Matrona Docta

The first comprehensive study of the education of upper-class Roman women, and of their participation in the intellectual life of their times.

Publisher description

This book provides an invaluable introduction to the social, economic, and legal status of women in ancient Rome. Daily Life of Women in Ancient Rome is an invaluable introduction to the lives of women in the late Roman Republic and first three centuries of the Roman Empire. Arranged chronologically and thematically, it examines how Roman women were born, educated, married, and active in economic, social, public, and religious life, as well as how they were commemorated and honored after death. Though they were excluded from formal public and military offices, wealthy Roman women participated in public life as benefactors and in religious life as priestesses. The book also acknowledges the status and occupations of women taking part in public life as textile producers, retail workers, and agricultural laborers, as well as enslaved women. The book provides a thorough introduction to the social history of women in the Roman world and gives students and aspiring scholars references to current scholarship and to primary literary and documentary sources, including collected sources in translation.

Servilia is often cited as one of the most influential women of the late Roman Republic. Though she was a high-born patrician, her grandfather died disgraced and her controversial father was killed before he could stand for the consulship; she herself married twice, but both husbands were mediocre. Nevertheless, her position in the ruling class still afforded her significant social and political power, and it is likely that she masterminded the distinguished marriages of her one son, Brutus, and her three daughters. During her second marriage she began an affair with Iulius Caesar, which probably lasted for the rest of his life and is further indicative of the force of her charm and her exceptional intelligence. The patchiness of the sources means that a full biography is impossible, though in suggesting connections between the available evidence and the speculative possibilities open to women of Servilia's status this volume aims to offer an insightful reconstruction of her life and position both as a member of the senatorial nobility and within her extended and nuclear family. The best attested period of Servilia's life, for which the chief source is Cicero's letters, follows the murder of Caesar by her son and her son-in-law, Cassius, who were leaders among the crowd of conspirators in the Senate House on the Ides of March in 44 BC. We find her energetically working to protect the assassins' interests, also defending her grandchildren by the Caesarian Lepidus when he was declared a public enemy and his property threatened with confiscation. Exploring the role she played during these turbulent years of the late Republic reveals much about the ways in which Romans of both sexes exerted influence and sought to control outcomes, as well as about the place of women in high society, allowing us to conclude that Servilia wielded her social and political power effectively, though with discretion and within conventional limits.

Korinna Zamfir explores the manner in which the Pastoral Epistles redefine roles and ministries within a changed ecclesiological framework (the ekkl?sia as oikos Theou). The contextual investigation focuses on the cultural and social background of the station codes and church orders. Applying the environmental approach advanced by Abraham MalherbeZamfir discusses the Pastoral Epistles as writings intimately linked to their Greco-Roman social and cultural environment. The volume addresses the mentalities reflected in moral philosophies, political theories, drama and epigraphy, focusing on the discourse articulated in these sources. Exploring the adoption of conservative mentalities, the monograph advances a reading of the Pastoral Epistles based on ideology critique. It also incorporates insights gained from research on the social world of earliest Christianity, in particular on private associations.Korinna Zamfir argues that the ecclesiology of the Pastoral Epistles presupposes the metaphorical use of oikos Theou and shows that in Greco-Roman antiquity oikos denotes larger social entities like the religious association, the polisand the cosmos. The ekkl?sia is the oikos and polis of God. As a consequence the Pastoral Epistles define roles and ministries based on the public-private divide and on honor and shame mentality. The theo-logical and cosmic dimension of the »household of God«explains the essentialist understanding of social and ecclesial roles. The author also tackles the contrast between discourse and ecclesial reality.

Born to an illustrious Roman family in 125 BCE, Regilla was married at the age of fifteen to Herodes, a wealthy Greek. Twenty years later--and eight months pregnant with her sixth child--Regilla died under mysterious circumstances, after a blow to the abdomen delivered by Herodes's freedman. Though Herodes was charged, he was acquitted. Pomeroy's investigation suggests that despite Herodes's erection of numerous monuments to his deceased wife, he was in fact guilty of the crime.