6 - Women in the Roman Republic

Summary

IMAGES OF WOMEN IN THE EARLY REPUBLIC

Romans of the imperial period believed that many women in the archaic era inspired others by their practice of Roman virtues whereas other early women's actions illustrated the consequences of vice. Lucretia, for example, committed suicide after she was raped by an Etruscan prince of Rome while her father and her husband were away. He had threatened to kill her and a male slave in her bed as evidence that he had surprised her in base adultery. That threat to her modesty (pudicitia) compelled her to comply with his demands. After he left, she summoned her husband and father. They arrived with friends, and she swore them all to revenge against the rapist. Then she killed herself to prove her innocence and to keep her example from justifying a lack of chastity (castitas) in other women. The vengeance she had inspired supposedly brought down the Etruscan dynasty that controlled Rome and thereby led to the founding of the Roman Republic (Livy 1.58-60; Dion. Hal. 5.32.4-35.2).

The myth of Lucretia exemplifies many Roman virtues: it stresses the supreme womanly virtues of pudicitia and castitas; its heroine is a woman who held lineage and family to be more important than her personal interests; it allows a woman to exhibit the Roman virtues of bravery and determination; it demonstrates that her role in preserving the family from shame was a vital one; it ties her moral qualities to the establishment of the Roman state. Another famous example of death in defense of pudicitia was Verginia, killed by her father to preserve her from rape (Livy 3.44-48, Dion. Hal. 11.28-38).