Two Women in Rome

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Christopher A. Faraone; Laura K. McClure (14 March 2008). Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp.6–. ISBN 978-0-299-21313-8 . Retrieved 3 April 2013. Both daughters and sons were subject to patria potestas, the power wielded by their father as head of household ( familia). A Roman household was considered a collective ( corpus, a "body") over which the pater familias had mastery ( dominium). Slaves, who had no legal standing, were part of the household as property. In the early Empire, the legal standing of daughters differed little if at all from that of sons. [31] If the father died without a will, the right of a daughter to share in the family property was equal to that of a son, though legislation in the 2nd century BCE had attempted to limit this right. Even apart from legal status, daughters seem no less esteemed within the Roman family than sons, though sons were expected to ensure family standing by following their fathers into public life. [32] Bust of a Roman girl, early 3rd century Roman wives were expected to bear children, but the women of the aristocracy, accustomed to a degree of independence, showed a growing disinclination to devote themselves to traditional motherhood. By the 1st century CE, most elite women avoided breast-feeding their infants themselves and thus hired wet-nurses. [93] This practice was not uncommon as early as the 2nd century BCE, when the comic playwright Plautus mentions wet-nurses. [94] Since a mother's milk was considered best for the baby, [95] aristocratic women might still choose to breast-feed unless physical reasons prevented it. [96] If a woman did choose not to nurse her own child, she could visit the Columna Lactaria ("Milk Column"), where poor parents could obtain milk for their infants as charity from wet nurses and more affluent parents could hire a wet nurse. [97] Licinia, the wife of Cato the Elder (d. 149 BCE), is reported to have nursed not only her son, but sometimes the infants of her slaves, to encourage "brotherly affection" among them. [98] By the time of Tacitus (d. 117 CE), breastfeeding by elite matrons was idealized as a practice of the virtuous old days. [99] Freisenbruch, Annelise (2010). The First Ladies of Rome: the Women behind the Caesars. London: Jonathan Cape. J.A. Crook, Law and Life of Rome 90 B.C.-A.D. 212 (Cornell University Press, 1967, 1984), pp. 48–50.

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Cinctus vinctusque, according to Festus 55 (edition of Lindsay); Karen K. Hersch, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 101, 110, 211 . The rise of Augustus to sole power in the last decades of the 1st century BCE diminished the power of political officeholders and the traditional oligarchy, but did nothing to diminish and arguably increased the opportunities for women, as well as slaves and freedmen, to exercise influence behind the scenes. [127] [43] Augustus' wife, Livia Drusilla Augusta (58 BCE – CE 29), was the most powerful woman in the early Roman Empire, acting several times as regent and consistently as a faithful advisor. Several women of the Imperial family, such as Livia's great-granddaughter and Caligula's sister Agrippina the Younger, gained political influence as well as public prominence. Karen K. Hersh, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 4, 48, et passim citing Humbert (1971), pp. 1–11. See also Treggiari, Roman Marriage. Freedwomen were manumitted slaves. A freed slave owed a period of service, the terms of which might be agreed upon as a precondition of freedom, to her former owner, who became her patron. The patron had obligations in return, such as paying for said services and helping in legal matters. The patron-client relationship was one of the fundamental social structures of ancient Rome, and failure to fulfill one's obligations brought disapproval and censure.Thomas AJ McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 171, 310. Richard Saller, "Status and patronage", Cambridge Ancient History: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 18. Anthony Corbeill, Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 87ff.; Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 725; Mary Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, p. 350, note 5.

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However, just as in today’s political landscape, the wives and other female relatives of Roman politicians and emperors could prove a liability as well as an asset. Having passed stringent legislation against adultery in 18 BC, Augustus was later forced to send his own daughter Julia into exile on the same charge. Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder 20.3; Christopher Michael McDonough, "Carna, Procra and the Strix on the Kalends of June," Transactions of the American Philological Association 127 (1997), p. 322, note 29. Left image: A young woman sits while a servant fixes her hair with the help of a cupid, who holds up a mirror to offer a reflection, detail of a fresco from the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, c. 50 BC The educated and well-traveled Vibia Sabina (ca. 136 AD) was a grand-niece of the emperor Trajan and became the wife of his successor Hadrian; unlike some empresses, she played little role in court politics and remained independent in private life, having no children and seeking emotional gratification in love affairs [1] Part of a series on W. Jeffrey Tatum, The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher (University of North Carolina Press, 1999), p. 33ff.a b Boatwright, Mary; Gargola, Daniel; Lenski, Noel; Talbert, Richard (2005). A Brief History of the Romans. New York: Oxford University. pp.176–177. We start during the 1970s, as the independent minded Nina finds herself falling for a man who she knows she cannot have a life with. Leo has his own familial demons to contend with, whilst Nina has secrets of which Leo can never be party to. Nina’s life is snatched away from her but nobody seems to know anything or care; or do they?

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Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome, p. 136, based on Festus on the ordo sacerdotum (hierarchy of priests), 198 in the edition of Lindsay. The pater familias had the right and duty to find a husband for his daughter, [33] and first marriages were normally arranged. Technically, the couple had to be old enough to consent, but the age of consent was 12 for girls and 14 for boys. However, in practice boys seem to have been on average five years older. Among the elite, 14 was the age of transition from childhood to adolescence, [34] but a betrothal might be arranged for political reasons when the couple were too young to marry. [11] In general, noble women married younger than women of the lower classes. Most Roman women would have married in their late teens to early twenties. An aristocratic girl was expected to be a virgin when she married, as her young age might indicate. [35] A daughter could legitimately refuse a match made by her parents only by showing that the proposed husband was of bad character. [36] Because elite marriages often occurred for reasons of politics or property, a widow or divorcée with assets in these areas faced few obstacles to remarrying. She was far more likely to be legally emancipated than a first-time bride, and to have a say in the choice of husband. The marriages of Fulvia, who commanded troops during the last civil war of the Republic and who was the first Roman woman to have her face on a coin, are thought to indicate her own political sympathies and ambitions. Fulvia was married first to the popularist champion Clodius Pulcher, who was murdered in the street after a long feud with Cicero; then to Scribonius Curio; and finally to Mark Antony, the last opponent to the republican oligarchs and to Rome's future first emperor. Arthur Ernest Gordon, Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy (University of California Press, 1983), pp. 34, 103. Roman religion was male-dominated but there were notable exceptions where women took a more public role such as the priestesses of Isis (in the Imperial period) and the Vestals. These latter women, the Vestal Virgins, served for 30 years in the cult of Vesta and they participated in many religious ceremonies, even performing sacrificial rites, a role typically reserved for male priests. There were also several female festivals such as the Bona Dea and some city cults, for example, of Ceres. Women also had a role to play in Judaism and Christianity but, once again, it would be men who debated what that role might entail. The Other Women

Janine Assa, The Great Roman Ladies (New York, 1960), p. 32; A History of Women in the West from Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints, vol. 1, p. 115.

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Roman women had a very limited role in public life. They could not attend, speak in, or vote at political assemblies and they could not hold any position of political responsibility. Whilst it is true that some women with powerful partners might influence public affairs through their husbands, these were the exceptions. It is also interesting to note that those females who have political power in Roman literature are very often represented as motivated by such negative emotions as spite and jealousy, and, further, their actions are usually used to show their male relations in a bad light. Lower class Roman women did have a public life because they had to work for a living. Typical jobs undertaken by such women were in agriculture, markets, crafts, as midwives and as wet-nurses. Others described women far more scathingly. Ovid, the famous poet of the early empire, believed women’s “primitive” sex drive rendered them irrational. Roman politician and lawyer Cicero reminded a jury that their ancestors placed women “in the power of tutores” (or guardians) because of infirmitas consilii, or weak judgment. Marcus Porcius Cato, one of Republican Rome’s most revered statesmen, warned fellow Romans of the risks of treating a woman as as equal, asserting that “they will from that moment become your superiors.” Right image: A woman fixing her hair in the mirror, fresco from the Villa of Arianna at Stabiae, 1st century ADAulus Gellius ( Noctes Atticae 4.3.1) places the divorce in 227 BCE, but fudges the date and his sources elsewhere. Women also participated in efforts to overthrow emperors, predominantly for personal gain. Shortly after Caligula's sister Drusilla died, her widower Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and her sisters Agrippina the Younger and Livilla conspired to overthrow Caligula. The plot was discovered, and Lepidus was executed. Agrippina and Livilla were exiled, and returned from exile only when their paternal uncle Claudius came to power after Caligula's assassination in 41 CE. In turn, Claudius's third wife Valeria Messalina conspired with Gaius Silius to overthrow her husband in the hope of installing herself and her lover in power. Emily A. Hemelrijk, "Women and Sacrifice in the Roman Empire," in Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire. Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Heidelberg, July 5–7, 2007) (Brill, 2009), pp. 258–259, citing Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.15.19. Thomas AJ McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 293