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One of the most important festivals in ancient Rome was that of the Bona Dea, a goddess who was the patron of women and women’s virtue. The ceremony, at which the Vestal Virgins performed secret rites to their favorite deity, was off-limits to all males, even animals. The hostess for the celebration was traditionally the wife of the incumbent Pontifex Maximus, who was excluded because of his gender.
In 62 B.C. Pompeia, the second of Julius Caesar’s three wives, was overseeing the festival when Publius Clodius Pulcher dressed up in women’s clothing and crashed the party. This violation of the sacred rites of the Vestal Virgins enraged Caesar, who promptly divorced his wife for allowing it to happen. Admitting that there was no evidence of any hanky-panky between Pompeia and the male intruder, the Pontifex Maximus justified his decision by famously saying, “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.” He could not tolerate even the appearance of impropriety.
Six centuries later the behavioral standards for wives of Roman Emperors were considerably more relaxed than in Julius Caesar’s day. Justinian I, who reigned from 527 to 565 A.D., was married to a prostitute whom the historian Procopius called a “racy comedienne.” The Emperor Justinian’s wife was also a thespian. If Procopius is to be believed, the Empress Theodora did things on stage that would be illegal in Sauget and possibly even in Tijuana. Needless to say, the editorial probity of The Growler prevents me from describing her activities and proclivities in detail. I refer all prurient readers (PRs) to Chapter 9 of The Secret History by Procopius.
I refer more scholarly readers (SRs) to a more contemporary history by William Rosen, titled Justinian’s Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe. I assume many SRs are already familiar with the work of Edward Gibbon, who attributed the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to the growth of Christianity and a loss of civic virtue by the citizens of Rome. Rosen supplements Gibbon’s thesis by saying the decisive factor in the collapse of the Empire was in fact bubonic plague. Borne by fleas and rats, the so-called Justinian Plague swept across Europe and may have killed as many as 30 million people.
Justinian, it should be noted, was one of the eastern Roman Emperors, i.e. from Byzantium. The Roman Empire that was actually governed from Rome officially came to an end on September 4, 476 A.D., when the Germanic chief Odoacer forced the Emperor Romulus Augustus to abdicate. Nevertheless, even though their empire had disintegrated, the language of the Romans continued to dominate scholarship in Europe for more than a millennium.
Long after the fall of Rome, Carl von Linné, who was born in Sweden in 1707, started calling himself Carolus Linnaeus, perhaps thinking that having a Latin name made him sound smarter. It may have been a similar rationale that led him to write books in Latin and give them Latin titles like Systema naturae and Species plantarum. Whatever Linnaeus’s motivation, more than three centuries after his birth thousands of species of plants are still identified by their Latin names under the Linnaean system of classification.
Among his contemporaries it was not Linnaeus’s Latin name or the language in which he published that stirred up controversy. Rather, what caused a truly monumental scandal was his system of botanical classification that ascribed sexual characteristics to plants. Granted, the Empress Theodora might not have found Linnaeus’s descriptions of pistils and stamens as sex organs all that titillating. But a lot of scientists and others in the 18th century were genuinely outraged.
Pope Clement XIII, for example, ordered that all works by Linnaeus in the Papal States be confiscated and burned. A fellow scientist named Lorenz Heister wrote a treatise titled Meditationes et animadversiones in novum systema botanicum sexuale Linnaei, in which he called the Linnaean system “useless.” Another botanist, Christian Gottlieb Ludwig, predicted that the Linnaean system would never gain acceptance among reputable scientists.
Linnaeus’s most celebrated foe at the time was Johann Georg Siegesbeck, who openly denounced the Linnaean system as immoral. Siegesbeck scoffed at the notion that God would permit 20 or more males (stamens) to share the company of one female (pistil). He ridiculed the idea that the Almighty would countenance the botanical infidelity and promiscuity on which the Linnaean system was based.
In 1737 Linnaeus responded to this attack by naming a particularly odoriferous weed Siegesbeckia in honor of his adversary. A few years later he found a packet of Siegesbeckia orientalis seeds in the University Botanical Garden in Uppsala, Sweden. Unable to restrain his sense of mischief, he re-labeled the packet Cuculus ingratus (ungrateful cuckoo). Through an improbable series of circumstances the packet ended up in the hands of Siegesbeck, who was decidedly not amused.
Two of Linnaeus’s greatest contributions to humanity were made in 1753 when he assigned the names Hordeum vulgare and Humulus lupulus to barley and hops respectively. Thanks to the Linnaean system, scientists have subsequently developed and classified countless varieties of barley and hops. More to the point, brewers have combined these many varieties in multiple ways to produce innumerable styles of beer.
There’s no better occasion to toast the Linnaean contribution to the rich diversity of beer than Hop in the City, where dozens of Schlafly beers from throughout the year will be served. Unlike the Bona Dea festival, both men and women are welcome. And the entertainment will be superb, albeit somewhat tamer than what Theodora would have provided.
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