New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-Roman World 9780190937638, 0190937637

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New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World

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New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World

z   Edited by

RONNIE ANCONA AND GEORGIA TSOUVALA

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1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ancona, Ronnie, 1951– editor. | Tsouvala, Georgia, editor. Title: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-Roman World / edited by Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020038365 (print) | LCCN 2020038366 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190937638 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190937652 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Women—History—To 500. | Greece—Social conditions—To 146 B.C. | Rome—Social conditions. | Women—Greece—Social conditions. | Women— Rome—Social conditions. | Rome—Intellectual life. | Greece—Intellectual life. Classification: LCC HQ1134.N49 2021 (print) | LCC HQ1134 (ebook) | DDC 305.409/01—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038365 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020038366 DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America

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Figures

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5

Penelope and Telemachos 31 The foot-​washing of Odysseus 31 Odysseus and Penelope 34 Slaughter of the suitors 37 “Mourning Athena” 38 Nausikaa and Odysseus 43 Female athlete with diazoma/​perizoma 150 Brauron, view of the stoa 151 Stadium at Olympia 154 Female charioteer 165 Girls going to school 171

Plate I Embassy to Achilles 00 Plate II Penelope 00 Plate III Foot-​washing of Odysseus Plate IV Female athlete with diazoma/​perizoma and shoes00P00 Plate V Female athlete holding a strigil Plate VI Athletes conversing 00 Plate VII Stamnos (jar) with female athletes bathing 00 Plate VIII Female athlete

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the help and support we have had for this project from many sources. First, we owe the greatest debt to Sarah B. Pomeroy, to whom we dedicate this book, for without her neither one of us would have had the involvement in the field of women in classical antiquity that we do. As Georgia Tsouvala’s teacher and as Ronnie Ancona’s colleague, she has been an inspiration. We both feel privileged to have continuing professional relationships with her now and to count her as a dear friend. Her work in women’s history for the past fifty years has fundamentally changed Greco-​Roman studies for the better. She has been in our thoughts at each step of this book. We are very grateful to our editor at Oxford University Press (OUP), Stefan Vranka, for his support of this project from the outset and for his guidance throughout. Editorial assistants at OUP, John Veranes, Emily Zogbi, Zara Cannon-​Mohammed, and Isabelle Prince, have provided help as well. The anonymous peer reviewers chosen by OUP for our proposal and for the final manuscript offered valuable feedback at both stages of the writing and editing process that clearly made this a better book. We thank indexer, John Grennan, copyeditor, Judith Hoover, production manager, Aishwarya Krishnamoorthy, production editor, Leslie Johnson for their careful work. We thank our contributors for their scholarship, their patience, and their interest in this project. Ronnie Ancona is grateful to The Pleskow Classics Fund of the Department of Classical and Oriental Studies, Hunter College, for help in funding the inclusion of color images for the book, and to her PSC-​CUNY Award # 62030-​ 00 50 (2019–​2020) of the PSC-​CUNY Research Award Program for funding to hire an indexer. Georgia Tsouvala is grateful to Illinois State University for additional help with the funding for images.

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Finally, we both feel fortunate to have had a chance to collaborate as coeditors for this project. We learned much from each other, both substantial things and technical things. It was particularly useful in editing an interdisciplinary volume to have been able to discuss the project with each other from our differing research backgrounds and perspectives.

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Contributors

Ronnie Ancona is Professor of Classics at Hunter College and The Graduate Center (CUNY). She is the author of Time and the Erotic in Horace’s Odes (1994), Horace: Selected Odes and Satire 1.9 (2nd edition, 2014), Writing Passion Plus: A Catullus Reader (2013), and Writing Passion: A Catullus Reader (2nd edition, 2013). She is coeditor of Gendered Dynamics in Latin Love Poetry (2005) and editor of A Concise Guide to Teaching Latin Literature (2007). She served as series editor for the nineteen-​volume BC Latin Readers series from Bolchazy-​Carducci Publishers, coedits with Sarah Pomeroy the “Women in Antiquity” series from Oxford University Press, and is editor of The Classical Outlook. Her current research project focuses on Martha Graham’s Greek myth-​based dances and her collaboration with Isamu Noguchi. Roger S. Bagnall is Leon Levy Director and Professor of Ancient History Emeritus at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New  York University, and Jay Professor of Greek and Latin and Professor of History emeritus at Columbia University. His work focuses on the economic and social history of the Hellenistic to Late Antique eastern Mediterranean, particularly Egypt, and on ancient documents. Among his best known publications are Egypt in Late Antiquity (1993), Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History (1995, second ed. 2019), Early Christian Books in Egypt (2009), and Everyday Writing in the Graeco-​Roman East (2010). He is coauthor of The Demography of Roman Egypt (1994) and cofounder of a multi-​university consortium creating the Advanced Papyrological Information System. His latest book, An Oasis City, presents the results of the Amheida excavations in the Dakhla Oasis in Egypt, which he directs. Elizabeth D. Carney is Professor of history and Carol K.  Brown Scholar in the Humanities Emerita at Clemson University. She has written dozens

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List of Contributors

of essays on gender, naming practices, Ptolemaic Egypt, and women and military leadership. She has written on monarchy and the role of royal women in monarchy, including Women and Monarchy in Ancient Macedonia (2000), Olympias:  Mother of Alexander the Great (2006), Arsinoë of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life (2013), and Eurydice and the Birth of Macedonian Power (2019). Bruce W. Frier is the John and Teresa D’Arms Distinguished University Professor of Classics and Roman Law at the University of Michigan. He is the author of numerous books and articles about economic and social history. His publications include Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome (1980), The Rise of the Roman Jurists: Studies in Cicero’s Pro Caecina (1985), and A Casebook on the Roman Law of Delict (1989). He is coauthor of The Modern Law of Contracts (2019) and A Casebook on Roman Family Law (2003) and general editor of a three-​volume annotated translation of the Codex of Justinian (2016). Currently, he is finishing several books, including Casebook on the Roman Law of Contracts, Four Treatises on Roman Law: The Fragmentum Dositheanum, The Tituli Ulpiani and the Epitomes of Gaius, The Gaian Tradition: Late Roman Elementary Treatises, and Sources for Roman Law: The Tituli Ulpiani and the Sententiae Pauli, all forthcoming by Oxford University Press. Edith Hall is Professor of Classics at King’s College London, cofounder and consultant director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford University, and chair of the Gilbert Murray Trust. She has published more than twenty-​five books on ancient Greek and Roman culture and their continuing presences in modernity. Her most recent book is Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life (2018). Ann Ellis Hanson is a papyrologist and Senior Research Scholar and Lecturer at Yale University Emerita, and she was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1992; she has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Texas–​Austin, California–​Berkeley, and Michigan–​Ann Arbor. She has published over 100 papyri, most of which are from the Roman period, in various periodicals and monographs, and served as editor of the monograph series of American Studies in Papyrology. She has also authored numerous articles on women’s bodies and ancient health. Barbara Levick, fellow and tutor in Literae Humaniores at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford (1959–​1998), is currently Emerita Fellow (1998–​present).

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She has written numerous books in Roman Imperial history, the social life of Asia Minor, and women’s history. Her publications include Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor (1967), Tiberius the Politician (1976), The Government of the Roman Empire (1985), Claudius (1990), Julia Domna: Syrian Empress (2007), Imperial Women of the Golden Age:  Faustina I  and II (2014), and Catiline (2015). She is also the coauthor of Monuments from Aezanitis and the Tembris Valley (MAMA 9 and 10, 1988 and 1993) and coeditor of Women in Antiquity: New Perspectives (1994) and The Customs Law of Asia (2008). Kristina Milnor is Professor of Classics at Barnard College. She is the author of Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus (2005) and Graffiti and the Literary Landscape in Roman Pompeii (2014). Her research interests lie in Roman literature and history, feminist theory, and the intersection of textual and material culture. She is currently at work on a book about women and money in Roman society. Walter D. Penrose Jr. is Associate Professor of history at San Diego State University. He is the author of Postcolonial Amazons:  Female Masculinity and Courage in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit Literature (2016). He has also published essays on Hellenistic queens, the Tomb of the Diver Paintings, pedagogy in the Classics classroom, conceptions of disability in ancient Greece, and the reception of Sappho from antiquity to the early Renaissance. Amy Richlin is Distinguished Professor of Classics at UCLA. She got her start in the study of ancient women at the 1983 NEH Institute run by Helene Foley, Natalie Kampen, and Sarah Pomeroy. She has published widely on the history of sexuality, including The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (1983), Rome and the Mysterious Orient (2005), Marcus Aurelius in Love (2006), and Slave Theater in the Roman Republic (2017). She is the editor of Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (1992) and coeditor of Feminist Theory and the Classics (1993). Her 2014 book, Arguments with Silence: Writing the History of Roman Women, collects essays written between 1981 and 2001. Most recently she has been working on Roman comedy. H. A. Shapiro is W. H. Collins Vickers Professor of Archaeology Emeritus and Academy Professor at Johns Hopkins University. He has written numerous studies of Greek vase iconography, including Personifications in Greek Art (1993), Myth into Art: Poet and Painter in Classical Greece (1994),

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and Art and Cult under the Tyrants in Athens (1989; Supplement, 1995). He is also coeditor of Greek Vases in the San Antonio Museum of Art (1995) and editor of the Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece (2007) and Worshipping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classica Athens (2008). His current project is on a study of Theseus in fifth-​century Athens. Marilyn B. Skinner is Professor of Classics Emerita at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Her main research specialization is ancient gender and sexuality, including Catullus’ “Passer”:  The Arrangement of the Book of Polymetric Poems (1981), Catullus in Verona: A Reading of the Elegiac Libellus, Poems 65–​116 (2003), and Clodia Metelli:  The Tribune’s Sister (2011). She coedited the essay collection Roman Sexualities (1997), which pioneered work on Roman sexual protocols, and published the first comprehensive textbook on ancient sexuality, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture (2005, 2013). She is presently working on Horace’s poetry from the Triumviral period. Georgia Tsouvala is Associate Professor of History at Illinois State University and associate editor of the Brill “Research Perspectives in Ancient History” series. She is coauthor of Ancient Greece:  A Political, Social, and Cultural History (2018) and A Brief History of Ancient Greece (2020) and coeditor of The Discourse of Marriage in the Graeco-​Roman World (2020). Her publications include articles on epigraphy and on the history of Roman Greece, Greco-​Roman women, Plutarch, and love and marriage in Greek and Roman literature.

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Editions and Abbreviations

Greek and Latin texts reproduced or translated in this volume come from the standard editions published in Oxford Classical Texts, the Teubner series, or the Loeb Classical Library, unless otherwise noted. All translations are by the contributors unless otherwise noted. Abbreviations of ancient authors and works follow the Oxford Classical Dictionary (4th edition), the Greek-​English Lexicon edited by Liddell, Scott, and Jones (9th edition), or the Oxford Latin Dictionary (2nd edition). Abbreviations of periodicals follow L’Année philologique and the American Journal of Archaeology.

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Introduction Ronnie Ancona

Part One It seems appropriate that there be a volume dedicated to new directions in the history of women in Ancient Greece and Rome following the fortieth anniversary of the publication of the groundbreaking study by Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves ([1975] 1995).1 Pomeroy’s book, the first full-​scale scholarly treatment of women throughout Greco-​Roman antiquity published in English, introduced a generation of students and scholars to a new field of study in classics and ancient history. This volume, inspired in part by the extremely well-​received panel in Pomeroy’s honor at the 2015 annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies (SCS), which was sponsored by the SCS Committee on the Status of Women and of Minority Groups and organized by Georgia Tsouvala and Celia Schultz, showcases through a set of original essays the current stage of and new directions in the now well-​established field of women’s history in classical antiquity. 1. I would like to thank the following people who were of great assistance to me in the research for this introduction:  Sarah Pomeroy; Claibourne (Clay) Williams, interim chief librarian and associate professor, Hunter College Library; Rebecca Altermatt, archivist, Archives and Special Collections, Hunter College Library; and Lilia Melani, professor emerita, English Department, Brooklyn College, CUNY (personal communication via email, January 3, 2019). I conducted a three-​hour oral interview with Sarah Pomeroy on January 23, 2016, at her home in New York City so that she could expand upon some written answers to a set of questions about her career she had supplied me with via email. I value her openness during the interview as well as her interest in preserving the historical record. I am fortunate to have had her as a colleague at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center and as a friend. Finally, I thank my coeditor, Georgia Tsouvala, for her welcome insights into our contributors’ chapters and, more generally, about the themes of our book, which she has so generously shared with me. Ronnie Ancona, Introduction In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0001

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While there have been edited volumes on various aspects of women in antiquity over the years, introductory scholarly handbooks on this topic and books on specific female figures from antiquity (for example, Foley [(1981) 2004]; Pomeroy [1991]; Hawley and Levick [1995]; James and Dillon [2012]; and Ancona and Pomeroy, eds., “Women in Antiquity” series from Oxford University Press, and earlier, “Women of the Ancient World” series from Routledge), surprisingly, there has not been a single recent edited volume of essays showing the diversity of new work in this field covering different time periods and utilizing varied approaches. While handbooks, like the excellent Blackwell Companion to Women in the Ancient World ( James and Dillon 2012), serve an important purpose in terms of broad coverage of the field, they are less geared toward new directions and methodologies and more geared toward summarizing historiographical work that has already been done on specific topics. The recent volume from Routledge, Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World, edited by Budin and Turfa (2016), while useful, will be used solely as a reference work due to size and cost. The other, older volumes mentioned, while still important, do not reflect the most up-​to-​date work in this field. The current volume, therefore, seeks to fill that gap. It does not represent one particular approach to the study of women in antiquity, nor does it favor the study of women in any one time period. In fact, it is its eclectic and inclusive quality that will be particularly valuable, for while each chapter provides a significant individual scholarly contribution, the book as a whole will enable readers to gain a picture of where the field is headed more broadly. The “new directions” for the study of women in antiquity featured in this edited volume involve new methodological questions to be asked, new time periods to be explored, new objects of study, as well as new information to be uncovered. To address these new directions, the volume contains work by a distinguished and varied group of contributors. They are historians, philologists, literary critics, archaeologists, art historians, and specialists in subfields like ancient medicine, ancient law, papyrology, and epigraphy. The breadth of their training and interests will provide the reader with a real sense of the diversity of approaches in this multidisciplinary field. The contributors to and editors of this volume have all been influenced by Sarah Pomeroy (1938–​) and her work. Therefore, I begin with a look back and then forward, as our volume title invites. I will start with some remarks on the scholarship and career of Pomeroy, who is largely responsible for the study of women in antiquity becoming a recognized field of inquiry in classics and ancient history. Those remarks will take us back to the 1970s. I will then move

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forward to the present, giving an overview of the chapters in this collection, situating them in the context of newer directions in the study of women in antiquity. I have always found fascinating the following sentence, which begins the introduction to Sarah Pomeroy’s Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: “This book was conceived when I asked myself what women were doing while men were active in all the areas traditionally emphasized by classical scholars.”2 Although Pomeroy has no recollection of why she might have chosen to use the word “conceived,”3 both the mental and physical senses of the word are more appropriate and central to the trajectory of Pomeroy’s scholarship and career than most might realize. Readers of Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, I suspect, have no knowledge of the conditions under which it was written. That it was a product of the mid-​1970s, the decade that produced Ms. Magazine and the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, is probably not a surprise. But after oral and written interviews with Sarah Pomeroy and my study of the Sarah B. Pomeroy Papers in the Archives and Special Collections of the Hunter College Libraries, it is impossible to avoid seeing the stark intersection between a groundbreaking book on women’s lives and the impediments to one woman’s career based on discrimination against women.4 I would suggest that the word “conception,” in its dual senses, permeated the thinking behind writing this book as well as professional consequences in the life of its author, while also pointing to issues that mattered for women in antiquity. Pomeroy was a brilliant scholar from very early on, earning her BA from Barnard in 1957 and her PhD from Columbia in 1961 at the almost unheard-​ of age of twenty-​one.5 She was the youngest person at the time to have received a doctorate from the Graduate Faculties of Philosophy of Columbia University. Two papers she wrote as a graduate student were published virtually unchanged as her first two publications.6

2. Pomeroy (1975) ix (p. xiv in 1995 edition). 3. Personal communication with author, 2016. 4. For further information, see Claire Catenaccio’s 2019 interview with Pomeroy. 5. Sarah B. Pomeroy Papers, “History of Ongoing Discrimination at Hunter College CUNY,” 1, box 2, folder 8, Archives and Special Collections, Hunter College Libraries, Hunter College of the City University of New York. 6.  These appeared in AJP in 1960 (Day and Porges [Pomeroy]) and in 1961 in TAPA (Porges 1961).

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Pomeroy came to Hunter College in 1964, yet she did not have tenure until September 1, 1980, several years after the publication of Goddesses. Her first appointment, in spring 1964, was as a part-​time lecturer; in fall of 1964 she was appointed a full-​time lecturer. The delay in her achieving tenure was due to a combination of sexist attitudes and practices and a CUNY-​wide practice common at the time, typically referred to as “forced maternity leave.”7 The New York City Board of Higher Education Bylaws, Section 13.4, stipulated that a faculty member who became pregnant must announce her pregnancy and must take leave.8 The Classics Department chair, Clairève Grandjouan, stated in a meeting with Pomeroy and administrators that she did not think a mother should work before her children were seventeen years old.9 Forced maternity leave was not leave a woman chose to take but one she was required to take. While this practice was later outlawed, it severely impacted Pomeroy’s career by forcing her, twice, to take a leave when she became pregnant with her second and third children. (Her first was born before she came to Hunter.)10 Pomeroy did file a Step 1 grievance seeking that “[she] be reappointed for a full-​time position, that her past service be counted full-​ time toward tenure and that she be granted back pay,” but it failed (1972).11 Pomeroy pursued things further. A settlement was finally reached in 1974 that appointed her a full-​time assistant professor. It did not award anything else.12 Pomeroy was only one of many women discriminated against at CUNY and was one of the named plaintiffs in the class action suit Lilia Melani, et al., 7. See Larson (1975) for a discussion of legal issues surrounding forced maternity leave. See Pedriana (2009) on the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978: “This Article traces the historical, legal, and cultural forces that converged to place the rights of pregnant women at the forefront of employment discrimination policy in the early-​to mid-​1970s” (2). 8. See “Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women at CUNY” (1972), especially 40–​48, for discussions of parenthood and pregnancy and CUNY women faculty. 9. Sarah B. Pomeroy Papers, “History of Ongoing Discrimination at Hunter College CUNY,” 3. 10. Larson (1975) 831ff. 11. Sarah B. Pomeroy Papers, “Grievance of Sarah Pomeroy,” 1, box 2, folder 8, Archives and Special Collections, Hunter College Libraries, Hunter College of the City University of New York. One of several bases for the opinion in the decision is worth quoting: “Maternity leave was not in such a category, it was not morally reprehensible; it did not treat one group of people, blacks or women, as being second class, and no violation occurred. If our views are different now on this, it does not mean that maternity leave existed for reprehensible reasons, rather our judgment is better now. The concept of continuing wrong does not apply here” (5). 12. Sarah B. Pomeroy Papers, “Settlement Agreement,” January 1974, letter from David Newton to Arnold Cantor, box 2, folder 8, Archives and Special Collections, Hunter College Libraries, Hunter College of the City University of New York.

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Plaintiffs, v. Board of Higher Education of the City of New York, known as the Melani case, which was filed in 1973. The women against CUNY eventually won the case in 1983 in a ruling by a federal judge, based on salary discrimination. The case was a major victory for CUNY women. The compensation received provided only a tiny amount financially to redress the losses of the past for individual women.13 When Pomeroy became a CUNY distinguished professor, a position that includes both honor and extra salary, her salary increased, but those early financial losses could never be recovered. Pomeroy claims that her experience at Hunter radicalized her. It is hard to imagine today what a long path it was for her to attain the professional status she deserved. Through her involvement in her own grievance case, the Melani case, the Women’s Classical Caucus, of which she was an original founder, and the Women’s Studies Program at Hunter College, many of us have benefited from that radicalization. It is easy to forget that prominent women classicists often did not arrive at their positions of prominence with ease. Hunter College is fortunate that it is the institution that Pomeroy chose to house her papers, which are a very valuable source on the career of one pioneer in the field of women in antiquity and the historical context of that career. When asked what she thought her greatest contribution was to the field of women in classical antiquity, Pomeroy answered, “Interdisciplinarity.” Always interested in what could be learned of the reality of women’s life in antiquity, she utilized such fields as papyrology, epigraphy, archaeology, and art history to get at that reality. As a classicist, ancient historian, and scholar of women’s studies, Pomeroy sought multiple sources and methodologies for approaching her research. Pomeroy’s work has clearly been foundational for the field of women in classical antiquity. In the time since she published Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, the study of women in antiquity has become a recognized specialty within classics and ancient history. How does this brief history of Pomeroy’s early career connect with the topic of this volume? It certainly should make us reconsider that perhaps unintentional but significant use of the word “conceived.” Just as matters of conception and their consequences affected women in Greco-​Roman antiquity, so, too, did they affect this scholar’s career in ways that most in the profession have been unaware of. Hopefully this backstory makes Pomeroy’s beginning

13. See McFadden (1983) for coverage of the decision in the New York Times. For the text of the decision, see “Melani vs. Board of Higher Education of City University of New York” (1983).

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to her introduction resonate more fully in the dual contexts of classical scholarship and the challenges to women classicists’ careers.

Part Two The following twelve chapters employ a variety of methodologies to explore the topic of women in antiquity. They incorporate interdisciplinarity, reception, and the tools of historians as well as those of literary critics and philologists to attempt to recover the actual lived lives of women as well as how perceptions of women have been formed and have become influential. The volume highlights the ways in which the study of women in antiquity has evolved to a point where antiquity speaks to the present and the present to antiquity and where strict boundaries and limits of Greek and Roman are no longer useful. Even strict chronology is avoided, as the historical time in which researchers lived and the time period of the focus of their research topics become intertwined or, to put it another way, as research and reception bring past and present together. The volume begins with a chapter that brings together a figure from fifth-​ century bce Greek drama with current discussions in society today about false accusations of rape. In “Goddesses, a Whore-​Wife, and a Slave:  Euripides’ Hippolytus and Epistemic Injustice toward Women,” Edith Hall argues that Phaedra’s false accusation of rape against her stepson Hippolytus in Euripides’ tragedy Hippolytus has been instrumental in developing the common belief that women often make such false charges and thus are not trustworthy. The Phaedra story has become a classic and has been imitated by later authors, including Seneca and Racine. Hall uses arguments from the field of philosophy and from discussions about sexual harassment in the workplace to challenge this particular stereotype about women. Her chapter is especially timely amid current discussions of how the field of classics intersects with current social and political issues, such as the MeToo movement. H. A. Shapiro contributes the second chapter, “Periphrôn Pênelopeia: The Reception of Penelope in Fifth-​Century Athens.” Like Hall, he is inspired by a work from fifth-​century Athens depicting a female figure. Specifically, Shapiro addresses the figure of Penelope and discusses why a statue of her that was found in the ruins of the palace at Persepolis, and now located in Teheran, might have been sent in 449 bce to the Great King of the Persians as part of negotiations for a peace treaty. He uses both literary and iconographical material to combine the history of art with diplomatic history between the Greeks and the Persians. While Hall moves from the fifth century forward

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in time to today, Shapiro moves geographically outward from Athens and highlights the role the Athenian reception of a female figure so well-​known to us from the Odyssey might have played in the intercultural context of Persia and Greece in the fifth century. The third chapter, “The First basilissa: Phila, Daughter of Antipater and Wife of Demetrius Poliorcetes” by Elizabeth Carney, moves our attention away from Athens and fictional figures, like Phaedra and Penelope, toward a historical figure from the fourth century and her ramifications. Carney explores the life and career of Phila (c. 350–​294 bce), the first woman to whom the title basilissa was applied. In her analysis, Carney identifies several factors that led to Phila becoming the prototype for Hellenistic queens and inevitably addresses issues of Hellenistic kingship as well. Her discussion contributes to our knowledge about terminology used to refer to a specific group of women in antiquity, namely royal women, and the circumstances that led to its use. She extends our knowledge of powerful historical women from antiquity and the role they can have in influencing those who come after them. The fourth chapter, “Power and Patronage: Rethinking the Legacy of Artemisia II,” by Walter Penrose, continues Carney’s focus on royal women of the fourth century bce and focuses on another royal woman, Artemisia II of Caria, in Anatolia. Penrose uses the extant ancient sources to challenge recent scholars who have questioned Artemisia’s role in planning the building of the Mausoleum, the tomb of her husband and brother, Mausolus, which is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Like Carney, Penrose contributes to work on non-​Athenocentric topics for the study of women in antiquity, and, like Levick, he highlights the biases of modern historiography as well as some of the problems with which modern historians are faced when researching and writing about the lives of women in antiquity. Barbara Levick’s chapter, “The Murder of Apronia,” the fifth in the collection, moves us to the Roman world of the first century ce, focusing on the power of an elite woman with close connections to the imperial Roman household. It discusses the motivation for the murder of Apronia by her husband, M. Plautius Silvanus, in the early first century ce in Rome, recounted by Tacitus. The role of Urgulania, a close associate of Livia and grandmother of Apronia’s husband, is examined to call into question what is usually considered a crime of passion. Unlike the chapters by Carney and Penrose, Levick’s does not have a royal woman as its focus but, rather, explores an elite woman and her ability to act in relation to the imperial figure of Livia.

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Levick’s chapter, like Richlin’s, expands our notion of the contributions of women of different social groups to political culture in Rome. The sixth chapter is entitled “A Century of Women’s History from the Papyri.” Building upon the work of Mondini (1917), Pomeroy (1981, 1984), and others, Roger Bagnall provides a retrospective of previous work that has been done to discover the lives of women through ancient papyri. He explores recent developments, like the contextualization of the papyrological finds in their archaeological sites and material artifactual remains, as well as the issue of how much what has been learned about women in the context of Hellenistic Egypt can be generalized beyond that society. His chapter is both retrospective and prospective, outlining what work still needs to be done. The seventh chapter, “Cosmetics in Daily Life of the Ancient Mediterranean” by Ann Ellis Hanson, examines papyri and other relevant sources for evidence about the cosmetics used by women (and men) of the Roman province of Egypt in order to keep their faces and bodies attractive. Hanson provides a diachronic treatment of cosmetics and female embellishments in literature and medicine. This wide-​ranging piece includes discussion of the famous passage about the young wife’s use of cosmetics in Xenophon’s Oeconomicus as well as the medical writing of Galen. Like Hall’s chapter, this one addresses an issue, in this case cosmetics, that has been closely connected with perceptions of women in antiquity, as it still is in today’s world. Georgia Tsouvala, coeditor of this volume, contributes the eighth chapter, “Female Athletes in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Greek World.” Tsouvala’s contribution examines the literary and epigraphic evidence for women’s participation in athletic events and venues in the late Hellenistic and early Imperial period in Greece. Her chapter fills a gap in historiography on women’s athletics within the larger, and quite popular, field of sports in antiquity and within the growing field of Roman Greece more generally. In the ninth chapter, “Normalizing Illegality? The Roman Jurists and Underage Marriage,” Bruce Frier explores how jurists in the late Roman Republic and early Empire handled marriages in which the bride was below the Roman legal age for marriage and how this impacted property and inheritance laws, as well as laws concerning adultery. Frier’s chapter advances work on legal matters concerning Roman women, specifically in the area of underage marriage. He helps to show how complicated the issue of marriage could be in antiquity and how looking at the legal issues involved expands our view of what women in antiquity would have experienced in their lives.

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The tenth chapter, “Augustus and the Economics of Adultery” by Marilyn Skinner, looks at the intertwining of financial, legal, and moral issues in the late first century bce. Skinner examines the financial penalties for adultery in Augustan legislation with an eye to how they might relate to the increased wealth in women’s hands by this period in Roman history. Like Frier, Skinner is interested in legislation concerned with marriage and how it impacted women’s lives. While Frier looks at the underage bride, Skinner examines wives with increasing autonomy. Both chapters shed light on the elaborate web of issues involved with discussions of the institution of marriage. Kristina Milnor is the author of the penultimate chapter, “Social Laws and Social Facts.” Like the chapter by Hall, Milnor’s is concerned with epistemological issues and with issues of truth in the study of women in antiquity. Milnor’s focus, like that of Frier and Skinner, is an aspect of Augustan legislation. Milnor’s starting points are a statement by Cassius Dio on the relative presence of elite women and men at Rome in the late first century bce and Pomeroy’s discussion of that statement in Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves as both a historical fact and a representational matter. Her discussion suggests additional questions that should be asked today about research on women in antiquity, expanding the inquiry to address wider matters related to the creation of or the absence of knowledge. The twelfth, and final, chapter, “The Woman in the Street:  Becoming Visible in Mid-​Republican Rome,” is by Amy Richlin, who examines the Roman political culture of “the woman in the street” as well as of poor people and slaves in mid-​Republican Rome and, like Hall, intertwines it with modern events and societal issues, making connections with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and actions by women in Vietnam and Northern Ireland. Drawing upon literary sources, including the plays of Plautus and the historical writings of Livy, she uncovers a wide range of public political activity that has not been considered adequately in previous discussions of Roman political culture. Richlin’s analysis not only expands our knowledge of women in antiquity; it places our view of those women in a larger temporal and geographical context. The field of the history of women in antiquity in Greece and Rome and beyond has made progress in the more than forty years since the publication of Pomeroy’s Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. The understandable initial opposition of this history to that of men (see Pomeroy quoted earlier: “what women were doing while men were active in all the areas traditionally emphasized by classical scholars”) has flourished into a field that is no longer just a reaction to the history of great men or to the interpretation of

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men’s views of women. Indeed the “Women in Antiquity” series from Oxford University Press (formerly “Women of the Ancient World” from Routledge), coedited by Ancona and Pomeroy, makes women’s lives in antiquity its central focus. The use of old tools (such as literary and documentary texts) for new purposes as well as the introduction of new interpretive and conceptual frameworks (emerging from epistemology or modern contexts, as examples) has reshaped the field. Its interdisciplinarity, which Pomeroy sees as her greatest contribution to the field, has happily become axiomatic. Art history, archaeology, literary criticism, papyrology, epigraphy, economics, and law are all embedded in the chapters gathered for this collection. The intent of this volume was to complicate the study of women in antiquity by making clear that time and place and culture and genre and more all contribute to specific information about and depictions of women. That said, we hope to have developed some common threads within that diversity as well. This volume, whether read selectively or as a whole, is meant to look to the future with respect and appreciation for the research that preceded it, especially that of Sarah Pomeroy, whose literal (physical) and figurative (mental) “conceptions” are a part of the story of the writing of Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves.

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Goddesses, a Whore-​Wife, and a Slave Euripides’ Hippolytus and Epistemic Injustice toward Women Edith Hall But when Hippolutos exclaimed with rage Against the miserable Queen, she judged Intolerable life, and, pricked at heart An Amazonian stranger’s race had right To scorn her, perished by the murderous cord: Yet, ere she perished, blasted in a scroll The fame of him her swerving made not swerve. —​R obert Browning, “Artemis Prologizes,” 1842

Here is some advice which appeared in a standard textbook on the law of evidence published repeatedly between 1899 and 1961 and used in the training of many thousands of lawyers and judges in English-​speaking countries throughout those decades: Modern psychiatrists have studied the behaviour of errant young girls and the women coming before the courts in all sorts of cases. Their psychic complexes are multifarious and distorted. . . . One form taken by these complexes is that of contriving false charges of sexual offences by men.1 The author was an American jurist named John Henry Wigmore, the dean of the Law School at Northwestern University. He concluded here that all 1. Wigmore (1940) section 924a. Edith Hall, Goddesses, a Whore-​Wife, and a Slave In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0002

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female evidence in cases of sexual assault must be vetted by psychiatrists to see if it is reliable enough to go to court. Things may have improved for women witnesses somewhat since 1961, which is coincidentally the year when Sarah Pomeroy was awarded her PhD from Columbia University. It is in profound admiration and gratitude for her incomparable contribution to the investigation and teaching of ancient women that this chapter has been written.2 But much more recent events in the cinema and other industries have cast an unprecedented spotlight on the issue of the reliability of women’s accounts where they say that they have been sexually harassed, intimidated, assaulted, or raped by men. Women’s testimony in all such cases, not only historically but also in our own time, has often been doubted or subjected to a greater degree of aggressive examination than other kinds of testimony, for a complex variety of reasons.3 These include the difficulty of proving or disproving acts to which there were no witnesses other than the accuser and the accused, and the indisputable fact that some women in history have laid false allegations of sexual violence against some men. A  recent article in the Journal of Forensic Psychology studied police records of allegations made between 2006 and 2012 in the USA and determined that a very small proportion of rape allegations—​approximately 5 percent—​had been deemed either false or baseless.4 Yet, even taking into account the problem that the original investigators may have come to the incorrect conclusion in deeming a case false or baseless, and that the scholars (all male) who published the article were not focused on discovering how those judgments had been arrived at, this is a remarkably small proportion of the total allegations laid. It is, moreover, a far smaller proportion of rapes that actually take place, since this crime is notoriously and shockingly underreported,5 partly because women are afraid that they will not be believed. By far the most important reason that women’s word is routinely doubted has been ideological:  it is the ubiquity of the belief that women are at a

2. It is appropriate that the venue in which I delivered this paper, as Bluhm Visiting Lecturer at Hunter College, CUNY, New  York City, in April 2015, was the institution with which Professor Pomeroy was affiliated for much of her career. One of my editors, Professor Ronnie Ancona, is on the faculty at Hunter, and the other, Georgia Tsouvala, studied there. I  am deeply grateful to comments made on the occasion that I delivered the lecture by Lawrence M. Kowerski, Helene Foley, and Judy Hallett. 3. Mack (1993). 4. De Zutter, Horselenberg, and van Koppen (2017). 5. See, e.g., for England and Wales, OFS (2018).

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fundamental level epistemologically more unreliable than men. This unfortunate perception transcends both times and cultures. The particular motif of the sexually spurned woman, who frames for sexual assault the man who has spurned her, is attested in mythologies worldwide, including the biblical story of Potiphar’s wife and Joseph in Genesis 39.6 Patriarchy needs to bolster the perceived real-​world pervasiveness of the motif. In this chapter, I argue that it has been reinforced for twenty-​five centuries by the powerful influence on our shared cultural imagination of the Greek mythical figure of Phaedra. The “classic” status of Euripides’ Hippolytus, in which, as Browning said, she murderously “blasted” her stepson in her suicidal “scroll,”7 and Euripides’ equally influential epigones, Seneca’s Phaedra, and Jean Racine’s Phèdre,8 have helped to “naturalize” in our culture a very specific figure: the woman who takes revenge on a man she desires, if he rebuffs her, by falsely accusing him of sexual assault. The naturalization of the woman-​who-​cries-​rape is made even easier because the erroneous idea that women are somehow more prone to vengeful behavior than men, an idea physically embodied in the emphatic if deviant femininity of the Erinyes, also ran very deep in ancient Greek culture and society.9 This does not mean that we should exclude these aesthetically superb dramas from the curriculum or the repertoire, but it does mean that we should be careful when teaching or staging them to draw attention to the ideological work that the figure of Phaedra is doing and has always done. I first published this argument in a short blog posted on May 24, 2015.10 I  wrote it in response to an apology issued by the Hampshire Police for mistreating a rape victim from Winchester in southern England. She had reported the crime at the age of seventeen in 2012. The police threatened her with prosecution for lying about the attack. A male classics colleague had said to me at that time that she was one of the large number of women (he alleged) who, “like Phaedra,” frame innocent men for sex crimes because they have been rejected or out of vindictive spite. But when the police finally conducted forensic tests on the T-​shirt the Winchester woman had provided, they realized her evidence was entirely credible. The rapist was charged and convicted. The case clarified my intuitive dislike of Euripides’ tragedy Hippolytus, a play of 6. Yohannan (1968); Goldman (1995). 7. Browning (1991) 109. 8. See Amodeo (1930); Heldmann (1968); Tschiedel (1969). 9. See Hall (2018). 10. Hall (2015).

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exquisite poetic beauty but toxic ideology,11 the text of which I had come to know intimately when I played the role of Phaedra in a production by Oxford University Classical Drama Society in the gardens of St. John’s College in the summer of 1980. Between the Greek original, the Neronian Phaedra attributed to Seneca, and Racine’s Phèdre (1677), let alone descendants such as Eugene O’Neill’s Desire under the Elms (1924), Mike Nichols’ movie The Graduate (1967),12 and Sarah Kane’s iconoclastic Phaedra’s Love (2005), this plot line has been mightily applauded on page, stage, and screen over the centuries. Eighteenth-​ century conservative aristocrats recommended that their sons study the myth of Phaedra and Hippolytus intensively.13 Countless actors, such as Madame Rachel, Sarah Bernhardt, Glenda Jackson, Diana Rigg, Isabelle Huppert, and Helen Mirren, have been keen to play the mendacious rape-​accuser of Racine’s famous tragedy Phèdre, in which the plot, which adopts elements from both Euripides and Seneca,14 is further complicated by Hippolyte’s heterosexuality and love affair with Aricie. All these women stars have received rapturous acclaim for the supposed sublimity of the psychological portraits they have drawn.15 Spectators at one of Bernhardt’s performances in England said that they could not bring themselves to applaud, since “the tragedy appeared too awful a reality.”16 Bernhardt herself used the language both of the method actor’s “reality” and the metaphysical epiphany of the divinely inspired performer in remembering her experience of the role alongside the star Jean Mounet-​Sully:

11. At the time, Zuckerberg (2015) criticized my blog, claiming that it implied “an imaginary state of nature surrounding rape allegations: as though once upon a time, when people claimed they’d been raped, they were implicitly believed, until one day, somebody decided to lie (probably for revenge), and ever since then we’ve been deeply suspicious of sexual assault victims. If we could just stop telling stories about false allegations, goes the undertone, we’d forget that they’d ever happened and revert back to believing victims.” I see no need to refute Zuckerberg here, since my own blogpost had maintained nothing of the kind, either explicitly or in any “undertone.” 12. For the relationship between this movie and Euripides’ Hippolytus, see Looney (2014). 13. See, for example, what the Right Honorable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, writes to his son, Philip Stanhope, Esq., in Stanhope (1774) vol. 1, 114. 14. See Wygant (1999). Much of the evidence for the Euripidean influence comes from Racine’s markings on his Euripidean texts: see Phillippo (2003) 111–​121. 15. For such lavish praise of Rachel as Racine’s Phèdre, see Anon. (1846); for Bernhardt, see Richardson (1977) 57; in general, see Booth, Stokes, and Bassnett (1996). 16. Cited in Richardson (1977) 79.

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I suffered, I wept, I implored, I cried: all of it was real; my suffering was horrible, the tears that flowed were burning and bitter. I implored Hippolyte for the love that was killing me, and the arms that I stretched out to Mounet-​Sully were the arms of Phèdre, tense with the cruel longing to embrace. The god had come.17 Mirren’s Phaedra was “a real woman poleaxed by passion.”18 Every performance, especially if it is sensed as a psychological reality and enhanced by the emotional conviction of a famous actor, constitutes another authoritative “proof ” of the mass delusion that information imparted by women is unreliable—​the delusion that, as we shall see, philosopher Miranda Fricker calls “epistemic injustice” against them. Although there have been a few attempts by classical scholars to interpret Euripides’ Hippolytus in a way that recovers Phaedra for modern feminism,19 this has not been much reflected in the performance arts. Unlike the many revisionist authors and directors of plays about Clytemnestra, Medea, Jocasta, and Aeschylus’ Danaids, or the heroine of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew for that matter,20 the writers and directors of few productions or adaptations of which I am aware have decided to alter the ancient playscript altogether by, for example, removing the false accusation,21 or by reversing the gender roles to portray the obsession and lies of a young husband of a middle-​aged woman when he falls in love with her daughter. Julia Ward Howe, for whom women’s rights were a cause along with abolition and world peace, did nothing to ameliorate the impact of Phaedra’s lethal lie in her otherwise radical rewriting of Hippolytus performed in Boston in 1911.22 Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry emphasized the damage done to the Indian psyche by British imperialism in her Punjabi verse adaptation of Racine’s Phèdre, Fida (1990). She wanted to use the parallel Punjabi legend of 17. Cited in Mckee (2017) 168. 18. Billington (2009). 19.  For feminist interpretations of the play, emphasizing Phaedra’s attempts at self–​control, moral agency, and the cruel limitations of life for women in the world of Athenian tragedy, see Rabinowitz (1986, 1993); Goff (1990), especially the first two chapters. 20. See the discussions in Hall, Macintosh, and Wrigley (2004); Macintosh et al. (2006); Hall, Macintosh, and Taplin (2000); and Rackin (2001). For feminist adaptations of Antigone and Iphigenia in Tauris, see Mee and Foley (2011) and Hall (2013) 256–​273. 21. For the few exceptions, which often play down Theseus’ role entirely and consummate the relationship between Phaedra and Hippolytus, see Lauriola (2015). 22. On which see Foley (2015).

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Loona, the vindictive queen who persecutes her chaste stepson, Puran Bhagat, when he will not sleep with her, even though this story is equally as damaging to women’s claim to veracity as Phaedra’s. But beyond making Rani Fida much more emotionally confused than in the previous plays, there is no difference in Chowdhry’s play in her culpability for the false charge.23 It is perplexing that so few adaptors have shunned the motif of the false rape accusation. Rewriting the plot altogether was already recommended by Stevie Smith, in her poem “Phèdre,” composed in the early 1960s after watching a production of Racine’s tragedy starring Marie Bell:24 Now if I Had been writing this story I should have arranged for Theseus To die, (Well, he was old) And then I should have let Phèdre and Hippolytus Find Aricie out In some small meanness, Say Eating up somebody else’s chocolates, Half a pound of them, soft centred. Secretly in bed at night, alone, One after another, Positively wolfing them down. This would have put Hip. off, And Phaedra would be there too And he would turn and see That she was pretty disgusted, too, So then they would have got married And everything would have been respectable, And the wretched Venus could have lumped it, Lumped, I mean, Phèdre Being the only respectable member Of her awful family, And being happy. 23. Fida is included in Mukherjee (2005). 24. Reproduced from Smith (1975).

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Smith concludes that classical stories could be rewritten: “If I were writing the story /​I should have made it a go.” There have, in fact, been a tiny number of versions where the false accusation has become entirely the work of one of Phaedra’s servants and never corroborated by her, which exculpates her from the perjury charge—​if not the prejudice—​against libidinous women:  Rameau’s opera Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), with a libretto by Abbé Simon-​Joseph Pellegrin, draws on both Euripides and Seneca, and above all on Racine’s Phèdre. But in Act III only Thésée and the nurse Oenone are on stage when Oenone invents the charge against Hippolyte. She does so to explain why he had been struggling over a sword with Phèdre when Thésée unexpectedly returned from the Underworld. Hippolyte is thought (mistakenly) to have died before Phèdre’s integrity can ever be tested by asking whether she refutes or corroborates Oenone’s testimony.25 In the event, Phèdre kills herself before she is thus tested, and Hippolyte’s life is saved by Diana for the happy ending obligatory in French operatic entertainments of the 1730s. A  false rape charge is here laid by a woman, but the woman is for once not Phaedra. In the most famous English-​language neoclassical version of the story, Edmund Smith’s Phaedra and Hippolitus (1707), the lie is invented not by a female nurse but by the male Lycon, a courtier who is in love with Phaedra.26 Smith, however, leaves Phaedra’s complicity in the falsehood ambiguous as she does nothing to refute Lycon’s accusation. I suspect that the Euripidean Phaedra’s function as archetypal maker of a false rape allegation has drawn less attention from explicitly feminist scholars than it might have done because it has partly been obscured by her status as stepmother. Cultural histories of her influence often emphasize her close relationship by marriage with Hippolytus and the quasi-​incestuous nature of her desire for him as, legally speaking if not by consanguinity, a surrogate mother figure—​one of the legion of persecutory stepmothers not only in Greek myth and literature but in the Roman imagination and the folk tales of the world.27 Psychoanalytical discussions have also emphasized the vicariously parental nature of Phaedra’s relationship with Hippolytus: this is the “Phaedra Complex” as identified in 1969 by the influential psychiatrist Alfred

25. See the discussion of McKee (2017) 84–​85, although she does not notice the unusualness and significance of the exculpation of Phèdre. 26. See further Hall and Macintosh (2005) 71–​74. 27. Watson (1995); Yohannan (1968).

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A.  Messer, then a professor at Emory State University and chief of Family Research and Treatment at the Georgia Mental Health Institute. He defined it as any eroticized feelings of a stepparent toward a stepchild.28 That is, the reception of the Phaedra myth has failed to take the ethical issue of her decision to make a false allegation seriously enough in comparison with her erotic impulse. First, let us remind ourselves exactly how this persuasive case of a “false rape allegation” unfolds in Euripides’ canonical tragedy, which was awarded first prize at the Athenian City Dionysia in 428 bce. Phaedra is actually a victim of collateral damage, since Aphrodite tells us in her prologue that she has made her conceive a passion for Hippolytus in order to use the queen as an instrument in destroying her stepson in punishment for neglecting to worship Aphrodite (24–​50); Artemis’ appearance at the end of the tragedy implies that the entire episode has been just one part of a much longer term game played between gods and goddesses over the lives and deaths of their favorite and least favorite humans. But since Phaedra’s scenes are played out entirely without further divine intervention, we watch her take decisions and act on them as if she is an entirely autonomous moral agent. The implication is that Aphrodite can use her as her instrument in a false rape allegation only because, as a Cretan woman, the daughter of Pasiphae and sister to Ariadne, she is genetically vulnerable to sexual aberration (337–​339). She has tried to control her desire but has failed and resolved on suicide in order to protect her young sons’ good names (391–​402). She reveals weakness of character in letting her nurse extract information from her and an apparent agreement to consider pharmaceutical help, even though she explicitly says she fears that the nurse will inform Hippolytus about the situation (486–​520). When she overhears the opening of their dialogue, she leaves the stage (596–​601). On her return, she secures an oath from the chorus that they will divulge nothing of what has happened (711–​714) and tells them that she will kill herself in order to preserve her own and her sons’ good names (723). In addition, however, she will become a menace to Hippolytus (728–​731) in order “to prevent him from being self-​righteous about my plight” (μὴ ’πὶ τοῖς ἐμοῖς κακοῖς/​ ὑψηλὸς εἶναι). “By taking his share in this malady of mine, he will learn to be temperate” (τῆς νόσου δὲ τῆσδέ μοι/​κοινῇ μετασχὼν σωφρονεῖν μαθήσεται). In one of the first, and certainly one of the most dramatic false rape allegations

28. Messer (1969); see also Gérard (1993).

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in world literature, she frames Hippolytus by hanging a sealed tablet from her gown before hanging herself. Theseus either reads out her writing or infers from it that Hippolytus “presumed forcibly to assault my marriage bed” (Ἱππόλυτος εὐνῆς τῆς ἐμῆς ἔτλη θιγεῖν /​βίᾳ; 855–​856). Because Theseus is incandescent with rage, believes the message, and makes no attempt to check whether anyone has any evidence to adduce or can corroborate her allegation, Hippolytus is doomed. Phaedra’s behavior in accusing Hippolytus of rape is immoral: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” So is the behavior of anyone who makes false allegations against anyone else, even if the motive has an altruistic element, such as Phaedra’s hope to protect her own children’s names. In Euripides’ own earlier version of the myth, Hippolytus Veiled, about which we know very little for certain, she seems to have behaved even worse, although scholars disagree about the reason. It seems to be Phaedra who even admits in one fragment (fr. 430)  that she has “a teacher of daring and audacity [τόλμης καὶ θράσους] who is most inventive amid difficulties—​Eros, the hardest god of all to fight.”29 It is difficult to imagine a self-​characterization more different from that of Euripides’ other Phaedra, who is preoccupied with maintaining a reputation for modesty and honor.30 Hippolytus Veiled may have involved Phaedra plotting to persuade Hippolytus to kill Theseus and seize the throne, or approaching him directly or through a letter sent by her nurse, or by staying alive to accuse Hippolytus directly.31 The hypothesis prefixed to the extant Hippolytus by Aristophanes of Byzantium (T i) says that it was written later than Hippolytus Veiled, “for what was unseemly and reprehensible [τὸ γὰρ ἀπρεπὲς καὶ κατηγορίας ἄξιον] has been put right in this play.” Aristophanes clearly did not see Phaedra’s false accusation as notably “unseemly” or “reprehensible”: like most ancient and many modern men, he probably just thought it was a typical example, and further proof, of women’s congenital unreliability as moral agents and custodians of truth. Sadly, we know next to nothing about the contents of Sophocles’ Phaedra.32 The woman’s perjury is much more detailed in the more 29. All references to the fragments of and testimonia to Euripides’ lost plays are cited from Collard and Cropp (2008). 30. See the classic article by Dodds (1925) and the response of Craik (1993). 31. See Roisman (1999); Hutchinson (2004). 32. See Kiso (1973).

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substantial remains of Euripides’ Stheneboea. This dramatized the story of Stheneboea’s sexual passion for Bellerophon, the Corinthian guest-​ friend who had committed a murder and fled to the palace of her husband, Proetus, King of Tiryns. The surviving hypothesis contains this information (Test. iia.7–​15): Βελλεροφόντην δὲ φεύ-​ γοντα ἐκ Κορίνθου διὰ φόνον αὐτὸς μὲν ἥγνισε τοῦ μύσους, ἡ γυνὴ δὲ αὐ-​ τοῦ τὸν ξένον ἠγάπησε. τυχεῖν δὲ οὐ δυναμένη τῶν ἐπιθυμημάτων δι-​ έβαλεν ὡς ἐπιθέμενον ἑαυτῇ τὸν Κορίνθιον [ξένο]ν. πιστεύσας δὲ ὁ Προῖτος αὐτὸν εἰς Καρίαν ἐξ-​ έπεμψεν, ἵνα ἀπόληται. When Bellerophon fled Corinth because of a killing, Proetus purified him of the pollution, but his wife fell in love with their guest. When she was unable to achieve her desires, she traduced the Corinthian [guest] as having assaulted her. Trusting [her], Proetus sent him to Caria to be killed.33 In the prologue, Bellerophon said that he resolved to leave Tiryns because Proetus had a “foolish wife” who had “shamed” her husband (γυνὴ κατῄσχυν᾿ ἐν δόμοισι νηπία; fr. 661.5) by her constant sexual propositions to Bellerophon, relayed by her nurse (fr. 661.8–​14): λόγοισι πείθει καὶ δόλῳ θηρεύεται κρυφαῖον εὐνῆς εἰς ὁμιλίαν πεσεῖν. ἀεὶ γὰρ ἥπερ τῷδ᾿ ἐφέστηκεν λόγῳ τροφὸς γεραιὰ καὶ ξυνίστησιν λέχος, ὑμνεῖ τὸν αὐτὸν μῦθον· “ὦ κακῶς φρονῶν, πιθοῦ· τί μαίνῃ; τλῆθι δεσποίνης ἐμῆς [one or more lines missing] κτήσῃ δ᾿ ἄνακτος δώμαθ᾿ ἓν πεισθεὶς βραχύ.”

33. Translated by Collard and Cropp (2008).

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She tried words to persuade me and guile to snare me into slipping covertly into the intimacy of her bed:  for her old nurse, who is in charge of this talk and tries to bring us together, always sings the same tune: “Your thinking is bad! Be persuaded! Why this madness? Have the courage . . . of my mistress, and you will gain the king’s palace, once you are persuaded in this one small thing.” Bellerophon concludes that he must leave, since he has no wish (30–​31) to denounce Stheneboea and thus stain her reputation in a way that would tear apart Proetus’ household (οὐδ᾿ αὖ κατειπεῖν καὶ γυναικὶ προσβαλεῖν/​κηλῖδα Προίτου καὶ διασπάσαι δόμον). This, of course, is the sort of selfless, manly moral scruple that neither Phaedra nor Stheneboea possesses. The play covered an unusually extended period of time, for by its end Bellerophon had returned from Lycia, having survived his ordeals there, and dispatched Stheneboea by dropping her from Pegasus’ back into the sea near Melos. Her body was taken back to Tiryns, and Bellerophon returned there once more, to tell Proetus that by her death, and Proetus’ bereavement, he had punished both of them for plotting against him. The last fragment sums up the moral of the play (fr. 671); someone, presumably Proetus, asks that she (probably her corpse) be taken inside, since “no sensible person ought to trust a woman” (πιστεύειν δὲ χρὴ/​γ υναικὶ μηδὲν ὅστις εὖ φρονεῖ βροτῶν). The point of exploring Euripides’ Stheneboea in detail is to show how, in his surviving Hippolytus, the spotlight was cast much more intensely on Phaedra’s false accusation. In Stheneboea, the antiheroine’s plans included deposing her husband, presumably by killing him, as well as adulterous sex. She only compounded these nefarious designs by laying the false charge against her beloved. In Hippolytus, on the other hand, Hippolytus may be arrogant and Theseus may take precipitate decisions, the nurse is meddlesome and disobedient, and Phaedra sexually frustrated. But the sole seriously immoral act—​the leaving of the mendacious suicide note—​is committed by a woman. This makes the play’s message—​that even otherwise virtuous women with previously unblemished records do not make credible witnesses—​even more ideologically potent. In the Renaissance and Early Modern periods, the Senecan Phaedra exerted a much greater cultural influence than Euripides’ play, which was not published in Greek until 1495, nor translated into English until 1781.34 The

34. Lascaris (1495); Potter (1781).

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Senecan play was performed in Latin at the Palais de Cardinal Saint Georges in France as early as 1474 and was imitated closely by Robert Garnier in his humanist tragedy Hippolyte in 1573. Its influence can be seen at work in Shakespearean drama and in the work of many other authors.35 In this influential Senecan version, it is the nurse, not Phaedra, who invents the false charge against Hippolytus (719–​735). But Phaedra does elaborate the details of the fabricated rape directly to her husband, Theseus (888–​902). She redeems herself to a certain extent by confessing that she had lied before she commits suicide, but Hippolytus is dead. The moral effect is just as sexist as the version in Euripides—​indeed, the play implies that even when two women lay the identical charge against a single man, their word should routinely be doubted. But in sharing the falsehood between the nurse and Phaedra and in writing a confession for Phaedra, the Senecan play slightly dilutes Phaedra’s revenge motive. Her nurse is primarily concerned to save Phaedra’s life (she is convinced that if the truth is revealed, Phaedra will kill herself immediately; see 854–​ 857), and Phaedra does eventually make an effort to clear Hippolytus’ name. One line of argument often used by social conservatives to defend artworks in any media that appeal to obsolete ideological beliefs, whether about race, class, sexual orientation, or gender, is that they are designed for entertainment and have negligible social impact. The ancient Greeks themselves were rather more honest about the enormous potential of stories to shape individual character and collective history. In Aristophanes’ Frogs, there is a curiously modern-​sounding interchange between Aeschylus and Euripides on the relationship of tragedy to its spectators. Aeschylus claims that his plays about heroic warriors helped keep the citizens of Athens ready for warfare. He did not put “whores” like Phaedra and Stheneboea on stage, and nobody knows of any “erotic woman” about whom he has ever written a role (1043–​1044): ἀλλ᾽ οὐ μὰ Δί᾽ οὐ Φαίδρας ἐποίουν πόρνας οὐδὲ Σθενεβοίας, οὐδ᾽ οἶδ᾽ οὐδεὶς ἥντιν᾽ ἐρῶσαν πώποτ᾽ ἐποίησα γυναῖκα. But by Zeus I  created neither whorish Phaedras nor Stheneboeas, And nobody knows of any lustful woman I have created. An interchange follows alleging that Euripides’ own wife had behaved similarly to these whores (pornai), leading into this discussion of the relationship between fiction, truth, and the poet’s role as civics teacher (1049–​1056):

35. Arkins (1995); Jacquot (1964); Lefèvre (1978).

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Εὐριπίδης καὶ τί βλάπτουσ᾽ ὦ σχέτλι᾽ ἀνδρῶν τὴν πόλιν ἁμαὶ Σθενέβοιαι; Αἰσχύλοςὅτι γενναίας καὶ γενναίων ἀνδρῶν ἀλόχους ἀνέπεισας κώνεια πιεῖν αἰσχυνθείσας διὰ τοὺς σοὺς Βελλεροφόντας. Εὐριπίδης πότερον δ᾽ οὐκ ὄντα λόγον τοῦτον περὶ τῆς Φαίδρας ξυνέθηκα; Αἰσχύλος μὰ Δί᾽ ἀλλ᾽ ὄντ᾽: ἀλλ᾽ ἀποκρύπτειν χρὴ τὸ πονηρὸν τόν γε ποιητήν, καὶ μὴ παράγειν μηδὲ διδάσκειν. τοῖς μὲν γὰρ παιδαρίοισιν ἔστι διδάσκαλος ὅστις φράζει, τοῖσιν δ᾽ ἡβῶσι ποιηταί. πάνυ δὴ δεῖ χρηστὰ λέγειν ἡμᾶς. Euripides And what harm do my Stheneboeas do to the state, you wretch? Aeschylus You incited noble wives of noble men to drink hemlock out of shame on account of your Bellerophons. Euripides So was the story I composed about Phaedra imaginary? Aeschylus No, it is real. But the poet should cover up wickedness, not represent it and teach it. For little boys are taught by teachers, and adults by poets. We are under obligation to speak about honourable matters. In this breathtaking sequence, no fewer than four different ways of thinking about the relationship of “whores” in Euripidean tragedy to social reality are considered:  (1) that these stage characters can make virtuous women feel so ashamed that they are suicidal; (2)  that they are somehow inspired by Euripides’ own experience of his own real-​life wife; (3) that the story of Phaedra is “real,” whether in the sense that the events depicted in Euripides’ tragedy were historical or that the story about Phaedra was so well known that she had acquired an indisputable ontological status; and (4) that poets need to avoid staging or to hide “real” wickedness in order to improve the morals of their audience. Plato’s Socrates is almost certainly thinking of the same Euripidean females when he argues in the Republic that citizens should not be involved in the theatrical mimesis of inappropriate character types, including the “erotic woman” (ἐρῶσαν), because people internalize habits even if they are just assumed during the “make-​believe” process of theater (3.395d–​e).36 Just because ancient men seemed more concerned about the sex drive of Phaedra and Stheneboea than about their duplicity, whereas in the twenty-​first century we are much more likely to find the latter completely unacceptable, does not 36. On which see further Hall (2017) 35–​41.

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detract from the theoretical sophistication of the discussions in Aristophanes and Plato regarding the relationship of art to life. We may not take hemlock out of revulsion at characters in the fictions we consume, nor embark on blind imitation of their misconduct. But our sensibilities and attitudes to others are certainly shaped by these fictions’ contents. And in academia, if not in the popular press, few would now deny that myths were a crucial part of the ideological training of individuals in classical antiquity. The conduct of heroes and heroines offered role models, positive and negative paradigms of behavior, reinforcement of fundamental taboos and imperatives, and the establishment of boundaries between human and god, human and animal, Greek and non-​Greek, man and woman, adult and child, civilized and uncivilized, honorable and dishonorable. Young men were trained for the horrors of the battlefield with stories of the heroic exploits of Achilles and Diomedes; they were shown ideal models of male friendship by Heracles and Theseus or Orestes and Pylades. The Odyssey offered a variety of episodes of xenia exemplifying the right and wrong way of treating guests and hosts and even poor beggars who entered your portals. And a Greek author writing under the Roman Empire in the second century ce suggests that women did relate closely to the experiences of the female characters whom they saw on stage in drama. The author is Artemidorus, who recorded in his Interpretation of Dreams two dreams women had really experienced in which tragic myth is involved. The deterioration in a relationship between a woman and her slave girl, for example, was presaged by her dream about the conflict between Hermione and her slave Andromache in Euripides’ Andromache (4.59). Another woman dreamed that she danced in a chorus for Dionysus, a dream that correctly predicted that she would kill her own son, as Agave kills her son Pentheus in Euripides’ Bacchae (4.39). An important work of classical scholarship asking seriously and in a sustained manner how myth shaped female psyches is Helene Foley’s pathbreaking commentary on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, published in 1994. Foley emphasized the relationship between the psychological development of girls, especially their preparation for marriage and motherhood, and the myth of mother-​daughter separation, loss, and then partial reunion after the daughter had been incorporated into her new, patrilocal, marital household. But the landmark text in terms of the ideological work done by stories in the limiting of the potential of female experience is Carolyn Heilbrun’s essay “What Was Penelope Unweaving?” She first delivered it to a conference in 1985, lamenting the lack of female quest heroes in our cultural heritage and claiming that women had at that time few stories other than marriage and

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motherhood by which to shape their lives. The problem for Penelope was that hers was an unwritten story: “how a woman may manage her own destiny when she has no plot, no narrative, no tale to guide her.”37 It could be argued that women have had no positive paradigms for how to behave properly when erotically smitten with an inappropriate person. It could equally well be argued that men watching Hippolytus come away with the conviction that any accusation of rape made by a woman is likely to be untruthful, and that an accused man may be innocent even if he does not use all the legal defenses at his disposal because he may well be an honorable man and have sworn someone an oath of silence. Doubting women’s evidence is an international menace. At its most extreme, under sharia law, women’s evidence is officially worth half or a quarter of a man’s, if admissible at all. At the other end of the spectrum, it has merely impeded women’s progress in professions where custody of the truth is central:  the church, the law, and academia. Within classics, the vocabulary used historically in reviews of works published by female scholars has often undermined their claim to reliability or veracity by the use of skeptical or dismissive vocabulary.38 The brilliant work of philosopher Miranda Fricker in her Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (2009) has done much to advance our understanding of the ways implicit bias works against groups, including women, who have been historically regarded as unsafe custodians of the truth. Fricker identifies two types of dysfunction in our epistemic practices. Much of our knowledge is acquired from the testimony of others, whether from family members, colleagues, or newspapers. But some speakers are granted a reduced degree of credibility by a listener on account of some prejudice the listener holds. This is not just an epistemological question. A testifier whose credibility is reduced on account of a prejudice is wronged by having her or his “capacity as a knower” belittled. An example would be when a jury does not believe something said to them by a witness because the person is female or speaks with a foreign accent. “Testimonial injustice” is partly a result of Fricker’s second dysfunction, which she calls “hermeneutical injustice.” This is a more general phenomenon,

37. Heilbrun ([1985] 1990) 126. 38. See Hall and Wyles (2016) 20–​21.

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when someone is trying to make sense of a social experience but is handicapped in this by a certain sort of gap in collective understanding—​a hermeneutical lacuna whose existence is owing to the relative powerlessness of a social group to which the subject belongs. Such a lacuna renders the collective interpretive resources structurally prejudiced.39 Both forms of injustice were experienced by women individually and as a group in classical Athens, where women were not even allowed to represent themselves in court and where tragedy repeatedly reaffirmed the inferiority of female deliberative powers and the chaos that unsupervised womenfolk could inflict on households in the absence of legitimate husbands.40 Both forms of injustice still blight our attitudes to allegations of sexual assault, and both rest on prejudices that are constantly reaffirmed in certain kinds of fiction which we consume as part of our canonical curriculum as well as recreationally. Euripides’ Hippolytus is correctly included in the article entitled “False Rape Accusation” on the popular-​culture wiki TVTropes,41 founded in 2004 and now also covering film, theater, and fiction as well as television. The length of the list of false rape accusations made by women against men in both canonical and contemporary popular culture is depressing. Several acclaimed high-​brow novels feature the trope, from the trials of Dr.  Aziz, wrongly accused of raping Adela in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924), and Tom Robinson, the victim of Mayella Ewell’s lies in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), to Briony Tallis’ vicious lies in Ian McEwan’s Atonement (2001). These novels have all been made into famous movies. Other successful “false rape accusation” films abound: ones in which the females are motivated by revenge include in Alan Shapiro’s The Crush (1993), where the accuser is only 14; John McNaughton’s Wild Things (1998), and The Life of David Gale (2003), directed by Alan Parker and starring, ironically, Kevin Spacey as the victim of the false charge. Accusations of sexual misconduct are just some of the lies told by the pernicious Amy Elliott Dunne in the hugely popular thriller Gone Girl (2014). False rape accusations are also a staple of plot lines in major television series that have included M*A*S*H, Baywatch, CSI NY,

39. Fricker (2008) 69. 40. Hall (1997, 2009). 41.  See “False Rape Accusation,” TVTropes, accessed August 18, 2020, http://​tvtropes.org/​ pmwiki/​pmwiki.php/​Main/​FalserapeAccusation.

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Dexter, and Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. I am not suggesting that such plot lines be banned, of course, although I am personally surprised that women seem to queue up to act in them. I am simply suggesting that, as in the case of Euripides’ Hippolytus and its derivatives, we take considerable pains to keep our own minds and those of our students focused on the indisputable truth that the stories they tell of mendacious females framing men for rape are, in actual fact, fiction.

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Periphrôn Pênelopeia The Reception of Penelope in Fifth-​C entury  Athens H. A. Shapiro

Penelope has rightly been called “the most enigmatic character in the Odyssey.”1 Writing in 1975, Sarah B. Pomeroy commented that Homer’s Penelope is admired above all for her chastity.2 While this is still as true as when she wrote it, a whole generation of feminist classicists inspired by Pomeroy’s pathbreaking work has, in the past thirty years, explored the many ways in which Penelope’s other qualities—​her shrewdness and wiliness, her moral authority, her cautiousness, her circumspect (periphron:  the epithet most often used of her in the Odyssey) nature—​make her not just enigmatic but triumphant in bringing about the best possible outcome, a joyful reunion with her long-​lost husband.3 Her chastity is not merely admirable but is one of her main weapons in overcoming considerable obstacles to reach that happy end. In trying to assess the reception of Penelope in the Classical period, we are faced with one major obstacle. Like all the familiar figures of the Epic Cycle, she must have been featured on the tragic stage in fifth-​century Athens, but not one of those plays survives as more than a title or a few exiguous

1. Felson-​Rubin (1994) x. 2. Pomeroy ([1975] 1995) 21. 3. I have in mind, among others, the books of Murnaghan (1987), Katz (1991), Felson-​Rubin (1994), and Foley (2003). H. A. Shapiro, Periphrôn Pênelopeia In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0003

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fragments.4 How different from both Helen and Klytemnestra, two heroines with whom Penelope is pointedly compared throughout the Odyssey, whose vivid portrayals by the tragedians demonstrate the eagerness of Athenian audiences to rethink, revisit, and reimagine the familiar heroines and to see them as “flesh and blood” people upon the stage. Penelope’s absence from the surviving corpus may have helped perpetuate the one-​dimensional and oversimplified image of her as a paragon of virtue.5 In the visual arts of the fifth century, Penelope is somewhat better attested than in drama, but still quite underrepresented in comparison with the more colorful Klytemnestra and Helen, not to mention her own husband, Odysseus.6 It is particularly striking that in the whole corpus of extant Attic black-​and red-​figure vases, Penelope is pictured with certainty only a single time. This vase, a red-​figure skyphos found in the area of Chiusi, which gives his nickname to the Penelope Painter and was made about 440–​430 bce,7 would be exceptional even in a larger corpus of images (Figures  2.1 and 2.2). To begin with, it pairs two distinctive Odyssean motifs on either side of the vase, a not unknown practice that is nevertheless quite rare.8 One side shows Penelope at her loom, attended by her son Telemachos (Figure 2.1), while the other features the washing of Odysseus’ feet by his old nurse, Eurykleia, in the presence of the rustic swineherd Eumaios (Figure 2.2). Both scenes, it has been alleged, have such evident divergences from our Odyssey that they might derive from sources outside the epic, such as one or more of the lost plays.9 Thus, instead of Eurykleia, the painter labels her

4. See Mactoux (1975) 49–​53 for the fullest summary of the evidence for Penelope in tragedy. The Penelope of Aischylos, of which one fragment survives, apparently included the recognition of Odysseus and Penelope and the slaughter of the suitors. 5.  In Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousai (546–​548), a female character accuses Euripides of dramatizing only wicked women like Melanippe and Phaidra, but never the virtuous Penelope. 6. For overviews of Penelope in Classical art, see Touchefeu-​Meynier (1968); LIMC VII 291–​ 295, s.v. Penelope [C. Hausmann]. 7. Chiusi 62 705; ARV2 1300, 2; BAPD no. 216789; Iozzo (2012) 72–​74, figs. 10–​11. 8. The earliest and best-​known parallel for such a combination is the black-​figure cup, more than a century earlier than our skyphos, with, on one side, Odysseus and his men getting the Cyclops drunk and, on the other, Circe transforming the companions of Odysseus into animals: Boston 99.518; ABV 198; BAPD no. 302569. Among many discussions see the ingenious interpretation of Wannagat (1999). 9. See Iozzo (2012) 73, with references to earlier discussions.

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Figure  2.1 Penelope and Telemachos. Attic red-​ figure skyphos, Chiusi, Museo Archeologico 62 705, c. 440–​430 bce. After Furtwängler and Reichhold (1904) pl. 142.

Figure 2.2  The foot-​washing of Odysseus. Reverse of the skyphos in Figure 2.1. After Furtwängler and Reichhold (1904) pl. 142.

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Antiphata, an otherwise unknown variant, while in Homer’s poem Eumaios was not present in the foot-​washing scene (Od. 19.363–​509). Similarly, if the scene on the obverse is understood as related to Telemachos’ departure from Ithaka in search of news of his father, as is sometimes assumed, this directly contradicts the epic, in which Telemachos sneaks off the island without telling his mother, instructing Eurykleia not to breathe a word to Penelope until he has been gone for eleven or twelve days, or such time as she notices that he is gone (Od. 2.371–​376). Furthermore, Telemachos’ appearance in his mother’s private quarters, where she keeps her loom, carrying a pair of spears looks singularly inappropriate. In a recent discussion of this vase, Mario Iozzo has rightly reminded us not to overlook the “creative freedom” of the painter.10 Keeping this in mind, I believe we can read both scenes as being true to the spirit, if not to the letter, of Homer’s Odyssey, while giving us some insight into fifth-​century responses to the figure of Penelope. On the obverse (Figure 2.1), Penelope sits on a four-​legged stool, or diphros, her head inclined to the side and her chin resting lightly on the fingers of her right hand. She wears a finely pleated chiton and, over it, a heavy himation pulled up over the back of her head like a veil. Her left leg is crossed over the right, with the left foot dangling just in front of Telemachos’ spears. Her left hand rests on the diphros, as if to steady herself. Behind her is a very large standing loom that has been much studied for its elaborate construction and the textile—​presumably the shroud for Laertes—​on which she has been working, with its embroidered winged creatures and decorative motifs.11 Telemachos, a tall ephebe wearing a himation that leaves much of his chest exposed, looks down toward his mother, but she is completely lost in thought and seemingly unaware of his presence. The pair of spears forms a perfect vertical axis through the middle of the scene and seems symbolically to suggest that the two characters inhabit separate spaces and utterly fail to communicate. This is a pretty fair representation of the relationship of Penelope and Telemachos, which devolves into one of almost no communication in the early books of the poem. As Nancy Felson-​Rubin observes, Penelope becomes “a near stranger” for Telemachos, “a potential betrayer, held in suspicion, and kept in the

10. Iozzo (2012) 73. 11. On the loom and the weaving, see Iozzo (2012) 73, with further references to specialized discussions.

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dark.”12 Once Athena has come to Telemachos in the guise of Mentes and commanded him to undertake his journey (Od. 1.279–​305), he “disengages himself from his mother.”13 Their one direct encounter is very telling. Attracted by the sounds of the bard Phemios entertaining the suitors, Penelope descends from her chamber, accompanied by a pair of handmaidens (Od. 1.350–​359). But when she asks the singer to perform something less painful to her than the disastrous homecoming of the Greeks from Troy, Telemachos chastises her, ordering her to go back to her room and her loom. Astonished by this rebuke, she silently withdraws. To the fifth-​century viewer, no object was as closely associated with Penelope as her loom, thanks to the famous ruse of undoing her weaving every night in order to stall the suitors.14 Here the enormous loom is the elephant in the room, so to speak, as it alludes both to that ruse and to the claim of her rebellious adolescent that this is about all she is good for. He, on the other hand, looks like a young orator and a man of action, as he leans on his spears with one hand, rests the other on his hip in a casually authoritative pose, and wears the mantle over his left arm just so. We are reminded that he will address the people of Ithaka the next day after his encounter with his mother, with a brilliantly rhetorical speech—​his public debut (Od. 2.42–​78). Indeed, in dismissing her, he had said to his mother that public speaking (muthos) is for men, weaving for women (Od. 1.359). On our vase, the vertical spears divide the scene into the public space of men and the private space of women, a notion that was especially prevalent in the world of Periklean Athens. The distinctive pose of Penelope here has been much discussed, since it seems to echo quite closely one that had been widely used for Penelope in both large-​scale marble sculpture and small-​scale terracotta reliefs, gems, and finger rings in the several decades before the Penelope Painter’s skyphos.15 This is typically referred to as the “mourning Penelope” type, though the contexts in which it is used suggest that mourning is not its only or even necessarily its primary connotation.16 The veil, for example, can be worn by mourners at the 12. Felson-​Rubin (1994) 67, drawing on anthropological fieldwork on the maturation of adolescent boys and their relationship to the mother. 13. Felson-​Rubin (1994) 77. 14. Appropriately enough, two clay loom weights excavated in a late fifth-​century house in the Kerameikos have images of Penelope: LIMC VII 292, s.v. Penelope, no. 4. 15. The material is most conveniently collected in LIMC VII 291–​293, s.v. Penelope. 16.  For the history of interpretation of the pose as one of mourning (“die Stellung einer sitzenden Trauernden”), see Huber (2001) 123.

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Figure  2.3 Odysseus and Penelope. Terracotta relief, c.  470–​ 460 bce. Berlin, Antikensammlung TC 8757. After Stilp (2006) pl. 31.

tomb17 but also by modest women in a variety of situations. So, for example, Homer says that when Penelope descended from her room, she held a veil before her cheeks, presumably as a gesture of modesty (aidos) in a room full of rowdy young men (Od. 1.334).18 The earliest examples of the so-​called mourning Penelope are on small rectangular terracotta panels conventionally referred to in the scholarship as Melian Reliefs, now renamed Jacobsthal Reliefs in honor of an early scholar who first collected and studied them, and dated to the second quarter of the fifth century.19 A  recent, full-​scale study of the material has shown 17. A good example that is pertinent here is the figure of Elektra mourning at the tomb of her father, Agamemnon, on Jacobsthal Reliefs contemporary with those of Penelope and Odysseus (see n. 21 and ­figure 2.3). Though the two women are in similar poses, they are not the same, for Elektra does not cross her legs. See Stilp (2006) pl. 34, cat. 78; pl. 35, cat. 80. 18. For the iconography of veiled women, see Llewellyn Jones (2003). 19. Jacobsthal (1931).

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conclusively that there is no connection to the island of Melos, but rather most are of Attic manufacture.20 The “mourning Penelope” is found in a group of reliefs depicting Odysseus, disguised as an old beggar standing before the seated Penelope and gently touching her wrist (Figure 2.3).21 A kalathos, or wool basket, symbol of her wifely devotion to weaving, sits under her chair. Mourning does not seem the right description of what is happening on this relief. In the encounter that comes closest to what we see here in the Odyssey, a skeptical Penelope interviews the disguised Odysseus, seeming not to recognize her husband, though some commentators have argued that she does in fact but plays along for her own reasons (Od. 23.88–​208).22 The conversation is in any event a lively one, whereas on the reliefs there appears to be no communication at all. She is unresponsive to both his words and his nuptial gesture.23 The disparity between the fully engaged Penelope of the epic and the silent, oblivious Penelope of the reliefs is reminiscent of the iconography of the “Embassy to Achilles” on red-​figure vases of roughly the same period, the first half of the fifth century.24 While the Achilles of Iliad Book 9 greets his three colleagues with warm hospitality and voluble conversation (even if ultimately refusing their entreaties), on the vases Achilles sits bent over on a stool, wrapped in a voluminous garment pulled up over his head, and refuses even to make eye contact with his guests (Plate I).25 The usual explanation is that the painters are following a now-​lost Aischylean tragedy, Myrmidons, in which, we are told by an ancient source, Achilles never uttered a word,

20. Stilp (2006) 61–​62. 21. Once Berlin, Antikensammlung TC 8757; Stilp (2006) pl. 31. For the group, see Touchefeu-​ Meynier (1968) 233–​235, cat. nos. 424–​429; Stilp (2006) 100–​101, cat. 65–​72, pl. 29–​31. Perhaps the best-​known example of this type is one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 30.11.19; LIMC VII 293, s.v. Penelope, no. 33b. It appears to be a prime example of the practice of adding extra figures who do not “belong” for dramatic effect—​here, Laertes, Telemachos, and Eumaios—​but Stilp (2006) 244–​245, cat. 161, has shown conclusively that the relief is a forgery made some time before 1904. 22. See Felson-​Rubin (1994) 4, with earlier references, for the arguments about when Penelope first recognizes Odysseus. Cf. Murnaghan (1987) 131–​138. 23. Stilp (2006) 101 likens the gesture to the familiar cheir’ epi karpo of wedding scenes and argues that this is a key feature ensuring their identity as a married couple, namely, Odysseus and Penelope. 24. LIMC I 108–​110, s.v. Achilleus [A. Kossatz-​Deißmann]. 25.  Red-​figure hydria, Basel, Antikenmuseum + Sammlung Ludwig BS 477; ARV2 361, 7; BAPD no. 203796; LIMC I 110, s.v. Achilleus, no. 453.

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a coup-​de-​théâtre that astonished the audience.26 Though his pose has also been described as one of mourning, this does not capture its essence. For what, or whom, would Achilles be mourning? Later on he will mourn extravagantly for the dead Patroklos, but for now Patroklos is alive and well and sharing his tent. In the case of both Achilles and Penelope, I think the pose and gestures lend a kind of “abstracted” quality, an isolation from the world around them brought on by pain and sorrow, an inability to communicate. In Attic funerary monuments, the deceased is often depicted with this kind of faraway, abstracted quality, as if already removed from the world of the living, a condition evocatively described in German scholarship as Entrücktheit (literally, “having been snatched away”).27 The deceased do not mourn since they are already dead, but neither can they communicate with the living. If this is correct, then there is no need to posit a literary source for the scene on the Penelope Painter’s skyphos. It represents a thoughtful painter’s reimagining of a key relationship in the Odyssey. The same can be said of the scene on the reverse (Figure 2.2), where the addition of Eumaios to the scene of the foot-​washing, where he does not “belong,” has its own logic in the world of the poem. Eumaios and Eurykleia are the two figures of low social status who have remained loyal to their master in all the years of his absence as they have grown old, and they will both play key roles in the success of his final triumph, the slaughter of the suitors.28 That the Penelope Painter was a careful student of the Odyssey is often supposed on the basis of a second skyphos from his hand, usually considered a kind of pendant to the first, which gives us a rare example of that very episode, the slaughter of the suitors (Figure 2.4).29 While the Chiusi skyphos has two discrete scenes that are linked by a common thread—​everyone belongs either to Odysseus’ immediate family or his faithful servants—​the skyphos in Berlin spreads the single scene over both sides of the vase. This ingenious arrangement has the effect that the arrows fired by Odysseus and Telemachos

26. See Döhle (1967). The report is in Aristophanes, Frogs 911–​913. 27. Himmelmann-​Wildschütz (1956) 15. In the same context, Himmelmann also speaks of a spiritual “Für-​sich-​sein” to describe the isolation of the deceased. 28. On the two coordinated scenes on the skyphos, see also the comments of Buitron-​Oliver and Cohen (1995) 44–​45. 29. Berlin F 2588; ARV2 1301, 1; BAPD no. 216788; Iozzo (2012) 74, fig. 12 and p. 74 for the notion of a pendant. He suggests that the two vases could have traveled to Etruria together and then been sold in different markets, one to Chiusi and the other to Tarquinia, where the Berlin skyphos was found.

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Figure 2.4  Slaughter of the suitors. Attic red-​figure skyphos, c. 440–​430 bce. Berlin, Antikenmuseum. After Furtwängler and Reichhold (1904) pl. 138, 2.

from one side of the vase seem to travel some distance to hit their targets, three suitors who try in vain to hide behind pieces of furniture. The addition of two nervous maids, perhaps anticipating a grisly fate (strung up from the rafters: Od. 22.469–​473), completes the assortment of “villains,” just as the Chiusi skyphos presents the full range of the “good guys.” To return to Penelope: There is often a fine line between gestures, poses, and expressions that convey mourning and those that express a troubled, alienated, or merely pensive state of mind.30 A prime example of this dilemma can be seen on a well-​known marble relief of the Early Classical period found on the Akropolis (Figure 2.5).31 Athena, armed with helmet and spear, stands quietly with her head inclined as she looks down at a rectangular stele. In English-​language scholarship, she is conventionally called the Mourning Athena, in part thanks to an old suggestion that the stele could contain one of the so-​called casualty lists, inscribed names of the war dead of the previous year, organized by phyle (tribe).32 But German scholarship calls her “die sinnende [contemplative] Athena,” a far more noncommittal designation.33 In Penelope’s case, contemplation turns to abstraction or alienation when she is in the presence of other people. When she is alone, however, as in several

30. See Settis (1975). 31. Akropolis Museum 695; Brouskari (1974) 123–​124, pl. 237. 32. See Ridgway (1970) 48, who believes that the casualty list hypothesis is “now superseded” and that the nickname Mourning Athena is “of course valid only for mnemonic purposes.” She prefers the suggestion that the stele is either the boundary stone of a sanctuary or a pillar in the palaestra, a reference to the Panathenaic Games. 33. For example, Meyer (1989).

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Figure  2.5  “Mourning Athena.” Athenian marble votive relief, c.  460 bce. Athens, Akropolis Museum 695. Photograph Creative Commons, 2006, https://​ upload. wikimedia.org/​wikipedia/​commons/​1/​14/​Acropole_​Musée_​Athéna_​pensante.JPG.

life-​size marble sculptures,34 I do not think we can infer a state of mourning. In fact, in several small-​scale versions of the type, as on a gold ring, the traits that have been thought to express mourning—​head in hand and veil—​have been omitted or mitigated. A bow has been added in the field, a reference to

34. The most complete Roman copy of the so-​called Mourning Penelope type is a statue in the Vatican, inv. 754; LIMC VII 291, s.v. Penelope, no. 2, a-​1.

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Penelope’s brilliant stratagem.35 Again, Penelope does not mourn, because no one has died, and to mourn for Odysseus as if he were dead when his fate is still unknown would surely be premature and ill omened.36 The discovery in 1945 of a marble statue of the seated Penelope, apparently a Greek original of the mid-​fifth century, in the ruins of the palace at Persepolis electrified the archaeological world and has never ceased to fascinate and confound scholars (Plate II).37 In the most recent, detailed study, Tonio Hölscher weaves a brilliant and compelling, if highly speculative scenario, in which there were two versions of the statue made in the years around 450, one sent to the Persian king as a diplomatic gift at the time of the Peace of Kallias and the other set up on the Athenian Akropolis.38 It is not my intention to review all the archaeological and historical arguments so well laid out by Hölscher, but only to raise again the question of what a statue of Penelope alone (evidently not part of a group) could have meant to the ancient viewer, whether in Athens or Persepolis. Taking up and developing a suggestion of Werner Gauer, Hölscher argues that Penelope symbolizes women’s impatience and longing for a war to end that has dragged on for twenty years (for Gauer, the length of Odysseus’ absence from Ithaka) or even forty years (for Hölscher, from Marathon to 450/​ 449, the Peace of Kallias).39 For this idea to work, Hölscher must posit a universal emotion on the part of women, whether Persian or Greek, the anxiety and fears for the lives of their husbands away on military campaigns. In the case of Persian women, he relies on the portrayal of Atossa, the Queen Mother, in Aischylos’ Persians of 472, and the lamentations of the chorus of Persian elders.40 This seems to me problematic, since the world that Aischylos creates in the play is an imaginary Persia, even if drawing on a wide range 35.  Oxford, Ashmolean Museum (said to be from Sparta). Her name is inscribed in Doric, Panelopa: LIMC VII 292, s.v. Penelope, no. 5. 36. Cf. Buitron-​Oliver and Cohen (1995) 47, who conclude that the pose and gesture of the seated Penelope “may denote neither simply mourning nor faithfulness, but anguished thought and, more specifically, sexual decision making.” In other words, the chastity highlighted by Sarah Pomeroy ([1975] 1995) is far more complex than a facile “no means no.” 37. Teheran Archaeological Museum 1538; LIMC VII 292, s.v. Penelope, no. 2b. Illustrated here is a plaster cast of the statue as it has recently been reconstructed in the museum of plaster casts of Classical sculpture in Munich. For a recent study of the Persepolis statue and other versions of the type, see Hölscher (2015), a very condensed version of the author’s lengthy study, Hölscher (2011), with additional observations. See also Razmjou (2105) for the discovery and original placement of the statue and details of the surviving torso. 38. Hölscher (2011). 39. Gauer (1990) 52–​53; Hölscher (2011) 34–​35. 40. Hölscher (2011) 70–​71.

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of contemporary sources and eyewitness accounts. The play is the earliest instance in the Western tradition of what Edward Said famously termed Orientalism,41 and, as Edith Hall has shown, the unrestrained lamentation (of both women and men) is but one element in the playwright’s depiction of Persian habrosunê (softness, delicacy, lack of restraint).42 If the Penelope statue indeed arrived at the court along with Kallias, would he have explained who she was, as Hölscher supposes, and would this have resonated with the locals?43 We have no way of knowing. On the Greek side, Hölscher relies primarily on another play of Aischylos, the Agamemnon (458), and especially the figure of Klytemnestra as representative of Greek women when she speaks of her longing for her absent husband and fears for his safety.44 This seems to me even more problematic, since every word from Klytemnestra’s mouth is a calculated lie that she will gleefully unsay after the murder of her husband (1372–​1373). When she claims, for example, that if all the rumors of Agamemnon’s fatal blows were true, he would have arrived home like a net full of holes (856–​868), this is no more than an ironic foreshadowing of his ultimate state when she gets through with him. Her real fear was not that he would die at Troy but that he would come home safe and sound to discover her adultery. Even if one wanted to argue that Klytemnestra means to feign the anxieties of a typical Greek wife, her colorful hyperbole and shameless self-​dramatizing would seem to undercut that idea. Suggesting that Klytemnestra is a reliable guide to a wife’s feelings is like asking Medea for advice on wedding presents. Even if we accept that women often fear for the safety of their husbands away at war, Penelope would not seem to be an obvious choice to represent such women. Her image in the fifth century, as we have seen, embodies such intensely private and personal virtues that it is hard to imagine a statue of her created as a “political monument,” as Hölscher would have it.45 By the time the Odyssey opens, it is widely known that Odysseus has survived the war at Troy. Penelope is not longing for the war to be over, since it already is. In contrasting Penelope and Klytemnestra throughout the poem, the Odyssey 41. Said (1979) 56, citing a lamentation of the chorus (Persians 548–​557) as a foundational text for the idea that “Asia speaks through and by virtue of the European imagination.” 42. Hall (1989) 83–​84. 43. Hölscher (2011) 71. 44. Hölscher (2011) 62. 45. Hölscher (2011) 63.

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thematizes not the wife’s fears for her husband but rather what happens when he gets home. The epic has nothing to say about Greek war widows, since all the married heroes (Menelaos, Agamemnon, Odysseus) make it home safely. The best example of a true war widow is Andromache, with all that entails: being sold into slavery in a foreign land, seeing her only child brutally put to death. Furthermore, Athenian soldiers and sailors in the fifth century were not away from home for twenty years but rather came home at the end of each battle or campaign season. The agonizing choice of whether to remarry or remain faithful to a husband who may never come home is not one that the typical Athenian (or Persian) wife had to face. Whether the statue from Persepolis (of which large parts are missing) indeed depicts Penelope at all is far from certain. Over the years, many other identities have been proposed, including Aphrodite, the nymph Larisa, and the personifications Hellas, Aidos, and Eleutheria.46 Leaving Persia aside, in order to understand what associations Penelope carried for fifth-​century Athenians, we would do best to look at the minor arts: terracotta reliefs, gems and jewelry, and vase-​painting. Naturally, she represents the virtuous woman and faithful wife. But beyond that, I would suggest that virtually every image conveys some variation on the quality of wise, careful circumspection that is expressed in her Homeric epithet, periphrôn.47 In no instance is she involved in conversation or any kind of interaction or communication with another figure in the skyphos scene. When she and her son, Telemachos, appear together, there is a wide gulf between them (Figure 2.1). To those around her, she can seem frustratingly indecisive, as when Telemachos says she can neither accept nor refuse marriage to a suitor (Od. 16.121–​128). Similarly, she declines to engage with her disguised husband on the series of Jacobsthal Reliefs (Figure 2.3). Another of these reliefs has a unique scene of the foot-​washing of Odysseus with both Telemachos and Penelope present (Plate III).48 As in the Penelope Painter’s scene with Eumaios, who does not “belong” at the foot-​washing (Figure 2.2), so too Telemachos was not present on that occasion, yet the artist considered it appropriate to include him. Perhaps this was meant to lend additional suspense to the scene, since by now Telemachos knows the beggar’s true identity

46. See Ridgway (1970) 102; Hölscher (2011) 46, 65. 47. Cf. Felson-​Rubin (1994) 41 on the epithet. 48. New York, MMA 25.78.26; Stilp (2006) 100, cat. 64; Touchefeu-​Meynier (1968) 249–​250, cat. 457.

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but Penelope does not.49 This is the only Penelope in Greek art who is not shown seated. Rather, she stands toward the right edge of the scene in a distinctive pose: her right hand raised to her chin, while her left arm rests horizontally across her waist. Günther Neumann has characterized the pose as besorgtes Nachdenken, or “worried contemplation.” Whether worried or not, she does not appear engaged in the action, with a faraway expression, rather than looking down at Eurykleia and Odysseus, as perhaps does her son, whose head is slightly inclined.50 Staying within the world of the Odyssey, a close parallel for Penelope’s pose is offered by the figure of Nausikaa on a red-​figure vase of the later fifth century (Figure 2.6).51 While her companions flee in distress at the sight of the naked stranger who has washed up on their shore, only Nausikaa stands her ground. She appears more relaxed than besorgt as she carefully appraises the astonishing apparition before her. The image of Penelope in this very pose evidently made an impression, since this is just how she appears half a millennium later in Pompeiian painting.52 I suggest that this is a big part of what makes Penelope the most enigmatic character in the Odyssey: we almost never know what is going through her “circumspect” mind. She keeps her counsel, as the saying goes. A second epithet that Homer uses of her is echephrôn (sensible, prudent), literally “heart-​restraining.”53 She deliberately refuses to betray what is in her heart, even when this causes frustration and anxiety to her nearest and dearest. Yet she is as often able to control the action by what she does not say as by what she does. A key part of being periphrôn is knowing and understanding oneself. Not surprisingly, then, perhaps the best account of Penelope’s feelings, her frame of mind, and her behavior is given by Penelope herself: 49. Hausmann (1960) 55. 50. Stilp (2006) 100 and others associate Penelope’s abstracted look with Homer’s comment that Athena distracted Penelope at the moment Eurykleia was about to expose Odysseus’ identity (Od. 19.474–​479). Perhaps the same idea is behind an extraordinary marble relief from Thessaly of the later fourth century. The scene is the foot-​washing, but in the background Penelope stands at her loom, oblivious to what is happening “behind her back:” Athens, NM 1914; Havelock (1995) 188–​189, pl. 57. Cf. Hausmann (1960) 54, who believes that Penelope has briefly turned to look, attracted by Eurykleia’s stifled cry, but Penelope’s head has entirely broken off, making it impossible to be sure. 51. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 04.18; ARV2 1177, 48; BAPD no. 215604. See Shapiro (1995) 158–​159, with further references. 52. LIMC VII s.v. Penelope, no. 36 53. For example, Od. 4.111; Felson-​Rubin (1994) 41.

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Figure  2.6  Nausikaa and Odysseus. Attic red-​figure pyxis lid, c.  440 bce. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 04.18. Henry Lillie Pierce Fund. Photograph © 2020 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Therefore, I pay no attention to strangers, nor to suppliants Nor yet to heralds, who are in the public service, but always I waste away at the inward heart, longing for Odysseus.54

54. Od. 19.134–​136, trans. Richmond Lattimore.

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3

The First basilissa Phila, Daughter of Antipater and Wife of Demetrius Poliorcetes Elizabeth D. Carney

The chapter on “queens” in Sarah Pomeroy’s Women in Hellenistic Egypt in 1984 was the first general discussion of the role of royal women in the Hellenistic world since Grace Harriet Macurdy’s Hellenistic Queens in 1932 and Pomeroy’s 1991 edited volume, Women’s History and Ancient History,—​ contained an article of mine on the development in the Hellenistic period of basilissa as a title for royal women.1 In this chapter I return to the topic of basilissa, this time focusing on the life and career of the first woman to whom the title was applied, Phila, daughter of Antipater and first of the many wives of Demetrius Poliorcetes. I want to consider why she served as the prototype for the basilissai to follow and for so many other aspects of the role of royal women in Hellenistic monarchy. I argue that the critical role her husband and father-​in-​law Antigonus played in the formation of Hellenistic kingship, the ways in which Phila’s actions and titles mirrored theirs, as well as Phila’s function as a legitimator of her husband’s rule of Macedonia (because she was the daughter of Antipater) are the primary reasons she became an exemplar of the role of women in Hellenistic monarchy. Traditionally, neither male nor female titles played a part in Argead (the dynasty that ruled Macedonia from at least the sixth century bce until c. 308) Macedonian monarchy. Only in the reign of Alexander III did Argead

1. Pomeroy (1984 [1990]); Macurdy (1932); Carney (1991). Elizabeth D. Carney, The First basilissa In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0004

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kings begin to employ a title, and Argead women appear without titles in all extant inscriptions, including a dedication made by Alexander’s wife Roxane.2 None of the Successors took a royal title until about four years after the death of Alexander IV, when in 306 Antigonus and his son Demetrius began to use the title basileus: after a great victory, their philoi (friends) acclaimed each as basileus, and soon the other Successors followed suit (Plut. Demetr. 17.2–​18.4; Diod. 20.53.1–​4; App. Syr. 54).3 No similar literary evidence survives about the date, circumstances, or possible ceremony relating to the initiation of the female title.4 The earliest extant evidence for the use of a female royal title in the Hellenic world is an inscription (SIG 333.6–​7) honoring a certain Demarchus, who is referred to as a guard in basilissa Phila’s entourage.5 This Samian decree is usually dated to the period of Demetrius’ siege of Rhodes, thus to about 305.6 Whatever the exact date of this particular decree, it is highly unlikely that the practice of referring to Phila as basilissa began after the Antigonid defeat at Ipsus in 301 and very likely that it happened within about a year of the initiation of the male title by Phila’s father-​in-​law and husband.7 The use

2. See later discussion for a possible female exception. On IG II2 1492A, Alexander is basileus (king), but she is simply his gune (woman or wife). The exact date of Roxane’s dedication is disputed since it is part of an inventory from 305/​304 and the inscription is damaged. Themelis (2003) 165; Mirón Pérez (2011) 45; and Müller (2012) 300 favor a date after the death of Alexander, contra Harders (2014) 373–​374. Kosmetatou (2004) 75 cannot choose. The arguments for a post-​Alexander date are more convincing. 3. See Paschidis (2013) 129–​132 for a recent discussion of the assumption of a royal title and for references. See also Billows (1990) 155–​160. 4. It was sometimes the subject of public proclamation; see Savalli-​Lestrade (2015) 8; as with the assumption of a title, proclamation of a basilissa may have varied by dynasty and period. 5. Harders (2013) 47 argues that Demarchus’ importance at Antigonus’ court confirms Phila’s, as does (see later discussion) Adeimantus’ role in her cult. 6. Robert (1946) 17, n. 1. An Ephesian decree (Ephesus II, 3) which honors a Melesippus, said to be part of what appears to be basilissa Phila’s court or entourage, was originally dated to c. 300/​ 299, but Robert (1946) 17, nn. 1–​2, argued for a date close to his for the Samian decree; Wehrli (1964) 142 accepted this view. Paschidis (2008) 387–​389 dates the Samian decree to c. 299, arguing that it is part of an Antigonid attempt to regain ground lost after Ipsus, though he also seems to agree that the Samian decree is the earliest evidence for the female title. His dating is not convincing. Moreover, if these two decrees date to the turn of the century or slightly later, then they would not necessarily be the earliest. 7. On the basis of extant inscriptions, Phila appears to be the only one of Demetrius’ wives to whom the title was applied. Harders (2016) 30 assumes that Stratonice, wife of Antigonus, was not referred to as basilissa, whereas Paschidis (2008) 368, n. 1 assumes the reverse and suggests that a Delian cult statue to basilissa Stratonice IG XI 4.51 belonged to Antigonus’ wife, not to his granddaughter of the same name. See further discussion below.

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of a female royal title spread rapidly to the other Hellenistic dynasties and was common by about 300.8 Calling Phila basilissa could have been a practice that originated with the Antigonid philoi (who may have been the ones to implement it, as they had done with the male title and with the creation of a female cult) and/​or conceivably with Phila herself.9 Alternatively and more likely, Antigonus and Demetrius could have ordered it, in association with their own acquisition of royal titles. If, as is possible but entirely unproven, the Argead Adea Eurydice10 employed basilissa as a title for her own ends, at some point between 323 and 317, then the application of the title basilissa to Phila could have been another instance of adoption and adaptation of Argead practices by the Successors. Despite the apparent parallelism of the initiation of titles for males and females in the Antigonid dynasty and, subsequently, in the other ruling families, in practice the terms basileus and basilissa functioned quite differently. Basileus applied to male rulers (and sometimes to male co-​rulers); effectively the title had a job description, whereas the title basilissa did not. The word basilissa had been formed by adding a feminine suffix to the root of basileus and first appeared in Xenophon.11 The title basilissa was given to some (but not all) royal wives, daughters, and female co-​rulers and, possibly, royal widows;12 its usage may have varied by dynasty, by period, and perhaps even by ruler.13 Basilissa is, therefore, best translated as “royal woman,” not

8. See Carney (1991); Carney (2000a) 225–​228; Carney (2011) 202–​204. 9. Harders (2016) 30 wonders if her court initiated the practice and Demetrius simply accepted it. I consider this an unlikely possibility. 10. See Carney (2000a) 132–​137 for her career. Though no inscriptional evidence exists to prove or disprove it, Adea Eurydice could possibly have been the first to employ it, sometime after her marriage to Philip Arrhidaeus. Adea Eurydice was an Argead herself (doubly so), married to another Argead who had a royal title, but one who was somehow not mentally competent to function independently. She tried to take a leadership role, often acting for her husband or in his name. It is possible that she turned basilissa into a title because of her highly unusual situation and that the Antigonids then adopted her usage, just as they did that of the Argead male title. Until an inscription appears showing Adea Eurydice with or without the title, however, this is mere speculation and we should assume that Phila was the first to whom the title was applied. 11. See Carney (1991) 150, nn. 11–​14; Carney (2000a) 227. 12. See Bielman-​Sánchez (2002); Savalli-​Lestrade (2003); Carney (2011) for discussions of the role of royal women in Hellenistic courts. 13. Harders (2013) 47; Coşkun and McAuley (2016) 19 point out that not all kings’ wives bore the title.

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“queen.14 The timing of the appearance of basilissa as a title connects its implementation to the early development of Hellenistic monarchy, particularly as initiated by the Antigonids. In order to reflect on why Phila was given a title, we must first review the ancient source tradition about her.15 Phila was the eldest daughter of Antipater,16 one of Philip II’s favorite generals and diplomats, the man who managed Macedonian affairs in Greece throughout Alexander’s campaign and who, after Alexander’s death until his own in 319, held the dominant place among the former generals of Alexander. During the period when members of the Argead dynasty were being killed off but none of the generals had yet dared to claim royal authority themselves, Antipater functioned as a transitional figure from the Argead past into the Hellenistic future. He had a number of sons and daughters whom he employed in a series of marriage alliances, particularly in the years just before the departure of the army for Asia in 334 and again in the unsettled period after Alexander’s death. Born about the middle of the fourth century,17 Phila married three times, each marriage arranged by her father.18 Her first husband, whom she must have married before the departure of Alexander for Asia, was Balacrus, a royal bodyguard under Alexander and satrap in Cilicia until he was killed in 324.19 They probably had a son together.20 She next married Craterus, the most militarily distinguished of Alexander’s officers.21 Alexander ordered Craterus to 14. Carney (1991) 156, 161; Carney (2000a) 226–​227; Savalli-​Lestrade (2015) 189, especially nn. 7 and 8. 15. For overviews, see Wehrli (1964); Carney (2000a) 165–​169; Heckel (2006) 207–​208. 16. See discussion and references in Heckel (2006) 35–​38 and Heckel (2016) 33–​43. 17. See further references in Carney (2000a) 303, n. 44. Plutarch (Demetr. 27.4, Comp. Demetr. Ant.1.5) says that she was considerably older than Demetrius when she married him. Bosworth (1994) 61 implausibly argues that she was ten years older, born in 360. Among other things, the fact that she apparently produced two more children soon after her marriage to Demetrius suggests that she was still quite fertile at the time of her marriage and thus unlikely to have been a bride of forty. 18.  See Macurdy (1932) 58–​69; Wehrli (1964); Carney (2000a) 165–​169; Heckel (2006) 207–​208. 19.  Bosworth (1994); Heckel (2006) 68–​69 argue that this marriage took place and that Antipater, son of Balacrus, was their son, but Macurdy (1932) 60 rejects the idea of this marriage. 20. Heckel (2006) 207 surmises, on the basis of Phot. Bib. l 111a–​b, that she stayed with her father in Macedonia until 331 or 330. 21. See discussion and references in Heckel (2006) 95–​99; Anson (2012); Ashton (2015); and Heckel (2016) 122–​152.

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replace Antipater in Macedonia and Greece (Arr. 7.12.4), but Craterus had not yet returned to Macedonia when Alexander died; he remained in Asia until he responded to Antipater’s call for reinforcements in the Lamian War. Craterus may have escorted Phila back from Asia and married her soon after they reached Macedonia, c.  322/​321 bce (Diod. 18.18.7; Memnon FGrH 434 F 1 4.4; Plut. Demetr. 14.2). Arrian compares Antipater very unfavorably to Craterus, suggesting that theirs was a competitive relationship (Suda K. 2335 = Arr. Succ. Frag. 19).22 Phila cannot have had an easy time serving as the human link between these two men. She had a son by Craterus, also called Craterus. The senior Craterus, having returned to Asia, was killed in battle against Eumenes. Years later, Phila received Craterus’ ashes (Diod. 19.9.3; Nep. Eum. 4.4). After the meeting of Antipater and many of the other Successors at Triparadeisus about 320, a resettlement of Macedonian affairs, Phila was married for a final time, to Demetrius, son of Antigonus.23 After the death of Alexander, Antigonus had retained the satrapy of Phrygia and used it to build an Asian empire. Phila’s first two husbands must have been much older than she, but Demetrius was considerably younger than Phila. He ungraciously objected to her age, agreeing to the marriage only to please his father (Plut. Demetr. 14.2–​4, 27.8). This marriage happened shortly before her father’s death in 319. Soon after her third marriage, Phila had first a son, the future king of Macedonia, Antigonus Gonatas, and a daughter, Stratonice, wife first of Seleucus and later of Antiochus I (Plut. Demetr. 31.5, 37.4, 53.8). Though it is likely Phila remained in Asia subsequent to her third marriage, nothing further—​apart from the births of her two children by Demetrius—​is known of her for more than ten years. As we have seen, she had her own bodyguard by the time of the siege of Rhodes and probably her own court (Ephesus II, 3). Phila prepared and dispatched to Demetrius letters, royal garments (purple, fitting for a king), and other household goods suitable for a royal household (Diod. 20.93.4; Plut. Demetr. 22.1). The first evidence for a cult dedicated to a royal woman involves Phila and dates to roughly the same time period as the siege of Rhodes, c. 305, or a

22. The passage, whatever its absolute truth, seems to confirm the view that Craterus had royal ambitions. See Ashton (2015) 113–​116; Heckel (2016) 148–​149. 23. On Antigonus, see Anson (1988) 471–​477; Billows (1990); Heckel (2006) 32–​34. Billows (1990) 368 bases the date of the marriage on a calculation from the age of her son by Demetrius, Antigonus Gonatas.

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year or two earlier.24 Adeimantus of Lampsacus, an important philos of Phila’s husband Demetrius, with his associates, dedicated a sanctuary (and statues) to Phila Aphrodite at Thria, an Attic deme (Ath. 255c).25 An Athenian play by Alexis has a character drink a toast with a libation to the theoi soteres (savior gods), Antigonus and Demetrius, and to Phila Aphrodite (Ath. 254a). The toast could refer to Adeimantus’ private cult, but quite possibly it relates to a separate civic cult to Phila.26 Certainly the Athenians and Thebans initiated what were clearly civic cults to some of Demetrius’ hetairai (“courtesans”; Ath. 253a–​253b), and the other cult referred to in the toast was civic. Phila may also have had a civic cult at Samos.27 Thus Phila’s cults, as with her title, seem to parallel cult practices related to her husband and father-​in-​law.28 Important philoi like Adeimantus played a vital role connecting the kings and dynasties

24.  Carney (2000a) 218, n.  78 suggests a date between 307 and 305 bce; see also Carney (2000b) 31–​32, nn. 53 and 54. Wallace (2013) 144–​146 dates the cult to 306/​305–​305/​304, because he connects it to Adeimantus’ years as strategos (general or military governor), though he grants that the cult could date as early as 307. Martin (1996) 182 says it was later than 307 bce, whereas Arnott (1996) 309–​311, 326–​328, dates the reference to Alexis’ play to 305. But Arnott’s entire discussion founders on the assumption that Demetrius was not polygamous and that Phila was divorced. 25.  On royal philoi generally, see Herman (1980–​1981); Savalli-​Lestrade (1998); Paschidis (2008); and on the Antigonid philoi, see O’Neil (2003). On Adeimantus, see discussion and references in Billows (1990) 362–​364; Landucci Gattinoni (2000), who sees him as one of Demetrius’ most important philoi; and Wallace (2013), who focuses on Adeimantus’ role dealing with the Greek cities, particularly Athens, for Demetrius. 26.  See Carney (2000b) 32. Billows (1990) 363 assumes that the cult of Phila founded by Adeimantus is identical to the one in the toast and, thus, that the toast confirms the existence of Adeimantus’ foundation. Paschidis (2008) 366, n. 6 discounts the reference in Athenaeus to Dionysius (i.e., Adeimantus’ cult) but accepts the Alexis reference (which includes the toast), though he believes it to have been a cult initiated by philoi and approved by the Athenians; he denies the existence of an Athenian civic cult, but as Wallace (2013) 143–​144 notes, such cults were common. Ogden (2011) 231 ascribes this cult not to the daughter of Antipater, but Demetrius’ daughter of the same name by the hetaera Lamia (see later discussion). This seems quite unlikely, granted the probable age of such a daughter. 27. IG XIII, 6, 150 LL. 23–​24 refers to a temenos (sanctuary) of Phila; it was first assumed to refer to the wife of Demetrius Poliorcetes, later to the younger Phila, the daughter of Seleucus and thus the granddaughter of Phila, daughter of Antipater (see Wehrli [1964] 140, n. 5; Le Bohec [1993] 237, n. 64; Carney [2000a] 309, n. 17), but more recently Crowther (1999) 255–​ 257 and Paschidis (2008) 388, n. 4 have returned to the view that the temenos was that of Phila, daughter of Antipater. 28.  For some recent discussions of the dynamic and intent of Demetrius’ involvement in Athenian cult, see Green (2003); Müller (2010); Chaniotis (2011). Chaniotis (2011) 173–​175 stresses the importance of accessibility, of the physical presence of the divinity. As we shall see, Phila, like royal women after her, served as an intercessor; conceiving of her and other women connected to Demetrius as Aphrodite may have related to this need.

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to Greek cities, often acting as civic benefactors; the relationship between philoi and cults of royal women and royal women also served to entrench and legitimize kings and dynasties.29 As with the use of a female title, by the turn of the third century such cults, typically connecting the royal woman to Aphrodite, had become common for royal women in several dynasties.30 Whereas Phila could have only one husband at a time, Demetrius imitated the Argead kings by marrying many wives (three more while his wife Phila was alive) and very publicly keeping many mistresses.31 Indeed, Demetrius, even among the other kings, was famed for his willingness to take new wives (Plut. Pyrrh. 10.5, Demetr. 14.2–​3, Comp. Demetr. Ant. 4.1). Plutarch (Demetr. 14.2) asserts that Phila had the greatest public reputation (axioma) and honor (timē) of all Demetrius’ wives because of her father and because of her previous marriage to Craterus. Phila may have seemed the most prestigious wife to Plutarch, but Demetrius’ marriage to Deidameia, the sister of Pyrrhus and a member of the long-​ruling Epirote royal house, could have eclipsed Phila’s own.32 Deidameia, however, died soon after her marriage. Moreover, of Demetrius’ wives, only Phila is attested as a basilissa33 and received a cult. Phila was the mother, after all, of Demetrius’ apparent heir. In any event, Plutarch, in the passage cited, seems to be discussing general views of Phila’s status, not Demetrius’ view of her. Until 301, the combined successes of Antigonus and Demetrius had made them and their court the center of attention. In 301, at Ipsus, facing the armies of virtually all the other Successors, Antigonus fell on the battlefield and Demetrius escaped with only a few thousand troops, the Antigonid Asian possessions largely lost. After Ipsus, Phila may have remained in Asia, though Demetrius, his mother Stratonice, and some of Demetrius’ children were apparently in Cyprus (Diod. 21.1.4). Amazingly, the remarkably resilient (and lucky) Demetrius quickly recovered from this military disaster. Demetrius recommenced naval activities, soon made peace with Seleucus, and the marriage of Stratonice, the daughter of Demetrius and Phila, to Seleucus was 29. See Carney (2013) 166, n. 137 and Wallace (2013) 145 on parallels between the relationship between Adeimantus and Phila’s cult to that between Callicrates and Arsinoë II’s cult; and see Le Bohec (1993) 237, n. 64 and Savalli-​Lestrade (1994) 431 on royal women and philoi generally. 30. See Carney (2000a, 2000b) for the evolution of cults for royal women and Phila’s role. 31. Ogden (1999) 176–​177. 32. Macurdy (1932) 63 is right about this. 33. Wheatley (2003) 33, n. 22 points out that despite Harpalus’ apparent use of basilissa in terms of two of his hetairai (Ath. 13.586, 595–​596a), no source gives Lamia the title.

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arranged. Both Demetrius and Phila attended the wedding in Syria (Plut. Demetr. 31.3–​32.4) and apparently took part in the related elaborate royal ceremonies. Leaving Demetrius behind (he was once more in charge of Cilicia, displacing Phila’s brother Pleistarchus), Phila went off to negotiate with her brother Cassander, the ruler of Macedonia. Demetrius’ actions against Pleistarchus had apparently angered Cassander. Demetrius subsequently returned to Greece and took Athens by siege. Thanks to the implosion of Cassander’s dynasty (after Cassander’s death in 297, his eldest son soon died; his next eldest murdered his own mother, Thessalonice; and his youngest sought help from Demetrius, only to be murdered by Demetrius), in 294 Demetrius took the throne of Macedonia (Plut. Demetr. 36–​38). Plutarch tells us that he was chosen king of Macedonia primarily because his wife was the daughter of Antipater and that Demetrius had a grown son by her (Demetr. 37.3). With Demetrius, neither good nor bad fortune endured: while he spent his time on adventures in southern Greece, the power of Pyrrhus in Macedonia grew, and finally Demetrius’ soldiers went over to Pyrrhus. In 288, Demetrius departed Macedonia for exile, but Phila took poison and died (Plut. Demetr. 35.1).34 Demetrius managed one more period of independence and adventurism before, after several years under Seleucus’ house arrest, he died in 283. In addition to this collection of material from an assortment of sources that provides a rough chronology of Phila’s life, Diodorus preserves an encomium of Phila (19.59.3–​6), universally believed to derive from Hieronymus of Cardia’s history of the Successors. Though originally taken as a prisoner by Antigonus, Hieronymus passed into the patronage of the Antigonids and ended his days at the court of Phila’s son Antigonus Gonatas. The encomium lacks any clear chronological or geographic context, though it probably refers to the period of Phila’s marriage to Demetrius and to her activities related to Demetrius’ forces. The passage praises Phila for her intelligence and makes several specific assertions about her actions and responsibilities. Diodorus says that she dealt with troublemakers in camp by catering to each individual’s needs. He describes this action on her part as administering or governing (19.59.4). Phila also paid for the marriages of the sisters and daughters of the needy (possibly needy soldiers) at her own expense and freed from danger those who had been falsely charged. Diodorus concludes by observing that Phila’s father, Antipater, considered the wisest ruler of his generation, 34. Some scholars believe that the fresco of the Villa de Boscoreale shows Antigonus Gonatas and his mother, Phila. See Ogden (1999) 174, n. 20.

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consulted her in important matters when she was still a girl. Diodorus noted that he would say more about her character later in his narrative, but unfortunately that portion of his narrative is lost. Modern interpretation has oversimplified this overwhelmingly positive and admiring ancient source tradition about Phila and created a saccharine Phila who doted upon her husband Demetrius.35 As Plutarch notes twice (Demetr. 14.2, 3), Demetrius paid little attention or honor to any of his wives, including Phila. Perhaps Demetrius had some affection for the famous hetaira Lamia,36 but nothing suggests any for Phila. Demetrius, after all, publicly criticized her for being too old, he allowed Lamia to name her daughter after Phila (Ath. 13.577c),37 and Phila was repeatedly compelled to flee because of the latest change in Demetrius’ fortunes. According to the sentimental view, affection motivated Phila’s dispatch of royal garments,38 but Diodorus (20.93.4) says she did so out of ambition or a desire for display. She apparently participated in Antigonid royal stagecraft (see later discussion). Her suicide should be reconsidered without reference to sentimentality and in a Macedonian context.39 According to Plutarch (Demetr. 45.1), Phila, overwhelmed with emotion, unable to see her husband, the most long-​ suffering of kings, again a private person and an exile, she gave up hope and, hating his luck, killed herself. Plutarch, after all, knew nothing about her motivation other than what he deduced or what he found useful to ascribe to her as part of his portrait of Demetrius.40 Moreover, he was wrong to imply that, 35. Macurdy (1932) 59–​69 is particularly sentimental, contrasting Phila to other “bad” royal women like Olympias and also to Phila’s brother Cassander. Thus she asserts, “There can be no doubt Phila loved him” (Macurdy [1932] 61). 36. Wheatley (2003) 30 terms her “the most important intimate companion” of Demetrius in the period. 37. Ogden (1999) 177 simply says that the name choice “suggests her high status.” Heckel (2006) 208 characterizes the fact that Lamia named her daughter by Demetrius Phila a “kind of abuse,” whereas Wheatley (2003) 34 suggests that the name was chosen because Phila brought her up, Lamia having, he surmises, died in childbirth. It is possible that she did bring up Lamia’s Phila, but granted the status of Lamia, I  see no reason to think basilissa Phila would have been flattered. Moreover, Plutarch (Demetr. 35.3, 38.1) tells us only that Demetrius’ mother Stratonice was with Demetrius’ children at the time of the siege of Cyprian Salamis, not that Phila had their care. The source tradition makes Phila a “good” woman, as it does Octavia the elder, and it is Plutarch (Ant. 54.2) again who tells us that Octavia brought up Antony’s surviving children, but the situation with Phila and Lamia was not parallel. 38. So Heckel (2006) 208. 39. See discussions of her death in Carney (2000a) 169; Savalli-​Lestrade (2015) 190. 40. See Mossman (2015) 157.

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simply because Demetrius had lost control of Macedonia, either he or Phila had lost their royal titles.41 It seems far more likely that Phila, then at least in her sixties, had had enough. Demetrius’ loss of Macedonia, more than some of his overtly military defeats, may have seemed to her avoidable. He had been recognized as king in good part because of her, so she might easily have felt the loss of the rule of Macedonia compromised her reputation in some way. Perhaps she did not want to leave Macedonia again and killed herself because she, at least, thought this was the honorable choice. Reflection about suicides of other women of distinguished family suggests that honor was a motivator. Such deaths in royal men were sometimes read as heroic, and Phila’s should be as well.42 Phila’s activities show that she frequently lived and acted apart from her husband, had an entourage or court of her own (though one that overlapped with that of her husband), and seemed to carry out administrative duties and, of course, ambassadorial ones as well, with efficiency. Suggestions that Demetrius consciously kept his assorted wives and mistresses apart seem dubious, founded on scholars’ discomfort with the realities of polygamy.43 The practicalities of Demetrius’ career as roving general, sea lord,44 and king, combined with Phila’s apparent duties, are more likely explanations for their frequent lack of “face time.” This was not an intimate relationship but quite literally an alliance in which Phila fulfilled her developing duties with considerable competence and yet, as she had with her two previous husbands, managed to produce a male heir.

41.  As Billows (1990) 160 points out, the male title was not necessarily tied to a particular kingdom in this period but was rather personal: Demetrius and Antigonus Gonatas exemplify this situation. Applying basilissa to Phila apparently happened because of or in the context of her husband’s acquisition of the male title; I see no reason to assume that she lost her title if he did not. 42. See Carney (1993) 52–​54, especially n. 64. There I expressed some doubts about the reality of Phila’s suicide, doubts I no longer entertain. Savalli-​Lestrade (2015) 215 observes that suicides were generally very rare among royal women. In addition to Phila, there is only Cleopatra VII, who also seems to have poisoned herself for reasons of honor. Savalli-​Lestrade (2015) 215, n. 193 thinks that similar male deaths fit “norms héroïques” (heroic norms), and these female suicides fit as well. 43. Wehrli (1964) 141–​142 suggested that Demetrius and Phila virtually never lived together. See discussion in Ogden (1999) 273–​274, who doubts that suggestion and considers the assorted, and sometimes similar, locations of Demetrius’ wives. 44. Walbank (1982) 215 discusses the importance for Antigonus and Demetrius of dominating the eastern Mediterranean, something Demetrius continued to do after the death of his father and the loss of most of his Asian empire.

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In the light of Phila’s career, what can we conclude about why the title basilissa began to be employed? After the death of Alexander, the Successors fairly quickly turned to king-​like acts (long before they took royal titles). They also began to expand the public role of royal women, as evidenced, for instance, by the naming of cities after female members of their families. This expansion was part of the rapid and experimental evolution of Hellenistic monarchy. Granted that Antigonus and his son Demetrius were the first of the Successors to receive a civic cult and the first to use a royal title, it seems evident that Phila’s role paralleled their own, that the development of a more institutionalized role for royal women paralleled the rise and articulation of Hellenistic kingship, and particularly that of Demetrius and his father. Despite their many failures, Antigonus and particularly Demetrius became models for the development of Hellenistic monarchy. There are a number of reasons that is so: Antigonus and his son amassed (if only to lose) a large portion of Alexander’s empire and presented an early example of father-​son co-​ kingship. (Antigonus was simply older than most of the other Successors and so too his son in comparison to theirs.) And Demetrius and the Antigonid court demonstrated great showmanship in both military matters and royal display—​a theatricality Plutarch clearly loathes (Plut. Demetr. 44.6, 53.1–​3).45 The set piece, for instance, created at their courts for the taking of the royal title by son and father was a demonstration of not only Antigonus’ power but Demetrius’ sharing in it.46 Macedonian elite culture, particularly monarchy, at least from the days of Philip II on, involved more than a bit of the theatrical; monarchy was effectively staged. The theatrical element grew increasingly important in Hellenistic culture generally and particularly in Hellenistic monarchy, but Demetrius Poliorcetes epitomized this phenomenon, most famously in terms of his fabulous garments.47 Hellenistic statesmen and rulers, particularly Demetrius, were often compared to actors: Plutarch claims that Demetrius, having taken off his royal robes and put on those of an ordinary man, left Macedonia in 45. Müller (2010) argues that the understanding of Demetrius’ presentation of himself as king was not only affected by propaganda by the winning side but was a consequence of the fact that he was a second-​generation king and much influenced by Alexander’s adoption of aspects of Persian kingship. 46. Billows (1990) 38. 47. Plut. Demetr. 41.7–​8, 51.4; Ath. 535f–​536a; Dio Cass. 63.6.7; Duris FGrH 76 F14. Mossman (2015) discusses the ways Demetrius used his garments to articulate his public presentation, particularly his political imagery, as well as the ways in which Plutarch used description of these garments, not always realistically, to develop his characterization of Demetrius.

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288 like an actor leaving a set (Demetr. 44.6).48 His son Antigonus Gonatas staged his funeral in a manner Plutarch found theatrical, though the details provided in Plutarch (Demetr. 53.1–​3) do accord well with what we know of Macedonian elite/​royal funerary customs.49 Apart from participating in her daughter’s wedding and quite possibly in some public ceremony associated with her new title, Phila was apparently the stage manager for some of that display, something we know (see earlier discussion) simply because a portion of the “stage set” was hijacked. One wonders, granted the association of women and fabric and weaving, whether she herself had something to do with the creation of her husband’s fabulous garments, including his solar or celestial cloak.50 Doubtless the prominent role of Argead women in the last years of that dynasty contributed to the tendency to institutionalize some aspects of a role for royal women and may have served as a partial model for Phila. The last Argead women had served as real or potential legitimators of male power, but had also acted on their own. Phila’s role resembles theirs in some respects, particularly the careers of Olympias and her daughter Cleopatra during the reign of Alexander.51 The Diodoran encomium, though the specifics of time and place for her exemplary actions are not clear, makes Phila a kind of mini-​ king (or king substitute): she makes her own decisions, has her own funds, and has some sort of authority over the troops and sailors and their families. Like Olympias and Cleopatra, she was more accessible than the king himself. Though the previous role of Argead royal women was important, Phila (not Olympias and certainly not Roxane) served as the primary model for Hellenistic royal women. Royal philoi, quite possibly the philoi of both Phila and Demetrius, played a critical role in her career and would for subsequent royal women. Phila’s equation to Aphrodite in cult was a prototype for many subsequent royal women; Aphrodite embodied female power, but of a conventional sort. The most important aspect of the role of the woman in a royal couple was not so much to define the ruling husband’s masculinity52 but more 48.  Chaniotis (1997) is vital to this discussion, particularly 244–​245, a section called “The Hellenistic Ruler as an Actor: The Case of Demetrios Poliorketes.” 49.  See Alonso Troncoso (2009), especially 296–​298, on the legitimizing aspect for the successor. 50. O’Sullivan (2008) 78–​89 discusses Demetrius’ cloak in terms of his association with solar imagery; see also Chaniotis (2011) 165–​166. 51. See Carney (2000a) 85–​93. 52. Contra Roy (1998).

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often to legitimize or validate a husband’s rule (this despite the fact that Phila would not likely have received either cult or title had she not been married to Demetrius). The lineage of royal women, as Phila’s life demonstrates, was vital for the legitimization of Hellenistic kings, particularly in the early period, when they could not plausibly claim descent as the grounds for rule. Throughout her life, the most important thing about Phila, in a personal and genealogical sense, was that she was her father’s daughter. By 323, the Macedonians were far more familiar with the rule of Antipater than with that of Alexander; it is no accident that Antipater’s descendants ruled Macedonia most of the time until the Roman conquest—​Antipater’s son-​in-​ law Demetrius being one of the few (and only partial) exceptions. This truth would be more obvious if we scholars, like the Greeks and Macedonians, were not so used to tracing descent through the male line. Though Antipater’s other daughters made prestigious marriages as well, Phila retained a long-​ term prominence and independence that they did not. She stayed closer to her birth family than did they and, despite her long absence, closer to their Macedonian roots. She, more than her husband, was the reason he acquired control of Macedonia. While Antigonid propaganda probably demonized Cassander and his sons and disassociated them from Antipater,53 it was only through Antipater’s daughter that Demetrius could claim any sort of legitimacy to rule Macedonia. This was a kind of precedent that will be repeated: Ptolemaic royal women, particularly, seemed to legitimate Ptolemaic rulers and, increasingly, the Seleucid rulers as well. Encomiastic though the Diodorus passage is, the picture of Phila as having a kind of thoughtful and reflective intelligence, an ability to grasp affairs, qualities similar to those of her father, seems plausible based on what we know. While nothing suggests that she and Demetrius got on personally, everything confirms that she could be trusted to do her duty. Antigonus and especially his flamboyant and glamorous son grabbed the attention of their rivals by their ability to invent more ways to demonstrate and make accessible their power and, if temporarily, to take control of vast territories. Phila, in a limited way, perpetuated the authority and persona of her father, but also theirs.

53. Landucci Gattinoni (2009) 269.

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Power and Patronage Rethinking the Legacy of Artemisia II Walter D. Penrose Jr.

The Mausoleum, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, towered above the city of Halicarnassus, creating a lasting memory of not only Mausolus, in whose honor the tomb was built, but also of his wife, Artemisia II. According to all ancient accounts, Artemisia commissioned the tomb in Mausolus’ honor and, furthermore, initiated an agōn or contest among the leading orators and tragedians of her day to laud Mausolus after his death (Plin. HN 36.4.30; Pompon. Mela De Situ Orbis 1.85; Strabo 14.2.16–​17; Cic. Tusc. Disp. 3.31.75; Aul. Gell. NA 10.18.4–​6; Val. Max. 4.6.ext 1; Theopomp. FGrHist 115 F 345; Plut. Mor. 838b; Suda s.v. Theodektes, Isocrates).1 Artemisia had co-​ruled beside her husband from c. 377/​376 to 353/​352 bce and, after his death ruled alone from 353/​352 to 351/​350 (Diod. Sic. 16.36.2).2 Generally speaking, Artemisia has been overshadowed in recent scholarship by her husband and brother, Mausolus, to whom much credit is given not

1. I thank Sarah B. Pomeroy for providing me with the feminist training and inspiration that lies behind this essay when I was a graduate student under her mentorship; Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala for their encouragement and careful editing of this volume; Sarah Pomeroy and Ronnie Ancona for suggesting that I  write on the biographical tradition of Artemisia in the first place; and Elizabeth Carney for a number of stimulating conversations that have enriched my thoughts on monarchy and the place of women in it. All errors or inaccuracies in this essay are mine. All translations are mine. Some modern scholars believe that Artemisia possibly instituted a heröon, or hero cult, in honor of her deceased husband. See the “Artemisia as a Patron” section of this chapter. 2. Hornblower (1982) 38, 38 n. 15. Walter D. Penrose Jr, Power and Patronage In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0005

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just for his own achievements but for those of Artemisia as well.3 In ignoring Artemisia’s role in the shaping of the Hecatomnid dynasty, scholars risk not seeing the complexities of the makeup of the dynasty. By focusing upon Artemisia’s motives in her patronage of the arts, I will outline a new reading that demonstrates her agency in the creation of the Mausoleum and the dynastic facelift that it provided for the Hecatomnids. While Artemisia’s power was obtained through dynasteia, I will demonstrate that she herself bolstered and retained her position as sole ruler through patronage, the use of propaganda, and military savvy and, furthermore, that she possibly did so because Mausolus’ harsh rule had left her in a precarious position following his death. In this examination of Artemisia II’s legacy, we need to underscore some of the challenges that arise in writing the biography of a royal woman. First of all, there has been a historiographical bias against women, especially a denial of women’s agency in politics and the public sphere. In the case of the Hecatomnids, Artemisia was written out of the historical record in the Byzantine period. This erasure, which was surely linked to misogyny, has been replicated to some degree by numerous modern historians. Mausolus has been heralded as a masterful ruler, while Artemisia has, for the most part, been occluded by his shadow. Second, most of the source material on Artemisia derives from the Roman era. Was it based upon primary sources, and, even if so, should we thus trust them? A number of primary sources were written during the time of Artemisia, and thus the kernel of her biographical tradition may be true. By the same token, she was lauded by the Romans as the quintessential univira woman, and, correspondingly, her actions were attributed to private motives (i.e., grief ), as opposed to public ones. Thus, some of what we may be seeing in Roman sources is already reception, making teasing fact from fiction difficult. Third, because many historians have a tendency to discount accounts of the political and military actions of women rulers, they fail to analyze the circumstances in which such actions were taken and hence the motives of the women. Epigraphic and other source material that provides a historical background within which to understand Artemisia’s motives has often been briefly noted but otherwise overlooked. By investigating such 3. For example, Hornblower (1982) 129, 238; Ruzicka (1992) 51; Romer (1998) 58; Henry (2009) 142; Aubriet (2013) 192. There are several exceptions to this trend: Bockisch (1970) 145; Carney (2005) esp. 78; Roller (2018) 14. Nourse (2002) 98 notes that “Of all this, Mausolos may have been the primary author, laying the foundation for the dynastic construct with the planning of his own monument. But it remains that the building and the funerary agon, which took place when the Mausoleum was consecrated, were attributed to Artemisia alone, Mausolos’ widow and successor.”

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contextual evidence, I will argue that Artemisia built the Mausoleum as part of a larger program to rehabilitate the reputation of Mausolus, who, by all extant accounts, seems to have been a rather unpopular ruler (and, by extension, to increase her own popularity). Because modern historians have largely cast Mausolus in a heroic role, they have downplayed sources that portray him as an overtaxing, autocratic, and corrupt satrap.4

Artemisia and Mausolus Artemisia’s building program and propaganda campaign to laud Mausolus may well have been part of a much-​needed dynastic facelift; in her propaganda campaign, she must have sought to solidify her own position on the throne, in addition to continuing the success of the Hecatomnids after her death.5 Artemisia served as a cultural leader, as much as or perhaps even more so than Mausolus. Extant sources indicate that it was she who brought the best sculptors, artists, historians, and poets to the court at Halicarnassus, instigating artistic and literary competitions (Theopomp. FGrHist 115 F 345; Plut. Mor. 838b; Aul. Gell. NA 10.18.6; Suda s.v. Theodektes). It can no longer be doubted that Artemisia was an influential ruler as well as a true force behind the Hecatomnid cultural legacy of the Mausoleum. She governed Caria, a land where women could usurp more power than elsewhere in the Greek oikoumenē (area of inhabitation).6 As Sarah Pomeroy has argued in Spartan Women, gender is a marker of ethnicity, and thus I would argue that gender was constructed differently at Halicarnassus than at Athens.7 While our evidence for fourth-​century Carian women is largely limited to the ruling class (save for a few women mentioned briefly in inscriptions), for men to show allegiance to a woman ruler suggests

4.  Hornblower (1982) 70 briefly mentions the unrest, noting that Mausolus “was unpopular among some of his countrymen.” Ruzicka (1992) 40–​41 calls Mausolus an “ever vigilant figure alert to every potential source of money or goods” and notes his “exploitative economic practices.” Neither Ruzicka nor Hornblower factor Mausolus’ unpopularity into their analysis of Artemisia’s propaganda campaign. On the epigraphic and literary sources pointing to Mausolus’ unpopularity as a ruler, see later discussion. 5. See further Nourse (2002) 98–​99; Carstens (2002) 43. 6. See further Sebillotte Cuchet (2012) esp. 429; Penrose (2016) esp. 18–​20, 152–​174, 181–​183. 7. Pomeroy (2002) 131–​135. On the difference between the “gender regimes” of Athens and other Greek cities such as Halicarnassus, see Sebillotte-​Cuchet (2012) esp. 429; Penrose (2016) esp. 18–​20, 152–​174, 181–​183.

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difference in male gender roles as well.8 In ancient sources, Artemisia is credited with defeating the Rhodians after her husband’s death (Vitr. 2.8.14–​ 15). Ancient Caria was a place where men were willing to follow a woman leader in battle, as comparison of the generalship of Artemisia II to her namesake Artemisia I and her sister Ada I reveals.9 Women could attain a modicum of power in Halicarnassus that was not available to them in mainland Greece. This, in part, was seemingly due to the prominence that women could attain in the local dynasties of Asia Minor.10 Artemisia II was both the sister and the wife of Mausolus. Both were children of Hecatomnus, who became the satrap of Caria in c. 392/​391.11 Mausolus “inherited” the office of satrap from his father, but he seems to have also styled himself a king. He was the basileus of Zeus Laubrandeus, and his holding of the title basileus may have had a religious more than a political significance.12 Whatever the case may have been—​and our records are murky—​the Hecatomnids were local Carian dynasts from Mylasa who, during both the satrapies of Hecatomnus and Mausolus, had increased their purview, first, over all of Caria, then over Lycia and nearby islands in the Aegean Sea.13 When Mausolus died, Artemisia became the sole ruler (Diod. Sic. 16.36.2). Although literary sources do not mention Artemisia’s role in Mausolus’ government, inscriptional evidence, interestingly, suggests that Artemisia was co-​ruler with Mausolus before he died.14 Epigraphy further suggests that Artemisia’s sister, Ada I, later co-​ ruled with her husband-​brother, Idreius, just as Artemisia co-​ruled with Mausolus. Carney writes, “What is distinctive about Artemisia and her sister Ada is that several documents demonstrate that their power was not simply private—​exercised behind the scenes as was the case with so many

8. Penrose (2016) 153. Some nonroyal women who are named after Hecatomnid royal women are mentioned in inscriptions from Mylasa. See further Aubriet (2013). 9.  Penrose (2006) 104; Penrose (2016) 19, 152–​174, 181, 269, 271; Sebillotte Cuchet (2008) 2, 6, 13. 10. Nourse (2002) 73–​74, 78–​79; Carney (2005) esp. 74–​75. 11.  See further Hornblower (1982) 34–​36; Jeppesen (2002b) 173; Ruzicka (1992) 17; Roller (2018) 14. 12. Hornblower (1982) 55–​62. 13. Hornblower (1982) esp. 34–​137 passim; Ruzicka (1992) 15–​99 passim. 14. Crampa (1955) 3.2, no. 40; Syll3 168 = Tod (1948) no. 155 = Engelmann and Merkelbach (1972) no. 8. See further Hornblower (1982) 75, 75 n. 152; Ruzicka (1992) 42; Carney (2005) 66.

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royal women in other cultures and periods—​but publicly acknowledged in official documents.”15 The amount of power that Artemisia exerted while co-​ ruling with 16 Mausolus, however, is difficult to measure. It was not until the discovery of epigraphic evidence at the inland Carian site of Labraunda that Artemisia’s role in the satrapy of Mausolus became evident; Diodorus (16.36.2) states only that Artemisia took power upon Mausolus’ death. While Mausolus and Artemisia are both named in the inscription from Labraunda as the benefactors who extend privileges to the Cnossians, as well as the guarantors of those privileges, the said privileges are extended to them in “all the land that Mausolus rules.”17 The inscription does not say “in all the land which Mausolus and Artemisia rule,” and Carney thus argues that, while Artemisia shared in Mausolus’ rule, her share of power was “hardly equal” to that of her husband.18 Artemisia’s name may also be invoked in a second, fragmentary Hecatomnid inscription, in which Mausolus swears an oath to uphold an agreement with the city of Phaselis on the coast of Lycia.19 Her name has been supplied in a lacuna. If the insertion is correct, then she accompanies Mausolus in swearing the oath, but we cannot be certain.20 Artemisia’s name is missing from other known inscriptions generated by her husband’s rule, where only Mausolus is invoked. Yet she is mentioned in a non-​Hecatomnid inscription. An undated inscription from Erythrai, one of the member-​cities of the Ionian league, honors Mausolus as a “benefactor of the city, a guest-​ friend, and a citizen” with a “bronze statue in the agora,” and similarly honors Artemisia with “a marble statue in the temple of Athena.”21 Carney suggests that the role taken on by Hecatomnid royal women may have been different

15. Carney (2005) 71. 16. See further Carney (2005) 66, 71–​74. 17. Hoposēs Maussollos archei. Crampa (1955), part 2, no. 40 = Hornblower (1982) 366, no. M7. 18. Carney (2005) 71. See also Nourse (2002) 126, who argues, “Where the woman’s husband still lived, he was clearly considered the head of the dynasty with supreme authority over the dynasteia. The role played by wives nevertheless remained politically important, and has the appearance of a partnership, in which the women possessed the authority to pursue dynastic policies in conjunction with their husbands.” 19. Bengston (1975) 260. 20. See further Hornblower (1982) 367, no. M10; Ruzicka (1992) 42; Carney (2005) 71. 21. Tod (1948) no. 155 = Syll3 no. 168 = Engelmann and Merkelbach (1972) no. 8. Hornblower (1982) 107, 107 n. 4 makes a convincing case that the Hecatomnids controlled Erythrai at this time; whereas Robert (1945) 101 does not see this as the situation.

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from that espoused by the male members of the dynasty, though she notes that “the prejudice toward women who played a public role found in some strands of the Greek literary tradition” may exaggerate that distinction.22 That the Erythraians did not give citizenship to Artemisia, a woman, is perhaps not surprising, but the fact that they set up a statue of a woman is unusual, at least in a Greek context.23 The inscriptional evidence therefore speaks to the importance of Artemisia in a way that the literary tradition does not. After Mausolus’ death, there is not a clear record of Artemisia being officially named satrap by the Persians,24 although when Strabo (14.2.17) mentions her archē he may suggest that she was the satrap after Mausolus’ death. Xenophon (An. 1.1.8) discusses the potential of Cyrus the Younger to rule (archein) as satrap over Lydia, and, as mentioned earlier, a Mylasan inscription describes Mausolus’ satrapy as “the land that Mausolus rules [archei].”25 Even if Artemisia had not been officially named satrap by the Persians after Mausolus’ death, she was nevertheless the de facto satrap.26 The Persians may not have cared as long as tribute was received; one suspects, nevertheless, that given the time period of her rule, some acknowledgment may have been made by the Persians that is no longer part of the extant record.27 In any event, that Artemisia assumed sole rule of Caria after Mausolus’ death is not in doubt.

Artemisia and the Mausoleum From 353/​352 to 351/​350, Artemisia ruled alone (Diod. Sic. 16.36.2), despite the fact that she had grown male brothers who could have become ruler.28 While a number of modern scholars have given the credit for designing the Mausoleum to her husband-​brother, there is no ancient evidence to support 22. Carney (2005) 73; Bockisch (1970) 126, 174 suggests that Carian royal women had equal rights with their husband-​brothers, an assertion that Carney (2005) 75 n. 73 calls “dubious.” 23. Carney (2005) 72 notes that the erection of a statue for a woman was relatively rare. 24. Ruzicka (1992) 100. 25. Hornblower (1982) 75, 75 n. 156, 154, 366 no. M7 = Crampa (1955) 40, line 7. 26. Carney (2005) 75–​76. See also Nourse (2002) 108–​109. 27. Cf. Ruzicka (1992) 100–​102. 28. Nourse (2002) 108, 118; Penrose (2016) 164. Carney (2005) 75 further notes, “There may have been some tradition in Caria of shared rule by married pairs and a sense that a widow was a more direct heir to a deceased husband than either a son or brother.” On the dates of Artemisia II’s rule, see Hornblower (1982) esp.  40–​41; Ruzicka (1992) 100–​104; Carney (2005) 66, 71, 75.

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this. To the contrary, six ancient sources of which I  am aware report that Artemisia built the Mausoleum (Plin. HN 36.4.30; Pompon. Mela 1.85; Strabo 14.2.16; Cic. Tusc. 3.31.75; Aul. Gell. NA 10.18.4–​5; Val. Max. 4.6.ext 1). Furthermore, Vitruvius (2.8.13) credits Mausolus with building the palace of the Hecatomnids but never asserts that Mausolus either commissioned or built the Mausoleum. Yet, despite the ancient literary evidence, scholars have been reluctant to give Artemisia credit for her achievements, especially for having commissioned the building of the Mausoleum. This failure to give credit where credit is due can be traced back to the Byzantine period, a most misogynistic era. In his description of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Byzantine Nicetas of Heracleia asserts that Mausolus built the Mausoleum but does not mention Artemisia.29 The same is true for the entry on Mausolus in the encyclopedic Iōnia attributed to the Byzantine Empress Eudokia Makrembolitissa.30 While neither of these sources corresponds to the ancient testimony, C. T. Newton, writing in the 1860s, gave the (very late) Byzantine sources precedence over ancient ones. Newton argues, “It seems probable, as is stated by two late Byzantine authors, that Mausolus himself commenced this tomb, in accordance with a practice which has prevailed till a very recent period among some of the native dynasties of India.”31 If Newton’s use of late Byzantine sources over ancient ones is not enough to give the historian pause, his use of the tomb-​building practices of nineteenth-​century India with which to understand Hecatomnid construction of the Mausoleum surely should be. Although Hornblower acknowledges, “The ancient authorities say that Artemisia built it,” he also casts doubt on her role in the project, in part due to the shortness of her reign and, in equal measure, due to the fact that Mausolus, according to Callisthenes (FGrHist 124 F 25  =  Strabo 13.1.59), enacted the synoikismos or political reorganization of the cities of the Carian coast into the polis of Halicarnassus.32 Hornblower suggests that the replanning of the city of Halicarnassus was thus “likely to be the work of Mausolus” and that Mausolus had “deliberately left a place for the Mausoleum (including its

29. Nicetas of Heracleia = Nichita din Heracleea (1977) 188 no. 67. 30.  Makrembolitissa (1781) I:286. The Iōnia is now thought to be a forgery written by Constantine Paleocappa. See Dorandi (2009) 185–​194. 31. Newton (1863) 55. 32.  Hornblower (1982) 238. On archaeological evidence and the synoikismos, see Carstens (2002) 406–​407.

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large temenos) in the plan.”33 Hence Hornblower argues that “the concept of the Mausoleum, with its vast acreage, would go back to Mausolus.”34 As for Artemisia, Hornblower asserts that “if she had anything to do with it—​ and her grief for Mausolus is well attested; the story that she died of sorrow for her brother and husband goes back to Theopompos—​she either started, continued, or completed it,” but he goes on to say, “That she started it is unlikely, because the tomb fits admirably into the city plan.”35 Pliny nevertheless notes not only that the tomb was built by Artemisia (sepulchrum hoc est ab uxore Artemisia factum Mausolo; 36.4.30, ed. André), but that it remained unfinished upon Artemisia’s untimely death and that the sculptors continued their work after she died. Pliny’s testimony is clear: the tomb was begun by Artemisia and finished after her death. Hornblower’s analysis of the lifespans of each of the artists known to have worked on the sculptural ornamentation of the Mausoleum supports, rather than detracts, from Pliny’s assertion.36 Each of the artists, when one analyzes all of the available data, lived well beyond the death of Artemisia in 351/​350 bce, and therefore Pliny’s testimony is compatible with what can be reconstructed of the biographies of these sculptors. Nevertheless, Ruzicka follows Hornblower in not giving Artemisia credit for having commissioned the Mausoleum. Although Ruzicka notes that “ancient writers who knew of work on it by Greek sculptors under Maussollus’ widow, Artemisia, made her responsible for the work as a whole,” he argues, “However, the central and commanding location of the monument in the refounded city suggest that Maussollus conceived the idea of such a monument and perhaps also its general design when planning the city.”37 In the next sentence, Ruzicka moves from interpolation to supposition, asserting, “Construction certainly began during his lifetime, and continued well after his death.”38 He further asserts that, with regard to the funerary agōn, Mausolus, “a master of self-​advertisement who was well-​attuned to contemporary

33. Hornblower (1982) 238. 34. Hornblower (1982) 238. 35.  Hornblower (1982) 238. In the passage cited as evidence by Hornblower, Theopompus (FGrHist 115 F 297) does not mention the tomb, only Artemisia’s grief. 36. On the chronology of the lives of the artists, see Hornblower (1982) 240–​244, 267. 37. Ruzicka (1992) 51. 38. Ruzicka (1992) 51.

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dynastic practices in the eastern Mediterranean world, may have made plans himself for such an event.”39 In contrast, Carney has pointed out the “crucial role” played by women “in the public presentation of the Hecatomnid dynasty, particularly in the formation of a dynastic identity.”40 In this vein, she argues that the “only objective evidence” for asserting that Mausolus planned his own tomb “is that the space left for the monument in the revised city plan did take shape during Mausolus’ rule, but this need only signify that Mausolus intended to have a grand tomb monument, not that he had specific plans for it.”41 Even this conclusion, states Carney, is “based upon the presumption that Artemisia had no role in decisions until her brother was dead.” The ancient sources, to the contrary, credit Artemisia alone not only with the erection of the tomb but also with the planning of Mausolus’ funerary celebration. The evidence of Pliny has already been discussed. In tandem, Strabo (14.2.17, ed. Radt) asserts that “Mausolus ruled, and then, dying childless, left the sovereignty [archē] to his wife, by whom . . . the tomb was constructed [kateskeuasthē].” The verb kataskeuazō means “to build or construct” but can also mean “to establish.”42 Pomponius Mela (De Situ Orbis 1.85, ed. Ranstrand), writing in c. 43–​44 ce, asserts that the tomb was “the work of Artemisia” (Artemisiae opus), not Mausolus, but provides no source. Other extant Latin sources use the verb facere to describe Artemisia’s construction of the tomb, as in Cicero (Tusc. 3.31.75, ed. Fohlen): “Consider how Artemisia, wife of Mausolus the king of Caria, who built [fecit] that renowned sepulcher at Halicarnassus, as long as she lived, lived in mourning, and likewise wasted away on account of that same affliction.”43 Aulus Gellius (NA 10.18.5, ed. Hosius) goes further, saying, “Artemisia dedicated [dicaret] this monument to the deified shades of Mausolus.” Gellius does cite Cicero as a source, however, so his testimony may simply be a retelling of Cicero. While Cicero may be the earliest extant source on the construction of the Mausoleum, he was not the earliest source on Artemisia in antiquity nor, one suspects, on the commissioning of

39. Ruzicka (1992) 103. 40. Carney (2005) 65. 41. Carney (2005) 78. 42. LSJ s.v. kataskeuazō. 43. Ut Artemisia illa, Mausoli, Cariae regis, uxor, quae nobile illud Halicarnassi fecit sepulcrum, quam diu vixit, vixit in luctu, eodemque etiam confecta contabuit.

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the Mausoleum itself. There were, in all likelihood, a number of eyewitness sources in the days of Cicero and his later contemporaries.

Artemisia the Patron After Mausolus’ death, Artemisia hired not only artists and architects but also tragedians, orators, historians, and possibly others (e.g., poets) to commemorate Mausolus’ death. According to Aulus Gellius (NA 10.18.5–​6), when she dedicated the Mausoleum to her husband, she also held an agōn, or contest of the best tragedians and orators of the Greek world to write encomia praising Mausolus. Theopompus, Theodectes, Naucrates, and possibly Isocrates himself, Gellius tells us, competed for the prize, but Theopompus, who was himself a student of Isocrates, won.44 Suidas (s.v. Theodectes), on the other hand, relates that Theodectes was the champion, but he also notes that “others say that Theopompus took first prize.” Suidas further relates that Theodectes won for his tragedy, which we know from Aulus Gellius (NA 10.18.7) was called the Mausolus. It was perhaps performed in the new Hecatomnid theater overlooking the site of the Mausoleum, yet another public benefit provided to the citizens of Caria, and the script was still apparently extant in the time of Gellius. In any event, even if they are no longer available, the mention of these works strongly suggests that those who credited Artemisia with building the Mausoleum had primary, eyewitness sources at their disposal, even though we modern historians do not. As the agōn was called for by Artemisia after Mausolus’ death, and the primary sources created at that time certainly would have flattered Mausolus, they would have also esteemed Artemisia, who was the patron. Additionally, Artemisia spared no expense to create a tomb better than any others yet known in Greece or Anatolia; she hired the best artists of her day to create the visual counterpart to the rhetorical and dramatic tribute she commissioned for Mausolus. Pliny (HN 36.4.30) tells us that she commissioned Scopas, Bryaxis, Timotheus, and Leochares each to carve the reliefs and statuary on the east, north, south, and west faces of the monument, 44. Gellius notes that some authors say that “even Isocrates himself ” participated in the agōn but does not seem assured that this is fact. Plutarch (Mor. 838B), on the other hand, does assert without hesitation that Isocrates “competed in the contest held by Artemisia in Mausolus’ honor” but notes that, even in his day, Isocrates’ eulogy was no longer extant. According to the Suda (s.v. Isocrates, Theodectes = FGrHist 115 T 6a), the Isocrates in question was Isocrates of Apollonia. Suidas lists Isokratēs ho rētōr ho Apollōniatēs as one of the contestants, not the more famous Isocrates of Athens. See further Blass (1892) 2:449; Hornblower (1982) 334 n. 7.

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respectively. The crowning glory of the monument, which was later counted among the seven wonders of the ancient world due to its stunning artwork, was a four-​horse chariot of marble sculpted by none other than the famed Pythis (Plin. HN 36.4.31). Archaeologists have recovered some, though by no means all, of this work.45 Sculptures of not only Mausolus and Artemisia but other Hecatomnids, past and contemporary, and perhaps even the Lygdamids (the predecessors and possible ancestors of the Hecatomnids) were apparently commissioned as part of the Mausoleum project.46 Statues of women were prominent among these representations and speak to the importance of women in the dynasty.47 By commissioning the Mausoleum and hiring the finest orators and poets of the day to laud Mausolus and perhaps other Hecatomnids as well, Artemisia sought to secure loyalty to herself in addition to giving Mausolus a sendoff to the afterlife.48 It is not known whether the events held at Mausolus’ funeral celebration served as steps in developing a Greek-​style hero cult for him.49 On the one hand, Mausolus had already been associated with Heracles, and the poetic and oratorical celebrations held in his honor by Artemisia mirror those held to heroize other dynasts, in particular Evagoras of Cyprus.50 Furthermore, oikistai (founders of the city) were buried in the center of a Greek colony, and Mausolus, due to the synoikismos that he carried out, may

45.  See further Newton (1863) esp.  99–​156 passim; Jeppesen (1958) 15–​58 passim; Jeppesen (2002b) esp. 9–​23, 60–​262 passim; Waywell (1978) passim; Hornblower (1982) esp. 234–​237; Cook (2005). 46. See further Waywell (1978) 40–​43; Jeppesen (1998); Jeppesen (2002a); Jeppesen (2002b) 170–​182; Hornblower (1982) 271; Nourse (2002) 99. 47. Waywell (1978) 43 asserts that half of the statues were of women and reflect the co-​rule of women as well as brother-​sister marriage. See also Nourse (2002) 99–​100. 48. Nourse (2002) 98–​99. 49.  The theory that Mausolus was worshipped as part of a heröon has been advanced by Newton (1863) 139; Hornblower (1982) 252–​261; and Ruzicka (1992) 53–​54. Hornblower calls the theory “speculative,” however, and notes that the story of Artemisia drinking Mausolus’ ashes (which I discuss later) detracts from the hypothesis. Højlund (1981) 83–​87 suggests that the sacrifices performed at the Mausoleum may not have been the type of chthonic sacrifices performed in Greek hero cults but does note the possible consistency of the practices with what little we do know of Carian cults to the dead. Højlund defers definitive judgment to “future investigations” that compare the archaeological remains with “literary, epigraphical, and pictorial sources.” See also Jeppesen (1994); Carstens (2002), who discusses Carian tomb cult; and Dusinberre (2013) 222–​244, who discusses Hecatomnid imitation of Persian cultic practice. 50. Ruzicka (1992) 102–​104.

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have been considered an oikistēs, or city founder.51 Artemisia’s program may have thus served to heroize him as the man who refounded Halicarnassus just as Theseus was the hero who carried out the synoecism at Athens. On the other hand, food offerings have been discovered at the site of the Mausoleum, and the animals were butchered in a manner that has been described by Højlund as possibly incompatible with heroization.52 If Mausolus was indeed heroized, then what we may be seeing here is syncretism of Greek, local Carian, and Persian cultic practices.53 With regard to the cult of Zeus Labraunda, which was heavily sponsored by the Hecatomnids, Dusinberre asserts that it did not demonstrate assimilation of other deities’ worship but rather demonstrated association “between worshipping the god and paying homage to the king, a blend of actions and iconography that brings the Hecatomnid dynasts of Caria into the notion of ‘ascension’ at Persepolis.”54 Furthermore, “we see here . . . association between practices connected with paying homage to the king of gods, the king of kings, and the king of local lands.”55 Carstens argues that “the practice of hero or ancestor cult” is “difficult to separate from tomb cult other than as something more monumentalizing,” and further states, “It is doubtful whether the tomb [of Mausolus] was also regarded as a sacred monument.”56 Whether or not Mausolus was heroized remains to be determined, but we can be assured that Artemisia had agency in lauding him. Nevertheless, as Carney has suggested, there has been a tendency to assume “a construction of gender and allotment of sexual roles in Caria based on the situation in other, better-​known ancient cultures.”57 Literary sources, in particular, present a rather Athenocentric and, particularly, Romanocentric view of Artemisia as a grieving widow consumed with private rather than public concerns. In typical fashion, male Greek and Roman authors saw Artemisia’s actions as part and

51. Hornblower (1982) 255, 258, 260. 52. Højlund (1981) 83–​87; Hornblower (1982) 252. 53. On heroiziation and the “accretion of cults” in Achaemenid Anatolia, see Dusinberre (2013) 222–​244. On indigenous Carian cult practices, see Laumonier (1958); Carstens (2002). 54.  Dusinberre (2013) 230. Dusinberre (2013) 225 similarly argues, “Deities were seldom syncretized, that is, multiple deities were rarely combined into one, but aspects of their cults were much more fluid and show significant accretion of ritual.” 55. Dusinberre (2013) 234. 56. Carstens (2002) 403. 57. Carney (2005) 78.

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parcel of her private grief. Whereas the actions of kings or other male royals are usually attributed to political and hence public causes, the actions of royal women are generally attributed to private motives.58

Artemisia’s Grief: A Roman Construction of Widowhood? Despite having built one of the wonders of the ancient world, Artemisia was seemingly most celebrated for her grief and chastity. She never remarried after Mausolus’ death, and she died childless. Her contemporary Theopompus of Chios (FGrHist 115 F 297) tells us that Artemisia pined away from grief for Mausolus and died shortly thereafter. According to Roman authors, she so loved her husband that she not only built a tomb that towered to the sky for him, but she mixed his ashes up with some liquid and drank them. In telling Roman fashion, Valerius Maximus (4.6.ext 1, ed. Briscoe) sees this action, not the Mausoleum, as her greatest achievement: It would be trivial to argue how much Artemisia, queen of the Carian people, missed her dead husband Mausolus after the magnificence of the many kinds of honors she devised for him and the monument that arose to become one of the Seven Wonders. Why indeed collect the former or speak of that renowned tomb when she herself desired to become a living and breathing sepulcher of Mausolus according to the testimony of those who recount that she drank a potion sprinkled with the deceased’s bones? For Valerius, Artemisia was the quintessential univira woman, and her drinking of this “love potion” outdid all of her other deeds. With this particularly Roman assessment, one begins to wonder if we are already looking at a history of reception rather than a history itself.59 Did Artemisia indeed drink Mausolus’ ashes? The story may originate in a primary source, such as Theopompus of Chios, and could possibly be true. That said, Valerius Maximus may interpret the purpose of her actions differently than an ancient Carian, or 58. Carney (2000a) 12. 59. Carney (2005) 66 notes that Carians were known for their professional singing of funerary dirges in other parts of the Greek-​speaking world, and Artemisia’s excessive mourning in the literary sources may be the result of conflation with an artistic “regional and dynastic type” of the mourning woman. Cf. Theopompus FGrHist 115 F 297.

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maybe even Theopompus, would have. I suspect that if Artemisia did indeed drink the ashes, she may have done so as part of an ancestor or tomb cult. Mausolus was not only her husband but also her brother. Ancestor cults, and cults to the dead more generally, were prominent in the Halicarnassian peninsula, as well as on the nearby islands of the south and southeastern Aegean.60 But for Roman authors, the act of drinking Mausolus’ ashes put Artemisia on par, or perhaps beyond, even Cornelia.

Avoiding and Repressing Rebellions Although Artemisia may well have experienced extreme grief on a personal (i.e., private) level, she also had need to assert her control over Hecatomnid territories after Mausolus’ death, and we must understand that she was probably motivated by public, political, as well as personal concerns. Indeed, in her role as sovereign dynast, the personal and political were entangled. Artemisia may have inherited the throne at a precarious point in time, and her propaganda can be understood as reflective of that situation. In essence, what Artemisia seems to have done was to create her own equivalent of bread and circuses to create loyalty among her subjects. Her actions in commemorating Mausolus served to secure her own position as his sister, widow, and heir, as well as to promote the Hecatomnid dynasty as a whole.61 That Mausolus had done damage to the reputation and political clout of the dynasty is suggested by a number of sources. He was remembered for heavy taxation and apparently was not well liked in Caria or abroad, but he held onto power through martial rule.62 Theopompus (FGrHist 115 F 299), a contemporary of Mausolus, stated that he would do anything for money. Pseudo-​Aristotle (Oec. 1348a) and Polyaenus (7.23.1) both relate that Mausolus used his position to extort money from his subjects.63 Pseudo-​Aristotle (Oec. 60. Kamps (1937) 145–​179; Hornblower (1982) 260; Sherwin-​White (1977); Sherwin-​White (1978) 363–​367; Carstens (2002) 391–​409. 61.  Laumonier (1958) 638 asserts that the Mausoleum was intended less as a personal monument to Mausolus and Artemisia than as a familial heröon like that of the Philippeion at Olympia. The statues of numerous others, most likely Hecatomnids and possibly even Lygdamid predecessors (ancestors?) of the Hecatomnids, present on the monument do support such a reading; the fact that the building was ultimately named the Mausoleum, however, does give Mausolus some primacy among that group. See also Carney (2005) 65, 83–​85. 62. See further Hornblower (1982) 75–​76. Ruzicka (1992) 72 discusses Mausolus’ subjugation of Ionia. 63. Hornblower (1982) 75.

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1348a) relates that Mausolus first taxed his subjects because he was short of money and needed to pay tribute to the king of Persia, but he later preyed upon the people of Mylasa by telling them that he expected the Persian to attack and that he needed to raise money to fortify the city. Fearing for their lives and property, the citizens of Mylasa anted up. Mausolus never did build the walls around Mylasa, however, but kept the money. Aristotle was a contemporary of Mausolus (though perhaps not an eyewitness), and, even if the Oeconomica was written by one of Aristotle’s students, the actions it reports explain why there were multiple uprisings and even an assassination attempt against Mausolus, as I discuss later.64 Though he wrote much later, Polyaenus (7.23.1, ed. Krentz and Wheeler) confirms the general sense that one gets from Pseudo-​Aristotle: “Mausolus, king of Caria desired to take money from his friends and, hesitating to ask openly, he feigned that ‘The King is stripping me of my power.’ ” He then proceeded to show these friends the treasure that he had compiled, asserting that he needed to send it and more to the king in order to resecure his ancestral domain. He thus fooled his friends into sending him vast sums of money, which, Polyaenus implies, he did not send to the king. Mausolus apparently did owe large amounts of tribute to the Persian king of kings after he participated in an uprising of satraps that began in c. 364/​363 and seems to have ended by 361/​360 bce.65 The possibility that his actions and wars may have led to increased taxes, even if he did pay them to the king when push came to shove, potentially would still have made him unpopular. Inscriptional evidence leaves no doubt that there had been several uprisings in Caria during Mausolus’ lifetime, and an assassination attempt had occurred only several years prior to his death. One inscription records an uprising at Iasos on the Carian coast which was suppressed by Mausolus.66 The names

64. Aubriet (2013) 195–​196, asserts that further inscriptional evidence demonstrates the unpopularity of Mausolus. In inscriptions from Mylasa, onomastic patterns reveal that, though Carians named their children after the Hecatomnids (including Artemisia), the name Mausolus shows up far less than that of his father, Hecatomnus. Aubriet (2013) 195–​196 writes, “Let us note that the memory of Hecatomnus stands out clearly from the others and that the feeble presence of the name Mausolus can be explained by the memory of his legendary fiscal severity.” The editors in SEG 63.837, however, criticize Aubriet, pointing to several inscriptions he possibly missed and calling his survey “superficial” and further noting that epigraphic data “must be treated with caution.” They go on to state, “The apparent absence of echoes of the satrap Mausolus’ name at Mylasa and elsewhere in Caria warrants further investigation. The name is more prevalent in later periods in Lycia (see notably our lemma no. 1336 for numerous new instances at Patara).” 65. Ruzicka (1992) 78–​82. 66. Syll3 no. 169. See further Hornblower (1982) 112–​113; Ruzicka (1992) 41.

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of the conspirators are listed; although most are Greek names, some are Carian. Another inscription from Mylasa records that in 355/​354, Mausolus was attacked at the Festival of Zeus Labraundeus in Mylasa by Manitas, son of Pactyes.67 Mausolus was saved by divine interference, or so we are told in the inscription. Manitas, the attacker, was killed. Yet another inscription tells us that other insurgents were punished for conspiring against Mausolus and defacing a statue of Hecatomnus.68 We are told by Vitruvius that the Rhodians later revolted against Artemisia, but her Carian and Carian Greek subjects remained loyal to her, and she prevailed over the Rhodians. Vitruvius (2.8.14–​15) writes: Thus, after the death of Mausolus, when his wife Artemisia inherited the throne, the Rhodians were indignant that a woman was ruling over all of the cities of Caria. Therefore, they set forth with an armed fleet to invade the realm. When this was reported to Artemisia, she concealed her fleet in the secret harbor, having paired the rowers and the marines, and she commanded the rest of the citizens to protect the walls. When the Rhodians landed with their armada in the larger harbor, Artemisia commanded the citizens to greet the Rhodians from the walls and promise to surrender the city. When the Rhodians left their ships unguarded and advanced to inside the city wall, Artemisia, sneaking through a canal dug out to the sea, suddenly let her fleet out from the lesser harbor and thus sailed into the greater. Having landed her soldiers, she abducted the empty Rhodian fleet and towed it out to sea. Thus the Rhodians, having no way to recover their ships, were surrounded in the middle of the city and cut to pieces in the forum. In the meantime, Artemisia placed her own troops and rowers in the ships of the Rhodians and made headway towards Rhodes. Now when the Rhodians saw their own ships in the distance coming back decked with laurel, thinking that their fellow-​citizens were returning after a victory, they admitted the enemy to the harbor. Then Artemisia, having taken Rhodes, killed the foremost citizens, and erected a trophy of her victory in the city of Rhodes.

67. Blümel (1987) 5–​6 no. 3. 68. Syll3 no. 167. See further Hornblower (1982) 68–​69, 70 n. 127.

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While Vitruvius is a late source, and thus his testimony has been discounted by several scholars, the inscriptional evidence I mentioned underscores that uprisings against Hecatomnid rule did occur, and both contemporary and later literary evidence suggests why: Mausolus was corrupt. Hence Artemisia’s benefactions and patronage of the arts, coupled with the pro-​Hecatomnid propaganda she spread as part of Mausolus’ funerary celebrations, may well have sought to ensure the loyalty of Carians in case another assassination plot or uprising were to occur. Indeed, Vitruvius tells us that just such a rebellion was initiated by the Rhodians, who were still ostensibly ruled by Artemisia after Mausolus’ death.69 Although some modern scholars, in particular Berthold, Hornblower, Jeppesen, and Sebillotte Cuchet, have doubted the veracity of this uprising, the story remains plausible.70 As I  have discussed this matter elsewhere in detail, I will simply summarize my findings here.71 While Vitruvius is a late source, Demosthenes (15.11), a contemporary, asserts that the Rhodians were contemplating rebellion. Berthold has argued that the story of Vitruvius is not plausible due to the geography of Halicarnassus, but archaeological examination of the site, coupled with ancient references, proves the opposite. First of all, the archaeological investigations of Kristian Jeppesen and Poul Pedersen confirm that the story of Vitruvius is compatible with the topography of Halicarnassus.72 Vitruvius mentions a “secret harbor,” which was probably placed between the island where the castle of St. Peter stands today and the mainland, as well as a canal (fossa) that connected the secret harbor to the outer harbor. At present, there is an isthmus of low-​lying ground connecting the mainland to the rocky island, but we know from ancient references that the island was not always connected to the mainland 69. Ruzicka (1992) 106–​111 suggests that the motives for the Rhodian uprising were largely commercial; the downfall of the Hecatomnids would have brought more wealth into Rhodes. This is not at all incompatible with my thesis that Mausolus’ oppressive rule, especially his heavy taxation, had been resented. 70. Berthold (1978); Hornblower (1982) 129, 268; Sebillotte Cuchet (2015) 233–​235. A number of other recent scholars, in contrast, argue that the account may be truthful or at least based on some kernel of the truth; see Ruzicka (1992) 107–​111; Gros (1999) 141–​144; Carney (2005) 67–​68; Penrose (2016) 165–​171. Although Jeppesen’s (2002b) 173 archaeological analysis of Halicarnassus suggests that the account is plausible, he nevertheless asserts that a tour guide may have made up the story. Nourse (2002) 111 n. 144 asserts that “Artemisia’s use of trickery in the story is reminiscent of the ruse of Artemisia in Polyain. 8.53.4, so the details should be considered suspect even if the story has some basis in fact.” 71. Penrose (2016) 165–​171. 72.  Jeppesen (1986) 85–​96; Pedersen (2010) esp.  305–​306; See also Gros (1999) 141–​144; Penrose (2016) 165–​171.

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(Plin. HN 2.91; Diod. Sic. 17.27.6; see also Pseudo-​Scylax Periplus 99.1).73 Furthermore, a submerged mole in the present-​day harbor of Bodrum, which is still visible, may well have “carried a fortification wall” that was part of the “secret harbor” mentioned by Vitruvius.74

Conclusion Artemisia had good reason to be concerned about uprisings, and her actions after her husband-​brother’s death must be understood against this background; her husband had been a powerful but also unpopular ruler who was remembered by several ancient authors for extorting every last drachma from his subjects. It makes sense that Artemisia was not just grieving and spending lavishly to console herself; she was engaging in a propaganda campaign to shore up her own power. The ancient sources assert that she, not Mausolus, commissioned the Mausoleum, and we have every reason to believe that these ancient authors, in turn, had primary sources at their disposal since Artemisia commissioned the writing of many texts as part of the agōn held in Mausolus’ honor. She has been ignored or misunderstood by scholars from the Byzantine period to the modern era due to misogyny. We can analyze neither Artemisia nor her Carian context using an Athenocentric or a Romanocentric perspective that aligns men with the public sphere and women with the private.75 Halicarnassus was a location where Greeks and Carians mingled, and, while Artemisia imported Greek culture through her patronage of the arts, she must be understood as a native Carian woman living in a region that had become somewhat Hellenized but was not entirely Greek. Greek culture may have conquered Caria, so to speak, but native Carians (the Hecatomnids) had usurped the Greek colonies along the Carian coast, even if they ruled them ostensibly in the name of Persia.76 This analysis of Artemisia’s reign suggests that she deserves her place in the historiographical record of the Hecatomnids. Like her husband, at whose side she stood as a co-​ruler, she was a capable politician and leader. The intense 73. See further Newton (1863) 38, 275; Jeppesen (1986) 85–​91; Penrose (2016) 168–​170. 74. A photograph of this mole has been published by Pedersen (2010) 305 fig. 43. 75. See further Penrose (2016) 18–​19, 22, 154, 164, 181–​183, 269, 271. 76.  On the blending of Greek, Persian, Egyptian, and local Carian/​Asia Minor–​inspired elements in the Mausoleum, see Hornblower (1982) 245–​251. Cf. Carstens (2002). On the imitation of Persian royal worship in Hecatomnid practice, see Dusinberre (2013) 222–​244 passim.

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emphasis modern scholars place on Mausolus’ planning of his own funeral and tomb is of keen interest to this inquiry, as the ancient sources attribute these actions to Artemisia alone. Yet the Byzantines wrote Artemisia out of the historical record, and the choice of C. T. Newton in the 1860s to prefer Byzantine to earlier Roman sources has haunting echoes in much modern historiography. Some fifty years into the current gender revolution, it is high time that we give credit where credit is due. Artemisia showed much agency in shaping the cultural and political landscape of her sole reign and may have done so as well while co-​ruling with Mausolus.

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The Murder of Apronia Barbara Levick

Introduction: the Succession to Augustus The somber topic of this paper may seem inappropriate as an offering to the scholar whom we delight to honor and who has thrown such brilliant light onto the entire field of women’s studies, yet it lies at the center of relations between men and women at Rome and may suggest reconsidering what some women, not imperial, might achieve.1 After his defeat of Antony and Cleopatra in 30 bce Augustus had established a new form of Roman government, the principate, in which one man ruled, but all the old forms of government survived, in however weakened form. It is important to recognize both that the new form of government—​ one-​man rule—​was in complete conflict with the constitution of the Republic, with its collegialities and limited terms of office, and that struggles for the succession, and how to prevent any such thing, began early in his reign, leading to the conspiracy of Caepio and Murena of 23 or 22 bce. Augustus shifted his position and found new ways of bringing on potential heirs and successors (Marcus Agrippa and his own grandsons Gaius and Lucius Caesars, as well as his stepsons Tiberius and Drusus after the death of Agrippa in 12 bce), whatever the resentment it caused in Republican circles. It was a consequence of this dynastic element in Augustus’ schemes that the political role of women should be enhanced, especially that of his wife and daughter, Livia and the elder Julia. That was noticed, on the whole 1. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Geraldine Herbert-​Brown for her careful and critical reading of an earlier draft of this paper. Barbara Levick, The Murder of Apronia In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0006

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unfavorably, but women in their circle of friends were also able to access sources of power (potentia) that lay outside official spheres, through the use of personality, money, and patronage. Augustus had established himself beyond any idea of failure and in 2 bce, the very year in which his daughter was disgraced in a sexual scandal that had political overtones, was formally styled Father of His Country (Pater Patriae). The last ten years of Augustus’ principate (4–​14 ce) were dark. Not only did the Roman army suffer striking reverses, most notoriously the loss of three legions in the Teutoburgerwald in 9 ce, but there was widespread unrest in the provinces connected with stringent tax demands, shortage of grain at Rome, and an acute struggle for the succession within the imperial family. That had its clearest roots in the death of Augustus’ stepson Drusus in 9 bce, which led to the promotion of his brother Tiberius. (This was the year in which Livy chose to end his History of Rome.) Another pair of claimants, Augustus’ grandsons through his daughter Julia, whom Tiberius had had to marry, sprang forward, and Tiberius withdrew into virtual exile on Rhodes. But Gaius and Lucius Caesars also died, in 2 bce and 4 ce, and Julia fell into her disgrace. The rehabilitated Tiberius became Augustus’ undoubted heir in 4 ce, with Agrippa Postumus, youngest brother of the deceased princes, a partner short-​lived for his blatant discontent with the inequity of his position, and paying for it within a few years by relegation at Sorrento and ultimately exile on Planasia. His sister the younger Julia was also exiled in 8 ce. Whatever the struggles for supremacy, Augustus in 14 ce left his fifty-​ six-​year-​old step-​and adopted son Tiberius firmly in control and in possession of all the powers that the Princeps needed. His position was eagerly ratified by magistrates, Senate, and people. Even so, the son that Augustus had disinherited and removed from the Julian family, Agrippa Postumus, was immediately executed, and the new emperor had to face unrest in the armies of Germany and in the Balkans. Tiberius had two sons and heirs to back him up:  Germanicus and Drusus Caesars, the first the adopted son of his beloved brother, the second his own child. They got on well, but neither survived long:  Germanicus took up a command in the East and died there in 19, and Drusus passed away at Rome in 23. That left the succession open once again to a struggle in the next generation between the sons of Germanicus, Nero and Drusus Caesars, Drusus’ boy Gemellus, and Tiberius’ increasingly powerful minster L. Aelius Sejanus, his prefect of the Praetorian Guard.

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The Death of Apronia

For the following year, 24, Tacitus provides disturbing events. First comes the premature offer to the gods of vows for the safety of the young princes Nero and Drusus Caesars, the sons of Germanicus; for this the pontiffs were rebuked by the emperor. Then came the downfall and suicide of C.  Silius, consul in 13 ce, who as commander of the upper Rhine army and legate of Germanicus, had put down a revolt in Gaul; his wife Sosia Galla, a friend of Germanicus’ widow Agrippina, was exiled. The hand of Tiberius’ minister Sejanus was behind this mischief. Two other attacks followed, involving senatorial pronouncements, to be dealt with later.2 At the end of his account of these domestic events of 24 ce Tacitus offers a bizarre episode. It is the murder of Apronia (A 975; R-​C 86) by her husband the urban praetor M. Plautius Silvanus (P 479), who threw her from a height for reasons which were unclear.3 Dragged before Caesar by his father-​in-​law, he replied in a disturbed state of mind to the effect that he had been heavily asleep and therefore unconscious and that his wife had chosen to die of her own accord. Without hesitation Tiberius proceeded to the house, visited the bedroom, where traces of her struggle and forcible ejection were to be seen, and referred the matter to the Senate. A jury was appointed (showing prima facie presumption of guilt on the part of the Senate—​whether the case was remitted to a regular jury court or, more probably, given the status of the accused, assigned to a smaller body of senators) and Urgulania, Silvanus’ grandmother,4 sent her grandson a dagger, an action that was believed to have been taken virtually on the emperor’s advice, owing to Augusta’s (that is, before her elevation on the death of Augustus, Livia’s) friendship with Urgulania. Having tried the weapon to no purpose, the accused offered his veins to be cut—​ evidently by a slave, perhaps a professional doctor. Subsequently Silvanus’ former wife Fabia Numantina,5 charged with having induced insanity in the husband by spells and poisons, was judged innocent. How far this charge was taken we are not told. The language (innocens iudicatur) suggests that the case was taken to a formal court, presumably again before a jury of senators, if the Senate itself did not dismiss the case in a preliminary hearing. Tacitus then 2.  Tac. Ann. 4.17–​21. For Silius, see PIR S 718; for Sosia, PIR S 781 and Raepsaet-​Charlier (1987) 574 no. 720. 3. Tac. Ann. 24. Apronia: PIR A 975; Raepsaet-​Charlier (1987) no. 86. Silvanus: PIR P 479. 4. Urgulania: PIR ed., 1, V 684. 5. Fabia Numantina: PIR ed. 2, F 78; Raepsaet-​Charlier (1987) no. 353.

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turns to external matters: the end of the war against the rebel Tacfarinas in North Africa. This is a succinct account, in part certainly drawn, like much of Book Four, directly or indirectly from the minutes of the Senate, acta senatus. It was an open-​and-​shut case, in the sense that judge and jury—​the Princeps and presumably the Senate who decided on the appointment of a jury—​were satisfied with the outcome. The evidence of the murderer’s guilt is plain, and this is a locked-​room mystery, or at least a locked-​mansion mystery, since the crime took place at night and the doors of the mansion would have been securely barred against intruders, with a lodge keeper at the main entrance. Only the inmates of the house—​the family and its slaves, who may have numbered hundreds, but in the mass can have had no plausible motive pinned on them—​come under suspicion. No doubt was expressed except by the accused husband with his exculpatory story, and no scope remained for an inquiry along the lines of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, nor much temptation to look for a deeper solution. There was evidently general satisfaction at the outcome. Even the hypercritical Tacitus’ suspicions extend only as far as the possible role of the empress in securing the death of Silvanus.

Unexplained Circumstances All the same, some things remain unclear. The context and outcome were as much political as judicial, and it is this political context that I should like to consider. First of all, the physical circumstances are unclear. Whether Apronia fell like Amy Robsart, wife of Robert Dudley, at Cumnor Place in Berkshire in 1560 down a possibly quite shallow inner flight of stairs or through an exterior window (the contrast with the pitching of his discarded fiancée Lisa Harnum by Simon Guttany from the fifteenth floor of a Sydney building in 2011, with another claim of suicide, is striking),6 is not stated. Again, the timing of events is only relatively clear. The alarm may have been raised by slaves, since Plautius claimed to have been fast asleep when his wife died. They will have roused their master, and the next person seen in action is the dead woman’s father, L. Apronius.7 The married couple might be expected to be living in the husband’s house. In any case Apronius would have had to be informed

6. Robsart: see, e.g., Black (1959) 49–​51; I owe the information about Harnum to Dr. Geraldine Herbert-​Brown. 7. Apronius: PIR ed. 2, A 971.

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immediately: under the principate a Roman woman normally did not pass into the manus of her husband but remained in the power of her father even after marriage. And a father’s feelings will have taken him to the scene at once. The two residences will have been in exclusive areas of the city and perhaps not far apart.8 Apronius’ next move was to approach Tiberius, “dragging” his son-​in-​law the praetor with him. (The verb is trahere.) The looming authority of the emperor overrode any imperium of the praetor; he could not defy even the private individual Apronius. The emperor might still have been at his morning levée, the salutatio that was expected of senators as a token of respect toward the emperor, and the seniority of the men involved as well as the news they carried would have given the case for their admission priority.9 Tiberius acknowledged it: he lost no time in going in person to the scene, where the traces of the disturbance were still visible—​or had been reassembled. Plautius’ claim that Apronia killed herself was never plausible, though a parallel case is recorded in the principate. Quintilian tells us that he had been involved in a trial that hung on an issue exactly parallel to that of Plautius:10 Naevius, a man from Arpinum, was accused of murdering his wife by throwing her from a height; he too pleaded that she jumped. That of course was all he could say. But hanging, after the manner of Amata in the Aeneid, or suffocation, alleged for Brutus’ wife Porcia, or any of the other numerous methods listed by scholars,11 not jumping out of windows, was a preferred method for unforced Roman female suicides. Only in a blind passion would a woman take her own life in the way her husband wished on Apronia. What form Naevius’ height took is unspecified. Not that husbands murdering wives were commonly found in Roman culture; as S. Treggiari observes, divorce was too easy for that. Plautius could readily have been free of his wife, unless he was still under the control (potestas) of a father who wanted the marriage continued, and it is generally agreed that the elder Silvanus was already dead by fourteen. Only catching his wife in flagrante (no evidence for that) or the sudden revelation of a bastard child passed off as his own might have provoked the husband to such a fit of rage.

8. For Roman “privacy,” see Anguissola (2012). For the salutatio, see Talbert (1984) 68–​70 and Michel (2015) 31–​56. 9. For Tiberius’ residence on the Palatine, see Wiseman (2013) 259; Michel (2015) 31–​56. 10. Quint. Inst. Orat. 7.24.2. 11. For example, Grisé (1982); Treggiari ([1991] 1993) 484–​488.

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The Family of the Victim Apronia belonged to a family that rose to distinction only in the Augustan age. No Apronii figure in F. Münzer’s treatment of noble and aristocratic families of the Republic, while T. R. S. Broughton shows only a fifth-​century tribune and a third-​century aedile.12 Apronia’s father, L.  Apronius, surfaces late in Augustus’ principate. He opened his career by holding one of the posts in the board of twenty (the vigintivirate) expected of young would-​be senators. But curiously enough, he held one of the four most distinguished positions in it, often reserved for young men of the highest rank: that of the quattuoruir (but in Apronius’ year entitling themselves IIIVIR) monetalis, master of the mint. He would have been about seventeen or eighteen at that point, which C. H. V. Sutherland dates to c. 5 bce.13 Apronius’ colleagues in issuing quadrantes were a Galus, a Sisenna, and a Messalla. Of these, the cognomen Messalla is resplendent in the Augustan age: it belongs to consuls of 31, 29, 12, and 3 bce and most relevantly to Apronius’ contemporary L. Valerius Messalla Volesus, the consul of 5 ce, a villainous provincial governor, it turned out, but an aristocratic colleague for Apronius.14 The Apronii were clearly “new men,” in the technical sense, never having reached the consulship before, or indeed any curule office. As we shall see, L. Apronius himself under Augustus may have held a priesthood often awarded to new men, that of a fetialis. Military merit, as Velleius Paterculus’ account of the Balkan war suggests,15 may have laid the foundations of Apronius’ career, as well as patronage from a superior officer, perhaps a Vibius. His son L. Apronius Caesianus, eponymous consul in 39, would be connected through his mother with the Caesii, but they too were newcomers under Augustus. Apronius served with distinction in Dalmatia. Velleius’ chapter, preceding his account of the Varian disaster of 9 ce, is devoted to praise of worthy officers, and it is carefully graded to take in men who succeeded in winning the highest honors and those who (for one reason or another, not necessarily through any fault of their own) missed the ornamenta triumphalia. Apronius’ success was cloudless, but he was too junior as yet (it seems) for the ornamenta that his commander C. Vibius Postumus (suffect consul in 5 ce) achieved.

12. Münzer (1999); Broughton (1951–​1986). 13. Sutherland (1984) 139, n. 161. 14. Volesus: PIR V 96. 15. Vell. Pat 2.116. C. Vibius Postumus at section 3.

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He passed to his own consulship in 8 ce. Not surprisingly for a man of his social standing, it was held in the second half of the year. Not only military merit was relevant. The political turmoil of the years 4 to 8 needs to be taken into account, indeed of the decade since Tiberius had gone into voluntary exile in Rhodes (6 bce), leaving Gaius and Lucius Caesars and their mother, the elder Julia, in possession of the field at Rome. That supremacy had ended in the deaths of the brothers on service abroad and the exile of their mother in 2 bce and of their surviving siblings, Agrippa Postumus and the younger Julia, after Tiberius’ return to power in 4 ce. A  whole new band of political arrivistes was swarming up the ladder as loyal supporters of the aged Augustus’ regime and of his final heir, Tiberius, entrenched since 4. They rose to prominence with Tiberius in the aftermath of his adoption.16 Other prominent members were the Vibii, the general C. Vibius Postumus, consul 5 ce and successful in Dalmatia, and A. Vibius Habitus, suffect consul 8 ce and so Apronius’ colleague. Indeed, the wife of Apronia’s brother-​in-​law P. Plautius Pulcher was a Vibia, daughter of C. Vibius Marsus the suffect consul of 17.17 Naturally there were opponents, some covert, others vociferous, most probably the orator Cassius Severus, who was exiled at the end of Augustus’ reign for vilifying members of the aristocracy. Severus’ penalty was aggravated by the Senate precisely in the year of Apronia’s murder because the slanderer was persisting in his vilifications in that year. We have no details.18 A second and minor factor to take into account in considering the promotions of these years is Augustus’ need to make a new institution, the suffect consulship, acceptable to rising politicians from the aristocracy and so to find places for more men of ambition—​but of lower birth. Once taken by high-​ranking aristocrats, it would become a perfectly routine honor. So it had been when honorific replacements for the triumph, the triumphalia ornamenta, were introduced; significantly Tiberius himself and L. Calpurnius Piso (consul 13 bce) had been the first to accept them, setting a fine example. As a military man Apronius certainly qualified for Syme’s description of him as a favorite of Tiberius. He served not only in Dalmatia but after his consulship both in Germany and in Africa. In 15 he was a consular legate to Germanicus and was awarded the triumphal ornaments. It may not have been

16. The new aristocracy: Syme (1986) 100–​101. Vibius Habitus: Syme (1984) 1427. P. Plautius Pulcher: PIR P 472, cf. ILS 964. 17. Habitus as Apronius’ colleague: Syme (1984) 1427; Vibia: ILS 964. 18. Cassius Severus: Tac. Ann. 1.72.3, 4.21.3.

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unwelcome to Tiberius to have a steady loyalist in the field with a dashing general whom he could not or would not quite trust, whether as a soldier or as a political adviser. But it was not Germanicus and his coterie but the families who were arraigned against the entire dynasty of Tiberius and his sons, natural and adoptive, against whom new men such as L. Apronius formed a bulwark. At any rate, what looks like a whole series of quite intimate if sometimes tart exchanges may be traced between Apronius and Tiberius in the following years, though they have not attracted as much attention as they might. Back in Rome after his time in Germany, Apronius spoke among the consulars in the Senate. He was ready with a sycophantic proposal, recorded in Tacitus, to commemorate as a festal day the suicide on September 13, 16, of the alleged conspirator M. Libo Drusus, whose criminal plan, documented in the Fasti of Amiternum, was to annihilate the house of the Caesars and take power on his own account. Apronius’ fellow proposers were the Samnite M.  Papius Mutilus, suffect consul 9 ce, and C. Asinius Gallus, consul in 8 bce, who had married Tiberius’ former wife Vipsania and delighted in appearing to enhance the powers of the Princeps—​for the benefit of his own family; the infamous third was most likely the “chronic traitor” L.  Plancus.19 Their self-​interested motives were transparent; certainly Apronius in particular had his future command abroad in mind. It was time in 18, after the required interval had elapsed, for Apronius to draw lots for his consular province, and he obtained Africa, not the peaceful Asia. There too he distinguished himself and was further rewarded by holding it not for the normal one year but for three (18–​21, evidently at the behest of the emperor, who knew that the difficulty of the terrain and the cunning and experience of Rome’s opponent meant that more than one campaign would be necessary), though he did not bring the war against the rebel Tacfarinas to an end. He was awarded the ornamenta triumphalia.20 When he took over the command a candid exchange of views took place between Apronius and Tiberius. Apronius boldly applied the ancient punishment of decimation—​ the execution by flogging of every tenth man—​to one of his legionary cohorts that had failed in battle. In response Tiberius, with equal antiquarian correctness, perhaps playfully reproved him for not conferring the full traditional

19.  Apronius’ proposal:  Tac. Ann. 2.32.2. The plot:  Ehrenberg and Jones (1976) 52. Papius Mutilius and Asinius Gallus: PIR ed. 2, P 123 and A 1229; Plancus: M 729 and Syme (1986) 343. 20. Ornamenta: Tac. Ann. 4.23.1.

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honor of the corona civica, awarded for saving the life of a fellow citizen,21 which was another prerogative of the governor, on Helvius Rufus, a soldier who had been cited as having earned it. This was a curious and no doubt tartly enjoyable exchange of civilities on the theme of a governor’s rights and duties. Again, while in Africa Apronius made a dedication to the emperor at the temple of Venus on Mount Eryx in Sicily—​an act of notable homage.22 Apronius sent his son Caesianus, already a member if the prestigious priesthood of the seven-​man board in charge of Feasts (Septemuiri Epulonum), to set up the twenty-​four-​line verse joint dedication to the emperor, along with weaponry from a victorious encounter with the enemy and an image of the emperor. That did not help him when in 22, back in the Senate, Apronius proposed that fetiales, as well as priests of boards more senior to them, should preside over the games that were established to celebrate the recovery of Julia Augusta from her severe illness in that year.23 Tiberius firmly put him down with elaborate argumentation to the effect that the ancient college of the fetiales had never enjoyed such prestige. The proposal makes one suspect that Apronius himself was a member of the order and hoped to take part in the ceremonies.

The Marriages of Apronius’ Daughters The direct cultivation of Tiberius and service as a first-​rate governor was not all that carried on Apronius’ career. He made upwardly mobile marriage alliances. He gave his daughter Apronia Caesiana24 in a very distinguished marriage, finding her a niche within one of the most stable and secure dynasties of the late republican era—​and one that survived well into the principate. The Cornelii Lentuli were patrician, and so one of Apronius’ daughters was married to a son of Cossus Cornelius Lentulus; he was a Gaetulicus, consul in 26 ce. The family guaranteed a high position no matter who else was on the rise. The marital career of Apronius’ other daughter was less unclouded right from the start. In 7 ce, M. Plautius Silvanus, consul 2 bce,25 brought legionary 21. Military awards: Tac. Ann. 3.21. 22. Dedication: ILS 939. 23. Proposal on fetiales: Tac. Ann. 3.64.4. 24. Caesiana: PIR A 976, based on Tac. Ann. 6.30; cf. Vell. Pat. 2.116.2; PIR C 1380. 25. Silvanus the elder: PIR P ed. 2, 478.

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reinforcements from Galatia to Tiberius’ forces in the Balkans—​which the supreme commander promptly returned to Asia Minor. Worse, Silvanus and his colleague, according to Velleius, were close to meeting a severe defeat en route. It is not surprising that he does not feature in the “chapter of tributes” that Velleius uses to separate the Dalmatian victory from the Varian disaster, but Cassius Dio records signal successes of his against the Breuci and the Dalmati in 8 and 9.26 It was to this man’s son that Apronius gave his other daughter. An earlier marriage of Silvanus to Fabia Numantina (whom he had received as a widowed heiress from Sex. Appuleius, the consul of 14 ce, Syme conjectured) had been dissolved, we do not know why. Either side might have been trying to better itself. Paullus Fabius Maximus, consul 11 bce,27 who was probably her father, member of an ancient and distinguished family, had been involved in gossip from the end of Augustus’ life. The story was of a trip to Planasia made by the emperor in the company of Fabius and a plan to rehabilitate the disgraced Agrippa Postumus, in exile there. True or not—​and few believed or believe it—​what matters is that the story went round. Maximus was dead by the end of the same year. Not only his widow Marcia allegedly blamed herself for his death (she had been too talkative) but so did Ovid, exiled when the younger Julia fell, who claimed that Fabius had been going to intercede with the emperor on his behalf. This may have been when Silvanus moved on, taking the daughter of a safe adherent of the new regime. In other words, the alliance with L. Apronius and his daughter strengthened the position of young Plautius Silvanus in the late Augustan political constellation. Silvanus was not the only member of his family to make an advantageous marriage during this period. The later emperor Claudius’ first wife was a Plautia Urgulanilla, that is, the sister of the praetor of 24 ce.28 She was not the first choice made for Claudius, but was a replacement for the daughter of the younger Julia, who had fallen into disgrace in 8 ce, and for Furia Camilla, who died on her wedding day; presumably Claudius and Urgulanilla were married in about 9 or 10. This marriage ended in divorce, at a time unspecified. Claudius’ grounds were adultery and more unusually “some suspicion of murder” (homicidium). The victim is not named. He or she might have been a slave or some other individual considered of no account, struck in anger, but

26. Silvanus’ successes of 8 and 9: Cassius Dio 55.34.6, 56.12.2. 27. Fabius Maximus and his fate PIR F ed. 2, 47; Ovid, Ex Ponto 4.6.9–​13; Tac. Ann. 1.5; Syme (1986) 414–​418. 28. Urgulanilla: Raepsaet-​Charlier, Prosopographie no. 619; homicidium: Suet. Claud. 26.2.

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the question arises whether Urgulanilla was suspected of complicity in a more significant murder, that of her sister-​in-​law. Claudius went on to make another marriage, to Aelia Paetina, a woman distantly related to Tiberius’ minister Aelius Sejanus; it took place before 28, for the child it produced, Claudia Antonia, was married by 41.

The Collapse of an Alliance Within the group of Tiberius’ and Germanicus’ adherents perfect concord did not reign for long. They had prevailed over the children of the elder Julia, her daughter and son Agrippa Postumus and purported ally Libo Drusus, but that merely left gaps open for new rivalries to develop. Alliances were stabilized by marriage but could be loosened over time, especially when pressure from external hostility weakened. There was good reason for discord among the adherents of Germanicus. His death in 19, followed three years later by that of Drusus Caesar and a half-​hearted attempt to bring forward Claudius, disturbed the politics of the court and caused rifts to open up within the leading families. One prime example came even before Drusus died. He had been ill in 21, and a poet boasted of the reward he would have for his verses on the prince’s death—​recited at the house of P.  Petronius (suffect consul 19 ce), an adherent of Germanicus. Only Petronius’ mother-​in-​law Vitellia denied hearing the poem; its author was executed by decree of the Senate.29 Tiberius’ reaction was to order that no executions should take place until the sentences had been recorded for ten days within the state treasury, giving time for due leniency to be exercised. L. Apronius cultivated personal relations with the emperor. They were both military men and shared a taste for law. That was felicitous. Apronius was linked with the very center of power as well as with lesser gentes such as the Vibii and now through his daughters the patrician Cornelii Lentuli and the newer plebeian nobiles the Plautii. What Apronia felt about the alliance is to be conjectured, but the network of political connections in which she was involved invites inquirers to ask whether her murder was not necessarily an inexplicable crime passionel but was, or became, part of a crisis in the relations between segments of court factions; she died in a political quarrel. The wife of Cossus did better socially, but Silvanus’ grandmother Urgulania was intimate with the new emperor’s mother, Julia Augusta. Urgulania may

29. Fate of Clutorius Priscus the poet: Tac. Ann. 3, 49–​51.

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have been instrumental in engineering the marriage alliance in the first place. L. Apronius, then, was a man whose military gifts attracted the attention of the imperial family in Augustus’ Balkan and German campaigns. He took advantage of the openings created by them for new men and allied himself with others who were taking the same path, first as a subordinate of C. Vibius Postumus (consul 5 ce) in the Balkans, where the elder M. Plautius Silvanus had operated, and then in independent commands under the direct control of Tiberius. Besides making advantageous connections with prominent dynasties of the day, Apronius pursued a political path that he mapped entirely for himself—​ and in doing so he was acting like any other opportunist Roman politician. His attentions to Tiberius were particularly marked, and it is a wonder that he was not singled out by Tacitus, like C. Haterius, Domitius Afer, and others, for opprobrium. The answer lies in the low-​level, unaggressive nature of his activities (with the exception of his attack on the memory of Libo Drusus, who was, after all, already dead and manifestly guilty) and the caution of his ambition. Apronius was no delator. No living person of high significance is known to have suffered as a result of his ambitions. He advanced his daughters as pawns on the political board, and only Apronia and her husband paid the price.

Conclusion: Women in the Political Background Disappointing as it may be not to be able to do a Murder of Roger Ackroyd in the style of Agatha Christie on the murder of Apronia, we must accept the unanimous verdict of her father, of Tiberius, Urgulania, the Senate, even of her husband, and of the chorus of modern scholars. But the singular act, of real madness or a reaction to infidelity, should be considered not in isolation but in its political context. It was part of a tense few years in which the worst problem of the early principate, that of the succession, had seemed to be solved but had been shown not to be. The year before Apronia’s death, Drusus Caesar, the last of Tiberius’ two viable adult heirs, died, leaving Germanicus’ sons and his own infants as potential rivals for supremacy, backed by their families. The dynasty, after so many efforts to achieve a settlement, had once again been cheated. We have already noticed the context in which Tacitus sets the murder: factional trials within the Senate, including an attack on none other than L. Piso, Urgulania’s creditor, by Q. Veranius, another of Germanicus’ adherents. Men were fighting for position. (Nothing came of this prosecution, because Piso

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died.) We have also seen fresh senatorial measures taken against the publicist Cassius Severus; he had continued to issue calumnies against leading members of society (evidently the men and women who were now in high favor and power at Tiberius’ court) and was removed from Crete to the small and more remote island of Seriphos in the Cyclades and condemned to loss of access to fire and water. That is evidence for discontent and rancor, without regard for the discredit to Roman arms of failure in Africa to bring Tacfarinas’ rebellion to a decisive end. That had already proved to the advantage of Tiberius’ lieutenant Sejanus and his followers: in 21 Sejanus’ uncle Junius Blaesus had been advanced to command of the campaign.30 Hence the speed of Tiberius’ reaction, and perhaps more significantly the severity of Urgulania’s. Her grandson had shattered the family construction that she had helped to build up over the previous two decades, linking her own family of the Plautii with that of the Caesars. Not only Plautius Silvanus had to pay the price for the murder, but his sister Urgulanilla was removed from her position as Claudius’ wife, under suspicion of being an accessory. Now Sejanus was drawn closer to the group through Claudius’ engagement to his kinswoman. A new constellation was forming: the ever-​loyal Apronius was confirmed; he returned to Germany as legate of the Lower Rhine army and despite a reverse against the Frisians in 28 was not recalled.31 His son was consul ordinarius under Gaius Caligula in 39 and may have risen to the patriciate thanks to Claudius. And what of the women? First, Apronia. She was not a cipher simply eliminated from her family as she fell, as Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim women were eliminated during the violence of Partition of India in 1947, while the British left, whether they were slaughtered by rampaging hordes, were killed by their own coreligionists, fathers and husbands, to save them from the enemy, or even threw themselves down wells to save their “honor.” “Eliminated” is the appropriate word for these women because of the way the memory of some of them was erased from the minds of their kin. These horrors, repeated elsewhere more recently, have been vividly presented in a television program by a kinswoman, Anita Rani, as well as being attested on film and in sober histories of the time.32 All these women were the victims of male violence, alien, or patriarchal.

30. Appointment of Junius Blaesus: Tac. Ann. 3.35. 31. Apronius on the Rhine: Tac. Ann. 4.73, 6.30, 11.19; CIL 13.7088. Caesianus: PIR A 972. 32. See Rani (2015); Chamberlain (1974) 226; Singh (1987) 249. A recent exposé: Dalrymple (2015).

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No woman plays an active role in those stories. That is far from the case with the story that Tacitus recounts, and here there is a difference between Indian and Roman society. For we need to consider first what passed in the bedroom before Apronia was thrown from the window: there were signs of violence. She was putting up a forceful resistance to her husband. What the issue was we do not know; it could have been political as much as domestic, or both. Very clear is the role that Silvanus’ grandmother Urgulania had played in the past decade. It was she who brought about her grandson’s death by sending him a dagger. People took it to come from Tiberius because of Urgulania’s friendship with Julia Augusta; that is, the power lay in men’s minds with the empress. This relationship and Tiberius’ deference to it had been strikingly illustrated eight years previously, in 16, when Urgulania had been summoned to the praetor’s court by the bold and outspoken L. Calpurnius Piso (consul 1 bce) over a debt, and had refused to respond. On one dramatic day Julia Augusta had been brought to pay the debt, and Tiberius himself had proceeded to court to support the empress’s friend.33 Gender, then, was not decisive, nor official authority, but age and personality, and perhaps money, for refusal to pay a debt is not necessarily a sign of impoverishment, rather of obduracy, or possibly of grand designs supported by grand loans. The Roman public did not know who decided that Plautius should receive the dagger, and speculated accordingly. But it was no more than speculation that the order came from further than Plautius’ formidable grandmother herself. This woman, then, had already succeeded in maneuvering Tiberius into following her in support to the praetorian court in 16 and (this may be the more significant fact) in getting Julia Augusta to pay the debt. Tacitus, and no doubt public opinion, portrayed the empress as the mistress of the situation, but it was Urgulania who won the day in 16. A woman of age and standing could manipulate her family and in this case seems to have done so. The Plautian-​Apronian-​Claudian alliance was a creation to the advantage of her family, and those who endangered it must be removed from it. Lesser pieces, such as Claudius and Sejanus, could be disposed of elsewhere and linked to each other—​they were not significant enough to be dangerous to Urgulania’s new disposition. The factional intrigue emerges in the aftermath of Silvanus’ death. He had sympathizers: those who tried to divert blame from him on to his former wife, who had allegedly used the woman’s notorious weapons of noxious drugs. 33. Tac. Ann. 2.34, with PIR C ed. 2, 290. The possibility of grand loans was suggested to me in conversation by Kathryn Welch.

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Fabia Numantina and her late father were already associated with the faction that had supported Agrippa Postumus and his sister the younger Julia. Now came an attempt to blacken them further, but it did not succeed. No more is heard of Urgulania. She may have been a coeval of her friend Julia Augusta, having a son consul in 2 bce, and may have died soon after the events of 24. But she was a dominant figure in the political life of the first decade of Tiberius’ principate. What can have been her aim? Not imperium whether in the civil state or the military, but the informal authority (potentia, politely dubbed auctoritas) that family, wealth, age, and personality bring, what accrued indeed to respected statesmen and which Julia Augusta herself is succinctly and systematically described as aiming at by the historian Cassius Dio at the beginning of Tiberius’ principate.34 Urgulania gained it most directly through her relations with Tiberius and Julia Augusta, then through their dependents: Apronius, the Vibii. But it came to her through age, money, and above all personality. On her death it all faded, and men’s ambitions centered on the children of Germanicus, ultimately on Gaius Caligula (so Apronius Caesianus) or, until 31, Drusus Caesar’s son Gemellus, championed by Sejanus. In Urgulania we are dealing with a politician who played her family’s cards boldly and effectively over two decades of early imperial history.

34. Cassius Dio 57.12.

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A Century of Women’s History from the Papyri Roger S. Bagnall

If the circles of those who study women and gender in the ancient world and those who work with papyri overlap today to a significant extent, that is in part a reflection of the impetus given to the use of the papyri to study ancient women given by Sarah Pomeroy in the 1970s and 1980s.1 Perhaps only a few of those in either group know that her career as a publishing scholar began with the publication of papyri from the Columbia University collection, one of which had been the subject of her doctoral dissertation.2 These papyri showed women as economic actors—​borrowers, lenders, and property owners—​and are thus a foretaste of future directions in her work, although women’s economic role in fact played little part in the commentaries to the papyri. This early work did, however, give her the expertise that allowed her to write with authority on Egypt in the Roman period in her article of 1981 as well as already in the chapter on Egypt in Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and 1. The bibliography to this article does not claim to be a comprehensive bibliography of the subject, which would take up enormously more space, even apart from the difficulty of deciding what its boundaries would be. Rather, it aims to illustrate the lines of development that I have tried to describe. Despite the absence of any category of women or women’s history in the Bibliographie Papyrologique (http://​www.aere-​egke.be/​BP/​), I am profoundly indebted to the intelligent indexing of subjects over the decades by its successive editors, and I remember with gratitude the life’s work on the bibliography of my friends Marcel Hombert and Georges Nachtergael as well as the current team. I thank Sabine Huebner, the late Jane Rowlandson, and Terry Wilfong for helpful comments on a draft of this chapter. A  shorter version was delivered as the Earle Lecture at Hunter College on May 4, 2018. 2. Day and Porges (1960); Porges (1961). Roger S. Bagnall, A Century of Women’s History from the Papyri In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0007

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Slaves and in the book on Women in Hellenistic Egypt in 1984.3 These works are often cited by papyrologists and historians for their vital role in stimulating subsequent work on women in the papyri, which has been roughly doubling in volume each decade since the 1980s. That post-​Pomeroy history is of some considerable interest, and I shall devote most of this chapter to sketching the directions in which recent scholarship has gone in using the papyri to try to understand women’s lives in antiquity. But I shall begin by looking back at the decades pre-​Pomeroy, from which it becomes clear that the subject is now a century old. Its prehistory has occasionally been given brief reference in modern accounts, but all of these have in my view suffered from a reductionist description that misses much of the very real interest of this early work for not merely the study of women but the broader social analysis of the ancient world, not to speak of the intellectual history of papyrology itself; the role of contingency in the directions scholarship has taken is all too visible.4

Women’s History from the Papyri before  the Second World War The path begins with an article by Wilhelm Schubart, published in 1915–​1916 in a journal not widely available today and, although sometimes cited in later work, probably not often actually read.5 “Die Frau im griechisch-​römischen Ägypten” was written for a general audience and lacks footnotes; documentation would have taken up too much room, Schubart says. It sounds themes often found in later work:  the unmediated character of the papyri and access to ordinary people and everyday life. He gives in eighteen pages a rapid sketch of a remarkably wide variety of subjects, lauds the Hellenistic period as a “Zeitalter der Frau,” and collapses a millennium into a single plane, saying that it is too soon to try to write a true history of how the position of women changed, given that this is the first attempt at even a brief treatment. A reader

3. Pomeroy ([1975] 1995, 1981, 1994). 4.  I  am not going to discuss recent scholarship on the Ptolemaic queens, a topic to which Pomeroy ([1984] 1990) devoted a chapter in Women in Hellenistic Egypt. Other historians have differed considerably in the extent to which they think the roles played by the queens affected the lives of “ordinary” women, something for which Pomeroy argued for a significant impact. See Schuller (1985) for a thoughtful discussion of the question. 5. Schubart (1915–​1916). The Internationale Monatsschrift für Wissenschaft und Technik is held in the US only by the University of Tulsa, according to WorldCat.

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today will be struck by not only how much what he says is echoed (even if unconsciously) in later writing on the subject, but by Schubart’s optimism about the enterprise of using the papyri to recover information about women’s lives. That optimism was shared by Maria Mondini (1894–​1977), author of the first really scholarly article in this domain, her study of women’s letters on papyrus, published a year later.6 She stresses the importance of domestic and family life as subjects of inquiry, and the unique role of the letters written by women for understanding these aspects of antiquity. She also saw the papyri as showing women in a much better light than the often misogynistic literary sources. Although methodologically sophisticated enough to see the far greater potential of archives than of individual texts, she did not question whether women actually wrote the letters that bear their names, or how far the interposition of secretaries might modify her ideal of the women as “directly represented” in the letters. Nor was she analytic about structural issues in society, particularly matters of class, where her simplistic division of society into elite and ordinary is hardly satisfying. Still, Mondini was a real pioneer in her study of the letters, particularly of the archive of the family of the strategos Apollonios (to which Schubart had also given some attention). Her work was not accidental or isolated. Mondini was a student of Aristide Calderini, the founder of the Milanese school of papyrology.7 She published eight articles between 1915 and 1920, receiving her doctorate in 1917 from the Royal Scientific-​Literary Academy of Milan. (The Catholic University was founded only in 1921.) Soon after, she married Calderini, who was a widower. Three daughters born to the marriage became professors. Calderini Mondini, as she was known after marriage, remained active in scholarship to the last, but she published almost nothing under her own name—​by her wish, according to Orsolina Montevecchi. If to a contemporary taste this tale of the academic woman effacing herself for the sake of her husband seems a bit depressing, we should look at the larger context, which suggests a larger impact on the school over which Calderini presided for another half-​century. The lines of influence in this partnership are impossible to tease apart today, but Calderini was the central figure of the next two decades in laying the foundations for taking the study of women 6. Mondini (1917). See Bagnall and Cribiore (2006) 5–​6 for reflections on Mondini’s work. 7. Montevecchi (1977) gives a brief but compelling necrology, based on long personal acquaintance. Zabalegui (2011) discusses Mondini’s contributions in detail, with much information about her life. She emphasizes the pioneering character of Mondini’s article on the theoretical and methodological side and her identification of women’s history as a distinct subject.

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seriously. In the early 1920s he began the first systematic study of the census declarations of the Roman period, which have from then on been one of the main foundations of all study of the family in antiquity. The publication in 1926 of Rostovtzeff ’s Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire made papyrologists more aware of the potential of their documents, and by the early 1930s social history was on the agenda. The organizing committee for the congress of papyrology in Munich in 1933 asked Calderini to speak on the subject, and his paper not only makes the case for social history and sociology (a distinction to which we shall return) but traces the history of earlier work, going back as far as Giacomo Lumbroso, who wrote about the condition of women.8 Among other subjects, Calderini talks about ethnicity, demography, the exposure of infants, slavery, the family, women, professional associations, social psychology (on which he cited his wife’s article on the letters), and the possibility of statistical treatment of information about personal appearance in the papyri.9 And, strikingly, Calderini speaks of “un largo studio anzitutto sulla donna nell’ età tolemaica, che la signora Calderini ha compiuto da qualche anno, ma che per ora altre cure le impediscono di pubblicare e di continuare per l’Egitto romano” (a broad study firstly on women in the Ptolemaic period, which Mrs. Calderini has produced some years ago, but of which for the moment other concerns are in the way of publishing and continuing for Roman Egypt). Evidently the reluctance of Mondini Calderini to publish under her own name, to which Montevecchi refers, was not something taken for granted at this point. The history of the subject might have been much different if she had published that book. The year after the Munich proceedings appeared, Calderini’s student Orsolina Montevecchi launched a series of “researches of sociology in the documents of Greco-​Roman Egypt,” explicitly aimed at laying the foundations for a large work on the social history of Greco-​Roman Egypt.10 She invoked Calderini’s paper at Munich and his work of the preceding decade on the census declarations. The article, dealing with wills, was to be the first of several treating different document types in great analytic detail, seeking to tease out all of their elements relevant to the study of the family. 8. Calderini (1934). Calderini had edited the Festschrift for Lumbroso in 1925. 9.  He refers to a book on La pigmentazione degli abitanti dell’Egitto nell’età greco-​romana published by Corrado Gini (the creator of the Gini index) in Rome in 1932; no copies in North American libraries are registered in WorldCat, but a version can be found in Gini (1933). On Gini and fascism, see Cassata (2006). 10. Montevecchi (1935).

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Although Montevecchi speaks of sociology rather than social history, she is attentive to matters of time and place in her analysis. Characteristically, she is very reticent about offering broad conclusions, reserving them for a time when the raw materials of social history would all have been subjected to similar treatment.11 The very year that Montevecchi’s article appeared, the next congress was held in Florence, and H. I. Bell delivered a talk on “proposals for a social history of Graeco-​Roman Egypt.” He remarked, “It seems then a little strange that the scheme for a social history of Graeco-​Roman Egypt, suggested some time since by Rostovtzeff and supported at the Munich Congress by Calderini, has never been undertaken.”12 It might seem even stranger to a reader that he would use such a phrase about a project first discussed just two years earlier and not likely to be accomplished in such a short time.13 But he goes on to assert the possibility of such a project, and its desirability, urging that it be carried out by a single writer using materials assembled by a large team. At the next congress (Oxford, 1937), Montevecchi responded, in effect, “I’m doing it.”14 She talked, in somewhat broader terms, about the results that were emerging from her document studies, covering spousal relations, sibling marriage, women’s economic activity, the numerical preponderance of female slaves, and a number of other issues. The war years were undoubtedly difficult, but soon after the war she published a methodological paper on the need to look at each document type carefully and pass through “piccole conclusioni parziali” (small partial conclusions) that take account of local variation.15 Her series of such studies continued in these years with additional genres, such as birth declarations.16 But somehow the project stalled. After a short book on work contracts published in 1950, her interests turned elsewhere: in part to editing papyri in the collections of Milan and Bologna, in part to Christianity 11.  Montevecchi also mentions, as Calderini does in his Munich paper, her contemporary Sandra Avogadro, who published several articles in 1932–​1934, including a major discussion of declarations of property, party of the same project as Montevecchi’s articles. But Avogadro’s publishing career ended at this point. 12. Bell (1936) 39. 13. To be fair, Bell had himself been attentive to family history and social history more broadly in the bibliographies of Greco-​Roman Egypt that he published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology from 1914 to 1933, as Terry Wilfong points out. 14. Montevecchi ([1937] 1938). 15. Montevecchi (1943–​1949). 16. Montevecchi (1947).

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in Egypt.17 Given her methodological approach, she may have found the challenge of turning from the details to the grand synthesis too daunting, but that is only a speculation. But in the years before World War II, it was not only in Milan that women’s history was of interest (and as has often been noted), 1939 brought two syntheses focused on women’s legal situation in the Hellenistic period, the doctoral dissertation of Lea Bringmann (under the supervision of Friedrich Oertel) and the master’s thesis of Iza Bieżuńska.18 Bringmann’s dissertation was produced, she tells us, under difficult circumstances which precluded systematic revision or the completion of a planned fourth chapter on women in the family. Half of the book was devoted to women’s legal position, and shorter chapters to public life and economic activity. She suggests that the differences in the patterns visible in Ptolemaic Egypt compared to those of classical Athens may owe something to the legal traditions of other parts of Greece, and she proposes as well to see Babylonian influence in the improvement of the position of Egyptian women in the law from the Persian period on. Phrases like “in rassischer und kultureller Abgeschlossenheit” (in racial and cultural separation) to describe the relationship of Greeks and Egyptians are not likely to recommend themselves to readers today, but the substantive view they represent had a long posterity. At all events, the coming of the war meant that the book had limited circulation outside Germany and relatively little impact on later scholarship.19 Bieżuńska’s thesis fared far worse: the building in Lvov holding the entire stock of the small book was bombed by German forces soon after publication, and few copies survive; there is not even a record in WorldCat.20 She herself published a brief but rich retrospect on it toward the end of her life.21 From that perspective, she observed that it was too Athenocentric; the growth in legal studies of the rest of the Greek world in the intervening

17. See Montevecchi (1950) for the work contracts. A search of the Bibliographie Papyrologique (www.aere-​egke.be/​bp) provides an instructive view of the shift in Montevecchi’s interests. 18. Bringmann (1939); Bieżuńska (1939). 19.  As Fikhman (2001) points out, it received only one book review. Fikhman (a review of Rowlandson [1998]) is, incidentally, rich in bibliography about women in the papyri. 20.  Fikhman (2001) recounts his search for a copy and his learning from the author about the destruction of the copies. Tomasz Derda has confirmed this account. Wolfgang Schuller (1985) 125 n. 18 announced plans for a German translation of the book. The translation has just appeared as this volume was about to go to press: Bieżuńska (2019). 21. Bieżuńska-​Małowist (1993).

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decades (thanks largely to Hans-​ Julius Wolff and Joseph Mélèze Modrzejewski) has made it clear that we need to be more alert not only to the upper-​class bias of the Athenian sources but also to the diversity of the Greek tradition. Women were more independent in other cities than in Athens. She also acknowledged (and praised) the contribution of American feminism to drawing attention to women’s history, but she resisted seeing this as an autonomous subject or women as a separate class. Her view of women as having a substantial degree of influence and independence in family life had been vindicated, she thought. She did not think that queens were an important factor in the lives of women in general. Her overall conclusion was that existing studies (in which she included both Préaux [1959] and Pomeroy [1984]) were far too selective in their treatment of subjects and sources, and she announced plans, never to be fulfilled, to write the book she wanted to read.22

Starting Over after 1945 Where the prospects for the history of women in Greco-​Roman Egypt looked bright in 1939, the promise thus faded for various reasons, and the postwar years were bleak. It is not until 1959 that a significant specifically targeted contribution can be found, Claire Préaux’s much-​cited article.23 It is far too rich to summarize adequately, but it reflects two critical views: that there is no meaningful divide between Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt; and that the phenomena we see in the Greek documents from Egypt reflect internal developments in Greek law, with little or no influence from Egyptian legal traditions and practices. Despite her emphasis on the conservatism of Greek traditions, however, she supported the positive view of Hellenistic developments already voiced by Schubart and, a quarter-​century later, to find strong advocacy in Pomeroy’s book. She saw a significant reduction in paternal authority in favor of spousal autonomy, a greater equation of the moral duties of husband and wife, a more liberal view of divorce, more ready access to the courts, and the ability to make wills (except at Alexandria). The article is strongly focused on law, with only four rather perfunctory pages 22. But she did publish a book in Polish, Kobiety antyku (Warsaw 1993), mentioned by Adam Lukaszewicz in his obituary (JJP 25 [1995] 9). I have not seen this, but given the fact that it appeared the same year as the article, it cannot be the intended scholarly treatment. 23.  Préaux (1959). She does note the publication a few years earlier of an early article by Modrzejewski (1955–​1956) on the family in private letters.

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at the end dealing with social issues. She ends with the point that substantial progress in the private sphere was decoupled from any such progress in public life. The immediate postwar years did see one other important foundation stone for later study, although it had little immediate impact: the book on the census in Roman Egypt by Marcel Hombert and Claire Préaux.24 This was published in 1952 but completed four years earlier, and along with publication of a roll of declarations and a detailed study of the formalities of the census process it includes a section on the “données des déclarations de recensement touchant l’histoire de la société” (data from the census declarations concerning social history), a brief but insightful review of many questions about the family.

Legal History as a Major Driver The following decade, marked in the US by the rebirth of feminism,25 was not much brighter in the domain of scholarship on women in the papyri.26 But one of the major lines of work that ultimately contributed to the recovery of the subject did emerge, namely the study of Egyptian marriage law and legal instruments, with the books (both dissertations originally) of Erich Lüddeckens and P. W. Pestman, published in 1960 and 1961, respectively. These studies, by two of the great demoticists of the century, provided a much firmer basis for papyrologists working on Greek material27 to use the Egyptian documents with confidence in trying to understand how far the Greek and Egyptian traditions interacted, a question that, as we have seen, was of importance to the pioneers in the field.28 24. Hombert and Préaux (1952). 25. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, an inescapable milestone, was published in 1963. I should probably declare my own experience of those decades: having a working mother (with strong support from my father in an egalitarian marriage) and my own marriage to a charter subscriber to Ms. magazine. 26. Only for amusement do I mention Jack Lindsay’s (1963) popular book on daily life, rich in inaccuracy. 27.  No comparably comprehensive work on the Greek marriage contracts appeared until Yiftach-​Firanko (2003), although there is a long history of juristic studies on which he was able to build, for which his rich bibliography may be consulted. 28. These works also, as Terry Wilfong has pointed out to me, represent the beginning of the serious use of documentary material for the study of women in Egyptology, moving away from the “great queens” approach.

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Pestman’s influence, particularly through his students in Leiden, where he delivered his inaugural lecture as professor of the history of law of ancient Egypt and Greece and of juristic papyrology in 1969,29 was to be momentous. As his career developed, he came to represent a style of studies of papyrus archives,30 especially bilingual ones, that allowed microhistorical investigations to add texture and humanity to the generalizations all too prevalent in the literature.31 Two years earlier another teaching career in ancient law began in Paris, equally momentous for the study of women in the ancient world, when Joseph Modrzejewski was appointed to teach the history of ancient law at the University of Paris. When upheavals in the French university system led to the cancelation of his position five years later, he was able to move to the École Pratique des Hautes Études, where he taught for a third of a century, forming many of the most active scholars in the field.32 Already in 1971 he was focused on the status of women, for example in a paper on the tutorship of women in Roman Egypt, in which he reflects on the interaction of what he describes as imperial policy favorable to women’s liberty with more conservative provincial practices rooted in the Greek kyrieia.33 Although he had completed his studies in Paris, Modrzejewski had been formed in Warsaw by Rafael Taubenschlag. He himself was never an editor of papyri, but he read them with intense attention and insight, and the closeness to the documents that he brought to his work is visible in the writings of his students as well. And, although Bieżuńska-​Małowist devoted her attention in the postwar years much more to slavery than to women, it should be noted that Warsaw remained an active center of social history during the period when it was part of the Soviet bloc. 29. Pestman (1969). 30. His focus on archives ultimately lies behind the database of archives at Trismegistos.org. 31. It was not only because of his book that he came to be regarded as an authority on Egyptian women, although he was amused by being characterized as a feminist: see van Minnen (1998) for an evocation of the microhistorical work on archives, looking to get behind appearances to lived reality. 32. See his foreword to Vélissaropoulos-​Karakostas (2011). The annual reports of his teaching at the EPHE are of tremendous interest; for our subject, above all the report on 1977–​1978 (Modrzejewski [1982]), listing Sophie Adam, Barbara Anagnostou, Joëlle Beaucamp, and Julie Vélissaropoulos, among others. After c. 1988, Modrzejewski signs himself Mélèze Modrzejewski in publications. 33.  Modrzejewski ([1971] 1990). Other relevant works can be found in the bibliography to Yiftach-​Firanko (2003).

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The Development of Late Antiquity Alongside this comparative wealth of scholarship on the juristic side and the beginnings of the study of archives, a third important strand can be traced to the late 1960s and early 1970s: the development of Late Antiquity as a field. The impact of this wave of interest was not felt quickly in the study of women in the papyri, and to try to trace it more generally would be a distraction here. But it was to bear fruit later, and it is important to stress that it is not only the Late Antiquity movement that developed on the classical side (Peter Brown, Alan Cameron, Averil Cameron, and others) that was important, but the beginnings of interest on the side of Byzantine studies. It is to Hélène Ahrweiler that Joëlle Beaucamp traces the beginnings of the work that was to take form in her epochal book on the status of women “at Byzantium,” but in fact in the later Roman Empire (fourth to seventh centuries).34

The Impact of Feminist Scholarship And, of course, there was the fourth great motor:  feminist scholarship. Its impact on the study of the papyri was perhaps somewhat slower than that of the other impulses I have described. Even Pomeroy’s Goddesses, which was to have an exceptionally broad impact, was not mostly about Egypt, of course; it grew out of an undergraduate survey course, and only one chapter deals to any large degree with Egypt.35 The first article about Roman Egypt that I know of to respond directly to the book (and to Pomeroy’s bibliography on women in antiquity)36 was in fact based on reading the astrological work of Claudius Ptolemy.37 Otherwise, it seems to me fair to see the impact of feminist approaches in Keith Bradley’s article on sexual regulations in wet-​nursing contracts and in Emiel Eyben’s long article on family planning, although that practically ignores the papyrological evidence.38 34. Beaucamp (1992), to which we shall return. For the genesis of her scholarly work, see the introduction to Beaucamp (2010). 35. Pomeroy ([1975] 1995) ­chapter 7, 120–​148 covers Hellenistic women and is partly drawn from the papyri. But ­chapter 9, “Women of the Roman Lower Classes,” is (in retrospect) surprisingly lacking in papyrological evidence. 36. Pomeroy (1973). 37. Liviabella Furiani (1979). The article is a bit too ready to read the Tetrabiblos at face value, but its observations on what seems to be assumed in Ptolemy about sex, marriage, family, and household management are nonetheless of great interest. 38. Bradley (1980); Eyben (1980–​1981).

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The 1980s were the period of Pomeroy’s two more specifically papyrological contributions, the article of 1981 on Roman Egypt and the book of 1984 on the Hellenistic period. Certainly these had an impact on papyrologists for whom women’s history was not necessarily a primary interest. For example, a series of short pieces by Piet Sijpesteijn and Peter van Minnen pointed up a number of documents in which women discharge public functions, all in virtue of their property holdings and with no clear indication of whether they merely bore the financial responsibility of the office or had any personal involvement.39 More substantive and influential were two articles of Deborah Hobson on women’s economic roles, working in one case with the papyri from Soknopaiou Nesos, in the other with the grapheion registers from Tebtynis.40 Despite the differences between these two Fayyum villages, Hobson saw common patterns, including the centrality of the ownership of property (houses at Soknopaiou Nesos, more land at Tebtynis) and a certain amount of activity involving the use of cash coming from the dowry. But at this point women do not appear as lenders or lessors, nor do they engage in transactions about animals. The Tebtynis registers come from a period of economic stress, and Hobson interpreted them as reflecting this, with women’s patrimonies serving as a kind of reserve for households under pressure.41 One other significant contribution from the women’s studies side in this period was Ross Kraemer’s first exploration of the epigraphical and papyrological evidence for Jewish women in Egypt, which found little to distinguish them from other women of Roman Egypt.42 Outside this first wave of ripples from Pomeroy’s impetus, the decade also produced work on the legal side by Modrzejewski’s pupils, including Barbara Anagnostou-​Cañas’ fine article on women’s use of the courts in Roman Egypt and Sophia Adam’s discussion of the legal treatment of pregnant women.43 The 1980s also yielded several of the articles growing out of the thesis that

39. Sijpesteijn (1985, 1986, 1987; this last less persuasive to me than the others); van Minnen (1986), with a female naukleros who is perhaps the same as the tax collector in Sijpesteijn (1985). 40. Hobson (1983, 1984). 41. Tebtynis dowries already came in for an interesting analysis in Keith Hopkins’ (1980) article on brother-​sister marriage. 42. Kraemer (1987). 43. Anagnostou-​Cañas (1984); Adam ([1983] 1989). Anagnostou-​Cañas wrestles with, among other things, the odd statement in P. Mich. 8.507 that “a woman is not allowed to litigate without an ekdikos,” which is not true in Roman law and may be a misunderstanding of older Greek practice.

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would eventually result in Beaucamp’s book in 1992.44 These deal with nursing, widowhood, and dowry, joining earlier articles from 1976 and 1977 on the vocabulary of feminine weakness and the legal situation of women in Byzantium. And, outside the Parisian circle, Edgar Kutzner’s dissertation on women at Oxyrhynchos in 1989 was the first such study devoted to a particular site.45

Women in the Papyri Become a Mainstream Subject With the 1990s, this modest flow of publications on women in the papyri becomes both broader and deeper, and it seems fair to say that the study of women in Greco-​Roman Egypt has been a mainstream subject in the past quarter-​century. The four tributaries to this stream that I cited earlier have continued to flow, but now they are joined by others. A chronological approach no longer seems useful, and I shall turn instead to a selective outline of the main areas in which work has been done and to offer my assessment of their contributions. By the end of the decade of the 1990s, there had been a major conference (Leuven and Brussels 1997) and the first sourcebook devoted to the Egyptian evidence for women in society, and one could begin to think of the field as having achieved a kind of maturity.46

Legal History We may appropriately begin with legal history, which has remained a fruitful area even in an era of anxiety about the future of juristic papyrology, and with the pupils of Modrzejewski. Apart from work already mentioned, the important synthesis of Greek law in the Hellenistic period by Julie Vélissaropoulos-​ Karakostas places the Egyptian developments in a wide geographical context, bringing together a large number of epigraphical texts as well as the papyri.47 Another significant body of work is that of Bernard Legras, whose book on

44. These are gathered in Beaucamp (2010). 45. Kutzner (1989). For criticisms, see Bagnall (2007). 46. The conference proceedings appeared as Melaerts and Mooren (2002); articles in it will be discussed individually. The sourcebook is Rowlandson (1998). 47. Vélissaropoulos-​Karakostas (2011), over a thousand pages in two volumes, a true life’s work, organized along the lines of Gaius’s Institutes.

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men and women of Egypt is organized around the life cycle but largely legal in contents.48 Two articles from the work leading up to that book are also interesting, one on marriage documents and the other on wills.49 The latter shows that men in Ptolemaic Egypt had much freedom of testation in leaving estates partly or wholly to women, usually their wives, but that women’s own freedom to leave property on their own to whomever they wished cannot be demonstrated. The article on marriage documents begins with a (rather limited) history of women’s history from the papyri, beginning only in 1939. Legras’ interest here is in the degree to which the field has begun to move into gender studies, of which he sees some beginnings in the sourcebook edited by Jane Rowlandson.50 His conception of gender studies, however, seems rather limited: “l’étude des rapports entre les hommes et les femmes, autrement dit, pour une étude de genre” (the study of relations between men and women, in other words, for a study of gender). The appearance of Beaucamp’s magnum opus in 1992 was a major event. As I have summarized and discussed it in a long review,51 I need not describe its contents here in any detail. My concerns centered largely around what I saw as an insufficient attention to the variability within major categories of analysis, for example that women need to be differentiated by economic and social status, not treated as a whole, and a sense that the Ptolemaic and earlier Roman background had not been adequately worked into the argument. But despite limitations, this is one of the most important contributions of the past quarter-​century and has been very influential in part because of the great care and skill with which all of the evidence is analyzed. But not all legal history is Parisian, and the three examples that I  shall cite next are also interesting because all involve experienced editors of papyri. It is striking that Modrzejewski did not edit papyri, nor did his teacher Taubenschlag, nor have those students of his whom I have mentioned, nor yet Beaucamp. That is not a criticism; they bring different formations to the use of the papyri, which has been essential to approaching the kinds of questions they ask. But it is also good to have the experience of wrestling with actual

48.  Legras (2010), with a fine evocation of Modrzejewski’s teaching. Despite its title, anthropology plays little part in the book, and indeed there is not much about everyday lived relationships. 49. Legras (2007a and 2007b, respectively). 50. Rowlandson (1998). 51. Bagnall (1995).

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editing when one must confront interpretive problems. Two articles dealing with women’s legal capacity are interesting in this regard. One is by Maren Schentuleit, and it focuses on the question of whether Egyptian women (which means in this context women engaging in Egyptian-​language legal acts) could act without a kyrios in the Roman period.52 She uses the Demotic documents from Soknopaiou Nesos as her basis. Where transactions fall within the area of transmission of property inside the family, no male generally accompanies the woman in the contract, but outside that zone a male representative is normally involved. Even where they are present, the men are omitted from the Greek subscriptions to documents. Katelijn Vandorpe and Sofie Waebens look at both Greek documents, where the kyrios was usual, and Demotic, where it was not.53 They note the continued appearance of the kyrios after the Antonine Constitution and the common presence of a male even with women who claim the ius trium liberorum as Roman citizens with the requisite three children. Greek practice prevailed in substance, they argue. They go on to discuss social mobility, where they think women did not fare well under Roman rule. A complement to Beaucamp’s work from a very different background is found in the third example, Antti Arjava’s work Women and Law in Late Antiquity.54 He presents it as a product in part of the Late Antiquity movement, in part of the Anglo-​American interest in family history (as the acknowledgments in his preface show), and in part of more personal interests from outside the ancient world. The work is not mainly about Egypt or the papyri, but the papyri are integrated into the discussion. The kind of separation implied by the two-​part organization of Beaucamp’s work is thus avoided. Her broad conclusions are also missing; Arjava thinks there was no broad and readily described trend in the evolution of female roles in Late Antiquity.

The Family as Lived Experience Much of the legal history dealing with women is about the family in one way or another, both because the structures of ancient society made the family the main focus of most women’s lives and because that is, therefore, what jurists

52. Schentuleit (2009). 53. Vandorpe and Waebens (2010). 54. Arjava (1996). In the years around the publication of the book, he published a number of articles on related subjects, specifically concerning Egypt and the papyri.

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tended to write about and people produce contracts about. But the family is not only about law and normative statements; it is also about lived experience. That is more difficult to get at than the rules are, but it has been a major focus of many scholars of the ancient world in recent decades.55 The most essential source for the demographic realities, since Calderini and then Hombert and Préaux, has been the census declarations. These were again collected and analyzed by Bruce Frier and me in 1994, with, for the first time, the use of modern demographic modeling to try to get a better sense of the main life functions.56 This has led to a flourishing industry using both the raw data and the analysis for a variety of subjects.57 The publication in 2006 of the Ptolemaic equivalent, Counting the People, by Willy Clarysse and Dorothy Thompson, enriched this discussion still more, even though the Ptolemaic documents are far less revealing than the Roman for most demographic purposes and do not allow calculation of mortality tables.58 Even before publication, however, the Ptolemaic data led Thompson to give a useful synthesis, which pointed out that Greek families tended to be larger than Egyptian, and really large households (with slaves) tended to be Greeks.59 The Greeks also show a much higher sex ratio, with fewer women in most families. Thompson argued (against Pomeroy) that infant exposure was important already in the Ptolemaic period.60 She estimates that about 9  percent of the married Greeks had wives with Egyptian names, helping to put some specificity on a phenomenon often discussed but usually left quantitatively vague. But just as the available data are richer for the Roman period, so most of the literature has concentrated there. Sabine Huebner has used the census information and much else in her comprehensive book The Family in Roman 55.  Pomeroy (1996, 1997; the latter incorporating a version of the former) are two obvious contributions of substance. I  cannot give here a bibliography of the wider field of ancient family history, but most of that literature is cited in the works that I do mention. 56. Bagnall and Frier ([1994] 2006). 57. I omit references to the more purely demographic debates that have followed, which have their own abundant bibliography. 58. Clarysse and Thompson (2006). 59. Thompson (2002). 60.  On the Roman period, see Bagnall (1997) for the argument that there is a relationship between patterns in the urban, Greek exposure of infants, and the disproportionate share of slaves who are female. Evans Grubbs (2013) surveys the subject across antiquity, using the papyrological evidence without quite integrating it into the larger picture or making any original contribution concerning it.

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Egypt, with a particular interest in relations between generations.61 She is acutely sensitive to what isn’t recorded in the declarations as well as what is; detecting remarriage, for example, is far from easy. And she has made a persuasive case that the papyri do not generally distinguish between natural and adoptive children, making it hard to discern the latter in the documents.62 The problem of adoption also lay behind her argument that brother-​sister marriage, that perennial bone of contention in scholarship, was at least in part, and in her view largely or wholly, a matter of adoptive rather than natural siblings.63 Not surprisingly, this thesis was heavily contested, and there is now a considerable consensus that adoption can at best explain only part of the cases, with others clearly not resulting from adoption.64 Christel Freu has recently discussed the issue of endogamy in a broader context, looking at close-​kin (but not always brother-​sister) marriages not as universal practices but as highly variable strategies, particularly useful where family situations leave orphans or other children needing protection; they appear prominently in some family archives but not others.65 The consequences of early mortality for husbands and fathers have attracted attention from a number of other scholars, too. Some of these have dealt with the situation of widows, often vulnerable to intrafamilial difficulties as well as economic deprivation.66 On the other hand, women of propertied families played a significant role in managing the estates of their minor children.67 Fatherless children have received attention in a series of studies by Myrto Malouta. One of these looks at the apatores (fatherless) not in legal or diplomatic terms but for their actual activities, which on the whole are unexceptional and suggest the normality and integration of this group.68 In an article on the broader phenomenon of illegitimacy, I have argued that

61. Huebner (2013a); see also her earlier article Huebner (2009a). 62. Huebner (2013b). 63. Huebner (2007). 64. Remijsen and Clarysse (2008) and Rowlandson and Takahashi (2009) are two important contributions to the debate. On the Ptolemaic side, Ager (2005) is interesting for its attempt to link royal sibling marriages to an ideological program emphasizing power, luxury, and lack of restraint. 65. Freu (2012). 66. See Hanson (2000, 2005; the latter on the Judaean documents); Pudsey (2012). 67. Vuolonto (2002); Gagliardi (2012). 68. Malouta (2009).

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it reflects in large part not so much formal restrictions on marriage as women in a sufficiently disadvantageous situation that they had to accept such long-​ term unmarried relationships.69 Finally, I may mention a few more synthetic articles on families by Malouta, Richard Alston, and myself, generally based on a wider body of evidence and less on the specific information from the census.70

Women in the Economy Inevitably, scholarship follows the evidence. Legal acts and the recording of vital personal information are two of the areas in which women are best documented,71 and it is hardly surprising that law and family have been such central preoccupations of historical study. The same is true of the third large area to have seen important developments in the past twenty-​five years: women in the economy. The pioneering works of Hobson mentioned earlier have been followed up with studies of women as property owners, women as businesspeople, and women at work. We shall take these in order. The origins of women’s landholdings and other involvement in property are traced in an important article by Jane Rowlandson, in which she sees testamentary practice, monetization, and greater ability to enter into contracts and to litigate as critical in opening up cracks in the male-​oriented structure of property under the Ptolemaic state.72 She also sees some convergence in the Greek sphere with historic Egyptian practices; the gradual widening of private control of land in the later Ptolemaic period also contributed to what? Alexandra O’Brien’s study of the Demotic evidence for women in the economy of Thebes reinforces some of Rowlandson’s points; she notes

69. Bagnall (2016). On the question of the supposed ending of the prohibition on marriage by military personnel, see most recently Speidel (2013), who questions the supposed removal of restrictions under Septimius Severus. 70.  Malouta (2012); (Alston) 2005; Bagnall (2007). Alston starts with brother-​sister marriage but moves on to look more broadly at endogamy and family strategies. Like most such approaches, his tends to give little scope for female agency, which is certain to have been important in marriages after the first. My article, written for the Oxyrhynchos centenary, deals with this issue, among other things; I also emphasize that weakness and vulnerability on women’s part tend to appear more in dealing with struggles within the family rather than with outside threats. 71. Women are better documented in the Roman period than earlier thanks in part to changes in practices in the way people are identified: see Broux-​Depauw (2015) and Depauw (2010). 72. Rowlandson (1995).

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extensive female property ownership and the fact that documents do not always reflect the practices associated with the language in which they are written; culture and language do not map to one another as neatly as one might expect.73 For the Roman period, on which Hobson concentrated, there has been somewhat less that is new, but a detailed article of Henri Melaerts looked again at Tebtynis, examining other documents to see how far they followed the patterns that Hobson discerned in the grapheion registers.74 He notes women’s high percentage of presence in documents involving sales and cessions of real property. Not surprisingly, women are more often lenders than borrowers and lessors than lessees, as they seek in effect passive means of exploitation of their patrimony rather than personal engagement in economic activity.75 A broader perspective on women’s operations in credit markets was provided by an important article of François Lerouxel, followed now by his major book on credit markets.76 The extensive discussion of the prominence of large aristocratic estates in Late Antiquity has not failed to pick up on the role played in these by women landowners. Klaas Worp’s publication of the archive of Aurelia Charite in 1980 (P.Charite) was an important opening into this subject, and articles by Hermann Harrauer and (in more depth) Roberta Mazza have explored it.77 Although Mazza’s focus is on the Apions, at the pinnacle of society, she emphasizes that it is possible to tease out ways in which women could create roles for themselves even at considerably less exalted levels. Several scholars have in fact explored more active roles played by women in what we would today call business, often (but not always) lending money or commodities. Katelijn Vandorpe has rehabilitated Apollonia alias Senmonthis, the wife of the Ptolemaic officer Dryton, showing that

73. O’Brien (2002), based on her unpublished 1999 Chicago dissertation. She cites Pomeroy’s ([1984] 1990)  vii call for more work on the Demotic evidence for women as a spur to her project. 74. Melaerts (2002). 75. Saavedra (2002), in the same volume, seeks to compare Roman Egypt and Roman Spain in the area of women’s property holdings, but the argument is rather an apple and oranges affair, and vitiated by her confusion over the effect of the kyrieia; see Balconi ([2001] 2004). 76. Lerouxel (2006, 2016). 77.  Harrauer (1994); Mazza (2002). Harrauer rather downplays such large landownership before the fourth century, but this perhaps reflects his focus in the article on archives in the Vienna collection.

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her lending activities were neither contrary to her husband’s interests and wishes (indeed, he kept her accounts) nor conducted at abnormal interest rates.78 She used Egyptian contracts in many cases, in part because her town, Pathyris, lacked a Greek notary at the time her earlier loans were contracted. At the other end of antiquity, Terry Wilfong’s book Women of Jeme, which is to a large degree a series of microhistorical studies, focuses in one chapter on the now famous case of the pawnbroker Koloje, who in fact represents simply one generation in a family business exercised over a considerable period.79 An even more active form of business activity by a woman is brought to light by Peter van Minnen from the little dossier of Berenike of Oxyrhynchos, whose husband was a wine producer and merchant.80 They had made a joint will, a unique document allowing the survivor to retain the entire estate and divide it later among the sons. After his death she took over the business. The husband’s former business partner sued her; the draft of his petition shows that he assumed Berenike’s incapacity and the dominant role of the sons in the business. But, as van Minnen shows, he was wrong about that. Berenike was a capable and independent economic actor, able to keep her own accounts.81 The level of society to which she belonged may be suggested by the fact that the back of her accounts was later used to copy the Hypsipyle of Euripides, although the gap in time is too great to allow any close connection to be established. Not all working women were of the wealthier classes, of course. These are much less well documented, and recovering something of the reality of their lives is a much tougher challenge. Much of the work in this area has been essentially one of compiling lists of occupational titles, although this has many limits and pitfalls. Hans-​Joachim Drexhage specifies three areas in which significant female participation is visible: food preparation and processing, textiles, and local or regional retail trade.82 A recent study by Sophie Gällnö, part of a larger project aimed at identifying the biases that cause female work

78. Vandorpe (2002). Her reedition of the archive appeared in the same year, with the proposed abbreviation P.Dryton; the volume title is more telling: The Bilingual Family Archive of Dryton, His Wife Apollonia and Their Daughter Senmouthis. 79. Wilfong (2003). 80. van Minnen (1998). 81. SB XX 14409. 82. Drexhage (1992). Worp (2011) makes only marginal additional contributions to the picture.

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to be less visible in the documents than male work, focuses on weavers.83 She finds that the relative rarity of terms for female weavers reflects the fact that they occur only in connection with actual work, rather than as, with men, a means of identification in other contexts, which of course enlarges the documentation for men. Two final aspects of the subject have received important attention, illuminating opposite ends of the spectrum. One is Egyptian priesthoods. Women held priestly titles, but it has generally been thought that Herodotus basically got it right in claiming that women did not exercise priesthoods in Egypt. Frédéric Colin has shown decisively that this is not true: women could and did exercise priestly functions, performing services and even taking charge of the building of sacred buildings.84 But it is true that their numbers were small in comparison to those of men, and Colin connects that fact to the overall role of women in the village economy, citing Hobson’s work on the Tebtynis grapheion registers and Janet Johnson’s important article exploring the complexities of the Egyptian evidence for women’s work and wealth in the Ptolemaic period.85 Although Johnson disagrees with some of Pestman’s arguments minimizing women’s activity, she concludes that “although a woman had the legal right to handle her own property, she might frequently prefer (for personal reasons, lack of experience, or simply because ‘it was proper’) to let her husband take care of things.” Colin and Johnson both stress the urgency of using both Greek and Egyptian evidence in matters of this sort. And then, at the other end of the social spectrum, there is “the oldest profession.” The bibliography on ancient prostitution in recent years has been enormous, but two specifically papyrological contributions deserve mention here. One is by Kai Ruffing, who focuses on the Coptos Tariff and its high tariff for prostitutes in the Eastern Desert during the Roman period.86 In the process, he reviews much of the rest of the evidence for the way in which the state profited from prostitution, seeing the tax on prostitution as much less important than brothels in public facilities and the supply of women to the

83. Gällnö (2012). 84. Colin (2002). 85. Johnson (1998). The following quote is from p. 1416. 86. Ruffing (2013). He gives a very extensive bibliography of recent work on Roman prostitution, both more general and Egypt-​specific, which I have not reproduced here. For terminology of late antique prostitution, see Diethart and Kislinger (1991).

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desert forts and ports. On that subject, the work of Hélène Cuvigny has gradually over the past fifteen years brought to light the general system and the detailed mechanics of prostitution in the desert.87

Women outside Egypt For all of the new evidence and new insights that these studies in legal, family, and economic spheres have brought, and they are numerous and important, one might be forgiven for feeling that these axes of investigation were all largely visible a century ago in Schubart’s article. But there are also dimensions of the subject that he could not have foreseen. One important one is the discovery of more papyri outside Egypt, which give us new ways of approaching the perennial conundrum of the interaction of metropolitan and indigenous practices that we see in the Egyptian papyri. By far the most important of these finds for the study of ancient women is the discovery of the archives of Babatha and Salome Komaise in the Judaean desert, but reflecting Jewish life in what became the Roman province of Arabia in 106 ce. Hannah Cotton has used these archives to sketch a picture with many local particularities but also some familiar dynamics.88 These Jewish women were active in buying, selling, and giving property, as well as in moneylending, and they crossed provincial boundaries freely. They used multiple languages to satisfy their legal needs, reflecting the changing availability of courts and procedures more than any cultural affinity; for example, the Aramaic texts date before the Roman annexation of the Nabataean kingdom. In documents drawn up to be used in a Roman system, the rules of Roman law are followed, with tutors present but not making the decisions. By contrast, in the documents in Semitic languages, there is no such male involvement. The Aramaic marriage contracts conform to rabbinic formulas and concepts, by and large, while the Greek contracts resemble those from Egypt. As in Egypt, we see women using the legal systems embedded in different languages to achieve their purposes in a variety of ways, but the legal traditions underlying the actions of Jewish women are not those of Egypt, so we see Jewish local customs carried on as far as possible.

87. Most recently Cuvigny (2010), with references to earlier bibliography. 88. Cotton (2002).

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Late Antiquity The rise of Late Antique studies has led, not surprisingly, to much interest in women as well. In the case of Egypt, attention has been drawn mainly to literary sources for ascetics and holy women, but Heike Behlmer has pointed out how few such figures there are compared to men: fewer than fifteen ascetic women of whom lives are known, compared to about 130 men; the Synaxary (liturgical calendar) has higher numbers but a similar ratio.89 Even for ordinary Christian women, including ascetics, the amount of evidence is disappointing. María Jesús Albarrán Martínez has devoted a monograph, a prosopography, and articles to female asceticism, based on the papyri and ostraka.90 Her work has been praised by Ewa Wipszycka for its careful collection and analysis of the sources, but Wipszycka argues convincingly that the dragnet has swept up many women who were not in fact ascetics, distorting and inflating the body of evidence.91 Many of the women in question were simply people who had family members in monasteries and corresponded with them. Still, Wipszycka concludes that the book persuades her that the subject of female ascetics is not quite as hopeless as she argued in an earlier article.92 In that paper, she focused mainly on monastic organization, drawing largely on the literary tradition, including the apophthegmata and similar works (although she refuses to credit the information about wandering nuns, against Susanna Elm and Benedicta Ward); she expressed disappointment about the documentary material for the subject. The substantial monograph of Erica Mathieson on Christian women in the third and fourth centuries, not focused on ascetics but firmly based on the papyri, does not face such selection problems, but much of its space is devoted to subjects not particular to women and with respect to which they have nothing very unusual to offer, like biblical imagery and themes, theological questions, and the practice of prayer.93 The lack of a distinctive focus on women is indeed the major criticism of the review by Gregory Paulson.94 To 89. Behlmer (2015). 90. Albarrán Martínez (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013). 91. Wipszycka (2012), reviewing Albarrán Martínez (2011). She notes the failure of the book to use some of the literature on women’s monasticism cited in the bibliography, notably works of Rebecca Krawiec and Caroline Schroeder. 92. Wipszycka (2002). 93. Mathieson (2014). 94. In BMCR 2016.12.28.

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round out what may be described as a somewhat disappointing area, the article on Christian women in the early Arab period by Gesa Schenke describes clearly the shortage of information about women, leading her to conclude that women were largely “lost in marriage” and preoccupied with family matters.95 She does not think that Muslim rule had any particularly direct impact on women, who, instead, simply shared in the circumstances faced by their families.

The Gendering of Life Experiences The final section of this paper is devoted to what might unkindly be described as a miscellany but which I think represents an as yet inchoate but fascinating turn toward the study of the gendering of experience. Part of this has to do with less formal and more qualitative aspects of life experiences, as they are perceived and expressed in petitions and private letters; part of it has to do with the attempt to get at the nature of personal relationships and at women’s experience of violence; and part has to do with the vexed question of the link between gender and perceived ethnicity. It is striking how little explicit engagement, beyond lip service, with gender studies there has been in papyrology. The most valuable treatment is Terry Wilfong’s paper for the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium on Byzantine Egypt.96 He gives a good survey of work on women in Egypt based on the papyri and recognizes that the subject has become a mainstream interest. But, he points out, gender studies involves much more than women’s history; it requires attention to men and masculinity, too. This is so far hardly to be seen, except to some degree in the book, written for a popular audience, of Dominic Montserrat.97 There we find a direct engagement with the question of homosexuality in Egyptian society along with the more usual topics concerning women’s lives. Montserrat’s keen attention to the realities of daily life led him to consider the physical circumstances in which people had sex and how that affected them—​subjects on which we have little direct information,

95. Schenke (2015). 96. Wilfong (2007); cf. also the preface to Wilfong (2003). 97. Montserrat (1996). His premature death was a tremendous loss to the study of gender in Greco-​Roman Egypt; an idea of what he had to contribute to the field can be had also from his article on the male body (Montserrat [1998]).

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any more than we really do about premarital sex.98 But issues of gender, elusive as they are, remain important and understudied. In what follows, I describe a few ways in which gender differences in daily life have been approached. It is also fair to say that there are signs that attention to the body, another area in which Montserrat was a pioneer in papyrology, is increasing. Two important examples are Sabine Huebner’s article on female circumcision and Véronique Dasen’s extensive publications on giving birth, multiple births, breastfeeding, and related subjects, in which the papyrological evidence is part of a larger picture.99 Much more may be expected in the near future from a number of scholars. The value of women’s letters for subjective aspects of life—​not just the activities mentioned in them but how they are presented and treated—​has been evident since Mondini’s article, and even Schubart devoted some space to the question. As Raffaella Cribiore and I were working on our collection of these letters, we both felt the attraction of the letters and experienced unease with the usual assumption that they represent unmediated testimony.100 We concluded that it was only occasionally possible to be sure who actually wrote down the letter on papyrus, but that the oral style of the letters made it likely that women’s dictation was for the most part taken down verbatim or nearly so. One imagines that, in general, the secretaries were male; thus women’s correspondence is largely filtered through male ears, brains, and hands. This is why language seems such a critical area in reading the letters. The degree to which women went about in public or were largely confined to the home is a perennial staple of the study of ancient gender differentiation. There has been no systematic treatment of this question for Greco-​Roman Egypt, but our sense from the letters certainly favored substantial freedom of movement (even if often accompanied) for women at least of the wealthier classes—​and perhaps of necessity for the poor. Women did use public baths, as Béatrice Meyer has shown; not everyone approved, and the church fathers

98. Still worth reading is also the article by Whitehorne (1979), who sees Greco-​Roman Egypt as a highly sexualized society, and yet one whose written record mostly gives us very little sense of this. He stresses the need to combine different types of evidence to reach worthwhile conclusions. 99. Huebner (2009b); Dasen (2005; on twins). Most of Dasen’s extensive work is not specifically papyrological, but it deals with both Egypt and the Greco-​Roman world. 100. Bagnall and Cribiore (2006, [2006] 2008). See also Cribiore (2001, 2002; both on the archive of the strategos Apollonios), written during that project, and Ruffing (2006) on the Apollonios and Paniskos archives.

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were particularly hostile to the practice.101 But they did. We know almost nothing about whether they used separate facilities from men (which seems likely) or at times the same facility but at different hours (a well-​known practice in other periods and places). They were at times served by male attendants, which may seem surprising, but these were either slaves or young boys, or perhaps both; in any case, they were not persons whose presence would infringe on ancient concepts of modesty.102 Women’s encounters with violence have attracted a significant amount of recent study. Bernard Legras discusses several incidents recorded in papyri from the Ptolemaic period, concluding that none of them involved violence directed at women because they were women; they are no different, in his view, from such incidents involving men that are recorded in other texts, usually complaints.103 He asks how to explain the absence in the record of mention of specifically sexual crimes, which are equally missing in the Roman papyri and barely more noticeable in those from Late Antiquity. He proposes that such things were simply not reported to the authorities. That seems sure to be right in cases of domestic violence, but it is hard, in the absence of evidence, to know if it is correct in other instances. Maryline Parca is also very reserved about any gender element in violent attacks by and against women; she prefers to see ethnic tensions in the Ptolemaic instances.104 There has been increasing interest in trying to uncover emotions and the tone of personal interactions in the papyri: not an easy endeavor, or it would have been done long ago. Reinhold Scholl, as an expert in Ptolemaic slavery, asked what we can discern about the relationship between female owners and their slaves, where there were grounds for worry both about violence and about the potential for a sexual relationship.105 Surprised that no one had looked into this before, he enumerated the known cases, concluding that we can see little if any difference between men’s ownership and women’s: acquisition was largely by the same means; women owned both male and female

101. Meyer (1992). 102. Legras (1999) thinks the boy was prepubescent. 103. Legras (1999). 104. Parca (2002). This is a paper delivered in 1997, and she apparently did not know Legras (1999) in time to include it in her discussion. Schubert (2014) is a recent publication of a complaint by a woman, with a good discussion of parallels. 105. Scholl (2002).

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slaves, and slaves of both Greek and Egyptian origin. None of this is very surprising, and the evidence is virtually all devoid of emotional tonality. In a volume that came out of a research project on the emotions directed by Angelos Chaniotis, Chrysi Kotsifou contributed both a general survey of papyrus documents and the types of emotional information they can yield, including the relationship of emotion and gender, and a targeted look at one family in the Sakaon archive.106 In general, women’s use of petitions, which are full of emotional language, in Late Antiquity seems more limited than in earlier periods.107 Two other forays into microhistory give hints of the kind of thing that is possible. A brief article by Arthur Verhoogt looks at the marriage strategies implicit in the linkage of two families in Tebtynis: one wealthy in land but in financial difficulties, of Greco-​Egyptian background; the other of the Greek settler class, prone to naming their girls after queens.108 One family was wealthier, the other better connected in village politics. The use of girls as a form of currency is in no way unique to Roman Tebtynis, but we know enough of the families to be able to get some sense of the context in which such decisions would have been made. The other case is in all respects the opposite: we know nothing at all of the context, but the direct contents are intensely personal. An ostrakon from Elephantine edited by Nikos Litinas describes the activities of “your woman,” neither the writer nor the recipient being known to us.109 She was drinking, the note says, with two other people, at least one of whom was male, and a mention is made of the removal of some of the property of the addressee. Was the woman the recipient’s wife, or “woman” in a less legal sense? We do not know; I would read it as “wife.” A nosy neighbor? A spy placed by the husband? Litinas valiantly canvasses the possibilities but prudently abstains from deciding. What comes across unmistakably is the fact that someone would write such things down and use them in some way.

106. The survey; Kotsifou (2012a); on Aurelia Artemis and her children: Kotsifou (2012b). The survey starts with the archive of Paniskos and Ploutogeneia (but does not know the discussion in Ruffing [2006]); emotion and gender are treated on 72–​75. The article on Artemis considers the way petitions seek to elicit empathy and the role that gender and status play in this effort. On this archive, see also Bérenger-​Badel (2005), mainly from the governor’s point of view. 107. Bagnall (2004). 108. Verhoogt (2004). 109. Litinas (2014).

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There has been a fair amount of debate about the degree to which ethnicity in Greco-​Roman Egypt was gendered. Because more of the early Greek settlers were male than female, it is a certainty that some proportion of those settlers who married took Egyptian wives. As we have seen, the Fayyum census records suggest that about a tenth of married settlers had Egyptian wives, like Dryton in his second marriage. Throughout the period, and even more in the Roman period than earlier, we find that women of the propertied classes are more likely than the men of the same families to have Egyptian names. Jane Rowlandson has argued that this is not sufficient evidence to support a sweeping dichotomy between male/​Greek/​public and female/​Egyptian/​private.110 Moreover, although women were far less likely to be able to read and write Greek than men were, she does not think their relatively greater illiteracy gives us any information on relative ability to speak the language. In my view, this is an overreaction to what was admittedly a too easy schematization. There is, in fact, not only the onomastic evidence but the fact that in Late Antiquity women turn to Coptic instead of Greek as an epistolary language, far more than is the case for men.111 The last third of the century surveyed here has obviously been a time of great excitement for anyone interested in the social history of the ancient world, and especially of the Egypt of the papyri—​meaning the Demotic, Coptic, and Arabic papyri as well as those in Greek. All of us owe a tremendous debt to those who led the way in raising the issues that today are part of the remit of every social historian. Some of the questions debated across the decades remain alive today, particularly the tension between sociology and social history. Our evidence will always be uneven and act as an impediment to a full-​scale description of historical change. By contrast, the supposed struggle between women’s history as an autonomous subject and as a part of a larger whole seems to me largely a straw woman. Urging serious attention to women’s lives in antiquity has never really implied detaching them from those of men. It is not my purpose here to try to guess what lies ahead. But I close with the suggestion that the next decades will be more productively spent looking to elicit the varieties of experience that individuals had as a result of gender, class, age, ethnicity, literacy,112 and other parts of their identity than in arguing for sweeping

110. Rowlandson (2004), citing earlier work by Jean Bingen, Orsolina Montevecchi, and me, as well as van Minnen (2002). 111. Bagnall ([2001] 2006). 112. Sheridan (1998) discusses the significance of literacy in shaping women’s economic lives. Sabine Huebner has a forthcoming article on women’s literacy.

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generalizations. Without significant new evidence, particularly quantifiable evidence, the latter are likely to be hard to come by. Total history of anything is hard to write from the papyri, and all the various projects for all-​ encompassing synthesis that we have seen have foundered. But the various types of microhistory that I have described in recent work seem to me capable of shedding light far beyond the cases that give rise to them, and there is much yet to do.

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Cosmetics in Daily Life of the Ancient Mediterranean Ann Ellis Hanson

In the latter portion of the Oeconomicus, Xenophon’s Socrates claims to have heard that the young Athenian Ischomachus was considered a fine gentleman (kalos te k’agathos) by men, women, citizens, and foreigners alike, and so he determined to make Ischomachus’ acquaintance (6.17). Once conversation began between the two men, it turns out that Socrates wants to know about Ischomachus’ wife and whether or not she came to him from her parents already knowing her household duties. Socrates’ question prompts a laugh from Ischomachus: “How could she, for she was not yet fifteen! She had, he went on, excellent training in controlling her appetite, as had I from my father, and as soon as she became accustomed to family conversations with me, I began to describe her duties to her.”1 Ischomachus’ first lesson is about marriage itself, in which he lectures at her more than he converses with her; after this, his mode of teaching moves in the direction of the Socratic question-​and-​answer style—​a dialogue, if you will, in which the young wife learns by thinking out answers to her husband’s prompts about many aspects of household management she needs to master. Analogies help, such as the role of the queen bee who stays within the hive, assigning tasks to other bees and overseeing their work, or the Phoenician merchant ship, where there was a place for everything and each piece of ship’s tackle properly stored in its own place. Ischomachus acknowledges that she is being assigned tasks harder 1. My paraphrase of Xenophon is based on the elegant edition and translation of the text by Pomeroy (1994). Ann Ellis Hanson, Cosmetics in Daily Life of the Ancient Mediterranean In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0008

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than what is assigned to their slaves, but he explains that this is because she is the one who gains most by preservation of the household’s property and loses most by its destruction. She is, then, the one who will take best care of the household’s assets. She disagrees with him on one point, telling him he is wrong to think her tasks the more laborious ones, for it would, in fact, be far harder for her to neglect their possessions than for her to care for them diligently—​an answer that brings her praise from Socrates when Ischomachus relays how she contradicted him. One day perhaps early in their married life, the wife presented herself to Ischomachus with white lead (psimythion) on her face to make it paler, root of the plant alkanet (enchousa) on her cheeks to make them redder, platform sandals to make her taller. Ischomachus’ reaction to her deliberately altered appearance is by no means positive, but rather than scolding or threatening the girl, he talks about makeup in terms of the deception and duplicity it represents, its fakery and counterfeiting. He asks her to contemplate embracing him when he has lathered pigments over his own body and face (miltos and andreikelos, red and flesh-​colored). He tells her “these tricks might perhaps succeed in deceiving strangers without ever being detected, but those who spend their entire lives together are bound to be found out if they try to deceive one another” (10.2–​13). When she asks Ischomachus for advice as to how she might look truly beautiful, he reprises his comparison with the queen bee2 who constantly works in behalf of her hive, suggesting exercises to her such as kneading bread, moving back and forth before her loom as she weaves, shaking out their clothes. Ischomachus reported to Socrates that in future his wife never again resorted to artificial embellishments of her person but constantly busied herself with chores that not only benefited her household but exercised her body. His wife was not a deceiver who sits around as slaves do, but household activities enhanced her complexion and body without need for artificial adornment: her undoctored face and graceful body alone were more than sufficient stimulants to arouse a husband’s desire. Ischomachus did not bother to ask his young wife what inspired her to test makeup as a way to increase his attentions to her. The obvious wealth of Ischomachus’ family and probably also of his wife’s family no doubt sheltered this Athenian parthenos from the world outside her home until she moved to the household of her husband. She may have achieved a basic literacy at home, so as to be able to write and read household inventories or brief notes prior

2. Pomeroy (1984).

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to her marriage, or she may have acquired the skill only later, as his wife—​or perhaps not at all, remaining unable to write or read throughout her life. The topic of literacy never comes up in the couple’s conversations as Xenophon reconstructed them, although Ischomachus himself was likely to have achieved at least minimal literacy, for being able to read offers protections for a family’s property and possessions. His young wife no doubt heard about cosmetic enhancement of her appearance from female relatives or other women in her home, and she may even have learned about makeup and other embellishments for face and body from Homer’s tale of Hera beautifying herself in the Iliad (14.164–​221). The goddess intends to seduce her husband and turn his attentions away from the battlefield at Troy, furnishing her an opportunity to help out the wearied Achaean forces she favors. Deception, then, lies at the heart of Hera’s story, as she attempts to turn her husband away from watching war games to making love. The epic poet plays the scene in comic mode, since Hera’s tale not only instructs men in his audience about the deceitful ways of women and wives but adds the irony that, in this case, the goddess’s target is her unfaithful husband. Hera locks herself in her chamber, bathes and anoints her body with ambrosial sweet oil whose scent penetrates heaven and earth, and then dresses her hair with additional oils. Next, she dons a veil, diaphanous clothing, and last of all sandals to mimic a warrior’s taking up his weaponry for battle in a similar head-​to-​toe ordering. Not satisfied, Hera decides to borrow “loveliness and desirability, the graces with which the goddess Aphrodite overwhelms mortal men and all the immortals.” Hera even dissembles her motivation for needing borrowed equipment. In Plautus’ Mostellaria, it is not so much that the young meretrix Philematium intends to deceive her lover Philolaches now that he has already purchased her freedom for her, but simply that she desires to please him through cosmetic enhancements. The girl’s worldly wise servant Scapha assures Philematium that old women are the ones who must resort to white lead on the face and pinkish-​purple clay on the cheeks to hide their advanced age and inherent ugliness. The beautiful young woman, however, is lovelier when naked and lacking embellishment. She smells best when she doesn’t smell at all (257–​274). My purpose in this chapter is to chart evidence for normative attention to one’s appearance and to suggest the kinds of cosmetic preparations that might have been habitually in use on one’s face or body in Roman Egypt, where plentiful evidence from papyri suggests that neither the behavior of Ischomachus’ young wife nor that of Homer’s goddess Hera inform us as to how perfumed

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oils and unguents are used within the home. By the first century ce, more than four hundred years after Ischomachus and his wife were resident in Athens, rolls of papyrus with recipes were in circulation; some were more medical in content, while others contained recipes intended only to enhance a user’s appearance, and collections of recipes labeled Kosmetikon or Kosmetika were likely to contain both types. One early Kosmetikon is attributed to Queen Cleopatra VII—​unlikely, we think these days, to be from the hand of the queen herself, although perhaps from the milieu of her court, famous for its cultivation and elegance. Galen does seem to credit Queen Cleopatra herself with being the author when he quotes recipes from the Kosmetikon he is excerpting for inclusion in his own drug book, especially recipes that deal with mange and loss of hair (De Comp. Med. sec. loc.1.2, 12.403–​404 Kühn). No Hellenistic collection of cosmetic recipes seems to have survived in toto to modern times, but snippets are known through quotations in later writers, including Galen. The name for “title tag,” the label affixed to a closed roll of papyrus that reveals the roll’s contents, is probably either sittyba (Shackleton Bailey) or syllybus, (OLD), for the form of the Greek word Cicero uses in letters to Atticus has been mangled by Latin scribes unfamiliar with the term. A recently published title tag from the Beinecke Library at Yale University seems to register a work entitled “Daily Routines” (Kathemerina), authored by someone named Olympios, who might be Cleopatra’s personal physician, called (mistakenly, it would seem) by Plutarch or his tradition Olympos/​ Olympus (Plut. Vit. Ant. 82.4).3 Mummy portraits have been found in cemeteries of the Roman period over much of the former province, although the first to attract collectors and scholars were unearthed at the end of the nineteenth century in cemeteries of the Fayum, at er-​Rubayat servicing areas around the village of Philadelpheia, and at the large cemetery near the village of Hawara, entrance to the Fayum and site of a pyramid and mortuary temple belonging to a Middle Kingdom pharaoh.4 These affective portraits of individuals were painted on wooden boards in encaustic technique, less frequently in tempera, and inserted into the mummy wrappings over the face of the deceased. Men wear white garments, women clothing of many hues, both often decorated with gold leaf to enhance jewelry and other finery. Their skin tones reiterate the varied heritage of this mixed Greek and Egyptian population, in which the men were

3. Hanson (2004); Plut. Vit. Ant., 28, 32, 293–​294, ed. Pelling. 4. Roberts (2008).

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often deeply tanned and swarthy, the women with paler skin tones, sometimes sallow. The lips and cheeks of the women are painted pink, and images of the men on occasion betray traces of rouge as well. The eyes of both men and women were outlined in black with kohl that also darkens eyelids and serves as mascara for eyelashes. Hairstyles for women reflect those worn by women of the imperial household and change over the three hundred or so years when mummy portraits were in vogue; men’s facial hair also followed current trends. Several matters with regard to Ischomachus and his young wife are likewise touched upon in letters of a family archive from Roman Egypt consisting of some 230 papyri written in Greek between the years 113 and 120 ce; the archive is named for the father of the family, the strategus Apollonius, whose business papers form the bulk of the collection.5 Twenty-​five letters are from women of the family, especially Apollonius’ mother, Eudaimonis, and his wife Aline, and these letters provide additional perspectives on women’s literacy, as well as their serious concern for the attractiveness of the clothing they produce back in Hermopolis for Apollonius to wear when on official business.6 The women write to Apollonius asking which fabric he prefers (linen or wool), the colors and styles in which they are to fashion the garments to be sent to him (A7.16, letter 46). In one letter, Aline asks him to send her a small sample of the color he wants for the woolen garment she is currently working on; she cautions him that if he wants his light, white cloak to drape properly over his shoulder, he needs to think about (what happened with his?) purple one.7 The family is wealthy, and, as strategus, Apollonius serves in the highest office available to Greco-​Egyptian provincials in the second century ce. Eudaimonis and Aline are fully literate in Greek, and Aline’s handwriting is small, regular, and much more competent than that of her mother-​in-​ law; further, the vocabulary Aline manipulates is complex and underscores the fine education she received. In common with Eudaimonis, she sometimes makes use of a scribe to whom she dictates her letter, adding farewell greetings in her own hand. The women also superintend teams of slave girls weaving for the commercial market (A7.11, letter 41). Aline sometimes goes 5. The clandestine diggers who discovered Apollonius’ archive sold the papyri to antiquities dealers purchasing for several European institutions, unaware the papers derived from one and the same archive. 6. Bagnall and Cribiore ([2006] 2008) A7.1–​25, letters 31–​55. 7. Accent as πορφυρᾶς, the adjective (πορφυροῦς, -​ᾶ, -​οῦν) in P.Giss. 20.18 + BL 11.84 = P.Giss. Apoll. 11.18+BL 12.78 = Bagnall and Cribiore ([2006] 2008) A7.25, letter 55.

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to the far south of the province to be with her husband during his time as strategus of the Apollonopolis-​Heptakomia district in Upper Egypt, bringing the younger children with her; otherwise, she resides in Hermopolis. Most of the correspondence among the three adults occurs when they are not living there together, as might be expected. The women’s ability to write and read makes a significant difference in the amount of support and encouragement they give to Heraidous, eldest daughter of Apollonius, in her studies with a teacher—​by contrast, Ischomachus’ young wife was trained at home to practice self-​control prior to her marriage, according to Xenophon’s Ischomachus. Heraidous, too, is either a late preteen or already a teenager, and although she is close in age to the young wife of Ischomachus, no one in her family mentions marriage, which, although likely for her, will occur some eight to ten years hence, when she reaches her late teens or early twenties. Heraidous lives with her paternal grandmother, Eudaimonis, in Hermopolis, district capital of the Hermopolite nome in Middle Egypt. The letters from her grandmother to her parents, Eudaimonis’ son and daughter-​in-​law, invariably mention with pleasure Heraidous’ steady progress with writing and reading; close to the end of the archive, Aline reports to Apollonius that there are now younger children of the couple, working at their studies in Hermopolis (A7.24, letter 54). In one letter Eudaimonis tells Aline, who is pregnant, that she hopes this baby is a boy (A7.11, letter 41). Further correspondence between the two women, however, never mentions perfumes, unguents, or makeup, and, in fact, cosmetic enhancements are mentioned only once in the entire Bagnall-​Cribiore collection of 314 letters from the women of Greek and Roman Egypt, and this letter is part of a shopping list Tetos sends to her father, asking him to purchase for her myrrh, nard oil, myrrh oil, cloths, containers for pomades (A2.2, letter 8). Corrections to the papyrus P.Bingen 79.1–​4 reveal it also to be a woman’s shopping list that includes the luxury perfume Foliatum.8 The lack of specific references suggests to me that cosmetic preparations are readily available for most inhabitants of the province whenever they want them, and that they are compounded of simple ingredients, easy to acquire, and often prepared in the home, especially diluting a concentrate or adding liquid to dried forms. The exception to the assumption of omnipresence is itself telling: a certain Menelaus located at the quarries of Mons Claudianus in Egypt’s eastern desert—​the probable source of the eight gray granite columns on the porch of the Pantheon at Rome—​writes to his friend,

8. Bagnall and Cribiore ([2006] 2008) A2.2 third/​second bce; Andorlini (2016).

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another Menelaus, “Please, I beg you, do me the favor of buying me a small flask [lekythion] of rose oil [rhodinon], and send it to me, because mine was stolen! I find no place here to purchase any” (O.Claud. 1.171.3–​7). As the short note makes clear, no rose oil at all can be bought at an outpost in the desert; the man who covets rose oil has no choice but to steal some when he finds it, while the original owner wants a replacement so badly that he writes to a friend to purchase more for him. He may well be exposed to the desert sun and his skin require the welcome hydration rose oil affords. This short message of appeal is written on a pot sherd because papyrus is also difficult to acquire in the desert, while broken pieces of pottery are plentiful. Both Eudaimonis and Aline worry when Apollonius is ill and all in the house rejoice when his health improves (A7.17, letter 47). Eudaimonis claims she continues to refrain from bathing or worshipping the gods until she hears he is safe and sound once again (A7.13, letter 43). While the office of strategus in Roman Egypt no longer entails military obligations, the women’s fears for him nonetheless underscore the notion that Apollonius may be called upon to fight when the uprising of the Jewish diaspora spreads from Cyrene to Egypt late in the reign of Trajan and remains problematic into Hadrian’s reign. Eudaimonis writes to her son, “Given the disturbances in our area, I cannot endure, since day and night I am praying to all the gods and goddesses that they keep you safe” (A7.3, letter 33). Aline’s anguish is even more palpable when she writes to Apollonius, echoing at the end of her letter the kind of strategic advice Homer’s Andromache once gave to Hector (Il. 6.431–​434): I am so worried about you, because of the rumors being spread here at the moment and the fact that you left me so suddenly. I  take no pleasure in food or drink, being awake day and night, thinking only of your safety. . . . I beg you, look out for your own safety and do not approach danger alone without your troop of guards, but you should do as the strategus here does and put the burden on officials. (A7.15, letter 45) Of all the women whose letters are gathered in the Bagnall-​Cribiore collection, Aline seems to me the most likely not only to be sufficiently well educated so as to be able to channel a bit of Homer, but also sensitive enough to omit Iliadic lines in which Andromache openly foreshadows the disasters to come: “Your own great strength will destroy you” (6.407). When Apollonius’ term as strategus ends, he returns home to resume his life as a gentleman farmer and he carries with him the letters sent to him while

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away and most of his business papers, all of which were found together in Hermopolis. One of the first papyri from his archive to be published appears to be a memento from an impressive event that took place at the very end of the Egyptian year, while he was still strategus: the announcement of the deification of Emperor Trajan9 and the accession of Hadrian, staged as a dialogue between Phoebus Apollo and the citizenry of the Apollonopolite district (P.Giss. 3).10 The people call for celebrations and laughter, drinking of wine from fountains and anointing one’s body with unguents from the various gymnasia (6–​14). Rubbing oneself with perfumed oils prior to exercising in a palaestra of the gymnasium with a strigil for scraping off oils and sweat thereafter was a favored pastime for Greek males, and Ptolemaic monarchs fostered gymnasium habits among Greek elites now living in the district capitals or metropoleis of Egypt. Gymnasia continued to flourish in the Roman period, although country villages that earlier may have enjoyed the pleasures of a gymnasium under the Ptolemies, such as Philadelpheia in the Fayum, lost these early in the Roman period. With the creation of councils (boulai) in the metropoleis after 200 ce, the town councilors assumed responsibilities for their local community’s food supply, its bathing establishments, and gymnasia, including the educational programs, themselves paying for building repairs and enhancements for these institutions. In the mid-​third century ce, councilors at Oxyrhynchus hired a public grammaticus to teach in the gymnasium. Lollianus, however, subsequently complained in a petition-​dossier he sent to the emperors that his salary was seldom paid on time and the rations he received were but sour wine and worm-​eaten grain. He begs to be given a walled-​off orchard instead, as a way to guarantee him constant income for himself and his family (P.Oxy. 47.3366). Papyrus archives shed further light on the councils in the capitals of the Arsinoite district, the Oxyrhynchite, and the Hermopolite; those councilors who could afford to spend lavishly on the public buildings did so, as well as on stipends for victorious athletes in retirement and on free meals for them in the prytanium. Lollianus at Oxyrhynchus was perhaps unlucky to encounter drachma-​pinching councilors, although, as time went on, more and more councilors claimed they were themselves impoverished due to their public service. Wrestlers and pancratiasts, the most vigorous and most admired of athletes, may well have brought their own

9. Emperor Trajan died on either 8 or 9 August 117 ce in Selinus, Cilicia. 10. Also published as Pestman (1994) no. 29.2; Heitsch (1961) no. 12; Smallwood (1966) no. 519, etc. Discussion in den Boer (1975); see also P.Oxy. 55.3781.

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bottles of perfumed oils with them for anointing their bodies before contests in the palaestra. Galen (129–​c. 216 ce), the famous physician at Rome, weighs in on the matter of cosmetic embellishments at the outset of his ten-​book Compound Drugs according to Place (De Comp. Med. sec. loc. 1.2, 12.434.5–​435.7 Kühn). He asks, “In what way does the cosmetic portions of medicine [kosmetika] differ from the part that only beautifies or embellishes [kommotika]?,” and then he answers his own question. By doing so, he not only medicalizes the rewards to individuals that paying attention to their outward appearance and their body’s presentation to the world at large bring, but eschews the gender bias inherent in most other ancient and late antique discussions of cosmetic preparations, for authors tend to assume that women are the ones who paint their faces white and rouge their cheeks (Ov. Medic. 73). To prove his point about the deceptive unpleasantness makeup produces in a partner or spouse, Ischomachus does ask his young wife to contemplate him with face and body painted with more masculine hues, along with reddened cheeks. She recoils much as he did when her saw her in full paint. Ovid also suggests that husbands sometimes deck themselves out much as the womenfolk do (Medic. 25), while papyri show that Hellenophone males in Roman Egypt acquired, and, in all likelihood, rubbed on their own skin and scalp perfumed unguents and oils whose aim was to preserve the body in its natural state of attractiveness. Galen’s explication of the differences between kosmetika and kommotika is worth presenting (my translation): τῷ μὲν κομμωτικῷ σκοπός ἐστι κάλλος ἐπίκτητον ἐργάσασθαι, τῷ δὲ τῆς ἰατρικῆς μέρει τῷ κοσμητικῷ τὸ κατὰ φύσιν ἅπαν ἐν τῷ σώματι φυλάττειν, ᾧ καὶ τὸ κατὰ φύσιν ἕπεται κάλλος. ἀπρεπὴς γὰρ ὀφθῆναι κεφαλὴ πάθος ἀλωπεκίας ἔχουσα, καθάπερ γε κᾂν ἐκ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν αἱ βλεφαρίδες ἐκπέσωσι καὶ τῶν ὀφρύων αἱ τρίχες. οὐ μόνον δ’ εἰς κάλλος, ἀλλὰ καὶ πολὺ πρότερον εἰς αὐτὴν τὴν ὑγείαν τῶν μορίων αἱ τρίχες αὗται συντελοῦσιν, ὡς ἐν τοῖς περὶ χρείας μορίων ἐδείχθη. τί δεῖ λέγειν περὶ λειχήνων ἢ ψώρας ἢ λέπρας ὡς παρὰ φύσιν ταῦτα; τὸ μέντοι λευκότερον τὸ χρῶμα τοῦ προσώπου ποιεῖν ἐκ φαρμάκων ἢ ἐρυθρότερον ἢ τὰς τρίχας τῆς κεφαλῆς οὔλας ἢ πυρρὰς ἢ μελαίνας ἢ καθάπερ αἱ γυναῖκες ἐπὶ μήκιστον αὐξανομένας, ταῦτα καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα τῆς κομμωτικῆς κακίας ἐστὶν, οὐ τῆς ἰατρικῆς τέχνης ἔργα. The aim of embellishment, kommotika, is to produce “add-​on” beauty, but the aim of the cosmetic aspects of medicine, kosmetika, is to preserve everything that naturally belongs to the body, to which the beauty

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that occurs naturally follows. Caring for the hair is a part of medicine because it is in accordance with nature, since the head is ugly to look at when afflicted by alopecy or mange, equally so when eyelashes fall out from around the eyes and hairs from the eyebrows. Not only do these particular hairs pertain to natural attractiveness, but they also contribute in more primary ways to health itself, as I pointed out in my treatise Usefulness of the Parts. What is the point of going on to talk about lichens or psoriasis or pustules—​examples of dermatological maladies that are contrary to nature? The following, however, are part and parcel of the evilness associated with embellishments: making the color of one’s face whiter, or rosier from drugs [pharmaka]; or making the curly locks of one’s head red or black, or frizzed to increase its extent, as women are wont to do. These latter are not the business of medicine. Galen makes a strong case for medicine playing a role in providing counsel and therapeutic recipes to aid the individual in maintaining the body’s integrity with its exterior parts maintaining a healthy appearance. Should these suffer damage, the recipes in his collection offer the means to restore them back into the integrated whole. Galen knew both worlds of the Roman Empire, for he was born in Pergamum, on the Mediterranean coast of what is now northern Turkey, and immigrated to Rome in the 160s, remaining there for most of the rest of his exceptionally long life, for the Arabic tradition has him living into his mid-​eighties. Not only was Galen a skilled researcher in medicine, asking many of the right questions, especially in anatomy (even though his physiology was rejected with increasing frequency from the Enlightenment onward). He was a much-​trusted doctor to friends and acquaintances at all levels of society, as well as an astute social climber. Once arrived in Rome, Galen speedily became acquainted with the city’s aristocrats and not long afterward was one of the physicians attendant on Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121–​180) and his family. When Galen was an octogenarian, he was still making house calls at the imperial palace on the Palatine Hill, although the resident family was by then that of Emperor Septimius Severus (145–​211). Galen’s emphasis on the difference between artificial embellishment of one’s person, on the one hand, and preservation of the body’s inherent attractiveness, on the other, through application of dermatological treatments, justifies the production of his own collection of recipes, drawn in large part from drug books by predecessors such as Crito, physician at the court of Emperor Trajan, and the Kosmetikon attributed to Queen Cleopatra that instructs how to sustain a full head of hair

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in prime condition. While Galen makes brief mention of embellishments to one’s person that are not the business of medicine, such as painting one’s face and dyeing one’s hair, he betrays little interest in hectoring women who did. Ovid tries to warn his Corinna about the damage she was doing to her hair with potent dyes and hot curling irons. Eventually she had so abused her delicate locks that few hairs remained, and for a time she was forced to wear a wig made from the hair of a German slave (Am. 1.14). Galen insists that attempts to enhance beauty by artificial means have nothing to do with medicine or the doctor, and his explication of the differences between kosmetika and kommotika passes over not only the obvious expense and potential duplicity of makeup but also the dangers of overuse associated with artificial embellishments of self. Galen exhorts the medical man not to succumb to patients’ demands for unhealthy cosmetics. The cosmetic prescriptions Ovid includes in his Face Cosmetics are justifiably praised, for they give the impression of actual recipes known from over three hundred examples in the papyri and many times more in the drug books of Galen and later medical writers. Ovid’s first and longest recipe in Face Cosmetics is compounded from multiple ingredients and is said to make the face luminous and bright first thing in the morning:  barley with chaff removed, vetch, ten eggs, and ending with gum Arabic and honey for liquid ingredients (51–​68). Another recipe of his named alcyonea (77–​78) calls for a bird’s nest to rid the face of spots. The Elder Pliny knows about a medicament with even greater efficacy called crocodilea that was much in vogue in the Rome of his day and he describes it at length (Plin. HN 28.108–​110): it was gathered from the intestines of the land crocodile who feeds on sweet-​ smelling flowers, thus an herbivore. When extracted from the croc’s intestines and mixed with cedar oil or water and applied to the face as a mask, it removes blotches, heals diseases that spread over the face, and clarifies the skin, removing freckles, pimples, spots, and rendering the complexion radiant. A similar claim for crocodilea is given in the Greek pseudo-​Dioscorides Euporista, or Medicaments Easily Procured (1.104). In this account the substance is associated with clays from Chios and Selinous, which, when mixed with crocodilea, pseudo-​ Dioscorides claims, make the face resplendent. Horace in his Epode 12 seems to know something about a cosmetic preparation made from crocodile dung (stercore fucatus crocodili; 11), but either he or his source has misunderstood and considers this a cosmetic rouge. Or perhaps Horace has deliberately misunderstood so as to make his portrait of the fetid old hag forcing him to make love more unpleasant than it already is, for by using the crocodile preparation to redden her cheeks, her profuse

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sweating causes the white and red paints to run together. For Pliny, crocodilea is a clarifying mask, not to be worn in public. The best crocodilea is crumbly in texture and shiny in appearance when rubbed between the fingers and is prepared for use in a manner similar to that used for white lead (cerussa), a fact that may heighten the confusion of Horace or his source. Those Romans who could afford crocodilea were eager to apply it to their faces, for the wondrous results it yielded, underscoring the fact that Pliny’s audience is more familiar with crocodilea than was the audience of Horace, perhaps even prior to the absorption of Egypt and its crocodiles into the Roman Empire. Perfumed oils and unguents are popular among Mediterranean populations and are mentioned frequently enough in papyri, especially in accounts and lists, to make clear that wealthier inhabitants in the Roman province of Egypt were anointing their faces and bodies with compounds of olive oil (the preferred oil for cosmetic preparations) mixed with the odor-​producing parts of plants and minerals as a pleasant means to lubricate one’s face and body in the arid climate of the Mediterranean basin. Women, according to Theophrastus’ Odors, prefer the oils and unguents they use to be powerfully scented and as long-​lasting as possible (42), such as myrrh oil (staktê), oil of sweet marjoram (amarakinon), and spikenard (nardinon), all three of which perfumed oils Theophrastus claims are expensive. Even more sought after was the perfumed oil Theophrastus suggestively names “Magnificence” (Megaleion), because it was compounded from costly ingredients and took a long time to prepare (30). By Late Antiquity, however, the adjective megaleios had become an honorific title for a wealthy patron or high official, its use as a name for an expensive perfumed oil apparently forgotten. The first three items mentioned by Theophrastus in Odors do appear in lists and accounts on papyrus throughout antiquity—​e.g., oil of myrrh (staktê: P.Col. 8.240.13, P.Prag. 1.88.4, Stud.Pal. 20.233.2), sweet marjoram oil (amarakinon:  P.Cair.Zen. 4.59536.18), and spikenard (nardinon: SB 28.17139.13). Men, on the other hand, according to Theophrastus’ Odors, prefer the oils and unguents they apply to their skin to be lighter and easily diffused in the air (42), giving examples such as rose oil (rhodinon), cedar oil (kyprinon or kypros in Theophrastus and some papyri), and lily oil (krinon). He speaks so frequently in Odors about the virtues of rose oil, often in the same breath with cedar oil, that he gives the impression of having used these oils himself. Although many of the perfumed oils and unguents are no doubt manufactured in both expensive and cheap varieties, or knock-​offs, we know for certain that the finest rose oil was marketed as “first quality” throughout Ptolemaic and Roman times, attested early in the third century bce in the

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archive of Zenon (P.Lond. 7.2141) and in the price edict of Diocletian at the end of the third century ce.11 Nemesion, tax collector for Julio-​Claudian emperors at the Fayum village of Philadelpheia, is known for his partnership with the Roman centurion on active duty in Egypt, L. Cattius Catullus (P.Thomas 5).12 For some thirteen years during the mid-​first century ce the two men joined together in agricultural dealings, sharing profits and expenses. The provincial Nemesion is the owner of record for real estate and grain lands, as well as the herds of sheep and goats; the Roman Cattius supplies armed soldiers under his command to enforce cooperation from recalcitrant shepherds in their employ and to assist Nemesion in the collection of private debts owed to him from loans to indigent fellow villagers. Nemesion’s wife Thermouthis is literate, an unusual accomplishment for a woman from a farming village, and Nemesion retains the letter she wrote to him in July 59, detailing what is happening at home while he was away on business, including the arrival of Cattius (whom she calls Lykos/​Lucius), who seizes the shepherds’ belongings.13 Nemesion apparently encouraged his wife’s fluency in writing Greek, for she replicates several of his orthographic infelicities, such as writing upsilon in the place of the diphthong omicron-​iota, and confusing long and short vowels. Not unlike the young wife of Ischomachus, Thermouthis presents herself as guardian of the household’s property. P.Graux 2.10 is a letter Servilius wrote to Nemesion, reporting on purchases he made for Nemesion: five rolls of papyrus, one and a quarter cotyls (about one-​third of a liter) of first-​quality Italian rose oil for eight drachmas, an amount about equal to the wages of a semiskilled worker for seven or eight days, in addition to other costly items, including cubes of silphium, perhaps to be made into perfumes or medicaments, and a gold ring, likely presents for Thermouthis. Servilius’ access to Italian goods that end up on Alexandrian markets may indicate he was involved in the transshipping of Egyptian wheat to Puteoli, the important depot in these years at the southern point of the bay of Naples. Servilius’ willingness to purchase items for Nemesion, who lives up-​country in the Fayum, implies their reciprocal relationship, a token of which is the wheat Servilius asks Nemesion to sell for him at current price,

11. ed. S. Lauffer, Berlin 1971, 36.89. 12. I have spent some years gathering together and preparing for publication the approximately 125 papyri in Nemesion’s archive and am drawing on some of that material here. 13. SB 14.11585 = Bagnall and Cribiore ([2006] 2008) B4.34, letter 233; Hanson (2015) 20–​29.

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unless the sale has already taken place. At the close of his letter, Servilius sends greetings to Thermouthis and all those in the household, as well as reaffirming to Nemesion the promise to fill any requests he may have (“If you need something, just write, and I will do it”; 2.10.13).14 In his Enquiry into Plants Theophrastus notes that the fragrance of the Egyptian rose, in particular, is not as intense as that produced by other flowers and that the Egyptian rosebush lives only five years, the potency of its blossoms diminishing as it ages (6.8.5). There seem to be quite a few references to rhodinon in papyri, but the word can also refer to the color pink and to dyes for making clothing or wall paint that hue. The text of an early Ptolemaic account from mummy cartonnage (P.Petr. 2.34b ii 4–​6) reads ῥοδίνου β κ(ότυλαι) η, probably indicating “2 c[otyls] of rose oil, 8 [drachmas],” rather than “one cotyl of second quality rose oil, 8 [drachmas].” The rose oil in this list is paired with two entries for cedar oil, a join already noted by Theophrastus. Nonetheless, ambiguities involving rhodinon, whether indicating rose oil or the color pink, can be seen in editions of papyri whose editors vacillate between the two meanings. Several grades of rose oil were available for purchase, and buying not only rose oil of first quality but rose oil imported from Italy marks Nemesion as a wealthy man, as do his reciprocal business dealings with Servilius and the other men identified only by Roman family names ( Julius and Antonius).15 His resources are considerable when compared with those of the peasant farmers of Philadelpheia and other, smaller villages in his Fayum neighborhood from whom he and his collectors gather cash payments for capitation taxes owed to Rome, the most important of which was the poll tax (laographia). His business papers show that for 51 ce, Claudius’ eleventh regnal year, he anticipated collecting from 906 and a half male villagers of Philadelpheia between the ages of fourteen and sixty-​one a total of 5 talents, 1,940 drachmas, 4½ obols (P.Sijp. 26.137).16 Nemesion, however, was not a 14.  Andorlini (2016), papyrus evidence for trade in luxury goods between Puteoli and Alexandria. 15. In contrast to the centurion Cattius, Nemesion’s archive never shows Servilius, Julius (said to be son-​in-​law of Servilius; P.Graux 2.10.4), or Antonius (said to be “son of Leonides” and “soldier from a cohort,” στρατιώτης ἐκ σπείρης; P.Graux 2.10.6–​7) with the Roman tria nomina. Hence the trio may have assumed Roman names only in anticipation of the Roman citizenship they hope to gain at the end of their active military service in an auxiliary cohort or a naval classis. 16. The “one-​half man” appears because taxpayers who die within the first months of the year are asked to pay less than the full amount and are thus in the tax registers as “a half man.”

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publicanus, for these had been fading as a group from the Roman scene since the demise of the Roman Republic,17 and by the middle of the first century ce those still bidding for contracts to collect Rome’s taxes are to be found in older provinces, such as Asia. The Gospel writers vilified publicani to whom they were paying their taxes, and in the King James version they speak repeatedly of “publicans and sinners” (telonai kai hamartoloi), for the amounts they extorted from provincials also included the publican’s own profits, in addition to taxes for Rome. Nemesion’s situation was different, as was his title, “collector of money taxes” (praktor argyrikon), for he was operating under the new system introduced by Octavian/​Augustus when he incorporated Egypt into the Roman provincial system in 30 bce upon the demise of Cleopatra, last of the Ptolemies. During Augustus’ reign residents of Egypt underwent provincial censuses and accordingly paid taxes as assessed. Nemesion apparently serves willingly as praktor for perhaps as many as fourteen years, well beyond the three-​year terms for the compulsory liturgic assignments for collectors of money taxes familiar a half-​century later, during the reign of Trajan and beyond. Even under the Augustan system not every taxpayer paid as anticipated, and Nemesion’s archive contains three long lists of men who owe arrears for previous tax years. About 57 ce Nemesion took the lead among five other praktores from neighboring villages in writing a petition to the prefect of Egypt, alerting him to the difficulties all six were having in making their collections (SB 4.7462), most often due to insufficient inundations of the Nile in a region normally productive of abundant yields. Nemesion and his fellow collectors plead with the prefect to rein in his subordinate at the district level, the strategos of Herakleides division, and prevent him from harassing them for tax moneys owed until he, the prefect, completes his yearly circuit in the area where the villages are located. The praktores hint that they may be forced to abandon their posts and affirm that their hopes lie with the prefect, chief executive officer for the entire province, “savior of all and benefactor,” who alone can bring about a harmonious understanding of the predicament squeezing the six praktores. Thermouthis and Nemesion produced two sons who survived to at least fourteen years of age, for they appear in a list of men liable for taxes at Philadelpheia in 69/​70 ce (BGU 7.1614A.7–​8). One son is named Ptollis; his brother’s name has been lost from the record. Their children seem to have been greeted after Thermouthis in another letter to Nemesion: Diogenes first,

17. Badian (1972) 118.

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perhaps the name of the son missing from the taxing list, and then two girls, perhaps daughters, are greeted next, Ammonous and Nemesous, the latter named after her father (P.Graux 2.11.11–​12). Among the purchases Servilius made in Nemesion’s behalf, the gold ring may have been a gift for Thermouthis or one of the daughters. The cube of silphium in the same shopping list is a potential ingredient for a perfumed oil with heavy scent. according to Theophrastus’ Odors (9.1). If Theophrastus’ claim still holds true, that rose oil was particularly popular among men, then Nemesion and his sons were the family members most likely to enjoy using the first-​quality Italian rose oil, and Nemesion himself the one likely to dilute the rose oil concentrate with additional olive oil, a refresher for body and mind after a busy day in the tax office he supervised. The men and women of the ancient Mediterranean who are known to us, whether their lives are described in high literature or have come down to us more directly through the papyrus archives in which they play a role, are neither abjectly poor nor fabulously rich. Rather they are individuals with some extra money that allows them to live comfortable lives and enjoy luxuries beyond the basics for food and housing. One luxury is literacy, for not only are the men literate, but often women are as well. Both parents are likely to show concern that their children acquire skills that enhance their own lives. A mother may teach her children basic skills of writing and reading, or other work may occupy her time, causing the family to hire a teacher instead. If the family lives in a metropolis, the children no doubt turn to the gymnasium for advanced educational opportunities, as well as sport. Bathing establishments are to be found not only in the cities, but also in prosperous villages, and having the leisure to enjoy the baths is a minor luxury that often entails indulging in cosmetic preparations during massage. Both men and women of the ancient Mediterranean had a taste for the perfumed oils and pomades they employed to protect their faces and bodies from the drying effects of low humidity and constant summer sunshine—​perhaps even a preference for the healthfully restorative varieties of kosmetika of which Galen approved.

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Female Athletes in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Greek World Georgia Tsouvala

Most studies of Greco-​Roman women in the Classical world are based on evidence from the triad of Athens, Sparta, and Rome.1 Athenian women and their experiences have been considered “the standard” in studying women’s lives in the Greek world, and Spartan women the aberration. When art historians, philologists, and historians refer to “Greek” anything, they and their audiences often assume Athenian traditions. Roman history and women stand on their own in the historical discourse and separate from the East, even when the histories of the eastern and western Mediterranean overlap. In Greek history we talk about the “Hellenistic period,” while in Roman history we discuss the “Republic.” The traditional chronological and regional ways in which we have been organizing Greco-​Roman history, in general, and women’s history, in particular, although not monolithic, conceal the interconnectedness of the two civilizations, especially in the late Hellenistic and early Imperial periods.2 Furthermore, because of the association of ancient athletics with 1.  Earlier versions of this research on female athletics in the Late Hellenistic and Roman periods were presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the Association of Ancient Historians in Salt Lake City, Utah (not cited in Kyle [2014] 270–​272), and at the 2011 First North American Congress in Greek and Latin Epigraphy in San Antonio, Texas. See also Tsouvala (2015). 2. The traditional periodization for Greek history (Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic) is based on political and artistic changes, especially as they relate to Athens and its art. This periodization does not reflect, however, the changes that happened across the Greek world during the Hellenistic period (traditionally defined by the death of Alexander in 323 and the death of the last Ptolemaic queen of Egypt in 30 bce) and the advent of the Romans in different parts of that world, after they crossed the Adriatic Sea in a military campaign in 221. Moreover, what art Georgia Tsouvala, Female Athletes in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Greek World In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0009

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aristocratic ideals, citizenship, education, pederasty, and military training,3 modern perceptions of ancient physical education are also based on the political, social, and spatial access ancient cities provided or did not provide to their citizen women. As a result, ancient athletics has been considered the exclusive domain of men, while women’s athletics has been marginalized because of their association with religion and cult.4 It is difficult to separate athletics from religion and its festivals however, whether one discusses male or female competitions; both men and women athletes participated in religious festivals, which often included athletic and musical contests that exemplified Greek paideia (education). Because of our own expectations and traditional historical training, we do not expect women to be athletes and to participate regularly in athletic training (except in Sparta, another way this polis is an aberration in our minds).5 Furthermore, when female athletes do appear in the scholarship, their athletic contributions and victories in competitions are qualified as participation in religious festivals (e.g., at the Heraia), initiation

historians and philologists define as Hellenistic art and literature continued into the world of the Roman Empire. As a result, when I refer to the “Late Hellenistic period,” “Roman Greece,” or “Imperial Greece,” I am referring to the Greek world after its military contact with and eventual political takeover by the Romans. Depending on the region or poleis discussed, the political changes occurred at different times (e.g., 146 bce for Corinth, but 30 bce for Alexandria). Furthermore, I  include evidence from the cities of Magna Graecia (South Italy) when they were Greek colonies and continued to write in Greek. Although the cities of Magna Graecia and Sicily came under Roman political control in the late second century bce, some continued to speak and write in Greek, which emphasizes that they held onto their Greek identity well into the Empire. Nero, for example, chose Naples for his first public artistic appearance because it was a Greek city (Tac. Ann. 15.33). Newby’s (2005) study of the processes of Romanization and Hellenization through the adoption of athletics and its imagery (statues, mosaics, and architecture) is important here; see also Landes, Guiéorguiéva, and Kramérovskis (1994) on Greek stadia and visual images in Roman regions (Etruria, Pannonia, Rome, North Africa); Pleket (2010); Weiler (2014) 118–​119 for bibliography on Greek sport and the Roman Empire. 3. For a discussion of the scholarship for Greek and Roman sport studies, see Scanlon (2014a) 4–​23; Christesen and Kyle (2014a); Weiler (2014). 4. In the large bibliography of sports and spectacles in the Greek and Roman worlds, there are very few works that deal specifically with women’s athletics. Mantas (1995) discusses mostly women and athletics in the Hellenistic period. Arrigoni’s (1985) edited volume Le donne in Grecia devotes a chapter, “Donne e sport nel mondo Greco:  Religione e società,” to Greek women’s sports, and Spartan women prevail. Bernandini (1988) includes an article on the footrace and the Greek female. On Spartan women, see Pomeroy (2002); Scanlon (1988); Cartledge (1982). See also Schaus and Wenn (2007) and Mahoney (2001) on women. Miller (2004) includes ten pages on women’s athletics. 5. Yet even Plato considered women to be natural athletes (Rep. 456A) and allowed nude exercise for women (457A). In the Laws, he approves of nude racing for girls before they reach puberty, and clothed racing for young women until their marriage (833C).

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rites (e.g., at Brauron and Sparta), and euergetism or patronage (esp. in Asia Minor but also on the Greek mainland).6 This chapter provides a corrective in modern scholarship by discussing women’s membership in gymnasia (exercise facilities) and palaestrae (wrestling grounds), as well as female participation and victories in local, regional, and transregional competitions in the Greco-​Roman world of the Late Hellenistic and Roman periods. By this time, gymnasia were expanded to include bathing facilities, libraries, and odeia (lecture halls). Hellenistic rulers and Roman emperors, such as Augustus, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius, and many local benefactors improved the facilities at Olympia, Athens, Isthmia, Delphi, and elsewhere. Athletic buildings and eventually bath complexes multiplied in the Greek cities of the East, as they became centers of a more general training open to a wider number of citizens and foreigners, including women. Athletic and bathing facilities became centers of not only physical but also cultural education as well as places to relax, network, and socialize.7 Courses of study (mathemata) and public lectures (acroaseis) were part of this cultural education. In the Hellenistic period many sacred crown contests (agones hieroi kai stephanitai) were founded and widely advertised.8 In the mid-​second century ce, the Greek orator and sophist Aelius Aristides wrote that all 6.  Van Bremen (1996), van Nijf (2004) 208 n.  17, and Kyle (2014) 259 have all dismissed women’s activities associated with gymnasia in the Hellenistic and Roman periods as secondary (namely, as those of officials and benefactors, wealthy heiresses who took over the family estate and its political and financial burdens, not because of their own wealth and elite position in their societies, but because of the lack of male heirs in their families). See, for example, Kyle (2014) 259 in the recent Blackwell Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity: “Greek female sport never had the societal importance that was accorded to male sport”; “Female sport typically involved unmarried girls (parthenoi) in rituals of transition or initiation, which prepared them for marriage”; and “Spartan female physical education and indirect female equestrian victories at Olympia (females owned horses but did not personally participate in the races) were anomalous.” Earlier, Scanlon (2002) 121–​138 concludes that the physical education of Spartan women was meant to attract suitors and to better prepare them to be wives and mothers. (Both Plutarch and Xenophon discuss the goal of Lycurgus to be the need of the state to create healthy and strong citizens, whether male or female.) Furthermore, Scanlon sees female physical education as initiatory, prenuptial, eugenic, and erotic, although the same can be (and has been) said about male physical education, not only in Sparta but all over the Greek world. See also Kearsely (2005). Rowlandson (1998) 303, 304 n. 5 described girls’ registrations with the gymnasium officials in third-​century ce Egypt “as a way of situating proper young women in the Hellenized social and intellectual milieu”; see also 304 n. 5: two registrations of girls are known from Oxyrhynchos, P. Corn. 118 (291 ce) and P. Oxy. 43. 3136 (292 ce). 7. See Kah and Scholz (2004); Scholz and Wiegandt (2015). 8. Robert (1989) 709–​717.

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localities of the Roman Empire were full of gymnasia (Or. 97) and that there was an infinite number of competitions (agones, Or. 99). Inscriptions and coins demonstrate the number of contests celebrated in the Greek world before and during the Roman period.9 We know of at least five hundred separate contests, both the so-​called sacred crown games and the money (chrematic) games in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire from the first through the third centuries ce. Thousands of athletes participated in these, although only a fraction of the names of those who were victorious survived, while an even smaller number of female names can be attested. In the first century bce and the first century ce, the circuit (periodos) of the sacred crown games at Olympia (Olympia), Delphi (Pythia), Isthmia (Isthmia), and Argos (Nemea)10 was created, and soon it was extended to include the Capitolia in Rome, the Actia in Nicopolis, and either the Heraea in Argos or the Sebastea in Naples.11 Games in the provinces were important for the Roman state in their communications with a large provincial audience.12 Roman emperors through their benefactions and their own participation sometimes supported athletic and musical festivals all over the Greek world, in addition to the Panhellenic games of old (i.e., the Olympic, Nemean, Pythian, and Isthmian Games). Over time more sacred games were founded; some were called “isopythian” (equal to the Pythian Games at Delphi) or “isolympic” (equal to the Olympic Games at Olympia), while others used the title “Pythia” to refer to their city’s games in honor of Apollo. In the Roman period, about twenty “Olympic Games” were organized and celebrated in the cities of the eastern provinces.13 Those athletes who participated in transregional games had to be the best and to have a very good chance at winning so that they could get prizes and other 9. Pleket (2014) 102. 10. The archaeology of the site of Nemea indicates that the area suffered widespread destruction c. 420 bce, at which time the Nemean Games moved to Argos. Except for a couple of decades when the Nemean Games were revived by the Macedonians at Nemea, they remained at Argos from the mid-​to late fourth century and into the Roman period, until they ended under the Christian emperors. See Knapp and Mac Isaac (2005) 15–​17. 11. Pleket (2014) 103 with bibliography. 12. For example, the Roman general Sulla and the emperor Nero proclaimed the “freedom of the Greeks” at the Isthmian Games. Greek-​style athletic contests were supported by Roman statesmen in the Late Republic to celebrate, mainly, their military victories. See Golden (2008) especially ­chapter 3, and notes 36–​38. See also Leschhorn (1998). In the Hellenistic and Roman periods even sacred crown games sometimes offer chrematic prizes. 13. See van Nijf (1999); Klose (2004).

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honors to support themselves (and their families). Travel from one place to another was expensive; training facilities were needed and private trainers had to be hired. Athletes still came from the elite echelons of society, although some athletes were from the “middle class.”14 Where do women fit in this cosmopolitan and competitive world? Did they participate in these contests, and if so, in which ones and where? How did the professionalization of these games affect them? These are a few of the questions this chapter addresses. First, I discuss briefly three inscriptions that have made it possible to reexamine the topic of female athletics in general and membership in athletic venues in particular. Second, I present epigraphic and literary evidence that commemorates female athletes who were victorious in a number of competitions in the Greek world of the Late Hellenistic and Roman periods and thus would have needed athletic facilities, whether public or private, in which to train beforehand. Finally, I point to future research on the subject of female athletics.

The Inscriptions: Membership Lists IG VI 1777 is an inscription from the Boeotian city of Thespiae in central Greece dated to the first century ce (probably after 14 ce and closer to the end of the century).15 The inscription consists of a list of names set up on a stele of those in the “upper gymnasium” (τοὺς ἐν τῶ ἄνω γυμνάσιω [sic]; L. 4). The first few lines of the inscription that introduce the list of names (or superscript) read as follows (NB:  although what I  present here is not a facsimile of the inscription, the position of the letters is, more or less, maintained visually): [Ἄρ]χο̣ντ̣ο̣ς Π̣ο̣πλίου * τοῦ Δέκμου μηνὸς Βουκα-​ τίου ν οἱ ἄρχοντες Μ. Ἀντώνιος Πρῖμος κα̣ὶ Μ. Ἀν-​ τώνιος Ζώσιμος καὶ Π. Καστρίκ̣ιος Λάκιμος̣ 4    ἐστηλογράφησαν τοὺς ἐν τῶ ἄνω γυμνάσιω (sic) Μ. Ἰσμηνοδώρα ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων·

14.  For example, SEG 54.1182 records that a promising athlete needed financial help for training and staying abroad. 15.  Initial findings regarding IG VII 1777 were presented at the American Philological Association (now, Society for Classical Studies) annual meeting in 2005 in Boston. For a new edition of the inscription and revised conclusions, see Tsouvala (2008) 115–​122. The inscription was first published by Koumanoudes (1882) and then in IG VII by Lolling.

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When Poplius, son of Decmus, was archon, during the month of Boucatius, [space] the archons M. Antonius Primus and M. Antonius Zosimus and P. Castricius Lacimus set up a stele with the names of those in the upper gymnasium M. Ismenodora   from private [ funds];16

A list of male names, both Greek and Roman, follows, but the first name on the list and in a distinct position from the others is that of M. Ismenodora. M.  Ismenodora appears on the fifth line of the superscript and is aligned with the phrase ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων (“from their own funds” or “from her own funds”; L. 5). I have argued elsewhere that this Ismenodora is related to the Ismenodora we read about in Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love (a work also known by its Greek and Roman names, Erotikos and Amatorius, respectively). She might be the same Ismenodora that appears in that dialogue or one from that family. There are three columns below the superscript: the first two are lists of names—​Greek and Roman of different socioeconomic levels—​while the third consists of the names of fathers and sons who had provided something special for the gymnasium (e.g., oil, some kind of filtering or cleaning of the pyriaterion, a sauna-​like bath building located near the palaestra). Certain rasurae (erasures) and consequent reinscriptions indicate additions and corrections in a later period (possibly into the late second century, based on the form of the letters). Membership in this gymnasium was probably inherited, unless a special invitation was issued, as in the case of Athenaios Eumaronnos (Col III, L. 33–​38). The next inscription, IG IV 732, is one from Hermione in the Argolid in the Peloponnese. It consists of a list of names identified elsewhere as a membership list of both women and men associated with gymnasia who participated in the games of a festival.17 Out of the 134 names or bits of names that appear on the facsimile of IG IV 732, a quarter are feminine, half are masculine, and the rest are of uncertain gender. A Roman imperial date, possibly of the mid-​first to the mid-​second century ce, is supported by letter forms and onomastic data. We know that in the second century ce, the people of Hermione organized an annual festival to honor Dionysus Melanoegidos (dressed in black goatskin) with competitions and prizes in music, swimming, and sailing

16. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 17. For a new edition of IG IV 732, see Tsouvala (2015).

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(Paus. 34.11–​35.1). In all likelihood, both male and female members of the local gymnasia participated in these competitions.18 Finally, Inscr. di Cos ED 228 is another membership list from the island of Cos in the southeastern Aegean from the late first century ce.19 The superscript reads as follows:

2 3 4 5

ἐπὶ μο(νάρχων) Ἑρμία καὶ Διογένους· οἵδε εἰσῆλθον ἐς τὰν πρεσβυτικὰν παλαίστραν, γυμνασιαρχοῦν̣-​ τος Τιβερίου Κλαυδίου Ἀλκιδάμου υἱοῦ Ἀλκιδά-​ μου -​ καὶ ἐπιμελητᾶ Σέξτου Ποπιλλίου Σέξ-​ του υἱοῦ Λωρείκα φιλοκαισάρων.

5

When Hermias and Diogenes were monarchs [i.e., magistrates]; these [i.e., names written below] entered the “elders” wrestling ground, while Tiberius Claudius Alcidamas, son of Alcidamas was gymnasiarch –​and Sextus Popillius, son of Sextus Loreicas, was epimeletes [i.e., supervisor of the gymnasium], philokaisares [i.e., friends of the emperor].

This inscription includes a list of names of inductees (L. 5–​35, mostly in the Roman tria nomina formula, but also in the traditional Greek formula of name and patronymic), one after the other separated by dots, into the palaestra (wrestling ground) of the presbytes or presbyteroi (the “elders”).20 Hetereia Prokilla, daughter of Gaius, appears as the last name on this list (vacat Ἑτερηία—​Γα(ΐου) θυ(γάτηρ) Πρόκιλλα vacat; L. 36). Since this inscription is clearly a membership list of the inductees to the presbytike palaestra, we can safely argue that Hetereia Prokilla is a member of that palaestra and not an official or a patroness. 18. We should also consider whether the other inscriptions associated with IG IV 732 (i.e., 728, 730–​735) are lists of women and men members of local gymnasia who participated in or were victorious in the same festival. 19. See Tsouvala (2015). 20. Inscriptions reveal that each city had various age groups for classifying its youth, including paides (children; at the Roman Olympic Games younger than eighteen [Paus. 6.2.10–​11]), neaniskoi, epheboi, and/​or neoi (young men, eighteen to thirty years old depending on the polis and period), andres (men; at the Roman Olympic Games eighteen and older [Paus. 6.14.2]), agenioi (teens without a beard yet), and sometimes presbyteroi (elders). A  first-​century bce inscription (SIG3 959) from Chios mentions the following age classes: paides, epheboi neoteroi, epheboi mesoi, epheboi presbyteroi, and andres. Petermandl (2014) 239–​243 maintains that the age categories apply only to males. See also Kennell (1999, 2006).

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These three inscriptions provide the basis on which this chapter seeks to reexamine female athletics in the Late Hellenistic and early Roman periods in Greece. These inscriptions have provided us with a conundrum: if athletics was the purview of men, as modern scholarship maintains, then why do the inscriptions attest to women as members of gymnasia and palaestrae? Has an Athenocentric focus led us to false conclusions? Has there been change over time? Although I am not aware of any other membership lists in which female athletes appear, a number of female victors are commented on in literary sources and celebrated on inscriptions from all over the Greek world in the periods under investigation. As might be evident, these victorious athletes would have to train in facilities (such as gymnasia and palaestrae, whether privately or publicly owned) to be able to compete and win at local, regional, and transregional events. These references I have gathered and organized according to competition and (where possible) date.

Sparta and the Peloponnese Certain areas of the Greek world appear to have had an athletic education for women, and the Peloponnese ranks at the top of these.21 A young Arcadian woman and the most famous mythological female wrestler, hunter, and runner, for example, was Atalanta (or Atalante), who fought against Peleus, the Thessalian king.22 She is depicted on vase paintings from all historical periods running, wrestling, and hunting, often wearing a short tunic, or briefs known as the diazoma or perizoma. Of course, the most legendary female athletes in the historical period were those of Sparta. Sparta was the only city-​state attested to have had a public system of education (agoge), which included mousike (literacy, dance, poetry, 21.  In addition to Hermione (IG IV 732)  in the Peloponnese, inscriptions, art, and literary sources include athletic venues or games where women were allowed to participate in Sparta (agoge), Arcadia (Atalanta), Elis, Olympia (Olympic Games), Corinth (Isthmia), and Patras. 22. See LIMC s.v. Atalante. The most famous depiction of this wrestling match can be found on a black-​figure Chalcidean hydria (c. 540 bce) now in Munich’s Staatlische Antikensammlungen, Inv. No. 596. Atalanta might also be the woman who is participating in a competition of throwing the javelin on a black-​figure dinos (580–​570 bce) at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Inv. No. 590. If the identification with Atalanta on the dinos is correct, then this is the only depiction of the heroine participating in a competition of javelin throwing—​ rather than wrestling—​of which I am aware. The theme of Atalanta participating in the capture (and demise) of the Calydonian boar by Melanion and other heroes was a favorite in ancient art. An early example of Atalanta preparing to throw the javelin against the Calydonian boar is the one on the famous François vase, now in the Archaeological Museum in Florence, Italy, Inv. No. 4209.

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music) and physical education for both girls and boys in the Classical period (Xen. Lac. Pol. 1.4; Pl. Laws 806A, Prot. 342D).23 Xenophon elaborates that Lycurgus established agones (contests) of running and strength (Xen. Lac. Pol. 1.4). Euripides alludes to racing and wrestling (Andr. 595–​602),24 and Alcman wrote a work titled Kolymbosai (Female Swimmers).25 The agoge was abandoned in the Hellenistic period, only to be revived by King Cleomenes III. When his revolution failed, the agoge continued until it was abolished by Philopoemen in 188 bce, but it was restored in the Roman period.26 It was this physical education for Spartan women in the Roman period that the Roman poets Propertius (first century bce), Ovid, and Vergil (end of first century bce to beginning of first century ce), as well as the Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch (end of first century and beginning of second century ce) are describing. The Roman poet Ovid remarks on Helen’s nude coed wrestling (Ov. Her. 16. 151–​152: dum nuda palaestra ludis et es nudis femina mixta viris), and Propertius references nude coed wrestling as well as ball playing, hoop rolling, pancration (wrestling with unprohibited holds and moves), discus throwing, chariot driving, hunting, and wearing armor (3.14). Vergil mentions Spartan women hunting a boar and wearing short dresses and holding bows and arrows (Aen. 1.314–​325). Plutarch includes running, wrestling, and discus and javelin throwing in his discussion of the agoge (Lyc. 14.2).27 He goes on to write that Lycurgus made girls as accustomed to parading nude as boys, and to dancing and singing at certain festivals with men as spectators. There was nothing shameful in the young women’s nakedness, never a trace of lewdness, just modesty, Plutarch writes. He also attests to a gymnasium building with stoas at Sparta, where women could train (Plut. 23.  According to Plato, Crete instituted nude athletic training first, and then Sparta (Rep. 452C). Crete is also mentioned by Plato for taking pride in educated men and women, and he goes on to praise the philosophical skills of women (Prot. 342D). Since Greek education usually included the education of both the mind and the body, Cretan girls might have also participated in athletics. Scanlon (2014b) suggests that coed athletics might have originated on Bronze Age Crete for initiation purposes, and then been transferred to Sparta and elsewhere on the mainland. 24. “[T]‌hey desert their homes to go out with men, with their thighs bare and robes unbelted, and they hold races and wrestling contests with them—​I would not stand for it!” (Eur. Andr. 595–​602). In the sixth century bce, the poet Ibycus referred to Spartan young women as “thigh-​flashers” (fr. 339). 25.  PMGFTB 1, fr. 158. See also Shefton (1954) 307, no.  17 for an artistic representation of Laconian women swimming, as well as Neils (2012) 158. 26. Pomeroy (2002) 4, n. 4, 28–​29. 27. Kennell (1995) 98, 147.

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Cimon 16.5). At the end of the second and the beginning of the third century ce, Athenaeus commented on the Spartan custom of “stripping young girls [parthenoi] before strangers [or guests]” as something praised (ἐπαινοῦν τες τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν τὸ ἔθος τὸ γυμνοῦν τὰς παρθένους τοῖς ξένοις) and goes on to say that on the island of Chios young girls wrestled with young men (ἐν Χίῳ δὲ τῇ νήσῳ καὶ βαδίζειν ἥδιστόν ἐστιν ἐπὶ τὰ γυμνάσια καὶ τοὺς δρόμους καὶ ὁρᾶν προσπαλαίοντας τοὺς νέους ταῖς κόραις; 13.566e). Not only coed training but also coed wrestling competitions were available to young women in the early Empire. The scholiast (fifth century ce) to Juvenal, citing Probus, writes that “Palfurius Sura, the son of a consul under Nero, competed in wrestling with a young Spartan woman” (Palfurius Sura—​ut inquit Probus—​consularis viri filius sub Nerone luctatus est cum virgine Lacedaemonia in agone).28 Our modern biases about gender and class might hinder our approval of respectable elite women wrestling in the nude. Spartiates, whether men or women, were the aristocratic members of their society, however, and the literary sources of the first and second century ce seem to agree on the practice of coed nude training and competition that would have made a young Spartan woman (virgine) strong and confident enough to wrestle with a young, aristocratic Roman man. All of the sports and practices mentioned in these later authors appear to be part of both the female and male physical curriculum in the Roman period.29 The fact that they were also part of the military training of Spartan men does not exclude them from the physical agoge for Spartan women. We need not reject our sources to make a case for segregated competitions for young men and women or for a less rigorous training for the girls than for the boys when we study athletics and education in Roman Sparta.30 War 28.  See Cameron (2010) for the date of the scholia. In 60 ce Nero instituted the Neronia, a certamen (contest after the Greek model and different from the Roman ludi, games, and munera, gladiatorial contests and hunts in the amphitheater) that included athletic games as well as chariot racing and music (singing and recitations in prose and verse). They were inspired by the Augustalia in Naples (Str. 5.246; Stat. Silv. 2.2.6). According to Tacitus, they repeated in 65, but Suetonius reports 64 ce (Ann. 14.20, 16.4–​5; Suet. Nero 12.3). Crowther (2009) 197 dismisses the report by the scholiast to Juvenal: “We can probably discount this isolated and improbable reference to the Roman aristocracy, which does not necessarily refer to the Neronia held in Rome in a.d. 60 and 64.” 29. Plutarch in particular is very interested in the political structures of the Empire and in the role of the citizens (both female and male) in them. He is a writer also for whom education (a Greek education specifically) is very important for the creation of the ideal statesman (each of his Lives begins with the education of the political man under discussion). In fact, Plutarch follows Plato in his expectation of women having an education, which includes athletics. 30. Kyle (2014) 263, citing also Christesen (2012) 153 and Scanlon (2002) 121–​138.

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training during the Pax Romana was no longer fundamentally necessary, nor would it have required the same discipline, precision, and strength a hoplite phalanx of the Classical period had. In fact, it is well established that, by the Roman period, Sparta and its agoge had been turned into tourist attractions that emphasized the strength and harshness of its physical curriculum.31 Spartans valued and were proud of their women as much as of their men; they would have had no reason to exclude either sex from participation in displays of strength and superiority. In fact, the sensationalism that others might have experienced (being outsiders themselves) and have reported in their writings about Sparta after their visits would have made Sparta, its archaizing institutions, and its women (and men) more attractive to sightseers. Clearly, coed nude training and competition caught the attention of ancient writers enough for them to comment on them, which has led modern scholars to consider Spartan women to be unique and anomalous in the Greek world in respect to their involvement in athletics.32 This is not the case, however, if we are to take at face value Athenaeus’ comment regarding the Chian women. Furthermore, a number of bronze mirrors and libation bowls (paterae) with a sculpted nude or seminude female on their handles, I would argue, are probably portraying female athletes.33 Most of them are either nude or topless and wearing briefs (diazoma or perizoma) covering the pelvic area (Figure 8.1, Plates IV–​V ). These handles are found in several places of the Peloponnese, including Hermione, Nemea, Messene, and Sparta, as well as in places further away, such as Athens, Acarnania in western Greece, Cyprus, Odessa on the Black Sea, Tarantum, Sicily, and Etruria in Italy.34 The bodies of these young women are strong and athletic but not especially well-​developed

31. Pomeroy (2002) 14, n. 41; Kennell (1995). 32. See Pomeroy (2002) 12–​13; Kyle (2007a); Crowther ([2007] 2010). Neils (2012) 154, in discussing an Attic red-​figure kylix (drinking cup) c. 400 bce near the Jena Painter, writes, “Because women were not equestrians in Ancient Greece, this Spartan female must have appeared quite exotic to Athenian viewers . . . ” Kyle (2014) 259: “Greek males usually recorded female physical activities only if they were seen as odd, improper, or erotic.” 33.  The items identified as “libation bowls” need not be used for religious purposes only. They could easily be used to pour water on oneself while bathing, for example. See Stewart (1997) 232–​234 for the most complete catalogue of these “Laconian” mirrors. Pomeroy (2002) 164–​165 argues that these mirrors were manufactured in Sparta and exported, and eventually imitated by other poleis. 34. Very helpful is Andrew Stewart’s (1997) 221–​234 appendix of archaic and early classical small bronzes of girls “going Dorian” with bibliography.

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Figure 8.1  Female athlete with diazoma/​perizoma. Bronze patera handle (L. 19.3 cm), last quarter of the sixth century bce. New York, Metropolitan Museum, 41.11.5a. Rogers Fund, 1941. Photograph © Metropolitan Museum of Art (public domain).

or muscular, emphasizing their youth and beauty. Like modern Barbie dolls, the athletic woman on the handle of the mirror or libation bowl would have been held up as a role model for girls and young women to imitate.

Female Victors in Footraces From the Brauronia and Arkteia in Attica to the Heraia at Olympia, footraces have been associated with religious festivals and initiation rites for girls before

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Figure 8.2  Brauron, view of the stoa, 2018. Photograph by Lee L. Brice.

marriage.35 There has been much speculation regarding both the Brauronia and the Arkteia festivals at Brauron in honor of Artemis and Iphigeneia, but from the few fragments of vases and the material remains of the site, we can conjecture that there was, at least, a footrace, and different ages of girls participated in the two festivals. Which events, other than a race, were held at Brauron we can only speculate about, but a third-​century bce inscription refers to a gymnasion, a palaestra, and hippones (stables) at the site, although these buildings have not been found or excavated.36 The excavated remains of the site date to the Classical period (Figure 8.2), but based on Hellenistic and Roman reliefs and statues displayed at the Brauron museum, we can conclude that the festivals and any associated athletic events continued into the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In the third century bce, the poet Theocritus imagines Helen as the Spartan bride of Menelaus, and her childhood friends, as the chorus, reminisce about the activities they shared together. One of those activities was practicing running, nude and anointed, like men (they say) by the Eurotas River in Sparta (Id. 18.22–​25). Considering that Helen was about to get married, these young women were parthenoi (παρθένοι). 35. Calame (1997) 213–​214; Scanlon (1984) 85; Serwint (1993). 36. For some bibliography and an edition of the inscription, see Themelis (2002) 112–​114.

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In an inscription from Piazza Nicola Amore in Naples,37 young women (parthenoi) of different designations participated and won at the stadion (200 meters) and the dolichos (400 meters) races at the Italika Rhomaia Sebasta Isolympia at Naples in 82 ce.38 The games were established in 2 bce to honor Augustus (Sebastos, in Greek) and included fifty-​seven types of competitions, of which thirty-​two are classified as athletic, six as equestrian, and nineteen as artistic.39 A number of female victors and their names have thus far been revealed: Iousta of Naples among the βουλ(ευτῶν) θυγατ]έρας (daughters of the council members) won the stadion. Kasta among the παρθένου]ς συγκλητι[κάς (senatorial parthenoi?) won a race. An anonymous woman among the παρθέ]ν(ους) πολ[ειτικάς (citizen parthenoi) won a race. Flavia Thalassia from Ephesus won the [π]αρθένων stadion. Aemilia Rekteina won the diaulos παρθένων. The designations of the young women (βουλ(ευτῶν) θυγατ]έρας, παρθένου]ς συγκλητι[κάς, παρθέ]ν(ους) πολ[ειτικάς, and [π]αρθένων) mark their families’ political status (council members, senators, citizens). There seem to be only two age categories in these competitions:  those of the thygateres (daughters) and the parthenoi. In addition to the footraces, thygateres participated in the equestrian events.40 SEG 14.602 is an honorary inscription from Ischia for Seia Spes (Σεΐα Σπῆς), daughter of the market official (ἀγορανόμος) Seios Liberales (Σέιος Λειβεράλης). It records her victory in a footrace among the daughters of the council members (βουλή) at the Sebasta in Naples c. 154 ce.41 Her husband was proud enough of her to set up this inscription to record Seia’s athletic victory in her hometown.42

37. Heartfelt thanks to Joseph Day for bringing my attention to the inscriptions from Naples. Neapolis (modern Naples) was one of the earliest Greek colonies of Magna Graecia. The inscriptions from this excavation are catalogues of those who participated at the Italika Rhomaia Sebasta Isolympia in the years 74, 78, 82, 86, 90, and 94 ce. There were 213 victors in gymnastic, equestrian, and artistic events, of which 156 are attested on the inscriptions from Piazza Nicola Amore. See Miranda De Martino (2017a). 38. Miranda De Martino (2017b). Tacitus reports that Naples was like a Greek city in his time (Ann. 13.32.2, Neapolim quasi Graecam urbem). 39. Miranda De Martino (2016). The games were established to honor Augustus and continued to be held until the fourth century ce. 40. Miranda De Martino (2014). 41. Miranda De Martino (2017a) 94. 42. Pace Crowther ([2007] 2010) 196, who maintains that Romans viewed these events for what he believes were Italian (not Greek) women as curiosities and entertainment rather than real contests.

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SEG 11.830 (cf. IG V 1. 588) is an undated inscription from a statue base, which honors a Spartan female athlete. The name is undecipherable, but the editor suggests Ἰουλία Πανθαλίδα, who won a race.43 If the name stands, we can assume that her family received citizenship under the Julio-​Claudians, and thus the inscription can be dated to the first century ce. According to the Roman biographer Suetonius (second half of the first century ce), the emperor Domitian established athletic, equestrian, and musical contests (certamen), which included both men and women, around 89 ce. Suetonius attests that there were competitions in both Greek and Latin prose and poetry, declamations, musical contests of singing and lyre playing, and in the stadium there was a race “even for young women” (in stadio vero cursu etiam virgines; Suet. Dom. 4.4). Regarding the same occasion, the epitome of Cassius Dio’s Roman History (late second century to third century ce), Domitian gave a very costly spectacle in respect to which we have nothing worthy of the historic record, except that parthenoi competed in the footrace (Dio 67.8.1). The epitomizer John Xiphilinus, an eleventh-​century Byzantine monk, adds that Domitian would often conduct the games at night and sometimes would pit dwarfs and women against each other (Dio. 67.8.4). One need not believe everything a Byzantine monk with his own agenda against Roman emperors and pagan women wrote, but it is worthwhile to point out the single attestation present in both Suetonius and reportedly Dio (who might have read Suetonius): that young women (virgines, parthenoi) participated in footraces in honor of Jupiter Capitolinus. SEG 11.610 is a fragmentary inscription of the second century ce that indicates that the biduoi (state overseers) in charge of ephebic competitions also supervised twelve female followers of Dionysos (Dionysiades).44 These were parthenoi, and eleven of them ran a footrace at the festival of Dionysos at Sparta; they took the tradition from Delphi, according to

43. See Pomeroy (2002) 29 n. 115. 44.  Hesychius, s.v. Dionysiades. See Kennell (1995) 45–​46:  “Clearly, biduoi administered contests for girls as well as for youths, indicating that girls were considered to be just as much members of the agoge as the ephebes. Regrettably, apart from this and what has been called ‘a scatter of evidence’ for the physical training of girls in the Roman period, nothing survives that might enable us to venture any guesses whatsoever about the organizational framework of the female version of the agoge. Despite this ignorance, we can assume that Spartan girls had training that mirrored to some extent that of the ephebes during every phase of the agoge’s history.”

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Figure 8.3  Stadium at Olympia, 2013. Photograph: Creative Commons, https://​commons.wikimedia.org/​wiki/​File:Stadium_​at_​Olympia_​2013.JPG.

Pausanias (3.11.2, 3.13.7, 3.16.1).45 The race is said to have been held near the place where the suitors of the Homeric Penelope had begun their prenuptial contest.46 At the Heraia of the second century ce at Olympia, Pausanias reports that there was a race of parthenoi (5.16.1–​5) organized by sixteen women from Elis every four years, which games were as old as the games for men.47 The runners ran with their hair down and wore the chiton exomis (a short tunic that reached above the knee, with one sleeve leaving one of the breasts bare). A number of statuettes from the Peloponnese portray women dressed

45. Pomeroy (2002) 29 suggests that these games were founded under Tiberius or Claudius but does not elaborate. 46. Pomeroy (2002) 118–​119, with bibliography. Scanlon (2002) 104–​105, 133–​135, 287–​290 explains this race as a prenuptial initiatory rite. 47. Scanlon (1984, 2008); Pomeroy (2002) 24–​25; Langenfeld (2006); Kyle (2014) 264–​266, with bibliography.

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in a short chiton.48 What women from other places might have worn at footraces is hard to say, but we can speculate that the garment would have to allow for the athlete’s free movement. The women ran at the stadium at Olympia, but the course was shortened by a sixth of the stadium, or about 160 meters (Figure 8.3).49 Pausanias goes on to write, “[T]‌he competition is a footrace among parthenoi; not all of them are from the same age, but first are the neotatai [youngest]; after those, the deuterai [second in age]; and they view last all those who are the presbytatai [oldest] of the parthenoi” (5.16.2). It is significant to note that the category parthenoi consists of different age groups in the second century ce.50 The winners of these races received olive crowns and a share of the cow sacrificed to Hera, as well as the honor to dedicate statues or painted images (εἰκόνες) of themselves with their names engraved on them, like their male counterparts at the Olympic Games. If the Heraia, which like the Olympic Games were held every four years, occurred close in time or at the same time as the Olympic Games, then Pausanias might be referring to the parthenoi from these footraces, who were allowed to view the men’s games along with the priestess of Demeter Chamyne at the Olympic Games (6.20.8–​9). Pausanias is categorical that the parthenoi were not forbidden to watch the Olympic Games of his time. On an inscription from Patras (Rizakis, Achaïe II 267, second to fourth century ce), Nicophilos, brother of Nicegora, commemorates his sister, who won in running (possibly in παρθένων δρόμον), by setting up this stone made of bright white Parian marble. Νικηγόραν Νικόφιλος νικήσασαν δρόμῳ, τῇδ’ ἀνέθηκα λίθου Παρίου, τὴν γλυκυτάτην ἀδελφήν. I, Nicophilos, set up this stone of Parian [marble] for Nicegora, who won in the dromos [ footrace], his sweetest sister. 48. For how Athenians might have reacted to female nudity or the wearing of the short chiton, see Stewart (1997) 108–​130; Neils (2012). 49. Romano (1983) 14. 50. Cf. Chios 57, where the ephebes (young men) are also broken into three age groups: neoi (young), mesoi (middle), and presbyteroi (older).

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Female Victors in Other Types of Competition IG XII 9.1190, a fragmentary inscription of unknown date from Histiaea in northwestern Euboea, attests to a parthenos agrotera (a huntress51 or a rural young woman) who won a prize (ἄθλος) in the pyrrhic dance. [-​-​]αι πυρρίχηι ἂθλω[ι] (or ἂθλω[ν]) [πα]ρθένον ἀ[γρ]οτέρα[ν]. for [name unknown], [who won in] the pyrrhic contest [or of contests] a parthenos agrotera. The pyrriche or pyrrhic dance was an armed dance that was part of the Panathenaic Games in Athens, since Athena danced it after the defeat of the Titans (Dion. Hal. Ant. 7.72.7) or at the moment of her birth from the head of Zeus (Luc. D. Deor. 8). Solo pyrrhic dancing was done naked except for a helmet, round shield, and spear (the traditional panoply of Athena at the moment of her birth).52 Most Athenian vase painting representations of the female pyrrhic dance have a standing or sitting female aulos player, a female dancer, and a male figure wearing a himation, resting on a stick and watching the scene.53 The scene is set either indoors or outdoors.54 An undated inscription from Chios attests to another father, Aristodemos Aristanaktos, who honors [Pha]nion, (wife?) of Onesandros ([Φά]νιον Ὀνησάνδρου . . . ΕΜ . . . τὴν θυγατέρα) for having won at the games for Leto 51. Agrotera (huntress) is a common epithet of the goddess Artemis. 52. Borthwick (1970) 378–​319. For the best description of the dance, see Pl. Laws 7.815: the dancer either defends or attacks , pretending to be in battle. Plato also emphasizes the significance of such a dance in exercising the body. 53. For representations of the pyrrhic dance and female pyrrhic dancers, see also Goulaki-​Voutira (1996). There are usually one or two dancers portrayed on vases, sometimes accompanied by an aulos player, and at times the motif is supplemented by a stool. The dancer or dancers place their clothes on the stool, an element we also find in palaestra scenes and which connects the dance with the area of the gymnasium. Although Goulaki-​Voutira would have the female pyrrhic dancers that appear on vases be hetaerae (courtesans) preparing for a pantomime in a symposium (based on the assumption that they cannot be athletes), there is no reason to assume that the male in the himation is a client rather than a trainer (7–​8). Many of the female pyrrhic dancers are either naked (figs. 1–​4 in Goulaki-​Voutira) or wear a short dress (fig. 7), or wear the diazoma or perizoma (here, a bikini-​like outfit, figs. 9–​10) that would further indicate that these are athletes. See also Poursat (1968) 586–​615. 54. See Bron (1996) and the connection of female armed dances (apokinos, pyrrhic, prylis) associated with the cult of Artemis in Euboea and Attica.

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(Chios 136*5). On the island of Delos, Leto was usually celebrated along with her children, Artemis and Apollo, but we have no information about the Chian games and the contests that took place in them.

Women Victors at Athletic and Musical Panhellenic Events According to an inscription found in Corinth in 1938, the Romans added contests for παρθένοι (virgines in Latin) at the Isthmian Games in either 25 ce or, more likely, in 43 ce.55 Either L.  Castricius Regulus or Cn. Cornelius Pulcher (aedilis prefectus iure dicundo, duovir, quinquennialis duovir, agonothetes of the Tiberea Caesarea Sebastea and of the Isthmian and Caesarean Games) introduced poetry contests in honor of the divine Julia Augusta and a contest (certamen) for young women (virgines). The introduction of the contest for virgines sent a clear message to the provincials that their daughters were valuable commodities and citizens.56 In addition, an inscription from Delphi provides us with evidence for paides and parthenoi in a variety of athletic events (FD III 1:534). This and another inscription from Delphi that mention the variety of events, competitions, age groups, and honors a woman could receive for her victories in the first and second centuries ce in the Greek world are worth citing in full. FD III 1:534 (Delphi, c. 45 ce):57 1  Ἑρμησιάναξ Διονυσίου Καισαρεὺς Τραλ[λιαν]ὸς ὁ καὶ Κο[․․․․․․․․] | τὰς ἑαυτοῦ θυγατέρας ἐχούσας καὶ α[ὐτ]ὰς τὰς αὐτὰς πο[λειτείας]. | 1.3  Τρυφῶσαν νεικήσασαν Πύθια ἐ | πὶ ἀγωνοθετῶν Ἀντιγόνου | καὶ Κλεομαχίδα· καὶ Ἴσθμια ἐπὶ | ἀγωνοθέτου Ἰουβεντίου Πρό| κλου· στάδιον κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς πρώ| τη παρθένων. | 2.3  Ἡδέαν νεικήσασαν Ἴσθμια ἐπὶ ἀγωνο| θέτου Κορνηλίου Πούλχρου ἐνόπλι | ον ἅρματι· καὶ Νέμεα στάδιον ἐπὶ ἀγω | νοθέτου Ἀντιγόνου· καὶ 55.  By then Corinth had been refounded as a Roman colony. For the inscription, see Kent (1966) no. 153 (= Corinth 8, 3 153), with a revised edition and dating proposed by Kajava (2002) 177. Certamen is the Latin equivalent of agon; Latin virgines stand for Greek parthenoi. 56.  Kajava (2002) 176 argues, convincingly I  think, that the games were organized by Cn. Cornelius Pulcher, a prominent Epidaurian, who after he himself had won at the Caesarea in Epidaurus (c. 32/​33 ce), married a Roman Corinthian woman and moved to Corinth, an important provincial center, with ambitions for high office. 57. Cf. Syll.3 802, SEG 52.526; West (1928).

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ἐν Σικυῶνι ἐπὶ | ἀγωνοθέτου Μενοίτα· ἐνείκα δὲ καὶ | παῖδας κιθαρωδοὺς Ἀθήνησι Σεβάστεια | ἐπὶ ἀγωνοθέτου Νουίου τοῦ Φιλεί | νο· πρώ[τη ἀπ’ αἰῶ]νος ἐγένετο πολεῖ | [τις ․․․․․․․․ π]ρώ(τη) παρθένος. | 3.3 Διονυσίαν νεικ[ήσασαν ․․․․․․] | ἐπὶ ἀγωνοθέτου Ἀν[τιγ]ό[νου]· | καὶ Ἀσκλάπεια ἐν Ἐπιδαύρω | τῆ ἱερᾶ ἐπὶ ἀγων[ο]θέτου Νεικο | τέλου στάδι[ον]. | Ἀπόλλωνι Πυθίω. 1 Hermesianax son of Dionysos, citizen of Tralles in Caesarea, also known as Ko[-​something] [honors] his own daughters who, also, are citizens of the same places. 1. 3  Tryphosa won at the Pythian games when Antigonos and Kleomachidas were agonothetai,58 and at the Isthmian when Iuventius Proclus was agonothetes. She was the first of the parthenoi to win the footrace back to back. 2.3 Hedea won at the Isthmian games when Cornelius Pulchrus was agonothetes in the enoplion harmati [war chariot].59 She also won in the stadion at the Nemea when Antigonos was agonothetes; and in Sicyon when Menoetas was agonothetes. She also won in Athens at the Sebasteia in the category of paides playing the kithara when Novius Phileinos was agonothetes. She was the first ever parthenos to become citizen [of Athens] . . . the first parthenos. 3.3. Dionysia won at  .  .  .  when Antigonos was agonothetes; and in the stadion for the serpent at the Asclepeia in Epidaurus when Neikoteles was agonothetes. To Apollo Pythios. It is important to notice that for most of the competitions in which Tryphosa, Hedea, and Dionysia participated, we are not told in what age group they belonged. The exceptions are Tryphosa as a runner in the category of the parthenoi and Hedea for playing the kithaira (lyre) in the category of paides.60

58. Agonothetes (s., agonothetai, pl.) were the magistrates in charge of the games. They often provided the finances for them, but under the emperors the financial responsibility was lightened or entirely taken away. 59.  If Kajava (2002) is correct with the dating, then Hedea won in the war chariot at the Isthmian Games when the certamen for virgines was introduced, possibly, in 43 ce by Cn. Cornelius Pulcher. See note 56. 60.  Ugolini (2015) 32–​33 distinguishes three different age classes for men in the Olympic Games of the Roman Empire:  paides (twelve to fourteen years old), ageneioi, i.e., “without beard” (fourteen to twenty years old), and andres (twenty and older). See also Frisch (1988).

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Pais (sing.; paides, pl.) is the Greek word for “child” (of either sex) and “a slave.” Certainly Hedea was not a slave; she and her sisters were, in fact, citizen women, as their father asserts at the beginning of the inscription (τὰς ἑαυτοῦ θυγατέρας ἐχούσας καὶ α[ὐτ]ὰς τὰς αὐτὰς πο[λειτείας]). We can conclude, therefore, that parthenos and pais are age groups for young women and girls,61 as ephebe and pais are for young men and boys.62 Hermesianax was a proud father; his daughters had a rounded education, a Greek paideia, which included both athletics and intellectual pursuits.63 Among the many prizes these contestants (both female and male) would have received in addition to wreaths, material goods, and money, there could be other honors as well. Hedea, for example, received Athenian citizenship (πρώ[τη ἀπ’ αἰῶ]νος ἐγένετο πολεῖ | [τις). Her participation in the kithara contest of the paides at the Sebasteia in Athens need not be the reason for this honor.64 In fact, the inscription asserts that she was the first parthenos (not pais) ever to receive citizenship from Athens, as her sister Tryphosa was the first of the parthenoi to win the stadion numerous times and one after

61. Cf. Magnesia 2 (from Magnesia, 197/​196 bce); IvP II 463 (from Pergamum, before 37 ce); Laodicee du Lycos 300.14 Robert (from Claros in Ionia, c. 150 ce). 62. Hatzopoulos (1994) argues that Thessalian and Macedonian dedications show that the participle νε(F)εύσα(ν)σα is a dialectical form of νεβεύσα(ν)σα from the verb νέω (cf. νέαι) that signifies the passage from one age class to another, e.g., from childhood to womanhood. Calame (1999) 125–​129 examines the stages of the passage from parthenos (or kore) to nymphe (bride) and finally to gyne (woman, wife) through specific literary examples. Parthenos, in particular, denotes the unmarried state of a young woman, not necessarily her virginity. In Menander’s Samia, for example, the pregnant but unmarried Plangon is still a parthenos (67). As historians and epigraphists, we have to pause and consider how often we have assumed a pais to be a male child rather than a female. Even in the case of Spartan women, when the evidence for Spartan athletics is the most abundant, some scholars, based on the premise that athletics is the sphere of men alone (as it was in Classical Athens), interpret the evidence in a way that excludes girls. See, for example, Pettersson (1992) 120, who interprets the word in an exclusive way and does not find any evidence for female children participating in the festival, while Pomeroy (2002) 158 interprets the evidence more inclusively and would have nude girls and boys at the festival. 63. Cf. SEG 54.783 (Cos, late third century bce), an honorary epigram for the female poet (elegiographos) Delphis, who might have been the daughter of the doctor Praxagoras from Cos. The epigram also touches upon the excellent Coan athletes (athleteras), an uncommon word that refers to both male and female athletes. Perhaps it refers to female athletes, since Daphnis is a woman. 64. Cf. SEG 54.787 (Cos, first century ce): the name of the woman on this inscription has not survived, but the name of her father was Apollonius. She was a citizen of Cos and Alexandria, a poet of old comedy (ἀρχαίας κωμωδίας), who won at Olympia as well as in other sacred games in Asia, including those held at Pergamum. It appears that this unknown poet’s family was from Alexandria and that she was granted citizenship on Cos, probably because of her artistic excellence.

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the other (στάδιον κατὰ τὸ ἑξῆς πρώ| τη παρθένων). Hedea must have continued to compete at contests in Athens into her teen years, when she would have moved to the category of parthenos, at which point she participated in some competition in which she was victorious. The competition and her performance in it had to be significant enough for the Athenians to grant her citizenship. Hedea was not the only young woman to have received citizenship from an important city like Athens. A  decree from the beginning of the second century ce commemorates Auphria, who was granted citizenship and statues—​presumably paid for by the city of Delphi—​for the high quality of her education and for the speeches she gave at the sacred Delphic synodos (meeting) of the Greeks.65 FD III 4:79 (Delphi, mid-​second century): 1  [θε]ός. τύχαι ἀγαθᾶ[ι].|[ἔδοξ]εν τῇ πόλει|[τῶν Δε]λφίων Αὐφρίαν|[․․․․]νὴν Δελφὴν εἶναι,| 5 [ἐπειδ]ή, παραγενομένη|[πρὸς τ]ὸν θεόν πᾶν τὸ|[ἦθος τῆ]ς παιδείας ἐπε|[δείξατο], λόγους τε πολ|[λοὺς καὶ κ]αλοὺς καὶ ἡδί| 10 [στους ἐν] τῇ π[υ]θικῇ συ|[νόδῳ τῶν] Ἑλ[λήν]ων δ[ιέ]|[θετο, ․․․ ․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․]|․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․| ․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․|․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․ ․․․․․․․․․|․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․|․․․․․․․․․․ ․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․|․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․|․ ․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․․| 20 [․․․․․․․․․․․․φ]ανῇ [ἐφ’ ․․․․․]|[․․․․․․․․․․․․․] πεποιη μέν[․]|[․․․․․․․․․․․․․ τ]ῷ θεῷ ἀγαθ[ὰ π]οι|[․․․․․․․․․․․] ἐψηφισάμεθα.|[ἐπὶ δὲ Αἰ]λ. Πυθοδώρου ἐψηφισάμεθα| 25 [τὰς τῶν ἀν]δριάντων ἀναστάσεις. 1 God. To Good Fortune. It seemed right to the city of Delphi that Auphria [ . . . ] be a citizen of Delphi, 5 because, by being present [at the games], she showed the ethos of her education in every way to the god [Apollo], and recited many beautiful and sweet speeches 10 in the Pythian meeting of the Greeks . . . (8 lines missing) . . .

65. Cf. Plut. Quaest. Conv. 675 for the changes made to the Pythian and Olympic Games during his time.

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20 . . . glorious on . . . to the god good . . .we voted. During [the magistracy] of Aelius Pythodorus we voted on 25  the erection of statues [for her]. Earlier, in 86 bce, a Theban choropsaltria (a female harpist who accompanied the chorus) and orator, Polygnota daughter of Socrates, who had emigrated to Delphi, was granted a number of honors, including a wreath and 500 drachmas, and dispensations including that of proxenos (a public guest of the city, an ambassador), proedria (privilege of the front seats) at the games (agonois), an invitation to a common meal at the prytaneion (magistrates’ hall), and to be present at and make the sacrifice to Apollo (FD III 3:249).66 Although the examples of the high honors presented to women such as Polygnota and Auphria are not for their athletic but for their intellectual victories, nevertheless one can get a glimpse of the kind of opportunities young women athletes, like Hedea, could have had because of these transregional games. Although still living and competing in a man’s world, they were acknowledged and honored for their achievements by their families and even by foreign cities.

Female Victors at Equestrian Events I have left the discussion of horsemanship and chariot races until last because it can be argued that they are not part of a physical education curriculum since equestrian events do not require the same kind of physical strength as other sports.67 Furthermore, chariot racing did not involve directly and necessarily the person who received the crown, but the owner of the horses and chariots that competed. Both men and women who won at chariot races employed jockeys to run the race, but the owner of the horse or horses received the crown. Nevertheless, I include them here because they are discussed in the 66. There are several such decrees from the third and second centuries bce that honor women and their skills in mousike: e.g., FD III 3:145 (Chaleion, a city in Phocis) and IG IX 2.62 (Lamia, a city in Thessaly) honor Aristodama, daughter of Amyntas, an epic female poet from Smyrna in Ionia with the proxenia; IG XII 5.812 (with SEG 30: 1066) from Tenos honors Alcinoe (possibly a poet) from Thronion in Aetolia with the magistracy of the stephanophoros; Syll.3 689 from Delphi honors an unnamed choropsaltria, daughter of Aristocrates, from Kyme, who successfully competed at the Pythian Games for two days after the magistrates there invited her to do so. They honored her with a bronze eikon, 1,000 drachmas, and a number of other honors, including the proedria (the privilege of the front seats) at all the contests of the city of Delphi. 67.  On horsemanship and Spartan women, see Pomeroy (2002) 24. For a more traditional point of view, see Kyle (2007b).

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scholarship on men’s athletics, and they provide further evidence for women’s participation and victories in regional and transregional games and contests. The first woman to win at the tethrippon (quadriga, four-​horse chariot) in two successive Olympiads (396 and 392 bce) was the Spartan princess Cynisca, daughter of Archelaus II and sister of Agis II and Agesilaus, whose statue base inscription declared, “I am the only woman in all of Greece to have won this crown.”68 She was allowed the same honor allowed all those men who won at the Games, namely, to set up her own statues. Her statue at Olympia was made by Apelleas son of Callicles. She also received a heroon (cult shrine) near the Platinistas, where athletic competitions for young Spartans took place. Like other athletes in Greece who were given heroic status by their cities, Cynisca was heroized to be held up as an ideal for both female and male Spartan youths. Her example was followed by another Spartan woman, Euryleonis, who won in the synoris (biga, two-​horse chariot) at Olympia in 368, and who also had her own statues erected at Olympia and at Sparta.69 Hellenistic women (e.g., Bilistiche, Berenice I, Berenice II, Arsinoe II, and possibly Berenice Syra) became famous all over the Greek world by winning in chariot races.70 Female participation in equestrian events continued into the Late Hellenistic and Roman periods. A number of women are attested as victors even at the Panathenaic Games in Athens in the Hellenistic period. IG II2, 2313 (with Hesperia 1991, 221–​223) cites [Z]‌euxo (L. 9), Eucrateia (L. 13), and [Hermio]ne (L. 15), all daughters of Polycrates, son of Mnasiadas of Argos (L. 62) and his wife Zeuxo of Cyrene, daughter of Ariston (L. 60). Zeuxo won in the keleti teleioi, Eucrateia in the harmati teleioi, and Hermione in an unknown equestrian event. Hermione was an athlophoros for Berenice Euergetis in Alexandria in 170/​169 bce. Their mother, Zeuxo, also won in harmati teleioi, and their father, Polycrates, who was in the service of the Ptolemies, won at these Panathenaic Games in an equestrian event in 194/​193 bce. In 182/​181 bce, IG II2 2314 (with Hesperia 1991, 221–​223) cites a woman from Argos, daughter of Mnasiades (Col. I, L. 48), who won in the harmati polikoi along with another Argean woman (Col. I, L.  50, possibly Zeuxo daughter of Polycrates), who won in the keleti teleioi, and a third (Col. I, 68. IvO 160. Cynisca also appears on an inscription from Sparta IG V, 1 234. See also the Attic red-​figure kylix (drinking cup) at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1900.354) from the same period, with a woman named Sparte dismounting from a horse as it approaches an altar. 69. See IvO 396, 418; Pomeroy (2002) 23–​24. 70. Kainz (2016) draws from Callimachus’ Aitia and Posidippus’ Hippika.

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L. 54) who won in the harmati teleioi. Furthermore, an Alexandrian woman won in the synoridi teleiai (Col. I, L. 52). In column II, Hermione (possibly daughter of Polycrates) shows up twice in L. 92 and 94. She is from Argos and won the hippos polydromos (long-​distance horse race). Among the fifty-​five victors who appear in the three Panathenaic victors’ lists discussed in Hesperia 1991 there are eight women, only four of whom can be identified prosopographically, including the Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra II.71 In 170/​169 bce, Cleainete (Col. I, L. 31), daughter of Caron, a Ligystine, won in teleiai synoridi. Her name is rare. Archagathe (Col. I, L. 32), daughter of Polycleitos, from Antioch, at the Pyramos (also known as Magarsos) won at harmati polikoi (a chariot race for fully grown horses) in 170 bce. Eirene from Alexandria (Col. I, L. 33), daughter of Ptolemy, who was governor of Cyprus under Ptolemy V Epiphanes, was crowned for her victory in the teleioi polikoi (colt chariot race) in 170/​169 bce. Her father was originally from Megalopolis, and her son Andromachos dedicated a statue of her in the temple of Artemis at Cition, Cyprus. Eirene became the first priestess of the cult of the queen Arsinoe Philopator in 199–​170 bce, and she figures as a priestess in the Ptolemaic decree on the famous Rosetta Stone.72 A Lacedaimonian woman, Olympio (Col. I, L. 34), daughter of Agetor and sister to Pedestratos, who not only was a victor in the Panathenaic Games himself but was also in the service of Ptolemy Philometor, won in the hyppoi polydromoi in the Panathenaic Games in 170/​169 bce. In the games of 166/​165 bce, Eugenia (Col. II, L. 29), daughter of Zenon, from Antioch at the River Kydnos (also known as Tarsus), is mentioned along with three men from the same family. She won in the keleti telioi. In 162/​161 bce, Menophila (Col. III, L. 12), daughter of Nestor, won in keleti polikoi. Agathokleia (Col. III, L. 18), daughter of Noumenios, might have been the daughter of Noumenios Apollodoros, also a victor in an equestrian event at the Panathenaic Games thirty years earlier or, more likely, the daughter of Noumenios Herakleodoros from Alexandria, who had served as proxenos, governor, priest, and ambassador for a number of kings, including Queen Cleopatra, and sister to Cleainete, priestess of Arsinoe Philopator in 166/​165. 71. Tracy and Habicht (1991) 205, 213–​214, now supplemented with Tracy (2015), who shows that Agora I 6701 is part of a series of other known Panathenaic lists from this period. 72.  The Rosetta Stone, now in the British Museum, summarizes benefactions conferred by Ptolemy V Epiphanes (205–​180 bce) and was written in the ninth year of his reign in commemoration of his accession to the throne. Inscribed in three writing systems, hieroglyphics, Demotic (a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics), and Greek, it provided a key to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.

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Agathoclea served as priestess to Queen Cleopatra in Ptolemais in 165/​164 and might have been athlophoros of Berenice Euergetis in Alexandria in 166/​ 165. She was victorious at the Panathenaic Games in keleti teleioi. The first time that Queen Cleopatra II (Col. III, L. 22) is attested in a Panathenaic victory is 162 bce. She is the daughter of Ptolemy V Epiphanes and Cleopatra I, and sister and wife to Ptolemy VI Philometor. She became co-​regent with her two brothers in 170 bce. According to the inscription, she participated as a citizen (ek ton politikon) and won in the hyppoi polydromoi (long-​distance horse race). From the first century bce, SEG 54.560, a fragmentary marble inscription at the museum in Larisa, Thessaly (No. 117), that dates to 80–​70 bce, lists a number of victors at the Eleutheria (Liberation Games). These games celebrated Zeus Eleutherios and the freedom of the Thessalians from Macedonian control in 196 bce thanks to the help they received from the Romans at Cynocephalae in 197. The Eleutheria were modeled after the Olympic Games.73 The inscription cites a female name, Hepione or Epione ([Ηπιό]νη), daughter of Polyxenos, a Thessalian from Larisa who won in an equestrian event.74 Also from Larisa, IG IX 526 (L. 18–​19) includes Aristocleia, daughter of Megalocles, who won in the teleiai synoridi (chariot race drawn by two foals). The Thessalians had a long history of raising the best horses in Greece, and it is not surprising to find another Thessalian woman, this time from Krannon, among the inscriptions at the Amphiareion at Oropos in northern Attica dating to 80–​50 bce (Epigr. Tou Oropou 529; cf. SEG 51:585). M] nasimacha daughter of Phoxinos won in the young-​horse-​drawn chariot race at the Amphiaraia and Rhomaia there. Returning to the Peloponnese and its tradition of female participation in contests of equestrian events, IvO 233 (with BCH 1990, 746–​748) was found on the north side of the Prytaneion at Olympia. Casia, daughter of M. Vetlenus (or Vetilenus or Vetulenus) Laetus, won at the Olympia in the tethrippoi polikoi in 21 ce.75 She is the sister of L. Vetulenus Florus, who had won at Olympia in the keleti teleioi in 53 ce (IvO 226). Cassia’s nephew (her brother’s son) is L. Vetulenus Laetus, who is honored by all the athletes at the Olympia in 85 ce, and by the Olympic council (boule) and the city of Elis 73. Gallis (1988) 218. 74. Adrymi-​Sismani, Batziou-​Eustathiou, and Vouzaksakis (2004) 122–​123, n. 24. 75.  This inscription has two fragments that have been reedited by Pariente (1990). For this inscription and the family that appears in a number of other inscriptions from Olympia, see Zoumbaki (1993).

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Figure 8.4  Female charioteer. Attic red-​figure kylix, c. 430–​420 bce. Attributed to the Marlay Group at the Getty Villa, 86.AE.297. 8 × 29.5 × 22.9 cm. Photograph The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California (public domain).

around 96–​98 ce. The family of the Vettuleni from Elis had a long relationship with the Olympic Games from the turn of the second century ce to the mid-​third, either by supporting the games or by participating in them. Finally, according to Athenaeus (end of the second century to the beginning of the third century ce) citing Didymus, Spartan parthenoi raced two-​horse-​yoked chariots (harmata) at the Hyacinthia, a Spartan festival to honor Apollo (4.139f ). It is unclear whether Athenaeus means that the women themselves raced the chariots or had drivers do that, as was customary. An early Attic red-​figure kylix attributed to the Marlay Group (c. 430–​420 bce) and now at the Getty Museum shows a female charioteer racing a three-​horse-​drawn chariot (Figure 8.4). The scene repeats almost identically on the other side of the cup. The tondo inside the cup portrays a youth with longer hair than the charioteer, crowned with a wreath of myrtle or laurel, and holding the kithara while a flying Nike brings a victory fillet.76 76. Neils (2012) 159–​161. Comparing the evidence from Athenaeus about the Hyacinthia with the particular arrangement of the horses on this cup, Neils attributes the representation of the three-​horse-​drawn chariot (triga) to the Athenian painter’s ignorance of the event in Sparta, since Athenaeus wrote about the two-​horse-​yoked chariot driven by Spartan women at the Hyacinthia. I would like to point out, however, that since Athenaeus writes about ἁρμάτων

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Neils has convincingly discussed the identity of the female charioteers on this cup as Spartan and the representation of their possible participation in the Spartan Hyacinthia.77

Later Festivals with Women Participants The Greek chronicler Malalas from Antioch (sixth century ce) described the Olympic Games there during the reign of Commodus (161–​192 ce). The games attracted many different contestants, including parthenoi who were educated in philosophy, were respectable (κατὰ τάγμα σωφροσύνης ἐρχόμεναι), and who competed in wrestling under the thundering roar of the crowd, as well as in running, tragedy, and Greek poetry. Both women and men at the games became crown victors by acclamation, were confirmed (ἐσφραγίζετο),78 and were established as priests and priestesses for life (Chron. 22.379). Reportedly, Dio wrote about a gymnastic contest (ἀγὼν γυμνικός) organized during Septimius Severus’ reign (193–​211 ce). The crowd of athletes was so great that it was a miracle the stadium held them all. Not only men but women also competed most fiercely in the contests, so that the most distinguished of them taunted all the other women; on account of this, it was forbidden to any woman, no matter where she came from, to fight in single combat any more (Dio 76.16.1: καὶ γυναῖκες δὲ ἐν τῷ ἀγῶνι τούτῳ ἀγριώτατα ἁμμιλλώμεναι ἐμαχέσαντο, ὥστε καὶ ἐς τὰς ἄλλας πάνυ ἐπιφανεῖς ἀπ᾽αὐτῶν ἀποσκώπτεσθαι: καὶ διὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἐκωλύθη μηκέτι μηδεμίαν γυναῖκα μηδαμόθεν μον ομαχεῖν). The word μονομαχεῖν usually refers to gladiators, but the text makes it clear that these were not gladiatorial games but an agon gymnikos. In all likelihood, the epitomizer of Dio is exaggerating about the fierce nature of these athletes and the end result of the games.

ἐζευγμένων (yoked chariots, or chariots drawn by yoked horses), the phrase does not signify necessarily the number of horses yoked but rather a chariot that is drawn by yoked horses. In the case of this cup, the painter shows the chariot drawn by three horses: two are yoked and the third one, like the dexioseiros, is the outrigger whose position sets the pace. The painter would have heard about this race at the Hyacinthia and probably knew what he was drawing. 77. Neils (2012). Cf. the Getty kalyx with the red-​figure column krater (mixing bowl) attributed to the Nausicaä painter at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (41.162.69 Rogers Fund 1941), second quarter of the fifth century bce. 78. The Greek word means “to seal” something but also “to authenticate” a document by putting a seal of approval upon it, i.e., to authenticate, confirm, or accredit something or someone.

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Conclusions This chapter has explored the presence of women in the contexts of the gymnasium and the palaestra of the Greek world in the late Hellenistic and Roman period. The evidence for female athletics continues to be scarce compared to the material available for male athletics; nevertheless, as we have seen, literary and epigraphic evidence attests to women’s participation and victories in local, regional, and transregional (Panhellenic) athletic and musical games and festivals. Female and male participation in athletic contests was an old practice and tradition associated with religious and initiatory rites, but women’s presence on lists of those who were members of the gymnasia and palaestrae of the Greek East seems to be an early imperial phenomenon. (We should keep in mind, however, that an imperial date may be partly due to the increase in the number and variety of our sources for the early Empire.) Education in the gymnasium was of athletic (which includes military), intellectual, religious, and political character—​as was the character of festivals and competitions. The curriculum aimed at creating citizens, both male and female. Young male citizens were expected to become soldiers and magistrates, although the role of the soldier was diminished under the Pax Romana. Young female citizens were expected to become wives and mothers. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods, we also find women holding important priesthoods and even political magistracies, such as that of the stephanophoros. Nevertheless, wifehood and motherhood continued to be the state’s primary goals for women. These women needed to have an education equal to that of their husbands and male counterparts. Paideia (intellectual and physical education) was important for the elites, who hoped that their sons would become illustrious politicians, and their daughters distinguished wives and mothers of such men. It is not surprising, therefore, to find women members of gymnasia, such as M. Ismenodora at Thespiae or Hetereia Procilla on Cos. From the evidence presented in this chapter, we can surmise that certain regions, such as the Peloponnese and the Aegean islands, predominated in women’s athletics and victories, but other areas, such as Asia Minor, Magna Graecia, and Thessaly, also appear to have a tradition in competitive athletics as part of both female and male education in the Late Hellenistic and Roman periods. Many of these competitions reveal age groups that include female children or pubescent girls (paides, thygateres) and young teenage women

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before marriage (parthenoi), similar to those for pubescent and teenage boys (paides and ephebes, respectively). Some of these young women athletes came from families with a tradition in athletics, and most continued to come from the upper socioeconomic groups that could support their education and training. Some parents, such as Hermesianax, were willing to support their daughters in their paideia, including in their athletic education. The prizes and honors that Hermesianax’s daughters, Tryphosa, Hedea, and Dionysia, won could have supplemented their finances and dowries. Furthermore, they were well-​traveled, holistically educated, famous for their achievements, and, in all likelihood, well-​ connected not only in their own city of Tralles in Caesarea but also in the important provincial centers of Greece, such as Athens, Delphi, and Corinth, where they had competed. Therefore, they would have made prime brides for provincial men of the world, well-​educated mothers for their children, and respectable and renowned citizens for their cities. In certain city-​states, such as Thespiae and Cos, women were able to have membership in the communal gymnasia and palaestrae. Otherwise, and if their families could afford it, they could exercise in private gymnasia, such as those that appear on the inscription from Hermione. They could have also trained at their family’s bath complexes. Elite Hellenistic houses and Roman villas from all over the eastern Mediterranean often had such bath complexes, the most famous of which is located in the fourth-​century ce villa at Piazza Armerina in Sicily.79 The villa had exercise and musical rooms, if we are to judge from its famous athletic mosaic, often referred to as “The Bikini Girls,” and the mosaics in the adjacent rooms. The young women portrayed on the particular mosaic are wearing the diazoma or perizoma and deserve to be identified for what they were: victorious athletes.80 The practice of elite women’s first marriage and subsequent motherhood at an early age in both the Greek and Roman worlds probably ended many female athletic careers. Girls marrying late stood a better chance to complete their paideia.81 Of course, that is not to say that all elite women had access 79. Lee (1984). 80.  Four leather lower-​half Roman “bikinis” that are thought to have been worn by female athletes and acrobats were found at a 1958 excavation at Queen Victoria Street in London and are now at the Museum of London (no. 21233). I would like to thank Dimitris Grigoropoulos for this reference. 81. For the stages of (intellectual) education for elite Roman girls and women, as well as for ancient attitudes toward educated women, see Hemelrijk (2004).

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to an intellectual and physical education before their marriage. Such access was heavily dependent on their family’s status, finances, tradition, and disposition toward such an education. Access to teachers and trainers would have also played a part. Urban families might have had easier access to teachers, trainers, and public facilities than rural families, who might have required live-​in professionals and private facilities. Traveling to competitions would have put a heavy financial burden on their families, which they could elevate if they were victorious. In the Late Empire, the Panhellenic games of the past did not serve the ancient festivals and religion as before. Over time the professionalism of athletes and the introduction of gladiatorial combats, spectacular executions, and events with beasts led to the games becoming “spectacles,” venues for entertainment. At Corinth, Athens, Antioch, and the other poleis of the Roman East, these new events became part of the games. Athletic guilds, gladiators, and professional athletes received financial support from the emperor.82 The professionalism of athletics and its transformation into a spectacle bore no relation to the athleticism of the gymnasium and palaestra at the local and Panhellenic festivals of old.83 Professionalism preferred the so-​called heavy events (wrestling, boxing, pancration), and athletic unions (synodoi) were created. The professionalization of sports must have been detrimental to a woman’s involvement in competitions. Nevertheless, the family’s economic status, as well as wifehood and motherhood, would remain the top reasons for ending women’s athletic careers. It is my hope that this chapter will act as a preliminary study for further research in female athletics and education in the Hellenistic and Roman world of the East. I have researched inscriptions and literature, but papyri, coins, art, and archaeology can supplement the literary sources and illuminate the lives of women, in general, and female athletes, in particular. Art historians, especially, could be quite productive by reevaluating the evidence for figures such as Atalanta, Artemis, Nike, Selene, Athena, the nymphs, and the Amazons. There is a series of vase paintings, for example, such as those attributed to the Aberdeen Painter (c. 450–​430 bce; ARV2 919, nos. 2–​5), that show a male 82.  Sometimes competitors of athletic and musical games created associations, like modern unions, to represent themselves and their interests to the directors of the different games and even to the emperor himself. We know, for example, that Hadrian wrote at least three letters to such an association in Alexandria Troas in 133/​134 ce setting out rules for the administration of the funds for the festivals, for the protection of the competitors, and for the punishment of the directors of the games (agonothetai) who did not follow them. See Petzl and Schwertheim (2006) = ZPE 161: 145–​156 (for an English translation) = SEG 56:1359. 83. Kyrkos ([1976] 2003) 280.

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standing by a female wearing the diazoma or perizoma. Often the female figure is identified by modern scholars as Atalanta, although there is no inscription on the painting to indicate that (see, for example, Plate VI).84 Another series of Attic early fifth-​century bce red-​figure column craters show nude women standing by a basin, some located indoors and others outdoors. The women are using strigils and aryballoi (perfume oil bottles), or sponges are hanging in the vicinity; these items are traditionally found in the context of male athletes and the palaestra, and clearly the viewer is to read these scenes as taking place in similar contexts (Plate VII).85 It would be a challenge to show the craters were made for local Athenian consumption, and that challenge has led scholars to identify these figures as Spartan.86 We know little, however, about metic women in Attica, who might not have been under the same rules of activities and behavior that had to be followed by Athenian citizen women.87 Could these females on the column craters be metic women, who were able to have an education and are portrayed cleaning themselves or preparing for the palaestra and the gymnasium? The same question can be asked of the Attic red-​ figure kylix of “the girls going to school” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Figure 8.5). Or, perhaps, we can dare to state that some girls went to school, even in Athens. In sculpture, the “Barberini Atalanta” from the Vatican Museum (Museo Pio-​Clementino, inv. 2784),88 the Motya charioteer in Mozia Sicily (Museo Giuseppe Whitaker, inv. 4310), and the early Hellenistic statue of a female

84. The item description of the kylix from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (03.820) reads, “Interior:  bathing place; basin (louterion) at left; nude youth with strigils, female gymnast seated. (Possibly Atlanta and Peleus). Because men and women generally did not exercise or bathe together in Ancient Greece, this image can be interpreted as a mythological scene, showing Atlanta, the famous athlete, as she converses and bathes with Peleus, who she has just defeated in a wrestling match. It may also represent a scene from Spartan life, where young men and women did exercise together.” In addition, Neils (2012) includes a list of these vases with bibliography and interprets them as Spartan girls because they are women athletes, cleaning up after their rigorous exercise. Although we cannot discount the fact that they might represent Spartan women, we now know that there were other cities that promoted athletics for young women, including Athens. Perhaps we can ask whether these images were made for export, not only to Sparta but to other cities in the Peloponnese, or to places that had a tradition of female athletics, such as Etruria, southern Italy, and Asia Minor. 85. See Plate VII, the stamnos at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (95.21), which also includes an inscription on side A (Hediste kale, i.e., Hediste is beautiful). 86. See discussion in Neils (2012) 163–​165, who thinks that these might be Spartan women. 87. See Futo Kennedy (2014) on metic women. 88. Thanks to Aileen Ajootian for this reference.

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Figure  8.5  Girls going to school. Attic red-​figure terracotta kylix, c.  460–​450 bce. Attributed to the Painter of Bologna 417. 15.2  cm. New  York, Metropolitan Museum 1021.67. Rogers Fund 1906. Photograph © Metropolitan Museum of Art (public domain).

runner with both breasts bare at the Louvre (MA 522) are all candidates for identification as female victors in athletic competitions. Furthermore, the bronze statuettes of female runners, and the handles of mirrors and paterae (libation dishes) with nude females or females wearing the diazoma or perizoma, that have been identified as Spartan or Laconian, could have been dedications or utility items not only from or for Laconia but also from other cities, although most seem to have been created in Laconian workshops.89 Similar figurines continued to be created from the Archaic through the Roman period (see Plates IV, V, and VIII).90 The form of the female athlete as the handle of a mirror could have served as a role model for young women or as an honor for the victorious young woman using it. 89. Stewart (1997) 221–​234. 90. See a patera with handle in the shape of a female athlete from the third century bce at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (Plate V), for example, or the bronze statuette of the so-​called female gladiator, now in Hamburg (Plate VIII). The latter is clearly a female athlete wearing the diazoma or perizoma and holding a strigil, not a gladiator.

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Audiences on four continents have asked me why scholars have not paid attention to this topic before. I think the answer lies in the fact that female athletics has been undervalued throughout the ages for various reasons. Ancient elite male authors were not so much interested in the lives of girls and women as in the education, activities, and political and military careers of famous men who could become examples for their sons and young men of their cities to imitate. Even in the United States, arguably one of the richest and technologically advanced countries of the twenty-​first century, and almost fifty years after Title IX, women’s athletics is still undervalued.91 From tennis players to soccer players, female athletes continue to be underpaid and unsupported by their federations.92 For example, in a law suit filed against U.S. Soccer, the all-​female team accused its employer of gender discrimination that affects “not only their paychecks but also where they play and how often, how they train, the medical treatment and coaching they receive and even how they travel to matches.”93 The players of the Women’s National Basketball Association are seeking leaguewide standards on issues like hotels, travel, and trainers, and Canada’s women’s soccer team is trying to get maternity coverage in its contract.94 It is not surprising, then, that there are not as many names of and references to female athletes as there are of male athletes that have survived on the record from two thousand years ago. If we look for the women, however, we will find them. If we evaluate our evidence based not on our preconceptions but on what has survived, we may come to solid and new conclusions.95

91.  Title IX is a federal civil rights law in the United States that was passed as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. This is Public Law No. 92-​318, 86 Stat. 235 ( June 23, 1972), codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–​1688. The original text as it was signed into law by President Nixon on June 23, 1972, states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 92. The Wimbledon championships, the last of the Grand Slam tournaments, offered equal prize money to its female players in 2007 for the first time. See BBC (2007). 93. Das (2019). 94. Das (2018). 95. I would like to thank the staff of the ephorates at Nauplio, Thebes, and Rhodes, Alkistis Papademetriou, Vasilis Aravantinos, Melina Philemonos, and Dimitris Bosnakis; the staff at the libraries of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens; Ronnie Ancona for her insightful comments and for her patience; Joseph Day for reading and commenting on an early version of this discussion; Aileen Ajootian, Lee L.  Brice, Nigel Kennell, Sarah B.  Pomeroy, Mary (Molly) Richardson, and Andrew Stewart for lively conversations about art, history, epigraphy, and women. This work has been supported by the Franklin Grant of the American Philosophical Society and funding from Illinois State University.

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Normalizing Illegality? The Roman Jurists and Underage Marriage Bruce W. Frier

I have written this chapter in honor of Professor Sarah B.  Pomeroy. From the beginning of her remarkable scholarly career, she has stood for the insight that the positioning of women in the ancient world must be explored with canny, unapologetic realism. Often such research turns up unexpected sources of optimism:  the ways, sometimes subtle and sometimes stark, in which women were able to express their personalities both as individuals and as women, or to exert their artistry, power, or influence. But there is unquestionably a grimmer side as well. This chapter explores one aspect of Roman social life that is particularly grim: the marriage of underage girls. Underage marriage is defined as marriage occurring before one or both parties reach the legally accepted age for marriage, but in practice only the girl is impacted. (There are no attestations for boys.) Unlike in modern law, the Romans did not set this minimum age by statute but, in the case of women, seem to have employed an initially somewhat nebulous concept of sexual development that they described with the adjective viripotens: roughly, “capable of [having sexual intercourse with] a man”; in the Augustan jurist Labeo’s paraphrase, a woman younger than this is one quae virum pati non potest, “who is not able to sustain a man.”1 Through a process that cannot be entirely 1. Viripotens: Labeo (3 Post. a Iav. Epit.), D. 36.2.30 (quoted here) and (6 Post. a Lab. Epit.), D.  24.1.65. Viripotens for marriage also in the Lex Flavia Malicitana Municipalis of 82–​84 ce, paragraph 56. Also later jurists:  Papinian (8 Resp.), D.  35.1.101 pr.; Ulpian (59 Ad Ed.), D. 42.4.5.2 (quoting the Praetor’s Edict); Paul (4 ad Sab), D. 32.51. These sources imply that the link between viripotens and age twelve was never lost. See also Justinian, Inst. 1.10 pr. (of Bruce W. Frier, Normalizing Illegality? In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0010

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reconstructed, by at least the mid-​second century ce (and probably earlier) the age for marriage, and perhaps for female majority more generally, had come to be fixed at twelve.2 It was also possible for girls younger than twelve to become engaged (sponsa) to a future husband, with marriage expected to follow after she reached age twelve.3 However, a considerable number of sources, almost all from juristic writings, indicate that the Romans did know of marriages in which the bride was below the iusta aetas, “the legal age of marriage.” These sources were discussed in detail in a 2013 book by the Romanist Isabella Piro, on which I wrote a lengthy review article trying to reconstruct, more exactly, the nature of such underage marriages and their social context.4 In this chapter I want to consider more deeply the law that the Roman jurists constructed around the institution, in an attempt to answer a difficult question:  Did the jurists tacitly recognize such underage marriages as somehow legitimate, or quasi-​legitimate, in the sense that they were not, or not entirely, nullified? Briefly, what we know of these underage marriages is approximately this:5 They appear to have been celebrated according to the normal custom of Roman weddings, with the father “giving his daughter in marriage” (dare nuptum) and her being “led into the house” (deducta) of the groom. After the wedding, she lives in her putative husband’s house (apud illum or in domo illius) as a wife, and, just as with a legitimate Roman marriage, the parties regularly establish a dowry (Ulpian calls it a quasi dos) for her support there. early Roman marriage law:  masculi quidem puberes, feminae autem viripotentes, “males who have reached puberty, females who are capable of sexual relations”). Throughout this chapter, all translations are my own. 2. The sources are discussed in detail by McGinn (2015), a review of Piro (2013). The earliest legal sources are Julian in Ulpian, D.  24.1.32.27 and 27.6.11.3–​4; Pomponius, D.  23.2.4; but see already the Augustan antiquarian Verrius Flaccus (probably) in Festus/​Paulus, s.v. pubes (pp.  296–​297 L., a difficult text). At the end of the first century ce, Neratius (2 Membr.), D. 12.4.8 (citing Servius), still has iusta aetas; but McGinn argues plausibly (122–​133) that age twelve had been set by the reign of Augustus or even by the late Republic. 3.  Pauli Sent. 2.19.1 (Sponsalia tam inter puberes quam inter impuberes contrahi possunt, “Engagement can be contracted between those above puberty and those below”); also Modestinus (4 Diff.), D. 23.1.14. On the status of betrothed persons, see Astolfi (1994). 4. Piro (2013), reviewed by Frier (2015). My earlier paper dealt with the social institution of underage marriage. The present chapter is meant to complement my review. By and large, in this chapter I have relied on primary sources, since Piro discusses at length the prior scholarship on these sources. 5. Frier (2015) 656–​658.

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If their arrangement is dissolved before the girl reaches age twelve, one source even speaks of a divorce (divortium).6 In short, virtually all the elements of a legitimate marriage are apparently present and observed. There is no way to determine the frequency of underage marriages, but the abundance of juristic sources, across the entire period of classical Roman law, suggests that they were at least not uncommon. It is very difficult to determine what the participants in such an underage marriage thought they were accomplishing. The Roman jurists, for their part, are adamant that, at least in the eyes of the law, there can be no underage marriage, with Ulpian, for instance, stating that a girl less than twelve, if “led into [a man’s] home as though a wife [quasi uxor],” is nonetheless “not yet a wife” since there is “no marriage because a marriage could not occur.”7 Yet Ulpian entertains the possibility that a man who marries an underage girl might plausibly “think . . . she is his wife already,” even though she has not yet reached adulthood—​suggesting either ignorance of the law or indifference to it by the groom.8 By contrast, other sources suggest that the parties usually knew no valid marriage could result until the girl reached age twelve.9 Although the jurist Julian pointed out that a father might have benevolent motives for placing an underage daughter in this sort of marriage,10 the perils for such a child bride are truly frightening. Historically, marriage brings with it the likelihood of heightened sexual activity, dangerous for a girl whose body has not yet fully matured; in this respect, as ancient physicians recognized,11 twelve, the minimum Roman age for female marriage, is already

6. Neratius (2 Membr.), D. 12.4.8: si divortium intercesserit (“if a divorce intervenes”). 7. See, respectively, Ulpian (63 ad Ed.), D. 42.5.17.1 (si minor duodecim annis in domum quasi uxor deducta sit, licet nondum uxor sit) and (33 ad Sab.), D. 24.1.32.27 (neque nuptias [esse], quod nuptiae esse non potuerunt). 8.  Ulpian (33 ad Sab.), D.  24.1.32.27 (quamvis iam uxorem esse putet qui duxit). Elsewhere Ulpian suggests possible fraud by the putative husband: (35 ad Ed.), D. 27.6.11.3–​4, but the nature of the fraud is unclear. In Papinian (10 Quaest.), D. 23.3.68, a father misrepresents an underage girl as of age. 9. Ulpian (15 ad Ed.), D. 5.3.13.1, discussing a man’s property rights to a “quasi-​dowry” (quasi dotem) that he “knowingly” (sciens) received on behalf of an underage girl whom he married; this knowledge is surely that his putative marriage is invalid. See also Hermogenianus (5 Epit.), D. 23.3.74. 10. Julian, cited by Ulpian (35 ad Ed.), D. 27.6.11.3: “a desire to see her settled more quickly in her fiancé’s home” (qui filiam suam maturius in familiam sponsi perducere voluit); but Julian also recognizes the possibility of more malevolent (dolo malo) motives (see later discussion). 11. Caldwell (2015) 94–​100, also summarizing earlier research.

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too young. (Most Roman women appear to have married in their mid-​to late teens.) But Ulpian, in a text I consider later, describes a girl bride, less than twelve, who has already had sex with a man not her “husband”; other evidence suggests that sexual activity, if not necessarily the main objective of underage marriages, may not have been unusual.12 Still, nothing indicates that underage marriage, although legally impossible, was ever criminalized;13 to judge from surviving sources, sexual relations with underage girls, if they occurred with at least the implied consent of their families, were also not criminal, since “statutory rape” (sex with persons below the age of consent) is unknown.14 These considerations are crucial in considering the situation of the Roman jurists, who, during the first three centuries of the Empire, had the primary duty of preserving and developing legal norms between private individuals. The dilemma they faced was the following: For what were presumably sound policy reasons related to the well-​being of those entering marriage, Roman law considered void all marriages in which one or both parties were below the minimum age, but the state did nothing to directly enforce this prohibition. Marriages were not licensed or registered or even vetted by the state, nor were those participating in underage marriages prosecuted; criminal law remained silent. Through their jurisprudence, the Roman jurists had some influence over the direction that the law took, but little power to set law—​much less the world that law affected—​on a dramatically new course. At the same time, they were faced with the reality that such underage marriages were occurring, if not frequently, then at least with some regularity. Further, these “unofficial marriages” (if they can be so described) could raise significant legal questions arising out of transactions or events incidentally associated with them. By their responses to these questions, the jurists indirectly revealed something of how they understood and reacted to the underlying problems. The questions I will examine are the following: How did the jurists construct the transition from an underage marriage to a legitimate marriage after the bride turned twelve? How did they treat putative dowries offered for underage brides? How did they handle adultery by an underage girl bride? More broadly, how did they construe the status of an underage bride so long as she remained underage? 12. Ulpian (2 de Adult.), D. 48.5.14.8, cf. 4; Frier (2015) 660–​661, citing Roman inscriptions indicating possible high mortality among child brides. 13. McGinn (2015) 151: “no thought of liability for stuprum in the context of such relationships.” 14. However, various indirect protections for minors are known, mainly via family law: Nguyen (2006).

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The Transition to Legitimate Marriage In Roman law, when two adults marry, both parties, as well as their respective patresfamilias if either or both are in his power, must in principle consent to the marriage; this general principle is attenuated only in rare cases.15 When parties become engaged prior to marriage, their agreement is also required, but here consent becomes difficult if one or both of the engaged couple are under the age of majority and hence unable to give legal consent. In that event, however, Modestinus allows nonetheless for betrothal, provided that (in the text as preserved) “each party understands what is happening, that is, if they are not less than seven years old.”16 Understanding of the situation (intelligentia) stands in for consent (consensus). One might imagine the jurists considering a similar conceit for underage marriage. But this was impossible. Engagement (sponsalia) was a legally recognized (if fairly informal) arrangement, with, as we shall see, some rights and duties, while underage marriage was not. However, perhaps surprisingly, the jurists consistently suggest that underage “brides” become legitimately married immediately on their 12th birthday, without any separate act of consent by the girl; as Pomponius puts it, “A woman less than 12 who is married will become a legitimate wife when she reaches age 12 in her husband’s home.”17 It is not easy to parallel this kind of transition, but Roman rules for entry into marriage are notoriously relaxed, and marriage can readily be inferred when two persons cohabit and treat one another as spouses. For instance, in the early post-​Classical period the Emperor Probus validates a marriage when a long-​term cohabiting couple, who have a daughter, are in addition regarded

15. See esp. Tituli Ulp. 5.2, listing three requirements: marital capacity (conubium) between the parties, their age, and their agreement (consensus) and that of their patresfamilias. Note that the minimum age requirement is not directly derived from the requirement of agreement (through a theory of “age of consent”), even though girls become adults at age twelve. 16. Modestinus (4 Diff.), D. 23.1.14: si modo id fieri ab utraque persona intellegatur, id est, si non sint minores quam septem annis (provided each party understands what is happening, i.e., if they are not less than seven years old). This last clause is often thought to be interpolated. 17. Ponponius (3 ad Sab.), D. 23.2.4: Minorem annis duodecim nuptam tunc legitimam uxorem fore, cum apud virum explesset duodecim annos. So also Labeo (3 Post. a Iav. Epit.), D. 36.2.30; Neratius (2 Membr.), D. 12.4.8; Ulpian (63 ad Ed.), D. 42.5.17.1, and (2 de Adult.), D. 48.5.14.8. Scaevola (9 Dig.), D.  24.1.66.1, by contrast, considers a more usual case in which a young woman, evidently of marriageable age, takes up residence in her husband’s house (with separate bedrooms) before the set wedding date; she becomes a wife only when the marriage ceremony takes place.

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as married by their friends and neighbors; that is, they hold themselves out to the community as married.18 When the underage bride reaches age twelve, her consent to her marriage may, it seems, therefore simply be inferred from the fact of her continued residence in her husband’s house. The transition is seamless. In the case of underage marriage, the policy interest appears to be to preserve its continuity by allowing it to metamorphose into a legitimate state. This policy is reflected in a fragment of Neratius, writing c. 100 ce, in which underage marriage is strongly assimilated to the vocabulary of legitimate marriage; the couple who remain together until the bride reaches age twelve are said to “remain in the same state of matrimony,” such that “the marital relationship remains between them” even though “marriage is not yet entered upon.”19

Dowry for an Underage Marriage The jurists set down rights for the transfer of property in the context of a marriage: during engagement, the betrothed couple can give each other gifts, but gifts between them after the marriage begins are in principle voidable.20 However, before or after the start of marriage the bride’s side can give a dowry in order to provide for her maintenance during the marriage. These rules create an anomalous situation when a putative dowry is given on behalf of an underage bride.21 What is the legal status of the dowry before she reaches age twelve?

18. Probus, C. 5.4.9 (276–​282 ce). Also Gaius (lib. sing. de Form. Hyp.), D. 22.4.4: nuptiae sunt [validae], licet testatio sine scriptis habita est (marriages are valid even though the evidence is unwritten). 19. Neratius (2 Membr.), D. 12.4.8: donec autem in eodem habitu matrimonii permanent . . . donec maneat inter eos adfinitas . . . nondum coito matrimonio (so long as they remain in the same state of marriage . . . so long as marital relationship remains between them . . . the marriage not yet having been entered upon). 20. See, for instance, Ulpian/​Paul, D. 24.1.1–​3 pr. (no gifts after marriage). 21. Ulpian (63 ad Ed.), D. 23.3.3: Dotis appellatio non refertur ad ea matrimonia, quae consistere non possunt: neque enim dos sine matrimonio esse potest. Ubicumque igitur matrimonii nomen non est, nec dos est. (The term “dowry” is not used for marriages that cannot arise [because they are illegal], since there can be no dowry without [legitimate] marriage. So whenever the word “marriage” is not applicable, neither is “dowry.”) If a dowry is promised but not delivered, the promise is unenforceable until the underage girl reaches age twelve: Papinian (10 Quaest.), D. 23.2.68 (at least when the girl’s age is misrepresented).

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At the end of the first century ce, a fragment of Neratius reports his disagreement with the late Republican jurist Servius, who, apparently enforcing the rule that dowry cannot subsist unless a valid marriage occurs, had held that the dowry could be reclaimed in the interim; that is, the putative husband did not have a right to retain it. Neratius (2 Membr.), D.  12.4.8:  Quod Servius in libro de dotibus scribit, si inter eas personas, quarum altera nondum iustam aetatem habeat, nuptiae factae sint, quod dotis nomine interim datum sit, repeti posse, sic intellegendum est, ut, si divortium intercesserit, priusquam utraque persona iustam aetatem habeat, sit eius pecuniae repetitio, donec autem in eodem habitu matrimonii permanent, non magis id repeti possit, quam quod sponsa sponso dotis nomine dederit, donec maneat inter eos adfinitas: quod enim ex ea causa nondum coito matrimonio datur, cum sic detur tamquam in dotem perventurum, quamdiu pervenire potest, repetitio eius non est. Servius writes, in his book on dowries, that if marriage is contracted between persons of whom one (the bride) is not yet of legal age, what is given in the meantime as a dowry can be reclaimed. This must be interpreted such that, if a divorce intervenes before either person reaches legal age, the money can be reclaimed;22 but so long as they remain in the same state of marriage, it can no more be reclaimed than that which a betrothed woman gives her fiancé as a dowry, so long as the relationship remains between them. For what is given for this reason before entry into marriage, when this is given such that it will become part of the dowry, cannot be reclaimed so long as it remains possible to do so.23 Neratius overturns Servius’ holding in circumstances where the underage marriage persists. His reasoning clearly analogizes the underage bride’s legal condition to that of a fiancée, on whose behalf a dowry can be given that is

22. Compare the early post-​Classical jurist Hermogenianus (5 Epit.), D. 23.3.74: Si sponsa dotem dederit nec nupserit vel minor duodecim annis ut uxor habeatur, exemplo dotis condictioni favoris ratione privilegium, quod inter personales actiones vertitur, tribui placuit. (If a fiancée gives a dowry and does not then marry, or a girl less than twelve (does so) in order to be considered a wife, the prevailing view is that, on the analogy of dowry because of legal favor for the claim for return (of the dowry), the privilege that arises among personal actions be accorded.) 23. On this fragment, see McGinn (2015) 131–​134.

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irrecoverable unless the marriage fails then to occur. In line with this decision, Ulpian regards the putative husband as receiving the dowry’s possession pro possessore even if he marries knowing the underage marriage to be invalid.24 In another fragment, Ulpian treats the underage bride, if she gives a dowry to her “husband,” as a preferred creditor against his estate, for recovering the dowry, if he should die before she reaches age twelve (thereby dissolving their relationship); in this respect, although she is not yet a wife, she is likewise in the same legal position as a fiancée who has conveyed a dowry to her betrothed.25 To this fragment the Digest compilers have attached a policy argument from Ulpian’s contemporary, Paul: “For it is in the public interest that she also sue for the entire [dowry], so that she can marry when age permits.”26 Complicating this situation somewhat is Ulpian’s citation of Julian, who is discussing an action given against a falsus tutor, someone who improperly authorizes a transaction by a minor.27 In this passage the action is extended to a father whose consent is required for marriage: Ulpian (35 ad Ed.), D.  27.6.11.3–​4:  3. Iulianus libro vicesimo primo digestorum tractat, in patrem debeat dari haec actio, qui filiam minorem duodecim annis nuptum dedit. et magis probat patri ignoscendum esse, qui filiam suam maturius in familiam sponsi perducere voluit: affectu enim propensiore magis quam dolo malo id videri fecisse. 4.  Quod si intra duodecim annos haec decesserit, cum haberet dotem, putat Iulianus, si dolo malo conversatus sit is ad quem dos pertinet, posse maritum doli mali exceptione condicentem summovere in casibus, in quibus dotem vel in totum vel in partem, si constabat matrimonium, fuerat lucraturus. 24. Ulpian (15 ad Ed.), D. 5.3.13.1: “Likewise, title ‘as dowry’ gives possession ‘as a possessor,’ if, for instance, from a girl less than 12 years old whom I married I knowingly received (property) as if a dowry.” (Item pro dote titulus recipit pro possessore possessionem, ut puta si a minore duodecim annis nupta mihi quasi dotem sciens accepi.) 25. Ulpian (63 ad Ed.), D. 42.5.17.1: [I]‌dem puto dicendum etiam, si minor duodecim annis in domum quasi uxor deducta sit, licet nondum uxor sit. ([After discussing the privileged status of a fiancée against the estate of her dead betrothed:] I think the same should be held also if a woman less than twelve has been led into [a man’s] house as a wife, although she is not yet a wife.) 26.  Paul (60 ad Ed.), 42.5.18:  interest enim rei publicae et hanc solidum consequi, ut aetate permittente nubere possit. 27. Ulpian (35 ad Ed.), D. 27.6.1 pr.-​3; Paul (10 Resp.), D. 50.16.221 (falsum tutorem eum vere dici, qui tutor non est, “he is correctly called a false tutor who is not a tutor”); Lenel (1927) 317. The actio protutelae is for damages caused by the false guardian.

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3. Julian, in book 21 of his Digests, discusses whether this action should be given against a father who gives in marriage a daughter less than twelve years old. And he recommends, rather, that a father be forgiven who wishes his daughter introduced more quickly into her fiancé’s household, since he is held to have done this out of more eager feeling than with wrongful intent [dolo malo]. 4. And if she has a dowry and dies before becoming twelve, Julian thinks that if the person to whom the dowry appertains acted with wrongful intent [dolo malo], the husband, through the defense of deceit [exceptio doli mali], can block him bringing suit for it [the dowry] in cases where he [the husband] would have acquired the dowry, either in totality or in part, if the marriage endured. The fact situation in section 3 is not crystal clear,28 but the father, in arranging the marriage for a daughter less than twelve, apparently misrepresented her as being of marriageable age. Julian’s view, it seems, is that the father would be liable if he acted fraudulently (dolo malo), but not if he acted out of an affectionate desire to see his daughter more quickly placed. If this reconstruction is correct, the fraud consisted of luring the prospective groom into what the latter had expected would be a legitimate marriage—​ a fraud doubtless with some attendant financial implications. The fragment thus may give a rare and fascinating insight into the complex interfamilial politics preceding a marriage. In section 4, Julian moves on to consider the situation when a donor (probably her father again) has conferred a dowry on the daughter; she then dies before reaching age twelve. In a legitimate marriage, when a wife dies, the dowry would normally be kept by the husband,29 but in this instance their marriage was not legitimate, and so the donor, despite having acted fraudulently (dolo malo) in bringing about the marriage, sues for the dowry’s return, evidently arguing, under the rule discussed by Neratius in the earlier passage, that the union has ended and the “quasi-​dowry” can therefore be reclaimed.

28. As Tafaro (1988) 166, argues, magis fairly clearly indicates that the original text reported another view, most likely that the father be invariably liable (a holding preferable to the one that Julian adopts, as benevolent motives do not justify fraud, cf. Papinian (10 Quaest.), D. 23.3.68); the process of abbreviation may have led to omission of some clarifying detail. McGinn (2015) 146–​147 notes it is unclear whether an engagement preceded the underage marriage (cf. sponsi), but it hardly matters for this purpose. 29. Tituli Ulp. 6.4–​5, a summary of the rules.

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But Julian allows the “husband” to invoke the donor’s prior deceit and thereby rebuff his lawsuit. Conversely, where the father’s intent was not wrongful, it appears that Julian would require the husband to surrender the dowry back to the giver. This same outcome would have obtained if a dowry had been paid to a fiancé and the bride had then died prior to the wedding.30 The legal assimilation of the two situations thus probably continues in this passage.

The Adultery Laws Under the Lex Julia de Adulteriis of Augustus (18/​17 bce), a husband who learned that his wife had committed adultery could prosecute her; the emperor Septimius Severus later extended this power to a man whose betrothed fiancée had sexual relations with a third party. Ulpian discusses a situation in which an underage “bride” commits adultery after being led into her “husband’s” home and concludes that the “husband” may not prosecute her as a husband (iure viri) even after she has reached age twelve, but may prosecute her “as if she is a fiancée” (quasi sponsa).31 In this fragment, at least for purposes of the adultery law, the status of the underage “bride” is fully assimilated to that of a fiancée. Ulpian’s reasoning for this extension is unclear, but he may have believed that, since the emperor had extended the adultery law to fiancées (including those under age twelve), it was inconsistent not to use the same rule for underage “brides”; the extension would thus uphold the high value that Romans placed on premarital chastity.32 30. See, e.g., Ulpian (3 Disp.), D. 12.4.6: a standard illustration of condictio causa data causa non secuta. 31. Ulpian (2 de Adult.), D. 48.5.14.8: Si minor duodecim annis in domum deducta adulterium commiserit, mox apud eum aetatem excesserit coeperitque esse uxor, non poterit iure viri accusari ex eo adulterio, quod ante aetatem nupta commisit, sed vel quasi sponsa poterit accusari ex rescripto divi Severi, quod supra relatum est. (A girl less than twelve years old was led into the home [of her prospective husband] and [then] committed adultery; soon thereafter she passed the age [of marriage] in his house and began to be his wife. He cannot use a husband’s right to accuse her of an adultery which she committed when married before the [legal] age; but she can be accused as a betrothed woman, in accord with the rescript of the deified Emperor Severus that was set out above.) Cf. also Ulpian (2 de Adult.), D. 48.5.14.4, of a woman “who, although held with the intent to marry, nonetheless cannot be a wife” (ea, quae, quamvis uxoris animo haberetur, uxor tamen esse non potest): the “husband” must prosecute not by right of an actual husband (ius viri) but by a third-​party right (ius extranei). 32. See, for instance, Treggiari ([1991] 1993) 232–​237; Langlands (2009) 37–​38, on puditicia. But Tom McGinn, who kindly read this paper, has a much darker interpretation of Ulpian’s

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Gifts, Legacies, and Constructive Betrothal To a considerable extent, therefore, the jurists might appear to have normalized the status of the underage bride by according to her rights (with respect to the dowry) and duties (with respect to adultery) resembling those of a fiancée. In both cases, of course, strong familial and public interests were involved, at least as the Romans see the matter. The final step in developing this analogy could have been to drop the analogy altogether and simply deem her a sponsa by operation of law, what we might call a “constructive fiancée,” who is identical to a real one for all legal purposes. Julian, c. 130 ce, may well have been willing to take this further step, but he encountered resistance among later jurists. The specific legal issue concerned the validity of gifts exchanged between a husband and his underage bride. Ulpian (33 ad Sab.), D. 24.1.32.27: Si quis sponsam habuerit, deinde eandem uxorem duxerit cum non liceret, an donationes quasi in sponsalibus factae valeant, videamus. Et Iulianus tractat hanc quaestionem in minore duodecim annis, si in domum quasi mariti immatura sit deducta:  ait enim hanc sponsam esse, etsi uxor non sit. Sed est verius, quod Labeoni videtur et a nobis et a Papiniano libro decimo quaestionum probatum est, ut, si quidem praecesserint sponsalia, durent, quamvis iam uxorem esse putet qui duxit, si vero non praecesserint, neque sponsalia esse, quoniam non fuerunt, neque nuptias, quod nuptiae esse non potuerunt. Ideoque si sponsalia antecesserint, valet donatio:  si minus, nulla est, quia non quasi ad extraneam, sed quasi ad uxorem fecit et ideo nec oratio locum habebit. If someone has a fiancée and he then takes the same woman as a wife even though this is not permitted, let us examine the validity of gifts made as if during a betrothal. And Julian discusses this problem in the case of a girl less than twelve, if she, while a juvenile, has been led into the home of her quasi-​husband; for he says that she is a fiancée [sponsa] although not a wife. But the more correct view is the one that Labeo deemed right motives:  “This seems to me to be a particularly cruel piece of misogyny, even by Roman standards. The girl is too young to give (legal) consent to marry but is deemed capable of the criminal intent necessary to commit stuprum. If the jurists really wanted to protect her and others like her, I think they might have construed sex with such girls as criminal fornication, even or especially for their so-​called husbands. They were perfectly capable of granting unilateral liability in cases of rape or deception, so why not here?” (from an email). He may be right.

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and was approved by me and by Papinian in Book 10 of his Quaestiones, namely that if an engagement [sponsalia] actually precedes, it continues even if the man who led her thinks she is already his wife; but if one did not precede, then there is no engagement since one did not occur, nor a marriage because no marriage could arise. And so if an engagement precedes, the gift is valid; if not, it is void since he made it not as if to a third party, but as if to a wife, and so the oratio will not be relevant.33 Labeo fairly clearly took the view that Ulpian ascribes to him. In a fragment Labeo holds that if a young girl receives a legacy due “when she marries” (quandoque nupserit), and then marries while not yet of marriageable age, the legacy is not owed until she comes of age.34 Ulpian gives no clear reason for rejecting Julian’s contrary ruling. Nor does he indicate why he could not hold, instead, that the underage bride should, in this situation at least, be once again analogized to a fiancée (a strategy he had accepted in other contexts, as we have seen). But perhaps adventitious benefits such as gifts and legacies simply could not command the public policy protections that are accorded to dowries. In any case, for Ulpian Julian’s solution was plainly a bridge too far. As he remarks in a parallel passage, “The mere fact that she was led into [her husband’s] home does not mean an engagement has transpired” (D. 23.1.9:  hoc ipso quod in domum deducta est non videri sponsalia facta). In other words, in the absence of a formal engagement, the underage bride must remain a “wife apparent” until she reaches her twelfth birthday and becomes a legitimate wife. The juristic sources resemble, at first glance, a checkerboard of indecision, with no clear construction of the legal position of an underage bride. But

33. The oratio that Ulpian refers to is a legislative proposal (but effectively a statute) of Septimius Severus and Caracalla, 206 ce, partially validating gifts between husband and wife: Ulpian, D. 24.1.32 pr.-​1. The text discussed earlier is also preserved in shorter form, but with the same citations, by Ulpian (35 ad Ed.), D. 23.1.9, where the jurist focuses more specifically on Julian’s “constructive engagement” and states emphatically that he has “always approved Labeo’s view” (semper Labeonis sententiam probavi). On D. 24.1.32.27, see Piro (2013) 144–​145 and McGinn (2015) 143–​146, who both emphasize (wrongly, in my opinion) the role of the parties’ intent. 34. Labeo (3 Post. a Iav. Epit.), D. 36.2.30: Quod pupillae legatum est “quandoque nupserit,” si ea minor quam viripotens nupserit, non ante ei legatum debebitur, quam viripotens esse coeperit, quia non potest videri nupta, quae virum pati non potest. (Anything bequeathed to a female ward “when she marries,” if she marries when less than capable of marriage, will not be owed as a legacy to her before she becomes capable, since she cannot be deemed married when unable to bear a man [sexually].) Labeo probably took the same position in another incompletely preserved fragment (6 a Iav. Epit., D. 24.1.65) with respect to a gift from a putative husband to his underage bride; it “will become ratified” (ratum futurum), most likely when the marriage becomes legitimate.

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upon deeper review one can perhaps detect a steady movement over time, not to accept, much less to tacitly legitimize underage marriage, but rather to ameliorate its consequences for the endangered “wives.” Admittedly, this effort is hampered by its confinement within the imperfect and tangential mechanisms of Roman private law. But once the jurists had abandoned their earlier position treating an illegal marriage purely and simply as a nonexistent relationship (Servius and Labeo), they reached out to protect those concerns of an underage bride that could be deemed truly essential: her interest in a future legitimate marriage when she comes of age, and her parallel interest in her dowry as a provision for her maintenance in that or other marriages. Even the extension to her, by analogy, of the adultery law may perhaps be interpreted less as a censorious penalty on her conduct than as an indirect means of discouraging premature sexual activity. All of this remains, of course, somewhat in the realm of conjecture. The jurists never wear their policy hearts on their sleeves, and so we are left to speculate on their motives and methods; they proceed subtly, often with a measure of intentional misdirection. Nonetheless, as the late Max Kaser demonstrated at length, the jurists are eminently pragmatic in their handling of legal nullity or voidness when transactions are treated as if they did not exist or had never happened. Despite such nullity, the jurists not infrequently build in protections for adversely affected parties—​especially innocent parties—​that can almost make it seem like a void transaction is actually operative.35 Thus it appears to have been with underage marriage as well. But there lurks herein a larger point as well. All developed legal systems—​ and Roman law hardly the least of them—​are highly symbolic cultural expressions that encode an enormous quantity of unfamiliar and valuable perceptions and insights about contemporary social values and transactions. Even for experts, these insights are intricately embedded in the rules and reasoning and progress of the law; hence, it is no easy task to decode the law and recover them. Decoding means subjecting our sources to analysis not only on doctrinal grounds but also through intimate attention to the purposive aspects of all advanced legal systems. This method is scarcely foolproof, but the reward for such an exercise is considerable: new personalities are introduced onto the stage of history, new ways of thinking come to the light, and our historical knowledge correspondingly deepens.

35. Kaser (1977).

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Augustus and the Economics of Adultery Marilyn B. Skinner

For elite Roman families of the late Republic and early Augustan periods, wealth in female hands posed a complicated social and financial problem.1 As Sarah B.  Pomeroy observed in Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves, heavy manpower losses during the Second Punic War combined with laws on intestate inheritance brought large portions of estates under women’s control.2 Despite official confiscations of jewelry and dowries to fund the war effort, female enrichment persisted. Struggle over repeal of the lex Oppia (195 bce) and limits on bequests to women imposed by the lex Voconia (169 bce) indicate that disputes about their access to capital continued in the post-​Hannibalic era.3 During the second century bce, meanwhile, victorious Roman generals amassed massive amounts of booty, and dowries, used by noble families as vehicles of conspicuous consumption, swelled enormously 1.  This chapter was originally delivered as the sixteenth annual Helen F.  North Lecture at Swarthmore College in March 2016. I would like to express my warmest thanks to the audience members who offered valuable comments after the presentation, and to Professor Grace Ledbetter and the faculty and staff of the Classics Department for their exceptional hospitality. 2. Pomeroy ([1975] 1995) 177–​178. 3. Passed at the height of the war in 215 bce as an austerity measure, the lex Oppia limited women’s display of gold and finery and prohibited their use of carriages apart from religious festivals. Its proposed abolition was furiously opposed by conservatives, led by the consul M. Porcius Cato; women themselves lobbied magistrates and engaged in an ultimately successful mass demonstration for repeal (Livy 34.1–​8). The lex Voconia, whose rationale is still debated, decreed, among other provisions, that a testator registered in the first propertied class could not name a woman, even a wife or only daughter, as sole heir to an estate. Marilyn B. Skinner, Augustus and the Economics of Adultery In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0011

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within a single generation.4 Resentment of women applying their huge dowries as leverage against spouses is voiced in oratory, comedy, and satire.5 In the final years of the Republic prejudice against affluent women had not ebbed. When defending his young client M. Caelius Rufus on a charge of attempted murder, Cicero invokes popular condemnation of female excess to defame the prosecution witness Clodia Metelli.6 Blandly posing, in one flight of fancy, the hypothetical instance of a dissolute widow (unlike Clodia, of course), the orator skillfully interweaves autonomy, profligacy, and self-​indulgence into a damning rhetorical question: Si vidua libere, proterva petulanter, dives effuse, libidinosa meretrico more viveret, adulterum ego putarem, si quis hanc paulo liberius salutasset? (If, being single, she were to live loosely; if, being impudent, provocatively; if, being rich, immoderately; if, being lustful, in the manner of a prostitute, should I regard as an adulterer anyone who had greeted her somewhat informally?; Cael. 38). This essay returns to the topic of Roman women’s tenure of property by examining its possible associations during the Augustan era with cultural anxieties over their independence, on the one hand, and their putative immorality, on the other. Female sexual misconduct in the late Republic has been exhaustively investigated by experts on Roman political and legal history and ancient gender relations.7 Perhaps, though, there is room for another examination, one that probes the still not fully explored connection between fears of adultery on the part of noblewomen and concerns about their handling of family assets. After considering that as one explanation for worries over wives’ unchastity in late first-​century bce sources, I inspect the rationale behind Augustus’ criminalization of extramarital sexual activity in the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis of 18 bce, concentrating on the penalties, chiefly financial, imposed after trial upon those convicted in criminal court.

4. On the astronomical growth of dowry in the years after the Second Punic War as a mode of consumptive expenditure and its socially disruptive consequences, consult Evans (1991) 59–​67. 5. In a fragment of a speech supporting the lex Voconia (Malcovati, ORF2 fr. 158, preserved in Gell. NA 17.6), the elder Cato cites a wife who loans her husband money from a bequest, then duns him publicly for repayment. As a stock trope, Plautine comedies feature rants denouncing the arrogance and extravagance of rich wives: see Asin. 85–​87; Aul. 167–​169, 498–​502; Men. 765–​767; Mil. 679–​681, 685–​700. For the satirist Lucilius’ portrayals of women’s lust and rapaciousness, see fr. 639–​643 Marx. 6. Skinner (2011) 96–​116. See further Strong (2016) 100–​105, who explores the literary and social implications of branding an aristocratic Roman matron a meretrix (whore). 7. See, for example, Treggiari ([1991] 1993) 262–​319; Edwards (1993) 34–​62; McGinn (1998) passim; Richlin ([1981] 2014).

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Comparison with goals proposed for its corollary statute, the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus, suggests that punishments ordained were not merely deterrent; arguably they may also have facilitated transfer of property from irresponsible hands back into the possession of those more deserving. If so, preexisting biases would have guaranteed that the irresponsible hands were largely female and the deserving ones male. Adultery had a precise meaning in Roman law. It was defined by the status of the woman and consisted of sexual activity between a married female citizen and a man not her spouse. For a man to have illegitimate sex with an unmarried woman or a citizen boy was a different kind of sexual offense, stuprum or criminal fornication.8 His own marital status was immaterial; wedded or not, he could legally have sex with whomever he pleased provided he refrained from those who were off-​limits. Prior to the lex Iulia, the key civic sanction against men guilty of adultery was imposed by the censors, two magistrates elected every five years to review the citizen lists; they could mark the names of presumed wrongdoers with a stigma (nota), which, in the case of the aristocracy, meant expulsion from the Senate.9 Responsibility for overseeing and, if necessary, punishing a woman’s behavior had rested with her family. Cases of adultery were deliberated in a family council involving the husband and the kinfolk of the offending wife and normally settled through divorce. By taking legal action (actio de moribus), the husband might also be awarded a share of the dowry as compensation—​one-​sixth, according to the jurist Ulpian (Reg. 6.12). Such private dealings probably minimized interfamilial conflict and scandal. While in all ancient Mediterranean cultures male honor was compromised by a spouse’s unfaithfulness, at Rome the public disgrace of the husband was far less pronounced. In removing marital misconduct from private oversight and making it a state crime, the Julian legislation effected a major change that rendered all parties highly visible, even before any trial occurred. Yet the puzzling fact, as Amy Richlin notes, is that in a society where divorce had long been unexceptional and acceptable for both parties, and men themselves had other permitted sexual outlets, female infidelity had become,

8. Fantham (1991). 9. Aediles could bring prosecutions against men or women for antisocial behavior, including sexual transgressions (Treggiari [(1991) 1993] 275–​276). In comedy, iamb, and satire (e.g., Hor. Sat. 1.2.37–​46) wronged husbands physically assault their wives’ paramours with impunity. An anecdotal list of incidents where husbands took the law into their own hands is furnished by Valerius Maximus 6.1.13, writing during the reign of Tiberius.

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by the end of the Republic, a cultural obsession.10 The quantity and diversity of sources on the topic, ranging from lyric, elegiac, and epic poetry and novels to history and biography, rhetorical exempla and school declamations, satire and invective, comedy and preserved jokes and gossip, together with the vast number of legal treatises interpreting the lex Iulia, convincingly prove the widespread existence of upper-​class apprehension over wives’ sexual freedom. This was not because their adultery necessarily constituted an emotional betrayal. Although partners were expected to feel respect and affection for each other, elite marriages were arranged with little consideration for sentiment, and couples may have been more invested in their children and natal kin than in their marriages.11 Fear of illegitimate progeny contaminating the bloodline also seems, surprisingly, a minor concern. In texts of the classical period allegations of bastardy or accusations of fathering suppositious children are seldom found.12 Even when rumors of delinquency swirl around a mother, her offspring’s biological paternity usually goes unquestioned. As the father’s power of life and death over his descendants (patria potestas) allowed him to expose an unwanted infant, his choice to accept it as his own must have been the deciding factor regarding public acquiescence in its legitimacy.13 To understand what adultery meant to the Romans, then, we cannot consider only its immediate pragmatic impact upon families; we need to discover what it represented, what free-​floating angst had crystallized around it. Such disquiet was surfacing well before Augustus’ accession. In 46 bce, while enumerating measures to restore public order after the disruptions of civil war, Cicero specifically pressed a victorious Julius Caesar, now dictator, to enact regulations curbing depravity and increasing birth rates: constituenda iudicia, revocanda fides, comprimendae libidines, propaganda suboles, omnia, quae dilapsa iam diffluxerunt, severis legibus vincienda sunt (law courts must be established, trust summoned back, license checked, offspring produced, 10. Richlin ([1981] 2014) 38. 11. The weakness of the affective bond in elite Roman marriages has been postulated by Veyne (1978) and by Hallett (1984) 235–​243. For contrary opinion, see Treggiari ([1991] 1993) 253–​ 261 on romantic aspects of married love in literature and Dixon (1992) 83–​90 on the frequency of spousal expressions of endearment. 12. Syme (1960). 13. When the younger Julia, Augustus’ granddaughter, was condemned to exile for adultery in 8 ce, the emperor ordered that the child to which she subsequently gave birth should be exposed (Suet. Div. Aug. 65.4). Barnes (1981) plausibly suggests that its putative father, Julia’s husband L. Aemilius Paullus, had been exiled himself two years earlier. The child was thus evidence of her crime, and Augustus exercised his power as head of household in refusing to recognize it.

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all things that, broken down, have now ebbed away must be bound back up by strict laws; Marc. 23). Asking what led Romans to construe adultery as a practice so symptomatic of cultural ills that it called for state remedies generates mixed scholarly responses. In one frequently cited account based on a literal reading of ancient pronouncements, Rome saw herself appointed to rule other nations as an agent of divine justice; if she no longer possessed the moral capacity to govern well, her sovereignty was doomed. Elite immorality provoked divine displeasure, which in turn brought about internal political instability and military disasters abroad and threatened loss of empire. Legal repression, thought the only solution, accordingly became a “necessary corollary of Augustus’ imperialistic ambition.”14 From an opposing perspective, complaints about female adultery can be interpreted as a mode of symbolic discourse: perceiving that claims of a wife’s infidelity connote political and social weakness on the part of her husband, Catharine Edwards posits that “discussions of adultery were a means of articulating a variety of associated concerns—​with masculinity, power and, on a more general level, patriarchy itself.”15 Aristocratic Roman males, I  would add, confirmed power and prestige through successful competition for honors and offices, for which increasingly large fortunes were required. Wealth in the hands of women was not directly available for that purpose and would remain unusable if transmitted, in turn, to female beneficiaries.16 By the late Republic, as we will see, changes in the form of marriage driven by inheritance laws had brought about the doubtless unintended consequence of increasing a married woman’s autonomy while removing assurances that dowry and personal holdings would pass to her sons. Hence it is possible that tirades about sexual license mask deeper worries over what females might arbitrarily do with goods to which they held title. Romans had always engaged in a certain amount of doublethink regarding women’s ability to own and manage property. On the one hand, the Law of the Twelve Tables, Rome’s oldest legal code, stipulated that in the absence of a valid will the patrimony would be divided equally among the children who were its immediate heirs, without distinction of sex. Woman’s capacity for ownership was therefore recognized in law. On the other hand, women 14. Galinsky (1981) 141. 15. Edwards (1993) 57. 16. Gardner (1986) 175. Accordingly, McClintock (2013) 190, 192 theorizes that the lex Voconia sought to restrict the concept of “heir” to men by preventing a testator, male or female, from preferring a daughter to a son.

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who were independent (sui iuris, released from male control by the death of a father or husband) were still subject to fiscal oversight by a tutor, usually the closest male member of their natal family, designated the tutor legitimus. In the view of the second-​century ce jurist Gaius, this institution was ordained by early authorities because of female “frivolity” (levitas animi; Inst. 1.144–​ 150). While the actual reason was surely different,17 tutelage did impose restrictions on women’s financial freedom. Management decisions regarding real property, such as disposal of land or buildings, were subject to the approval of a third party charged with ensuring that family assets destined for blood relatives were not prematurely alienated through sale, gift, or bequest. Theoretically, then, women could not manumit slaves, contract obligations, endower daughters, or make valid wills without tutorial permission, a requirement that might restrict their ability even to provide for their own children. To be sure, ways were found to get around the rules, and Cicero’s letters show wealthy female contemporaries, including his own wife Terentia, conducting business independently without expressly seeking a tutor’s permission.18 However, Augustus’ establishment of the ius liberorum, a legal provision releasing freeborn mothers of three children from tutelage, suggests it was still considered a burden and its removal viewed as an inducement to childbearing.19 With the increased economic importance of women’s holdings came a change in the legal position of the wife within a marriage. Roman family law, as remarked previously, was grounded upon patria potestas, the life-​and-​death authority of the paterfamilias (the oldest member of the paternal line in direct descent) over all the members of his household, including his children. From the beginning, however, the law allowed for two kinds of marriage, cum manu and sine manu. In a cum manu marriage, control over the wife, or manus, was reassigned from her father to her new husband. Her dowry passed into

17.  According to Dixon (1984) 343, legal historians agree that the original intent of tutela mulierum perpetua was to safeguard the property rights of agnate male kin rather than to protect women financially. That it arose instead from belief in female incompetence, first off-​handedly suggested by Cicero (Mur. 12.27), gained acceptance in juristic theory and popular wisdom only after the institution itself had been greatly weakened. For further argument supporting Dixon’s position, see Gardner (1993) 89–​91. 18. Dixon (1984) 347. Later in his Institutes (1.190) Gaius himself observes that there is no valid reason for women of mature age to be under guardianship, noting that they commonly conduct their own affairs with the guardian’s authorization being treated as a matter of form, or even compelled by law, should a court find the request reasonable. 19. Evans (1991) 14–​15; Treggiari ([1991] 1993) 381–​382.

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the bridegroom’s ownership, and he was responsible for paying her personal expenses out of its proceeds. The bride became a member of her husband’s family and, for inheritance purposes, was treated the same as one of her own children: if the husband died without a valid will, she received a share equal to each of theirs. Upon his death she became legally independent. Though she was still required to have a tutor, the husband could name a sympathetic associate in his will or even allow her to choose her own tutor. Less unease surrounded the woman’s possession and management of property because it was assumed she would use it for the benefit of her children, who, like her, belonged to their father’s family and were her natural heirs. Larger and larger dowries, however, created an issue for the bride’s clan. Under cum manu marriage, a sizable amount of the patrimony became the irrevocable property of another household, depriving the bride’s siblings of their eventual claim upon it. As a result, the second kind of marriage, marriage sine manu, gradually became more popular. Under this arrangement, the father of the bride retained manus, and she herself remained a member of her natal family. While the groom held title to the dowry and received its income, the principal had to be returned to her family if the marriage ended through death or divorce, although a share could be kept back for the children.20 In a patriarchal culture, the subversive legal and social ramifications of so-​called free marriage were considerable. Husbands could not punish their wives for wrongdoing; the father alone possessed that right. Since the wife lived with her husband in another house, it was comparatively easy to escape paternal supervision. When a father died, his power over his daughter terminated, and she became legally independent with full ownership of her own properties. Under law, the holdings of wife and husband in a sine manu situation were separate; he had no say over what she did with her money. To prevent one party enriching the other at his or her own expense, gifts between marriage partners were forbidden (Ulp. Dig. 24.1.1). Hence spouses could not be pressured into contributing their own resources to further a husband’s political goals. All these circumstances obviously worked to the wife’s personal advantage.

20.  If a divorce was initiated by the wife herself or her paterfamilias, retentio propter liberos (withholding on behalf of offspring) allowed the husband to take back one-​sixth of the dowry for each child up to a maximum of three children. Children were thus recognized as having a claim on part of their mother’s capital should she dissociate herself from them (Treggiari [(1991) 1993] 338–​339).

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On the other hand, a woman’s children were regarded as belonging for custodial purposes solely to their father, who exercised patria potestas over them. A paterfamilias could arrange a marriage or emancipate a child without its mother’s consent, and if the mother died intestate (possibly because her tutor refused to approve her will) her estate succeeded to her siblings, not to her husband or children, who were members of a different family. Sine manu marriage legally ensured that ancestral land and buildings remained with the clan at the cost of the marital bond, which was weakened because husband and wife no longer had joint financial interests. Divorce, easily available to either partner under these conditions, likewise became more common as marriage alliances created to forge strategic ties fell victim to shifting political currents. Social expectations that a woman would use her means to maintain her children if necessary and would accordingly make a “dutiful will” passing the greater share of her dowry and goods on to them far exceeded the demands of the legal code,21 but, as we will see in the case of Cicero’s family, there were no guarantees. Yet, despite its likely adverse effects on spousal relationships and the increased autonomy it allowed women, the sine manu union was the standard type of marriage by the end of the Republic. That concern about the destabilizing impact of such legal and fiscal changes on individual families took the shape of free-​floating anxiety over women’s adultery is speculative, of course, but the inference is appealing.22 The less commitment a wife felt to her husband’s household, the more likely she was to form attachments elsewhere. Cicero’s domestic problems, reflected in his letters to Atticus, his confidante and agent, offer insight into the tensions that might arise in a sine manu partnership where a wife could manage her money without restrictions. The consul never suspected his wife of infidelity, as far as we know, but in his later years he does express grave misgivings over her handling of funds and the provisions she was making for their children. Terentia was a rich woman who had brought him a dowry of 400,000 sesterces, the property qualification at the time for entering the Senate and perhaps one resource he had employed when launching his career (Plut. Cic. 8.2).23 As an exile in 58 bce, facing confiscation of his own possessions and fearing that

21. Dixon (1986) 102–​111. 22.  Strong (2016) 23–​25 plausibly surmises that the literary archetype of the selfish courtesan, who has no family ties and chooses profit over the greater social good, informs Roman assumptions that women in charge of inherited wealth will squander it on personal enjoyments. 23. Treggiari (2007) 32.

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her dowry might be seized as well,24 he could only plead with her not to spend her wealth on his behalf: after he learns that she is planning to sell a housing block, he remonstrates: Et si nos premet eadem fortuna, quod puero misero fiet? . . . Vide ne puerum perditum perdamus (And if the same fortune befalls us, what will become of the poor boy? . . . Take care that we don’t ruin our already ruined son!; Fam. 14.1). Eleven years afterward, the combined stresses of physical separation, continued political turmoil, heavy financial pressures, and family troubles apparently tore the marriage apart.25 When, in June 47, Terentia voiced her plans to make a will (probably not for the first time), Cicero began to wonder what she would settle upon the children. According to her freedman steward Philotemus, she was “doing some things maliciously” (eam scelerate quaedam facere) and, though he doubted the truth of the report (credibile vix est, “it is hardly believable”), Cicero asked Atticus to intervene (Att. 11.16). Two months after that, another letter to Atticus gives clear evidence of mistrust: passing over “countless other matters” (mitto cetera quae sunt innumerabilia), he cites her shortchanging him in a small transaction as a sign of what she might do in a greater one (Att. 11.24). Following the divorce, there was mutual disagreement over arrangements for new wills, his and hers, necessitated by the death of their daughter Tullia and the birth of a short-​lived grandson. Terentia grumbled about not being invited to the signing of his document, while he accused her of avoiding witnesses who might question the content of hers: each, apparently, thought the other was making inadequate provisions for the infant (Att. 12.18a). Cicero’s increasing obstinacy and refusal to deal with what, on the surface, appear relatively minor complications may point to a long history of submerged resentment. In a free marriage, the husband’s ambiguous situation, in which the dowry was his and yet not his and where he had no actual say over his wife’s financial 24. Whether a wife’s dowry might be confiscated as punishment for a husband’s crime was a tricky point at law. Technically, dotal property passed into the husband’s ownership, but its status was equivocal (Dig. 23.3.75; Dixon [1986] 95–​97). In any case, as Claassen (1996) 212 points out, a decree of exile technically dissolved a marriage, making Cicero liable for returning it, an impossibility if his own property was forfeit. 25. Having chosen the wrong side in the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, Cicero was marooned in Brundisium during the winter of 48/​47 while Terentia managed his affairs at Rome. Plutarch (Cic. 41)  states that Terentia’s neglect of him during and after the war was the cause of their subsequent divorce, but recent scholarship tends to exculpate her (Claassen [1996]; Treggiari [2007] 129–​130). Conversely, Dixon (1986) believes Terentia was guilty of fraudulent dealings that came to light in 47. The predicament of Cicero’s daughter Tullia, trapped in an unhappy marriage, and his estrangement from his brother and nephew, who had both gone over to Caesar, created additional frictions that might also have contributed to the collapse of their union.

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decisions but still depended on her to help support and endow their offspring, easily created frustrations that would manifest as suspicions of peculation and downright betrayal in Cicero’s case26 and, in other marriages, possible qualms over irregular sexual behavior. Despite these deterrents, marriage sine manu was, as stated earlier, the norm when, in the wake of his successful victories over Antony and Cleopatra and his two administrative settlements of the state in 27 and 24 bce, the princeps Augustus embarked on a campaign of religious and moral reform. In the 30s, as triumvir, he had already initiated an ambitious program of temple restoration, including rebuilding the shrines of Patrician and Plebeian Chastity, a task delegated to his wife Livia. Having attained sole rule, he continued reconstructing sanctuaries (RG 20.4) and also built and dedicated other monumental sacred spaces, such as the Temple of Palatine Apollo. Now, in 18 bce, Augustus confronted head-​on the perceived issues of population decline among upper-​class families and a corresponding surge in marital infidelity. That year, as part of an extensive package of social legislation, he enacted two famous laws, the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus (later modified by the lex Papia Poppaea of 9 ce) and its companion piece, the lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis. The first strengthened class boundaries by prohibiting marriages between members of the senatorial class and former slaves and between all free-​ born citizens and infames, morally disgraced persons such as pimps, actresses, and criminals, including those convicted of adultery. It also encouraged procreation by offering rewards to parents of several children, career advantages for men and freedom from tutelage for women, while penalizing the celibate and childless though inheritance restrictions. Single persons of child-​ producing age were forbidden to accept bequests from any testator other than relatives within the sixth degree, and married persons without children were limited to taking half of a bequest from a nonfamily member. Since leaving legacies to friends in public recognition of the beneficiary’s services was an established custom in elite circles,27 that sanction was not a trivial one.

26. In a letter to Cn. Plancius, Cicero bemoans the crime (scelus) of those he had benefited, complains that he saw “nothing within my walls safe for me, nothing free of traps,” and explains his recent second marriage in this way: novarum me necessitudinum fidelitate contra veterum perfidiam muniendum putavi (I thought I ought to strengthen myself by the loyalty of new connections against the treachery of old ones; Fam. 4.14, winter of 46/​45). 27. Champlin (1991) 12–​13, 142–​150. On Augustus’ accompanying ideological promotion of marriage and procreation to safeguard the state, consult the first chapter of Wheeler-​Reed (2017).

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Meanwhile, the second law repressed adultery and stuprum by making them civil offenses to be tried in a standing criminal court.28 Procedures for prosecution were spelled out in detail. Stipulations allowed a father, exercising his potestas, to kill both culprits caught in the act in the father’s or husband’s house. Husbands were not permitted to kill their wives and could kill the adulterer only if he was of low (slave, freedman) or disgraced status. Otherwise, a husband who became aware of his wife’s adultery had to divorce her immediately, since under law a woman still married could not be accused of a transgression committed during that marriage. Either he or her father, as paterfamilias, was then obligated to bring a charge against her within sixty days. If he failed to divorce her, he himself could be prosecuted for lenocinium, conventionally labeled “pandering” but more accurately defined as being complicit with her crime. Should neither husband nor father exercise his responsibility to indict her within the allotted time, a third party might do so in the hope of receiving a portion of the confiscated goods if she was condemned. Parties were liable to prosecution for up to five years from the date of the supposed offense; after that no action could be brought. These points of law were much discussed by ancient jurists who wrote treatises on them,29 and they still arouse considerable scholarly debate. The law prescribed that the two parties involved could not be tried simultaneously (Cod. Iust. 9.9.8). Gardner reckons that the woman, if single, was usually prosecuted first, but if she was married a prosecutor could bring charges against her suspected partner.30 If he was acquitted, she could not be charged; if found guilty, she could then be indicted even though married, but might be pronounced innocent despite the earlier verdict.31 I will not go into the parts of the statute that dealt with persons apprehended in adultery or accused in court, as my focus is on the criminal penalties, chiefly financial, imposed after trial upon those convicted. The differential treatment meted out to male and female offenders indicates that the latter may have been the primary intended targets.

28. For an overview of debates surrounding the statute, see Raditsa (1980) 310–​319; on its various provisions, the discussion of McGinn (1998) 140–​215 is authoritative. 29. See the opinions assembled in Dig. 48.5.1–​45. 30. Gardner (1986) 128. 31. Treggiari ([1991] 1993) 286.

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Our information about fiscal penalties comes from a late but presumably reliable source, the postclassical Opinions (Sententiae) falsely ascribed to a famous Severan-​period lawyer, Julius Paulus: Adulterii convictas mulieres dimidia parte dotis et tertia parte bonorum ac relegatione in insulam placuit coerceri:  adulteris vero viris pari in insulam relegatione dimidiam bonorum partem auferri, dummodo in diversas insulas relegentur. (Paulus, Sent. 2.26.14) It has been held that women convicted of adultery shall be punished with the loss of half of their dowry and a third of their estates, and by relegation to an island. Adulterous males, however, shall be deprived of half their property, and shall also be punished by relegation to an island, provided the parties are exiled to different islands. We do not know whether deportation to an island was permanent or temporary, though prohibition of remarriage and the loss of capacity to testify in court may imply that an eventual return to society was envisioned.32 In any case, although both partners in crime are punished, the financial damage visited upon the adulteress was considerably greater. The amount of dowry confiscated went far beyond the one-​sixth granted to the injured husband before the law was put in place; in addition, she lost a sizable portion of her private property. From other sources, we learn that she was forbidden to remarry a freeborn Roman citizen (Ulp. Dig. 48.5.30.1). If she did, her new husband was liable to a charge of lenocinium, and if convicted adulterous lovers married, the union was null and void (Pap. Dig. 34.9.13). She was consequently subject to the restrictions on inheritance visited upon single persons. There were attendant nonmonetary punishments. As convicted criminals, both wrongdoers were branded with infamia, which carried with it legal disabilities such as incapacity to testify in court.33 One further indignity was gender-​specific: stripped of the symbolic dress of a matron, the woman was obliged to wear the toga, the professional garb of a prostitute. The social effect of this last regulation was to draw a strictly defined line between two classes of women, the respectable materfamilias and the nonrespectable sex

32. Sehling (1883) 162. 33. On the convicted adulteress’s inability to testify, see Ulp. Dig. 28.1.20.6. Whether infamia removed the capacity to make a will was debated; although this was legal doctrine by Justinian’s time (Inst. 2.10.6), Gardner (1993) 118–​23 considers it a post-​Augustan development.

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worker (who, as a female with no virtue to lose, was exempt from the adultery law), and permanently to isolate the adulteress by conflating her with the latter group.34 Public shaming reinforced the class degradation imposed by depriving her of property. What happened to her confiscated wealth? In the late Republic, the assets of persons found guilty of crimes against the state were appropriated and sold at auction.35 From a passage in Suetonius’ biography (Div. Aug. 41.1), we learn that in the Principate profits “from the goods of those condemned” (ex damnatorum bonis) passed into Augustus’ hands and became part of the fiscus, his private account. In like manner, the belongings of those who died intestate without kin or whose heirs and legatees were ineligible to receive bequests under the lex Iulia et Papia (the combined specifications of the inheritance legislation of 18 bce and 9 ce) were treated as bona caduca (escheatable goods) and claimed for the fiscus (Ulp. Tit. 28.7).36 Tacitus famously casts the latter regulation in the worst possible light. His excursus on the growth of the complex Roman legal system culminates in a sinister picture of an oppressive government policing the private lives of citizens, forcing compliance with its objectives by a system of informants and enriching itself through repossession: sexto demum consulatu Caesar Augustus, potentiae securus, quae triumviratu iusserat abolevit deditque iura quis pace et principe uteremur. acriora ex eo vincla, inditi custodes et lege Papia Poppaea praemiis inducti ut, si a privilegiis parentum cessaretur, velut parens omnium populus vacantia teneret. sed altius penetrabant urbemque et Italiam et quod usquam civium corripuerant, multorumque excisi status. et terror omnibus intentabatur. (Ann. 3.28) Finally, in his sixth consulate, Caesar Augustus, secure in his power, abolished what he had ordered during his triumvirate and laid down laws by which we might avail ourselves of peace and a princeps. From that time on our bonds were tighter; spies were introduced and induced by rewards under the lex Papia Poppaea, so that if men balked at assuming the privileges of parents, the state, as parent of all, might lay 34. McGinn (1998) 156–​171. 35. Millar (1977) 163–​165. 36.  On the historical precedent for Augustus’ exercise of a claim to ownerless or invalidly bequeathed properties, see Millar (1977) 158–​163.

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claim to their vacant estates. But the informants were spreading deeper into Rome and Italy and because they had preyed upon citizens everywhere the status of many was ruined. Fear threatened all. On the strength of this testimony, some might suppose that, in addition to the laudable aims of promoting family life and increasing manpower, Augustus’ motives for introducing legislation included the less laudable object of lining his own pockets. We must remember, though, that Tacitus, writing under a later dynasty, had little incentive to commend the founder of the Julio-​ Claudian regime. Furthermore, largesse was expected of a great man. Suetonius testifies to Augustus’ redistribution of confiscated property to members of the upper classes. Some surplus revenues aided those whose estates, though large, were not readily converted into cash if needed: limited-​term interest-​free loans were offered to borrowers able to pledge twice the amount in collateral (usum eius gratuitum iis, qui cavere in duplum possent, ad certum tempus indulsit; Div. Aug. 41.1). Other monies went to help disadvantaged nobility; when the property qualification for the Senate was raised to one million sesterces, those in that body whose holdings fell short were granted funds to make up the deficit. Incentives to continue an illustrious line were also offered. To the impoverished grandson of the orator Hortensius Augustus provided the equivalent of a senatorial fortune so that he could marry and father children, ne clarissima familia extingueretur (lest a most distinguished household be obliterated; Tac. Ann. 2.37). When subsequently requested to subsidize the Hortensii a second time, Augustus’ successor Tiberius protested that the original grant was intended as a one-​time-​only disbursement. Nevertheless, he finally settled limited amounts on the sons (Ann. 2.38). Later, he reaffirmed Augustus’ intentions when he passed the vacant estates of two citizens dying without wills or apparent immediate heirs on to remoter kin instead of appropriating them for the fiscus. Tacitus reports his justification: nobilitatem utriusque pecunia iuvandam praefatus (the good birth of each man ought to be bolstered by wealth; Ann. 2.48). It reflects a prevalent conviction that affiliates of leading houses deserve the income to support an aristocratic lifestyle. Tacitus had labeled Augustus’ benevolence to Hortensius “generosity” (liberalitas), a virtue essential to monarchs,37 and he calls Tiberius’ acts by the same name, since the emperor had no legal obligation to turn over those windfalls.

37. Millar (1977) 133–​134.

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Andrew Wallace-​Hadrill perceives related aims at work in the provisions of the lex Iulia et Papia imposing inheritance limitations on unmarried and childless persons. Military recruitment, he argues, was merely an ideological justification for the marriage law. Its practical intent was to stabilize the devolution of patrimonies within elite families from one generation to the next, ensuring continuity of rank and status. The legislation presupposes intense social pressure to leave legacies to extranei, persons outside the family, in recognition of benefits conferred through patronage. Under the Roman patronage system, a childless individual “had the advantage in securing services that could lift him to wealth and power; and what Augustus does is to cut him out of the chain of inheritance, so that he does not also enjoy the patron’s advantages of bequests.”38 Legacies outside a direct or, failing that, a lateral line of descent are confined to heirs with dependents, who will eventually succeed to a parent’s property. Legacy-​hunting by the childless was thus impeded and established families assured of adequate resources. If we assume that the adultery law had comparable objectives, part of the property taken from offenders may have been restored to family members, lessening the inadvertent harm done to innocent persons. Some concessions are specifically prescribed in law. Injured husbands could still claim one-​sixth of the dowry for the wrong they had suffered. They were assured of the right to protect their own interests by bringing a suit against the fiscus (Pap. Dig. 48.20.4). Jurists also acknowledged that the state ought to pay back a portion of a condemned parent’s estate to the children (Paul. Dig. 48.20.7).39 If natural heirs were themselves parents of at least one child, the argument for reimbursement would be even stronger. While the jurists do not tell us explicitly that such repayments occurred, it seems likely from the similar disposition of legacies that selective compensation may have taken place. Because the choice of recipients was at the discretion of the emperor, married men as heads of households would have naturally been the preferred beneficiaries. Other legal structures ensured that assets remaining in the hands of the convicted woman would no longer be misused. If her father was alive, her property, of course, belonged to him and she would be dependent upon an allowance (peculium), and, if she was sui iuris, her tutor would exercise

38. Wallace-​Hadrill (1981) 68. 39. In the second century ce an imperial rescript limited this concession to those whose entire parental estates had been confiscated (Call. Dig. 48.20.3).

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surveillance. While she might not be left entirely destitute, relegation to an island meant that luxury goods were probably not even available; after her recall, her disgraced condition discouraged public visibility and consequent expenditure. Participation in civic religious cult, particularly matronal cult, was out of the question. Divorced, and unable to remarry a freeborn citizen, she was left socially invisible, as a woman’s status followed that of her husband.40 What remained of her dowry after penalties were extracted became hers after her father’s death, but, since she could not remarry, it was useless for all practical purposes. If she had children, her most pressing obligation would have been to make a will properly disposing of her belongings. Every consideration must have encouraged her to live quietly in retirement, calling no attention to herself. Women surviving under those circumstances were, even more than most, in the position of mere conduits through whom estates would pass without profiting their nominal owner. For well-​off matrons of the Augustan age and later, then, inherited riches may have become something of a mixed blessing and administering them a balancing act. In the second century bce the Greek historian Polybius could describe Scipio Africanus’ widow Aemilia parading in a ritual procession through the streets of Rome with an imposing retinue, the sumptuousness of her religious paraphernalia a reminder of her husband’s triumph over Hannibal (Hist. 31.26.3–​5). Augustus’ moral legislation arguably encouraged greater circumspection, because flaunting wealth, in combination with even the vaguest gossip, might awaken invidia (jealousy) and invite prosecution.41 Lavish consumption continued to be a vice, if we can believe imperial moralists, but the venue of display had shifted to the convivium and the male voluptuary is the chief target of reproach.42 But a cultural link between female affluence and dubious morality persisted. Reporting the death of the septuagenarian matriarch Ummidia Quadratilla, Pliny the Younger sniffs that her fondness for her troupe of pantomime actors was ill-​advised in a lady of her class: [eos] fovebatque effusius quam principi feminae convenit (and she used to favor them more unabashedly than suits a high-​ranking woman; Ep. 7.24.4). The louche connotations of pantomime—​both the risqué nature of the genre and the close association in the public mind between actors and prostitution—​could blemish a 40. Gardner (1993) 148. 41. Treggiari ([1991] 1993) 297. 42. Edwards (1993) 173–​206.

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widowed matron’s character irrevocably. While he also disparages the public attention she received at their performances, Pliny neglects to mention her civic benefactions to her hometown of Casinum, including restoration of the very theater in which those mimes performed.43 In the end, though, even Ummidia can be redeemed. She made an exemplary will, Pliny reports, leaving two-​thirds of her estate to her promising adult grandson and the remaining third to her granddaughter, with only a small gratuity (corollarium) bestowed upon her pantomimes. Consequently, he delights in “the pietas of the dead woman, the honor paid to an excellent young man.” Property, in short, is back where it belongs, unalienated and unadulterated, ready to advance another distinguished senatorial career. For that, Pliny, like any other right-​thinking Roman paterfamilias, is relieved and grateful, and, we may conjecture, if Augustus’ legislation had anything to do with Ummidia’s final testament, so much the better.

43. On the inscriptional evidence for Ummidia’s donations to Casinum, see Hemelrijk (2015) 109–​111. Sick (1999) argues that her investment in slave entertainers might have been a shrewd financial venture.

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Social Laws and Social Facts Kristina Milnor

Sarah Pomeroy ’s Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves ends with an epistemological chapter entitled “The Elusive Women of Classical Antiquity,”1 in which the author addresses our lack of knowledge about ancient women’s lives, where it comes from, and whether it might be redressed. Pomeroy opens this exploration by noting Cassius Dio’s assertion that, in Rome in 18 bce, there were more men among the upper classes than women: ὁ δ᾽οὖν Αὔγουστος ἄλλα τε ἐνομοθέτησε, καὶ τοὺς δεκάσαντας τινας ἐπὶ ταῖς ἀρχαῖς ἐς πέντε ἔτη αὐτῶν εἶρξε. τοῖς τε ἀγάμοις καὶ ταῖς ἀνάνδροις βαρύτερα τὰ ἐπιτίμια ἐπέταξε, καὶ ἔμπαλιν τοῦ τε γάμου καὶ τῆς παιδοποιί ας ἆθλα ἔθηκεν. ἐπειδή τε πολὺ πλεῖον τὸ ἄρρεν τοῦ θήλεος τοῦ εὐγενοῦς ἦν, ἐπέτρεψε καὶ ἐξελευθέρας τοῖς ἐθέλουσι, πλὴν τῶν βουλευόντων, ἄγεσθαι, ἔννομον τὴν τεκνοποιίαν αὐτῶν εἶναι κελεύσας. (Rom. Hist. 54.16.2) Among the laws that Augustus enacted was one which provided that those who had bribed anyone in order to gain office should be debarred from office for five years. He laid heavier assessment upon the unmarried men and upon the women without husbands, and on the other hand offered prizes for marriage and the begetting of children. And since among the nobility there were far more males than females, he allowed all who wished, except the senators, to marry freedwomen, and ordered that their offspring should be held legitimate. (E. Cary trans. [Loeb]) 1. Pomeroy ([1975] 1995) 227–​230. Kristina Milnor, Social Laws and Social Facts In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0012

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Assessing the truth value of this statement, as Pomeroy discusses it with characteristic seriousness and insight, is an issue at once real and representational; that is, it is necessary to determine the actual historical influences on the survival of girls and women at all stages of life and to examine the processes by which women’s very existence is systematically excluded from the historical record. One question that Pomeroy does not ask, however, is why Dio might have chosen to impart this piece of information where he does; in other words, not just why are women absent, but why are they present in the historical record at specific times and places. One reason Pomeroy may not have considered this particular question is that she identifies herself as a social historian and is thus emerging from a scholarly tradition that sees historical presence as the unmarked category. That is, historians generally and understandably default to the position that if something happened, and we are to know it happened, its traces (however exiguous) must be able to be seen, identified, and studied. On the other hand, even the most optimistic of feminist historians must admit that women will never have as much purchase on the ancient record as men do. Thus, once we have told the stories of female actors, which are there in the ancient evidence but have been suppressed by modern prejudice, we are left with telling the stories of ancient prejudice, explaining why there are so few stories to be told. In the same way that the history of homosexuality sometimes regrettably becomes the history of homophobia, women’s history sometimes devolves into the history of misogyny. This is a difficult situation and one which in the years since the publication of Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, has been tackled in a number of different ways. One is to see the project of women’s history as challenging not just the content of our ancient histories—​both the ones written then and the ones written now—​but their epistemology. Women’s history forces us to ask not just what we know to have happened but how we know it, what structures of knowledge allow us to see it and not to see other things.2 As one example of this approach, we may take the very fact from Dio with which Pomeroy opens her epistemological exploration. Dio makes his statement about the relative number of males and females in the Roman elite as part of his description of the Augustan social legislation—​those laws that were passed in 18–​17 bce to regulate certain aspects of Roman domestic life. The lex Iulia de adulteriis formally outlawed adultery for the first time and 2. For two excellent summaries of the influence of feminist approaches on ancient history, see Dixon (2001) 3–​28 and Richlin ([1993] 2014).

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imposed a system of penalties on both those who committed the act and those who were seen to have colluded in it; the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus, so called, established certain incentives for marriage and child rearing but also restricted intermarriage between senatorial families and other classes of person (actors, children of actors, those caught in adultery, freedpeople).3 It is this last part of the legislation to which Dio’s comment refers, putting a positive spin on the strictures by noting that it was only senatorial families who were prevented from marrying freedpeople. In fact, the historian remarks, it was because of the paucity of females among the nobility that the law was passed to allow men, except those from senatorial families, to marry freedwomen and produce legitimate children. Whether Dio’s information about the relative numbers of elite Roman men and women is actually true is a matter of some debate. Pomeroy is inclined to believe him, as are many other historians, in part because of other, albeit “crude and haphazard,”4 data which seem to show that men outnumbered women in antiquity generally. More recently, Thomas McGinn5 has argued in favor of Dio by systematically dismantling Jens-​Uwe Krause’s demographic arguments6 against a gender imbalance in the Roman Empire—​although it might be noted that the lack of evidence against something does not translate to evidence for it. Other historians, such as Beryl Rawson7 and Susan Treggiari,8 are more skeptical of Dio. Treggiari notes that if Augustus was actually concerned with the lack of women among the elite, he would have attacked what most scholars see as the central cause of the gender imbalance: the abandonment of female babies. McGinn9 retorts that Augustus may simply have taken a more direct path to his goal by increasing the numbers of marriageable women immediately rather than waiting for a new generation of (unabandoned) female babies to grow up. And so it goes. Pomeroy’s discussion from 1975 still ranks as one of the most balanced, considered, and compelling in all of this scholarly back-​and-​forth.

3. For a discussion, see McGinn (2002) esp. 50–​57, and Marilyn Skinner in this volume. 4. Pomeroy ([1975] 1995) 227. 5. McGinn (2004). 6. Krause (1994). 7. Rawson (1986), 1–​57. 8. Treggiari (1996). 9. McGinn (2004) 202.

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But one thing on which people on both sides of the issue seem to agree is that, whatever its truth value, no one can say where Dio—​writing two centuries after the fact—​got his information. It certainly doesn’t appear in any of the other historians who discuss the social legislation or its time period, although, of course, there are many texts that would have been available to Dio which are lost to us. On the other hand, Dio’s point is curiously inconsistent, both with the way that the social legislation is discussed in other ancient historians and with the actual terms of the laws themselves. That is, historians generally in antiquity saw the marriage provisions in the social legislation as restrictive rather than permissive; that is, they were focused, to people’s displeasure, on preventing certain marriages rather than encouraging others. Suetonius tells us that Augustus had to revise the lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus in the face of mass resistance (prae tumultu recusantium) and, even after relaxing some of its harsher provisions, still had to face down a mob in the theater calling for the law’s repeal.10 Tacitus describes Augustus’ motivations in passing the laws as “to bolster the penalties for celibacy and augment his budget” (incitandis caelibum poenis et augendo aerario) and then later, as “chains” (vincla) that allow the people to take over the role of parent (Tacitus, Ann. 3.25–​28). Moreover, all of the references to the law in the jurists—​which admittedly reflect not just Augustus’ original but its multiply revised later versions—​ refer exclusively to the people who are forbidden from marrying rather than those who were now permitted to do so. Thus, for example, Paulus (Dig. 23.2.44.pr) writes, “[N]‌o senator, senator’s son, grandson through his son, or great-​grandson through his son and grandson now and in future existing shall knowingly and with wrongful intention become engaged to or marry a freedwoman.”11 Dio’s focus, therefore, on the enabling of marriages rather than their prevention is inconsistent with other ancient accounts. In addition, by suggesting that Augustus was motivated by the paucity of women in the elite classes, Dio also ignores some important aspects of the laws themselves. First, the law seems to have lowered the age of first marriage for men but not for women (it stipulates that men must marry by twenty-​five and women by twenty), which would have exacerbated a gender imbalance rather than mitigated it. Second, the law did not permit—​or restrict, depending on your perspective—​marriage 10. Suetonius, Div. Aug. 34. 11. Qui senator est quive filius neposve ex filio proneposve ex filio nato cuius eorum est erit, ne quis eorum sponsam uxoremve sciens dolo malo habeto libertinam aut eam, quae ipsa cuiusve pater materve artem ludicram facit fecerit; translation and discussion: McGinn (2002) 86.

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just between men and women, but also between women and men; Paulus tells us that the restrictions on the marriage of senatorial males also held true for senatorial females, which presumably means that subsenatorial women could now marry freedmen as well as the other way around. But Dio refers only to Augustus’ permitting elite men to marry freedwomen. Given these inconsistencies with other historical information, as well as the fact that we can identify no ancient source for Dio’s assertion, the provocative suggestion has been made (by Beryl Rawson,12 but accepted by others) that Dio may simply have been extrapolating from the content of the law. That is, he saw that intermarriage was now permitted between subsenatorial elites and freedpeople and drew the conclusion that Augustus must have been attempting to solve the problem of female underpopulation. This does not, of course, necessarily mean that he was wrong; indeed, as Pomeroy so cogently argues, there are good reasons to believe that he was right. But what I would like to suggest here—​and I think that this is the direction in which studies of ancient women have gone in the past forty years, but to my mind could go further—​is that the rightness or wrongness of Dio’s assertion is probably not the most interesting thing about it. That is, given the fact that its actual truth value is so debatable, it seems to me that what is illustrated by Dio’s comment is not so much a fact about the historical context of the social legislation but rather how the social legislation itself generated historical facts, and particularly historical facts about women. Dio, I would argue, had little information about women in the Augustan period, and yet there they are, enshrined in the social legislation’s marriage stipulations for all to see and wonder about! An ancient historian might well be forgiven for imagining some demographic data to fill in the background, to explain this peculiar eruption of femininity and domestic concerns into the sober masculine precincts of the canon of Roman law. By way of support for this idea, I should note that we have an example of the same process occurring in the modern day in regard to a different aspect of the social legislation. Up until a few years ago, no one would have questioned the notion that the lex Iulia de adulteriis—​the law that formally outlawed adultery for the first time—​was passed in reaction to the indiscriminate sexual behavior of elite Roman women under the late Republic.13 “Evidence” of these loose morals was readily found in the poetry of the Latin

12. Rawson (1986) 49 n. 51. 13. Syme (1939) 443–​445.

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elegists, whose work testifies—​allegedly—​to the existence of a demimonde wherein married women regularly dallied with poets and then broke their hearts.14 Nowadays, however, under the influence of feminist and other critical theories, we read the elegists differently and have also come to a different understanding of the adultery law.15 Whatever Augustus’ motivation might have been (demographic, ideological, paternalistic), few people today would argue that the existence of a law about adultery necessarily testifies to the existence of a problem with adultery.16 Again, though, as with Dio, we see the ways in which the social legislation demands that we generate social historical facts to give real-​world context to its peculiarly authoritative yet entirely uninformative statements about the lives of women. Of course, in some ways the question of real social historical cause and effect is no different for the social legislation than for any other law passed by the Roman Senate. But I  would argue that the case of women and the Augustan social legislation is particularly acute—​a particularly fertile site for the generation and regeneration of historical facts—​for two reasons. First, we have the very real vacuum of historical information in regard to the lives of ancient women. This was, as I suggested, almost as true in antiquity as it is today: with a very few exceptions, the ability of ancient men to write the stories of their foremothers was as compromised by the lack of authoritative sources as is ours. Thus, they too were forced to read backward through the legislation and imagine the female lives it governed. Second, though, is the nature of the Augustan laws themselves. Whatever else one may think of the social legislation—​its motivations, aims, and effects—​it appears peculiarly focused on the roles and behavior of women. Our one textual reference to it at the time of its passage, by Horace in the Carmen Saeculare, calls it decreta super iugandis /​feminis (the decrees about marrying women; 18–​19). In a similar vein, Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ description of the social legislation of Romulus—​widely seen as influenced by contemporary Augustan politics17—​ explicitly says that laws concerning marriage are necessary “because of

14. For example, Luck (1969) 22–​24. 15. Milnor (2005) 150–​154. 16.  I  am reminded of one of my favorite Onion headlines from a few years ago:  “New Bill Would Defend Marriage from Sharks,” September 19, 2006, accessed March 24, 2017, http://​ www.theonion.com/​article/​new-​bill-​would-​defend-​marriage-​from-​sharks-​2047. 17. For example, Balsdon (1971).

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women.”18 Laws generally may gesture toward and attempt to control certain social identities and relationships, but the Augustan legislation is unusual in its strong, almost exclusive focus on women. Moreover, the social legislation does not just represent women as a group; it also depends on and enforces the existence of certain classes of women: those worthy of marriage and not, those sexually available and those off-​limits. This is particularly evident in the case of the adultery legislation, which standardizes categories such as materfamilias and prostitute, a move that was critical to the law’s functioning, since it was the status of the woman, rather than the man, which defined a sexual act as adulterous. In addition, the laws also insisted that these social categories needed to be visible, a goal it achieved by mandating specific distinctive clothing for respectable women and prostitutes.19 Thus, the laws not only purport to “know” certain things about women—​which were good ones, which were bad, which were worthy of marriage, which were not—​but they sought to extend that knowledge to others, creating a language of visible virtue that might be seen and understood by the population at large. This “publication” of women’s domestic lives was particularly horrifying to Tacitus, who describes the laws’ effects as a violation of the integrity of the Roman home: “[E]‌very home was being undermined by the investigations of informers. Thus, as much as up to that point it had labored under the weight of its sins, now the house was burdened by the laws.”20 The word Tacitus uses here for the activities of the informers, interpretationes, is untranslatable to sensible English, but the historian’s point is clear: the informers have been tasked with “reading” Roman homes, with interpreting what is going on there and translating it for the state. In other words, Tacitus brilliantly implies, the laws do not just depend on the existence of certain knowledge about women and their lives; they actually also generate more knowledge, more meanings, more facts which spread outward from them like ripples in a pond. In this sense, Dio’s act of interpretatio (if such it was) is fully in keeping with the behavior the laws sought to encourage: they want us to wonder, worry even, about the lives of women, to turn our attention to the female members of Roman society and continue to try to guess what they were up to. Looking back to Pomeroy, then, I would say that her use

18. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.24.4. 19. McGinn (1998) 144–​145. 20. Ceterum multitudo periclitantium gliscebat, cum omnis domus delatorum interpretationibus subverteretur, utque antehac flagitiis ita tunc legibus laborabatur; Tac. Ann. 3. 25.

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of Dio’s comment as a springboard for a discussion of epistemological issues is remarkably apt. In Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, she was interested in establishing a framework of facts within which we might understand the lives of women in classical antiquity—​facts that had been obscured, ignored, and misinterpreted for hundreds, if not thousands of years. She did a great job, and, as I said, her discussion of the various influences on the “fact” that Dio adduces about the relative numbers of men and women in the Augustan age is sensible, balanced, and compelling. Forty-​some years on, however, I  think we have come to the point where we can also question the fact of Dio’s fact—​not just its facticity or historical truth value but how it functions within an epistemological framework that wrote women’s stories then and is still writing them now. This is not to dismiss the part of women’s history that seeks to recover lost knowledge about ancient female lives. Rather it is to suggest that in the forty-​plus years since the original publication of Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves—​and at least in part because of the epistemological challenges presented by the study of women in antiquity—​we have gained a better understanding of how both knowing and not knowing must be taken into account when writing the story of classical antiquity.

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The Woman in the Street Becoming Visible in Mid-​R epublican  Rome Amy Richlin

Becoming Visible was a classic in the new feminist history of the 1970s, but for some historical periods visibility has been slow in coming. Current treatments of Roman political culture tend to erase not only women but poor people and slaves.1 We know women were always there and always constituted half the population, more or less; yet, for long stretches of history, they are invisible. This is a wrong that must be righted. The problem was stated best by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey, as her heroine, Catherine Morland, explains why it is that she does not like to read history: “I read it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences, in every page; the men all so good-​for-​nothing, and hardly any women at all—​it is very tiresome; and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.” Just so. It is not just that women are omitted; it is clear that they are deliberately omitted, since historians are the ones who choose what they put in. Even Livy complained about the tendency of historians to fib; as he put it,

1. Many thanks to the editors; to Patricia Johnston and her colleagues at Boston University for their invitation to present this material at the Boston Area Roman Studies Conference in 2015, especially to Zsuzsanna Várhelyi, Ann Vasaly, and my co-​presenter, Barbara Gold; to my fellow panelists at Feminism & Classics VII, Dorota Dutsch, Ann Feltovich, Sharon James, and Erin Moodie; and above all to Sarah Pomeroy, who taught me how to give a talk and from whose work I have learned so much over the years. Translations throughout are my own; references to comedy are to the plays of Plautus. Amy Richlin, The Woman in the Street In: New Directions in the Study of Women in the Greco-​Roman World. Edited by: Ronnie Ancona and Georgia Tsouvala, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780190937638.003.0013

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adeo nullus mentiendi modus est (there is just no limit to their lying; 26.49.3). He was worried about casualty figures, but the kind of history he and his sources were writing is in many ways fictional. Even when he puts women in, we have to ask: Is this for real? This is a problem we will come back to as we look for the woman in the street: an ordinary woman, going about her business, interacting with the street scene. In recent work on Plautus, I argue that Roman comedy gives a bottom-​ up view of its times, and that Roman comedy—​the palliata—​developed in Italy from around 270 to 200 bce, on into the 190s–​180s. This model pushes the conventional start date for Latin literature back by several decades, but even the few fragments of Livius Andronicus’ comedies incorporate comic formulae. Plautus, then, who was born in the 250s, along with Livius and Naevius (both dead by 200), was using material that was developed during that earlier period—​a period filled with war. A timeline of the 200s bce through the reputed date of Plautus’ death (184) shows many city sackings and mass enslavements contemporary with the development of Roman drama. Rome had armies in the field almost every year between 343 and 242, as did many Italian cities, so that any individual’s experience of city sacking would have been within a few degrees of separation.2 The list of wars in which Rome was involved featured the Third Samnite War (297–​290), the war against Pyrrhus (280–​275), the First Punic War (264–​241), and the Second Punic War (220–​ 202); even in the gaps, there were major military events going on in the Italian peninsula and abroad: the invasion of Sardinia (235), the First Illyrian War (229), invasions from the North by Celtic tribes. The First Macedonian War was undertaken during the Second Punic War (214). The century ended with the start of the Second Macedonian War. The Second Punic War alone lasted eighteen years, and, for all but the last year or so, the Italian peninsula was occupied by Carthaginian armies under Hannibal: three times longer than the occupation of France in World War II. If a troupe of actors was walking down a road in Italy at any point in the 200s bce, they would have met up with groups of refugees whose town had been sacked or their land appropriated. They might have come from Compulteria, Trebula, Austicula in 215 (Livy 23.39.6); from Compulteria, Telesia, Compsa, Fugifulae, Orbitanium, Blanda or Aecae or Acuca in 214 (24.20.4–​5, 8). Near Locri in 215, “every day a greater crowd of them poured out from every 2. For a survey of mass enslavements in this period, see Volkmann (1990), supplemented for Italy by Harris (1979) 59 n. 4; for the timeline, see Richlin (2017) 481–​491. On Rome’s armies in the field, see Oakley (2005) 20.

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gate  .  .  .  a crowd mixed up of every age and class, wandering in the fields, mostly unarmed” (multitudo, multitudinem; 24.1.3, 4). Hannibal burned Herdonea to the ground and moved the “crowd” to Thurii and Metapontum (multitudine; 27.1.14). The people of Nuceria and Acerrae had nowhere to go after Acerrae was partly burned down and Nuceria destroyed; the Nucerians were moved to Atella and the Atellans were moved to Calatia (27.3.6–​7). The same conditions applied everywhere; when the Roman army landed in North Africa in 204, the roads out of the coastal cities were blocked by crowds mixed with “lines of women and boys” and cattle (29.28.3). In Acarnania in 210, as an Aetolian invasion loomed, wives and children and men over sixty were sent across the border into Epirus, while men from fifteen to sixty stayed to fight (26.25.11). Some refugees were allowed to leave their homes just with what they could carry, as when Hannibal offered the Saguntines their bodies “unviolated” if they left the town with no more than two sets of clothing apiece, unarmed (corpora . . . inviolata, si inermes cum binis vestimentis; 21.13.7, cf. 23.15.3 at Nuceria—​less generous).3 In all the towns the actors came to there would have been people in the audience like these, along with the newly enslaved. Every town would have been full of those violently displaced by the wars and what went along with war: the enslavement of captives after an army sacks a town—​often only the women and children, who have to watch when the men are killed; the poverty that can make a family abandon a child, who is then picked up and enslaved; the kidnapping and human trafficking that thrive when the world is at war. Women had particular cause for concern. Kathy Gaca, in a string of searing articles, has put together notices of the rape of women and girls by soldiers, from Homer through the Byzantine period, and has juxtaposed them with atrocities we know took place during wars in our own time.4 Women lost male kin in the army, to death or enslavement. When a city was taken, the slaves were usually part of the spoils, so a slave-​woman might endure a second deracination. It is sometimes argued that wars are good for women in a material sense, in that wealth might accumulate in their hands, as Aristotle claimed it did in Sparta (Politics 1270a23–​25). It is true that some men profited by the Second Punic War, particularly those whom Philip Kay calls “Rome’s

3. For a full picture of the devastation caused by the wars of the 200s, see Brunt (1971); Erdkamp (1998); Toynbee (1965). 4. See Gaca (2010–​2011, 2011, 2014, 2015).

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aristocratic plutocracy.”5 Some Roman women, as will be seen, had enough gold that they could contribute to fund drives during this war, enough that the Oppian Law was passed in 215 to limit women’s displays of wealth; and women famously lobbied for repeal of the Oppian Law when the war was over and the city was afloat on the tidal wave of money from the Carthaginian indemnity (195 bce).6 It is safe to say that war was not good for most women. These people needed a laugh, and the palliata grew up to meet that need. Plautine comedy features many female characters—​mostly slave-​women, a few freedwomen, some memorable matronae. If we want to think about what women were doing in the 200s in central Italy, we can look in the palliata (which I do not take to be actually Greek, or actually set in an earlier time, or no-​time). This matters, because there are few other places to look. All the surviving histories of the period come from much later. Polybius is the best, but much of what he wrote is lost, and he was writing in the mid-​100s bce; Livy wrote over a century later. Polybius was exiled to Italy soon after 168 bce, so he could have known survivors of the Second Punic War, which ended in 202—​only a thirty-​four-​year gap. Still, he was not really contemporary, nor was he at all concerned to include ordinary women as political agents in history. Comedy both staged women and played to women, so that we can get a secondhand idea of what made women laugh in mid-​Republican Rome and how that fits with their political culture.

Astaphium’s Earrings The plays of Plautus act out women negotiating their culture. In Truculentus, the slave-​woman Astaphium belongs to the prostitute Phronesium; accordingly, she wears makeup and fancy jewelry, as we know, typically, from comments written into the dialogue. In one scene, where she flirts with a male slave, he makes fun of her jewelry and says it is all fake; he challenges her, “Go on, bet me those Victorias you got ain’t made of wood” (Truc. 275). This mysterious line is usually taken to refer to her earrings; certainly it refers to some ornament she is wearing, possibly a pair of fibulae. As Stefan Weinstock long ago demonstrated, the cult of Victoria made rapid strides in Italy beginning with the period after the death of Alexander; shrines and statues appear in

5. Kay (2014) 15–​17. 6. On the Oppian Law, see Culham (1982).

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Rome starting in the early 200s.7 Here we see the goddess in popular culture, in the form of cheap jewelry worn by a prostitute’s slave-​woman. What was Victoria to her? A great deal; slave-​women had good reason to fear the sacking of their city, as some of them had good reason to remember. Moreover, this slave-​woman was probably played by a male actor, perhaps himself a slave, and so also with good reason to remember, for male as well as female children were raped and sold into slavery when cities were sacked, and male as well as female slaves were used for sex by their owners (a running joke onstage). As in Nancy Rabinowitz’s formulation, the “narrative audience” sees a slave-​woman dressed up in lucky earrings made to look like those a wealthy woman would wear (for Victoria meant a great deal to all women); the “authorial audience” sees the male body inside Astaphium, with his own coat of tarnish, his own scars.8 Scholars who reconstruct the Roman street sometimes wonder if women would have been able to display jewelry in public; Astaphium answers that question.9 Were women present in the audience of the palliata? They are directly addressed in the prologue to Poenulus (28–​29, 32–​35): Wet-​nurses should take care of their itty-​bitty baby boys at home, and not bring them to watch.  . . .  Married ladies should watch in silence, laugh in silence; they should hold off from tinkling their bell-​like voices here; they should bring their delicious dishy gossip home, so they’re not a pain to their husbands here like they are at home. Wet-​nurses were either slaves or very low-​class; this teasing shout-​out not only puts women in the audience but suggests how the top census classes in central Italy might have gained an early appreciation for the palliata: brought to the show by the nanny. And then the “married ladies,” matronae: how upper-​ class were they? Livy occasionally distinguishes them from freedwomen (in 22.1.18, matronae offer money to Juno on the Aventine, libertinae to Feronia); a freedwoman speaker in Plautus’ Cistellaria complains that the upper-​class

7.  On Astaphium’s ornaments, see Dutsch (2015); Richlin (2017) 121, 143. On the cult of Victoria, Weinstock (1957). 8. See Rabinowitz (1998); Richlin (2017) 281–​303. 9. See Harlow (2013) 235–​236.

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matronae look down on her kind (23–​27).10 But I think it is possible that married freedwomen were matronae; that is, you did not have to be upper class to be a matrona. And, as Lily Ross Taylor showed, the city of Rome in the 200s bce was full of freed slaves.11 Named figures from real life—​never mind women—​are very rare in Plautus; unlike Old Comedy, Roman comedy does not insult real people by name, at least in the texts we have. However, names may have been inserted ad hoc, and one clear extant example belongs to a woman: in the famous tour of the Forum Romanum in Curculio, the Choragus (stage manager) tells the audience, “You’ll find rich husbands with money problems at Leucadia Oppia’s” (485). From her name, she is a freed slave; from the context, she runs an expensive brothel, and the Choragus locates it in plain sight. Indeed, Curculio and other plays suggest that the temporary wooden stage of the palliata was sometimes set up in the Forum itself, a perfect position from which to comment on political culture. Not only did the palliata constitute popular culture at an official Roman event, the ludi; not only did the palliata incorporate pop culture references like Astaphium’s earrings; but the palliata made plenty of political comments. It is clear from the use of the word populus in the corpus that women were included in civic functions like coming to the rescue, passing judgment on their neighbors, and throwing things at the unpopular. To be sure, historical sources, when they do report on women in the Forum, make it seem as if women were out of place there, never seen. The palliata, however, suggests that women moved freely around the city: a slave describes the display of fashions by the crowd of prostitutes greeting the returning troops (Epid. 213–​235); two girl musicians are rented from the Forum (Aul. 281); wives are said to demand a long list of services provided by female workers, who make house calls (Mil. 691–​700); a wife is said to demand “a cart to carry me” (Aul. 502). The Forum Romanum had shops as much as the other fora in Rome and elsewhere, and this is richly attested, although not for another 250 years.12 Women were part of the palliata, both onstage and in the audience, and the relationship between women and current political issues is in fact quite visible in the plays. One wife mocks an old man as a “pillar of the senate” (Cas. 536), another mocks her husband as “ornament of the coffin”

10. See Richlin (2017) 272–​275. 11. See Taylor ([1960] 2013). 12. For women not in the Forum Romanum, see Boatwright (2011); for women shopping and working in shops, see Groen-​Vallinga (2013); Holleran (2013); Kampen (1982).

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(capuli decus; As. 892), a probable pun on “ornament of the populus”; political slogans are available to nonvoters in a particularly cynical way. Politics and war affected everyone.

The Woman in the Street The current model of Roman political culture is all-​male, and here I  will single out the work of Karl-​Joachim Hölkeskamp, the leading spokesman for this approach.13 Hölkeskamp likes to talk about the meaning of Roman public space as a place where communal memory is produced. As Ann Vasaly showed, however, the Roman Forum was imbued with multiple meanings for the people who walked through it.14 Hölkeskamp’s vision is instead monolithic, populated by a figure he refers to as “the man in the Roman street.” In this model, political memory is organized from the top down: [Cicero] draws an implicit but telling comparison by theatrically pointing to the equestrian statue of Q. Marcius Tremulus in foro ante templum Castoris, “who had vanquished the Hernici,” thus evoking certain elements of the implicit master narrative of the early stages of Rome’s rise to power, inscribed in the collective (or rather cultural) memory of the Roman people, which was fed, nurtured, administered, and controlled by an educated sociopolitical elite, but obviously shared to a large extent by the elusive “man in the Roman street.”15 As I have argued elsewhere, victory monuments also commemorate loss; the ruling class might appeal to meanings that suited them, but they could never control the perceptions of those in the street.16 Hölkeskamp’s city is male all the way through: “all senators . . . were always superior to all the other social strata of the populus Romanus collectively, as well as to the man in the Roman street individually—​as ordinary citizen and as rank-​ and-​file in the legions.”17 Not even all men were in the legions—​members of the 13. Only Hölkeskamp (2006, 2010, 2014) are discussed here, but this is just a sample. 14. See Hölkeskamp (2006, 2014); Vasaly (1993). 15. Hölkeskamp (2014) 67, emphasis added, here and in the excerpts from Hölkeskamp that follow. 16. See Richlin (2018). 17. Hölkeskamp (2010) 32.

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lowest census class served as oarsmen in the navy or were noncombatants—​ and in the palliata officers and their slaves are ridiculed by prostitutes, slaves, and poor men (Amphitruo, Curculio, Miles Gloriosus, Poenulus, Pseudolus, Truculentus), while the Senate is ridiculed by everyone. For Hölkeskamp, “nomological knowledge” (the cultural norms taught by Roman legends and customs) applies to the complex “dramaturgy” of political action and public appearance in general. It thus affects all media, forms, and levels of social interaction and communication, once again individually as well as collectively, inside the political class itself: between nobiles, “ordinary” senators, patrons, as well as between this class and the “man in the Roman street,” the populus Romanus or the plebs at large.18 Certainly some members of the populus Romanus felt a sense of alienation from the class of patrons; distrust of the summi viri is all over the palliata, and the slave Stasimus in Trinummus critiques the mos maiorum and its hypocritical invocation by the ruling class.19 At the same time, the literal dramaturgy of the palliata incorporates a nomological knowledge quite outside the legends of Rome, as old women tell young women how the world works, and female characters speak truth to power. Gesine Manuwald has shown how important was the exemplarity of female characters in Roman tragedy.20 Hölkeskamp’s view of political culture also extends to money, “the down-​ to-​earth medium that the man in the street had in everyday use—​namely, the coinage of the Republic and its telling imagery.”21 Onstage, lenae and prostitutes handle money all the time; the lena in Asinaria lectures the young man on where groceries come from (198–​201)—​no credit, cash only, just as with prostitutes; an old slave-​woman jokes that a young prostitute’s hand should not smell like silver (Mos. 268–​269).22 Even the pages of Livy indicate that the woman in the street had an acquaintance with coinage: Busa at 18. Hölkeskamp (2010) 55. 19. See Blösel (2000) 27–​37; Richlin (in progress). 20. See Manuwald (2015), also covering the importance of female characters in the Republican fabula praetexta; compare remarks by Langlands (2018) on the ability of audiences to repurpose exemplary stories. On female characters speaking out, see Richlin (2017) 256–​281. 21. Hölkeskamp (2010) 62–​63. 22. For such lines in relationship to the development of Roman coinage in the 200s, see Burnett (2012); Kay (2014) 23–​24, 44; Richlin (2017) 435–​441.

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Canusium gave food, clothing, and road money (viaticum) to soldiers who had fled there after Cannae, and she went on to support fugitives in their thousands (22.52.7, 22.54.4); Pacula Cluvia at Capua, a former prostitute, supplied Roman prisoners with food (26.33.8). In the later Republic, women, as well as men, appeared as exemplary images on coins.23 Law, too, is stripped of the women it protects, as Hölkeskamp speaks of “the fundamental legislation de provocatione, guaranteeing and protecting the libertas of the man in the Roman street.”24 But one of the more memorable legends associated with this right is the story of Verginia, a young lower-​ class girl who is falsely claimed as a slave as she walks to school in the Forum (Livy 3.44–​48); her nanny raises the traditional appeal for help to fellow city dwellers, and nearby women join in. In Plautus’ Rudens, the slave Trachalio performs a similar formal appeal on behalf of two slave prostitutes (615–​626); unlike Verginia, they survive, and both gain their libertas. Hölkeskamp goes so far as to claim that “in Rome, there was absolutely no one—​no popularis tribune and no self-​professed champion of the plebs, no political philosopher, and certainly not the notoriously elusive ‘man in the Roman street’—​who would even have dreamt that ‘equality’ between all and for all could ever be a desirable value sui generis.”25 Evidently the woman in the Roman street is even more elusive, yet almost every play of Plautus is set in the street, where matronae, prostitutes, slave-​women, and one outspoken Virgo (in Persa) have plenty to say. And in fact a wish for what is aequum is very commonly expressed in the palliata, and not just for men, as the slave-​woman Syra makes a cogent argument for equal rights for married women (Mer. 817–​829). Turning to history, there are two major episode-​types in Livy’s books about the Second Punic War in which women are actually in the street: stories about religion and stories about war loss and fighting. In Livy’s gender politics, the two merge, but neither type appears to be entirely fictitious. Most commonly, Livy associates women in public with religious functions. This is the one way in which women are conventionally visible to him. Not that women always get it right; so in 212 bce, as part of a rise in “superstition” (religio) due to the tensions of war, as people crowded into the city “out of destitution and fear”: “Nor were the Roman rites done away with now in secret and behind closed doors, but even in public and in the Forum and on 23. See DiLuzio (2016) 169–​171, with illustrations. 24. Hölkeskamp (2010) 117. 25. Hölkeskamp (2010) 134.

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the Capitolium there was a crowd of women who were neither sacrificing nor praying to the gods according to our ancestral custom” (25.1.7). The Senate and the urban praetor crack down. This event long predates the famous case of the Bacanalia in Italy (186); these women break the rules at Rome’s center. This passing episode should remind us that the Forum belonged to the Vestals as well as to the pontiffs, that its law courts and entertainments were open to all, and that, on the Capitolium, Juno and Minerva were worshiped alongside Jupiter. More often in Livy, women do follow ancestral custom or act in accordance with priestly instructions. Still, they take action, and in public. Women are wrongly erased from some current overviews of Roman religion; an event Livy places in 207 bce undermines any idea that women took a back seat in public worship.26 Livy here includes circumstantial details of women’s ritual as the wartime city responds to a bad omen, the birth of an intersex child in Frusino. The child is drowned, and the gods propitiated (27.37.7–​15): Likewise the pontifices decreed that thrice nine virgins should go through the city singing a hymn. While they were in the temple of Jupiter Stator learning this hymn (which had been written by the poet Livius Andronicus) the temple of Juno Regina on the Aventine was struck by lightning. When the haruspices had responded that this pertained to the married women [matronae], and that the goddess had to be placated with a gift, by an edict of the curule aediles all the matronae were gathered together on the Capitolium who were living in the city or within the tenth milestone, and they delegated from among themselves twenty-​five women to whom they would all give a donation from their dowries; from this gift a golden platter was made and brought to the Aventine, and a pure and chaste offering was made by the matronae. [Then the priests decide that yet another sacrifice is required.] . . . From the temple of Apollo, two white heifers were led from the Porta Carmentalis into the city; after them, two cypress-​ wood statues of Juno Regina were carried; then came the twenty-​seven virgins, clad in long dresses, singing their hymn to Juno Regina—​a

26. On the state of the question on women in/​and Roman religion, see Richlin (2014) 28–​ 32, 199–​200; note especially Fanny Dolansky’s (2011a, 2011b, 2011c) strong arguments for the treatment of Roman religion as gender-​integrated. See now Meghan DiLuzio’s (2016) account of women as agents in Republican ritual, esp. 5–​6 for a cogent rebuttal of John Scheid. On the worship of Juno Regina in this period, see Schultz (2006) 33–​38.

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hymn perhaps praiseworthy for the crude talents of that time, but now off-​putting and awkward if I were to record it. The decemvirs followed the line of virgins, wearing laurel wreaths and purple-​bordered togas. They came from the gate via the Vicus Jugarius to the Forum; in the Forum the parade stopped, and then the virgins, taking up a rope in their hands, walked on, timing the sound of their voice to the beat of their feet. From there they went via the Vicus Tuscus and the Velabrum through the Forum Boarium to the Clivus Publicius, and so to the temple of Juno Regina. This is a walk of over 1.5 kilometers, routed through the Forum Romanum and ending on the Aventine Hill. Note how the women delegate, give, commission, act, and how the chorus of virgins, singing their special hymn, walk all around the city, the center of attraction, preceding the priests. Most famously, of course, women welcomed the Magna Mater when she arrived from Pergamum in 204 bce, spawning a legend that Cicero used as a stick with which to beat Clodia in the Pro Caelio (34). Yet the heroine of this tale is Claudia Quinta, cui dubia, ut traditur, antea fama clariorem ad posteros tam religioso ministerio pudicitiam fecit (whose previous doubtful reputation, as they say, made her chastity the more famous among posterity because of such a pious act of service; Liv. 29.14.12).27 Claudia herself miraculously towed in the ship that had run aground in the Tiber, but she was only one of the matronae primores who formed a human chain and passed the goddess from hand to hand from the Tiber to the temple of Victoria on the Palatine (29.14.13–​14): victoria, again, being the point. Naturally, then, Livy also places women in the streets to react to news of the war. In the countryside, when the consul Nero makes a lightning strike north in 207 toward his coming victory at the Metaurus, “men and women” come pouring across the fields to cheer his army on the march (27.45.7). In Rome, as people await word of the outcome of the battle, women wander from temple to temple, beseeching the gods (27.50.5); when word comes of victory, the whole city pours into the streets, although some women stay home with the children and wait for their husbands to fill them in (27.51.7); a holiday is declared, and for three days matronae with their children give thanks in the temples (27.51.9). Defeat likewise brings women out en masse. After the Romans’ disastrous defeat at Lake Trasimene in 217 bce, women

27. On this story, see Langlands (2009) 65–​69.

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roamed the streets seeking information (22.7.7) as their particular concern (22.7.11–​12): [A]‌crowd made up more of women than men was standing at the gates, waiting either for someone of theirs or for word of them; they mobbed everyone who came through, asking and asking, nor could they be pulled off. . . . Both the good news and the grief belonged especially to women. After Cannae in 216, when there was no information, the wailing was such that women were ordered to stay home (22.55.3, 6–​7). When the Senate refused to ransom the Cannae POWs, women came down to the Comitium with their male kin to plead for mercy (22.60.1). In 211, when Hannibal marched on Rome, there was general panic, and Livy builds up to a set piece with women not only wailing at home but running out into public with their hair hanging down, running to all the temples and sweeping the altars with their hair, raising their arms to heaven and praying to the gods to save the city from enemy hands and to “preserve the Roman mothers and little children unviolated” (inviolatos; 26.9.6–​8). This account reaches a peak of hyperbole when Vibius Virrus, speaking at Capua, expostulates that the merciless Roman army continued to besiege Capua even though “the cries of their wives and children could almost be heard from here” (26.13.13). For it was a convention that the fall of a city is marked by the wailing of women. Yet it really was women’s job to mourn for the dead; during the 200s bce, they had plenty to cry about.28 The wars listed earlier suggest how often they might have lost kin to battle or enslavement; ten thousand men were taken captive after Cannae (Polyb. 3.117.3), and the Senate’s refusal to ransom them sent them off into slavery. Nathan Rosenstein estimates a casualty rate for the Roman army of between 34 and 40 percent, and the rate must have been higher for men of the lowest census group, who had to row in the navy, belowdecks, and for slaves in the army, who usually carried no weapons.29 Slaves had no legal wives or mothers, but this does not mean they

28.  See Richlin ([2001] 2014)  on professional mourners; Jeppesen (2016) on the lament tradition. 29. For mortality figures, see Rosenstein (2012) 363; this is in the generally victorious period from 200 to 168. See Leigh (2004) 66–​72 on the Senate’s decision; Richlin (2018) on the impact of class and civil status on casualties; and Welwei (1988) 5–​18, 28–​42, 56–​80 on slaves in the army and navy.

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had no female kin. Livy records that, in the levy of 216 bce, after Cannae, boys under fifteen were conscripted into the army (quosdam praetextatos; 22.57.9)—​as were eight thousand slaves, due to the lack of free men (22.57.11). Families who had lost kin to captivity had little hope of finding them again. A Saguntine embassy thanked the Senate for the investigators sent out by the two elder Scipios to locate and bring back the ones who had been enslaved at Saguntum (28.39.5). The state of mind of women whose children had been lost might have been like what we read about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, whose children were “disappeared” in the 1970s, for example, Marta Vazquez, mother of Maria Marta Vazquez de Lugones, twenty-​three years old, abducted with her husband, Cesar Amadeo Lugones, twenty-​six years old, on May 14, 1976. She tells what it felt like to go to the Plaza: And for us going to the Plaza every Thursday became a need. It didn’t matter how we were feeling because I will tell you, every Thursday, before going to the Plaza, when I  woke up and remembered what day it was, my stomach started to ache. . . . But it was simply a matter of getting onto the Plaza, and that seemed to calm me down, to fill me with an unknown strength.30 It took daring to go to the Plaza, as it must have done for women in Italy to go to the local forum in the 200s bce, if they went alone. Naevius has a character in his tragedy Danae say, “They start rumors at once if they see a woman alone in the street” (8 TrRF = Trag. 7 R.2–​3); Manuwald includes this among elements in Roman tragedy that interact with Roman values, themselves serving a policing function.31 Nor were the streets risky only for upper-​class women; as the prostitute Gymnasium in Plautus’ Cistellaria says, “For a meretrix to stand alone in the street is the sure sign of a prostibulum” (331)—​not just a prostitute, but a cheap prostitute. An old man in Mercator describes the reaction on the street when a too-​pretty slave-​woman walks by, accompanying a matrona: “they’d all stare, they’d look at her, they’d nod, they’d wink, they’d whistle, /​they’d pinch her, call her, they’d annoy her; they’d set up a chant outside the door” (407–​408). Slave-​women had no honor to lose, except in their own eyes. In wartime, one fear outweighed the other.

30. Mellibovsky (1997) 99. 31. Manuwald (2015) 174.

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The disappeared in Argentina included young children as well: General Camps’s plan of finding “new parents” for the children meant, in practice, that many of them were given—​like pieces of property or war booty—​to highly placed government officials, to members of the military, or to police officers. Others were abandoned in the street or left at orphanages with no information about their origins.  .  .  . The Grandmothers have coined the term desaparecidos con vida (the living disappeared) to describe the condition of these children.32 Children like this—​exposed, or kidnapped and sold into prostitution or to some rich old man or to some nice family who needs a maid or a houseboy—​ provide the plots of eight of Plautus’ twenty extant plays. The Virgo in Plautus’ Persa is sold as part of the spoils from an imaginary war in Arabia. It was a topic of current interest. In Plautus’ Epidicus, Philippa comes to Athens from Thebes, looking for her daughter. Philippa herself was raped in Epidaurus as a poor young girl; she moved with her baby to Thebes, where this daughter, now a young woman, has been taken in the praeda and sold to a young soldier who wants her for a sex slave. He is not the only buyer, for, as we hear in a description of the returning army early in the play, the soldiers each have two or three captives with them, boys and girls (pueros, virgines; 210–​212). The Greek setting flickers when the army is referred to as the legio (46, 58, 91); Thebes was actually sacked by Alexander in 335, and its women raped, but legio evokes more recent activity.33 Philippa sings when she enters (526–​532): If a person has miseries that are pitiable, she feels miserable in her soul. This I know from experience, since many things run together that beat at my heart at once: multiple trouble has me worked up. Poverty and fear keep my soul’s mind terrified, and I  don’t have anywhere to put my hopes in, anywhere, no well-​g uarded  place.

32. Arditti (1999) 51. 33. On the sack of Thebes, see Gaca (2010–​2011) 105–​106.

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So—​my daughter’s in the power of the enemy and I don’t know where she may be now. Just like the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, kin onstage seek lost children: fathers in Captivi and Poenulus, mothers in Cistellaria and Epidicus, a brother in Menaechmi. The fantasy of family reunion haunts the plays. Livy occasionally records the details of a disappearance, as in an episode demonstrating the tyrannical behavior of King Philip V in 208 bce (27.31.8):  “Even from one of the leading citizens of the Achaeans, Aratus, his wife Polycratia was taken, and carried away to Macedonia in expectation of a royal wedding night.” Is this a real record of a desaparecida? Or just a rhetorical invention? This is where reading Livy starts to seem like reading through a brick wall; as he half-​confesses of his own praxis while describing the sack of a small trading post called Victumulae by Hannibal’s forces in 217 bce, historians had a pattern-​book:  neque ulla, quae in tali re memorabilis scribentibus videri solet, praetermissa clades est (nor was any atrocity omitted that those who write history usually find worth recording in such circumstances; Liv. 21.57.14). Instructions on how to describe the sacking of a city were part of every orator’s training, as seen in the Rhetorica ad Herennium in a vivid illustration of the figure of vivid description (descriptio; 4.51): For it is unknown to none of you, fellow citizens, what miseries always follow when a city is taken:  those who have borne arms are at once most cruelly butchered; of the rest, those young enough and strong enough to do hard labor are carried off into slavery, while those who are not are killed; finally, at one and the same time each home is set ablaze by enemy arson, and those joined by family relationship or kindly choice are torn apart; of the children, some are ripped from their parents’ arms, some are slaughtered at the breast, others are raped at their parent’s feet [partim ante pedes constuprantur]. There is no one, judges, who could pursue this subject sufficiently in words nor express in speech the magnitude of the catastrophe. Advice like this threatens to undermine Kathy Gaca’s entire project, since this late-​Republican handbook has companions stretching throughout the history of rhetorical training, and indeed accounts of city sackings tend to share all these elements, going back to Homer and beyond.34 As Nathan Kish 34. On the lament tradition, see Bachvarova, Dutsch, and Suter (2016).

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rightly observes, however, the final sentence is not at all a disclaimer of authority but “asks the audience to use their imaginations to enhance and amplify further the auctor’s already sensational description,” counting on their already existing fears.35 When the auctor was writing, probably in the first half of the first century bce, these were not the empty fears of a rural citizenry imagining a jihadi invasion but the fears of a city populace who had lived through the terrors of the wars between Marius and Sulla, when the First Proscriptions, as Lucan imagined, turned the Tiber red with blood. Similar ready-​made patches adorn the speeches within Livy’s narrative, like the one invented for Vibius Virrus: nec rapi ad stuprum matres Campanas virginesque et ingenuos pueros (nor [will I  see] my fatherland ripped apart and put to the torch, nor Campanian mothers and pubescent girls and freeborn children carried off to be raped; 26.13.15).36 Ready-​made—​but Capua’s citizens were enslaved nonetheless (multitudo; 26.16.6, 26.34). A  speech by Fabius Maximus threatens the Carthaginians with the same nightmare (28.42.11):  Homeric. It came true. The story of the noble Scipio and the Spanish hostages is copied right out of the Alexander legends (26.49–​50), and the common transfer of stories from one event to another is another brick in the wall; yet, as Rebecca Langlands argues, stories like these are “portable,” “floating,” and serve the needs of current audiences.37 Even the account of the atrocities committed by the legate Q. Pleminius in Locri (29.17–​18) is packed with loci communes, as the Locrians complain to the Senate (29.17.15–​17, 20): All [his soldiers] carry us off, despoil us, flog us, wound us, kill us; they rape married women, young girls, freeborn children snatched from their parents’ embrace [constuprant matronas, virgines, ingenuos raptos ex complexu parentium]. Every day our city is taken, every day it is torn apart; all night and all day, every place resounds with the cries of women and children who are snatched and carried off. . . . We have suffered everything that captured cities suffer, and we go on suffering the utmost, senators.

35. Kish (2018) 51. 36.  See Gaca (2010–​2011, 2015)  on similar lists in Greek—​women, maidens, and paides—​ arguing strongly that paides in this context are normally prepubescent girls. Pueros, however, certainly includes boys; cf. Richlin (2015) 355. For rape by Hannibal’s troops in 209 (Polyb. 10.38.1–​2), see Gaca (2010–​2011) 94. 37. Langlands (2018).

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Pleminius, at least, wound up in prison after an official inquiry. Again, just because it is expressed in boilerplate does not mean it did not happen; the inadequacy of language in the face of atrocity has often been deplored. It is not an urban legend that soldiers rape the women in towns they sack. Women also fought back. We rarely hear about this in antiquity, perhaps because when a writer learned how to describe a battle, even a city sacking, women were there to be victims and not to be fighters. Still, the Romans had Cloelia, and Vergil made up Camilla, so there should be some stories about real women resisting. They had lives to protect, as we know from experience. Seymour Hersh went back to Vietnam in 2015, almost fifty years after he broke the story of the My Lai massacre. There he found out more about what happened on March 16, 1968. My Lai was not the only place hit that day: One morning in Danang . . . I had coffee with Vo Cao Loi, one of the few survivors of Bravo Company’s attack on My Khe 4. He was fifteen at the time, Loi said. . . . His mother had what she called “a bad feeling” when she heard helicopters approaching the village. . . . Loi was shooed out of the village by his mother moments before the attack. . . . “I think she was afraid because I was almost a grown boy, and, if I stayed, I could be beaten up or forced to join the South Vietnamese Army. I went to the river, about fifty metres away. Close, close enough: I heard the fire and the screaming.” Loi stayed hidden until evening, when he returned home to bury his mother and other relatives.38 We do not have anything like this eyewitness account in the 200s bce. There are a few traces. At starving Capua, under siege in 211, the imbellis multitudo (noncombatants) stood on the walls and banged on pots and pans (“as if in a lunar eclipse”) in order to distract the armies (Liv. 26.5.9); you can see women doing the same thing with bin lids in the streets of Belfast in 1981 on the night Bobby Sands died, alongside teenage boys.39 So in Rome, at the height of the panic over Hannibal’s approach (26.10.7): “Then they fled back into their homes and under shelter, and they attacked [the cavalrymen riding through the streets] by throwing stones and missiles.” This was a mixed crowd (pavida multitudo) targeting allied cavalry by mistake—​maybe not just an

38. Hersh (2015) 57–​58. 39. See, for example, Wolfeman1798, “Reaction to the Death of Bobby Sands MP,” YouTube, accessed September 10, 2018, https://​www.youtube.com/​watch?v=m77oAHG9beM.

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ornamental detail. A  slightly more conventional account from the Spanish town of Iliturgi in 206 bce (28.19.13): “Not only men of military age fought, but women and children, beyond the strength of their spirit or bodies, were handing weapons to the fighters, and carrying stones for those who were fortifying the walls.” What is mostly left out of the extant historical record of the mid-​Republic is suggested by extant sources from the late Republic, particularly in the letters of Cicero. He writes to his wife Terentia and their daughter Tullia about what to do as Caesar marches on Rome (Fam. 14.18.2, January 22, 49 bce): “You’ll see what other women are doing where you are. . . . You’ll tell Philotimus [the house manager, a freed slave] that the house should have fortifications and a guard posted.” This is certainly a response to a letter Terentia has written outlining just these plans; she did not want to give up her house.40 Cicero writes again the next day (Fam. 14.14.1, January 23): It’s your decision now, not just mine, what you should do. . . . Also, what you yourselves will be the best judges of, whether women like you are still in Rome or not; and if they’re not, it has to be considered whether it’s respectable for you to be there.  .  .  . About these things I wish you’d take counsel with Atticus, with Camillus, with whoever seems good to you; in short, you should be of good courage. And Terentia always was. So this is dedicated to all the women of good courage: the women who take to the streets, the women who take back the night, the women who soldier on. I am proud to be in that number, and I know who made it possible. This is for you.

40. Richlin (2013) 102–​103.

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Index

For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–​53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. Figures are indicated by f following the page number Aberdeen Painter vase paintings, 169–​70 Achilles, 24, 35–​36 Ada I, 61–​63 Adam, Sophia, 105–​6 Adea Eurydice, 47 Adeimantus of Lampsacus, 49–​51 adultery bastardy and, 189–​90 divorce and, 189, 197, 201–​2 dowry funds as compensation for, 189, 198–​99,  201–​2 infamia and, 198–​99 Klytemnestra and, 40 lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis and, 182, 188–​90, 196–​97, 206–​7,  209–​10 lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus and, 188–​89, 196,  206–​9 men’s exemptions under Roman law from criminal charges of, 189 penalties for, 9, 189, 197–​99, 201–​2 Roman law and, 189 sine manu marriages and, 194 slaves and, 197 underage marriage and, 182, 184–​85

women’s family financial assets and, 188–​89, 191,  194–​96 Aelia Paetina, 88–​89 Aelius Aristides, 141–​43 Aemilia (widow of Scipio Africanus), 202 Aemilia Rekteina, 152 Aeschylus, 15–​16, 22, See also Aischylos Agamemnon (Aischylos), 40–​41 Agathokleia,  163–​64 Agrippa Postumus, 80, 85, 87–​89, 92–​93 Ahrweiler, Hélène, 104 Aischylos, 35–​36,  39–​41 Alexander III (Alexander the Great), 45–​47, 48–​49, 55, 57 Alexander IV, 45–​47 Aline,  127–​29 Alston, Richard, 110–​11 Amphiareion inscriptions (Oropos), 164 Anagnostou-​Cañas, Barbara,  105–​6 Andromache (Euripides), 24 Andromachos, 163 Antigonus, 45–​47, 49, 51–​52, 55 Antigonus Gonatas, 49, 52–​53, 55–​56 Antiochus I, 49

26

266

Index

Antipater, 45, 48–​49, 57 Antony, Mark, 79, 196 Aphrodite, 18, 41, 49–​51, 56–​57, 125 Apollonius,  127–​31 Apronia marriage to Silvanus of, 87–​88 murder by Silvanus of, 7–​8, 81–​83, 90,  91–​93 Senate of Rome’s trial for the murder of, 81–​82, 90 Silvanus’ claim of a suicidal jump from window by, 83 Tacitus’ account of, 7–​8, 81–​82, 90–​91,  92 Tiberius’ role in the murder case of, 81–​83,  90–​91 Apronius Africa as consular province of, 86–​87 Apronia’s murder and, 82–​83 as consul, 85, 86–​87, 91 games to celebrate Julia Augusta’s recovery from illness and, 87 as Lower Rhine army legate, 91 marriages of the daughters of, 87–​88,  89–​90 military service by, 84–​85 ornamenta triumphalia conferred to,  86–​87 as quattuoruir (master of the mint), 84 Tacfarinas rebellion and, 86–​87 Tiberius and, 82–​83, 86–​87, 89–​90 Apronius Caesianus, 84, 87, 93 Archagathe, 163 Argead dynasty, 45–​48, 51, 56 Aristocleia, 164 Aristophanes, 19, 22–​24 Aristotle, 72–​73,  215–​16 Arjava, Antti, 108 Arrian,  48–​49 Artemidorus, 24 Artemisia I, 61–​62 Artemisia II

Byzantine authors’ neglect of, 65,  76–​77 Caria and, 61–​62, 64, 74–​76 chastity of, 71 Cnossus and, 63–​64 death of, 65–​66 Hecatomnid dynasty and, 59–​60, 61 Labraunda inscriptions regarding,  63–​64 The Masoleum and, 7, 59–​61, 64–​70, 71, 76 Mausolus and, 7, 59–​64, 68–​69, 70–​71,  76–​77 patronage of the arts by, 59–​61, 68–​71,  75–​76 Persian Empire and, 64 political power of, 62–​65, 72,  74–​77 Rhodes and, 61–​62, 74–​76 Roman Era sources on, 60–​61 as univira woman, 60–​61, 71–​72 widowhood and grief of, 60–​61, 65–​66,  71–​72 “Artemis Prologizes” (Browning), 11 Asinaria (Plautus), 218, 220–​21 Atalanta, 146, 169–​70 Athena, 32–​33, 37–​39, 38f, 156 Athenaeus, 147–​50,  165–​66 Athens, 52, 61–​62, 69–​70 athletics chariot events and, 161–​62, 163, 165f,  165–​66 citizenship as a prize in competitions for,  160–​61 contemporary women’s professional leagues and, 172 Cos inscriptions regarding, 145, 167, 168 cosmetics and, 129–​31 Delphi inscriptions regarding, 157–​61 diazoma (tunic) as uniform for, 146, 149–​50, 150f, 168, 169–​71

267

Index Eleutheria (Liberation Games) and, 164 equestrian competitions and, 152, 153,  161–​66 footraces and, 150–​55 gymnasia (exercise facilities) and, 129–​ 31, 141–​43, 144–​45, 146, 167, 168 Heraia festivities and, 139–​41, 150–​51,  154–​55 Hermione inscriptions regarding, 144–​45,  168 Isthmian Games and, 141–​43, 157, 158 Italika Rhomaia Sebasta Isolympia and, 152 Naples inscriptions and, 152–​53 Olympic Games and, 141–​43, 154–​55,  164–​66 palaestrae (wrestling grounds) and, 141, 145–​46, 150–​51, 167, 168,  169–​70 Panathenaic Games and, 156, 162–​64 Panhellenic games and, 141–​43, 167, 169 pyrrhic dance and, 156 Roman Empire competitions and, 141–​43,  169 sacred crown contests (agones hieroi kai stephanitai) and, 141–​43 in Sparta, 139–​41, 146–​50, 151 Thespiae inscriptions regarding,  143–​44 Title IX (of US Civil Rights Act Education Amendments 1972) and, 172 Atonement (McEwan), 26–​27 Augusta. See Livia Drusilla ( Julia Augusta) Augustus censuses and, 136–​37 conspiracy of Caepio and Murena and, 79 fiscus (private account) of, 199–​200 Hortensii and, 200

267

imperial succession questions and, 79–​80,  85 ius liberorum and, 191–​92 lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis and, 182, 188–​89, 196–​97, 206–​7,  209–​10 lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus and, 188–​89, 196,  206–​9 lex Iulia et Papia and, 199, 201 Livia Drusilla and, 79–​80 one-​man rule established by, 79 as Pater Patriae (Father of the Country), 80 redistribution of confiscated income by, 200 temple restoration program and, 196 Teutoburgerwald, battle (9 CE) and, 80 Tiberius and, 79, 80 Aulus Gellius, 67–​68 Auphria,  160–​61 Austen, Jane, 213 Bacchae (Euripides), 24 Bagnall, Roger, 8, 127–​28, 129–​31 Balacrus,  48–​49 “Barberini Atalanta” (sculpture), 170–​71 basilissa title (“royal woman”), 7, 45–​48, 51, 55 Beaucamp, Joëlle, 104, 105–​8 Behlmer, Heike, 116 Bell, H. I., 99 Berenice Euergetis, 162, 163–​64 Berenike of Oxyrhynchos, 113 Bernhardt, Sarah, 14–​15 Berthold, R.M., 75–​76 Bieżuńska, Iza, 100–​1, 103 Bradley, Keith, 104 Brauron, 139–​41, 150–​51, 151f Bringmann, Lea, 100 Broughton, T. R. S., 84 Brown, Peter, 104 Browning, Robert, 11

268

268

Index

Caelius Rufus, Marcus, 187–​88 Caepio, 79 Calderini, Aristide, 97–​99, 108–​9 Cameron, Alan, 104 Cameron, Averil, 104 Cannae, battle (216 BCE) of, 220–​21,  224–​25 The Capitolium (Rome), 221–​23 Captivi (Plautus), 227 Capua, siege (211 BCE) of, 220–​21, 224, 228,  229–​30 Caria Artemisia II and, 61–​62, 64, 74–​76 gender conventions in, 61–​62, 70–​71 Halicarnassus and, 65–​66 Hecatomnus and, 62–​63 Mausolus and, 65–​66, 72–​74 Persian Empire and, 64 Carmen Saeculare (Horace), 210–​11 Carney, Elizabeth, 62–​64, 67–​68, 70–​71 Carstens, M., 70 Casia,  164–​65 Cassander, 51–​52, 57 Cassius Dio, 9, 87–​88, 93, 153, 166, 205–​9,  211–​12 Cassius Severus, 85, 90–​91 Catullus, Lucius Cattius, 135 Chaniotis, Angelos, 120 chariot racing, 161–​62, 163, 165f,  165–​66 Chios inscriptions, 133–​34, 156–​57 Chowdhry, Neelam Mansingh, 15–​16 Cicero, M. Tullius children of, 194–​96 Clodia Metelli and, 187–​88, 223 concern about increasing birth rates expressed by, 190–​91 dowry received by, 194–​96 exile of, 194–​96 on the Mausoleum, 67–​68 sine manu marriage of, 194–​96 Terentia and, 191–​92, 194–​96, 230 on victory monuments in Rome, 219

on women in war, 230 Cistellaria (Plautus), 217–​18, 225, 227 City University of New York (CUNY), 4–​5. See also Hunter College Clarysse, Willy, 108–​9 Claudia Antonia, 88–​89 Claudia Quinta, 223 Claudius, 88–​89, 91, 92 Claudius Ptolemy, 104 Cleainete, 163 Cleomenes III, 146–​47 Cleopatra (daughter of Olympias), 56 Cleopatra I, 163–​64 Cleopatra II, 163–​64 Cleopatra VII (wife of Mark Antony), 54n42, 79, 125–​26, 132–​33, 136–​37,  196 Clodia Metelli, 187–​88, 223 Cnossus,  63–​64 Colin, Frédéric, 114 comedy Forum Romanum and, 218–​19 naming of characters in, 218–​19 nomological knowledge and, 220 palliata (Roman comedy) and, 214, 216–​18,  221 women audience members and,  217–​19 Compound Drugs according to Place (Galen), 131 Cornelia,  71–​72 Cornelius Lentulus, Cossus, 87, 89 Cornelius Pulchrus, 157, 158 Cos inscriptions, 145, 167, 168 cosmetics athletics and, 129–​31 cosmetic recipes (Kosmetika) and, 125–​26, 131–​33,  138 crocodilea and, 133–​34 deception and, 124–​25, 131 Galen and, 125–​26, 131–​34, 138 hair dye and, 132–​33

269

Index The Iliad and, 125 Mostellaria and, 125 mummy portraits and, 126–​27 Oeconomicus on, 7–​8, 124–​25, 131 Ovid on, 131, 133–​34 papyri’s discussion of, 8, 125–​28, 134, 136 perfumed oils and, 125–​26, 129–​31, 134–​35,  137–​38 rose oil (rhodinon) and, 128–​29,  134–​38 Theophrastus on, 134–​35, 136, 137–​38 Thermouthis and, 135–​36, 137–​38 Cotton, Hannah, 115 Craterus, 48–​49, 51 Cribiore, Raffaela, 118, 127–​28, 129 Crito,  132–​33 The Crush (Shapiro), 26–​27 Curculio (Plautus), 218–​20 Cuvigny, Hélène, 114–​15 Cynisca, 162 Cyrus the Younger, 64 Danae (Naevius), 225 Dasen, Véronique, 117–​18 Deidameia, 51 Demarchus,  45–​47 Demetrius Poliorcetes Athens siege and, 52 basileus as title for, 45–​47 civic cult of, 55 death and funeral of, 52, 55–​56 garments of, 55–​56 Ipsus, battle of, 51–​52 Macedonia and, 45, 52, 53–​54, 57 Phila and, 45, 47, 49, 52–​54, 55–​57 Plutarch on, 52–​54, 55–​56 polygamous marriages and mistresses of, 51, 54 Rhodes siege (305 BCE) and, 45–​47 Seleucus’ peace with, 51–​52 Demosthenes,  75–​76

269

Desire under the Elms (O’Neill), 14 Dialogue on Love (Plutarch), 144 Diocletian,  134–​35 Diodorus, 52–​53, 57, 63–​64 Dionysia, 158–​59, 168 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 210–​11 divorce adultery and, 189, 197, 201–​2 dowry and, 193 Roman law’s permissive attitude toward, 83, 189–​90 sine manu marriages and, 194 underage marriage and, 174–​75 Domitian, 153 Domitius Afer, 90 dowry adultery penalties drawn from, 189, 198–​99,  201–​2 Cicero’s receipt of, 194–​96 cum manu marriage versus sine manu marriage and, 192–​93 divorce and, 193 papyri records and, 105–​6 Second Punic War finances and the confiscations of, 187–​88 underage marriage and, 174–​75, 178–​82,  184–​85 Drexhage, Hans-​Joachim,  113–​14 Drusus Caesar, 79–​81, 89, 90 Dudley, Robert, 82–​83 Dusinberre, E., 70 Edwards, Catharine, 190–​91 Egypt censuses and taxes in, 136–​37 cosmetics in, 125–​26, 131, 133–​34, 136 feminist scholarship and, 104–​6 gendered aspects of ethnicity in, 121 gymnasium habits among Greek elites in,  129–​31 homosexuality in, 117–​18 Jewish women in, 105

270

270

Index

Egypt (cont.) legal history and, 100, 101–​3, 106–​8 women aescetics in, 116 women priests in, 114 women’s landholding in, 111–​12, 114 women’s presence in public life in,  118–​19 Eirene from Alexandria, 163 Eleutheria (Liberation Games), 164 Elm, Susanna, 116 Enquiry into Plants (Theophrastus), 136 Epidicus (Plautus), 226–​27 Epistemic Injustice (Fricker), 25–​26 equestrian competitions, 152, 153, 161–​66 Erinyes,  12–​13 Eucrateia, 162 Eudaimonis,  127–​29 Eudokias, 65 Eugenia,  163–​64 Euporista, or Medicaments Easily Procured (pseudo-​Dioscorides),  133–​34 Euripides Andromache and, 24 Aristophanes’ depiction of, 22–​23 on athletic contests, 146–​47 Bacchae and, 24 Hippolytus and, 12–​16, 17–​19, 21–​22, 23–​25,  26–​27 Stheneboea and, 19–​21, 23–​24 Evagoras of Cyprus, 69–​70 Eyben, Emiel, 104

Flavia Thalassia, 152 Foley, Helene, 24–​25 footraces,  150–​55 Forster, E. M., 26–​27 The Forum (Rome), 218–​19, 221–​23 freedwomen, 205, 206–​7, 208–​9, 216,  217–​18 Freu, Christel, 109–​10 Fricker, Miranda, 15, 25–​26 Frier, Bruce, 108–​9 Frogs (Aristophanes), 22–​23 Furia Camilla, 88–​89

Fabia Numantina, 81–​82, 87–​88, 92–​93 Fabius Maximus, Paullus, 87–​88, 228 Face Cosmetics (Ovid), 133–​34 Fayyum, 105, 121 Felson, Nancy, 32–​33 Fida (Chowdhry), 15–​16 First Illyrian War, 214 First Macedonian War, 214 First Punic War, 214

Hadrian, 129–​31, 169n82 Halicarnassus ancestor cults in, 71–​72 Caria and, 65–​66 court at, 61 gender conventions in, 61–​62 geography of, 75–​76 The Mausoleum and, 59–​60, 67–​68 Mausolus and, 69–​70

Gaca, Kathy, 215–​16, 227–​28 Gaius (second-​century CE jurist), 191–​92 Gaius Caesar, 79–​80, 85 Gaius Caligula, 91, 93 Gaius Silius, 81 Galen, 8, 125–​26, 131–​34, 138 Gällnö, Sophie, 113–​14 Gallus, Gaius Asinius, 86 Garnier, Robert, 21–​22 Gauer, Werner, 39–​40 Gemellus, 80, 93 Genesis, Book of, 12–​13 Germanicus, 80–​81, 85–​86, 89, 90–​91, 93 Gone Girl (film), 26–​27 The Graduate (film), 14 Grandjouan, Clairève, 4 Guttany, Simon, 82–​83 gymnasia (exercise facilities), 129–​31, 141–​43, 144–​45, 146, 167, 168

271

Index Hall, Edith, 39–​40 Hannibal, 202, 214–​15, 224, 227, 229–​30 Harnum, Lisa, 82–​83 Harrauer, Hermann, 112 Hecatomnid dynasty Artemisia II’s role in, 59–​60, 61 Caria and, 62–​63 The Mausoleum and, 59–​60, 61, 65,  68–​69 palace of, 64–​65 royal women’s power in, 63–​64, 67–​68 uprisings against, 75–​76 Zeus Labraunda and, 70 Hecatomnus, 62–​63, 73n64, 73–​74 Hedea, 158–​60, 161, 168 Heilbrun, Carolyn, 24–​25 Helen, 29–​30, 147–​48, 151 Hellenistic Queens (Macurdy), 45 Helvius Rufus, 86–​87 Hera, 125, 154–​55 Heracles, 24, 69–​70 Heraia festivities, 139–​41, 150–​51, 154–​55 Heraidous,  127–​28 Hermesianax, 158, 168 Hermione inscriptions, 24, 144–​45, 168 Herodotus, 114 Hersh, Seymour, 229 Hetereia Prokilla, 145 Hieronymus of Cardia, 52–​53 Hippolyte (Garnier), 21–​22 Hippolyte et Aricie (Rameau), 17 Hippolytus (Euripides) actresses in lead role of, 13–​15 Aristophanes on, 23 City Dionysia prize (428 BCE) awarded to, 18 false rape accusation by Phaedra in, 12–​16, 17–​19, 21–​22, 23–​25,  26–​27 feminist interpretations of, 15–​16,  17–​18 gods in, 18 Phaedra’s suicide in, 18–​19, 21

271

stepmother-​son relationship in, 17–​18 Hobson, Deborah, 105, 111–​12, 114 Hölkeskamp, Karl-​Joachim,  219–​21 Hölscher, Tonio, 39–​41 Hombert, Marcel, 102, 108–​9 Homer. See The Iliad (Homer); The Odyssey (Homer) homosexuality, 117–​18, 206 Horace, 133–​34,  210–​11 Hornblower, Simon, 65–​67, 75–​76 Hortensii, 200 Howe, Julia Ward, 15–​16 Huebner, Sabine, 109–​10, 117–​18 human trafficking, 214–​15 Hunter College, 4–​5. See also City University of New York (CUNY) Huppert, Isabelle, 14 Hyacinthia festival, 165–​66 Iasos uprising, 73–​74 Idreius,  62–​63 The Iliad (Homer), 35–​36, 40–​41, 125, 129 Iliturgi, siege (206 BCE), 229–​30 inheritance, 191–​94, 199, 201 Interpretation of Dreams (Artemidorus), 24 Iousta of Naples, 152 Iozzo, Mario, 32 Ismenodora, 144, 167–​68 Isthmian Games, 141–​43, 157, 158 Italika Rhomaia Sebasta Isolympia, 152 ius liberorum,  191–​92 Jackson, Glenda, 14 Jacobsthal Reliefs (Melian Reliefs), 34f, 34–​36,  41–​42 Jeppesen, Kristian, 75–​76 Johnson, Janet, 114 Julia Augusta. See Livia Drusilla ( Julia Augusta) Julian (jurist), 175–​76, 180–​82, 183–​84 Julia the Elder, 79–​80, 85, 89

27

272

Index

Julia The Younger, 80, 85, 87–​88, 92–​93 Julius Caesar, 190–​91 Juno Regina Temple (Rome), 217–​18,  221–​23 Juvenal,  147–​48 Kane, Sarah, 14 Kaser, Max, 185 Kasta, 152 Kay, Philip, 215–​16 Kish, Nathan, 227–​28 Klytemnestra, 29–​30, 40 Kotsifou, Chrysi, 120 Kraemer, Ross, 105 Krause, Jens-​Uwe, 207 Kutzner, Edgar, 105–​6 Labeo, 173–​74,  183–​85 Labraunda inscriptions, 63–​64 Lamia, 53n37, 53 Langlands, Rebecca, 228 Law of the Twelve Tables, 191–​92 Lee, Harper, 26–​27 Legras, Bernard, 106–​7, 119 Lerouxel, François, 112 lex Iulia de adulteriis coercendis, 182, 189–​ 91, 196–​97, 206–​7,  209–​10 lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus, 188–​89, 196,  206–​9 lex Iulia et Papia, 199, 201 lex Oppia,  187–​88 lex Papia Poppaea, 196, 199–​200 lex Voconia,  187–​88 Libo Drusus, Marcus Scribonius, 86, 89, 90 The Life of David Gale (film), 26–​27 Lilia Melani, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Board of Higher Education of the City of New York (Melani case),  4–​5 Litinas, Nikos, 120 Livia Drusilla ( Julia Augusta) games held in honor of, 87, 157

political influence of, 79–​80, 92, 93 temple restoration program and, 196 Tiberius and, 92 Urgulania and, 7–​8, 81–​82, 89–​90, 92, 93 Livius Andronicus, 214, 222–​23 Livy on destruction of cities, 227–​30 on historians’ deceptions, 213–​14 on matronae,  217–​18 on military conscription of boys,  224–​25 on prostitutes, 220–​21 on Verginia, 221 on women and war, 214–​15, 223–​24 on women in public religious functions,  221–​23 Lollianus,  129–​31 Lucan,  227–​28 Lucius Caesar, 79–​80, 85 Lucius Valerius Messalla Volesus, 84 Lüddeckens, Erich, 102–​3 Lumbroso, Giacomo, 97–​98 Lycurgus,  146–​48 Lygdamid dynasty, 68–​69 Macurdy, Grace Harriet, 45 Malalas from Antioch, 166 Malouta, Myrto, 110–​11 Manitas,  73–​74 Manuwald, Gesine, 220, 225 Marcia (widow of Maximus), 87–​88 Marcus Agrippa, 79 Marcus Aurelius, 132–​33 marriage. See also underage marriage cum manu marriage versus sine manu marriage and, 192–​96 gifts and, 193 intermarriage between senatorial families and, 206–​7, 209 lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus and, 188–​89, 196,  206–​9

273

Index psychological development of girls and,  24–​25 Roman brides’ median age for, 175–​76 Xenophon on, 123–​24 Martínez, María Jesús Albarrán, 116 Mathieson, Erica, 116–​17 matronae (married women), 216, 217–​18, 221,  222–​24 The Mausoleum Artemisia II and, 7, 59–​61, 64–​70, 71, 76 Halicarnassus as home of, 59–​60,  67–​68 Hecatomnid dynasty and, 59–​60, 61, 65,  68–​69 Lygamid dynasty and, 68–​69 Seven Wonders of the World and, 7, 59–​60, 65, 68–​69, 71 as tomb for Mausolus, 7, 59–​60, 65, 66–​68,  76–​77 Mausolus agōn (contest for encomia) honoring, 59–​60, 68–​70,  76 Artemisia II and, 7, 59–​64, 68–​69, 70–​71,  76–​77 assassination attempts against, 72–​74 Caria and, 65–​66, 72–​74 Eudokias on, 65 Halicarnassus and, 69–​70 Hecatomnid palace and, 64–​65 Herakles and, 69–​70 Iasos uprising and, 73–​74 Labraunda inscriptions and, 63–​64 The Mausoleum and, 7, 59–​60, 65, 66–​68,  76–​77 Persian Empire and, 72–​73 taxation of subjects by, 72–​73, 76 unpopularity as a ruler of, 60–​61, 61n4, 72–​74,  75–​76 Mazza, Roberta, 112 McEwan, Ian, 26–​27 McGinn, Thomas, 207 McNaughton, John, 26–​27

273

Melaerts, Henri, 112 Melani case, 4–​5 Melian Reliefs ( Jacobsthal Reliefs), 34f, 34–​36,  41–​42 Menaechmi (Plautus), 227 Menophila,  163–​64 Messer, Alfred A., 17–​18 MeToo movement, 6 Meyer, Béatrice, 118–​19 Mirren, Helen, 14, 15 Modestinus, 177 Modrzejewski, Joseph Mélèze, 100–​1, 103,  107–​8 Mondini, Maria, 8, 97–​98, 118 Montevecchi, Orsolina, 97–​100 Montserrat, Dominic, 117–​18 Mostellaria (Plautus), 125 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Argentina), 9, 225–​26 Mounet-​Sully, Jean,  14–​15 mummy portraits, 126–​27 Münzer, F., 84 Murena, 79 Mutilus, M. Papius, 86 My Lai massacre (Vietnam, 1968), 229 Mylasa,  72–​74 Myrmidons (Aischylos), 35–​36 Naevius, 83, 214, 225 Nemesion,  135–​38 Neratius, 178–​80,  181–​82 Nero,  80–​81 Neumann, Günther, 41–​42 Newton, C. T., 65, 76–​77 Nicetas of Heracleia, 65 Nichols, Mike, 14 nomological knowledge, 220 Northanger Abbey (Austen), 213 Nuceria,  214–​15 O’Brien, Alexandra, 111–​12 Odors (Theophrastus), 134, 137–​38

274

274

Index

The Odyssey (Homer). See also Penelope Athena and, 32–​33 Eumaios and, 30–​32, 36, 41–​42 Eurykleia and, 30–​32, 36, 41–​42 foot-​washing scene in, 30–​32, 36,  41–​42 Nausikaa and, 41–​42, 43f Penelope’s interaction with disguised Odysseus in, 34–​35, 41–​42 suitors of Penelope in, 36–​37, 41–​42 Telemachos and, 30–​33, 31f, 36–​37,  41–​42 Oeconomicus (Xenophon), 8, 123–​28, 131 Oertel, Friedrich, 100 Olympias,  56–​57 Olympic Games, 141–​43, 154–​55, 164–​66 Olympio, 163 Olympios,  125–​26 O’Neill, Eugene, 14 Oppian Law, 215–​16 Orientalism,  39–​40 Ovid, 87–​88, 131, 133–​34, 147–​48 palaestrae (wrestling grounds), 141, 145–​ 46, 150–​51, 167, 168, 169–​70 Palfurius Sura, 147–​48 palliata (Roman comedy), 214, 216–​18,  221 Panathenaic Games, 156, 162–​64 Panhellenic games, 141–​43, 167, 169 Papinian,  183–​84 papyri census declarations and, 108–​9 on childbirth and childrearing, 117–​18 cosmetics discussed in, 8, 125–​28, 134, 136 dowry and, 105–​6 economic history and, 95–​96, 99–​100,  111–​15 family experiences and, 108–​11 feminist scholarship and, 100–​1,  104–​6

gender studies and, 106–​7, 117–​22 on homosexuality, 117–​18 on Jewish women, 105, 115 Late Antiquity studies and, 104, 116–​17 legal history and, 100–​1, 102–​3, 105–​8 marriage and, 106–​7, 115, 120 moneylending data and, 112–​13, 115 preisthoods and, 114 property transfers and, 107–​8, 114 prostitution and, 114–​15 slavery and, 119–​20 social history and, 97–​100, 103, 121 violence against women and, 119 wills and, 106–​7 women ascetics and, 116 Parca, Maryline, 119 Parker, Alan, 26–​27 A Passage to India (Forster), 26–​27 paterfamilias (oldest member of paternal line), 192–​94, 197, 202–​3 Patras, 155 patria potestas (authority over descendants), 189–​90,  192–​94 Paulson, Gregory, 116–​17 Paulus, Julius, 198, 208–​9 Pausanias,  153–​55 Pedersen, Poul, 75–​76 Pellegrin, Simon-​Joseph, 17 Penelope chastity of, 29 Helen compared to, 29–​30 Jacobsthal Reliefs and, 34f,  34–​36 Klytemnestra compared to, 29–​30, 40–​41 lack of female quest heroes and, 24–​25 loom of, 33 Penelope Painter vase (440-​430 BCE) and, 30–​34, 31f, 36–​37, 37f,  41–​42 periphrôn and, 41, 42 Persepolis marble statue of, 6–​7, 39–​40,  41 Persa (Plautus), 221, 226 Persepolis, 6–​7, 39, 41, 70

275

Index Persians (Aischylos), 39–​40 Pestman, Pieter W., 102–​3, 114 Petronius, 89 Phaedra Euripides’ depiction of, 12–​16, 17–​19, 21–​22,  23–​25 false rape accusation against Hippolytus by, 6, 12–​16, 17–​19, 21–​ 22, 23–​25,  26–​27 Hippolytus as stepson of, 17–​18 Racine’s depiction of, 12–​14, 17 Seneca’s depiction of, 12–​14, 21–​22 Sophocles’ depiction of, 19–​20 suicide of, 18–​19, 21–​22 Phaedra and Hippolitus (Smith), 17 Phaedra’s Love (Kane), 14 Phaselis, 64 Phèdre (Racine), See Phaedra, Racine’s depiction of “Phèdre” (Smith), 16–​17 Phila Antigonus and, 45, 49 Antipater and, 45, 47, 48, 52–​53, 57 Balacrus and, 48–​49 basilissa title applied to, 7, 45–​48, 51, 55 Cassander and, 51–​52 civic cults to, 49–​51, 56–​57 Craterus and, 48–​49, 51 Demetrius Poliorcetes and, 45, 47, 49, 52–​54,  55–​57 Hieronymus of Cardia’s encomium to,  52–​53 Macedonia and, 45, 51–​52, 53–​54, 57 Plutarch on, 51, 53–​54 royal responsibilities of, 56, 57 suicide of, 52, 53–​54 Phila (daughter of Lamia), 53n37, 53 Philip V, 227 Piazza Armerina (Sicily), 168 Piro, Isabella, 174 Piso, Luicus Calpurnius, 86, 90–​91, 92 Plancus, Lucius, 86

275

Plato, 23–​24, 140n5, 147n23 Plautia Urgulanilla, 88–​89 Plautus Asinaria and, 218, 220–​21 biographical background of, 214 Captivi and, 227 Cistellaria and, 217–​18, 225, 227 Curculio and, 218–​20 Epidicus and, 226–​27 Menaechmi and, 227 Mostellaria and, 125 Persa and, 221, 226 Poenulus and, 217–​18, 219–​20, 227 Rudens and, 221 Trinummus and, 220 Truculentus and, 216–​17 women characters in the comedies of, 216 Pleistarchus,  51–​52 Pleminius,  228–​29 Pliny, 65–​69,  133–​34 Pliny the Younger, 202–​3 Plutarch, 51–​54, 55–​56,  147–​48 Poenulus (Plautus), 217–​18, 219–​20, 227 Polyaenus,  72–​73 Polybius, 202, 216 Polycrates,  162–​63 Polycratia, 227 Polygnota, 161 Pomeroy, Sarah B. education of, 3 family of, 4 Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves and, 1, 3, 9–​10, 95–​96, 104, 187–​88, 205–​6,  211–​12 Hunter College and, 4–​5 interdisciplinarity and, 5, 9–​10 on Penelope, 29 on queens in Hellenistic Egypt, 45 Spartan Women and, 61–​62 Women in Hellenistic Egypt and, 45,  95–​96

276

276

Index

Pomponius Mela, 67–​68, 177 Porcia, 83 Postumus, Gaius Vibius, 84–​85, 89–​90 Préaux, Claire, 100–​2, 108–​9 Probus, 147–​48,  177–​78 Pro Caelio (Cicero), 223 Propertius,  147–​48 prostitution, 114–​15, 198–​99, 202–​3, 211, 216–​17, 220–​21,  225 Pseudo-​Aristotle,  72–​73 pseudo-​Dioscorides,  133–​34 Ptolemy VI Philometor, 163–​64 pyrrhic dance, 156 Pyrrhus, 52, 214 Pythis,  68–​69 Quintilian, 83 Quintus Haterius, 90 Quintus Veranius, 90–​91 Rabinowitz, Nancy, 216–​17 Racine, Jean, 6, 12–​14, 15–​16, 17 Rameau, Jean-​Philippe, 17 rape. See also sexual assault assumptions regarding reliability of women’s accounts of, 12–​14, 14n11, 15, 19, 24–​25, 26 contemporary popular culture’s depictions of false accusations of,  26–​27 Phaedra’s false accusation of, 6, 12–​16, 17–​19, 21–​22, 23–​25,  26–​27 Roman law and, 175–​76 Stheneboea’s false accusation of, 19–​21,  23–​24 underreporting of, 12 wartime and civilian victims of, 215–​16 Rawson, Beryl, 207, 209 The Republic (Plato), 23–​24 Rhetorica ad Herennium, 227 Rhodes, 61–​62,  74–​76

Richlin, Amy, 189–​90 Rigg, Diana, 14 Robsart, Amy, 82–​83 Romulus,  210–​11 Rosenstein, Nathan, 224–​25 rose oil (rhodinon), 128–​29,  134–​38 Rostovtzeff, Michael, 97–​99 Rowlandson, Jane, 106–​7, 111–​12, 121 Roxane (wife of Alexander III), 45–​47,  56–​57 Rudens (Plautus), 221 Ruffing, Kai, 114–​15 Ruzicka, Stephen, 66–​67, 75n69 Said, Edward, 39–​40 Schenke, Gesa, 116–​17 Schentuleit, Maren, 107–​8 Scholl, Reinhold, 119–​20 Schubart, Wilhelm, 96–​97, 101–​2, 115, 118 Second Macedonian War, 214 Second Punic War, 187–​88, 214–​16, 221 Seia Spes, 152 Sejanus, Lucius Aelius, 80–​81, 88–​89, 90–​91, 92, 93 Seleucus, 49, 51–​52 Senate of Rome, 81–​82, 90–​91, 200 Seneca, 6, 12–​14, 17, 21–​22 Septimius Severus, 132–​33, 166, 182 Servius, 179–​80,  184–​85 Seven Wonders of the World, 7, 59–​60, 65, 68–​69, 71 Sextus Appuleius, 87–​88 sexual assault, 11–​13, 26. See also rape Shakespeare, William, 15–​16, 21–​22 Shapiro, Alan, 26–​27 Sijpesteijn, Piet, 105 Silvanus, M. Plautius Apronia murdered by, 7–​8, 81–​82,  90–​93 claim of Apronia’s suicide by, 83

27

Index death of, 82 Fabia Numantina and, 82, 87–​88,  92–​93 marriage of Apronia to, 87–​88 military career of, 87–​88 trial at Roman Senate of, 82 slavery, 24, 119–​20, 216–​18 Smith, Edmund, 17 Smith, Stevie, 16–​17 Sophocles,  19–​20 Sosia Galla, 81 Spacey, Kevin, 26–​27 Sparta, 139–​41, 146–​50, 214 Stheneboea (Euripides), 19–​21, 23–​24 Strabo, 64, 67–​68 Stratonice (daughter of Demetrius), 49,  51–​52 Stratonice (mother of Demetrius), 51–​52 stuprum (criminal fornication), 189, 197, 228 Successors (Argead dynasty of Macedonia), 45–​47, 49, 51–​53, 55 Suetonius, 153, 199, 200, 207–​8 Suidas, 68 Sutherland, C. H. V., 84 Tacfarinas rebellion (Africa), 81–​82, 86–​87,  90–​91 Tacitus on Apronia’s murder, 7–​8, 81–​82, 90–​91,  92 on Augustus’ fiscus, 199–​200 on Augustus’ social legislation, 207–​8 on redistribution of confiscated income, 200 on social legislation and informants,  211–​12 on Tiberius’ alliances, 90 Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare), 15–​16 Taubenschlag, Rafael, 103, 107–​8 Taylor, Lily Ross, 217–​18

277

Terentia, 191–​92, 194–​96, 230 Teutoburgerwald, battle (9 CE)  of, 80 Theocritus, 151 Theophrastus, 134–​35, 136, 137–​38 Theopompus, 65–​66, 68, 71–​72 Thermouthis, 135–​36,  137–​38 Theseus,  69–​70 Thespiae inscriptions, 143–​44, 167, 168 Thessalonice, 52 Third Samnite War, 214 Thompson, Dorothy, 108–​9 Tiberius Apronia murder case and, 81–​83,  90–​91 Augustus and, 79, 80 as consul, 86 Drusus Caesar and, 80 exile of, 80, 85 games to celebrate Julia Augusta’s recovery from illness and, 87 Germanicus and, 80 Hortensii and, 200 imperial succession questions and, 80, 85 Julia the Elder and, 80, 85 Sejanus and, 80 unrest in Germany and Balkans under, 80 Urgulania and, 92, 93 Title IX (of US Civil Rights Act Education Amendments 1972), 172 To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee), 26–​27 town councils (boulai),  129–​31 Trajan,  129–​31 Treggiari, Susan, 83, 207 Trinummus (Plautus), 220 Truculentus (Plautus), 216–​17 Tryphosa, 158–​60, 168 Tullia, 194–​96, 230

278

278

Index

Ulpian on adultery law’s applicability to fiancées, 182 on age threshold for marriage, 175–​76 on dowries in underage marriages, 174–​75,  179–​81 on gifts and underage marriage, 183–​84 Ummidia Quadratilla, 202–​3 underage marriage adultery and, 182, 184–​85 age threshold for, 173–​74, 175–​76 cohabitation prior to, 177–​78 divorce and, 174–​75 dowries and, 174–​75, 178–​82, 184–​85 engagement (sponsalia) and, 173–​74, 177, 178, 183–​84 fathers of brides and, 174–​76, 177,  180–​81 gifts and, 178, 183–​84 Roman law and, 173–​74, 176, 184–​85 sex and, 175–​76 Urgulania, 7–​8, 81–​82,  89–​93 Valerius Maximus, 71–​72 Vandorpe, Katelijn, 107–​8, 112–​13 Van Minnen, Peter, 105, 113 Vasaly, Ann, 219 Vazquez, Marta, 225 Vélissaropoulos-​Karakostas, Julie,  106–​7 Velleius Paterculus, 83–​84 Vergil, 147–​48, 229

Verginia, 221 Verhoogt, Arthur, 120 Vibius Habitus, Aulus, 85 Vibius Virrus, 224, 228 Victoria (goddess), 216–​17, 223 Vietnam War, 229 Vipsania, 86 Vitellia, 89 Vitruvius, 64–​65,  74–​76 Waebens, Sofie, 107–​8 Wallace-​Hadrill, Andrew, 201 Ward, Benedicta, 116 Weinstock, Stefan, 216–​17 wet-​nurses,  217–​18 Wigmore, John Henry, 11–​12 Wild Things (McNaughton), 26–​27 Wilfong, Terry, 112–​13, 117–​18 Wipszycka, Ewa, 116 Wolff, Hans-​Julius, 100–​1 women’s literacy, 124–​25, 127–​28, 135, 138 Worp, Klaas, 112 Xenophon, 8, 47–​48, 64, 123–​24, 125, 127–​28,  146–​47 Xiphilinus, John, 153 Zeus Labraunda, 70 Zeus Labraundeus, 62–​63 Zeuxo of Cyrene, 162–​63