Rape in Roman Culture

Rape in Roman Culture

By Stacy Cacciatore

I visited Italy for the first time this summer, exploring Rome, Venice, Florence, Pompeii, Tuscany and Modena, an exploration of my husband’s Italian heritage (whose family is from Sicily). I love art and one of the highlights of the trip was visiting Florence’s Loggia dei Lanzi. We had a tour guide, who talked through the art we were exploring, including the Rape of the Sabine Women, which was carved out of one single block of white marble. When I seemed taken aback that there was a statue telling the story of the rape of a young woman, the tour guide explained that it wasn’t a statue about ‘rape’ rather it was originally called “Ratto delle Sabine” meaning the “abduction” of the Sabine and the sculpture actually wasn’t meant to be sexual at all. The tour guide explained that over time the word “ratto” was confused from “abduction” to “rape” because the words sounded similar. However, upon a bit of further research, it turns out that this is hotly debated and not as cut and dry as the tour guide made it seem. Regardless, whether it’s “rape” or an “abduction”, the statue represents a moment in Roman history in which women were viewed as sexual objects, available to be taken for a male’s pleasure. We saw that same theme in the readings this week. In Ovid’s The Art of Love, he references the Rape of the Sabine Women stating, “It was you, Romulus, who first mingled the cares of love with public games, that far-off day when the rape of the Sabine women gave wives to your warriors who had waited for them so long” (1033).[1]He speaks about how the Romans marked the women they most desired, “seized upon their prey” and grabbed the women they desired.

Even as the weak and timid doves flee before an eagle, even as a young lamb quails at the sight of a wolf, so shuddered the Sabine women when they beheld these fierce warriors making towards them. Every one turned pale, terror spread throughout the throng, but it showed itself in different ways. Some tore their hair; some swooned away; some wept in silence; some called vainly for their mothers; some sobbed aloud; others seemed stupefied with fear; some stood transfixed; others tried to flee. Nevertheless, the Romans carry off the women, sweet booty for their beds, and to many of them, terror lends an added charm. (1035).[2]

Ovid (43 BC-17/18 AD) uses the story of the Rape of the Sabine Women to demonstrate the complicated history of the relationship between men and women. He attempts to redefine the relationship between the sexes from one of the man holding all of the power and taking the woman of his choosing to a mutual relationship with both sexes playing a role in dynamic. I liken Ovid’s The Art of Loveto an ancient Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus(Gray, 1992). I remember reading this book when I first got married, seeking the answers to how my husband and I could communicate and understand each other. Ovid’s The Art of Loveis scarily similar. Ovid even references the story from Olympus of Mars and Venus, Mars falling in love with Venus and changed from the grim warrior to the submissive lover. The similarities make me wonder if John Gray mirrored Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus after Ovid’s The Art of Love? Take, for example, this quote that attempts to provide advice about how men and women should communicate with each other using gendered stereotypes, “One of the biggest differences between men and women is how they cope with stress. Men become increasingly focused and withdrawn while women become overwhelmed and emotionally involved,” (29)[3]. This statement is based on a gendered stereotyped, just as Ovid’s work.

What I find striking each week in our readings is that through all these years (The Art of Love was written in 2AD) not that much has changed. How can that be? Books, magazines and television continue to provide relationship advice to men and women that reinforce hegemonic normative roles. Ovid’s first two books provide relationship advice to men, tidbits such as “pay her pretty compliments” (1065), “don’t get have your hair waved or use powder on your skin” (1071) and “Don’t make it your business to restrict her diet” (1129)[4]. He also provides women with advice in his third book, telling them how to wear their hair, proper grooming (don’t let your armpits smell!) and how to wear makeup. Think about the magazine headlines, from Cosmopolitan magazine this month, “26 Body Language Signs That Mean He’s Into You” and “7 Thickening Shampoos That Instantly Make Your Hair Look (and Feel) Fuller”….They are reinforcing the same concepts that Ovid introduced, how to feel, look and act to attract the opposite sex.
Lanham calls Ovid a martyr and says that his views contradicted Augustan Rome (49)[5]. We can certainly see this in The Art of Love,asOvid frames the game of love between men and women as one of equality. While many components of his advice are antiquated, reinforcing stereotypical roles of men and women, it was advanced for his time. Lanham states, “In the Ars and Amores he tried, using love as a metaphor for private life, to work out the implications of his rhetorical view”, (49). He goes on to say that is why his poems are so didactic. According to Lanham, another tactic of Ovid is to begin with an illusion and reality will follow (50). This is the same advice we hear today regarding “fake it till you make it” and “act happy until you feel happy”.
However, as forward of a thinker as Ovid was, I still found components of his work extremely troubling. For example, “If you give your mistress something, she may give you your congé. She will have had her quid pro quo. Always make her think you’re just about to give, but never really do so” (1067)[6]. This is basically a statement reinforcing a woman’s value only as a sexual being and a male’s conquest of her sexually. IT places a woman in the role as a prostitute, receiving money or goods in exchange for sex. Even more troubling was, “If she refuses to be kissed, kiss her all the same. She may struggle to begin with. “Horrid man!” she’ll say; but if she fights, ‘twill be a losing battle. Nevertheless, don’t be too rough with her and hurt her dainty mouth. Don’t give her cause to say that you’re a brute. And if, after you’ve kissed her, you fail to take the rest, you don’t deserve even what you’ve won” (1087). This is rape. Not only is this encouraging rape, but it is reinforcing the excused behavior of men in a rape culture that a woman, “really wants it” and that the struggle a woman puts up is only a farce. Then it gets worse….“have hurt her in the struggle, you say? But women like being hurt. What they like to give, they love to be robbed of. Every woman taken by force in a hurricane of passion is transported with delight; nothing you could give her pleases her like that. But when she comes forth scathless from a combat in which she might have been taken by assault, however pleased she may try to look, she is sorry in her heart. Phœbe was raped, and so, too, was her sister Elaira; and yet they loved their ravishers not a whit the less” (1089). I found this extremely difficult to read. Rape, violence, reinforcing sexual violence against women and justifying it by saying she really wants it, no matter how much she struggles.
Throughout these readings I was immediately reminded of Victor J. Vitanza’s position in Sexual Violence In Western Thought and Writing: Chaste Rape (2011), and the role rape plays in shaping culture. Vitanza (2011) “The whole history, or assembled histories, are predicated on rape scripts and narratives as a set of common topoi,” (xii). I agree with Vitanza’s conjecture, as he states, “to understand rape (sexual violence), I contend, we must write the paradigm of rape across several contested groundings or images” (xvii)[7]. This is a fascinating and eye-opening thought, as I’ve never thought in this way before, but now that I’ve heard this, I can’t stop thinking about it. Vitanza is absolutely right, histories and narratives have been written based on rape culture. Even Ovid, who was ahead of his time and thought of himself as a “tutor to love” (1023) reinforces rape culture throughout his work, referring to how “Stolen love is just as sweet to women as it is to us” (1049) and “seizing the right moment to open the attack.” (1063). I am brought to Vitanza’s opening in Sexual Violence in Western Thought and Writing: Chaste Rape and the haunting story of Sylvia Likens. The rape culture that made Gertrude, Jenny, Richards Hobbs and Coy Hubburd feel justified in burning, beating and cutting Sylvia with the words “I am a prostitute and proud of it” is the same culture that the Romans reinforced years ago with positioning women as a conquest, to be taken and used for sexual pleasure, but to be chastised and scorned after being used.
In The Rape of Lucretiawe see an example how rape played a key role in the development of Roman culture. The story is about a woman who is raped and then commits suicide. In Mattes’ The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republic: Readings in Livy, Machiavelli and Rousseau.(2001) she states that was is most notable is the linkage to “the logic that seems to necessitate the rape of a woman in order to found a republic” (42)[8]. West also explores how genders, roles and hierarchies are influenced by these stories that uses suicide as a catalyst for republic freedom and sexual violence to unite strangers (42). I again and brought to Vitanza’s work when he says, “no act against another is more devastating than rape (sexual violence); no act is more impossible to think, read, write than rape,” (xii)[9]. The act of rape is incredibly devastating, as much or more devastating to a community than death. And yet, we see rape acting as a topic continually raised in early Roman works, not only shaping a culture, but reinforcing and dare I say, normalizing, sexual violence towards women.
The readings this week opened my eyes to concepts I’ve never considered before, but now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it…I now see it everywhere. Everywhere I look, I see the signs of how rape has formed our culture. Even in my beloved Disney fairy tales….the prince “kisses” Snow White when she’s asleep (unable to consent), in Beauty and the Beast, Gaston sexually harasses Belle and the Beast holds her captive and in Aladdin, Jafar forces Jasmine to marry him. Just as we’ve seen with other ideas that originated from the Romans, rape narratives have permeated Western culture.

Works cited
Gray, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: The classic guide to understanding the opposite sex. NY, NY: Harper.

Lanham, R. A. (2004). The motives of eloquence: Literary rhetoric in the Renaissance. Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock.

Mattes, M (2001). The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republic: Readings in Livy, Machiavelli and Rousseau.The Pennsylvania State University Press: University Park, PA.

Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.

Vitanza, V. (2011). Sexual violence in western thought and writing: Chaste rape. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan.

[1]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
[2]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
[3]Gray, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: The classic guide to understanding the opposite sex. NY, NY: Harper.
[4]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
[5]Lanham, R. A. (2004). The motives of eloquence: Literary rhetoric in the Renaissance. Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock.
[6]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
[7]Vitanza, V. (2011). Sexual violence in western thought and writing: Chaste rape. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan.
[8]Mattes, M (2001). The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republic: Readings in Livy, Machiavelli and Rousseau.The Pennsylvania State University Press: University Park, PA.
[9]Vitanza, V. (2011). Sexual violence in western thought and writing: Chaste rape. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan.