Roman woman

“ Such a tribute to the helpfulness and strong character of the Roman woman may be commended to a few of our enlightened thinkers who, curiously enough, use the low standards of men who never pretended to be moral, and the frailties of dependent women who [Pg 198] were not permitted to be so, or of a class that has always appealed to the weaknesses of men since the beginning of the world, to prove the degeneracy of society under the influence of feminine intelligence! It was never the woman of strong intellectual fiber and serious interests that Rome had to fear. ”

“ Can you submit to be the slave of any woman, while so many halters are to be had? so long as high and dizzy windows are accessible, and the Æmilian bridge presents itself so near at hand?" The women are accused of every enormity known in that Rome where vice attained such proportions as have never been approached in any civilization in the history of the world. ”

“ Do not fancy that the feminists, the problems and the disputes they excite in modern society, are something quite new and peculiar to us; these are only special forms of a phenomenon more general, the growing influence that woman exercises on society, as civilisation, culture, and wealth steadily increase. Here, too, the history of Rome is luminously clear. In it we see evolving that vast contest between the feminine spirit and the masculine, which is one of the essential phenomena in all human history. ”

“ With the new intelligence they moved rapidly, as our women have done, and apparently without aggression. But it was not until the privileges of rank offset in a degree the disabilities of sex that the Roman woman reached the height of her power and her honors. No doubt she sometimes schemed for a throne in the interest of a husband or a son, but she often proved herself eminently qualified for her own part in its duties and responsibilities. ”

“ Maternal, female, connubial passion must be tinged by Agrippina, the woman absorbed in the Roman, less lover than companion of her husband’s grandeur: even the bursts of friendship, attachment, allegiance, and revenge, must be stamped by the military, ceremonial, and distinctive costume of Rome. ”

“ Such treatment and such environment made it possible for the Roman mother to become a real help in making Rome the mistress of the world. Had this courtesy, gallantry, manly attention, respect and reverence for girlhood, womanhood, wifehood and motherhood continued, Rome might never have fallen. Have we the gallantry, courtesy, respect and reverence for womanhood as in former days? A quarter of a century ago it was indeed a rare thing that a man would be so thoughtless as to smoke or swear in the presence of a woman ”

“ In those days the Roman girl had nothing to do but live a pure and blameless life, so that she could marry a shattered Roman rake who had succeeded in shunning a blameless life himself, and at last, when he was sick of all kinds of depravity and needed a good, careful wife to take care of him, would come with his dappled, sin-sick soul and shattered constitution, and his vast acquisitions of debts, and ask to be loved by a noble young woman. Nothing pleased a blase Roman so well as to have a young and beautiful girl, with eyes like liquid night, to take the job of reforming him. ”

“ But it is very essential that we should give attention to both these phases of feminine life. Hitherto we have dealt only with historic personages, and those of the highest class; to obtain a complete view of the Roman woman, it is necessary to see her in that broader light in which she is sketched by the makers of other literature than history. And in order that our attention may not be confined to the women of one class, we must take notice of those ladies of whom the poets sing and to whom they address their effusions. ”

“ But great as were the freedom and educational advantages of the Roman women, the startling fact remains that, with the exception of a few fragmentary verses of slight merit and of questionable authenticity, we have absolutely no tangible evidence of the Roman woman's literary ability while under pagan influence. ”

“ The period of Roman history which we have traversed in our study of woman shows the ancient pagan Empire at its best materially and at its worst morally. We are about to enter upon a new epoch. We shall speedily begin to notice premonitions of decline, but we shall not again witness such an absolute and all-prevalent abandonment of the requirements of morality. From the days of Cæsar Augustus down to the end of the reign of Domitian, all that is recorded of Roman women, with a few noble exceptions, is little more than a wearisome repetition of instances of astonishing sensuality. ”

“ Nevertheless, from all that Rome had done and had been there remained an imperishable deposit. From the ruins of one civilization there is gathered the foundations for the succeeding. Rome left, among other contributions to absolute progress, the idea of nationality and a belief in the necessity of popular law. In these two respects, woman shared in the determined progress of the world. The Roman woman manifested the capacity of her sex to place a steady hand on the helm of the state ”

“ This has never had a more striking illustration than in the reaction of a large class of Roman [Pg 208] women from the vices, follies, and debasing pleasures of a civilization falling into ruin, toward an extreme asceticism. At this moment in its history the golden age of Rome was long past, and the world was to wait more than a thousand years for another brilliant flowering of the human intellect on the same soil. But glory of a different sort set its seal upon the women of the darkening ages. ”

“ Nothing is more certain than that the status of women in Rome rose with the rise of civilisation exactly in the same way as in Babylon and in Egypt. In the case of Rome, however, the growing refinement of civilisation and the expansion of the Empire were associated with the magnificent development of the system of Roman law, which in its final forms consecrated the position of women. ”

“ With this brief reference to Sulpicia, our account of woman's creative participation in Roman literature must end for want of material. The real part which the women of the Roman world played in the formation of the literature of their time must be sought rather in the view which the authors present of their character and the inspiration which the poets drew from their love and friendship. That is to say, we meet the Roman woman in the poetic art of her nation as the model and also as the motive, but not as the artist. ”

“ The doctrine held by some philosophers and sociologists, that military peoples subordinate woman to a tyrannical régime of domestic servitude, is wholly disproved by the history of Rome. If there was ever a time when the Roman woman lived in a state of perennial tutelage, under the authority of man from birth to death—of the husband, if not of the father, or, if not of father or husband, of the guardian—that time belongs to remote antiquity. ”

“ The Roman woman had for generations been supplanted in the sphere of her domestic labours and in the toil of rearing and educating her offspring, and had long become abjectly parasitic, before the Roman male had been able to substitute the labour of the hireling and barbarian for his own, in the army, and in the drudgeries of governmental toil. ”

“ Besides, there were the brilliant Oriental women who began to flock to Rome, bringing with them Hellenic tastes, with subtle fascinations that stole away the hearts of men and threatened a state of affairs similar to that which existed in Athens. This the spirited Roman women could not tolerate. To be thrust by strangers into a secondary place was not to be thought of by these proud patricians, who refused to put themselves in a position where such neglect was possible. They began to realize that the old virtues did not suffice to hold men’s wandering fancies. ”

“ But the real underlying cause for the sensuality of the women whom we have brought into review was the utter purposelessness of their lives, joined to an entire lack of all spiritual impulses in the direction of self-respect. The Roman woman's life during the period under discussion was one of absolute ease and unbounded luxury, although the possibility of abject physical misery, in the form of banishment or a violent death, always hovered near. ”

“ But the man behind the manner is essentially the same; the woman under the changed custom is not thereby rendered essentially different, any more than she is by a varying of costume. The women of ancient Rome exemplified the same virtues, and were impelled by the same foibles as are the women of to-day. And the difference in environment, the vanished conditions of Roman life, gain large scientific interest from the fact that they did not result in any dissimilarity of fundamental character. ”

“ To the Roman law women are infinitely indebted. Among the few hundreds of families who did actually share the civilization of Cicero, the Plinys, and Marcus Aurelius, the position of a Roman matron was one of high dignity and influence, and accordingly the general tone of the best Roman literature toward woman is such as does honor to both sexes. ”

“ Emily James Putnam, sometime the Dean of Barnard, in an article on "The Roman Lady," [Footnote 17] has completely undermined usual notions with regard to the position of the Roman woman. The Roman matrons had rights all their own, and succeeded in asserting themselves in many ways. There was never any seclusion of the women in Rome and the Roman matrona at all times enjoyed personal freedom, entertained her husband's guests, had a voice in his affairs, managed his house and came and went as she pleased. ”

“ A Roman lady, named Fabiola, in the fourth century, founded at Rome, as an act of penance, the first public hospital, and the charity planted by that woman's hand overspread the world, and will alleviate, to the end of time, the darkest anguish of humanity. ”

“ The conditions which governed the life of woman in the earliest days of Roman history are too far removed from the searchlight of historical investigation for us to essay to indicate them with any degree of fulness and accuracy of detail. While it is true that the ancient writers have bequeathed to us records of historic events from the very founding of their nation, the source of their information is very questionable and its authenticity extremely doubtful. Rome did not cultivate literature until very late in her history; she was too greatly preoccupied in her rôle of conquering the world. ”

“ This and the church of Santa Caterina da Siena form a Dominican corner of Rome on a spur of the Quirinal. The garden of Palazzo Aldobrandini is seen in the background. See pages 6, 171.
A traditional characteristic of the Roman is that he has always given a fairer share of life to women than other Italians. Since the day when Romulus called the Roman curiae after the thirty Sabine women who had thrown themselves into the breach for the Romans, and conferred on them special privileges, the Roman woman has played a dignified part in the life of the city. ”

“ Rome, during the latter years of the republican period, was in a condition favorable to the production of anything bizarre and phenomenal. The new wealth, the new learning, the new idleness, and the new vices were fit soil for the production of a new woman who would astonish the world for all time with her capacity for every excess of moral insanity.
We do not, however, mean to allege that with the greater privileges and increased freedom which entered into woman's life the old virtues and time-honored excellences entirely disappeared. ”

“ A great deal has been said of the Roman women of imperial days. Much of it is not to their credit, but the bad are apt to be more striking figures than the good, and to overshadow them in a long perspective. ”

“ She is said, by Roman historians, to have been an "admirable woman"—affectionate and piously observant of her father—one of the most learned of Roman women.
In the earlier days of Rome, the noblest matrons were noted for nothing more than their excellent domestic habits—industry, frugality, and devotion to and affection for their families. The greatness of that vast empire was founded not more in the devoted patriotism and persevering energy of the Roman citizens, than in the incorruptible virtue, the sacrificing spirits, and noble hearts of Roman matrons. ”

“ Ideal we must call it, for it does not in all respects coincide with the tradition of Roman women even in early times; but we must remember that at all periods of Roman history the woman whose memory survives is apt to be the woman who is not the ideal matron, but one who forces herself into notice by violating the traditions of womanhood. ”

“ On the next day was given in the new home the second wedding feast (repōtia) to the friends and relatives, and at this feast the bride made her first offering to the gods as a mātrōna. A series of feasts followed, given in honor of the newly wedded pair by those in whose social circles they moved.
90 The Position of Women.—With her marriage the Roman woman reached a position unattained by the women of any other nation in the ancient world. No other people held its women in so high respect; nowhere else did they exert so strong and beneficent an influence. ”

“ The Roman Senators had become the slaves of a youth who pretended to be a dissolute woman; the best ladies of the Empire, however virtuously inclined, had no protection for their honor and no redress for their injuries, if they attracted the fancy of the emperor or his favorites. The ancient gods and goddesses, who, though the creations of superstitious imagination, had inspired the Romans in their struggle for empire and in that manner had aided them in securing it, were made the courtiers of the Syrian Sun-god, represented by a shapeless black stone. ”