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Women in ancient Rome

Ch. 1 of 7
— CH. 1 · INTRODUCTION —

Contents

Women in ancient Rome

7 sections

  • Women in ancient Rome were citizens, yet they could not vote, hold office, or address the Senate. That gap between legal standing and political voice is the central tension of their lives. What did Roman women actually do with the power they were never formally given? How did Fulvia command an army, and why did she become the first Roman woman to have her face stamped on a coin? How did Livia Drusilla serve as regent of the most powerful state on earth, while officially holding no title whatsoever? And why, in a society that confined women to household and hearth, were the six Vestal Virgins described as Rome's only full-time professional clergy? The answers reveal a civilization far more complicated than its laws suggest.

  • Roman law carved a precise but paradoxical space for women as early as the 5th century BC: they could own land, write their own wills, and appear in court, yet the ballot was permanently closed to them. The historian Valerius Maximus recorded the careers of women who argued cases before Roman magistrates with enough skill to unsettle the legal establishment. Maesia Sentinas, identified by her origin in the town of Sentinum rather than by her relation to a man, spoke in her own defense and was acquitted almost unanimously after only a brief trial. Her persuasiveness was so striking that the historian framed it as masculine, calling her an "Androgyne" because she could not reconcile such effectiveness with womanhood.

    Afrania, wife of a senator during the time of Sulla, appeared so often before the praetor that she was accused of malicious prosecution. The response from Rome's legal machinery was not a ruling on her arguments but an edict banning women from bringing claims on behalf of others, on the ground that courtroom involvement jeopardized a woman's pudicitia, the modesty expected of her station. The stated reason and the real one were different things: as legal commentators noted, actions were taken to limit effectiveness, not to protect innocence.

    Once emancipated, a woman became sui iuris, legally her own person. She could own and dispose of property, and her guardian's main purpose was to give formal consent rather than to direct her choices. Under Augustus, a woman who had gained the ius liberorum by bearing three children was released from guardianship entirely. The jurist Gaius, writing in the 2nd century CE, said he saw no compelling reason for the institution of guardianship at all. The Christianization of the Empire, beginning with Constantine's conversion in the early 4th century, would eventually reshape these legal arrangements again.

  • Julius Caesar's wife Calpurnia managed his assets throughout the 50s BCE while he conducted campaigns far from Rome. When Ovid was exiled by Augustus in 8 CE, his wife used social connections and legal maneuvers to protect the family property on which their livelihood depended. Ovid, described in the source as Rome's greatest living poet at that moment, expresses admiration for her in the poetry he wrote from exile. These were not exceptional situations; they were the structural consequence of a Roman political system that sent ambitious men abroad for years at a time.

    Aristocratic women managed households equivalent to small corporations. Wealthy couples might own multiple homes, country estates, and hundreds of slaves, some of whom were educated and skilled. The home was also the site of the morning salutatio, the business meetings that were central to Roman political life. Women were present for all of it, and their management extended beyond the domestic into commerce.

    French classical scholar Gaston Boissier observed that women of the period appeared "as much engaged in business and as interested in speculations as the men." The record from Pompeii is unusually rich: Naevoleia Tyche, a former slave turned businesswoman, accumulated enough wealth to build a magnificent grave monument. Julia Felix owned real estate. Faustilla lent money. Caesia Helpis produced wine, and Vibia sold it. Eumachia owned a factory, held a priesthood, and served as benefactor of a professional guild. The categories were wide: inscriptions document women as builders, market sellers, scribes, calligraphers, medical doctors, and owners of shipping corporations. When laws during the Imperial period targeted women for adultery charges, they specifically exempted those who had charge of a business or shop.

  • Noble girls were known to marry as young as 12 years of age; the law set that as the minimum for girls and 14 for boys, though in practice boys were on average five years older. Caecilia Attica, daughter of Cicero's lifelong friend Atticus, was married to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa when she was 14. The social machinery around marriage was designed to give fathers maximum freedom to arrange alliances that served both political and economic ends.

    In the earliest Republic, a bride passed from her father's authority into the legal "hand" of her husband, a form called manus marriage. Under manus a wife's intestate heirs shifted from her siblings to her children, not because she was their mother but because her legal status was equivalent to that of a daughter within her husband's household. That archaic form had largely died out by the time of Julius Caesar in favor of free marriage, which caused no change in personal status for either party. During the classical era, marriage required no ceremony at all, only a mutual will to live together; contracts and rituals existed only to prove the union had occurred.

    Divorce was socially acceptable when conducted within established norms, and by the time of Cicero and Caesar it was relatively common and, as the source puts it, "shame-free". Valerius Maximus places the practice as early as 604 BCE. A competing tradition credits Spurius Carvilius Maximus Ruga, consul in 234 and 228 BCE, as the first to formally divorce his wife, doing so on grounds of infertility. Remarriage was frequent among the elite. A custom of ten months of mourning before a widow remarried may have served a practical purpose: if a woman had become pregnant just before her husband's death, the interval resolved any question of paternity. Augustus himself married Livia while she was carrying her former husband's child, and the College of Pontiffs ruled it permissible provided the child's father was established first. Livia's previous husband attended the wedding.

  • Agrippina the Younger listened to Senate proceedings while concealed behind a curtain, according to Tacitus in the Annales. The arrangement says everything about the unofficial channels through which powerful women operated. Ronald Syme, writing about the Late Republic, observed that the daughters of the nobility "count for more than does the average senator" in terms of real and secret power.

    Fulvia's three marriages trace a line through the final civil wars of the Republic. She married first to Clodius Pulcher, the popularist champion who was murdered after a long feud with Cicero; then to Scribonius Curio; and finally to Mark Antony. Her marriages are interpreted as reflecting her own political sympathies and ambitions, and she commanded troops during the last civil war of the Republic.

    Livia Drusilla Augusta, who lived from 58 BCE to CE 29, was Augustus's wife and the most powerful woman in the early Empire. She acted several times as regent and served as a consistent advisor. Her great-granddaughter Agrippina the Younger gained influence under Claudius and Nero. The Historia Augusta records that the emperor Elagabalus allowed his mother or grandmother to attend Senate sessions, which the author treated as scandalous; the Senate's first act after Elagabalus died was to restore the ban on women attending.

    Epicharis, immortalized by Tacitus, went further than influence: she attempted to recruit the Roman fleet to the Pisonian conspiracy against Nero. Arrested and tortured, she revealed nothing. Tacitus notes the contrast pointedly: senators subjected to no torture revealed everything. Tacitus also praises Egnatia Maximilla for sacrificing her fortune to stand by her innocent husband against Nero. During the civil wars ending the Republic, an epitaph known as the Laudatio Turiae preserves a husband's account of his wife endangering her life and giving up her jewelry to support him in exile. Both survived.

  • Six women formed the college of Vestals, and they were, in the source's phrase, Rome's only full-time professional clergy. Upon entering office, a Vestal was emancipated from her father's authority and answered directly to the Pontifex Maximus. In archaic Roman society they were the only women legally exempt from male guardianship. Their vow of chastity removed the ordinary obligation to marry and bear children, but violation carried an extraordinary penalty: a Vestal found to have broken her vow was provided food and water, then entombed alive.

    Their duties connected them to every major public ceremony. The Vestals prepared the mola salsa, a ritual substance required at official sacrifices, making their participation at least symbolic in every state sacrifice. They could accumulate considerable wealth and exercise significant political influence. Their religious and social standing persisted well into the 4th century CE, until Christian emperors dissolved the order.

    Beyond the Vestals, women held priesthoods across the Roman religious landscape. The sacerdos Cereris, priestess of Ceres, was an office never held by men. The flaminica Dialis, wife of the high priest of Jupiter, wore her own distinctive priestly attire and offered a ram to Jupiter on each of the nundinae, the eight-day Roman cycle. She performed animal sacrifice, which was otherwise rare for women. The regina sacrorum, wife of the rex sacrorum, offered a sow or female lamb to Juno on the first day of each month; her husband's office was regarded in the earliest period as more prestigious than the Pontifex Maximus himself.

    Rome's twelve major gods were deliberately arranged as six gender-balanced pairs. Its supreme triad of patron deities included two goddesses, Juno and Minerva alongside Jupiter. An epitaph records the title sacerdos maxima for a woman who held the highest priesthood of the Magna Mater's temple near what is now the site of St. Peter's Basilica. At the infant mortality rate of around 40 percent documented in the source, private devotions to goddesses associated with birth and childrearing were not peripheral but urgent.

  • Matrons wore a stola, a long white dress cinched at the waist and secured by clasps at the shoulder, falling to the feet. Going out required a palla worn over the stola. Young women wore tunics instead. Prostitutes and women convicted of adultery were required to wear the male toga, turning a garment into a legal brand. Wealthy women adorned themselves with emeralds, aquamarine, opal, and pearls worn as earrings, necklaces, rings, and sometimes sewn onto shoes and clothing.

    In 215 BCE, after the Roman defeat at Cannae, the Lex Oppia restricted women's possession and display of gold and silver, expensive clothing, and what the law described as the "unnecessary" use of chariots and litters. The economic crisis following Cannae drove the restriction. When Rome defeated Carthage and wealth poured in, the law came under review in 195 BCE. Cato the Censor argued for keeping it: luxury provoked envy, and Roman women's appetites, once corrupted, could never be fully cured, only suppressed. Large numbers of Roman matrons disagreed and made concerted public protest in the streets. In 193 BCE the Lex Oppia was abolished; Cato's opposition cost him nothing politically. Then in 42 BCE, Roman women led by Hortensia protested successfully against laws designed to tax them, using the argument of no taxation without representation.

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Marriage in ancient RomeSexuality in ancient Rome

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Common questions

What political rights did women in ancient Rome have?

Women in ancient Rome were citizens but could not vote or hold political office. They could own property, write wills, and appear in court as early as the 5th century BC. Elite women could exercise influence through private negotiations, and some, like Livia Drusilla, served as imperial regents.

Who were the Vestal Virgins in ancient Rome and what did they do?

The Vestals were a college of six women who served as Rome's only full-time professional clergy. They prepared the ritual substance mola salsa required at official sacrifices and participated symbolically in every state sacrifice. Their vow of chastity bound them for thirty years; violation carried the penalty of being entombed alive. The order was dissolved by Christian emperors in the 4th century CE.

What was the legal status of women in ancient Rome regarding marriage and property?

By the classical era, free marriage was the norm and caused no change in legal status for either spouse. A woman who was emancipated became sui iuris and could own and dispose of property independently. If a father died without a will, daughters had an equal right to inherit alongside sons. Under Augustus, a woman who bore three children gained the ius liberorum and was released from legal guardianship.

What professions and businesses did women in ancient Rome work in?

Women in ancient Rome worked across a wide range of professions documented by funerary inscriptions, court records, and archaeological finds. In Pompeii alone, named businesswomen included Naevoleia Tyche as an investor, Julia Felix as a real estate owner, Faustilla as a money lender, Eumachia as a factory owner and priestess, and Umbricia Fortunata as a fish sauce seller. Women also owned shipping corporations, brick factories, and practiced as scribes, calligraphers, and medical doctors.

What was the Lex Oppia and how did Roman women respond to it?

The Lex Oppia was passed in 215 BCE following the Roman defeat at Cannae. It restricted women's possession and display of gold, silver, expensive clothing, and their use of chariots and litters. When the law came under review in 195 BCE, Cato the Censor argued for keeping it, but large numbers of Roman matrons made public protest in the streets. The law was abolished in 193 BCE. In 42 BCE, Roman women led by Hortensia successfully protested proposed taxes on women using the argument of no taxation without representation.

What role did women like Livia and Agrippina the Younger play in Roman imperial politics?

Livia Drusilla Augusta, who lived from 58 BCE to CE 29, was the most powerful woman in the early Roman Empire. She acted several times as regent and served as a consistent advisor to Augustus. Agrippina the Younger, her great-granddaughter, gained political influence under Claudius and Nero, and according to Tacitus listened to Senate proceedings from behind a curtain. Both women operated through unofficial channels, as women were formally excluded from all political offices.

All sources

206 references cited across the entry

  1. 1Jasper Burns, "Sabina," in Great Women of Imperial Rome: Mothers and Wives of the Caesars (Routledge, 2007), pp. 124–140.
  2. 2The form of Roman marriage called conubium, for instance, requires that both spouses be citizens; like men from towns granted civitas sine suffragio, women (at least those eligible for conubium) were
  3. 3Bruce W. Frier and Thomas A.J. McGinn, A Casebook on Roman Family Law (Oxford University Press: American Philological Association, 2004), pp. 31–32, 457, et passim.
  4. 4Kristina Milnor, "Women in Roman Historiography," in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians (Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 278; Ann Ellis Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiolo
  5. 5Unless otherwise noted, this introductory overview is based on Beryl Rawson, "Finding Roman Women," in A Companion to the Roman Republic (Blackwell, 2010), p. 325.
  6. 6Kelly Olson, "The Appearance of the Young Roman Girl," in Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2008), p. 139.
  7. 7In reference to his character assassination of the notorious Clodia; see Pro Caelio.
  8. 8For an extensive modern consideration of the Vestals, see Ariadne Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (Routledge, 1998).
  9. 9Beryl Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 129–130.
  10. 10Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 128, citing Persius 2.70 and the related scholion, and p. 48 on Diana. Rome lacked the elaborate puberty rites for girls that were practiced in ancien
  11. 11Beryl Rawson, "The Roman Family in Italy" (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 21.
  12. 12Judith P. Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family (Princeton University Press, 1984), 142.
  13. 13Lauren, Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity" (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 3–4.
  14. 14Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", p. 16.
  15. 15Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", pp. 106–107.
  16. 16Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", p. 18.
  17. 17Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, pp. 197–198
  18. 18Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", p. 17.
  19. 19Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 198.
  20. 20Janine Assa, The Great Roman Ladies (New York, 1960), p. 50.
  21. 21Beryl Rawson, "The Roman Family," in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives (Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 30, 40–41.
  22. 22Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", p. 2.
  23. 23Plutarch, Life of Pompey 55 LacusCurtius edition.
  24. 24Sandra R. Joshel, Sheila Murnaghan, "Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture" (Routledge; New edition 2001), p. 86.
  25. 25Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", pp. 15–16.
  26. 26Rawson, "The Roman Family," p. 40.
  27. 27Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 45.
  28. 28Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 197.
  29. 29Caldwell, "Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity", pp. 11, 45–46.
  30. 30Mary T. Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, Noel Lenski, Richard J. A. Talbert, "A Brief History of The Romans" (Oxford University Press; 2 edition, 2013), p. 176.
  31. 31Frier, A Casebook on Roman Family Law, pp. 19–20.
  32. 32Beryl Rawson, "The Roman Family," in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives (Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 18.
  33. 33Frier, A Casebook on Roman Family Law, p. 66.
  34. 34J.A. Crook, Law and Life of Rome 90B.C.-212 A.D.
  35. 35Rawson, "The Roman Family", p. 21.
  36. 36Bruce W. Frier and Thomas A.J. McGinn, A Casebook on Roman Family Law (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 20.
  37. 37Frier and McGinn, Casebook, pp. 19–20.
  38. 38"If adults sons or daughters and their children had lived in the same household as the paterfamilias," notes Rawson, "they may well have found the constant awareness of his powers and position a great
  39. 39Hallett, 139.
  40. 40Rawson, The Roman Family, p. 21.
  41. 41Rawson, "The Roman Family," p. 18.
  42. 42BookWomen and Politics in Ancient RomeRichard Bauman — Routledge — 1992
  43. 43BookGrowing up and Growing old in Ancient Romeand Ray, Laurence Harlow, Mary — Rutledge — 2002
  44. 44BookA Brief History of the RomansMary Boatwright et al. — Oxford University — 2005
  45. 45Richard A. Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome (Routledge, 1992, 1994), p. 50.
  46. 46Her name appears also as Amesia.
  47. 47Valerius Maximus 8.3.1; Joseph Farrell, Latin Language and Latin Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 74–75; Michael C. Alexander, Trials in the Late Roman Republic, 149–50 BCE (University
  48. 48Bauman, Women and Politics, p. 50.
  49. 49The name is vexed; it may also be Carfrania.
  50. 50Bauman, Women and Politics, pp. 50–51.
  51. 51Bauman, Women and Politics, p. 51.
  52. 52Bauman, Women and Politics, pp. 51–52.
  53. 53Johnston, Roman Law in Context, chapter 3.3; Frier and McGinn, Casebook, Chapter IV.
  54. 54Yan Thomas, "The Division of the Sexes in Roman Law," in A History of Women from Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints (Harvard University Press, 1991), p. 134.
  55. 55Alan Watson, The Spirit of Roman Law (University of Georgia Press, 1995), p. 13; Thomas, "The Division of the Sexes," p. 135.
  56. 56Judith Evans Grubbs, Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce and Law in the Roman Empire (Routledge, 2002), p. 24.
  57. 57Watson, The Spirit of Roman Law, p. 13; Gaius, Inst. 1.173.
  58. 58Thomas, "The Division of the Sexes," p. 133.
  59. 59Gaius, Institutes 1.190–1.191.
  60. 60Cinctus vinctusque, according to Festus 55 (edition of Lindsay); Karen K. Hersch, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 101, 110, 211 .
  61. 61Wiesner, Merry E. “The Family” Gender in History: Global Perspectives, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2011, p.32
  62. 62Frier and McGinn, A Casebook on Roman Family Law, p. 20.
  63. 63Duby, Perrot, and Pantel, A History of Women Volume 1, pg. 133
  64. 64The late Imperial Roman jurist Gaius writes of manus marriage as something that used to happen. Frier and McGinn, Casebook, p. 54.
  65. 65Frier and McGinn, Casebook, p. 53.
  66. 66Eva Cantarella, Pandora's Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987), pp. 140–141; J.P. Sullivan, "Martial's Sexual Attitudes", Philolo
  67. 67David Johnston, Roman Law in Context (Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 33–34.
  68. 68Johnston, Roman Law, pp. 36–36; Frier and McGinn, Casebook, section V.
  69. 69Frier and McGinn, Casebook, pp. 49, 52, citing Ulpian, D. 24.1.3.1. If the donor died first, however, the gift to the surviving spouse was valid.
  70. 70Suzanne Dixon, "From Ceremonial to Sexualities: A Survey of Scholarship on Roman Marriage" in A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), p. 248.
  71. 71Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquitates Romanae, 2.25
  72. 72Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae 4.3.1) places the divorce in 227 BCE, but fudges the date and his sources elsewhere.
  73. 73Alan Watson, The Spirit of Roman Law (University of Georgia Press, 1995), p. 173.
  74. 74Frier and McGinn, Casebook, part D, "The End of Marriage."
  75. 75Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 258–259, 500–502 et passim.
  76. 76Karen K. Hersch, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity, p. 48.
  77. 77In Roman inclusive counting, a pregnancy was counted as lasting ten months.
  78. 78Eva Cantarella, "Marriage and Sexuality in Republican Rome: A Roman Conjugal Love Story," in The Sleep of Reason: Erotic Experience and Sexual Ethics in Ancient Greece and Rome (University of Chicago
  79. 79Plutarch, Roman Questions 105.
  80. 80Karen K. Hersh, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 4, 48, et passim citing Humbert (1971), pp. 1–11. See also Treggiari, Roman Marriage.
  81. 81Hersh, The Roman Wedding, passim, pointing to the fictionalized and possibly satiric account by Lucan. Or some scholars see in this more of an arrangement than marriage proper.
  82. 82Hersh, The Roman Wedding, pp. 103–104.
  83. 83Frier and McGinn, Casebook, p. 480.
  84. 84Frier and McGinn, Casebook, p. 52.
  85. 85Frier and McGinn, Casebook, p. 50
  86. 86J.A. Crook Law and Life of Rome 90 B.C.-212 A.D.
  87. 87A casebook on Roman Family Law, Frier and McGinn, pg. 95.
  88. 88Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder 20.2.
  89. 89Garrett G. Fagan, "Violence in Roman Social Relations," in The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 487.
  90. 90Tacitus, Annals XVI.6
  91. 91Frank McLynn, Marcus Aurelius: A Life, p. 435.
  92. 92Rawson, "The Roman Family," p. 30.
  93. 93Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 697.
  94. 94As noted by Soranus (1st century AD) in his Gynaecology 2.18.
  95. 95Jane F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 242.
  96. 96Lawrence Richardson, "A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome," (JHU Press, 1992), p. 94.
  97. 97Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder 20.3; Christopher Michael McDonough, "Carna, Procra and the Strix on the Kalends of June," Transactions of the American Philological Association 127 (1997), p. 322, no
  98. 98Tacitus, Dialogus 28, as noted by McDonough, p. 322.
  99. 99W. Jeffrey Tatum, The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher (University of North Carolina Press, 1999), p. 33ff.
  100. 100Janine Assa, The Great Roman Ladies (New York, 1960), p. 32; A History of Women in the West from Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints, vol. 1, p. 115.
  101. 101Jane F. Gardner, Family and Familia in Roman Law and Life (Oxford University Press, 1999, 2004), p. 53.
  102. 102Plutarch, Life of Cato the Elder 20.2.
  103. 103Assa, The Great Roman Ladies, p. 50.
  104. 104Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford University Press, 1991, reprinted 2002), p. 420.
  105. 105Hermann Fränkel, Ovid: A Poet between Two Worlds (University of California Press, 1956), p. 151.
  106. 106Jo-Marie Claasen, "Tristia," in A Companion to Ovid (Blackwell, 2009), p. 179.
  107. 107Assa, The Great Roman Ladies, p. 45.
  108. 108Assa, The Great Roman Ladies, p. 51.
  109. 109Gaston Boissier, Cicero and his friends: a study of Roman Society in the time of Caesar 1922 trans. Adnah David Jones. p.96
  110. 110A Casebook on Roman Family Law Frier+McGinn pg 461
  111. 111Law and Life of Rome, J.A. Crook pg.172
  112. 112Christians and Pagans, Fox, Pg. 464
  113. 113The Gracchi Marius and Sulla, A.H. Beesley, pg. 21 on the first Serville War
  114. 114See Ancient Roman Life as Illustrated by Latin Inscriptions by Brian K. Harvey.
  115. 115Abbott, Society and Politics in Ancient Rome: Essays and Sketches, pg. 98
  116. 116Women's life in Greece & Rome, Lefkowitz+Fant, pg. 171
  117. 117Paul, Opinions 2.26.11 L, as cited in Women's Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation, edited by Mary R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982, 3rd ed. 2005
  118. 118Pomeroy, Sarah B. (1979 (1975)). Goddesses, whores, wives and slaves: women in classical antiquity (5. impr.). New York: Schoken. ISBN 0805205306
  119. 119The World of Pompeii. (2009). Storbritannien: Taylor & Francis. s.
  120. 120Longfellow, B. (2025). The Lives and Deaths of Women in Ancient Pompeii. USA: University of Texas Press. s.
  121. 121BookThe Roman Province of Gallia Narbonensis: The Occupation and Governance of Southern France, 118 BCE to 235 CEPhilip Kay-Bujak — Pen and Sword History — 2025-01-30
  122. 122"Women and Marriage in Ancient Rome," Chapter 1 ; Jane Bingham,The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of The Roman World (Usborne, 2002), page 48.
  123. 123Catharine Edwards, "Unspeakable Professions: Public Performance and Prostitution in Ancient Rome," in Roman Sexualities (Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 66ff.
  124. 124Celia E. Schultz, Women's Religious Activity in the Roman Republic (University of North Carolina Press, 2006), p. 54.
  125. 125Rawson, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy, p. 80.
  126. 126Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 35.147.
  127. 127Ronald Syme, Sallust (University of California Press, 1964, reprinted 2002), p. 25 online.
  128. 128BookFathers and Daughters in Roman SocietyJudith Hallet — Princeton University — 1984
  129. 129Arthur Ernest Gordon, Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy (University of California Press, 1983), pp. 34, 103.
  130. 130Richard Saller, "Status and patronage", Cambridge Ancient History: The High Empire, A.D. 70–192 (Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 18.
  131. 131Tacitus, Annals 15.51
  132. 132Tacitus, Annals 15.71.
  133. 133Elagabalus, Historia Augusta, 4.3, 12.3 and Historia Augusta,Aurelian, 49.6; translated by David Magie
  134. 134Allison P. (2011) 'Soldiers’ families in the early Roman Empire', in B. Rawson, ed., Family and household in ancient Greece and Rome: a companion, 161–182. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell
  135. 135Greene, E.M. (2014). “If the shoe fits: Style and function of children’s shoes from Vindolanda” in R. Collins and F. McIntosh (eds.), Life in the Limes: Studies of the People and Objects of the Roman
  136. 136Greene, E.M. (2015) 'Girls or Boys on the Column of Trajan? Depictions of Female Participation in Military Religion' presented at 116th Joint Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America
  137. 137Mary Beard, J.A. North, and S.R.F. Price, Religions of Rome: A History (Cambridge University Press, 1998), vol. 1, p. 297.
  138. 138Celia E. Schultz, Women's Religious Activity in the Roman Republic (University of North Carolina Press, 2006), pp. 134–136. In some sense, every head of household was a priest responsible for religiou
  139. 139Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 1, pp. 296–297.
  140. 140Phyllis Culham, "Women in the Roman Republic," in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Republic (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 143.
  141. 141Barbette Stanley Spaeth, The Roman Goddess Ceres (University of Texas Press, 1996), p. 104.
  142. 142Lesley E. Lundeen, "In Search of the Etruscan Priestess: A Re-Examination of the hatrencu," in Religion in Republican Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 46; Schultz, Women's Religious Activi
  143. 143BookReligion in Republican ItalyLesley E. Lundeen — Cambridge University Press — 2006-12-14
  144. 144BookThe Roman Goddess CeresBarbette Stanley Spaeth — University of Texas Press — 1996
  145. 145Spaeth, Barbette, The Roman Goddess Ceres, pp. 4–5, 9, 20 (historical overview and Aventine priesthoods), 84–89 (functions of plebeian aediles), 104–106 (women as priestesses): citing among others Cic
  146. 146BookBona Dea: The Sources and a Description of the CultHendrik H. J. Brouwer — Brill
  147. 147Ariadne Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (Routledge, 1998), p. 184.
  148. 148Gary Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War (University of California Press, 2005, 2006), p. 141.
  149. 149Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins, pp. 154–155.
  150. 150Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.16.
  151. 151Emily A. Hemelrijk, "Women and Sacrifice in the Roman Empire," in Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire. Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Em
  152. 152Jörg Rüpke, Fasti sacerdotum: A Prosopography of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian Religious Officials in the City of Rome, 300 BCE to CE 499 (Oxford University Press, 2008, originally published in German
  153. 153Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome, p. 136, based on Festus on the ordo sacerdotum (hierarchy of priests), 198 in the edition of Lindsay.
  154. 154Schultz, Women's Religious Activity in the Roman Republic, pp. 79–81.
  155. 155Michael Lipka, Roman Gods: A Conceptual Approach (Brill, 2009), pp. 141–142 online.
  156. 156Varro, De re rustica 1.1.4, says their golden images stood in the forum, "six male and the same number of female."
  157. 157The Capitoline Triad replaced the Indo-European Archaic Triad, composed of three male gods, and is thought to result from Etruscan influence; see Robert Schilling, Roman and European Mythologies (Univ
  158. 158Stephen L. Dyson, Rome: A Living Portrait of an Ancient City (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), p. 283.
  159. 159M. Golden, "Did the Ancients Care When Their Children Died?" Greece & Rome 35 (1988) 152–163.
  160. 160Ceres: The Roman Goddess of GrainMike Greenberg — 28 June 2021
  161. 161Beard et al., Religions of Rome, vol. 1, p. 297.
  162. 162Cicero, De legibus 2.9.21; Emily A. Hemelrijk, "Women and Sacrifice in the Roman Empire," in Ritual Dynamics and Religious Change in the Roman Empire. Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop of the Interna
  163. 163Assa, The Great Roman Ladies, p. 73.
  164. 164Garrett G. Fagan, Bathing in Public in the Roman World (University of Michigan Press, 1999, 2002), pp. 26–27.
  165. 165Assa, The Great Roman Ladies, p. 92.
  166. 166Livius, Titus, A History of Rome, (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub, 2006), 182.
  167. 167Assa, 102.
  168. 168Assa, 96.
  169. 169Assa, 65.
  170. 170Assa, 60.
  171. 171Assa, 66.
  172. 172BookProstitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient WorldChristopher A. Faraone et al. — Univ of Wisconsin Press — 14 March 2008
  173. 173Assa, 67.
  174. 174Pomeroy, Sarah B., Women in Classical Antiquity
  175. 175Pliny the Younger, Letters, Book 1 letter IV
  176. 176Kelly Olson, "The Appearance of the Young Roman Girl," in Roman Dress and the Fabrics of Roman Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2008), p. 143.
  177. 177John R. Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (University of California Press, 1998, 2001), p. 34.
  178. 178Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (Oxford University Press, 1983, 1992), pp. 68, 110.
  179. 179Clarke, Looking at Lovemaking, p. 34 et passim.
  180. 180Martial, Epigrams 1.100, 2.52, 14.66; Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, pp. 52, 54, 68.
  181. 181Olson, "The Appearance of the Young Roman Girl," p. 143.
  182. 182Pliny the Elder, Natural History 25.95, citing Anaxilaus, a Pythagorean physician in the time of Augustus; Matthew W. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (Routledge, 2001, 2005), p. 1
  183. 183Richlin, The Garden of Priapus, p. 38.
  184. 184Larissa Bonfante, "Nursing Mothers in Classical Art," in Naked Truths: Women, Sexuality, and Gender in Classical Art and Archaeology (Routledge, 1997, 2000), pp. 174ff.
  185. 185Anthony Corbeill, Nature Embodied: Gesture in Ancient Rome (Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 87ff.; Alan Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 725; Mary Lefkowitz a
  186. 186Juvenal, Satire VI lines 6.286–313
  187. 187Ann Ellis Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiology at Rome," in Les écoles médicales à Rome (Université de Nantes, 1991), p. 259.
  188. 188Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiology," p. 259–260; Marilyn B. Skinner, introduction to Roman Sexualities (Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 11: The "notion of women as 'Same' as well as
  189. 189Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiology," pp. 259–260.
  190. 190Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiology," p. 260. The Gynecology of Soranus is central to Hanson's arguments.
  191. 191Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiology," p. 264.
  192. 192Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiology," p. 265.
  193. 193Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiology," p. 267, citing Priapea 78 on the vitiating effects of uncontrolled sexual activity and releasing too much semen, and CIL 12.6721(5), one of the Perusi
  194. 194Hanson, "The Restructuring of Female Physiology," p. 267. Clitoridectomy is described in some detail by the Byzantine physicians and medical writers Aëtius of Amida (fl. mid-5th century/mid-6th centur
  195. 195J.A. Crook, Law and Life of Rome 90 B.C.-A.D. 212 (Cornell University Press, 1967, 1984), pp. 48–50.
  196. 196Crook, Law and Life of Rome, p. 101.
  197. 197The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Study of social History and the Brothel By Thomas A. McGinn. pg. 52
  198. 198Thomas AJ McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome, Oxford University Press. 1998, p. 56.
  199. 199Thomas AJ McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 293
  200. 200Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Life of Caligula
  201. 201Tacitus, Annals 15.37
  202. 202Thomas AJ McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality and the Law in Ancient Rome, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 171, 310.
  203. 203BookThe Great Roman LadiesAssa, Janine — Grove Press — 1960
  204. 204BookThe First Ladies of Rome: the Women behind the CaesarsFreisenbruch, Annelise — Jonathan Cape — 2010
  205. 205BookA casebook on Roman family lawBruce W. Frier, Thomas A. J. McGinn — Oxford University Press — 2004
  206. 206BookFathers and daughters in Roman society: women and the elite familyHallett, Judith P. — Princeton University Press — 1984

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