Married Life in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies) [1 ed.] 9780367345044, 9781032149653, 9780429326271, 0367345048

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of figures
List of contributors
Acknowledgements
1. Life within an ancient knot: The extraordinary within the confines of the ordinary
2. Mind the gap: Evidence (?) for non-elite couples in the Hellenistic period
3. From ideal to reality: Married couples on Hellenistic inscribed grave epigrams
4. Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura: The elder Cato’s script for a farming couple
5. Literary models and social challenges: Marital love according to Ovid in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto
6. For better or for worse: Conjugal relationships of writers and intellectuals under the challenges of the Empire
7. Worth her weight: Worthy women, coupling, and eating in Petronius’ Satyrica
8. Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts
9. Looking ordinary: Ideals and ideologies in the iconography of married couples in Roman society
10. Material aspects of marriage: Economic transactions between spouses in Roman Egypt
11. ‘For I have no other sun but you’: Emotions and married life in Greek papyri
Index

Citation preview

Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

MARRIED LIFE IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY Edited by Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet

Married Life in Greco-Roman Antiquity

Beyond the institution of marriage, its norms, and rules, what was life like for married couples in Greco-Roman antiquity? This volume explores a wide range of sources over seven centuries to uncover answers to this question. On tombstones, curse or oracular tablets, in contracts, petitions, letters, treatises, biographies, novels, and poems, throughout Egypt, Greece, and Rome, 107 couples express themselves or are given life by their contemporaries and share their experiences of, and views on, marital relationships and their practical and emotional consequences. Renowned scholars and the next generation of experts explore seven centuries of source material to uncover the dynamics of the married life of metropolitan and provincial, famous and unknown, young and old couples. Men’s and women’s hopes, fears, traumas, joys, endeavours, and needs are analysed and reveal an array of interactions and behaviours that enlighten us on gender roles, social expectations, and intimate dealings in antiquity. Known texts are revisited, new evidence is put forward, and novel interpretations and concepts are offered which highlight local and chronological specificities as well as transhistorical commonalities. The analysis of married life in Greco-Roman antiquity, from ongoing vetting process to place where to find security, reveals the fundamental yearning to be included and loved and how the tensions created by the sometimes contradictory demands of traditional ideals and individual realities can be resolved, furthering our knowledge of social and cultural mechanisms. Married Life in Greco-Roman Antiquity will provide valuable resources of interest to scholars and students of Classical studies, as well as social history, gender studies, family history, the history of emotions, and microhistory. Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet is Scientific Collaborator at the Institut d’Archéologie et des Sciences de l’Antiquité at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her research interests and publications include gender and couple relationships (Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century, 2013), family, sexuality, breastfeeding, breast pumps, infant feeding, Pliny the Younger, and Juvenal. Her next book explores gender pressure in Roman times.

Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

Recent titles include: Monsters in Greek Literature Aberrant Bodies in Ancient Greek Cosmogony, Ethnography, and Biology Fiona Mitchell Antonio Gramsci and the Ancient World Edited by Emilio Zucchetti and Anna Maria Cimino Holders of Extraordinary Imperium under Augustus and Tiberius A Study into the Beginnings of the Principate Paweł Sawiński Divination and Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity Crystal Addey Travel, Geography, and Empire in Latin Poetry Edited by Micah Young Myers and Erika Zimmermann Damer Ancient History from Below Subaltern Experiences and Actions in Context Edited by Cyril Courrier and Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira Ideal Themes in the Greek and Roman Novel Jean Alvares Thornton Wilder, Classical Reception, and American Literature Stephen J. Rojcewicz, Jr. Married Life in Greco-Roman Antiquity Edited by Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet For more information on this series, visit: https://www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Monographs-in-Classical-Studies/book-series/RMCS

Married Life in Greco-Roman Antiquity

Edited by Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Centlivres Challet, Claude-Emmanuelle, 1975- editor. Title: Married life in Greco-Roman antiquity/edited by ClaudeEmmanuelle Centlivres Challet. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. | Series: Routledge monographs in classical studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021028803 (print) | LCCN 2021028804 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367345044 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032149653 (paperback) | ISBN 9780429326271 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Marriage–Greece–History–To 1500. | Marriage– Rome–History–To 1500. Classification: LCC HQ510.M37 2022 (print) | LCC HQ510 (ebook) | DDC 306.810938–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028803 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021028804 ISBN: 978-0-367-34504-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-14965-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-32627-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271 Typeset in Times New Roman by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

Contents

List of figuresvii List of contributorsviii Acknowledgementsxii 1

Life within an ancient knot: The extraordinary within the confines of the ordinary

1

CLAUDE-EMMANUELLE CENTLIVRES CHALLET

2

Mind the gap: Evidence (?) for non-elite couples in the Hellenistic period

21

BONNIE MACLACHLAN

3

From ideal to reality: Married couples on Hellenistic inscribed grave epigrams

42

CHARLOTTE GOLAY

4

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura: The elder Cato’s script for a farming couple

59

JUDITH P. HALLETT

5

Literary models and social challenges: Marital love according to Ovid in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto

76

JACQUELINE FABRE-SERRIS

6

For better or for worse: Conjugal relationships of writers and intellectuals under the challenges of the Empire IDA GILDA MASTROROSA

90

vi  Contents 7

Worth her weight: Worthy women, coupling, and eating in Petronius’ Satyrica

107

KAREN E. KLAIBER HERSCH

8

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts

129

DAVID KONSTAN

9

Looking ordinary: Ideals and ideologies in the iconography of married couples in Roman society

149

MARY HARLOW AND LENA LARSSON LOVÉN

10 Material aspects of marriage: Economic transactions between spouses in Roman Egypt

168

MARIANNA THOMA

11 ‘For I have no other sun but you’: Emotions and married life in Greek papyri

185

MARYLINE PARCA

Index

209

Figures

9.1 Late Republican relief of a couple, from the Via Statilia, Rome. Present location: Musei Capitolini/Centrale Montemartini, Rome, inv.no MC2142. Source: DAI Arachne photo archive no 1085624. Photographer: B. Malter.151 9.2 Late Republican relief of a couple, P. Aiedius Amphio and Aiedia Fausta Melior, from the Via Appia, Rome. Present location: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Altes Museum), inv.no SK 840. Source: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Photographer: Ingrid Geske.153 9.3 A fragmentarily preserved funerary monument of a couple, from Northern Italy. Present location: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Altes Museum), inv.no SK 841. Source: Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Photographer: Ingrid Geske.154 9.4 Portrait bust of a couple, from Aquileia, inv.no 79, 2946. Source: DAI Rome Neg. Nr. 1. 74.2946.155 9.5 Stele of two couples, from Aquileia, mid-first century CE. Present location: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, inv.no 1861. Source: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.156 9.6 Funerary monument of a couple depicted in full figure, from Arlon, Belgium. Present location: Musée de la Cour d’Or de Metz. Source: DAI Arachne photo archive no 1115972.157 9.7 Funerary stele of the veteran soldier M. Valerius Celerinus and his wife Marcia Procula, from Cologne, first century CE. Present location: Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne, inv.no Stein 86. Source: Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne.159 9.8 Stele of Blussus and Menimane, from Mainz, first century CE. Present location: Landesmuseum, Mainz, inv.no 146. Source: Landesmuseum, Mainz.161 9.9 Funerary altar of Tiberius Claudius Dionysios and Claudia Prepontis, from Rome. Present location: Museo Gregoriano Profano, Musei dei Vaticani, inv.no 9836. Source: DAI Arachne photo archive no 1081250.163

Contributors

Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet is Scientific Collaborator at the Institut d’Archéologie et des Sciences de l’Antiquité at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her research interests and publications include genders and couple relationships (Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century, 2013), family, sexuality, breastfeeding, breast pumps, infant feeding, Pliny the Younger, and Juvenal. Her next book explores gender pressure in Roman times. Jacqueline Fabre-Serris is Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Lille, France. She wrote three books: Mythe et Poésie dans les Métamorphoses d’Ovide (1995), Mythologie et littérature à Rome (1998), and Rome, l’Arcadie et la mer des Argonautes. Essai sur la naissance d’une mythologie des origines en Occident (2008). She has published on Classical Latin literature, especially on Gallus and Augustan poetry, on mythology and mythography. Her research focuses on Latin literature, especially on Augustan poetry, on mythology and mythography, and on Gender Studies. She is currently writing a book on Ovid and Sulpicia. She is the co-director of the electronic journals Dictynna, Eugesta, and Polymnia, and of a series on mythography. Charlotte Golay is a fifth-year doctoral student and teaching assistant in Ancient History at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She has a Master of Arts (Lausanne, 2017, with a thesis entitled ‘Filles et sœurs de rois à la cour d’Antiochos III: les cas d’Antiochis I, Antiochis II, Laodice VI et Nysa’) and she was a member of the three-year SNF project ‘Couples in Antiquity’ (2016– 2019). Her thesis, entitled Les couples ordinaires à l’époque hellénistique and supervised by Prof. Anne Bielman Sánchez (Lausanne University) and Prof. David Konstan (New York University, USA), explores multiple aspects of conjugal life through literary, epigraphical, and papyrological sources. Her main research interests include male-female dynamics, family relationships, and methodological aspects of Social History. Judith P. Hallett is Professor of Classics and Distinguished ScholarTeacher Emerita at the University of Maryland, USA, and holds a BA

Contributors ix in Latin from Wellesley College, USA, and an MA and PhD in Classical Philology from Harvard University, USA. She has published widely in the areas of Latin language and literature; women, the family, and sexuality in Greco-Roman antiquity; and the study and reception of classics in the anglophone world. A former Blegen Visiting Scholar in the Department of Classics at Vassar College, USA, and Suzanne Deal Booth Resident Scholar at the Center for Intercollegiate Studies in Rome, Italy, she has also held fellowships from the Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. A 2013 collection of essays from Routledge – Domina Illustris: Latin Literature, Gender and Reception, edited by Donald Lateiner, Barbara Gold, and Judith Perkins – celebrates her academic career. Mary Harlow has recently retired from her post as Associate Professor in Ancient History at the University of Leicester, UK. Her major research areas are age and ageing, and dress and identity in the Roman world. She has published extensively in both these areas, most recently in edited volumes: A Cultural History of Childhood and the Family (2010), A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion (2017), A Cultural History of Hair in Antiquity (2018), and Textiles and Gender in Antiquity (2020). Karen E. Klaiber Hersch (PhD, Rutgers University, USA, 2002; FAAR 2001) is Associate Professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Classics at Temple University, USA. Her research interests include all aspects of Roman religion, history, women, and imperial literature. She is the author of The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (2010) and editor of A Cultural History of Marriage: Antiquity (2019). Recent book chapters include ‘Violence in the Roman wedding’, in Beneker J. and Tsouvala G. (eds), The Discourse of Marriage in the 1st Century CE (2020), ‘Tanaquil and Tullia in Livy as Roman caricatures of Hellenistic queens’, in Carney E. and Müller S. (eds), The Routledge Companion to Women and Monarchy in the Ancient Mediterranean (Routledge, 2020) as well as ‘Vergil’s tragic epithalamium’, in Galli-Milic L. and Stoehr-Monjou A. (eds), Au-delà de l’épithalame: le mariage dans la littérature latine (Turnhout, 2021). David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University, USA. His research focuses on ancient Greek and Latin literature, especially comedy and the novel, and classical philosophy. In recent years, he has investigated the emotions and value concepts of Classical Greece and Rome and has written books on friendship, pity, emotions, forgiveness, and beauty. He has also written on ancient physics and literary theory and has translated Seneca’s two tragedies about Hercules into verse. His latest book is In the Orbit of Love: Affection in Ancient Greece and Rome (2018). Konstan has held visiting appointments in New Zealand, Scotland, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and Egypt, among other places. He is a past President of the American Philological Association

x  Contributors (now the Society for Classical Studies) and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Lena Larsson Lovén is Professor in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her main research focus lies with studies on dress and textiles, iconography, gender studies, and aspects of socio-economic history in the Roman world, with a particular emphasis on the Roman West. She has published on aspects of Roman textile production, dress studies, funerary iconography, gender, and women’s work identities. Some recent publications include ‘The invisible women of Roman agrarian work and economy’, in Gender, Memory, and Identity in the Roman World (Rantala J. (ed.), 2019), ‘… and left his parents in mourning … Grief and commemoration of children on Roman memorials’, in Reading Roman Emotions (von Ehrenheim H. and Prusac-Lindhagen M. (eds), 2020), and ‘Male and female work in images and inscriptions from Ostia and Portus’, in Il Mediterraneo e la storia III (Chioffi L., Kajava M., and Örmä S. (eds), 2021). Bonnie MacLachlan is Professor Emerita and Adjunct Research Professor at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Her areas of specialisation include ancient Greek poetry and religion, early Greek comedy, ancient music, and gender in antiquity. In addition to articles and book chapters, she has published Harmonia Mundi. Music and Philosophy in Ancient Greece (1991), The Age of Grace: Charis in Early Greek Poetry (1992), Virginity Revisited. Configurations of the Unpossessed Body (2007), Thalia Delighting in Song. Essays on Ancient Greek Poetry by Emmet Robbins (ed., 2013), and two sourcebooks: Women in Ancient Greece (2012) and Women in Ancient Rome (2013). She continues to work on the development of comic theatre in the Greek West and its connection to chthonic cults. Ida Gilda Mastrorosa (PhD 1998) is Associate Professor of Roman History and Roman Antiquities and Modern Culture at Florence University (Department SAGAS), Italy. She is a member of the Doctoral Program  ‘Scienze dell’Antichità e Archeologia’ (Pisa-Florence-Siena University); Membre associée of UMR 6298 Archéologie, Terre, Histoire, Sociétés de l’Université de Bourgogne (France), as well as of the EuGeStA network. Her topics of research include Roman historiography and judicial oratory in the Roman Empire, political propaganda in Roman history, women’s social role and juridical status in Republican and Imperial Rome, and modern interpretations of Roman History and Roman institutions. She has co-edited Donne, istituzioni e società fra tardo antico e alto medioevo (2016). She is a member of the editorial board of the journal Storia delle donne.

Contributors xi Maryline Parca taught in the Department of the Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. She trained as a papyrologist at the University of Michigan, USA, and much of her work focuses on social history and gender in light of the papyri. Most recently, she co-edited, with Angeliki Tzanetou, Gender, East and West in Classical Antiquity, a collection of essays published as a special issue of Classical World (2016) and authored several articles, including one on wet nurses in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt based on papyrological evidence (2017) and an essay on Jacqueline de Romilly’s Les roses de la solitude (2018). Marianna  Thoma  is Assistant Professor in Ancient Greek Literature and Papyrology in the Department of Classics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, where she earned  her doctoral degree. Her doctoral thesis was published as a monograph in 2018 under the title The Women’s Participation in the Economy of Roman Egypt: Public and Private Papyrus Documents from the Time of Augustus to the Fourth Century CE. She has been a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna, Austria, and the Papyrus Department of Austrian National Library (Ernst Mach scholarship) and at the University of Ghent, Belgium (Department of Linguistics, ERC Project: Everyday Writing in Graeco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt), and a research fellow at the Hardt Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, and at the Center of Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies of Ohio State University, USA. As a second BA, she has also studied Law and the History of Law at the Law School of Athens, Greece. Her research interests focus on the literary culture of Imperial times and Late antiquity and the social and economic history of the Roman world. Her second monograph, on women letter writers in Greek papyri, has been published recently in modern Greek.

Acknowledgements

Most of the contributors to this volume presented their work at a conference held in Lausanne in 2018. I am grateful to Anne Bielman Sánchez and Charlotte Golay for their help in organising it, to the Swiss Foundation for Scientific Research and the Académie Suisse des Sciences Humaines et Sociales for their financial support, to Albert Grun for his eagerness and self-effacing generosity, and to Peter Barter for his sharp eye and readiness to help. The speakers whose papers are not present in this volume are to be thanked for their enthusiasm and fruitful contribution to all discussions: Margherita Carucci, Christiaan Caspers, Rebecca Fallas, Geoffrey Nathan, Jason Porter, Amy Richlin, Camilla Tosi, Anastasia-Stavroula Valtadorou, and Nicola Zwingmann. My heartfelt thanks go to Routledge’s reviewers for their constructive and eye-opening comments and to the contributors to this volume for sharing their knowledge with passion and patience. I am most grateful to all these great minds for teaching me so much on a human as well as on a scientific level. Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet

1

Life within an ancient knot The extraordinary within the confines of the ordinary Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet

What life? Some 107 couples populate the following pages – most of them are married, some of them are not; some wish they were, some wish they were not. The focus of this book is individuals and couple experiences of, and views on, married life. The following chapters explore, beyond the institution and traditional ideals, the dynamics of marital relationships, the hopes, fears, and daily life of men and women in relation to the conjugal bond, as they are represented in texts or images from Greece, Rome, and Egypt, ranging from the Hellenistic period to the third century CE. These people live again for a while under the gaze of scholars who present a moment in time, an aspect of their interactions and their experiences and views dialogue throughout the times and places under scrutiny in this volume. When researching the past, much of what we find depends not only on what came down to us but also on what we are looking for, since it might in itself influence how we search and make us find, conveniently, what we set out to look for. Despite this potential pitfall, a conscious decision has been made to gather a coherent corpus of evidence, to limit the focus of the present volume on what married life meant to ordinary individuals, how rules, norms, habits, and circumstances influenced their everyday life, and what we can glimpse of their actions and reactions to events related to their married life and of interactions between spouses. The term ‘ordinary’ here is meant to convey the notion of being in accordance with traditional ideals aimed at, or imposed on, the majority, whatever their social status; the term ‘everyday’ in this context is meant to convey the notion of what was encountered, or experienced, regularly as part of the life of ordinary people. The findings of this exploration, despite emanating from different types of evidence, belonging to different times and places, and being associated with individuals from different social backgrounds, indeed echo each other in a way that indicates commonalities as much as specificities. The point of studying married life in antiquity, in addition to advancing our understanding of couple relationships, family dynamics, gender roles, and what we call the public and private spheres, among other associated DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-1

2  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet facets, resides in the fact that it mirrors, in a microcosm, society’s macrocosm: it enables us to see both the latter’s values and ideals and the ways individuals act and interact in order to have some room for manoeuvre within the constraints of the normative traditional socio-cultural structure and leeway within the legal and customary boundaries. In order to present a corpus of comparable data within the practical limits of this volume, its focus is on married couples themselves, and it does not include the more orbital – albeit eventually crucial to our understanding of marital relationships more generally – issues raised by life within a second marriage, intimacy outside marriage or between same-sex partners, prostitutes of either sex and concubines, the quasi-marital relationships of slaves and soldiers, divorce, widowhood, or adultery – all aspects of intimate interactions that warrant investigation in order to complement the picture and shed light on the tributaries and distributaries of the main stem that marriage traditionally represents. These will be glimpsed along the way, but no contribution has delved into them in detail. However, future work should widen the net to gather evidence about wedlock outsiders, whose lives will prove as informative about life within marriage as that of married couples themselves. The societies to which these couples belonged were highly hierarchical and segregated, and individuals were expected to behave in accordance with the rules of their status, class, degree of freedom and citizenship, age, sex, and origins. For each sex, there was a fixed, traditional, ideal set of rules and expected behaviour that individuals were to adopt when presenting themselves in public or to posterity; according to ideal gender roles – here understood as the roles that the societies under study expected individuals to play depending on their biological sex – men were endowed with traditional qualities that made them socially dominant, while women were to follow male-devised rules. The paradigmatic dyad was the married, different-sex couple, and the legality or social appropriateness of any other combination of partners was defined by notions of power within the couple, status, and issues of heir legitimacy.

Whose life? The history of ancient societies was really the history of men until the second-wave feminism of the 1960s: this social and political movement led classicists to reconsider the past and introduce a new focus on women and their lives. The study of women was followed by the study of genders, which was, in turn, informed by Queer Studies, which opened new lines of thought about non-binarity. For a long time, scholarship considered that men and women were depicted by Roman sources as opposites, their respective genders being associated with different qualities and behaviours and non-­ overlapping roles and spheres of action. However, traditional, ideal depictions of men and women have been shown to be counterbalanced by the depiction

Life within an ancient knot 3 of another, non-traditional, non-ideal, but more individual reality, in which men and women behaved in ways that did not correspond to the polarised social expectations whereby men were strong, rational, intellectual providers and decision-makers and women were weak, emotional, practical followers; men and women are indeed also depicted in the sources as behaving in similar ways and as having in common qualities and behaviour that traditional ideals only attribute to one sex. Overlapping of male and female qualities and behaviour is perceivable, just as a blurring and sometimes inversion of roles is discernible within intimate relationships. The thriving studies of genders, sexualities, emotions, family, power relationships, and associated rites, customs, and legal framework contribute to our understanding of marital relationships in ancient societies, which started with the study of marriage itself. The latter has been the subject of book-length studies since C. Vatin’s Recherches sur le mariage et la condition de la femme mariée à l’époque hellénistique (1970). S. Treggiari’s seminal tome on Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (1991) then made a convincing case for the consideration of conjugal relationships as a subject of study yielding information ranging far beyond its set topic. Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome, edited by B. Rawson (1991), successfully launched the multi-authored investigation of the topic of the larger family unit and wider possibilities of interactions resulting from marriage. This was followed by, for the Greek world, Silence et fureur: la femme et le mariage en Grèce, edited by O. Cavalier (1996), and Le mariage grec du VIe siècle av. J.-C. à l’époque d’Auguste, by C. Vial and A.-M. Vérilhac (1998). Expanding on these first investigations of marriage in antiquity and what its ramifications entailed at the societal level, especially its legal, ritual, and ideal aspects, the exploration of specific, mostly notorious, couples or of a particular period went into more detailed analyses of case studies. Different parallel approaches were taken, offering insights either into a precise theme or into a specific type of source material, as in Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies, edited by A. E. Laiou (1998), Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality, edited by L. Larsson Lovén and A. Strömberg (2010), The Material Sides of Marriage: Women and Domestic Economies in Antiquity, edited by R. Berg (2016), A Cultural History of Marriage: Antiquity, edited by K. Hersch (2019), Power Couples in Antiquity: Transversal Perspectives, edited by A. Bielman Sánchez (2019), and The Discourse of Marriage in the Greco-Roman World, edited by J. Beneker and G. Tsouvala (2020). Like previous scholarship on marriage, this volume explores topics which belong to the fields of social history, microhistory, literary analysis, and iconography and pertain to the studies of genders, family, and sexuality. However, it differentiates itself by shifting the focus of analysis from marriage itself to married life as the everyday experience of marital union, its resulting dynamics, and their effects on individuals. Marriage as an institution is discussed, but the depiction of the experience of the impact

4  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet of its rules on individual lives is the main centre of attention: ideals are encountered, but everyday interactions are exposed. The representation of ideals compared to the representation of realities, of norms and room for manoeuvre, and of social pressure and individual preferences are addressed, and while the volume investigates themes related to traditionally shaped genders as they were played out within marriage, it also highlights how men and women behaved in ways that went counter to normative expectations. It gathers information on some well-known wives and husbands, but also, and mostly, on unknown, sometimes even unnamed ones. Beyond the general vision of what married life should encompass, the sources analysed report individual versions, and the volume allows comparison of various takes on the lived realities of married couples, some of them echoing through documents as different as Hellenistic epitaphs, official papyri, or Roman satire. Married life is more than the sum of two individual lives. Its exploration amounts to the exploration of many of the components that shape individuals, combined with the specific circumstances created by the union of two of these individuals; accordingly, to get a glimpse of married life means to consider various influencing factors and their resulting aggregation within the unique crucible of wedlock. Marriage as an institution, family ties, power relationships, women’s agency, gender roles, representations, and emotions are among the many subjects that have been explored to pioneering effect in previous works by the contributors. In this volume, they are examined in combination, and in parallel to new facets, in order to advance our comprehension of what married life entailed by letting us see more than what each of them could reveal separately.

What we cannot see – and what we can Many obstacles, common to most explorations of the past, are encountered in the path of the understanding of married life. The first is that the point of view of husbands or other male producers of source material has reached us very disproportionately. Secondly, the non-elite, non-citizen, provincial, and rural population is under-represented. Thirdly, the ever-present filters of the sources, be they related to the biases imposed by the specificity of the genre – highly literary, formulaic, legalistic, or iconographically coded – to lack of context, authorial propaganda, personal partiality or subjectivity, cultural and social background of the source producer, hazards of transmission, or even censure, further obscure the object of our study. Two more obstacles encountered when looking at ‘married life in GrecoRoman antiquity’ are that Greco-Roman antiquity covers wide territories and an extended period of time and that there is no such thing as one type of married life, then or now, since it depends on as many factors as each of the spouses’ social and cultural background, origin, profession, status, age, sexual or romantic preferences, the opportunity they had to state their preferences regarding the choice of union and partner, the geographical,

Life within an ancient knot 5 social, cultural, and religious settings of the union, and of course personalities. However, specific elements recur throughout the geographical area and chronological span explored in this volume; married lives in Greece, Egypt, and Rome between the fourth century BCE and the third century CE did have things in common.

Ideals cum realities The mentions, reports on, or depictions of married life in ancient sources almost invariably include an indication of the qualities of one or both spouses. When producers of source material wish to speak highly of a marital relationship, be it their own or someone else’s, they usually praise individual virtues and sometimes the quality of the bond. These praises revolve around a limited range of stereotypes pertaining to the traditional spheres of action of each gender: women are praised for their moral virtues and domestic efficiency, whereas men’s professional careers are put forward, and the marital bond is presented as ever-loving and unmarred by any quarrel. Because of their formulaic presentation, their recurrence, and their exemplary character, we call them ideals. These ideals leave social historians in a quandary: ideals are by definition what is sought but not necessarily found, and the very difficulty of attaining them renders their ubiquity suspicious. However, the contributors to this volume agree that the archetypal and exemplary nature of these ideals and the fact that we cannot distinguish between sought ideals and lived ideals do not mean that they were not highly wished for even in cases where they could not be experienced in reality, or that they were not actually perceived as experienced by a number of individuals. Hence the regular presence, in the sources, of depictions of both ideals and realities, which also coexisted in the life of the people who were wishing for an unblemished relationship and were striving to achieve it, sometimes succeeding and at other times encountering obstacles, resulting in the sources depicting the actual experience as drastically different from the proclaimed ideal. The same genres depicting dutiful and loving wives and providing and protecting husbands also convey complaints about the qualities of spouses. Whether it be the otherwise unknown papyrus writer Serenos, discussed by Maryline Parca, or the famous Roman poet Ovid, as scrutinised by Jacqueline Fabre-Serris, both complain about their wife’s failure to behave as expected and the dissolution of the marital bond, while also praising their spouse’s virtues and professing undying love. The latter part of the discourse corresponds to the ideal side of the relationship and its best moments; this is also what is publicly advertised. It is to be striven for not only for the individual’s well-being, but also because it corresponds to what would enable the couple, and thence related families and communities, to function at their best. However, circumstances or context sometimes demand that the everyday, criticisable side come to light. In the case of Serenos’s missive, the audience would be limited to the recipient and the scribe, if he had used the

6  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet services of one, and perhaps to the family members and friends to whom his wife might have shown it. In the case of Ovid, the audience would be a wider public. In both cases, the less-than-ideal behaviour was to be exposed to demonstrate the need for real, practical action to safeguard the ideal relationship.

Inclusion through ordinariness In addition to the fact that ideals and realities coexist in the sources alongside each other in almost every type of evidence as a dual discourse, what also springs from the pages of this volume is that throughout antiquity, married life was what we could call an ongoing vetting process. Scholarship studying the institution of marriage in antiquity has pinpointed that it was an essential cultural step thanks to which individuals would be welcomed into the social fabric. As Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén show in their contribution, in Roman times, it was a status marker since conubium, the legal capacity to be married, was given to citizens only. By getting married, individuals were to become useful adults by, ideally, procreating legitimate heirs, ensuring the longevity of the family line, and contributing soldiers, workers, and brains to the nation. What the contributions of this volume show is that beyond the necessary juncture of marriage, married life was a constant vetting process whose reiteration was a necessity not only for practical survival but also for social acceptance. The mention of the fact of being married is ubiquitous in texts and epitaphs: if one has a wife or a husband, one says so. The fact that the praises of spouses all resemble each other evokes a common desired normativity, and individual adhesion to the norms reads like a strong desire to fit in. Fitting in leads to safety; thus, having the same qualities as everybody else, in other words, being ordinary, is safe. Accordingly, there is no need to publish one’s individual specificities in societies where ordinariness in everyday life is the safest pass to integration and its rewards. Trying to fit in could be complicated by what we would call the multicultural nature of society, however. Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén show, for instance, that couples of Roman provinces present normative versions of themselves to the viewers of their tombstones, versions which correspond to the dominant ideologies that surround marriage but are coded in a syncretic way that makes them readable by both locals and visitors. It thus appears that it is more important to be ordinary than extraordinary; inclusion is of the essence, and following the norms is the way to be included. Getting and staying married were the surest ways for both men and women to show that they were ordinary and that they fitted, because it continuously placed them in circumstances within which they had to demonstrate by their actions that they had the qualities expected by the community, and, consequently, that they were functional and

Life within an ancient knot 7 praiseworthy members of society. Moreover, since being married meant, in theory, being accepted by another family, it added a layer to the vetting process. Since ‘related’ was the word of the day, bonding with the rest of the community was yet another way to advertise one’s qualities and show off one’s official acceptance in the ideal, normative web of society’s interrelations. Accordingly, married life was a filter: if one found a spouse, it meant that one had the qualities needed to be integrated into the community; if one managed to stay married until death, it meant that one managed to behave in the expected way throughout one’s life. More than any other personal attainment of which to boast, having had a long married life, and, as a bonus, having been loved, were proofs of the highest virtues since married life was the crucible in which all socially expected qualities were put to the test and a prism through which they would then shine, such as good morals, the ability to cooperate, settle conflicts, and follow the rules. Thus, the glorification of the married couple is also a glorification of the individual, and the positive results of the vetting process of the married individual are advertised through different media as often as possible throughout life. As a consequence, advertisement of these qualities sometimes permeates, not so subtly in our view, contexts where we would expect less narcissism: in the Hellenistic epitaph of Atthis discussed by Bonnie MacLachlan and Charlotte Golay, the husband boasts that his deceased wife, 20 years his junior, was happy only when her head rested on his chest; centuries later, Roman authors such as Ovid, Statius, or Pliny describe how their own wife pine for them and sigh with delight at their literary triumphs. This sort of self-aggrandisement is also found on papyri and Roman tombstones, as shown by Maryline Parca, and by Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén, respectively. Tombstones as a means of self-advertisement – of the deceased or of the dedicator – naturally lead to what we might call graveyard competition. An epitaph, for those who do not publish extracts of their lives in literary form, is not only the last but sometimes the first occasion to publicise the results of the vetting process and engrave on stone forever the final depiction of the finest qualities for which they and their family hope to be remembered. Epitaphs thus combine the exposition of the very real shock of the death of a family member or meaningful person – whether he or she was truly loved or not, death must be considered as an event involving enough short-term, if not long-term, changes in the everyday life of the household or other unit to cause at least some practical and emotional perturbation – with the idealistic last image that the dedicator wishes to leave of the deceased, or that the deceased wishes to leave of himself or herself, which contributes to graveyard competition. The importance of being ordinary is apparent in the testimonials on stone, papyri, and in literary productions; how then to surpass other deceased while remaining ordinary? It seems that advertising more of the qualities expected within one’s gender role and more harmony within

8  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet the couple, by accumulating superlatives, makes the couple, through the combined qualities of each spouse, stand out by the extraordinariness of their ordinariness.

Leverage and real-life tensions The ideally stable association of two individuals is naturally put to the test by everyday, real-life circumstances which may require that one or both spouses take traditional qualities to extremes, reinvent their roles in order to face new situations, or forsake traditional expectations altogether by taking the kind of actions that ideology associates with the other gender. Couples depicted in Petronius’s Satyrica are presented as the epitomes of comical duos and their exaggerated behaviour is often considered as a fine example of how literature can give a distorted image of life; however, Karen Hersch astutely pinpoints the matter-of-fact elements that make three vignettes she dissects in enlightening detail much more connected to individual realities than what their caricatural treatment suggests. In her analysis of three women’s eating habits as indications of their level of self-control and capacity for manipulation within the context of marital or quasi-marital coupledom, K. Hersch shows that women and men are subtly depicted as being on a more equal footing than what is prescribed by tradition. Beyond their power to attract men and dominate the relationship by their own specific charms, self-control, or sexual charisma, the Petronian women also have material leverage in the form of financial resources: Fortunata is the most obvious example of this, she who saves Trimalchio’s business by selling her jewels and clothes. In the context of the Satyrica, it may appear farcical or anecdotal, but it finds an echo in the papyri presented by Marianna Thoma, where we read of wives who allow their husbands to stay financially afloat by selling their jewellery and giving them access to money with which to buy tools or invest capital, or who even enable marriage by their resources. It emerges recurringly that in reality women had more leverage than what tradition allowed. In Egypt, as Marianna Thoma points out, grants of loans from wives to husbands during trial periods of marriage, as well as deposits and sales between spouses aimed at protecting patrimony, gave women leverage within the couple through pressure, before and during the marriage. This, we can perceive, was experienced throughout the Greco-Roman world: Hellenistic Damodika, as Charlotte Golay explains, had won a chariot race – if not as a charioteer, more probably as the owner of the horses; since her family deemed it worth mentioning on her epitaph, this must have put her in a prominent, even influential social position from which she might have derived some form of leverage. These particular situations could have led to tensions within the couple, and even to conscious or unconscious blackmail, due to the non-traditional position of each of the spouses. Even without financial resources or a prominent social position, women could exert leverage through behaviour. Their roles as helpmeets and

Life within an ancient knot 9 witnesses of their husband’s qualities meant that they had the power to help or hinder them practically and enhance or tarnish their reputation: the latter is hinted at in yet another Hellenistic papyrus, the earliest known Greek marriage agreement from Egypt, where it is said that if the wife shames her husband, she will lose her dowry (see B. MacLachlan’s and M. Parca’s chapters); the power to help is in the hands of Ovid’s wife: as Jacqueline Fabre-Serris and Ida Mastrorosa expound, Ovid’s wife, whose name is not even given by the author, is the one who is expected to pull strings and scheme with high-profile figures to help her husband in exile while he is no longer in control. The fact that he is in the dependent position gives her leverage: he needs her practically, which gives her, in theory, power over him, and he writes that he believes that his fate depends on her and her reception of his message, willingness, and eventual actions. These reflect, beyond traditional ideals, real-life situations in which individuals find themselves and which depart from the ideologically imposed separation of men’s and women’s spheres of action that puts the former in charge and the latter in a passive role. In a similar vein, Statius appeals to his wife Claudia’s sense of marital duty to follow him into the country, whereas she would prefer to stay in Rome with her daughter, as Ida Mastrorosa reports. Had Claudia been submissive and unquestioning, would Statius have written a public plea to convince her to come with him? The undertone of the poem is that the game is not won: she has not meekly followed him, forsaking her own needs or desires; she still needs to be convinced, meaning that she has some room for manoeuvre. Her own importance in the dyad, her own weight and input give her leverage: Statius needs his consort, helpmeet, support, foil, assistant, and she can decide whether to play that role or not. These situations, like many others that the following chapters explore, highlight how events could trigger women’s agency and prove the ideological dichotomy between male and female gendered qualities and roles wrong. Male and female spheres of action overlapped in real life, and such concepts as female weakness, passivity, and lack of agency within marriage are out of touch with reality. Bonnie MacLachlan importantly notes that in the Hellenistic period, ‘Greek marriage customs as they had developed in Egypt’ borrowed ‘from Egyptian tradition a basic equality between husband and wife’.1 Centuries later, further north, Plutarch, as David Konstan insightfully perceives, writes a subtle message behind the seemingly straightforward advice that he gives to the bride and groom, which steers the newlyweds towards a more equal relationship than what tradition suggests. The Greek author appears to be, as D. Konstan observes, aware of the realities of couple interactions as much as of the ideology that is supposed to guide them. A wife’s agency, leverage, and leeway in the presence or absence of her husband – buying and selling land, petitioning a king in her own name, managing her husband’s affairs, working for his return from exile, publishing his writings – put her in a position to make decisions that would have repercussions on the whole household, its future, and its reputation.

10  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet While marriage itself could be concluded once all the right boxes had been ticked, life would then throw in the spouses’ way events that would test their individual qualities, the dynamics of their relationship, and their ability to function as a team; in that sense marriage was a risk, and married life would reveal whether the match was a good one and whether the choice of spouse was right. In that context, the rigid distinction between male and female ideal gendered qualities and spheres of action could backfire. Ovid is a victim of this: although he praises his wife for her modesty and probity, he seems more and more frustrated by her lack of clout and expresses his annoyance at her hitherto dutifully conventional behaviour, as his wife’s modesty and bashfulness prevent her from taking more forceful action to help him return from exile. Risk was inherent in married life as in all human endeavours, and married life’s publicly advertised best moments and darkest private moments appear in parallel in the sources. Marriage contracts found on Hellenistic papyri evince a remarkable lack of hypocrisy, as Bonnie MacLachlan and Maryline Parca show: husbands have to swear not to abuse their wife in any way, while wives are to swear not to use potions or charms or another man’s help to harm their spouse or control his erotic desires. The use of magic by women was equivalent to the use of physical strength by men: to each their own potential for harm – or defence. These contracts do not anticipate mutual trust and care; to our eyes, this may seem rather unromantic, but they had the merit of envisioning real-life scenarios and act as cautionary advice, reminder, or deterrent, as loss of dowry, its return, or a fine could be the punishment for a misbehaving wife or husband. This less-than-ideal picture can be glimpsed throughout the sources and periods. Maryline Parca puts forward evidence of abuse mentioned on papyri in Hellenistic and Roman times: she highlights the case of a woman being treated violently by a husband squandering her dowry, from whom she asks to be divorced; in parallel M. Parca calls attention to a husband complaining of having been abandoned by his wife, who stole his farming tools and left to marry another man without divorcing him first. In both cases, each played to their strengths, which also depended on the contextual and cultural circumstances. Divorce is mentioned in these documents as an option when one spouse felt he or she could no longer tolerate ill-treatment. A definitive alternative was murder: we read, on a Hellenistic curse tablet presented by Bonnie MacLachlan, of a husband poisoned by his wife; this echoes not only the literary examples of wives dispatching their husband by poisoning them as can be found in the texts of Roman satirists, but also an epitaph from Rome, of Imperial date, as Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén show, which claims conversely that the deceased was murdered by her husband. Husbands’ pervading fear of being at the mercy of their wives makes an appearance in Plutarch’s works: as David Konstan writes, the author advises against women using magic potions and charms because they make men ‘unreliable, foolish, and spoiled

Life within an ancient knot 11 partners in life’.2 Husbands’ desire to be in control is mentioned again by Plutarch, like a call-and-response of source material of other periods and places, when he says that a husband should rule his wife, ‘not as a master rules a slave, but as the soul rules the body’;3 this finds a real-life echo in a complaint, found on a papyrus presented by Maryline Parca, by a woman who says that her husband is ‘treating [her] as he would treat not even a slave’.4 While the experience of slavery is an abstract notion to most of us, it triggered a real fear then. Battery and marital rape, although the latter is not mentioned in the sources, must have been threats as well as realities. Married life could breed subjugation, and, inversely, enslavement could entail forced coupling. Judith Hallett throws light on the elder Cato’s economically obsessed agenda and subtly perceives how it influenced his prescriptions for the sexual behaviour of the vilicus and vilica, the couple overseeing operations on a Roman farm, and his own sexual and marital behaviour: what emerges is couple relationships steeped in economic considerations, where sexuality is a way to increase financial resources. The slaves and potential freedmen and freedwomen involved in Cato’s coupling scheme are thus used to produce more slaves, and these individuals had no say in the matches and sexual activities planned for them. This raises the question of choice: how many of these marriages were arranged or even forced unions? While slaves and perhaps freed people may have been subjected to couplings decided by a third party, so were free people. Marriages arranged for financial, political, or practical reasons, such as pregnancy, meant that the elite, notwithstanding their apparently enviable status, could also be the subjects of forced pairings, as were most probably the married siblings encountered on papyri (see B. MacLachlan’s and M. Thoma’s chapters), whether they were genetically related or siblings by adoption. We cannot know how many spouses experienced psychological or physical abuse in these marital configurations – they are as difficult to interpret as some are difficult to relate to – but they point to the fact that marital happiness did not depend on status, time, or place. Conversely, being at the bottom of the social ladder did not necessarily mean not being in a position to strive for and experience a harmonious relationship. Bonnie MacLachlan presents the Hellenistic inscription of a slave couple manumitted as partners; Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén show a late Republican couple freed by the same owner and appearing as husband and wife on a memorial: like their Greek counterparts, they might have experienced a harmonious bond before being manumitted. Would there have been, in the servile couple, the same hierarchy as in a free couple? Or would the extreme conditions in which they lived, compounded by the fact that their enslavement meant that they were subjected to specific laws and customs, cause their relationship to be paradoxically more equalitarian in servitude than in freedom? Would the elevation of the status of the manumitted couple

12  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet give the relationship a new twist? Would the couple function in accordance with the dynamics of their previous status, or would they change to adapt to the values of their new status? Petronius, for one, shows Trimalchio and Fortunata adopting the habits and behaviour expected of free people, with a traditional separation of gendered spheres in public and a realistic blurring of gender boundaries in private. Throughout the following chapters, we observe that the boundaries between social strata, with regard to coupledom, were customarily much looser than what was traditionally extolled or legally prescribed. A striking example of this is the Hellenistic triangle formed by Agamestor, his wife, and his concubine: he manumitted his female slave Zopyra and their two sons while he was married and made them his heirs, second to his wife, as two inscriptions from Delphi attest. As Bonnie MacLachlan remarks, the fact that ‘Agamestor felt free to make public his concubine relationship with his female slave (…) leads us to wonder how widespread such an arrangement might have been throughout the Greek world.’5 If Agamestor’s marriage had been arranged and if the sentiments between spouses were at best friendly, and if this situation was culturally accepted, perhaps his wife was not affected by her husband’s attentions, or even affections, being directed towards a domestic slave; perhaps she was distressed by this situation in one way or another, experiencing jealousy, anger, or a feeling of abandonment; perhaps it was the slave who felt frustrated, or perhaps, on the contrary, she felt upgraded and proud. What could the feelings of the protagonists in this triangle be?

Emotions The practical side of married life is admittedly more easily accessed than the emotional side. The attempt to understand the latter is fraught with evident dangers, ranging from anachronism to the superimposition of the researcher’s expectations on the available evidence. The current scholarly consensus is that we cannot consider antiquity’s emotions as mirroring our own, since the way emotions are experienced is partly shaped by their cultural context. As David Konstan expressed elsewhere, they are ‘sentiments not wholly foreign to us but differently articulated’6 and as such have to be historically contextualised. It has indeed been shown that cultural institutions, social practices, and other external factors – either altering the brain durably, such as those traced by epigenetics and effecting long-lasting micro-evolutionary changes, or temporarily, such as psychotropics – are emotion-shaping determinants, some of them tractable by the historian, some of them not, either because of the types and contents of the sources or because of the very nature of these elements.7 To remain within the borders of the discipline’s territory, classicists have turned their attention fruitfully to the causes or triggers of the manifestations of ancient emotions in texts and images, the perceptions, and their development, of

Life within an ancient knot 13 emotions over time, or ancient societies’ own definitions and expressions of their emotions.8 Nevertheless, it seems safe to assume, as David Konstan suggested elsewhere, that we share with people of the past certain affects, or ‘proto-emotions’, positive or negative responses to events, whose range covers basic emotional experiences such as fear, joy, or anger, loosely understood.9 Belonging to these different times and places that we call Greco-Roman antiquity, proto-­emotions are common emotional reactions that transcend cultural differences.10 With that premise in mind, we can read ancient sources and relate to the basic form of the affects expressed, even if they do not elicit the exact same range of intellectual or psychological responses that we associate with the specific words used to convey them. Indeed, in addition to biological and cultural factors, the question of the correspondence between past and present lexica hinders our comprehension of past sentiments; we cannot even consider, for instance, that philia or erôs correspond exactly to amor. However, we can explore the positive feelings expressed in the sources about a spouse and use the umbrella term ‘love’ once we have made it clear that we use this term without extracting it from its context to compare it with our own concept. For the sake of this volume’s aim, the term ‘emotions’ will thus be used to characterise feelings as they are expressed by the sources themselves, and each ‘emotion’ will be understood in its proto-emotional sense. The emotional nuances of married life, irrespective of social, cultural, geographical, or chronological backgrounds, emerge in the sources as ranging from bliss to nightmare. At both ends of the social ladder, there must have been mismatches, disillusioned pairings, and broken hearts: marriages arranged against the partners’ wishes, restrictions on legal pairings depending on the social class and status of each spouse, prejudices based on racial, ethnic, and geographical considerations, and the constraints of strictly binary, different-sex marital unions meant that individuals of both upper and lower classes were not always free to choose a spouse to their liking, and marriages were not necessarily based on the chemistry generated between the betrothed. Dissatisfaction, confusion, or upset could ensue. What is more, even when the spouses had chosen their partners freely and in accord with their inner sense of self and of contentment, trouble could brew nonetheless, and unhappiness could grow. The decision to tie the knot, made by the spouses or those who arranged their bonding, itself stemmed from a broad range of emotions: fear of social or political exclusion, fear of penury, hope of having children or grandchildren, desire to be powerful, craving to be loved. Once married, individual men and women strove to reach a state of happiness ideally, of stability at least, as far from tensions and negative experiences as possible, and what surfaces as a common feature in the following chapters is that communications with a spouse in order to attain personal well-being – which, in the context of married life, was almost inevitably dependent on conjugal harmony – used emotional

14  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet triggers: one threatens a spouse with retribution, a fear-triggering move, in order to stop a behaviour causing frustration, anger, or sadness; one entices the other with endearing words, a pleasure-triggering action, in order to obtain a behaviour bringing joy, comfort, or consensus. When trying to analyse emotional utterances, we also face the question of their corresponding to the actual feelings of the individual expressing them. Indeed, the creators of source material may express emotions that they do not actually experience, in the hope of generating the desired reaction in the person to whom their message is destined. Their interpretation also depends on the means of conveyance of the message, its context, and its audience: a letter, an oracular or a curse tablet, a petition, a treatise, an epitaph, each has different functions and receptors, with messages meant to share information about a temporary state of affairs or an everlasting testimony, to a single individual, a deity, or as large an audience as possible, and their authors come from different social and cultural backgrounds, and have different aims and biases. A particular emotion may, in fact, hide another: wives, on the papyri presented by Bonnie MacLachlan, Marianna Thoma, and Maryline Parca, express anger when their absent husband does not respond to their missives or is slow to return home; however, this expressed anger may stem from other emotions which they do not articulate: frustration and jealousy, when they know that other husbands in the same situation have sent letters to their wife or have already returned home; despair, when caring for a sick child; panic over practical steps to be taken; the sadness of being alone; pining away from love. Similarly, the words used by Seneca to describe the relationship between Maecenas and Terentia – her ‘refusals’, in the words of Ida Mastrorosa, ‘worried’ him – comprise many a notion and many an emotion.11 Just as the dedicators of epitaphs bearing either laconic or highly literary formulae may experience feelings that are not conveyed by the engraved words, authors mention or reflect on their married life in highly controlled prose, often seemingly unperturbed and with finely chiselled circumlocutions. The topic they address can often be surmised to be a cause for greater unrest or anxiety than what transpires, and the emotions they express may be different from those they actually experience: Jacqueline Fabre-Serris notes that Ovid describes his wife’s loyalty and steadfastness with seeming fondness, but he had a vested interest and clear agenda based on other emotions that required him to keep his wife’s benevolence kindled by affectionate praise. Similarly, when Statius lauds his wife and exhorts her to come with him to Naples, as we read in Ida Mastrorosa’s chapter, feelings of frustration, jealousy, anger, or loneliness may underlie the feelings of admiration he articulates. Blandishing words may be strategic; behaviour may be too: in Petronius’s Satyrica, as Karen Hersch highlights, Fortunata and the Widow of Ephesus mourn – ahead of time, for the former – their husband in an exaggerated fashion corresponding to the genre of the text; meanwhile another woman, the wife of Chrysanthus, is by contrast accused of crying

Life within an ancient knot 15 insufficiently at his funeral. Such effusive demeanours may stem from affection, or they may betray a desire to display the perfect behaviour in the context of graveyard competition. The same hidden agenda may be perceived on epitaphs: both graveyard competition and the final step of the ongoing vetting of individuals through their married life may have prompted affectionate funerary displays. Thus, the study of loving feelings between the spouses, a core aspect of our notion of coupledom, is hampered by the fact that other emotions could hide behind tender words: fear of an authoritative or violent spouse, fear of being deserted, fear of being left without resources, shame of admitting to a failed marriage, sadness, frustration, or anger at being neglected, desire for a sexual partner; consuming affection could be a pose to win over or placate a difficult spouse, or a form of emotional blackmail. Affectionate language is a way to avoid conflict – a married life facilitator. The more benevolent, attentive, considerate, affectionate, or passionate words are, the more binding, as evidence not only of the feelings – actual, putative, future, or past – of a spouse, but also of the willingness to start a conversation from a positive, consensual position, and of the attempt to foster harmony. David Konstan reads through Plutarch’s rhetoric that the latter extols communication as the key to avoiding conflict between spouses. He aptly points out that Plutarch, like Musonius Rufus, is aware that sharing feelings and putting oneself in a spouse’s shoes are essential to maintaining a harmonious and equitable relationship. While affectionate language might have been used to move and manipulate the receptor, the fact that it was used so often and so prominently in a great variety of contexts is testimony to its importance and to the importance of affectionate feelings themselves in interpersonal communication within the context of married life. To put it in other words, affection was an important component of an ideal married life in antiquity. It seems easier to believe that the negative feelings aired in the sources are more sincere than the tender ones; dismissiveness about love, in particular, sometimes results from an intellectual stand taken for fear of creating scholarship apparently taking ideals at face value or as universal experiences, displaying scientific naivety, or reading sources through rosecoloured spectacles. What is more, defining love in antiquity is not only hindered by the cultural, lexicological, and discursive issues highlighted above, but also by the fact that just as it would be difficult to try to define a single modern concept of love since the attendant emotions vary from one individual to another, we cannot expect all past individuals to have the same definition of that sentiment. Approaching the concept of love in antiquity in the sense of a deep, satisfying feeling felt for another individual, we observe that it appears throughout the sources, from funerary tributes to letters to satire. Throughout Greece, Egypt, and Rome, over several centuries, individuals profess love for their spouse: they say they weep for, miss, love, and would like to be loved by, their other half.

16  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet Love was certainly ideal as the ultimate feeling one hoped to experience: an archetypal aim to achieve, for all to advertise, to be experienced as a lived reality by the fortunate.

Conclusions: Ideal extraordinary and everyday ordinary This volume presents core samples of conjugal relationships of the past, showing part of the picture of married life in Greco-Roman antiquity and hinting at the future rewards of investigating a wider range of source material and questions. Contributors note that the interpersonal dynamics and the depiction of feelings within married life have evolved over the centuries. Bonnie MacLachlan draws our attention to the changes of patterns which appear to us as ‘gaps’ in the historical record. About the Hellenistic period, she observes that ‘the greater autonomy enjoyed by Egyptian women often led to a weakening of the male-dominated structure of the previous Greek conjugal structure’.12 This concomitantly led to wives expressing their fears, frustration, and anger differently from what the Archaic and Classical times traditionally expected of Greek women. More freedom of action for women within the context of married life is also evidenced under the Empire: Ida Mastrorosa concludes that the political changes caused by the new regime led the wives of intellectuals to appear on the public scene and have political and intellectual roles that they did not have under the Republic. As for the importance of the married state and the public expression of emotion, B. MacLachlan notes a discontinuity between the Classical and Hellenistic periods, marked by the emergence of the celebration of loving feelings. Writing about Imperial times, David Konstan similarly perceives this: Plutarch’s marriage advice is responding, I think, to a newly valorised, or at least publicly expressed, sense of sentiment as the basis of marriage, its intensity reflected in a certain crossover between the usual language for conjugal affection and that of erotic attraction.13 This evolution is comparably identifiable on Roman funerary portraits: Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén notice an iconographical change over time – representations of physical contact and other signs of affection between spouses are more numerous in Imperial times than in Republican times; furthermore, In the first century BCE, a change occurred in the visibility and type of people depicted in funerary art and increasingly people from social groups other than the elite were commemorated with inscriptions and images. The married state is a recurrent theme in commemorative documents and images from this time onwards.14 Tradition and ideology alone are not enough to protect married or quasimarried couples against life’s trials and tribulations. Ideal behaviour cannot

Life within an ancient knot 17 accommodate every quotidian situation, and both men and women have to play by realistic rules in order for the couple to function; in everyday interactions, individuals have to make use of qualities that do not necessarily correspond to those prescribed by patriarchal rules. Indeed, all contributions show that individual experiences were at times at odds with traditional ideals: social norms and what we could call gender pressure put spouses, individually and as couples, in difficult or conflicting situations since the practical or emotional demands of real life were not always compatible with the moral, customary, or legal framework within which they existed, which in the sources translates into a dual discourse. This led to tensions which, in turn, could alter the balance of married life if no room for manoeuvre or latitude regarding the rules was given and which can be read in the depictions of ambivalent feelings. The contributors also highlight evidence that disproves many a stereotype about male and female gender roles, which in practice were not as distinct as what traditional views would make us think. Women display physical courage, mental resolve, nerves of steel, clout, and intellectual sharpness, all traits that are traditionally associated with men, while men care for their children, fear being abandoned, lose their footing, weep, and display the kind of helplessness that patriarchal ideology associates with women. The following chapters show that the reality of married life in antiquity was, like the humans that created it, more complicated than its ideals. The presence of both idealistic and realistic elements in the depictions of married life does not have to be read as a dichotomy stemming from different approaches depending on the type of source, or on chronology, geography, authorial bias, or any other contextual circumstance, but rather it can be attributed to the inherent nature of human beings and their functioning. The parallel depictions of seemingly contradictory ideals and realities denote the complexity, and sometimes ambivalence, inherent in real people and in married life.15 A stereotype about married life itself is also questioned in the following pages: the notion that procreation was at its core. Despite modern expectations that ancient societies viewed children as the highly anticipated result of marital unions, themselves sought for the importance of legitimate offspring as an immediate and long-term asset to the family, it is noteworthy that the presence of children is so scarce in the following chapters. Even if we take into account the fact that the contributors chose to focus on couples rather than families more generally, the rarity of mentions or discussions of children is conspicuous and suggests that a married couple could be seen as an entity of its own, not necessarily to be subsumed into the larger category of the family. Other topics such as financial, practical, or emotional support, the spouses’ roles, qualities, activities, attainments, and feelings surface more prominently, quantitatively and qualitatively, in association with married life. Concomitantly, sexuality and eroticism do not appear much in relation to married life in the documents that this volume explores. More would be revealed by the thorough study of letters, satire, poetry, treatises, graffiti, and frescoes, for

18  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet instance, to find more allusions or discussions of sexuality within the context of married life. The reasons for this relative elusiveness of conjugal sexuality, even before the advent of Christian morals, would warrant an investigation of its own. It may partly derive from the fact that we find ourselves hampered by our inability to read part of the literary or iconographical codes of the sources over which we pore. Consider the funerary representation of Menimane and Blussus, from Mainz, presented by Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén: the strap of Menimane’s overtunic has slipped down from her shoulder over her left arm, in an artful and revealing fashion. Is it an allusion to the so-called Venus Genetrix type of sculpture? Is it hinting at fertility or beauty? Or should we consider that we do not always see sexuality or eroticism where it is? Does it not raise more questions concerning the association of married life and sexuality in antiquity? The insecurity of the times caused by illness, war, famine, and displacement, correlated with lack of sophisticated medical care; the great class divide and absence of social services; the importance of getting and staying married as evidence of one’s qualities – an ongoing vetting process of one’s character and society’s reiterated validation of a citizen’s expected qualities – and associated social inclusion; the fulfilment of the wider family’s needs for support, good reputation, or heirs, and of society’s need for working and fighting masses; all these made married life almost an individual and social necessity, which, in a self-reinforcing cycle, made it a sought-after attainment and desired commodity. Married life could be the result of a decision made by the spouses or by a third party, responding to pressing needs precipitated by external factors, to ad hoc strategic choices, or to personal desires. Its actual dynamics depended on circumstances which the spouses had not necessarily chosen, which could not have been anticipated, or which evolved in an undesirable way. In the face of wrongdoing or abuse, not all men and women were equal; various means of smoothing out tricky situations or fighting back existed that depended on the local laws and customs, as well as on the sex and status of the person concerned. But what emerges from all sources, throughout the places and times studied in this volume, is that despite its unpredictability and variety, married life was not a mere aspect of people’s life, but the pivotal, anchoring factor that made it either tolerable or unlivable beyond its own dyadic confines. The range of documents in which it is discussed or mentioned – textual or funerary biography, rhetorical, agricultural, or philosophical treatises, historical or judicial accounts, curse or oracular tablets, official contracts and complaints, letters, novel, satire, and poetry – testifies to the fact that people were conscious of its importance as safe conduct for social acceptance; and what they shout or whisper through their depictions of married life is that within it they would love nothing more than to love and to be loved – the ideal, yet attainable, extraordinary within the confines of the everyday ordinary.

Life within an ancient knot 19

Notes



1. MacLachlan, this volume, p. 29. 2. Konstan, this volume, p. 129–130. 3. Konstan, this volume, p. 140. 4. Parca, this volume, p. 189. 5. MacLachlan, this volume, p. 24. 6. Konstan (2015), 9. 7. Plamper (2015), Boddice (2017, 2018); Boddice and Smail (2018). 8. Braund and Gill (1997), Kaster (2005), Chaniotis (2012, 2021), Chaniotis and Ducrey (2013), LaCourse Munteanu (2013), Cairns and Fulkerson (2015), Cairns and Nelis (2017), Konstan (2006, 2015, 2016, 2018), Campeggiani and Konstan (2019), von Ehrenheim and Prusac-Lindhagen (2020). 9. Konstan (2015), 2. 10. Just as they are argued by primatologists to transcend hominids’ species, be they human or non-human; see for instance the works of Frans de Waal and Robert Sapolsky. 11. Mastrorosa, this volume, p. 92. 12. MacLachlan, this volume, p. 27. 13. Konstan, this volume, p. 143. 14. Harlow and Larsson Lovén, this volume, p. 150. 15. Centlivres Challet (2013).

Bibliography Beneker J. and Tsouvala G. (eds.) (2020) The Discourse of Marriage in the GrecoRoman World. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. Berg R. (ed.) (2016) The Material Sides of Marriage. Women and Domestic Economies in Antiquity. Rome: Institutum Romanum Finlandiae. Bielman Sánchez A. (ed.) (2019) Power Couples in Antiquity: Transversal Perspectives. London: Routledge. Boddice R. (2017) ‘The history of emotions: past, present, future’. Revista de Estudios Sociales 62, 10–15. Boddice R. (2018) The History of Emotions. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Boddice R. and Smail D. L. (2018) ‘Neurohistory’. In Burke P. and Tamm M. (eds.), Debating New Ideas in History. London: Bloomsbury, 301–325. Braund S. M. and Gill Ch. (eds.) (1997) The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cairns D. L. and Fulkerson L. (eds.) (2015) Emotions between Greece and Rome. BICS Supplement 125. London: Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Cairns D. L. and Nelis D. (2017) Emotions in the Classical World: Methods, Approaches, and Directions (HABES 59). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Campeggiani P. and Konstan D. (2019) ‘Emotions’. In Oxford Bibliographies in Classics. www.oxfordbibliographies.com/abstract/document/obo-9780195389661/ obo-9780195389661-0239.xml?rskey=rx6GIP#firstMatch (accessed on 19.03.2021). Cavalier O. (ed.) (1996) Silence et fureur: la femme et le mariage en Grèce. Avignon: Fondation du Muséum Calvet. Centlivres Challet C.-E. (2013) Like Man, Like Woman. Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century. Oxford: Peter Lang.

20  Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet Chaniotis A. (ed.) (2012) Unveiling Emotions: Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Chaniotis A. (ed.) (2021) Unveiling Emotions III: Arousal, Display, and Performance of Emotions in the Greek World. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Chaniotis A. and Ducrey P. (eds.) (2013) Unveiling Emotions II: Emotions in Greece and Rome: Texts, Images, Material Culture. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Hersch K. (ed.) (2019) A Cultural History of Marriage: Antiquity. London: Bloomsbury. Kaster R. A. (2005) Emotion, Restraint and Community in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Konstan D. (2006) The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Konstan D. (2015) ‘Affect and emotion in Greek literature’. In Oxford Handbooks Online. www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935390.001.0001/ oxfordhb-9780199935390-e-41?print=pdf (accessed on 19.03.2021). Konstan D. (2016) ‘Their emotions and ours: a single history?’ In Nagy P. and Boquet D. (eds.), Histoire intellectuelle des émotions, de l’Antiquité à nos jours. L’Atelier du Centre de Recherches Historiques 16. In Revue électronique du CRH. https://journals.openedition.org/acrh/6756 (accessed on 24.03.2021). Konstan D. (2018) In the Orbit of Love: Affection in Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. LaCourse Munteanu D. (ed.) (2013) Emotion, Genre and Gender in Classical Antiquity. London: Bloomsbury. Laiou A. E. (ed.) (1998) Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval Societies. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. Larsson Lovén L. and Strömberg A. (eds.) (2010) Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Plamper J. (2015) The History of Emotions: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rawson B. (ed.) (1991) Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome. Canberra: Humanities Research Centre; Oxford: Clarendon Press. Treggiari S. (1991) Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Vatin C. (1970) Recherches sur le mariage et la condition de la femme mariée à l’époque hellénistique. Paris: E. de Boccard. Vial C. and Vérilhac A.-M. (1998) Le mariage grec du VIe siècle av. J.-C. à l’époque d’Auguste. Athènes: Ecole française d’Athènes; Paris: E. de Boccard. von Ehrenheim H. and Prusac-Lindhagen M. (eds.) (2020) Reading Roman Emotions: Visual and Textual Interpretations. Stockholm: Svenska Institutet i Rom.

2

Mind the gap Evidence (?) for non-elite couples in the Hellenistic period Bonnie MacLachlan

Introduction When doing research about ancient Greece and Rome, we are accustomed to confronting gaps in the evidence, the result of the haphazard survival of texts and material remains. But there are other types of gaps that merit our attention. These are breaks in the continuity claimed by traditional historians who concentrated upon identifying overarching trends in their chronicles of events. This approach saw human activity as a connected series of incidents, and in many cases, it assumed a causal relationship between them. Herodotus’ introduction to The Histories (I.1–4) includes the claim that the wars in which Greeks engaged fell on a causal continuum reaching back to a series of abductions of mythical women. Thucydides inserted the competing imperialistic aims of Sparta and Athens in a sequence stretching back to the legendary Minos, king of Crete (History of the Peloponnesian War I.4). But wars, like natural disasters, are cataclysmic events, and the lives of the combatants and their communities are categorically changed by them. Ancient historians may have left us with a broadly continuous narrative, but within the stories they tell are disruptions, gaps. Focusing on these discontinuities can supply us with a fuller picture of past events.1 Undertaking a closer examination of these discontinuities comes with a cost, however. It is disquieting to discover departures from what is familiar in the historical record and difficult to resist the impulse to modify them to fit in a larger scheme. But working with a model of history that is dynamic rather than static can have its benefits. Nowhere are gaps/disruptions in a sequence more marked – and more productive – than in the Hellenistic period, when there was a major shift in Greek social norms with the weakening of Athenian influence around the Mediterranean.2 A further level of productive enquiry occurs when we focus on the Hellenistic non-elites, the subalterns, who in any culture can supply a narrative that dissents from the one supplied by the dominant class. I interrogate several types of evidence – material and textual – including visual representations, inscriptions, poetry, and Egyptian papyri to look at some departures from earlier historical patterns documenting the everyday DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-2

22  Bonnie MacLachlan lives of Greeks. An evaluative process will operate throughout this enquiry: to what degree can we trust the evidence in our possession to make truth claims about the lived reality of everyday (heterosexual) couples? Where our evidence supplies emotional content, how authentic is it? What is the fiduciary strength of our findings? In an attempt to answer these questions, the project will conclude with some further comments about taking a non-­ traditional approach to historical research.

Visual gaps For Greeks of the Hellenistic period, a dramatic gap emerged in their artistic preferences, a disruption of the Classical ideal that had preceded it. One dramatic and well-known example is the marble sculpture of a drunken old woman clutching a large wine jar, likely produced in the third century BCE and known only from Roman copies located in the Capitoline Museums in Rome and the Glyptothek in Munich.3 There is a marked difference between her and the elegant sculptures of women and goddesses a century earlier: she has nothing in common with the idealised female relief carvings on gravestones (stelai) in the Athenian Kerameikos or the perfectly proportioned and elegant sculpture of the ‘Crouching Aphrodite’ by Praxiteles. Our old woman has been grouped with other Hellenistic three-dimensional figures labelled ‘grotesques’ – hunchbacks, dwarfs, etc.4 Is this documentary evidence for a new interest in the nonelites, the unlovely? We could claim to see literary parallels to our haglike figure in some post-Classical examples drawn from both comedy and grave epigrams. Antipater of Sidon in the second half of the second century BCE composed an epigram for the tomb of ‘gray-haired Maronis’ on which was carved a wine cup. The text describes the woman lamenting not her bereft husband and children but the fact that the wine cup was empty (G-P XXVII = AP VII.353). Questions of genre must enter the discussion here. Such poems may be a legacy of the iambic tradition familiar from the poems of Archilochus and Hipponax during the Archaic period. The epigram of Antipater of Sidon is actually a paraphrase of one by the Hellenistic iambic poet Leonidas (G-P LXVII = AP VII.452). If we choose to include the sex-driven old women at the end of Aristophanes’ Ecclesiazousai as evidence for a new freedom to lampoon old women, we need to remember that they belong in the category of comic stock characters. The figure of our drunken old woman and her unlovely counterparts in sculpture and literature may indeed reflect a disruption in the Classical iconographic continuum, but when she is compared to texts, considerations of literary genre weaken our certainty that she represents a major shift in the Greek imaginary. In fact, she is a disruptive figure even within the apparently new public depiction of the non-elite. As Jane Masséglia pointed out, despite her haggard appearance, the woman is dressed in an expensive chiton, and her fingers are decorated with rings.5

Mind the gap 23 A double disruption of our expectations. By attending to such gaps, we may engage in a fruitful, if complex exercise. The focus of this chapter is on non-elite couples, and to some Hellenistic cracks in the documented veneer that had defined earlier Greek marriages I now turn. I will concentrate on various types of evidence where we find details that mark a departure from earlier models. In my quest for information about the class of non-elites, I acknowledge that ‘class’, like gender or ethnicity, is an unstable term, but I will select as my principal criterion those individuals who had limited access to power in their social setting.

Slaves Slave couples are certainly representative of the non-elite, but they fall into a category for which Greek evidence has been scanty. Given this, we are fortunate to have been supplied with a little information relevant to this quest from a few of the one thousand manumission inscriptions recorded at Delphi in the last two centuries BCE.6 Adopting the fiction that a manumission payment made by the slaves was, in fact, a dedication gift to Pythian Apollo, their masters and mistresses granted them two types of freedom, absolute and conditional. About one-third of the manumissions were conditional, obliging them to remain in service (paramoné) until the death of their masters. In the other two-thirds of the cases, the slaves were awarded full freedom, which cost them more. Because slave marriage was not recognised by law, it is difficult in most cases to identify slave couples among a group of manumissions. In only one inscription is it stated explicitly that a couple was freed together: Praxias son of Eudoxos of Delphi dedicates to Pythian Apollo the male slave whose name is Chrésimos, of Berutian Syrian origin, for the price of 5 mnai of silver, and his female partner Zoïs, of Syrian origin, for 4 ½ mnai of silver. [Praxias] has the full price from each of them, as Chrésimos and Zoïs entrusted the purchase-price to the god. (GDI 2183)7 That the official record in Delphi recognised the status of Zoïs as wife/ partner (gyné) is worth noting and might indicate an emerging shift in the attitude toward slave couples. There is no mention of paramoné here, and it appears that Praxias awarded the couple Chrésimos and Zoïs unconditional freedom. This master seems to have been so well-disposed towards them that he was prepared to acknowledge their relationship and release them together. In another inscription from the Delphic collection (GDI 1715), the reason for the manumission is clear: (the married) master and his slave had been a couple. Agamestor, son of Telestas, freed a Thracian slave named Zopyra and her two home-born sons for 7 mnai, to remain ‘free and un-enslaved’

24  Bonnie MacLachlan for the rest of their lives, but the three were to remain with him as long as he lived. While there are other inscriptions recording the freeing of a mother and her children, this one is unique in drawing attention to the fact that the children are the master’s own. Their names are Agamestor and Telestas, the names of the master and of his own father. This is a ‘coming out’ of a non-traditional family unit, clarified by the genealogical references. And the relationship is further confirmed by a later inscription (F.Delphes III.3.333) recording Agamestor’s will in which Zopyra and her sons were his heirs, albeit second to his wife. This singular example leads us to wonder how widespread such an arrangement might have been throughout the Greek world, but we have as yet no inscriptional comparanda. While the lack of a fuller context for each of these manumission inscriptions constitutes an information gap in our reading, this is perhaps not a fiduciary one. The texts exhibit no rhetorical force and have no connection to a genre such as oratory that would limit their authenticity.8 From the record of manumissions by the two masters cited above, we can infer with some confidence that in some cases there was an emotional bond between masters and slaves: Praxias’ act of manumission must have arisen from affection for the slave couple, and Agamestor felt free to make public his concubine relationship with his female slave, and she was rewarded even further by being designated as a beneficiary of her former master.

Sepulchral inscriptions In any community, the emotional bond between couples often surfaces most vividly when one of the partners dies. Hellenistic funerary epigrams and epitaphs reflect this, but as with the poem for the bibulous Maronis above, the texts might carry less fiduciary weight inasmuch as they belonged to a literary genre. At first glance, it is tempting to accept as real the conjugal feelings described in the epigram below, ascribed by Meleager to a poet named Diotimus.9 The poem records the sequential deaths of the couple: Crying for her much-lamented bridegroom Euagoras the son of Hegemachos, Skyllis the daughter of Polyainos went to those wide gates while still at (her nuptial) home. Nor did she, ill-starred widow, enter again her paternal household but she died after three months, most miserable, from a wasting wretched melancholy of spirit. This sad memorial of the love each had for the other stands beside a well-trodden road. (Meleager, Garland 1739–46 = G-P Diotimus V = AP VII.475) Many have observed that a new and defining feature of the Hellenistic period was the public expression of emotion. A romantic attraction between couples may, in fact, reflect a message deliberately spread by the Ptolemies.

Mind the gap 25 In their marriages, they were modelling a new concept of romantic love, one that (at least in the public record) had been denied or suppressed in Classical times.10 Hellenistic poets would be useful in disseminating this departure from an earlier, more restrained, ideal and may account for the emotionalism of our funerary epigram. Was it, then, an authentic account of a newlywed tragedy in which Euagoras’ death precipitated the decline and death of his bride? The last couplet seems to indicate a tight connection between the poem and an actual tomb inscription, and this is assumed by Gow and Page in their commentary.11 But the assumption has been challenged recently by Jon Bruss, who argues that the epigram is reminiscent of the world captured later by the romance novel.12 For Bruss, the insertion of patronymics constitutes an attempt to throw a touch of reality into the poem, while the description of the roadside location is a trope used elsewhere in Hellenistic epigrams. So do we have an epistemic gap here? One way to answer this question is to take into consideration the intended audience and how it may have influenced the text. The content of literary epigrams and epitaphs was crafted for a broad readership.13 Epitaphs were intended to be read aloud, often as performatives when the text invited a conversation with passers-by, and cemeteries could be competitive environments.14 In the Diotimus epigram, the fact that the purported tomb was beside a ‘well-trodden’ road makes it clear that the message would be generated in order to produce an emotional effect on many witnesses. This may indeed weaken the fiduciary strength that we are tempted to assign to the poem, while the description of Skyllis’ death fits comfortably into a wider rhetorical programme celebrating romantic love. Another funerary epitaph was inscribed in Cnidus during the first century BCE and seems at first glance to warrant more confidence as a reflection of an actual emotional bond between husband and wife. The inscription consists of four elegiac stanzas and is framed as a dialogue, with the first two and the last verses in the voice of the husband Theios, and the third in that of his departed wife Atthis. For you the stone chambers of this tomb I, Theios, built, Atthis, from whose hands I, twice your age, hoped to receive the dust. O cruel fate, for us both you have blotted out the sun. Atthis, you lived for me and in me left your last breath, once a source of happiness, now of tears; pure, much lamented, why do you sleep the mournful sleep? You who never moved your head from your husband’s chest, but now have deserted Theios, who is no more. For along with you my life’s hopes went to Hades. I did not drink of the Lethe, daughter of Hades, the final water, so that I might have the consolation of you, even among the dead.

26  Bonnie MacLachlan Theios, even more wretched, for cheated of your untainted marriage you weep for the widowing of our bedroom. This is the due of the purity of Atthis much-wept, neither equal to nor worthy of her virtue, but I have put up this monument forever bearing your name, while I, Theios, must continue to breathe for our child. And I will bear even this for your sake, and with miserable eyes look upon the cruel sun. (I.Knidos 303, 5–10, transl. Hanink (2010), 16) The quiet pathos here seems more authentic than the words crafted with excessive emotional strokes in the commemoration of Skyllis. But, as Johanna Hanink pointed out, the elegiac couplets in the Knidian inscription align it with Callimachean formal principles, complete with the preponderance of dactyls and bucolic diaeresis in the hexameters and its epic content, all of which suggest the work of a ‘highly competent and “literary” poet’. The focus of the poem is Theios’ grief, expressed by his claiming the extinction of his own life together with that of Atthis. Even the stanza awarded to her focuses on Theios, and the poem opens and closes with a direct reference to his gift of the stone burial chamber.15 The poetic inscription does not so much reveal the intensity of their relationship as it commemorates the man who commissioned it. However authentic the text, the extreme depiction of Theios’ grief and the explicit description of physical contact between them represent a striking disruption of earlier, conservative, Classical funerary practice, as noted by Angelos Chaniotis.16 But the intimacy was intended to be shared with a broad audience of admirers who passed by the grand tomb in the Knidian cemetery, an audience who could also admire the poetic skill in the text. This weakens our faith in this epigram considerably as an honest reflection of the couple’s relationship.

Papyrus documents More trustworthy are texts on papyri preserved in the sands of Egypt.17 Written by individuals or scribes on their behalf, the words we read in personal letters and petitions differ in two principal ways from funerary texts composed for spouses. There is no attempt to present the text in a literary format, and the audience is markedly different. When a wife composed a letter to her absent husband complaining about his ill-treatment of her, or when a woman’s letter was addressed to an official requesting redress for troubles she was suffering in her domestic situation, she was not motivated by its effect on the reading public. Although her scribe would have been privy to her words,18 along with the individual who delivered the letter or petition, any modification of its intent would likely have been minor. In her 2012 study of emotional content in Egyptian papyri, Chrysi Kotsifou reflected the view of many others that content from this medium comes

Mind the gap 27 directly to us ‘from the theatre of human experience’.19 There is, of course, always the possibility that the text we possess may have exaggerated or even fabricated the author’s emotion in order to manipulate the behaviour of the addressee, but this does not weaken it as a reflection of her psychological state nor does it deny the reality of an issue between a husband and wife. After the death of Alexander in 323 BCE and the installation of Ptolemy I as king of Egypt, Greek soldiers were encouraged to come to Egypt and protect the Greek presence. They were enticed by the offer of land and other privileges and were settled in garrisons throughout the country.20 Some brought their Greek wives but others married Egyptian women from the region where they had been posted. Gradually there evolved a considerable degree of cultural integration, where couples functioned within both Greek and Egyptian conventional and legal systems, and in many cases, this led to their adopting both Greek and Egyptian names.21 Thanks to the fact that some of these couples now drew up prenuptial/marriage contracts, we see that the greater autonomy enjoyed by Egyptian women often led to a weakening of the male-dominated structure of the previous Greek conjugal structure. The earliest surviving papyrus document we have of any kind is a marriage contract for a Greek couple stationed at the garrison in Elephantine (P.Eleph. I, 311/310 BCE).22 Here, we can see a lessening of the patriarchal structures that operated in fifth-century Athens: the traditional ceremony in which the father handed over his daughter to the groom (the ekdosis) became the responsibility of both the mother and father of the bride and instead of the bride’s moving to the house of the groom’s family the couple together would make the final decision about where they would live. Restrictions on the behaviour of each spouse were explicit, and if either one ignored them, the partners had equal access to a third party (three men) to arbitrate. Each had the right to keep a separate copy of the document with the ability to produce it should a need arise. This single document, drawn up a little more than a decade after the death of Alexander, draws attention to the gap between its contents and conventions in place for earlier generations of Greek married couples. In fifth-century Athens, the wives were subject to the decisions made by their guardian husbands, and the men (only) had free access to other sexual partners. But P.Eleph. I presents another gap: it is limited in the degree to which it provides us with a broad picture of Greek conjugal arrangements throughout the Ptolemaic kingdom. To date, we have only 141 surviving marriage contracts, subject as we are to the vagaries of discovering papyri, which provides us with a limited data set. We are fortunate that this one document provides the date, geographical location, and city of origin of the two families, but many of the other contracts are fragmentary. Their re-use as mummy cartonnage, along with tomb robbery, has dispersed the pieces around the world through the antique trade, and we face the same information gap about the social context as we did with the Delphic inscriptions.

28  Bonnie MacLachlan A second problem raised by P.Eleph. I is the difficulty of defining ‘nonelites’ in Hellenistic Egypt. This couple was considerably wealthy, as reflected by the size of the dowry (1000 dr) and the fine of the same amount that would be imposed upon the husband should he be found to have wronged his wife. Presumably, he served in a military rank that paid well. But even wealthy soldiers and their families in Ptolemaic Egypt had little direct access to power or assured privilege; this was in the hands of the royal family and their inner circle. The Ptolemies, anxious to prevent court factionalism or the development of a permanent elite, ensured that the immigrants’ possession of land allotments or other privileges was a contingent one and could be revoked at the whim of the court or when the original recipient died.23 This vulnerability and the limited agency of the Greek settlers in Egypt, whatever their economic and social status in the immediate community, gives us considerable latitude in selecting ‘non-elites’. The vulnerability is evident in a letter written in Alexandria by or for a Greek woman in 253 BCE. It belongs to a collection of 66 letters belonging to Kleon, who was serving as an engineer and chief architect for both Ptolemy II and III and was responsible for irrigation and drainage works in the Fayoum. His wife Metrodora wrote six letters to her husband, most of which are fragmentary owing to the fact that they were torn for use as mummy cartonnage.24 In P.Petr. III 42h [8], we have sufficient text to recognise Metrodora’s grave concern for the safety of her husband because she learned from royal hunters that he had incurred the anger of the king. Answering her husband’s call to come to him in the Fayoum, she says that, although she would in other circumstances drop everything and join him, now she is too fearful of the consequences of his having incurred royal disfavour. Some letters preserved on papyri supply us with a snapshot of marriages in Hellenistic Egypt that are in a dramatic way at variance with those elsewhere in the Greek world: it seems clear that full siblings could become husband and wife. This was a practice that seems to have developed slowly among the Greeks in the second century BCE and would later be tolerated by the Romans for the Greek population until it was forbidden by the Constitutio Antoniana in 212 CE.25 It is often difficult to confirm that an address to ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ in these letters actually refers to a full sibling, as the terms were used loosely in Egypt to refer to other family members. In a letter written in 136 BCE, however, a man refers to his wife in terms that make it clear she was also his sister. Dionysius is writing to his banker Polemon in Tebtunis on behalf of his wife Euterpe, asking him to advance the amount of tax due on a vineyard, which would otherwise have to be sold. The text is fragmentary, but the first sentence contains the following: Dionysius to Polemon greeting. (…) I asked you to pay on behalf of Euterpe daughter of Dionysius, my sister and wife, for the portion owed to the gods from the vineyard at Oxyrhyncha (…). (P.Tebt. III 1766)

Mind the gap 29 Dionysius’ referring to Euterpe explicitly as both sister and wife26 is strong evidence for their sibling relationship, and the claim is strengthened by his referring to his wife’s father as ‘Dionysius’, the same name that he carried. The practice of sibling marriage may have spread after 276 BCE when Ptolemy II Philadelphus married his full sister Arsinoë. The wedding was celebrated by Theocritus, who compared it to that of Zeus and Hera (Idyll XVII.121–34). Some modern readers see the practice in Egypt as a plausible extension of the endogamy practised earlier in Greece (e.g. between daughters who were the family’s sole offspring (epikleroi) and their uncles27) and the acceptance, since Solon, of Greek marriages between half-siblings who shared a father.28 This letter provides us with documentary evidence about surprising new possibilities for Greek couples in Hellenistic Egypt. But the transplanting of Greeks to this country led not only to different marital conventions but to new tensions between married couples. The following is an excerpt from a petition composed by a Greek woman from Magdola, in the Fayoum district. It is dated May 11th, 218 BCE, and consists of a request to the king to act through local officials and address the fact that she feels ill-treated by her husband. The situation is precipitated by the fact that she is Greek and her husband Jewish: Greetings to King Ptolemy from Helladoté, daughter of Philonides. He has agreed by a written contract [in accordance with the civic law] of the Jews to keep me [as wife]. Now he wants to renounce [and claims] 100 drachmas, but also the house. He does not give me what belongs to me and shuts me out of my house (…) and absolutely wrongs me in every respect. (P.Enteux. 23, transl. Modrezejewski (1995), 111, with minor modifications) Helladoté was caught between two cultures. There was no universal legal code in Egypt, and Greek immigrants found themselves living among a diverse array of residents in addition to native Egyptians: non-citizen Greeks, Jews and other Semites, Africans, and a variety of Arabic-speaking peoples. Sometimes, as here, a Greek resident attempted to appeal to Greek law to override restrictions put in place by another group. At the time Helladoté composed her letter, there was a sizable Jewish population in the country, dating back to a military colony established under the Persian empire in the fifth century. She had been married to her husband under Jewish law, which permitted a husband to ‘repudiate’ his wife, initiating a divorce in keeping with the Torah (Deuteronomy 24.1). But she now appeals to the king on the basis of Greek marriage customs as they had developed in Egypt, borrowing from Egyptian tradition a basic equality between husband and wife, reflected by her petitioning the king in her own name. Some Greek marriage contracts drawn up in Egypt made it clear that a couple was

30  Bonnie MacLachlan not following Jewish custom by stating that the husband promised not to repudiate his wife. In this case, without having the official’s reply, we do not know how Helladoté fared with her petition – an information gap. When we find emotions running high in personal letters, we are tempted to feel we are engaging directly with the real lives of couples in Hellenistic Egypt. The drama was not intended for the public but for a single individual, and it is easy to believe that we are eavesdropping on one half of an actual conversation. Two such letters were written to their husbands by disgruntled wives. The first was written on August 29, 168 BCE. This was just one month after the Seleucid king Antiochus was forced to depart from Egypt after having seized control of most of the country in the previous two years. The letter in question was written for Isias by her brother-in-law to be delivered to her husband Hephaistion, a soldier who had likely been dispatched earlier to battle against the invading forces with Antiochus. At some point, Hephaistion stopped at the temple of Serapis in Memphis, where he had been ‘detained’.29 When Isias learns that he had been freed from detention, she requests that he come home immediately. Isias to her brother Hephaistion,30 greetings. If this letter finds you well and with other things going right, it would be as I continuously pray to the gods; and I myself am well, and the child, and all those in your household, who continually remember you. When I received your letter from Horos, in which you announce that you are in detention in the Serapeion in Memphis, for the news that you are well I straightaway thanked the gods; but about your not coming home, when all the others who had been detained there have come, I am ill-pleased, because after having piloted myself and your child through such bad times and been driven to every extremity owing to the price of wheat, I thought that now at least, once you got home, I would enjoy some rest. But you have not even thought about coming home, nor given any regard to our situation, how I was in want of everything even while you were still here, not to mention this long lapse of time and such crises, during which you have sent us nothing. Moreover, since Horos, who delivered the letter, reported that you have been released from detention, I am thoroughly disgusted. Nonetheless, since your mother also is distressed, please both for her sake and for ours return to the city, if nothing more pressing holds you back. You will please me by taking care of your body so as to be healthy. Go hang! (ʼˊɛρρωσο) (UPZ I 59, transl. Bagnall and Cribiore (2006), no. 111, apart from the final salutation) Roger S. Bagnall and Raffaella Cribiore have identified the principal scribal hand here as that of Dionysius, brother of Hephaistion and author of a second

Mind the gap 31 letter found at the Serapeion (UPZ I 60), which corroborated Isias’ description of the straits to which the family had been reduced in Hephaistion’s absence and reinforced the urgency of the need for him to return. Bagnall and Cribiore drew attention to interlinear additions, suggesting that these reflected Isias’ emotional frustration and added the suggestion that Isias herself wrote the concluding hostile farewell.31 We are glimpsing here the work of a strong woman, and the revisions indicate Isias’ determination to send a text that would have the maximum impact on her husband.32 The deliberate and careful construction of her letter was noted by Cribiore, who comments on its formal qualities, with a ‘juxtaposition of well-balanced phrases that appear to be a trademark of a woman who, in her own words, had learned to steer herself and her child through crises.’33 Isias’ sense of agency is a departure from the modesty (sophrosyne) expected of Greek wives in the Archaic and Classical periods.34 There, we have little evidence for women protesting ill-treatment by their husbands or first-hand statements from them about managing to navigate difficult family situations on their own. A second letter in which a wife berates her husband for lack of concern for her – and another in which the wife may have added an angry postscript – was written in 127 BCE, possibly in Alexandria. Dionysia belonged to ‘those ’ among the baggage’ (οιʽ ε’ν  αποσκευ˛ η˜ ), a term used for families of the Greek soldiers who had immigrated to Egypt. As such, these Greek military families were entitled to some protection as they jostled for space and opportunity in their new home (P.Hal. I 124–165).35 Like other privileges for Ptolemaic Greek immigrants, however, these privileges were contingent, as is clear in the following letter. Dionysia’s husband Theon had gone upriver on military duty with a comrade named Marsyas, but when he had taken on other private business, the protection she had enjoyed as a soldier’s wife was no longer in place. Dionysia to Theon her guardian, greetings and health. I myself am well. I continually keep the best remembrance of you for all good, and I pray to the gods that I may receive you healthy in many ways, because you both rescued us from enemies and again left us and went away against enemies. Then, as you instructed me to carry out and sell the unnecessary goods, when I brought out the mattress36 Neon laid hands on it in the agora, and with no ordinary violence seized it. It was judged for me that I had the right, since you were absent rather than present, to petition the presiding official in the city. But when he appeared with me, after he had done such awful things to me, it was decided that it [the mattress] should be sealed up and lie in the office of the chief magistrate until you should appear. For he said that you were not on military duty and I was not military household, but that you had sailed upriver because of work and your embarkation was not on royal orders. I have been anxious to no ordinary degree because Marsyas sent a letter, but you have written nothing to me. Still, you will give me pleasure

32  Bonnie MacLachlan even now if you write back about yourself how things are, so that I may be free of anxiety, please. Take care of yourself, so that I may embrace you in good health. Greet Marsyas and Ammonios. Aline and her children greet you. Farewell. Year 44, Phaophi 5. Above all, I bid you remember how you left me in the lurch, alone like the dogs, and you did not abide by what you exhorted. Even now, then, remember us.37 Deliver to Theon from Dionysia. (P.Bad. IV 48, transl. Bagnall and Cribiore (2006), 107 with minor modifications) Bagnall and Cribiore noted that the scribal hand in this letter showed ‘signs of stress and unevenness’, and saw the final (hostile) message, written in a much smaller and tighter hand, as an addition inserted as an afterthought – a postscript that was ‘tucked in awkwardly’.38 The emotional thrust in this correspondence is unmistakeable. Without her husband’s presence and the protection his military status would have provided to her, Dionysia was defenceless in the scuffle with Neon; in addition, she resented the fact that she had not received a letter from him, although one had come from Theon’s military buddy Marsyas. These two letters offer us a direct display of women’s voices of marital frustration. But wives in a troubled marriage could also be accused of inflicting harm. Maryline Parca has assembled documentary evidence for instances where some women in Ptolemaic Egypt were not only victims of violence but capable of inflicting it as well.39 That marriages in Egypt (as elsewhere) could be tension-ridden is not surprising. In circa 47 BCE, a woman wrote to her father-in-law asking for money because her husband had left her and their daughter and was now living with another woman (BGU VIII 1848). In some cases, the marital disputes were addressed publicly, as attested by a Ptolemaic epitaph inscribed in hieroglyphs for an Egyptian woman named Talthotis. Among the many accomplishments, she claims for herself is ‘sending women back to the houses of their husbands’.40 Of particular concern, within and outside marriage in the Hellenistic period, was the fear that women would employ magic to control the behaviour of men who were their partners or objects of their erotic desire. Familiar Hellenistic literary examples include Simaitha in Theocritus’ Idyll II and the portrait of Medea in Book III of Apollonius’ Argonautica. (The archetypal sorcerer/seductress is, of course, Calypso in Odyssey 7.) The perception of this female activity as a real threat is reflected in a marriage oath taken by a woman named Thaïs in Oxyrhynchus during the second or first century BCE, from which the following is taken: I will not be together with any other man, in the way of women, except with you, nor shall I prepare harmful drugs/love-charms against you,

Mind the gap 33 whether in your beverages or in your food, nor shall I connive with any man who will do you (harm) on any pretence. (PSI I 64, transl. Rowlandson (1998), no. 55)41

Curses Thaïs’ oath reflects a general fear at the time that women’s use of herbs could be employed for magical purposes, directing men’s erotic desire or punishing it by poisoning, as suggested in this text by the combination of the words ‘drugs’ and ‘love-charms’ (φάρμακα φίλτρα) followed by ‘doing harm’ (κακοποιά). Women in antiquity had recourse to other means of inflicting injury on others. One that was widely employed throughout the Greek and Roman world was the use of inscribed tablets (commonly made of lead) that contained a curse.42 These were routinely buried in wells, graves of the untimely dead, and sanctuaries of chthonic gods, with the intention of invoking underworld power to punish an offender. A lead curse tablet roughly contemporary with the record of Thaïs’ oath43 was found in a Knidian sanctuary dedicated to Demeter and other chthonic gods. On it were written the words ‘I dedicate to Demeter and Kore the one who accused me of using poisons against my husband’ (I.Knidos 150 = DT Aud 4). The tablet, dated to circa 100 BCE, is one of thirteen excavated in the sanctuary by Charles T. Newton.44 They were perforated at the top, and Newton argued that they were intended to be hung in the temple to be available for public viewing. If so, the curse could have been prepared with a broader audience in mind, and we are presented with words whose principal aim was not only to silence her accuser.45 But Newton’s claim has since been challenged by Hank Versnel, who pointed out that the perforation could have been for a nail, used here as elsewhere to secure the lead tablets when they were rolled up.46 If this curse was a private communication between the Knidian woman and Demeter/Kore, we could assume with some confidence that we are witnessing the angry words of a wife who feels wrongly accused and feels she has the right to clear her name by turning over the offender to divinity for retribution. Curses composed for/by women provided the author with the means for addressing a perceived injustice.47 Most of what we know of the legal process in the Classical period excluded women from direct access. In rituals for Demeter, however, restraints on women were lifted temporarily, and they were free to engage in scurrilous speech (aischrologia)48 that could easily have led to angry accusations against others. By the second century BCE, the accusations that were shared with Demeter and other chthonic gods on curse tablets were not understood as temporary, however, and women plaintiffs took advantage of the ritual licence to enlist divine power for getting even, as the targeted individual was consecrated to (i.e. became the responsibility of) the gods. As private missives like the letters of Isias and Dionysia, these curses carry significant fiduciary strength.

34  Bonnie MacLachlan

Conclusion In this overall scrutiny of the above documentation, we are justified in being cautious in drawing conclusions, however. Not all ‘evidence’ is equal, as ancient historians knew.49 Herodotus, in his Histories makes it clear at the outset that he endeavoured to acquire his data through personal enquiry, not hearsay (1.1). Thucydides was determined to record as accurately as possible the speeches he quoted, refusing to embellish his text for the sake of pleasing his readers (History of the Peloponnesian War 1.21.1–2, 22). Polybius criticises his forbears for being biased and likens authors of historical accounts devoid of truth to someone stripped of their eyesight, incapacitated (The Histories 1.14). Diodorus claims to have travelled for 30 years to support his record with autopsy (Historical Library 1.4.1). In assessing the authenticity of the material addressing couples that is examined above, we need to ascertain whether there is a degree of rhetorical hyperbole or literary polish that was added to impress a broader public. This could taint an otherwise documentary-like presentation of their relationship, as seems to have been the case in the epigram for Atthis. Where there is no such embellishment – on the manumission records, on curse tablets, or in Ptolemaic letters and petitions – their epistemic strength is greater.50 The Hellenistic texts offered above expose gaps or disruptions in the pattern of life experienced earlier by Greek married couples in the Classical period. These gaps engage our attention and provoke us to ask why. But despite our scrutiny, a satisfactory answer eludes us. Information gaps persist, leaving us with insufficient evidence for drawing credible conclusions and designing a new historical pattern. For inscriptions such as the Delphic manumissions, sepulchral epitaphs, or curse tablets, we lack a context. How widespread was the freeing of slaves in Greece or the consideration given to slave couples in the second and first centuries BCE? Did the framing of manumission as a dedication to Pythian Apollo arise suddenly at this time? If so, why? About the actual married lives of Skyllis or Atthis, we know nothing, and words on their tombstones tell us little. And with both inscriptions and papyrus texts we face gaps because of lacunose texts – ‘composing history from square brackets’, in the words of Ernst Badian.51 In the curses, there are no epistemic gaps in determining the source of their emotional content, but we lack a broader context. Was the cursed offender punished? With the papyrus letters, we have only the women’s half of the communication and do not know the reaction of the men to their epistolary dressing-down. Still, with all of the documents considered above, we are in the privileged position of possessing a considerable amount of specific information about some non-elite Hellenistic couples. But we must ask ourselves to what degree this is doing ‘history’. As a historical record, is it any stronger than a collection of disparate anecdotes? If so, we cannot claim to be compiling a record. But there is an alternative view. ‘Microhistory’ has become an acceptable approach among some current historians52 and can challenge traditional

Mind the gap 35 ways of describing cultures by highlighting disruptions. Arthur Verhoogt, a papyrologist at the University of Michigan, has coined an apt metaphor for this activity: it is like glimpsing through a keyhole into a lit room beyond: we see a great deal about a very small area of the room but have no access to the rest of the space.53 It is possible that if many keyhole glimpses become available eventually, we will acquire an aggregate sufficient to fill the gaps. But until then, at least in doing microhistory, the narrow scope of our enquiry expands our sense that we are capturing a moment that matters.

Notes







1. Michel Foucault in 1972 first drew attention to the advantages of focusing on a misfit within a historical paradigm that assumed events would follow each other in a continuous arc. 2. With the Greek diaspora following the conquests of the Macedonian King Philip II and his son Alexander the Great Athenian influence was lessened significantly. When Greeks moved to other centres around the Mediterranean their social and political structures evolved in response to a new cultural context. Marriage patterns and the role of women, for example, changed as a result of the loosening of control by the polis-state. Specific examples follow in the text. 3. For a discussion of the figure see Masséglia (2012), 413–430. 4. Fowler (1989), 71. 5. Masséglia (2012), 416, suggests there may be ritual overtones. The wine-jug is decorated with ivy motifs suggesting a connection to Dionysos. 6. The texts recording the manumissions were inscribed on polygonal stones used in a retaining wall along the road to the temple of Apollo. These are discussed by Hopkins (1978, Ch. 3) and Tucker (1982). ’ 7. αʼ πέδοτο Πραξίας Εύδόκου Δελφóς τω˜ι ’Aπόλλωνι τω˜ι Πυθίωι σω˜μα ανδρει ˜ον ’ ’ νομα Χρήσιμος τò γένος Σύρον Βηρύτιον, τιμα˜ ς αργυρίου μνα˜ ν πέντε, ω˜’ ι ó ’ και΄ τὰ ν γυναɩ ̴κα αυʼτου’ Ζωΐδα τò γένος Σύραν, τιμα˜ ς αργυρίου μνα˜ ν τεττάρων καιˋ ἡμιμναίου, καιˋ τὰ ν τιμὰ ν ʼέχει πα˜ σαν παρ’ ɛʽ κατέρων, καθω ˋς ʼ´ τω˜ι θεω˜ι τὰ ν ω˜’ νὰ ν. (GDI 2183) I have drawn ɛʼ πίστευει Χρήσιμος καιˋ Ζ ωις attention to the use of a Greek word that was used for ‘wife’ by highlighting the phrase in bold. Where I work with Greek texts unless otherwise specified the translations are my own. 8. The orators’ rhetorical style aimed foremost at persuasion and cannot be regarded as documentary evidence, but we may nonetheless collect some trustworthy information about slave couples from incidental references. In Demosthenes 47.55–56, for example, we learn that the plaintiff’s nurse had been married to a man freed by the plaintiff’s father. When she became a widow she returned to the house in which she had been enslaved and was cared for in her old age. 9. I assume that tomb inscriptions in a literary form would have been commissioned, not authored, by the bereaved, without proof to the contrary. 10. See Carney (2013), 97–99 on the projection of the image initiated by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and Gutzwiller (1992), 367–368. 11. Gow and Page (1965), 275. 12. Bruss (2005), 76–79. A general discussion is found in his Chapter 4. 13. A reminder of this is found in Chaniotis (2012), 94. 14. Chaniotis (2012), 101, 109.

36  Bonnie MacLachlan 15. Hanink also notes (2010), 19, that in the last stanza Theios does not respond to his wife’s lament. 16. Chaniotis (2012), 109, 121. 17. Many of these documents were found in isolation, but others were found in collections of private letters, business papers, etc. assembled by individuals and kept in family ‘archives’. One such archive contained circa 2000 texts, belonging to Zenon, a business agent for Apollonios who was the finance minister of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Further on the Zenon archive see Maryline Parca in this volume. 18. The scribe may have modified the petition with a view to improving the woman’s chances of persuading the official. See below, n.50. 19. Kotsifou (2012), 41, with n.8. 20. Thompson (2006), 101; Rowlandson (2003), 251–259. 21. Coussement (2016). 22. For more on this document see Maryline Parca in this volume. 23. For a discussion of this limited agency see Rowlandson (2007), 39–45. 24. The collection of the 66 letters directly concerning Kleon in this family archive was the subject of a study by Van Beek (2009) recently updated to incorporate new papyri finds (2017). Kleon’s record is also discussed by Lewis (1986), 37–45, with a translation of this letter on p. 44. Maryline Parca in this volume presents the letter, highlighting the effect on Metrodora of the engineer’s loss of royal favour and the way in which her words reflect the caring nature of their relationship. 25. The subject has been widely discussed. See, for example, Shaw (1992), Bagnall and Frier (1994), 127–134 with a bibliography on p. 127 (n.62), Ager (2005), Huebner (2007), 21–49, Remijsen and Clarysse (2008), 53–61, Rowlandson and Takahashi (2009), Bagnall and Cribiore (2006), 85–87. 26. Διονύσιος Πολέμω[νι] χαίρειν (…). ηʼξίωσα δɛˋ διαγράψαι υʽ πɛˋρ Ευʼτέρπης Διονυ(σίου) τη˜ς ἀδελφη˜ς μου καɩ̀ γυναικòς εɩʼς τηˋνα̕ πόμοραν του˜ ε’ν  ’Oξυ(ρύγχοις). Once again, I have highlighted vocabulary I consider significant. 27. Modrezejewski (2005), 351. 28. Modrezejewski (2005), 350, and Rowlandson and Takahashi (2009), 107; Alexandrian law permitted it (P.Oxy. III 477). 29. For a discussion of this letter see Thompson (20122), 214–215. According to her, the institution of κατοχή in a temple likely refers to the religious detention by a god following an omen or sign, and involved some sort of self-dedication by the detainee (ibid., 202). In this case the detainee Hephaistion may have found that temple protection during the war was to be desired. 30. With the reference to ‘your’ mother in the text of the letter it is clear that the couple were not (at least) full siblings. 31. Bagnall and Cribiore (2006), 112. 32. With her brother-in-law as scribe it would seem that Isias’ words prevailed. (See note 18 above.) 33. Cribiore (2001), 91 with n.65. 34. The earlier Greek ideal of sophrosyne in a modest, restrained and well-behaved wife was presented by the Archaic poet Semonides (7W) in a fable-like poem that contrasts the hard-working and pure bee-wife with other lascivious and dirty animal-spouses. 35. On the application of this term and privileges allotted to those ‘in the baggage-train’ (οɩʽ ɛʼν α̕ ποσκευ˛η˜) see Pomeroy (1984), 100–102. 36. Bagnall and Cribiore point out (2006), 108, that the object of the fight – ‘something to sleep on’ (ɛ’γκοιμήτρον) – is usually translated as ‘mattress’ but could equally refer to Dionysia’s bed.

Mind the gap 37 37. The last phrase, καὶ ɛ’ν οιʽ˜ς παρακάλεις ου̕κ ɛ’νέμεινας might make better sense if παρακάλεις is rendered not as ‘exhort’ but by ‘comfort’ or ‘console’, to reflect Dionysia’s feelings of betrayal even more intensely. 38. Bagnall and Cribiore (2006), 107. 39. Parca (2002). 40. Rowlandson (1998), no. 272. ʼˊ ˋ [ν] 41. καὶ ου̕θενὶ αλλωι [αʼ]νθρώπων σ[υ]νέσεθαι κατά γυναικει˜ον τρόπον πλη σου̃, μηδεˋ ποι[ή]σειν ειʼˊς σε φάρμακα φίλτρα μηδεˋ κακοποια ˋ μήτε ɛ’ν ποτοι˜ς μήτε ɛ’ν βρωτοι˜ς, μηδεˋ συνιστορήσειν μηδενɩ’ ποιήσοντι παρευρέσει η’ τινιου̃ν. Rowlandson’s translation reflects the possibility that φάρμακα can indicate a sinister quality of the drugs. On ‘erotic pharmacology’, see Versnel (1991), 220–221. For a fuller discussion of Thaïs’ oath see Maryline Parca in this volume. 42. For an overview of the widespread use of curses see Eidenow (2007), Ch. 7. 43. On the affinity between the oath and this curse tablet, and the male anxiety it reflects, see Faraone (1999), 113–114. 44. Newton (1863), 375–426. They were recorded as 1–13 in DT Aud. All are by women, and on three of the 13 a woman’s curse was directed at someone who had charged her with planning to poison a man. Curse tablets could also be composed out of jealousy. On another tablet a woman curses a woman who seduced her husband away from her (DT Aud 5). 45. By posting it she could be engaging in an act of self-defence, a proclamation of her innocence. Even if the tablet was not hung for public viewing but instead buried underground there is still the possibility that she was guilty and hoping to clear her name. The possibility is remote, however, for she would have been conscious of engaging infernal powers who would not deal kindly with a dishonest votary. 46. Versnel (1991), 80. 47. On the quasi-judicial nature of curses see Versnel (1991), 72–75, with a discussion of the Knidian tablets and the effect of ‘consecrating’ an offender to the gods. Similar curse tablets were uncovered in the Demeter sanctuary in Corinth (see Versnel (1991), 99 for a bibliography). For more discussion on curses see Eidenow (2007), 139–155, 206–224. 48. Several ancient sources give an account of the unbridled speech and actions at Demeter festivals, including Apollodorus, Library 1.5.1, Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library 5.4.7, and a commentator on Lucian’s Dialogue of the Courtesans 7.4.12–27. 49. For an account of the ‘countless individual acts of writerly decisions’ taken by ancient historians see Pitcher (2009). 50. We need to read petitions with greater caution, however. They do not provide us with documentary evidence, because in framing a narrative about a perceived injustice the plaintiff is framing the event or situation in a way that is crafted and calculated for a desired effect. On ‘narrative transformations’ of incidents of violence or suffering see Bryen (2013), Ch. 4. Where we seem to have direct input from plaintiffs – as in the two letters discussed above – we may be closer to having an accurate view of the tension within the respective marriages. 51. Badian (1989). 52. Todd Hickey (2009), 507–508 distinguishes doing microhistory from collecting anecdotes, and argues for the validity of the latter. 53. Verhoogt (2017), 103. Verhoogt 132 points out that with the Ptolemaic ‘archives’ we can fill in some of the context for individual papyrus texts. These archives contained documents collected by several family members sometimes over several generations, and included legal documents, letters, and other material.

38  Bonnie MacLachlan

Bibliography Abbreviations AP VII

Paton W. R. (ed.) (1960) The Greek Anthology (Anthologia Palatina). London: W. Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bagnall and Cribiore Bagnall R. and Cribiore R. with contributions by Ahtaridis E. (eds.) (2006) Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt 300 BC–AD 800. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. BGU Schubart W. and Schäfer D. (eds.) (1933) Spätptolemäische Papyri aus amtlichen Büros des Herakleopolites. Vol. VIII. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. DT Aud Audollent A. (1904) (ed.) Defixionum Tabellae. Paris: Fontemoing. F.Delphes Daux G. et al. (eds.) (1922–) Fouilles de Delphes. Paris: Éditions de Boccard. GDI Bechtel F. et al. (eds.) (1884–1915) Sammlung der griechischen Dialekt- Inschriften. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. G-P Gow A. S. F. and Page D. (eds.) (1965) The Greek Anthology. Hellenistic Epigrams I and II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. I.Knidos Blümel W. (ed.) (1992–) Die Inschriften von Knidos. Bonn: Habelt. JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies. JRS Journal of Roman Studies. P.Bad. Bilabel F. (ed.) (1924) Veröffentlichungen aus den badischen Papyrus-Sammlungen IV. Griechische Papyri. Heidelberg: C. Winter. P.Eleph. Rubensohn O. (ed.) (1907) Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin: Griechische Urkunden, Sonderheft. Elephantine-Papyri. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. P.Enteux. Guéraud O. (ed.) (1931–1932) Requêtes et plaintes adressées au roi d’Égypte au IIIe siècle avant J.-C. Le Caire: Imprimerie de l’institut français d’archéologie orientale. P.Hal. Dikaiomata: Auszüge aus alexandrinischen Gesetzen und Verordnungen in einem Papyrus des Philologischen Seminars der Universität Halle. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung.

Mind the gap 39 P.Oxy. P.Petr. PSI

P.Tebt. Rowlandson UPZ I ZPE

Grenfell B. P and Hunt A. S. (eds.) (1903) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Vol. III. London: The Egypt Exploration Society in Graeco-Roman Memoirs. Smyly J. G., Mahaffy, J. P. and Petrie W. M. F. (eds.) (1891–1905) The Flinders Petrie Papyri. Dublin: Academy House. Vitelli G. and Norsa M. (eds.) (1912) Papiri greci e latini. (Pubblicazioni della Società Italiana per la ricerca dei papiri greci e latini in Egitto). Vol. I. Firenze: Enrico Ariani. Grenfell B. P., Hunt A. S. and Smyly J. G. (eds.) (1902–) The Tebtunis Papyri. London: Frowde. Rowlandson J. (1998) Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt. A Sourcebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilcken U. (ed.) (1927) Urkunden der Ptolemäerzeit (ältere Funde) I Papyri aus Unterägypten. Berlin und Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik.

References Ager S. (2005) ‘Familiarity breeds: incest and the Ptolemaic dynasty’. JHS 125, 1–34. Badian E. (1989) ‘History from “square brackets”’. ZPE 79, 59–70. Bagnall R. S. and Cribiore R., with contributions by Ahtaridis E. (eds.) (2006) Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt 300 BC–AD 800. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Bagnall, R. S. and Frier B. W. (1994) The Demography of Roman Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruss J. S. (2005) Hidden Presences. Monuments, Gravesites, and Corpses in Greek Funerary Epigram. Leuven, Paris, and Dudley, MA: Peeters. Bryen A. Z. (2013) Violence in Roman Egypt. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Carney E. (2013) Arsinoe of Egypt and Macedon. A Royal Life. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Chaniotis A. (ed.) (2012) Unveiling Emotions in the Greek World: Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World I. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Cribiore R. (2001) Gymnastics of the Mind. Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Coussement S. (2016) ‘Because I am Greek’. Polyonymy as an Expression of Identity in Ptolemaic Egypt. Leuven: Peeters. Eidenow E. (2007) Oracles, Curses, and Risk Among the Ancient Greeks. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Faraone C. A. (1999) Ancient Greek Love Magic. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Foucault M. (1972) The Archaeology of Knowledge (transl. A. M. Sheridan Smith). London: Tavistock Publications.

40  Bonnie MacLachlan Fowler B. H. (1989) The Hellenistic Aesthetic. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. Gow A. S. F. and Page D. L. (eds.) (1965) The Greek Anthology. Hellenistic Epigrams I and II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gutzwiller K. (1992) ‘Callimachus’ lock of Berenice: fantasy, romance, and propaganda’. AJPh 113, 359–385. Hanink J. (2010) ‘The epitaph for Atthis: a Hellenistic poem on stone’. JHS 130, 15–34. Hickey T. M. (2009) ‘Writing histories from the papyri’. In Bagnall R. S. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 495–520. Huebner S. (2007) ‘“Brother-sister” marriage in Roman Egypt: a curiosity of humankind or a widespread family strategy?’. JRS 97, 21–49. Hopkins K. (1978) Conquerors and Slaves. Sociological Studies in Roman History I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kotsifou C. (2012) ‘Emotions and papyri: insights into the theatre of human experience in antiquity’. In Chaniotis A. (ed.), Unveiling Emotions in the Greek World: Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World I. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 39–90. Lewis N. (1986) Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt. Case Studies in the Social History of the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Masséglia J. (2012) ‘“Reasons to be cheerful”: conflicting emotions in the drunken old women of Munich and Rome’. In Chaniotis A. (ed.), Unveiling Emotions in the Greek World: Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World I. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 413–431. Modrezejewski J. M. (1995) The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian. Philadelphia and Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society. Modrezejewski J. M. (2005) ‘Greek law in the Hellenistic period: family and marriage’. In Gagarin M. and Cohen D. (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 328–354. Newton C. T. (1863) A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidae I. London: Day and Son. Parca M. (2002) ‘Violence by and against women in documentary papyri from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt’. In Melaerts H. and Mooren L. (eds.), Le rôle et le statut de la femme en Égypte hellénistique, romaine et byzantine. Actes du colloque international, Bruxelles-Louvain, 27–29 novembre 1997. Studia Hellenistica 37. Leuven, Paris and Sterling, VA: Peeters, 283–296. Pitcher L. (2009) Writing Ancient History. An Introduction to Ancient Historiography. London: Tauris. Pomeroy S. B. (1984) Women in Hellenistic Egypt. From Alexander to Cleopatra. New York: Schocken Books. Remijsen S. and Clarysse W. (2008) ‘Incest or adoption? Brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt revisited’. JRS 98, 53–61. Rowlandson J. (1998) Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt. A Sourcebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowlandson J. (2003) ‘Town and country in Ptolemaic Egypt’. In Erskine A. (ed.), A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 249–263. Rowlandson J. (2007) ‘The character of Ptolemaic aristocracy. Problems of definition and evidence’. In Rajak T., Pearce S., Aitken, J. and Dines J. (eds.), Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 29–49.

Mind the gap 41 Rowlandson, J. and Takahashi R. (2009) ‘Brother-sister marriage and inheritance strategies in Greco-Roman Egypt’. JRS 99, 104–139. Shaw B. (1992) ‘Explaining incest: brother-sister marriage in Greco-Roman Egypt’. Man 27, 267–299. Thompson D. (2006) ‘The Hellenistic family’. In Bugh G. R. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 93–112. Thompson D. (20122, 1st ed. 1988) Memphis Under the Ptolemies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tucker C. W. (1982) ‘Women in the manumission inscriptions at Delphi’. TAPA 112, 225–236. Van Beek B. (2009) ‘“We too are in good health”. The private correspondence from the Kleon archive’. Faces of Hellenism. Studies in the history of the eastern Mediterranean (4th century B.C.–5th century A.D. Studia Hellenistica 48, 147–159. Van Beek B. (2017) The Archive of the Architektones Kleon and Theodoros. Collectanea Hellenistica 7. Leuven: Peeters. Verhoogt A. (2017) Discarded, Discovered, Collected: The University of Michigan Papyrus Collection. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Versnel H. (1991) ‘Beyond cursing: the appeal to justice in judicial prayers’. In Faraone C. A. and Obbink D. (eds.), Magika Hiera. Ancient Greek Magic and Religion. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 60–106.

3

From ideal to reality Married couples on Hellenistic inscribed grave epigrams1 Charlotte Golay

Introduction Throughout Classical antiquity, women formed what we consider today a ‘muted group’: most of the time, what we know about them is the result of male discourse, thought, and construction, thus explaining further the difficulties social historians experience when trying to gather evidence regarding the lives of women as individuals – in the case of this chapter, as wives and active members of a couple – and how they interacted with their spouse in the context of the couple relationship.2 In this situation, we have to consider the possibility of idealisation, as well as how the depiction in the ancient sources of the couple and their relationship may have been adapted to correspond to the social and cultural expectations that shaped their environment, be it those of their own home (oikos) or of their wider environment.3 These considerations are relevant to a large number of funerary inscriptions, Greek epigrams included, even though they are more often used to determine what the ‘mentalité générale’ of the time and place was.4 Nevertheless, we can find details in some epitaphs that seem to have some degree of realism, which can help us when trying to reconstruct what couple relationships were like and how both husband and wife managed their married life. In this chapter, I will explore the content of two inscribed grave epigrams from the late Hellenistic period: this choice was made because they offer a sensible comparison ground, as they were both dedicated to deceased women from Asia Minor – the first to Damodika of Kyme, the second to Atthis of Knidos, within a similar timeframe, both most probably by their husband.5 Still, despite their apparent focus on the deceased women, these epigrams also direct attention to the dedicator of the epigram, giving us a glimpse of what their experiences as a couple might have been like and how both male and female dealt with ideals pertaining to each gender, as well as to the couple. After defining a few methodological points, more specifically regarding how such epigrams were an integral part of the epigraphical habit of Hellenistic culture, I will analyse the different themes of each epigram in order to show how they may help to establish some of the characteristics of DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-3

From ideal to reality 43 Hellenistic married couples; this approach is particularly noteworthy, for most of the publications on epigrams and gender deal exclusively with what we can learn about women, as opposed to couples, by means of this evidence.6 Finally, in a comparative perspective, I will look at a few examples from the corpus of oracular Dodonean tablets that present questions asked by men regarding their marriage, and I will show that some elements from the funerary epigrams find parallels in these texts and thus support the interpretation of the epitaphs as realistic.

To die and to be remembered: Hellenistic funerary practices and epigrams As such, honouring the deceased in the Hellenistic era was not done much differently than in the previous periods; the process of the funerary rites presents more or less the same characteristics as throughout the Classical period.7 In fact, most of the changes occur in the content of the epitaphs, and especially that of epigrams. Their composition strived for more individualised elements during the Hellenistic period, as well as throughout Imperial times; also, their quantity was much more important than during earlier periods.8 Still, epigrams constituted only a very small category among all the funerary inscriptions.9 The expansion of the epigram coincides with its development as a literary genre, sometime between the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the third century BCE, probably encouraged by the circulation of compilations of inscribed epigrams at the same time.10 Poets began to compose fictive epigrams, a process that would develop into an ‘epigrammatic habit’, for most verse writers of the third century wrote some, including funerary epigrams.11 The distinction between these two types of epigram, literary and inscribed, depends mostly on the relevance to the funerary monument on which an inscribed epigram would be incised. In the case of an inscribed epigram, the funerary inscription was indivisible from its support, and the grave monument was part of the message conveyed by the content of the epigram to those reading it and looking at the monument. Thus, inscribed grave epigrams should not be studied separately from the stones that bear them, and if possible, the wider context in which the monument was placed should be considered when analysing these documents.12 Both ‘book’ and inscribed grave epigrams should be considered as results of poetic creation, indeed; nevertheless, we have to consider that literary epigrams have fewer ties with the lived reality of men and women who really died and had to be buried with a grave monument to signal their burial, whereas the dead who were celebrated in the works of Hellenistic poets were, for the most part, products of their own creation, for whom there was not much need to include realistic elements.13 One aspect of inscribed funerary epigrams, which certainly had some influence on their composition, is their public character. The necropolises

44  Charlotte Golay through which these epigrams could be found were public spaces that could be walked through by virtually anybody, even though it has been doubted that funerary inscriptions were ever read, except when the funerary rituals took place at the grave every now and then.14 Nonetheless, one of the main objectives of funerary inscriptions was to maintain the memory of the character and the potential feats of the deceased through time, as a ‘metonymic sign of the deceased’.15 Thus, it implies that grave epigrams were supposed to be read and enjoyed by those able to do so. On a related note, the role played by relatives of the deceased in the composition of the funerary epigrams has been questioned; in our case, we can wonder if the husbands of Damodika and Atthis had any influence on the content of their wife’s funerary inscription as potential dedicators, giving them features going beyond the stereotypical nature of grave epigrams. Indeed, their content tends to gravitate around a number of themes and motives which shape what is written about the deceased in general.16 Given their stereotypical nature, funerary epigrams have been considered as valuable evidence to help us understand what cultural and social expectations were like in the society where they were produced.17 In this context, it is necessary to determine which elements in the epigrams conform to the social norms of the time and what expectations they answer. Furthermore, we can wonder if the relationship between the stereotypical content and the necessary, factual elements – which were used to communicate the individuality of the deceased – that the epitaph had to convey could result in some form of tension inside the epigram.18 It has also been said that epigrams have more to do with ideals than with actuality.19 Nevertheless, they are based on a number of realistic traits, some more than others. The study of married couple relationships in funerary epigrams is clearly affected by this ascertainment: the inscriptions’ content would be influenced by a masculine will – that of the husband, in our case – to highlight and put forward facts and elements related to women’s life that would make their wife’s image correspond to the social and familial norms, and, thus, reach some degree of ideal. This part of the argument coincides with the first dimension of C.-E. Centlivres Challet’s concept of ‘dual discourse’, which is defined as a ‘traditional voice’ that provides an idealised, general, and paternalist view of women; the second dimension, or the ‘individual voice’, renders a more realistic, personal perspective, according to which women possess their own individuality and their own real-life experiences.20 Although this concept was used at first to study literary texts from the early Roman Empire, its application to different types of evidence, such as inscriptions, remains possible: funerary epigrams and their way of displaying an idealised vision of the deceased are particularly well suited for such an analysis. Damodika and Atthis – as well as most of the women honoured in death by funerary epigrams and whose husband was in charge of their grave markers – had to be under some kind of pressure to be remembered by both their families and the outsiders that would read it by chance, by an epitaph that would present a

From ideal to reality 45 vision of them close enough to what was expected of a ‘good wife’, by society and by their own oikos; and their husband also had to answer these expectations, when taking care of their wife’s grave inscription, putting forward their best qualities and what they were worth remembering for, according to the norms and the general discourse of Hellenistic society and culture.21 The surviving spouse also had a form of agency on the way they wanted to present their married life in the epigram (if they wished to do so), although Greek epigrams give us only glimpses of this aspect, unlike Roman documents.22 Thus, in order to present a representation of late or living spouses – as individuals and as members of a couple – corresponding to these expectations, a phenomenon of idealisation takes place in the epigrams, often in the form of a positive exaggeration of some traits or facts that we can surmise are rooted in reality; accordingly, the factual details of the epigrams are embellished in order to match the norm, as well as the image that the dead person was supposed to present in public, set in stone forever in the funerary epigram.

The epigram for Damodika: the memory of an influential Kymean couple This inscription is engraved on a stele that was found in Kyme (Aeolis, Asia Minor), in the ancient city’s necropolis, which is now located in modern Çakmaklı, although we do not have more information regarding the archaeological context in which the stone was found; a first description of the stele and edition of the text were published in 1927 by A. Salač.23 Regarding iconography, the stone does not seem to have borne a relief or any other sculpted decor. The document probably dates to the first century BCE, or at least the late Hellenistic period, as can be deduced from the form of the epigram and its composition.24 The epitaph records the death of a married woman, Damodika, and can be divided into two parts; the first one is non-metrical:25 Damodika daughter of Krates, wife of Hermogenes son of Asklepiades, farewell.26 (Merkelbach and Stauber (1998), n.05/03/03) This section comprises elements that can be found in most short, simple epitaphs from the Greek world, providing little information besides the names of the main protagonists, the late Damodika and her husband Hermogenes, as well as the names of both their fathers.27 The majority of funerary inscriptions does not give further information and give us not much more than these factual points about ordinary married couples. The case of Damodika is different, for these few prose lines are followed by an epigram which dwells more precisely on who she was as the wife of Hermogenes, what she had achieved during their marriage, and what should be remembered about her after her passing:

46  Charlotte Golay My name is Damodika, my illustrious husband was the honoured Hermogenes, the one who generated me was Krates. I die not without lament, for I leave a son and the glory of a victory at the chariot race. I could not see my husband when I died, for he was ambassador in Rome and thus, he could not give me the last rites.28 (trans. Merkelbach and Stauber (1998), n. 05/03/03, adapted) Damodika and Hermogenes are not known by other epigraphic documents, and we do not have other sources of information regarding their life, so as to compare what is displayed in the epigram with other inscriptions that could have provided more details about their public activities (priesthoods, evergetism, political functions, etc.). Nevertheless, the features of the epigram itself are enough to determine that they were part of the social elite of Kyme, from the haute bourgeoisie.29 Hermogenes had probably played other political roles before having been sent to Rome as an ambassador, which was in itself considered as a great honour, presumably equivalent to prominent liturgies.30 It is noteworthy that an eminent female figure of the Hellenistic period, the benefactor Archippe, was also from Kyme; in this context, we can presume that Damodika would have had the possibility and the motivation to act as a benefactor, too.31 We may then ask ourselves who the dedicator of this epigram was: given the strong focus on Hermogenes’ achievements, it is reasonable to suppose that he was the one who ordered the composition of the epitaph.32 With the information given by the epigram, we understand that he was not present when Damodika passed away; therefore, it is likely that, if he ordered the epitaph, he did so when he came back to Kyme from Rome, sometime after her death. Nonetheless, we cannot completely put aside the possibility that another of Damodika’s relatives was the dedicator: for instance, her father Krates – who is mentioned once in the prosaic introduction and a second time in the epigram itself – could have wished to celebrate his son-in-law to strengthen the bond between their families, which would then explain why there is a heavy focus on Hermogenes in the inscription. His marriage with Damodika would have been seen in a positive light by her birth family. The double mention of Damodika’s father in the inscription can also be explained, however, by the fact that Hermogenes was the one who ordered the inscription and influenced the composition of the epigram: if Krates, in the absence of Hermogenes, had been responsible for the expenses and the organisation of his daughter’s funeral, having him mentioned twice in the epitaph could have been a way to honour him. All things considered, it appears most natural to conclude that Hermogenes was probably the one who commissioned the inscription. This observation is strengthened by the fact that in the epigram, precise adjectives are ascribed only to Hermogenes, who is described as ‘splendid’,

From ideal to reality 47 and ‘illustrious’ (α’ γλαòς), as well as ‘honoured’ (τίμιος). Damodika is not characterised by any virtue, not even the most common and stereotypical, like her morality (arete) or her moderation (sophrosyne), whereas she is the one who is to be remembered and honoured through the inscription.33 Her qualities are not listed but have to be inferred from the tribute to her. The focus on Hermogenes’ clearly defined qualities fits the tone of the rest of the inscription and the way he is presented. The first of Damodika’s qualities that we can establish in the epigram, in verse three, is her fertility, necessary for her role as a mother, matching the main goal of every Greek marriage: to produce heirs to assure the continuation of the genos. Damodika had thus completed her duty as a wife, for the epigram points out that she had given birth to a child (παι̃δα). If this child was worth remembering as one of Damodika’s achievements, there is a high probability that it was a son, given the fact that only a male heir could inherit his father’s property and fortune.34 From my own observation, the mention of a daughter in a woman’s funerary inscription is quite a rare occurrence. Since no other children are mentioned, it is possible that Damodika died young, thus not having had the possibility to show the full extent of her fertility, the most desired characteristic in a married woman.35 Unlike some other epitaphs, the document does not give any detail regarding the age or the name of the child. We can thus suppose that the child was very young, or even still a baby at the time of Damodika’s passing; in this case, her death could be due to complications during childbirth or shortly afterwards. Despite the fact that the mention of maternity in the funerary epigram of a woman is rather common, as well as the celebration of fertility as a quality, the mention of these details in these documents constitutes a reference to the real life of the deceased woman, even if it does not touch the most original or individual parts of her life. More novel is the mention of the victory in a chariot race, in verse four. This information can be interpreted in two different ways: on the one hand, some scholars have concluded that we should consider that Damodika was the one conducting the horses;36 on the other hand, it is also possible that she was only responsible for the sponsoring of the racing team, as a form of benefaction, which seems more fitting.37 We know that maidens could participate in some athletic competitions, essentially the foot race, in which girls were competing with each other;38 a few occurrences also show that young unmarried women (parthenoi) could compete in a variant of the chariot race, in which the contestants drove a team of two foals instead of four stallions.39 The point is that all these girls were unmarried and had to give up their athletic activities once entering the life of a married woman;40 therefore, Damodika could not have participated actively in the chariot race, and rather was the owner of the team or its sponsor, in a way that allowed her to display her family’s fortune and prominence, and allowing it to gain more prestige and fame.41 Moreover, as the wife of Hermogenes,

48  Charlotte Golay her victory as the owner of a chariot-racing team also shined on her husband by a phenomenon of association, asserting their position within the circle of their Kymean peers as members of the civic elite. By connecting her achievement as the mother of a legitimate son and her glory as the victrix of a race through her role as benefactress and owner of the team, the epigram puts emphasis on two spheres and types of fame: private and feminine, and public and masculine.42 The last realistic element discernible in the epigram is the mention of Hermogenes’ embassy in Rome, which results in his absence at the moment of Damodika’s death, and thus the impossibility for him to bid her farewell (verses five and six). Although we are not able to make out the details regarding the reasons behind this embassy, its existence itself is not surprising, as Kyme was part of the Roman province of Asia at that time. This section of the epigram allows us to see that Damodika did not accompany her husband during his trip to Rome, even though we do not know why she stayed in Kyme: perhaps the embassy was supposed to stay only a short time in Rome, or the trip itself was too tiresome and hazardous; maybe their child was too young, or simply it was not expected that a woman followed her husband on such an occasion. Moreover, due to their family’s social and political position, it is possible that Damodika had commitments in Kyme that prevented her from joining Hermogenes on his mission; she could have been partly responsible for managing their household and their engagements in the city, for instance. As we have seen, Hermogenes’ charge as an ambassador was an important source of prestige for him and his family, Damodika included. In this context, her funerary epigram appears at first to convey more the personal glory of Hermogenes, as well as his glory by being associated in marriage with a woman, such as Damodika, than Damodika’s glory itself. This observation is noteworthy because of the voice behind the epigram, for it is Damodika who speaks to the reader of the inscription and gives life to her memory as the wife of Hermogenes.43 By doing so – if he is the one who ordered the epigram, as we can suspect – Hermogenes, by manipulating the words of his late wife, manages to have her deeds reflected on himself in order to highlight his own achievements beside those of his wife. Despite its heavy focus on highlighting the power and the prestige of the couple formed by Hermogenes and Damodika, the funerary epigram also dwells on the topos of pathos and affectivity through the voice of Damodika. She states that she dies ‘not without lament’ (ουʼ κ αʼ βόατος) in verse three, due to her achievements, both in private and in public. A certain sorrow is also noticeable when Damodika says that she was not able to see her husband at the moment of her death (verse five), which we can understand as reflecting the social expectations by which the closest relatives ought to be present at the moment of her passing: indeed, the final greeting to the dead was one of the stages of the funerary ritual.44 Since Hermogenes had probably either written or commissioned the epigram, he might have wanted to

From ideal to reality 49 express his own sorrow at not being present at his wife’s last moments and at her funeral. As we have seen, the content of the funerary epigram of Damodika seems at first to be more concerned with the everlasting fame of both husband and wife and their prominence as a couple of the civic elite than with a desire to convey feelings or emotions regarding her passing away. However, it may be that the absence of Hermogenes at the time of Damodika’s death – and, thus, the impossibility to say his farewells – was conceivably the chief motive behind the composition of the epigram, in order to arouse pathos in the reader. This purpose carries even more meaning and creates a connection between the spouses even through death due to the fact that it is the voice of Damodika that conveys her husband’s grief and sorrow within the epigram. By being associated with the achievements of both members of the couple, this focalisation on their separation at the time of death and Hermogenes’ sadness also presents to the reader the mourning of the couple’s successful married life and relationship that is highlighted in the epigram. The trope of the arousing of pathos through the content of the inscription is a common feature of funerary epigrams, even more so during the late Hellenistic period; some poems seem to revolve almost exclusively around this feature of the genre. Nevertheless, it is still possible, in some cases, to draw some elements that present real-life traits and components from the content of these epigrams, as is the case with the following example.

The epigram for Atthis: pathos and affectivity This second epigram was discovered in 1858 by a British team led by Charles Newton in the necropolis of the ancient Knidos (Caria, Asia Minor), which is situated on the sides of the road that leads east of the city; the marble stele was found reused as a floor slab in an early Christian church, with several other gravestones.45 The 20-line inscription is dedicated to a woman named Atthis and seems to date to the first century BCE, like Damodika’s. The inscription was published several times, but not much was written about it, which is surprising given its quality, both of composition and of conservation, and the richness of the text.46 Like Damodika and Hermogenes, the two protagonists, Theios and his late wife Atthis, are not known by any other evidence. The epigram stages a dialogue between the two spouses, which begins with two stanzas worded by Theios: For you the stone chambers of this tomb I, Theios, built, Atthis, from whose hands I, twice your age, had hoped to receive the dust. O cruel fate, for us both you have blotted out the sun. Atthis, who lived for me and in me left your last breath, once a source of happiness, now of tears, pure, much-lamented, why do you sleep the mournful sleep?

50  Charlotte Golay You who never moved your head from your husband’s chest, but now have deserted Theios who is no more. For along with you my life’s hopes went to Hades.47 (trans. Hanink (2010), 16–17) In comparison to Damodika’s, this epigram presents many more pathetic elements. Gone are the social, political, or athletic achievements: here, the inscription focuses mostly on the pain felt by Theios, Atthis’ husband and, if we are to believe the epigram, the one responsible for having her buried (verses 1 and 17). As B. MacLachlan pointed out, this epigram is considerably influenced by literary and poetic topoi that demonstrate the two-way influence between inscribed and ‘book’ epigrams.48 The epitaph was very elegantly crafted, and one can surmise that it was designed as a work of art meant to be admired or seen by the largest number. Some details of the epigram can be interpreted as having their origins in real-life experiences but must be taken with a grain of salt in regard to the evidence they provide us about couple relationships. The first verse of the poem has Theios asserting that he built Atthis’ funerary monument (‘the stone chambers of this tomb’) himself, which seems quite unlikely, especially because the Greek term δωμήματα can be translated literally as ‘stone building’ and implies that this grave marker was monumental.49 Still, according to J. Hanink, the stone bearing the inscription fits the criteria of the slabs that were used to close loculi tombs, a type of slotted tombs often constituting an ensemble of several burials (for members of the same family, in a similar fashion to the Attic peribolos tombs from the Classical period), and of which we have some examples in Knidos.50 This type of funerary monument seems rather slight when compared to the more impressive structure that is implied in the epigram. Besides, Knidos was also known in the Hellenistic period for its ‘socles en pierres appareillées, renfermant des chambres funéraires ou de larges niches’;51 perhaps this type of monument matches better the content of Atthis’ epigram.52 Regarding the question of affection, the second stanza provides a nice example of the way it shapes the poetic content of the epigram and offers the reader an image of a close physical and sentimental relationship between the spouses. It is difficult – if not impossible, most of the time – to determine with certitude which testimonies of affection between husband and wife are truthful and which are mere literary constructs; as M. Kotlińska-Toma says rightly, it is hard to say whether ‘the topoi mirror everyday life or represent wishful thinking’.53 However, even though the display of affection between Theios and Atthis is probably influenced by literary and poetic trends of the Hellenistic period, we cannot assert that it was not genuine at all, just as the expression of grief and pain:54 social expectations demanded a form of concord between the spouses, but more elaborate expressions of love and affection were not

From ideal to reality 51 necessarily entirely invented; indeed, literary topoi may express genuine feelings.55 If we consider the number of epigrammatic documents in which we can observe a form of affection (sentimental and/or physical) between the spouses, they highlight an ideal of marital harmony and affection, which was considered as desirable by most people, and thus should be considered as a societal ideal. Moreover, if a dedicator deliberately chose to make these elements feature in an inscription, it also shows that these values were very probably part of their own personal ideal, even if the reality was not so agreeable. A comparison with another type of evidence may help us to have a more informed view of the degree of realism of the emotions and affection existing between the spouses.

A decent wife and some marital concord: a good marriage’s basics Other sources deal less with matters of publicity and remembrance and thus have the characteristic of being more direct than funerary epigrams. The corpus of oracular tablets from the sanctuary of Zeus Naios and Dione in Dodona (Epeiros) has the particularity of offering a unique glimpse into the personal life of the people who visited this place in order to ask the oracle a question.56 The questions they asked allow us access to the ‘immediate nature of their problems and concerns’, personal issues, anxieties, or doubts, many of them dating from the Hellenistic period.57 These interrogations were written on pieces of lead, which were then folded or rolled, ‘so as to keep the question secret’:58 therefore, the content of the questions asked by the visitors of the sanctuary was, in theory, not read by anybody other than themselves and/or the person who was in charge of inscribing it on the strip of lead.59 It is striking that quite a few consultants visit the sanctuary to ask questions regarding their married life, present or future, or their relationship with their wife.60 One asks, for instance, ‘Whether he will do better if he takes the woman he has in mind?’,61 while another is more specific: ‘About a woman, whether I will be fortunate taking Kleolais as a wife?’.62 The general issue or concern behind these enquiries seems to be the need to ensure that the situation of the consultant will be improved by marrying one particular woman rather than another. This concept, quite vague, of amelioration of the present through the realisation of action can be understood here as a search for a category of women that was legally and/or customarily appropriate for a citizen to marry, meaning that she would not cause any shame to her husband and his oikos (by producing illegitimate children, for example).63 We can assume that it also involved concord between the spouses, as well as the prospect of offspring, and, thus, the expectation of certain stability within the oikos. Beyond these elements, it is difficult to determine what feelings and emotions were held within this vision of the

52  Charlotte Golay couple. Nonetheless, we could speculate that if a consultant bothered to travel to the sanctuary at Dodona in order to ask the oracle how to make his married life successful or fruitful, it indicates that married life and its quality was of major concern.

Concluding remarks The main issue regarding these different documents, when trying to assess some elements about how they are tied to real-life issues and experiences of individuals, is the difficulty in reaching general conclusions, given that they all present particular cases of specific couples and only a glimpse into the life of a person; nevertheless, we can assess some common features. Damodika’s funeral epigram shows that this particular type of inscription could have been used as a medium by her husband to celebrate his own glory, as well as his quality of spouse. Thus, being associated with each other in her epitaph would have benefitted them both: this combination creates a narrative about both their importance and social influence in late Hellenistic Kymean society – grounded in the realism of the elements presented in the inscription, as I have shown – which puts forward their success as a couple. In a more stereotypical way, the epigram for Atthis built on the topoi of affectivity and grief. Thus, the affection at play in this inscription could be interpreted as the product of the poet’s creativity; however, the confrontation with other documents, such as the oracular tablets from Dodona, reveals that issue of finding a suitable wife and future concord within the couple was a common concern for the people who visited the sanctuary and the oracle. Even if there is no clear mention of affection or happiness in the tablets, it does not necessarily mean that what is presented in Atthis’ epigram should be considered as unrealistic or far-fetched. Indeed, the documents from Dodona confirm that the value of concord within the couple was sought after, both as an individual and societal ideal. Certainly, the concerns of the consultants of the oracle appear to focus chiefly on the suitability in character and behaviour of the woman chosen as a wife-to-be and had probably more effect on individual decisions regarding marriage, but we cannot exclude the influence of the ideal of affection. Even if they focus on different matters – offspring and chariot race, both practical achievements, resulting in realistic descriptions, on the one hand, extreme grief and affection, reading like idealistic and stereotypical literature, on the other – the epigrams of Damodika and Atthis, as much as the Dodonean tablets, highlight harmony and affection as central to the Hellenistic married couple. This tells us that these notions were part of the ideals of Hellenistic society at the very least, and, maybe, the very own ideals of these married couples, too.

From ideal to reality 53

Notes











1. I am very grateful to Prof. David Konstan, Prof. Anne Bielman Sánchez, and Dr Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres Challet for reading and commenting on this chapter, as well as correcting my English. I am also really thankful to all the participants of the conference for their insights and encouragements. 2. The ‘muted group theory’ was first developed in the 1970s by Shirley and Edwin Ardener: Ardener (2005). 3. Kotlińska-Toma (2012), 116. Greek epitaphs are far less detailed in comparison with Latin funerary inscriptions; see Lattimore (1942), 14–16. 4. Vérilhac (1985), 85. 5. Vérilhac (1985), 85. 6. A few examples: Pircher (1979), Vérilhac (1985), Kotlińska-Toma (2012), Salowey (2012). 7. In Athens, at least, the funerary rites still consisted of a wake (πρόθεσις), a procession (ε’κφορά), followed by the cremation (more frequent than during the Classical era) and/or the burial of the body; see Garland (1985), 34 and Bruss (2005), 10. 8. Wypustek (2013), 2. 9. Cairon (2009), 12. According to P. Bing and S. J. Bruss, only about four percent of surviving Attic inscriptions are epigrams; see for instance Bing and Bruss (2007), 3. 10. An example of those collections would be the Attic Epigrams, compiled by the historian Philodorus; see Fantuzzi and Hunter (2005), 289, 297 and Bruss (2005), 1. 11. Bing and Bruss (2007), 14. Poets would draw their inspiration from funerary verse inscriptions that they could access either thanks to book collections, or by themselves, walking along the roads dotted with generations of inscribed grave monuments. Soon, inscribed funerary epigrams would, in a similar fashion, also draw from their literary counterparts, creating a double form of influence, that was easier to observe from inscribed epigrams to literary epigrams than the other way around; see Kotlińska-Toma (2012), 107 and Bettenworth (2007), 75. This impact is perceivable in the fact that some epigrammatists created both literary and inscribed epigrams – Possidipus, for instance; see Bettenworth (2007), 69–70. 12. Pomeroy (1997), 114. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to do so, as a consequence of how the necropolises from the ancient Greek world have been excavated, as well as due to the fact that some grave stones were reused, either for other people or in different archaeological contexts: Cairon (2009), 13; M.-T. Couilloud-Le Dinahet aptly names these stones ‘stèles errantes’ (2003), 66. 13. Fantuzzi and Hunter (2005), 292. 14. Isolated graves were also common, more particularly in the vicinity of agricultural settlements; see Hellmann (2006), 274; about the question of whether the funerary inscriptions were read, see Day (2000) and Chaniotis (2012), 101, 103. It also raises the question of literacy among the population of the cities of the Hellenistic world: one had to have basic literacy skills in order to read these inscriptions. We have to assume that only a portion of the people were able to read simple funerary inscriptions; but those who were able to understand fully the most intricate inscribed epigrams and their references were probably even fewer, must have been from a privileged social background, with a potential interest in literature; see Cairon (2009), 13. 15. Sourvinou-Inwood (1996), 229, supported by Bruss (2005), 15.

54  Charlotte Golay 16. Pomeroy (1997), 128. It has been argued that some grave epigrams had to have been written by the individuals themselves, although most of them probably paid professionals to compose them: Bing and Bruss (2007), 4 and n. 19. These professionals remained anonymous, unlike most of the authors of literary epigrams; those who created sophisticated verse epitaphs had certainly benefited from a good education and were probably trained in oratory: Chaniotis (2012), 111. The process regarding the epigrams’ composition in itself is not well known: from a practical viewpoint, we can wonder, for instance, if the poets were working independently or if they had formed some sort of collaboration with stone cutters. Was the vast majority of funerary epigrams written in advance, as it has been argued before? The degree of personalisation of some of the documents demonstrates that this proposition is not suitable to all of them: Kotlińska-Toma (2012), 106; see also the epigram for Damodika, discussed below. The use of ‘handbooks’ containing funerary themes and formulas has been proposed; for example, Hanink (2010), 25, n. 49. Still, it is quite plausible that poets drew their inspiration from collections of epigrams, be they inscribed or literary, in order to choose some themes or topoi which would be appropriate for the deceased. Hence, in some of these cases, the relatives of the departed were probably invited to provide details about the latter’s life as well as what they wanted to feature in the epitaph. About the various themes in epitaphs, see Lattimore (1942). 17. Vérilhac (1985), 85. 18. Fantuzzi and Hunter (2005), 291; Chaniotis (2012), 10; Kotlińska-Toma (2012), 116. 19. Lattimore (1942), 275. 20. Centlivres Challet (2013), 3–4. 21. Vérilhac (1985), 85. 22. Lattimore (1942), 275. 23. Salač (1927), 386–388. 24. Engelmann (1976), n. 46; Ferrandini Troisi (2000), n. 6.2. 25. Unless otherwise stated, all translations are mine. 26. Δαμοδίκα Κρ[άτητος, γυν]ηˋ δεˋ | ‘Eρμογένου τ[ο]υ˜ A ʼ σ[κλη]πιάδου | χαι˜ρε. 27. McLean (2002), 264. According to A. Salač (1927), 387, the only name of the inscription for which we can trace Aeolian roots is Damodika. The practice of pairing the name of the deceased with the patronymic in a section distinct from the epigram itself began in Attica during the Classical period, which then circulated in the Greek world in the early Hellenistic era, remaining relatively uncommon until the mid-first century BCE: Fantuzzi and Hunter (2005), 296–297. ʼ΄]νομα Δαμοδίκα, πóσις αʼγλαοˋς ʽEρμογένης μο[ι] | μιος, οʽ σπείρας δ’ ɛʼμ 28. [ου βιοτ α˜̨ με Κράτης· | [θ]νάσκω δ’ ουʼκ αʼβόα̣ τος, ɛʼπεˋι καιˋ παι˜δα λέλοιπ[α] | [κ]α̣ ˋι κλέος ɛʼγ νίκας ʽα´ ρματι κυδαλίμ[ας]· | [αʼ´]νερα δ’ ουʼ χ ʼι δόμαν ὁʹ τ’ αʼπέπνεον, αʼλλ’ ɛʼνιˋ ʽPώ[μα]̨ | [πρ]εσβεύων πυμάταν ουʼκ ɛʼνέπλησε χάρι[ν]. 29. Ferrandini Troisi (2000), 90. 30. Salač (1927), 388. 31. On Archippe, see Savalli-Lestrade (2003). 32. Salač (1927), 388. 33. Kotlińska-Toma (2012), 112. For an analysis of the multiple virtues associated with women in funerary epigrams, see Vérilhac (1985). 34. Mantas (1995), 133. 35. Vérilhac (1985), 90. 36. Mantas (1995), 128; Ferrandini Troisi (2000), 90; Scanlon (2002), 23. According to Carrez-Maratray (2017), several Ptolemaic royal women are recorded as having participated in, and even won, chariot races in different athletic contests; their feats are recorded in a few of Posidippus’ epigrams,

From ideal to reality 55







which celebrate their victories in the Olympic, Nemean, and Isthmian games; by contrast, Clayman (2014), 148 argues that the theme of the chariot races (hippika) was a mere literary exercise and thus was not representative of any personal accomplishment by the Ptolemaic royal women. 37. Salač (1927), 388; Merkelbach and Stauber (1998), n.01/06/01. 38. Mantas (1995), 126–127. For instance, the foot race organised as part of the Heraia; see Pausanias 5.16.2–4. 39. Bielman (2002), 270. 40. Mantas (1995), 127; Bielman (2002), 270. 41. Bielman (2002), 269. 42. Scanlon (2002), 23. 43. Chaniotis (2012), 104. 44. Hanink (2010), 24; on ritual lament, see Alexiou (2002). 45. Hanink (2010), 15 summarises the discovery of the inscription. 46. Newton (1862-1863), n.54 and vol. 2.2, 474–475. For the only authorised pictures of the stone, see Hanink (2010), 18, figs.1 and 2. 47. Λάϊνά σοι τύμβων̣ δωμήματα Θει˜ος εʼˊτευξα, | ʼAτθίς, οʽ δὶς τη̃ς ση̃ς ηʽλικίης προγέρων, | ευʼξάμενος χειρω̃ν αʼ πò σω̃ν κόνιν· αʼˊκριτε δαι̃μον, | αʼμφοτέροις ηʽμι˜ ν εʼˊσβεσας ηʼέλιον | ʼAτθίς, εʼμοὶ ζήσασα καὶ ειʼς εʼμὲ πνευ˜ μα λιπου˜ σα, | ωʽ ς πάρος ευʼφροσύνης νυ˜ ν δακρύων πρόφασι, | αʽγνά, πουλυγόητε, τί πένθιμον ʽυ π ʼ ́ π οτε θει˜σα κάρα, | Θει˜ον εʼρημώσασα ́ νον ʼɩαύεις, | αʼνδρός αʼπò στέρνων ου τòν ουʼκέτι; σοὶ γαˋ ρ εʼς ˊA ̕ δαν | η˜̕ λθον οʽμου˜ ζωα˜ ς εʼλπίδες αʽ μετέρας. Ed. Blümel (1992), n.303. 48. MacLachlan, this volume. See Hanink (2010), 25 on the probable tradition of staged intimate dialogues in funerary epigrams. 49. Hanink (2010), 17. 50. Hanink (2010), 20. 51. Hellmann (2006), 287. 52. This point stresses the necessity of always considering the epigraphic document as a whole, support and text included. 53. Kotlińska-Toma (2012), 116. 54. Pomeroy (1997), 113. 55. Vérilhac (1985), 101. 56. The dating of the tablets ranges from the mid-sixth century to the first half of the second century BCE: Piccinini (2013), 65. On the discovery and the publication of the tablets, see Lhôte (2006), 1–20. 57. Dillon (2017), 324. 58. Piccinini (2013), 75. 59. It is unsure how the tablets were used in the oracular process: for long, it was believed that the questions of the customers had to be written on the tablets to be then asked to the oracle, which raises the question of the literacy of the sanctuary’s visitors; J. Piccinini has suggested that perhaps the tablets were not used during the oracular consultation, but served as ‘souvenirs’ of the visit to the sanctuary; for the whole argument, see Piccinini (2013). 60. Most of the tablets were written by men: Eidinow (2007), 130. On the tablets written by women, see Katsadima (2017). 61. Mid-fourth to third century BCE. Transl. Eidinow (2007), 85, n7, ed. Lhôte (2006), n53Bb: ˜̕H γυνα[ɩ˜]κα αʽˋν ɛ̕-| π[ɩˋ] γνώ[μ]ας ̕έ[χ]ε[ι] | λάβ[εɩ˜ν λ]ω˜ [ιον] κα[ˋɩ] | ̕άμε[ι]νον πράξε[ι];. 62. Third century to 167 BCE. Transl. Eidinow (2007), 83, n.1, ed. Lhôte (2006) n.22Ba: Περɩˋ γυναικòς | πότερόν κα τ[υγ]-| χαʼ νοιμι λαμβάνων | Κλεολαϊν;. 63. Husbands’ latent anxiety regarding their wife’s behaviour can also be observed in other material, as a recurring theme in Greek literature from Hesiod and Semonides onwards; see, for instance, Dorotheus of Sidon’s

56  Charlotte Golay Pentateuch (mid-first century CE). About shameful or inadequate sexual conduct, D. Konstan (1997), 164–165, notes that ‘There seems to be an equivalence here between men’s and women’s sexual behaviour. […] the issue is not so much shameful conduct in and of itself as its effect on marriage and the household; corrupt behaviour on the part of either spouse puts the condition and reputation of the house at risk.’ The expression ‘will it be preferable and better if’ (λω˜ ιον καɩ` ʼάμεινον, as seen in the first enquiry presented, see note 60) is the most common phrase found in the Dodonean corpus which conveys this imprecise concept. We can also find the verb ‘to happen, to succeed’ (τυγκάνω or εύτυγκάνω), for example in the second enquiry, see note 61; see Eidinow (2007), 134.

Bibliography Alexiou M. (2002; first ed. 1974) The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Second Edition. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Ardener S. (2005) ‘Ardener’s “muted groups”: the genesis of an idea and its praxis’. Women and Language 28, 50–54. Bettenworth A. (2007) ‘The mutual influence of inscribed and literary epigram’. In Bing P. and Bruss S. J. (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram. Leiden: Brill, 69–94. Bielman A. (2002) Femmes en public dans le monde hellénistique. Paris: SEDES. Bing P. and Bruss S. J. (2007) ‘Introduction to the study of Hellenistic epigram’. In Bing P. and Bruss S. J. (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram. Leiden: Brill, 1–26. Blümel W. (1992) Die Inschriften von Knidos. Bonn: Habelt (IK 41). Bruss J. S. (2005) Hidden Presences. Monuments, Gravesites, and Corpses in Greek Funerary Epigram. Leuven: Peeters. Cairon E. (2009) Les épitaphes métriques hellénistiques du Péloponnèse à la Thessalie. Budapest: Debrecen. Carrez-Maratray J.-Y. (2017) ‘Bérénice reine des jeux’. URL: https://hal-univparis13.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01433288 (preprint). Accessed on 10.12.2019. Centlivres Challet C.-E. (2013) Like Man, Like Woman. Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century. Oxford: Peter Lang. Chaniotis A. (2012) ‘Moving stones. The study of emotions in Greek inscriptions’. In Chaniotis A. (ed.), Unveiling Emotions I. Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World. Stuttgart: Steiner, 91–129. Clayman D. (2014) Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Couilloud-Le Dinahet M.-T. (2003) ‘Les rituels funéraires en Asie Mineure et en Syrie à l’époque hellénistique (jusqu’au milieu du Ier siècle av. J.-C.)’. In Prost F. (ed.), L’Orient méditerranéen de la mort d’Alexandre aux campagnes de Pompée. Cités et royaumes à l’époque hellénistique. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 65–95. Day J. W. (2000) ‘Epigram and reader: generic force as a (re)-activation of ritual’. In Depew M. and Obbink D. (eds.), Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 37–57. Dillon M. (2017) Omens and Oracles. Divination in Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge.

From ideal to reality 57 Eidinow E. (2007) Oracles, Curses, and Risk among the Ancient Greeks. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Engelmann H. (1976) Die Inschriften von Kyme. Bonn: Habelt (IK 5). Fantuzzi M. and Hunter R. (2005) Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferrandini Troisi F. (2000) La donna nella società ellenistica: testimonianze epigrafiche. Bari: Edipuglia. Garland R. (1985) The Greek Way of Death. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hanink J. (2010) ‘The epitaph for Atthis: a late Hellenistic poem on stone’. Journal of Hellenic Studies 130, 15–34. Hellmann M.-C. (2006) L’architecture grecque II. Architecture religieuse et funéraire. Paris: Picard. Katsadima I. (2017) ‘Women’s inquiries on the oracular tablets of Dodona’. In Soueref K. I. (ed.), Dodona: The Omen’s Questions. New Approaches in the Oracular Tablets (Σουέρεφ Κ. Ι. (επιμ.) Δωδώνη. Οι ερωτήσεις τω ν χρησμών. Νέες Προσεγγίσεις στα Χρηστήρια Ελάσματα), Ioannina: Ephorate of Ioannina, 31–141. Konstan D. (1997) ‘Conventional values of the Hellenistic Greeks: the evidence from astrology’. In Bilde P., Engberg-Pedersen T. and Hannestad L. (eds.), Conventional Values of the Hellenistic Greeks. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 159–176. Kotlińska-Toma A. (2012) ‘Women in the Hellenistic family: the evidence of funerary epigrams’. In Laurence R. and Strömberg A. (eds.), Families in the GrecoRoman World. London: Continuum, 106–120. Lattimore R. (1942) Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press. Lhôte E. (2006) Les lamelles oraculaires de Dodone. Genève: Droz. Mantas K. (1995) ‘Women and athletics in the Roman East’. Nikephoros 8, 125–144. McLean B. H. (2002) An Introduction to Greek Epigraphy of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods from Alexander the Great down to the Reign of Constantine (323 B.C.–A.D. 337). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Merkelbach R. and Stauber J. (1998) Steinepigramme aus dem Griechischen Osten I, Die Westküste Kleinasiens von Knidos bis Ilion. Stuttgart: Teubner. Newton C. T. (1862-1863) A History of Discoveries at Halicarnassus, Cnidus, and Branchidae. London: Day and Son, 2 vols. Piccinini J. (2013) ‘Beyond prophecy. The oracular tablets of Dodona as memories of consultation’. Incidenza dell’Antico 11, 63–76. Pircher J. (1979) Das Lob der Frau im vorchristlichen Grabepigramm der Griechen. Innsbruck: Wagner. Pomeroy S. B. (1997) Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece. Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Salač A. (1927) ‘Inscriptions de Kymé d’Éolide, de Phocée, de Thralles et de quelques autres villes d’Asie Mineure’. Bulletin de correspondence hellénique 51, 374–400. Salowey C. A. (2012) ‘Women on Hellenistic grave stelai: reading images and texts’. In James S. L. and Dillon S. (eds.), A Companion to Women in the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 249–262. Savalli-Lestrade I. (2003) ‘Archippè de Kymè, la bienfaitrice’. In Loraux N. (ed.) La Grèce au féminin. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 249–295. Scanlon T. F. (2002) Eros and Greek Athletics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

58  Charlotte Golay Sourvinou-Inwood C. (1996) ‘Reading’ Greek Death: to the End of the Classical Period. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Vérilhac A.-M. (1985) ‘L’image de la femme dans les épigrammes funéraires grecques’. In Vérilhac A.-M. (ed.), La femme dans le monde méditerranéen I, Antiquité. Lyon: Maison de l’Orient, 85–112. Wypustek A. (2013) Images of Eternal Beauty in Funerary Verse Inscriptions of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman Periods. Leiden: Brill.

4

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura The elder Cato’s script for a farming couple Judith P. Hallett

This chapter examines an important source for the conduct imposed upon a non-elite couple in second-century BCE Rome: the De Agri Cultura, our earliest surviving Latin prose text.1 This exhaustively detailed treatise on farming prescribes in considerable detail the respective roles and responsibilities of a vilicus and vilica: male and female members of a slave couple entrusted with overseeing day-to-day operations on a Roman farm.2 I seek to illuminate the behavioural expectations that this script articulates for vilicus and vilica by connecting them with the actual behaviour attributed to the life of the script-writer: the fabled Roman orator, writer, and conservative politician Marcus Porcius Cato, known as Cato the Elder, or the Censor, or both, who lived from 234 to 149 BCE.3 I contend that Cato’s prescriptions for a vilicus and vilica, about their sexual conduct as well as their farming tasks, relate closely to Cato’s own sexual preoccupations and conduct, heavily influenced by his own economically obsessed agenda. Cato does not explicitly refer to the vilicus and vilica as slaves, a man and woman owned, and forced to cohabit, collaborate, and couple with one another by a common master.4 Yet Cato’s brief and belated description of the vilica’s duties, at the beginning of Chapter 143, strongly implies their slave status. Here he addresses the vilicus in the second person, ordering him: ‘See to it that the vilica attend to what are her duties. If the master will have given her as a wife to you, be satisfied with her alone. Make sure that she is fearful of you’ (Vilica quae sunt officia, curato faciat. Si eam tibi dederit dominus uxorem, ea esto contentus. Ea te metuat facito).5 By esto contentus, Cato presumably means ‘restrict yourself to [this woman, the vilica] as a sexual partner’. How this prescribed sexual conduct relates to Cato’s subsequent injunction, that the vilicus control his sexual partner through intimidation, is unclear. Indeed, Cato never explicitly discusses the couple’s sexual interactions in this treatise either.6 But on the basis of what I infer to be the agenda, the ideologically fuelled pragmatic ambitions ascribed to Cato by his early second-century CE Greek biographer Plutarch, and how slave women figure therein, I maintain that here, and in other prescriptive remarks about the vilica, Cato endeavours to impose control over the bodies DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-4

60  Judith P. Hallett and sexual activities of all women serving him as vilicae, so as to achieve maximum economic benefit for himself, the number one item on his agenda. I recognise that in his magisterial biography of the elder Cato, A. E. Astin refers to ‘the issue of Cato’s single-minded concern with profit’ as closely related to ‘the topic of his attitude toward slaves’. Yet Astin views Cato’s ‘dominant consideration’ of making the farm ‘yield as large and as secure an income as possible’ as not the ‘sole consideration’, claiming that ‘at least in some small measure his attitude was influenced also by his preoccupations about integrity, personal prestige, and the social respectability of agriculture.’ Nevertheless, from the evidence discussed below attesting to Cato’s deceptive and untrustworthy conduct towards, e.g. his son and second marriage, I would question Astin’s idealistic contention that integrity figured among Cato’s preoccupations.7 I will, moreover, also consider the literary dimensions of Cato’s script, interpreting these prescriptions as influenced by and responding to, earlier Greek and Latin poetic and dramatic texts. Among them are the resemblances between Cato’s pronouncements seeking to control this female’s sexual activity, in part by restricting her sexual knowledge, and sentiments voiced by the archaic Greek poets Hesiod and Semonides, the former in his own didactic work on agriculture, the Works and Days. No less important are the similarities – and differences – between the idealised vilicus of Cato’s script and the comic slave vilicus Olympio portrayed by Cato’s contemporary Plautus in his final play, the Casina, written in 184 through 183 BCE, the year of Cato’s censorship, and approximately two decades before the De Agri Cultura.8 In this context, I argue that Cato may be critiquing Plautus’ portrayal of a sexualised vilicus. Yet I also return to my earlier contention that the Casina was revived in approximately 160 BCE to take comic aim not only at Cato’s late foe Scipio Africanus as well as Cato himself for their sexual relationships with young slave girls, but also at Cato’s own, economically exploitative notions about the vilicus and vilica, evidence that this revival postdates the De Agri Cultura.9 Plutarch’s life of the elder Cato, characterised by A. E. Astin as ‘the longest and most detailed single account of Cato to have survived’, cites among its sources the second-century BCE Greek historian Polybius, the Augustan Roman historian Livy, the late Republican orator and author Cicero and, most important, Cato himself.10 Plutarch harshly criticises Cato’s mistreatment of all his slaves. At 5.2, Plutarch takes particular offence at Cato’s physical exploitation of his slaves: using them as if they were ‘beasts of burden’ until they became old and infirm, and then, judging them useless, selling them off rather than continuing to feed them.11 Yet Plutarch also singles out Cato’s female slaves for special mention, each time in the context of female sexual and reproductive activity. First, at 20.2–3, he attests that Cato’s first wife Licinia, whose family enjoyed lofty social rank but possessed limited material resources, not only nursed their baby son herself, but also and often nursed the infants produced by her, female, slaves.12 Second, at 21.2,

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura  61 Plutarch notes Cato’s assumption that inflamed sexual passions drove his slaves to misbehave, leading Cato to require his male slaves to engage in sexual relations with his female slaves at an established price, and have no sexual dealings with any other woman.13 Third, at 24.1–5, Plutarch relates that after the death of Licinia, Cato arranged a marriage between his son and the daughter of the illustrious general Lucius Aemilius Paullus, sharing his home with the newlyweds. According to Plutarch’s account, Cato then began to make routine sexual use of a slave girl who ‘secretly’ visited his bedroom, notwithstanding the close proximity of his young daughter-in-law in their small dwelling. On one occasion, however, when the slave girl headed towards Cato’s bedroom in an overly impudent manner, Cato’s son indicated his disapproval of their relationship in what Plutarch terms a ‘bitter facial expression’, turning away from his father without uttering a word. Cato, Plutarch continues, reacted by approaching one Salonius, a client of lower social status, in the forum to inquire about his young daughter’s marital prospects. Learning that Salonius had not yet pledged her to a suitable husband, Cato, acknowledging that his own advanced age rendered him an unlikely prospect, surprisingly and successfully volunteered himself. Cato’s son, reports Plutarch, then reacted by confronting Cato about this decision to remarry, asking if his father had saddled him with a stepmother because he had found some fault with him. Cato replied that he judged his son to be faultless but wanted to benefit himself and their country with more sons like him. Plutarch does not, however, remark that his son would now have had to share Cato’s estate with any sons born from his father’s new marriage.14 What do these episodes involving Cato’s own dealings with female slaves reveal about what I am terming Cato’s own, ideologically fuelled and economically obsessed, agenda? To account for the nursing, by Cato’s first wife Licinia, of babies born to slave women as well as her own son, Plutarch offers a characteristically sentimental and moralising explanation: that she aimed to instil in these slave children ‘goodwill toward her son from their shared nurture’ (κατεσκεύαζεν εʼύνοιαν έκ τη˜ς συντροφίας πρòς τòν υιʽόν). Yet the evidence Plutarch provides about Cato’s sexual servicing by a young slave woman in a dwelling he shared with that very son, albeit at a different time in both their lives, raises the possibility that some of the slave infants Licinia nursed were actual biological kindred of Cato’s son, indeed her son’s own half-siblings, as well as Cato’s own offspring and potentially profitable property. Whatever the paternity of Licinia’s slave nurslings, Plutarch’s account, admittedly written 300 years after the events he describes, suggests that Cato had the potentiality of reaping major economic benefits from having her nurse them. The contraceptive properties of breastfeeding would have limited the likelihood of Licinia’s soon becoming pregnant again and of producing more sons like her firstborn to inherit and divide Cato’s estate.15 At the same time, by having their own offspring nursed by Licinia, their slave

62  Judith P. Hallett mothers would have more time and energies to expend on their household tasks. No less significant, without the contraceptive protections afforded by nursing, they were more likely to become pregnant again, whether by a slave partner or Cato himself, and produce more offspring for Cato himself to own and exploit. Cato’s stipulation that his male slaves limit their sexual relations to his female slaves, at a fixed price, would have redounded to his economic advantage as well. For one thing, demanding that these male slaves pay him an amount that he himself determined would have brought him immediate financial rewards. For another, the children that these couplings produced would have belonged to him, to exploit physically and to sell when they ceased to be of physical value. Money paid Cato by his male slaves for these sexual opportunities would also have been money not saved to purchase their freedom, lengthening the time they remained in servitude to him. Hence, in considering what Cato says about the vilica and vilicus, we do well to keep in mind what Plutarch reports about Cato’s interest in slave women: that he not only employed at least one slave woman for his own sexual gratification, but also, I would contend, as evidence to remind his much younger, newlywed son of his own continuing sexual prowess, so as to engage in sexual competition with that son. In addition, I am maintaining, on the basis of Plutarch’s account, that Cato exploited female slaves for personal financial gain: by putting them to use as partners for his male slaves, from whom he demanded a price he set himself (conduct recalling that of the rapacious, exploitative pimps portrayed in Plautine comedy); and by acquiring profitable property in the form of the slave offspring they bore.16 What I would regard as Cato’s sexually and economically grounded investment in female slaves helps elucidate the similarities and differences, and the symmetries and asymmetries, between his accounts of what the duties of vilicus and vilica entail. To be sure, in the De Agri Cultura Cato assigns some of the same responsibilities to both, and imposes some of the same demands on both, often in the exact same language. But his expectations of this man and this woman, as farm-labourers and as the servile counterparts of a freeborn married couple, diverge sharply, in regard to their economic and sexual conduct. Cato initially mentions the vilicus at the very beginning of the De Agri Cultura, in Chapter 2, when detailing what the pater familias, owner of the farm, needs to do upon arriving at the property. He urges that the owner first ascertain what work has been done and still remains to be done, then summon the vilicus the next day and ask him various questions, beginning with what part of the work has been done and what left undone (thereby determining the veracity of the vilicus, since the owner should have gleaned this information already). Next, Cato advises the farm owner to exert pressure on the vilicus if the amount of work does not appear sufficient, and if he offers such excuses as sick slaves, rainy weather, and public work obligations; he then launches into a long list of tasks that the vilicus could have had

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura  63 performed on rainy days, and an admonition that sick slaves did not deserve larger food rations as those enjoying good health.17 While Chapters 3 and 4, offering farm management advice to the owner, do not mention the vilicus, Cato devotes all of Chapter 5 to detailing all the duties of the vilicus. At 384 words, it is nearly 100 words longer than Chapter 2, describing the obligations of the owner. In two subsequent chapters – 10 and 11 – that enumerate the necessary ‘equipment’ for an olive-yard of 240 acres (iugera) and a vineyard of 100, respectively, Cato first lists a vilicus and then a vilica.18 Much later, in Chapter 56, prescribing ‘food rations’ for the household, he recommends three measures of wheat for the vilicus, vilica, foreman (epistata), and shepherd (opilio).19 Yet the lengthy Chapter 5, detailing what is expected of the vilicus, never mentions the vilica. Only in the final sentence of Chapter 142, after admonishing the vilicus to perform his duties according to the master and what he says (dominoque dicto), does Cato add that the vilicus must know how to ‘use’ the vilicam and give her orders (vilicam uti (…) eae imperari), so that upon the master’s arrival the necessary things may be readied and cared for diligently.20 Chapter 143, on the duties of the vilica, then follows. At, coincidentally, a brief 143 words, it is one quarter the length of Chapter 5, which spells out the duties of her male partner. Chapter 5 warrants our close attention first.21 Cato initially issues the vilicus orders about his general behaviour: using good management (bona disciplina); observing the feast days; not taking the possessions of another and guarding his own. Cato next specifies how he must treat the slaves: settling disputes, punishing wrongdoers, ensuring they are well fed, keeping them occupied with their own tasks; expressing appreciation for good work. He then states that the vilicus should not be an ambulator, one who walks around and even off the property, must always be sober and not go anywhere else to dine (ad cenam nequo eat). He follows this curious statement by articulating specifically how the vilicus must serve the interests of his master. Yet then, more curiously, Cato insists that the vilicus must have no ‘food-scrounging hanger-on’ (parasitus) and consult no ‘fortune-teller, prophet, diviner or astrologer’ (haruspes, augur, hariolus, Chaldaeus). These details immediately evoke Plautine comedies from earlier in the century, which frequently feature individuals described by these terms, characterising them as prone to disrupt social order in, and drain resources from, urban households.22 Cato thereby implies that the vilicus needs to avoid the well-known difficulties such individuals may cause. But, with these terms, Cato also alludes to the comic scenarios as well as the financial costs connected with such chaos-creating individuals, implicitly likening the vilicus to a fictional, literary figure. This association of the vilicus with fictitious figures populating the Roman comic stage makes his next set of orders all the more noteworthy. For they focus on the vilicus as an actual, physical being, and expand upon the earlier injunction that the vilicus not be one who walks around and off the property.

64  Judith P. Hallett Cato first states that the vilicus must ensure that he knows how to perform, and actually performs, all the farm’s operations, but not to the extent that he becomes physically exhausted (lassus); in this way the vilicus will better learn what the slaves are thinking, enabling them to perform their work in better spirits. Cato then claims that such knowledge will make the vilicus less inclined to ‘walk around’ (minus libebit ambulare), more healthy (valebit rectius) and a happier sleeper (dormibit libentius). Cato concludes this section by asserting the vilicus must nonetheless be the first to rise and the last to go to bed, and to make sure the farm is closed with everyone asleep in their proper place, and the cattle have food, before he goes to bed. And, with the mention of cattle, Cato then transitions to the vilicus’ specific responsibilities involving animals, equipment, crops, trees, and fertilisers, beginning with the special care needed for the draft oxen. As noted earlier, only after returning to a brief description of what the vilicus must do, does Cato finally, in Chapter 143, detail the duties of the vilica, addressing this section to the vilicus himself, and underscoring the need of the vilicus ‘to make use of’ and give orders to the vilica.23 As noted, too, this chapter is far briefer than that about the duties of the vilicus, and begins with the two admonitions mentioned earlier about limiting his sexual activity to the vilica and making her fear him. Significantly, at 143.1 Cato then voices a third admonition, directly attesting to his economic obsessions: ‘do not allow her to be overly extravagant’, ne nimium luxuriosa siet. While Cato earlier states his expectation that the vilicus exhibit good management, be careful with loans and lending, and work on financial records with the master, he does not express concerns about the vilicus’ extravagance, perhaps because he and his audience subscribed to the stereotype, long voiced by earlier Greek and Roman authors, of women as far more prone to extravagance than men.24 As a narrative entity, Chapter 143 resembles the chapter on the vilicus’ duties by first prescribing how she is to behave, then enumerating her specific household tasks. Unlike the tasks of the vilicus, hers are centred exclusively on the household, do not involve interacting with other slaves or the master, or entail handling farm finances. Rather, they include being tidy herself and keeping the farm swept and tidy; cleaning the hearth each night before going to bed; hanging a wreath over the hearth, and praying to the household gods, on the Kalends, Ides, Nones and holy days; keeping a supply of cooked food on hand for the vilicus and slaves; keeping hens and having an abundant amount of eggs; abundantly storing several varieties of dried fruits as well as preserved grapes, Praenestine nuts, Scantian quinces, and other fruits in grape pulp and pots buried in the ground; and knowing how to make good flour and grinding spelt fine. And the initial prescriptions on how the vilica is to behave, and how they do and do not resemble those for the vilicus, merit close heed. In stating, at 143.1, that the vilica must not go anywhere else to dine, and not be a woman who walks around and even off the property (ad cenam nequo eat neve

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura  65 ambulatrix siet), Cato virtually repeats verbatim his command at Chapter 5.2 that the vilicus ne sit ambulator, sobrius siet semper, ad cenam nequo eat, although without insisting the vilica refrain from excessive drink, and with the other two prohibitions in reverse order.25 Like the vilicus, too, the vilica is enjoined not to perform religious rites. She, however, is specifically told at 143.1 not to engage in religious worship (rem divinam) herself or get others to engage in it for her without the orders of the master or the mistress (iniussu domini aut dominae). This is Cato’s sole reference to a domina, a female in control of slaves and presumably wed to the master, in the De Agri Cultura, one for which he offers no explanation. Strikingly, Cato then adds, ‘let her remember that the master (dominus) performs the religious worship for the entire household’ and says nothing more about any religious involvements by the domina. What is more, Cato makes no mention here, as he does when stipulating what the vilicus cannot do in dealing with ‘the supernatural’ at 5.4, of fortune-tellers, prophets, diviners, or astrologers (nor, for that matter, of parasites), an injunction with which he appears to have associated his vilicus with Roman literary comic scenarios while seeking to dissociate him from the disorderly human interactions that prevail therein. What is more, an earlier injunction in Chapter 143 also warrants notice for its literary associations, ‘She must make use of neighbouring and other women as little as possible and not have them either in the house or visiting her’ (vicinas aliasque mulieres quam minimum utatur neve domum neve ad sese recipiat). To my mind, Cato’s statement recalls memorable Greek stereotypes of non-slave women, especially members of legally wedded couples, in much earlier poetic texts addressed to men engaged in farming and/or preoccupied with financial survival and success. These associations with Greek representations of respectable married women may help illuminate Cato’s unique mention of a domina; he may be referring to the legitimate wife of the dominus to suggest a positive sexual behavioural role model for female slaves serving as vilicae. After all, this command, restricting the contact between the vilica and other women, especially on the vilica’s own premises, immediately follows Cato’s words on the vilica as sole sexual partner of the vilicus, and appears to allude to the knowledge about sexual matters that other women might share with the vilica. Such knowledge, of course, might encourage her to compare the performance of her male partner unfavourably to that attributed to other men and seek other male partners. Or to reject her own male partner, with a concomitant decrease in the offspring she produces, thereby reducing the master’s amount of property. In Chapter 12 of his life of Cato, Plutarch claims Cato boastfully touted his unfamiliarity with Greek. Yet, he also establishes that Cato knew the language and its literary masterworks well. Consequently, the De Agri Cultura may here be echoing the celebrated poem on farming by the seventh-century BCE Hesiod, the Works and Days, along with a slightly later poem evoking it, the so-called ‘essay on women’ by Semonides of Amorgos.26 To be sure, Hesiod and Semonides are describing legitimate wives, free women rather

66  Judith P. Hallett than slaves. Still, they accord high value generally to sexual inexperience and ignorance, and condemn women’s conversations with other women that share information of a sexual nature. At lines 695–705, for example, Hesiod advises his male farmer-reader to marry around age 30, to a virgin four years past puberty who will not make him a laughing stock to his neighbours, presumably by engaging in sex with other men or telling other women about her husband’s sexual failings or both.27 Semonides, who likens ten different ‘types’ of women to different animals and natural elements, only praises the type he calls the ‘bee’. He refers to the ‘bee woman’ in 85–95 as ‘a loving wife beside her loving man’, ‘mother of illustrious and handsome children’, who ‘does not like to sit with other women discussing sex’.28 It is worth emphasising that Cato does not represent the vilica (or, for that matter, the vilicus) as having children: they are not conceptualised as part of her life or her duties, perhaps because he assumes that they would have been removed from her care and premises, and sold as her master’s property. Finally, in ‘Talking to slaves in Plautine comedy’, Amy Richlin prominently links Cato’s prescriptions for vilicus and vilica in De Agri Cultura with Plautus’ representation of slave characters, observing: The vilicus, a slave in charge of slaves, is allotted privileges both symbolic (presiding at the Compitalia, 5.3) and fleshly (a slave-wife, the vilica, who sacrifices to the Lar familiaris at the hearth, 143), but he is to be domino dicto audiens (142), [obedient to his master] just like slaves in Plautus. These strictures give a context to [the vilicus] Olympio in Casina: dominated by his owner, domineering over his rival slave, all expressed in terms of sex.29 Plautus’ sexualisation of the vilicus Olympio in the Casina evinces itself most memorably in lines 132–138, where Olympio fantasises about the words to be uttered in a sexual encounter with Casina, the young slave girl for whom the play is named, insulting his fellow slave Chalinus in the process: When she will say to me, “my little soul, my Olympio, my life, my little honey, my enjoyment, let me kiss your little eyes, my delight, let yourself, please, be loved by me, my holiday, my sparrow chick, my dove, my bunny rabbit”. When these remarks will be remarked to me, then you, worthless scum, will be turned around like a mouse in the middle of a wall. Quom mihi illa dicet, mi animule, mi Olympio/mea vita, mea melilla, mea festivitas;/sine tuos ocellos deosculer, voluptas mea,/sine, amabo, ted amari, meus festus dies,/Meus pullus passer, mea columba, mi lepus:/ quom mi haec dicentur dicta, tum tu, furcifer,/Quasi mus in medio pariete versabere.

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura  67 But Cato denies sexual encounters other than exclusive monogamous relations with an ignorant slave wife to his prescriptive vilicus. I have argued elsewhere that the revival of Plautus’ Casina, which I view as originally written right before Plautus’ death in 183 BCE, took place in 160 BCE. There I posited that the play, which makes comic capital of a relationship between the recently deceased general Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus – Cato’s bitter political foe – and a slave girl, was chosen for revival at that time because it could also make comic capital of a more recent, equally embarrassing relationship with a slave girl on Cato’s part.30 But the decision to revive the Casina may additionally have responded to the restrictive notions about the sexual conduct of a vilicus, and disparaging remarks about professional prognosticators, expressed in Cato’s De Agri Cultura, which is generally, as we have noted, dated to the late 160s BCE. In the De Agri Cultura, moreover, Cato may have sought to respond to and critique Plautus’ earlier portrayal of a sexualised, comic vilicus in the Casina: by requiring any vilicus under his control to limit his sexual activity to the woman chosen by Cato as his partner, and to refrain from fraternising with those whose occupations were spotlighted on the Roman comic stage. And although Plautus had long been dead by 160 BCE, Cato was still very much alive. Through the revival of his 20-year-old comedy, Plautus enjoyed the last laugh at Cato’s expense. The reappearance on the Roman stage by Plautus’ sexualised, and sexually frustrated, vilicus Olympio called attention to – and served to ridicule – Cato’s scripted, sexually controlled vilicus and vilica, a couple whose couplings he seems to have viewed as subservient to his own economic priorities. I recognise that my contentions about how the idealised vilicus and vilica in Cato’s De Agri Cultura relate to a vilicus portrayed in Plautine comedy, and to freeborn married women praised and blamed in earlier Greek misogynistic poetry, are mere speculation. So, too, Plutarch’s biography of the elder Cato, written centuries after Cato’s long life, may not always represent Cato’s words and deeds accurately. Plutarch’s moralising and sentimentalising outlook may also distort his perspective on what Cato said and wrote. But Plutarch’s claims about Cato’s treatment of his slaves do cast some light on what Cato expected from the enslaved couples responsible for his country estate, the humble men and women on whose labours his lucrative livelihood and privileged identity heavily depended.

Notes

1. Astin (1978), 190–191, refers to the De Agri Cultura as ‘not only the first work on agriculture to have been written by a Roman’, but also as ‘the earliest prose work in Latin to have survived’ and ‘among the first written’. He notes that ‘there is no firm evidence as to when [the work] was composed’, infers that it ‘should have been written after 164’ (according to a literal interpretation of Cato’s assertion that ‘up to his seventieth year none of his villas was plastered’), and adds that composition in Cato’s later years ‘is certainly plausible

68  Judith P. Hallett











but not certain’. My contention, expounded below, that the revival of Plautus’ Casina in 160 BCE responds to – and makes comic capital of – both Cato’s sexual conduct at the time and the sexual restrictions he imposed on his vilicus in the De Agri Cultura, would of course require its composition in the late 160s BCE. 2. For the Latin words vilicus and vilica, see Glare (1982), 2062. He derives vilicus from the noun villa – which he initially defines, on p. 2063, as ‘a rural dwelling with associated farm buildings forming the headquarters of a farm or country estate’ – and notes that both can be spelled ‘vill’. While he gives Cato De Agri Cultura 143.1 as the first instance of vilica, he lists Plautus, Casina 98 (a passage to which we will return later) and Mercator 277 before De Agri Cultura 2.1 in citing instances of vilicus, thereby attesting to the comic, theatrical associations the term had prior to its appearance in Cato’s didactic treatise. 3. For our sources on Cato’s birth and death dates, see Astin (1978), 1, n. 1. He notes the discrepancies between Cicero and the elder Pliny – who argue that Cato died at the age of 85 in 149 – on the one hand and Livy, Plutarch, and Valerius Maximus, on the other, since they state or imply that he died at the age of 90. For the term ‘Cato the Censor’, see Briscoe (1996), 1224, who does not use the term ‘Cato the Elder’; Ash, in Hooper and Ash (1934), ix refers to ‘Marcus Porcius Cato (234–149 B.C.)’ as ‘known also as the Orator, the Censor, Cato Major, or the Elder, to distinguish him from his great-grandson Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis’. 4. Glare (1982), 2062 merely defines a vilica as ‘the wife of a farm overseer’; he defines vilicus, however, as ‘a man (either slave or free) in charge of the running of a farm or estate, farm overseer’. But the earlier use of vilicus to describe a country slave toiling on a farm by Plautus, as well as Cato’s own description of the restrictions he would impose on both vilicus and vilica suggests slave status for both partners. Astin (1978), 191–192 refers to the vilicus as ‘the slave who manages the farm’. See also Roth (2004), 101, n. 7, who rightly observes that a ‘legally accepted marriage obviously could not have existed amongst slaves’; Cato apparently uses the word uxor to indicate a monogamous relationship between vilica and vilicus, as well as control over the conduct of the vilica by the vilicus. 5. For Cato’s use of different second-person forms in addressing the vilicus, see Astin (1978), 191–192, n. 26. He states: ‘Usually it is the owner, the dominus, but in at least one section and possibly in others the vilicus, the slave who manages the farm, is addressed in the second person. In many chapters instructions are given in an “impersonal” second person form for tasks which the owner is most unlikely to carry out in person; and although the imperatives which predominate throughout the book are more often in the second person, quite frequently there is a change into the third.’ He adds in the note: ‘De agr. 143; cf. 5.6ff, where it is not clear whether the vilicus or the dominus is addressed, though the latter is perhaps more probable. Elsewhere many of the second-person imperatives would have been directed most appropriately to the vilicus, but they may have been thought of as “impersonal” directions.’ All translations are my own; I have, however, relied heavily on the translation of chapter 143 by MacLachlan (2013), 91–93 and the translation and linguistic commentary of 143 by Hallett from Dickison and Hallett (2015), 46–49. 6. As Astin (1978), 191, observes, a ‘striking feature of the De agricultura’ is the ‘seemingly disorderly presentation of the material (…) Items appear to be introduced casually, following no systematic plan, sometimes intruding between chapters which are related to each other, sometimes in a bewildering succession of apparently disconnected individual points.’

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura  69











7. Astin (1978), 261. 8. For the date of Plautus’ Casina, see Buck (1940), 54–61, who would date the play to sometime between 186 BCE, the year of the Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus, and 184 (on the assumption that the remark about the death of ‘human Jupiters’ at 333–334 refers to the death of Scipio Africanus); MacCary and Willcock (1976), 11 and 207, who suggest a date of 185 BCE on the grounds that the play was produced after the senatorial decree but before Plautus’ death in 184 BCE, and Hallett (1996), who also argues that the play postdated Scipio’s lifetime and was likely to have been written in 184–183 BCE, the last year of Plautus’ life and the year of Cato’s censorship. 9. Hallett (1996), 425–432; see also Buck (1940), citing Ritschl (1845), and MacCary and Willcock (1976), 97–98, citing Abel (1955), 55–61. 10. Astin (1978), 299–301, who concludes that ‘Plutarch was not so heavily dependent on a single source’, and asserts ‘there is no great difficulty in supposing Plutarch to have drawn material directly from some of Cato’s writings.’ While Astin does not specifically cite the De Agri Cultura here as a source for Plutarch’s biography, he acknowledges that Plutarch must have relied on it when discussing the De Agri Cultura as a social document at 250–266. 11. In defence of Cato, Astin (1978), 264–265, interprets the evidence about the way in which he treated his slaves as suggesting ‘Cato’s attitude toward his agricultural as well as his domestic slaves was more complex and less crude than is often implied’, and that ‘in some points the harshness of his attitude has been somewhat overdrawn as a result of taking certain of his remarks in isolation from their context.’ He observes that Cato’s references in the De Agri Cultura to ‘reducing the food allowance of slaves when they are sick’, and to selling elderly slaves, ‘occur in passages with a markedly rhetorical tone and in a manner which suggests that it may not be proper to take any of them (…) as sober evidence of principles which were rigorously applied.’ But that Plutarch found such remarks worthy of criticism warrants emphasis as evidence of how Cato’s attitude was viewed at the time Plutarch was writing, and presumably when Cato was writing as well. 12. Plutarch, Cato Maior 20.2–3: αυ̕τὴ γὰ ρ  ετρεφεν ´̕ ι̕ δίω̨ γάλακτι· πολλάκις δεˋ καιˋ ʹ̕ τὰ τω˜ ν δούλων παιδάρια τ ω˜ ̨ μαστω˜ ̨ προσιεμένη, κατεσκεύαζεν ε υνοιαν ɛʼκ τη˜ς συντροφίας πρòς τòν υιʽόν. Astin (1978), 263, discusses this statement among ‘indications of extensive use of incentives and the application of common sense’, and represents Cato’s motivation as ‘[encouraging] a sense of loyalty.’ For a different interpretation of the Greek, and Cato’s motivation, see the discussion below. ʽˊ 13. Plutarch, Cato Maior 21.2: οʼιόμενος δεˋ ταˋ μέγιστα ρʽαδιουργει ̨ ˜ν αʼφροδισίων ενεκα ʼˊ τοˋυς δούλους, εταξεν ωʽρισμένου νομίσματος οʽμιλει˜ν ται˜ς θεραπαινίσιν, εʽτέρα̨ δεˋ γυναικ ˋι μηδένα πλησιάζειν. Astin (1978), 263, again trying to attribute Cato with less reprehensible motivations, claims: ‘The fixed fee is usually interpreted as a fee payable to Cato himself, the crowning example of his mean and grasping nature. The Greek wording, however, could equally well mean that in return for their services the females were allowed to charge a fee to be added to their own peculium, but that Cato laid down a fixed amount.’ Yet there is no evidence that Cato allowed his female slaves to charge for their sexual services, even the female slave girl who sexually serviced him; as the passages prescribing the conduct of the vilicus and vilica indicate, he insisted on controlling how all the slaves he owned spent the resources belonging to him. 14. Plutarch, Cato Maior 24: Κα ˋι περί γε του̃το φαίνεται γεγονω ˋ ς ου̕κ αʼνεμέσητος· ˋ ν γυναι˜κα καιˋ τòν υιʽòν αʼ πέβαλεν. αυ̕τòς δεˋ τ ω˜̨ σώματι πρòς ευ̕ εξίαν καιˋ καιˋ γα ˋ ρ τη ʽˊστε καιˋ γυναικιˋ πρεσβύτης ω ʼˊν ρʽώμην αʼσφαλω˜ς πεπηγω ˋ ς ɛ’πιˋ πλει˜στον αʼντει˜χεν, ω

70  Judith P. Hallett σφόδρα πλησιάζειν, καιˋ γη˜μαι γάμον ου̕ καθ’ ηʽλικίαν ɛ’κ τοιαύτης προφάσεως. ˋ ν γυναι˜κα τ ω˜̨ μεˋν υιʽω˜̨ Παύλου θυγατέρα, Σκιπίωνος δ’ αʼδελφήν, αʼποβαλω ˋ ν τη ʼ γετο πρòς γ άμον, αυ̕τòς δεˋ χηρεύων ɛ’χρη˜το παιδίσκη̨ , κρύφα φοιτώση̨ πρòς ηγά αυ̕τόν. η˜ʼν ου˜ʼ ν ɛ’ν οɩ’κία̨ μικρα̨˜ νύμφην ɛ’χούση̨ του̃ πράγματος αιʼˊσθησις, καί ποτε του̃ γυναίου θρασύτερον παρασοβη˜σαι παραˋτò δωμάτιον δόξαντος, οʽ νεανίας ειʼ˜πε ʼˊ μεˋν ου̕δέν, ɛ’μβλέψας δέ πως πικρότερον καὶ διατραπεὶς ου̕κ ελαθε τοˋν πρεσβύτην. ωʽς ου˜ʼ ν εʼˊ γνω τοˋ πρα˜ γμα δυσχεραινόμενον υʽ π’ αυ̕τω˜ν, ου̕δεˋν ɛ’γκαλέσας ου̕δεˋ ʽˊ σπερ εɩ’ώθει μεταˋ φίλων εɩ’ς αʼγοράν, Σαλώνιόν μεμψάμενος, αʼλλαˋ καταβαίνων ω τινα τω˜ν υʽ πογεγραμματευκότων αυ̕τω˜̨ παρόντα καὶ συμπροπέμποντα μεγάλη̨ φωνη̨˜ προσαγορεύσας η˜ʼ ρώτησεν, εɩ’ τοˋ θυγάτριον συνήρμοκε νυμφίω̨ . του̃ δ’ ˋ πρότερον ɛ’κείνω̨ κοινωσάμενος, “καὶ αʼνθρώπου φήσαντος ωʽς ου̕δεˋ μέλλει μη ˋ Δία ταˋ τη˜ς ηʽ λικίας μηˋν ɛ’ γώ σοι” φησίν “ευʽˊρηκα κηδεστηˋν ɛ’πιτηˋδειον, εɩ’ μηˋ νη δυσχεραίνοιτο ταʼ˜λλα γαˋρ ου̕ μεμπτός ɛ’στι, σφόδρα δεˋ πρεσβύτης”. ωʽς ουʼ˜ν οʽ ˋ ν κόρην ω̨ʽ˜ προαιρει˜ται, Σαλώνιος αυ̕τοˋν ɛ’κέλευε ταυ̃τα φροντίζειν καὶ διδόναι τη πελάτιν τ’ ου˜̕ σαν αυ̕του̃ καὶ δεομένην τη˜ς ɛ’κείνου κηδεμονίας, ου̕δεμίαν οʽ Κάτων ʼˊ τηˋν παρθένον αɩ’τει˜ν αυʽ τω˜̨ . καὶ τοˋ μεˋν πρω˜τον αʼναβοληˋν ποιησάμενος αυ̕τοˋς εφη ʼˊ ωʽς εɩ’κοˋς οʽ λόγος ɛ’ξοˋπληξε τοˋν ανθρωπον, πόρρω μεˋν γάμου τοˋν Κάτωνα, πόρρω δ’ αυʽ τοˋν οɩ’κίας υʽ πατικη˜ς καὶ θριαμβικω˜ν κηδευμάτων τιθέμενον· σπουδη̨˜  δεˋ ʼˊ χρώμενον οʽρω˜ν τοˋν Κάτωνα, ασμενος ɛ’δέξατο, καὶ καταβάντες ευ̕θυ ˋ ς εɩ’ς αʼγοραˋν ˋ ν ɛ’γγύην. πραττομένου δεˋ του̃ γάμου, παραλαβω ɛ’ποιου̃ντο τη ˋ ν του ˋ ς ɛ’πιτηδείους ʼˋ λελυπημένος υʽ π’ οʽ υιʽοˋς του̃ Κάτωνος ηʼρώτησε τοˋν πατέρα, μή τι μεμφόμενος η αυ˜̕ του̃ μητρυια ˋ ν ɛ’πάγεται. οʽ δεˋ Κάτων αʼναβοήσας “ευ̕φήμησον” ειʽ˜πεν “ω˜ʼ  παι˜· πάντα γα ˋ ρ αʼγαστά μοι τα ˋ παρα ˋ σου̃ καὶ μεμπτοˋν ου̕δέν·ɛ’πιθυμω˜ δεˋ πλείονας ɛ’ μαυτω˜̨ τε παι˜δας καὶ πολίτας τη̨˜ πατρίδι τοιούτους αʼπολιπει˜ν”. ταύτην δεˋ τηˋν γνώμην πρότερον εɩ’πει˜ν φασι Πεισίστρατον τοˋν A ʼ θηναίων τύραννον, ɛ’πιγήμαντα τοι˜ς ɛ’νηλίκοις παισὶ τηˋν A ʼ ργολίδα Τιμώνασσαν, ɛ’ξ η˜ʽ ς ʼIοφω˜ντα καὶ Θεσσαλοˋν αω˜τ ω˜̨ λέγουσι γενέσθαι.   Γήμαντι δεˋ τ ω˜̨ Κάτωνι γίνεται παι˜ς, ω̨ʽ˜ παρωνύμιον αʼποˋ τη˜ς μητροˋς εʽˊθετο Σαλώνιον. οʽ δεˋ πρεσβύτερος υɩʽòς ɛ’τελεύτησε στρατηγω˜ν, καὶ μέμνηται μεˋ ν αυ̕του̃ πολλάκις ɛ’ν τοι˜ς βιβλίοις οʽ Κάτων ωʽς αʼνδροˋς αʼγαθου̃ γεγονότος, πρά̨ ως δεˋ κα ὶ φιλοσόφως λέγεται τηˋν συμφορα ˋ ν ɛ’νεγκει˜ν, καὶ μηδεˋν αʼμβλύτερος δι’ αυ̕τηˋν εɩʽς τα ˋ πολιτικα ˋ γενέσθαι. ου̕ γ α ˋ ρ ωʽς Λεύκιος Λεύκολλος υʽˊστερον καὶ Μέτελλος οʽ Πίος ɛ’ξέκαμεν υʽ ποˋ γήρως προˋς ταˋ δημόσια, λειτουργίαν τηˋν πολιτείαν ηʽ γούμενος, ˋ ν δόξαν ου̕δ’ ωʽς πρότερον Σκιπίων οʽ A ʼ φρικανοˋς δια ˋ τοˋν αʼντικρούσαντα προˋς τη αυ̕του̃ φθόνον αʼποστραφεὶς τοˋν δη˜μον ɛ’κ μεταβολη˜ς ɛ’ποιήσατο του̃ λοιπου̃ βίου ʽˊσπερ Διονύσιόν τις επεισε ʼˊ τέλος αʼπραγμοσύνην, αʼλλ’ ω κάλλιστον ɛ’ντάφιον ηʽ γει˜σθαι τηˋν τυραννίδα, κάλλιστον αυ̕τòς ɛ’γγήραμα τηˋν πολιτείαν ποιησάμεν ος, αʼναπαύσεσιν ɛ’χρη˜το καί παιδιαι˜ς, οʽπότε σχολάζοι, τ ω˜̨ συντάττεσθαι βιβλία καί τ ω˜̨ γεωργει˜ν. For Cato’s son ‘Licinianus’, and Cato’s writings addressed to him, see Astin (1978), 183–184 and 204–205. Astin does not discuss this episode, although on 263, as evidence for Cato’s favourable treatment of slaves through ‘incentives’ such as manumission, he cites Plutarch’s ‘chance mention of two freedmen’, one of them ‘Salonius, the former under-secretary whose daughter Cato took as his second wife.’ He acknowledges, however, in note 67 that ‘Salonius is not actually termed a freedman but his former occupation virtually guarantees that he was.’ 15. For breastfeeding, and its use as a mode of contraception, in Greek and Roman antiquity, see McLaren (1990), Laskaris (2008), Sparreboom (2009), and especially Centlivres Challet (2017), n.16. As Claude-Emmanuelle Cent­ livres Challet has observed in a personal communication, ‘Contraceptive properties are assured only if breastfeeding is done day and night, on demand, for all feeds; to do so, Licinia would have had to breastfeed the slave babies more than just now and then; what is more, there is only a limited number of

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura  71









children one can breastfeed at the same time before the milk’s quantity proves insufficient (not to mention the composition of the milk, which varies according to the infant’s age).’ 16. The most obvious example is the leno Ballio in Plautus’ Pseudolus, dated to 191 BCE; on his rapacious, financially exploitative conduct see, for example, Hallett (2011). 17. Cato, De Agri Cultura 2: Pater familias ubi ad villam venit, ubi larem familiarem salutavit, fundum eodem die, si potest, circumeat; is non eodem die, at postridie. Ubi cognovit, quo modo fundus cultus siet operaque quae facta infectaque sient, postridie eius dici vilicum vocet, roget, quid operis siet factum, quid restet, satisne temperi opera sient confecta, possitne quae reliqua sient conficere, et quid factum vini frumenti aliarumque rerum omnium. Ubi ea cognovit, rationem inire oportet operarum, dierum. Si ei opus non apparet dici vilicus sedulo se fecisse, servos non valuisse, tempestates malas fuisse, servos aufugisse, opus publicum effecisse, ubi eas aliasque causas multas dixit, ad rationem operarumque vilicum revoca. Cum tempestates pluviae fuerint, quae opera per imbrem fieri potuerint, dolia lavari, picari, villam purgari, frumentum transferri, stercus foras efferri, sterculinum fieri, semen purgari, funes sarciri, novos fieri; centones, cuculiones familiam oportuisse sibi sarcire. Per ferias potuisse fosses veteres tergeri, viam publicam muniri, vepres recidi, hortum fodiri, pratum purgari, virgas vinciri, spinas runcari, expinsi far, munditias fieri. Cum servi aegrotarint, cibaria tanta dari non opportuisse … Auctionem uti faciat: vendat oleum, si pretium habeat, vinum, frumentum quod supersit vendat; boves vetulos, armenta delicula, oves deliculas, lanam, pelles, plostrum vetus, ferramenta vetera, servum senem, servum morbosum, et siquid aliud supersit, vendat. Patrem familas vendacem, non emacem esse oportet. 18. Cato, De Agri Cultura 10.1: Quo modo oletum agri iugera CCXL instruere oporteat. Vilicum, vilicam, operarios quinque, bubulcos III, asinarium I, subulcum I, opinionem I, summa homines XIII … Quo modo vineae iugera C instruere oporteat.Vilicum, vilicam, operarios X, bubulcum I, asinarium I, salictarium I, subulcum I, summa homines XVI. 19. Cato, De Agri Cultura 56: Familiae cibaria. Qui opus facient per hiemem tritici modios IIII, per aestatem modios IIII S, vilico, vilicae, epistatae, opilioni modios III … 20. Cato, De Agri Cultura 142: Vilici officia quae sunt, quae dominus praecepit, ea omnia quae in fundo fieri oportet quaeque emi pararique oportet, quo modoque cibaria, vestimenta familiae dari oportet, eadem uti curet faciatque moneo dominique dicto audiens sit. Hoc amplius, quo modo vilicam uti oportet et quo modo eae imperari oportet, uti adventu domini quae opus sunt parentur curenturque diligenter. 21. Cato, De Agri Cultura 5: Haec erunt vilici officia. Disciplina bona utatur. Feriae serventur. Alieno manum abstineat, sua servet diligenter. Litibus familia supersedeat; siquis quid deliquerit, pro noxa bono modo vindicet. Familiae male ne sit, ne algeat, ne esuriat; opere bene exerceat, facilius malo et alieno prohibebit. Vilicus si nolet male facere, non faciet. Si passus erit, dominus inpune ne sinat esse. Pro beneficio gratiam referat, ut aliis recte facere libeat. Vilicus ne sit ambulator, sobrius siet semper, ad cenam nequo eat. Familiam exerceat consideret, quae dominus imperaverit fiant. Ne plus censeat sapere se quam dominum. Amicos domini, eos habeat sibi amicos. Cui iussus siet, auscultet. Rem divinam nisi Conpitalibus in conpito aut in foco ne faciat. Iniussu domini credat nemini: quod dominus crediderit, exigat. Satui semen, cibaria, far, vinum, oleum mutuum dederit nemini. Duas aut tres familias habeat, unde utenda roget et quibus det, praeterea nemini. Rationem cum domino crebro putet. Operarium, mercennarium,

72  Judith P. Hallett







politorem diutius eundem ne habeat die. Nequid emisse velit insciente domino, neu quid dominum celavisse velit. Parasitum nequem habeat. Haruspicem, augurem, hariolum. Chaldaeum nequem consuluisse velit. Segetem ne defrudet: nam id infelix est. Opus rusticum omne curet uti sciat facere, et id faciat saepe, dum ne lassus fiat; si fecerit, scibit in mente familiae quid sit, et illi animo aequiore facient. Si hoc faciet, minus libebit ambulare et valebit rectius et dormibit libentius. Primus cubitu surgat, potremus cubitum eat. Prius villam videat clausa uti siet, et uti suo quisque loco cubet et uti iumenta pabulum habeant. Boves maxima diligentia curatos habeto. Bubulcis opsequito partim, quo libentius boves curent. Aratra vomeresque facito uti bonos habeas. Terram cariosam cave ne ares, neve plostrum neve pecus impellas. Si ita non caveris, quo impuleris, trienni fructum amittes, Pecori et bubus diligenter substernatur, ungulae curentur. Scabiem pecori et iumentis caveto; id ex fame et si inpluit fieri solet. Opera omnia mature conficias face. Nam res rustica sic est, si unam rem sero fecris, omina opera sero facies. Stramenta si deerunt, frondem iligneam legito, eam substernito ovibus bubusque. Stercilinium magnum stude ut habeas. Stercus sedulo conserva; cum exportabis, pugato et comminuito; per autumnum evenito. Circum oleas autumnitate ablaqueato et stercus addito. Frondem populneam, ulmeam, quernam caedito per tempus: eam condito non peraridam, pabulum ovibus. Item faenum cordum, sicilimenta de ptrato, ea arida condito. Post imbrem autumnum rapinam, pabulum lupinumque serito. 22. For parasiti as characters in Plautus, see, e.g. Bacchides, Captivi, Menaechmi, Persa and Stichus. For references to haruspices, see, e.g. Aulularia 1132, Poenulus 463 and 791; for hariolus and the verb hariolor, Asinaria 316, 579 and 924, Casina 355, Miles Gloriosus 1256, Mostellaria 571, Rudens 347, 377 and 1121, Truculentus 599; for augurium, Asinaria 263; Cato’s mention of a Chaldaeus, Babylonian astrologer, represents the first of many uses of this noun in Latin literature. On these terms, see also Gulick (1896) and Padilla Peralta (2017). 23. Cato, De Agri Cultura 143: Vilicae quae sunt officia, curato faciat. Si eam tibi dederit dominus uxorem, ea esto contentus. Ea te metuat facito.] Ne nimium luxuriosa siet. Vicinas aliasque mulieres quam minimum utatur neve domum neve ad sese recipiat. Ad cenam nequo eat nec ambulatrix siet. Rem divinam ni faciat neve mandet, qui pro ea faciat, iussu domini aut dominae. Scio domum pro tota familia rem divinam facere. Munda siet; villam conversam mundeque habeat; focum purum circumversum cotidie, priusquam cubitum eat, habeat. Kalendis, Idibus, Nonis festus dies cum erit, coronam in focum indat, per eosdemque die lari familiari pro copia supplicet. Cibum tibi et familiae curet uti coctum habeat. Gallinas multas et ova uti habeat. Pira arida, sorba, ficos, uvas passas, sorba in sapa et pira et uvas in dolis et mala strutea, uvas in vinaciis et in urceis in terra obrutas et nuces Praenestinas recentes in urceo in terra obrutas haeat. Mala Scantiniana in doliis et alia quae condi solent et silvatica, hac omnia quotannis diligenter uti condita habeat. Farinam bonam et far suptile scit facere. 24. See, for example, in the so-called ‘essay on women’ by Semonides of Amorgos, discussed below. 25. As C.-E. Centlivres Challet has observed in a private communication, in view of the ancient Greco-Roman literary topos of the bibulous woman, Cato’s concerns about excessive drinking by the vilicus and not the vilica is somewhat surprising, although perhaps balanced by his concerns about financial extravagance by the vilica and not the vilicus. For this topos, see the detailed treatment of artistic evidence in chapter 4 of Barrow (2018).

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura  73 26. Plutarch, Cato Maior 12: πλει˜στον δεˋ χρόνον ɛ’ν ʼAθήναις διέτριψε, καὶ λέγεται μέν τις αυ̕του̃ φέρεσθαι λόγος ʽοˋν ʽEλληνιστὶ πρòς τòν δη˜μον ειʼ˜πεν, ωʽς ζηλω˜ν ˋ ν αʼρετη ˋ ν τω˜ν παλαιω˜ν ʼAθηναίων, τη˜ς τε πόλεως διαˋ τοˋ κάλλος καὶ τοˋ τε τη ʽ δέως γεγονωˋ ς θεατής· του̃το δ’ ου̕κ αʼληθές ɛ’στιν, αʼλλαˋ δι’ ɛʽρμηνέως μέγεθος η ʼˊ αυ̕τοˋς εɩ’πει˜ ν, ɛʽμμένων δεˋ τοι˜ς πατρίοις ɛ’νέτυχε τοι˜ς ʼAθηναίοις, δυνηθεὶς αν καὶ καταγελω˜ν τω˜ν τα ˋ ʽEλληνικα ˋ τεθαυμακότων. Ποστούμιον γου̃ν ʼAλβι˜ νον ʽɩστορίαν ʽEλληνιστὶ γράψαντα καὶ συγγνώμην αɩ’τούμενον ɛ’πέσκωψεν, ˋ ν συγγνώμην, εɩ’ τω˜ν ʼAμφικτυόνων ψηφισαμένων εɩ’πω ˋ ν δοτέον ειʼ˜ ναι τη ʽ πέμεινε τοˋ εργον. ʼˊ αʼναγκασθεὶς υ θαυμάσαι δέ φησι του ˋ ς ʼAθηναίους τò ˋ ν οʼξύτητα τη˜ς φράσεως· ʽˋ τάχος αυ̕του̃ καιˋ τη α γα ˋ ρ αυ̕τοˋς ɛ’ξέφερε βραχέως, τοˋν ɛʽρμηνέα μακρω˜ς καὶ διαˋ πολλω˜ν αʼπαγγέλλειν·τò δ’ οʽˊλον οιʼˊεσθαι ταˋ ρʽ ήματα τοι˜ς μεˋν ʽˊEλλησιν αʼποˋ χειλω˜ν, τοι˜ς δεˋ ʽPωμαίοις αʼποˋ καρδίας φέρεσθαι. Astin (1978), 147, asserts ‘that Cato probably knew Greek from a fairly early stage in his career, that he became acquainted with a fairly wide range of Greek writings, and that this too was probably not confined to the last few years of his life.’ In a subsequent chapter devoted to ‘Cato and the Greeks’, 157–181, Astin cites Polybius as the ‘secure authority that in 149 Cato used a quote from [Homer’s] Odyssey in order to contrast the military exploits of Scipio Aemilianus with the ineffectiveness of other officers’; he does not, however, consider whether Cato might have drawn on Hesiod’s Works and Days in the De Agri Cultura. 27. Hesiod, Works and Days 695–705:

ʼˊ ωʽραι˜ος δεˋ γυναι˜κα τεοˋν ποτὶ οιʼ˜κον αγεσθαι, μήτε τριηκόντων ɛ’τέων μάλα πόλλʼ αʼπολείπων μήτʼ ɛ’πιθε ὶς μάλα πολλά: γάμος δέ τοι ω ʽˊριος ουʽ˜τος: ηʽ  δεˋ γυνηˋ τέτορʼ ηʽ βώοι, πέμπτω̨  δεˋ γαμοι˜το. ʼˊθεα κεδνα παρθενικηˋν δεˋ γαμει˜ν, ω ʽˊ ς κʼ η ˋ  διδάξη̨ ς. ˋ ν δέ μάλιστα γαμει˜ν, ηʽˊ  τις σέθεν ɛ’γγύθι ναίει, τη πάντα μάλ̕ αʼμφιιδών, μηˋ γείτοσι χάρματα γ ήμη̨ ς. ʼˊ ου̕ μεˋν γάρ τι γυναικοˋς αʼνηˋρ ληίζετ ̕ αμεινον ʼˊ τη˜ς αʼγαθη˜ς, τη˜ς δʼ αυ˜̕ τε κακη˜ς ου̕ ρʽίγιον αλλο, ʼˊ δειπνολόχης: ηʽˊ τʼ ανδρα και ˋ ιʼˊφθιμόν περ ɛ’όντα ευʽˊει ʼˊ ατερ δαλοι˜ο καὶ ω̕μ ω˜̨  γήραϊ δω˜κεν.

28. τηˋν δʼ ɛ’κ μελίσσης: τήν τις ευ̕τυχει˜ λαβών: κείνη̨  γα ˋ ρ οιʼˊη̨  μω˜μος ου̕ προσιζάνει, θάλλει δʼ υʽ πʼ αυ̕τη˜ς καʼπαέξεται βίος: φίλη δεˋ συ ˋ ν φιλευ̃ντι γηράσκει πόσι, τεκου̃σα καλοˋν κου̕νομάκλυτον γένος: καʼριπρεπηˋς μεˋ ν ɛ’ν γυναιξὶ γίγνεται πάση̨  σι, θείη δʼ αʼμφιδέδρομεν χάρις: 90 ου̕δʼ ɛ’ ν γυναιξὶν ηʽˊ δεται καθημένη, οʽˊ κου λέγουσιν αʼφροδισίους λόγους. τοίας γυναι˜κας αʼνδράσιν χαρίζεται Ζευ ˋ ς ταˋς αʼρίστας καὶ πολυφραδεστάτας: ʼˊ ταˋ δʼ αλλα φυ̃ λα ταυ̃τα μηχανη̨˜ Διοˋς ʼˊ εστιν τε πη ˋ μα, καὶ πάρʼ αʼνδράσιν μένει.

74  Judith P. Hallett 29. Richlin (2014), 206. Oddly, Astin (1978) never mentions Plautus in his magisterial study of Cato, in contrast to e.g. Roth (2004), 113, who adduces the passage from the Casina discussed below to argue that the position of vilica could be altogether separate from that of a vilicus, the presence of the former in the ranks of agricultural slaves and freedpersons did not necessarily mean that of the latter, and vice-versa. 30. Hallett (1996).

Bibliography Abel K. (1955) Die Plautusprologe (Frankfurt diss.). Mülheim (Ruhr): privately printed. Astin A. E. (1978) Cato the Censor. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Barrow R. (2018) Gender, Identity and the Body in Greek and Roman Sculpture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Briscoe J. (1996) ‘Porcius (RE 9) Cato (1) Marcius’. In Hornblower S. and Spawforth A. (eds.) The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1224–1225. Buck C.H., Jr. (1940) A Chronology of the Plays of Plautus. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Centlivres Challet C.-E. (2017) ‘Roman breastfeeding: control and affect’. Arethusa 50.1, 369–384. Dickison S. K. and Hallett J. P. (2015) A Roman Women Reader: Selections from the 2nd Century BCE through the 2nd Century CE. Mundelein, IL: BolchazyCarducci Press. Glare P. G. W. (1982) Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gulick C. B. (1896) ‘Omens and augury in Plautus’. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 7, 235–237. Hallett J. P. (1996) ‘The political backdrop of Plautus’ Casina’. In Harris, E. and Wallace, R. (eds.), Transitions to Empire: Essays in Greco-Roman History 360-146 BC, in Honor of E. Badian. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 409–438. Hallett J. P. (2011) ‘Ballio’s brothel, Phoenicium’s letter, and the literary education of Greco-Roman prostitutes: the evidence of Plautus’ Pseudolus’. In Glazebrook A. and Henry M. M. (eds.), Greek Prostitutes in the Ancient Mediterranean 800 BCE-200 CE. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 172–196. Hooper W. D. (transl.) and Ash H. B. (rev.) (1934) Cato, Marcus Porcius. On Agriculture. Marcus Terentius Varro. On Agriculture. Loeb Classical Library 283. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Laskaris J. (2008) ‘Nursing mothers in Greek and Roman medicine’. American Journal of Archaeology 112.3, 459–464. MacCary W. T. and Willcock M. (eds.) (1976) Plautus, Casina. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacLachlan B. (2013) Women in Ancient Rome. A Sourcebook. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. McLaren A. (1990) A History of Contraception: From Antiquity to the Present. Oxford and Cambridge: B. Blackwell. Padilla Peralta D. (2017) ‘Slave religiosity in the Roman middle Republic’. Classical Antiquity 36.2, 317–369.

Vilicus and vilica in the De Agri Cultura  75 Richlin A. E. (2014) ‘Talking to slaves in the Plautine audience’. Classical Antiquity 33.1, 174–226. Ritschl F. (1845) Parerga zu Plautus und Terenz. Leipzig: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. Roth U. (2004) ‘Inscribed meaning: the vilica and the villa economy’. Papers of the British School at Rome 72, 101–124. Sparreboom A. (2009) Wet-Nursing in the Roman Empire: Indifference, Efficiency and Affection. Thesis MPhil, Amsterdam.

5

Literary models and social challenges Marital love according to Ovid in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto Jacqueline Fabre-Serris

Before the Tristia, the first poems written in exile, Ovid mentions his wife only once, indirectly in Amores 3.13, when he relates a shared trip to Veii. He gives the following reason for this trip: as his wife was born in the Faliscan town, they came to ‘the walls defeated’ by Camillus (1–2). Ovid assisted in the festival in honour of Juno, which he then describes without mentioning his wife. In the Tristia and the Epistulae ex Ponto, his wife is a relatively frequent addressee of his poems1 and the only woman to whom he writes, with the exception of a protégée, Perilla, to whom he was a mentor and tutor in poetry (Tr. 3.7). This is a very unusual situation for an elegiac poet who until then had only celebrated his puella and illicit love affairs. It is also unusual because Ovid’s relationship with his wife has been affected by his exile: he expects that she protects his property and helps him to obtain his return to Italy. The elegists stage themselves and their puellae in fictitious situations, repeated from one poet to the next. First, my chapter will examine how Ovid has reused some of these situations by adapting to marital relationships certain behaviours and feelings associated with love affairs. Which selections and which changes has he made? What may we conclude about the feelings between the two spouses? In the second part, I will seek to clarify what is really at the root of their relationship. Ovid praises his wife for having all the virtues of a good wife, and he expects that she shows them in her behaviour towards him. However, progressively during his exile, he is increasingly expressing his disappointment. I will analyse how Ovid uses the notion of fama (‘reputation’), his wife’s and his own, in particular, to try to gain this more effective assistance he considers to be his due. I will end on the final attempt that Ovid makes in Epistulae ex Ponto 3.1, where he tries to change the too static model of the ‘good spouse’, by suggesting to his wife that she should adopt a more active behaviour in the political arena, of which Livia is all at once the target, the guarantor, and the implicit example.

Adaptions and inadequacies of the elegiac model Ovid stages his relationship with his wife by reusing some situations borrowed from the elegiac genre. Several times before, in the Heroides and in the DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-5

Literary models and social challenges 77 Metamorphoses, he has described the moment where two lovers were forced to separate. Twice these lovers were married: in Heroides 13 (Laodamia and Protesilaus) and in book 11 of the Metamorphoses (Alcyone and Ceyx). In Tristia 1.3, where Ovid describes, in the most vivid way, his last night in Rome, the gestures and words that he attributes to his wife seem to repeat those of the elegiac lovers, married or not. His wife is in tears ( flens,17), holds her husband, in tears himself, in her arms ( flentem (…) ipsa tenebat, 17–18), addresses long prayers to the gods (41–46) and, after his departure, faints: Illa dolore amens tenebris narratur obortis/ semianimis media procubuisse domo (‘she, distraught from the grief, as I am told, her eyes suddenly covered by darkness, collapsed half-dead in the middle of our home’,2 91–92). When she regains consciousness, his wife weeps for a long time and wishes for death. There is one important difference, however: there is no mention of a kiss. Apparently, the extreme emotion showed by his wife did not manifest itself in this form, whereas, according to Ovid, Laodamia was not able to put an end to her last kisses: oscula plura uiro mandataque plura dedissem (‘I would have given my husband more kisses and more advices’, Her. 13.7). Twice, Ovid says that the image of his spouse is so strong in the first days of his exile that she is ‘present’ despite her absence. Lucretius had identified the ‘presence in absence’ as the very sign of passionate love (4.1061–1062).3 In Tristia 3.3, Ovid writes, on this motif, a lament clearly inspired by Virgil’s Georgics 4: Te loquor absentem, te uox mea nominat unam; nulla uenit sine te nox mihi, nulla dies (Tr. 3.3.17–18) I speak to you while you are absent, you are the only one my voice names; no night, no day for me comes without you. Te, dulcis coniunx, te solo in litore secum te ueniente die, te decendente canebat. (Georg. 4.466–467) It is you, sweet wife, you whom he sang, alone with himself on the shore, you when the day was coming, you when it was going down. In Tristia 3.4b, Ovid states that ‘the image’ of his wife, because she is ‘before (his) eyes as though she were present’ (coniugis ante oculos sicut praesentis imago est, 13), simultaneously worsens and relieves his pains. It worsens them because his wife is absent, but it also relieves them because his wife shows him her love (praestat amorem, 15) and firmly bears the burden that has been imposed on her (impositumque sibi firma tuetur onus, 16). Three words in this passage refer to Virgil’s Aeneid 2, when Aeneas, before leaving Troy, suddenly is facing the shade of his wife: ipsius umbra Creusae/uisa mihi ante oculos et

78  Jacqueline Fabre-Serris nota maior imago (‘the shade of Creusa herself appeared before my eyes, her image was bigger’, 772–773). The motif of the ‘presence in absence’ expresses, or seems to express, the pain caused by the separation and highlights the impossibility for Ovid to stop thinking of his beloved wife. Under the guise of expressing his love and his pain, however, he is, at the same time, enhancing his own image. The first reference to Virgil, in Tristia 3.3, brings Ovid closer to Orpheus, the poet whom Virgil had made the very symbol of the elegiac poet-lover, desperate by the loss of his beloved. The second reference to Virgil, in Tristia 3.4, suggests to compare Ovid to the most famous exile in epic literature, Aeneas, the ancestor of the Roman people.4 These two allusions also highlight the terrible and dramatic situation into which Ovid has found himself thrown. Moreover, if Orpheus is both a husband and a passionate lover, Aeneas seems to have been hardly durably affected by the loss of his wife. To which of these two heroes is Ovid closer? Reading other passages in the Tristia related to elegiac motifs, it seems that it is the second. Sickness and death far from Rome are motifs developed by Tibullus in elegies 1.1 and 1.3. In elegy 1.1, in which Tibullus imagines that he is dying, he describes himself staring at Delia and holding her with a failing hand. He adds that, once he is deposited at the pyre, she will mourn him, mixing kisses with her tears (61–63). In elegy 1.3, Tibullus becomes sick far from Rome, dreads a solitary death, and laments the absence of his mother, his sister, and Delia. In elegy 4.7, when Cynthia accuses Propertius of not having been the perfect lover that he claims to be, she blames him for not having been there at the moment of her death. No one made the last call when her eyes were capsizing,5 which would have prolonged her life (23–24); Propertius did not bend over her body, crying, at the moment of her funeral (27–28). In Tristia 3.3, when Ovid imagines his lonely death, he regrets that there will be no one to mourn him (nec me qui fleat ullus erit, 40), with a special mention for his wife: her tears will not fall on his face, prolonging his life for a short time (nec dominae lacrimis in nostra cadentibus ora/ accedent animae tempora parua meae, 41–42); a friendly hand will not close his eyes (Nec (…) labentes oculos condet amica manus, 43–44). It is striking that none of the gestures of love listed by Tibullus can be found here: the kisses of a grieving beloved, her hand held by her dying lover. In Tristia 4.3, Ovid comes back to the type of death that he could have if he were in Rome. But it is the air of his fatherland, the familiar sky, and not the face of his wife of which he regrets being deprived (41–44): spiritus hic per te patrias exisset in auras, sparsissent lacrimae pectora nostra piae, supremoque die notum spectantia caelum texissent digiti lumina nostra tui. The spirit of mine, assisted by you, would have gone forth to its native air, pious tears would have wet my breast, my eyes upon the last day gazing at a familiar sky would have been closed by your fingers.

Literary models and social challenges 79 Tristia 4.3 is a bitter poem that shows an alteration in the couple’s relationship. Ovid oscillates between worry, disillusioned irony, resentment, and hope in the constancy of conjugal devotion. Does his wife remember him? He urges himself to believe in her loyalty by using a rhetorical formulation which suggests the opposite: deque fide certa sit tibi certa fides (‘and regarding the sure confidence I have in your loyalty, may you have a sure confidence’, 14). Ovid enumerates many signs which are supposed to attest to the fides of his wife: to the presence in the absence (uultibus illa tuis tamquam praesentis inhaeret, ‘she keeps in her the features of your face, as if you were present’, 19), he adds the effects of absence, which occur at night at the sight of the empty place in bed. But he does so in a hypothetical way. Is his wife assailed by a ‘legitimate misery’ (iusto (…) dolori)? Does a feverish agitation prevent her from falling asleep? (21–26): Ecquid, ubi incubuit iusto mens aegra dolori, lenis ab admonito pectore somnus abit? Tunc subueunt curae, dum te lectusque locusque tangit et oblitam non sinit esse mei. Et ueniunt aestus, et nox immensa uidetur fessaque iactati corporis ossa dolent? When your sick heart broods upon your just grief, can it be that soft slumber leaves your mindful breast? Does woe then steal upon you while my couch and my place touch you, not permitting you to forget me? Does anguish come and the night seem endless and is your restless body painfully tired? Without going into further detail, it appears from the reuse of elegiac motifs made in the Tristia that Ovid has taken up the situations rather than the discourse on love. One never finds tender or passionate words which would attest, in him or in his wife, to the strength of physical desire, cruelly frustrated by separation and absence, which he had abundantly described about Laodamia (in the Heroides) or about Ceyx (in the Metamorphoses). What is, therefore, at the root of their relationship?

The good wife: expectations and disappointments Even if she is the object of a burning desire, the elegiac puella does not have features that personalise her physically and morally. In the same way, Ovid’s wife is only identified by her role as his spouse. She is supposed to have the traditional female virtues: probitas (‘honesty’) pudicitia (‘chastity’), and pietas (‘conjugal devotion’). In Tristia 1.6, Ovid reinforces his praise by proclaiming that the probitas of his spouse is neither inferior to that of Andromache nor to that of Laodamia (nec probitate tua prior est aut Hectoris uxor/ aut comes extincto Laodamia uiro, 19–20) and that her pietas would be more famous than that of Penelope6 if it had been sung by Homer (tu si

80  Jacqueline Fabre-Serris Maeonium uatem sortita fuisses,/ Penelopes esset fama secunda tuae, 21–22).7 In Tristia 5.5, he adds the pudicitia to the probitas and the fides (‘loyalty’) in the crown of praises that he weaves for his wife on the day of her birthday (43–45): Edidit haec mores illis heroisin aequos, quis erat Eetion Icariusque pater; nata pudicitia est, mores probitasque fidesque. This day brought forth a character equalling that of the famous heroines whose fathers were Eetion [Andromache] and Icarius [Penelope]; chastity was born on this day and honesty, and loyalty. If he seems to have had no doubt about the chastity and honesty of his spouse, Ovid was less and less sure of the constancy of her affection for him. In Tristia 3.3, he is concerned that she may pass her time agreeably although she knows nothing about his life (Ergo ego sum dubius uitae, tu forsitan istic/ iucundum nostri nescia tempus agis?, 25–26); in 4.3 that she will no longer remember him (esse tui memorem, de qua tibi maxima cura est,/ quodque potest, secum nomen habere tuum, 17–18); in 5.2 he asks if she turns pale (still) when she receives a letter from him (Ecquid, ubi e Ponto noua uenit epistula, palles,/  et tibi sollicita soluitur illa manu?, 1–2). At the beginning, counting on his wife’s piety and loyalty, Ovid was expecting her to defend his property. It is the reason he had preferred that she stay in Rome (Tr. 1.3.101–102). On this point, he was satisfied: in 1.6, he thanks her for having prevented him from being robbed by those who sought to profit from his misfortune (5–16). Now he hopes that she is trying to obtain permission for him to return home, but, on this point, she disappoints him. In 4.3, he presents this task as conditioning her reputation of ‘good wife’: sed magis in curam nostri consurge tuendi/ exemplumque mihi coniugis esto bonae (‘but get up and do your best to advocate for me: be the example of good wife for me’, 71–72). Ovid almost never mentions what he brought to his wife in exchange, except for briefly in the same elegy 4.3. In this poem, he recalls that once she liked him because of the qualities, she found in him by the very fact she was an ‘honest’ woman (57–60): Vtque proba dignum est, omni tibi dote placebam: addebat ueris multa fauentis amor, nec, quem praeferres – ita res tibi magna uidebar – quemque tuum malles esse, uir alter erat. As is worthy of an honest woman, you liked me because of every endowment I possessed, and to those which were real, your partial love added many; such was the importance I had in your eyes – there was no other man that you would have preferred to be your husband.

Literary models and social challenges 81 He says nothing more about his personal qualities (physical, moral, or intellectual: we do not know) that made her proud to be his wife. In any case, she considered herself – and was considered – as ‘well married’. Did the social reputation of Ovid, as a well-known and celebrated poet, matter in the pride of being his wife? This is probable and suggests that her husband’s literary renown and the social position resulting from this reputation counted more in her eyes than Ovid’s choice to sing about his loves with a puella, in the same way as the other elegiac poets, who were not married. What is clear is that her husband’s exile changed the assessment of her marriage. These verses, which recall the reasons for which his wife found value in their marriage, precede a mention of the current situation: she was called, apparently more than once, by unnamed third parties, an ‘exile’s wife’ (Tr. 4.3 49–52) and she was ashamed: Me miserum si tu, cum diceris exulis uxor, auertis uultus et subit ora rubor! Me miserum, si turpe putas mihi nupta uideri! me miserum si te iam pudet esse meam! O miserable me! If you, when you are called an exile’s wife, turn away your visage, and a blush steals over your face! O miserable me! If you consider it shameful to be seen as my wife, oh miserable me, if you are shamed now to be mine! What hurts Ovid, at least here, is not that his wife is the target of insulting remarks that she repeats to him by complaining. He is hurt that her reaction to this insult suggests that she has changed her mind about their marriage which she is no longer proud of as before (53–56): Tempus ubi est illud quo te iactare solebas coniuge nec nomen dissimulare uiri? Tempus ubi est quo te – nisi non uis illa referri – et dici, memini, iuuit et esse meam? Where is that time when you used to take pride in your spouse and not conceal the name of your husband? Where is that time when – unless you would not have such things recalled – you were glad, I remember, to be called and to be mine? In Tristia 5.11.1–2, Ovid mentions a new letter where his wife complained that she had been called the wife of an exile. This time he admits to suffering not so much the negative effects of exile on his personal reputation (Indolui non tam mea quod fortuna male audit, 3) as ‘to be the source of shame’ for the person for whom he wanted to be such the least or not at all (quam quod, cui minime uellem, sum causa pudoris, 5) but he adds ‘and to think that you have blushed for my misfortunes’ (teque reor nostris erubuisse malis, 6). He then urges his wife to make a special effort and bear this situation with courage.

82  Jacqueline Fabre-Serris From all of these passages, it appears that the advantages that his wife had found for her in their union have turned into disadvantages with the exile of her husband. As a result, Ovid is trying to regain control by reversing the situation. His main argument is that he is capable of giving his wife an exceptional fama. Ovid is convinced that, if his poems are in part responsible for his exile, they have brought to his wife, and guaranteed her, an eternal fama (see, for example, in Tristia 3.7: dumque suis uictrix omnem de montibus orbem/ prospiciet domitum Martia Roma, legar, ‘as long as, victorious, Martial Rome gazes forth from its hills over the tamed world, I shall be read’, 51–52; or the finale of Tristia 4.10.117–132). To persuade his wife to help him in a more active way, Ovid argues that he is able to create, for everything that he writes, a lasting fama. In Tristia 5.14, he reminds her about the monumenta that he erected in her honour in his poems8 (1–6): Quanta tibi dederim nostris monumenta libellis O mihi me coniunx carior, ipsa uides. Detrahat auctori multum fortuna licebit, tu tamen ingenio clara ferere meo, dumque legar, pariter mecum tua fama legetur, nec potes in maestos omnis abire rogos. How many praises, destined to last forever, I have abundantly given you in my books of poetry, O my wife dearer to me than myself, you see it yourself. Fortune may well take much from their author, you, however, my ingenium (genius, talent) will make you famous, as long as I am read, your fame shall be read along with me, and you cannot utterly pass away into the sad pyre. Also, in elegy 5.14, in trying to counterbalance the deleterious effects of insults addressed to his wife, Ovid assures her that she continues to excite the jealousy of certain women because she enjoys – thanks to her husband – an immortal name (perpetui (…) nominis, 13) (7–10): Cumque uiri casu possis miseranda uideri, inuenies aliquas quae, quod es, esse uelint, quae te, nostrorum cum sis in parte malorum, felicem dicant inuideantque tibi. And although your husband’s fate may cause you to seem worthy of pity, you will find women who would like to be what you are, who will call you fortunate, even though you share part of my misfortunes, and envy you. It appears from this text that women were comparing between themselves what their respective husbands were bringing or taking away regarding their reputation. It is possible that Ovid’s spouse had been the victim of attacks from other women. In any case, she clearly suffered the effects of her husband’s exile on his own fama and, by extension, on her own.

Literary models and social challenges 83 In these circumstances, could the argument that Ovid put forward have been of value to his wife? He assures her that ‘she should be proud of [her] husband’s testimony’ (indiciis debes esse superba uiri, 5.14.18), which will allow her to enjoy an ‘eternal name/renown’, that of the good wife. Referring to the interrelationship of their respective famae was a skilful game plan, but perhaps Ovid was fooling himself with the cards at his disposal. What could his wife really (I mean here, effectively) oppose to the potentially negative effects of being the spouse of an exile, if not her own fama, as a wife who remained chaste and faithful? A fama which, in fact, and fortunately, was dependent only on her if one considers that her reputation resulted fundamentally from her probitas and her pudicitia. How could the praises of her husband counteract the devaluation of her marriage caused by his situation of exile? Given the severity and persistence of his condemnation, by constantly making attempts in favour of her husband, was there not a risk that she would cause her own disfavour? A concluding remark on this passage: it is striking that the ‘eternal renown’ (perpetui (…) nominis, 5.14.13) that Ovid promises his wife is accompanied by a total anonymity. At no time in his poems of exile does he mention the name of his wife, though he mentions once that of his protégée, Perilla, two times that of the wife of Fabius Maximus, Marcia9 (Ex Pont. 1.2.138; 3.1.58) and several times that of Livia. Certainly, the case of Livia is exceptional. As Alessandro Barchiesi noted, ‘man is both a category and a sum of individuals, while the idea of individual women is just beginning to appear when Livia enters the public arena’.10 Many critics highlight that Ovid is the poet who most frequently refers to Livia by name, even before the poems of exile.11 To return to Tristia 5.14, even if one takes into account the extraordinary status that Livia acquired compared to other women of her time, it is nevertheless surprising that a man who was so interested in women, in their personal situations, thoughts, and feelings,12 loudly claims to have given one of them an exceptional renown … without ever mentioning her name. While in his elegies Ovid (as the other elegists) names his puella, should we conclude that, when it comes to marriage, the strength of tradition and ideology (fought by Ovid) has ‘naturally’ played out here? The renown that he claims to be able to give his spouse is for him so inseparable from his own that he does not think or want to name her otherwise than as his wife,13 including in the header of the poems. Did this silence on her name play out into his wife’s lack of eagerness? It is clear in any case – he says it by taking the example of Laodamia14 – that Ovid would not have sung her if he had not found himself in misfortune … and necessity: Effice ut Iliacas tangat prior alter harenas/ Laodamie nihil cur referatur erit (‘Let but another [than Protesilaus] be first to touch the sands of Ilium, and there will be no reason why Laodamia should be remembered’, Tr. 5.5.57–78). Although he seems to be telling the truth (this remark is very insightful), it is rather cavalier reasoning and does little to prompt his wife to show more eagerness in her devotion. In fact, despite all of his complaints and appeals, Ovid’s situation

84  Jacqueline Fabre-Serris does not change. In the end, he suggests that his wife go beyond the conventional fulfilment of the qualities expected of a good spouse.

A new and final definition of the good wife In Tristia 5.14, Ovid enjoins his wife to work actively in his favour: before his exile, her probitas was ‘irreproachable’ (inreprehensa, 22) because she ‘was not the subject of any shameful accusation’ (turpi sine crimine, 21). Now a new field (area, 23) is open to her: ‘May your virtue propose to accomplish a work that draws the attention of all to you’ (conspicuum uirtus hic tua ponat opus!, 24). Ovid takes up an idea and some words he already used in Tristia 4.3.81–82, 84: dat (…) nostra fortuna (…) caputque/ conspicuum pietas qua tua tollat habet (…) et patet in laudes area magna tuas, ‘my destiny gives (…) your piety the opportunity to raise its head in such a way that attracts the attention of all (…) and a vast field opens to give you praise’. Certainly, his wife behaves as expected of a matrona: she is proba (‘honest’) and casta (‘chaste’), but also pia (‘pious’), as evidenced by the fact that she has safeguarded her husband’s property and keeps all of her affection for him. In Epistulae ex Ponto 3.1, Ovid finally explains what he really expects from her. He begins by reminding his wife that in his poetry books, a great role (magna persona, 43) has been imposed (inposita, 43) upon her, that of the ‘good spouse’ (coniugis exemplum diceris esse bonae, ‘you are called the example of the good wife’, 44): quicquid ages igitur, scena spectabere magna/et pia non paucis testibus uxor eris (‘whatever you do, it is on a grand stage that you are the object of stares and those who will testify that you are a pious wife will not be in small numbers’, 59–60). However, to really deserve this fama, his wife must become ambitiosa regarding his misfortunes (83–84): Sed tamen hoc factis adiunge prioribus unum pro nostris ut sit ambitiosa malis. But, however, add only that to what you have done previously: be the canvasser for my misfortunes. Federica Bessone15 has just published an excellent paper on the expression and concept of uxor ambitiosa, the use of which she analyses first in Ovid, then in Seneca’s Consolation to my mother Helvia, and finally in Statius. To be ambitiosa means to intervene in a sphere reserved for men, the political domain, where their position and their function enable men to serve particular interests, their own and/or those of the people to whom they want to provide services. How does Ovid adapt this mode of behaviour to the concrete action that he expects from his spouse? In this elegy, where he asks his wife to intercede on his behalf with Augustus’ wife, he describes in detail the steps that she could/should take with Livia by choosing the right moment (Livia must be in a good mood, without personal concerns and relatively available) and also by choosing the words she will say, prayers accompanied

Literary models and social challenges 85 by tears: Tum lacrimis demenda mora est submissaque terra/ ad non mortalis brachia tende pedes (‘so do not delay your tears any longer, prostrate yourself and extend your arms towards feet that are not those of a mortal’, 149– 150).16 Why tell his wife to intervene with Livia and no longer with Augustus as previously in Tristia 5.2.37–38?17 First, because Livia realises to a higher degree the example of the good spouse and must serve de facto as a model for his wife. That is what Ovid has already said in Tristia 1.6.25–28:18 Femina seu princeps omnes tibi culta per annos te docet exemplum coniugis esse bonae, adsimilemque sui longa adsuetudine fecit, grandia si paruis adsimulare licet. Or whether the woman who occupies the first rank, reverenced by you during all these years, teaches you to be the example of a good wife, and, by long training, she has made you like herself, if it is lawful to compare great things to small. In Epistulae ex Ponto 3.1, Ovid once again praises Livia’s exceptional marital virtues as well as her beauty (114–118): Caesaris est coniunx ore precanda tuo quae praestat uirtute sua, ne prisca uetustas, laude pudicitiae saecula nostra premat, quae Veneris formam, mores Iunonis habendo sola est caelesti dignae reperta toro. It is necessary that your mouth beg the wife of Caesar, who by her virtue prevents the ancient times from prevailing over our age in praise of chastity, she who, having the beauty of Venus and the virtues of Juno, alone was found worthy of the bed of a god. In a recent article, Sanjaya Thakur19 has compared Ovid’s portraits of the empress before and after his exile. Before exile, Ovid describes Livia exclusively as Augustus’ wife and his equivalent in the female sphere; after, he highlights her capacity to exercise political patronage.20 We know from other testimonies that this was indeed the case.21 In Epistulae ex Ponto 3.1, does Ovid suggest that his wife approach Livia because the latter is ‘the most accomplished example of the good wife’, and as such is likely to be moved by another spouse, chaste and pious? Is not the implicit corollary of the exhortation addressed to his wife to be ambitiosa that Livia will not be offended by the approach recommended to his wife because she herself has adapted to her own use the masculine practice of ambitio, which makes her currently likely to exercise effective patronage? The fact that the accession of women in the imperial family to positions of power can be explained by their practice of ambitio will be explicitly recognised, and denounced, by writers

86  Jacqueline Fabre-Serris subsequent to Ovid, like Seneca or Tacitus. Livia was the first and apparently the most skilful of all these women. Ovid has always been interested in women, and he has sought to highlight gender differences in women’s feelings and behaviours, while seeking to grasp their similarities with those of men.22 It is no surprise that he has recognised Livia’s success and attempted to take advantage of it. Unfortunately for him, his wife did not have this same type of qualities: Ovid will deplore in a later elegy (Epistulae ex Ponto 3.7.11–12) that she had a character too timid and honest and was not enterprising: quae scilicet in me/ quam proba tam timida est experiensque parum (‘who, although certainly loyal to me, is so timid and not very enterprising’).

Conclusion To conclude, today, what should we think of the argument that Ovid used as an instrument of blackmail against his wife? He could give her, or not, a ‘more illustrious’ name. Judging by his repeated complaints, his wife was not convinced: she does not seem to have tried or have tried hard enough to help him out of a situation that he never contested he deserved. Some readers may conclude that she was a bad wife. What her fama truly was in Rome, we will never know. She was considered as endowed with honesty and faithfulness, two qualities expected of a woman and, whether or not she really possessed these virtues, they probably did not engage her feelings! Maybe, as Ovid regrets, it was her too pusillanimous character that prevented her from being the spouse of his dreams. If this character had suited him when he was an adulated poet, apparently, once exiled, he would have liked her to have more moral strength and interpersonal skills. Did she remain faithful to him throughout all his years? Or did she follow the advice of concealment once given by her husband to his unfaithful girlfriend: (Am. 3.14.14–16): Teque probam, quamuis non eris, esse putem,/ quod facis, haec facito: tantum fecisse negato/ ne pudeat coram uerba modesta loqui (‘make sure I believe you to be honest, though you are not; what you do, do it; only deny having done it and do not be ashamed to use modest language in public’). In any event, Ovid preferred to believe his wife to be proba, pia, and timida.

Notes



1. As Hinds (1999, 123) remarks of the 40 elegies that make up the Tristia, only seven are addressed to his wife, and this is also the case for two elegies in the Epistulae ex Ponto. If she was the first reader of the poems addressed to her, Ovid also had in mind the other readers who would read these texts either in the form of single copies or once collected in a book. 2. All translations are my own. The texts of Ovid used throughout are those of the edition of Belles Lettres. 3. Hardie (2002), 290 notes that this motif is often used by Cicero during his exile, for example, in this passage of a letter addressed to his wife, Terentia: mihi ante oculos dies noctesque uersaris (‘night and day you stand before my eyes’, Fam. 14.2.3).

Literary models and social challenges 87 4. Hardie (2002), 289–290. 5. The practice of the so-called conclamatio was to call the dead out loud three times (see Servius, ad Aen. 6.218). 6. As noted by Larosa (2014), 370, ‘the references to the exempla of mythical heroines (particularly Evadne, Alcestis and sometimes Penelope) figured prominently in declamatory tradition in order to express the concept of marital fidelity: a device that the young Ovid had already learned during his rhetorical education.’ On these references to Andromache, Laodamia and Penelope, see also Videau-Delibes (1991), 222–225. 7. Hinds (1999), 126–127 compares the verses 33–34: prima locum sanctas heroidas inter haberes,/ prima bonis animi conspicere tui (‘You ought to have first place among the revered heroines; first place, in recognition of the goodness of your mind’) to the verses of Propertius in 2.28a.29–30: et tibi Maeonias omnis heroidas inter/ primus erit nulla non tribuente locus (‘And among all the heroines of Maeonian Homer first place will go to you, granted by their common consent’). Propertius, who lists some of these catalogued women by name (49–51), refers here to the catalogue of heroines summoned from Hades in book 11 of the Odyssey. Among which heroines would Ovid’s wife rank first? According to Hinds, ‘most obviously, she would rank first among heroines such as those named in this Tristia poem, viz. the trio of Andromache, Laodamia, and, pre-eminently Penelope in 19-22 (…) But also – surely (…) she would rank first in Ovid’s own poetic collection of Heroides or Epistulae Heroidum, itself a “catalogue of women” writ large.’ But in this case as Hinds (1999), 128 notes, ‘if [Ovid’s wife] were awarded first place among Ovid’s Heroides, which heroine would thereby be relegated to second place? Why, none other than Penelope, whose epistle currently opens that collection?’ 8. The fama gained by his spouse is clearly subordinated to his own as a poet. On his attempt to create a new type of poetry by writing this celebration of his wife and on the tradition of erotic catalogue elegies of later classical and Hellenistic Greece from the Antimachus’ Lyde to the Hermesianax’ Leontion, to which Ovid seeks to associate it, see Hinds (1999), 129–139. 9. On the friendship of his wife with Marcia and on the latter’s confidential relationship with Livia, see Mastrorosa, this volume, p. 93. 10. Barchiesi (2006), 104. 11. See, for example, Koster (2012), who notes that Virgil, Propertius and Tibullus do not mention Livia at all. 12. Ovid is the ancient author most interested in examining erotic feelings and sexual situations from a female perspective (see, in particular, the Heroides and the book 3 of the Ars amatoria). 13. On the fact that Pliny never names his own wife either in his letters, see Denooz (2010), 169. 14. He also takes the examples of Penelope (51–52), Evadne (53–54) and Alcestis (55–56). 15. Bessone (2018), 148, n. 8 cites other passages in which Ovid uses ambitiosus, in particular in Ars amatoria 2. 251–2, where the poet advises to win the favour of the servants of the puella, using as a model (as Labate notes, 1984, 224) ambitio as it manifests itself in electoral campaigns. 16. As noted by Mastrorosa (this volume, p. 92), Ovid is confident that he is able to direct his wife in her intervention and that she will follow his detailed suggestions. 17. See McGowan (2009), 83. 18. This passage was judged to be both weak and irrelevant by the critics who sought to show that in elegy 6, Ovid is experimenting with a new way of writing elegy, which they analyse from an intertextual point of view (Kenney

88  Jacqueline Fabre-Serris





(1965), 41; Hinds (1999), 139–140). According to Hinds (1999), 140, ‘the polite down-grading of Ovid’s wife in relation to Livia in line 28, grandia si paruis …, undermines the whole basis of the compliments in 19-22: in 22 Ovid’s wife surpasses even Penelope, the great archetype of marital fidelity; in 28 Ovid’s wife, and therefore by implication, Penelope, are rated insignificant on the Livian scale of good wives, so that one may reasonably wonder why the complimentary comparison with Penelope was worth making in the first place.’ In my opinion, the two strategies are combined in so far as they are both necessary: Ovid is experimenting with a new way of writing elegy but he also seeks to obtain a way to end his exile. Other critics have highlighted the choice of the extraordinary expression femina princeps, almost contradictory in itself, that Ovid invents to qualify the extraordinary position acquired by Livia (for a detailed study of the complex position acquired by Livia in Augustus’ res publica, see Purcell (1986)). The designation femina princeps makes Livia the female equivalent of Augustus. ‘It is a usage that brings Livia into the male sphere, for prior to Ovid, princeps exclusively refers to male figures. So Livia, as Ovid presents her, is a contradictory character. On the one hand, by making her the female version of Augustus, he grants her an equality of status. But Ovid restricts her power in this scene to the female sphere, and elsewhere he casts her acting in deference to Augustus.’ (Thakur (2014), 186) Barchiesi (2006), 105 proposes a slightly different analysis: ‘The power of princeps as a designation politicizes the womanhood of Livia to an extent never imagined before in Roman society, and crushes attempts at primacy expressed by prior or prima: she is the first woman of Rome not only in terms of excellence, but also of logical sequence, because the category ‘woman’ has been reinvented or ‘restarted’ to fit her model.’ 19. Thakur (2014), 176 argues ‘that Ovid’s depiction of Livia is a reflection of her status both in Rome and the empire, one which is framed in the Hellenistic and Latin tradition of encomiastic and panegyric poetry, and, most important, it was a status Augustan and Tiberian ideology acknowledged and promoted.’ 20. Thakur (2014), 176, 187–188. 21. The power and prestige acquired by Livia can also be seen in her presentation of foreign embassies to Augustus, and her patronage of allied cities and their causes (Reynolds (1982), 104–106; Barrett (2002), 188–207). 22. It is particularly obvious in the Heroides and in the Ars amatoria.

Bibliography Barchiesi A. (2006) ‘Women on top: Livia and Andromache’. In Gibson R., Green S. and Sharrock A. (eds.), The Art of Love. Bimillennial Essays on Ovid’s Ars amatoria and Remedia amoris. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 96–120. Barrett A. (2002) Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Bessone F. (2018) ‘Stili di potere. Linguaggio poetico, genere ed eros nella poesia imperiale romana’. Eugesta 8, 145–183. Denooz J. (2010) ‘Uxor chez Pline le Jeune’. L’Antiquité Classique 79, 163–172. Hardie P. (2002) Ovid’s Poetics of Illusion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hinds S. (1999) ‘First among women: Ovid, Tristia 1.6 and the tradition of the “exemplary” catalogue’. In Morton Braund S. and Mayer R. (eds.), Amor: Roma. Love and Latin Literature. Eleven Essays (and One Poem) by Former Research Students Presented to E. J. Kenney on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 123–141.

Literary models and social challenges 89 Kenney E. J. (1965) ‘The poetry of Ovid’s exile’. PCPS 11, 37–49. Koster S. (2012) ‘Femina sed princeps – Livia bei Ovid’. In Gatti P. L. and Mindt N. (eds.), Undique mutabant atque undique mutabantur. Beiträge zur augusteischen Literatur und ihren Transformationen. Göttingen: Ruprecht, 69–80. Labate M. (1984) L’arte di farsi amare. Modelli culturali e progetto didascalico nell’elegia ovidiana. Pisa: Giardini. Larosa B. (2014) ‘Conjugal fidelity and mythical parallels in Ovid’s exile poetry. Continuity and evolution of literary models’. Latomus 73, 368–384. McGowan M. (2009) Ovid in Exile. Power and Poetic Redress in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Purcell N. (1986) ‘Livia and the womanhood of Rome’. PCPS 32, 78–105. Reynolds J. (1982) Aphrodisias and Rome. Documents from the Excavation of the Theatre at Aphrodisias Conducted by Professor Kenan T. Erim, Together with Some Related Texts. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies. Thakur S. (2014) ‘Femina princeps: Livia in Ovid’s poetry’. Eugesta 4, 175–213. Videau-Delibes A. (1991) Les Tristes d’Ovide et l’élégie romaine. Une poétique de la rupture. Paris: Klincksieck.

6

For better or for worse Conjugal relationships of writers and intellectuals under the challenges of the Empire Ida Gilda Mastrorosa

Introduction Some recent studies focusing on couple relationship dynamics in contemporary society have yielded theoretical observations1 also useful for better evaluating cases taken from Roman antiquity, and especially from the early Empire. Although based on models that may appear very different from the category considered here, they have shown the crucial impact on the couple’s stability of factors like the partners’ ability to develop lasting relationships and create the occasions for their consolidation not just on a physical level but also emotionally, so as to build up the couple’s shared memories. Moreover, recent research has highlighted how the experiences and activities of daily life, like childcare and relations outside the family, can affect the harmony of every marriage. Even if data regarding the target relationship of this chapter, that is, couples including husbands involved in intellectual or educational activities in the period more or less comprising the first century CE, do not allow for a homogeneous picture, the above-mentioned studies offer useful suggestions to examine the role played by some key factors in married life. As a preliminary, it must be added, however, that, taken as a whole, literary information is not homogeneous and often appears rather conventional as well as characterised by gender polarity.2 Furthermore, although some passages referring to the parenting of children or the trauma caused by their death allow us to glimpse the impact children’s care had on the lives of the category of couples considered here, we cannot overlook the fact that the information is undoubtedly filtered by the authorial use of a specific literary genre. This is evident when compared, for instance, to the less fictitious information offered for the late Republican period by Cicero’s letters, containing abundant details on his son and on his daughter Tullia’s problems, in which he was involved well beyond childhood, through their youth and even young adulthood, straining his relationship with his wife during their marriage and after their divorce.3 Despite their lack of homogeneity, literary sources including data on the life of couples selected for this chapter also show the influence of other DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-6

For better or for worse 91 factors that recent research on contemporary couple dynamics identifies as criteria for analysing the building and functioning of couple relationships. The relations each partner had with their family of origin or with outsiders to the family nucleus, or the ability to listen to each other and offer each other support in times of trouble or illness, deserve special mention. Besides the limitations due to the filter imposed by the literary genre of the works considered here, we must also remember how the increasing imperial authority throughout the period examined was progressively narrowing writers’ and intellectuals’ freedom to express dissent, as in the case of those who were forced into exile under Augustus, and later under Nero and Domitian. Thus, it is not difficult to notice how emperors’ diktats impacted some intellectuals’ married life. In any case, with the additional help of suggestions from the above-­ mentioned recent sociological research on impact factors on couple relationships, such as the presence of children, illness, bereavements, shared commitment to the future, and intellectual compatibility, we shall try to see past the writers’ filters in order to outline differences and analogies offered by data regarding their unions, starting from the first years of the Principate.

Some cases from the Augustan Age: the persistence of old habits As our first example, it is worth analysing the marriage of Seneca the Elder, who never mentions his union with Helvia4 in his own writings, although their son Seneca the Younger does in some meaningful passages. We find no reference to the woman in the Controversiae, whose prefaces rather show Seneca the Elder’s strong bond with his children and his intent to influence their education with his instructions.5 On the other hand, in the Consolatio dedicated by Seneca to his mother, Helvia, to comfort her in his exile (41–49 CE), we discover that she had been brought up by a stepmother, to whom she, however, was attached, and she had lost the husband to whom she had given three children after suffering other tragic events.6 Celebrated by Seneca for her roles both as a mother and a grandmother, mourning the deaths of several grandchildren,7 in her son’s words, Helvia is depicted as interpreting her wifely role as strictly related to that of a mother. In fact, we discover that, unlike women used to exploiting their sons’ social status and assets for their own ambitions, she generously furthered her sons’ interests without personal advantage.8 Encouraging her to study to assuage her sadness at his absence, Seneca implies that Helvia had such pursuits even within the context of her marriage, during which her husband had clearly advised her to cultivate cultural interests, though superficially in her son’s opinion.9 It is hard to say if the author was criticising his father’s attempt to improve his wife’s education without really introducing her to wisdom. In any case, we can assume that Seneca the Elder understood his

92  Ida Gilda Mastrorosa conjugal relationship with Helvia as an occasion to educate her, probably in line with the ancestors’ customs subtly criticised by his son. All things considered, the image left to us by the latter suggests that at Seneca the Elder’s side was a wife sensitive to the needs of her children and grandchildren within a large and close-knit family, including Helvia’s parents’ fond interest for their daughter, probably still in Cordoba. This is evident from a reference to her absent father, who is depicted as being comforted by the thought that his only married child had given him so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.10 Another example of a union fitting our category of analysis in the period examined might be that of the most well-known patron of men of letters, Maecenas, and the aristocratic Terentia, who worried him with her much-applauded singing exhibitions at their home, as recorded by Horace,11 and with her frequent refusals (cotidiana repudia) later mentioned by Seneca.12 It is difficult to explain the link between this information and reports of interruptions in Maecenas and Terentia’s marital relationship, which juridical sources mention as divorces.13 In any case, it is probable that familiarity with the emperor was a strain on their marriage, if it is true that – as recorded by Dio14 – it was suspected that Augustus’ presence in Gaul in 16 BC during a military campaign had been occasioned by Terentia and his desire to live with her clandestinely, far from Rome and the harassment of the gossip that attributed to him a passionate affair with the woman. Moreover, the fact that the political situation weighed on Terentia and Maecenas’ marriage can be hypothesised from a controversial mention by Suetonius regarding Augustus’ resentment at Maecenas’ having referred the discovery of the Murena conspiracy to his wife.15 Beyond this evidence and the possibility that this episode may have contributed to the worsening relations between the emperor and Maecenas, the repercussions that intimacy with the centre of power could have on the marital lives of intellectuals in the early Augustan period can also be seen in that of Ovid and his wife Fabia. They present us with a radically different scenario a few years later. The poet was well aware of a changing society marked by divorces and second marriages of key figures of the political scene,16 including the Principate’s creator, Octavian-Augustus, also populated by women intent even on sexual emancipation. This notwithstanding, in Ovid’s works, we find details revealing the solidity of his marriage and his wife’s concrete attempts to have his exile (8–17 CE) repealed. In this sense, a passage from Book III of the Epistles from Pontus shows how the poet in the early decades of the first century of the Empire made determined appeals to his wife Fabia back in Rome to plead directly with the emperor or his entourage, begging her to speak to Livia Drusilla.17 Beyond Fabia’s faithfulness, between the lines of Ovid’s literary construction, we sense the poet’s tenacious trust in being able to direct his wife, with detailed suggestions, to achieve his aim.18 On the whole, the advice in some of his

For better or for worse 93 verses to use deference and prudence without openly defending his conduct while appealing to the emperor’s clemency shows the understanding of the spouses geographically apart but dialoguing to find a way to reunite. From this point of view, Ovid’s advice to his wife regarding a supplication (supplicatio) designed to solicit Livia’s support, so that the emperor and his kin might relent, reveals his hopes beyond any literary filter. In another passage from the same collection, we learn that the poet placed great trust in his wife Fabia’s good relationship with Marcia,19 a close friend of Augustus’ wife and married to Paulus Fabius Maximus (consul in 11 BC).20 Addressing this latter, in fact, Ovid reminded him not only of the epithalamium he had composed for their wedding but also of the bond between the two women. Beyond this detail, used by some to hypothesise that the poet’s wife might be the daughter of one of Fabius Maximus’ clients,21 in order to understand fully the network of relationships within which Ovid’s wife was to operate and the significance of her friendship with Marcia, we must recall the latter’s confidential relationship with Livia. In this context, it is worth noticing also that after accompanying the emperor on a secret mission, Marcia’s husband, Fabius Maximus, died in mysterious circumstances, perhaps as a result of his wife’s indiscreet revelations to Livia. This would fit with what Tacitus says about how the desperate widow reproached herself at her husband’s funeral.22 Furthermore, from the Tristia, we learn that Ovid’s wife was endowed with great loyalty and the ability to support her husband even from afar,23 as the poet in exile recorded with nostalgia and trust.24

A look at the reign of Nero: the impact of political changes A destiny not unlike that of Ovid’s wife, widowed without having her husband’s exile revoked despite her intimacy with key figures of the current aristocracy, would also befall the aristocratic Polla Argentaria, wife of the poet Lucan, born into a family solidly connected to that of Seneca. We learn about their bond from the Genethliacon in Statius’ Silvae,25 commissioned by the widow Polla Argentaria many years later for what would have been her husband Lucan’s 50th birthday, therefore, probably around 89 CE. Thus we learn that 25 years after his death, she continued to cherish the memory of her husband,26 victim of Nero’s repression after the Pisons’ conspiracy in 65 CE. Statius shows her not only to be generous,27 but a model of a oneman woman (univira), still a fundamental trait of female perfection in the first century of the Empire,28 when some legal measures, taken in part to counter disquieting demographics, gave second marriages a less negative character. Moreover, a passage of Statius’ Genethliacon reveals that the virtuous Polla had attracted her husband’s interest when still a girl, inspiring a charming address (iucunda adlocutio) in her honour,29 this thanks to qualities, such as beauty, modesty, affability, wealth, nobility of birth, grace, and

94  Ida Gilda Mastrorosa elegance, all of which made her in his eyes a bride, such as kindly Venus and Juno might grant.30 Lucan’s widow continued to perpetuate her husband’s memory by commissioning two poems by Martial.31 All in all, the texts of both poets, structured so as to highlight not only the merits of Lucan but also those of Polla as faithful bride and devoted widow, present common features that can be attributed to her role as a commissioner.32 Other details on their marriage are not found in literary sources, although Polla’s later connection to figures such as Statius and Martial, who also mentions her as his reader,33 suggests that her union with the poet who ended up Nero’s victim might have been founded on a common interest in intellectual pursuits. This may still be true even if we reject34 Sidonius Apollinaris’ later affirmation regarding Polla’s involvement in her husband’s versifying.35 As regards the couple’s social entourage, although it is not easy to corroborate the suggestion that she may have created a literary circle including members of the Annaei,36 there is no doubt that her marriage to Lucan brought Polla into contact with his family nucleus.37 In this light, in line with her hypothesised Spanish origins based on correspondences with her patronymic name in the Iberian Peninsula,38 the hypothesis that the couple’s relationship might have matured from a very young age within the community of Spanish aliens (peregrini), already considerable in first-­c entury Rome, becomes plausible. In any case, we must note that, unlike her husband, in the period of repression that developed in 65 CE, Polla managed to remain unscathed. This is no small feat when contrasted with the common destiny that struck another couple of educated figures, the senator P. Glitius Gallus and his wife, Egnatia Maximilla. An inscription, in fact, recording a woman named Grapte,39 who served the latter by writing under dictation (that is, an a manu slave), reveals that this slave dedicated herself to intellectual pursuits and testifies to the fact that the lady followed her husband into exile on the island of Andros,40 unlike Polla, still alive and cultivating literary interests under the Flavians.

Some examples from the Flavians’ time: reflections of dissent and consensus Other valuable information on couple relationships in intellectuals’ marriages during the first century of the Empire can be recovered from Statius’ work, and especially from Silvae celebrating poets who circulated in wellknown Roman literary circles and were connected to the imperial court. Leaving aside the union between the poet Lucius Arruntius Stella and his wife Violentilla, about which the epithalamium in Silvae, Book I,41 from our viewpoint reveals only that they were wed after her wanton behaviour had earned her a bad reputation,42 a few details regarding another literary figure, Pollius Felix, and the poet Statius himself are of interest.

For better or for worse 95 Between the exquisitely honed lines of the latter’s verses, we discover that Pollius dedicated his days to his poetical activities in his splendid Sorrentine villa with his wife at his side. Looking beyond the literary convention, the verses composed in celebration of this abode portray for us a serene married life, which the husband safeguarded from the uncertainties of political office, the fickleness of the crowd, and military duties,43 while his wife Polla administered her patrimony wisely, overcoming troubles with a joyful spirit.44 Was the idyllic image of their married life, in Statius’ verses, more one of chaste friendship than passion,45 a reflection of the author’s vision, or was it reflecting the real nature of their relationship as a couple? This is not at all easy to establish. Besides, there is no clear evidence regarding the real age of the no longer young woman to support the hypothesis advanced by some scholars but rejected by others,46 identifying Pollius’ wife as Polla Argentaria, Lucan’s widow remarried to Statius’ patron. Regarding the married life of Statius himself and his wife Claudia, together since 83 CE, we find in the fifth poem in Book III of the Silvae that the couple went through a difficult period after the poet decided to return to his hometown of Naples.47 In particular, we discover that this second wife48 was not happy about the change of residence, reacting in a way that Statius had not foreseen. Trusting in Claudia’s faithfulness and convinced that her feelings did not stem from a plan to betray him,49 he was inspired to write a poem praising her well-balanced personality and sober lifestyle, remarking particularly on her distaste for the circus and amusements in vogue with other women,50 as well as her trust in her husband’s faithfulness. Overall, his verses give us the image of a woman who allowed her husband considerable freedom in his movements51 while keeping him attached to her with the passion of their youth kept undimmed.52 Sharing in both the ups and downs of Statius’ political career, Claudia is seen as a loyal companion, ready to encourage her husband, comforting him when at the Ludi Capitolini competition Domitian failed to appreciate his work (probably in 90 CE),53 as well as caring for his health.54 Beyond the possibly idealised and literary details of this couple’s empathetic relationship, we discover that this came to an abrupt end when she refused to leave Rome to accompany her husband to his hometown due to concerns regarding her daughter.55 Thus, accustomed to having his wife Claudia at his side, in the final years of the Empire’s first century, Statius used poetry citing heroines celebrated for their faithfulness to their husbands (such as Penelope, Aegiale, and Meliboea) in an effort to persuade her to follow him to Naples.56 Therefore, after benevolently mentioning Claudia’s memory of her late husband still alive like a constantly present ghost between the author and his wife,57 Statius encouraged her to settle for doing her motherly duty from a distance, overseeing her daughter’s conjugal ambitions despite being away from the capital,58 since ‘Nor is Rome alone fertile in making matches and kindling the

96  Ida Gilda Mastrorosa festal torch’ (nec tantum Roma iugales conciliare toros festasque accedere taedas fertilis).59 In an attempt to convince his wife of the existence of the opportunities that her daughter would surely find in Naples, he used the occasion to sing the praises of his hometown so that she might accept that there too she could have a sophisticated social life, physical well-being, friends like Pollius, and above all the chance to share a serene refuge with her husband.60 Despite the literary tone, this testimony allows us to picture the married life of a couple that was clearly used to enjoying the pleasures of living in Rome but obliged to make an abrupt change after the husband’s professional debacle.61 It is not easy to establish how heavy the decision to move to Naples was for a woman like Claudia, whose previous husband had devoted himself to musical activities,62 which were probably also their daughter’s source of work. This is suggested by a passage praising the latter’s singing talent and implying an interest in dancing,63 which would explain this young woman’s reluctance to leave Rome and its countless opportunities for employment in this field. In any case, we can deduce that towards the end of Domitian’s reign, being used to Claudia’s appreciative support of his poetical gifts, Statius tried to convince her not to send him off alone, and encouraged her to envision her daughter’s marriage to a Neapolitan, a future promising her serene wedded bliss far from Rome’s barren idleness (otia … infecunda).64 Thus, the verses dedicated to his wife in the fifth poem of Book III of the Silvae express not only the poet’s anger and disappointment at his personal defeat in the capital’s arena65 but also a couple’s difficulties caused by the uncertainties of a literary profession in the last decades of the first century. We glimpse the reaction of a husband faced with a failure, perhaps the most galling for someone like Statius, whose father had earned the honour of educating the best youth of Roman society.66 At the same time, we see the difficulties of a wife whose accustomed pleasure in supporting and encouraging her husband clashed with her motherly duties. And finally, we discover the poet’s trust in being able to persuade his wife and to achieve his aim, that is, the trust in the idea of marriage as a union for better or for worse: ‘But ingrate that I am, adding this and the other, doubting your character. You will come, dear wife, you will even go ahead.’67 Another example of how political changes influenced the life of a couple involved in intellectual activity regards Fannia, wife, daughter, and granddaughter of men whose philosophical pursuits made them victims of the emperor in the period between Claudius and Domitian. A passage from Tacitus reveals that Fannia’s father, Thrasea Paetus (consul in 56 CE), condemned to death by Nero in 66 CE, begged his wife Arria Minor not to commit suicide so as to die along with him,68 as her own mother Arria Maior had done. Determined first of all to leave Rome to follow her husband Aulus Caecina Paetus, tried and exiled to Illyria, and then to kill herself when he was condemned to death by Claudius, Arria Maior had already displayed

For better or for worse 97 great strength of character by nursing their son on his deathbed and then hiding the decision to share her husband’s fate.69 Fannia’s own vicissitudes also mirror the political situation’s impact on her indissoluble union with Helvidius Priscus, her husband. She shared in the fate of this man immersed in philosophical studies from his youth, following him in Apollonia when, implicated in his father-in-law Thrasea Paetus’ trial, he was exiled from Rome in 66 CE only to return under Galba, but then finally condemned by Vespasian after a fruitless attempt to have his father-in-law’s accuser incriminated.70 Moreover, even the life of her husband’s son, Helvidius Priscus the Younger, was adversely affected by literary activity when he was condemned by Domitian for having ridiculed him in a mythological work (93 CE).71 All in all, although it is difficult to reconstruct the real dynamics behind these facts, it is evident that the daily lives of early Empire couples with philosophical interests, particularly Stoicism, were devastated by the imperial authorities’ intent to repress any form of dissent. Along these lines, the family fortunes of other cultural figures in the last years of the Flavians shed light on different trends and behaviours. Thus autobiographical elements in Quintilian’s praefatio to Book VI of his Institutio oratoria show his grief when his wife died prematurely giving birth to their second child, leaving the care and education of their children to him,72 who was fortunately in a secure professional position, as he enjoyed the Flavians’ favour. On the other hand, a more intimate image of a literary figure’s wife can be found in Plutarch’s Consolatio ad uxorem written to assuage his wife Timoxena’s grief at their two-year-old daughter’s premature death (around 90 CE), portraying her bereavement borne with courage in her simplicity and respect for the religious practices.73 Another proof that the loss of family members was a trial for such couples in various circumstances often spilling over into literary works is found in a passage of Tacitus’ Agricola where the author shows himself full of regret for not having been able to nurse his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola (consul in 76 CE) during his illness, nor having attended his funeral in 93 CE.74 This is found in the work celebrating the deceased’s deeds and stating the abuse he suffered at the hands of the emperor, revealing the political scenario experienced by Tacitus and his wife, then a long-time married couple,75 when Domitian first showed an autocratic bent. At the same time, we see the strong bond uniting the general who had won honour in Britannia and the noble Domitia Decidiana, with whom he lived in perfect harmony (mira concordia) first from her prestige and support for his aspirations and then from her assistance in his hour of death.76 Information on the conjugal relationship of a major literary figure of the early Empire, Pliny the Younger, partially belongs to the same period. While some passages of his epistolary mention his third wife Calpurnia’s assets,77 offering references to his mother-in-law Pompeia Celerina’s properties,78 others imply the solid relationship of a couple sharing common interests. Thus, in a letter in Book IV addressed to Calpurnia Hispulla, his wife’s paternal

98  Ida Gilda Mastrorosa aunt, who had been responsible for her education after her parents’ death,79 we learn that their union was founded on their intellectual compatibility. Intent on reading, rereading, even learning pages of her husband’s works by heart, concerned with the outcome of his speeches, she demanded to be kept abreast of his success and the approval and applause he earned. Pliny’s wife even attended his lectures indirectly, in rooms or tents near enough to overhear the compliments he received without being seen, and even sang his verses accompanied by a lyre.80 Thus, we understand why a few years later, Pliny continued to write letters to this ideal woman who had moved to Campania, expressing both concerns for her health problems and regret at her absence.81 Moreover, two other passages in his letters inform us of a miscarriage she had while young, communicated to her grandfather, showing Pliny’s disappointment at not being able to announce the arrival of an heir, and his hope for one in the future.82 Therefore, the general impression is that of a couple’s daily life marked by Pliny’s protective spirit and concern for his wife’s health while he maintained cordial relationships with her family. All this fits in with the old patriarchal regime, in which Calpurnia embodies quite well a traditional way of interpreting her wifely role.83 This young woman, content to bask in the vicarious glow of her husband’s fame and professional success, appears more a daughter subject to paternal power ( filia familias) than matron, given her youth and perhaps also the childlessness lamented by her husband in tones echoing Quintilian’s when he depicts the loss of a wife perceived more as a daughter than a mate for life. In any case, Pliny’s testimony reveals anguish at her untimely death, which shows that at the beginning of the new century, marriage could still imply an indissoluble bond, at least in principle.

Concluding remarks Overall, the conjugal relationships of the writers, poets, and intellectuals in the early Empire thus far examined do not denote an equal partnership, although the wife when also a mother had a more significant role. Even in all their diversity, when considering marriages of figures, such as Seneca the Elder, Quintilian, Statius, Plutarch, and Pliny the Younger, certain details suggest a family hierarchy in which the wife assigned to childcare was still seen and treated as a creature under her husband’s protective guardianship. While expressions of tenderness and regret over the premature loss of children show the spouses in the context of their own family unit, there are occasional mentions (as in Seneca the Elder, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger) indicating that this did not imply a break with the wife’s family of origin. Alongside these traditional scenes of married life, the examples we have examined show that in the early Empire, even the married life of intellectuals was influenced by ongoing changes and political events.

For better or for worse 99 Thus, while in Ovid and Lucan’s marriages we find wives faithful to their husbands over a long period despite circumstances, there is also evidence that the role of other wives became more public or/and cultural than private. In this perspective, Lucan’s wife, after her husband’s death, freely cultivating her interest in literary circles can be contrasted with Statius’ wife, encouraged by her husband to abandon that world after his own failure to follow him far from the confusion of Rome and re-establish a serene married life. In conclusion, when examining the life of intellectuals under the Empire, we are presented with variegated pictures portraying middle-class couples whose concepts of marriage and family were those of the Republican period, while the reality of their society was undergoing decisive changes, particularly of a political nature, which had a definite impact on the lives of some literary men and consequently their women.

Notes







1. Among the most recent studies on this matter, see Gabb and Fink (2015), especially 8–11, with further bibliography. 2. For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see the still seminal article by Hallett (1989), according to whom the elite Roman male conceptualisation of the female sex reflected an assumption of sexual polarity and female alterity, although it also expressed a view that women could be assigned qualities that were culturally valued in men. For a recent and in-depth discussion on this subject, see Centlivres Challet (2008), 322, and the exhaustive analysis of Centlivres Challet (2013), who, in addition to showing how Roman writers of the first century represented women as not so different from men, stresses the coexistence of two views, a traditional and ideal as well as an individual and realistic one. 3. Studies useful to elucidate this aspect include Claassen (1996), Treggiari (2007), Jeppesen-Wigelsworth (2013), Buonopane (2016). 4. For the prosopography and the portrait of Helvia, see Navarro Caballero (2017), 522–525, no. 231–232, and 241. 5. Sen. Contr. 1 Pr. 1 and 6; Contr. 2 Pr. 3–4. 6. Sen. Cons. Helv. 2, 4. 7. Sen. Cons. Helv. 2, 5. 8. Sen. Cons. Helv. 14, 2–3. 9. Sen. Cons. Helv. 17, 3. For further remarks on this passage, see Pierini Degl’Innocenti (2003), 339–340; as regards Seneca’s image of Helvia, see also Alonso Del Real (1997); Pierini Degl’Innocenti (1997); Pociña (2003), 333–335; McAuley (2016), 166–199. 10. Sen. Cons. Helv. 18, 9. 11. Hor. Carm. 2, 12, 13–14. For more on Maecenas’ wife and the discussion on her identification, see Hemelrijk (1999), 337, n. 124. 12. Sen. Prov. 3, 10 with discussion on the meaning of cotidiana repudia as ‘daily desertions’ in Watson (1991), 25 who highlights that ‘Terentia is described as morose and this probably means that she had the habit of denying Maecenas his conjugal rights on the slightest pretext’. Moreover, see Sen. Epist. 114, 6 according to whom Maecenas was married a thousand times, though he had only one wife. 13. Iavol. 6 Post Lab. Dig. 24, 1, 64 on which, see Guarino (1994), 98–108.

100  Ida Gilda Mastrorosa 14. Dio Cass. 54, 19, 3–6. Another reference to Augustus’ relation with Terentia could be found in Suet. Aug. 69, 2 according to whom Antony alleged that Octavian was having an adulterous relationship with a Terentilla who is probably Maecenas’ wife: see Carter (1982), 191. 15. Suet. Aug. 66, 3 on which, see Rohr Vio (2000), 325–326; and most recently Chillet (2016), 171–233; Mountford (2019), 53–61. 16. For a deeper discussion on this subject, see Pomeroy (1975), 155–158; Dixon (1985); and recently Mastrorosa (2016) with other bibliographical references. 17. Ovid. Pont. 3, 1, 39–42, 114–166 with useful recent comments in Bessone (2018), 146–151. 18. Ovid. Pont. 3, 1, 133–164. 19. Ovid. Pont. 1, 2, 136–138. On their relationship, see Groag (1909), 1788; Syme (1978), 145–146, and recently Luisi (2000), 191 [repr. Luisi (2001), 144]. For other remarks on Ovid’s portrait of Fabia, see also Citroni Marchetti (2004); Luisi (2007); Marinčič (2019); Fabre-Serris in this volume. 20. For the prosopography of this figure, see Groag (1909), 1782–1783; PIR 2 III, 103–105, n. 47; Syme (1939), 421; (1978), 135–155; (1986), 403. 21. For this hypothesis, see Gaertner (2005), 216; further remarks in Mastrorosa (forthcoming). 22. Tac. Ann. 1, 5, 2; regarding the interpretation of this passage, see the discussion in Marasco (1995); Rohr Vio (2000), 259–260. 23. Ovid. Tr. 1, 6, 5–8, 15–22. 24. Ovid. Tr. 5, 5. 25. Stat. Silv. 2, 7. For more on the prosopography of this figure, see PIR2 I, 204, n. 1039 and Navarro Caballero (2017), 365–367, n. 6. 26. Stat. Silv. 2, 7, 124–131. 27. Stat. Silv. 2, Praef. lines 24–26. 28. As can be also deduced from the episode in Tac. Ann. 2, 86; for more on the model of univira, see Treggiari (1991), 229–236; Cenerini (2009), 34. 29. Stat. Silv. 2, 7, 62–63. 30. Stat. Silv. 2, 7, 83–86. 31. Mart. 7, 21–23. 32. See Hardie (1983), 70–71; Hemelrijk (1999), 131. 33. Mart. 10, 64, with comments in Moreno Soldevila et al. (2019), 487. 34. See Hemelrijk (1999), 131, 310, n. 152. 35. Sidon. Apoll. Epist. 2, 10, 6. 36. For this hypothesis, see Ferri (2003), 26. 37. As highlighted by Newlands (2011), 22. 38. For this hypothesis see Dardaine (1983); Navarro Caballero (2017), 366–367. 39. See CIL VI, 9540; Segenni (2003), 159. 40. See Tac. Ann. 15, 71, 3; on Egnatia Maximilla cf. PIR 2 III, 75, n. 40; Raepsaet-Charlier (1987), 338; Mratschek-Halfmann (1993), 328–329, no. 192. 41. For useful commentaries on Stat. Silv. 1, 2, with particular attention to Statius’ insistence on Stella’s literary skill, see Zeiner (2005), 138–150 who highlights the author’s focus on his ‘literary professionalism’ (141). On the portrait of Violentilla as historical figure embodying the traditional feminine ideals appropriate to the celebratory occasion and corresponding poetic genre of the epithalamium, see Zeiner-Carmichael (2007), 166–176; Hersch (2007). Other references to this couple can be found in the epithalamium composed on the occasion of their wedding by Martial (6, 21), on which see Watson (1999). 42. Stat. Silv. 1, 2, 29–30; about the possibility that Violentilla, a widow, had been involved in an illicit sexual relationship with Stella before their marriage, see Vessey (1972), 181–182; Watson (1999); Zeiner (2005), 139–140.

For better or for worse 101 43. Stat. Silv. 2, 2, 123–125. 44. Stat. Silv. 2, 2, 147–153. On Polla’s image here, see Newlands (2002), 187–188, according to whom ‘in this gendered encomium (…) she is firmly associated with interior, domestic space as Pollius was associated with outdoor space’. 45. Stat. Silv. 2, 2, 143–145. 46. See Nisbet (1978); Hardie (1983), 4, 60; van Dam (1984), 277, 454–455; more sceptical is Hemelrijk (1999), 132–135; Nauta (2002), 225 considers the identification ‘a plausible hypothesis, but not as a fact’; Newland (2011), 21 suggests that ‘Polla may have been the former wife of Lucan (…) But there is no positive proof for this identification’. For further references see also Raepsaet-Charlier (1987), 106, and most recently Santelia (2016); Moreno Soldevila et al. (2019), 487–488. 47. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 11–14; 42–43. 48. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 51–54. 49. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 3–10. 50. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 14–18. 51. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 19–22. 52. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 22–28. 53. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 28–33. For more on Statius’ defeat in the poetry competition of the Capitoline Games see Hardie (1983), 62–63. 54. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 37–42. 55. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 54–62. Statius’ interference in his wife’s relationship with her daughter may be assumed as further evidence of the ‘alternative family structure’ proposed in the work: for a deeper discussion on this subject see Newlands (2006). 56. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 44–49. 57. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 51–54. Statius’ praise of Claudia’s devotion to her first husband is worth noticing as evidence of the poet’s interest in couple relationships; for more details on this subject see McCullough (2011). 58. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 69–74. 59. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 69–71. Translation from Shackleton Bailey (2003), 231. 60. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 74–109. 61. See Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 31–33. For a different interpretation see Centlivres Challet (2013), 101 according to whom ‘Statius’ poem to his wife Claudia purports to convince her to accompany him on a health retreat to Naples’ and it is ‘ambiguous as it is not clear whether Statius stages himself as trying to persuade his reluctant wife to come, or whether he is merely explaining to her the reason for her going with him’. 62. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 52–53. 63. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 63–67. Statius’ appreciation of his step-daughter’s special talents deserves to be noticed. Indeed, as highlighted by Lindgren Liljenstolpe (2015), 57, female singers were looked upon positively by some of the Roman authors and negatively by others. For useful comments on Romans’ attitudes towards ‘music performed by women following the social norms’ see ibidem, 92–99. Furthermore, on Claudia and her daughter as ‘examples of well-educated women among the sub-élite, belonging to what perhaps may anachronistically be called the upper middle class’ see Hemelrijk (1999), 254, note 153. 64. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 61. 65. As can be clearly seen from Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 31–33. 66. Stat. Silv. 5, 3, 176–194. 67. Stat. Silv. 3, 5, 109–111 (Sed ingratus qui plura annecto tuisque / moribus indubito: venies, carissima coniunx, / praeveniesque etiam). Translation from Shackleton Bailey (2003), 233.

102  Ida Gilda Mastrorosa 68. Tac. Ann. 16, 34; Plin. Epist. 7, 19, 2; 9, 13, 1; for useful commentaries on this episode and other examples of women following their husband into death see Phillips (1978), 76–77; Hallett (1984) 261, 340; Treggiari (1991), 486–488; Pigoń (2005); Centlivres Challet (2013), 77–79, 84; Shelton (2013), 43–55. For more details on Thrasea Paetus’ personality and death, see Rudich (1993), 161–173, 302–303. 69. Plin. Epist. 3, 16; Mart. 1, 13; Dio Cass. 60, 16, 5–6; Shelton (2013), 16–18, 30–41. 70. Tac. Ann. 16, 28, 1; Plin. Epist. 3, 11, 3; 7, 19, 3; 9, 13, 3–5; Schol. ad Juv. 5, 36 (on exile in Apollonia); Tac. Hist. 2, 91; 4, 5–6; Suet. Vesp. 15; Dio Cass. 66, 12; Rudich (1993), 175–177. For more on Fannia’s prosopography and activity see Raepsaet-Charlier (1987), 259; Shelton (2013), 55–58, 62–69. 71. Suet. Dom. 10, 4; Rudich (1993), 303–304. 72. Quint. 6, praef. 4–5; 7–9. Beyond the reference to the qualities of his own deceased wife in this passage, on the faceted representation of women’s position in Quintilian’s work see Centlivres Challet (2008). 73. Plut. Cons. ad ux. 1, 608a-b; 4, 608f, 5, 609e; for the interpretation of the autobiographical content of this text see Pomeroy (1999); Soares (2008); Marasco (2008), 665–666; Baltussen (2009); more generally, on Plutarch’s attitude towards women see also Le Corsu (1981); Nikolaidis (1997). 74. Tac. Agr. 45, 4. For more on Agricola’s ties with his daughter and his son-in-law, see also Hallett (1984), 283 who notes how ‘Tacitus emphasizes – and portrays with sympathy – the closeness between his wife and his father-in-law’. 75. The date of this marriage (76 CE) can be deduced from Tac. Agr. 9, 6. 76. Tac. Agr. 6, 1; 45, 5. The date of this marriage is thought to have been 62 CE: see Birley (2005), 74. 77. On Calpurnia’s prosopography see Sherwin-White (1966), 559–560 according to whom she was the third wife; and Raepsaet-Charlier (1987), 177 for whom she was the second. For a deeper discussion of the number and dates of Pliny’s marriages see Epist. 9, 13, 4 (around 97 CE) and 10, 2 (early 98 CE); Sherwin-White (1966), 264, 559–560; Carlon (2009), 104–105; Shelton (2013), 96–97. 78. Plin. Epist. 1, 4, 1; 6, 10, 1; 3, 19, 8. On Pompeia Celerina’s properties see also Mratschek-Halfmann (1993), 362, no. 288. 79. Plin. Epist. 4, 19, 1; useful comments on this letter in Centlivres Challet (2012), 12 who appropriately notes: ‘The aunt gives her niece paternal, not maternal affection as one would have expected. It is the father whom she replaces as a source of affection.’ For other references to Pliny’s relationships with Calpurnia’s family see Epist. 5, 14, 8. 80. Plin. Epist. 4, 19, 3. On this passage see Shelton (2013), 113 who insists on ‘Pliny’s self-centered observation that the marriage will be harmonious because his wife is so enthusiastic about his interests and so devoted to his pursuit of renown’. For further comments see also Pomeroy (1975), 171 who notices how ‘Pliny was pleased that his unsophisticated young wife was memorizing his writings’; Centlivres Challet (2013), 105 for whom he ‘uses Calpurnia to reflect his glory in a way that spares him the embarrassment of self-praise’. On this topic see also Centlivres Challet (2018). Furthermore, this passage offers another example of a woman from the upper strata who plays a musical instrument: see above note 63. 81. Plin. Epist. 7, 5 (around 107 CE). For more on Pliny’s idealisation of Calpurnia, among most recent contributions see De Pretis (2003); Shelton (1990).

For better or for worse 103 82. Plin. Epist. 8, 10–11 (around 107 CE). On this passage see also Centlivres Challet (2012), 10 who highlights Pliny’s insistence on the youth and inexperience of his wife Calpurnia and his empathising with her grandfather deprived of descendants; Centlivres Challet (2013), 23–24, 30. 83. For a little different interpretation see Hemelrijk (1999), 33: ‘Though Pliny portrays himself in his letters as liberal-minded, his ideas form a striking confirmation of the submissiveness expected from women. In order to contribute to the harmony of their marriage Calpurnia had to devote herself to his interests and to adapt to his taste.’

Bibliography Abbreviations CIL VI PIR2 I PIR2 III

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum Voluminis Sexti Pars Secunda (1882). Berolini: apud Georgium Reimerum. Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec. I.II.III, editio altera, Pars I (1933). Berolini-Lipsiae: de Gruyter. Prosopographia Imperii Romani Saec. I.II.III, editio altera, Pars III (1943). Berolini-Lipsiae: de Gruyter.

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104  Ida Gilda Mastrorosa Centlivres Challet C.-E. (2013) Like Man, Like Woman. Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century. Oxford: Peter Lang. Centlivres Challet C.-E. (2018) ‘Pliny the Lover: by the book’. MH 75, 155–168. Chillet C. (2016) De l’Étrurie à Rome: Mécène et la fondation de l’Empire. Rome: École Française de Rome. Citroni Marchetti S. (2004) ‘La moglie di Ovidio. Codici letterari e morali per un’eroina’. Aufidus 52, 7–28. Claassen J.-M. (1996) ‘Documents of a crumbling marriage: the case of Cicero and Terentia’. Phoenix 50, 208–232. Dardaine S. (1983) ‘La Gens Argentaria en Hispania (La femme de Lucain avait-elle une origine hispanique?)’. Mélanges de la Casa de Velazquez 19, 5–15. De Pretis A. (2003) ‘“Insincerity”, “Facts”, and “Epistolarity”: approaches to Pliny’s epistles to Calpurnia’. Arethusa 36, 127–146. Dixon S. (1985) ‘The marriage alliance in the Roman elite’. Journal of Family History 10, 353–378. Ferri R. (2003) Octavia: A Play Attributed to Seneca. Edited with Introduction and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gabb J. and Fink J. (2015) Couple Relationships in the 21st Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Gaertner J. F. (2005) Ovid. Epistulae ex Ponto, Book I. Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Groag E. (1909) ‘Paullus Fabius Maximus’. RE 6.2, 1780–1789. Guarino A. (1994) Pagine di diritto romano V. Napoli: Jovene (= Id., Trebazio e il caso di Terenzia, Labeo 38, 1992, 137–148). Hallett J. P. (1984) Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society. Women and the Elite Family. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hallett J. P. (1989) ‘Women as same and other in classical Roman elite’. Helios 16, 59–78. Hardie A. (1983) Statius and the Silvae. Poets, Patrons and Epideixis in the GraecoRoman World. Liverpool: Cairns. Hemelrijk E. A. (1999) Matrona Docta. Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna. London and New York: Routledge. Hersch K. K. (2007) ‘Violentilla victa’. Arethusa 40, 197–205. Jeppesen-Wigelsworth A. (2013) ‘Amici and coniuges in Cicero’s letters: Atticus and Terentia’. Latomus 72, 350–365. Le Corsu F. (1981) Plutarque et les femmes dans les Vies parallèles. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Lindgren Liljenstolpe E. (2015) Sempronia’s Song. Attitudes to Women’s MusicMaking in Ancient Rome. Uppsala: Institutionen för Arkeologi och Antik historia. Luisi A. (2000) ‘Ovidio e la corrente filoantoniana di opposizione al regime’. In Sordi M. (ed.), L’opposizione nel mondo antico. Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 181–193 (repr. Luisi A. (2001) Il perdono negato. Ovidio e la corrente filoantoniana. Bari: Edipuglia, 133–154). Luisi A. (2007) ‘La terza moglie di Ovidio: coniunx exulis viri’. InvLuc 29, 123–128. Marasco G. (1995) ‘Augusto, Agrippa Postumo e la morte di Paolo Fabio Massimo’. GIF 47, 131–139. Marasco G. (2008) ‘Donne, cultura e società nelle Vite Parallele di Plutarco’. In Nikolaidis A. G. (ed.), The Unity of Plutarch’s Work. ‘Moralia’ Themes in the ‘Lives’, Features of the ‘Lives’ in the ‘Moralia’. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 663–677.

For better or for worse 105 Marinčič M. (2019) ‘La uxor elegiaca e i limiti della finzione: sulla figura della moglie nell’Ovidio dell’esilio’. In Battistella C. (ed.), Ovidio a Tomi: saggi sulle opere dell’esilio. Milano e Udine: Mimesis, 73–94. Mastrorosa I. G. (2016) ‘Matronae e repudium nell’ultimo secolo di Roma repubblicana’. In Cenerini F. and Rohr Vio F. (eds.), Matronae in domo et in re publica agentes. Spazi e occasioni dell’azione femminile nel mondo romano tra tarda repubblica e primo impero. Trieste: EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 65–87. Mastrorosa I. G. (forthcoming) ‘Cum subit Augusti quae sit clementia: Ovide et la rhétorique de l’autodéfense’. In Vial H. (ed.), La culture rhétorique des poètes augustéens. Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal. McAuley M. (2016) Reproducing Rome: Motherhood in Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, and Statius. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McCullough A. (2011) ‘One wife, one love: coniugalis amor, grief and masculinity in Statius’ Silvae’. In LaCourse Munteanu D. (ed.), Emotion, Genre and Gender in Classical Antiquity. London: Bristol Classical Press, 175–191. Moreno Soldevila R., Marina Castillo A. and Fernández Valverde J. (eds.) (2019) A Prosopography to Martial’s Epigrams. Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter. Mountford P. (2019) Maecenas. London and New York: Routledge. Mratschek-Halfmann S. (1993) Divites et praepotentes. Reichtum und soziale Stellung in der Literatur der Prinzipatszeit. Stuttgart: Steiner. Nauta R. R. (2002) Poetry for Patrons. Literary Communication in the Age of Domitian. Leiden, Boston, and Köln: Brill. Navarro Caballero M. (2017) Perfectissima femina. Femmes de l’élite dans l’Hispanie romaine. Bordeaux: Ausonius. Newlands C. E. (2002) Statius’ Silvae and the Poetics of Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Newlands C. E. (2006) ‘Mothers in Statius’s poetry: sorrows and surrogates’. Helios 33, 203–226. Newlands C. E. (ed.) (2011) Statius, Silvae II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nikolaidis A. G. (1997) ‘Plutarch on women and marriage’. WS 110, 27–88. Nisbet R. G. M. (1978) ‘Felicitas at Surrentum (Statius, Silvae II. 2)’. JRS 68, 1–11. Phillips J. E. (1978) ‘Roman mothers and the lives of their adult daughters’. Helios 6, 69–80. Pierini Degl’Innocenti R. (1997) ‘In nome della madre. Pathos tragico e retorica degli affetti nella Consolatio ad Helviam matrem di Seneca’. Paideia 52, 109–120. Pierini Degl’Innocenti R. (2003) ‘“Ritratto di famiglia”. Seneca e i suoi nella Consolatio ad Helviam’. In Gualandri I. and Mazzoli G. (eds.), Gli Annei. Una famiglia nella storia e nella cultura di Roma imperiale. Como: New Press, 339–356. Pigoń J. (2005) ‘Death and the maiden (or matron): some female demises in early Imperial writers’. Eos 92, 200–209. Pociña A. (2003) ‘La donna secondo Seneca e le donne degli Annei’. In Gualandri I. and Mazzoli G. (eds.), Gli Annei. Una famiglia nella storia e nella cultura di Roma imperiale. Como: New Press, 327–337. Pomeroy S. B. (1975) Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken Books. Pomeroy S. B. (1999) ‘Reflections on Plutarch, a consolation to his wife’. In Pomeroy S. (ed.), Plutarch’s “Advice to the Bride and Groom” and “A Consolation to His Wife”. English Translations, Commentary, Interpretive Essays, and Bibliography. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 75–81.

106  Ida Gilda Mastrorosa Raepsaet-Charlier M.-T. (1987) Prosopographie des femmes de l’ordre sénatorial (Ier IIe siècles). Leuven: Peeters. Rohr Vio F. (2000) Le voci del dissenso. Ottaviano Augusto e i suoi oppositori. Padova: Il Poligrafo. Rudich V. (1993) Political Dissidence under Nero. The Price of Dissimulation. London and New York: Routledge. Santelia S. (2016) ‘Polla Argentaria, patrona di poeti: forse poetessa univira’. Vichiana 53, 75–84. Segenni S. (2003) ‘Donne e lavoro intellettuale’. In Buonopane A. and Cenerini F. (eds), Donna e lavoro nella documentazione epigrafica. Faenza: Lega Editori, 155–161. Shackleton Bailey D. R. (2003) Statius. Silvae. Edited and translated. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. Shelton J.-A. (1990) ‘Pliny the Younger and the ideal wife’. C&M 41, 163–186 (repr. (2016). In Gibson R. and Whitton C. (eds), The Epistles of Pliny. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 159–184). Shelton J.-A. (2013) The Women of Pliny’s Letters. London and New York: Routledge. Sherwin-White A. N. (1966) The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Soares C. (2008) ‘Parent-child affection and social relationships in Plutarch: common elements in Consolatio ad uxorem and Vitae’. In Nikolaidis A. G. (ed.), The Unity of Plutarch’s Work. ‘Moralia’ Themes in the ‘Lives’. Features of the ‘Lives’ in the ‘Moralia’. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 719–727. Syme R. (1939) The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syme R. (1978) History in Ovid. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Syme R. (1986) The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Treggiari S. (1991) Roman Marriage. Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Treggiari S. (2007) Terentia, Tullia and Publilia: The Women of Cicero’s Family. London and New York: Routledge. van Dam H.-J. (1984) P. Papinius Statius. Silvae. Book II. A Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Vessey D. (1972) ‘Aspects of Statius’ Epithalamion’. Mnemosyne 25, 172–187. Watson A. J. M. (1991) ‘An attempt at a psychological analysis of Maecenas’. Akrtroterion 36, 25–35. Watson P. (1999) ‘Martial on the wedding of Stella and Violentilla’. Latomus 58, 348–356. Zeiner N. K. (2005) Nothing Ordinary Here: Statius as Creator of Distinction in the Silvae. New York and London: Routledge. Zeiner-Carmichael N. K. (2007) ‘Perfecting the ideal: molding Roman women in Statius’s Silvae’. Arethusa 40, 165–181.

7

Worth her weight Worthy women, coupling, and eating in Petronius’ Satyrica Karen E. Klaiber Hersch

In discussions of the Satyrica’s focus on the pleasures of the flesh, scholars in the past laboured to identify Petronius’ implicit criticism of the luxury and excess of his own world1 as well as strenuously challenge the view of Petronius as a moralist.2 One bodily pleasure highlighted in the extant portions of this satirical work of fiction written in the last half of the first century CE is, undeniably, eating – the focus on which reaches absurd heights in the freedman Trimalchio’s outrageously lavish dinner party. In recent years, students of Petronius have discovered that eating in the Satyrica represents far more than overdone luxury at a dinner. Victoria Rimell importantly argued (contra e.g. Conte 1996) that within the topsy-turvy world of the Satyrica, certain patterns emerge, noting that Petronius presents human bodies as ‘prime agents of disguise and transformation’3 and reveals the ways in which improper eating and drinking in the text may be equated with sexual penetration.4 In this article, I examine the potential meaning behind women’s relationships with eating in the Satyrica, and I argue that Petronius connects three women’s abstention from food and drink to their ability to attract and keep a male partner. No scholar, to my knowledge, has yet investigated even superficially the three primary characters’ (Fortunata, the Widow of Ephesus, and Circe) refusal of food and Petronius’ depiction of these women as objects not only of the male gaze but, in fact, of male adoration. In a text stuffed with people who eat and drink to excess, these abstemious female characters stand alone. Amy Richlin astutely commented that ‘Women play only minor roles in the extant Satyrica, and the novel uses them mainly to express the common Roman stereotype of women as sex-crazed.’5 I argue that another, opposing cultural ideal is expressed in the only extended descriptions of praiseworthy women in this often bewildering text: those women that men deem desirable as sexual or life partners – that is, being worthy of coupling – are able to control their food intake. I suggest that Petronius’ novel evokes another ageold stereotype that emerges in the earliest Greek, to the latest Roman, texts: worthy women are those who are able to exhibit self-control.6 Petronius neatly divides the women in the Satyrica into two camps: women who are DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-7

108  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch judged worthy of committed unions, of couplehood, conjugal or not, by a male partner, and the ones who are deemed unworthy. By building on previous interpretations of bodily excess and abstention in the Satyrica, like those of Rimell and Richlin, I hope to show that within his portrait of a chaotic and unstable world, Petronius surprisingly cleaves to one well-worn trope we may find throughout Roman literature. That is, Petronius heavily emphasises the idea, evident throughout Roman literature, that the formation and stability of heteronormative couplehood are dependent on the putatively stable behaviour of the female partner.7 Petronius nudges his readers to recognise that in the Satyrica (and perhaps in the world he inhabited, Neronian Rome), a woman’s stability is in the mind of her male beholder, even if, or especially if, this stability may well be illusory or imaginary. And so, even amid the incredible variety of sexual and culinary overindulgences and misbehaviours in the Satyrica, one storyline recurs: men are denied no pleasures, while women must limit theirs to attract men and form lasting partnerships. Thus, fascinatingly, in a work that otherwise continually delights in showing mos maiorum turned upside-down, Petronius’ depiction of the self-controlled woman’s desirability conforms to well-known Greco-Roman standards of women’s worth. As my reader is too well aware, Classical literature, from Hesiod to Semonides to Juvenal, affords ample exempla of worthless women who recklessly eat up men’s carefully won goods. Petronius invokes this negative stereotype as his anti-hero reports the unsavoury behaviours of the sodden Quartilla, the incautious Scintilla, the frightening Oenothea and Proselenos, the wicked Philomela. In the world Petronius creates, only women are able to maintain even the semblance of self-control to attract and keep a potential mate. Most of the men in the Satyrica are no strangers to unsavoury behaviour; the reader is meant to enjoy the doubled humour at the thought of these profligate men admiring, and perhaps demanding, abstention from their partners. Petronius both highlights wellworn Roman ideals of perfection in womanhood and at the same time pokes fun at the near impossibility of any man or woman in Rome exhibiting proper behaviour at all times. Therefore, I argue that the formation of what we might call heteronormative couples in the Satyrica seems to be in the hands of women alone because, paradoxically, Petronius shows us that the women who control themselves bodily also control the men who desire them. And so, Petronius presents us with female characters who possess power and courage men do not, by showing us that women who control men, and therefore, who are credited with creating or maintaining relationships with these same men, do so by means of heroic denial of food. In the following pages, I examine closely the wiles of three women in the Satyrica who exemplify this scheme. The first is Fortunata, whom we meet at the site of feasting par excellence in the middle of the extant Satyrica: the so-called Cena Trimalchionis. Wife of the host, the freedman Trimalchio, Fortunata boasts of – and is boasted

Worth her weight 109 of by her husband for – her exceptional skills as a materfamilias.8 The second, the far-famed Widow of Ephesus, matrona par excellence and the star of her own embedded (pun intended) comedic vignette, appears in a tale told to while away the hours of an ocean journey. The third, the beautiful seductress Circe, springs forth near the end of the surviving text as a love interest for our anti-hero Encolpius.

Fortunata It is Petronius’ portrait of Fortunata that must occupy the largest portion of my discussion, perhaps contrary to my reader’s expectation; as Liz Gloyn has recently observed, Fortunata has occupied a minor role in Petronian scholarship precisely because she was thought to occupy a minor, supporting role in the text, and reasonably so.9 Fortunata has not even one significant speech in the extant text, and she appears more often than not relegated to the role of one of many of Trimalchio’s hangers-on, just another clown in the three-ring circus that is the Cena. In the main, she and her friend Scintilla receive negative attention from their husbands and guests alike. Even a guest, Habinnas, tries to humiliate her. Granted no memorable words, overweight, childless, and ridiculed, Fortunata is the unhappy victim of her husband’s verbal and physical abuse. Gloyn has argued that Petronius steers his readers to the conclusion that Fortunata so threatens Trimalchio that he endeavours to stifle her in every way possible, keeping her ‘trapped in the cage he constructs to restrain her’.10 Taking Gloyn’s conclusions in another direction, I would like to suggest that Petronius shows Fortunata to be a woman who is able to exhibit more self-control than her husband, and in doing so earns his (perhaps sometimes grudging) respect. Fortunata’s worth, in Trimalchio’s eyes, and ultimately her ability to control him are directly connected to her own self-control, centred on food. Of course, as we learn, Fortunata’s showy abstention is no more than a public performance, for she is, in fact, overweight, and therefore, privately indulges. But as I hope to show, Petronius neatly matches Fortunata’s performance of matronly abstention and industry, which Trimalchio alone lauds, with Trimalchio’s performance of elegance. Petronian scholarship has been focused in recent decades on the author’s surprisingly intricate arrangement of scenes and episodes coupled with a novel and oftentimes unique Latin as well as the element of surprise, as he interweaves detailed descriptions of every type of crass luxury or sexual act with educated allusions to prior Greek and Roman literature.11 I argue that the portrait of Fortunata should be counted among Petronius’ novelistic victories, for the care and attention Petronius lavished on the freedmen guests at Trimalchio’s dinner is no less in evidence in his characterisation of Fortunata. Petronius denies her a speaking role, but we should note that of those who attend the Cena, Fortunata and Trimalchio are the only

110  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch characters to whom the novelist grants lengthy details of both their bodies and adornments.12 We are first alerted to Fortunata’s presence by the narrator Encolpius, who notices a woman busily running about as the men recline and asks a dining companion, Hermeros, who the mystery woman is. Hermeros replies that she is Trimalchio’s wife Fortunata and though an enormously rich woman now, she was once the lowest of the low. Tellingly, Hermeros connects Fortunata’s rise to food as he scoffs that ‘And what was she just a little while ago? Your Genius will forgive me, you wouldn’t have wanted to take bread from her hand. (…) But now, with no rhyme or reason, she ascended to the heavens and is everything to Trimalchio’ (Et modo, modo quid fuit? Ignoscet mihi genius tuus, noluisses de manu illius panem accipere (…) Nunc, nec quid nec quare, in caelum abiit et Trimalchionis topanta est) (Sat. 37.3–5).13 Thus, Fortunata has fulfilled the omen of her name, and Hermeros’ claim that she has ‘ascended to the heavens’ suggests that she is viewed as a goddess by her spouse. But Hermeros admits that he has no idea why Trimalchio adores her so (nec quid nec quare), which suggests that there must be some secret to her power. I would like to suggest here that the mere fact of Encolpius’ notice and Hermeros’ mixed review of Fortunata have perhaps received less attention than they deserve. For it seems that Petronius uses this vignette as the starting point of his carefully built portrait of Fortunata that, while it has perhaps received less generous attention than his portrait of Trimalchio, is no less intricate in design. Here we should pause to consider what novelties in Trimalchio’s Underworld14 have prompted our narrator Encolpius to seek explanations from any docent at hand. For we note that, presumably unlike Ascyltos and Giton,15 Encolpius stops to enquire as he takes in each new spectacle (which I examine briefly below). Indeed, before he beholds Fortunata, Encolpius asks a slave about the unusual artwork at the entrance of Trimalchio’s house, a marvellous mural that comprises Trimalchio’s resumé (Sat. 29.9),16 and then enquires of a fellow diner about a server named Carver, who slices meat for the guests (Sat. 36.8). I bring these scenes to the reader’s attention precisely because these wondrous rarities seem justifiable prompters of enquiry. No scholar, to my knowledge, has taken notice of Encolpius’ enquiries at these junctures, and reasonably so, because the novelties Encolpius beholds seem meant to confusing, even to the reader, and Encolpius’ questions seem appropriate. Indeed, scholars have long noted that for Encolpius, Trimalchio’s house and dinner party are nothing less than sensory overload, overtaxing our poor anti-hero’s visual, auditory, olfactory, mental, and gustatory limits.17 Encolpius relates how, at every turn, both his body and mind are completely overwhelmed by the nightmare of the Cena, with its novel and incessant noises (issuing from guests, demanding host, musicians, and even firemen), the overabundance of dishes (each more fantastic than the next), the persistent attention of enslaved servers and finally the ubiquity of animals of

Worth her weight 111 every kind, both living (gambolling, barking, flying) and dead (lying before him, ready to be eaten). I argue that for the student of Petronius, another palpable wonder of the Cena might be that Encolpius even notices Fortunata in the first place. Indeed why should Encolpius, overstuffed with marvels, distinguish one woman in a crowded triclinium? Certainly, no one else remarks on her until Encolpius notices her, perhaps because of her officiousness. We should then ask why, among the novelties and marvels of Trimalchio’s world, Encolpius makes bold ask his couchmate about one seemingly ordinary, busy woman – since, until this point, he has only opened his mouth to inquire about what we might label as actual marvels. It is entirely possible that the humour of this scene is meant to arise from Encolpius’ attention to Fortunata, since only an addlepated neophyte like Encolpius would wish to have more information on what surely would have been a normal sight in any Roman house: a busy housewife. But it is equally possible that, in Encolpius’ wondering at Fortunata, and Hermeros’ portrait of her, Petronius expected his Roman reader, too, to view Fortunata as another marvel among many in the Cena, a spectacle of spectacles. Hermeros’ comments might be easily dismissed as a hodgepodge of exaggerations of the type that characterise other speeches at the dinner. But Petronius always repays readers’ careful inspection of what appears to be nonsense. Hermeros at Sat. 37 condemns Fortunata with his spiteful hissings (she was lowly born, a domineering harridan, a chattering magpie (pica) – presumably garrulous, but we are never given any evidence of her talkativeness), yet he freely admits that she is also smart and sober, and the object of Trimalchio’s worship.18 It is perhaps of the greatest significance that Hermeros reveals Fortunata’s character to Encolpius alone. We may, of course, view Hermeros and his claims as part of a larger pattern repeated throughout the extant Satyrica: Hermeros is no more than one of a multitude of oracles Encolpius meets on his journey, whose messages he hears but does not understand.19 Yet it may be too that Petronius had a more complicated joke in mind and meant for his readers to recognise Hermeros as a Cassandra of the dinner, who tries to reveal what he knows about Fortunata and Trimalchio to Encolpius,20 the one person who seems least likely to understand anything that goes on around him. But what if Hermeros’ tale is true? He seems to be at best an exaggerating Cassandra and at worst a misleading Cassandra. We note that Petronius invokes Cassandra not long after (Sat. 52) as Trimalchio enumerates his costly possessions, including four hundred golden cups decorated with ‘Cassandra killing her children,’ mistakenly attributing Medea’s gruesome crime to the tortured prophetess. It seems plausible that Petronius wanted us to view Encolpius’ dinner companion Hermeros as a misleading and misunderstood prophet. Tellingly, Petronius shows us that Hermeros’ ‘truths’ are contained within the closed circuit of Hermeros and Encolpius, to point up the fact that while Fortunata does her utmost to make herself conspicuous in her role as busy matrona, she

112  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch seems to fail, in that her entrance at the dinner makes an impression on no one but the addlepated Encolpius. But Petronius reveals that her industry is indeed noted and praised by one man at the Cena: her husband. When next we behold Fortunata, Trimalchio’s friend Habinnas has just arrived with his wife Scintilla, fresh from a funeral feast (novendiale). Habinnas waxes rapturous over the variety and abundance of food they enjoyed, remarking on how both he and his wife Scintilla gorged themselves.21 The unwise Scintilla, her husband comments, even tasted bear meat and nearly vomited. After his revolting enumeration of delicacies, Habinnas takes notice of, then and enquires about, Fortunata’s absence. Trimalchio responds with the boast that his wife is so hardworking that ‘unless she has put away all the silver, and divided the leftovers amongst the slaves, she will not (even) put water in her mouth’22 ((…) nisi argentum composuerit, nisi reliquias pueris diviserit, aquam in os suum non coniciet) (Sat. 67.2). The details of this passage certainly deserve our attention. We note first that Petronius baldly juxtaposes two men’s descriptions of their wives’ behaviour: Habinnas’ comments on Scintilla’s gluttony stand in direct contrast to Trimalchio’s report of Fortunata’s abstention (even from water). What is more, the words used by Trimalchio here are significant: in his boast, Trimalchio repeats almost verbatim a phrase used by one of his guests when describing starvation. Earlier, the freedman Seleucus had introduced a sombre tone to the party by declaring that he had just that day attended the funeral of his friend Chrysanthus, lamenting that his friend starved himself as a part of a cure, or hoping for a cure, to some unknown illness and was in any case killed by his doctors. He did not take a sip of water or crumb of bread (Et quid si non abstinax fuisset! Quinque dies aquam in os suum non coniecit, non micam panis) (Sat. 42.5). It seems entirely possible that Petronius puts in Trimalchio’s mouth almost verbatim Seleucus’ description of suicidal starvation when he claims Fortunata will not even drink (aquam in os suum non coniciet) to impress upon the reader that Trimalchio considers Fortunata’s abstention, too, to be nothing less than heroic.23 Such are Trimalchio’s comments on Fortunata’s industry and abstention. The reader is soon made well aware that Fortunata is, in fact, in no danger of starvation or dehydration. We read that she is endowed with the ‘fattest arms’ (crassissimis (…) lacertis) and that she exchanges drunken kisses with Scintilla (mulieres sauciae inter se riserunt ebriaeque iunxerunt oscula) (Sat. 67.11). Therefore, the humour lies in the tension between the real and the ideal Fortunata. Fortunata in the flesh is surely not the ‘dry and sober wife’ Hermeros and Trimalchio claim she is: the woman who appears at one moment to be an industrious, abstemious matrona is soon to be revealed as overweight and drunk. Readers are made aware of Fortunata’s officiousness at every turn. Trimalchio makes sure his guests know that Fortunata is so busy that she cannot even greet her newly entered guests until ‘the entire familia has called her four or more times’ (nisi signo dato Fortunata quater amplius a tota familia

Worth her weight 113 esset vocata) (Sat. 67.3). Just as remarkable, our narrator Encolpius notes not long after this scene that Fortunata has been busy preparing the next course of the dinner while he and other guests bathed, and then she even, extraordinarily so – because, presumably, she has thousands of enslaved workers to do it for her – grinds the pepper herself for the rooster course to follow. Petronius takes care to highlight Fortunata’s virtue by pairing her industry with other characters’ indolence. Encolpius marvels that ‘while Daedalus (the cook) drinks the hottest beverage, Fortunata grinds pepper in a boxwood mill’ (Dumque Daedalus potionem ferventissimam haurit, Fortunata mola buxea piper trivit) (Sat. 74.5). Thus the ‘crafty’ cook, whose very name is a punning homage to the king of craftsmen, is able to cease his work and craft nothing at all while his mistress, the lady of the house, works. Once again, Fortunata takes care to work harder than her own enslaved workers. Of course, Fortunata’s virtues, by which she endears herself to Trimalchio, extend beyond the scope of food, for we learn that she is the most devoted of the entire familia to her husband. In fact, she emerges as the incarnation of the ideal matrona as outlined by two freedmen, Ganymedes and Seleucus. At Sat. 44.18, the guest Ganymedes laments the passing of the old days, when ‘women used to go up the hill barefoot, with unbound hair and pure minds, and beg Jove for water’ (Antea stolatae ibant nudis pedibus in clivum, passis capillis, mentibus puris, et Iovem aquam exorabant) and these prayers brought an end to drought. Not long after at Sat. 54, Petronius takes care to highlight the fact Fortunata is the first of the familia, lamenting and with unbound hair (inter primos Fortunata passis crinibus) (Sat. 54.2) to render aid to her husband when Trimalchio is injured by an acrobat. We might guess that Petronius mentions her flowing locks to show her speed, or plain unkemptness, or even better the overdone degree of her emotion, since unbound hair was a well-recognised element of feminine mourning ritual in antiquity. We then recall how the phrase passis crinibus was used by Ganymedes just a few scenes earlier, proclaiming to all the blessings brought by the ideal Roman matronae of yore. What is more, in the same passage we saw above (Sat. 42), in which the freedman Seleucus details the sad end of his friend Chrysanthus, Seleucus juxtaposes his friend’s miserable death with the generous lamentation at his burial. But Seleucus also scoffs that at the funeral, the ‘mourning was excellent, even if his wife hardly cried for him’ (Planctus est optime (…) etiam si maligne illum ploravit uxor) (Sat. 42.6). Seleucus then denounces women in general, calling them vultures. As if to answer Seleucus’ charge against women, at Sat. 72, Fortunata is the first to follow Trimalchio in weeping after his maudlin description of his own funeral, so that ‘after Trimalchio said these things, he began to cry copiously. And then Fortunata cried, Habinnas cried, finally the whole household, as if invited to a funeral, filled the dining room with lamentation’ (Haec ut dixit Trimalchio, flere coepit ubertim. Flebat et Fortunata, flebat et Habinnas, tota denique familia, tanquam in funus rogata, lamentatione triclinium implevit) (Sat. 72.1). In leading

114  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch the charge of lamentation, and in so doing giving Trimalchio a grand, if premature, send-off at the mere thought of his funeral, Fortunata proves herself superior to the wife of Chrysanthus, who cried insufficiently at her husband’s funeral. Fortunata is described by others as the object of Trimalchio’s worship and even fear. We saw Hermeros at Sat. 37.4 claimed Fortunata ‘ascended to the heavens’ (in caelum abiit), and later Encolpius at Sat. 52 believes he sees Fortunata admonishing Trimalchio, and of Trimalchio’s behaviour, he observes (52.11): ‘Never was there a creature more changeable. One minute he feared Fortunata, the next minute he went back to his old ways (his true nature)’ (Nihil autem tam inaequale erat; nam modo Fortunatam verebatur, modo ad naturam suam revertabatur). But Trimalchio also criticises and even humiliates her before the other guests. He may crow about her industry at Sat. 67, but earlier we see that he rudely publicises Fortunata’s nocturnal gas emissions (Sat. 47.5). Trimalchio trumpets his desire to have his dear wife as his heir, remaining with him for eternity in having her likeness fashioned in stone as decoration for his tomb (Sat. 71.11), but soon after, when Fortunata curses him for his ostentatious kissing of his favourite male slave, in a fit of pique, he throws a cup at her face, then taunts her for her low origins, revealing to all that she was an enslaved flute-girl he bought in the marketplace: ‘this flute-girl doesn’t remember, but I got her off a sale-platform and made her a real person among people’ (ambubaia non meminit, sed de machina illam sustuli, hominem inter homines feci) (Sat. 74.13).24 We should pause here to review why Petronius portrays Fortunata as he does. As many have noted, he does so to make her the perfect companion to Trimalchio, who is equally marked by ignorance of social niceties.25 Thus as Petronius shows Trimalchio to be a buffoon because he goes above and beyond nouvelle richesse with his boorish, overdone luxuries, so Fortunata has taken to Roman matronhood with the zeal of the converted and gone beyond what would have been expected of an elegant blue-blooded Roman matrona. As Trimalchio fails at sophistication, Fortunata fails in the pursuit of perfect matronhood. But we can see that still, she has kept her man, for good or ill. For each spouse, it seems, the veneer of virtue is all that matters, and this couple’s boorishness would appear to be the crux of the joke for an elite Roman reader: their marriage by the end of the Cena has become a public spectacle for all to deride. That is, she may be his ‘everything’, topanta, but who would want to be Trimalchio’s darling? Like him, she is still low and dirty and caught in an Underworld.26 Yet in the game of chaste matronhood, Fortunata might be said to give the saintly Lucretia a run for her denarii, and it may be that Petronius had Livy’s Lucretia in mind as he concocted his Fortunata. That is, Petronius takes care to show Fortunata, like Lucretia, busy with her domestic chores or in the company of a woman – indeed, although she calls him a dog,27 Fortunata speaks to no man but Trimalchio. Like Lucretia, her husband praises her to other men, and this turns out badly. The same man to whom

Worth her weight 115 she is praised, like Lucretia’s Sextus, shames her. Soon after Trimalchio praises his wife to his friend Habinnas, this same Habinnas makes free to grab Fortunata’s feet and toss her head over heels, exposing her legs. Fortunata blushes in the manner of a maiden, and ‘having thrown herself into Scintilla’s lap she hid her face, burning with blushes, in her handkerchief’ (Composita ergo in gremio Scintillae incensissimam rubore faciem sudario abscondit) (Sat. 67.13). Fortunata’s blush seems to carry more significance than scholars have granted it: Petronius shows Fortunata possesses a sense of shame, pudor, the paramount virtue of the well-bred Roman lady and hardly the reaction an elite Roman audience would attach to a lowly prostitute or flute-girl. Can one fake a blush?28 In crafting Fortunata as a would-be Lucretia, Petronius seems to be hinting broadly that Fortunata, like Lucretia, had an eye towards fashioning her own commemoration after death. As Lucretia in the pages of Livy speaks her own epitaph, wanting to be a good example to chaste women,29 Fortunata seems to pursue the veneer of matronhood in anticipation of her own epitaph. The thoughts of this couple are fixed firmly on representation after death. As Trimalchio blabs at length to his guests his plans for his lavish tomb and its inscription, Petronius may be nudging the reader to conclude that Fortunata hustles and bustles to build her own inscription. As any Roman reader would know, a virtuous Roman woman’s life was routinely summed up in Roman funerary inscriptions with the phrases lanam fecit, domum servavit.30 Fortunata may not work wool, but she takes care of everything and everyone in her house, as her own husband boasts. Importantly, when we reread Hermeros’ summary of Fortunata, we can see that Fortunata has been given her own mixed-up Petronian commemoration: as Encolpius explains, the mural at the entrance to Trimalchio’s home includes a scene in which ‘Mercury was raising Trimalchio by the chin onto a high platform’ (levatum mento in tribunal excelsum Mercurius rapiebat) (Sat. 29.6). Similarly, as we have seen, Fortunata has been ‘raised to the skies’ (in caelum abiit) (Sat. 37) and also lifted up by Trimalchio from the slave-market platform (de machina sustuli) (Sat. 74).31 Hermeros has established her place in Trimalchio’s life and home as his topanta, his everything, and the rest of his neat summary provides a readymade epitaph of sorts for Fortunata in an imitation of the clipped phrasing of inscriptional Latin – suitably transformed, we note, from the more common adjectives used to commemorate the virtuous deceased on their tombs. As women were commonly commemorated as, for example, ‘pious’, ‘chaste’, or ‘frugal’ (pia, pudica, frugalis),32 Hermeros (Sat. 37) pronounces Fortunata ‘dry, sober and (has) good advice’ (sicca, sobria, bonorum consiliorum). Of course, Petronius fashions Fortunata’s epitaph to be as topsy-turvy as Trimalchio’s, for Hermeros hastens to add that she is also possessed of an ‘evil tongue, and is a magpie on the couch’ (malae linguae, pica pulvinaris) (Sat. 37) At the end of the Cena, Trimalchio delivers his own epitaph, and it balances Hermeros’ words on Fortunata nicely. Trimalchio desires for his own tomb the triad

116  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch ‘pious, brave, faithful’, pius, fortis, fidelis (Sat. 71), and we should note that not long after, at Sat. 76, Trimalchio also praises Fortunata’s piety, telling his dining companions how Fortunata sold her jewellery to help him financially, blessing him with her ‘pious deed’ (rem piam). As her gross, boorish, childless husband attempts to the role of paterfamilias, lording over the coveted spot in the triclinium, ordering dish after dish, Fortunata does her best to rule the roost, playing the role of materfamilias, busily helping to prepare dishes, caring for her injured husband, and publicly showing modesty as she blushes when affronted by Habinnas. Her industry and abstention are lauded by her husband alone, and we may conclude that she falls short of her goal of über-matronitas, but we have to admit she, like Trimalchio, does nothing by halves. Thus, Petronius gives us committed spouses who at once love and abuse each other, hoping to be commemorated as Collatinus and Lucretia, but falling short. Notably, we have seen that Fortunata is hardly alone in her interest in the virtues of the ideal, chaste matrona. The guests Ganymedes and Seleucus hold forth with gusto on their ideas of womanly perfection; presumably elite Roman readers would consider the opinions of freed slaves on this topic the height of absurdity. As we saw, Ganymedes lamented the passing of the good old days when chaste matrons walked barefoot to bring offerings to the gods (Sat. 44), and Seleucus (Sat. 42) scoffed at a wife who was miserly with her tears. Even Trimalchio, the most ostentatious of them all, holds forth against the ills of an age consumed by wealth and greed and their deleterious effect on the morals of women.33 Therefore, it seems Petronius deliberately links the vain hopes of the freedmen for the return of virtuous women of yore to Fortunata’s own vain hopes to appear the best of wives as she strives for matronly respectability. The freedmen’s ideas of matronae are part and parcel of the farce of the Cena, their skewed views reflected in Fortunata’s attempts to surpass all women. Trimalchio and Fortunata may openly fight in front of their guests, but Petronius shows that Trimalchio admires his wife for the one ability he himself lacks: the merest shred of self-control, a theme we will encounter again in investigating the charms of the Widow of Ephesus and Circe. Thus, Petronius, in the passages we have examined above, juxtaposes the guests’ low opinion of Fortunata with Trimalchio’s praise, highlighting the charms Fortunata holds for Trimalchio alone, all focused on her veneer of matronly self-control: her heroic deeds of selflessness, abstemiousness, and industriousness. As we have seen, the guests Encolpius and Hermeros speak only to one another about Fortunata, and Encolpius recounts for us her physique and her industrious bustling. Only Trimalchio publicly praises her. While our narrator Encolpius points out Fortunata’s ostentatious clothes, gilded sandals, bracelets, and hairnet (Sat. 67), Trimalchio gives proof that Fortunata cares little enough for riches, for earlier she sold her jewellery and clothes to help him: Trimalchio used this windfall to grow his enormous fortune (Sat. 76). While Encolpius mocks her

Worth her weight 117 ‘fattest arms’ (Sat. 67), in the same section (Sat. 67), Trimalchio praises her for being the last to eat. While Hermeros derides Fortunata for once being so low that no one could accept food from her filthy paw (Sat. 37), Trimalchio insists that her abstemiousness and industry go hand in hand, for she must finish her housework and care for the slaves before she will so much as drink (Sat. 67). It is perhaps best to end this section by noting that while Ganymedes and Seleucus lament the current lack of upright, modest wives, these guests seem to be unmarried, at least their wives are not mentioned. Equally notable is the fact that Trimalchio does not even hear these guests’ speeches; he leaves for the bath before they begin to talk. Perhaps his absence from the dinner during the precise period in which worthy women are lauded is meant as a signal to the reader that Trimalchio has, in his own estimation, married the only freedwoman of value. Fortunata displays the virtues of the women of yore Ganymedes and Seleucus long for, in the past, showing piety in raising money for her husband and, in the present, giving much more than a hint of her performance to come at his funeral, lavishly mourning for him both when he is slightly injured and later at the mere thought of his death. Of course, Trimalchio’s foolish praise of his overweight wife’s ability to keep away from food represents but one of the hundreds of funny, foolish, wrongheaded comments he makes without a hint of irony throughout the Cena. We find him funny precisely because he believes the myth he has constructed about his life and everyone connected to him. And so Trimalchio’s stated desire, to have a statue of Fortunata atop his ornate tomb (Sat. 71), reminds us that for him, she remains the pinnacle, the model of failed matronitas to his failed patronitas. As we will see in the following discussions of the Widow of Ephesus and Circe, for women in the Satyrica, even the attempt at virtue is sufficient to entrap a man and sustain his interest, because by contrast, the male characters cannot sustain even the veneer of virtue. And for these women, too, food emerges as an important ingredient in the Petronian conception of a woman’s worth.

The Widow of Ephesus It should come as no surprise that the themes of ideal matronly behaviour in life and death, including proper religious behaviour, come to the fore in the tale of another ostentatiously abstemious matrona, the so-called Widow of Ephesus. And, in the zany world of the Satyrica, the low and dirty Fortunata seeks matronly glory, whereas the famed Widow of Ephesus, matron par excellence, has fallen off her pedestal. As we saw above, Fortunata takes matronly grieving one step too far by ostentatiously grieving a husband not yet dead, first by overreacting to Trimalchio’s injury at Sat. 54 and then bewailing his future funeral at Sat. 71. In turn, the Widow of Ephesus leaves off her own ostentatious matronly grieving to abuse the corpse of her deceased spouse.

118  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch Onboard a ship, Encolpius and his friends hear from their friend Eumolpus the tale of a virtuous widow, a matron living in Ephesus, who, consumed by grief, encloses herself in her husband’s tomb and there attempts to starve herself to death. Petronius gives us one hint about the reasons behind her self-immolation: she wished to make an example of herself. Our narrator claims that she was not content to grieve ‘in the common fashion (…) but even followed her husband into the tomb’ (non contenta vulgari more (…) sed in conditorium etiam prosecuta est defunctum) (Sat. 111.2). All who flocked to the matron’s side have come and gone, for Eumolpus adds that ‘Thus neither parents nor relatives were able to drag away this woman bent on death by starvation; finally, the magistrates, repulsed, went away’ (Sic afflictantem se ac mortem inedia persequentem non parentes potueraunt abducere, non propinqui; magistratus ultimo repulsi abierunt) (Sat. 111.3). In fact, there is only one man left who is both willing and able to help her: one soldier stands in the graveyard near the widow’s hiding place, guarding the crosses of crucified criminals. Giving in to his curiosity, he finds the comely widow in the tomb and deters her from suicidal starvation. The soldier and the widow then spend the next three days in the tomb, finally emerging to see that one criminal’s cross left unguarded is now empty. The soldier in a panic decides to end his life, but the widow, whom our narrator Eumolpus insists was ‘a woman no less kind as she was chaste’ (Mulier non minus misericors quam pudica) (Sat. 112.7), devises a plan. Unwilling to see her new lover killed for dereliction of duty, she advises him to hang her husband’s corpse on the empty cross, and thus saves the day. It is, I hope, evident that in this tale a woman’s abstention from food paves the way for the formation of couple: that is, a starving woman attracts a man, and by her stealthy machinations keeps her new lover alive. But if I am correct, Petronius has another surprise in store. When we count the days of the episode, we note that the widow starved herself for five days after the funeral, and the next night the soldier beheld her, and they stayed in the tomb for three days. Thus: ‘She dragged out her fifth day in the tomb without food’ (five days) ((…) quintum iam diem sine alimento trahebat) (Sat. 111.3); ‘On the next night [the night of the fifth day] a soldier espied her’ (Proxima ergo nocte, cum miles (…) notasset) (Sat. 111.6); ‘They lay together not just on that night on which they had “celebrated a wedding” but also the following two days’ (two days) (Iacuerunt ergo una non tantum illa nocte, qua nuptias fecerunt, sed postero etiam ac tertio die) (112.3); ‘The next day she saw one cross without a body’ (one day) (postero die vidit unam sine cadavere crucem (…)) (112.6); ‘The day after that, the people marvel [at a dead man on the cross]’ (one day) (posteroque die populus miratus est) (112.8); the total amounts to nine days. When we add up these days, it seems that the tale ends on the ninth day after the widow’s husband was placed in the tomb. The number nine is crucial here, because the ninth day after a burial, as many readers will recall, was the day on which Romans gathered to honour the remains of

Worth her weight 119 the recently deceased to celebrate a ritual known as novendiale. This rite was considered a significant part of the funeral and customarily included a sacrifice of wine poured over the bones of the dead, and feasting.34 Even given Petronius’ love of a complicated joke, anyone might reasonably object that readers would not be expected to know or care about counting the days until a novendiale – until we recall that a mere (from an elite standpoint) slave’s novendiale occupies a generous portion of the Cena. For readers will surely recall that earlier (Sat. 65), Trimalchio’s friend Habinnas entered, accompanied by his wife Scintilla, having come fresh from the novendiale of a slave of another friend, Scissa. We should note especially that Habinnas laments that the bones of Scissa’s ‘poor little slave’ (servo suo misello) received far too fulsome a libation, and this wine-wasting sacrifice was followed by a feast so ridiculously sumptuous that its dishes rival Trimalchio’s.35 Because a nameless slave’s novendiale necessitates such a generous narrative in the Satyrica, it is not inconceivable that Petronius expected careful readers to be in on his novendiale joke in the widow’s tale. Careful readers will notice too that Trimalchio anticipates his own novendiale, ordering his own slave, ‘Go get the perfume and a taste out of that amphora, from which I demand my bones be washed’ (Profer et unguentum et ex illa amphora gustum, ex qua iubeo lavari ossa mea) (Sat. 77.7) and then commands his slave to pour more wine so that his guests can imagine they have been invited to drink at his ‘Parentalia’.36 Therefore, the widow and her lover add insult to injury by dishonouring the body of her husband in nailing it to a cross on the ninth day after his burial, the very day it was meant to receive the highest honours. On the day her husband’s body was meant to be given a loving tribute with wine and feasting, his corpse became a feast for the crows. The widow’s machinations are thus centred on food: she draws a lover by starving herself, and she keeps her new lover by ‘starving’ her husband, in denying his bones their rightful feast. We need only glance back at the previous pages to find further funerary connections between the Cena and this tale of a scheming widow. We noted above that readers would already have encountered in the Cena a brief tale highlighting widows and starvation, for we saw that the guest Seleucus tells of poor Chrysanthus, who starved to death, and adds that his widow’s tears were insufficient (Sat. 42). It seems significant that both Chrysanthus and the widow starve themselves for five days; Chrysanthus dies, but the Widow of Ephesus is brought to life by a meal the soldier brings to her in the tomb after her five-day fast. Then too we noted that matrons with streaming hair are mentioned in connection to piety (Sat. 54), or overblown matronly solicitude (Fortunata’s spectacle, Sat. 74). And so in the story of the widow, we have another connection to the Cena’s women: at first, the widow finds mere unkempt locks and beaten chest insufficient and encloses herself in the tomb to begin her starvation campaign, for the narrator specifies that

120  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch she was ‘not content to merely follow the cortege in the usual way with loosed hair or beat her bared chest in the sight of the crowd’ (non contenta vulgari more funus passis prosequi crinibus aut nudatum pectus in conspectu frequentiae plangere, in conditorium etiam prosecuta est defunctum (…)) (Sat. 111.2). Nevertheless, her beaten chest and streaming locks become the focus of Petronius’ description of her dishevelled beauty, for we learn that ‘she, feeling no comfort at all, tore at her chest more violently, and placed her torn hair on her husband’s body’ (At illa ignota consolatione percussa laceravit vehementius pectus, ruptosque crines super corpus iacentis imposuit) (Sat. 111.9). Thus in a very real way Petronius brings readers full circle with this tale of the widow. Death and life, starvation and feasting, funerals and weddings, abstention and sex are hilariously juxtaposed and jumbled in Trimalchio’s home and the widow’s tomb. Trimalchio’s house, although seeming at first to be for the living, soon resembles a nightmarish Underworld, decorated like a tomb and populated with the socially dead.37 Conversely, in the widow’s tale, a tomb becomes a home, as the reader confronts an actual mausoleum used to shelter the passionate living, featuring a dinner party (cenula, Sat. 111.8), sex (iacuerunt, Sat. 112.3), and a wedding (nuptias) (Sat. 112.3). Of course, the idea of sex in a tomb constituting a wedding is meant as one more hilarious joke in the episode. But attentive readers will have recognised the added layers of humour in the narrator’s placement of iacuerunt and nuptias, for he informs readers that the couple celebrated a wedding after they had already lain together. For Roman readers, this placement would have constituted an amusing husteron-proteron (‘last-first’) arrangement, for normally, a couple was expected to have sexual relations only after they had been duly married.38

Circe The final coupling is that of our narrator Encolpius and the elegant lady Circe. Encolpius’ description of their coupling lets us know straightaway who is in control: the beautiful Circe is out of this world, quite literally, and is above Encolpius’ reach by leaps and bounds. Yet clearly, as in the case of the men who desire Fortunata and the Widow of Ephesus, Encolpius seems to want more than a one-night stand, for he even submits to painful remedies to be with her. Let me highlight the details that support a reading of Circe being more than merely sex-crazed, but the true domina of the episode, attractive for her very control, a woman on a mission to attract a mate and rule her own roost. Their relationship begins when Circe’s slave Chrysis approaches Encolpius; Chrysis believes that he is a prostitute. Chrysis tells Encolpius that he is not her type, for she prefers rich men, but he is the perfect match for her mistress, who prefers low types like him (Sat. 126). Encolpius marvels at the divergent tastes of these ladies.

Worth her weight 121 Encolpius first beholds the charming Circe in a grove of plane trees and describes the otherworldly appearance of the lady. Encolpius’ rapturous exclamations are significant, for they constitute the longest physical description of any woman in the Satyrica. Yet what picture would result if we tried to sketch Circe based on the evidence Encolpius gives? We learn that she is more beautiful than any statue, and her face and eyes shine – all stock compliments from elegiac poetry.39 Hilariously, Encolpius’ flood of praise tells us nothing at all. He swoons that she has eyes brighter than stars shining beyond the moon, slightly bent nostrils, and a mouth like Praxiteles believed Diana had. Now her chin, neck, hands and her shining foot graced by a thin gold chain: she made Parian marble seem dull. oculi clariores stellis extra lunam fulgentibus, nares paululum inflexae et osculum quale Praxiteles habere Dianam credidit. Iam mentum, iam cervix, iam manus, iam pedum candor intra auri gracile vinculum positus: Parium marmor extinxerat. (Sat. 126) He perhaps recites a poem to her – the text is lacunose, so we cannot ultimately know. Whatever text was lost, we do know that Encolpius says Circe appeared to him at first like the moon, sighing that Circe ‘seemed like the full moon showing her face from behind a cloud’ (videretur mihi plenum os extra nubem luna proferre) (Sat. 127). Circe proclaims herself elegant and chaste, claiming to be new to physical love with a man, and then offers herself to Encolpius. In response, he offers her worship and calls her a goddess, begging to know her name. She replies with a voice resembling Sirens that her name is Circe and they were meant to be together because his name is Polyaenus (an epithet of Odysseus, and a name Encolpius must have lately assumed on his trip). They embark on a physical relationship, but the text breaks off just as they being to kiss. When the text resumes, Circe is in the midst of berating Encolpius for the insult he has offered her. She wants to know if anything made her suddenly unattractive, crying out, ‘What is it? Does my mouth offend you, or my breath from not eating?’ (‘Quid est?’ inquit ‘numquid te osculum meum offendit? Numquid spiritus ieiunio marcet?’) (Sat. 128). We learn then that Circe has drawn a man to her with her beauty, beauty gained in part by not eating. Taken together, the descriptions of Circe and her world provide clues to a keen reader about the outcome of this couple’s relationship. The terms Encolpius applies to this mystery woman are those of impossible beauty, likening her to Diana, cool marble, the moon, all images of chastity and adoration – not, in fact, of sex. Encolpius likens her voice to that of Sirens, seductive surely but ending in disaster. Thus careful readers might begin to guess at Encolpius’ impending sexual troubles from the preponderance of sculptural, lunar, and religious terms that he heaps on Circe.

122  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch But while his lovemaking is unsuccessful, Encolpius does not fall out of love.40 He is instead spurred on, from disappointing Circe and himself, to seek medical aid. While her maid and an old woman Proselenos accuse Circe of sexual rapacity, their comments suggest both Circe’s independence and sexual prowess. Chrysis says Circe trolls the amphitheatre for men of low status, claiming that her mistress ‘leaps all the way to the fourteenth row from the orchestra, and seeks what she desires among the plebs in the back’ (usque ab orchestra quattuordecim transilit et in extrema plebe quaerit quod diligat) (Sat. 126), while Proselenos’s comment suggests Circe’s bed is known to many ‘what kind of man do you think he is, who can leave the bed of Circe without any pleasure?’((…) qualem putas esse qui de Circes toro sine voluptate surrexit?) (Sat. 134). And Circe too, after Encolpius’ bout with impotence, herself boasts of her own attractions, vaunting in her letter to Encolpius that she has no fear of being alone, for ‘neither my mirror nor my reputation lie!’ (Nec speculum mihi nec fama mentitur) (Sat. 129). Clearly, Circe controls herself to get what she wants. She picks her lovers. Petronius makes his audience aware that Circe is stunningly beautiful, to Encolpius and others, but he also includes insight into the necessary maintenance of that beauty: Circe takes pains with her toilette, keeping her beautiful body and mouth clean. She may also starve for beauty’s sake. After Circe asks Encolpius which part of her has offended him (Sat. 128), she then turns to her faithful maid Chrysis to ask if any part of her bodily self-care has not received due attention. Later, in her angry letter to Encolpius (Sat.  129), she then dismisses the very notion that she might lack charm: her own mirror informs her beauty is intact, and perhaps she means also that her body-sculpting too has worked perfectly well. The episode juxtaposes Circe, triumphant in her self-control, choosing her lovers and exulting in her beautiful physique, with Encolpius, dejected and decrying his utter lack of control over his recalcitrant body.

Conclusions: starving for a wedding feast I hope I have shown here that in investigating a perhaps overlooked aspect of the Satyrica, women’s self-control and abstention, we can appreciate a new layer of humour in the text. Women in the Satyrica are routinely shown actively engaging in, or mentioned with reference to, sex, and few women in the surviving text are the virtuous women of yore of the type longed for by guests in the Cena. Yet as Petronius depicts both men and women striving for more and more pleasures of the flesh with rarely a thought to their own inadequacies, Petronius also shows us three clever women who are able to rise above the floundering fools and who are shown to have some if not all the control of their own, and their partners’, destinies. As I noted above, in a text where not only the majority of men and women are stuffed with food and drink, but also words and food are overstuffed,41 these three women emerge, in their ability to abstain, as the only characters described at length

Worth her weight 123 whom Petronius shows to have, in some measure, control over their destinies. They are not without flaws, but they appear to be the only victors in the game of life, and the masters of their fates, when held up in comparison with other characters in the Satyrica, at best floundering and wallowing in their profligacy like latter-day Lotus-eaters (Encolpius and companions, the guests at the Cena) and at worst steeped in sexual violence (Ascyltos, Quartilla, Oenothea, Proselenos, and Philomela). The virtues of the three women under consideration here may be short lived and in the end illusory, but these virtues are, in fact, quite rare in a text noted for its overabundance of vices. As we noted throughout, these women’s worth, however illusory, is connected to their abstemiousness, and this abstention seems only to be fully recognised and celebrated by the men who adore them. Only Trimalchio praises Fortunata’s abstention openly to the guests; the soldier is the only man not to be repulsed by a starving widow; Encolpius, while not Circe’s only lover, separates himself from the crowd by going to extremes to please her. Petronius gives us three women who are generously endowed with a kind of bravery, expressed in self-abnegation, possessed by none of the men in the text. The women we have met are scheming and successful, while the men are sadly buffoonish, bumbling, frightened, or confused. Women’s power may be limited to controlling one man at a time, but in these portraits of female agency, Petronius may steer us to the conclusion that, in fact, women run the world one man at a time. Certainly, in the world of the Satyrica, women rule, not men. That is, the power to form and maintain a couple resides solely in the female partner. In our wildest imaginings, we might fantasise that the entire Satyrica may be read as key to understanding Petronius’ view of women’s agency in Neronian Rome; perhaps, too, the sex scenes contain elements drawn from Petronius’ own sex life. In the end, we cannot know. Only one thing is certain: the Satyrica is nothing if not rich in nuance. We have seen that what connects the three worthy women from the extant Satyrica is their ability to attract and keep male partners through abstention. But it will not have escaped the reader’s notice, in this volume devoted to ordinary married couples in Greek and Roman antiquity, that two of the women I have discussed here are not married. Thus I would like to add one final complicating, or rather complementary, argument: Petronius couches (all puns intended) the love affairs of the widow and the soldier, and Circe and Encolpius, in the language of weddings and marriage.42 As for example Catullus (poem 109) had characterised his adulterous affair with Lesbia as an ‘eternal bond’ (aeternum foedus) so Petronius, with intentional humour, deliberately marshals the language of weddings and marriage to suggest that the widow and Circe have gained, by their self-control, committed unions that approach a marital state. First, briefly, we begin with references to a marital union in the Widow of Ephesus. We saw that Petronius pointedly terms the first night of lovemaking

124  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch between the widow and the soldier as their nuptiae (‘wedding’) at Sat. 112.3. In addition, at Sat. 112.8, the widow elevates the standing of her new lover to that of her deceased spouse, crying out that she cannot bear to watch the soldier executed for dereliction of duty and thereby view the funerals ‘of the two men most dear to me’ (duorum mihi carissimorum hominum). Petronius, perhaps less obviously but even more masterfully, also develops the love story of Encolpius and Circe by means of the language of marriage. As I noted above, the Circe episode is dripping with bad omens for successful physical coupling; but the episode is also positively stuffed with the transformations of gods and humans in the pursuit of love. Why? It may be that the heavy preponderance of references to transformations and gods is meant to be understood as part of the larger epic framework Petronius imposes on the Satyrica: as I noted in brief above, it has long been recognised that the anti-hero Encolpius appears as a comic resurrection of Odysseus, a man on a journey across land and sea, hounded by a powerful deity, and loved by Circe. But it seems Petronius intends the reader to recognise in this episode more than epic alone: Petronius highlights Circe’s marital prospects by embedding another genre here, that of the wedding poem (epithalamium). Two expected elements in Greek and Roman wedding poems are the likening of the bridal couple to gods, and the presence or invocation of the gods themselves; indeed, these topoi surface in the earliest examples of Greek epithalamia we possess, penned by Sappho in the seventh century BCE.43 I argue that Petronius injects both elements into this episode precisely because they surface in wedding-poems, and with them, he reveals to the reader the depth of Encolpius’ love and longing. Let us briefly examine some transformations and then suggest their possible connections to epithalamium. Daphne, and the tree named for her, appears prominently: Chrysis produces Circe from a grove of laurel-trees, extracting her mistress from the shadows at Sat. 126.12; Daphne’s transformation is also highlighted in a poem following the scene in which Encolpius receives Oenothea’s ministrations to aid him in his lovemaking with Circe (Sat. 131.8). While we may certainly interpret references to the wooden Daphne as (more) bad omens for Encolpius’ lovemaking, Daphne is but one transformation featured in this episode. In one especially noteworthy poem preceding Circe’s first speech to Encolpius, Petronius commemorates the transformations Jove undertook in pursuit of adulterous dalliances with Europa, Leda, and Danaë (Sat. 126.18). Encolpius lauds Circe as a prize fit for the king of the gods, calling out to Jove that he should not waste his time pursuing Europa, Leda, and Danaë. Circe outshines them all, and for Circe alone should Jove ‘assume animals’ horns on your temples, and hide your white hair with feather(s). Here is the real Danaë!’ (a torva submittere cornua fronte/nunc pluma canos dissimulare tuos./haec vera est Danae). Circe is thus likened to a goddess as well as likened to the victims of gods’ lusts; that her beauty is said to be comparable to that of women of Greek

Worth her weight 125 myth might alert us to the epithalamic possibilities in the episode. But it seems that we have evidence that Romans themselves recognised epithalamic components in this very episode: in the reign of Domitian, the poet Statius seems to have borrowed elements from the Circe episode in creating his own epithalamium. Statius invokes the very transformations of Jove, used by Petronius to laud Circe, in the service of extolling the beauty of his patron’s bride Violentilla in Silvae 1.2. Here the bride Violentilla, exclaims Venus to a Cupid beseeching her aid, is a worthy object of divine passion. Statius also invokes Daphne (and Ariadne), but what should attract our attention is that here we find the same Jovian victims Leda, Europa, and Danaë, again presented as the paragons of beauty. In Venus’ raptures over Violentilla’s beauty, she insists that if Juno had not stopped her, ‘Jupiter, king of the sky in disguise, would have put on feathers and horns for her, and would have descended on her in pure gold’ ((…) falsus huic pennas et cornua sumeret aethrae/rector, in hanc vero cecidisset Iuppiter auro) (Silvae 1.2.135–136). If Statius was a careful reader of Petronius, and it is likely that he was, it seems quite possible that he drew epithalamic inspiration from Petronius’ Circe episode. Petronius seems quite clearly to have intertwined the language of wedding poems in his comic depiction of the bumbling Encolpius’ pursuit of Circe. Thus, in building his characterisations of the Widow of Ephesus and Circe, Petronius shows us two women elevated by their male lovers to the status of bride and wife. The widow takes the soldier as a husband, and Encolpius delivers his own wedding songs to his love.

Notes

1. Highet (1941); Arrowsmith (1966); Vout (2009). 2. Sullivan (1967); Zeitlin (1971); Walsh (1974). 3. Rimell (2002), 13. 4. Rimell (2002), passim. 5. Richlin (2009), 89. 6. Beginning, we might argue, with Semonides’s famed Bee Woman in his so-called Iambos on Women (fragment 7). 7. Hersch (2020). In this article, I argue that the rituals of the Roman wedding contain the potent message that the creation and maintenance of concordia in marriage is the female partner’s responsibility. 8. Gloyn (2012), 269 n. 42 remarks ‘While the freedwomen may be experimenting with the role of materfamilias, it becomes clear that Trimalchio has no intention of letting Fortunata occupy the role for very long.’ 9. Gloyn (2012), 260. 10. Gloyn (2012), 280. 11. See Morgan (2009) and Rimell (2002). 12. At Sat. 28, Encolpius tells us every detail of Trimalchio’s dress and odd entourage; at Sat. 32, we learn that his elderly shaved head peeps from a scarlet cloak, and he wears numerous gold rings and bracelets. 13. All translations mine.

126  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch 14. In his oft-cited study of funerary imagery in the Cena, John Bodel (1994) argued that Trimalchio’s house is to be understood as an Underworld into which our anti-hero and friends descend, a wasteland inhabited by the socially dead. 15. Encolpius’ friends and lovers Giton and Ascyltus seem not in the least inquisitive of their surroundings. As they enter the house together, they laugh at Encolpius, terrified of a painted dog (Sat. 29). All three (Sat. 30) carefully enter the dining room and save a slave from harsh punishment. The reader would be forgiven for forgetting their existence when they emerge suddenly in Sat. 57 and 58, where each laughs at the unfolding scenes. 16. According to Bodel (1994) the mural is more suitable to funerary art; Trimalchio has decorated his house like a tomb. 17. Rimell (2002). 18. As we saw above, Hermeros uses the idiom in caelum abiit (‘she’s ascended to the heavens’) suggesting that for Trimalchio Fortunata is divine. 19. As we will see, Encolpius misunderstands the maid Chrysis’ words. 20. Do any of the other guests know she came from low beginnings? We might presume that all the freedmen present know Fortunata’s story as well, but interestingly, Trimalchio himself near the end of the dinner rambles on about her virtues and vices, and we learn that Fortunata was rich and sold her jewels to save Trimalchio. 21. If we can take the first person plurals at face value and assume that both Habinnas and Scintilla gorged. 22. Presumably all the enslaved people in the familia, and not just ‘boys’ or ‘children’ are meant here. 23. In personal correspondence, Dr Centlivres Challet suggests that we might imagine that Petronius here represents Fortunata looking for a cure for what would be the malady she tries to ward off. This illness might be her own lack of self-control (occasional gluttony which may make her overweight) or the threatening ‘illness’ of a husband who has desire only for boys. 24. Gloyn (2012), 275–276 discusses the idea of the ‘flute-girl’, concluding that the term does not necessarily imply a sex-worker. Gloyn also observes the reader may have already gathered from Hermeros’ rant at Sat. 37 that Fortunata was once a lowly dirty woman, and notes that Trimalchio contradicts himself, saying first she was a slave but then noting that with her riches she saved his business. 25. Gloyn (2012). 26. As Gloyn (2012), 279 concludes, she is a ‘bird in a gilded cage’. 27. And it should be noted that dogs fare well in the Cena. 28. Gloyn (2012), 272 notes that her blush signifies her recognition of the insult Habinnas has offered her: she is being treated like a slave. See also Gloyn’s extensive note on blushing in general, ibid. n. 51. 29. Livy 1.58 (Lucretia): ‘Vos’ inquit ‘videritis quid illi debeatur: ego me etsi peccato absolvo, supplicio non libero; nec ulla deinde impudica Lucretiae exemplo vivet.’ 30. Larsson Lovén (1998). 31. It may be that Petronius wanted us to see the connection between Mercury lifting Trimalchio by the chin in the mural of his life with Trimalchio’s own raising of Fortunata to the skies. 32. Epitaph of Agileia Prima, CIL VI: 11252, third century CE; the text reads in part ‘uxori (…) castissimae et pudicissimae et frugalissimae quae innocenter maritum et domum eius amavit’ (‘(…) of a wife most chaste; modest and frugal who innocently loved her husband and his house’). See Wilson (1911), 167–168.

Worth her weight 127 33. While presiding over his own ridiculously sumptuous feast, Trimalchio himself recites verses in which the evils of luxury are decried, professing them the best of poetry (Sat. 55). The poem ends with a focus on the sexual antics of bejeweled matronae, lamenting that an ‘untamed matron decorated with the jewels of the sea tucks her feet into a stranger’s bed’ (matrona ornataphaleris pelagiis tollat pedes indomita in strato extraneo) and suggests that brides would be better off naked, since riches are here associated with loose morals. It seems significant that a pearl-encrusted matron’s feet are highlighted, because to my knowledge the only other feet given any attention in the Cena are Fortunata’s; Encolpius notes her feet are graced with ‘twisted anklets and white slippers shot through with gold’ (periscelides tortae phaecasiaeque inauratae) (Sat. 67). Scholars have debated the poem’s authorship but for our purposes what matters is that Trimalchio admires the poem and its sentiments. 34. On novendiale, Parentalia (discussed below) and other rituals honouring the dead, see Rüpke (2007) and Carroll and Rempel (2011). 35. Sat. 65: Scissa lautum novendiale servo suo misello faciebat, quem mortuum manu miserat (…) Sed tamen suaviter fuit, etiam si coacti sumus dimidias potiones super ossucula eius effundere. 36. Sat. 78.4: Nam vinum quidem in vinarium iussit infundi et: ‘Putate vos, ait, ad parentalia mea invitatos esse’. 37. Bodel (1994). 38. See, for example, Hersch (2010), 61–65 on the emphasis in Roman sources on the virginity of the bride in Roman wedding ritual. 39. I am not aware of any other Roman author who finds the mouth of Praxiteles’ Diana significant. 40. When he first sees Circe, he comments (before the text breaks off) that his former love affair seems ridiculous compared to his love for Circe, for he sighs, ‘Then for the first time I despised myself for loving Doris in the past’ (Itaque tunc primum Dorida vetus amator contempsi) (Sat. 126). When at least he speaks he uses the high-flown language of a worshipful suppliant saying ‘By your beauty, I beg you not to disdain to admit a foreigner among the ranks of your worshipers. You will find me dutiful, if you allow me to adore you (…)’ (per formam tuam te rogo, ne fastidias hominem peregrinum inter cultores admittere. Invenies religiosum, si te adorari permiseris). 41. See Rimell (2002), passim. 42. Careful readers will justly object that Petronius inserts a quite detailed (albeit drunken and wild) wedding ceremony at Sat. 25–26, when the madame Quartilla decides to host impromptu nuptials for a seven-year-old girl, Pannychis, and Encolpius’ boyfriend, the teenaged Giton. Here, clearly, it would not be sensible to argue that this wedding is meant as any indication that the bride Pannychis is to be viewed as the object of Giton’s love, and a cherished companion. Rather, in this scene, the empty rituals of the wedding ceremony are recreated to humorously (according to Petronius’ sense of humour) accompany the first sexual experience of the maiden Pannychis, whereas in the case of the widow and Circe, sexual acts are elevated to the status of respectable marriages by couching them in the language of weddings. 43. Hersch (2010); Wasdin (2018), passim.

Bibliography Arrowsmith W. (1966) ‘Luxury and death in the Satyricon’. Arion 5, 304–331. Bodel J. (1994) ‘Trimalchio’s Underworld’. In Tatum J. (ed.), The Search for the Ancient Novel. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 237–259.

128  Karen E. Klaiber Hersch Carroll M. and Rempel J. (eds.) (2011) Living Through the Dead: Burial and Commemoration in the Classical World (Studies in Funerary Archaeology). Oxford: Oxbow Books. Conte G. B. (1996) The Hidden Author: An Interpretation of Petronius’ Satyricon. Trans. E. Fantham. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gloyn E. (2012) ‘She’s only a bird in a gilded cage: freedwomen at Trimalchio’s dinner party’. Classical Quarterly 62.1, 260–280. Gowers E. (1996) The Loaded Table: Representations of Food in Roman Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hersch K. K. (2010) The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hersch K. K. (2020) ‘Violence in the Roman wedding’. In Beneker J. and Tsouvala G. (eds), The Discourse of Marriage in the Greco-Roman World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Highet G. (1941) ‘Petronius the moralist’. Transactions of the American Philological Association 72, 176–194. Larsson Lovén L. (1998) ‘LANAM FECIT – woolworking and female virtue’. In Larsson Lovén L. and Strömberg A. (eds), Aspects of Women in Antiquity: Proceedings of the First Nordic Symposium on Women’s Lives in Antiquity. Jonsered: Paul Aströms Förlag, 85–95. Morgan J. R. (2009) ‘Petronius and Greek literature’. In Prag J. R. W. and Repath I. D. (eds), Petronius: A Handbook. Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 32–47. Richlin A. (2009) ‘Sex in the Satyrica: outlaws in literatureland’. In Prag J. R. W. and Repath I. D. (eds), Petronius: A Handbook. Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 82–100. Rimell V. (2002) Petronius and the Anatomy of Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rüpke J. (ed.) (2007) A Companion to Roman Religion. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Sullivan J. P. (1967) ‘Petronius: artist or moralist?’ Arion 6, 71–88. Vout C. (2009) ‘The Satyrica and Neronian culture’. In Prag J. W. R. and Repath I. D. (eds), Petronius: A Handbook. Chichester and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 101–113. Walsh P. G. (1974) ‘Was Petronius a moralist?’ Greece and Rome 21.2, 181–190. Wasdin K. (2018) Eros at Dusk: Ancient Wedding and Love Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson H. L. (1911) ‘Latin inscriptions at the Johns Hopkins University. VI’. The American Journal of Philology 32.2, 166–187. Zeitlin F. (1971) ‘Petronius as paradox: anarchy and artistic integrity’. Transactions of the American Philological Society 102, 631–684.

8

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts David Konstan

In 1928, F. C. Babbitt introduced his translation of Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts in the Loeb Library series with the words, not without a whiff of condescension: ‘The modern bride will undoubtedly turn up her nose and shake her independent head in disapproval of Plutarch’s suggestions about subordinating herself to her husband.’ Nevertheless, he added, in a tone no less professorial than Plutarch’s own, ‘she will find in Plutarch’s short essay many suggestions regarding whole-souled co-operation and cheerful intellectual companionship with her husband, which mutatis mutandis hold as good to-day as they did when they were written, nearly two thousand years ago.’1 It is not difficult to cite passages in Plutarch’s list of recommendations, composed between the years 90 and 100 CE,2 that would seem to justify Babbitt’s mild alarm and Victorian appreciation. For example, the instruction that ‘A wife ought not to have friends of her own, but use her husband’s as their common stock’ (19, trans. Russell) is hardly likely to find favour with women today, or, I dare say, in Plutarch’s time either. Or again, his counsel in regard to sex, that a good wife does not show displeasure ‘if her husband takes the initiative, but neither does she take the initiative herself’ (18). And yet, a closer look often reveals a more equitable image of marriage. Thus, in the advice on concerning the wife’s friends, cited above, Plutarch continues: ‘the first and most important of our friends are the gods’, and so the wife should accept the husband’s gods – and not admit ‘strange cults and foreign superstitions’. Plutarch seems to have deflected his own counsel, converting his alarming generalisation about a wife’s friends into the apparently tangential point that exotic cults, conventionally associated more with women than with men, have no place in a proper household. To be sure, the account is slanted to emphasise the husband’s reverence for the traditional gods, but it is hardly as insensitive a rule as one might have at first expected. In Precept 5, Plutarch counsels women against the use of love potions: ‘Poisoned bait catches fish quickly and easily, but makes them nasty and inedible. Similarly, women who contrive potions and charms to entice men and win them over by pleasure find they have unreliable, foolish, and spoiled DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-8

130  David Konstan partners in life.’ Plutarch cites by way of illustration the fact that Circe derived no benefit from her magical charms, which turned men into pigs (an image of men who are seduced by sensual pleasure);3 on the contrary, ‘it was Odysseus, the man of sense, who consorted wisely with her, whom she loved so much.’ Lisette Goessler remarks that this example is not entirely consistent with its context. The actual piece of advice lays the emphasis exclusively on the way in which a woman should treat her husband, but at the end of the example the emphasis is on the way in which Odysseus treats Circe.4 The apparent slippage, characteristic of the essay style in general, makes the point that a man who treats a woman with respect will gain her true love, and therefore, she does not think to resort to witchcraft. Once again, what may seem like a one-sided view of marriage turns out to address the comportment of both partners equally (cf. Precept 23: ‘a lawful, wedded wife is invincible, if she has everything in herself – dowry, birth, potions, Aphrodite’s magic belt – and wins goodwill by her character and virtue’, trans. Russell). The reader may wonder what justification there is for granting Plutarch so generous an interpretation, taking apparent incongruities between his pronouncements and the examples that illustrate them as signs of a subtler meaning that is consistent with a more egalitarian attitude towards the roles of husband and wife. In the final analysis, the demonstration must rest on the cumulative evidence of the text. But we may remark that Plutarch himself elsewhere provides reason to read between the lines and seek out the implicit message of a text. In his essay, How Youths Should Listen to Poems, Plutarch offers instruction on how young people may be safeguarded from the potentially immoral implications of epic poetry, tragedy, and the rest so that there is no need to expunge such literature from the school curriculum, as Plato seemed to have desired in his Republic. Students should be trained, Plutarch argues, to read critically and to seek the genuine lesson in a text by attending to understated hints provided by the author himself. He observes that the poets themselves often signal their view to the attentive reader. Homer, for example, in Book 6 of the Iliad, reports that Paris, having been whisked out of the battlefield after his duel with Menelaus, had sex back in Ilium with Helen before returning to the fray. Plutarch comments on this evident lapse of decorum that, since Homer ‘described no other man sleeping with his wife during the day’, he obviously disapproved of this adulterer’s licentiousness (18F). Plutarch calls this kind of implicit message on the part of the writer emphasis (19A; cf. 35A), a recognised device in Classical rhetoric. Quintilian (8.3.83) defines it as ‘affording a deeper sense (intellectus) than that which the words by themselves reveal’, adding that ‘there are two types of emphasis, one of which signifies more than it says, the other precisely that which it does not say’. An instance of the former is Homer’s statement that the Cyclops sprawled across his cave, which makes it clear,

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts  131 without explicitly saying so, that Polyphemus was huge. With the second type, the writer ‘is silent about what we nevertheless comprehend’ (8.3.86). As he remarks later, emphasis is the figure by which ‘something lies concealed and must be as it were discovered by the listener’ (9.2.65), a device, Quintilian says, that is common in his own day. Quintilian illustrates the figure with a passage from Virgil’s Aeneid (4.550–551): I was not allowed to lead my live free of marriage, without taint, like wild beasts, and so not suffer such grief. non licuit thalami expertem sine crimine vitam degere more ferae, talis nec tangere curas As Quintilian explains, ‘although Dido complains of marriage, yet her passionate outburst shows that she regards life without wedlock as no life for man, but for the beasts of the field.’ This is just the kind of reading, I suggest, that Plutarch invites. Quintilian offers a further example taken from Ovid, where Zmyrna confesses to her nurse her desire for her father (Metamorphoses 10.422): ‘O mother’ said she, ‘fortunate in your spouse!’ ‘o’ dixit ‘ felicem coniuge matrem!’ The implication is that she wishes that her mother’s husband were her own. Similar, says Quintilian, is the figure whereby we excite some suspicion to indicate that our meaning is other than our words would seem to imply; but our meaning is not in this case contrary to that which we express, as is the case in irony, but rather a hidden meaning which is left to the hearer to discover. (trans. H. E. Butler) Quintilian says that this rhetorical device is employed under three conditions: first, if it is unsafe to speak openly; secondly, if it is unseemly to speak openly; and thirdly, when it is employed solely with a view to the elegance of what we say, and gives greater pleasure by reason of the novelty and variety thus introduced than if our meaning had been expressed in straightforward language. Quintilian adds: The first of the three is of common occurrence in the schools, where we imagine conditions laid down by tyrants on abdication and decrees

132  David Konstan passed by the senate after a civil war, and it is a capital offence to accuse a person with what is past. (9.2.67) Every schoolboy and girl, and doubtless Pollianus and Eurydice too, the young, highly educated couple to whom Plutarch’s essay is addressed, would have been practised in such exercises and alert to innuendos as they read. Plutarch, for his part, maintains that even places where poets contradict themselves can be profitable (20C). If the contrary ideas are juxtaposed, as in stichomythic dialogue, the instructor simply directs the student towards a better view (20D). Otherwise, one may seek a superior expression elsewhere in the work. For example, although Homer describes the gods openly fighting with each other in the 21st book of the Iliad, he nevertheless affirms in the Odyssey that ‘the blessed gods are glad all their days’ (6.46), which is the truer view (20F). If Sophocles (or a character in a Sophoclean play) asserts, ‘profit is pleasant, even if it comes from falsehoods’ (fr. 749), Plutarch boldly challenges him (21A): ‘but in fact we heard you say that “false statements never bear fruit”’ (fr. 750). Plutarch does not assume that the better view is that of the poet himself; rather, the inconsistencies are evidence of the poet’s confusion. The function of juxtaposing contradictory passages is to undermine the students’ confidence in the authority of the poem and the poet by exposing the lack of coherence. As Plutarch puts it, revealing inconsistencies in a poem will ‘either lead [the student] to the better or it will eliminate trust in the worse’ (21C–D).5 There is ample reason to suppose that, in composing his own works, Plutarch expected his readers to be equally astute interpreters. His Marriage Precepts are addressed, after all, to two of his prize students, both trained in philosophy. They are a well-matched couple, and in offering them advice for their wedded life, Plutarch, I suggest, subtly undercuts conventional attitudes towards gendered roles (which he duly records) to intimate a vision of a more equal partnership between educated, like-minded spouses (we may compare the Epicurean couple, Pollius and Polla, described in Statius’ Silvae 2.2).6 To judge by his Consolation to his Wife, to which we will return below, Plutarch may well have drawn inspiration for such a view from his own marriage. This was, like that of his pupils, Pollianus and Eurydice, no doubt a special relationship (which is not?), but not necessarily far from what ordinary couples of their class would have aspired to. Tim Duff, examining the potential readership of Plutarch’s Lives, observes: Plutarch’s texts assume … a reader who shares the same basic moral assumptions as the author, and who is receptive to a discourse concerned with right and wrong. While the Lives do often contain an implied “message …”, they do not always do so. In many instances moral issues are explored, through narration, but not “solved”: questions are posed, implicitly, but answers not supplied.7

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts  133 Certainly, such readers may be described as elite;8 but they conceived of their values as a model for the society at large. We may begin at the beginning, with Plutarch’s preface to the list of 48 analogies, in which his counsel to the bride and groom is couched. The essay, addressed, as we have mentioned, to Pollianus and Eurydice, opens as follows: After the ancestral ordinance, which the priestess of Demeter fitted to you when you were shut up together [sc., in the wedding chamber], I think that words [or reason: logos] too, laying hold of both of you and joining the bridal hymn, may contribute something useful and in harmony with custom.9 Μετα ˋ τοˋν πάτριον θεσμόν, οʽˊν υʽ μι˜ν ηʽ τη˜ς Δήμητρος ʽιέρεια συνειργνυμένοις ɛ’φήρμοσεν, οιʼ˜μαι καὶ τοˋν λόγον οʽμου̃ συνεφαπτόμενον υʽ μω˜ν καὶ συνυμεναιου̃ντα χρήσιμον αʼˊ ν τι ποιη˜σαι καὶ τ ω˜̨ νόμ ω̨ προσ ωδόν. ̨ The repeated prefix συν-, three times in this brief sentence, along with terms for harmony, emphasises the mutuality of the partners.10 The word νόμος, as Russell notes, carries the double sense of ‘custom’, echoing ‘ordinance’ (θεσμός), and ‘tune’ or ‘melody’, which answers to the idea of a wedding song, implicit in the word ‘in harmony’ (προσ ωδός, ̨ from ω˜̨ δή, ‘ode’). Even before entering upon the comparisons that constitute the body of the advice, Plutarch offers an initial analogy. In the translation by Donald Russell, it runs as follows: In music, there was a tune for the pipe called “The Rampant Stallion,” designed, it seems, to urge the stallion to cover the mare.11 ʽˊ ʼEν μεˋν γαˋρ τοι˜ς μουσικοι˜ς ενα τω˜ν αυ̕λητικω˜ν νόμων ʽɩππόθορον ʼˊ ɛ’κάλουν, μέλος τι τοι˜ς ʽιˊπποις οʽρμη˜ς ɛ’πεγερτικοˋν ωʽς εοικεν ɛ’νδιδόν τε περὶ ταˋς οʼχείας· This harbours ill for the reciprocity between the two partners that the opening sentence seemed to promise. But I think that the passage is open to a slightly different interpretation. The tune, the passage says literally, was such as to arouse passion and have a quality of surrender (ɛ’νδιδόν) in regard to mating (cf. LSJ s.v. ɛ’νδίδωμι, def. V). It is true that οʼχεία typically refers to the mounting of the female by the male (cf. Aristotle, Historia Animalium 5.2, 539b32: ‘the male ʼˊ ˋ ν θήλειαν, etc.), though it somemounts the female’ (οʽ αρρην ɛ’πιπηδω˜ν οʼχεύει τη times seems to mean just the act of mating itself, without specifying the roles of the partners. Thus I suggest that we might render the passage as follows: In music they used to call one of the stock tunes for the flute ‘The Mounting Horse’, a melody for horses, it seems, that was both rousing of desire and yielding in respect to mating.

134  David Konstan The melody may, then, have had a double effect, stimulating the sexual urge of the males and at the same time rendering the females more compliant. But Plutarch does not explicitly contrast the roles of the stallion and the mare, and the reader might suppose that both were simultaneously aroused and submissive – not an implausible scenario for anyone who has witnessed sex between horses. This interpretation has the advantage of according well with what follows, since Plutarch says that philosophy ‘charms those who come together to share their lives, and makes them gentle and amenable to each other’ (κατά̨ δουσα τοὺ ς ɛ’πὶ βίου κοινωνία̨ συνιόντας εɩ’ς ταυ̕τοˋ πράους τε παρέχει καὶ χειροήθεις αʼλλήλοις, trans. Russell). Plutarch makes it clear that both husband and wife studied philosophy with him and avows that he is sending them a joint present (κοινοˋν αʼμφοτέροις πέμπω δω˜ρον), and he prays that the Muses may join and work together (παρει˜ναι καὶ συνεργει˜ν) with Aphrodite, since their primary duty is to ensure that marriage and the home are in tune. The ancients set Hermes at Aphrodite’s side, knowing that the pleasure of marriage needed logos more than anything, and with them they set Persuasion and the Graces, that married couples might obtain their wish (διαπράττωνται) with each other by persuasion, not in conflict or quarrelsomeness. (trans. Russell, slightly modified) I am thus inclined to read Plutarch’s comment on the old song in the manner that he himself recommends and take his gloss on the name of the tune, which clearly refers to mounting, as an interpretation deliberately suggesting a greater equivalence in sexual roles. Arriving at this reading has taken some effort and ingenuity, I realise, and I hope I have not seemed to belabour the point unduly. It is just such subtle corrections that I take to represent Plutarch’s method in this work. The first four Precepts, down to the Circe example, contain general recommendations to avoid quarrels and put up with one another: ʼˊ one must realise that the keen love (οʼξὺ ν ερωτα) of the newly married, ʽ ρας), is blazing up quickly out of physical attraction (αʼποˋ σώματος καὶ ώ not persistent or secure unless it settles in the character, lays hold of the mind, and becomes second nature (ʼˊ εμψυχον λάβη̨ διάθεσιν). (Precept 4, trans. Russell, slightly modified) Erôs is clearly conceived of as mutual.12 In the following bits of advice, however, there are signs of trouble. Plutarch cautions women against dominatʼˋ ing fools rather than heeding sensible husbands (αʼνοήτων κρατει˜ν αʼνδρω˜ν η φρονίμων αʼκούειν, Precept 6) and compares women who find it more pleasant to associate with dissolute men rather than those who are wise and austere to Pasiphae having sex with a bull (Precept 7). But immediately afterwards

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts  135 he warns men against demeaning well-born or wealthy wives, urging them rather to bring themselves up to their level, though he compares this to using the bit on high-spirited horses, as opposed to teaching them to kneel (Precept 8). But Precept 9 seems hard to rescue: We see the moon bright and conspicuous when she is far from the sun; when near, she vanishes and is hidden. A good woman, on the other hand, should be seen most when she is with her husband, and stay at home and be hidden when he is away. (trans. Russell) So too, Precept 11 runs: ‘When two notes are struck together, the melody belongs to the lower note. Similarly, every action performed in a well-regulated household is done by the agreement of the partners, but displays the leadership and decision of the husband’ (trans. Russell, slightly modified). But these two Precepts embrace another (Precept 10), which delivers a surprising message: ˋ ν αɩ’δω˜) Herodotus was wrong to say that a woman doffs her modesty (τη when she doffs her clothes. The opposite is true: a good woman wears modesty in place of clothes, and they treat the greatest modesty (τ ω˜̨ μάλιστα αɩ’δει˜ σθαι) as the sign of the greatest love (του̃ μάλιστα φιλει˜ν) towards one another. (trans. Russell, modified) The allusion is to the story of Candaules’ wife, whom the king exposes naked before his vizier in order to show off her beauty (Herodotus, Histories 1.8– 12). The vizier, Gyges, is appalled at the idea and warns that ‘when a woman strips off her tunic she strips of her sense of shame (aidôs) as well’ (ʽˊ αμα δεˋ κιθω˜νι ɛ’κδυομέν ω̨ συνεκδύεται καὶ τηˋν αɩ’δω˜ γυνή, 1.8.3). When the queen realises that Gyges has seen her, she orders him to kill Candaules or else forfeit his life. In this way, Gyges succeeded to the throne of Lydia. The passage has invited various interpretations. It is clear that Candaules’ wife does not become suddenly sexually immodest, as though having once been caught naked, she is now prepared to expose herself carelessly to anyone. The formula, which sounds proverbial, is applied here evidently to the queen’s loss of respect for her husband, which is manifested in the order that he be slain. Plutarch counters that respect, which is the core sense of aidôs, has nothing to do with clothing but is native to the person; both partners treat mutual respect as the token of the truest kind of love. It is hard to know just what Plutarch has in mind here. Perhaps he is thinking that couples retain their mutual respect even when they have seen each other undressed and take this very fact as a sign of love. But the reference to Herodotus suggests that even exposure to someone else is not enough to abolish a woman’s modesty. If a wife ought to stay mainly at home when her husband is travelling abroad,

136  David Konstan then it is not because there is any danger of her being corrupted merely for having been seen. Plutarch seems to be emending or nuancing the previous Precept, leaving it to the reader to work out the implications and arrive at the correct view, as though the paired Precepts were a sample of dramatic stichomythia. I like to think that Eurydice was clever enough to divine the hidden meaning, as would others of her class and education. Precept 12 too takes up the theme of removing clothing, which serves as a kind of segue from the tenth Precept. Although a man held fast to his cloak in a strong wind, he stripped it off along with his tunic when the sun baked him; Helios thus triumphed over Boreas. Plutarch takes this as signifying the superiority of rational persuasion (πείθωνται μετα ˋ λόγου) over force and applies it to the way husbands may best discourage their wives from indulging in luxuries and extravagant expenditures. There seems to be a riddle here: why is the warmth of the sun, which causes the man to swelter, more similar to persuasion than a blast of frigid air? The answer is that the man’s action is voluntary: he is warm and so does not require the cloak, whereas he needed it in the cold. A wife, to pursue the analogy, will cling to luxuries when she feels the need for them; perhaps we may infer that if she is mistreated or subjected to violence, she may compensate by such indulgences. Treat her like a rational being, Plutarch intimates, and she will no more need ornaments than one requires a coat in hot weather. Read this way, Plutarch is counselling against the abuse of male authority, which is the cause of a wife’s excesses rather than a means of controlling them. Did he expect the young couple to divine this message? Or was he content to use the conceit of wind versus sun as a loose lead-in to this bit of advice, on the supposition that his readers would not notice the inconsequentiality? I plump for the conscious invitation to read between the lines and extract the subtler implication of the text. Precept 14 again presents a disturbing message, concluding with the admonition, ‘a wife should have no feelings of her own (μηδεˋν ʼιˊδιον πάθος), but share her husband’s seriousness and play, his anxiety and his laughter’ (trans. Russell, slightly modified). No friends of her own, and now, not even her own sentiments are allowed to the good wife. Plutarch begins the lesson by observing that a mirror, however fancy, is worthless unless it gives a faithful reflection; so too, he reasons, a wealthy wife must present a lifestyle and character like her husband’s (ταˋν βίον οʽˊμοιον τ ω˜̨ αʼνδρὶ καὶ σύμφωνον τοˋ η˜ʼ θος; cf. Precepts 25 and 26 for the importance of character (η˜ʼθος) and related virtues (σεμνότης, ευ̕ταξία, αɩ’δώς) over beauty and adornment). Concern that a rich woman may dominate her husband is a well-worn commonplace, going back at least to Aristotle and typical of New Comedy (Aristotle, NE 1161a1-2 on marrying epiklêroi or ‘heiresses’: ‘sometimes women who are ʼˊ epiklêroi rule’ (ɛ’νίοτε δεˋ αρχουσιν αɩʽ γυναι˜κες ɛ’πίκληροι ου˜̕ σαι); Plautus, Asinaria 87: ‘I took the money, and with the dowry I sold my authority’ (argentum accepi, dote imperium vendidi). But Plutarch is not worried about a domineering wife; his focus is rather on her sociability:

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts  137 if a wife puts on a glum look when her husband wants to be playful and affectionate, or if she laughs and jokes when he is serious, she is a poor wife, and has no sense of occasion; she proves herself in the first case disagreeable, in the second insensitive. (trans. Russell) But why should it be the wife’s responsibility always to adjust her mood to her husband’s? The answer is that it is not. In the following Precept, Plutarch affirms: ‘men who do not converse cheerfully with their wives or share their play and laughter thereby teach them to seek private pleasures (ɩ’δίας ηʽ δονάς) without them’ (trans. Russell). Husbands too must share in the good humour of their wives, and presumably too in their more serious moments. Note too the word idios: it is not so much pleasures of their own that Plutarch is castigating as pleasures that cannot be shared because of the ill disposition of the husband. I think this is the sense too of the expression, ʼιˊδιον πάθος, in Precept 14: when wives or husbands are driven to find private outlets for their feelings, trouble is brewing. Indeed, just a few sentences later, Plutarch applies Plato’s dictum that in the ideal city, all things are held in common to the relationship between husband and wife and observes: ‘Doctors tell us that an injury on the left side refers the sensation to the right. Similarly, it is good for a wife to share her husband’s feelings (τοι˜ς του̃ αʼνδροˋς συμπαθει˜ν), and a husband his wife’s’ (Precept 20, trans. Russell). Precept 16 is still harder to assimilate to an egalitarian conception of marriage. Plutarch affirms: If a private citizen (ɩ’διώτης αʼνήρ), intemperate and tasteless in his pleasures, commits an offense with a mistress or a maidservant, his wife ought not to be angry or annoyed, but reflect that it is his respect for her that makes her husband share his intemperance or violent behavior with another woman. (trans. Russell) A few decades before Plutarch was writing, a Stoic like Musonius Rufus was insisting that ‘of all sexual relations those involving adultery are most unlawful’ (Diatribe 12, trans. Cora Lutz), a restriction pertaining equally to men and women. As Musonius cautions, if it seems neither shameful nor out of place for a master to have relations with his own slave, particularly if she happens to be unmarried, let him consider how he would like it if his wife had relations with a male slave. Yet Plutarch is counselling his own former student to overlook the carousing of her equally educated husband on the grounds that he is showing his high regard for her (αɩ’δούμενος αυ̕τήν) by sparing her such treatment!

138  David Konstan Some respect! Of course, one can hardly expect better behaviour from a common individual or ignoramus (cf. LSJ s.v. ɩ’διώτης, def. III.3), and we may assume that Plutarch has more esteem for Pollianus than to attribute such base impulses to him. The prefatory point of comparison is illuminating: When Persian kings dine, their legal wives sit beside them and share the feast. But if they want to amuse themselves or get drunk, they send their wives away, and summon the singing-girls and the concubines. And they are quite right not to share their drunken orgies with their wives. A barbarian king is no model for a Greek citizen (a common sense of ’ɩδιώτης, activated here by the contrast with foreign royalty), and one who indulges in such pastimes is hardly conforming to proper standards of behaviour. The Precept is, I think, addressed to the husband as well as to the wife and exposes how arrogant and inappropriate it is to treat a spouse in such a fashion. In support of this interpretation, we may adduce Precept 44, where Plutarch warns that wives are intensely upset by their husbands’ sexual association with other women and that it is wrong for men to cause their wives such pain for the sake of a trivial pleasure (ηʽδονη˜ς ʽˊενεκα μικρα̃ ς). Rather, they should keep themselves ‘pure and clean of intercourse with other women’ (αʽ γνου ˋς καὶ καθαρεύοντας ɛʽτέρων συνουσίας) when they approach their wives.13 In Precept 22, Plutarch affirms: A wife should not rely on her dowry, her birth, or her beauty, but ensure by her conversation, manners, and behavior, which are the points that most touch a husband, that there is nothing in their daily life harsh or hurtful, but only painless and harmonious affection. (trans. Russell) The burden here falls on the wife, all the more so for the point of comparison with which Plutarch introduces the lesson: ‘The Roman who was reproached by his friends for divorcing his chaste, rich, and beautiful wife, replied by holding up his shoe. “This shoe”, he said, “is new and beautiful, but no one knows where it pinches me.”’ Is a wife, then, nothing more than a possession, like a shoe, which is discarded without ado if it, or she, does not fit properly? Yet the Precept concludes with a second analogy: Doctors are more alarmed by fevers that come from obscure and gradually developing causes than they are by those that have an obvious and conspicuous origin. Similarly, repeated, trivial daily annoyances that go unnoticed cause more damage and disruption to the joint life (συμβίωσιν) of husband and wife.

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts  139 Why the double similitude? Plutarch appeals to an example from medicine (as he did in Precept 20) to stress the communality of marriage, but here, however, without placing the onus on the woman. Is he correcting the earlier imbalance? Does he mean to show that one can choose examples to illustrate any point and that the reference to medical practice takes precedence over the rather coarse remark of the Roman, who perhaps, like the Persian king, is not a perfect model for a cultivated Greek husband? Or is the Roman a model of endurance, who, it may be, puts up with a querulous wife just as he seems still to wear (for whatever reason) the ill-fitting shoe? The latter half of Plutarch’s advice book is addressed predominantly to the wife’s responsibility for maintaining a harmonious marriage and places the larger burden of tolerance on her. The sharpness of the housewife, like that of wine, should be profitable and pleasant – not bitter and poisonous, like aloes. (Precept 27) The chaste wife needs graces in handling her husband (Precept 28, though the comparison is with Xenocrates, ‘a man of excellent character but of rather too grave a manner’); a woman should ‘cultivate the art of handling her husband by charms of character and daily life’ (Precept 29, though Plutarch adds, ‘Similarly, the husband of a modest and austere wife must reflect, “I cannot have her both as a wife and as a hetaera”’); a modest woman ‘should be shy with her speech as with her body, and guard it against strangers’ (Precept 31).14 And especially alarming: A wife should speak (λαλει˜ν) only to her husband or through her husband (δια ˋ του̃ αʼνδρός), and should not feel aggrieved if, like a piper, she makes nobler music through another’s tongue. (Precept 32) Can such comportment have characterised the participation of Eurydice alongside her fiancé Pollianus when they were Plutarch’s pupils, and can he seriously have meant to restrict her speech so narrowly as to allow her no voice of her own? Without attempting to convert Plutarch into a modern thinker, we may nevertheless note that the verb λαλει˜ν is commonly used not for any kind of speech but more particularly for idle chatter or gossip and may connote loquacity; the Precept would seem to recommend that a wife engage in informal conversation mainly with her husband and trust him to represent her views on personal matters in public (cf. Precept 31). That the male should be the public face, as it were, of a married couple is something that Plutarch takes for granted.15

140  David Konstan In the following Precept (33), Plutarch again defends an asymmetrical relation between husband and wife, advising wives to ‘submit to their husbands’, whereas ‘the husband should rule the wife’. Plutarch adds, however, that he should do so ‘not as a master rules a slave, but as the soul rules the body, sharing her feelings and growing together with her in affection (συμπαθου̃ντα καὶ συμπεφυκότα τη̨˜ ευ̕νοία̨ )’. But if the two parties are indeed fused together (as συμπεφυκότα suggests), might we not imagine them as a single soul in two bodies, as Aristotle is supposed to have said about intimate friends (Diogenes Laertius 5.1.20; cf. Cicero, De amicitia 81)? In the following Precept, Plutarch avers that in a true marriage, the partners ‘are united and joined in nature, as is the case with living creatures’ (ηʽνωμένα ʽˊ καὶ συμφυη˜ καθάπερ ɛ’στὶ τω˜ν ζώ̨ων εκαστον), and further explains that this should be like the complete mixture of liquids of which the natural philosophers speak, that is, mixture by wholes or wholly (δει˜ δέ, ʽˊ ωσπερ οɩʽ φυσικοὶ ˋ ν κρα̃σιν). The reference is to the τω˜ν υʽ γρω˜ν λέγουσι διʼ ʽˊ ο λων γενέσθαι τη Stoic idea of blending: Mixture is the complete coextension of two or more bodies while their inherent qualities remain stable, as is the case of fire and heated iron, for here complete coextension of bodies occurs. Similarly with our souls; for they extend through the whole of our bodies – for it is their [sc. the Stoics’] opinion that body extends through body. (Stobaeus 1.54.14ff.) There is a tension here between the distinct roles that Plutarch assigns to husband and wife, by which the husband is the ruling partner and the wife ideally submits to his authority, and a competing vision of the couple as so closely united that they form a single substance, even as each retains his or her own identity. It is significant that Plutarch here refers, rather exceptionally, to the two partners as being mutually in love (γάμος … τω˜ν ɛ’ ρώντων), implicitly suggesting that both are motivated by erôs; one encounters this conception of marriage in the Greek novels, but it is rare elsewhere.16 What shall we make of Plutarch’s remark that a man ‘ought to have his household well harmonized who is going to harmonize State, Forum, and friends. For it is much more likely that the sins of women rather than sins ʼˊ against women will go unnoticed by most people’ (μα˜ λλον γα ˋ ρ εοικε τα ˋ τω˜ν ʼˋ τα γυναικω˜ν η ˋ προˋς γυναι˜κας αʽμαρτήματα λανθάνειν τουˋ ς πολλούς, Precept 43, trans. Babbitt)? It would appear that the responsibility for creating harmony in the household lies more with the husband than with the wife and that he must be the more forgiving of the two, since he is more likely to be held accountable for dissension in the public eye. Again, Plutarch advises that a man should respect (αɩ’δει˜σθαι) no one more than he does his wife …. A husband who enjoys pleasures which he prohibits in his wife in no way differs

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts  141 from a man who tells his wife to fight the enemy to whom he has himself surrendered. (Precept 47, trans. Russell, slightly modified) The final Precept in Plutarch’s marriage advice, conventionally numbered 48, begins with the instruction to Eurydice to read what his own wife, Timoxena, wrote to Aristylla, presumably a friend of hers, on the topic of ornamentation. With this, he turns to Pollianus, exhorting him, in turn, to avoid extravagance and to study philosophy, which he is also to discuss with his wife and to serve as her ‘professor, philosopher, and teacher in the finest and most divine matters’ (καθηγητη ˋ ς καὶ φιλόσοφος καὶ διδάσκαλος τω˜ν καλλίστων καὶ θειοτάτων). A knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy generally will protect her from silly superstition and frivolous behaviour. Plutarch warns that if wives ‘do not receive the seeds of good words or share their husband’s education, they conceive many strange and ʼˊ evil schemes and feelings on their own (ατοπα πολλα ˋ καὶ φαυ̃λα βουλεύματα καὶ πάθη κυου̃ σι)’. With this, he again addresses Eurydice: Familiarize yourself, Eurydice, in particular with the sayings of good and wise men. Always have on your lips the remarks you learned with me as a girl (παρθένος). That will please your husband and earn you the admiration of other women, because you will be so splendidly and grandly adorned at no expense. (trans. Russell) The final instruction returns to the theme of adornment with which the passage began.17 Clearly, Plutarch regards Pollianus as more advanced in philosophy than his bride, and it is reasonable to suppose that he is several years older than she, in accord with Greek marital conventions. As Lisette Goessler remarks, that even Plutarch regards the husband as the dominant partner is betrayed by the fact that of the 48 Precepts, 28 are addressed to the wife but only nine to the husband (the other eleven are addressed to them both).18 Whatever the real ages of the couple, Plutarch doubtless imagines them, for the purpose of this advice manual, on the model of Ischomachus and his wife in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, where the husband assumes the responsibility of instructing his much younger wife in household management. The difference is that Eurydice is to be educated in philosophy, a domain in which, unlike the division of labour characteristic of the Greek home, both partners share in the same endeavour.19 There is no reason to suppose that Eurydice lags behind Pollianus in intellectual capacity or that she will forever be dependent on his guidance.

142  David Konstan Plutarch’s consolation to his own wife upon the death of their infant daughter has struck many readers as distressingly patronising. Plutarch was travelling when he received the news and so composed his consolation as a letter, though one imagines he could have returned home at nearly the same speed as the posted epistle. Plutarch advises his wife on the need to accept their loss with serenity, and Sarah Pomeroy judges that ‘Plutarch did not want to arrive home and find his wife hysterical with grief.’ Thus, he warned her ahead of time of his arrival, in the hope that ‘she would control herself as she had in past situations of crisis’.20 Jo-Marie Claassen, however, has argued that Plutarch is, in fact, praising his wife precisely for her good sense and self-control. Rather than acting as the wise counsellor to his emotional wife, Plutarch is rather exhorting himself, as much as Timoxena, to assume a philosophical attitude towards their loss. Thus, Claassen concludes, Plutarch is here ‘attempting to act as a physician healing himself by whatever means he can’.21 In their mature relationship, Plutarch treats his wife as his equal, even as he assumes, as the genre of the consolation demands, the pose of a wise adviser. Pollianus and Eurydice are not an ordinary couple: their level of education marks them as belonging to the local aristocracy. There is perhaps the reason to suppose that Eurydice is the wealthier of the two, or at least comes from a highly prosperous family, if the various mentions of riches and adornment over the course of the essay may be taken to refer to her situation, rather than as mere generalisations. Correspondingly, Plutarch’s view of the aims of marriage is not entirely traditional. Lisette Goessler writes: The spiritualization of marriage that can be seen throughout the Advice to the Bride and Groom is something new, and is not found in this form in any author before Plutarch. It is apparent in Plutarch’s remarks on the purpose of marriage, where he makes no mention at all of the procreation of children, which is usually listed as its prime purpose. Rather, he characterises the union of the young couple solely as a matter of epi biou koinôniai synienai eis tauto, “coming together to share their lives”.22 Years ago, Paul Veyne argued that, under the early Roman Empire, there evolved a more sentimental notion of marriage, based on the mutual affection of the partners.23 A text often cited is Pliny’s letters concerning his relationship to his third wife, the young Calpurnia. On the one hand, he supervises her education diligently: She has a sharp wit, she is wonderfully economical, and she loves me – which is a guarantee of her purity (castitatis indicium). Moreover, owing to her fondness for me she has developed a taste for study. She collects

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts  143 all my speeches, she reads them, and learns them by heart …. She even sings my verses and sets them to music, though she has no master to teach her but love, which is the best instructor of all. Hence I feel perfectly assured that our mutual happiness will be lasting, and will continue to grow day by day. For she loves in me not my youth  nor my person (non enim aetatem meam aut corpus) – both of which are subject to gradual decay and age – but my reputation. (Epistles 4.19, trans. Firth) Elsewhere, however, Pliny writes to his wife as though they were lovers out of Roman elegy: It is unbelievable how much I miss you (quanto desiderio tui tenear). Love is the primary cause, then that we’re not used to being apart. I spend a great part of my nights awake thinking of you, and sometimes at the hours when I used to visit you my feet literally carry me towards your room. Then, sick and sad, like someone who has been locked out, I withdraw from the empty threshold. (Ep. 7.5) A. N. Sherwin-White comments on this and similar letters of Pliny’s: ‘They blend together, for the first time in European literature, the role of husband and lover.’24 Plutarch’s marriage advice is responding, I think, to a newly valorised, or at least publicly expressed, sense of sentiment as the basis of marriage, its intensity reflected in a certain crossover between the usual language for conjugal affection and that of erotic attraction. The very notion of a total blending of the spouses, also affirmed in Plutarch’s essay, Eroticus (24), may be seen as an adaptation to the sphere of the marriage of a conventional take on the unfulfillable desire of lovers, best expressed in Lucretius’ satirical diatribe against erotic passion at the end of Book 4 of De rerum natura: And when at last their bodies intertwine and they take pleasure in their bloom of youth, while flesh is now sensing more delights to come and Venus has prepared herself to sow the ploughed field in the female, the lovers fixate on the body greedily, their mouths linking their spit, and breathing heavily, with teeth pressing against each other’s lips. But there’s no point. For they cannot scrape off anything from there or penetrate inside and with their entire body move into

144  David Konstan the other body, for sometimes they seem to want that and struggle to achieve it. That is how passionately they stay there locked in Venus’ embrace, while their limbs, loosened by the power of pleasure, melt (4.1105–1112, trans. Ian Johnston)25 The mutuality of sentiment, however, is not incompatible with a division of roles in the home. If, as Cynthia Patterson argues, ‘what really is new in Plutarch’s essay [is] an intimate focus on the marital relationship itself unencumbered by a concern for its larger social, political, or cosmic purposes’,26 this narrow perspective allows Plutarch to approve an ideal of sentimental reciprocity while retaining the traditional notion that husbands must rule their wives and wives defer to their husbands. As Patterson goes on to say, ‘His advice is intended for a husband and wife living together on the basis of traditional gender structures and values.’27 And yet, I would add, not completely so. On a close reading, of the kind that, I imagine, Plutarch expected of his prize pupils, the text seems to call into question the traditional, asymmetrical models of the conjugal relation that it superficially affirms or reproduces. If a very young wife must rely to some extent on the tutelage of her more experienced spouse, she will nevertheless develop her own independent capacities to reason, and her mature self will be the equal of her husband’s in all respects. To put the point in the language of modern criticism, the text cannot fully contain the contradictions that inhabit it.28 Or perhaps, it is not a matter of a textual unconscious but the deliberate strategy of so canny an author as Plutarch.

Notes



1. Babbitt (1928), 297. 2. See Jones (1966), 71. 3. The association of pigs with the desire for pleasure made them a natural figure for Epicurean contentment; cf. Horace, Epistles 1.4.15–16, with Warren (2002), 129–149. Warren notes the idealisation of the pig by the sceptic Pyrrho (pp. 113–116), and remarks: ‘A pig is to be imitated not because it doubts its senses, but because it does not worry about whether a storm is bad’ (pp. 115–116). In Plutarch’s Gryllus, a pig argues, paradoxically, that his species is more virtuous than human beings; cf. Konstan (2011); Konstan (2012). One may compare Plato’s ‘city of pigs’, as Glaucus dubs the primitive or frugal state that Socrates first outlines in Plato’s Republic (372 D); Chrysippus affirmed, according to Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2.160, that pigs were granted life in place of salt, so that their meat would be the better preserved. 4. Goessler (1999), 100. 5. See Konstan (2004).

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts  145

















6. Centlivres Challet (2013), 3, notes the presence in much Roman literature about women ‘of two contrasting voices: a traditional voice – the first voice – conveying topoi and stereotypes, and an individual voice – the second voice – giving descriptions that diverge from the descriptions given by the first voice’. O’Hara (2007), 6, suggests that Roman poets may have viewed their ‘poems with multiple voices and inconsistent attitudes and even variant versions in one text as the best way to represent their view of the complexity of the world as they saw it.’ 7. Duff (2007/2008), 13. 8. Cf. Van Hoof (2014), 142: ‘Plutarch’s practical ethics, then, aim at a general, albeit highly elite, readership, rather than at philosophical specialists.’ 9. Translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. I have consulted the elegant translation by Russell (1999), as well as that by Babbitt (1928), but in general I have sought a more literal rendition that respects the complexity and occasional ambiguity of Plutarch’s vocabulary. 10. Cf. Goessler (1999), 99. 11. Babbitt (1928) renders the passage as follows: ‘In music they used to call one of the conventional themes for the flute the “Horse Rampant”, a strain which, as it seems, aroused an ardent desire in horses and imparted it to them at the time of mating.’ 12. Goessler (1999), 100 observes that there are subtle links between successive Precepts that bind them into a kind of chain: ‘Precept no. 3 is linked to nos. 1 and 2 by the word prôton (first), and to no. 2 by diaphorai (quarrels) …. Hupo pyros, by fire, is the linking phrase that leads into Precept 4, which narrows the scope of no. 3 and makes it more specific.’ 13. Cf. Goessler (1999), 111, who affirms of Plutarch that, ‘in the depths of his heart he condemned infidelity on the part of the husband as well as the wife.’ 14. Cf. Precept 37: ‘Sensible wives keep quiet when their husbands shout in anger, but speak and try to calm them down if their anger is silent.’ But contrast Precept 39: ‘A wife must always and everywhere avoid offending her husband, and a husband his wife.’ 15. Cf. Precept 40: ‘The wise wife will close her ears, and guard against whispers’; the comparison is with Philip of Macedon, who ‘was being incited to anger by friends who pointed out that the Greeks had done well at his hands but spoke ill of him in return. “And what will happen”, he replied, “if we treat them badly?”’ 16. See Konstan (1994); cf. Goessler (1999), 106–107: ‘only when marriage is the result of erôs can one speak of a true union as opposed to mere cohabitation (symbioun), and only then does it achieve the state of total integration (krasis di’ holôn), in which everything forms an indissoluble mixture and everything without exception is shared.’ 17. Goessler (1999), 98, notes that the entire essay is marked by an annular structure, and more particularly that the succession of individual Precepts is ‘arranged in a definite sequence: the items do have links between them, the assorted beads are carefully strung on a thread.’ 18. Goessler (1999), 11. 19. Cf. Goessler (1999), 111: ‘He thus allots to the wife a radically different position from that assigned to her by Xenophon, in whose Oeconomicus the wife of Ischomachus is imprisoned within the confines of Attic housekeeping.’ 20. Pomeroy (1999), 76. 21. Claassen (2004); cf. Konstan (2018), 137–140. 22. Goessler (1999), 110.

146  David Konstan 23. Veyne (1978). Veyne exercised a great influence on Michel Foucault’s treatment of ancient sexuality; see Foucault (1986), 145–185, and cf. Patterson (1999), 128–131. 24. Sherwin-White (1966), 407 on Epistle 7.5. See, however, Centlivres Challet (2018), 157, 159: ‘through the three letters to Calpurnia we learn more about Pliny than about her. What is more, letters, books and work are three important components of the couple’s relationship, not only as media which convey feelings, but also because they act as a compensation for the absent loved one …. Despite the apparent passion and seemingly intimate topic of the missives, the composition is very controlled.’ Courtney (1980), 145 on Satire 2.138, remarks: ‘The purpose of marriage in Juvenal’s time was almost exclusively considered to be the procreation of legitimate children …. Mutual affection between man and woman as a motive for marriage only becomes prominent later than Juvenal (though adfectus maritalis is a familiar concept within marriage).’ But contrast Centlivres Challet (2013), 134: ‘it is neither men nor women nor marriage as such but male-female relationships that are at the heart of Juvenal’s discourse in satire 6, and, at the root of it, mutual affection as a premise ensuring a traditional ideology of genders.’ Centlivres Challet quotes Juvenal: ‘If you are not to love the woman promised and united to you by lawful contracts, there seems to be no reason to take her as your wife’ (Si tibi legitimis pactam iunctamque tabellis/ non es amaturus, ducendi nulla videtur/ causa, 6.200–202), and comments: ‘This sentence is pivotal to understanding Juvenal’s view of male-female relationships, gender roles and the theme of satire 6’ (2018), 138. Cf. Dixon (1991); Beneker (2008). 25. Available at http://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/lucretius/lucretius4html.html; accessed 9 February 2019. 26. Patterson (1999), 129. 27. Patterson (1999), 137. Cf. McNamara (1999), 160: ‘The so-called egalitarian partnership became a vehicle for a new concept of virtue, femininity. What must surprise and perhaps even charm us most is a concept of womanhood whose real happiness lay in finding a man strong enough to master her.’ 28. See Macherey (1978); Jameson (1981).

Bibliography Babbitt F. C. (1928) ‘Coniugalia Praecepta’. In Plutarch Moralia, vol. 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 297–343. Beneker J. (2008) ‘Plutarch on the role of Eros in a marriage’. In Nikolaidis A. G. (ed.), The Unity of Plutarch's Work: Moralia Themes in the Lives, Features of the Lives in the Moralia. Berlin: de Gruyter, 689–699. Centlivres Challet C.-E. (2013) Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century. Oxford: Peter Lang. Centlivres Challet C.-E. (2018) ‘Pliny the Lover: by the book’. Museum Helveticum 75, 155–168. Claassen M.-J. (2004) ‘Plutarch’s little girl’. Acta Classica 47, 27–50. Courtney E. (1980) A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal. London: Athlone Press. Dixon S. (1991) ‘The sentimental ideal of the Roman family’. In Rawson B. (ed.), Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 99–113.

Reading Plutarch’s Marriage Precepts  147 Duff T. (2007/2008) ‘Plutarch’s readers and the moralism of the Lives’. Ploutarchos 5, 3–18. Firth J. B. (ed. and trans.) (1900) The Letters of the Younger Pliny. London: Walter Scott Library. Foucault M. (1986) The History of Sexuality, III: The Care of the Self. Trans. Hurley R. New York: Random House. Goessler L. (1999) ‘Advice to the Bride and Groom: Plutarch gives a detailed account of his views on marriage’. Trans. Harvey H. M. and Harvey D. In Pomeroy S. B. (ed.), Plutarch's Advice to the Bride and Groom, and a Consolation to His Wife. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jameson F. (1981) The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Jones C. P. (1966) ‘Towards a chronology of Plutarch’s works’. Journal of Roman Studies 56, 61–74. Konstan D. (1994) Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Konstan D. (2004) ‘“The birth of the reader”: Plutarch as literary critic’. Scholia 13, 3–27. Konstan D. (2011) ‘A pig convicts itself of unreason: the implicit argument of Plutarch’s Gryllus.’ In Almazova N., Budaragina O., Egorova S., Keyer D., Panchenko D., Ruban A., and Verlinsky A. (eds.), Variante Loquella: Alexandro Gavrilov Septuagenario. Saint Petersburg: Bibliotheca Classica = Hyperboreus 16–17 (2010–2011) 371–385. Konstan D. (2012) ‘Epicurean happiness: a pig’s life?’ Journal of Ancient Philosophy 6; online at www.filosofiaantiga.com. Konstan D. (2018) In the Orbit of Love: Affection in Ancient Greece and Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lutz C. (1947) Musonius Rufus, The Roman Socrates. Yale Classical Studies 10, 3–147. Macherey P. (1978) A Theory of Literary Production. Trans. Wall G. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. McNamara J. A. (1999) ‘Gendering virtue’. In Pomeroy S. B. (ed.), Plutarch’s Advice to the Bride and Groom, and a Consolation to His Wife. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 151–161. O’Hara J. J. (2007) Inconsistency in Roman Epic: Studies in Catullus, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid and Lucan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patterson C. (1999) ‘Plutarch's Advice to the Bride and Groom: traditional wisdom through a philosophic lens’. In Pomeroy S. B. (ed.), Plutarch's Advice to the Bride and Groom, and a Consolation to His Wife. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 128–137. Pomeroy S. B. (1999) ‘Reflections on Plutarch, A Consolation to His Wife’. In Pomeroy S. B. (ed.), Plutarch’s Advice to the Bride and Groom and a Consolation to His Wife. New York: Oxford University Press, 75–81. Russell C. (1999) ‘Advice to the Bride and Groom’. In Pomeroy S. B. (ed.), Plutarch's Advice to the Bride and Groom, and a Consolation to His Wife. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 5–13. Sherwin-White A. N. (ed.) (1966) The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

148  David Konstan Van Hoof L. (2014) ‘Practical ethics’. In Beck M. (ed.), A Companion to Plutarch. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 135–148. Veyne P. (1978) ‘La famille et l’amour sous le Haut-Empire romain’. Annales E.S.C. 33, 36–63. Warren J. (2002) Epicurus and Democritean Ethics: an Archaeology of Ataraxia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

9

Looking ordinary Ideals and ideologies in the iconography of married couples in Roman society Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén

Marriage or quasi-marital relationships were central in the lives of individual men and women of all social classes in Roman society. According to Roman law, the ultimate purpose of marriage was to have legitimate children, and as such, marriage was also essential for the continuity of a family line.1 For a marriage to be lawfully acknowledged, the legal capacity of conubium was required – a right coupled to Roman citizenship, and as such, a marker of status. In the upper classes, marriages were traditionally arranged by the older generation for the younger members of the family, and while affection between the couple was expected to grow, it was not a given.2 The marriage ideal demanded harmony and concordia between husband and wife, albeit with an assumed subservient position for the wife.3 While demographic and social realities probably meant that many would marry at least more than once, a couple was expected to present themselves as united and working together for the good of the family, and the state. This is the picture we tend to see in images and text commemorating couples where the importance of marriage is clearly reflected over time and in different regions of the Roman Empire. In this contribution, we will discuss some examples of ‘ordinary’ couples with a focus on men and women who have chosen to present themselves as married, sometimes simply as a couple and sometimes in a wider family context. We concentrate on select examples of iconography and some epigraphy from funerary contexts. Sometimes the image survives complete with an inscription which may further emphasise the marital ideals and gender roles expressed in the iconography, but often not. A legal marriage was a mark of status, and the official purpose of a Roman marriage was procreation and the continuity of the family line. Thus, children, especially sons, were also marks of status, but for this contribution, we have chosen to focus on examples where husband and wife appear as a celebration of the marriage/married state. The bottom line in both iconography and epigraphy is a marriage in harmony with clear gender roles for men and women: women being subordinate to men, and in cases where references to work appear, it is normally the man who is the breadwinner and the woman is confined to being a ‘wife’ (or mother). DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-9

150  Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén By far, the majority of the people in the Roman Empire are simply unknown to us; they leave little in the material record and are lost in time. ‘Ordinary’ people rarely caught the attention of ancient writers who, for the most part, were members of the upper classes writing for and about themselves. However, people who could afford it did leave memorials to themselves or to members of their families, and the abundance of visual and epigraphic evidence demonstrates a number of shared central norms and values in the societies of Roman Italy and the western provinces. Having an inscription or a memorial made was a statement of certain aspects of an individual’s life, most obviously of the desire to be remembered, but also to record significant family relationships and personal achievements. A memorial was a costly investment, and as such, it was also a demonstration of the financial capacity of the commissioner. Furthermore, it was a way of displaying the social and legal status of an individual, and often marriage was central to that status. This is a motif which is repeatedly demonstrated in various media over time. This rather begs the question about the definition of ‘ordinary’, a point to which we will return later. The reading of ‘ordinary’ is further complicated by the formulaic and normative nature of most funerary commemorations. As today, one rarely finds a memorial that is not in some way eulogising or at least neutral; it is very rare to find a funerary inscription that is negative or denigrates the deceased. We should also note that there is a certain amount of ‘off the peg’ commissioning of monuments wherein the subject matter is often standard, but details such as portrait faces or personal items are included in the image which allow us some insight into the motivations of the commemorated or the commemorators. The same can be said of epitaphs, which are likewise often formulaic, containing names, perhaps family relationships, age at death, and some description of status. Any deviation from these norms provides a glimpse into the intentions and perhaps aspirations of the individuals involved.

Representations of couples in Roman Italy of the late Republic – early imperial times In the first century BCE, a change occurred in the visibility and type of people depicted in funerary art, and increasingly, people from social groups other than the elite were commemorated with inscriptions and images.4 The married state is a recurrent theme in commemorative documents and images from this time onwards. Visual representations of married couples can be in full-figure life-size representations, in portrait busts, or in half figures of various sizes. Our first two case studies are of monuments to married couples but who present themselves rather differently. The first represents a large full-figure couple from Rome dating from the late Republic. This well-known example is part of a large funerary monument made from travertine and found in 1926 on the Via Statilia (Figure 9.1).5

Looking ordinary 151

Figure 9.1  Late Republican relief of a couple, from the Via Statilia, Rome. Present location: Musei Capitolini/Centrale Montemartini, Rome, inv.no MC2142. Source: DAI Arachne photo archive no 1085624. Photographer: B. Malter.

The difference in ages between the older husband and younger wife is made clear in their facial features. An eight-to-ten-year age gap between husband and wife was not uncommon in Roman marriages.6 There is some physical space between the couple here, and they do not touch, their heads

152  Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén are slightly turned in the same direction, but they do not look at each other. He is dressed in the typical Republican toga worn in an arm-sling manner. She is wearing the traditional long tunic and palla which is pulled up over her head to further illustrate the modesty, which is expressed in her late Hellenistic pudicitia pose. What kind of couple is this? Glenys Davies reads their facial expressions as a reflection of expected shared emotions of the marital partnership, an ideal that responds to their traditional dress and body language. They present themselves as a couple but are not overtly affectionate, rather like couples in early photographs, it was more important to demonstrate formality and status rather than emotion.7 No inscription survives to give the modern viewer more information about them, but the decoration and detail on the woman’s palla is exquisite, as is the detail of the curls framing her face. The couple may appear ‘ordinary’, but these details, in combination with the size (H. 1.79 m) and the artistic quality of the memorial, may tell a different story. The second Republican example is a monument of a more modest size, from the Via Appia.8 This couple are represented in portrait busts, slightly turned towards each other but without making eye contact. Also, in this case, a clear difference in age between husband and wife shows in their facial features; the lines on the husband’s face together with his receding hairline make him look older than his smooth-faced young wife. Here, there is some physical contact between the couple in the dextrarum iunctio gesture, a short hand for marriage.9 In this case, there is an inscription below the portraits with information on the names of the deceased. He was P. Aiedius Amphio and the woman was Aiedia Fausta Melior, and they were both ex-slaves of the same owner, but both of freed status when their memorial was made.10 Their status as ex-slaves is clearly indicated by P L in the inscription. L stands for libertus, a freedman, or liberta, a freedwoman. The manumitted status of the husband is clearly marked by the wearing of the toga – a visual sign of Roman citizenship. For women, there was no such clear change in dress to mark a change in legal status, and while this woman has no visual sign of being manumitted, it is still clear from the inscription. Apart from their personal names and the information about their status as ex-slaves, no other information is given about this couple who may have already been a couple as slaves and then married legally after manumission. The very fact of the monument, however, suggests a desire to fit into the cultural norms of Roman society, to appear ‘ordinary’ (Figure 9.2). More examples of ‘ordinary’ couples come from the northern regions of Italy from the first decades of the first century CE.11 One example, possibly from the region of Padua, shows a fragment of a funerary stele with the preserved portrait heads of a couple seen frontally. In this case, the husband and wife appear to be more equal in age than in the previous examples, but there is no interaction between them in the picture. An incomplete inscription preserved below the portraits gives part of the man’s name, C. Volumnius.12 If the name of the woman was also originally mentioned in the inscription,

Looking ordinary 153

Figure 9.2  Late Republican relief of a couple, P. Aiedius Amphio and Aiedia Fausta Melior, from the Via Appia, Rome. Present location: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Altes Museum), inv.no SK 840. Source:  Antikensammlung, Staatliche Photographer: Ingrid Geske.

Museen

zu

Berlin,

Preussischer

Kulturbesitz.

it is no longer possible to tell. We have no idea who they were as we know nothing more of the couple than (part of) the man’s name (Figure 9.3).13 A similar example but from a memorial in Aquileia, in the northeast, is found in Figure 9.4, which survives without an inscription.14 Yet another example from Aquileia is a stele depicting a more unusual arrangement, with double portraits of two superimposed couples in shallow niches (Figure 9.5). The hairstyle of the women indicates a dating around the mid-first century CE.15 The examples so far may illustrate traditional Republican aristocratic ideals: marital harmony but with restricted expressions of emotions and physical contact. In Imperial times it gradually became more socially acceptable to express emotions in public between husband and wife, and other family members too.16 Reflections of this trend may also be seen in funerary iconography. A first-century CE ash urn from Rome, now in the collections of the British Museum, is decorated with an image of a couple and looks ‘typical’. The iconography is not highly detailed, but the message of the intimate marital relationship is enhanced by their body language. The woman stands on the right, the couple join hands in the dextrarum iunctio gesture and look

154  Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén

Figure 9.3   A fragmentarily preserved funerary monument of a couple, from Northern Italy. Present location: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Altes Museum), inv.no SK 841. Source:  Antikensammlung, Staatliche Photographer: Ingrid Geske.

Museen

zu

Berlin,

Preussischer

Kulturbesitz.

towards each other. They engage with each other rather than looking out at the viewer. They are of the same height, and the wife looks directly at her husband, giving no impression of lowering her head in subservience – they present themselves as equals. Their clothing is indicative of their citizen status, he wears a toga and she wears a stola, indicated by V draping across the chest, and palla. Above the image, an inscription provides further details about the couple. The memorial was made by a man named Vitalis, a former slave of the emperor, in the service of whom he worked as a ‘scribe of the bedchamber’ (AVG L SCRIB CUB) or as his private secretary. Vitalis had it made for Vernasia Cyclas, an excellent wife, coniugi optimae, who died at the age of 27.17 As there are no clear indications of the wife’s status, she may have been freeborn. At some point, Vitalis had been manumitted and had become a Roman citizen and as such could wear the toga and legally marry. Another sign of possible affection in this marriage can be seen in the space between the faces of husband and wife where the letters F A P appear: Fidilissimae Amantissimae Pientissimae, meaning ‘most faithful, most loving, most devoted’. In comparison with the first example of the late Republican unknown standing couple who look less of a partnership

Looking ordinary 155

Figure 9.4  Portrait bust of a couple, from Aquileia, inv.no 79, 2946. Source:  DAI Rome Neg. Nr. 1. 74.2946.

in terms of posture, Vitalis and Vernasia Cyclas are represented like a close couple, with physical and eye contact. The harmony and emotional relationship within marriage may be further emphasised in other examples of the time by the woman putting a hand on the man’s shoulder as is demonstrated on a funerary altar from Rome of the mid-first century CE.18

Representations of couples in Roman Gaul Moving out of Italy to the western provinces, and particularly Gaul, we observe several motifs familiar from Roman Italy repeated here. Southern Gaul had been under regular Roman influence since the second century BCE, and to find Roman artistic and epigraphic traditions in this region in late Republican and early Imperial times is hardly surprising.19 Gradually, motifs of couples presented as ‘ordinary’ married couples inspired from iconography in Roman Italy were diffused over a wider area of Gaul, and monuments using this genre were found in most regional contexts. Similar iconographic patterns and symbols, such as the handshake, are repeated across the province.20 Many examples show a couple standing close together, as in Figure 9.6, of a couple here seen in full figure.21

156  Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén

Figure 9.5   Stele of two couples, from Aquileia, mid-first century CE. Present location: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, inv.no 1861. Source:  Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen.

Looking ordinary 157

Figure 9.6  Funerary monument of a couple depicted in full figure, from Arlon, Belgium. Present location: Musée de la Cour d’Or de Metz. Source:  DAI Arachne photo archive no 1115972.

This example is from Arlon in Gallia Belgica in the northwest of Gaul, and it represents an imagery which is found in many parts of Gaul. As is common in Gallo-Roman iconography of couples, the woman stands to the left and the man to the right.22 Here, husband and wife are slightly turned towards each other, and they are dressed in a traditional manner for Gallic monuments, with the woman wearing longer Roman-style clothing while the man wears the traditional Gallic male calf-length tunic.23 An approximate dating for this stele is the later second century CE as most examples from central Gaul and Gallia Belgica are from the later half of the second to

158  Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén the early third century CE. This is one of many examples of a motif repeated over time and place, and as such, it appears as a standard representation of an ‘ordinary’ married couple in Roman Gaul, but with some variations in details. In more examples from central Gaul and Britain, dating from later first to later second century CE, this pattern of woman in Roman-style and man in local costume suggests a more generic pan-regional choice of representation.24 Other examples of couples differ considerably from the majority in the choice of motif. Some examples are discussed below, and the choice of motif raises the question of how one chose a funerary monument, if indeed it was chosen by the commemorator.25 For most examples, we are never going to know how the choices were made, but we can acknowledge that there was some agency involved in selecting the type of monument and the manner in which a couple was portrayed. Whether or not both partners are visible in images of couples, it is regularly the marriage that is celebrated together with the individual(s). Two examples close in time and place of production may illustrate the question of choice. One is a stele from Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, or Cologne, dated to the midfirst century CE (Figure 9.7).26 The scene shows a couple physically apart where the woman is seated to the left in a solium, a high chair typical of provincial private settings, and to the right, the man is reclining on a couch, a kline. The husband is dressed in a toga, and the wife wears clothes which cover most of her body, but the individual clothing items cannot be identified in detail from the picture. From the inscription below, we learn the names of the couple: he is M. Valerius Celerinus, born in Spain, in the village of Astigi, and he is a veteran soldier from the 10th legion Gemina stationed in Spain.27 We cannot tell why or when, but at some point in life, he had become a citizen of Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium. Sometime around the mid-first century CE, while Celerinus was still alive, he had this funerary monument made for himself and his wife, Marcia Procula. From the expression vivo fecit (‘made when he lived’) in the inscription, we can tell that Celerinus commissioned the stele in his lifetime, but no more details are known about the wife, only her personal name and her status as wife, uxor. No persons other than husband and wife are mentioned in the inscription, but in the image, a third person is visible. This is a figure of smaller size and as such likely to be a slave or servant of the household. In front of the husband is a small table with cups and drinking vessels. By the chair of the wife is a quasillum, a wool basket, and she also holds a basket in her lap, perhaps containing fruit. This image has more symbolic details than many other examples of married couples in funerary iconography, and it reflects a life of high material standard: the couple have a servant, perhaps several servants symbolised by the one in the picture, precious household goods on display to the viewer, and they are well dressed. The man is seen reclining and seemingly enjoying the good life. He has the legal status of a citizen, and thus, he

Looking ordinary 159

Figure 9.7  Funerary stele of the veteran soldier M. Valerius Celerinus and his wife Marcia Procula, from Cologne, first century CE. Present location: Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne, inv.no Stein 86. Source:  Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne.

160  Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén can wear a toga, and the wife wears garments rich in fabric, another sign of wealth. His, or possibly their, financial status is reflected in the capacity of having a large decorated memorial made: it is almost two metres high and with a Latin inscription of good quality. At the same time, the symbolism underlines the different ideals and roles of men and women in married couples, ideals which originated in Rome and were adopted in the provinces by those who wished to align themselves with Roman social mores: this man had been a professional soldier, and professional careers and identities were closely associated with men, in this case, a veteran soldier. Although in real life many women did work, in the ideal world, women’s primary roles were always those of the housewife and mother. We are informed of the personal name of the woman here, Marcia Procula, and that she was a wife, but nothing more is said about her. Traditional female domesticity is symbolised by the wool basket, placed close to her chair. We do not see her at work, but the instruments are there, implying that she could easily reassume the wool work at any time, as a good, industrious housewife. No children are mentioned in the inscription. This may mean that this couple did not have children and in which case and in strict terms of the purpose of a Roman marriage, it would be an unfulfilled union. Or they may have had children who were meant to be buried elsewhere and in another family context, especially daughters who had become wives, like Marcia Procula herself, who was not buried with her birth family. Another example with a different motif is the stele from Mainz of Menimane and her husband, Blussus (Figure 9.8).28 This is rather a unique, if well-known, monument, over which much ink has been spilt. It is constructed in the Roman style, with a Latin inscription. The couple sits frontally, they do not touch, but their union is symbolised by the child, a son, standing between them. They both wear local clothing, Blussus in a Gallic coat, a knee-length overtunic or coat which has long, wide sleeves and reaches to the knees or just below, while his wife wears an overtunic or pinafore, falling somewhat artfully off one shoulder, over her long tunic. The heavy necklace and the bonnet are typical of this region in the early first century CE. The relationship of the couple to the ruling Roman power is ambiguous – they use a Roman style but retain their Gallic identity in their dress. It was more common for men in Gaul to appear in local style clothes, but Menimane is one of the few women to dress in this particular style in the Roman West. These two examples are interesting in terms of choices of how to present oneself as a couple, and the question is again, how were the choices made? And can we justify including them in the category of ‘ordinary’? These are two lavish memorials made close in time, and they come from two cities not very distant from each other, Cologne and Mainz in the Rhine district. The veteran soldier and his wife in Cologne clearly have chosen a public identity as Romans with the man dressed in a toga and with a female dress similar to that seen in evidence from Rome or Roman Italy. In the case of Blussus

Looking ordinary 161

Figure 9.8  Stele of Blussus and Menimane, from Mainz, first century CE. Present location: Landesmuseum, Mainz, inv.no 146. Source:  Landesmuseum, Mainz.

and Menimane, both husband and wife are seen in local dress, displaying a local identity as probably people native of this region. Despite the obvious differences in presenting these two couples, the same male and female ideals as we see in so many other examples appear. Both men are presented with a professional identity: Blussus as a nauta, a sailor, possibly sailing on the river Rhine, and Valerius Celerinus was a professional soldier of a Roman legion. Neither of the wives are linked to any professional activity. Instead, their attributes are those of traditional and idealised female housework, most clearly symbolised by a distaff and wool work.29 More significantly,

162  Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén they chose to commemorate their relationship and lives in a stone monument in Roman style. Both monuments celebrate a married couple who are stressing their identities in particular ways. The husbands have status in the public realm by virtue of their professions. The status of the wives and their idealised attributes are reflections of the status of their husbands. Blussus and Menimane stress their local origins, while M. Valerius Celerinus and Marcia Procula emphasise their relationship to the dominant Roman ideology, perhaps more acceptable in the veteran’s colonia. These couples are both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.

Concluding remarks on the iconography of ‘ordinary’ couples Despite some local and iconographic variations in the design of monuments to married couples in Italy and the Roman West, across the region, couples appear to be celebrating their partnerships. In the western provinces, exemplified here by Gaul, it is in a blend of Roman and provincial traditions which would be understood by both local and Roman viewers. Does the similarity of design and motif in combination with a provincial origin make a couple ‘ordinary’? This is a difficult question to answer, but we can say that the examples given above demonstrate a shared cultural construction of marriage expressed in the chosen iconography. In general, in images of couples in all regions, physical contact is normally limited between husband and wife. Most regularly, it occurs through the dextrarum iunctio and the stressing of concordia between the couple. Figure 9.9, a funerary altar from Rome of a man named Tiberius Claudius Dionysios and a woman named Claudia Prepontis, is one of many visual examples of marital concordia, harmony between husband and wife.30 We may read this as a recognition of the formal relationship but also perhaps of mutual affection between the spouses. Occasionally physical contact between the spouses could be more clearly stressed through the woman putting a hand on the man’s shoulder. Perhaps an even clearer indication of a closer and emotionally affective relationship between the couple might be assumed with such a gesture, although close and seemingly intimate touching is rare in Roman monuments.31 Regardless of region and type of motif, the iconography does suggest that the right of a legal marriage was attractive to both partners, and in terms of status, it was important to demonstrate this in public. While some elements of body language – looking at each other, or conversely, frontally out at the viewer, positioning within the monument, physical distance, or physical contact, and iconographic symbolism – demonstrate that husband and wife might exist in worlds that are conceptualised by differing ideals, the choice of a joint monument stresses the value of marriage and being a couple.32 As demonstrated by the examples discussed above, visual representations of married couples can be in full figure, in portrait busts, or in half figures of various sizes, but they all tend to celebrate the married state. The ideal of a

Looking ordinary 163

Figure 9.9  Funerary altar of Tiberius Claudius Dionysios and Claudia Prepontis, from Rome. Present location: Museo Gregoriano Profano, Musei dei Vaticani, inv.no 9836. Source:  DAI Arachne photo archive no 1081250.

marriage in harmony is repeated over and over in iconography on steles, funerary altars, and cinerary urns. The overall message in the images of couples is of a marriage in harmony – the conjugal concordia visualised – ideally the result of a long-lasting marital relationship. There is never a sign of disharmony or of

164  Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén domestic violence which may, of course, have occurred but was only rarely recorded in any media.33 One example of a lived reality different from the recurrent ideal picture is demonstrated by an inscription from Lugdunum (Lyon) in Roman Gaul. It tells a different story of a woman, Julia Maiana, who had two children and had lived in a marriage with the same man for 28 years when she was murdered by her husband.34 We do not know why and how the woman died, but it is a very different picture from the images and texts of couples living in harmony that we regularly meet as a standardised and idealised view of ‘ordinary’ married couples in iconography and inscriptions from the funerary realm.

Notes

1. For an in-depth study of several aspects of the Roman marriage see Treggiari (1991). 2. On choosing a spouse see Treggiari (1991), 83–124. The control of marriage partners may have been more relaxed lower down the social scale but it is hard to assess how far down the social scale ideology percolated. See also Dixon (1992), 83–90. 3. For a discussion of marital concordia see Larsson Lovén (2010). 4. See Zanker (1975) for an overview of late Republican examples. 5. Kockel (1993), 94–95, figs. 10a, 12a–b, 14a–b. This sculpture group is in the collections of the Musei Capitolini/Centrale Montemartini, Rome, inv.no MC2142; Davies (2018), 238, fig. 77. 6. Treggiari (1991), 102–103; Harlow and Laurence (2002), 95–99. 7. Davies (2018), 242. 8. Kockel (1993), 149–150, figs. 56d, 62a and b. It is now in the collections of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Altes Museum), inv.no SK 840. 9. On the gesture of dextrarum iunctio see Davies (1985); (2018), 243–251. 10. CIL 6.11284/11285. 11. For an overview of funerary art from the northern regions of Italy see the extensive study by Hermann Pflug (1989). 12. Pflug (1989), 241–242, no. 216. This piece is now in the collections of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Altes Museum), inv.no SK 841. 13. The name C. Volumnius (C L Privatus) also appears in an inscription from Padua, CIL 5.3069, which could be an indication that the piece in Berlin is from the same area, although its provenience is unknown. 14. Scrinari (1972), 114, no. 3.334. Aquileia, inv.no. 79, 2946. 15. CIL 5.8299; Pflug (1989), 191, Pl. 20.2. The stele is in the collections of Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, inv.no. 1861. 16. For a discussion of feelings within a Roman marriage and family see Dixon (1992), passim but especially 83–90; Hemelrijk (1999), 33–34. 17. CIL 6.8769. The ash urn is in the collections of the British Museum, inv.no 1805.0703.158. 18. See Kleiner (1987), 104–109, no. 6, figs. V.1–4. The altar is in the collections of Museo Nazionale Romano/Terme di Diocleziano, Rome, inv.no. 124514. 19. For an overview of the artistic development in southern Gaul see for instance Hatt ([1952] 1986), 111–247; Nerzic (1989), 91–104. For more examples of married couples from southern Gaul see for instance Espérandieu (1901), 1:656 (Narbonne).

Looking ordinary 165 20. For examples of the dextrarum iunctio in Gaul see Espérandieu (1908), 2:1123 (Bordeaux; couple with a child); (1915), 6:4142 (fragmentarily preserved, from Neumagen, SW Germany; couple with a child); (1915), 6:5133 (Trier, Germany). 21. Espérandieu (1913), 5:4097. This item is from Arlon, Belgium, but now in the collections of the Musée de la Cour d’Or, Metz, France. 22. The role and manner of the handshake is discussed extensively in modern body language manuals – see Davies (2018), 244–251, where she also discusses the role of dextrarum iunctio and usual placing of husband on the left (248–249); when the woman is on the left, she often engages in an additional touching gesture. 23. See Rothe (2013), 243–268. 24. Rothe (2009), 53–58; (2012), 64. 25. For a discussion of how monuments were chosen see Carroll (2006), 86–125. 26. Espérandieu (1922), 8:6457 (Cologne, second half of first century CE). This item is in the collections of Römisch-Germanisches Museum in Cologne, inv. no Stein 86. 27. CIL 13.8283. 28. Espérandieu (1918), 7:5817 (Mainz, second half of the first century CE.) Their names are known from the inscription below the image, and repeated on the back side of the monument, CIL 13.7067. The stele is in the collections of the Landesmuseum, Mainz, inv.no. 146. 29. For a further discussion of Roman wifely and gender roles see Centlivres Challet (2013), on literary representations, esp. 10–11. 30. The altar is now in the Vatican museums (Museo Gregoriano Profano, inv.no. 9836), CIL 6.15003; Kleiner (1987), 107–109, pl. 7. 31. See Mander (2012), 64–84 on physical contact on Roman tombstones. 32. Davies (2018), 237. 33. For documentary examples of less-than-ideal or violent marriages, see MacLachlan (Hellenistic period), Parca (Hellenistic and Roman Egypt), and Thoma (Roman Egypt), this volume; for literary examples, see Hersch (first century CE), this volume. 34. CIL 13.2182. Another and more well-known case of domestic violence is of Regilla, a Roman woman in the early second century CE, who was married to the wealthy Greek Herodes Atticus. In 160 CE she died, while she was eight months pregnant, from a blow to the abdomen. Regilla’s husband was accused of murder but not convicted; see Pomeroy (2007) for a study of this case of violence within a marriage.

Bibliography Abbreviations CIL 5 CIL 6 CIL 13

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum vol. 5. 1872- (1959) Inscriptiones Galliae Cisalpinae Latinae. Mommsen Th. (ed.). Berlin. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum vol. 6. 1876- (1959) Inscriptiones Urbis Romae Latinae. Bormann E. et al. (eds). Berlin. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum vol. 13. 1899- (1966) Inscriptiones Trium Galliarum et Germaniarum Latinae. Hirschfeldt O. and Zangmeister C. (eds). Berlin.

166  Mary Harlow and Lena Larsson Lovén

References Carroll M. (2006) Spirits of the Dead. Roman Funerary Commemoration in Western Europe. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Centlivres Challet C.-E. (2013) Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities and Conjugal Relationships at the Turn of the First Century. Oxford: Peter Lang. Davies G. (1985) ‘The significance of the handshake motif in Classical funerary art’. American Journal of Archaeology 89, 627–640. Davies G. (2018) Gender and Body Language in Roman Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dixon S. (1992) The Roman Family. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Espérandieu E. (1901) Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine tome 1. Narbonne. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Espérandieu E. (1908) Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine tome 2. Aquitaine. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Espérandieu E. (1913) Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine tome 5. Belgique I. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Espérandieu E. (1915) Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine tome 6. Belgique II. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Espérandieu E. (1918) Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine tome 7. Gaule germanique. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Espérandieu E. (1922) Recueil général des bas-reliefs, statues et bustes de la Gaule romaine tome 8. Gaule germanique. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Harlow M. and Laurence R. (2002) Growing Up, Growing Old in Ancient Rome. A Life-Course Approach. London and New York: Routledge. Hatt J. J. ([1952] 1986) La tombe gallo-romaine. Paris: Picard. Hemelrijk E. (1999) Matrona Docta. Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna. London and New York: Routledge. Kleiner D. E. E. (1987) Roman Imperial Funerary Altars with Portraits. Rome: Bretschneider. Kockel V. (1993) Porträtreliefs stadtrömischer Grabbauten: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und zum Verständnis des spätrepublikanisch-frühkaiserzeitlichen Privatporträts. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern. Larsson Lovén L. (2010) ‘Coniugal concordia: marriage and marital ideals on Roman funerary monuments’. In Larsson Lovén L. and Strömberg A. (eds.), Ancient Marriage – in Myth and Reality. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 204–220. Mander J. (2012) ‘The representation of physical contact on Roman tombstones’. In Harlow M. and Larsson Lovén L. (eds.), Families in the Roman and Late Antique World. London: Continuum Press, 64–84. Nerzic C. (1989) La sculpture en Gaule romaine. Paris: Editions Errance. Pflug H. (1989) Römische Porträtstelen in Oberitalien. Untersuchungen zur Chronologie Typologie, und Ikonographie. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern. Pomeroy S. B. (2007) The Murder of Regilla. A Case of Domestic Violence in Antiquity. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press. Rothe U. (2009) Dress and Cultural Identity in the Rhine-Moselle Region of the Roman Empire. Oxford: Archeopress.

Looking ordinary 167 Rothe U. (2012) ‘Dress and cultural identity in the Roman empire’. In Harlow M. (ed.), Dress and Identity. Oxford: Archeopress, 59–68. Rothe U. (2013) ‘Whose fashion? Men, women and Roman culture as reflected in dress in the cities of the Roman north-west’. In Hemelrijk E. and Woolf G. (eds.), Women and the Roman City in the Latin West. Leiden: Brill, 243–268. Scrinari V. S. M. (1972) Museo archeologico di Aquileia. Catalogo delle sculture romane. Roma: Istituto Poligrafico dello Stato. Treggiari S. (1991) Roman Marriage. Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Zanker P. (1975) ‘Grabreliefs römischer Freigelassener’. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 90, 267–315.

10 Material aspects of marriage Economic transactions between spouses in Roman Egypt1 Marianna Thoma

Introduction Women in Greco-Roman Egypt could own their own movable and immovable property, much of which was derived from their dowry and their share in paternal inheritance.2 Αs owners of land, houses, slaves, and valuable jewellery, they played an important role in the domestic economy.3 Papyrus texts from Roman Egypt document economic transactions between spouses and give us a glimpse of the material aspects of the marital union and the social dynamics of the couple. This chapter aims to discuss several papyrus loans and sale agreements between husband and wife in order to consider the dynamics of the couple relationship and the role of women in the domestic economy, as regards the women’s legal and socio-economic status.

Women’s contribution in the domestic economy: the case of the dowry The contract of marriage made each partner subject to a variety of obligations.4 The dowry was considered to be the woman’s main contribution to the domestic economy, often determining her economic power in the household.5 She had continuing right to her dowry, even though it was the husband who normally administered it during the marriage. The husband was expected to invest it and use subsequent earnings to maintain his wife and children and to bear all costs pertaining to their union (onera matrimonii). Although the husband may have had control of the dowry during the marital union, marriage contracts from both the Ptolemaic and Roman eras indicate that several constraints were placed on his ability to make use of the family assets, including the dowry, in order to secure the wife’s maintenance. If the marriage ended in divorce or by the husband’s death, the wife or her paterfamilias, if still alive, could bring legal action to have the dowry returned to her.6 Consequently, in the case of separation, it would have been unwise for a husband to have spent or alienated his wife’s dowry during their married life. However, numerous papyrus petitions show that many wives complained to the authorities about abuse, marital abandonment, DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-10

Material aspects of marriage 169 and removal of their dowry or other kinds of property.7 For example, in the first half of the first century CE, Syra complains that her husband Sarapion had squandered her dowry and maltreated her.8 Additionally, papyrus documents from Roman Egypt reveal that husbands could use their wives’ dowries to meet their personal needs.9 Specifically, in the case of movable items, the husband could dispose of them at will during their married life, sometimes using valuable clothes and jewellery as a means to secure a loan. Although husbands were obliged to return the exact value of their dowry to their wives, upon repayment, the husband was considered to be honest enough and the wife to be lucky, being that a great number of petitions reveal wives complaining about the misuse of their dowry and abandonment by their husbands. P.Kron. 52 (= P.Mil.Vogl. II 85) (TM 11574) includes the divorce contract of Egyptian Kronion and his sibling-wife10 Taorsenouphis, peasants in second-century Tebtunis. According to the divorce agreement, Kronion had already cashed in pieces of gold and silver jewellery received from his wife, probably under the title of dowry (φερνή/pherne).11 Therefore, he ought to have repaid her within 60 days in equal ornaments (ɛ’ ν τοι˜ς ʼιˊσ[ο]ις κοσμαρίοις/en toι˜ ς ʼιˊs[o] iς kosmarίoiς), as he was not authorised to do otherwise. In the year of the divorce, he became entangled in debt to the landowner Diogenis, while his father had bequeathed to him a minimal share of inheritance as dictated by custom. No doubt Kronion used his wife’s dowry in order to reduce his debt to Diogenis rather than for his personal use. Kronion’s small share in the paternal inheritance and his separation from his sibling-wife with return of her dowry were probably meant to guard the family estate from his creditor.12 Consequently, the resentment that Kronion’s conduct caused among his family members is echoed in both the hereditary disposition of his father and the divorce contract between Kronion and his wife Taorsenouphis.

Sales of immovable property between spouses A property transfer from the husband to the wife could indicate an effort to avoid seizure from creditors. Two first-century sales of land between spouses from the Arsinoite nome are worth mentioning. In P.Mich. V 272 (TM 12108), Heracles sells to his Egyptian wife Beris, who acts with her father as her guardian, two and one-quarter arouras from a palm-garden of three and three-quarters arouras. Provision is made for the existing lease to be held by a third party, the Egyptian Besimas, and to remain valid until the expiration of the lease. The document does not make the reason for this sale clear, but we could suppose that Beris had given a loan to her husband earlier or that Heracles aimed to put the said property under his wife’s name to protect it from creditors. We should also bear in mind that according to the senatus consultum Velleianum of 46 CE, Roman women were not permitted to assume liability for others either by way of surety

170  Marianna Thoma or any other mode releasing the person who is primarily liable.13 Imperial bans on women’s interceding on behalf of their husbands had been enacted by both Augustus and Claudius and P.Col. VI 123.20–21 (TM 14250) shows that even non-Roman women before the Constitutio Antoniniana of 212 CE showed concern about the legality of paying on others’ behalf.14 The second sale is reported in P.Mich. V 262 (TM 12095). Didymos the younger acknowledges the cession of ten arouras of a catoecic15 allotment near Theogonis to his sibling-wife Hero. The cession was made two or three years earlier, with Didymos drawing up the contracts for its transfer and cession to Hero through the catoecic record office. At that time, he received from Hero a money payment of an unspecified amount. At the time, Hero agreed to a certain number of drachmas as the valuation of eight pairs of bracelets and a necklace which were part of her dowry and which apparently had been given to Didymos to complete the price of ten arouras. Three years later, their brother Lysimachos transferred the ownership of a vineyard to Hero, one which he had earlier bought from Didymos.16 Hero may have some claim against this vineyard which is not mentioned in the cession agreement. P.Mich. V 232 (TM 12073) informs us that Didymos, Lysimachos, a third brother, and some nephews had received a large loan, giving as security 82 arouras of land inherited by their father. It is possible that the above property was transferred to Hero either in return for the financial support extended to her brothers and husband earlier or a way to prevent creditors from seizing a part of her brothers’ land due to their debts. Male heirs used to receive the larger part of the immovable paternal property, but they did not always possess significant capital in comparison with daughters who used to receive cash as a dowry. We may note that in the transaction between Didymos and Hero, the couple partners were also siblings and the property would end up within the paternal oikos. If Hero had not married one of her brothers, she could not have played such an important role in rescuing them from their financial distress and in protecting their paternal inheritance.17 The idea that wealth should stay in the family where it originated is certainly widespread in Greco-Roman society.18 In another Greco-Egyptian family, another Didymos offers a gift of land and money to his son-in-law Haryotes to take care of his wife Herakleia, Didymos’ daughter.19 A point of interest is that Haryotes has sold certain property belonging to his wife’s dowry. Had they divorced, the money he had received for it would have had to be returned to his wife to restore the dowry (P.Mich. V 341.7 TM 12151). The study of the papyrus documents shows that it was not uncommon for the wife’s parents to provide for the maintenance of their daughter and grandchildren if the husband encountered serious economic difficulties.20 Whatever was the real purpose of the land sales discussed, in all cases, the wife appears to play an important role in the protection of the immovable property of the family and the improvement of the economic conditions of the couple’s life.

Material aspects of marriage 171

Loans from wives to husbands in the firstand second-century Oxyrhynchus In the first and second centuries CE, loans granted by wives to their husbands to help them pay their debts were common in Oxyrhynchus. Most of these loans contain provisions for the woman’s economic security and maintenance and are related to an informal marriage21 between a couple of Greco-Egyptian status which could become more formal after a period of time. In 1989, at the international congress of papyrology in Cairo, Gagos, Koenen, and McNellen presented the family archive of the weaver Pausiris, which includes 23 papyri recording various transactions from 49 to 78 CE. The study of the archive proves that the wives of the family offered important economic support to their husbands or future husbands by granting them interest-free loans. For instance, P.Mich.inv. 92 was a loan consisting of objects valued at 300 drachmas which Tauris conceded to her husband Pausiris.22 The loan’s stipulations were particularly favourable to the wife and call to mind a marriage agreement: the repayment was due within 30 days upon request, with the payment of an additional 50 per cent penalty, the ηʽ μιολία/hemiolia, if Pausiris did not honour Tauris’ request on time.23 The periods stipulated, normally 30 or 60 days, are characteristic of marriage agreements. Moreover, Pausiris assumed the status of Persian of the epigone,24 being subject to personal liability as a debtor. The contract also included a provision of an additional 100 drachmas had the couple separated while Tauris was pregnant.25 The loan was paid back by Pausiris a few months later (August 74), but the debt cancellation is unlikely to indicate a separation, since by the end of December 74, after the death of his wife’s mother, Pausiris still looked after the financial interests of Tauris’ younger brother. It is more likely that the loan given to him was replaced eight months later by a new, equally open-ended loan contract or by a marriage contract, possibly after the birth of a child. Pausiris’ transactions recorded in 73/74 CE and the economic support offered by his wife may point to his precarious financial situation at that time. A similar case is described between Thermouthion and her husband, Dioskous, Pausiris’ older brother. Two loans, the first of 20 drachmas and the second of 200 drachmas,26 were granted to Dioskous by Thermouthion in the same year. They were secured by exaction upon Dioskous and all his possessions and probably indicated a trial period of the marriage, which was unsuccessful, since a year later, in P.Mich. III 194 (TM 21339), Thermouthion, acting with her stepfather as her guardian, acknowledged the receipt of 200 drachmas paid by her divorced husband, Dioskous. Although the first loan only amounted to 20 drachmas, it gave Dioskous the status of Persian of the epigone, putting him into a very vulnerable position. This loan was repaid almost two months after the second loan was granted. Worthy of interest is the fact that Thermouthion had given another 140 drachmas, resulting from the sale of part of a house27 to

172  Marianna Thoma her mother Plutarche, as repayment for a similar loan granted in the past by her mother to her father.28 Another weaver from first-century Oxyrhynchus, Tryphon, acknowledged in P.Oxy. II 267 (TM 20538) that his second wife Saraeus had given him a loan of 40 drachmas in cash and 32 drachmas in valuables: a pair of earrings and a white robe.29 He refers to the total amount of 72 drachmas ‘to which nothing has been added at all, and of which I am satisfied’.30 While the first clause is common in Oxyrhynchite loans, the second one occurs in some private contracts.31 The combination of the two clauses is attested in Demotic contracts, mainly in maintenance and marriage contracts.32 Τhe ‘of which I am satisfied’ phrase in Tryphon’s cheirographon33 could be a translation of an Egyptian formula and equivalent to ‘my heart is satisfied’.34 Tryphon would return the total of 72 drachmas after five months and exaction would be upon him and all his property because he adopts the status of Persian of the epigone in order to provide Saraeus with greater security. A point of interest is that the transaction is related to parties living together in an unwritten union, which, albeit informal, should be considered as a lawful marriage with all the legal consequences.35 Wolff has argued that Tryphon appears to admit that it was the money and property given to him by Saraeus that persuaded him to enter into a new union after his first unsuccessful marriage to Demetrous.36 However, Whitehorne has focused on the provision standard in most marriage contracts: an accouchement allowance to the pregnant wife in case of separation.37 If the couple separated during Saraeus’ pregnancy, Tryphon would have to pay an additional amount.38 Whitehorne believes that Saraeus was already pregnant when this contract was drawn up.39 She was actually pregnant in SB X 10239 (= P.Oxy. II 315 descr.), almost two months after the loan to Tryphon was granted, and the contract was silently extended for six years,40 providing Tryphon with important material support. When he returned the loan, the marriage still continued and the contract may have been replaced by a new one, as in the case of Thermouthion and Dioskous. The shorter and smaller loans may indicate an initial trial period of the marriage, which in most cases was followed by a more permanent and formal marital union. In the case of Tryphon, this trial period41 may be related to Saraeus’ pregnancy. Whitehorne has suggested that if she gave birth to a boy, the marriage would become more permanent, as Tryphon’s ‘heart would be really satisfied’. Otherwise, Tryphon would have decided to try with a third wife in order to secure a male legal heir who could also have taken over his trade as a weaver.42 Gagos and his co-authors discussed the influence of Egyptian maintenance contracts on the above marriage loans, and it is noteworthy that these loans are contracted between people of Greco-Egyptian status who were affected by Egyptian legal and social traditions. Egyptian maintenance contracts of Ptolemaic date not only regulated the maintenance of the wife but also contained the husband’s receipt of a small loan from his wife, called the ‘money to become a wife’.43 Since the husband was obliged

Material aspects of marriage 173 to protect the wife’s property and contribute to the family’s welfare, a trial period of marriage without such obligations, except for the return of the loan, would appear to be ideal for husbands in poor economic standing. The grant of these loans put the wives in a more powerful position and affected the social dynamics of the couple since the woman could use the loan and the husband’s promise to marry her as a way to put pressure on him. Another example is the case of Taysoreus in P.Oxy. XLIX 3487, who acknowledged repayment of part of a loan given to Sarapion, while they were both living together as a couple according to common law, through the bank of Dionysios.44 The partial repayment would diminish neither the woman’s right to an exaction of the remaining 40 drachmas from the original amount of 72 drachmas nor her rights under a promised contract of cohabitation which would remain enforceable.45 Taysoreus specified that the settlement would not affect her future claims. The promised marriage contract was called a συμβιώσεως συγγραφή (sumvíōseōs suggraphē΄ ). This term, which can also be found in P.Fam.Tebt. 21.10, may recall the συγγραφηˋ συνοικισίου (suggraphē΄ sunoikisíou), a type of marital agreement common during the Ptolemaic period. Sarapion pledged that after some time, he would offer his wife a formal marriage contract. Although it is likely that Sarapion did not pay any interest for the repayment of the 32 drachmas, the remaining 40 would carry interest. This partial repayment of the sum could mean that either two years after the loan to her husband Taysoreus may have needed some of the money for personal reasons or she had decided to give him notice to offer her the written marriage contract a little sooner by asking him for the return of a part of her loan.46 These loans were not hidden Egyptian maintenance contracts, although maintenance is implied and can be considered as the husband’s obligation towards his wife for receiving an interest-free loan.47 They were real loans and the husband was free to use them. However, the wife had the ultimate ownership and her heirs could succeed to her claims. An interesting, if different, case is described on P.Louvre I 17 (= I 10425) (TM 29531) from second-century Socnopaiou Nesos. The 50-year-old priestess Thatres granted a sum of 300 drachmas described as deposit (παραθήκη/paratheke) to her elderly husband Panephremmis, also a priest. This grant does not appear to be given in lieu of a dowry due to the couple’s age, but it may have been a real loan related to her husband’s financial problems. The penalty clause of the double sum (παραθήκη διπληˋ/paratheke diple) according to the law of deposits (νόμος τω˜ν παραθηκω˜ν/nomos tο˜¯n parathekο˜¯n) is considered to be strict if one takes into consideration the close relationship of the contracting parties.48

Loans from women to their soldier partners Papyrus documents also record loan contracts granted by women to their partners who were soldiers. Under Roman law, Roman soldiers in the

174  Marianna Thoma Imperial period were not permitted to marry during their term of service.49 However, many of them formed families and lived in forbidden marriages. P.Cattaoui from the second century CE sheds some light on the economic relations between soldiers and their ‘wives’. Since dowry was only granted under a lawful marriage, soldiers’ ‘wives’ pretended to grant a deposit to their ‘husbands’ which concealed actually a dowry. In a deposit, the depositor left a sum of property for safekeeping with the contracting party and this transfer resembled a loan, but the contracting party could not touch the money. In P.Cattaoui I.5–13, Lucia Macrina demanded a deposit (παρακαταθήκη/parakatathē΄ kē) from the estate of her deceased ‘husband’, the soldier Antonius Germanus.50 The prefect rejected her petition and claimed that deposits were actually dowries but that soldiers were not allowed to marry according to Roman law.51 Two more deposit contracts are also described in P.Warr. 6 (TM 13703) and BGU III 729 (TM 20054) from the second century between Heracleides52 and Athena, the soldier Gaius Apolinarius and Petronia Sarapias, respectively.53 It is also possible that a deposit was preferred to a genuine dowry contract, as the latter usually made the trustee liable to restitution of double the amount if he failed to repay in time. Another papyrus, P.Cattaoui VI.1–23, concerns the validity of gifts between a soldier and his partner.54 The soldier Iulius Acutianus died intestate and his partner Cornelia claimed the ownership of seven slaves. Two prosecutors (delatores)55 claimed Acutianus’ property as bona caduca56 belonged to the fiscus and was administered by the procurator of Idios Logos, a Roman officer who had dual capacity as protector of the emperor’s entitlement to an inheritance and as the final arbiter in civil disputes involving rival claims to an estate. The prosecutors alleged that Cornelia had no legal right to it due to the ban on soldiers’ marriage. Cornelia’s lawyers claimed that five of the slaves were bought by her or were house-born. The judge decided that Acutianus’ slaves should go to the fiscus, but Cornelia could keep the ones acquired during his service since gifts were not permitted among husband and wife,57 but the couple was not legally married. The use of deeds of deposit to constitute dowries was perhaps originally an Egyptian custom, which was practised in the Roman period mainly by the Greco-Egyptian population.58 In the case of unions with Roman soldiers, the deposit could take the place of the dowry and ensure the wife’s economic security since she could not contract a lawful marriage agreement.

Conclusions To conclude, economic transactions by means of legal instruments between husband and wife were common in Roman Egypt. Although Augustan legislation, which also affected the legal practice of Roman Egypt, disapproved of the mixing of spousal property, in reality, there was a good deal of sharing of resources, and in their everyday life, spouses could transfer considerable property from one spouse to the other.

Material aspects of marriage 175 The papyrus documents discussed here highlight transactions related to the wife’s dowry which were popular in Greco-Egyptian circles. If the husband used his wife’s capital or movable property during their joint life to pay off personal debts, he could repay it either by returning the exact value of the dowry or conceding an amount of his personal immovable property to his wife.59 It is noteworthy that several sales of immovable property by a husband to his wife concern a brother-sister marriage. These imaginary sales aimed to put the paternal property under the wife’s name to protect it from the husband’s creditors. Even if these sale agreements were undertaken between a couple where the partners were not siblings, such documents could conceal the husband’s effort to protect his property from a future exaction by his creditors and constitute a popular family strategy in agricultural circles, where the land played an important role in everyday life. In such cases, these legal documents may hinder our understanding of what really happened inside the household since they record fictitious transactions, but they can still contribute to the deeper knowledge of the couple dynamics in the Greco-Roman society. In her study on the economic role of women in Roman Socnopaiou Nesos, Deborah Hobson discussed the idea that men could put their possessions into their wives’ names in order to reduce the size of their own estates, avoiding taxation and liturgy obligations, but her investigation of papyrus documents from that village proved that women’s possessions were indeed their own.60 Although we cannot ascertain whether this was a common practice, numerous wives are attested as owners of important property, mainly deriving from dowry and inheritance. We are inclined to assume that families in Greco-Roman Egypt, mainly of agricultural milieu, developed various familial and social strategies to protect the patrimony and household welfare, and such fictitious transactions could serve the common interests. However, the nature of the documents surviving cannot answer all our questions about the couple relationship and reveal their everyday feelings and thoughts, but they tend to outline the wife’s strong position in the household. In addition, the loans granted by the wives to their husbands fulfilled different purposes depending on the social and legal status of the couple. Most of these loans aimed at enhancing the wife’s influence on the everyday power balance of a couple and were in accordance with Egyptian customs. Worthy of interest are such loans granted by women to their husbands in poor Greco-Egyptian circles, in which the economic activities of the husband, as, for example, in the weaving trade, demanded substantial capital and several economic transactions. In these cases, a woman of some economic independence could be a good reason for a man to pursue a marriage agreement based on a loan contract. Since this practice appears to depict the influence of Egyptian law and its coexistence with Greek legal and social norms, we could suppose that Egypt was a special case as regards the economic arrangements and the social dynamics of everyday couples. However, it would be of great significance to investigate further whether

176  Marianna Thoma similar economic transactions and agreements between husband and wife are attested in other parts of the ancient Mediterranean. Despite her legal and social restrictions, a wife could use a loan agreement to persuade her husband to give her a formal marriage contract and a marital relationship on better terms, as the repayment of a large sum of money would prevent a husband from separating from his wife. Especially if the loan was open-ended, only the wife could ask for the return of the sum, and the divorce would prove costly for the husband who would certainly have preferred to avoid it. The marriage loans would be either disguised dowries in the case of ‘forbidden’ marriages with soldiers or instruments for a trial period of marriage which was supposed to become more permanent and formal after a time, depending on the economic condition of the couple. For example, the grant of a new, larger loan, which would resolve some of the husband’s economic issues, or even the birth of a boy and legal heir – if we accept Whitehorne’s suggestion about Tryphon’s marriage – could persuade a man to give his wife a formal marriage contract. The clauses of these contracts would provide some security for the women in such unions and make trial marriages successful. The transactions discussed above imply the important role of women in the domestic economy and shed some light on the social dynamics of everyday couples, mainly of low economic status, in Roman Egypt. Although petitions show that wives were often deserted or deprived of their dowry by their husbands, women had a very legitimate interest in the disposition of their property during the marriage and could determine their strong position in the family and in the couple relationship through the valuable economic support they could lend to their husbands.

Notes



1. I would like to thank Professor Maryline Parca for taking the time to read this chapter and for her helpful comments. 2. For a discussion of the woman’s share in paternal inheritance in Roman Egypt see also Huebner (2014), 99–108, esp. 108. 3. For women’s socio-economic position in Roman society see, for example, Gardner (1986); Setälä, Berg, Hälikkä, Keltanen, Pölönen and Vuolanto (2002); Evans Grubbs (2002). For women’s property ownership in Roman Egypt see Pomeroy (1981), 304, 308–309; Hobson (1983), 311–321, and La’da (2005). See also my monograph about women’s participation in the economy of Roman Egypt: Θωμά (2018). 4. Greek contracts and contracts drawn up by Romans outline in detail the husband’s obligation to maintain and treat his wife properly and the wife’s obligation to be faithful to him. See Bonnie MacLachlan’s and Maryline Parca’s essays in this volume for papyrus examples and a discussion of marital obligations and complaints found in papyri from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. For marital disputes concerning the abuse of the woman’s dowry see also Thoma (2020). The obligation of the husband to support his wife can also be found in Egyptian marriage contracts. For further details, see Yiftack-Firanko (2003), 186; Rupprecht (1998), 63–69; Vérilhac and Vial (1998), 267–279 and Parca’s essay in this volume. For marriage contracts with joint obligations of

Material aspects of marriage 177

















the spouses from the Roman period see for example SB XXVIII 17045 (TM 20592); P.Oxy. III 497 (TM 28355); P.Oxy. II 265 (TM 20536); P.Col. VIII 227 (TM 27235); P.Bon. 26 (TM 27063); CPR I 237 (TM 29087). 5. For the role of a woman’s dowry in Ptolemaic and Roman times see also Häge (1968), 33–36; Saller (1984), 195–205; Rowlandson (1998), passim. 6. Both Greek and Roman law included provisions for the protection of a wife’s dowry after the couple’s separation. For the protection of the woman’s dowry in Greek law see for example pseudoDem. Against Neairas 59.52; Isae. On The Estate Of Pyrrhus 3.78. For Roman law Ulp. Reg. 6.3–4; Frag. Vat. 116; Dig. 23.3.5. For a discussion of the recovery of dowry in Roman law see also Gardner (1985), 449–453. 7. Anagnostou-Canas (1984), 337–360 has provided a general discussion of cases of women appearing in courts of justice as plaintiffs or defendants. 8. P.Oxy. II 281 (TM 20552). Cf. BGU IV 1105 (TM 18546) from the end of the first century BCE. Tryphaine complained to Protarchos, head of an Alexandrian tribunal (κριτήριον/criterion), about her husband Asklepiades who treated her like a bought slave and also stole her dowry. See also Parca’s essay in this volume. 9. See for example P.Hamb. IV 279 (TM 78289) of the third century, in which Aurelius Filoxenos assigns to his wife Demetria a right of ownership to his estate, because he had previously used her dowry as a pawn for the repayment of a loan, as he was in need (ɛ’ν] .χρ.ε.ί.α̨ .γ.ε.νόμενο.ς). Cf. SPP XX 29 (= SB I 5832) (TM 18696). 10. For brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt see for example Hopkins (1980), 303–354; Huebner (2007), 21–49; Rowlandson and Takahashi (2009), 104–139. 11. Movable goods brought by the wife into the marriage as ‘dowry’ (φέρειν, phérein) were known throughout the Greek world as pherne (φερνή). For a short definition of the term see Thür (2006). 12. Yiftack-Firanko (2003), 158–159. See also Takahashi (2012), 82–83; Rowlandson and Takahashi (2009), 125. In PSI VIII 944 (TM 17598) from the fourth century, a woman submits a petition to the prefect blaming her husband, because he had spent all her dowry and left her to pay his debts. 13. The senatus consultum Velleianum dealt with situations where the woman acted in the interest of someone else. For the woman’s protection and SC Velleianum see Zimmermann (1990), 145–152. 14. See also Evans Grubbs (2002), 55–56, 59–60. P.Col. VI 123.18–23 documents the fifth of thirteen short responses (αʼ ποκρίματα / apokrimata) of the emperor Septimus Severus and his son Caracalla found on a single sheet of papyrus from 200 CE. This apokrima is addressed to a woman of Arabic origin whose question suggests knowledge of the SC Velleianum and implies that something she wants to do might not have been valid. 15. In Ptolemaic times, catoecic land was bestowed by the royal family on a class of military settlers. During the Roman period, the catoecic land was formally and legally equated to private land and women were not excluded from owning land in this category. See Capponi (2005), 99–102. 16. P.Mich. V 266 (TM 12100). 17. Rowlandson and Takahashi (2009), 122–123. 18. In the ancient world the transfer of paternal property from one generation to the other protected the oikos (οι̕˜κος). Cf. the institution of epikleros in ancient Greece, by which the daughter of a man who had no male heir had to marry her closest kin in order for her son to become the legal heir of the paternal property. 19. P.Mich. V 340 Recto I–II (TM 12149); P.Mich. V 341 (TM 12151).

178  Marianna Thoma 20. Cf. P.Mich. 121r.IV.vii (TM 11964) from 42 CE which records a kind of contract, called homologia (οʽμολογία), in which Herodes, son of Herakleides, acknowledged that he had received from his wife Apias and her guardian the sum of 700 drachmas. This acknowledgment is in reality a receipt for a deposit which was placed at the disposal of Herodes, but for which he remained responsible. The abstract specifies that this debt was separate from his obligations to Apias deriving from an alimentary contract drawn up 20 years previously, probably at the time of their marriage. Cf. also P.Oxy. XLIX 3491 (TM 15648) from the second century: one marriage contract is followed by a second one which added the transfer of more possessions, in addition to what was given in the earlier transaction. It appears that a loan preceded the pledge of a marriage contract which would have changed the status of the marriage from unwritten to written and improved the woman’s social and legal status. 21. Wolff (1939), 72 claims that the trial marriage was not an institution of the Greco-Egyptian legal system, however, we can find such a notion in loan contracts between partners forming a couple. 22. The loan consists of four objects altogether including a pair of gold earrings and a chain of 30 drachmas of uncoined silver. 23. ʽHμιολία / Hemiolia was the fine established in the Alexandrian marriage documents for misconduct of the husband. Hemiolia clauses appear as penalty in marriage instruments of the Ptolemaic and early Roman period, when the husband failed to return the dowry by the agreed time. See for example P.Gen. I 21 (= M.Chr. 284.8–9, 12–14 TM 44544); BGU IV 1050 (= M.Chr. 286.16–17 TM 18493); P.Oxy. III 496 (= M.Chr. 287.9 TM 20632). 24. The term Persians of the epigone was at first used to indicate the sons (and the daughters) of foreign soldiers serving for pay. In Ptolemaic times, the term also acquired judicial significance and occurred in transactions, where the contracting party was answerable to an obligation before the law. In Roman Egypt the title lost its military and racial connotation and denoted a fictive legal status taken by the indebted party to a contract. For the Persians of the epigone and their status see Oates (1963); Boswinkel and Pestman (1982), 56–63; Vandersleyen (1988), 191–201; Vandorpe (2008), 87–108. 25. Many marriage documents from Roman times provided for the case of pregnancy at the time of divorce. 26. P.Mich.inv. 79 and P.Mich. III 191–192 (TM 21337) document two different loans granted to Dioskous. The money for the second loan originated from Thermouthion’s sale of a share in a house that she had inherited from her father. 27. The case of Thaesis in P.Yale I 64 (= P.Yale I inv. 133) (TM 16840) reminds us of Thermouthion, since she also gives her husband Aperos an open-ended loan of 212 drachmas and the document explains that the money was part of 300 drachmas which she had received from the sale of priestly income. The loan was returnable within 60 days after the woman’s request, while Aperos accepted the status of Persian of the epigone and his property was subject to exaction, as was usual. 28. The duplicate copy of this contract of loan was cancelled, when the loan was repaid one year later, after the divorce of Thermouthion and Dioskous. P.Mich.inv. 78 documents Thermouthion’s repayment of the loan granted by her mother to her father in the past. It is not unlikely that Plutarche offered the repayment of her deceased husband’s loan to her new husband Diogenes. For details see Gagos, Koenen, and McNellen (1992), 189. 29. See also Rowlandson (1998), 177–178 (n. 132).

Material aspects of marriage 179 30. For this interpretation see the translation and comments of Grenfell and Hunt (1899) on P.Oxy. II 267. See also Wolff (1939), 70. 31. Cf. P.Mich. V 318/319/320 (TM 12128, TM 12129, TM 12130). 32. For this formula found in Egyptian marriage contracts see Pestman (1961), 39–50. 33. Cheirographon (χειρόγραφον) was a kind of private document by which the issuer of the document certified the validity of a contract or a statement. 34. For this argument see Gagos, Koenen, and McNellen (1992), 190. 35. A marriage without written documentation was called an unwritten union, and could be converted later into a written one by the drawing up of a contract. This kind of union was as legally valid as a written union. For further details see Wolff (1939). 36. See Wolff (1939), 70–72. 37. See Whitehorne (1984), 1271. 38. A similar stipulation can be found in the loan between Tauris and Pausiris (P. Mich.inv. 92.16–17). 39. See Whitehorne (1984), 1271. Whitehorne’s argument is based on the presʼˊ ent participle used about Saraeus’ condition in the text (ουση[ς]) and the fact that two months after this agreement she was attacked by Demetrous and her mother, and Saraeus’ pregnancy appears to have been advanced (SB X 10239). We do not know the details about Saraeus’ assault, but attacks on pregnant women and harm to them and the baby are often mentioned in papyrus petitions, as for example in P.Mich. V 228 (TM 12069) from the first century CE. 40. The document’s final subscription reveals that the loan was not repaid until 9 June 43, six years after the loan agreement. 41. Although Wolff (1939), 72 points out that P.Oxy. II 282 may indicate a trial period of marriage, he notes that the trial marriage was not an institution of the Greco-Egyptian legal system. See also note 20. 42. Whitehorne (1984), 1273–1274. 43. It was usually a small amount of ten to 14 drachmas of silver. In addition, in the Egyptian marriage contracts the husband pledged his entire property as security for his wife’s claims. See Maehler (2005), 129–130; Pestman (1961), 90–154; Wolff (1939), 52. 44. See also Keenan, Manning, and Yiftach-Firanko (2014), 44–46. 45. See also P.Lund. VI 3 (TM 20115) from the second century CE. 46. Gagos, Koenen, and McNellen (1992), 196. 47. Gagos, Koenen, and McNellen (1992), 199. 48. Taubenschlag (1955), 352. 49. See Dio Cass. 60.24.3. For a discussion of the different views concerning the prohibition of Roman soldiers’ marriage see Garnsey (1970), 47–53 and now Phang (2001). 50. Phang (2001), 29–31. 51. See also Dig. 23.3.3. 52. The papyrus does not make it clear if Heracleides was a soldier. 53. In addition, in P.Cattaoui I 14–III 10 it is mentioned that the soldier Cassius Gemellus and his partner Chtinbois had separated and through her lawyer the wife petitioned for the repayment of 700 drachmas as a bank draft which she had previously loaned to Gemellus. Gemellus’ advocate used as argument the fact that this sum was a disguised dowry which Chtinbois could not claim, because Roman soldiers could not take wives. It is clear that the wife demanded back two different loans and the judge finally decided that the second loan could not qualify as a dowry and had to be paid back. See also Meyer (1898), 40; Phang (2001), 31–32.

180  Marianna Thoma 54. Phang (2001), 32–33. 55. Delatores (accusers) were ancient Roman prosecutors or informers in matters of criminal law and fiscal claims. They enabled the prosecution of illegalities. If the person accused was convicted and fined or subject to confiscation, they received a portion. For a short definition of the term see Berger (1953), 429. See also Crook (1967), 276–278. 56. Bona caduca or vacantia indicated the inheritance or the legacy which became vacant because of the incapacity of the heir or legatee or because of other reasons (death of the beneficiary before the opening of the testament or his refusal to accept the gift). Bona caduca went finally to the ‘treasury of the Roman people’ (aerarium and later fiscus). See also Berger (1953), 377–378. 57. See also Digest 24.1.1. The Lex Cincia of 204 BCE limited gifts to a certain amount and the groups of persons to whom gifts could be given. In Roman law, gifts between husband and wife were originally valid and not subject to the restriction of the Lex Cincia. However, such donations were later prohibited by the legislation of Augustus. For gifts between spouses see also Berger (1953), 443. 58. Cf. PSI I 64 (TM 78828) from the second or first century BCE. In her marriage agreement, Thais also provides her husband with a loan of five bronze talents (lines 10–11). For a discussion of this text see also Parca in this volume. 59. Although husbands are usually found in papyrus documents being indebted and needing their wives’ financial support, P.Oxy. XII 1473, concerning a contract of remarriage of uncommon type, describes the opposite situation. Apollonarion, who owned an amount of property apart from her dowry, became indebted both to the state and to other creditors. These debts may have been the cause for the couple’s separation. Horion paid back the dowry to Apollonarion, without breaking off relations with her. However, he tried to protect his own property from exaction because of his wife’s debts. He lent her money to pay her dues to the state and then he remarried her and received security for the repayment of her debts, both to himself and to other creditors. 60. Hobson (1983), 316.

Bibliography Abbreviations BGU



CPR

Papyrus Archives

Wilcken, U. (ed.) (1903) Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Königlichen (later Staatlichen) Museen zu Berlin, Griechische Urkunden. Vol. III. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. Wilcken, U. (ed.) (1912) Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Königlichen (later Staatlichen) Museen zu Berlin, Griechische Urkunden. Vol. IV. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. Wessely C. (1895) Corpus Papyrorum Raineri. Griechische Texte I, Rechtsurkunden. Vol. I. Wien: Verlag der Kaiserl. Königl. Hof-und Staatsdruckerei. www.trismegistos.org/arch/index.php

Material aspects of marriage 181 P.Bon. P.Cattaoui P.Col.

P.Fam.Tebt. P.Gen. P.Hamb.

P.Kron. P.Louvre P.Lund.

P.Mich. P.Oxy.



Montevecchi O. (1953) Papyri Bononienses. Milano: Pubblicazioni dell’Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Grenfell, B. P., Hunt A. S. and Meyer P. M. (1906) Papyrus Cattaoui I. The Text, Archiv für Papyrusforschung 3: 55–67. Westermann W. L. and Schiller A. A. (1954) Apokrimata: Decisions of Septimius Severus on Legal Matters. Vol. VI. New York: Columbia University Press. Bagnall, R. S., Renner T. T. and Worp K. A. (1990) Columbia Papyri. (Am.Stud.Pap. XXVIII). Vol. VIII. Atlanta: Scholars Press. van Groningen, B. A. (1950) A Family Archive from Tebtunis. (Pap.Lugd.Bat. VI). Leiden: E. J. Brill. Nicole J. (1896-1906) Les Papyrus de Genève. Vol. I. Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert. Kramer B. and Hagedorn D. (eds.) (1998) Griechische Papyri der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg (P.Hamb. IV). Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner. Foraboschi D. (1971) L’Archivio di Kronion (Testi e documenti per lo studio dell’antichità 36). Milano: Cisalpino-La Goliardica. Jördens A. and Zauzich K.-Th. (1998) Griechische Papyri aus Soknopaiu Nesos (P.Louvre I) (Pap. Texte Abh. 43). Bonn: R. Habelt. Knudtzon E. J. (1951–1952) Vermischte Texte. Aus der Papyrussammlung der Universitätsbibliothek in Lund vol. VI, published in K. Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundet i Lund, 119–137. Winter, J. G. et al. (1936) Miscellaneous Papyri. Vol. III. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Husselman E. M., Boak A. E. R. and Edgerton W. F. (1944) Papyri from Tebtunis, Part II. Vol. V. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Grenfell B. P. and Hunt A. S. (1899) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Vol. II. London: The Egypt Exploration Society in Graeco-Roman Memoirs. Grenfell B. P. and Hunt A. S. (1903) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Vol. III. London: The Egypt Exploration Society in Graeco-Roman Memoirs.

182  Marianna Thoma

PSI



P.Warr. P.Yale

SB SPP

TM

Grenfell B. P. and Hunt A. S. (1916) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Vol. XII. London: The Egypt Exploration Society in Graeco-Roman Memoirs. Bülow-Jacobsen A., Whitehorne, J. E. G. (1982) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Vol. XLIX. London: The Egypt Exploration Society in Graeco-Roman Memoirs. Vitelli G. and Norsa M. (1912) Papiri greci e latini. Vol. I. (Pubblicazioni della Società Italiana per la ricerca dei papiri greci e latini in Egitto). Firenze: Enrico Ariani. Vitelli G. and Norsa M. (1927) Papiri greci e latini. Vol. VIII. (Pubblicazioni della Società Italiana per la ricerca dei papiri greci e latini in Egitto). Firenze: Enrico Ariani. David M., van Groningen B. A. and van Oven J. C. (1941) The Warren Papyri (Pap.Lugd.Bat. I). Leiden: E. J. Brill. Oates J. F., Samuel A. E. and Welles C. B. (1967) Yale Papyri in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (Am.Stud.Pap. II). Vol. I. New Haven and Toronto: American Society of Papyrologists. Bilabel F., Kiessling E. and Rupprecht H.-A. (1969–1971) Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten. Vol. X. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz. Jördens A. (2013) Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten. Vol. XXVIII. Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz. Wessely, C. (1921) Studien zur Palaeographie und Papyruskunde (Cat. P. Raineri. Series Graeca. Pars I. Textus Graeci Papyrorum qui in libro ‘Pap. Erz. Rainer-Führer durch die Austellung Wien 1894’ descripti sunt. Vol. XX. Leipzig: E. Avenarius. Trismegistos. An interdisciplinary portal of papyrological and epigraphical resources (www. trismegistos.org/index.html).

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Material aspects of marriage 183 Boswinkel E. and Pestman P. W. (1982) Les archives privées de Dionysios, fils de Kephalas. Textes grecs et démotiques. Leiden: Brill. Capponi L. (2005) Augustan Egypt: The Creation of a Roman Province. New York and London: Routledge. Crook J. (1967) Law and Life of Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Evans Grubbs J. (2002) Women and the Law in the Roman Empire. A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce and Widowhood. London and New York: Routledge. Gagos T., Koenen L. and McNellen B. E. (1992) ‘A first century archive from Oxyrhynchos or Oxyrhynchite loan contracts and Egyptian marriage’. In Johnson J. J. (ed.), Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beyond. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 51. Chicago, IL: The Oriental Institute, 181–208. Gardner J. (1985) ‘The recovery of dowry in Roman law’. CQ 35.2, 449–453. Gardner J. (1986) Women in Roman Law and Society. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Garnsey P. (1970) ‘Septimius Severus and the marriage of soldiers’. California Studies in Classical Antiquity 3, 45–53. Häge G. (1968) Ehegüterrechtliche Verhältnisse in der griechischen Papyri Ägyptens bis Diokletian. Köln und Graz: Böhlau Verlag. Hobson D. W. (1983) ‘Women as property owners in Roman Egypt’. TAPhA 113, 311–321. Hopkins K. (1980) ‘Brother-sister marriage in Roman Egypt’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 22, 303–354. Huebner S. R. (2007) ‘“Brother-sister” marriage in Roman Egypt: a curiosity of humankind or a widespread family strategy?’. JRS 97, 21–49. Huebner S. (2014) ‘“It is a difficult matter to be wronged by strangers, but to be wronged by kin is worst of all”: inheritance and conflict in Greco-Roman Egypt’. In Caseau B. and Huebner S. R. (eds.), Inheritance, Law and Religions in the Ancient and Mediaeval Worlds. Paris: ACHCByz, 99–108. Θωμά, Μ. (2018) Η συμμετοχή των γυναικών στην οικονομία της ρωμαϊκής Αιγύπτου: Δημόσια και ιδιωτικά έγγραφα από τον πρώτο ώς τον τέταρτο αιώνα μ.Χ. Αθήνα: Ινστιτούτο του Βιβλίου - Καρδαμίτσα. Keenan J. G., Manning J. G. and Yiftach-Firanko U. (eds.) (2014) Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest. A Selection of Papyrological Sources in Translation, with Introductions and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. La’da C. A. (2005) ‘Die wirtschaftliche Stellung der Frau im hellenistischen, römischen und byzantinischen Ägypten (332 v. Chr.-642 n. Chr.)’. In Froschauer H. and Harrauer H. (eds.), Emanzipation am Nil. Frauenleben und Frauenrecht in den Papyri. Nilus, vol. 11. Wien: Phoibos-Vlg, 35–49. Maehler H. (2005) ‘Greek, Roman and Egyptian law’. JJP 35, 121–140. Meyer P. (1898) ‘Die ägyptischen Urkunden und das Eherecht der römischen Soldaten’. Savigny-Stiftung: Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte/ Romanistische Abteilung 18, 44–74. Oates J. F. (1963) ‘The status designation: Πέρσης τη˜ς ɛ’ πιγονη˜ς’. YCLS 18, 1–129. Pestman P. W. (1961) Marriage and Matrimonial Property in Ancient Egypt: A Contribution to Establishing the Legal Position of the Woman. Leiden: Brill. Phang S. E. (2001) The Marriage of Roman Soldiers (13 BC–AD 235): Law and Family in the Imperial Army. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 24. Leiden: Brill.

184  Marianna Thoma Pomeroy S. B. (1981) ‘Women in Roman Egypt: a preliminary study based on papyri’. Ιn Foley H. P. (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 303–322. Rowlandson J. (1998) Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rowlandson J. and Takahashi R. (2009) ‘Brother-sister marriage and inheritance strategies in Greco-Roman Egypt’. JRS 99, 104–139. Rupprecht H. A. (1998) ‘Marriage contract regulations and documentary practice in the Greek papyri’. SCI 17, 60–76. Saller R. (1984) ‘Roman dowry and the devolution of property in the Principate’. CQ 34.1, 195–205. Setälä P., Berg R., Hälikkaä R., Keltanen M., Pölönen J. and Vuolanto V. (2002) Women, Wealth and Power in the Roman Empire, Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae. 25. Rome: Institutum Romanum Finlandiae. Takahashi R. (2012) ‘The Kronion family’s loans: an Egyptian peasant family declining under Roman rule?’. AncSoc 42, 71–88. Taubenschlag R. (1955) The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt in the Light of the Papyri: 332 B.C.– 640 A.D. Warsaw: Polish Philological Society. Thoma M. (2020) ‘Dispute resolution between husband and wife in Roman Egypt: legal mechanisms and familial strategies’. In Waebens S. and Vandorpe K. (eds.), Seeking Justice in and out of Court: Dispute Resolution in Greco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt (Studia Hellenistica). Leuven: Peeters. Thür G. (2006) ‘Pherne’. In Cancik H. and Schneider H. (eds.), Brill’s New Pauly, Antiquity volumes (English Edition by: Christine F. Salazar, Classical Tradition volumes edited by: Manfred Landfester, English Edition by: Francis G. Gentry) https:// referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/pherne-e919340?s. num=7&s.rows=20&s.start=20 Accessed online on 02.09.2019). Vandersleyen C. (1988) ‘Suggestion sur l’origine des Πέρσαι τη˜ς ɛ’πιγονη˜ς’. In Mandilaras B. G. (ed.), Proceedings of the XVIII International Congress of Papyrology, Athens 25–31 May 1986, vol. 2. Athens: Greek Papyrological Society, 191–201. Vandorpe K. (2008) ‘Persian soldiers and Persians of the epigone. Social mobility of soldiers-herdsmen in Upper Egypt’. APF 54, 87–108. Vérilhac A. M. and Vial Cl. (1998) Le mariage grec du VIe siècle av. J.-C à l’époque d’Auguste (BCH Suppl. 32). Athènes et Paris: École française d’Athènes. Whitehorne J. E. G. (1984) ‘Tryphon’s second marriage’. In Atti del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia, vol. 2. Napoli: Centro internazionale per lo studio dei papiri ercolanesi, 1267–1274. Wolff H. J. (1939) Written and Unwritten Marriages in Hellenistic and Postclassical Roman Law. Haverford, PA: American Philological Association. Yiftack-Firanko U. (2003) Marriage and Marital Arrangements: A History of the Greek Marriage Document in Egypt, 4th Century BCE–4th Century CE, Münchener Beiträge zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte 93. Münich: C. H. Beck. Zimmermann R. (1990) The Law of Obligations: Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

11 ‘For I have no other sun but you’ Emotions and married life in Greek papyri Maryline Parca

In the last 30 years, papyri have been scrutinised for evidence about the status of women, about female literacy, and about marriage and the family in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.1 If to date no study has specifically sought to examine the subjective texture of married life in light of the papyri, this collaborative volume provides an opportunity to look at the evidence for that lived experience. In fact, the current research on the social and cultural constructions of emotion in classical antiquity in general, and recent work on emotions in Greek documentary papyri and private letters on papyrus in particular,2 are a timely invitation to look at everyday couples and examine whether papyri hold insights into the emotions that animated the relationships between husbands and wives in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt. This chapter responds to this invitation by considering a selection of texts spanning the Ptolemaic period (from the accession of the Macedonian Ptolemy I to the throne of Egypt in 305 BCE to the annexation of Egypt as a Roman province in 30 BCE) and the first three centuries of Rome’s administration of Egypt. Looking for emotions in the papyri (and, for that matter, in much of the literary and non-literary corpus from antiquity) is no simple task3 since emotions are often implied but not expressed or, because they transpire in texts not meant to convey emotions, are communicated in a language that is both formal and formulaic. As complex neurobiological processes partly exhibited in behaviour, partly associated with cognitive experience, partly triggered by and triggering physiological changes, partly derived from and governing social interactions, emotions are ‘in people’ and ‘between people’ and as such perform communicative functions.4 Guided by Chaniotis’ compelling emphasis on the fact that ‘as a social phenomenon emotions fulfil social functions and follow social rules’ and ‘as such (…) are potentially subject to change and are shaped by the society in which they operate’,5 my examination of the emotions of husbands and wives in the Greek papyri will pay particular attention to the social and cultural parameters which shape the representation, display, and manifestation of emotions in these texts.6 The factors that influence emotions and their written expression range from age, gender, ethnic origin, education, social rank, and legal status to specific DOI: 10.4324/9780429326271-11

186  Maryline Parca historical experiences (such as war) and the linguistic practices of historical actors in a multilingual environment. The application of a socially contextualised and culturally informed approach, in turn, authorises an appreciation of the purposes served by emotions, both as a strategy of communication and as a tool of persuasion. Following everyday couples at the milestones which punctuate their lives together, I propose to look first at the normative expectations of marital fidelity articulated in marriage agreements, legal instruments generally silent about emotional attachment. Next, I will consider the events that prompt spouses to file complaints that seek redress and result in the dissolution of the marriage. In the third part of this chapter, the focus shifts to personal letters, which, since they are private, can appear to communicate emotions in ways less likely to come across as staid or impersonal, yet are also unavoidably marked by the filter of rhetoric and, or scribal mediation.

Marriage agreements Getting married in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt did not require the spouses to draw up a document detailing the material and financial particulars of the alliance and outlining the behaviour expected of the parties to the union. Yet, such documents are not rare in the papyri. In the latest count (2003), there were 141 extant marriage documents on papyrus, 25 of them of Ptolemaic date. The earliest Greek marriage agreement from Egypt (311 BCE) is the well-known text from Elephantine where a Greek garrison was posted. It concerns Heracleides and Demetria, both originally from the coast of Asia Minor and now making their home on the small frontier island on the Nile. The contract, largely in step with the traditional Greek marriage practices known for the fourth century, also asserts new expectations.7 Specifically, the detailed provision that equal arbitration be available to husband and wife in case of dispute is found alongside patriarchal staples, such as the requirement that the woman has male representation to exercise her right to financial recovery or the overt asymmetry between what constitutes reprehensible behaviour on the part of the spouses – anything likely to bring shame onto the husband for her versus bigamy, children by another woman, and harmful treatment of the lawful wife for him. If Demetria is caught acting fraudulently (κακοτεχνου̃ σ α) to the shame of her husband (ɛ’πὶ αἰσχύνηι του̃ αʼνδρός) Heracleides, she shall be deprived of all that she brought, but Heracleides shall prove whatever he alleges against Demetria before three men whom they both approve. It shall not be permitted for Heracleides to bring home another wife in insult of Demetria (ɛ’φʼ υʽˊ βρει Δημητρίας), or to beget children by another woman, or to engage in deception (κακοτεχνει˜ ν) against Demetria on any pretext. If Heracleides is caught doing any of these things and Demetria proves it before three men whom they

‘For I have no other sun but you’ 187 both approve, Heracleides shall return to Demetria the dowry of 1000 drachmas she brought, and shall in addition forfeit 1000 drachmas of the silver coinage of Alexander. (P.Eleph. 1, lines 6–11 = Rowlandson no. 123 (adapted))8 A deeper layer of difference appears to lie embedded in the words themselves: whereas the wife’s malicious actions cause the husband shame (αɩ’σχύνη), that is, harm to his public person and social reputation, the husband’s bringing another woman home insinuates a violence (υʽˊβρις) against the wife qua physical being in the domestic, private setting she occupies.9 Wrongdoing carries a heavy financial price: if at fault, the wife forfeits the entirety of her sizeable dowry, and if in the wrong, the husband must return the whole dowry to her, plus a fine equal to the value of his bride’s dowry. Demetria’s exceptionally large dowry, the equivalent of several years’ ordinary income, and Heracleides’ own ample resources, to judge from the enormous fine he would have to pay, show that these are well-to-do Greeks, socially privileged and accordingly probably educated.10 While the wealth of the parties may explain the conservative nature of many of the contract’s provisions, the remarkable size of the dowry could be intended to secure a certain amount of leverage for the wife in the couple.11 A similar emphasis on the rights and duties of each spouse towards the other is found in a second-century BCE contract in which the woman perʼˊ forms her own εκδοσις, that is, gives herself in marriage.12 The requirements that Olympias ‘obey’ her husband ‘as is fitting for a wife’ (lines 15–16) and that the groom Antaios provide her with ‘all that befits a married woman’ (lines 17–19) are followed by the prohibited behaviours. And let Olympias be beside Antaios, in obedience to him as [is fitting for a wife] to her husband, managing jointly with him their property (ʼεστω ˊ [δεˋ ʼOλ]υμπιαˋς παραˋ ʼAνταίωι πειθαρ-/χου̃σα αυ̕του̃ ωʽς π[ροση˜κόν ɛ’στιν γυναι˜κα αʼ]νδρὶ κυριεύουσα μετʼ αυ̕του̃ / κοινη˜ι τω˜ν υʽ πα[ρχόντων, lines 15–17) (…) and let it not be allowed for him [to introduce] another woman into Olympias’ presence or have a concubine (παλλακήν) or a boy lover (παιδικόν), [nor let it be allowed for him to beget children] from another woman in Olympias’ lifetime, or to inhabit another [house of which] Olympias shall not be mistress, or cast her out, or insult her [or injure her] (μηδεˋ ɛ’κβάλ-/λειν μηδεˋ υʽ βρί[ζειν μηδεˋ κακουχει˜ν αυ̕τή]ν, lines 22–23), or alienate any property to Olympias’ [detriment] ([ɛ’πʼ αʼδικίαι τη˜ς ʼOλυμπιά]δος, line 24). (P.Giss. I 2, lines 15–17 and 20–24 = Rowlandson no. 126) The papyrus is damaged, and only one of the actions prohibited to Olympias is preserved – that she may not be absent from the house without her husband’s permission. But the list of the injunctions regulating Antaios’ behaviour is complete, and it includes no bringing a second wife into the

188  Maryline Parca household, no having a concubine or a boy lover, no having children by another woman, no moving in with another woman, no casting out or otherwise insulting the lawful wife (lines 20–24). Several of the prohibitions repeat those in P.Eleph. 1, but for the stipulation that Antaios not have a boy lover, an unusual requirement possibly explained by the social milieu that is both Greek and military (the bride’s father and the groom are cavalrymen in the royal army). Although emotions are absent from marriage documents, the behaviours envisioned as censured (adultery, illegitimate offspring, abandonment) imply a wide sweep of emotions ranging from anxiety and jealousy to anger and resentment.13 Mention of love is not entirely absent from marriage documents. Affection makes an appearance in a unique first-century BCE agreement in the form of an oath:14 Thais, daughter of Tarouthinos, swears to … son of Hermogenes, by Osiris and Isis, and Horos (?) and Zeus, and all the other gods and goddesses to remain with you for as long as you live, dwelling with you as your legitimate wife, neither sleeping away from your bed, nor being absent from your house even for a day, and to be affectionate to you and to … (καὶ ευ̕νοει˜ν / [σο]ι καὶ [φιλει˜ν(?), lines 5–6), neglecting nothing of yours. (…) I will not be together with any other man, in the way of women (κατα ˋ γυναικει˜ον τρόπον, line 19), except with you, nor shall I prepare potions, either love charms or harmful drugs, against you, whether in your beverages or in your food (μηδεˋ ποι[ή]σειν ειʼˊς σε φάρμακα φίλτρα μηδεˋ  / κακοποιαˋ μήτε ɛ’ν ποτοι˜ς μήτε ɛ’ν βρωτοι˜ ς, lines 20–21), nor shall I plot with anyone who is about to do so on any pretense (μηδεˋ συνιστο/ρήσειν μηδενὶ ποιήσοντι παρευρέσει η̨ʽτινιου̃ ν, lines 21–22). (PSI I 64, lines 1–6 and 18–22 = Rowlandson no. 255 (adapted)) In her oath, signed in her own hand,15 Thais swears not only to be a faithful and affectionate wife (ευ̕ νοει˜ν in line 5) but also not to tamper with her husband’s food and drink for the sake of love. The potions (pharmaka) Thais promises not to make seem to be part love magic, part poison, a distinction Jane Rowlandson effaces by omitting the alternative kakopoia, ‘harmful drugs’ (μηδεˋ /κακοποια ˋ ), in her translation (‘nor shall I prepare love charms against you’). Christopher Faraone rightly understands φάρμακα as taking two possible forms, one positive, another destructive: ‘[I] will not prepare any pharmaka against you … neither love potions (philtra) nor those that cause harm (kakopoeia)’,16 a reading we adopt here. The nouns pharmakon and philtron share an overlapping range of meanings as each can either refer specifically to a love charm or be used generically for any sort of magic spell. In Thais’ oath, however, φίλτρα must refer to love-inducing charms or potions since they stand as the opposite of harm-producing drugs or poisons.17 For just as women employed philtres in order to maintain or increase affection in men,18 they used ‘harm inducing’ drugs to punish men

‘For I have no other sun but you’ 189 who fell out of love or pursued another object of desire. Since Thais’ last promise is syntactically parallel to ‘nor to prepare potions’ (μηδεˋ ποιει˜ ν … φάρμακα in line 20), the oath ‘nor to plot with anyone about to do so’ (μηδεˋ συνιστο-/ρήσειν μηδενὶ ποιήσοντι in lines 21–22) suggests that she promises not to outsource the preparation of the pharmaka from a third party, possibly a magical practitioner.19 Lastly, the presence of the clause in an agreement silent about the husband’s obligations and sworn only by the woman suggests that it addresses the husband’s anxiety more than it expresses the wife’s commitment to caring for him. We have here a man fearful of female sexual promiscuity (‘I will not be together with another man, as is women’s fashion, except with you,’ καὶ ου̕δενὶ  / ʼˊαλλωι [αʼ]νθρώπων σ̣ [υ]νέσεσθαι κατα ˋ γυναικει˜ον τρόπον / πληˋ[ν] σου̃, lines 18–20), whose added singular prohibition against love magic signals a deep-seated helplessness on his part.20

Divorce documents Divorce agreements on papyrus primarily deal with the disposition of spousal property (the wife’s dowry in particular) and the release of both parties from legal liability in the future. They do not tend to reveal the reasons for the failure of the marriage. Petitions to local authorities filed by one spouse against the other are more helpful in that regard, and several such complaints have survived, some filed by wives, some by husbands. In a society where family matters were settled out of court (and therefore, without documentation), petitions to officials reveal the most turbulent kind of marriage; in them, we hear of abandonment, physical harm, and misuse of one of the spouses’ property. Judith Evans Grubbs has noted that only women petitioners denounce abuse, while men complain only of abandonment and removal of property.21 Thus, in a late first-century BCE petition Tryphaine, who claims she married Asclepiades against her will, complains that he behaved ‘as if he were a young man throughout the marriage’,22 squandered her dowry, and now turns to violence, ‘treating [her] as he would treat not even a slave’ (lines 19–21). She asks the head of the tribunal in Alexandria for help to obtain a divorce. But the accused, Asclepiades, since he acted as if he were a foolish young man (ɛ’ -]νέ.α ̣ι ̣ν̣ε, line 16) throughout the marriage and wasted the aforementioned property, does violence to me and, laying his hands on me, he treats me worse than he would treat a slave (κακουχίαις / μ̣ ε ̣ καὶ καθυβρίζει καὶ τα ˋ ς χει˜ -/ ρας ɛ’ πιφέρων χρη˜ται ωʽς ο̣ υ̣̕ /δ̣ εˋ̣ αʼ ργυρ ω̣ ν̣ ή̣ τωι, ̣ lines 19–21). Therefore, having dispatched my father Dioscourides to deliver my notice and to formalise matters concerning my divorce (τηˋν ʼˊεξοδον, line 28), I ask that you send with him a member of your tribunal who will get my divorce finalised, as is proper, and who will deliver a copy of this notification to Asclepiades, so that without delay he will

190  Maryline Parca either contest the matter further in court, or pay back to me my 60 drachmas.23 (BGU IV 1105, lines 14–33 = Rowlandson no. 257 = Bryen no. 1 (adapted)) In a petition from Oxyrhynchus dated 20–50 CE, Syra reports that her husband Sarapion used up her dowry, mistreated her, and eventually left her destitute. She, too, asks the court to intervene and help her to recover her dowry, plus a 50 percent penalty as agreed upon in their marriage agreement. (…) I lived in marriage with Sarapion, giving him a dowry according to an agreement (κατα ˋ συνχώρησιν, line 7) for the amount of 200 drachmas of silver. And indeed, I received him into my parents’ home,24 since he was completely impoverished, and I conducted myself without reproach in everything. But Sarapion, having disposed of my dowry for whatever purpose he wished, did not leave off mistreating me and insulting me and laying his hands on me, and after he rendered me in need of the necessities (of life) (ου̕ διέλει-/ πεν κακουχω˜ν με καὶ υʽ βρί-/[ζ]ων καὶ τα ˋς χει˜ρας ɛ’ πι-/φέρων καὶ τω˜ν αʼναγκαί-/ων ɛ’ νδεη˜ καθιστάς, lines 16–20), he finally left me, when I had become impoverished. Therefore I request you to order him to be brought before you, in order that he may be arrested and forced to pay back my dowry to me plus 50 percent. (P.Oxy. II 281, lines 6–28 = Evans Grubbs p. 212) The stock phrases (κακουχίαις in Tryphaine’s complaint/κακουχω˜ν in Syra’s, καθυβρίζει in the former, υʽ βρί/[ζ]ων in the latter, and τα ˋ ς χει˜ ρας ɛ’ πιφέρων in both) combined with the legal language encountered in both complaints reveal, as Ari Byen has argued, that petitions are texts mediated through scribes who translate the petitioners’ pain (pain to their physical body, or to their social person, or to both) into individualised narratives intended to set in motion institutional processes and initiate legal action.25 The two texts show that as the narratives are fashioned into formal complaints by professionals, the petitioners’ emotions simultaneously undergo a certain flattening and acquire the power to ‘move’ the institutional apparatus into action. Lest the reader be tempted to conclude that only husbands treated their wives poorly, here is now an example of bad wife behaviour! In a third-century CE petition to a centurion, a tenant farmer of public land reports that his wife (who is also the mother of his child) deserted him, absconding not only with her dowry items but also with many of his goods, including his farming tools.26 She has been deaf to his repeated attempts at recovering his belongings, although he continues to pay child support to her and, adding insult to injury, she has now remarried, apparently without formally divorcing him. It is not difficult to imagine the range of raw emotions that animated both parties in this broken marriage.

‘For I have no other sun but you’ 191 To Claudius Alexandros (?), centurion, from NN son of Panetbeous, public farmer, from the village of Theadelphia. The wife with whom I was living [NN, from whom] I have begotten a child, becoming dissatisfied about her marriage with me (αʼλλότρια / φ̣ρ̣[ονήσασα τη˜]ς προˋς μεˋ συ̣ ν̣ βιώσεως, lines 4–5), [seized] an opportune absence of mine, and left my house … months ago, without a so-called [divorce?], taking away her own goods and many of mine, among which were a large white unfulled cloak and an Oxyrhynchite pillow (…) and other farmer’s working implements. And although I have many times sent to her seeking to recover my things, she has not responded or returned them, and yet I am supplying to her the cost of support for our child (καίτοι χορηγήσ αντός / μου α̣ υ̣̕τ̣˜η̣ [ι τα ˋ υʽ π]εˋ̣ ρ̣ τ̣ ου̃ παιδίου τροφει˜α, lines 15–16). Besides, having now learned that a certain Neilos son of Syros from the same village has lawlessly taken her and married her, I submit (this petition) and request that she and Neilos may be summoned before you27 in order for me to be able to obtain legal redress and get my things back and be helped. Farewell. (P.Heid. III 237, lines 1–22 passim = Rowlandson no. 137)

Private letters Whether we feel, as Rafaella Cribiore does, that ‘Greek private letters on papyrus give one the distinctive pleasure of hearing one of the two sides of a spontaneous dialogue from antiquity’ or, as Dominic Montserrat puts it, that ‘reading a papyrus letter is like overhearing one side of a telephone conversation (…), often a rather incoherent conversation at that’,28 letters on papyrus allow us to eavesdrop on the written conversations of ordinary husbands and wives. Many of these have come down to us as isolated texts, like family snapshots now dispersed at estate sales, while others belong in family archives, comprised of business papers and private letters, which individuals kept together in antiquity, for themselves and their families, like albums of photographic prints.29 While isolated letters have lost all context, those preserved in an archive, albeit still sounding disjointed, have a place in the history of a family, a community, and a cultural moment. Isolated letters As Willy Clarysse remarked in his recent study of the language of emotions in private letters on papyrus, love letters are conspicuously absent from the papyri.30 This is because letters were composed in a world that operated with different notions of individuality and privacy. Letter writing in ancient Egypt was not a solitary activity: a letter was often dictated to a scribe, then entrusted to an acquaintance who would deliver it to the addressee, and finally read aloud to the recipient.31 The absence of a trove of billets doux on papyrus thus makes sense. Explicit professions of ‘romantic’ love

192  Maryline Parca nonetheless exist, and the few instances all occur in isolated letters.32 The question of whether certain emotions were more often or more strongly displayed in some periods than in others is an intriguing one, but it is difficult, based on the fact that the two love letters below date to the second century CE, to posit a trend towards greater subjectivity in the papyrus letters of the Roman period.33 Didyme to Apollonios her brother and sun, greetings. Know that I do not see the sun because I do not behold you, for I have no other sun ˋ βλέπουσαν τοˋν ηʽˊλιον / δια but you (γείνωσκέ με μη ˋ τοˋ μηˋ βλέπεσθαί σε ʼˊ ʼˊ αλλον υʽ πʼ ɛ’μου̃. / ου̕ γα ˋ ρ εχω ηʽˊλιον εɩ’ μηˋ σέ, lines 3–5). I am grateful to Theonas your brother. Receive what I sent to your father as from Theon the son of Athenaios, the friend … (P.Oxy. XLII 3059 (Oxyrhynchus, second century CE) = Bagnall and Cribiore p. 275 (adapted)) Didyme addresses her husband Apollonios, whom she calls ‘brother’ (as was customary in Egypt) and ‘sun’ (Διδύμη ʼAπολλωνίωι τω˜ι αʼ δελφω˜ι / καὶ ηʽ λίωι χαίρειν, lines 1–2). In his absence, she writes, life is drained of light: ‘Know that I do not see the sun because I do not behold you, for I have no other sun but you’ (lines 3–5). Didyme is clever with words, and her seemingly consuming affection comes through thoughtful repetitions:34 the noun ‘sun’ (ηʽˊ λιος) occurs three times in four short lines, the personal pronouns ‘me’ and ‘you’ alternate twice, and the darkness of her existence is powerfully conveyed through a pair of negative forms of the verb ‘to see’ (βλέπειν), one in the active (βλέπουσαν) and the other in the passive voice (βλέπεσθαι).35 Despite the abrupt and testy tone that surfaces at the end, heartache takes centre stage in the letter Serenos sends to his wife Isidora: Serenos to Isidora his sister and lady, very many greetings. Before all else I pray for your health, and every day and evening I make supplication on your behalf (καθʼ ἑκάστης [ηʽ μέρα]ς κα[ὶ] / οʼψας τοˋ προσκύνημά σου ποιω˜, lines 4–5) before Thoeris who loves you. I want you to know that ever since you left me I have been in mourning, weeping by night and lamenting during the day (γινώσκειν / σε θέλω αʼφʼ ωʽς ɛ’ξη˜λθες αʼ πʼ ɛ’ μου ̃/ πένθος ηʽγούμην νυκτοˋς κλαίων / ηʽμέρας δεˋ πενθω˜, lines 6–9). Since I bathed with you on 12 Phaophi I have not bathed nor anointed myself until 12 Hathyr, and you sent me letters that could move a stone, so much have your words stirred me (ʼεπεμ-/ψας ˊ μοι ɛ’πιστολα ˋ ς δυναμένας λίθον / σαλευ̃ σαι, ουʽˊτως οɩʽ λόγοι σου κεκίνη-/κάν με, lines 11–14). Right at that instant I wrote an answer to you and gave it [to be delivered] on the 12th sealed up along with your letters. Apart from what you say and write, ‘but Kolobos has made me a prostitute’, he said [to me] ‘your wife sent me word saying “he himself sold the chain and he himself put me

‘For I have no other sun but you’ 193 in the boat”.’ Do you say these things in order that I may no longer be trusted over what I put on board? See how many times I have sent for ʼˊ you. Let me know, are you coming or not (ɩ’δου̃ ποσάκις επεμψα ɛ’πὶ σέ. ʼˊ ʼˊ ερχη̨ [ειʼˊτε] / ου̕κ ερχη̨ δήλωσόν μοι, lines 24–25). (P.Oxy. III 528 (Oxyrhynchus, second century CE) = Clarysse no. 4.2 = Trapp (2003) no. 15 (adapted)) Whether Isidora herself left her husband (‘ever since you left me’, αʼ φʼ ωʽς ɛ’ξη˜λθες αʼπʼ ɛ’μου̃ in line 7) or whether Serenos sent her to another place by boat for her own safety or to punish her is unclear, and equally opaque is the role Kolobos has played in the couple’s current troubles. Serenos claims to be heartbroken in her absence and suggests that her distress is reciprocal since she sent him heartrending letters. His own missive displays several of the typical features of ‘emotional’ letters: intensifiers such as ‘day and night’ (lines 4–5 and 8–9), synonyms as in ‘crying’ and ‘grieving’ (lines 8–9) or ‘shake’ and ‘move’ (lines 13–14), and short, impatient prods (lines 24–25).36 In addition, while chronological markers (‘every day and evening’, ‘by night and by day’) and precise dates (of their last bath together, of his first bath alone, and of his sending off his response to her letters) communicate the depth of Serenos’ despondency and his obsession with the timeline of the crisis, his quoting from the competing claims voiced by Isidora and Kolobos reveals his eagerness to tease out the truth of the matter. Isidora wrote to Serenos that Kolobos made her a prostitute, but when Serenos tells Isidora that Kolobos said to him that she has told him that her husband himself ‘put her in the boat’, Serenos seems to dispute what she said about Kolobos. Who is telling the truth? Serenos wants Isidora back (‘Let me know, are you coming or not’, lines 24–25), but he is also displeased with her (he returns the letters she sent him, letters in which she may have expressed regret at having left and perhaps at having become a prostitute, and his letter ends on a note of impatience). Serenos may want her back for practical reasons or to prevent their rift from damaging his reputation, and it is tempting to speculate that the tropes with which he opens his letter may, by echoing the language of her letters to him, communicate an anger dressed in the garb of despondency.37 Absence looms large in the letters on papyrus. A third of the texts expressing emotions assembled by Clarysse (or 138 out of a corpus of 440) is concerned with contact or lack of contact between writer and addressee. Men travelled for work, for business, for military service. Being away involved risks, those who stayed at home waited anxiously for news of the travellers, and those away from home worried about those left at home. Several letters of Roman date show men away from home as their pregnant wives approach full term, taking care of advance preparations before the delivery. In BGU II 665, a man even calls on his father to care for a friend’s pregnant wife about to give birth in her husband’s absence: ‘please, father, go to her toward the end of Mecheir [February] or the middle of Phamenoth [March],

194  Maryline Parca so that you will be there before she comes to term. (…) Everything has been adequately prepared for her childbed.’38 Such texts document several cultural expectations: that husbands concern themselves with material provisions before birth and that the welfare of expectant mothers is men’s shared responsibility. Other emergencies do come up in letters. Thus, in a second- or third-century CE letter from Oxyrhynchus, Isidora asks Hermias, presumably her husband, to come home as soon as he can, for their child has not eaten for days, and she fears might die while her husband is away (lines 6–8). Her distress is such that she warns that she might hang herself if the child dies and Hermias is not there to comfort her (lines 8–11):39 Isidora to Hermias her lord brother, very many greetings. Do everything you can to put everything off and come tomorrow; the child (?) is sick. He has become thin, and for six days he has not eaten. I fear lest he die while you are not here (δ[έδια] / μηˋ αʼ ποθάνη̨ σου μηˋ οʼˊν[τος ɛ’ν-]/θάδε, lines 6–8). Be aware that if he dies in your absence, watch out lest Hephaistion find that I have hung myself (μάθε δεˋ οʽˊτι, ɛ’α ˋ ν αʼ [ποθάνη̨ ]/σου μηˋ οʼˊντος ωʽ˜ δε φευ̃γ̣[ε μή] / με ευʽ ρήση̨ αʼ παγχομέ[νην -ca.?-] /ʽHφαιστίων, lines 8–11). (PSI III 177 = Bagnall and Cribiore p. 280 (adapted)) ˋ The repeated mention of the two core emergencies (death and absence: μη ˋ οʼˊν[τος in line 7 and ɛ’α αʼποθάνη̨ σου μη ˋ ν αʼ[ποθάνη̨] / σου μηˋ οʼˊντος in lines 8–9) and a litany of imperatives (‘do everything’, πᾶν ποίησον in line 3, ‘come tomorrow’, ɛ’λθεˋ αυʼˊριον in line 4, ‘know’, μάθε in line 8, and ‘watch out’, ωʽ˜ δε φευ̃γ̣[ε μή] in line 9) constitute, here again, the written expression of an urgent appeal, a call for help in all likelihood conveyed in dictation.40 Letters in archives I now turn to a few texts preserved in the archives of individuals whose papers include official and private documents.41 Although letters from archives can generally be dated and placed in a fuller social context than isolated letters can, they too are often fragmentary, allude to matters that made sense to the original recipients but are now unknowable, and preserve only one side of what was, originally, usually an exchange. The archive of the engineer Cleon, who oversaw the program of drainage and irrigation of the Fayum (west of the Nile, some 100 km south of Cairo) in the mid-third century BCE, comprises 66 letters. 16 of these are private letters sent to him by his wife and children; six are by his wife Metrodora.42 Cleon’s official duties caused him to live most of the year in Crocodilopolis, the district capital, while his wife and young adult sons remained in Alexandria. Several passages in Metrodora’s fragmentary letters to her husband reveal that the separation weighed on both of them. Cleon asked her to come

‘For I have no other sun but you’ 195 up-river to see him on more than one occasion, and she may have done so,43 but in Metrodora’s best preserved letter to him, she explains that fear causes her to cancel her planned visit to the Fayum: Metrodora to Cleon, greetings. (…) You have been urging me to come to you, and I would have left everything behind and come (ɛ’ φιλοτίμου με παραγε-/[νέσθαι σοι καὶ] η˜ʼ λθον ʼˋ αν π[ά]ντα παραλιπου̃σα, lines 3–4); but now I am in no small fear about how things will turn out for you and for us (νυνὶ / [δεˋ ɛ’ ν φόβωι ε]ɩ’μ̣ ὶ ου̕ μετρίωι πω˜[ς] τε σοὶ αʼποβήσε- / [ται καὶ ηʽμι˜ ν, lines 4–6). For the huntsmen who arrived early this morning reported to me what [has happened] to you ([τα ˋ γεγενημέ]να σοι ɛ’ μοὶ αʼνήγγελλον, line 7), that the king treated you harshly (πικρ[ω˜]ς σοι ɛ’χρήσατο, line 8) when he came to the Lake44 (…). (P.Petrie Kleon 3, 2–9 = Bagnall and Cribiore p. 110) The royal visit to the Fayum can be dated to 253 BCE, and as chief engineer for the massive land reclamation project undertaken by Ptolemy II, Cleon could expect an inspection by the king. The reason for the king’s displeasure with Cleon’s work is not known and Metrodora’s damaged letter does not provide details about the sudden and unexpected turn in her husband’s fortune.45 However, what her letter does make clear is that theirs was a caring relationship: Metrodora would normally ‘drop everything’ in an instant to be with Cleon, but she is now paralysed by the incident reported to her. She fears for Cleon’s safety (‘I am in no small fear’, ɛ’ν φόβωι ε]ɩ’̣μὶ ου̕ μετρίω̨ in line 5) – a distress she reiterates in the later part of her note (‘I am distressed’, λυπου̃ μαι in line 10 and ‘to greater fear’, εɩ’ς μείζω φόβον in line 15) – and seems anxious that the royal disfavour could not only hurt his career but also harm their sons’ own prospects for appointments in the Ptolemaic administration. Absence, longing, and anguish also make their appearance in the papers of Apollonios, a large archive of Roman date, in which official documents were kept together with private correspondence. A landowner and businessman at Hermopolis in Middle Egypt, Apollonios rose to the powerful and prestigious post of governor (strategos) of the Apollonopolites Heptakomias nome in Upper Egypt where he relocated with part of his family. The numerous letters preserved in his archive include 25 letters by women who were either part of his family or worked in the familial household or in Apollonios’ textile business.46 More than half of the letters are by female relatives of the governor, 11 by his mother Eudaimonis and three by his wife, Aline.47 During the Jewish revolt, which ignited the eastern provinces of the Empire late in the reign of Trajan and raged in Egypt from 115 to 117 CE, Apollonios carried out military duties and fought in a battle. Needless to say that Eudaimonis and Aline voiced their concern for his safety in writing.48 In the letter she sent him in September 115 CE from Hermopolis where

196  Maryline Parca she was staying with her parents, Aline speaks of her anguish during his sudden deployment: Aline to her brother Apollonios, many greetings. I am very worried about you (μεγάλως [αʼγ]ωνιω˜σα περί σου, line 3) on account of the events that are said to be taking place and because you left me sudʼˊ πο-/ denly. Neither drink nor food do I approach with pleasure (ουτε ʼˊ [σε]ιτίοις η ʽ δέως προσέρχομαι, lines 5–6) but staying awake [… ο]υτε continually night and day, I have a single anxiety – your safety (συν]εχω˜ς αʼγρυπνου̃σα νυκτοˋς ηʽ-/[μέρας μ]ί ̣αν μέριμναν ʼεˊ χω τηˋν περὶ/ [τη˜ς σωτ]η ρ̣ ίας σου, lines 7–9). Only my father’s care revives me, and on New Year’s day – I swear by your safety (νηˋ τηˋν σηˋν / [σωτη]ρ̣ί ̣α ̣ν, lines 11–12) – I would have stayed in bed without eating a bite (α̣ʼˊ[γ]ευστος ɛ’κοιμώμην, line 12) if my father had not come and forced me. Please, then, keep yourself safe and do not face danger alone without a guard; but, like the strategos here who puts the burden on the magistrates, you too do the same. (…) (P.Giss. I 19, lines 1–19 = Rowlandson no. 93 = Bagnall and Cribiore p. 151 (adapted)) In addition to the refined and rare words which lend literary colour to Aline’s ʼˊ gnawing anxiety in her husband’s absence (e.g. ‘without eating’, αγευστος, a term which occurs only here, and ‘to revive’, αʼνεγείρειν, a verb encountered in Homeric poetry), I also note that the sleeplessness, physical neglect, and despondency Aline mentions are the very emotions we saw lovers apart from each other express, both in Didyme’s letter to her ‘sun’ Apollonios (P. Oxy XLII 3059) and that of Serenos to Isidora (P.Oxy. III 528). Since Aline dictated her letter to a scribe,49 it is not possible to gauge the extent to which the literary tropes (such as the inability to eat or sleep) are wholly hers or rather reflect refinements the secretary elaborated from states of mind and actions she sought to convey in writing.50 The fact that much of the letter, safe for the concluding recommendation, is about herself may also signal a literary overlay which idealises the feelings.51 But does a literary veneer make the emotions conveyed necessarily insincere? Concern for Apollonios’ welfare consumes Aline, as the triple reference to safety (lines 9, 12, and 14) makes clear. A wife and mother for many years, she sees in Apollonios the companion without whom she would be lost and, not unlike Homer’s Andromache, she offers her husband practical advice on how best to ensure a safe homecoming for himself (‘Please, then, keep yourself safe and don’t face danger alone without a guard’, παρακ]αλω˜ σε ʼˊ ουʼ˜ν α’ σφαλω˜ς σεαυτοˋν / [φύλαττε] καὶ μηˋ μόνος τοˋν κίνδυνον / [ανευ] φ̣υ̣ λακη˜ς υʽ πόμεινε, lines 14–16). Her second surviving letter to her Apollonios (P. Giss. 20), written after the revolt has ended and the governor is back in his province, documents their lives as business partners. Aline writes from Hermopolis where she is engaged in wool working and supervises a building

‘For I have no other sun but you’ 197 project her husband has commissioned there while he is in Heptakomia where his administrative post demands that he reside.52

Concluding reflections To what extent can Greek papyri serve as repositories for the subjective experience of being a couple in the Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic period? Can they help us retrieve the emotions that animated the relationships between everyday husbands and wives in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt? Does their wide chronological and geographical range enable us to detect patterns of change or evolution across time and location?53 Or does the reduction of the scale of enquiry to that of microhistory, which the many and deep gaps in the papyrological evidence promote, actually reveal ‘different configurations of the social’?54 Can the papyrus texts – given the cultural norms, the social factors, or the formal constraints that informed, shaped, and curtailed whether or what emotions could be expressed, when, and how – be useful sources for our enquiry? This chapter offers a generally affirmative answer to these queries but an answer tempered by the overall reticence of the texts, a reticence guided by cultural values such as modesty, concern with honour and avoidance of shame, informed by inhibitions which gender, social status, and dictation fostered and enhanced, produced by the personal effacement which the translation of private injury into official complaints demanded and effected and, in the case of private correspondence in particular, owed to the filter of literary motifs. As everyday men and women looked forward to married life and drew up marriage agreements, they filed documents that in effect outlined divorce procedures; by detailing a series of actionable behaviours (adultery, illegitimate offspring, abandonment, mistreatment), these contracts implied an array of negative emotions (despair, shame, jealousy, acrimony), which albeit unsaid were certainly nurtured and experienced firsthand. For their part, the domestic quarrels that were not settled through mediation but led to petitions filed with the authorities reveal a range of abuse – verbal, physical, economic – which could only breed negative emotions. Unsurprisingly feelings of affection and attachment do emerge from private letters, and even though the rare extant professions of ‘romantic’ love may disappoint (by their very discretion) our expectations, the letters in which husbands and wives express their devotion, their worries, and their hopes reveal enduring relationships, an appreciation of having someone to count on, and an awareness of the fragility of emotional bonds and of life itself. The fact that some of the written professions of affection were not necessarily innocent of other considerations – such as the fear of being deserted or the hope of avoiding the shame of a divorce – does not empty them of emotional content, nor does the fact that such letters bear the imprint of literary tropes annul the troubles and sorrows which motivated men and women to want to comfort and be comforted with words.

198  Maryline Parca I wish to conclude with an imaginative leap and speculate about the presence of a single and singular literary papyrus in the large documentary archive of Dryton and Apollonia (174–94 BCE), a husband and wife whose joint life partially emerges from their business and legal papers (loans, accounts, wills, and petitions). Katelijn Vandorpe has expertly elucidated the history of this family archive from Pathyris in Upper Egypt,55 an assemblage that grew overtime. The earliest texts in the archive (174– 150 BCE) reveal that Dryton was a cavalry officer from Crete and a citizen of the Greek city of Ptolemais in Upper Egypt; in 164 BCE he married Sarapias, also a citizen of Ptolemais, who bore him a son named Esthladas. How the marriage came to an end is not known, but the boy was raised by his father. Posted to the village of Pathyris by 150 BCE, Dryton met and married Apollonia alias Senmouthis, a local girl whose family, Greeks from Cyrene, had been living in Egypt for several generations and had gradually become Egyptianised. Dryton was 42, Apollonia about 20; they were married for at least 25 years and had five daughters together. Dryton was an officer and a successful businessman, and various loans dating from the period circa 145–126 BCE show that his young wife followed his example. Scrutinising Apollonia’s papers, Vandorpe has shown that Apollonia was independently well-off and that when doing business, she used her marriage to a Greek officer to present herself as a Greek woman, both in Demotic contracts and in petitions to Greek officials.56 In the absence of private letters exchanged between them, little can be said of the lived relationship between Dryton and Apollonia. However, that Dryton acted as her guardian in contracts drawn up according to Greek practice suggests that he was supportive of his wife’s business activities, and the fact that Dryton’s eight-year-old son from his first marriage went to live with his father and his young wife caused Apollonia to head a blended family before she even had her first child.57 Dryton’s archive contains a single literary text (P.Dryton 50),58 an aria copied in Dryton’s hand on the back of one of his old loans (P.Dryton 11, dated to 174 BCE). Known as the ‘Alexandrian erotic fragment’ or the ‘Maiden’s lament’, it is the song of a woman abandoned by her lover, who pours anger and bewildered dejection with great metrical variety as she stands at his locked door and begs him to let her in. Related to a type of solo performance fashionable in the Hellenistic period, the fragment reveals a measure of literary awareness as it substitutes an exclusa amatrix for the stock male lover in a conventional paraclausithyron: Our feelings were mutual, we bound ourselves together. And Cypris is love’s security. It’s torture to recall how he kissed me, when he meant to desert me,

‘For I have no other sun but you’ 199 that inventor of confusion, begetter of my love. Desire gripped me. I don’t deny that he is on my mind. O beloved stars and lady Night, companions of my desire, take me even now to him, whom Cypris drives me to as a captive, while potent Eros holds me in his grip. My guide is the potent torch that’s ablaze in my soul. But this is what hurts me, this is what aches: that this cheater of hearts, so proud before, denied my love had sprung from Cypris, and now can’t bear a chance offense. I’m going to go mad; I’m jealous, I’m burning up at being deserted. So throw me the garlands, which, in my loneliness, I’ll press to my skin. Master, don’t lock me out and send me off. Take me. I’m content to be your eager slave. (col. 1, lines 1–28; transl. P. Bing) Dryton seems to have made his copy directly from an original in which marks like paragraphoi (horizontal strokes articulating the text into sense-units) and double dots (marking word-division) were used as aids in preparation for performance. It also seems likely that he copied the poem when he lived in Ptolemais, a centre of Greek musical culture, and therefore, the likely place for him to have ‘witnessed the performance of a lyric monody, which struck his fancy’.59 The song copied on the back of an old document was among the personal papers Dryton took with him when he was posted to Pathyris by 150 BCE; it then became part of his and Apollonia’s archive, which, after his death in 126 BCE, was continued by one of their daughters and her husband. Can Dryton’s autograph copy of a song featuring a lovelorn woman tell us anything about his views on women or love? Did he take the trouble of procuring the poem’s original libretto because he admired the musical virtuosity of the piece or because he was smitten with the unconventional take on the lover at the door? Could the portrayal of a woman giving uninhibited expression to her feelings have impressed the Greek-born officer because it conveyed a certain cultural foreignness?60 Did the song allow him to imagine a relationship with a local girl simultaneously independently minded and devoted to him? Did Apollonia keep the love poem after his death for sentimental reasons?61 Given that Apollonia could not write Greek, what significance did a text she could not read have for her?62 Perhaps Dryton

200  Maryline Parca read it to his much younger wife and the piece became meaningful to her as well, perhaps as a token of their shared Hellenism, or as a memento of his younger days or, in the version I prefer, as a mark of their oneness of mind as husband and wife.

Notes











1. Pomeroy (1990) and Rowlandson (1998); Cribiore (2002) and (2005), 74–101, and Bagnall and Cribiore (2006); Yiftach-Firanko (2003); Clarysse and Thompson (2006), 2.226–317 and Huebner (2013), respectively. 2. See, e.g. Chaniotis (2012a), Cairns and Nelis (2016), Nagy and Boquet (2016) for the former, and Kotsifou (2012), Bryen (2017), and Clarysse (2017) for the latter. 3. On the difficulties of identifying and interpreting traces of emotions in past historical periods, see Matt (2014), and for a thoughtful articulation of the methodology which ancient historians who study emotions should strive to deploy, see Chaniotis (2012b). 4. Chaniotis (2012b), 12–13. 5. Chaniotis (2012b), 15, 17–18. 6. For a stimulating discussion of the methodological approach pioneered by Chaniotis and its application to reconstructing the emotional world of parties to the legal case laid out in the petition P.Oxy. II 237 (186 CE), see Bryen (2017), esp. 1011–1014. 7. On this document, see Pomeroy (1990), 89–91, Rowlandson (1998), 165, Parca (2012), 323–324, and MacLachlan in this volume. For the complex legal environment of Ptolemaic Egypt and the ways in which Egyptian legal practices opened up immigrant women’s legal capacity to a wider range of activities in that period, see Rowlandson (1998), 162–164, and Vandorpe and Waebens (2010), 416–417. For the legal status of Egyptian women before the Ptolemaic period, see Johnson (1996). 8. The author has adopted the translations in Rowlandson (1998), Bagnall and Cribiore (2006), and other secondary sources unless signalled in the text. 9. On υʽˊβρις as distinct from βία, see Taubenschlag (1955), 435–449 and Bryen (2013), 54–55. 10. In her chapter in this volume MacLachlan aptly observes ‘that “class”, like gender and ethnicity, is an unstable term’, and she defines as non-elite ‘those individuals who had limited access to power in their social setting’ (p. 23). Relative to the indigenous population, the first Greek newcomers to Egypt (men like Demetria’s father and Heracleides) formed an elite by virtue of their close association with the new regime, and throughout the Ptolemaic period an individual’s Greekness will be a cultural currency associated with social power even among the lower strata of society. 11. Dowries attested in marriage documents of the third century BCE are ‘impressively large’, and they remained substantial throughout the Ptolemaic period: Yiftach-Firanko (2003), 118–121. Their large size has been explained by the fact that they ‘were intended to lay the foundation of the family fortune in its early years’ and highlights the strong position of the wife in the management of the family property during the partners’ joint life: Yiftach-Firanko (2003), 121–122. On the uses made of the wife’s dowry by couples in Roman Egypt, see Thoma’s chapter in this volume. 12. This is P.Giss. I 2 from Crocodilopolis in the Arsinoite nome and dated to 173 BCE.

‘For I have no other sun but you’ 201 13. For a thesis on women and anger, see Harris (2001), 264–280, and on gender and emotion, see Frevert (2011), 87–108 and the extensive bibliography in Chaniotis (2012a), 18 n. 39. 14. The text, PSI I 64, is from Oxyrhynchus; the lines detailing the financial arrangements between the couple are damaged. 15. An image of the document, with the autograph signature, is reproduced in Rowlandson (1998), pl. 40. 16. Faraone (1999), 114, where the papyrus is wrongly labelled PSI I 42 (n. 64). 17. On the ‘vexing spectrum of meanings’ of pharmakon, see Faraone (1999), 7 n. 24 and on the (sometimes interchangeable) terms pharmakon and philtron in reference to an erotic spell, see Faraone (1999), 23–24 and 113–114. 18. Faraone (1999), 27 and passim. See also MacLachlan’s chapter in this volume. 19. I follow Faraone’s translation, pace Rowlandson, whose ‘not to connive with any man who will do you (harm)’ takes the future participle to refer to general harm, not to the recourse to magic. 20. On the conceptual nexus aimed at binding women’s natural wantonness through the institution of monogamous marriage in Greek thought, see Carson (1990). 21. Evans Grubbs (2002), 212. See also Arnaoutoglou (1995), 22–25 and Thoma in this volume. 22. In Ari Bryen’s translation of ɛ’-]νέα̣ ι̣ ν̣ ε̣ in line 16: Bryen (2013), 214. 23. A survey of the marriage documents drawn in Alexandria during the reign of the emperor Augustus (27 BCE–14 CE) has revealed that, compared with their Ptolemaic counterparts, dowries tended to be small (their average value given as 190.8 silver drachmas: Yiftach-Firanko (2003), 127 n. 97) and consisted largely of the bride’s personal trousseau (clothing and jewellery), supplemented by a small amount of cash. Tryphaine’s dowry, for example, comprised ‘clothing worth 40 drachmas and 20 drachmas of coined silver’ (BGU IV 1105, lines 12–14). While the feminine nature of much of the dowry discouraged its disposal by the husband, the modest size of the cash the bride contributed to the household made the financial position of the wife in the couple weak: Yiftach-Firanko (2003), 126–127. 24. Young couples in Roman Egypt almost exclusively set up their households with the husband’s parents: Huebner (2013), 48. The only evidence for husbands moving into their wives’ paternal home in Roman Egypt is that of daughters who had married a ‘brother’, a form of marriage in which a son-in-law is adopted by the wife’s parents, thus giving a male to the household in the absence of a biological son (Huebner (2007)). Nothing in Syra’s petition suggests that her parents had legally adopted her husband, although it conceivably could have been the case. Rather, Sarapion and she lived with her parents because his means (and presumably his parents’) were insufficient to support a new household; it is also possible that Sarapion’s parents were deceased and that his inheritance was negligible. 25. Bryen (2013), 63–65. 26. The only attested petitions submitted by husbands against wives are by men attempting to recover property belonging to them which their wives took away when they left the conjugal domicile; removal of property by the wife amounted to theft: Arnaoutoglou (1995), 24–25. 27. The wife and her new husband are to be called before the authorities since both acted to the detriment of the petitioner, she for not making her intention to divorce clear (‘without a so-called divorce’, δίχα τη˜ς καλουμένης αʼ̣ π̣ [αλλαγη˜ς?, line 7) and for walking away with valuable property belonging to the plaintiff, and Neilos for marrying her unlawfully (αʼ̣ν̣ ό̣μως, line 18) since she was not formally divorced from the plaintiff.

202  Maryline Parca 28. Cribiore (2002), 149 and Montserrat (1996), 7. 29. For papyrus archives, see www.trismegistos.org/arch/index.php 30. Clarysse (2017), 70. The ‘language’ of emotions includes vocabulary as well as tone and style. 31. On the social practice of letter writing in Greek and Roman Egypt in light of the activity of dictating letters in contemporary Mali, see Verhoogt (2009), 1–20. 32. For the ‘sexual reticence’ of private letters on papyrus, see Montserrat (1996), 6–9 and Luiselli (2008), 702–703. 33. Kotsifou (2012), 53–55 contrasts the greater formality in letters of the Ptolemaic period to the more conversational tone of those of Roman date. 34. In the absence of context, we cannot know whether Didyme’s declaration is sincere and authentic or whether her affection is posed, possibly intended to please or placate a difficult, overbearing husband, or on the contrary win over a weak one. I thank the editor for these alternative readings. 35. For the repetition of a word, the use of metaphor, and alliteration as linguistic means that effect the voicing of emotions, see Chaniotis (2012b), 14. Literary pretensions also permeate a mutilated letter from Oxyrhynchus (P.Wash. Univ. II 108) whose late date (sixth century CE) would disqualify from inclusion here, were it not concerned with what appears to be ‘romantic’ affection (ɛ’]κ̣ τ̣η˜̣ς σου̃ φι̣ λί̣[ας, line 11): the writer urges the addressee to write letters (παρακαλω˜] δ̣ ι̣ [α ˋ τά] χ̣ ους αʼποστε[ι˜ ]λαί μοι γράμματα, line 4), seemingly refers to the ‘fever of the madness of love’ (οʽ πυρε̣ [τοˋς τη˜]ς̣ ɛ’ρ[ωτικη˜ς] / [μανίας in line 5, heavily supplemented), mentions Aphrodite and her ‘single arrow’ (ηʽ ʼAφροδίτη ʽεν̣ ˊ ⟦α⟧ βέλος, line 6), and longs for his beloved’s ‘sweetest face’ (ζητω˜ν τοˋ γλυκύτατόν σου πρόσωπον, line 7). 36. For a useful discussion of the tone and language of ‘emotional’ letters, see Clarysse (2017), 72–77. 37. Being able to read a pair of letters exchanged between two individuals in a love relationship can be enormously instructive. In the letter Anna Büschler wrote to Erasmus on 14 August 1522, her anger at her lover is known ‘only because we have Erasmus’ letter to which she was responding. Her declaration of affection (“I went crazy and was unable to do virtually anything”) is a mockery of what Erasmus wrote (“I went crazy [while I was away from you] and was unable to do virtually anything)”; by inviting him to visit her during her father’s absence Anna was rejecting his invitation to go to his house during his father’s absence’ (Chaniotis (2012b), 20). Were Erasmus’ letter not preserved, Anna’s sarcasm would be lost on us and we would be tempted to take her words as those of a genuinely disconsolate lover! 38. BGU II 665, whose provenance is the Fayum, dates from the first century CE; it is quoted here in N. Lewis’ translation (1985, 80). Similar concerns are expressed in PSI VIII 895 = Rowlandson (1998), no. 221, a letter from Oxyrhynchus dated to the later third or early fourth century CE. Both texts are discussed in Hanson (1994), 159–160. 39. A threat of suicide occurs in another letter in which Didymarion writes that her daughter is ‘very much bothered’ by the mother of Paniskos to whom the letter is addressed: ‘my daughter wrote me saying: if she goes on for a month to treat me like this, I will throw myself in the sea’ (P.Petaus 29, Arsinoite, second century CE). 40. On the internal markers of dictation, which include repetition and the use of direct speech, see Bagnall and Cribiore (2006), 6–7, 31, and passim, and Verhoogt (2009), 11–12.

‘For I have no other sun but you’ 203 41. See Hanson (2004) on the apparent gender difference between archives collected by men and those assembled by women: men appear ‘more ready to intersperse personal letters among their business papers’. 42. Even though Metrodora’s six fragmentary letters are clearly written in the same hand, ‘we cannot tell from the handwriting if it is a woman’s or not. If [Metrodora] did not write the letters herself, she must have had all of them written by the same secretary or scribe’, Van Beek (2009), 153. See their brief treatment in MacLachlan’s chapter in this volume. 43. In P.Petrie III 42h (8a) = P.Petrie Kleon no. 1, Metrodora writes ‘You wrote ʼˊ [ — ] to come to you [ — ]’ (εγραψας — ] / [π]αραγε [νέσθα]ι προˋ ς σεˋ γραψα [ — ], lines 2–3). 44. The Lake is Lake Moeris. ‘The Lake’ was the name of the Fayum in the early Ptolemaic period until Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246 BCE) dedicated the province to his sister-queen Arsinoe after her death in 270 BCE and the district took the name Arsinoite nome (see www.trismegistos.org/place/332). 45. Van Beek (2017), 33 ponders whether a delay in the construction of the irrigation infrastructure Cleon was overseeing could have caused the king’s irritation. 46. Cribiore (2002), (2005), 94–95 provide rich reflections on the ways in which the women in this archive (Apollonios’ mother Eudaimonis and his wife Aline, in particular) sustained strong familial bonds and social relationships through their use of literacy. Plumbing the palaeography, language and tone of Eudaimonis’ and Aline’s letters, she reveals educated women actively participating in the composition of their letters. 47. One of Aline’s extant letters is addressed to her servant Tetes (P.Giss. 78) and the other two to her husband (P.Giss. 19 and 20). On the women in Apollonios’ family, see Rowlandson (1998), 118–124 and on Eudaimonis’ letters in particular, see Cribiore (2002), 151–155 and Huebner (2018), 172–174. 48. In P.Alex.Giss. 58 (Hermopolis, early September 115 CE), Eudaimonis writes ‘Seeing the disturbances near us, I persevere night and day with my prayers to all the gods and goddesses that they take part together in protecting you’ (καρτε̣[ρ]ω˜̣ νυ ̣κτ[οˋ]ς ηʽμέρας ε[υ̕]χ [̣ ο-]/μ̣ έν̣ η τ̣ οι˜ ς θεο [̣ ˜ι ]ς π̣α ˜ σι̣ καὶ π[άσαις] / [οʽˊ]π ̣ως [σε] δ[ι]ασυ[λ]λα[β]ω˜σι, lines 4-6) and urges Apollonios ‘not to delay in informing me about your well-being’ (μηˋ οʼκ̣ νήσ̣ η̨ ς π̣ [ερὶ τη˜ς] σ̣ η˜̣ς / [σωτη]ρίας δηλω˜σα[ί μοι, lines 11–12). 49. Of Aline’s three preserved letters (P.Giss. 19, 20, and 78) two were dictated to a scribe: P.Giss. 78, which Aline sent to an old servant, bears ‘the final salutations in her own hand with minute and even characters’ and P.Giss. 19 (discussed here) ‘is mutilated at the bottom and lacks an eventual subscription’ (Cribiore (2002), 155). P.Giss. 20, sent to Apollonios, was possibly penned by Aline herself, in a hand ‘not completely even, [which] displays smaller and more ligatured characters than those of an epistolary hand’ (Cribiore (2002), 156). 50. To Cribiore (2002), 155–156 the literary tenor of the language in P.Giss. 19 suggests that Aline had a good education, a possibility which is taken to posit Aline’s direct participation in the composition of the letter. 51. I thank the editor for pointing out that Aline’s self-absorption, inconsiderate given that her husband faces mortal danger, could be explained by the literary colour of the letter. On the other hand, by writing that she does not drink, eat, or sleep Aline claims that she sympathetically experiences her husband’s own physical deprivations. 52. A translation of P.Giss. 20 can be found in Bagnall and Cribiore (2006), 152. Women’s letters on papyrus not surprisingly mention their taking care of practical matters in their husbands’ absence, as in, e.g. P.Bad. IV 48 (127 BCE) or BGU IV 1204 (28 BCE).

204  Maryline Parca 53. For example, in his discussion of the evolution of the Greek dowry in Egypt from the Ptolemaic through the Roman period Yiftach-Firanko (2003) draws attention to differences between marriage agreements written in Alexandria and those recorded elsewhere in the country. For her part, Kotsifou (2012), 56 observes that only in late antiquity do people file divorce petitions in which they ascribe their marital difficulties to demonic interference, a ‘plausible’ cause possibly explained by the Church’s strong stance against divorce. 54. Hickey (2009), 507. 55. See Vandorpe (2002a) and Vandorpe and Waebens (2009), 102–113, the latter downloadable at www.trismegistos.org/arch/archives/pdf/74.pdf 56. See Vandorpe (2002b). 57. Despite the silence of the archive about the couple’s affective lives, the quality of their marriage has been variously assessed: Pomeroy (1990), 103–124 espouses a negative view, Lewis (1986), 88–103 offers a more positive one, and Vandorpe (2002b), 324–336 sets out to ‘repair the good reputation of Apollonia’. 58. British Library, P. inv. no. 605 verso = P.Grenf. I 1 = Mertens-Pack3 01743 = TM 65616. The text, translation and notes of P.Dryton 50 are by P. Bing (2002), now supplemented by Esposito (2005). On literary papyri in documentary archives, see Clarysse (1983). 59. Bing (2002), 384. On the public of such popular performance in Ptolemaic Egypt, see Esposito (2005), 41–50. 60. Egyptian literature suggests that Egyptians took a more relaxed attitude towards the sexual activity of unmarried women than the Greeks did. Love poems of the New Kingdom (1550–1070 BCE) speak of unmarried couples enjoying physical love (Robbins (1993), 179–180), and in the much later demotic wisdom texts (which are brief injunctions and teachings of Ptolemaic and Roman date) the recurring prohibition against having sexual contacts with married women contrasts strongly with the apparent lack of objection to intercourse with unmarried women (Dieleman (1998), 41). 61. The possibility is briefly mentioned in Vandorpe (2002b), 325. 62. Apollonia could not write Greek, nor was she expected to, since she grew up in an Egyptianised family: Vandorpe (2002b), 334.

Bibliography Abbreviations BGU



P.Alex.Giss. P.Bad.

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‘For I have no other sun but you’ 205 P.Dryton P.Eleph. P.Giss.

P.Grenf. I P.Heid. III

P.Oxy. P.Petaus P.Petrie Kleon

PSI





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206  Maryline Parca P.Wash.Univ.II TM

Maresch K. and Packman Z. M. (eds) (1990) Papyri from the Washington University Collection, St Louis, Missouri, Part II. Opladen. Trismegistos. An interdisciplinary portal of papyrological and epigraphical resources (www.trismegistos.org/index.html)

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Index

abandonment 10, 12, 15, 17, 25, 50, 168–169, 176, 188–191, 197–199 absence 9, 31, 48–49, 77–79, 91, 98, 112, 188, 191–196 abuse 10–11, 18, 32, 97, 109, 116–117, 123–125, 136, 164, 168, 176, 187–190, 197; see also exploitation; rape adultery 2, 92, 123–124, 130, 137–138, 188, 197; see also concubine; hetaera; prostitute Aegiale 95 Aeneas 77–78 affect 13; see also emotion; feeling affection 12, 14–16, 50–52, 80, 84, 137–138, 140, 142–143, 149, 152, 154, 162, 188, 192, 197; see also amor; concordia; harmony; love; philia Agamestor 12, 23–24 agency, women’s 4, 9, 28, 31, 45, 107, 123, 158; see also behavioural power; blackmail; leverage Agricola, Gnaeus Julius 97 Alcyone 77 ‘Alexandrian erotic fragment’ 198–199 Aline 195–196 ambitiosa 84–85 amor 13; see also affection; concordia; desire; erôs; harmony; love; passion; philia; sexuality anachronism 12 Andromache 79–80, 196 Antaios 187–188 Antipater of Sidon 22 Antonius Germanus 174 Aphrodite 22, 130, 134; see also Venus Apollonia (alias Senmouthis) 198–199 Apollonios (husband of Aline) 195–196

Apollonios (husband of Didyme) 192, 196 Archilochus 22 archives 191, 194 Ariadne 125 Aristotle 133, 136, 140 army see soldier Arria Maior 96 Arria Minor 96 Arsinoë 29 Asclepiades 189 Ascyltos 110, 123 Asklepiades 177 Athena 174 Atthis 7, 25–26, 34, 42, 44, 49–50, 52 Augustus 84–85, 91–93, 170 Aulus Caecina Paetus 96 autobiography 97; see also biography autocracy vs culture 92–93, 95–97 behaviour 2, 3, 6, 8, 11–12, 14–16, 27, 59, 97, 185–188, 197; female 5, 8, 10, 27, 52, 65, 76, 84, 86, 94, 108, 112, 117, 141, 190; male 32, 59, 63, 108, 114, 138, 187 behavioural power 8; see also agency; blackmail; leverage Beris 169 bias 4, 14, 17, 34 bigamy 186 biography 18, 60, 67; see also autobiography blackmail 8, 15, 86; see also agency; behavioural power; leverage Blussus 18, 160–162 body 11, 30, 59, 79, 107–110, 112, 116, 121–122, 139, 140; (corpse) 78, 118–120; excesses 107–109, 112, 117; language 152–153, 158, 162; of lovers 143–144

210  Index bona caduca 174 breastfeeding 61–62 Calpurnia (wife of Pliny the Younger) 97–98, 142 Calpurnia Hispulla 97 Cato the Elder 59–67 Catullus 123 Celerinus, M. Valerius 158, 161–162 Ceyx 77, 79 change over time see disruption in earlier historical patterns; evolution chariot race 8, 46–48, 52 chastity 79–80, 83–85, 95, 114–116, 118, 121, 138–139; see also modesty; shame cheirographon 172 childbirth 47, 193–194; see also pregnancy childcare 90, 98 childlessness 98, 109, 116; see also fertility; heir; reproduction children 13–14, 23, 29, 32, 46–47, 52, 60–62, 65, 97, 142, 160, 168, 188, 194, 198; legitimacy of 2, 6, 17, 48, 51, 149, 188, 197; see also fertility; heir; pregnancy; reproduction; sexuality Chrésimos 23 Christian morals 18 Chrysanthus 14, 112–114, 119 Chrysis 120, 122, 124 Cicero 60, 90, 140 Circe (Homer’s) 130, 134 Circe (Petronius’s) 107, 109, 116–117, 120–125 citizenship (Roman) 6, 149, 152, 154, 158 Claudia (wife of Statius) 9, 95–96 Claudia Prepontis 162 Claudius 96 Cleon see Kleon comedy 60, 62–63, 65–67 companionship 95, 114, 196; intellectual 91, 94, 98, 129 concordia 97, 149, 162–163; see also affection; amor; divorce; harmony; ideal; love; tensions within marriage concubine 2, 12, 24, 138, 187–188; see also adultery; hetaera; prostitute contact, physical 16, 26, 50–51, 90, 151–153, 155, 162; see also kissing; sexuality control: female 10, 32, 108–109, 120, 122–123; male 9, 11, 59–60, 67,

82, 122, 136, 168; see also equality in marriage; hierarchy; ideal; self-control conubium 6, 149 Cornelia 174 Creusa 78 Cupid 125 curse tablet 10, 14, 18, 33–34 Damodika 8, 42, 44–50, 52 Danaë 124–125 Daphne 124–125 De Agri Cultura 59–60, 62–67 death 7, 23–25, 44–49, 61, 77–78, 90–91, 93, 97–99, 113, 115, 117–120, 142, 168, 171, 180, 194, 199; see also epitaph; funerary monument; graveyard competition; inheritance; memorial; mourning Delia 78 Demetria 186–187 Demetrous 172 deposit (paratheke) 8, 173–174 desire (erotic): female 107–108, 131, 198–199; male 10, 32–33, 107–108, 120–122; mutual 15, 79, 134, 143–144, 198; see also amor; erôs; love; passion; sexuality dextrarum iunctio 152–153, 162 Diana 121 Dido 131 Didyme 192, 196 Didymos 170 different-sex 2, 13, 22, 108 Diodorus Siculus 34 Diogenes Laertius 140 Dionysia 31–33 Dionysius 28, 30 Dioscourides 189 Dioskous 171–172, 178 Diotimus 24–25 disruption in earlier historical patterns 16, 21–23, 26, 34–35; see also evolution divorce 2, 10, 29, 90, 92, 168–171, 176, 178, 189–191, 197; see also affection; amor; concordia; harmony; ideal; love; tensions within marriage dominus 59, 63–65 Domitia Decidiana 97 Domitian 91, 95–97, 125 dowry 9–10, 28, 130, 136, 138, 168–170, 173–176, 187, 189–190 drinking, excessive 22, 107, 112, 138

Index 211 Dryton 198–199 dual discourse 6, 17, 44 duty: conjugal 9, 47; maternal 95; military 31, 118, 124, 134 eating 8, 107–108, 111–112, 115, 121–122, 198 Egnatia Maximilla 94 elegy 25–26, 76–79, 81, 83, 121, 143 emotion 3, 4, 12–15, 30, 49, 51, 152–153, 185–186, 188, 190–193, 196–197; see also affect; feeling emphasis (rhetorical device of innuendo) 130–132 Encolpius 109–116, 118, 120–125 epigram, funerary 22, 24–26, 34, 42–52 epitaph 4, 6–8, 10, 14–15, 24–25, 32, 34, 42–47, 50, 52, 115, 150, 152, 158, 160, 164 epithalamium 93–94, 124–125 equality in marriage 8–9, 11, 27, 29, 98, 129–144, 154, 186; see also reciprocity in marriage erôs 13, 134, 140, 199; see also amor; desire; love; passion; philia; sexuality Esthladas 198 Euagoras 24–25 Eudaimonis 195 Europa 124–125 Eurydice 132–133, 136, 139, 141–142 Euterpe 28–29 everyday: couples 22, 176, 185–186, 197; (definition) 1; life 3–4, 6–8, 16, 18, 21, 50, 174–175; see also ordinary evolution 12, 16, 150, 197; see also disruption in earlier historical patterns exile 9–10, 76, 86, 91–97 expectations: ancient 3–4, 8, 42, 44–45, 48, 50, 59, 62, 79, 186, 194; modern 12, 17, 23, 197; see also ideal exploitation, sexual 59–67 Fabia 92–93 Fabius Maximus 83, 93 faithfulness 79–80, 83, 86, 92, 94–95, 99, 116, 154, 186, 188 fama 76, 82–84, 86; see also reputation family, relationships 1, 3–4, 6–8, 17–18, 24, 27–28, 31, 46, 90–92, 94, 97–99, 149–150, 153, 173, 176, 185, 189, 191, 195, 198 Fannia 96–97

farming 10, 59–60, 62–65, 190 fasting 107–109, 112, 116–120, 122–123 feeling 12–17, 24, 49, 51, 76, 83, 86, 95, 136–137, 140–141, 175, 196–199; see also affect; emotion femina princeps 85 fertility 18, 47; see also childlessness; children; heir; pregnancy; reproduction fiancé 139 filter (literary) 4, 90–91, 93, 186, 197 finances 8, 11, 17, 60–65, 116, 150, 160, 170–171, 173, 186–187; see also wealth formulaic language 4–5, 14, 79, 135, 150, 185, 190 Fortunata 8, 12, 14, 107–117, 119–120, 123 freedman 11, 23, 107–109, 112–113, 116, 152; see also libertus; slave freedwoman 11, 23, 117, 152; see also liberta; slave friend 6, 93, 95–96, 118–119, 129, 136, 138, 140–141, 193 frugality 115 funeral 15, 46, 49, 78, 93, 97, 112–114, 117–120, 124; see also death; graveyard competition; memorial; mourning funerary monument 43, 50, 150, 158, 160; see also death; epitaph; graveyard competition; iconography; memorial Gaius Apolinarius 174 Galba 97 gender roles and qualities, female and male: traditionally distinct 2–5, 7–10, 42, 47, 80–81, 84, 86, 90, 93, 132, 135, 137, 139, 144, 149, 160; overlapping 8–9, 12, 17, 86; see also equality in marriage; expectations; ideal; reciprocity in marriage; stereotype Glitius Gallus, P. 94 ‘good wife’ 45, 76, 79– 80, 83–85, 129, 136 graveyard competition 7, 15; see also death; epitaph Habinnas 109, 112–113, 115–116, 119 harmony, conjugal 7, 13, 15, 51–52, 90, 97, 133, 140, 149, 153, 155, 162–164; see also concordia; divorce; ideal; love; tensions within marriage Haryotes 170

212  Index heir 2, 6, 12, 18, 24, 47, 98, 114, 170, 172–173, 176; see also children; inheritance Helen 130 Helladoté 29–30 Helvia 91–92 Helvidius Priscus the Younger 97 Hephaistion 30–31 Hera 29; see also Juno Heracleides (and Athena) 174 Heracleides (and Demetria) 186–187 Heracles 169 Herakleia 170 Hermias 194 Hermogenes 45–49 Hero 170 Herodotus 21, 34, 135–136 Hesiod 60, 65–66, 108 hetaera 139; see also adultery; concubine; prostitute hierarchy: family 98; social 2, 11; see also control; equality in marriage; ideal Hipponax 22 Horace 92 iconography 3, 45, 149, 152–164; changes 16, 22, 150; coded 4, 18, 162; of marriage as a visual theme 150–151; see also funerary monument ideal: conjugal 4–6, 18; conjugal affection 52; conjugal empathy 95; conjugal harmony 51–52, 149, 153, 163; feelings 196; on funerary monuments 7, 22, 42, 44–45, 149, 164; gender roles 160–162; sentimental reciprocity 141, 152; traditional man 161; traditional woman 44, 98, 107–108, 112–113, 116–117, 161–162; vs reality 5–6, 8–10, 15–17; wifely submission 140; see also affection; concordia; expectations; feeling; funerary monument; gender roles and qualities; harmony; love; marriage; stereotype imperial regime 92–93, 96–97 impotence 66, 121–122, 124 inclusion, social 6–8, 18 inheritance 47, 61, 168–170, 174–175; see also heir; wealth Isias 30–31, 33 Isidora (wife of Hermias) 194 Isidora (wife of Serenos) 192–193, 196 Iulius Acutianus 174

jealousy 12, 14, 82, 188, 197, 199 Jove 113, 124–125; see also Jupiter; Zeus Juno 76, 85, 94, 125; see also Hera Jupiter 125; see also Jove; Zeus Juvenal 108 kissing 66, 77–78, 112, 114, 121, 198; see also contact Kleon 28, 194–195 Kolobos 192–193 Kronion 169 Laodamia 77, 79, 83 Leda 124–125 Leonidas 22 Lesbia 123 letter writing 26, 191 leverage, female 8–12, 108–110, 120, 122–123, 173, 176, 187; see also agency; behavioural power; blackmail liberta 152; see also freedwoman libertus 152; see also freedman Licinia 60–61 literacy, female 185 Livia Drusilla 76, 83–86, 92–93 Livy 60, 114–115 loneliness 14, 78, 199; see also paraclausithyron love 5, 7, 13–16, 18, 24–25, 50, 66, 76–81, 116, 122, 124–125, 130, 134–135, 140, 142–144, 188–189, 191–192, 197; see also affection; amor; concordia; desire; erôs; harmony; passion; philia; sexuality Lucan 93–94, 99 Lucia Macrina 174 Lucius Aemilius Paullus 61 Lucius Arruntius Stella 94 Lucretia 114–116 Lucretius 77, 143–144 Lysimachos 170 Maecenas 14, 92 magic 10, 32, 33, 130, 188–189 manumission 23–24, 34, 152 Marcia (wife of Fabius Maximus) 83, 93 Marcia Procula 158, 160, 162 Maronis 22, 24 marriage (institution) 6; advice on 16, 129–144; arranged 11–13; as a risk 10; between siblings 29, 36, 169–170, 175; between slaves 23; contracts 9, 10, 27, 29, 168, 171–173, 186–187, 190, 197;

Index 213 failed 15, 189; Jewish 29, 30; oath 32; second marriage 2, 60–61, 92–93, 95, 190, 198; as status marker 6, 150, 162; trial period 8, 171–173, 176; written/ unwritten 173; see also divorce Marsyas 31–32 Martial 94 maternity 47 matron 84, 98, 109, 111–119 Meleager 24 Meliboea 95 memorial 11, 24, 150, 152–154, 160; see also funerary monument; graveyard competition Menelaus 130 Menimane 18, 160–162 Metrodora 28, 194–195 microhistory 3, 34–35, 197 modesty 10, 31, 86, 93, 116–117, 135, 139, 152, 197; see also chastity; shame monogamy 67 mourning 14, 49, 78, 91, 97, 112–115, 117–120, 123, 192; see also death murder 10, 111–112, 135, 164; see also poison Musonius Rufus 15, 137 muted group theory 42 Neilos 191 Neon 31–32 Nero 91, 93–94, 96, 108, 123 novendiale 112, 118–119 Odysseus 124, 130 Oenothea 108, 123–124 offspring see children; heir Olympias 187 Olympio 60, 66–67 oracular tablet 14, 18, 43, 51–52 ordinary: couples 123, 132, 142, 149, 152, 155, 158, 160, 162, 164, 191 197; (definition) 1, 6–7, 150; see also everyday Orpheus 78 Ovid 5–7, 10, 14, 76–86, 92–93, 99, 131 palla 152, 154 Panephremmis 173 papyri 4, 7–8, 10–11, 14, 21, 26–28, 168–176, 185–200 paraclausithyron 198; see also loneliness Paris 130

passion 15, 61, 77–79, 92, 95, 120, 125, 131, 133, 143–144, 198; see also desire; erôs; love; sexuality paternity 61 pathos 26, 48–49 patriarchy 17, 27, 98, 186 Paulus Fabius Maximus 93 Pausiris 171 Penelope 79–80, 95 Persian of the epigone 171–172 Petronia Sarapias 174 Petronius 8, 12, 14, 107–125 philia 13; see also affection; amor; concordia; erôs; harmony; love Philomela 108, 123 philosophy 132–134, 141 piety 78–80, 84–85, 115–117, 119 pimp 62, 192–193 Plato 130, 137 Plautus 60, 66–67, 136 pleasure (erotic) 122, 130, 137–138, 143–144 Pliny the Younger 7, 97–98, 142–143 Plutarch 9–11, 15–16, 59–62, 65, 67, 97, 129–144 Plutarche 172 poison 10, 33, 129, 139, 188; see also murder Polemon 28 Polla (wife of Pollius Felix) 95, 132 Polla Argentaria 93–94 Pollianus 132–133, 138–139, 141–142 Pollius Felix 94–96 Polybius 34, 60 Pompeia Celerina 97 Praxias 23–24 Praxiteles 22, 121 pregnancy 11, 61–62, 171–172, 193; see also childbirth probity 10, 79, 83–84, 86 profession 4–5, 96–98, 160–162, 190 Proselenos 108, 122–123 prostitute 2, 115, 120, 192–193; see also adultery; concubine; hetaera Protesilaus 77, 83 proto-emotion 13; see also emotion Ptolemy I Soter 27, 185 Ptolemy II Philadelphus 28–29, 195 puberty 66 Quartilla 108, 123 quasillum 158 Quintilian 97–98, 130–132

214  Index rape 115, 124–125; see also abuse; exploitation reality, lived 3–6, 8–9, 11, 16–17, 22, 25, 27, 43, 45, 51, 99, 149, 164 reciprocity in marriage 10, 133, 135, 140, 142–144, 152, 162, 198; see also equality in marriage repression, political 93–97 reproduction 60; see also childlessness; children; fertility; heir; pregnancy; sexuality reputation 9, 18, 76, 80–83, 94, 122, 143, 187, 193; see also fama rhetoric 15, 18, 24–25, 34, 79, 130–131, 186 room for manoeuvre 2, 4, 9, 17 Salonius 61 same-sex 2, 187–188 Sappho 124 Saraeus 172 Sarapias 198 Sarapion (husband of Syra) 169, 190 Sarapion (husband of Taysoreus) 173 satire 4, 10, 15, 17–18, 107, 143 Scintilla 108, 112, 115, 119 Scipio Africanus, Publius Cornelius 60, 67 scribal mediation 5, 26, 30, 32, 154, 186, 190, 196 self-control 8, 107–109, 116, 122–123, 142 Semonides of Amorgos 60, 65–66, 108 senatus consultum Velleianum 169 Seneca the Elder 91–92, 98 Seneca the Younger 14, 84, 86, 91, 93 Senmouthis see Apollonia sentimental marriage 142–143 Serenos 5, 192–193, 196 Sextus Tarquinius 115 sexuality: activities 11, 59–60, 67, 107, 120–122, 124, 130, 134, 137–138; behaviour 11, 59, 67, 109, 123–124, 129, 134–135, 189; charisma 8; elusiveness of conjugal sexuality 17–18; emancipation 92; female sex drive 22, 107, 120; frustration 67; knowledge 60, 65–66; misbehaviour 108; partner 15, 27, 59, 61, 65, 107; preference 4; prowess 62, 122; roles 134; with slave 60–62, 64, 66; see also abuse; desire; erôs; exploitation; impotence; love; passion; pleasure; rape; reproduction

shame 9, 15, 51, 81, 115, 135, 137, 186– 187, 197; see also chastity; modesty Sidonius Apollinaris 94 Simaitha 32 Skyllis 24–26, 34 slave 2, 11–12, 23–24, 34, 59–67, 94, 110, 112–120, 137, 140, 152, 154, 158, 168, 174, 189, 199; see also exploitation; freedman; freedwoman; liberta; libertus; manumission soldier: Greek 2, 6, 27–28, 30–31, 188, 198; Roman 118–119, 123–125, 158, 160–161, 173, 174–176 Solon 29 Statius 7, 9, 14, 84, 93–96, 98–99, 125, 132 status, social 1–2, 4, 6, 11–13, 18, 28, 59, 61, 83, 91, 122, 149–150, 152, 154, 158, 162, 168, 171–172, 175–176, 185, 197 stereotype 5, 17, 44, 47, 52, 64–65, 107–108 Stoicism 97, 137, 140 stola 154 suicide 96, 194 Syra 169, 190 Tacitus 86, 93, 96–98 Talthotis 32 Taorsenouphis 169 Tarquinius Collatinus 116 Tauris 171 Taysoreus 173 Telestas 23–24 tensions within marriage 8–13, 17, 29, 32, 90, 92; see also affection; amor; concordia; divorce; harmony; ideal; love Terentia 14, 92 Thais/Thaïs 32–33, 188–189 Thatres 173 Theios 25–26, 49–50 Theocritus 29, 32 Theogonis 170 Theon 31–32 Thermouthion 171–172 Thrasea Paetus 96–97 Thucydides 21–34 Tiberius Claudius Dionysios 162 Tibullus 78 Timoxena 97, 141–142 toga 152–154, 158, 160 tomb see death; epitaph; funerary monument; graveyard competition; memorial; mourning

Index 215 tradition 8–9, 16–17; see also expectations; gender roles and qualities; ideal; stereotype triangle, love 12 Trimalchio 107–117, 119–120, 123 trope 25, 49, 108, 193, 196–197 Tryphaine 189–190 Tryphon 172, 176 Tullia 90 tunic 135–136, 152, 157–158; overtunic 18, 160 Venus 85, 94, 125, 143–144; Venus Genetrix 18; see also Aphrodite Vernasia Cyclas 154–155 Vespasian 97 vetting process 6–7, 15, 18 victim 10, 32, 82, 93–94, 96, 109, 124–125 vilica 59–60, 62–67 vilicus 59–60, 62–67 violence see abuse; exploitation; rape Violentilla 94, 125 Virgil 77–78, 131 virginity 66

virtue 5, 7, 26, 47, 76, 79, 84–86, 113–117, 123, 130, 136; see also expectations; gender roles and qualities; graveyard competition; ideal; reputation; stereotype; tradition Vitalis 154–155 wealth: family 28, 47, 60, 116, 160, 168– 170, 175–176; female 93, 135–136, 142; see also agency; finances; leverage wedding 29, 93, 118, 120, 122–123, 125, 133 Widow of Ephesus 14, 107, 109, 116–120, 123, 125 widowhood 2, 24, 26, 93–95, 117–120, 123–125 wool working 160–161 Xenophon 141 Zeus 29, 51; see also Jove; Jupiter Zmyrna 131 Zoïs 23 Zopyra 12, 23–24