Love's Body Allatomized 91

based on whether it contains any member of a particular list of words, body parts. or

5 physical acts, which varies from society to society. t Pornography so defined cuts
across boundaries of media and genre to form a separate genre of its own. Paintings,
sculptures, films, novels, poems, and songs all may be deemed pornographic by one
segment of the community or another. A sexual content is held to be the defining
characteristic of pornography. The essence of pornography thus is embodied in its
Love's Body Anatomized: objects.
This idea of pornography finds little correspondence with the way the ancient
The Ancient Erotic Handbooks world conceptualized and subdivided its artistic universe. For both the Greeks and
the Romans, genre is determined principally by fonn and only secondarily by
and the Rhetoric of Sexuality content (Arist. Poet. 1447a13-47b29). In poetry, for example, genre is detennined
simply by the meter, and a cel1ain content is appropriate to each meter (Hor. Ars
Poet. 73-92). Homer's Iliad and Hesiod's didactic treatise on farming, the Works
alld Days. are both epos. epic poetry, by virtue of being written in hexameters.
Holt N. Parker Content is secondary, appealed to when distinguishing subdivisions. So Aristotle
laments the lack of a word to distinguish the (martial) epic of Homer from the
ll/ustrated Guide to Sexual Positiolls (philosophical) epic of Empedocles (Poet . 1447bI6-20; for types of drama, see
-title in Pllblishers Clearing HOllse Cataloglle 1448aI6-18).
For the Greeks or the Romans, obscene content did not therefore in itself
"Lady Chatterley vs. Fanny Hill" (British; 1979) Sexploitation tale of two determine a specific genre. Explicit sexual matter and obscene language are permis-
madams trying to win a wager. sible in a wide variety of genres: Old Comedy, satyr plays, mime, iambic verse,
-listing in IV Guide
hendecasyllabic verse, satire (cf. Ovid Trisl. 2.353 ff.; Quint. 10. 1.9). Yet obscene
language or sexual material is not a necessary or a defining characteristic of any of
these genres. A hendecasyllabic may express wit, love, grief, complaint, anger, or
sexual arousal (Pliny 4.14). Iambic covers a wide variety of topics, of which the
One of the things that the study of sexuality in the art and literature of the ancient sexual is only one of the possibilities. There is little in antiquity cOITesponding to the
world can do is to force a reexamination of our own society's notions of sexuality, modern general idea of pornography, as shown by the very word itself, porno-
the categories that we accept as natural and given. Specifically for this collection, graphos. which refers not to our general idea of pornography but to a specific
ancient ideas about sexual content in art and literature call into question our very subcategory of biography-tales of the lives of the courtesans-which may not
notion of pornography. contain any obscene material at all (Ath. 13 .567b; but see Kappeler 1986: 155-58;
Pornography, in the dominant ideology, is defined by content. Despite the work Dworkin 1981: 199-202).
of much recent feminist criticism in pointing out the inadequacies of the prevailing Yet there did arise one subspecies of literature for which the defining charac-
definition, and instead focusing on the act of objectification itself, the theme of teristic was uniquely its erotic content, thus more nearly approaching the common
violence, and the power relations encoded in pornography, most current definitions modern idea of pornography: works where the erotic content is both a necessary and
of pornography rest on the notions of intent and content. As a recent instance, Soble a sufficient feature. These were the works not of fJomo-graphoi. "writers about
(1986: 8- 9) gives a working definition which he intends to reflect a representative prostitutes," but an-aiskhullto-graphoi. literally "writers of shameless things."2
view: "Pornography refers to any literature or film ... that describes or depicts Note how the genre is defined by the content of the works. This class was itself
sexual organs, preludes to sexual activity, or sexual activity ... in such a way as to curiously restricted in subject, being confined strictly to "sex manuals," handbooks
produce sexual arousal in the user or the viewer; and ... this effect in the viewer is whose primary stock in trade was a careful listing, enumerating, and limiting of the
either the effect intended by both producer and consumer or a very likely effect in positions for heterosexual intercourse (still a flourishing type). There are a number
the absence of direct intention." of striking features about these works, which can give us a vivid insight into the way
Though this definition begs a number of important questions (notably what in which the Greek male culture of the late Classical and Hellenistic period and its
constitutes the "sexual "), it incorporates the two most commonly used criteria in continuation under Rome constructed its worldview and its corresponding "experi-
determining pornography: the producer's intent to arouse (see Joyce 1946: vii -xii) ence of sexuality," which Foucault (1985: 4) defines as "the correlation between
and a specifically sexual content. Since intentionality is largely unknowable and field s of knowledge, types of normativity, and forms of subjectivity in a particular
unverifiable, any judgment of whether a particular work is pornographic tends to be culture." I will here focus on this genre as a technology of social control.

nr\
92 Pornography alld Represelltatioll ill Greece ami Rome Love's Body Allatomized 93

Documents The case of Astyanassa also illustrates two further points about these hand-
books . The first is the question of. authorship. I have written that the work is
Sexuality must not be thought of as a kind of natural given which power tries to ascribed to a woman. This is, of course, the case for the fictional Astyanassa, but
hold in check, or as an obscure domain which knowledge tries gradually to did women write any of the other works bearing their names? Is there any chance of
uncover. It is the name that can be given to a historical construct. making visible a group of literate women, even if they were only the Dr. Ruths or
- Foucault 1978a: 105
Xaviera Hollanders of their age? We cannot know. We are not allowed to know. The
fragmentary evidence is subject to the same double bind that has historically af-
Space forbids a detailed discussion of all the sources that m~ntion t~ese handbooks; nicted women and their writing. The social constraints on women's voices, es-
the relevant texts are listed in the appendix below and will be cIted here by the pecially on the expression of desire, are stringent. The double movement of social
letters A through T. A, a paradigmatic case, illustrating many of these features and repression and heuristic uncertainty can be expressed in Joanna Russ's tenns (1983:
running themes, is the creation of a founder for the genre: Astyanassa ("Ruler of the 20-24 , 25-39): "She didn't write it" (denial of agency) and "She did, but she
City"), who is not a traditional character of Greek mythology.3 One of the ~oncerns shouldn't have" (pollution of agency). No proper woman writes about sex; there-
of Alexandrian and later Greek scholarship was to identify a hellretes , a discoverer fore, the writing is not by a woman. And if she does write, she's not a proper
or first exponent, for each genre. Indeed, the creation of Astyanassa as hew'etes is woman. If there were any women in antiquity who wrote on sexual subjects, their
itself an excellent demonstration that the sex manuals were thought to form a identities have been taken away from them, their names made into pseudonyms,
separate genre . The Byzantine encyclopedia, the SlIda (compiled in the tenth cen- their gender made generic . A mask is the rule in pornography. Thus, the most
tury A.D.), identifies her as the inventor of the genre of .sex ma~uals: "Astyanassa: famous author of these sex manuals is said to be a woman named Philaenis, but it is
the maid of Helen, the wife of Menelaus. She was the first to discover the ways of clear that her name is later used as a cover term for writers of sex manuals, for
lying in bed (katakliseis) for intercourse, and wrote '<?n .the Postures (s~lzematon) prostitutes, for whatever the user of her name considers to be sexually depraved (A-
for Intercourse,' which Philaenis and Elephantine later llTIltated, who carned further N). We cannot know if a real Philaenis wrote any of the works under her name or
similar licentious acts (aselgemuta) ." even if the citations refer to the same book . On the other hand ("She did, but she
Although much here is typical of ancient biography (see Lefko~itz 1981 b~, shouldn't have"), where works are attributed to women, we cannot be sure of the
already we can note several themes that will recur throughout the history of this truth of the attribution, which may have been made as an attack, a distortion, or a
genre. (I) The work is ascribed to a woman. These sex manuals were a\r~ost misunderstanding . 7 On analysis we find a tendency to use this kind of attribution to
without exception circulated under the names of women. (2) The woman IS a attack learned or literary women in particular, or other persons by comparison to the
fiction, a male-created mask, which authorizes and privileges a male-created tex~. author, or else to attack by attributing to the author or others the practices she
(3) The work is said to be the result of the (fe~ale) auth~r's own personal ~xpen ­ supposedly recommended. Thus, the entry in the Suda for Pamphile of Epidauros, a
ence in the erotic arts, and there is a correspondll1g connatlon of the author With her remarkable woman scholar, philosopher, and historian of the age of Nero, lists
book .4 (4) The social status of the woman is frequently that of a slave or a prostitute, among her works all Sex (Peri Aphrodisia/l, "On the Things of Aphrodite") and
that is, of a class the audience would expect to have a wider sexual experience than says, "Some ascribe all these to her father . .. but others ascribe them to her
citizen wives (Finley 1980: 94 ff.; Pomeroy 1975: 10,26 , 80-83, 192); or else, b~ husband Sokratides." With her we see the double motion described by Russ, where-
having written on sex, she can be attacked as having acquired the necessary ex pen- in her works are stripped from her and assigned to her father or husband, stemming
ence personally, and so further attacked as being a slave or a prostitute. Asty~nassa from a general reluctance to credit women with intellectual abilities, and a sexual
is specifically a thempailla, a body servant, one who cares for (thempeuo) her work is (possibly falsely) ascribed to her, again stemming from a general belief that
mistress's personal appearance and health (see F). This brings up a further ~oi~t. (5) even the best of women is sex-obsessed. Therefore, as with so many women authors
There is a close connection between the sex manuals and other genres, pnnclpally of the past , we are kept from knowledge. We can have no certainty of whether she
medical writings,S and other encyclopedic, scientific, and culinary works. (6) The wrote such a work or of its nature . Is the title a misunderstanding of a work of some
principal objection made by other authors to these handbooks is .that they are other type, perhaps ethnographic (parallel to her historical works), a species of The
licentious things (aselgemata), that is , excessive, immoderate, seif-Illduigent. (7) Sexual Life of Savages, 8 or biological, or dietetic (see below)? The title Peri Aphro-
The subject matter is restricted primarily to a tabulation. of schemata ~or intercourse, dision is, however, only used of sex manuals. Was it inserted into the list of her
though some of the works appear to have included sectIOns on techlllques of seduc- writings as a slanderous forgery,9 or was it genuinely hers? If hers , what was its
tion and perhaps oral sex. 6 That is , of the wide possibilities for different modes of purpose, its methods and fonn?
representation in pornographic writing , the Greeks recognized as a separate genre Second, the case of Astyanassa illustrates the nature of evidence for this genre.
only the handbook format, and of the wide variety of po~sible subject matters, the We are speaking of a vanished literature, known only secondarily and from scraps.
genre chooses the narrowly heterosexual and phallocentnc. Yet if we wish to know anything about the lives of women or how the ancient
94 Pomograp~' and Repreunuuion in Greece and Rome Lore's Body AII(I/(lmiud 95

cultures constructed their views of women, it is to such fragments that we must turn. Analysis
For the sex manuals, besides the references in scattered authors, we have a passage
from Ovid's Art of Love, which uses them as source material, and most remarkably All knowledge which does not recognize, which does not take social oppression
a recently discovered papyrus fragment that gives us our first look directly at this as its premise, denies it, and as a consequence objectively serves it. .. .
genre and the works attributed to Philaenis. Knowledge that would take as its point of departure the oppression of women
would constitute an epistemological revolution .
The sources give us the names of nine writers of sex manuals, besides As-
tyanassa, the mythological founder of the genre. They are Philaenis (11 . ca. 370 -DcJphy 1981: 73
B.C . ), Botrys (ca . 340 B.C. '1), Salpe (ca. 340 B.C. ?), Elephantine (first century
B.C .?), Paxamos (first century A.D.?), Pamphile (fl. ca. A.D. 65), Niko of Samos,
Callistrate of Lesbos, Pythonicus of Athens. The last three are mere names (G). Parody and Essence
The earliest attested and most famous is Philaenis. Hers is the most frequently
I begin my analysis of this problematic genre with a text that stands in a problematic
cited name for an author of a sex manual, refeITed to in passing in thirteen texts for a
relation to it, Ovid's Ars Amatoria, since it is from Ovid's parodistic use of his
variety of rhetorical purposes (A-N) , including the passage from the SlIda on As-
sources that we can form our clearest picture of the form and content of the sex
tyanassa quoted above. Until 1972 , these few references, with no direct quotation,
manuals . I cannot hope to provide an overall treatment of this polysemic work (for
were all we had about Philaenis. Then Lobel (1972: 51-54) published fragments of
which see Myerowitz 1985), a summary of the major themes (Hollis 1973; 1977:
a papyrus, dated to the early second century A.D., containing the beginning of a
xi- xix), or even a detailed treatment of what Ovid borrowed from his sources
work ascribed to Philaenis. The text,IO though damaged, can be translated as
including Philaenis (Cataudella 1973, 1974). Rather, I want to focus on the ambigu~
follows : ity of the relation itself.
. I The Ars is, among many other things, a brilliant and witty parody of the
Frg . I [col. i] : Philaenis of Samos, daughter of Okymenes, wrote these things for conventions of elegiac poetry, of didactic poetry, and of the sex manuals. Yet simply
those who plan to lead their life with knowledge and not off-handedly .. . having to call it a parody does not constitute an explication. The Ars, like other parodies, is
worked at it myself ... [col. iiJ Concerning seductions: So then, the seducer must subject to a peculiar and recursive relationship to the genre on which it depends for
go unadorned and uncombed so that he does not [appear] to the woman to be on the its existence: it is simultaneously a commentary on that genre, claiming to stand
job ... Frg . 3: ... with the thought ... we ... saying the [] woman is like a
outside it and observe it, and an example of it (see Culler 1975: 152-153).
goddess ... the ugly one is charming, the older one is like a young girl. Concern-
ing kisses . . . A parody is ambiguous; it may contain the message of its original while denying
it. It does not demand seriousness; neither does it exclude it. In general, parody
operates by creating a more literal reading of the original text which exposes the
A word of warning: there is nothing to show that this text is directly related to codes (linguistic, ideological, cultural) that underlie its exemplar, but at the same
any of the ones known to the various authors who mentioned Philaenis . A time it necessarily makes use of them. It thus undergoes the same paradox as the
pseudonymous writing is by nature inauthentic, and the name Philaenis had prolife- linguistic-philosophical distinction between mention and use. Any mention is a use.
rated and become simply the cover name for sex manuals. II There is therefore no A parody is always an example of its genre.
easy identification of these scraps with any of the descriptions of works under the Accordingly, we can divide our analysis of this passage of Ovid into the notions
name Philaenis. The papyrus is, however, roughly contemporary with later texts of Ovid with his predecessors and Ovid against his predecessors. At the end of Book
that mention Philaenis (I-N). The papyrus is brief and tantalizing, not only because 3, devoted to advice to women (added to his original two-volume work addressed
of its fragmentary"nature but because it has the quality perhaps of a precis and so exclusively to men), Ovid includes a section giving explicit advice to women on
sounds like just the sort of Phi/aenis's Notebook that the critic in Pseudo-Lucian's positions for intercourse (Ars 3.769-88):
Erotes is accused of keeping handy (M).
However, in these few lines we can note a number of the running themes that
I am ashamed (pudet) to teach the rest, but kind Venus
have already been pointed out. The work is a full manual of sexual activity, not just
says "What makes you ashamed (puder) is my job especially." 770
a list of positions. It includes sections on seduction and kisses and is thus much Let every woman know herself; take your standard method
closer to the full range of Ovid 's Ars Amatoria than the testimonia might lead us to based on your body: one position (jigura) is not suitable to all women.
imagine (Cataudella 1974: 847- 57). The connection to other genres is made ex- The one who is remarkable for her face, let her lie on her back;
plicit. It claims to be a didactic work, an objective and scientific guide "for those let them be viewed from behind , those whose backs are pleasing .
who plan to lead their life with knowledge and not off-handedly." It also claims to Milanion used to carry Atalanta's legs on his shoulders: 775
be the result of personal experience: "having worked at it myself. " if they are lovely, let them be seen in this way.
96 PO/'llography alld Represelllatioll ill Greece alld Rome Love's Body Allatomized 97

Let the little one be carried on her horse; because she was so tall 163-66). Yet, despite the parodistic framework, his advice necessarily partakes of
the Theban bride [Andromache] never rode Hector like a horse. these same acts of objectification and dismemberment. He advises a woman to use
Let her press the covers with her knees and bend back her neck a little, each position not according to the degree of pleasure that each affords her but in
the woman who is worth looking at for her long flank . 780
order to keep a single physical feature in sight of the man, or else to hide a blemish
For the one whose thighs are youthful and whose breasts are flawless,
from him. This objectification can be seen in the difference between the sexual
let the man stand and let her spread out crosswise on the bed .
And don ' t think it sinful to let down your hair, like the Phylleian Mother advice given men which concludes AI'S 2 (703-32) and that given women which
[the goddcss Cybele], concludes 3 (771-808). After all Ovid's advice on seduction, the man is explicitly
with your locks spread out and your neck bent back. said not to need advice on what to do with what he has caught; he will know by
You also, whose belly Lucina [childbirth] has marked with wrinkles, 785 instinct. In this poem of aI'S, the Muse is to wait outside the door, and natura will
like the swift Parthian use horses turned backward [i.e., straddle the take over. He is advised to control himself, to take his time and aim at a simul-
man facing his feet ; Parthian archers proverbially sat backward on their taneous orgasm, but he is given none of the detailed advice on mechanics that the
horses to shoot while in retreat] . woman needs. The man is still the master of the situation. The woman, on the other
Venus has a thousand joys; the easiest and the one of least effort hand, is the materia of the aI'S, the raw natural substance on which art works
is when you lie down on your right side . (Myerowitz 1985). She is given instruction on how to look good, how to reduce her
body to a single desirable part, how to objectify and anatomize herself. Soble's
Ovid's text as a whole shares many features with the Philaenis fragment. Both analysis of what he terms "the dismemberment syndrome," the reduction of women
are complete manuals of seduction, not just pillow books . There is the same didactic to an assemblage of parts, and its relation to the social construction of male sexu-
tone, the notion of imparting useful and scientific knowledge. There is the theme of ality "with the concepts of objectification, fixation (or partialism), manipulation (or
usus, that the knowledge is not purely theoretical but practical, both in deriving conquest) and performance" (1986: 55-61; cf. N . Vickers 1982) reads like a
from the author's own experience and in being applicable to the reader's own commentary on the AI'S Amatoria. This ana-tomy (cutting apart) of sexuality, then,
experience (Ars 1.25-30; Myerowitz 1985: 147-48). As for specifics of the posi- is not an accidental by-product of subjecting sexuality to ana-lysis (taking apart). It
tions, though we lack the portion of the Philaenis papyrus that dealt with the actual is an essential feature of the ancient genre.
postures, the continuity between Aristophanes and Ovid, the two authors we possess
who give details, is interesting for sharing certain specific types. 12 We may deduce
that the writers of sex manuals, like other didactic authors, may have learned more Shame-Writers: Ancient Attitudes
from each other than from experience, and despite the claim of usus, may owe more The sources, together with Ovid, provide a sketch, if not a portrait, of this important
to literature than to life. and fragmentary genre. In light of these texts, several statements by Foucault need
Ovid mentions some eight positions, each geared to one particular physical to be modified (1985: 92-93, 114; cf. 38, 138):
type. It is this one-to-one correspondence between somatotype and sexual position
that reveals an important feature of Ovid's humor and technique . Employing the Putting it schematically, we could say that classical antiquity's moral reflection
process of literalization of trope central to parody, Ovid enjoys taking a literary concerning the pleasures was not directed towards a codification of acts , nor
convention an<;l reducing it with relentless logic to its absurd conclusion, such as towards a hermeneutics of the subject , but towards a stylization of attitudes, and an
Am. 1.6.3-6 (the wasted lover is so thin, he can slip through a small crack in the aesthetics of existence ... . The textual record is clear in this regard : neither the
door) or the exhaustive examination of militia am oris (love as soldiering) in 1.9 (see doctors who made recommendations about the regimen one should follow, nor the
Lyne 1980: 243-52). So here Ovid takes the advice present in his sources on suiting moralists who demanded that husbands respect their wives, nor those who gave
different classifications of bodies to different classifications of sexual positions and advice concerning the right conduct to manifest in the love of boys, ever say what
ought or ought not to be done in the way of sexual acts or practices.
makes manifest the underlying rhetorical notion of objectification of women's
bodies, that a woman's body determines everything about her, that she is only her
The preoccupation with regimen was never focused on the/orm of the acts : nothing
body. He then draws the logical conclusion: only one body, only one style of sex. was said about the types of sexual relations, nothing about the "natural" position or
The short woman will never do anything other than ride her lover, the postpartum about unseemly practices ... . The aphrodisia were considered in the aggregate,
woman never do anything but ride him backward . The joke is subtle, ironic, ex- as an activity whose significance was not determined by the various fonns it could
pressed with great sincerity, and is a perfect example of the way Ovid deconstructs take.
the very constructions he writes.
Ovid is almost alone in classical literature for paying attention to the woman 's These observations are certainly true as regards "moral reflection," but Foucault
pleasure during sex (AI'S 2.679- 84, 717-32; see Am. 1.10.35- 36; also AI'. Lys. has been misled to some extent by the texts he chose to study: precisely the prescrip-
98 Pomography alld Represelltatioll ill Greece alld Rome Love's Body Allatomized 99

tive works of doctors and the like (1985: 12). Prescriptive lists did exist, but in texts object, heterosexual versus homosexual. Both Greek and Roman male sexuality was
that stand opposed to the "dietetic" works that Foucault made his primary object of constructed on the division between active and passive. IS The active one, the one
investigation. who penetrated, who moved, who fucked, was "male," and was acting the role of a
These texts form a coherent genre, viewed by the ancients as unique, singled out free man, whether he used as object a woman, a boy, or a man. The passive one,
for its content and its treatment in a way that resembles the current popular notion of who was penetrated, who did not move, who was fucked, was "female," and
pornography. But why did this genre of sex manuals draw so much more op- servile, whether woman, boy, or man. The active role could also be shown not only
probrium than the genres of Old Comedy, iambic, satire, and so on, which appear to in mastery over others but in self-mastery. Thus, paradoxically, the ability to with-
feature a more direct and explicit obscenity?13 A simple answer would be that stand desire, to abstain from sexual pleasure. in classical society is conceived of as
obscenity was "allowed" in these genres. This is true, but it merely restates the essentially masculine. The opposite is also true: the inability to withstand desire,
question. The answer can be seen in their rhetorical deployment, in the way these indulgence in pleasure, is essentially feminine, and so equally women's sexuality is
manuals were used by other writers . They are used primarily as a standard of feared as unrestrained, uncontrolled, uncontrollable (see Arthur 1984). Thus, the
excess, a measure against which individual behavior can be judged . Thus, the whole genre, viewed as guides to luxury, is condemned as mollis (Q); that is, soft,
emphasis throughout is not so much on the specific sexual acts they recommend as weak , inherently "feminine" (see Richlin 1983: 39 , and passim , esp. 258 n. 3). It is
on the genre itself as a symbol of immoderation and overindulgence in sexual only suitable for men who act like women (D . E, L), for moral weaklings or
pleasure. They are attacked not only by Christians (J. K. N) but by Greek philoso- impotent emperors (D , L). It is used by insatiable women (F. I. R) . It is only
phers of schools that preach moderation, for example the Peripatetic Clearchus (E) "natural," therefore, that the inventor was a woman (A) and that the authorial voice
and the Stoic Chrysippus (F). The attack is based on two different grounds and finds throughout is feminine .
expression in two different sets of words. The sex manuals are blamed as allaisklzun-
los. "shameless" (D. H. N), that is, for their content. Rather than treating the
Whore-Writers: Modern Theories
pleasures of sex (aphrodisia) as an unspecified aggregate, as the dietetic texts do,
the aphrodisia are broken down. listed, particularized , in explicit detail. The sex The ancient sex manuals , therefore. by their explicit contents fit the prevalent notion
manuals are also blamed for aselgeia (A. M) or akolasia (F) "licentiousness," that of pornography. Whether we wish to label these ancient sex manuals as "pornogra-
is, for their treatment of the contents. The basic meanings of aselgeia and akolasia phy" - that is , whether they fall on a given side of a particular boundary line-is
are a lack of self-control, excess and extravagance in physical pleasure or psycho- problematic at best and perhaps ultimately unhelpful. The inadequacy of such
logical passion, and they are both opposed to s6phroslllle. the virtue of modera- content-oriented definitions either to distinguish pornography from other represen-
tion.14 Foucault is right in that the moral concern with aphrodisia is not based on an tations (if they can be so distinguished) or to capture any essential facts about
act of listing which divides the licit from the illicit. The sex manuals are not blamed pornography has been pointed out frequently in recent criticism (e.g . , Brown 1981:
so much for being immoral-that is, offering forbidden pleasures-but for being 6-7). Rather, what we can do to elucidate their nature and the structures of sig-
fussy, self-indulgent, and overelaborate about those pleasures. Both classes of nification that inform them is to point out features that they share with pornography
guides go beyond the simple life and the simple satisfaction of basic needs, whether as described by modern feminist theories, that is , use our own sexual discourse to
for food or for sex. 15 understand theirs . The two features I wish to examine are the fact of objectification
Thus, the constant coupling of these works with the cookbooks and gourmet and its connections with technologies of power.
guides of Archestratus of Gela, whom Athenaeus (6.310a) calls "the Hesiod or One of the most striking features of the sex manuals is the objectification of
Theognis of gounnandizing," and others (E. F. G, S) is part of a general coupling of women and the dismemberment of their bodies . MacKinnon (1983a: 541) speaks of
aphrodisia with the pleasures of food and drink. "This association between the objectification as "the primary process of subjection of women . It unites act with
ethics of sex and the ethics of food was a constant factor in ancient culture " word. construction with expression , perception with enforcement, myth with real-
(Foucault 1985 : 50; see 50-57). It is precisely the fact that they do not counsel ity." Pornography is singled out primarily because of the immediacy of the objec-
moderation in food and sex , as dietetic texts and good doctors do (Plato Symp. tifications (Kappeler 1986: 49- 62). So Brownmiller (1982: 32) writes of pornogra-
187e). but simply list possibilities, that causes them to be seen not as handbooks to phyas "a male invention , designed to dehumanize women , to reduce the female to
pleasure but as inducements to luxury. 16 The people who like Archestratus also like an object of sexual access" ; and the Dworkin-MacKinnon model amendment on
the sex guides: they overindulge in sex just as they overindulge in food , even to the pornography (Blakely 1985: 46) defines pornography in part as "the graphic sexu-
extent of drinking unmixed wine, a wild and barbarian custom that can drive people ally explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words, that also in-
mad (E). 17 The manuals are gourmet guides to sex (the subtitle to Comfort's 1986 cludes one or more of the following: (i) women are presented dehumanized as
book, The Joy of Sex). sexual objects, things or commodities; ... or (vi) women's body pal1s-including
The associations of this idea of luxury are also vital for understanding the but not limited to vaginas, breasts, and buttocks- are exhibited , such that women
position of the sex manuals . Sexuality in our society is constructed on the choice of are reduced to those parts ; or (vii) women are presented as whores by nature."
100 Pornography alld RepresellIatioll ill Greece alld Rome Love's Body Allatomized 101

Besides the act of objectification, feminist theories of pornography seek to had always had a liking for catalogues, for lists of gods, heroes, and heroines ,21 but
deconstruct the power relationships that pornography encodes and which make the it is in the philosophy of the time of Aristotle that the technique of categorization is
objectification possible. So Dworkin (1981: 24): "The major theme of pornography fully deployed as a conscious tool of rigorous analysis . The phenomena of the
as a genre is male power, its magnitude, its use, its meaning." Thus, if we apply natural world were analyzed and described as separate ontological entities. Hence
Steinem's definition of pornography (1980: 37)-"sex in which there is clear the well-developed taxonomies according to genus and species of the biological
force," in which the audience" must identify with either conqueror or victim" -it is works, in particular the Historia AnimaliulIl. 22
clear from the equation mentioned above of male-active-fucker-conqueror and This taxonomic principle was extended not only to the phenomena of nature
female-passive-fucked-victim that the ideological formation of what was constituted (minerals, plants, animals) but also to the human and social sphere. So we hear of
as normal sexuality in Greek and Roman society was inherently pornographic (see ethnographic works by Aristotle, such as the lost CUstOIllS of the Barbarians or the
Richlin 1983 : 78-80) . systematic collection of the constitutions of 158 Greek cities, of which only the
Athenian Constitution survives (see Pol. 1279 a22 ff., 1290al ff.). More directly
relevant are the studies that concern ethos, the attempt at a classification of human
Knowledge
types and types of behavior, best known to us from Theophrastus's Characters, a
. Foucault's analysis of the rise of sexual discourse in the seventeenth and succeeding series of sketches of thirty personalities each marked by a single "distinctive fea-
centuries provides a valuable framework for investigating the ancient sex manuals. ture" (kharakter): the ironical, the flattering, the talkative, the tactless, and so on.
For Foucault (1978a: 97), the essential question is: "In a specific type of discourse This classificatory and systematizing urge was also brought to bear on human
on sex, in a particular fonn of extortion of truth, appearing historically and in speech , in the form of the science of rhetoric. So Kennedy writes (1963: 32): "The
specific places . . . what were the most immediate, the most local power relations second sign of the birth of rhetoric was the new interest in dividing speeches into
at work? How did they make possible these kinds of discourses, and conversely, parts, each with a special function. This interest no doubt reflects the beginning of a
how were these discourses used to support power relations?" fondness for definition and classification which became stronger among the
Sexual discourse is a particular class of speech, a specialized lallgue, that is a Greeks ." Indeed, rhetoric represents one of the earliest attempts at controlling a
linguistic code. 19 It consists of a set of values which define ontological categories, body of knowledge as a teachable system, that is, a teklll1e (Latin ars). The first uses
corresponding to the semantic level, and a set of rules for employing those catego- of tekhne in the sense of "an art or craft, i.e. a set of rules , system or method of
ries, that is a deontology, corresponding to syntax. These can be reformulated in making or doing" (LSi, S.v. III) refer to rhetoric, that is, th e art, so that tekll1le is
Foucault's terms as knowledge and power: "It is in discourse that power and employed simply as the title for numerous rhetorical handbooks, already a flourish-
knowledge are joined together" (Foucault 1978a: 100), and sexual discourse in ing genre in the time of Plato (Phaedrus 245a, 271c; Phaedo 90b; Arist. Rh.
particular "appears as an especially dense transfer point for relations of power" 1354a 11-12). Rhetoric was part of the Greek cultural universe from the time of
(1978a : 103). The two are interdependent, but I wish to concentrate first on knowl- Homer (Il. 9.443), but its systematic exposition begins first with the philosophical
edge, the way in which the sex manuals establish women and women's sexuality as movement of the Sophists and especially Gorgias (Dodds 1959) and is continued by
their domain, and then on power, the way in which the manuals fonn a medium for numerous authors, especially Isocrates and his school and Aristotle and the Peripa-
the social control of women. The two together constitute a rhetoric of sexuality. tetics. 23 The scientific classification extended not only to the parts of a speech but
"If sexuality was constituted as an area of investigation, this is only because also the figures of speech , the skhemata (Latinfigurae), a word ambiguous between
relations of power had established it as a possible object; and conversely, if power the positioning of words in a sentence and the positioning of bodies in a bed. 24 The
was able to take it as a target, this was because techniques of knowledge and use of the same vocabulary points to the generic similarities between both types of
procedures of discourse were capable of investing it" (Foucault 1978a: 98). One of handbooks. We may speak of a rhetoric of sexuality.25
the reasons the sex manuals arise in the fourth and early third centuries B .C . is the Thus, the analysis and classification of human actions extended to sexuality
deployment of techniques of knowledge that could create them. The most powerful itself. We hear of various analytical works from the Academy: Aristotle's own
of the techniques of knowledge was the rise of the detailed systems of taxonomy and dialogue Eroticus 26 and various works by others entitled On Love , 27 as well as
classification of the natural world associated with Aristotelian philosophy. The sex books called Er{)tike Tekhne (Th e Art of Love). 28 The same impulse that leads to the
manuals have their origins in several major tendencies of philosophy, literature, and systematic taxonomies of the biological works creates a taxonomy of sex.
society that characterize the period of the dissolution of the Classical Greek polis The genre associations of the sex handbooks are most revealing. Sexuality is
and the emergence of the Hellenistic era, and are themselves symptomatic of what simply one of the new areas into which the desire for encyclopedic learning that
we might call the Age of Aristotle. characterized the Sophists and later authors has extended: zoology, ethnology, rhe-
Philosophically, the sex manuals show a continuance of the Aristotelian and toric, and so on . The variety of works by Pax amos (S)-Alphabetical Cookbook,
Peripatetic tradition of analysis and classification, wherein the continua of the world Foods, Art of Dyeillg, Georgics, as well as the sexual manual The Twelvefold Art-
are broken into discrete, nameable, and hence controllable quanta . 20 The Greeks is a case in point. Equally revealing are its associations with medical writings,
 Pornography alld Represelltatioll ill Greece alld Rome Love's Body Anatomized 103
1021

which also take as their starting point the classification of natural phenomena- are desire. The producer of the handbook thus has a total control over determining
especially with medicine as part of a universal system of knowledge.29Inde~d, li~e and defining the meaning of the symbol of woman. That is, the handbooks offer an
medical treatises and other encyclopedic writings , these sex manuals acqUIred Il- unrivaled power of objectification. 33
lustrations precisely because they were part of the genre of handbooks on the natural
world,3o and it is perhaps through the medium of such illustrated texts that the genre Power
31
of the sex books had its schematizing influence on Roman art.
Thus we are given love's body anatomized . Sexuality is on the same basis as "Relations of power are not in a position of exteri~rity with respect to other types of
animals,'plants, and minerals, as an object of intellectual inquiry. :rhe continua of relationships (economic processes, knowledge relationships, sexual relationships),
sexual activities are broken down into separate actions, each given a name, a but are immanent in the latter" (Foucault 1978a: 94). "Knowledge is power," said
description, and so constituted as a separate ontological catego~y. However, a neces- Francis Bacon more briefly. The power to name is the power to control. The act of
sary prerequisite of such classification is to establish sexua~lty as a natural phe- Adam is not only over the natural world but over Eve as well. As the economic
nomenon while at the same time this treatment of sexuahty as part of natural exchange model of pornography illustrates, the ability to define a symbol is also the
philosophy is part of the discourse that establishes a "sexual esse~tialis~l," defin~d ability to control its use .
by Rubin (1984: 275) as "the idea that sex is a natural force th~t eXists pno: to SOCial Again, the genre associations of the handbooks are extremely revealing. They
life and shapes institutions. Sexual essentialism is embedded III th~ folk wls?oms of are part of the general type of didactic poetry and prose. The sexual manuals belong
Western societies, which consider sex to be eternally unchanglllg, asocial, and to the same genre as Aratus on astronomy and weather or Nicander on snakes and
ahistorical" -not only within folk wisdoms but within academic philosophy as well poisons (see Easterling and Knox 1985: 598-606), as well as the rhetorical and
(see Padgug 1979: 5, Winkler 1990: \7). . . medical handbooks. As noted, the ancients made no distinction (except on the basis
Pornography represents an atteinpt to place human sexuahty, Viewed as a nat~ral of medium) between didactic works and the natural philosophical works mentioned
phenomenon, under intellectual control. To be. precise, in the. act of analyzlllg above: didactic poetry seeks to delight as well as instruct, and to instruct in that
sexuality, pornography creates it. Pornography IS part of the. discourse that both which delights (Lucr. 1.936- 50; see Sen . Ep . 86 . 15).
posits and constructs the phenomenon of sexua~it~ as mysten~us, unfath.oma?le, However, didactic works also aim at the practical control (i.e., control over
synthetic, indiscrete-that is, in its essence femlllllle-and deSires to ~ubJect It to praxis) of the phenomena they describe. The reader is given knowledge about the
the mastery of the intellect, which it both posits and constructs. as ratl~na.l, com- nature of a given mass of material in order to acquire power over it. The act of
prehensible, analytic, discrete-that is, in its essence masc~l\lle . This. I~ a re- classification of phenomena, even of the natural world, is preparatory to their
capitulation of the primary act of identification of the natural With the feml~llle and controp4 Likewise, the ethical works and political works, dealing with social
the masculine with the cultural (Ortner 1974, Mathieu 1973). Pornography IS there- constructs, are not merely descriptive but prescriptive. These works concern not
fore not only culture's revenge on nature , the subtitle of ~us~n Griffin's :omogra- only what people do but what they should do. Constitutions are collected and
phy alld Silellce (1981); it is also a literalization and reahzatlO.n of what IS.' a~cord­ catalogued, as a necessary preliminary to judging which one is best (cf. Arist. Pol.
ing to Aristotle, the fundamental philosophical and ethical actIOn: the subJeClion of 1288blO-89b26; EN 118Ib6-9).
matter (female) to spirit (male),32 . The relation between knowledge and power is most clear in the association
The philosophical role of the sex manuals can be made clear from an econo~lc between the sex manuals and the various medical and rhetorical works. Like the
exchange model of pornography (as used by Kappeler 1986: 5-10; 1. M. DaVies medical works, the manuals do not confine themselves to description . The medical
1988: 136-38). Levi-Strauss (1969: 65,114- 15,481 ,496) has identified the ways handbooks cover treatment as well as diagnosis; they are descriptive in order to be
in which the exchange of women between men in patriarchal social groups estab- prescriptive. 35 Likewise, rhetoric is not the abstract study of speech. Its purpose is
lishes woman as sign. The producer of pornography, however, gives to the con- to persuade, to gain control (Plato GOl'g. 453a, 454e).
sumer not a real woman but a representation of one, a symbol of a woman . Most Thus, the sex manuals are guides to a tekhn e, a skill or teachable art (ars).
~ornography insists that it is realistic; it claims to represent accurately an individual. Foucault draws a distinction between the "two great procedures for producing the
Thus the reader is given not just the picture of the Playmate of the Month but her truth of sex": the ars erotica and the sciellfia sexualis. In the aI's erotica, "truth is
nam~ and a list of her "turn-ons and turn-offs." The objective scientific stance, drawn from pleasure itself, understood as a practice and accumulated as experience;
however, can do something much more powerful. By claiming to describe not an pleasure is not considered in relation to an absolute law of the permitted and the
individual but a class, the producer of what we might call "objective porno~ra?hy" forbidden, nor by reference to a criterion of utility, but first and foremost in relation
can give to the consumer not one woman but all women; can purport to dellllllt not to itself" (l978a: 57). The model of the aI's erotica is that of initiation , master to
what a woman is as an individual but what woman is as an essence. The consumer pupil. The scientia sexualis. on the other hand, is geared to forms of knowledge-
of pornography possesses one woman who is made to declare her desire . The power and is unique to modern Western civilization. The model of the scientia
consumer of the handbooks possesses all women, who are made to declare that they sexualis is the confession (Foucault 1978a: 58). Foucault's distinction (essentially
104 Pomography alld Represelltatioll ill Greece alld Rome Love's Body Allatomized 105

that between the Classical and the Christian world), however, is largely illusory. The Clearchus, Chrysippus, and Athenaeus associate the sex manuals with the gas-
claim to usus, personal experience, is a mark of the didactic genre as a whole, and tronomic treatises of Archestratus as examples of didactic literature (E, F, G). The
the authors claim to pass on this knowledge as master to pupil. 36 On the other hand, two species of handbooks are equally lists of the variety of sensual pleasures that
the sex manuals as well as the other prescriptive works Foucault follows are inti- exist as well as the manners in which they should be enjoyed . That is, as guides to
mately tied in with rituals of power and knowledge. While it is true that they do not bodily pleasures they also function to control the body. The gourmet handbooks tell
divide sexual acts into the permitted and the forbidden (cf. Foucault 1986: 124), not only what foodstuffs exist and where they are to be found (description, knowl-
they operate with subtler forllls of linking knowledge and power. One of the most edge) but how they are to be cooked (prescription, power). The sex handbooks not
effective forms of the technology of power resides in the very act of listing itself. As only list what sexual positions exist (description, knowledge) but tell how to employ
with any process that claims to be normative, especially canon formation, the basic each one (prescription, power). Thus, the controlling metaphor of the genre is how
move is exclusion. When the taxonomy claims to be objective and exhaustive, it can the material, the natural, the feminine is to be transformed into the logical, the
reduce the unlisted to the nonexistent. Rather than the "logic of censorship" cultural, the masculine . The object of the gastronomical works is to transform the
(Foucault 1978a: 84) which takes the form of an act denying that the thing exists, raw into the cooked. The object of pornography is to transform women into whores .
the power of the list lies in silence, so that the possibility of anything outside the list Woman is a species of meat. Pornography is a species of cookbook.
does not even occur. What is unspoken becomes unspeakable; what is uncatalogued
becomes impossible. The Female Authorial Voice
The intellectual control (description) and practical control (prescription) given
by the manuals are both male- and female-directed, for they seek not only to Most of the major themes of this analysis can be seen in one of the most striking
describe a reality of sexual praxis but to construct and control it. As Kappeler says features about these ancient sex handbooks : the consistent assumption of a female
(1986 : 2): "Sex or sexual practices do not just exist out there, waiting to be authorial voice (A-R, T; C, H, and perhaps 0 refer explicitly to men writing under
represented; rather, there is a dialectical relationship between representational prac- women's names). The obvious question arising from a consideration of the testi-
tices which construct sexuality and the actual sexual practices, each informing the monia is why so obviously a male-generated and phallocentric genre is so often
other." As the genre shows, there was a clear didactic and psychological function, fathered off on women. Here I am not denying the possibility that women might
present today in similar works. Pornography has been defended and disseminated as have produced pornography in antiquity even as they do now, but the evidence
educational, while at the same time sex education has been condemned as porno- points to a literature that was as male-produced as it was male-consumed .
grapl~ic. These pillow books, constructing sexuality from the male point of view and The use of a female authorial voice is a recun'ing feature of pornography. It
for the male consumer, serve to create a normative intercourse and to reassure the appears at first to be a counterexample to the objectification of women . Women
male initiate that he will meet with nothing unexpected. Manuals of sexual positions appear to be making themselves subjects and controlling their own sexuality. Carter
therefore make their appearance at the time of a fundamental shift in Greek society draws attention to the paradoxical nature of this move (1978 : 15- 16): "Many
from a predominantly aristocratic and homoerotic code to a bourgeois and hetero- pornographic novels are written in the first person as if by a woman, or use a woman
37
erotic code, of which the domestic concerns of New Comedy are indicative. The as the focus of the narrative; but this device only reinforces the male orientation of
fear of sexual contact with the Other is removed, not only by advance familiarity the fiction . John Cleland's Fanny Hill and the anonymous 3B The Story of 0, both
with certain basic physiological facts but by the construction of a carefully delimited classics of the genre, appear in this way to describe a woman's mind through the
sexual cosmos. The reduction of the possibilities of human sexuality to heterosexual fiction of her sexuality." So, too, Kappeler (1986: 90): "The assumption of the
intercourse is an essential feature of the genre. female point of view and narrative voice-the assumption of linguistic and narrative
Besides a psychological , male-directed aspect, there is a social, female-directed female 'SUbjectivity' -in no way lessens the pornographic structure, the fundamen-
aspect of practical control. This is pornography in the passive sense, writings about tal elision of the woman as subject. On the contrary, it goes one step further in the
whores, writing about women as whores, purporting to tell them how to behave in total objectification of woman . ... The so-called female point of view is a male
bed, whose purpose is to convince the female nonresisting reader to become a construction of the passive victim in his own scenario , the necessary counterpart to
whore , that is, a compliant sexual object, who will not do (or ask to have done) his active aggressor."
anything not on the menu. Ovid is overinsistent in stating that he is writing for the The use of a woman's voice is part of the deployment of knowledge and power.
prostitute (AI'S 1.3 1-34, 2.599-600, 3.57-58). In choosing positions, she is to Donning this authorial mask is an act to authorize the knowledge. It is another form
consider not her pleasure but her appearance . This type of pornography represents a of Diderot 's Les bijoux indiscrels: the male author forces the woman's body to speak
very evident attempt at the control of women's space, or rather women's bodies in the "truth." The producer of pornography usurps the act of writing the body.
space , a reduction of the female to a hole and four limbs that may be positioned The female authorial voice in the handbooks plays an important psychological
around it in a limited number of permutations (see M) . Thus, the ancient sexual role in the male construction of female sexuality. These works are presented as the
manuals reveal in a very clear form what may be the defining characteristic of writings of women, especially hetairai and maidservants (Iherapainai), professional
pornography: the reduction of its subject matter to object and matter. sexual entertainers, who speak with the authority of vast experience. 39 This is
106 Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome Love's Body Anatomized 107

pornography in the active sense, writings by whores. Freud's famous question Sade makes pornograms . The pornogram is not merely the written trace of an
"What does woman want?" is here answered with feminine authority. The answer, erotic practice, nor even the product of a cutting up of that practice, treated as a
comforting the male reader, turns out unsurprisingly enough to be that women want grammar of sites and operations; through a new chemistry of the text , it is the
exactly what men want them to want. fusion (as under high pressure) of discourse and body ("You see me completely
There is a further aspect to the assumption by pornography of the female au- naked," Eugenie says to her professor: "dissertate on me as much as you
thorial voice . The inscription of a woman's name provides a reinscription of the want"), so that, that point having been reached, the writing will be what regu-
dominant culture's ideas about women's nature. They are proved out of their own lates the exchange of Logos and Eros, and that it will be possible to speak of the
mouths to be sex-obsessed . Their nature is only sexual. They are their bodies . They erotic as a grammarian and of language as a pornographer.
- Barthes 1976: 158- 59
spend their whole lives doing nothing but talking about the things of Aphrodite and,
if they are taught to write, writing about the things of Aphrodite. The sex manuals
reinforce a conceit going back to Semonides (7.91; see Bergren 1983: 69-95;
Arthur 1984). We have already seen how the genre from its associations with
Archestratus and the food writers has been attacked as a guide to luxury and
extravagance. The genre is condemned as excessive, weak, and thus essentially
feminine . On the other hand, women can be shown to be luxurious, incapable of
self-control, totally given over to passion and appetite by their association with the
genre . Thus , the genre is used to belittle women; women are used to belittle the
genre.
This leads to a final aspect of the social control of women . For the sex manuals
act as a check specifically on the clever woman. The recurrent feature of their
ascription to learned women in particular inscribes the notion that as women's
nature is sexual, so are their attempts at learning. Their desire for knowledge is
merely the knowledge of desire. This is especially clear in the cases of Salpe (0)
and Elephantis (A, K, P-R). Each is the name of a famous midwife and writer on
her craft, and each has a "doublet" who is a whore and a writer on her craft . The
gynecological and obstetric works are confounded with the pornographic works to
such an extent that it is impossible to separate out the realities of authorship.40 So
Pliny, in a remarkably revealing passage (HN 28.70) about the magic powers of
menstrual blood, gives as his authorities "not only midwives but prostitutes them-
selves ," equating the two as the only sources of knowledge about women's sexu-
ality.41 The sexual slander of the intellectual woman as a form of social control has
not vanished, and it is a frequently attested move in antiquity (note the attacks on
thd poets Nossis and Erinna in Herodas Millie 6). The philosopher Nicarete of
Megara was called a hetaira, as was Leontion, the pupil of Epicurus CAth. 13.596e;
Diog . Laert . 6.96-98; contra Cic . Fat . 5.581 ; see Pomeroy 1977: 58). Valerius
Maximus's spleen against Gaia Afrania (8.3) comes to mind, as well as Sallust on
Sempronia (Cat . 24- 25; see Lefkowitz and Fant 1982: 205- 6). The coercion of the
intellectual woman by slander as sexually obsessed or deviate is paralleled by the
case of Aphra Behn, whose outspoken poetry on love earned her similar accusations
of unchastity. These women's excessive knowledge, particularly on matters of eros,
and their intrusions into masculine fields of expertise (medicine, poetry, literature)
render them liable to social sanctions. In particular, their works are controlled
because of the threat they pose to the canon, not just of authors but of knowledge,
because of the threat that writing by women might offer other ways of knowing,
other languages , other entities that differ from the received list. Rhetoric and
gynecology can equally be forms of control and areas in which it is necessary to
retain control.
 Love's Body Analomized 109

NOTES
lowe a considerable debt to Amy Richlin , Sandra Joshel, Molly Myerowitz , and the other
contributors to this book, as well as to my friend and colleague Barbara Burrell . All transla-
APPENDIX tions are my own.

I . For Greek and Roman concepts of obscenity, see, respectively, Henderson (1975) and
Richlin (1983).
Texts Relating to the Writers of Sexual 2. Timaeus of Tauromenium (ca . 356-260) in Polyb . 12.13.1; already by the time of
Timaeus, there was a recognized genre of sex manuals by allaiskhlln/ographoi.

Handbooks 3. First mentioned by Ptolemy Chennus, first-second century A . D. (Photius Biblio.

149a28), who may have created this figure of Helen 's maid . See Cohn, in Pauly-Wissowa
1894: 23.2.1862 (77).
4. C (a mock epitaph which implies that Philaenis wrote sex manuals by pretending to
deny the charge), G, H, M (a complete fusion of author and text: "Let all our women 's
quarters be a Philaenis").
5. Note that kalaklisis, "posture," is a technical medical term for "position for resting in
bed ." See Hp. Art. 33; cf. Prog. 3, Gal. 16.578K: to les katakliseos skhema.
6 . Seduction: So B (quoted below); implied by G and Ovid's use of his sources in the Ars
Amaloria. Oral sex is perhaps implied by D and L .
Philaenis 7. For the case of Sappho , see esp. Page 1955 : 110-46; Lefkowitz 1981a: 59-68; Hallett
1979: 447-64 .
8. See Ath. 13 .601e, 609c; Hp. Aera 20-22. Part of the appeal of ethnographic works
A: Suda , s. v. Astyanassa (also mentions Elephantine).
lies precisely in their sexual content. The pose of the detached scientific point of view and the
B: P. Oxy. 2891 (Lobel 1972).
fact that it is turned on the culturally Other authorizes discourse and representations otherwise
C: Aeschrion A .P. 7.345 .
forbidden . The success of Malinowski's title is a case in point.
D: Timaeus of Tauromenium in Polybius 12.13.1 (also Botrys).
9 . For an example: Philostr. V.S . 1.22.524; cf. Suet. Aug. 51. For the Phoellicica,
E: Clearchus of Soli in Athenaeus 1O.457d- e.
attributed to Lollianus, see Easterling and Knox 1985: 686 .
F: Chrysippus in Athenaeus 8.335.
10. For text, see Merkelbach (1972: 284) ; Tsantsanoglou (1973 : 183-95); Cataudella
G: Antisthenes in Athenaeus 5.220 (also Niko of Samos, Callistrate of Lesbos ,
(1973 : 253-63); Luppe (1974: 281 - 82); Marcovich (1975 : 123-24). My text differs slightly
Pythonicus of Athens; these only mcntioned here).
from Tsantsanoglou's, principally in retaining Merkelbach and Luppe's lvlJuv (Parker 1989:
H : Dioscorides A .P. 7.450.
49-50).
I : Priapea 63 . 15-18.
II. Pace Tsantsanoglou (1973: 194). For a modem analogue , compare the "Em-
i : Justin Martyr 2. 15 .3.
manuelle" movies, all the more so since the novel Ellllllalluelle by "Emmanuelle Arsan" is
K: Tatian, .oralio ad Graecos 34.3 (also Elephantine).
pseudonymous, possibly written by a man . The name Emmanuelle does not indicate au-
L : Lucian, Pseudologisla 24 .
thorship but is simply a signal to the consumer of pornographic content.
M : Pseudo-Lucian, Eroles 28 .
12. See Henderson 1987a: 96, and 1975: 151-83, esp. 164- 66 (no. 274-78), 173 (no .
N : Clement of Alexandria, Prolreplikos 53P; quoted by Myerowitz (Chapter 7 in this
317), 178-80 (no . 358-64). Artemidorus 1.79 also contains a similar list of sexual positions
volume).
used for interpreting dreams of mother-son incest; see Winkler 1990: 42 .
13 . But see Arist. Nic . Elh . 1 I 28a22- 25 on Old Comedy. Roman sources in Richlin
1983: 1-31.
Others 14. So aselgeia : Plato Rep . 424e, Polyb . 36. 15.4; coupled with hubris, Oem . 21.1, etc.
For akolasia, Thuc . 3.37 .3; Aristotle Elh . Nic. 1118b- 9a, 1150a-51a; Elh . Eud. 1230b,
etc.; see North 1966: 202-3 .
0: Alcimus and Nymphodorus of Syracuse in Athenaeus 7.321f-322a (Botrys, see D; 15 . E.g ., in food , Xen . Mem . 1.3.5, 2. 1.33; Hp. Aphorisms 2.4, 17, 22 (but see 2.38);
also Salpe). food and sex, Diog . Laert. 6.2 .69; Plato Rep . 38ge, 580e; Xen . Symp . 4.38 . This is , of
P: Suetonius, Tib . 43 (Elephantis). course, a vast topic in Greek philosophy (see North 1966 for a survey) and one that forms the
Q: Martial 12.43 (Elephant is). staple diet of Roman philosophers and poets ; see Henry, Chapter 12 in this volume .
R : Priapea 4 (Elephantis). 16. On luxury, extravagance in sex joined with food and drink, see Xen. Mem . 2. 1.30;
S: Suda , s .v. Paxamos . Plato Rep. 573a- e; Aesch . 1.42, 1.75; Oem. 18 .296 , 19 .229; Crates frg. 13- 14; Hp. Epid.
T: Suda , s. v. Pamphile. 3.10, 14. See Dover 1974: 178- 80.
110 Pomography alld Representation in Greece alld Rome Lo ve's Body Allatomized 111

17. Hdt. 6.84. For women and wine in invective, see Herodas Mime I; JlIV. 6.319 . 33 . See Kuhn's observation that pornography "in constructing certain representations of
18 . See principally Dover 1984: 143-57 , esp. 148-49; Foucault 1985 : 84-86 . For women .. . codes woman in a general way as sign, as an object, that is of (implicitly male)
Rome, see Richlin 1983, esp. 131-39 (see index s. v. "effeminacy," '''pathic' homosexu al"); looking " (1982: 114); and J. M. Davies's definition (1988 : 137): "The name feminists give to
Wiseman 1985: 10-14. this process of limiting what a person can be by predetermining how her or his behavior or
19. See Saussure 1976: \3-15 ; Culler 1975: 6-11; Ray 1984: 110- 13. appearance is to be interpreted is ' objectification.' "
20. Thus , the Categories, Top . 10Ib-3b22, etc. So , too, Xenocrates , frg. 12 H; Her- 34. Cf. Arisl. Met. 1025b25 . See Guthrie 1981 : 337, 345- 49, 356.
modoru s (in Simp\. III phys. 247.33-248 .20 D). 35. Note the very apposite remarks of E. Phillips (1973: 72; Cf. 32), contrasting the Coan
21. E.g., the "Catalogue of Ships" and the aristeia of various heroes in the Iliad , the and Cnidian schools of medicine: "These clinical books [such as the Epidemics) bring the
Hesiodic catalogucs and gcnealogies in the Works alld Days and TheogollY as well as the reader into direct contact with ancient patients , the more so because no theory is obtruded,
Catalog lie ofWomell (Eoiae) . See Semonides 7 (the taxonomy of women , purporting to give nor any explanation explicitly offered. But other books , which are Cnidian in origin , la-
their essential natures): Pomeroy 1975: 40-52; Lefkowitz and Fant 1982: 14-16; and Arthur boriously describe, classify and attempt to explain the variety of diseases. They are harder to
1984: 46-47 . read and more technical; passing to them is like passing from Plato to Aristotle .. .. Unlike
22. E.g. , Hist. All . 491a7; Meteorologica 4. For statements on method and classifica- the Epidemics, which from time to time mention persons and places , their attitude to disease
tion , see Part. An . 644aI6- 23; Hist . All . 486aI4- b22, 490b7 ff., 497b6-13 . See Jaeger approaches the modern ontological theory in which diseases are treated as if they were
1948: 19; Rose 1953: 112-17; Lloyd 1968: 68-102 (esp. 86-90), 173-75; Lloyd 1983: 7- entities in themselves .. .. These books are also therapeutic, unlike most of the Epidemics
57 . and Progllostic, so that the descriptions of diseases are supplemented with lists of suitable
23 . Besides Aristotle's Rhetoric and Art of Poetry, there was the Swragage Tekh/l(JIl, a foods, drinks and treatments, along with herbal remedies ." See Galen 5,760- 6IK; 15,427-
collection and survey of previous writers , a preliminary research effort similar to the collec- 28K .
tion of constitutions (Cic . 8mtlls 45- 51). For the skhbllata, see Longinus 18.1 - 29 .2 (Rus- 36 . Ovid Ars 1. 1-30; and B. Archestratus's own work stated that it was based on Iristoria
sell and Winterbottom 1972: 480-89). (research), gathered from the whole world (frg . I and 2 Brandt).
24. Rhetoric : first in Zo'ilus (fourth century B.C. ; FGH I1A.71; cf. Quint. 9 . 1.14); cf. 37 . See Foucault 's analysis (1986: 211-27) of Pseudo-Lucian 's Erates (cf. M).
Plato 10 11 536c. Sexual skhemata: A, F , N , S;jigllrae : I, P , Q, R . See note 5, above. 38. Rather, pseUdonymous . The ascription of the book to ' ~ Pauline Reage" is an intimate
25 . The idea that the Ars Alllatoria is simply a direct parody of the rhetorical handbooks part of the process .
(no mention of the sexual handbooks) has been rightly questioned (Myerowitz 1985: 31, 195n 39 . For a modern analogue, Pellt/lOuse runs a sexual advice column by the Happy
54). Rather, they resemble each other because they share the same taxonomic and analytic Hooker, rather than Masters and Johnson or even Dr. Ruth .
approach that is endemic to all the handbooks, natural historical, medical , or rhetorical. 40 . Brendel (1970: 66 n. 70) and Jones (1963: VIII.58) assume that there was only one
26. Athen . 13.564b, 15 .674b; Plut. Erot . 17; de Erot . 17, etc . Elephantis . The articles in Pauly-Wissowa distinguish them. Elephantis: Pliny HN 28 .51 , as a
27 . E.g., the Eratikos and Peri EralOs by Theophrastus (Diog . Laeri . 5.43), Persaeus writer on abortifacients; Galen 12.416K , as a writer on cosmetics . Salpe: Pliny HN 28.38 ,
(Diog . Laerl. 7 .36) and Antisthenes (Diog . Laerl. 6 . 16; G); Er6tika by Clearchus of Soli 66, 82, 262 ; 32 . 135 (obstetr;x), 140.
(Athen. 12.533e , 13. 564b, 15.669f; E) . by Miston of Ceos (Athen . 13 .5Mb, 15 .674); 41 . Sec Hp. Cam. 19 (8.610 .3- IOL).
Enitikoi Dialogoi by Sphaerus (Diog . Laerl. 7.178), etc . For a full list and testimonia , sec V.
Rose 1863 : 105- 7 .
28 . Zeno (Diog . Laert. 7 .34; not at 7.4) and a similar work, the "Pastimes" (Diatribai);
Cleanthes (Diog . Laerl. 7.175): not manuals of sexual positions . Rather, they show the way
in which love.in all aspects has become a tekhlle.
29 . See Hp. Epid. 1.23; De Arte 9- 14; Progllosis; Celsus prooem. 52- 54 , 57. Compare
the Roman inclusion of agriculture, rhetoric, and medicine in the encyclopedias of Cato ,
Varro , and Celsus.
30 . Thus, the earliest extant illustrated papyrus (Louvre, P . Letrolllre I) is of Eudoxus's
astronomy. Cf. Pliny on illustrated herbals , HN 25 .8. See Weitzmann 1977: 9; Lloyd 1983:
114 n. 4. Aristotle's Historia Allimalirlllr was illustrated with diagrams (5IOa29), as was The
Allatomy by his father, a doctor (497a32). In gynecology the original text of Soranus was
certainly illustrated; see IIberg 1911 : 16- 21 ; Burguiere et al. 1988: Iii- Iiii.
31 . See Ovid Ars 2 .679-80; Prop. 2 .6 .27-32; Suet. Tib . 44 (ef. P), etc . See Brendel
1970: 62-63 , and Myerowitz , Chapter 7 in this volume.
32 . See Pol. 1254b2-16, I277b27 . For woman as the materia of the male, Met. 729a II,
726b30; Gell . All . 716a7, 732a5, 738b20 , etc . For the proper subordination of malter, see
Met. 988a5, 1024a35 , 1070b17 , 107Ia3- 25, etc . On Aristotle and women, see Clark 1975:
29, 44 , 48 , 106, 206- 11; Horowitz 1976: 183- 213 ; Morsink 1979: 83- 112; Fortenbaugh
1977; Spelman 1977 : 17-30; Sa'id 1983: 93-123; Clark 1982: 177- 91; Lloyd 1983: 94- 106;
Lange 1983: 1- 15 ; Sissa 1983: 83- 145, esp. 139-45 ; Manuli 1983: 162- 70 .