Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul

by T. G. Tucker

At the betrothal ceremony the friends of both houses are in attendance, a regular form of words is interchanged between Silius and the father of Marcia, a ring is given by the man to his fiancée, to be worn on the fourth finger of her left hand, and he adds some other present, most probably some form of that jewellery of which the Roman women were and still are so extraordinarily fond. A feast naturally follows.

You would think this performance sufficiently binding, and binding no doubt it was from a moral point of view, so long as there was reasonably good behaviour on either side, or so long as neither Silius nor Marcia's father was prepared wantonly to flout general opinion or to offend a whole connection by simply changing his mind. On the other hand, there was no legal compulsion whatever to carry out the contract. The Roman world knew nothing of actions for breach of promise. If either party chose to repudiate the engagement, they were free so to do. In that case they were said to "send back a refusal" or to "send a counter-notice." A family dispute, a breath of suspicion, a change of circumstances, and even an improved prospect might be sufficient excuse, or no excuse need be offered at all.

In the present instance, however, no such ugly missive passes between the house of Silius on the Caelian Hill and that of Marcius on the Aventine, the wedding takes place in due course. It will not be in May nor in early March or June, nor on certain other dates which, for reasons mostly long forgotten, were regarded as inauspicious. It is a social ceremony, and neither state nor priest will have anything to do with sanctioning or blessing it. The pillars at the sides of the vestibules of both houses are wreathed with leaves and boughs, and the friends and clients of both families proceed in festal array to the house of the bride. If Marcia is very young she has taken her playthings—dolls and the like—and has dedicated them to the household gods as a sign that she now puts away childish things and devotes herself to the serious tasks of life. She has then been carefully dressed for the occasion. Her hair, however she may have worn it before or may wear it afterwards, is for to-day made up into six plaits or braids, which are wound into a coil on the top of her head. As an initial rite it is parted by means of an instrument resembling a spear, a survival of the time when a bride was a prize of war, and when her long locks were actually divided by a veritable spear in token of her subjection. Round this coiffure is placed a bridal wreath, made of flowers which she must have gathered with her own hands, and over her head is thrown a veil—more strictly a cloth—of some orange-yellow or "flame-coloured" material, which does not, however, like the Grecian or Oriental veil, conceal her face. On her feet are low yellow shoes. Meanwhile the bridegroom arrives, escorted by his friends, and he also wears a festal garland. As with all other important undertakings of Roman life, a professional seer will be in attendance to take care that the auspices are favourable. Peculiar portents, very unpropitious behaviour of nature, a very strange appearance in the entrails of a sacrificial victim, are omens which no properly constituted Roman can afford to overlook. The auspices being favourable—and there is reason to believe that no undue insistence was laid on their unpropitious aspects—the bride is led into the reception-hall, and the contract of marriage is signed and sealed. That there should be a dowry, and a considerable one, goes without saying. In some cases it is actually settled on the husband, who is to all intents and purposes purchased by it; but in most it is available for his use only so long as the marriage continues unbroken. For the rest, the wife's property is and remains her own. Her guardian is still her father and not her husband: her legal connection is still with her own family and not with his. She is a Marcia and not a Silia. If the marriage is dissolved, at least without sufficient demonstrable provocation on her part, her father will see that her dower is paid back. To such terms as these the parties affix their names and seals, and a certain number of friends add their signatures as witnesses.

This done, one of the younger married women present takes the bride and leads her across to Silius who holds her right hand in his. Both repeat a prescribed formula of words, and all the company present exclaims "Good luck to you!" and offers such other congratulations as seem fit. A wedding-dinner is held, generally, but not necessarily, in the house of the bride, and a wedding-cake, served upon bay-leaves, is cut up and divided among the guests. It is now evening, and a procession is formed to bring Marcia home to the house of Silius. In front will march the torchbearers and what we should call "the band," consisting in these circumstances of a number of persons playing upon the flageolet. Silius goes through a pretence of carrying off Marcia by force—another practice reminiscent of the ancient time when men won their brides by methods similar to those of the Australian aborigine with his waddy. Both groom and bride are important people, and along the streets there is many a decoration; many a window and doorway is filled with spectators; shouts, not always of the most discreet, are heard from all sides, and loud above all rings the regular Io Talasse—whatever that may have meant, for no man now knows, and almost certainly no one knew then. In the midst of the procession Marcia, followed by bearers of her spindle and distaff, is being led by two pretty boys, while a third carries a torch; Silius meanwhile is scattering nuts or walnuts, or confetti made like them, to the crowd. Arrived on the Caelian, the bride is once more seized and lifted over the threshold; when inside the hall, Silius presents her with fire and water in token of her common share in the household and its belongings; and she offers prayers to various old-fashioned goddesses who are supposed to preside over the introduction to married life.

If we have given with some particularity the orthodox proceedings of a fashionable wedding, it must again be remembered that not all weddings were fashionable, and that one or other of these details might be omitted as taste or circumstances required. Among the poorer folk there must often have been practically no ceremony at all beyond the "bringing home." And if there are certain items which appear to us trivial and meaningless, it is probably unfamiliarity which breeds our contempt. Perhaps a far-off generation may wonder how civilised folk in the twentieth century could perform absurd antics with rice and slippers.

Marcia is now what was known as a "matron." Her position is far more free than it could ever have been in Greece or the Orient, more free indeed than it would be in any civilised country at the present time. The Romans had at all times placed the matron in a position of dignity and responsibility, and to this is now added the greatest liberty of action. Her husband salutes her in public as "Madam." Since he is a senator, and it is beginning to be the vogue to call such men "The Most Illustrious," she also shares that title in polite reference to herself. She is not confined to any particular portion of the house, nor, within the limits of decorum, is she excluded from masculine company. She is the mistress of the establishment, controlling, not only the female slaves, but also the males, in so far as they are engaged in the work of the household. She keeps the keys of the store-rooms. Theoretically at least she has been trained in all the arts of the housekeeper, and thoroughly understands domestic management, together with the weaving and spinning which her handmaids are to perform. The merits of the wife, as summed up in the epitaphs of the middle classes, are those of "good counsellor good manager, and good worker in wool." She walks or is carried abroad at her pleasure, attends the public games in the Circus, and goes with her husband to dinner-parties, where she reclines at the meal just as he does. When her tutelage is past she can take actions in the law-courts, or appear as witness or surety. Her property is at her own disposal, and she instructs her own agent or attorney. It is only necessary that she should guard the honour of her husband. So long as he trusts her he will not interfere. It is only a very tyrannical spouse who will insist that her litter or sedan-chair shall have the curtains drawn when in the streets. We will assume that Marcia is a lady of the true Roman self-respect and dignity, and that Silius and she live a life of reasonable harmony.

But though there were many such Marcias, there were other women of a very different character. There is, for instance, Flavia, who has a perfect frenzy for "manly" sports, and practises all manner of athletic exercises, wrestling and fencing like any man, and perhaps becoming infatuated and practically running away with some brawny but hideous gladiator. She also indulges frankly in mixed bathing. There is Domitia, who is too fond Of promenading in the colonnades and temples, where a cavaliere servente, ostensibly her business man—though he does not look like it—may regularly be seen carrying her parasol. When at home, she neglects her attire and plasters her face with dough in order to smooth out the wrinkles, so that she may give to anybody but her own family the benefit of her beauty. There is the ruinously extravagant Pollia, whose passion for jewels and fine clothes runs her deeply into debt, for which, fortunately, her husband is not responsible. There is Canidia, who is shrewdly suspected of having poisoned more than one husband and who has either divorced or been divorced by so many that she has had eight of them in five years, and dates events by them instead of in the regular way by the consulships: "Let me see. That was in the year in which I was married to So-and-So." There is Asinia, whose selfishness is so great, and her affection so frivolous, that she will weep over a sparrow and "let her husband die to save her lap-dog's life." All these women are most likely childless, and many a noble Roman house threatens to become extinct.

There are others, again, whose foibles are more innocent. Baebia, for example, is merely a victim to superstition. She is always consulting the astrologers, the witches, and the dream-readers; she is devoted to the mystic worship of the Egyptian Isis, with its secret rites of purification, or she is a proselyte to the pestilent notions of the Jews. She is too much under the influence of some squalid Oriental who carries his pedlar's basket, or whose business is to buy broken glass for sulphur matches Meanwhile Corellia is a blue-stocking, as bad as a précieuse with a salon. As soon as you sit down to table she begins to quote Homer and Virgil and to compare their respective merits. She cultivates bright conversation in both Greek and Latin, and her tongue goes loudly and incessantly like a bell or gong. Her poor husband is never permitted to indulge in an expression which is not strictly grammatical. Worse still, she probably even writes little poems of her own. She may keep a tame tutor in philosophy, but she makes no scruple about interrupting his lesson on morals while she writes a little billet-doux. Pomponia is an ambitious woman, whose mania is to interfere in elections by bringing to bear upon the senators what has been called in recent times the "duchesses'" influence. If her husband becomes governor of a province, she will endeavour to be the power behind the throne, and her meddling will in any case prove harmful to the strict administration of justice.

The remedy in such cases was divorce. In the lower orders of society a mild personal castigation was quite legal and probably not uncommon; but then in these lower orders divorce was by no means so convenient. Among the upper classes its frequency made it scarcely a matter of remark. Nothing like it has been seen until modern America. There was no need of an appeal to the courts or of a decree nisi; there was not even need of a specific plea, although naturally one would be offered in most cases. The husband or wife (or the wife's father, if she had one), might send a formal and witnessed notice declaring the marriage dissolved, or, as it was called, "breaking the marriage lines." The man had only to take this step and say with due deliberation "Take your own property"—or, as the satirist puts it, "pack up your traps"—"give up the keys, and begone." The woman on her side need only give similar notice and "take her departure." The only check lay in family considerations, in public opinion, which was extremely lenient, in financial convenience, or in the possibility of particularly wanton conduct being so disapproved in high quarters that a senator or a knight might perhaps find his name missing from the list of his order at the next revision.

It has appeared necessary to give this darker side of the social picture, for, though assuredly not so lurid as might be gathered from the moralists, it was dark enough. For obvious reasons it is desirable not to elaborate. It is perhaps more profitable, as well as refreshing, to consider the brighter side. That there were noble women and good wives, and that the froth and scum and dregs of idle town-life did not make up the existence of the contemporary Roman world, may be seen from passages like the following, which are either quoted or condensed from a letter of Pliny concerning a lady named Arria. The events belong to the reign of Nero's predecessor Claudius. Pliny writes: "Her husband, Caecina Paetus, was ill; so also was her son; and it was expected that both would die. The son, an extremely handsome and modest youth, succumbed. His mother arranged for his funeral and carried it out, the husband meanwhile being kept in ignorance. Not only so, but every time she came into his room she pretended that the son was alive and better, and very often, when he asked how the boy was getting on, she answered, 'He has slept well, and shown a good appetite.' Then, when the tears which she had so long kept back proved too much for her, she used to leave the room and give herself up to grief. When at last she had dried her eyes and composed her countenance she returned to the room. When her husband had taken part in an intended revolt against Claudius, he was to be carried as a prisoner across the Adriatic to Rome. He was on the point of embarking, when Arria begged the soldiers to take her on board with him. 'I presume,' she said, 'you mean to allow an ex-consul a few attendants of some kind, to give him his food, and to put on his clothes and shoes. I will do all that myself.'" Her request being refused, "she hired a fishing-smack and followed the big vessel in this tiny one." When Claudius ordered the husband to put himself to death, Arria took a dagger, stabbed herself in the breast, drew the weapon out, and handed it to him with the words: "Paetus, it does not hurt. It is what you are about to do that hurts."