LATIN DRAUCUS* 1 The rare Latin word draucus is known almost exclusively from Martial. Older diction- aries and handbooks used to gloss the word as ‘sodomite’, 1 until Housman showed that draucus is in fact ‘as innocent a word as comoedus, and simply means one who per- forms feats of strength in public’. 2 Thus, Mart. 7.67.5–6 concerns weightlifting: grave- sque draucis | halteras facili rotat lacerto (‘and with effortless arm she rotates weights that would tax a draucus’), 3 while 14.48 describes drauci playing hand-ball (harpas- tum): Haec rapit Antaei velox in pulvere draucus | grandia qui vano colla labore facit (‘These the swift draucus, who makes his neck big by futile toil, 4 snatches in Antaeus’ dust’). Other contexts represent the drauci as objects of sexual desire, 5 but never as active seekers of sexual pleasures. 6 That athletes were presented as models of sexual vigour is not surprising: as Housman and others have noted, it was customary for athletes to wear a ring-shaped fibula on the penis in order to preserve their * It is my pleasure to thank Jay Jasanoff, Robert Kaster, Alexis Manaster Ramer, Brent Vine and Michael Weiss for many helpful comments; needless to say, I am alone responsible for all conclusions reached here. 1 e.g. C.T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1879); K.E. Georges, Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches und deutsch-lateinisches Handwörterbuch (Leipzig, 1879–80 7 ), 2144. 2 A.E. Housman, ‘Draucus and Martial XI 8 I’, CR 44 (1930), 113–15 (= The Classical Papers of A.E. Housman [London, 1972], 1166–7). See also M. Citroni, M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton liber primus (Florence, 1975), 297; N.M. Kay, Martial Book XI: A Commentary (London, 1985) 224; G. Galán Vioque, Martial, Book VII: A Commentary (Leiden, 2002), 387. Less certain about Housman’s analysis is P. Howell, A Commentary on Book One of the Epigrams of Martial (London, 1980), 308. The gloss ‘sodomite’, ‘pederast’ is, however, still found in some post-Housman publications, e.g. L. Pepe, Marziale (Naples, 1950), 17; A. Ernout and A. Meillet, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine (Paris, 1959 4 ), 184; J. Ferguson, Juvenal. The Satires (New York, 1979), 285; M.L. Porzio Gernia, ‘Gli elementi celtici del latino’, in E. Campanile (ed.), I celti d’Italia (Pisa, 1981), 97–122, at 109. 3 Text and translation follow D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Martial. Epigrams (Cambridge, MA, 1993), who translates draucus as ‘athlete’. 4 On the athletic practice of growing a thick neck see the note in Shackleton Bailey (n. 3) ad loc. 5 1.96.12–13 sed spectat oculis devorantibus draucos | nec otiosis mentulas videt labris (‘[In the bath] he never looks up, but watches the drauci with devouring eyes, and his lips work as he gazes at their cocks’); 9.27.10–13 occurrit aliquis inter ista si draucus | iam paedagogo liberatus et cuius | refibulavit turgidum faber penem: | nutu vocatum ducis … (‘If, as this goes on, some young draucus comes your way, now freed from tutelage, whose swollen penis has been unpinned by the smith, you summon him with a nod and lead him off’); 11.72 Drauci Natta sui vorat pipinnam, | collatus cuï Gallus est Priapus (‘Natta devours the willy of his [her?] draucus, compared to whom Priapus is a eunuch)’: Gallus, viz. a voluntarily castrated priest of Cybele; vocat MSS: vorat Scriverius. 6 See esp. S. Busch, Versus Balnearum. Die antike Dichtung über Bäder und Baden im römischen Reich (Stuttgart, 1999), 477 n. 37: ‘Wahrscheinlicher ist daher der Begriff drauci dazu verwendet, Männer von einer bestimmten Statur zu charakterisieren, die das Interesse des Ungenannten auf sich ziehen’, with reference to Mart. 1.96.12. Classical Quarterly 64.1 316–320 © The Classical Association (2014) 316 doi:10.1017/S0009838813000748