Roman Women

by Alfred Brittain

Nay, bustle, bustle; here you give offence,

With snivelling night and day;--take your nose hence!'"

We have no very trustworthy representation of Poppæa's appearance. There are in existence medals showing her reputed portrait, especially a Greek coin with the head of Nero on one side and that of his wife on the other; but as the former is certainly not a good likeness, it is Reasonable to suppose that the other is no better. Her face, as it is here portrayed, is of the ideal Greek type--straight brows, and nose almost in a line with the forehead. There is also a bust in existence, which, according to archaeological students, may be held to represent either the mythical Clytie or the famous wife of Nero. Her hair is said to have been remarkably beautiful. It was very abundant and of a golden amber color. Nero composed verses upon it.

There were serious obstacles between Poppæa and the imperial throne which she speedily manifested an ambition to share--obstacles which, in more virtuous days, or among women possessing the slightest degree of modesty, would have been absolutely insurmountable; but with the rulers of Rome in those times nothing was impossible except self-control for the sake of honor. Nero was married to Octavia, the daughter of Messalina and Claudius. Poppæa was also married. She had been divorced from Rufus Crispinus, a Roman knight, to whom she had borne a son, and was now joined in matrimony to Otho, the profligate confidant of the young emperor. There are indications that Otho was fond of his unprincipled wife. She was the choicest treasure in his magnificently furnished house. He boasted of her beauty to Nero, and excited the young ruler's pride as well as his passion by telling him that though he were the emperor he could not vie with his subject in the possession of such an example of female loveliness. He even permitted Nero to visit his wife, but, in his self-esteem, did not count upon the result. Otho maintained Poppæa in inordinate splendor; but he was not the emperor. He could give her incalculable riches; but he could not make her the mistress of the world. Poppæa saw her opportunity. She lavished upon Nero all the powers of her coquetry; she intimated that she was smitten with regard for him; she allowed him to flatter himself that he had won her. But she would hear of nothing but marriage. Nero was at her feet; but, having so far attained her end, she would listen to no protestations until he removed all hindrances to their union. She would be empress or nothing. With her beauty for a bait, she led Nero on to the committal of the most heinous crimes. Agrippina was murdered because Poppæa taunted Nero with being under the care of a governess. "Why did he delay to marry her?" Tacitus represents her as asking. "Had he objections to her person or her ancestry? Or was he dissatisfied because she had given proof of her fertility? Did he doubt the sincerity of her affection? No; the truth must be that he was afraid that if she were his wife she would expose the insolence and the rapaciousness of his mother. But if Agrippina would bear no daughter-in-law who was not virulently opposed to her son, she desired to be sent to Otho. She was ready to withdraw to any quarter of the earth, rather than behold the emperor's degradation." Otho, in order that he might be out of the way, had been appointed Governor of Lusitania.

It was some time after the death of Agrippina before Octavia was removed, first by repudiation and then by death. We shall have occasion to notice the character of this estimable woman in a later chapter. In the meantime, the emperor did not have to wait wholly unrewarded by the favors of Poppæa. He was entirely under her influence; but the memory of the remorse which had seized him after the murder of his mother restrained him, for a while, from adding to that crime another of equal atrocity. Again, however, Poppæa cunningly worked upon his fears, insinuating that unless he reinstated Octavia, whom he hated, as empress, the people would give her another husband, whom they would make emperor. This sealed Octavia's doom; shortly afterward, her head was brought to Rome and laid at the feet of her infamous successor, Poppaea was at last the empress in name as well as in fact; and when she presented Nero with a daughter, he made a mockery of the title by naming ner, as well as the child, Augusta. But the little one soon died, and the Senate was obliged to console the father by decreeing that his infant daughter had become a goddess.

All the historians agree that subsequent to his connection with Poppæa, Nero deteriorated in his character, or at least in his conduct. The influence of the woman seemed to bring out and encourage the worst that was in him. For Poppæa, however, there was compensation; her principal gain, in her own estimation, may perhaps be best typified by the palace which Nero built. She cared little for political power; imperial magnificence was the attraction that enticed her. Surely never did woman have her wish in this respect so completely gratified as did the wife of Nero! He built himself a house, having first destroyed many another in order to furnish a site. The author of Rome of To-day and Yesterday says: "It was upon the palace for the emperor that Severus and Celer, the first architects ever mentioned by name in Roman history, lavished all the resources of his boundless wealth and their skill. It seems so extravagant to say that the Golden House extended over an area of nearly a square mile in the very midst of the city, that if there had not been left, from point to point, remains of it over a considerable part of this area, the statement of the old writers to that effect would not have seemed worthy of belief." By the Golden House is, of course, not meant one continuous building; but there was an enclosure by means of three colonnades, each a mile in length, and an entrance portico somewhat narrower on the side opposite the Forum. Within this enclosure were great courts resembling parks, fountains, and fishponds, besides the residence buildings and baths. "In parts," says Suetonius, "this house was entirely overlaid with gold and adorned with jewels and mother-of-pearl. The supper rooms were vaulted, and compartments of the ceilings, inlaid with ivory, were made to revolve and scatter flowers; moreover, they were provided with pipes which shed essences on the guests. The chief banqueting room was circular, and revolved perpetually, night and day, in imitation of the motion of the celestial bodies. The baths were supplied from the sea and from Albula. Upon the dedication of this magnificent house, when finished, all Nero said in approval of it was: 'Well, now at last I am housed as a man should be!'"

Amidst this magnificent splendor, Poppæa lived. We will endeavor to recount her manner of living as closely as we may, in order that we may know what was the ideal existence in the estimation of the majority of the women of her time.

The chief concern of Poppæa, as of all the women of that period whom age or nature had not unkindly relieved of this responsibility, was the preservation of her beauty. The Roman authors have mercilessly laid bare the methods and mysteries to which their ladies resorted for this purpose. No pains or discomforts were avoided in order to retain the freshness of complexion which was apt, in the dissipated life of the palace, quickly to disappear. Poppæa is reputed to have invented many cosmetics and face washes, and especially a mask which was worn at night, which was composed of dough mixed with ass's milk; while for the purpose of removing wrinkles another mask, composed of rice, was worn, Juvenal mocks at the appearance of the ladies with their faces thus encased, "ridiculous and swollen with the great poultice." He suggests that what is fomented so often, anointed with so many ointments, and receives so many poultices, ought to be considered a sore rather than a face. It was held to be of great importance that these applications should be washed off with ass's milk, and the old writers assert that Poppæa kept large herds of these animals in order that she might bathe in their warm milk every day. The Roman ladies were by no means averse to assisting nature in augmenting their charms; they used white and red paints with artistic effect. These were ordinarily moistened with saliva, possibly on account of the Roman superstition in regard to the efficacy of lustration. The brows and eyelashes were frequently dyed; and so careful were the women to render nature all the assistance possible, that even the delicate veins of the temples were heightened in their effect by a faint touch of blue. The teeth had always received most careful attention. There were many pastes and powders known to the Roman beauty. Artificial teeth made of ivory had been in use from very ancient times, for in the laws of the Twelve Tables there was one which prohibited the deposition of gold in the graves of the dead, excepting the material used for the fastening of false teeth. "You have your hair curled, Galla," says Juvenal, "at a hair dresser's in Suburra Street, and your eyebrows are brought to you every morning. At night, you remove your teeth as you do your dress. Your charms are enclosed in a hundred different pots, and your face does not go to bed with you." Many instances are recorded of the costliness of the attire of these Roman ladies. They wore silk which was sold at its weight in gold. There was a kind of muslin so transparent that it was known as "woven air." Tunics were ornamented with figures embroidered in gold thread, and encrusted with pearls and precious stones. Pliny relates that he saw Lollia Paulina wearing a dress which was covered with emeralds and pearls from her head to her feet. She carried with her the receipts to show that upon her person she wore a value of forty million sesterces; and this was not her best dress, for the occasion was only a second-class betrothal feast. At an entertainment given by Claudius on Lake Fucinus, Agrippina wore a garment which was woven entirely of gold thread.

The women of Poppæa's day seem to have been fully acquainted with the benefits to be derived from physical exercise. Agrippina, as we have seen, could swim with no less expertness than Cloelia of ancient renown. Indeed, Juvenal pictures the women breaking the ice and plunging into the river in the depth of winter, and diving beneath the eddies of the Tiber at early dawn. This, however, was for religious and propitiatory reasons. The same satirist refers with evident disapproval to women exercising with heavy dumb-bells in the same fashion as did the men when preparing for the bath. It is apparent that in this age women deemed it to be in keeping with their rights to share, as closely as nature would permit, in the pursuits and the privileges of the men; just as there were men who, beyond the boundary set by nature, usurped the position which belonged to women.

We have spoken of the bath; and it being so large a feature in Roman city life and so good an illustration--though the most innocent--of the luxury of the times, it will not be amiss to afford a little space to its description.