred to the goddess of women, its rites were forbidden to men, and it contained water. All three are important for the significance of the story, which reaches its climax with the exclusion of women from the already established cult of the
Ara Maxima
.

We now have on one side an exclusively male cult
—
that of the
Ara Maxima,
and on the other, an exclusively female cult
—
that of Bona Dea. Both were important cults in the civic religion, but there is nothing in the ritual features of either
—
as far as we can tell
—
to connect it with the other, except this opposition defined by exclu- siveness of gender. It is interesting and highly significant, therefore, that the aetiology of these two particular cults links them mythi- cally, for they were by no means the only cults in Rome to contain elements of sexual exclusiveness. The problem lies in seeing how and why the link was significant and how it contributed to the mean- ing generated by the cults.

It is clear that the cults of Bona Dea and Hercules Invictus at the
Ara Maxima
were linked by the notion of an opposition of male and female. The terms of the opposition are however neither absolute nor inflexible. The opposition of male and female is, as I have already suggested, paralleled by the opposition of fire and water. The motif of fire played an important part in the myth of Hercules and Cacus, as told by Virgil and Ovid. There, we saw an opposition between the light-giving fire of Hercules and the darkness-creating fire of Cacus. The quality of Hercules
’
fire here in Propertius
’
tale is however very different. What is emphasized here is the heat and dry- ness of fire expressed in terms of Hercules
’
great thirst. In the lines

nec tulit iratam ianua clausa sitim

at postquam exhausto iam flumine vicerat aestum

nor could the closed gate endure the fury of his thirst. But after he had quenched his burning and drained the stream to naught
45

the words
sitim
and
aestum,
each placed at the end of consecutive lines, have the identical value.
Aestus
connotes a burning heat, which Propertius has compounded with the notion of dryness.
46
Aestus
also
—
and this is important
—
contains connotations of pas- sion. It is, for example, a word often used to denote a roiling sea.
47
Moreover, in these particular lines,
aestum
reflects not only
sitim
but the adjective used to describe it
—
iratam
. This is evocative of Hercules
’
rage when confronted with Cacus
’
cunning. While the qualities of fire and passion are therefore common to both stories, they are given a different emphasis in Propertius.

In Propertius the symbolism of fire and water is used to express the ritual opposition between male and female.
48
Propertius
’
Her- cules is subtly different from Virgil
’
s. Although in this nexus of myths Hercules is regarded as mortal, Virgil is very obviously look- ing forward to his subsequent apotheosis. In Virgil
’
s version it is the divine qualities of Hercules that are emphasized. Not so in Proper- tius; he makes a point of portraying Hercules as mortal. In fact it is possible to go one step further and say that Propertius makes an effort to portray Hercules as non-immortal, by underscoring his mortal qualities. Tortured by thirst, for example, Hercules rushes up to the door of the shrine and speaks words
‘
less than those of a god
’
(iacit
…
verba minora deo
49
)
. When begging for water he refers to himself as
vir,
man, and the word is also contained in the reply of the priestess. This emphasis on the fact that Hercules in this myth must be seen as a man operates also on a metaphorical level. To appreciate this it is necessary to see how the concept of fieriness func- tions in the myth. The Cacus myth will again be useful as a point of comparison. In keeping with his perceived divinity, the fiery nature of Hercules triumphed once and for all over Cacus. Cacus
’
destruc- tion is permanent, as is signified by the establishment of the
Ara Maxima,
the altar at which the Romans have sacrificed
‘
forever more
’
. The notion of eternity is apparent here, in keeping with the notion of Hercules
’
divinity. The Cacus incident is closed, and the world has become a different place. The monster is dead, he can no

longer tyrannize the land that is destined to become the site of Rome. The
status quo
has changed. All that remains is to commemo- rate this changed state of things, a state which is going to endure, indeed Virgil could say has endured, forever.

In the Bona Dea myth, by contrast, Hercules
’
fieriness is repre- sented by thirst. This is critically important. For thirst is not some- thing that can be destroyed for ever as Hercules destroys Cacus. It is constantly renewed and is in constant need of quenching. Therefore we have here the notion of a cycle, of repetition, in keeping with the notion of Hercules
’
mortality. In Propertius Hercules is man not god. As for the
status quo,
Hercules
’
violent act in breaking down the doors of the shrine and drinking the water does not alter it; it simply reinforces it, for in forbidding women his rites at the
Ara Maxima,
Hercules pushes the male and female elements further apart and strengthens the opposition. But Bona Dea, unlike Cacus, is not destroyed, and her continuing presence creates a tension, a perpetual dynamic opposition between herself and Hercules, between men and women.

Precisely for this reason, the opposition between male and female is neither absolute, nor inflexible. In the poem, the climax of the action is in fact the collapsing of the poles when Hercules forcibly enters the sacred grove and drinks the water. It is helpful to interpret this as a metonymy for sexual intercourse. Note also the notion of violence. The cause of the collapse of the poles or the mediating fac- tor is violence. But violence, in this instance, is not portrayed as an inbred characteristic of Hercules as it was in Virgil
’
s story of Her- cules and Cacus. It is something outside him, something inevitable, the only factor that could bring together the polar opposites of male and female. Hercules does not simply rush up to the door and break it down, which is what he did, or tried to do, with Cacus. He first pleads with the priestess. The structure of that pleading is significant for it reveals an attempt to bridge the gap between male and female, to pull the poles together.
50
He begins by asserting his masculinity: first, he invokes his extraordinary physical strength
—
he carried the globe of the earth on his back
—
and then his skill in hunting and war- fare, both peculiarly male attributes. When that fails he invokes his visit to the underworld, which is very significant, because it demon- strates the power of being able to cross uncrossable boundaries. It is all in vain. Finally, he attempts to identify with the female, thus deny- ing an opposition between male and female.