The Roman Imperial Rhetoric of Emasculation in Visual Representations of War

In this chapter, we take a closer look at Roman monuments and examine how they promoted Roman martial manliness in wars against Rome’s enemies. Instead of focusing on the Romans themselves, however, our focus is on their enemies. As the chapter argues, an important part of Roman ideology of victory was the emasculation of their enemies depicted in both public and private monuments. This process constructed the Roman identity, creating images of a superior military “race” and, at the same time, idealizing Roman masculinity, which was interlinked with war and violence. These monuments also reminded the public about the shame of being defeated and its terrible consequences, which were seen as the result of a lack of martial masculinity.