Notes on Women in The Roman World

Literature:

E. Fantham, HP Foley et al, Women in the Classical World, Oxford 1995

Mary Lefkowitz , Women in Greece and Rome, Johns Hopkins 2005

Sarah Pomeroy, Goddesses, Wives, Whores, and Slaves (numerous other titles)

Milnor Kristina, Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus (Oxford 2005)

S. Treggiari, Jobs for Women (London: American Journal of Ancient History, 1976

J. Hallett, Roman Fathers and Daughters

FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

Standard example, Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi

Late Republic – autonomous females- Clodia, sister of P. Clodius, wife of Q. Metellus Celer, cos. 60 BC, mistress of Catullus

Sempronia, the Catalinarian Conspiracy 63 BC

Livia (blended family), Julia (autonomous female banished by Augustus for infidelity)-

What is the Julian law of adultery?

The Julian law permitted the father (both adoptive and natural) to kill the adulterer and adulteress in certain cases, as to which there were several nice distinctions established by the law. If the father killed only one of the parties, he brought himself within the penalties of the Cornelian law De Sicariis.

Augustus' moral legislation (18–17 BC).

Under Augustus, the leges Juliae of 18–17 BC attempted to elevate both the morals and the numbers of the upper classes in Rome and to increase the population by encouraging marriage and having children (lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus).[28] They also established adultery as a private and public crime (lex Julia de adulteriis).

To encourage population expansion, the leges Juliae offered inducements to marriage and imposed penalties upon the celibate. Augustus instituted the "Law of the three sons" which held those in high regard who produced three male offspring. Marrying-age celibates and young widows who would not marry were prohibited from receiving inheritances and from attending public games.

Augustan leges Juliae

Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus (18 BC): Requiring (likely) all citizens to marry. Also limiting marriage across social class boundaries (and thus seen as an indirect foundation of Roman concubinage, later regulated by Justinian, see also below).

Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis (17 BC): This law punished adultery with banishment. The two guilty parties were sent to different islands ("dummodo in diversas insulas relegentur"), and part of their property was confiscated. Fathers were permitted to kill daughters and their partners in adultery. Husbands could kill the partners under certain circumstances and were required to divorce adulterous wives. Augustus himself was obliged to invoke the law against his own daughter, Julia (relegated to the island of Pandateria) and against her eldest daughter (Julia the Younger). Tacitus adds the reproach that Augustus was stricter for his own relatives than the law actually required (Annals III 24)

Public protests against these laws

Tursi, Mary, "The Shift in Women’s Rights During the Augustan Age". The First-Year Papers (2010 - present) (2016). Trinity College Digital Repository, Hartford, CT. https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/fypapers/70

p. 2 Regardless of the reasons for the laws, many provisions within them increased the freedom of women. Arguably one of the more burdensome restrictions experienced by Roman women was that of guardianship. Roman women had to be under the care and watch of guardians, due to their “instability of judgement”. Therefore, all Roman women, regardless of their age, were in a constant state of legal subordination to their husbands, fathers, or guardians. Though rarely exercised, husbands technically had the right to kill their wives for committing adultery, with women powerless to take any action if they caught their husband doing the same. Augustus’ new laws, however, permitted a woman to be put to death for committing adultery, but only by her father. Husbands were forbidden from hurting their wives in this scenario and were instead ordered to repudiate them, with the ability to confiscate half of her dowry and one third of her property. Augustus’ social legislation can also be seen as a futile attempt to keep Roman women “in their place”. The lex Iulia de adulteriis, for instance, formally outlawed adultery for the first time in Rome. However, only acts committed by a woman were considered adulterous- men were exempt from such behaviors. The law, however, had unexpected effects in increasing the legal security of women’s rights. Women, under the new law, were held accountable to the state for their actions in the bedroom. Before, women weren’t subjected to moral rules under the law because women had no official role in Roman civic matters. Thus, while Augustus’ new social legislation appeared to be further suppressing the role of women, it was in actuality giving them a kind of legal position they never before enjoyed.

Augustan legislation likely was not intended to increase the freedom of women. In fact, most evidence suggests that the laws were intended to restrict women’s freedom, as seen by the mandate for Roman women to marry and the strict penalties for committing adultery. Furthermore, anti-women rhetoric was prominent in the Augustan Age, blaming the “uncontrollable” and “wild” women for the fall of the Republic.

Female leadership, filling the vacuum in provincial Euergetism – public philanthropy expected from the land—holding, urban gentry class

Plancia Magna of Perge – priestess of Artemis

Scholasticia of Ephesus – built the elaborate brothel in Ephesus

Antonine Empresses created networks with female leaders of provincial gentry

Antonine Empresses traveled with the emperors in the provinces, building networks

Wife of Trajan, Pompeia Plotina (died 121/122) was Roman empress from 98 to 117 as the wife of Trajan. She was renowned for her interest in philosophy, and her virtue, dignity and simplicity. She was particularly devoted to the Epicurean philosophical school in Athens, Greece. She is often viewed as having provided Romans with fairer taxation, improved education, assisted the poor, and created tolerance in Roman society. Trajan married Plotina before he became emperor, and their marriage was happy; they had no known children, probably due to the fact that Trajan himself was primarily interested in males.

Upon entering the imperial palace following Trajan's ascension, Plotina is said to have turned to those watching her and carefully announced, "I enter here the kind of woman I would like to be when I depart." She sought to dispel the memories of the domestic strife that had plagued the reign of Domitian and the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Plotina behaved in the manner of a traditional Roman matron, and she was associated with chaste goddesses such as Vesta (the guardian of Rome's sacred fire) and Minerva (goddess of war and wisdom). In 100, Trajan awarded her with the title of Augusta, but she did not accept the title until 105. Plotina did not appear on coinage until 112.

Vibia Sabina, Wife of Hadrian

Vibia Sabina (83–136/137) was a Roman Empress, wife and second cousin once removed to the Roman Emperor Hadrian. She was the daughter of Matidia (niece of Roman Emperor Trajan) and suffect consul Lucius Vibius Sabinus.

After her father's death in 84, Sabina and her half-sister Matidia Minor went to live with their maternal grandmother, Marciana. They were raised in the household of Sabina's great uncle Trajan and his wife Plotina. Sabina married Hadrian in 100, at the empress Plotina's request. Sabina's mother Matidia (Hadrian's second cousin) was also fond of Hadrian and allowed him to marry her daughter. Hadrian succeeded Trajan in 117. Sabina accumulated more public honors in Rome and the provinces than any imperial woman had enjoyed since the first empress, Augustus’ wife Livia. Indeed, Sabina is the first woman whose image features on a regular and continuous series of coins minted at Rome. She was the most traveled and visible empress to date.[1] In 128, she was awarded the title of Augusta. Sabina is described in the poetry of Julia Balbilla, her companion, in a series of epigrams on the occasion of Hadrian's visit to Egypt in November of 130. In the poems, Balbilla refers to Sabina as "beautiful" and "lovely."

REPORTED ACTIVITIES of Everyday women:

Wives, mothers, gladiators, barristers, philosophers, teachers, rhetoricians, doctors

Prostitution – how commonplace was it?

Meretrix = hetaira, courtesan, paid entertainer and companion

Taberna deversoria (tavern inn and venue of prostitution, popina (wine shops), lupinaria (actual brothel like the one at Pompeii)