The Three Most Important Roles of Women in Ancient Roman Society - Essay Example

?To what extent did women enjoy political, religious and social power in archaic Rome? The archaic Roman civilization arose with many similarities toits older neighbor, the Greek Civilization, for example having a strong city which eventually grew into the focus for an ever expanding Empire. The era known as the “archaic” period extends from the supposed founding of Rome in 753 BC until the rise of the Roman Republic in 509 BC. It is an ancient time period, and much of the evidence of its history has been lost, and so historians have to piece together the details of this emerging society from the accounts of outsiders, especially later Roman historians, and from sparse archaeological remains. Because layer upon layer of building has occurred in the area in and around Rome, it is impossible to form a complete record from the archaeology, but nonetheless there is sufficient evidence to draw some conclusions about the way that people lived in Rome in this very early period. This paper focuses on the extent to which women in particular enjoyed power in archaic Rome, looking at political, religious and social dimensions of power in turn. In each case a distinction is drawn between high status women, and low status women, because the experiences of each group is likely to have been very different. The origins of Rome are to be found in the migrations of the Latini tribe to Northern Italy from a region to the north and East around the river Danube. They settled in the area we now know as Latium. Other tribes in the area include the Etruscans, the Sabines, and various Greek-influenced groups to the south. This legend seems to have been passed down orally and it was recorded much later by the Roman historian Livy in his history of the city, a major work entitled Ab Urbe Condita Libri.1 The way that the early history is depicted, with a female wolf nursing twin baby boys sets up a number of interesting speculations about the role of women in that early society. Livy is very aware of the problematic and clearly mythical content of the founding story when he writes “The traditions of what happened prior to the foundation of the City or whilst it was being built, are more fitted to adorn the creations of the poet than the authentic records of the historian, and I have no intention of establishing either their truth or their falsehood.” 2 Writing from a time when Roman society appeared to be heading for decline, in the first decade of the new millennium, Livy sees the past as a time of comparative glory, and it is no coincidence that he mentions the early Roman worship of the warlike God Mars as its most iconic feature: “Now if any nation ought to be allowed to claim a sacred origin and point back to a divine paternity that nation is Rome. For such is her renown in war that when she chooses to represent Mars as her own and her founder’s father, the nations of the world accept the statement with the same equanimity with which they accept her dominion.”3 Livy is an important source in terms of the way that later Romans wanted their past to be remembered, but his account must be read with care, since many of his ideas are shaped by a much later age, and a particular agenda to show the Romans and their past in a positive light. Women appear from time to time in the narrative, but they are usually incidental to the main story, and Livy’s bias against women is only too obvious. An important source of political power, in the origins of Rome, as in all early civilizations, is the network of family allegiances that comes about through marriage. Livy reports that the prehistoric origins of the Roman people came about because of an alliance between the Trojan super hero Aeneas, and the king of the Laurentian territory Latinus. This alliance may have come about due to a Latinus being defeated in battle, or due to the deference of Latinus before the supremacy of the Trojan warriors who had arrived in the local area intent on plunder. The key point that Livy stresses is the “family alliance” that was made when “Latinus received Aeneas as a guest in his house, and there, in the presence of his tutelary deities, completed the political alliance by a domestic one, and gave his daughter in marriage to Aeneas.”4 Here it is quite clear that the conflict relationship of war is being replaced by the peaceful relationship symbolised by domestic union. Women in this world view represent stability and peace, whereas men represent war and conquest. The role of the upper class woman in this scenario is to tame the warrior nature of the men, and cement an alliance through kinship which in turn sets up the prerequisites for city foundation: “This incident confirmed the Trojans in the hope that they had reached the term of their wanderings and won a permanent home. They built a town which Aeneas called Lavinium after his wife…”5 The concept of the city as “home” reveals a desire to include the contribution of women, bringers of care and comfort to the weary soldier, and marks a transformation from marauding army culture to a more settled civilian way of life. The women in this scenario have little say in their fate, since fathers, and then later their husbands, decide whom they should marry, but once married the women enjoy the status of their husband, and play a vital role in maintaining peaceful relations between formerly opposed communities or tribes. The strict hierarchy in early society is seen in t Livy’s account of a descendent of this family line, Amulius who rose up against his brother Numitor “Violence, however, proved stronger than either the father’s will or the brother’s seniority; for Amulius expelled his brother and seized the crown. Adding crime to crime, he murdered his brothers sons and made the daughter Rea Silvia, a Vestal virgin; thus under the presence of honouring her, depriving her of all hopes of issue.”6 Power is invested in the father, and handed to the eldest son. Daughters, in this case Rea Silvia, are valued for their ability to bear children, and the story seems to imply also that women are due more respect than male children, since the sons are killed but the daughter forced to take an oath of chastity and devote herself to the very honourable career of vestal virgin. Rea Silva’s gender saved her life in this instance, but was taken out of the power structure by being prevented, in theory at least, from having children. From this violent event, another wrong occurred when Rea Silva was violated and bore twin sons, Romulus and Remus, who then became the legendary founders of Rome. The legend of Romulus and Remus identifies the year 753 BC as the year that Rome was founded, and Romulus is said to have been the first king who ruled from 756 to 716 BC. It is interesting that the main feature chosen to represent these two boys is that they were, according to tradition, accustomed to roaming around with wild animals, and being suckled by a she wolf. Livy recognizes that this is somewhat fanciful and rationalizes this with an explanation that reveals much about his perception of female roles. The twin boys were cast aside, like Moses in a basket, to be carried off by the river Tiber, when a shepherd called Faustulus rescued them and gave them to his wife Larentia: “Some writers think that Larentia, from her unchaste life, had got the nickname of “She-wolf” amongst the shepherds, and that this was the origin of the marvellous story.”7 Here it is clear that the lower class foster mother role is one that needs to be explained in some way. Lower class women had very little power or status, and so it is that by transforming her into a mythical beast, the Romans can at the same time relegate her to a non-human level and venerate the iconic image of the wolf suckling human children. This is a clear demonstration of archaic Roman focus on the nurturing nature of woman, and veneration for motherhood. The study of Roman religion in this early period is helped by the survival of many artefacts and historical references. Because of this it is possible to establish whom the early Romans worshipped and what kind of activities were associated with their religion. There is a clear alignment with some of the Greek ideas of the time, and clearly there is some imitation of Greek tradition going on, but Forsythe reminds us that we should avoid making too many assumptions about the detail of these practices based on our knowledge of the much better developed Greek traditions: “Unlike the Greeks, however, the Romans did not develop a complex and colorful mythology; they simply conceived of the gods in rather practical terms as being powerful entities, whom they diligently worshipped in order to receive benefactions and to avert evil.”8 Alongside their predictable reverence for powerful male gods Jove and Mars, the early Romans also worshipped Juno, albeit with a different emphasis than in later times: “During historical times Juno was exclusively considered a goddess of women and childbirth, but her role in early Roman religion was not so restricted. Her domain over youthful vigor may have included the young men capable of bearing arms (iuniores) and hence the defence of the state.”9 This is an important distinction because it emphasizes the critical role of women in educating the young, both boys and girls, in the virtues and skills necessary for taking up citizenship in archaic Rome. The cult of Ceres, goddess of growth and plenty, reflects the agricultural basis of society in this period. In keeping with views of women in day to day society as the provider of sons and daughters to maintain kinship ties, ensured, many ceremonies and minor goddesses were devoted to issues to do with childbirth. As we saw from the story of Rea Silvia above, the goddess Vesta was one of the most revered deities, and women alone were allowed to enter her temples. They tended an eternal flame, and prayed for the safe return of the harvest, which of course was essential to sustain the material needs of the growing city. This worship of Vesta appears to record a very early focus on the purifying and nurturing qualities of woman hood, since the archaeological evidence places her temples at the heart of Rome’s creation: “Her temple was one of the oldest structures in the city. Its round floor plan was unlike later orthogonal sacred buildings. Its shape may have imitated that of the primitive thatched huts of the earliest Romans.”10 The three most important deities worshipped in the archaic Roman period and tended by a priesthood which had civic as well as religious duties were the so-called “Archaic Triad” of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus. The focus here is on power, warfare, and providing material security for women and children, and some scholars trace this emphasis back to much older civilizations well before Roman times.11 Kevin McGeogh identifies the three most important roles of women in ancient Roman society as that of mother, wife and religious participant.12 This sums up her political, social and religious functions. We have seen, however, that most evidence of how this worked out in practice has been distorted through having been recorded through the eyes of later historians, all of whom have a different social environment and, of course, a male perspective. It is interesting, however, that the earliest myths and stories feature women in positions of considerable power, and even the disgraceful tale of the rape of the Sabines reveals a complex and ambivalent attitude to women on the part of a powerful society dominated by warlike males: “These males (in the male-only society) seize and rape a group of women from another city. In antiquity, the emphasis on the rape aspect did not cast the males in a negative light, but rather emphasized the sexual purity and virtue of the female ancestors of the Romans.”13 Paul Zoch points out that through conquest the male Romans came to an agreement with the female Sabines about their respective roles in the future Roman society: “To futher honor the Sabine women, it was agreed that they were to be free from all common labor in the house except for spinning wool, and two holidays were celebrated in their honor, the Matronalia and the Carmentalia.”14 What lies hidden in this agreement is the contribution of female slaves in the household who made this status possible for wealthy upper class women. The historical record is sparse but by by reading between the lines, and reflecting on the unspoken but implied assumptions of the narrative, and the emotional content of images and motifs, that we can find some key facts about women’s lives in this period. It appears that women in the archaic period of Roman history played a far fuller and more influential role than they did in later times, wielding considerable political, religious and social power in ways that Livy and later historians found hard to accept. References Dumezil, Georges. Archaic Roman Religion: with an appendix on the religion of the Etruscans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Forsythe, Gary. A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006. McGeough, Kevin. The Romans: new perspectives. Santa Barbara,CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Titus Livius (Livy).The History of Rome [Ab Urbe Condita Libri] Translated by Rev. Canon Roberts. London: Dent, 1905, Preface and Book 1. Available online at: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/txt/ah/Livy/Livy01.html Zoch, Paul. Ancient Rome: An Introductory History. Norma, OK: Oklahoma University Press, 2000. Read More