Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome - Rebecca Langlands.pdf - Ancient Rome - myoxos

SEXUAL MORALITY IN

ANCIENT ROME

Traditionally, scholars have approached Roman sexuality using cat-

egories of sexual ethics drawn from contemporary, Western society.

In this book Dr Langlands seeks to move away from these towards

a deeper understanding of the issues that mattered to the Romans

themselves, and the ways in which they negotiated them, by focusing

on the untranslatable concept of pudicitia (broadly meaning ‘sexual

virtue’). She offers a series of nuanced close readings of texts from

a wide spectrum of Latin literature, including history, oratory, love

poetry and Valerius Maximus’ work Memorable Deeds and Sayings .

Pudicitia emerges as a controversial and unsettled topic, at the heart

of Roman debates about the difference between men and women, the

relation between mind and body, and the ethics of power and status

differentiation within Roman culture. The book develops strategies

for approaching the study of an ancient culture through sensitive crit-

ical readings of its literary productions.

R EBECCA LANGLANDS is Lecturer in Classics at the University of

Exeter.

SEXUAL MORALITY IN

ANCIENT ROME

REBECCA LANGLANDS

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo

Cambridge University Press

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of

relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place

without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published in print format

2006

ISBN-13 978-0-511-22134-7

eBook (NetLibrary)

ISBN-10 0-511-22134-7

ISBN-13 978-0-521-85943-1

hardback

ISBN-10 0-521-85943-3

hardback

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for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not

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Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome - Rebecca Langlands.pdf