Roman Women

by Alfred Brittain

The period of Roman history which we have traversed in our study of woman shows the ancient pagan Empire at its best materially and at its worst morally. We are about to enter upon a new epoch. We shall speedily begin to notice premonitions of decline, but we shall not again witness such an absolute and all-prevalent abandonment of the requirements of morality. From the days of Cæsar Augustus down to the end of the reign of Domitian, all that is recorded of Roman women, with a few noble exceptions, is little more than a wearisome repetition of instances of astonishing sensuality. Why was it that the women of this period indulged to such an unnatural and unrestrained degree the grosser appetites? It was not because they were unacquainted with the most emphatic precepts of morality. Their ancestors had idealized feminine chastity as it has been exalted among no other people in the history of the world. The virtue of temperance was taught by their philosophers in the most eloquent language; and the diatribes of their satirists are evidence that the Roman conscience was not wholly at rest in regard to the excesses which were prevalent. How then are we to account for this monotonous orgy of libidinosity?

So far as the question concerns the emperors, there is but one answer: it is found in their unbounded power, in which, their will being responsible to no one, they were absolutely at liberty to indulge caprice or lustful impulse to the extent of their personal capabilities. When, as was natural in the circumstances, the characters of these potentates were warped in the wrong direction, their influence, not to speak of their tyrannical power, was incalculably detrimental to female virtue. But the real underlying cause for the sensuality of the women whom we have brought into review was the utter purposelessness of their lives, joined to an entire lack of all spiritual impulses in the direction of self-respect. The Roman woman's life during the period under discussion was one of absolute ease and unbounded luxury, although the possibility of abject physical misery, in the form of banishment or a violent death, always hovered near. Luxury is always conducive to sexual incontinence; and, as is well known, customary peril engenders recklessness. The minds of the Roman women were not fortified by adequate spiritual impressions to offset these impulses. Such ideas of chastity as were inherited from the ancient customs were not founded on a belief in the dignity of womanhood, but rather on the conception of marriage as a property right held by the husband in the person of the wife. Adultery was the infringement of the husband's property rights, rather than an injury to a woman's personal worth to herself. When divorce for political reasons became common, the sense of the validity of those rights grew correspondingly dim. A woman, seeing that she was married not for her person, but for the sake of her friends, came herself to set little store by that which to her husband was not the chief item in the contract. The arid formalism of her religion also gave but little support to any restraining instincts of self-respect. It needed a new religion to enable woman to rediscover in herself a spiritual nature, which could be tainted and injured by the abuse of the body.

THE CHIEF VESTAL
After the painting by Henri P. Motte

Vestals were believed by the Romans to be the guaranties for the existence of the Empire. To these priestesses was paid a respect as great if not greater than any Roman official might claim. Anyone offering insult was punished with death. Whenever a Vestal appeared in public, she was preceded by a lictor, before whom everyone made way, even the highest officer of the State. The faces were always lowered in her presence..... Domitian constituted himself censor; his attention was turned first to the college of Vestal Virgins, who had become notorious for licentiousness. Three priestesses received an order to make away with themselves. Cornelia, the chief Vestal and the worst offender, was condemned to suffer the punishment of entombment. As she was descending to the tomb, Cornelia's veil caught on the steps; when an official offered to disentangle it, the Vestal in a horrified manner bade him to desist, as her consecrated character could not endure the profane touch of a man.

XIII

THE SUNSET GLOW OF PAGANISM

Gibbon expresses the opinion that in no period of the world's history has the human race been happier or more prosperous than during the time which elapsed between the reigns of Domitian and Commodus. There is not a little that may be said in support of this remarkable conclusion. Under Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, the Empire enjoyed the calm and brilliant evening following a long day of bitter strife and perilous turmoil, and preceding the moral darkness of the rule of the tyrants under whom paganism was fated to expire.