Satyricon Women in Satyricon

Satyricon is, by modern standards, a ribald and ranging novel that deals with a variety of political, social, and psychological issues without (at least in the extant sections) fully exploring or leading to conclusions in any of the specific issues it touches upon. Gender issues represent one such specific area; though the novel is primarily concerned with male characters, male concerns, and male motivations (as well as male members), it actually has a great deal of commentary and revelatory information on the lives and roles of both men and women in Roman society. The commentary on and examination of the male experience is still more prevalent and obvious, but it does not take a great deal of conjecture or between-the-lines reading to observe such commentary and examination in regards to the female experience of Roman life. The lust-driven Quartilla, the young girl she brings to Giton for deflowering, and the more powerful Circe encountered later in the story all give provide insight into the role of women in Rome and the Roman perspective while also steering the narrative and helping to both create and distract from the focus of the story.

Quartilla is the first truly prominent female that the story involves and that the male characters encounter, serving both...

It should be of no surprise that sex -- both sexual desire and sexual acts -- are a major part of Quartilla's assertion of power and ultimately are used to demonstrate her lack of true societal power, as well. To a large degree, the narrative involves demonstrating how men were to pursue their own desires, sexual and otherwise, and the freedom they experience in this. Quartilla interrupts this and shows that women actually have a fair amount of power in this regard, as well, both by using men's desire against them and in pursuing their own feminine desires (which are not always all that different from traditionally masculine desires). After essentially kidnapping the men and plying them with an aphrodisiac, she exhorts them further: "Come, come! can you think of sleep, when you know this livelong night is owed to the service of Priapus?" (xxii). Shortly, however, Quartilla herself ends up involved in some forced sexual acts, and though she does not especially seem to mind she is certainly not as in control as she at first seems.
The fact that women were ultimately subjected to other authorities when it came to their own…