Roman Women

by Alfred Brittain

But wealth was not the sole constituent of the harvest gathered in by Roman swords. After the transmarine wars, new ideas and Greek learning became common among a people who were not adapted, as the Greeks, to mere theorizing, but carried out their thoughts, whether for good or ill, to the full extent of their powers. The consequence was that Rome plunged with deadly earnestness into newly acquired vices; and the novel teachings of Hellenism, instead of elevating the minds of the people, served only to create indifference to the ancient divinities. "You ask," says Juvenal, "whence arise our disorders? A humble life in other days preserved the innocence of the Latin women. Protracted vigils, hands hardened by toil, Hannibal at the gates of Rome, and Roman citizens in arms upon her walls, guarded from vice the modest dwellings of our fathers. Now we endure the evils of a long peace; luxury has fallen upon us, more formidable than the sword, and the conquered world has avenged itself upon us by the gift of its vices. Since Rome has lost her noble poverty, Sybaris and Rhodes, Miletus and Tarentum, crowned with roses and scented with perfumes, have entered our walls." All the ancient writers agree upon the same verdict. The old austerity of life was more the result of poverty than of conscience; the simple habits of the first centuries of the Republic were cherished only so long as there were no means to render them more luxurious. Had wealth come to Rome through industry, the slower process, which alone develops the power of appreciation, would have fitted the people to make good use of their better fortune.

But riches surprised them; and we see ostentatious depravity quickly taking the place of a pure, though meagre, life. To quote again from Polybius, who himself was carried from Macedon to Rome as a prisoner of war: "Most of the Romans live in strange dissipation. The young allow themselves to be carried away by the most shameful excesses. They are given to shows, to feasts, to luxury and disorder of every kind, which it is too evident they have learned from the Greeks during the war with Perseus." Cato calls attention to the new manners with that bitter scorn which was so strong in the old Roman. "See this Roman," he says; "he descends from his chariot, he pirouettes, he recites buffooneries and jokes and vile stories, then sings or declaims Greek verses, and then resumes his pirouettes." Imitation of the Greeks was zealously adopted in the education of the young. Scipio Æmilianus says: "When I entered one of the schools to which the nobles send their sons, great gods! I found there more than five hundred young girls and lads who were receiving among actors and infamous persons lessons on the lyre, in singing, in posturing; and I saw a child of twelve, the son of a candidate for office, executing a dance worthy of the most licentious slave." The school here referred to must not be understood as the regular institution for the imparting of knowledge to Roman children; the purpose of that described seems to have been the cultivation of what the Romans had come to regard as genteel accomplishments. There were other schools for instruction in reading, writing, and the usual branches of knowledge. These schools also were as free of access to girls as to boys, and were always conducted as private enterprises rather than by the State.

The remarkable revolution in thought and manners which Hellenism introduced into Rome could not fail profoundly to affect the existence of woman. That she was not far behind man in "running to every excess of riot" is abundantly shown by the historians and other writers of the time. In that city which was once remarkable for the purity of its morals, houses of ill repute became plentiful. These were occupied principally by women who had been slaves, but had gained their liberty by the sacrifice of their honor. Houses of this character are the scenes of nearly all the comedies of Plautus and Terence, who found all their material in Rome, though they located the brothels of which they write at Athens and used Greek names for their characters. Prostitution, however, was not confined to the freedwomen; women of all classes were necessarily drawn into the vortex of degeneracy. Notwithstanding the fact that in B.C. 141 the Senate made a serious effort to resist the increasing looseness of morals, going so far as to build a temple to Venus Verticordia, the Venus who was supposed to convert women's hearts to virtue, the character of the times devoted the whole sex too zealously to Aphrodite for anything noteworthy to result from the appeal to her nobler namesake.

Yet it must not be imagined that all the new impulses which came from victorious contact with foreign lands had no other than a detrimental effect upon the life of the women of Rome. The changes which were taking place provided a door to liberty, though to very many it meant nothing else but an egress to unrestrained license. In any case, the horizon of the Roman woman's outlook became greatly extended; her mind expanded as it busied itself about an increasing number of subjects, and the range of her activities was materially widened. As her husband now had other interests besides those of the warrior, the citizen, and the agriculturist, in the last of which she had alone been allowed a recognized part, a larger field was now provided in which she might be his companion; henceforward she became less an appendage and more an equal. Not, however, because new laws were passed in her favor; indeed, the laws were framed rather with the purpose of overcoming the results of those circumstances which were effecting her emancipation. But it is impossible to overcome a development which is the natural result of conditions that are welcomed by the people; so, in the new society by which the old order was superseded in Italy, women soon learned how, by means of legal fictions, they might accomplish ends which were still illegal. It is altogether a new woman that we find in the last century of the Republic, taking the place of the old-time matron. She drives about the city in an equipage befitting her wealth and position; she entertains in her sumptuous home learned men, with whom she studies the Greek authors; she brings such influence to bear on the Senate as to cause laws to be passed in her favor; she frequently intrigues in matters political; she is not unaccustomed to divorce and remarriage; and, thus engaged, she leaves the spinning of wool, the occupation from time immemorial esteemed honorable by matrons, entirely to her domestics and her slaves.

These great changes in the status of woman did not take place without a protest. They were the occasion of serious contentions in the Senate and of bitter reproaches on the part of the lovers of the old-fashioned ways, Hellenism being blamed for the mischief, on one occasion all Greek philosophers were driven from the city; but that was like removing the old seed after the well-matured plant had grown to depend upon its own roots. The people of Rome were in reality divided into three classes in respect to the new order of things. There were the younger men and women of the nobility, who welcomed the change, but who were intoxicated with the novel pleasures to which wealth gave them access, and into which they rushed with an utter disregard of propriety. Among them, however, were some thoughtful souls,--a class of a better character,--who, while they most cordially entertained that which Hellenism had to teach them in regard to a broader style of life, knew how to winnow the chaff from the grain and to feed their minds with the latter. These found their best representatives in the Scipio family, all of whom were zealous patrons of Greek learning. As we have noticed in a previous chapter, Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus, maintained her house at Misenum in a most liberal manner, making it a centre of erudition and gathering around her many of the learned men of her time. In opposition to both these classes were men whose type may be found in all ages, who were uncompromising in their conservatism and who could see nothing but a presage of national disaster in every change from the old methods of life. Their complete idea of what a woman should be and do was expressed in the formula: "She is virtuous; she stays at home; she spins wool." This party was ably headed by Cato the Censor, who was entirely incapable of understanding why the women of his day should desire anything other than that which satisfied their feminine antecedents in the poverty-pinched times of the early Republic.

The ultra-conservative ideal was, of course, incapable of realization, though there was still in the minds of the people a large residuum of sentiment which could be employed in its favor; but when the times are ready to change, the most powerful appeal is futile. The wiser course was taken by the Scipios and the Gracchi, who endeavored to steer the new movement in the way of betterment and reform. This, if successful, would have conserved the ancient principles by adapting them to the new conditions, and Rome would have maintained her moral greatness while still enhancing her material prestige; but the momentum given by the haste of the people to acquire what as yet they knew not how to enjoy carried Roman society past every turn in the right direction. Consequently, the mother of the Gracchi was honored as a prodigy of female excellence rather than, as she might have been, an example of what Roman matrons might become in the new liberty. Then began the loosening of moral restraint, by which Rome fell to a condition of savagery which was rendered all the more horrible by the presence of the material concomitants of civilization.

It must be remembered, however, that the common people of any age or country change their customs more slowly than do the more favored classes. Unfortunately, the historians have never regarded the lives of people of the ordinary populace as being worthy of record; hence, we have the names and the doings of only the women of the Roman nobility. Were it otherwise, it is probable that we should discover that among the matrons of the middle class in Italy there were in each generation many who maintained, in their quiet lives, the virtue of the ancient ideals, until the time came when their life principle was reinforced by new teaching, not from Greece, but from Galilee. Doubtless also, such as these were more greatly encouraged to perseverance by the stern conservatives who upheld the past--a model which they at least could comprehend--than they were by the high-minded progressivists, who led in paths which were as yet untried. For this reason, it may be well for us to take a glance at the home of Cato, who sturdily antagonized the new movement and was the uncompromising opposer of every effort to alter the fashion of female life. He was the valedictorian of ancient Roman simplicity. That the common people were in sympathy with him is shown by the fact that they erected his statue in the Temple of Health, and, instead of recounting his exploits in battle, simply placed upon the pedestal an inscription saying that he was Cato the Censor, who vigilantly watched over the moral health of the State.

If the house of Cato is to be regarded as an example of the ancient manner of life, the suspicion is forced upon us that the young Roman women of the time must have been thankful that in the great statesman's home they saw the last of the old régime. It was a small house, situated on the censor's lands in the Sabine country, where the luxuriousness of the city was unknown. Here his wife dwelt, superintending the agricultural and domestic activities, while her husband was absent at Rome or in the wars. We may be sure that Cato's wife remained at home; this her husband's antipathy to expense sufficiently guarantees. The man who sold his horse, which had carried him through a severe campaign, because he would not charge the State with the cost of conveying it from Spain, would doubtless, by reason of the extra expense, refrain from giving his wife an invitation to join him in his official residence at the metropolis. Moreover, detesting the growing profligacy of the times, he had no mind to bring her into contact with that luxury which, as censor, he strove so mightily to eradicate. For amusement, she was obliged to content herself with the rustic festivals, which were more cheerful than exciting, and knew nothing of the terrible scenes of the circus and the amphitheatre, which the fashionable ladies of the city were accustoming themselves to witness with a calmness unbecoming to their sex. Her religious devotions were performed before the household gods and in the simple country shrines, if not with as great satisfaction, certainly with as good effect as they might have been in the splendid temples at Rome. In the conduct of her house were observed the strictest rules of frugality. There was no waste; everything which the family could not use was sold, if only for a farthing.

Rectitude, justice, and thrift were the only ideals followed in this home. If Cato's wife possessed anything of the artistic in her temperament, she enjoyed little opportunity for its indulgence. Her husband was very far from the opinion that the gods and goddesses were more easily propitiated by devotions paid before beautiful Grecian statuary than when represented by the ill-shaped images of Roman creation. In the otherwise undecorated atrium were the Penates and the Lares--small and homely figures indeed, but endowed with all the accumulated glory of the family; for to them was attributed all the success of the past, and, if faithfully reverenced, as they were likely to be in such a household, they were pledges for the prosperity of the future. Religion must have been of especial value in Cato's family, for its offices were the only form of sentiment that was given any freedom of expression; all else was under the ban of the most arid practicality. There were no old retainers who, by many years of devoted service, had gained an established place in the affections of those upon whom they waited; and if the mistress had been inclined to cherish such natural regard, it was ruthlessly ignored, it being a rule with her husband to sell his slaves for anything they would bring, as soon as they became old and infirm. Even the bondwomen at whose breasts his children had been nursed had for him, no other than a monetary value. The signs of affection were, in his judgment, the marks of weakness. What a barren-hearted puritan he must have been who could expel an honored citizen from the Senate for no other reason than that he had kissed his own wife in the presence of their daughter! And what a husband, who could make his boast that he had never caressed his wife--presumably, he meant under circumstances where others might witness such flagitious conduct--except on the occasion of a severe thunderstorm, when he was obliged to resort to that means of soothing her! This was evidently, however, an affectation; for Cato admitted that it was a pleasure to him when Jove thundered. It is apparent that his idea of the good old Roman manner of treating a wife did not recognize the need of indulgence; and it is not likely that one who himself took great pride in wearing the most inexpensive quality of clothing, and was, as we shall see, the inveterate enemy of costliness and changing fashion in woman's attire, ever gratified his wife with a present of wearing apparel from the city--unless she, like himself, could rate the worth of an article by the cheapness of the bargain. Yet it is on record that he was an excellent husband, and that he greatly appreciated his wife, whom he married for her noble nature, despite the fact that she brought him but a small dowry and was not of a family high in position. Doubtless his good qualities were appreciated by his wife, especially if she was meek enough in disposition to submit willingly to an unceasing surveillance and interference in the minutest household matters, even, as Plutarch informs us, to the bathing and dressing of the infants.

Such was the family of Cato. It was modelled after what he conceived to be the best traditions of Roman society before it became corrupted by the pernicious foreign influence. He governed his own household by those same stern principles which he sought by precept, example, and authority to enforce upon the Roman people of his time. But his home was the last survival of the old simplicity. An age had dawned when Roman matrons were to become more of a factor in public life and would no longer be satisfied to abide in the shadow of domestic routine. In their newly gained liberty they ran to the furthest extreme of unreasonableness; but Cato's ideas were too illiberal for nature.