From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (15 page)

reports that in 19 AD, when a Vestal was chosen, the daughter of Domitius Pollio was preferred to the daughter of Fonteius Agrippa, because
‘
her mother had remained in the same marriage: for Agrippa had reduced his house by divorce
’
.
82
A woman who had been married only once was called
univira,
and regarded with great approval.
83
But it must be stressed that except for the notorious cases which formed the stuff of satire and moralistic discourse, a woman who had married more than one husband either on account of death or divorce did not diminish her social stature in any way. In religious ritual
univirae
belonged to the wider category of
matronae,
though there were rituals in which only
univirae
partici- pated.
84
But there is no evidence to suggest that this signified social disapproval of women who fell outside that category.
85

The law of wills allowed women much greater freedom than it did men. From an early date Roman law was concerned with property rights within families. The Furian Law on Wills, for example, which was in existence by 169 BC, severely restricted the size of legacies to distant relatives and non-relatives.
86
In similar vein a child who had been disinherited without cause could try to get his father
’
s will invalidated. Hopkins and Burton claim that the underlying assump- tion allowing such suits is that fathers should treat each child fairly (Hopkins 1983:76 with note 58). But the law did not regard moth- ers in the same light. No appeal could be made against a mother
’
s will until as late as the second century AD.
87
This is consistent with the perception that the children of a marriage
‘
belonged
’
to the father.
Patria potestas
severed a child
’
s legal relationship with its mother. Since neither she nor her property belonged in any legal sense to the family of which her husband and her children were a part they had no claim on it.

The Sabine women were the prototypes of the Roman
matrona
. They were as indispensable for the perpetuation of the
‘
Roman
’
line as the
matrona
was for that of her husband. They possessed the virtues that a good matron was praised for. They were, in short, the rock on which the state was built. Without them all Romulus
’
diplomacy and statecraft would have been to no avail. And yet they were never entirely a part of the state, they were always the
‘
Sabine women
’
, never
‘
Romans
’
; just as a wife, regardless of the affective ties that bound her to her husband and children, stood legally aloof.

The creation of the Roman
matrona
thus ensured the continued existence of the Roman state. A
matrona
also featured prominently in the discourse surrounding the beginning of the Republic. The

rape of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of Tarquinius Super- bus, Rome
’
s last king, was the catalyst that toppled the monarchy and created in its stead the much revered Republic. The story of the Sabine women was a relatively uncomplicated narrative, reflecting the comparatively straightforward story of the founding of Rome. The story of Lucretia reveals the complex tensions and contradic- tions that were inherent in the perceptions of the transition from monarchy to republic. However hated the Tarquins might have been, the earliest kings, Romulus, Numa, Servius Tullius, were revered every bit as much as the Republic itself. Their perceived con- tributions to religion, statecraft, and law were acknowledged and cherished as part of the Roman heritage. In the later Republic these early kings were held up as models of the Roman ideal; their simple and chaste lifestyles in particular provided a satisfying foil to the perceived corruption and extravagance of contemporary times. So there was considerable tension underlying perceptions of the estab- lishment of the Republic. For creating the Republic was a process simultaneously of affirming and denying, undermining and re- establishing the values inherent in the Monarchy. The story of Lucretia reflects that tension. It is most usefully approached not so much as straightforward narrative
—
which of course on one level is what it is
—
but as a discourse on the kind of dangers a man could be harbouring within his house in the person of his wife, his
matrona,
however virtuous a wife she might be. The political correlate was the kind of danger the Republic could harbour in the form of ambi- tious men. I shall show how these two ideas were played out in the narrative. Central to the story, from this perspective, is not Lucretia herself, but male anxiety about the kind of subtle havoc a wife could create within a Roman
’
s
domus
.

Livy
’
s version of the story is that while the young princes were drinking in the tent of Sextus Tarquinius one day during the siege of Ardea, they fell to bragging about the relative merits of their wives.
88
Tarquinius Collatinus, not a son of the hated king but a cousin, proposed that they should ride to each of their homes unan- nounced, and see for themselves how their wives whiled away their husbands
’
absence. His own Lucretia, he swore, would win the prize in wifely virtue. And so it turned out, for while the wives of the princes were found to be carousing, Lucretia was discovered hard at work with her maids spinning wool late into the night.

Her beauty and her virtue, says Livy, created in Sextus
—
and this is important
—
the desire to debauch her by force:
Sex. Tarquinium

mala libido Lucretiae
per vim
stuprandae capit
.
89
So a few days later he rode to Collatinus
’
house by himself and was graciously wel- comed and provided with accommodation, for Lucretia suspected nothing. In the night he made his way to Lucretia
’
s room and with sword in hand, threatening to kill her if she made a sound, he first tried to win her over with blandishments. When that failed he threatened to kill her and his slave, lay the man
’
s body beside her and give it out that he had caught them together. At which, says Livy,
‘
her modesty was overcome
as with force,
by his victorious lust
’—
Quo terrore cum vicisset obstinatam pudicitiam
velut vi
vic- trix libido
.
90
The next day Lucretia summoned her father and her husband with witnesses. She told them what had happened and her intention of killing herself, although she herself had had no adulter- ous intentions.

They seek to comfort her,
…
by diverting the blame from her who was forced to the doer of the wrong. They tell her that it is the mind that sins not the body; and that where purpose has been wanting there is no guilt.

(Livy, 1.58.9)

But having made them swear that they would avenge her dishonour, she stabbed herself and died.

Why does Lucretia kill herself? A husband was by law allowed to kill with impunity an adulterous wife.
91
But the victim of rape was not guilty of a criminal offence and was totally exonerated from blame in the eyes of the law.
92
The Christian apologists and their followers saw Lucretia as a sinner. Her sin was the involuntary sex- ual pleasure
—
as they saw it
—
of the woman even as she is being violated.
93
Bryson contrasts St Augustine
’
s interpretation of the story of Lucretia with that of Livy: the Christian interpretation (Lucretia secretly seduces) opposed to the pagan (she was raped). The Christian interpretation easily accounts for Lucretia
’
s suicide. Bryson suggests that the pagan writers and especially Livy saw the rape of Lucretia as a public crime. Lucretia commits suicide in order to exact vengeance not of a personal but a political nature.
‘
It is not
…
a private matter, but an affair of state and its outcome will be the overthrow of the state
’
(Bryson 1986:164). This interpretation however does not account for the complexity of meaning inherent in the story of Lucretia and the subtle interplay of the notions of home and state.

The key to Lucretia
’
s suicide in Livy
’
s narrative is the notion of
vis,
force. I argued in the last chapter that for lawful sexual inter- course, such as intercourse within marriage, the notion of
vis,
if not its physical reality, was a necessary mediating factor. The myth of the seduction of Bona Dea by her father showed the failure of force and its replacement with guile in the case of manifestly unlawful intercourse such as incest. Inherent in Lucretia
’
s story is the notion that intercourse mediated by
vis,
even if not strictly lawful, rendered the woman blameless. If Sextus Tarquinius had subdued her by sim- ple force her suicide would have been meaningless. But he does not subdue her, she submits to the fear of disgrace. There are no under- tones of involuntary sexual pleasure, no notion of sin in the Chris- tian sense. Yet in the last resort Lucretia, however honourable, was seduced rather than raped. Sextus
’
intention was to conquer her through force
—
per vim
—
but in fact he does so as though by force
—
velut vi
. So Lucretia is and is not guilty of adultery. An adulteress would have been killed by her husband or her father. Lucretia killed herself. Her last words are poignant:
‘
though I acquit myself of the sin, I do not absolve myself from punishment; not in time to come shall ever unchaste woman live through the example of Lucretia
’
.
94

The oath that Brutus compelled the Romans to swear reconciles Lucretia
’
s story with the founding of the Republic.

To begin with, when the people were still jealous of their new freedom, he obliged them to swear an oath that they would suffer no man to be king in Rome, lest they might later be turned from their purpose by the entreaties or the gifts of princes.

(Livy, 2.1.9)

Brutus
’
fear was that the Republic could be destroyed not through force
—
for a state that prided itself on its military prowess violence presented few terrors
—
but by seduction. This could happen only in a monarchy. While an individual king could be all that was desirable in a ruler, monarchy as an institution could fall prey to corruption. Correspondingly, as revealed by Lucretia
’
s story, while a virtuous wife such as she had been brought honour and prosperity to a man and his family, marriage as an institution could lead to misery and destruction. Lucretia conjured up simultaneously the picture of the chaste, industrious wife and the woman whose sexuality could, however involuntarily, threaten her husband and his house.

Women continued to play a prominent part, both individually and collectively, in the stories that helped define
‘
Romanness
’
. Many of these tales constituted the aetiology of the foundations of temples or rituals, thus ensuring that they remain part of popular self-perception. They portrayed women both as contributing posi- tively to the welfare of the state and as serving to undermine its institutions, thus reflecting the same sort of tensions that existed in the rhetoric of misogyny. The festival of the Carmentalia, for exam- ple, was instituted because the Roman matrons, angered at being deprived of the privilege of riding in carriages, performed abortions on themselves in order to punish their husbands by denying them children. The senate restored to them the right to ride in carriages and instituted the rites to Carmenta on the ides of February to ensure the birth of healthy babies.
95
But while tales such as this con- firmed a man
’
s worst fears about women, there were others that featured women as saviours of the state. An example is the aetiologi- cal story of the founding of the temple of Fortuna Muliebris. The temple commemorated the action of the women who persuaded Coriolanus to desist from an attack on Rome. But Livy
’
s account of the incident gives an interesting insight into male attitudes towards collective action by women, even when it was for the good of the state.

Non inviderunt laude sua mulieribus viri Romani
—
adeo sine obtrectatione gloriae alienae vivebatur
—
momnomentoque quod esset templum Fortunae muliebri aedificatum dedica- tumque est.

Men did not envy the fame the women had earned,
—
so free was life in those days from disparagement of another
’
s glory
—
and to preserve its memory the temple of Fortuna Muliebris was built and dedicated.
96

Women were always the
‘
other
’—
alienae
—
and even when their actions saved and preserved the state, men regarded them with a sense of unease.

Two temples standing side by side; two festivals, one marking the

beginning, the other the end of a related series; two goddesses: Ceres and Flora. Their relationship to agricultural enterprise has been demonstrated and widely discussed.
97
In this section I shall discuss a different aspect of the cults: the ways in which they were used to define and categorize the sexuality of women. I shall show that their respective rituals reflected attitudes towards the categories of
‘
wife
’
and
‘
prostitute
’
similar to the ones that were discernible in myth. The cults of Ceres and Flora, concerned with the wife and the prosti- tute respectively formed the ritual counterpart to the ideals encapsu- lated in the myths concerned with female sexual status. But ritual in this case is not simply a reflection of myth. It adds an important new dimension to the perception of the female in Roman antiquity.
‘
Wife
’
and
‘
prostitute
’
were two separate ritual categories, but they were also facets of a common female sexuality. The cults of Ceres and Flora were separate cults, but to the extent that they were con- cerned with the sexuality of women, they were mutually interdepen- dent for the creation of meaning. The ideal of the wife that found expression in the cult of Ceres was limited by the ideal of the prosti- tute that found expression in the cult of Flora and vice versa. The ritual features of the two cults provided a foil for each other.