Just when the movement toward things of the intellect began among Roman women, it is difficult to determine with any exactness. It was after the Eastern wars and probably about the time of the first revolt. It had not been long since men began to catch the spirit of Greek culture. For five hundred years after the foundation of Rome there was not a book written, nor even a poem or a song. As soon as men began to study and think, women were disposed to do the same thing. If they could not well fight, they had the ability to learn. The pretensions of sex were not emphasized, but individual attainment was not without recognition. We begin to find women who were noted not only for strength, wisdom, and administrative ability, but for literary taste and culture. The austere virtues of Cornelia, who lived in the second century before our era, are among the familiar facts of history. She has been often quoted as the supreme exemplar of the crowning grace of womanhood, and we know that she was honored at her death with a statue dedicated to the “Mother of the Gracchi.” Of her refinement, knowledge, and love of letters, less has been said, but it was largely because of these that she was able to train great sons. Cicero, who pronounced her letters among the purest specimens of style extant in his time, dwells upon the fact that these sons were educated in the purity and elegance of their mother’s language. Quintilian says that the “mother, whose learned letters have come down to posterity, contributed greatly to their eloquence.” Her passion for Hellenic poetry and philosophy was well known. It was a part of her heritage from her father, the illustrious Scipio, a great general with the tastes and abilities of a great scholar. Cato found fault with him and said he must be brought down to republican equality. This fiery radical and economist, who hated luxury, reviled women who had opinions, preached morals which he did not possess, whipped his slaves if anything was lost or spoiled, sold them at auction when they were sick or old, and put them to death if they did not please him,—this censor who was so generally disagreeable that when he died a wit said, “Pluto dreaded to receive him because he was always ready to bite,”—could not tolerate a man of refinement who shaved every day and patronized Greek learning, whatever glory he might reflect on his country. We do not know what he said about Cornelia, but it may be imagined, as he was the determined adversary of feminine culture.
The woman who brought up the Gracchi, and was so proud to show these “jewels” to her finery-loving friends, was no pedant, but in her last desolate years, when she was left alone with all her tragical memories, her hospitable home at Misenum was a center for learned Greeks and men of intellectual distinction. She was a woman of great force of character, and the composure with which she bore her misfortune, and talked of the deeds and sufferings of her sons, was sometimes thought to show a lack of sensibility. Plutarch, with his usual insight and cordial appreciation of women, said it indicated rather a lack of understanding on the part of the critics that they did not know the value of “a noble mind and liberal education” in supporting their possessor under sorrow and calamity. This heroic mother of heroic sons, who “refused Ptolemy and a crown,” was the first Roman matron of distinguished intellectual attainments of whom we have any definite knowledge, and the finest feminine representative of her age. Within the next century there were many others more or less prominent in social life.
With the advance in education many of the obstacles to marriage were removed, and the dangers that had lurked in the ignorance of Athenian women were averted. But the problem never ceased to be a troublesome one. With the increase of wealth men grew more self-indulgent, and less inclined to incur obligations of any sort. The despair of Augustus had its humorous side. He exhausted his wit in devising means to induce men to marry. In vain he gave honor and freedom to the married, exacted fresh penalties from bachelors, who were forbidden to receive bequests, and made laws against immorality. Fathers had precedence everywhere—in affairs, at the theater, in public offices. “For less rewards than these thousands would lose their lives,” he said. “Can they not tempt a Roman citizen to marry a wife?” Some who wished the privileges without the troubles compromised the matter by entering into formal contracts with children four or five years of age. Others took a wife for a year to comply with the law, and then dismissed her.
It is not the purpose here to pursue in detail this phase of Roman life, nor to trace the slow and obscure changes in the laws that followed the revolt of women from ages of oppression. This brief outline suffices to show that the women of two thousand years ago were far from accepting abject subservience without a protest; that they had the spirit and intelligence to combine in their own defense; that they won the privilege of virtually the same education which was given to men, and so much consideration that the Romans of the third and fourth centuries were more just to a woman’s rights of property than were the Americans in the first half of the nineteenth. Happily better counsels prevail here to-day; but it is a commentary on the instability of human affairs that, even on the higher plane of morals and intelligence from which we started, the battle had to be fought over again.
THE “NEW WOMAN” OF OLD ROME
· Wickedness of Imperial Days ·
· The Reverse of the Picture ·
· Parallel between the Romans and Ourselves ·
· Their “New Woman” ·
· Her Political Wisdom · Her Relative Independence ·
· Literature in the Golden Age ·
· Horace · Ovid ·
· Tributes to Cultivated Women in Letters of Cicero ·
· Literary Circles · Opinions of Satirists ·
· Reaction on Manners ·
· Tributes in Letters of Pliny and Seneca ·
· Glimpses of Family Life in Correspondence of Marcus Aurelius and Fronto ·
· Public Honors to Women ·
