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NE SPADONES FIANT: DOMITIAN'S EMASCULATION BAN
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 November 2023
Abstract
This article questions the prevailing opinion that Domitian's prohibition of castration was intended as a protective measure devised to check masters’ abuses on their slaves, as part of a larger trend towards more enlightened attitudes towards slavery among the Romans. While brutal, castration was the only type of mutilation which increased the monetary value of slaves. Banning it curtailed slaves’ chances of social climbing and narrowed their channels towards positions of power. The emasculation ban is, instead, better understood as one of the many measures directed towards the control of the sexual behaviour and the sumptuary practices of the Roman elite. Introduced as a censorial decree, the ban gave Domitian the opportunity to act as the upholder of Republican traditions at the same time as he impinged on the private lives of his subjects and put senators and equestrians under his thumb. The article also argues that, contrary to what is usually argued, the constant re-enforcement of the prohibition to castrate by Domitian's successors is an indication of the effectiveness of the Roman legal machinery and its capacity to reach the most distant corners of the Roman empire.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Footnotes
An early version of this article was presented at the ISPCS 43rd Annual Conference, Ben Gurion University in the Negev, Israel, May 2014. I thank Alex Imrie and Laura Donati for reading different versions of the article; Manuela Rocchi for reading the final version and helping me find the article's elusive structure; and CQ's readers for helpful comments.
References
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15 V.L. Bullough, ‘Eunuchs in history and society’, in S.F. Tougher (ed.), Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (London, 2002), 1–17.
16 True, Mart. 2.60 implies that castration could be used to punish slaves who had adulterous relationships with their masters’ wives or daughters. But most castrations were performed when boys were young, not as chastisement for their sexual misdeeds.
17 A slave thus maimed was regarded as morbosus (‘diseased') (Dig. 21.1.13: Gaius). A slave whose tongue had been cut off or had had their fingers or arms mutilated was not regarded as ‘healthy' (sanus) (Dig. 21.1.8: Vlpianus; Dig. 21.1.10.pr.: Vlpianus).
18 Under the lex Aquilia, mutilating somebody else's slave was not regarded as a criminal offence against the slave's corporal integrity either but as an infringement of the property rights of the master, who had to be compensated monetarily. No criminal punishment was envisaged for those against whom the action was brought (Dig. 9.2.2.pr.: Gaius).
19 While S. Tougher, ‘The aesthetics of castration: the beauty of Roman eunuchs’, in L. Tracy (ed.), Castration and Culture in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2013), 48–72 is right that Roman attitudes towards eunuchs were not universally negative, I disagree with his contention that it was the Galli who ‘play[ed] a key role in establishing a negative perception of eunuchs in Rome’ (56). Hostility towards eunuchs was not restricted to this priestly group. In Late Antiquity, views became more positive as eunuchs occupied key positions in the imperial bureaucracy: Rotman, Y., ‘The paradox of Roman eunuchism: a juridical-historical approach’, SCI 34 (2015), 129–50Google Scholar; G. Sidéris, ‘“Eunuchs of light”. Power, imperial ceremony and positive representations of eunuchs in Byzantium (4th–12th centuries)’, in S.F. Tougher (ed.), Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (London, 2002), 161–76.
20 Hor. Carm. 1.37.9; Petron. Sat. 23.
21 Tac. Ann. 4.10–11 and 12.66; Suet. Claud. 44.2.
22 Mart. 5.41, 6.67, 10.52, 10.91, 11.81; Juv. 1.22, 6.366–78, 10.311–13.
23 Tougher (n. 19), 63.
24 The definition of eunuchs as ‘the ultimate slave’ is by Patterson, O., Slavery and Social Death (Cambridge, MA and London, 1982), 299–333Google Scholar.
25 Plin. HN 7.129. Though exaggerated, the sum shows that the Romans believed that people could spend large amounts of money on emasculated boys.
26 Maecenas, Drusus and Sejanus, for example, owned eunuchs: Sen. Ep. 114.6; Tac. Ann. 4.10; Plin. HN 7.129.
27 Well-known examples are Lygdus (Tac. Ann. 4.8), Claudius’ favourite Posides (Suet. Claud. 28.1), Halotus, courtier of Claudius and Nero (Tac. Ann. 12.66; Suet. Claud. 44.2, Galb. 15.2), and Sporus, castrated and ‘married’ to Nero (Suet. Ner. 28.1; Cass. Dio 62.28.2–3). According to Cassius Dio, Titus was very fond of eunuchs and even Domitian had a eunuch lover (67.2.3). On eunuchs as the quintessential court slave in places such as Assyria, Babylonia, Achaemenid and Sasanian Persia, and Han China, see A.J.S. Spawforth (ed.), The Court and Court Society in Ancient Monarchies (Cambridge, 2007), passim; K. Deller, ‘The Assyrian eunuchs and their predecessors’, in K. Watanabe (ed.), Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East (Heidelberg, 1999), 303–11; L. Llewellyn-Jones, ‘Eunuchs and the royal harem in Achaemenid Persia (559–331 bc)’, in S.F. Tougher (ed.), Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond (London, 2002), 19–49; M.H. Dettenhofer, ‘Eunuchs, women and imperial courts’, in W. Scheidel (ed.), Rome and China: Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires (Oxford, 2009), 83–99.
28 Cass. Dio 72.17.2. The silence of our sources does not mean that there were no eunuchs in the Antonine court. Remarkably, however, no Antonine-court eunuch ever achieved the prominence and political influence of their Julio-Claudian and Flavian counterparts, let alone of late antique castrati. Despite the parallels with Earinus, it is unlikely that Hadrian's lover Antinous was a eunuch: Charles, M.B. and Anagnostou-Laoutides, E., ‘The sexual hypocrisy of Domitian: Suet., Dom. 8, 3’, AC 79 (2010), 173–87Google Scholar, at 185. Vout (n. 10), 139–40 points out that the fourth-century poet Prudentius imagined Antinous as castrated (C. Symm. 1.271–3) but only as a way of criticizing Hadrian using the male-male marriage topos associated with earlier bad emperors; according to Guyot, P., ‘Antinous als Eunuch: zur christlichen Polemik gegen das Heidentum’, Historia 30 (1981), 250–4Google Scholar, at 253, Prudentius’ version ‘hardly reflects historical reality’ (my translation).
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30 See Reyna, C., Dobria, O., Wetherell, G., ‘The complexity and ambivalence of immigration attitudes: ambivalent stereotypes predict conflicting attitudes toward immigration policies’, Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 19 (2013), 342–56CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
31 Jews under Muslim rule famously became prominent physicians, craftsmen, merchants and moneylenders despite the restrictions imposed on them by their dhimmi status: Botticini, M. and Eckstein, Z., ‘Jewish occupational selection: education, restrictions, or minorities?’, The Journal of Economic History 65 (2005), 922–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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33 Jones (n. 2 [1979]), 20.
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36 The author of the Pauli Sententiae uses the same language, as he was probably quoting a common source.
37 Only with Hadrian is the lost virility mentioned (Dig. 48.8.4.2: Vlpianus).
38 Gsell (n. 8), 84; Grelle (n. 35), 342–3; Guyot (n. 6), 45; Boulvert and Morabito (n. 6), 117; Watson (n. 6), 123; Bauman, R.A., ‘The résumé of legislation in Suetonius’, ZRG 99 (1982), 81–127CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 122 n. 197.
39 Jones (n. 2 [1979]), 107, 78. Suetonius’ account is organized thematically. Dom. 7 deals with Domitian's innovations and custom reforms, 8.1–2 with Domitian's administration of justice, and 8.3–5 details how he used the powers traditionally wielded by the censor (e.g. allocating the front rows in the theatres to the equites, curbing extravagance, etc.) and the pontifex maximus (e.g. punishing unchaste Vestal Virgins, deconsecrating burial grounds, etc.).
40 Murison (n. 14), 351.
41 Numismatic evidence shows that Domitian assumed censorial powers during his eleventh consulship, in the early months of 85, and proclaimed himself censor for life towards the end of that year. RIC 328–31, 333–4, 336, 339, 342–3, 345, 351, 356–8, 372, 374, 377, 381–5, 388–9, 391–3, 395 include some variations of the phrase censoria potestas. RIC 396–8, 416, 420, 422 have censor perpetuus, a title used only by Domitian. See Buttrey, T.V., ‘Domitian's perpetual censorship and the numismatic evidence’, CJ 71 (1975), 26–34Google Scholar; Jones, B.W., ‘Some thoughts on Domitian's perpetual censorship’, CJ 68 (1973), 276–7Google Scholar; Gsell (n. 8), 54.
42 Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 20.13.3. This paragraph follows A.E. Astin, ‘Regimen morum’, JRS 78 (1988), 14–34.
43 Unsurprisingly, this led to an inflation of sumptuary laws: Astin (n. 42), 24; G. Dari-Mattiacci and A.E. Plisecka, ‘Luxury in ancient Rome: scope, timing and enforcement of sumptuary law’, ACLE Working Paper 2010–03 (2012), 1–26.
44 Augustus famously rejected the office (Suet. Aug. 27; Cass. Dio 54.2.1), but exercised censorial power for five years from 19 b.c. (Cass. Dio 54.10.5). Claudius was the first emperor to assume the censorship (Tac. Ann. 11.13, 11.25; Suet. Claud. 16). Both Vespasian and Titus held the censorship temporarily (Suet. Vesp. 8.1, Tit. 6.1), but Domitian assumed the title for life (n. 41 above).
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46 Bradley (n. 6 [1987]), 128.
47 Murison (n. 14), 353.
48 Guyot (n. 6), 47.
49 Leo I (457–474), for example, stated that the punishment for selling a castrated boy had to be the harshest possible (poena grauissima, Cod. Iust. 4.42.2).
50 Pace Robinson, O.F., Penal Practice and Penal Policy in Ancient Rome (London and New York, 2007), 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See Dig. 48.1.2 (Paulus), 48.4.11 (Ulpian), 48.8.3.5 (Marcianus), 48.9.1 (Marcianus), 48.6.10.2 (Ulpian). A woman punished capitally had her dowry confiscated: Dig. 48.20.3 (Ulpian).
51 Several imperial rescripts forbade the confiscation of part or all property of temporarily relegated persons: Dig. 48.22.7.4 (Ulpian). honestiores relegated in perpetuity had only half of their property confiscated: Dig. 48.7.1.pr. (Marcianus), Pauli Sententiae 5.30b.1. The supply of abortive drugs and aphrodisiacs was punished with relegatio and a partial confiscation of the convict's property. None the less, the penalty became capital if the man or woman who took the drugs died: Pauli Sententiae 5.23.14. Under the lex Iulia de ui priuata, only a third of the property of the condemned person was confiscated, but the punishment was explicitly non-capital: Dig. 48.2.12.4 (Venuleius), 48.7.1.pr. (Marcianus), 48.20.3 (Ulpian).
52 P. Garnsey, Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire (Oxford, 1970), 112. deportatio is a mid second-century term that replaced the traditional locutions for capital exile, exsilium and interdictio aqua et igni: Dig. 48.19.2.1 (Ulpian).
53 T. Honoré, Emperors and Lawyers (Oxford, 19942), 54. The words in question are homo, libido, promerx, castrare, capite punire or poena legis Corneliae punire. Venuleius uses only the gerund castrandum.
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55 Or perhaps Tribonian and his team or another copyist misquoted him. Editing mistakes and erroneous quotes are not uncommon in the Digest: Pugsley, D., ‘Some reflections on the compilation of Justinian's Digest’, IJ 19 (1984), 350–9Google Scholar, at 352.
56 Marcianus lists Indian eunuchs (spadones Indici) among the imports subject to custom duties (uectigal): Dig. 39.4.16.7. On late antique eunuch imports from Persia, Armenia and the Caucasus, see Rotman (n. 19), 133–4.
57 This last provision seems to be Hadrian's own elaboration. The use of the conjunctions sed et (‘but also’) implies that the emperor was likely presented with a slave who had performed a castration and so the emperor had to decide what type of punishment was due. Having slaves performing castrations may have been a way to get round the prohibition. If slaves were caught, their masters would lose them but would be spared of the punishment. I thank Laura Donati for bringing this to my attention.
58 While the verb constituere usually refers to imperial decisions or decrees, it is sometimes found in connection with decisions of the Senate: Cic. Mil. 13.2; Livy 37.56.2; Plin. Ep. 2.1.9; Tac. Ann. 13.5.
59 Dig. 50.16.128 (Ulpian); Epanagoge Aucta 44.29.3; Paul. Aeg. Epitome Med. 6.68. thlibias, -ae, m. [Gk. θλίβιας, from θλίβω, to press or squeeze] ‘one castrated by squeezing of the testicles’ (OLD).
60 Other rescripts show that to Hadrian intentions trumped the actual result of a deed or the methods used to accomplish it: e.g. Dig. 48.8.1.3 (Marcianus).
61 Buckland (n. 6), 37.
62 M.I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (Princeton, 1988), 75.
63 Watson (n. 6), 123.
64 Guyot (n. 6), 49.
65 Bradley (n. 6 [1987]), 129.
66 du Plessis (n. 6), 95.
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72 The emasculation ban was upheld for centuries. In 558, Justinian alluded to the prohibition introduced by ‘the [emperors] who reigned before us’ (παρὰ τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν βεβασιλευκότων / ab imperatoribus qui ante nos fuerunt) and established how the penalty had to be applied in each case in which the law was broken (Nov. 142).