Detail of a fresco from Pompeii (Italy). 1st century AD. AD • ISTOCKPHOTO On this day of 52 AD. BC, all the Romans eager for great shows rushed to Lake Fucin, east of the capital. The Emperor Claudius gave the most gigantic naumachia ever organized there. A real naval battle on an artificial body of water. This day was to be for the glory of Rome, its powerful army and its engineering. In the imperial box, Claudius and his wife's son, the young 15-year-old Nero, had put on the paludamentum , the coat of Roman generals. They showed themselves as the leaders of the Roman fleets. Next to them, Empress Agrippina the Younger dazzled the crowd. Adorned with a chlamys woven with gold threads, she seemed to want to compete with the sun. No woman before her had dared to appear like this in public. The chlamys had been a cloak for young men and kings ever since it was popularized by Alexander the Great. Was the empress presenting herself as queen? Did she mean that she was the sole mistress of the empire? His approach was incredibly daring because, in Rome, women did not reign, they only had a place in the private sphere, and they were submissive to men, a priori … In a state of dependency Originally, the great political myths defined the place of women in Roman society. On the one hand, there were women destined for marriage. Their social role was to give birth to little citizens. On the other, there were women of small virtue destined for the pleasures of men, for recreational loves. In a patriarchal Rome, where property was transmitted according to the rules of patrilinearity, all women were subservient to men. They were inherently inferior and dependent on their father, husband or master. Socially, the women, like the men, were divided into three groups:the ingenues (who could be called for ease of language the citizens, but their rights had nothing in common with those of the men), the freedmen and slaves. The first were freeborn women. Freedmen were former slaves. Slaves, on the other hand, were not quite considered human:they had a status between person and object. But all were legally dependent on a man. Even if we imagine the case of a slave belonging to a woman, the latter would have been placed under the guardianship of a man, because free women were eternal minors. They could own property, sometimes even real fortunes, but these were managed by a more or less complacent father, husband or guardian. If, in fact, slaves and freedwomen were subject to their master, the ingenues learned to play with the limits of the law and social customs to emancipate themselves. In the senatorial class (the high Roman aristocracy), women often knew all the issues that occupied men. By listening to them talk, it was easy for them to form an opinion on politics and the various public affairs in progress. Some women, often educated, developed opinions and exposed their opinions to the men of their entourage, when they did not nourish their own ambitions. Knowing how to hide your ambitions Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, was thought to be the model of the ideal Roman. Daughter of Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, she had acquired a high opinion of herself. Married, mother of 12 children, she dedicated her life to their education. But Cornelia didn't want her little ones to be just good citizens. She raised them to rule Rome. So she pushed her sons to the forefront of the political scene, not hesitating, by incessant letters, to mobilize her networks of friends to promote their careers. Caius and Tiberius Gracchus ended up murdered, but their mother became a maternal example. His success was based on his finesse of mind. She never publicly exceeded the limits that propriety set for her sex, hiding her ambition behind that which she imposed on her sons. The civil war that tore Rome apart in the I st century BC. BC benefited women. With the incessant conflicts, morals slackened. In high society, the race for laurels had given more space to women. The Lesbia of the poet Catullus was the paragon of this female elite who slowly emancipated themselves from the tutelage of men. Clodia, her real name, belonged to the high Roman nobility. His half-brother, Clodius Pulcher, was a strong supporter of the populares , a sort of populist republican party, an intimate enemy of the famous Cicero. Clodia was a free spirit. Her quarrels with her husband Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer were common knowledge, and the fact that she collected lovers had something to do with it. Possessing a large personal fortune managed by a not very authoritarian tutor and belonging to a progressive family, she refused to bend to the norms that defined good matrons. For her, no discreet life spinning wool at home. She preferred love and politics. It took Clodia for women to dare to feel free. She was not the only one in this case, and the end of the Republic is seen as a period of female emancipation. The Moral Order of Augustus When Augustus came to power in 27 BC. J.-C., he imposed himself as the figurehead of the return to order. He enacted a series of laws which were to put an end to the disordered morals of his contemporaries. The Julia Law on Marriage of the Orders (Senatorial, Equestrian, and Plebeian) prohibited members of the senatorial class from marrying men or women from lower social backgrounds. It was necessary to recompose a strong and above all pure elite. To encourage the Romans (and especially the Roman women) to have children, he imagined the ius trium liberorum , the “right of the three children”. All men and women were required to have at least three to have their financial penalties lifted and have full capacity to inherit. For women, however, there was another interest. The mothers of three children were legally emancipated:they ceased to be eternal minors. They could then manage their own property and dispose of themselves. Freedwomen had this same right after their fourth child, and slaves gained their freedom on the fifth. This should not be seen as a desire on the part of Augustus to emancipate women. No feminist wish before the letter in this decision, but a political will to revive a disastrously low birth rate. However, it was inconceivable to claim to remain a great empire without new citizens. Under the reign of Emperor Augustus, in order to remedy the decline in the birth rate, a law obliges men and women to have at least three children, under pain of financial penalties. However, the effects of this policy were pernicious for women. Mothers of large families were reluctant to enjoy this hard-earned freedom. Every pregnancy carried a life-threatening risk, at a time when the fatality rate in childbirth was estimated at between 5 and 10%. The road to freedom for Roman women was not legal. Emancipation was more a question of influence, of leeway. Paradoxically, it was within the house of Augustus that we found the Roman women most determined to step out of the role of good mother that society wanted them to take on. Because the Julio-Claudian family lacked men, and the princesses and empresses took advantage of this to take a certain place in the government. They all tried to impose their candidate for succession to become the most powerful woman in the empire. Rule by proxy Auguste's own daughter staged a coup in favor of her lover, a son of Marc Antoine. But Julie had misjudged the risks. Her intentions were discovered, and she was mercilessly exiled. Iullius Antonius, meanwhile, was sentenced to death. All the Julio-Claudian women who bet on their lovers experienced disappointment. Only those who made sure to raise their son to the purple pulled out of the game. Livia, Augustus' third wife, found no rest until her son Tiberius became her husband's official heir. Imposing her offspring on the estate was vital for her. She had been the companion of Augustus in power for almost 40 years; she had no plans to retire once she was widowed. First lady of the empire, she did not see herself giving up her place to one of her husband's granddaughters, all desperate for power, as if this passion was atavistic in this family which lived only to command. Wife then mother of the emperor, she assumed her role as first lady by maintaining female networks of influence or by forging relationships with ambassadors and kings subservient to Rome. From behind the scenes, Livie pulled the strings of power. She inspired many women in her own family, such as Agrippina the Younger. The latter, anxious to demonstrate her power, had herself greeted as the equal of the emperor and participated in all aspects of public life, going so far as to be kept informed of the content of Senate sessions. She assumed her power far too much, which earned her the hatred of her contemporaries. In the Roman world, being a legally emancipated woman was not so important. Living one's freedom required knowing how to play with codes and social rules. This freedom was expressed by an ability to exert one's influence on others and to free oneself from the weight of the yoke of a father, a husband or a guardian. Latin literature has passed down to posterity many portraits of strong, seductive and somewhat twisted women. They were the rebellious of their time, both hated and fascinating. Find out more The Emancipation of Women in Ancient Rome, by Guy Fau, Les Belles Lettres, 2009.Women and sex in ancient Rome, by Virginie Girod, Tallandier, 2013.Women in Ancient Rome, by Danièle Gourevitch and Marie-Thérèse Raepsaet-Charlier, Hachette, 2001. Timeline 189-110 BC. AD Cornélia, mother of the Gracchi, is considered the archetype of the Roman matron. She is the first woman to have a statue erected in the Forum of Rome.42 BC. AD Hortensia, daughter of the orator Quintus Hortensius, delivers a speech on the Forum reported by the historian Appian. She was the first woman to speak out in public about a law she felt was unfair.77-40 BC. AD Fulvia, wife of Publius Clodius Pulcher then of Marc Antoine, is an example of a transgressive matron:she would have written the speech delivered by Marc Antoine after the death of Caesar.70-11 BC. AD Octavie, sister of Auguste, is presented as a model of loyalty and nobility. After the death of her husband Marc Antoine, she agreed to raise the children he had had with Cleopatra at home.15-59 apr. AD Sister of Caligula, Agrippina the Younger marries her uncle, the Emperor Claudius. When he died, she tried to govern through her son Nero. Emancipated by work:the female economy Working was a way for women to emancipate themselves. Among the people, many of them, free or freed, earned their own living, even if part of the work was based on the use of slave labor. They had invested in almost all areas of the economy:they could run stalls, be a hairdresser or make-up artist, or practice crafts. Some specialized in the demanding profession of midwifery or became mercenary nurses, because young mothers shunned breastfeeding. However, many trades downgraded them – like men for that matter. Thus, all professions related to prostitution or entertainment were stricken with infamy, a real social and legal stain. In Pompeii, the graffiti of a tavern in the rue de l'Abondance show that the place was run by Asellina and her pretty waitresses:Maria the Jewess, Aéglé the Greek, Zmyrina the Oriental and Cuculla the Pompeian. This beautiful female areopagus was not limited to serving drinks. Infamy was the price of their emancipation. María Isabel Núñez Paz, University of Oviedo. Eumachia, female patron of Pompeii In provincial towns like Pompeii, women could also enjoy great public esteem. This is the case of Eumachia, from a family enriched by the wine trade in the Mediterranean and who had married a member of the Numistrius, an illustrious local family. When she became a widow, she obtained a position as a priestess and used part of her fortune to erect the building that bears her name on the forum of Pompeii, probably the wool counter or the headquarters of the guild of fullers (dyers). An inscription recalls this act of generosity:“Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess, in her name and in the name of her son Marcus Numistrius Fronto, had the chalcidice (porch), the crypt and the portico built at her own expense. dedicated to Concord and August Piety. María Isabel Núñez Paz, University of Oviedo.
