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CASE STUDY II Women in Roman society: respected or despised, powerful or oppressed?

1. Plautus Menaechmi 753-806 (slightly adapted from E. F. Watling’s Penguin edition)

FATHER: I’m coming, I’m coming, as fast as an old man can, and as fast as the need may

be…but it isn’t easy…don’t I know it? I’m not as nippy as I used to be…the years tell on me. More weight to carry and less strength. Yes, age is a bad business, a dead loss. It brings you nothing but troubles, and plenty of them. I could tell you what they are, but it would take far too long…What chiefly worries me at this moment is, what on earth does my daughter want, suddenly sending for me like this? She hasn’t given me the least idea what she wants me for. Why should she demand my presence so urgently? … I think I’ve a pretty good idea what it’s all about, though. She’s had some quarrel with her husband, I expect. They’re like that – these women who expect their husbands to be at their beck and call; with a good dowry behind them, they’re terrors. Not that the husbands are always blameless, if it comes to that. Still, there are limits to what a wife should have to put up with; and you can be sure a woman doesn’t send for her father without good reason – some misconduct on the husband’s part or a serious quarrel. Ah yes, there she is outside the house…and her husband, in no good temper by the looks of him. Just as I thought. I’ll have a word with her first.

DAUGHTER: Oh, father, I’m glad to see you.

FATHER: I’m glad to see you. I hope you’re well. All well here, eh? Nothing wrong, I hope,

to bring me over here? You look a bit downcast, though; why is that? And why is he standing over there looking so grumpy? I believe you’ve been having a bit of a tiff over something or other. Have you? Come on, out with it, tell me whose fault it was, and don’t make a long tale of it.

DAUGHTER: It is not I that have done anything wrong, you can make your mind easy on that,

father. But I cannot live here any longer; I simply cannot stand it; you must take me away.

FATHER: What’s the trouble then?

DAUGHTER: I am being treated like dirt.

FATHER: By whom?

DAUGHTER: By my husband, the husband you found for me.

FATHER: So that’s it – a bit of a squabble. How many times have I told you that I won’t have

you, either of you, running to me with your complaints?

DAUGHTER: How can I avoid it, father?

FATHER: Do you want me to tell you?

DAUGHTER: If you please.

FATHER: I’ve told you dozens of times; it’s your business to try to please your husband, not

keep spying on everything he does, always wanting to know where he’s going and what he’s up to.

DAUGHTER: What he’s up to is fooling around with that whore next door.

FATHER: I don’t blame him; and I imagine he’ll go on loving her all the more, the more you

keep on at him like this.

DAUGHTER: Drinking there too.

FATHER: And do you think you have a right to stop him drinking, there or anywhere else he

chooses? I never heard such impudence, girl. I suppose you think you can also stop him accepting invitations to supper, or inviting friends to his own house? Do you expect a husband to be your slave? You might as well expect him to do the housework for you, or sit with the women and spin.

DAUGHTER: I see I’ve brought you here to plead for my husband, not for me. My advocate has

gone over to the other side.

FATHER: My dear girl, if he commits any criminal offence, I shall have a lot more to say to

him than I have said to you. He keeps you in clothes, jewelry, and all the slaves and provisions you could possibly need; your best plan is to accept the situation sensibly.

DAUGHTER: Even if he robs me, steals my clothes and jewels out of my cupboards, empties my

wardrobe behind my back to make presents to his whores?

FATHER: Ah well, he has no right to do that – if that is what he is doing. But if he isn’t, you

have no right to accuse an innocent man.

2. Sallust The War with Catiline 24.3-25.5 (translated by J. C. Rolfe, Loeb Classical Library)

At that period Catiline is said to have gained the support of a great many men of all conditions and even of some women, who at first had met their enormous expenses by trading sexual favors, but later, when their time of life had set a limit only to their traffic but not to their extravagance, they had run up enormous debt. Through them Catiline believed he could incite the city slaves to an uprising, set fire to Rome, and as for their husbands, either attach them to his cause or kill them. Now among those women was Sempronia, who had often perpetrated many deeds of masculine daring. In birth and appearance, in her husband too and children, she was quite favored by fortune; she was well versed in Greek and Latin literature, at playing the lyre, at dancing more skillfully than a virtuous woman needed to, and in many other accomplishments which are instruments of wantonness. But there was nothing which she held so cheap as modesty and chastity; you could not easily decide whether she was less sparing of her money or her reputation; her lust was so heated that she pursued men more often than she was pursued. Even before the time of the conspiracy she had often broken her word, repudiated a debt, been an accessory to murder, rushed headlong to ruin as a result of extravagance and lack of means. Nevertheless, her intellect was by no means contemptible; she could compose verses, raise a laugh, use language that was modest, or tender, or wanton; in short, she possessed much wit and much charm.

3. Artemidorus On the Interpretation of Dreams 1.50 (translated by R. J. White)

One must interpret qualitative transformation dreams in this way: if a man changes into a woman, it is auspicious for a poor man or a slave. For the former will have someone to look after him, as a woman does, and the latter will experience a less painful servitude. For a woman’s work is lighter. But it is inauspicious for a rich man, especially if he is involved in politics, since women generally stay at home. Therefore, the dream indicates that the dreamer will be stripped of all his public authority. For gymnasts, it signifies sickness. For women are weaker than men.

4. Valerius Maximus Memorable Doings and Sayings 9.1.3 (slightly adapted from the translation by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Loeb Classical Library)

For our city, the end of the Second Punic War and the defeat of king Philip of Macedon gave confidence for a more licentious existence. At that period the married women dared to lay siege to the house of the Bruti, who were prepared to veto the repeal of the Oppian law. Women wanted this law annulled because it forbade them to wear multi-coloured dresses or to own more than half an ounce of gold or to ride in a yoked vehicle within a mile of the city except for the purpose of sacrifice. And they did in fact succeed in getting abolished a statute that had been observed for twenty years.

5. Tacitus Annals 3.33-34 (slightly adapted from the translation by C. H. Moore, Loeb Classical Library)

In the course of the debate, Caecina Severus moved that no magistrate, who had been allotted a province, should be accompanied by his wife. He explained beforehand at some length that “he had a wife after his own heart, who had borne him six children: yet he had conformed in private to the rule he was proposing for the public; and, although he had served his forty campaigns in one province or other, she had always been kept within the boundaries of Italy. There was point in the old regulation which prohibited the dragging of women to the provinces or foreign countries: in a retinue of ladies there were elements apt, by luxury or by timidity, to retard the business of peace or war and to transmute a Roman march into something resembling an Eastern procession. Weakness and a lack of endurance were not the only failings of the sex: give them scope, and they turned hard, intriguing, ambitious. They paraded among the soldiers; they had the centurions at beck and call. Recently a woman had presided at the exercises of the cohorts and the manoeuvres of the legions.Let his audience reflect that, whenever a magistrate was on his trial for malversation, the majority of the charges were levelled against his wife.It was to the wife that the basest of the provincials at once attached themselves; it was the wife who took in hand and transacted business. There were two potentates to salute in the streets; two government-houses; and the more headstrong and autocratic orders came from the women, who, once held in curb by the Oppianand other laws, had now cast their chains and ruled supreme in the home, the courts, and by now the army itself.”

A few members listened to the speech with approval: most interrupted with protests that neither was there a motion on the subject nor was Caecina a competent censor in a question of such importance. He was presently answered by Valerius Messalinus, a son of Messala, in whom there resided some echo of his father’s eloquence:—“Much of the old-world harshness had been improved and softened; for Rome was no longer environed with wars, nor were the provinces hostile. A few allowances were now made to the needs of women; but not such as to embarrass even the establishment of their consorts, far less our allies: everything else the wife shared with her husband, and in peace the arrangement created no difficulties. Certainly, he who set about a war must gird up his loins; but, when he returned after his labour, what consolations more legitimate than those of his helpmeet?—But a few women had lapsed into intrigue or avarice.—Well, were not too many of the magistrates themselves vulnerable to temptation in more shapes than one? Yet governors still went out to governorships!—Husbands had often been corrupted by the depravity of their wives.—And was every single man, then, incorruptible? The Oppian laws in an earlier day were sanctioned because the circumstances of the commonwealth so demanded: later remissions and mitigations were due to expediency. It was vain to label our own inertness with another title: if the woman broke bounds, the fault lay with the husband. Moreover, it was unjust that, through the weakness of one or two, married men in general should be torn from their partners in good times and in hardship, while at the same time a sex frail by nature was left alone, exposed to its own voluptuousness and the appetites of others.

6. Augustine Confessions 9.9 (translated by C. J. B. Hammond, Loeb Classical Library)

So my mother was brought up to be modest and reasonable, obedient to her parents because of you, rather than obedient to you because of them. When she was old enough to be ready for marriage she was given to a husband and served him “as her lord,” [Eph 5:21] doing her best to win him for you, speaking to him of you as befitted her character. By this you made her attractive; to her husband she was respectful, with a loving nature, and deserved his admiration. She put up with marital infidelities, because she did not want any acrimony with her husband on such a topic. She was waiting for your mercy to come upon him so that he would turn to you and reform his adulterous ways. Besides this, he was a distinctly generous man, but quick-tempered too. She knew she must not oppose him when he was angry, not by action, not even by a word. Whenever he had become unreasonably angry, she used to wait for the moment when he became calm and peaceable once more, and then explain the reason for her action. Indeed, many women married to more gentle husbands appeared with faces disfigured by bruising, and criticized the conduct of their menfolk in conversation. Then my mother would tell them playfully but seriously to hold their tongues, because from the moment they heard the marriage contract (as it is called) formally read aloud, they should think of it as a deed of purchase which consigned them to the category of slaves. From that moment they should be mindful of their married status and not be disdainful toward their masters. The wives were amazed at this because they knew what a hotheaded husband she had to put up with. Even so it was unheard of—and there was never any sign—to suggest that Patricius had beaten his wife, or that they had fallen out at home and disagreed with one another even for a single day. So they asked her privately, and she told them of her method, which I have just mentioned. Those who then began to practice it thanked her once they had tried it for themselves. Those who did not start practicing it continued to be subjugated and abused.

7. Eulogy for Turia (the so-called Laudatio Turiae) 1st C BCE (eulogy for a wife, ILS 8393. Translated by E. Wistrand)

You became an orphan suddenly before the day of our wedding, when both your parents were murdered together in the solitude of the countryside. It was mainly due to your efforts that the death of your parents was not left unavenged. For I had left for Macedonia, and your sister's husband Cluvius had gone to the Province of Africa.

So strenuously did you perform your filial duty by your insistent demands and your pursuit of justice that we could not have done more if we had been present. But these merits you have in common with that most virtuous lady your sister.

While you were engaged in these things, having secured the punishment of the guilty, you immediately left your own house in order to guard your modesty and you came to my mother's house, where you awaited my return. Then pressure was brought to bear on you and your sister to accept the view that your father's will, by which you and I were heirs, had been invalidated by his having contracted a new marriage. If that was the case, then you together with all your father's property would necessarily come under the guardianship of those who pursued the matter; your sister would be left without any share at all of that inheritance …. How you reacted to this, with what presence of mind you offered resistance, I know full well, although I was absent.

You defended our common cause by asserting the truth, namely, that the will had not in fact been broken, so that we should both keep the property, instead of your getting all of it alone. It was your firm decision that you would defend your father's written word; you would do this anyhow, you declared, by sharing your inheritance with your sister, if you were unable to uphold the validity of the will. … They gave way before your firm resolution and did not pursue the matter any further. Thus you on your own brought to a successful conclusion the defence you took up of your duty to your father, your devotion to your sister, and your faithfulness towards me. …

8. Pliny the Younger Letters 7.5 (to his wife who was in the country recovering from an illness; translated by J. Shelton)

It is incredible how much I miss you, because we are not used to being separated. And so I lie awake most of the night haunted by your image; and during the day, during those hours I used to spend with you, my feet lead me, they really do, to your room; and then I turn and leave, sick at heart and sad, like a lover locked out on a deserted doorstep. The only time I escape these torments is when I am in the Forum, wearing myself out pleaded cases for my friends. Judge for yourself what my life is like when I find relaxation in work and relief in problems and anxieties.