THE SEMIOTICS OF GENDER: PHYSIOGNOMY AND SELF-FASHIONING IN THE SECOND CENTURY cue. Maud W. Gleason When you see deep blue eyes that stand still, you may take it that their owner is remote from other men, aloof from his neighbors, and extremely cager to amass wealth. You should avoid him with the greatest caution, even ifhe be a member of your own family. Neither should you ever make a journey in his company ot accept his advice. For he delights in evil and sleeplessly plots the ruin of his friends.* T= COMPETITIVE atmosphere of mutual distrust presupposed by this piece of advice will be familiar to any modern student of Med= iterranean village culture. But its source is a physiognomical handbook Of the second century c.£, These handbooks record a technology of suspicion that evolved inside what we lightly call today the “face-to-face society” of the ancient Mediterranean city. To enter this face-to-face society is in fact to enter a forest of eyes—a world in which the scrutiny of one’s fellow man was not an idle pastime but an essential survival skill, In this world, the practice of divination, in many forms and at various levels of formality, was a ubiquitous reflex in response to uncertainty. Everyone who had to choose a son-inlaw or a traveling companion, deposit his valuables before a journey, or make a business loan, had to become at least zn amateur physiognomist when making risky inferences from human surfaces to human depths. Physiognomy did not confine Al translations from the Greek and Latin of the physiognomical corpus are my own: Margaret Malamud of the History Department at che University of California, Berkeley, has been kind enough to check some of the Arabic passages for me. A summary sketch of the surviving physiognomic treatises and their intercelationships follows at the end of this essay: ‘Polemo, Physiognomy 1, in Forster (1893), 1:112 (hereafter cited in the form 1.112F). Cf. Adamantios, 1.6, 1.310F. “Friedl (1962), 79-81; Herafeld (1985); du Boulay (1976); Walcot (1977).390 Gleason itself to ferreting out che malevolence and venality of neighbors and fellow citizens. Perhaps because face-to-face competition was a discourse confined to men, and the eligibility of the contestants was never taken entirely for granted, physiognomy also specialized in spotting males who were not real men at all. THE DECIPHERMENT OF GENDER The fact that physiognomy was prepared to offer itself as a tool for decoding the signs of gender deviance makes it a fruitful source of in- formation about the sex/gender system that permeated ancient society but rarely articulates itself explicitly in canonical texts. In this system, gender is independent of anatomical sex: You may obtain physiognomic indications of masculinity and femininity from your subject’s glance, movement, and voice, and then, from among these signs, compare one with another until you determine to your satis- faction which of the two sexes prevails. For in the masculine there is some~ thing feminine to be found, and in the feminine something masculine, but the name “masculine” or “feminine” is assigned according to which of the ewo prevails. (Polemo, 2, 1192F) The essential idea here is that there exist masculine and feminine “types” that do not necessarily correspond to the anatomical sex of the person in question? This may seem strange to us now, since we have become accustomed to thinking of the human race as divided into two natural kinds, male and female. Bur recent writing on the history of sexuality has reminded us that this was not always so. Perhaps as carly as the third or fourth century B.c.z., and certainly from the time of Galen, it was a medical commonplace that men are—anatomically speaking—women turned inside out.4 The embryology of Hippokrates and Galen envisaged a mingling of male and female sced, in which various proportions were possible: an infant’s gender was not an absolute, but a point on a sliding Ic is misleading, then, for Davidson, in his recent study of the emergence of sexuality, to claim, on the grounds that ie was only conceptual changes in the nineteenth century that “made it possible for there to be kinds of sexuality that did not correspond to an individ- uual’s sex,” that “Before the second baif of the nineteenth century persons of a determinate anatomical sex could not be thought to be really, that is psychologically, of the opposite sex” (Davidson [1987-£988], 22 and 37). “Herophilos, the Hellenistic anatomist, stressed the homologies between male and female reproductive organs (Galen, On the Seed 2.2, Kithn 4.596-97). For Galen’s elaborate for mulation of the inverse topology of male and female, see Galen, On the Use af the Paris 14.6, translated in May (1968), 2:628-29 = Kithn 4.15960; On the Seed 2.1 and 2.5 = Kiihn 4.596, 634~36. For a recent discussion, see Laqueur (1986), 2-5. EE ISDS The Semiotics of Gender 391 scale, depending on the type of seed that predominated or the tempera- ture of the uterine quadrant in which it lodged.5 Masculinity in the ancient world was an achieved state, radically underdetermined by ana- tomical sex.¢ Hence “masculine” and “feminine” (épgevucéy and Ondv«6y) function as physiognomical categories for both male and female subjects.” Those of the masculine “type,” though strictly speaking of the female sex, may be known by their tendency to bear male children. Similarly, males and females of the feminine “type” will produce female children. Male types will physically favor the right-hand side:8 eyes, hands, fect, or testes will be larger on that side, and the features of their face will incline to the right. Women who bear the signs of the male type and men who bear the features of the female type are mendacious imposters—presumably be- cause their bodies “lie.” The possibility of mixed gender-signs demands a science of decipherment. A science of decipherment that postulates the co-presence of masculine and feminine qualities in the same individual could conceivably support a complementary rather than a hierarchical view of gender. The Helle- nistic physician Loxos claims, in his discussion of mixed gender-signs, that good character actually requires both masculine courage and femi- nine wisdom: nec aliter ingenium bonum constat, nisi virtutem ex masculina, sapientiam ex feminina specie conceperit.° But such possibilities definitely did not intrigue Polemo, a physiognomist and rhetorician of the second century C.£., who follows Aristotelian wisdom closely in his summary of gender differences in character and physiqne. ‘The male is physically stronger and braver, less prone to defects and more likely to be sincere and loyal. He is more keen to win honor and he is worthier of respect. The female has the contrary properties: she has but little courage and abounds in deceptions. Her behavior is exceptionally bitter and *Hippokrates, On Generation 6, 7.479 (Littré), translated in Lonie (1981), 3; Galen, On the Use of the Parts, May (1968), 2:636-38 = Kiibn 4.171-72. On the relationship of these theories to those of Aristotle, see Preus (1977), Boylan (1984), and Lloyd (1983), 86—111. “Masculinity is similarly constructed in many tribal societies today. See, for example, Herdt (1981), (1982), and Gregor (1985). For a discussion of masculinity and femininity as admitting of degrecs, sce Mead (1945), 128-42. ‘Anon. Lat, 3, 2.5-6F; this part of the anonymous Latin jeri Loxos: of. Férster (1893), ewe, plolognomy derives Fon “Just as male children were thought to be engendered by sperm from the right testicle (Leophanes in Aristotle, GA 4.1.765a24), and to have occupied the right side of the womb {Galen in Oribasios, incerta 22,3.18). This idea is found as early as Parmenides, fe. 17 VS. (Anon. Lat. 7, 2.11-138. See below for farther discussion of deceptive signs. "Anon. Lat. 10, 2.168. Compare “is autem perfectus est animus, qui pari virtute est atque sapientia” (Anon, Lat, 12, 2.216)392 Gleason she tends to hide what is on her mind. She is a rebellious oppressor!! with a tremendous fondness for quarreling . . . flacuna] Now I will relate the signs of male and female physique and their phys- iognomical significance. You will note which prevails over the other [in any single individual] and use the result to guide your judgment. The female bas, compared to the male, a small head and a small mouth, softer hair that is dark colored, a narrower face, bright glittering eyes, a narrow neck, & weakly sloping chest, fecble ribs, larger, fleshicr hips, narrower thighs and calves, knock-knees, dainty fingertips and toes, the rest of the body moist and flabby, with soft limbs and slackencd joints, thin sinews, weak voice, a hesitant gait with frequent short steps, and limp limbs that glide slowly along. But the male is in every way opposite to this description, and it is possible to find masculine qualities also in women.*2 ‘The italicized phrases in this quotation reveal the unstated assumption behind the gender-typing system of the physiognomist: “male” and “female” are categories independent of anatomical sex, They are, in their most “perfect” form, highly polarized: “in every way opposite” to one another. But when used as tools to assess the gender status of an indi- vidual, these categories function as the opposite ends of an invisible thermometer with which the physiognomist takes the “gender temper- ature” of his subject. In those individuals whose signs are mixed, the physiognomist must make his judgment according to which ‘prevails over the other,” paying particular, we might even say anxious, attention to those whose masculinity is only lukewarm. “WALK LIKE A MAN, MY SON’ We infer the existence ofa cultural norm of masculinity from accounts of deviations from it. Thus Polemo’s readiness to detect undesirable “fem- jinine” characteristics in men presupposes a firm standard of correctness in masculine appearance and deportment. “You should know that a cer tain amplitude in a man’s stride signifies trustworthiness, sincerity, lib- erality, and a high-minded nature ftec from anger. Such men come off successful in their encounters with kings.”!9 A man who can walk like that evidently has mastered the trembling that to Galen was the natural, “This Arabic word (translated by Hoffinann as iniusia) has a root meaning of “dark, gloomy,” and carries overtones of political oppression. The wife is both rebellious subject and overbearing master, polemo, 2, 1.192-94F, clarified at some points by the Greek summary of Adamantios, 2.2, 1.350F. Cf. {Arist.}, Physiognomy 809b-810a, ™Polemo, 50, 1.260F; Adamantios, 2.39, 1.398F. The Semiotics of Gender 393 physiological consequence of meetings with one’s political superiors, ** Polemo’s impeccably poised gentleman is a lineal descendant of Aristo te’s “great-souled man” (weyaAsiuxos), transformed by the political conditions of the Roman Empire into a provincial ambassador with an unrufiied command of the courtier’s art, a man whose step is slow, whose voice is low, and whose speech is measured and deliberate.’ In the second century, Dio Chrysostom admonished the Alexandrians by the same standard: “Walking is a universal and uncomplicated activity, but while one man’s gait reveals his composure and the attention he gives to his coriduct, another's reveals his inner disorder and lack of self: restraint” (Or. 32.54). As late as the fourth century, Ambrose, the for- midable bishop of Milan, refused to receive a priest whose gait showed signs of arrogance, and refused to ordain another man, apparently de- vout, “because his gestures were too unseemly.” Both men subsequently bore out the promise of their deportment by becoming unfaithful to the orthodox church." The orderly man (6 Kécp.u0s) reveals his self-restraint to the physiognomist through his deportment: deep-voiced and slow- stepping, his eyes, neither fixed nor rapidly blinking, hold a certain indefinably courageous gleam.+” In the zoological shorthand of the phys~ iognomist, this ideal appears as the man with the ieonine walk: “He whose feet and hands move in harmony with all the rest of his person, who moves forward with shoulders calm and carefully controlled, with his neck but slightly inclined—he is the one whom men call brave and magnanimous, for his is the walk of the lion.”18 “Galen in Oribasios, Incerta 35 (Hlept rpipov): Kat 87 kat poousy 1s buvdcrrn doe) pepe Tari 1H odparl, Kal el HOE yEAoBaL KeAetoeLED, OBBE THY huviy Erpopov Exe (“And in particular, someone, who approaches a person in power trembles all over, and if he be commanded to speak, he will not even be able to hold his voice steady"). Frai xcvmors 88 Bpadeia tod peyadowixou Boxed erat, Kad divi) Bapeia, Kol Abs ordoupos, Nik. Ethics 1125434. Demosthenes concedes the unattractiveness of a hasty gait in 37.52 and 35, and in 45.77, Such deportment reveals inner defects; the person with an unattractive walk is not one of “those favored by nature” (ra ebtuxas meduxdrww / rv & medvxéray}, For Cicero's condemnation of a hasty gait and mental excitement as impediments to masculine dignitas, see On Duties 1,131. Ambrose, On the Duties of the Clergy 1.18.72. Ambrose is self-consciously modeling his treatise on Cicero (see On Duties 1.35), but the fact that he was willing to act on them shows that the physiognomical prescriptions of an earlier era were by no means a dead letter, 170 BE Kéep0s Bapd Séyyerou, BpaBd Baiver, 7a BA€dape xivet péows ... xapords, Adamantios, 2.49, 1.413-14F; cf. Polemo, 58, 1.274F (the Arabic amusingly mistranslates 6 K6oy0s as “the man who is fond of adornment”); Anon. Lat. 107, 2.131F. The adjective xapors is often used of lions’ eyes (see LSJ}, ‘Anon. Lat. 76, 2.99-100F; cf. Polemo, 50, 1.262F. This ideal endured. As a protocol official ae the court of Haile Selassie informs us, “A man who has been singled out by His Distinguished Majesty will not jump, run, frolic, or cut a caper. No. His step is solemn: he sets his fect firmly on the ground, bending his body slightly forward co show his deter-