Roman Insults: Impotent Men and Lusty Women

I presented my PhD research at a meeting of AIAC here in Rome a couple of weeks ago. In my presentation I highlighted certain stereotypes attached to men and women that I've encountered in the poems of Martial and in Pompeian graffiti. Men were typically mocked as old and sexually feeble, and women as old and lusty. I've collected some of the examples from my presentation in this blog post.

Warning: contains sexual obscenities and visual portrayals of sex from Pompeii

A maenad and a satyr, a fresco from a private house in Pompeii 

One of the most apparent features connected to old age in Roman insults is baldness. Martial in particular often describes both men and women as bald when he wants to emphasize their age. He writes for example:

You fabricate false hair with ointment, Phoebus, and your dirty bald pate is covered with painted locks. No need to call in a barber for your head. A sponge can shave you better, Phoebus. (Mart. 6.57)

Marinus, you collect your scattered locks from this side and from that, and cover the broad expanse of your shining baldness with hair from your temples. But at the wind’s bidding they move and return and are restored to themselves, to surround your bare top with big curls on either side. You would think that Cydas’ Hermeros was standing between Spendophorus and Telesphorus. Why not be straightforward and admit to being an old man, so that at last you look like one man? Nothing is uglier than a bald-head with a lot of hair. (Mart. 10.83)

In his vanity Marinus only manages to bring out his baldness, not to conceal it. (Hermeros was apparently renowned for his baldness and Spendophorus and Telesphorus young men with plentiful hair.)

If Ligeia has as many years as she carries hairs on her entire head, she is three years old. (Mart. 12.7)

This poem ends with a twist typical of epigram when a balding woman is compared to a three year old. The contrast between these mental images adds to the humor of the poem.

Baldness is a recurring feature in many caricature drawings of men found in Pompeii.

Peregrinus (CIL IV 1810)

Rufus est (CIL IV 9226)

(CIL IV 10239)

These are just a few examples. Many similar drawings of bald or balding men have been found in Pompeii. Textual references to baldness in Pompeian graffiti, on the other hand, are few. I've only found one clear insult: "Romulus is bald" (Romulus cal(v)os, CIL IV 5148). The first writer wrote calos 'beautiful', but later some witty graffitist added a small letter V turning beauty into baldness. In another graffito Epaphra is ridiculed as hairless (Epaphra glaber est, CIL IV 1816), but this is more likely a reference to depilation than baldness.

Unambiguous references to old age are rare in Pompeian graffiti in general. One such insult is "Helenus is an old faggot" (Helene cina(ede) vetusc(ule), CIL IV 4206). Old age is here associated with passive homosexuality. The word cinaedus means, among other things, a person who is penetrated anally. Another graffito notes that "when an old man lies on his back, his scrotum covers his arse, when an old man lies on his back..." (seni supino colei culum tegunt, seni supino, CIL IV 4488).

The virility of men is derided in other ways as well. Martial writes very frankly about impotent men: 

You have thirty boys and as many girls; you have one cock, and it doesn’t rise. What will you do? (Mart. 12.86)

That over-active cock, well known to girls not a few, has ceased to stand for Linus. Tongue, look out! (Mart. 11.25)

Linus' only choice is to satisfy women with his tongue, which was the most humiliating sexual act for a Roman man, as the sexual roles of the man and the woman were reversed.

There is no mention of impotent men in Pompeii, but there are some graffiti that expose the lack of sexual prowess of some men such as "Messius fucked nothing here" (Messius hic nihil futuit, CIL IV 5187) and "Iucundus fucks badly" (Iucu(n)dus male c(h)ala(t), CIL IV 8715b). In one graffito a certain Phileros is called a eunuch (Phileros spado, CIL IV 1826). Below this graffito is a drawing of an ithyphallic man, which, if it belongs together with the text, may mean that the message was ironic. Another possibility is that the drawing represents Phileros' response to the insult directed at him.

Drawing of an ithyphallic man in the basilica of Pompeii
(photo: Varone 2012, 354)

The masculinity of men is also called into question in those graffiti in which they are insulted as passive homosexuals (cinaedus), cuntlickers (cunnilingus) and cocksuckers (fellator). There are dozens of these insults in the Pompeian graffiti.

Old age is a frequent theme of insults against women as well. Hera are two examples from Martial:

Afra has mamas and dadas, but she herself may be called the grandmama of dadas and mamas.(Mart. 1.100)

Caerellia says she’s an old lady, though she’s just a doll. Gellia says she’s a doll, though she’s an old woman. One can’t abide either of the two, Collinus: one is absurd, the other nauseating. (Mart. 4.20)

I've only found one direct reference to old women in the Pompeian graffiti: "Erotarin, you jealous old crone" (Erotarin vetula selotia, CIL IV 9945). This shows that the stereotype of old women was not very active among the writers of graffiti in Pompeii, even though it's a common topic in the poems of Martial, in Greek epigram and in Roman comedy, for example.

In contrast to old men, who were often ridiculed as sexually weak, old women – and women in general – were often described as lusty. Martial writes:

Lesbia swears that she has never been fucked free of charge. It’s true. When she wants to be fucked, she is accustomed to pay cash. (Mart. 11.26)

Lesbia appears to be a prostitute, but she must be an aging prostitute, since she now has to resort to paying for sex herself. The roles of the prostitute and the client, of the man and the woman, are again reversed. 

Do you ask why your Caelia has only eunuchs, Pannychus? Caelia wants to be fucked, but not to have children. (Mart. 6.67)

Eunuchs were ideal lovers since their testicles had been cut off and there was no risk of pregnancy.

In some Pompeian graffiti women are portrayed as sexually active, for example: "Euplialla has a loose vagina and a huge clitoris" (Euplia laxa landicosa, CIL IV 10004). The physical appearance of Euplia shows that she has had too much sex. Euplia is named as a prostitute in a couple of other graffiti, but we can't be sure that it is the same woman.

The sexual lust of women is hinted at in such graffiti as "Nymphe is a cocksucktress" (Nympe felatrix, CIL IV 1389) and "Meroe is a fucktress" (Meroe fututrix, CIL IV 4196). Both of these words, fellatrix and fututrix, have the feminine agent noun ending -trix which points to the women's active role in sex. They were not just passive recipients but active participants, which ran against women's normative role of passivity in sex. These derivatives fellatrix ja fututrix are only found in graffiti in our extant Latin sources.

In addition to graffiti there were plenty of visual representations of women engaged in sex on the walls of Pompeii. Frescoes depicting sexual acts have been found both in brothels and in private houses.

A fresco from the Lupanar, the purpose-built brothel of Pomeii

A fresco from a private house in Pompeii (house V 1,26)

These paintings don't appear to portray women in a negative light. There were other motives for the choice of content, either aesthetic or practical. According to one theory, such images, when found in the context of a brothel, were a sort of a menu of sexual services on offer. Nonetheless, this visual material may have reinforced the idea of women as sexually active and lusty, and could have contributed to insults and attacks on women in wall inscriptions.

Many themes and terms of abuse in the poems of Martial and in Pompeian graffiti were not gender-specific. Both men and women were lampooned as old, diseased and ugly, for instance. There were, however, certain stereotypes attached to each gender such as those of impotent men and lusty women as described above.

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The poems of Martial: D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Martial: Epigrams, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1993.

Pompeian graffiti: CIL IV = Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. 4, Berlin, 1871–. The translations are my own.

The caricature drawings of men are from the CIL IV. The photos of the frescoes are my own.

The photo of the ithyphallic man: A. Varone, Titulorum Graphio Exaratorum qui in C.I.L. vol. IV collecti sunt : imagines, ”L’Erma” di Bretschneider, 2012.