ROMAN WOMEN Valeria Arpa Christina Bazzo Lilianna Colella

ROMAN WOMEN Valeria Arpa Christina Bazzo Lilianna Colella Ross Colins Bruna Gaglioreli http: //www. dominae. fws 1. com/context/Index. html

Cornelia l l " In the old days, every child born to a respectable mother was brought up not in the room of a bought nurse but at his mother's knee. It was her particular honor to care for the home and serve her children…and no one dared do or say anything improper in front of her. She supervised not only the boys' studies but also their recreation and games with piety and modesty. Thus, tradition has it, Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, Aurelia, mother of Julius Caesar, and Atia, mother of Augustus, brought up their sons and produced princes. " Tacitus, Dialogue 28, quoted in Women's Life in Greece and Rome, Lefkowitz, Fant, 191 http: //www. dominae. fws 1. com/context/Index. html

Women as Slaves • Forty percent of the Italian peninsular • “A female slave could, in time, save population was enslaved. up the modest amounts paid to her • Wealthy women enjoyed hundreds to the point of purchasing her own freedom, and sometimes the of slaves, while poorer women would freedom of a husband or son. ” only have a few slaves. • “Slave-status derived from the mother; • Slaves would carry out domestic duties, thus the children of a female slave were entertaining and creating supplement also enslaved. Roman society was, income. however, somewhat flexible in the • “Women were often spared some of the ability to purchase individual freedom worst physical horrors of Roman slavery, and then, over time, in the status of including the mortal dangers of mines children and grandchildren to rise and galleys. ” above the freedwoman's limitations and even attain rank and wealth. ” http: //www. dominae. fws 1. com/context/Index. html

Women in Trade l l “Women worked with men in innumerable trades as Romans by the tens of thousands moved to the cities throughout Italy; in taverns, poultry shops (both the cashier and the assistant and their stock, above), laundries and fuller-shops. ” “The poor lived crowded into insulae, multistory housing blocks which were apparently frequently overcrowded and usually ramshackle. Often the lower stories operated small shops. The daily danger of fires (the Great Fire of Nero's reign was only one of dozens of Roman conflagrations throughout the Empire) could wipe out a family's possessions and its small business in one blaze. ” http: //www. dominae. fws 1. com/context/Index. html

Imperial Women l “Our perceptions of Imperial women are also influenced by the fact that, for hundreds of years in the West, the alleged "decadence" of Imperial Rome has created its own evergreen tradition, in which women, as well as men, were sexually perverse and morally bankrupt. The more sensational tales of historians such as Plutarch and Suetonius and legends of women like Messalina and Agrippina have created the image of female depravity that artists have delighted to portray (such as Couture's painting in which the "abandoned" woman is the centerpiece of the painting, embodying Rome's fall from moral grace. ) Obviously the Romans themselves viewed the increasing emancipation of their women with deep and abiding doubts. ” The Romans of the Decadence, Couture, 1847. Image courtesy of Thomas Couture. http: //www. dominae. fws 1. com/context/Index. html

Tablets from Murecine, near Pompeii “The first were excavated in l “Here is one from AD 56: The waxed tablets of the archive of 1875 -6 from the house of the l Umbricia Januaria declares that the Sulpicii were found in 1959 at banker Lucius Caecilius she has received from Lucius Jucundus. A cabinet with 154 Murecine, about 600 metres Caecilius Jucundus 11, 039 tablets comprising receipts for sesterces, which sum came into (1, 970 feet) from one of Pompeii's various payments and colonial the hands of Lucius Caecilius gates, during the construction of a taxes was found in a room at Jucundus by agreement as the highway. The texts, 170 of which have the back of the inner courtyard. proceeds of an auction sale for Financial activities had been published, range in date from AD Umbricia Januaria, the recorded up to the year of the 26 to 61, and originated with the Sulpicii commission due him having earthquake. ” been deducted. Done at firm of financiers, all of whom were Pompeii, on the 12 th of freedmen. They lent huge sums either as December, in the consulship of money lenders or as bankers to local The building-complex at Murecine in AD 79. Lucius Duvius and Publius The tablets were found in a wicker basket in Clodius. ” businessmen. l http: //www. channel 4. com/history/microsites/ H/history/rome/pompeii 1. html triclinium “B” (De Simone and Ciro Nappo 2000) http: //www. unine. ch/antic/Rowe. handout. doc

Bibliography Apuleius, The Golden Ass, translated by P. G. Walsh, Oxford University Press. Cicero, Murder Trials, translated by Michael Grant, Penguin. London, England, 1975 Cross, Suzanne. “Feminae Romanae: The Women of Ancient Rome” (2001 -2004). 5 Mar. 2004 http: //www. dominae. fws 1. com/Influence/Index. htm/ Jones, Peter and Sidwell, Keith, ed. , The World of Rome: An Introduction to Roman Culture. Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom, 1997 Muller. “Widows in a Slave Society. Chapter 4” (unpublished) Pliny, The Letters of the Younger Pliny, translated by Betty Radice, Penguin. Londo England, 1963 Plutarch, Fall of the Roman Republic, translated by Rex Warner, Penguin. London, England, 1958 “Plutarch, Marriage Advice (Moralia) 138 A-146 A (abridged): From LCL” in Roman Civilization: The Empire, ed. Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, New York: Columbia University Press, p. 344 -45 “Propertius, Elegies book IV, no. ” 11 in Roman Civilization: The Empire, ed. Naphta Lewis and Meyer Reinhold, New York: Columbia University Press, p. 351