She concludes that `we find women operating in personal business matters in pretty much the same way as men, with their personal presence or absence being determined, as with men, by factors of social status and wealth.... What does emerge clearly is that the tutela system, in the first half of the first century A.D., is actively functioning in the daily commercial transactions of townsfolk around the Bay of Naples, without seeming to offer any particular hindrance to women's dealings'. Women were operating businesses, although there were restrictions on some of the legal aspects of commerce such as witnessing transactions. While she notes that women did not figure in that area of commercial interaction and therefore had a lower profile than men in the forum of Puteoli, nevertheless there was an important context in which women functioned in the business world.10
The port of Ostia was built in the time of Claudius to facilitate the grain supply to Rome, and the site contains six images of working women. Detailed discussion by Natalie Kampen shows how they were portrayed with the statue types falling into two categories. They are presented either realistically or in a subordinated, idealized way. They naturally reflect the tastes and interests of those who commissioned the work and under whose patronage they operated in Roman society. The statues portrayed in a passive pose re-enforce the view that labour was demeaning for those of the upper classes." While upper-class women would not have approved of such manual activity for themselves, the fact is that they acknowledged that it did occur, and patrons in Ostia recorded it in sculpture in this busy feeder port for Rome.
MacMullen assembled a wide variety of evidence in his pioneering essay, "Women in Public in the Roman Empire". He concluded, `At both the top and the bottom of society, women thus appear to take an active part in the common business of the city, at the former level because among them could be found, at the least, a lot of money and the ability to bestow it in one form or another on those who sought it through their offers of flattery, respect and support; at the latter level, because women obviously wanted to take a part and no one told them it was useless or ridiculous. The fact carries its own im- plications.'12 While his evidence is invaluable, his conclusion is speculative. The reason may have more to do for the upper class with the unexpected consequences of the legislation of Augustus and for all women with the example of the imperial wives who were not only fashion icons but also trend-setters in their participation in politics.
Valerius Maximus devotes a whole section to "Women who pleaded before magistrates for themselves and others" and prefaces it with the following comment:
Nor should I be silent about those women whose natural condition and the modesty of the stola (verecundia stolae, i.e., the matron's dress) could not make them keep silent in the Forum and the courts of law.13
The sort of participation in the courts to which Valerius alludes was a far cry from that in the time of Cicero (io6-43 B.c.). He recorded his response to women being forced against their own will to give evidence in the courtroom before a large gathering of men. In the trial he asks -
Why did you force your friend's wife, and the mother of your friend's wife ... to testify against you? See these modest and virtuous ladies, unwillingly facing the unaccustomed sight of this great gathering of men - why do you force them to do it?14
Fannia was the first woman recorded as having conducted her own defence in which she herself had initiated legal action. It revolved around the return of the dowry held by her husband who had married her clearly knowing that she had been an unchaste woman. He had done this in order to divorce her on the grounds of her unchastity and thereby to secure her property. `The fact that it was held "in full public view" was specially noticed because a woman was appearing in person. Fania gave a new slant to the actio rei uxoriae.'15
Do we know the names of women who were engaged in debating where they sought to defeat the arguments of their male counterparts in the courts? Bauman has given the evidence of women who were learned in law, who emerged as legal advisers in the first century B.C. or A.D. and who placed their knowledge at the disposal of fellow citizens.16
He comments on the highly competent legal case presented by Maesia of Sentinum who so challenged the male-dominated courts that she was judged to be an `Androgyne' (man-woman). The Senate sought her oracular help because of the good omen she might be for the city. `The case is important, inter alia, because Maesia's great proficiency in the early first century was not acquired on the spur of the moment. It presupposes a line of women versed in at least the theory of the law, as we have already postulated, and possibly with some practical experience as well - if not in open court until Sempronia, then behind the closed doors of the family court and in private declamations. '17
According to Valerius Maximus, Carfania, a senator's wife who died c. 48 B.C., was -
ever ready for a lawsuit and always spoke on her own behalf before the Praetor, not because she could not find advocates but because she had impudence to spare. So by constantly plaguing the tribunals with `barking' (latratus), to which the Forum was unaccustomed, she became a notorious example of female litigiousness, so much so that women of shameless habits are taunted [in Valerius' day] with the name Carfania by way of re- proach.18
Carfania's actions produced a change in the law that forbade women from `expounding one's own or a friend's claim before a magistrate or refuting the claim of another' (to cite Ulpian's definition of the term postulate). According to Roman legal history -
... the origin (of the prohibition) was introduced by Carfania, a very wicked woman, who, by bringing requests without shame and disturbing the magistrates, provided the reason for the edict. In this edict the praetor made particular mention of sex and misfortune, and likewise he marked with disgrace persons conspicuous due to shameful behaviour. In regard to sex: he prohibits women from bringing a request on behalf of others. And indeed there is a reason for prohibiting them: so that women do not get themselves mixed up in other people's lawsuits, contrary to the modesty (pudicitia) of their sex, and perform a male role by involving themselves in the cases of others.19
It is significant that in Roman law the term for the modesty (pudicitia) of married women was linked with the inappropriateness of their undertaking the public function of arguing in court. i Timothy 2:9,15 records the equivalent Greek term, Gw4po66vq, at the beginning and the end of that particular discussion.
The Velleian decree of the Senate (senatus consultum Velleianum) which was enacted in the time of either Claudius or Nero `attempted to discourage the practice of women "interceding" on behalf of another person' .20 Remarkably after all that time the disruptive Carfania was still being held up as a negative example and was seen to provide the excuse for this change in the law. (See p. 93.) However, at the very time that the classical jurists were arguing most strongly that women were ignorant of the law, the latter were `busily engaged in seeking rulings on the law from the imperial chancellery '.21
The Justinian Code contains hundreds of imperial responses to women litigants, many of which concerned civic status, obligations of freed condition, marriage, divorce, support, dowry, minority status and child custody - essentially private matters, though also among those most often of concern to men, too. It is worth noting, however, that financial affairs dominate in this collection, and they could involve substantial transactions. From just a single year MacMullen mentions cases involving women in litigation `on "the income from estates (note the plural) given as a dowry"; "the gift of slaves and other things given by a wife to her husband"; "assessed estates given as a dowry", "fully equipped estates by bequest"; one farm of which yields oil and wine for the market at the disposal of the mater familias, and finally, a certain Marcia suing her debtors and getting hope of satisfaction even though she has lost the I.O.U's.'22
Juvenal (c. A.D. 6o-ioo) makes an indefensible comment in his "The Ways of Women" -
There are hardly any cases that were not set in motion by a woman. If Manilia is not the defendant, she's the plaintiff; she wil
l herself frame and adjust the pleadings; she will be ready to instruct Celsus himself how to open his case, and how to urge his points .21
He also records women asking, `Do we as women ever conduct cases? Are we learned in the civil law? Do we disturb your courts with our shouting?'24 The answer to all these questions could have been `Yes, even from the limited extant evidence. It was male malice as a response to feeling threatened by female legal competence that saw him blame women unfairly for the more litigious ethos of the late Republic.25
This brief survey demonstrates that, in a situation of legal wrangling and debate in the courts, some women competently conducted both their own prosecution and defence. The indelicate nature of some court cases involving sex and the embarrassment of misfortune were felt by men to be improper issues for women to debate in court. Was this the reason or an excuse for seeking to proscribe their endeavours? It is clear that there were women who were learned in law, and legal measures were subsequently enacted in an unsuccessful attempt to proscribe their activity. Strong feelings that they were trespassing into a male prerogative were expressed, but that did not inhibit them from representing themselves and others in what had previously been a male domain.
Painted on the walls of buildings facing the street in Pompeii are the equivalents of our political posters. They declared `So-and-So asks you to make Soand-So aedile'. MacMullen observes, `Quite a few of the supporters are women.... Hilario cum sua rogat is readily understood, in which the husband and his wife (not even named) ask the passer-by to vote for their candidate.' He comments further, `it is also common to have a woman's name written ahead of the man's ... an inversion of status explained by neither of the parties having any sense of status between them at all, or by the woman being free or freed, the man freed or slave .126
Whereas a client was required to promote his patron's cause for election to public office, it is an interesting development that in the Roman colony of Pompeii women alongside their husbands were actively supporting candidates for civic office. Placing their name ahead of their husband would indicate that they were of either a higher rank or social status than he.
Valerius Maximus records that at least one married woman spoke in the Forum before the Triumvirs. He instances Hortensia who argued against the heavy tax imposed on women and not men. The latter would not come forward to plead the women's cause, and so she spoke and won the remission of the greater part of this discriminatory tax burden on her gender.27 At the beginning of his twelve books on oratory Quintilian (c. A.D. 35-c. 95) records that her oration before the Triumvirs was still read in his day, and `not merely as a compliment to her sex'. It was obviously a great oration, and her ability in this field is attributed to her father who had clearly passed on his skills to his daughter.28
Both inside and outside of Rome, there was the gradual integration of women into the local structure of political rank in Italian municipal settings over a period of time. Forbis has collected the inscriptions in Italy in which women are praised in the traditional public vocabulary of munificentia, liberalitas, beneficia and merita, not in the language of womanly virtues such as castitas, pietas, pudicitia, and lanificium.29
What was true of Italy in terms of the participation of women was also true in the East where `similar practices even reached the Greek-speaking part of the Mediterranean eventually'. Just as imperial wives influenced the dress and conduct of women throughout the Empire through statues, so too they were a paradigm for the role of elite women in the politeia, and their contribution was given official recognition and recorded for posterity in stone.30
Rives commented on what was true for all the Empire when he wrote: `The importance of women in civic life is another aspect of the ancient world that is known almost entirely from inscriptions, since literary and legal sources depict women as largely relegated to private life.'31 The roles they played were extremely important for the city and the leagues. Unlike literary evidence these official inscriptions recorded the actual public offices held by these women in the East.
The first recorded instance of a city benefactress was that of Phile who was honoured in a first-century B.C. public decree in Priene.32 Apart from her public benefactions of the city's aqueduct and reservoir, this inscription records that she was the first woman in Priene to hold the office of magistrate.33
Phile, daughter of Apollonius and wife of Thessalus, son of Polydectes, having held the office of magistrate (6TE~avf46poc) [a title of certain magistrates in Greek cities who had the right to wear crowns when in office] ,34 the first woman [to do so], constructed at her own expense the reservoir for water and the city aqueduct.31
Rives speculates that the coincidence of Phile's benefactions and public office suggests that `the increasing importance of wealth in public life, i.e., the ability to fund important public works, may have played a role in overcoming the traditional ineligibility of women for public offices.'36 What the inscription recorded was the precedent of the appointment of Phile to this office and the distinction it was for her as the first woman to hold it in Priene.
From the imperial period comes Plencia Magna from Perge who held the magistracy for her city as well as the priesthoods of Artemis and the imperial cult.37 She was honoured by `the Council and the People' with two statues, and the pedestals recorded her public offices, with each describing her as a `daughter of the city'. She proved that to be true by erecting a monumental gate adorned with statues of gods, the imperial family and her own. Each statue recorded her name as the benefactor as did the dedication on the main arch of the propylon.38
Then there is the highly influential Claudia Metrodora from Chios, named in three decrees and a contemporary of Junia Theodora. Her husband `erected [this building in Ephesus] at his own expense and dedicated it together with his wife Claudia Metrodora'. Another refers to officials who `held office in the second stephanephorate of Claudia Metrodora'. This was the highest magistracy in that city and she held it on two occasions. She was four times gymnasiarch, and president of the Heraklea Kaisareia and Romaia festival on three occasions. Described as `queen (basileia) of thirteen cities of the Ionian federation ... a lover of her homeland and priestess for life (ifprta bta (3iou) of the divine empress Aphrodite Livia, she undertook these liturgies in the federation `by reason of her [civic] virtue and honourable civic mindness (KaaoKhyaOia)'. Greek in origin, hence her name Metrodora, she held Roman citizenship and undertook not only the highest office in her city on two occasions, but was a priestess for life of the imperial cult and also held a prestigious religious office in the wider Ionian federation.39 She was a powerful woman in the public arena. (See pp. 210-11.)
From a later period we learn of Aurelia Leite of Paros who combined her role as gymnasiarch with the restoration of the gymnasium. She was re warded by the Council and People who `erected a marble statue of the wisdom-loving, husband-loving, children-loving woman [in verse]: "The glorious Faustus fully honoured Leite, his wisdom-bearing wife who bore the best children"'.40 She was said to have combined her public office with the running of her household.
It is important to note that women holding these public offices did not cease after the first century, for there is numismatic evidence of seventeen of them known to have held the highest magistracy the city afforded (GTE4avg46pos) in thirteen cities in the East from A.D. 18o to 275.41
To date, the only official Greek inscription found in first-century Corinth is to a high-class woman who was a Roman citizen residing there (c. A.D. 43 or 57). The public honouring of Junia Theodora occurs in five separate decrees or official letters that were recorded on a composite inscription erected in Corinth.42 They are -
i. A decree of the Federal Assembly of the Lycian cities.
2. A letter from the Lycian city of Myra to the magistrates of Corinth.
3. A decree of the Lycian city of Patara.
4. A letter and decree of the Federal Assembly of Lycia.
5. A decree of the Lycian city of Telmessos.
With the exception of number 2 (which is an official letter) and the introduction of number 4, they were framed in the genre of the Greek benefaction in scriptions in the long-established tradition from the classical period. They had become more elaborate in the Hellenistic period, and the expansive acknowledgement of the achievements of Junia Theodora in the Roman period reflects that trend. (For the full text, see pp. 205-10.)
The Greek benefaction inscriptions aimed to disclose three things for all to see in the forum - first, what the benefactor had done to deserve official recognition; second, what the Council and the People had awarded that person by way of honours; and third, what was the stated reason for the `praising' or official acknowledgement of the person.
The first was preceded by an introduction which announced `it is decreed (boXE) by the city of. . .' and the benefactions were then enumerated being introduced by `since' (~1rst) or `whereas' (Erstsj). The honours agreed to by `the Council and the People' are declared by the resolution of the city authorities - `it has been decreed' (6E66X6at). The final clause `in order that' normally began with either Yva or o7rwS and alerted all who read it that `the Council and the People' ((3ouX~ Kal b>lµos) knew how to respond with civic honours to those who were its benefactors, past, present and, hopefully, future. It was important that all should read that the authorities had fulfilled their obligations to honour appropriately their benefactors, which was one of their traditional dual functions still operating in cities in the Roman Empire, the other being civic administration and civil law.43
Roman Wives, Roman Widows Page 19