First, the Roman records show that it was not safe to trifle with the feelings of Roman women. They were, like Roman men, possessed of great decision of character, and, when provoked, could do the most daring deeds, reckless of the consequences. If they were treated kindly, and on equal terms, they were the best of wives; and I am convinced that their goodness and firmness were the most effectual causes of the freedom which they attained. But if husbands put into force their traditional power, and claimed supreme domination over them, they were exactly the women to resist. And the history of Rome throws a lurid light on this aspect of their character; for occasionally they took stern and wild vengeance, when husbands went too far in their despotic actions. I will adduce one or two instances of this.
In the year 331 B.C. many of the Roman citizens, and especially many of the Roman nobles, were attacked by an unknown disease, which showed the same symptoms in all, and nearly all perished. The cause was wrapped in obscurity, but at length a maid-servant went to a curule ædile, and said that she could explain the origin of the disease, but would not do so unless security were given her that she would suffer no harm in consequence. The curule ædile brought the matter before the consuls, the consuls consulted the Senate, and a resolution was passed guaranteeing safety to the maid-servant. Whereupon she declared that the deaths arose from poison; that the matrons were in the habit of compounding drugs, and she could take the officials to a house in which they would come upon the matrons while engaged in the operation. The officials accepted her offer, followed her, and found, as she said, the matrons compounding drugs. About twenty of them were conveyed to the Forum, and were subjected to an examination on their doings. Two of them, of noble family, and with patrician names, Cornelia and Sergia, affirmed that the drugs were perfectly wholesome. That could be easily tested, and the two matrons were requested to prove their truthfulness by drinking the mixture. The two matrons begged for a few moments of private talk with the rest of their associates, but within sight of the people. Permission was granted, a few words were exchanged, and then all the twenty matrons came back, boldly quaffed the liquor, and died in consequence. Then a search was made for all the matrons who had been engaged in this conspiracy, and 170 of them were found guilty. The men explained the occurrence by asserting that the women were infatuated; but probably they knew well why recourse was had to such violent measures, and that Roman matrons were not likely to be subjected to tyranny without making an effort in one way or another to put an end to it.[73]
An occurrence of a similar nature took place in 180 B.C. In this case there can scarcely be a doubt that a real plague raged, for it lasted for three years, and decimated Italy. But the women were enraged with the men for the harsh measures which had been taken against them in connexion with the Bacchanalian mysteries, and they seem to have regarded the plague as affording a favourable opportunity for the use of poison. In 180 B.C. the prætor, the consul, and many other illustrious men died.[74] A judge was appointed to inquire into these deaths, and especially to examine if poison had been employed. The historians do not narrate the results of this investigation, but we are told that the wife of the consul was tried and condemned to death. Thirty-six years after this, two men of consular rank were poisoned by their wives. In subsequent times the use of poison became frequent; and particularly in the early days of the Empire, the matrons about the Court were accused of having constant recourse to it to get out of the way men whom they did not like, husbands, and sons, and others connected with them, as well as strangers. And one writer remarks that wherever there were irregularities there were poisonings. Some historians have rejected these tales of poisoning as the inventions of credulous annalists, I think without good reason. But whether the stories are true or false, the Romans believed them, and they embody the Roman belief in regard to what women could do. And it seems to me that we must regard them as indicating that the Roman matrons felt sometimes that they were badly treated, that they ought not to endure the bad treatment, and that they ought to take the only means that they possessed of expressing their feelings and wreaking their vengeance by employing poison.
CHAPTER III.
RELIGION.
In the history of civilization, religion often acts as a liberator of women. Sometimes, indeed, it acts in an opposite direction, when, by false conceptions of humanity, it restricts the duties and privileges of women. But, on the other hand, religion generally excites the mind to a wild state of enthusiasm, and in this enthusiasm the ideas and prescriptions of conventionality are set aside, the pleasures of liberty are felt, and by degrees a permanent gain in freedom is established. We find this to be the case in Greece, where almost the only occasions on which the women came in contact with the outer world were supplied by the observance of religious festivals. The Roman religion was in many respects unlike the Greek. It was not brightened by genial fancies, it afforded no scope for emotional outpourings, its prayers were confined to fixed formulas, and its ritual was strictly prescribed. It was, like the Romans themselves, solemn and sedate. The Roman religion, therefore, did not contain those elements which could contribute to enlarge the freedom of women. There were, indeed, various festivals which were celebrated by matrons alone, into which it was death for a male to intrude, and these afforded women opportunity to consult with each other. But it may be doubted whether the Roman women ever used these meetings for any other than purely religious purposes, and whether these gatherings were ever characterized by fervour and frenzy. It was in the introduction of foreign gods and worships that the craving of the Roman women for religious excitement was gratified, and in the celebration of these worships we see that the women were sometimes as daring as in their poisonings. They naturally took to the foreign gods, whose worship was accompanied by great elevation of the spirit and outward demonstrations. Thus we are told that the worship of the Idæan Mother, the goddess whose priests danced wildly, cutting their bodies until the blood streamed down, was introduced in 204 B.C., and that on that occasion the highest matrons of the city went forth to receive the goddess, and, amidst prayers and incense, and in the sight of the whole population, carried the goddess to her temple.[75] In this case there was no irregularity in the introduction of the new worship, for the act had been ordered by the Senate at the instigation of the Decemviral College, the keepers of the Sibylline books.[76]
But the women did not always wait for the sanction of the State, but acted on their own impulse. The most notable instance of this nature was the introduction of the Bacchanalia, or worship of Bacchus, in 186 B.C. The historian Livy gives us details of this event, and his account is confirmed by a contemporary tablet of brass, containing a decree, or rather a letter of the Senate, found in Southern Italy in 1640. The narrative throws great light on the effects produced by the introduction of a new worship, and therefore I will relate the circumstances with some minuteness. A Greek of low birth came to Etruria, offering to initiate the people in the mysteries of Bacchus. The rites of that god were often celebrated in Greece by night, and were accompanied by feast, dance, and song. This was to some extent a new feature of worship to the Italians, and the people of Etruria were seized with a fury for it as by a plague. It spread from Etruria to Rome. At first the worship was carried on in secret, but at length the matter reached the ears of the consul. A woman who had been initiated, testified that at first women alone were admitted to the celebration of the rites, that they met in the day time thrice in the year on fixed days, and that matrons were elected priestesses.[77]
At length, however, a priestess, acting as if by the advice of the god, initiated her sons, changed the festival from the day time to night, and appointed the celebrations to take place five times every month. At the rites the men leapt and tossed their arms about in the most frantic manner, amidst the clashing of cymbals and the beating of drums, and they uttered prophecies; while the women, dressed as the worshippers of Bacchus, howled and yelled, rushed with dishevelled hair and blazing torches down to the river Tiber, plunged their torches into the river, drew them forth still blazing as if by miracle, and returned, still howling and yelling, to their celebrations. The woman also declared that the frenzy had taken hold of a large portion of the population, including many of the nobility; but that for some reason or other, very recently a resolution had been passed that none should be initiated who were above twenty years of age. The consuls, on receiving this information from the woman, brought the matter before the Senate, an inquiry was instituted, and it was discovered that above 7,000 men and women had engaged in these secret celebrations. The feature in this case which interests us, and at that time attracted the notice of the Senate, was that persons of both sexes and various ages met together at night and engaged in orgies, in which wine was freely drunk. The Roman citizen was forbidden to practise any worship not sanctioned by the State; but here the women defied the law of their country and outraged the old Roman notions of propriety. Stories soon got abroad, as they always do in such matters, that it was not merely for the worship of the god that these nocturnal assemblies were held; that, in fact, these meetings were scenes of revelry, and that in them poisonings and fabrications of wills were concocted. The worship thus became, according to these reports, an immoral conspiracy, and all who had taken any part in it were searched out and punished. Many were thrown into prison: some were put to death. The women were handed over to their relatives to be punished in private, and if no relatives could be found, then they were punished in public.
It may be doubted whether the immoral character of this religious outburst was not grossly exaggerated, and whether the scandals attributed to it did not arise simply from the fact that it was the work of women. “First of all,” said the Consul, in his public harangue on the subject, “a great portion of the initiated were women, and that was the source of this evil.” Such ebullitions of women were regarded by the stern old-fashioned Romans as in the highest degree discreditable, and they must be repressed even by the severest measures.
For a time the religious mania seems to have subsided; but in the later days of the Republic and the commencement of the Empire, the Roman matrons displayed the same rage for foreign worships. The temples of the Egyptian goddess Isis were crowded, and her priests were caressed and revered. Many women became adherents of the Jewish faith, and Eastern divinities had numerous devotees.