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Verborgen levens, publieke figuren; Romeinse vrouwen buiten Rome
Wie aan Romeinse vrouwen denkt, denkt aan Vestaalse maagden, trouwe echtgenotes, gevierde minnaressen of machtsbeluste keizerinnen: de vrouwen van Rome zoals we die kennen uit de antieke literatuur. Gezien door de ogen van mannen uit de elite. Maar hoe zat het met de talloze inwoonsters van andere Romeinse steden? Welke rol speelden zij in het stedelijk leven van Italië en de provincies van het uitgestrekte Romeinse rijk?
Specialiste Emily Hemelrijk neemt de lezer mee in een zoektocht naar de openbare functies die Romeinse vrouwen bekleedden. Zo ontstaat een heel ander beeld van Romeinse vrouwen. Gezien door hun eigen ogen. Als weldoensters, priesteressen en patronessen van steden en verenigingen gaven ze vorm aan het stedelijk leven en verwierven ze aanzien en respect. Hun privéleven blijft voor ons verborgen, maar als publieke figuren drukten ze hun stempel op de Romeinse samenleving.
Specialiste Emily Hemelrijk neemt de lezer mee in een zoektocht naar de openbare functies die Romeinse vrouwen bekleedden. Zo ontstaat een heel ander beeld van Romeinse vrouwen. Gezien door hun eigen ogen. Als weldoensters, priesteressen en patronessen van steden en verenigingen gaven ze vorm aan het stedelijk leven en verwierven ze aanzien en respect. Hun privéleven blijft voor ons verborgen, maar als publieke figuren drukten ze hun stempel op de Romeinse samenleving.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
280 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2015
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May 26, 2022Roman women outside of Rome, I was intrigued by the title. In Rome there were the vestal virgins of course and outside Rome there was Julia Domina, but I couldn't think of much else about Roman women though presumably there were plenty of them.
This book lays out several of the roles that women could play in Roman civic life: as priests and celebrants in religious life, and as patrons of towns or civic associations.
By and large this is a book mostly dealing with the period of the Roman Empire and mostly features the western half and of that Italy, North-Africa and Spain.
The study is based mostly on surviving archaeological evidence: public inscriptions, statues, and tombstones which is sometimes contrasted with literary evidence.
The book is dedicated to the author's granddaughter and I wondered if she slightly over egged the pudding to offer her a picture of Roman society with a richer array of possibilities for participation in public life by women. Though at the same time, the picture is negative in that involvement in public life is revealed to mean having the money or assets to give away to rebuild temples, hold feasts, contribute towards or pay for other public works.
My other critical observations are that this chronologically very flat - there's no sense of change or development. Is what she describes true of the first century or the Third or the late Republic, is it even a composite picture across the entire Roman period, I couldn't tell, and I am not sure if the author could tell us either. The evidence that she draws on is unclear in that the inscriptions can be incomplete, the statues or tombs damaged and so not always undatable.
Annoyingly there is no quantification of the data. So she tells us that there were for example statues of women in the forums of Spanish towns but not how many there were in relation to statues of men. So we don't know if female participation in public life was common or rare, or more frequent at some times or in certain regions except in a very impressionistic way.
However such grumbling aside it is a fascinating book. Perhaps particularly for me since I had assumed that the role of women in public life was more limited than she suggests.
Women were priests , although they were not ever a majority of priests even in the case of those serving goddesses. While literary sources treat the worship of Isis and Cybele as though they were dominated by women the evidence of inscriptions suggests that priests were predominately men. Though there could be additional roles for women carried branches in processions which seems to have been a formal role.
The Imperial cult had both male and female priests and some provinces even had a chief priest and priestess, their duties were not explained in the text.
The most interesting of all these women priests were those in the services of Ceres in North Africa where they often were recorded as living to extreme old age, the early Christian writer Tertullian wrote that once women became priests of Ceres they would separate from their husbands - which I guess reduced their risk of dying in childbirth or as a result of an abortion, she considers this plausible since Tertullian came from Carthage, but on the other hand he was writing to encourage celibacy for Christian widows and widowers, so may have overstated his case.
The other major public role open to women was as patrons either of cities or of associations such as of youth or of workers in a particular trade. Legally a Roman woman in the empire was the property of her father, or indeed her grandfather if he was still alive, but occasionally despite the risks of childbirth or abortion, a woman might outlive both, in which case she was free to do what she wanted with her own money and property, its not clear and possibly not possible to know if these women did anything different with their wealth than their male relatives did, but there are inscriptions honouring them for their gifts of money to a town or to an association (perhaps to fund a celebration). 'Mothers' of towns seem to be more frequent than 'fathers' of towns and those women were overwhelmingly of senatorial or even consular tank, exceptionally from the equestrian order. Woman as patrons of associations seem to have been common in the Danube provinces but rarer elsewhere. In both cases women who became patrons of cities or of associations tended to be of higher social tank than male counterparts.
Hemelrijk describes these statues as slightly over life size, standing on pedestals that might be up to 1 metre eighty high, so one can imagine the feet of the statute being above the head of a passer-by, but the inscription would have been at eye level.
Anyway, a curious and for me, an unexpected angle to life in the Roman Empire.
This book lays out several of the roles that women could play in Roman civic life: as priests and celebrants in religious life, and as patrons of towns or civic associations.
By and large this is a book mostly dealing with the period of the Roman Empire and mostly features the western half and of that Italy, North-Africa and Spain.
The study is based mostly on surviving archaeological evidence: public inscriptions, statues, and tombstones which is sometimes contrasted with literary evidence.
The book is dedicated to the author's granddaughter and I wondered if she slightly over egged the pudding to offer her a picture of Roman society with a richer array of possibilities for participation in public life by women. Though at the same time, the picture is negative in that involvement in public life is revealed to mean having the money or assets to give away to rebuild temples, hold feasts, contribute towards or pay for other public works.
My other critical observations are that this chronologically very flat - there's no sense of change or development. Is what she describes true of the first century or the Third or the late Republic, is it even a composite picture across the entire Roman period, I couldn't tell, and I am not sure if the author could tell us either. The evidence that she draws on is unclear in that the inscriptions can be incomplete, the statues or tombs damaged and so not always undatable.
Annoyingly there is no quantification of the data. So she tells us that there were for example statues of women in the forums of Spanish towns but not how many there were in relation to statues of men. So we don't know if female participation in public life was common or rare, or more frequent at some times or in certain regions except in a very impressionistic way.
However such grumbling aside it is a fascinating book. Perhaps particularly for me since I had assumed that the role of women in public life was more limited than she suggests.
Women were priests , although they were not ever a majority of priests even in the case of those serving goddesses. While literary sources treat the worship of Isis and Cybele as though they were dominated by women the evidence of inscriptions suggests that priests were predominately men. Though there could be additional roles for women carried branches in processions which seems to have been a formal role.
The Imperial cult had both male and female priests and some provinces even had a chief priest and priestess, their duties were not explained in the text.
The most interesting of all these women priests were those in the services of Ceres in North Africa where they often were recorded as living to extreme old age, the early Christian writer Tertullian wrote that once women became priests of Ceres they would separate from their husbands - which I guess reduced their risk of dying in childbirth or as a result of an abortion, she considers this plausible since Tertullian came from Carthage, but on the other hand he was writing to encourage celibacy for Christian widows and widowers, so may have overstated his case.
The other major public role open to women was as patrons either of cities or of associations such as of youth or of workers in a particular trade. Legally a Roman woman in the empire was the property of her father, or indeed her grandfather if he was still alive, but occasionally despite the risks of childbirth or abortion, a woman might outlive both, in which case she was free to do what she wanted with her own money and property, its not clear and possibly not possible to know if these women did anything different with their wealth than their male relatives did, but there are inscriptions honouring them for their gifts of money to a town or to an association (perhaps to fund a celebration). 'Mothers' of towns seem to be more frequent than 'fathers' of towns and those women were overwhelmingly of senatorial or even consular tank, exceptionally from the equestrian order. Woman as patrons of associations seem to have been common in the Danube provinces but rarer elsewhere. In both cases women who became patrons of cities or of associations tended to be of higher social tank than male counterparts.
Hemelrijk describes these statues as slightly over life size, standing on pedestals that might be up to 1 metre eighty high, so one can imagine the feet of the statute being above the head of a passer-by, but the inscription would have been at eye level.
Anyway, a curious and for me, an unexpected angle to life in the Roman Empire.
December 15, 2022
Rijk aan informatie en bijzonder onderzoek, voegt veel kennis toe. Opvallend hoe alles draaide om wederzijds belang als vrouwen in het openbaar geeerd werden. Quid pro quo overal. Geld betekende de ruimte verkrijgen om statusverhogende beelden, gebouwen of teksten in openbare ruimte in steden buiten Rome. Opvallend ook hoe vrouwen buiten Rome meer ruimte kregen voor publiek optreden/erkenning. Wel de vraag wat er naast deze bronnen nog over vrouwen te vinden valt. De belofte op de achterflap dat er vanuit de vrouwen zelf een beeld gegeven wordt, klopt niet. Het wetenschappelijke onderzoeksverslag is onvoldoende bewerkt om als echt verhalend publlieksvriendelijk boek door te gaan, dat is wel jammer. Toch bijzonder boek.
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February 19, 2025Verborgen levens in het licht
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