Woman in the golden ages

by Amelia Gere Mason

III

The changes which a century or so had wrought in the position and education of women reacted on manners. The pagan virtues were essentially masculine ones, and even women had always been more noted for courage and stoical heroism than for the softer Christian qualities which are called feminine. In the old days they had been subservient because they were virtually slaves. For the same reason they were expected to be blindly obedient. Their servile attitude toward men was a duty; tradition gave it the force of a sentiment. Nor did the fact that many Roman women had risen above their conditions, and shown great dignity and strength, alter this general relation. It was not in their nature, however, to be timid, or tender, or clinging. Sensibility was a weakness and a trait of inferior classes. Love was a passion, or a duty, or a habit, but not a sentiment. The new woman of the golden age of Augustus was strong, dignified, self-poised, and commanding. The fashionable set accented this tone and became haughty, arrogant, and masculine in manner. It looked upon the conservative matron who was disposed to preserve old traditions as antiquated. The change, in its various gradations, was quite similar to that which passed over Anglo-Saxon women in the century that has just closed. We also have our golden mean of poise and dignity, as represented by the conservative who are yet of the new age in culture, breadth, and intelligence; we, too, have a few of the emancipated who like to demonstrate their new-found independence by a defiance of social conventions; then we have our ultra-fashionable parvenus who fancy arrogance a badge of position, and pronounced manners a sign of modish distinction. Of these classes, the first and the last were the most defined in Roman society, but it is mainly in the last that we find the degeneracy of morals which made a large section of it infamous.

Of the women of the conservative ruling classes we have pleasant glimpses in the letters of Pliny, which picture an intelligent and sympathetic family life that constantly recalls our own. His wife, Calphurnia, sets his verses to music and sings them, greatly to his surprise and delight. She has a taste for books and commits his compositions to memory. He says she has an excellent understanding, consummate prudence, and an affection for her husband that attests the purity of her heart. It is not his person but his character that she loves, so he is assured of lasting harmony. When absent, he entreats her to write every day, even twice a day. If he has only his wife and a few friends at his summer villa, he has some author to read to them, and afterward music or an interlude. Then he walks with his family and talks of literature. The charming little domestic traits, so unconsciously revealed in these letters, are as creditable to himself as to the wife who adores him. There is a touch of sentiment that we rarely find in pagan life.

These letters throw many side-lights on other households. Pliny has a word of profound sympathy for the sorrow of a friend who lived thirty-nine cloudless years with a wife whose virtues would have made her “an ornament even in former times,” and was left desolate by her loss. We find a touching allusion to the fortitude of Fannia, who has the qualities of a “heroine of ancient story.” She was banished for supplying materials for her husband’s “Life.” “Pleasing in conversation, polite in address, venerable in demeanor,” she is quoted as a model for wives. She was a worthy granddaughter of the famous Arria, who refused to survive her husband when he was condemned to death, and gave him courage by first plunging the dagger into her own breast, saying, “Pætus, it does not hurt,” as she drew it out and passed it to him. Another of his friends lost a daughter of fourteen, who, he says, combined the wisdom of age and the discretion of a matron with the sprightliness of youth and the sweetness of virgin modesty. She was devoted to reading and study, caring little for amusements. Pompeius Saturninus read him some letters from his wife which were so fine that he thought he was listening to Plautus and Terence in prose; indeed, he suspects the husband of writing them himself, in spite of his denial, though he considers him deserving of equal praise, whether he wrote them or trained her genius to such a degree of perfection. It is worthy of note that, while these letters show us the intelligent companionship between husbands and wives which had taken the place of the old relations of superior and inferior, as well as the fine attainments of many women and the honor in which they were held, they also pay the highest tribute to virtues that still shone brightly in an age when it had become a fashion to speak of them as things of the past.

“Morals are gone,” said Seneca. “Evil triumphs. All virtue, all justice, is disappearing. That is what was exclaimed in our fathers’ days, what they are repeating to-day, and what will be the cry of our children.” If we may credit the history of that age, there was reason enough for the cry, but there was another side to the dark picture. This critical philosopher did not spare the vices and follies of the great ladies of his time, and any tribute of his to the talents and virtues of women is of value, as it is not likely to incline to the side of flattery. In his letters of consolation to his mother, Helvia, he mentions the fact that she is “learned in the principles of all the sciences,” in spite of the old-fashioned notions of his father, who “feared letters as a means of corruption for women.” More liberal himself, he exhorts her to return to them as “a source of safety, consolation, and joy.” To Marcia he writes in a tone that is appreciative, though a trifle patronizing: “Who dares say that nature in creating woman has gifted her less generously, or restricted for her the sphere of the virtues? Her moral strength, do not doubt it, equals ours.... Habit will render her, like us, capable of great efforts, as of great griefs.” An incident of his own family life is worth repeating, as it shows a pleasant and not uncommon side of domestic relations at a period when Roman morals were at the worst. His wife was solicitous for his health. “As my life depends upon hers,” he says, “I shall follow her advice, because in doing so I am caring for her. Can anything be more agreeable than to feel that in loving your wife you are loving yourself?” The devotion on her side was more heroic, if less reasonable. When he was politely advised to take himself to some other world where he would be less in the way of his civil superiors, she insisted upon dying with him. He tried in vain to dissuade her, but, finding her persistent, he gave his consent, saying: “Let the fortitude of so courageous an end be alike in both of us, but let there be more in your death to win fame.” Her veins were opened with his; but Nero did not need to get rid of her just then, so the attendants quickly bound her wounds and saved her. This devoted Paulina had only the satisfaction of sacrificing her color, as she was noted for her extreme pallor to the end of her life.

We have other letters from a thinker and seer of the next century, which give us as sympathetic an insight into the private life of the Antonines as Cicero and Pliny give us into that of their own contemporaries in the two preceding ones. Nowhere does Marcus Aurelius appear in so human a light as in this correspondence with Fronto, the distinguished master and philosopher, which came to us at a late day out of the silence of ages. It reveals one of the rare friendships of the world, and incidentally throws a pleasant light on the family relations of the wisest and simplest of emperors.

History has cast a cloud over the wives of the Antonines—whether justly or not we can never know. In an age of great vices, even virtue is not safe, and the scandal-lover has always delighted to tear fair names. But the testimony of a husband surely ought to count for more than the flippant gossip of the idle voluptuary or the witty sneer of the satirist. Referring to the elder Faustina, Antoninus Pius says: “I would rather spend my life with her in Gyaros than live without her in a palace.” As this desolate abode of the exile was supposed to be very uncomfortable, the compliment was not a light one. It is not in such terms that men write of faithless wives, nor is it in the nature of such women to wear the white veil of innocence for a series of years in the presence of those nearest to them. There was a temple built in her honor which still keeps guard as a church over the Roman forum, a permanent monument to the devotion of this tender husband. A charitable institution for girls, that bore her name, has long since gone the way of all perishable things.

In the letters of Aurelius, which cover a wide range of thought and experience, there are constant references to his family. It is difficult to believe the younger Faustina as wicked as men have painted her. One of the most beautiful women of her time, as brilliant and sweet as she was beautiful, the idol of her household, the object of affectionate care on the part of her husband, this gracious woman has been a mystery to successive generations. What if the lightly spoken word of a malicious rival, or a dark insinuation from some impertinent admirer whose vanity she may have wounded, kindled a fire which the ages cannot put out? Such things have been, and may be again. “I thank the gods for giving me a wife so kind, so tender to her children, so simple,” said the philosopher, who kept his soul at a serene altitude above things of sense; but he broke down when his children suffered or died, and mourned this much-loved wife as a saint, giving her divine honors. He also put a gold statue of her in the seat she had been in the habit of occupying at the theater, and had her represented in a bas-relief as borne to heaven, while he gazed after her with longing eyes.

Fronto writes that the mother of Marcus Aurelius laughingly declares herself jealous of him. He asks tenderly after the ailing domnula, who is the idol of her father’s heart. Of his own daughter Gratia he has much to tell, playing gracefully with her name. He chats pleasantly of sleep, of health, of dreams, of the art of speech, in which he was himself a master. But this is varied with words of affection, with tender references to the children, their pretty voices and their winning ways. He had given the little prince a silver trumpet on his birthday, and draws a charming picture of the group about their mother, the beautiful Faustina. But he loses his own admirable and much-loved wife; then his grandson dies; and his heart is torn with grief, as with sympathy for the sorrow of the gentle Gratia. Joy falls away from the spent life of the white-haired philosopher. He finds nothing to bind him longer to a sad world. His silvery periods have lost their charm. He lays down his pen, and his last words are full of pathos. He writes to an emperor who, like himself, has lived on the heights of a calm reason. The blows of fate have struck them both, and they weep, like others.

I have quoted more or less from the letters of four thoughtful and clear-sighted men, because their personal details and general tone go farther than any assertion to prove the pure and intelligent character of a large section of Roman womanhood and its refining influence in the family. They are a flattering tribute, not only to the women of the new age, but to the fine qualities of a corresponding circle of men. The life revealed by these distinguished observers who have talked so familiarly of its every-day side is certainly remote from that which has been dwelt upon by satirists and historians, but we cannot doubt that it represents the domestic relations of an important class. It is fair to presume that the women of culture and virtue who came within their horizon were not exceptions.