Servilia And Her Family

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.

Examines the clash between political systems and political action as the Roman Republic disintegrated.

Selected by Choice as a 2012 Outstanding Academic Title Awarded a 2012 PROSE Honorable Mention as a Single Volume Reference/Humanities & Social Sciences A Companion to Women in the Ancient World presents an interdisciplinary, methodologically-based collection of newly-commissioned essays from prominent scholars on the study of women in the ancient world. The first interdisciplinary, methodologically-based collection of readings to address the study of women in the ancient world Explores a broad range of topics relating to women in antiquity, including: Mother-Goddess Theory; Women in Homer, Pre-Roman Italy, the Near East; Women and the Family, the State, and Religion; Dress and Adornment; Female Patronage; Hellenistic Queens; Imperial Women; Women in Late Antiquity; Early Women Saints; and many more Thematically arranged to emphasize the importance of historical themes of continuity, development, and innovation Reconsiders much of the well-known evidence and preconceived notions relating to women in antiquity Includes contributions from many of the most prominent scholars associated with the study of women in antiquity

Rome, Season One: History Makes Television examines thefirst season of the HBO-BBC collaboration, Rome, in acollection of thought-provoking essays by some of the world’smost influential scholars in the fields of classical antiquity andpopular culture. Examines the first season of the HBO-BBC collaboration,Rome, in a collection of 17 thought-provoking essays by someof the world’s most influential scholars in the fields ofclassical antiquity and popular culture Focuses on the award-winning first season’s historicalframework, visual and narrative style, contemporary thematicovertones, and influence on popular culture Addresses the artistic values, and roles of the script, sets,and actors Reveals how the series Rome ‘makes history’in terms of representing the past on screen and producinginnovative and influential television.

Investigations into the daily life of Roman families show that children were key actors in the process of the construction of social memory: they were the pivotal point of the transmission of family tradition and values in both elite and non-elite families. This collection of essays draws together the perspectives of various disciplines to provide a multifaceted picture of the Roman family based on a wide range of evidence drawn from the 1st century BCE to Late Antiquity and theChristian period. The contributors define the notion of memory, discuss the role of children in the transmission of social memory and social identities, and also deal with threats to familial memory, in the cases of children deliberately or accidentally excluded from tradition, long believed to beinvisible, such as those born at home to slaves, or outcast because of illness or their unusual status, for example as the offspring of an incestuous relationship.

The civil wars that brought down the Roman Republic were fought on more than battlefields. Armed gangs infested the Italian countryside, mansions were besieged in the city, and bounty-hunters searched the streets for "public enemies." Among the astonishing stories to survive from these years is that of a young woman whose parents were killed, on the eve of her wedding, in the violence engulfing Italy in the late first century BC. While her future husband fought overseas, she staved off a run on her father's estate and raised money to help her fiancé in exile. Further, when her husband, back in Rome, was declared an outlaw, she successfully hid him, worked for his pardon, and joined other Roman women in staging a public protest. The wife's tale is known only because her husband had inscribed on large slabs of marble the elaborate eulogy he gave at her funeral. In this book, Josiah Osgood reconstructs the life of Turia, as the wife is commonly known, more fully than it has been before by bringing in alongside the eulogy stories of other Roman women who also contributed to their families' survival while working to end civil war. He shows how the wife's story sheds rare light on the more hidden problems of everyday life for Romans, including a high number of childless marriages. This unique narrative is more than a biography of one woman: it is a portrait of a vivid period in Roman history and a tribute to married love which, though from another world, speaks to us today.

This book is a comprehensive study of some ways of treating the subject that demonstrate new and unusual perspectives, and provides a different approach to the popularly-held views of mothers-in-law; and that further address these works as popular culture; and as texts in their own right from within the framework of literary theory; and as works that demonstrate the ability to reach and connect with, and satisfy, both the general reader, the student, and the scholar, from all levels and walks of life.