Roman Women

by Alfred Brittain

There were many women who presented examples of the same unflinching firmness for the encouragement of their own sex. The mother of Thrasea's wife, whose name was also Arria, exhibited a strength of mind and a magnanimity of spirit equal to that of the noblest Romans in the best days of the Republic. Duruy recounts two episodes in the career of this noble woman which illustrate all we have claimed for her as one of the best of her sex.

"Arria's husband, Cæcina Pætus, and his son were affected with a serious malady; the son died. His mother took such measures respecting the funeral that the father knew nothing of it. Every time she entered his room she gave him news of the sufferer,--he had not slept badly, or perhaps he was recovering his appetite; and when she could no longer restrain her tears she went out for a moment, and then returned with dry eyes and a calm face, having left her grief behind her. At a later period, her husband, being concerned in the conspiracy of Scribonianus, was captured and taken to Rome. He was put on board a ship, and Arria begged the soldiers to allow her to go with him, 'You cannot refuse,' she said to them, 'to a man of consular rank a few slaves to wait on him and dress him; I alone will do him these services.' As they continued inexorable, she hired a fishing boat and followed across the Adriatic the vessel in which her husband was conveyed. At Rome, she met the wife of Scribonianus, who attempted to speak to her. 'How can I listen to you,' she said to her, 'who have seen your husband killed in your arms, and who are still alive?' Foreseeing the condemnation of Pætus, she determined not to survive him. Thrasea, her son-in-law, begged her to give up this determination. 'Is it your wish, then,' he said to her, 'if I should be compelled to die, that your daughter should die with me?' 'If she shall have lived as long and as united a life with you as I with Pætus, it is my wish,' was the reply. Her family watched her carefully, to prevent her fatal design. 'You are wasting your time,' she said; 'you will make me die a more painful death, but it is not in your power to prevent me from dying.' Thereupon she dashed her head against the wall with such violence that she fell down as if dead. When she recovered her senses, she said to them: 'I have already warned you that I should find some means of death, however hard, if you denied me an easy one.' We cannot wonder that, to decide her hesitating husband, she struck herself a fatal blow with a poniard; then handed him the weapon, saying: 'Pætus, it gives no pain.'"

Pliny gives an account of an incident showing similar conjugal devotion and self-sacrificing courage. "I was sailing lately," says he, "on our Lake Larius, when an elderly friend pointed out to me a house, one of whose rooms projected above the waves. 'From that spot,' he said, 'a townswoman of ours threw herself out with her husband. The latter had long been ill, suffering from an incurable ulcer. When she was convinced that he could not recover from his disease, she exhorted him to kill himself, and became his companion in death--nay, rather his example and leader, for she tied her husband to her and jumped into the lake.'" This was a woman of the common citizens; we do not even know her name. Modern times have no examples to show of a closer marital sympathy than this. Our ideas compel us to deprecate the act of self-destruction; but we cannot question, or more than rival, such devotion. The like degree of faithfulness between married couples was common among the Romans; and this was their manner of showing it.

We have, more than once, seen the statement advanced in all seriousness by well-informed writers and public speakers that marital affection, in the modern understanding of the expression, was almost unknown among the ancients. The object of the contention is to enhance the appreciation of the effects of Christianity; but the argument is as absurdly inconsistent with history as it is with common sense. True, Christianity discourages conjugal unions in which that affection does not exist, but it does not create it; nor was there anything whatever in pagan customs or institutions to prevent the existence of the warmest and purest affection between husband and wife. The sole conditions in the ancient world that militated against pure and constant married love were the customary unions of expediency and the inferior position of the wife. As to the first of these customs, it is by no means unknown in the modern world and to Christian times; in regard to the second, the Roman wife in the period with which we are now engaged was almost equally as well off as her modern descendant.

Principles of virtue, honor, and duty of a high order had been inculcated through many generations of ancient Romans; and it could not be otherwise than that these would reappear and manifest themselves with invincible insistence, even in the most corrupt days of the Empire. What higher or more dignified sense of duty could there be than that exhibited by the lady who had determined to send substantial relief to a friend of hers, banished by Domitian? It was represented to her that this money would be certain to fall into the tyrant's hands, and that hence she would be only wasting her means and gratifying the unworthy. "It is of little consequence to me," she said, "if Domitian steal it; but it is of great moment for me to send it." She possessed the sublime conviction that she was responsible to her consciousness of what friendship demanded, even though she might be certain of the miscarriage of her efforts.

There were also women whose spirits were stirred by the love of freedom, and who were willing to do and dare and suffer in the attempt to wrest the nation from a tyrant's grasp. Among those who have sacrificed their own lives at the altar of Liberty, the Roman woman can claim representatives.

We are told that into the conspiracy against Nero which was headed by Caius Piso, "senators, knights, soldiers, and even women entered with the ardor of competition." The plot was to attack Nero while he was singing upon the stage, though it was considered by some that it would be a better plan to set his house on fire and then despatch him while he was excitedly hurrying about unattended by his guards. "While the conspirators were hesitating, and protracting the issue of their hopes and fears, a woman named Epicharis--and how she became acquainted with the affair is involved in mystery, nor had she ever manifested a concern for worthy objects before--began to animate the conspirators, and goad them on by reproaches; but at length, disgusted by their dilatoriness, while sojourning in Campania, she tried every effort to shake the allegiance of the officers of the fleet at Misenum, and engage them in the plot."

But, though an enthusiastic conspirator, Epicharis proved herself an unwary recruiting agent. She especially applied herself to an old acquaintance named Proculus, who confided to her the fact that he had been one of the party concerned in the assassination of the emperor's mother, and that he was dissatisfied with the reward he had received for such eminent service, he being only a minor officer in the fleet. He added that it was his settled purpose to be revenged, should a fitting opportunity present itself. Epicharis did not wait to consider the unwisdom of incontinently intrusting the knowledge of the whole plot to a man of insufficient principle to prevent him from looking upon the murder of a defenceless woman as an exploit to be liberally rewarded. Moreover, it is likely that she inadvertently had dropped some hint of what was in her mind, and Proculus lured her on by suggesting the possibility of himself as a convert. Epicharis first gave him the whole plot, and then set about persuading him to join it. She recounted all the atrocities of the emperor; and concluded with the remark "that Nero had stripped the Senate of all its powers; but," she added, "measures had been taken to punish him for overturning the constitution; and Proculus had only to address himself manfully to the work and bring over to their side the most energetic of the troops, and he might depend upon receiving suitable rewards."

One indiscretion she did not commit: she did not divulge the names of the conspirators. So, when Proculus laid information before the emperor--thinking doubtless that this was a readier path to reward than any plot of assassination of which a woman would be cognizant--his evidence was of little avail; but Nero considered it best to detain Epicharis in prison, in anticipation of anything that might occur.

The conspirators at last concluded to perpetrate their design at the Cirensian games. Lateranus, a man of determined spirit and gigantic strength, was to approach the emperor as a suppliant and, apparently by accident, throw him down. Scævinus was to perform the principal part with a dagger he had procured from the temple of Fortune for the purpose. Piso was to wait at the temple of Ceres until he was summoned to the camp, which he was to enter attended by Antonia, the daughter of Claudius Cæsar,--a woman of an entirely opposite character to that of her grandmother, after whom she was named,--and who, it was hoped, would conciliate the favor of the people. How deeply Antonia was involved in this plot it is impossible to say. It appears improbable, as Tacitus remarks, that she should have lent her name and hazarded her life in a project from which she had nothing to hope.