Gender disguise in Roman comedies?

[Caecilius_est_pater]

Hi guys

 

I was wondering (without being an expert in this field) whether Roman comedies feature the sort of gender disguise that we get in the comedies of Shakespeare. From what little I know about Roman comedy, there's plenty about clever young couples outwitting doddery old men, but are there any instances of girls dressing as boys or vice versa?

 

Be good to know, as I am about to teach 'As You Like It', and I'd like to be clear if there are any classical precedents for the gender-bending.

 

Thanks!

Edited February 19, 2012 by Caecilius_est_pater

[Maty]

Hi guys

 

I was wondering (without being an expert in this field) whether Roman comedies feature the sort of gender disguise that we get in the comedies of Shakespeare. From what little I know about Roman comedy, there's plenty about clever young couples outwitting doddery old men, but are there any instances of girls dressing as boys or vice versa?

 

Be good to know, as I am about to teach 'As You Like It', and I'd like to be clear if there are any classical precedents for the gender-bending.

 

Thanks!

 

This may be slightly off the topic you are looking for, but the Romans would have been very familiar with the story of Achilles being disguised as a girl by his mother who wanted to avoid him getting roped into the Trojan war.

 

There are a couple of other cases in mythology - Teiresias went the whole hog so to speak, going from male to female and back again, and Iphis, a girl raised as a boy, was transformed into a man by Isis. Caenis was another example.

 

The only other examples I can suggest are Clodius disguising himself as a maid to spy on the rites of the Magna Mater, and on the other side Triaria, mother of the emperor Vitellius, who dressed as a soldier (or at least wore the sword of one) and 'behaved disgracefully' in a captured town. (Says Tacitus)

 

But 'gender-bending' of the Shakespearean type was not really part of Roman (or Greek) theatrical tradition as far as I know.

Edited February 19, 2012 by Maty

[Melvadius]

This is the type of topic that IF I have read it correctly Domonic Montserrat seems to have included, even if not his direct intent, in his essay 'Reading gender in the Roman World' in Janet Hutchinson (Ed) (2000) 'Experiencing Rome'.

 

Montserrat from what I have read of him and from when I saw him on TV seems to have had a somewhat idiosyncratic viewpoint on sex in general but for this question is possibly the right area to look fo rinsperation. The essay was his attempt to look for evidence of how the Roman's viewed sex or rather 'gender' and the abiguity of hemaphrodites and non-masculine behaviour but it seems to cite some relevant sources which I have extracted some quotations and references below although I haven't had time to check them.

 

To start with you have Cassius Dio claiming that Elagabalus asked at one point to be 'called a lady' (Roman History 80.16.2-6). Possibly more germaine to your question is the legends of Hercules being sold as a slave in expiation of his 'blood-guilt after a murder' and being forced by Omphale to dress as a woman. This legend appearing in several murals and statues from the period.

 

Apparently Roman poets and visual artists reveled in this paradox,

..especially in describing the hypermasculine Hercules in drag in the luxurious eastern garments and trinkets appropriate for the Queen of Lydia

 

Examples Montserrat cited were Ovid, Fasti 2.283-358, Heroides 9.101-118, Propertius 3.11-17-21 and 4.9.45-50.

 

You may also want to consider how foreign eunuch priests are presented in texts like Apulieus, The Golden Ass (8.24-30) there are also references in Juvenal

to Greek men being criticised for their effeminacy and lust.

Montserrat here cited Juvenal, Satires (2.93-99 and 3.58-80).

[caldrail]

We know there were female actors - one is associated with Pompeii in its final days. Also Theodora who had to give up acting when she married the emperor Justinian. Women usually appeared in mime sequences, often short in character, which did not use masks thus women had to appear for female roles.

 

Although I don't have any direct evidence the nature of roman theatre, often consisting of short inprovissed farces on domestic life, does lend itself to the addition of female players. As for the older greek and etruscan influenced styles, that might be different.

[Caecilius_est_pater]

Thanks guys, very interesting and useful. I know from my theological studies that Tertullian's 'Against the Valendintians' uses gender indeterminacy for comic effect - eg he says that Sophia, the mother of the creator of the world according to Gnosticism, receives honours that are only appropriate to men, and she should therefore be given a beard too. It looks like this is the only example out there of comic cross-gender references in the ancient world - unless the Hercules and Omphale story is ever played for laughs anywhere.

[Melvadius]

I did a quick search for "roman comedy" cross dressing and there are several hits including this short essay proving that there is at least one Roman play involving cross-dressing as a central theme in Plautus