{"id":431,"date":"2019-04-23T00:59:34","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T00:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/?p=431"},"modified":"2019-04-23T00:59:34","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T00:59:34","slug":"rape-in-roman-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/23\/rape-in-roman-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Rape in Roman Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rape in Roman Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Stacy Cacciatore<\/em><\/p>\n

I visited Italy for the first time this summer, exploring Rome, Venice, Florence, Pompeii, Tuscany and Modena, an exploration of my husband\u2019s Italian heritage (whose family is from Sicily). I love art and one of the highlights of the trip was visiting Florence\u2019s 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\u2019t a statue about \u2018rape\u2019 rather it was originally called \u201cRatto delle Sabine\u201d meaning the \u201cabduction\u201d of the Sabine and the sculpture actually wasn\u2019t meant to be sexual at all. The tour guide explained that over time the word \u201cratto\u201d was confused from \u201cabduction\u201d to \u201crape\u201d 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\u2019s \u201crape\u201d or an \u201cabduction\u201d, the statue represents a moment in Roman history in which women were viewed as sexual objects, available to be taken for a male\u2019s pleasure. We saw that same theme in the readings this week. In Ovid\u2019s The Art of Love, he references the Rape of the Sabine Women stating, \u201cIt 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\u201d (1033).[1]He speaks about how the Romans marked the women they most desired, \u201cseized upon their prey\u201d and grabbed the women they desired.<\/p>\n

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]<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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, \u201cOne 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,\u201d (29)[3].\u00a0This statement is based on a gendered stereotyped, just as Ovid\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s first two books provide relationship advice to men, tidbits such as \u201cpay her pretty compliments\u201d (1065), \u201cdon\u2019t get have your hair waved or use powder on your skin\u201d (1071) and \u201cDon\u2019t make it your business to restrict her diet\u201d (1129)[4]. He also provides women with advice in his third book, telling them how to wear their hair, proper grooming (don\u2019t let your armpits smell!) and how to wear makeup. Think about the magazine headlines, from Cosmopolitan magazine this month, \u201c26 Body Language Signs That Mean He\u2019s Into You\u201d and \u201c7 Thickening Shampoos That Instantly Make Your Hair Look (and Feel) Fuller\u201d\u2026.They are reinforcing the same concepts that Ovid introduced, how to feel, look and act to attract the opposite sex.
\nLanham 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, \u201cIn the Ars and Amores he tried, using love as a metaphor for private life, to work out the implications of his rhetorical view\u201d, (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 \u201cfake it till you make it\u201d and \u201cact happy until you feel happy\u201d.
\nHowever, as forward of a thinker as Ovid was, I still found components of his work extremely troubling. For example, \u201cIf you give your mistress something, she may give you your cong\u00e9. She will have had her quid pro quo. Always make her think you\u2019re just about to give, but never really do so\u201d (1067)[6]. This is basically a statement reinforcing a woman\u2019s value only as a sexual being and a male\u2019s 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, \u201cIf she refuses to be kissed, kiss her all the same. She may struggle to begin with. \u201cHorrid man!\u201d she\u2019ll say; but if she fights, \u2018twill be a losing battle. Nevertheless, don\u2019t be too rough with her and hurt her dainty mouth. Don\u2019t give her cause to say that you\u2019re a brute. And if, after you\u2019ve kissed her, you fail to take the rest, you don\u2019t deserve even what you\u2019ve won\u201d (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, \u201creally wants it\u201d and that the struggle a woman puts up is only a farce. Then it gets worse\u2026.\u201chave 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. Ph\u0153be was raped, and so, too, was her sister Elaira; and yet they loved their ravishers not a whit the less\u201d (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.
\nThroughout these readings I was immediately reminded of Victor J. Vitanza\u2019s position in Sexual Violence In Western Thought and Writing: Chaste Rape (2011), and the role rape plays in shaping culture. Vitanza (2011) \u201cThe whole history, or assembled histories, are predicated on rape scripts and narratives as a set of common topoi,\u201d (xii). I agree with Vitanza\u2019s conjecture, as he states, \u201cto understand rape (sexual violence), I contend, we must write the paradigm of rape across several contested groundings or images\u201d (xvii)[7]. This is a fascinating and eye-opening thought, as I\u2019ve never thought in this way before, but now that I\u2019ve heard this, I can\u2019t 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 \u201ctutor to love\u201d (1023) reinforces rape culture throughout his work, referring to how \u201cStolen love is just as sweet to women as it is to us\u201d (1049) and \u201cseizing the right moment to open the attack.\u201d (1063). I am brought to Vitanza\u2019s 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 \u201cI am a prostitute and proud of it\u201d 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.
\nIn 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\u2019 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 \u201cthe logic that seems to necessitate the rape of a woman in order to found a republic\u201d (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\u2019s work when he says, \u201cno act against another is more devastating than rape (sexual violence); no act is more impossible to think, read, write than rape,\u201d (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.
\nThe readings this week opened my eyes to concepts I\u2019ve never considered before, but now that I\u2019ve seen it, I can\u2019t unsee it\u2026I 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\u2026.the prince \u201ckisses\u201d Snow White when she\u2019s 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\u2019ve seen with other ideas that originated from the Romans, rape narratives have permeated Western culture.<\/p>\n

Works cited<\/strong>
\nGray, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: The classic guide to understanding the opposite sex. NY, NY: Harper.<\/p>\n

Lanham, R. A. (2004). The motives of eloquence: Literary rhetoric in the Renaissance. Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.<\/p>\n

Vitanza, V. (2011). Sexual violence in western thought and writing: Chaste rape. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan.<\/p>\n

[1]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
\n[2]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
\n[3]Gray, J. (1992). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus: The classic guide to understanding the opposite sex. NY, NY: Harper.
\n[4]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
\n[5]Lanham, R. A. (2004). The motives of eloquence: Literary rhetoric in the Renaissance. Eugene, Or.: Wipf & Stock.
\n[6]Ovid. (2012) Complete Works of Ovid.Delphi Classics. Amazon Digital Classics. Kindle edition.
\n[7]Vitanza, V. (2011). Sexual violence in western thought and writing: Chaste rape. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan.
\n[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.
\n[9]Vitanza, V. (2011). Sexual violence in western thought and writing: Chaste rape. S.l.: Palgrave Macmillan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s Italian heritage (whose family is from Sicily). I love art and one of the highlights of the trip was visiting Florence\u2019s Loggia dei Lanzi. We had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,3],"tags":[54,17,55],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-essays","category-ph-d-digital-portfolio","tag-rape","tag-rhetoric","tag-the-rape-of-lucretia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432,"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stacycacciatore.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}