INTOLERANCE IN ANCIENT ROME |
Symmachus, the Roman senator and famous orator of the last decades of the fourth century A.D. In harmony with the elitist mentality and
legislative practice of his time he had, in fact, advanced a theoretical justifcation of the nonequality of the upper classes before the law and,
consequently, of the legitimacy of diferent applications of laws and punishments according to the quality of the individual. The identifcation
of social rank with moral quality was thus considered self-evident by the establishment of the time. Symmachus himself, on another occasion, had defined his own class as "the better part of mankind" (pars melior humani generis) with perfect candor.' Although for centuries the foundation of a common identity had been seen in human nature itself (even in its mere animality, as the Cynics believed), and although this identity necessarily implied a natural equality of rights and of freedom of expression (the lir)yopia and napptlala of Greek and Latin political and philosophical terminology), this liberty and equality were in reality limited to precisely defined groups.
The dialectic between identity and otherness has accompanied man's historical vicissitudes since the remote beginnings of communal life; indeed, it hasbeen their driving force, through an unceasing flux of confict and when a sense of identity is achieved, it tends naturally toward a codifcation that leads in turn to a greater rigidity; and from this rigidity originate the unifying forces that most readily become repressive.The phenomenon of otherness was undoubtedly manifested even in antiquity in an immense variety of situations. An important examplemay be found in the way women were regarded and treated. There is a clear line of descent from antiquity to the Middle Ages (and even to the present day). Aristotle had theorized that women were naturally inferior;
and Philo was later to invent the dichotomy that both physiologically and symbolically equated the category of the masculine with reason
and that of the feminine with the sensuous. Thus he created a philosophical justifcation of men's domination of women. The notion of men's superiority evolved with the passing of time and wascodifed, for example, by Varro (Ling. 5. 73 "mulier ... a mollitie; virtus ut viritus a virilitate" ). It arrived in Roman culture and was transmitted thence to the Fathers of the Church and to the Middle Ages. This very
identifcation of the feminine with physical, intellectual, and moral frailty caused women to be assimilated to social groups that were considered inferior politically, economically, and culturally. Mulierculae, vilis plebecula, inperiti (that is, silly women, the uncouth masses, the ignorant) are often lumped together with the Jews both by pagan philosophers and by Christian thinkers in their arguments against magic, superstition, and heresy. The Christians were able to enhance their polemic with biblical justifcations, in particular the part played by Eve in the fall of Rome.
The Lex Oppia was a sumptuary law passed in 215 e.c., at the most critical moment of the Second Punic War, after thedefeat at Cannae. It forbade ladies of the upper classes the display of luxury in dress and carriages. Twenty years later women demanded its repeal, because the return of prosperity had made the measure uselessly restrictive: they held public demonstrations, intimidated magistrates, and even resorted to picketing.' Cato, then at the height of his prestige as consul, insisted that the law remained necessary to support the control of the paterfamilias over women, beings who, though undoubtedly inferior, were nonetheless dangerous because of their turbulence and intemperance (indomitum animal). The tribunes M. Fundanius and L. Valerius, on the other hand, sustained the women's cause in the conviction that the very moral and psychological inferiority of the mulierculae guaranteed the head of the family's unimpeded power to make decisions: help from the law was thus not necessary.
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