Studies in the History of Greece and Rome

Celia E. Schultz

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9780807877258
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Roman Ancient History
• Index: History

Expanding the discussion of religious participation of women in ancient Rome, Celia E. Schultz demonstrates that in addition to observances of marriage, fertility, and childbirth, there were more--and more important--religious opportunities available to Roman women than are commonly considered. Based on research in ancient literature, inscriptions, and archaeological remains from the fifth to the first century B.C.E., Schultz's study shows that women honored gods unaffiliated with domestic matters, including Hercules and Jupiter; they took part in commercial, military, and political rites; they often worshipped alongside men; and they were not confined to the private sphere, the traditional domain of women. The Vestal Virgins did not stand alone but were instead the most prominent members of a group of women who held high-profile religious positions: priestesses of Ceres, Liber, and Venus; the flaminica Dialis and the regina sacrorum; other cult officials; and aristocratic matrons who often took leading roles in religious observances even though they were not priestesses. Schultz argues that women were vital participants--both professional and nonprofessional--in the religion of the Roman Republic and that social and marital status, in addition to gender, were important factors in determining their opportunities for religious participation in the public sphere.

NOTES

Abbreviations

Some works cited in this study are noted with the following abbreviations. All journal citations in the bibliography follow the abbreviations in L‘Année Philologique.

AE	L’Année Epigraphique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,1888-.
CB, CE	Inscriptions from Cosa, as noted in F. Brown’s excavation notes from 1948-54. Inscriptions are cited according to the excavation reference number and year of discovery. Excavation notes are at the American Academy in Rome.
CCCA	M. J. Vermaseren, Corpus Cultus Cybelae Attidisque. 7 vols. Études Préliminaires aux Religions Orientales dans l‘Empire Romain, 50. Leiden: Brill, 1977-89.
CIL	Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1863-.
Civiltà	Civiltà del Lazio primitivo. Rome: Multigrafica, 1976.
Enea	Enea nel Lazio: Archeologia e Mito. Rome: Fratelli Palombi, 1981.
Forcellini	A. Forcellini, Lexicon Totius Latinitatis. 6 vols. Prati: Aldina Edente, 1867-87.
ILLRP	A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae. 2 vols. Florence: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1957-63.
ILLRP Imagines	A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae Imagines. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965.
ILS	H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. 3 vols. Berlin: Weidmann, 1892-1916.
LIMC	Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 8 vols. Zurich: Artemis, 1981-99.
LSAM	F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrees de I’Asie Mineure. École Franchise d‘Athenes, Travaux et Memoires des Anciens Membres Étrangers de 1’Ecole et de divers savants, 9. Paris: De Boccard, 1955.
LSJ	H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, and R. McKenzie, eds. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, i968.
LTUR	E. M. Steinby, ed. Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae. 6 vols. Rome: Quasar, 1993-2000.
LTUR-S	A. La Regina, ed. Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae: Suburbium. 2 vols. Rome: Quasar, 2001-.
MRR	T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. 3 vols. New York: American Philological Association, 1951-52.
OGIS	W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. 2 vols. Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1903-5.
OLD	P. G. W. Glare, ed. Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968-82.
RE	Paulys Real-encyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart: Metzlerscher, 1894-1972.
RMR	Roma Medio Repubblicana: Aspetti Culturali di Roma e del Lazio nei secoli IV e III A. C. Rome: Assessorato Antichità, Belle Arti e Problemi dell Cultura, 1973.
TLL	Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Leipzig: Teubner, 19°0-.

Introduction

1 Several good introductory discussions of the nature of Roman religion are available, including Scheid 2003a; Turcan 2000; Beard, North, and Price 1998; and Scullard 1981.

2 Wissowa 1912; Altheim 1938; Rose 1959 (esp. on domestic cult); Latte 1960; Beard, North, and Price 1998. Roman women also appear in comparisons of female religious participation across several ancient religions (including ancient Greek worship, as well as Judaism and early Christianity), such as Kraemer 1992 and, less satisfactorily, Sawyer 1996. Religious matters are also treated in more general works on ancient women: Balsdon 1962; Pomeroy 1975; Fantham et al. 1994; and Fraschetti 2001.

3 E.g., Brouwer 1989 and Spaeth 1996.

4 Bendlin 2000 persuasively proposes a marketplace model for Roman religious pluralism in the Republic.

5 Res Gestae 13 and 19; Dio 52.36.1-2. Nock 1972; Syme 1399 256 and 411-12; Zanker 1988,101-35; Beard, North, and Price i998, i.i67-zio.

6 Caesar’s efforts were directed at, and limited to, promoting his own divine lineage: Nock 1972,19, n. 17; Meyer 1919, 508-30; Weinstock i97i, 8o-i3z.

7 See, e.g., Boels-Janssen i993, i-z, and Scheid 1992 and 2003b.

8 The difficulty in applying these terms to Roman religious practice can be seen in, to take just a single example, Richlin’s (1997) wide-ranging and useful survey of evidence for the women’s religious activity. Despite her efforts to limit the discussion to “women’s religion,” Richlin acknowledges the participation of men in “women’s cults” and of women in cults not restricted to female participants.

9 Also the demands of genre. See Dixon 20or, 16-25, for an extended discussion of the hazards of failing to identify the importance of genre in shaping the nature of the information available to us. Her comments may be extended to the interpretation of other categories of evidence as well, especially epigraphic material.

10 Scheid 1992,377. He refers here to The Tongue Set Free, the first volume of the autobiography of Elias Canetti, winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize for literature. All three volumes of Canetti’s account of his youth in early twentieth-century Europe are now available in a single English-language volume, The Memoirs of Elias Canetti (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999).

11 Indeed, it is not difficult to find opposite interpretations of this same circumstance. One recent example is Tamar Frankiel, whose own involvement in orthodox Judaism came late in life: “I found utterly incomprehensible [the Orthodox women’s] rationale for accepting this ancient way of life, but I saw that they were sincere. Moreover, I saw that they were, indisputably, powerful and influential in their families and communities. As I grew to know them, my first feelings of condescending pity toward these victims of patriarchy changed to admiration and wonderment” (Frankiel 1990, xi).

12 Canetti 1999, 22-26.

13 The debate over the nature and reliability of ancient historiography is rather extensive and ever-growing. A selection of some of the most important, recent treatments includes: the contributions by Raaflaub (“The Conflict of the Orders in Archaic Rome: A Comprehensive and Comparative Approach”) and Cornell in Raaflaub and Cornell 1986; Woodman 1988; Wiseman in Gill and Wiseman 1993; Cornell 1955 1-30; Oakley 1997-98,1.3-108 (esp. 100-104). For a concise summary of the major schools of thought on the issue, see Kraus and Woodman 1997, 1-9.

14 E.g., Sallust, BC 5.9, and Livy, praef. 9-10.

15 E.g., Beard, North, and Price 1998, 1.1-18.

16 See Cornell 1991 for a more extensive treatment of this issue. Beard’s (1991) discussion of the importance of writing, including “bureaucratic” record keeping, in Roman religion focuses on the late republican and imperial periods, though the main thrust of her argument may be applied to earlier periods of the Republic as well.

17 Lowe 1978, 41; Castagnoli i98o, i65. See Kampen 1981, Forbis 1990, and Dixon 2001 for reflections on the differences between value structures represented in epigraphic and literary sources.

18 The main area over which the terracotta-filled deposits are scattered extends northward into Etruria as far as Volsinii and Vulci, eastward from Rome throughout Latium, as well as into parts of Umbria and the territory of the Sabines and Aequi, and as far south as Capua (Comella 1981, 768-69, esp. figure 3). Deposits of this type have also been found outside the general area of distribution. Such occurrences have long been thought to follow the pattern of Roman colonization of the Italian peninsula, although this view has recently been called into question (Glinister, forthcoming).

19 Comella 1981, 758.

20 Spaeth 1996,11-13.

21 North 1976.

22 For a day-by-day account of public ceremonies observed during the republican period, see Scullard 1981. This work offers a basic summary and extensive ancient references for the festivals mentioned below.

23 The distinction is an ancient one. See, e.g., Livy 1.20.6; Cic., de Har. Resp. 14; and Festus z84L, s.v. “publica sacra.”

24 Again, see Scullard 1981, 58-60 for the basic references. The most famous evidence for the familial nature of this observance comes from Cicero’s letters to Atticus (Att. 2.3 and 7.7 = Shackleton Bailey 1965-71, 23(11.3)4 and i3o(VII.7)3).

25 Goldsmiths: ILLRP no = ILS 3683d. Cattle or sheep dealers: ILLRP 106 = ILS 3683c = CIL i2.i450 = CIL 14.2878. Money changers: ILLRP io6a. Childbirth : ILLRP 101 = ILS 3684 = CIL i2.6o = CIL 14.2863; see below, chapter 2.

26 E.g., Walsh 1997, 165; Boëls-Janssen 1993, 271 and 472-73; Gage 1963,131 37.

27 Such as Champeaux i98z, 34i-6o, and Mustakallio 1990,130-31.

28 Livy 39.8.6, 39.13.10-144 39.15.9 and 12-14.

29 Flower 2002.

30 The landmark studies in this field are Fenelli 1975 and Comella 1981, now supplemented by Turfa 2004 and F. Glinister’s forthcoming article on religious Romanization in the early Republic.

31 The last general study was De Marchi 1896-1903, although aspects of domestic ritual have been studied, e.g., Harmon i978b and Boels-Janssen 1993, 229-71.

32 Contra Minieri 1982 and de Cazanove 1987.

33 - Brunt 1988, 92.

Chapter 1

1 Fowler 1911, 324-25. Livy (25.1.6-8) reports that there was a rise in supersitious practices among the populace, unnerved by the war with Hannibal that seemed to drag on without any progress toward resolution.

2 Balsdon 1962, 246.

3 Pomeroy 1975,209. For a more extensive consideration of Livy’s treatment of attitudes toward marriage and Augustus’s marriage legislation through the episode of the rape of the Sabine women, see Miles 1995, 179-219, esp. 213-19.

4 Kraemer 1992, 52.

5 Koep (1962) traces the shift in meaning of religio and ritus as the terms move from a pagan to Christian context. For a more extended treatment on the interpretation of ritual (“Ritual is what there was”), see Price 1984, 7-n. Price’s introductory chapter also includes an excellent discussion of the influence of Christian concepts in the study of Roman history (11-16). The use of the terms cultus, ritus, religio, and sacrum among classical authors deserves separate study, some of which is now available in Bremmer 1998.

6 OLD, s.v. “ritus” and “cultus.”

7 A matrona was a freeborn married woman who was easily identifiable by her dress: “matronas appellabant eas fere, quibus stolas habend...

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Table of Figures
• Studies in the History of Greece and Rome
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• PREFACE
• Introduction
• ONE - LITERARY EVIDENCE
• TWO - WOMEN IN THE EPIGRAPHIC RECORD
• THREE - THE EVIDENCE OF VOTIVE DEPOSITS
• FOUR - HOUSEHOLD RITUAL
• FIVE - SOCIAL STATUS AND RELIGIOUS PARTICIPATION
• CONCLUSION
• NOTES
• WORKS CITED
• CONCORDANCE OF INSCRIPTIONS