Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.—A.D. 250 by John R. Clarke

Abstract

426 PHOENIX engaged in sporting activities) communicate about the childhood experience. Collectively, these articles illustrate how indispensable case studies of material culture are in mapping ancient childhood. Not all contributions, however, focus on archaeological or art-historical evidence. Louise Pratt's discussion centers on mythological parent-child (and pseudo-parent-child) relationshipsin Homer's Iliad thatconveyand exemplify culturally significant ideasabout personal sacrifice. In two particularly welcome contributions, Lisa Alberici, Mary Harlow, and Phyllis Katz attempt to illuminate further our rather limited picture of late antique childhood.Alberici andHarlow analyze the work ofmedical, legal,and patristic writers, from the second through seventh centuries a.d., in an effort to understand better the life course of females. They are especially interested to know what signaled a girl's transition from childhood to adulthood, and whether this transition was immediate or gradual. In classical Rome, marriage had traditionally marked this change and this belief seems to have carriedover intolateantiquity. Butwhat happenedwhen girls intheChristian community did notmarry and insteadchose to devote theirlives toChrist? How and atwhat age did theybecome adults in the eyesof thecommunity?PhyllisKatz also toucheson the life-course ofwomen in her rigorous and insightful reassessment of Jerome's letter to Laeta (Epistle107),who had soughthis adviceon the futureeducationofher infant daughter Paula. Katz argues, contrary to conventional views, that the unusual curriculum Jerome recommends demonstrates no real understanding of children's development, nor a genuine fondness for Laeta's baby daughter. Instead, it reveals his fervent desire to prepare another femalefora lifeof celibacyand servicetoChrist. Some readers will undoubtedly have reservations about the choice and treatment of the art-historical and archaeological evidence, finding it too selective to be meaningful or perhaps too controversial. Others may consider certain contributions to be more descriptive than analytical. For the most part, however, this collection has only one limitation, and thisshortcoming isone readilyacknowledgedby theeditorsthemselves: Roman childhood is not well represented here. A disproportionate number of articles focus on Greek and Aegean society from the Bronze Age to the hellenistic period, and this imbalance gives a false impression about the state of research on ancient children's history.1 In spite of this weakness, Constructions ofChildhood offers the present generation of scholars a great deal to digest, and is bound to influence, in a highly positive manner, future research on children and childhood in the ancient Mediterranean. Mount Allison University Leslie Shumka Looking at Laughter: Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 b.c.-a.d. 250. By John R. Clarke. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2007. Pp. xi, 322. Most who have studied Rome have some understanding of Roman humour. But while we have a sense of what the Romans found humorous, it is a more difficult matter 1As a remedy see the collections of V. Dasen (ed.), Naissance etpetite enfance dans lAntiquite: Actes du colloque deFribourg, 28 novembre-ler decembre 2001 (Fribourg 2004) and K. Mustakallio etal. (eds.), Hoping for Continuity: Childhood, Education, and Death in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae 33; Rome 2005). BOOKREVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 427 to explain it.What made Romans laugh? Putting asidemodern notions of political correctness and recognizing that different strata of society will find different words and images amusing, Clarke attempts to answer that question, always taking care to explain Roman humour in a Roman social context. Clarke's study treats humour under three headings:VisualHumor (Chapters One toFour), SocialHumor (ChaptersFive toSeven), and SexualHumor (ChaptersEight toNine). The volume iswell-illustrated,including twenty-four colour plates at the end of Part 2. As one would expect, while he touches on a wide range ofmaterial, Clarke's main focus is on visual images, and those familiar with his earlier works will notice the return of some familiar "faces," for example, the hyperphallic Aethiops fromthebaths. The first chapter,"Words or Images?Degrees ofVisuality inRoman Humor," looks first at verbal humour, situating it largely within the context of the elite classes of Graeco Roman society, and emphasizing its use in political oratory. Some of the themes towhich Clarke will return throughout the study are introduced here: humour based on physical peculiarities, apotropaic laughter, and role reversal. For the last, he invokes the Saturnalia, and with that brief examination...