Description:

Lucian’s Megillos has often found himself at the center of contemporary border wars over identity in modern scholarship. Is Megillos a butch lesbian, trans, or none of the above? This problem is further compounded by the ambiguity of much of the gendered vocabulary that Lucian employs in this passage (particularly in the first half). I propose that this ambiguity is the point. Megillos is supposed to be difficult to categorize and it is only when Megillos actively re-embodies himself as male (by taking off the wig, changing his appearance, and announcing his identity) that Leaina can begin to resolve the problem of how to categorize Megillos’ identity and his body. This dialogue serves as a good example of the complicated relationship between bodies (and the clothing they wear) and social identity in the literature of the 1st and 2nd century C.E. Roman Empire. Further, the recognition that a change in clothing could literally change one’s identity provides an important perspective on how gender and identity function in Greco-Roman Antiquity.