Women.
In the early times the woman remained at home. She engaged in spinning and weaving and other household duties, and she had supreme control of household affairs. She was under the authority of her husband and she had no individual rights in property and she could not make a will. Later she acquired more rights and privileges. The condition of women at Rome was quite a deal better than at Athens or in any other country previous to Roman times. For at Rome women were allowed more freedom and participation in public affairs, they were allowed more to share in the joys and pleasures of the husband and other people, and they enjoyed a greater confidence and esteem of the men.
That Roman women appeared in public and that they were not afraid to stand up for their rights is illustrated in the following. In 215 B. C., when Rome needed resources for the second Punic war, the Oppian Law, was passed which forbade any woman to have gold trinkets of the weight of more than half an ounce, to wear a parti-colored garment, or to ride in a chariot within the city of Rome or a town occupied by Roman citizens or within a mile of these places, except for a religious purpose. Twenty years later, when the war was over and prosperity had returned, the women asked for the repeal of this law. They started a campaign and talked about it in every place, they interviewed men on the street, and they stated the case to every one that had a vote. Women from towns and villages came into Rome to help. On the day of the vote, the women rose early and filled the streets to the Forum and used every means to gain their cause. They finally overcame the opposition, the law was repealed, and the women recovered their liberty of riding and dressing as they had formerly done.
The Roman women would even go to greater extremes than the conducting of a political campaign. Over a hundred years before the event recorded above, when the women had much less privileges, when the despotic actions of husbands became unendurable, the women sought a way of rescuing themselves. At the time a number of men of the upper classes were attacked by an unknown disease, in every case attended by similar symptoms, and nearly all died. No cause could be found until a female slave offered to explain upon promise of freedom and to suffer no harm in consequence. Upon the Senate's guaranteeing such to her, she told them that the deaths were from poison, that the wives met together to compound the poison. She took the officials to the place, where they found the women preparing the ingredients. The women were charged with the matter, and to prove their innocence they partook of the drugs, upon which death followed, and with the same symptoms as with the men. Upon investigation 170 of the women were found guilty and it is held that 300 or more wives had entered into the plot to put their husbands to death. Some doubts are thrown upon this story by some historians but at any rate it is stated that the Romans believed it and told it for the truth.
Another story is told of women's appearing in public. At the time of the second triumvirate, funds being needed, a decree was passed requiring that fourteen hundred of the richest women should make a valuation of their property, under severe penalties against concealment or undervaluation, and that they should turn over such a portion as the triumvirs might require. The women appealed to the sister of one of the triumvirs and to the mother and wife of another but with little success. They then in a body went to the tribunal of the triumvirs, whose acts no man dared question, making for their spokesman, Hortensia, the daughter of the famous orator, Hortensius, and protested against the edict. It is claimed this is the first time to be enunciated the principle of "no taxation without representation." They succeeded in getting the amount reduced to a comparatively small sum.
There are some other instances of the public assembling of women. Under the empire there was an assembly of women known as the conventus matronarum, or the "little senate," as one writer of the time named it. The Emperor Heliogabalus built on the Quirinal a meeting-place for this body. This body of matrons met and discussed and voted upon and decided the various points of court etiquette, such as questions of dress, precedence, and the use of carriages.
The public standing of the citizen-woman at Athens has been given in the quotations on pages 179-181, which may be compared with the public standing of the citizen-woman at Rome as given in the following:
"If we take the period of Roman history from 150 B. C. to 150 A. D., we shall be surprised at the number of the women of whom it is recorded that they were loved ardently by their husbands, exercised a beneficial influence on them, and helped them in their political or literary work. Many of these women had received an excellent education, they were capable and thoughtful, and took an active interest in the welfare of the State. It is well known that it was Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who inspired her sons with the resolution to cope with the evils that beset the State, and her purpose did not waver when she knew they had to face death in their country's cause. Julia, the daughter of Julius Cæsar, and the wife of Pompey, kept the two leaders on good terms as long as she lived, and acted with great sweetness and prudence. Cornelia, Pompey's second wife, was a woman of great culture, and a most faithful and devoted wife. Plutarch thus describes her: 'The young woman possessed many charms besides her youthful beauty, for she was well instructed in letters, in playing on the lyre, and in geometry, and she had been accustomed to listen to philosophical discourses with profit. In addition to this, she had a disposition free from all affectation and pedantic display, which such acquirements generally breed in women.' The intervention of Octavia, the wife of Antony, in affairs of state was entirely beneficial and judicious. The first Agrippina displayed courage and energy, herself crushed a mutiny among the soldiers, and was in every way a help to her husband. Tacitus praises his mother-in-law, the wife of Agricola, as a model of virtue, and he describes her as living in the utmost harmony with her husband, each preferring the other in love. And Pliny the younger gives a beautiful picture of his wife Calpurnia, telling a friend how she showed the greatest ability, frugality, and knowledge of literature. Especially 'she has my books,' he says; 'she reads them again and again; she even commits them to memory. What anxiety she feels when I am going to make a speech before the judges, what joy when I have finished it. She places people here and there in the audience to bring her word what applauses have been accorded to my speech, what has been the issue of the trial. If I give readings of my works anywhere, she sits close by, separated by a screen, and drinks in my praises with most greedy ears. My verses also she sings, and sets them to the music of the lyre, no artist guiding her, but only love, who is the best master.'
"These are only a few of the numerous instances that might be adduced, in which wives behaved with a gentleness or courage or self-abnegation worthy of all praise. It is true that they took an active part in the management of affairs, but, on the whole, it must be allowed that they acted with great good sense. And there is a curious proof of this in the times of the Empire. Wives went with their husbands to their provinces, and often took part in the administration of them. Some of the old stern moralists were for putting an end to this state of matters, and proposed that they should not be allowed to accompany their husbands to their spheres of duty; but, after a debate in the Senate, the measure was rejected by a large majority, who thereby affirmed that their help was beneficial.
"No doubt it was their good sense, their kindliness, and their willingness to co-operate with men, that led to their freedom and power in political matters. And this power was sometimes very great. Cicero, in a letter to Atticus, relates an interview which he had at Antium 44 B. C. with Brutus and Cassius. Favorinus was also present, and besides him there were three women—Servilia, the mother of Brutus; Tertulla, the wife of Cassius and sister of Brutus; and Porcia, the wife of Brutus and daughter of Cato. Servilia strikes in twice in the course of the discussion, and it is evident that her words carried weight. On one occasion she promises to get a clause expunged from a decree of the Senate. There must have been many such deliberations where women were present."[180]
Since women entered into public affairs at Rome, it would be natural to conclude they would enter upon some of the public vocations that were occupied solely by men in the earlier times. It would seem that they did enter into the medical profession but, perhaps, not the better class of women and maybe not the citizen-women at all. Since medical art was introduced from Greece, most all the men that followed it were Greek freedmen and likewise the women were likely of the same nationality and standing. Whether there were women lawyers or not, it is true women were permitted to appear in court in their own defense, which some few, at least, did. In religion the cult of Vesta was entirely in their hands, they had the leading part in conducting the rites of Ceres and other female deities, and the wives of priests in some instances held official positions along with their husbands.
"Women occupied themselves, too, with literature. Very little is known of their writings and this mostly from the male writers of their period, who did not place a high estimate upon these compositions of the women, either prose or poetry. Many of the women who did not take an active part in literature did interest themselves in the writings of relatives and friends. Other women became critics and took pride in expressing their views, while others directed their energies toward philosophy and science.
"Ladies, when not poets, were critics, and as such, deemed by Juvenal worse than tipplers. Before they had been five minutes at table, they began to discourse æsthetically on Homer and Virgil, monopolizing the conversation, with a hammer and tong-like effect. They paraded their snacks of knowledge, made quotations from forgotten authors; grammar in hand, corrected their friends' slips. A woman, says Juvenal, may have the encyclopædia by heart and yet know nothing. Martial, too, mocks the purist woman, and yearns, as his life-wish, for a not too learned wife."[181]
"In the good old days of the legitimate drama under Plautus, Terence, Accius, and Pacuvius, women never appeared upon the stage. Feminine rôles were taken by men in female dress. But, with the appearance of the mime and the farce in the first century before our era, women began to take part in theatrical and musical performances. Their larger participation in such matters under the Empire is proved by the discovery of the burying place of a guild of women mimes, just outside of Rome, along the highways leading from the city. Women took a very active part in public musical performances, if we may draw an inference from the number of epitaphs which we find in honor of women who had been solo singers and flute players."[182] Women entered, also, into the commoner affairs of public life, as costumers, seamstresses, washerwomen, weavers, fishmongers, barmaids, and the like.
"If we make a general survey of the facts which have been noted above, it is clear that Roman women took an active part in the literary and religious life of the time, and in many of the cults held priesthoods or officially recognized positions from very early times. Their interest in literature, however, was not serious, and they have produced very little of permanent value. In the practice of law they never succeeded in getting a sure foothold. Women of the lower classes entered freely into the medical profession and the trades, but so far as medicine is concerned women confined their practice to members of their own sex. The principal branches of business which they took up were those connected with the manufacture of wearing apparel. The pursuits of the shopkeeper and the artisan were naturally left to the lower classes, but women of standing in society engaged in industries organized on a large scale, as we can see clearly enough in the case of the brick business."[183]
In the early days of Rome, while the people were struggling to maintain themselves and the nation, the virtue of the women stood out strong. But as the days of hardships passed and comfort and ease and luxury came in with the conquests, laxity of morals arose till under the empire, if the writers of the times may be believed, licentiousness and not virtue was the dominant trait of the women as well as the men. Yet there were many good women, as is shown in the quotations a few pages back.
The social vices of Asia found place in Rome and while heretofore only the foreign women were of evil character, at the time of the empire the citizen-women entered into the life, and in 19 A. D. even a woman of prætorian birth registered herself at the ædile's as a prostitute. This created quite a feeling at Rome and a decree was made by the Senate that any woman whose grandfather, father, or husband had been a knight should not be enrolled as a public woman.
The public life of the times, too, tended toward the lowering of the standard of women. The circus, the theater, and the amphitheater were open to them and they attended in great numbers and witnessed the indecent and obscene acts and the debasing fights and slaughters. It became the fashion for women even of the highest rank to interest themselves in the actors, athletes, circus-drivers, gladiators, stage-singers, vocalists, and musicians, and often going into excesses. Pantomime dancers were the favorites with the women as they "were very beautiful young men, whose art lent them fresh grace. About 22 or 23 A. D. they were banished from Italy, on account of the factions they caused, and their relations with women, who must have been of high rank, otherwise no such ordinance would have been passed."[184] Also there were the banquets, which gave further opportunities for the meeting of the women with the men. With their obscene songs and dances and stories added to enflaming food and drinks, they helped to debase women and to arouse their passions.