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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 March 2013
The story that beavers self-castrate when cornered by hunters appears in a range of Roman sources, both poetry and prose, from the end of the Republic onward. This myth is a product of the rôle that ‘beaver testicles’ played in Roman luxury trade and medicine. At the same time, it serves as a literary figure for the fraught relations between Rome and the provinces from which these, and other, luxury goods were imported.
1 Met. 1.9: ‘Amatorem suum, quod in aliam temerasset, unico verbo mutavit in feram castorem, quod ea bestia captivitatis metuens ab insequentibus se praecisione genitalium liberat.’ The passage in which these lines appear is a treasury of Roman animal myths, each meriting an essay of its own. For issues of basic interpretation, see A. Scobie, Apuleius Metamorphoses (Asinus Aureus): A Commentary (1975), ad loc. Indirect evidence of the interest that this passage has held for Classics: in the last century, Met. 1.9 attracted a number of philological notes and emendations out of all proportion to its size. Two of the best, which we will have occasion to cite again, are Leo, F., ‘Coniectanea’, Hermes 40, no. 4 (1905), 605–13Google Scholar; and Holmes, N., ‘Two notes on Apuleius’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 144, no. 3/4. Neue Folge (2001), 432–4Google Scholar.
2 Pliny, NH 8.47.109: ‘Easdem partes sibi ipsi Pontici amputant fibri periculo urgente, ob hoc se peti gnari’, with 32.13.26: ‘spectabili naturae potentia, in iis quoque, quibus et in terris victus est, sicut fibris, quos castoras vocant et castorea testes eorum.’ (‘Nature's power is remarkable in those also whose nourishment is on land, like beavers, which they call castors and whose testicles they call castorea.’) On Sextius Niger, see Wellman, M., ‘Sextius Niger, eine Quellenuntersuchung zu Dioscorides’, Hermes 24, no. 4 (1889), 530–69Google Scholar. On Pliny as proto-scientist, see Bodson, L., ‘Aspects of Pliny's zoology’, in French, R. K. and Greenaway, F., Science in the Early Roman Empire: Pliny the Elder, his Sources and Influence (1986), 98–101Google Scholar; and, for a more balanced perspective, compare Beagon, M., Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder (1992), 26–50Google Scholar. Aelian 6.34: οὐκοῦν ἐπίσταται τὴν αἰτίαν δι' ἣν ἐπ' αὐτὸν οἱ θηραταὶ σὺν προθυμίᾳ τε καὶ ὁρμῇ τῇ πάσῃ χωροῦσι, καὶ ἐπικύψας καὶ δακὼν ἀπέκοψε τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ ὄρχεις, καὶ προσέρριψεν αὐτοῖς, ὡς ἀνὴρ φρόνιμος λῃσταῖς μὲν περιπεσών, καταθεὶς δὲ ὅσα ἐπήγετο ὑπὲρ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ σωτερίας. The analogy that Aelian proposes here between hunted beavers and men attacked by pirates echoes Juvenal, as we shall see.
See further Solinus 13.2, Hesychius, s.v., κάστωρ, and Isidore 12.21–2. For Browne's refutation, itself not free of amusing error, see Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths (1658), Book 3, ch. 4, pp. 91–3. Compare L'Encyclopédie s.v. castor.
3 Plin., NH 32.13.27–31. Cf. Hipp., De Sup. 14, on clearing an occluded cervix, and Hipp., De Mul. Ster. 19, on curing hysteria.
4 Virg., Georg. 1.56–9:
Cf. Nux 155–6:
On this kind of geographical ‘branding’ in ancient Rome, see A. Dalby, Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World (2000), passim, but especially 1–2. On the geographical branding of beaver testicles in connection with the Apuleius passage with which we began, see Holmes, op. cit. (n. 1), 432.
5 On historical beaver populations, see Müller-Schwarze, D., The Beaver: Its Life and Impact (2nd edn, 2011), 2–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hilfiker, E., Beavers: Water, Wildlife, and History (1991), 51–3Google Scholar. On the beaver's vulnerability to over-hunting, see Müller-Schwarze, op. cit., 150–67 and Hilfiker, op. cit., 73–92. On humans as the beaver's only effective predator, see Müller-Schwarze, op. cit., 124–5. For the exhaustion of Siberian populations, see Lincoln, W., The Conquest of a Continent: Siberia and the Russians (1994), 146Google Scholar. For evidence of beavers in Archaic Italy, see Keller, O., Die antike Tierwelt (1963), 186Google Scholar.
6 On the ‘spicifer nilus’, see Martial, Ep. 10.73.9, with Dalby, op. cit. (n. 4), 175. On ‘Po amber’, see Ovid, Met. 2.356–66 and Luc., Περὶ τοῦ Ἡλέκτρου, with Dalby, op. cit. (n. 4), 88–9. Cf. Beck, C., Ricerche sulla provenienza di manufatti archeologici d'ambra (1968), 4–5Google Scholar for an archaeological perspective that largely confirms that of Dalby.
7 Aristotle, Hist. An. 8.7.5 (see n. 11 below). Compare Herodotus 4.109.2, our earliest classical source for beavers:
ἡ δὲ χώρη σϕέων πᾶσα ἐστὶ δασέαἴδῃσι παντοίῃσι: ἐν δὲ τῇ ἴδῃ τῇ πλείστῃ ἐστὶ λίμνη μεγάλη τε καὶ πολλὴ καὶ ἕλος καὶ κάλαμος περὶ αὐτήν. ἐν δὲ ταύτῃ ἐνύδριες ἁλίσκονται καὶ κάστορες καὶ ἄλλα θηρία τετραγωνοπρόσωπα, τῶν τὰ δέρματα παρὰ τὰς σισύρνας παραρράπτεται, καὶ οἱ ὄρχιες αὐτοῖσι εἰσὶ χρήσιμοι ἐς ὑστερέων ἄκεσιν.
Herodotus mentions, laconically, the same medicinal use of beaver testicles to which Hippocrates gave such prominence; but he says nothing about self-castration. I think it is well within the range of ‘personality criticism’ to say that, if Herodotus had known about any such story, he could not have resisted including it.
8 For the etymology, see A. Ernout, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, histoire des mots (1939), s.v. castor and fiber. On fiber pelts, see Plin., NH 32.36.110. For some archaeological evidence concerning one way in which Romans certainly could have become familiar with live beavers — military service in the north of Europe — see Davies, R., ‘The Roman military diet’, Britannia 2 (1971), 122–42CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, at 129. It is apparent from the statistics offered there that, if Roman soldiers did not find beavers very appetizing, they no more attempted to trap them on a large scale for glands or pelts. Cf. Groote, M., Animals in Ritual and Economy in a Roman Frontier Community: Excavations in Tiel-Passewaaij (2009), 66–8Google Scholar. For an exception to the usual association between castors and self-castration, see Sil. It., Pun. 15.485–7:
9 Phaed., Ap. Per. 30.1–6.
10 An earlier Roman familiarity with the myth is suggested by Cic., Pro Scaur. 1p: ‘redimunt se ea parte corporis, propter quam maxime expetuntur.’ This is Perry's fable 118 (Perry, B., Aesopica: A Series of Texts Relating to Aesop or Ascribed to him or Closely Connected with the Literary Tradition that Bears his Name: Collected and Critically Edited, in Part Translated from Oriental Languages, with a Commentary and Historical Essay (2007)Google Scholar), to which he ascribes a more ancient origin than Phaedrus without being able to give any evidence in favour of this claim. The silence of earlier Greek writers should, however, constitute something of a negative argument. On the relation of the AP to the main corpus of the Fabulae, see Boldrini, S., Fedro e Perotti: Ricerche di storia della tradizione (1988)Google Scholar.
11 Arist., Hist. An. 8.7.5:
Ἔνια δὲ τῶν τετραπόδων καὶ ἀγρίων ζῴων ποιεῖται τὴν τροφὴν περὶ λίμνας καὶ ποταμούς· περὶ δὲ τὴν θάλατταν οὐδὲν ἔξω ϕώκης. Τοιαῦτα δ´ ἐστὶν ὅ τε καλούμενος κάστωρ καὶ τὸ σαθέριον καὶ τὸ σατύριον καὶ ἐνυδρὶς καὶ ἡ καλουμένη λάταξ· ἔστι δὲ τοῦτο πλατύτερον τῆς ἐνυδρίδος, καὶ ὀδόντας ἔχει ἰσχυρούς· ἐξιοῦσα γὰρ νύκτωρ πολλάκις τὰς περὶ τὸν ποταμὸν κερκίδας ἐκτέμνει τοῖς ὀδοῦσιν. Δάκνει δὲ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους καὶ ἡ ἐνυδρίς, καὶ οὐκ ἀφίησιν, ὡς λέγουσι, μέχρι ἂν ὀστοῦ ψόφον ἀκούσῃ. Τὸ δὲ τρίχωμα ἔχει ἡ λάταξ σκληρόν, καὶ τὸ εἶδος μεταξὺ τοῦ τῆς φώκης τριχώματος καὶ τοῦ τῆς ἐλάφου.
Compare Herod. 4.109.2, cited in n. 7 above. On the confusion between these similar and vaguely-described aquatic mammals, see Keller, op. cit. (n. 5), 185–6.
12 Juvenal, Sat. 12.36 (see below). Pliny, NH 8.47.109 (see n. 2 above).
13 Pliny, NH 8.4.17–21; cf. Cass., Var. 10.30.3 for a formally similar narrative:
Magnitudo illa terribilis nec formicis minutissimis par est, quando beneficium non habet naturae, quod ultima videntur animalia meruisse. humano solacio consurgunt, cuius arte iacuerunt. belua tamen suis gressibus restituta novit memor esse beneficii: in magistrum quippe recipit quem sibi subvenisse cognoscit: ad ipsius arbitrium gressus movet, ipsius voluntate cibos capit, et, quod omnem intellegentiam quadrupedum superat, non dubitat primo aspectu adorare quem cunctorum intellegit esse rectorem: cui si tyrannus appareat, inflexa permanet nec imponi potest beluae hoc et malis pendere, quod a se novit bonis principibus exhibere.
14 Pliny, NH 8.46.108:
Hyaenae plurimae gignuntur in Africa, quae et asinorum silvestrium multitudinem fundit. mares in eo genere singuli feminarum gregibus imperitant; timent libidinis aemulos et ideo gravidas custodiunt morsuque natos mares castrant. contra gravidae latebras petunt et parere furto cupiunt gaudentque copia libidinis.
For this medicinal practice, see Pliny, NH 28.46.164.
15 For Barthes' conception of a ‘myth’, see Barthes, R., Mythologies (1972), 109–27Google Scholar. For the connection between hunting and warfare/conquest at Rome, see Goguey, D., Les Animaux dans la mentalité romaine (2003), 19–20Google Scholar. On the utility of such ‘economic mythologies for Roman Imperial self-representations’, see Galtung, J., Heiestad, T. and Rudeng, E., ‘On the decline and fall of empires: the Roman Empire and Western imperialism compared’, Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 4, no. 1 (1980), 91–153Google Scholar.
16 On Rome as a ‘consumer city’, see Weber, M., The City (1958), 208 and 226–7Google Scholar; and, on the ‘consumer city’ as an ideal type, pp. 6–8. M. I. Finley, the chief proponent of a Weberian approach to ancient economies, is now widely understood to have overplayed his case: Finley, M., The Ancient Economy (1973), 123–40Google Scholar, with Vlassopoulos, C., Unthinking the Greek Polis (2007), 123–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Purcell, N. and Horden, P., The Corrupting Sea (2000), 106–8Google Scholar. Regarding Rome, however, Purcell and Horden engage in a certain amount of hairsplitting: they argue that the massive consumption of a Rome would have been necessary to support a ‘pacified’ empire even if the city itself ceased instantly to exist (p. 107). For Roman literary representations of the ‘consumer city’, see Dalby, op. cit. (n. 4), passim and S. Carey, Pliny's Catalogue of Culture (2003), 17–40.
17 Nux 155–6.
18 Juv., Sat. 12.30–7.
19 Juv., Sat. 12.38–47:
… a purple outfit fit for dainty Maecenates, and others from herds that had been dyed by their native turf, although a spring extraordinary for its hidden effects lent a hand as well, and the air of Baetica. He doubted not to lose his silver-plates made for Parthenius, a crater big enough to hold an urnful and fit for a thirsty Pholos or the wife of Fuscus; welsh baskets, moreover, and a thousand table-glasses, well-inlaid, from which the clever purchaser of Olynthus had drunk.
For the details on each of these luxury goods, see E. Courtney, A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal (1980), ad loc.
20 e.g. Sat. 6.366–78. It is worth noting that eunuchs themselves appear here as an exotic and luxurious import.
21 For the erotic character of beaver testicles in connection with this passage, cf. Leo, op. cit. (n. 1), 605–6. In Ammianus Marcellinus, we encounter a late instance of the myth that confirms us in our interpretation thus far. The King of Persia is writing to Constantius, advising him to buy peace between their empires at the price of Armenia and Mesopotamia:
postremo si morem gerere suadenti volueris recte, contemne partem exiguam semper luctificam et cruentam, ut cetera regas securus, prudenter reputans medellarum quoque artifices urere non numquam et secare et partes corporum amputare, ut reliquis uti liceat integris; hocque bestias factitare: quae cum advertant cur maximo opere capiantur, illud propria sponte amittunt ut vivere deinde possint inpavidae. (17.5.7)
Cf. de Jonge, P., Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XVII (1977)Google Scholar, ad loc. Ammianus is evidently reading the mytheme ‘backward’ in much the same ironic mode as Apuleius and Juvenal.
22 Pliny, NH 32.13.26; L'Encyclopédie, s.v. castor. Modern medical professionals have not refrained from making fun: Rao, A. and Mattelaer, J., ‘The etymology of ‘castration’ and its association with the self-castrating beaver’, European Urology Supplements 7, no. 3 (2008), 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
23 In the preceding pages, I have discussed one case of what I take to be a common, but under-studied, phenomenon, not only in Roman but in Greek (and probably every) culture. For a comparable instance from the ancient world, see Grant Parker's discussion of Indian commodities in Parker, G., The Making of Roman India (2008), 149–71Google Scholar.
