Transcending Gender: Assimilation, Identity, and Roman Imperial Portraits
Visual propaganda in the Roman Empire, often in the form of portraiture, was crucial for obtaining power, prominence, and prestige. Imperial Roman portraiture provides insight into the visual language of power in the ancient Roman world. A plethora of surviving imperial portraiture synthesizing male and female attributes uniquely characterizes gender fluidity in antiquity, showing moderns that the ancients had their own ways of viewing and representing the sex and gender divide in society.
In his article, “Transcending Gender: Assimilation, Identity, and Roman Imperial Portraits,” Eric R. Varner analyses the use of gender, sexuality, and identity assimilation in portraiture from the Roman imperial period. Varner provides several examples of powerful Roman rulers assimilating either male or female attributes; as in the case of Augustus and Domitian’s visual portraits, which conjoin the portrayal of respective emperors with the female deities Diana and Minerva (Varner, 185–6). Moreover, Varner cites certain empresses assuming masculine characteristics in coinage and other media, such as Livia (Varner, 191) and Agrippina (Varner, 192). In some cases, male emperors assume female characteristics while in others, it’s the other way around.
The modern eye would question gender ambiguity in portraiture —for instance, one would not find Donald Trump advertising himself with female attributes. In fact, American male politicians, famous athletes, and movie stars generally exude hyper masculine visual features, shying heavily from the idea of gender ambiguity.
In contrast, the ancients used gender ambiguity as a potent language of power. Varner writes, “The deliberate ambivalence of gender in these images creates a fluid visual persona for the emperor that eclipses standard definitions of masculine and feminine,” (Varner, 189). In other words, emperors could portray themselves with certain characteristics that aligned with their political agendas —regardless of the male or female association.
In the cases of Augustus and Domitian, the recognizable characteristics of female deities represented a softness that cued in to the priorities of the Augustan and Domitianic political agendas. Varner writes, “Visual assimilation of emperor and empress communicated concepts of imperial concordia,” (192). Augustus and Domitian’s adaption of female softness in their portraiture indicated the priorities of their political platforms in their reigns — namely the focuses on marriage, virtue, and morality. The assimilation of characteristics across genders, while still drawing from an implied binary where attributes are seen as either male or female, indicates an openness to identification with features across the gender divide.
So why don’t politicians use gendered attributes to advance their political agendas today? People in the modern context seem to observe a stricter practical application of culturally constructed sex and gender binaries. While the ancient Romans certainly recognized similar binary systems of sex and gender, they likewise seemed to acknowledge and utilize ideas of sex and gender fluidity whether in the visual propaganda of imperial portraiture or in the syncretism of various gods and goddesses.
Varner concludes, “Ultimately, the intentional slippage between fixed gender classifications often encoded in imperial images reinforces the transcendent nature of the emperor’s power and position within roman society,” (202). Breaking binary assumptions, the emperors were able to establish powerful images and communicate to their people. Blurring gender lines allowed them to enhance their visual language, express their power, and impact their people.
Sources:
Varner, Eric R. “Transcending Gender: Assimilation, Identity, and Roman Imperial Portraits.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. Supplementary Volumes, vol. 7, 2008, pp. 185–205., www.jstor.org/stable/40379354.
