Roman Women

by Alfred Brittain

It was through the dagger mentioned above, and also the cupidity of a woman, that the whole conspiracy came to light. Scævinus impatiently ordered his freedman Milichus to put the weapon to the grindstone and bring it to a sharp point. Milichus, putting together this and other preparations he witnessed, guessed the project that was on foot. He told his suspicions to the emperor. Scævinus was arrested; but his bearing was so confident that the accuser would have broken down had not the wife of Milichus reminded him that "Natalis had taken part in many secret conversations with Scævinus, and that both were confidants of Piso." Then followed numerous arrests, confessions, and accusations, each conspirator endeavoring to lighten the burden of his own guilt by revealing how many there were who shared it. Lucan the poet even informed against his own mother, Atilla.

Amid all this disaster, there was one spirit that remained undaunted, one tongue that could not be persuaded by promises or compelled by torment to confess and thus implicate others. Epicharis had been held in custody from the time of her unguarded enthusiasm in Campania. Nero recollected her, and commanded that she should be put to the torture. "But," says the historian, "neither stripes, nor fire, nor the rage of the tormentors, who tore her with the more vehemence, lest they should be scorned by a woman, could vanquish her." Thus the first day of torture was passed without producing any effect upon her. "The day following, as she was being brought back to suffer the same torments, riding in a chair, for all her members being disjointed, she could not support herself, taking off the girdle that bound her breast, she tied it in a noose to the canopy of the chair, and, placing her neck in it, hung upon it with the weight of her whole body, and thus forced out the slender remains of life. A freedwoman, by thus screening strangers and persons almost unknown to her, though pressed to divulge their names by the most extreme torture, exhibited an example which derived augmented lustre from the fact that freeborn persons, men, Roman knights, and Senators, untouched by the instruments of inquisition, all betrayed their dearest pledges of affection."

Among the many who suffered from the discovery of this conspiracy was Seneca, the aged philosopher and the former tutor of Nero. It is probable that he was innocent; but he had incurred Nero's displeasure, and the tyrant was glad of the opportunity to destroy him with seeming justice. The parting of Seneca with his wife and her conduct at the time well merit the pains which the historian has taken with the recital. Embracing his wife, he implored her to "refrain from surrendering herself to endless grief; but to endeavor to mitigate her regret for her husband by means of those honorable consolations which she would experience in the contemplation of his virtuous life." Paullina, however, expressed her determination to die with her husband, and called for the assistance of the executioner to open her veins. Seneca, proud of her devotion and as willing to see her acquire the glory of such an act as he was to be assured that she was safe from the hard usages of the world, replied: "I had pointed out to you how to soften the ills of life; but you prefer the renown of dying. I will not envy you the honor of the example. Though both display the same unflinching fortitude in encountering death, still the glory of your exit will be superior to mine." Then they had the veins of their arms opened at the same moment; but being unable to bear up under the excessive torture, and afraid lest the sight of his sufferings should overpower her, Seneca persuaded his wife to retire into another room.

When Nero heard what was being done, having no dislike to Paullina, and not willing to incur the odium of a double death and one so affecting, he ordered her wounds to be dressed and the flow of blood stanched. She survived but a few years, and these were devoted to the memory of her husband. It is also said that an excessive paleness was the continuous witness to the sacrifice to conjugal devotion which she had done her best to make.

Not so fortunate was Servilia, a young woman of twenty who, at this time, was arraigned before the Senate, charged with having distributed sums of money among the magi. Servilia was the daughter of Soranus, who had been Proconsul of Asia. There was no accusation against Servilia's father more severe than that he was a friend of Plautus, whom Nero, for reasons utterly unjust, but entirely satisfactory to himself, had caused to be executed. Tacitus suggests the picture of her trial: the consuls on the judgment seat in the presence of the assembled Senate; on one side of that tribunal, an old, gray-haired man who for many years has served his country with honor and integrity; on the other side, the daughter, so young and yet widowed, for her husband has been sent into banishment, and hence is as dead to her. The thought that she, who had endeavored to aid and comfort her father, had only added to his dangers is so oppressive that she has not the heart to look at him. The accuser questions her: "Did you not sell your bridal ornaments, and even the chain off your neck, to raise money for the performance of magic rites?" Instead of answering, the unfortunate girl falls to the floor, embracing the altar, as though hoping that divine aid would be given, where human mercy was not to be expected. At last she gathers voice, and is able to falter: "I have used no spells; nor did I seek aught by my unhappy prayers than that you, Cæsar, and you, fathers, would preserve this best of fathers unharmed. It was with this object alone I gave up my jewels, my raiment, and the ornaments belonging to my station; as I would have given up my blood and life, had the magi required them. To those men, till then unknown to me, it belongs to declare whose ministers they are, and what mysteries they use; the prince's name was never uttered by me, save as one speaks of the gods. Yet to all this proceeding of mine, if guilty it be, my most unhappy father is a stranger; and if it is a crime, I alone am the criminal." Then Soranus pleads for his daughter. Her age is so tender that she could not have known Plautus, whose friend they accuse himself of being. Do they impeach him for mismanagement of his province? Let it be so; yet his daughter had not accompanied him to Asia. Her only crime was too much filial piety, too great solicitude for her father. He would gladly submit to whatever fate awaited him, if only they would separate her case from his. Overcome with emotion, the old man totters forward with outstretched hands to embrace his daughter, who springs to meet him; but the stern lictors interpose the fasces and deny them this sad comfort.

The Senate exercises a heartless clemency; Servilia and Soranus are allowed to choose their own deaths. This faithful daughter, for seeking by means of her religion to aid her father, is privileged to die with him. With them also perished Thrasea, who had added to his crime of disbelieving in the deification of Poppæa that of neglecting to sacrifice for the preservation of Nero's beautiful voice!

A strikingly magnificent feature of the old Roman character is the manner in which these people met death. This was the one virtue which the Romans, down to the latest period of the decadence, did not cease to retain. In the most dissolute times, the Roman might live badly, but at least he could die bravely. This was the one opportunity always left when atonement might be made for the errors of life. In this ability to meet death with calm fortitude the women shared no less than the men. The maids and matrons of Rome were habituated by training and by their best traditional examples to look upon the possibility of exit from the world as an ever ready refuge from unendurable ills. Lucretia was for Roman matrons an ideal in her death as well as in her life; and they seem to have found it less irksome to follow her in the former respect than in the latter.

In the endeavor to show how, even in the days of Nero, when wickedness reached its climax, virtue and honor and devotion were not utterly gone out of the world, it has been necessary to adopt as illustrations some of the saddest of the many tragedies of human history. Neither side of any true picture of this period can be a pleasing one. Human life in the city of Rome during the middle of the first century of our era was for the most part either insane or sad. To exult in unrighteousness or mourn in bereavement was the lot of every prominent personage; for there were few quiet, honorable folk whom the hand of tyranny did not touch through their friends. Therefore, in the endeavor to show the better side of the life of this time, the necessity has been forced upon us to illustrate how the prevailing remnant of the ancient virtue was manifested in the devotion of women to their stricken husbands and friends, and in the firm manner in which they met their own death.

That which belongs to the ordinary routine of woman's life did not undergo any change during this period. The status of woman remained unaltered; her manners, customs, and occupations were the same. There was no progress. It was like the conditions existing in a home during a terrific electrical storm; all other interests are in abeyance until it is over.

This statement, however, applies more particularly to the city of Rome and to Italy. In the outlying parts of that country and in the provinces, the storm was hardly felt. Women who lived out of the sight of Nero and whose male friends did not hold office were secure from imperial cruelty and caprice. Their lives ran on in the ordinary manner of civilization. They were betrothed and married according to the ancient ceremonies; for customs changed slowly away from the metropolis. They worshipped the old gods, though they heard now and again of a certain sect of fanatical people who courted their own destruction from the officials, if not from Olympus, by denouncing the ancient worship. They managed their homes and their slaves, read their books, as we have seen in the case of Calpurnia, the wife of Pliny, and visited the amphitheatre. The only anxieties of the women who belonged to the unofficial class were those incidental to the rule of the proconsuls who were sent to govern them in the name of the emperor. Sometimes these men were lustful; frequently they were tyrannical; they were always rapacious. The people were oppressed to meet the demands of the tax collectors; but these were ills that were always with them and represented a condition of affairs that was normal.