In contrast with the breadth of references to rape in historiographies, narratives, and visual depictions of war across the Greco-Roman world, the relatively few references to rape in stories of the First Jewish Revolt are remarkable: Josephus, j.w. 4.560 and 7.344, 377, 382, 385; 4 Ezra 10:22; Lam. Rab. 1:16; b. Giṭ. 56b, 57b-58a. This paper explores the use and significance of rape as a weapon in Roman warfare as context for interpreting the references to rape in the earliest reflections on the revolt, Josephus’s Jewish War and 4 Ezra, proposing that the limited number of these references in Josephus in particular relates to his larger goal of reconstructing Jewish identity (especially in terms of masculinity) in post-revolt Rome.
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E.g., Herodotus, Hist. 8.32-33; Polybius 21.38; Diodorus Siculus 13.58.1-2, 17.35.7; Livy 21.13, 21.57, 26.13, 29.17; Tacitus, Agr. 15, 31, and Hist. 4.14; Plutarch, Mulier. virt. 259-260; Appian, Bell. civ. 1.13, Hist. rom. 7.7.9.
See Patricia D. Rozée, “Forbidden or Forgiven? Rape in Cross-Cultural Perspective,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 17 (1993): 499-514, esp. 500-511, and Hilary B. Lipka, Sexual Transgression in the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Bible Monographs 7 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006), 2-3. The lack of congruity even among legal definitions of rape in the United States is noted by Kalsbeek and House, Incidence of Rape, 25-33.
So Cole, “Greek Sanctions,” 99 and 108-10; Edward M. Harris, “Did Rape Exist in Classical Athens? Further Reflections on the Laws about Sexual Violence,” Dike 4 (2004): 41-83, esp. 60-61, 70-76; Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, “Greek Tragedy: A Rape Culture?” EuGeStA 1 (2011): 1-21, esp. 17.
See further Cole, “Greek Sanctions,” 98; David Cohen, “Sexuality, Violence, and the Athenian Law of ‘Hubris,’ ” Greece and Rome 38 (1991): 171-88, esp. 172-73; Diana C. Moses, “Livy’s Lucretia and the Validity of Coerced Consent in Roman Law,” in Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou (Washington, dc: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1993), 39-81, esp. 46-51; and Gaca, “Ancient Warfare,” 287.
See further Moses, “Livy’s Lucretia,” 46, 61; Edward M. Harris, “ ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ in Women’s Desire,” in Masteron et al., Sex in Antiquity, 298-314, esp. 299-300.
Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 96-97; Harris, “Classical Athens,” 60-61; James Robson, Sex and Sexuality in Classical Athens, Debates and Documents in Ancient History (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 103.
Cf. Plato, Laws 9.874c; Demosthenes 19.309; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 16.4.3; Tacitus, Ann. 6.1; Plutarch, Quaest. rom. 101; Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 99. Notably, Roman pudicitia could be identified as the victim in cases of rape: Livy 8.28.2-6; Valerius Maximus 6.1.9; cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus 16.4.2-3, and Greek traditions which identify sexual assault as lawlessness (Isocrates, Pan. 114; Herodotus 3.80.5; Polybius 6.8.5).
Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 30-31, 99-100; Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002; repr., Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 50-57; Hezser, Jewish Slavery, 84, 179-83. Note that the sexual use of slaves includes children: Petronius, Satyricon 74; Catullus 61; Martial 1.58.3; Glancy, Slavery, 23-24; Niall McKeown, “Had They No Shame? Martial, Statius and Roman Sexual Attitudes towards Slave Children,” in Children, Childhood and Society, ed. Sally Crawford and Gillian Shepherd, vol. 1 of iaa Interdisciplinary Series: Studies in Archaeology, History, Literature and Art, bar International Series 1696 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2007), 57-62, esp. 58-61; Amy Richlin, “Reading Boy-Love and Child-Love in the Greco-Roman World,” in Masterson et al., Sex in Antiquity, 352-73, esp. 352-53.
E.g., Homer, Il. 22.59-65; Isocrates, Ep. 9.10; Rhet. Her. 4.8.12; Sallust, Bell. Cat. 51.9; Livy 26.13.14-15; Column of Marcus Aurelius, scenes xx, cii.
See also Cicero, Verr. 2.4.116; Appian, Hist. rom. 3.8, 3.9.1; and Sara Elise Phang, The Marriage of Roman Soldiers (13 B.C.-A.D. 235): Law and Family in the Imperial Army, Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 24 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 252-59, who explores the potential and variable probability of rape in occupied provinces.
See further Cole, “Greek Sanctions,” 112-13, and Phang, “Intimate Conquests,” 215-16.
See especially Thomas and Ralph, “Rape in War,” 81-83; Littlewood, “Military Rape,” 8; and Gottschall, “Wartime Rape,” 130.
See Phang, “Intimate Conquests,” 210, 215-16. Note also Ramsay MacMullen, “Roman Attitudes to Greek Love,” Historia 31 (1982): 484-502, esp. 490; W. Kendrick Pritchett, The Greek State at War: Part V (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 239; Gaca, “Ancient Warfare,” 279, 281.
E.g., Thomas and Ralph, “Rape in War,” 84-90; Gottschall, “Wartime Rape,” 130-33; Maedl, “Rape as Weapon,” 130, 143-46.
Diodorus Siculus 17.35.2-4; Cicero, Phil. 3.31; Livy 29.17.16; Tacitus, Ann. 14.31; cf. also Gen 34:27-29, Num 31:32-35, and Deut 20:14. Slaves were, much more literally than freeborn wives and children, possessions of the owners; but as property without rights (especially chastity), slaves are omitted from Greek and Roman stories of wartime rape.
See especially Olujic, “Embodiment of Terror,” 37-39; Tara Gingerich and Jennifer Leaning, “The Use of Rape as a Weapon of War in the Conflict in Darfur, Sudan,” Program on Humanitarian Crises and Human Rights, François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, 2004, http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/darfur-use-of-rape-as-weapon-2004.html, 17-18; and Shireen Hassim and Sheila Meintjes, “Overview Paper,” Expert Group Meeting on Democratic Governance in Africa, Arusha, Tanzania, 6-8 December 2005, http://www.un.org/africa/osaa/reports/Democratic%20Governance%20Overview%20Paper.pdf, 12.
Jeannine Diddle Uzzi, Children in the Visual Arts of Imperial Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 154-55; Sheila Dillon, “Women on the Columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius and the Visual Language of Roman Victory,” in Representations of War in Ancient Rome, ed. Sheila Dillon and Katherine E. Welch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 244-71, esp. 262; Iain Ferris, Hate and War: The Column of Marcus Aurelius (Stroud: History Press, 2009), 115-20.
See further Hezser, Jewish Slavery, 223; Andrew Feldherr, “Barbarians II: Tacitus’ Jews,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians, ed. Andrew Feldherr (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 301-16, esp. 304-5; and Colin Adams, “War and Society in the Roman Empire,” in The Oxford Handbook of Warfare in the Classical World, ed. Brian Campbell and Lawrence A. Tritle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 261-76, esp. 266-67.
Kathy Gaca, “Girls, Women, and the Significance of Sexual Violence in Ancient Warfare,” in Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights, ed. Elizabeth D. Heineman, Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 73-88, esp. 80, argues in reference to ancient Greece that rape was the means of turning freeborn people into slaves.
Cf. Miranda Alison, “Wartime Sexual Violence: Women’s Human Rights and Questions of Masculinity,” Review of International Studies 33 (2007): 75-90, esp. 80.
Meredeth Turshen, “The Political Economy of Violence Against Women During Armed Conflict in Uganda,” Social Research 67 (2000): 803-24, esp. 803-4, 812; Mukamana and Collins, “Rape Survivors,” 151, 156.
See further Olujic, “Embodiment of Terror,” 39; Gingerich and Leaning, “Use of Rape,” 15, 18.
So I. M. Ferris, Enemies of Rome: Barbarians Through Roman Eyes (Stroud: Sutton, 2000), 56-58 and Hate and War, 118-20. Alternatively, Uzzi, Children, 140, suggests the women’s dishevelment may represent sexual immorality and thus the illegitimacy of the children.
Natalie Boymel Kampen, “Between Public and Private: Women as Historical Subjects in Roman Art,” in Women’s History and Ancient History, ed. Sarah B. Pomeroy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 218-48, esp. 231-35, 242; Ferris, Enemies, 38; Dillon, “Roman Victory,” 262.
See Douglas R. Edwards, “Religion, Power, and Politics: Jewish Defeats by the Romans in Iconography and Josephus,” in Diaspora Jews and Judaism, ed. J. Andrew Overman and Robert S. MacLennan, sfshj 41 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 293-310, esp. 301-4; Jane M. Cody, “Conquerors and Conquered on Flavian Coins,” in Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, ed. A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 103-23, esp. 105, 109; and Edward M. Zarrow, “Imposing Romanisation: Flavian Coins and Jewish Identity,” jjs 57 (2006): 44-55, esp. 46-47, 50.
See Hindy Najman, Losing the Temple and Recovering the Future: An Analysis of 4 Ezra (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 149.
See further Reeder, “Pity the Women,” 184-85, 192-94; Mason, Jewish War, 114-15.
Cf. James S. McLaren, “A Reluctant Provincial: Josephus and the Roman Empire in Jewish War,” in The Gospel of Matthew in its Roman Imperial Context, ed. John Riches and David C. Sim, Early Christianity in Context, JSNTSup 276 (London: T&T Clark International, 2005), 34-48, esp. 43-48; Mason, Jewish War, 104-5, 125-29.
See especially Steve Mason, “Essenes and Lurking Spartans in Josephus’s Judean War: From Story to History,” in Making History: Josephus and Historical Method, ed. Zuleika Rodgers, JSJSup 110 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 219-61, esp. 223-25, and Mason, “The Greeks and the Distant Past in Josephus’s Judaean War,” in Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World, ed. Gregg Gardner and Kevin L. Osterloh, tsaj 123 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 93-130, esp. 103-4. On negative depictions of Judeans in Roman propaganda following the victory in Judaea, cf. Edwards, “Religion, Power and Politics,” 294-308; Jason von Ehrenkrook, Sculpting Idolatry in Flavian Rome: (An)Iconic Rhetoric in the Writings of Flavius Josephus, ejl 33 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 176-80; Mason, Jewish War, 33-43.
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In contrast with the breadth of references to rape in historiographies, narratives, and visual depictions of war across the Greco-Roman world, the relatively few references to rape in stories of the First Jewish Revolt are remarkable: Josephus, j.w. 4.560 and 7.344, 377, 382, 385; 4 Ezra 10:22; Lam. Rab. 1:16; b. Giṭ. 56b, 57b-58a. This paper explores the use and significance of rape as a weapon in Roman warfare as context for interpreting the references to rape in the earliest reflections on the revolt, Josephus’s Jewish War and 4 Ezra, proposing that the limited number of these references in Josephus in particular relates to his larger goal of reconstructing Jewish identity (especially in terms of masculinity) in post-revolt Rome.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 5130 | 266 | 12 |
Full Text Views | 562 | 16 | 1 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 560 | 37 | 2 |