ABSTRACT

There can be little doubt that in antiquity, the male body provided an important symbolic gauge of discourses about power, identity and social position (see Gardner, this volume). The male body was a surface upon which power relations were mapped, and which could be exploited as a forum for the display of these dynamics. According to ancient physiology, the unmarked, unspecified and unqualified human body was male, providing the yardstick by which other kinds of bodies were measured and defined. A man’s physical characteristics were explained in terms of his innate male claim to physical superiority; his body hair, for instance, was a visible sign of the internal heat which placed him at the top of the ascending scale of body supremacies concocted by ancient physiologists. Wearing a beard enabled the man to face the world with confidence, knowing that he was displaying a sign of his masculinity and his position at the top of the somatic hierarchy. 1