II: NOBLE MATRONS OF THE REPUBLIC

AFTER THE REVOLUTION, OF WHICH the tragedy of Lucretia was the traditional cause and which ended forever monarchical rule in Rome, our subject begins to emerge from the haziness of legendary narratives into the clearer light of veritable history. It now becomes possible for us to catch glimpses of the women of Rome, living and moving amid scenes that were real and under conditions which undoubtedly prevailed.

Roman society at the beginning of the Republic was most distinctly and rigidly classified. Not only were the people divided by the circumstances of birth into separate classes, but the law preordained for every person his precise station, his duties, his privileges, and his limitations. The citizen could no more go beyond these than he could transfer himself into another order of creation; for law, in Rome, was as absolute as it was rigid. Speaking generally, there were two orders, the patrician and the plebeian. A common opinion of the old writers was that out of the influx of adventurers who crowded to Rome at its founding Romulus chose one hundred Senators, their qualification being that they could name their fathers. Their children were called patricians. In the third century before Christ, when the plebeians had wrested many privileges and offices from the unwilling higher class, Publius Decius, himself a plebeian, uses this theory of the origin of the patricians to great advantage. Contending in debate for the right of his order to serve in the priesthood, he said: “Have ye never heard that the first-created patricians were not men sent down from heaven, but such as could cite their fathers; that is, nothing more than freeborn? Well, I can cite my father; he was a consul; and my son will be able to cite a grandfather.” This excessive pride which Roman citizens took in the fact that they could trace their paternity through more or less generations must not be understood as reflecting, in any way, upon the character of the early matrons; it arose simply from the fact that they could so surely name their ancestry as to eliminate possibility of descent from one of the common herd of unenfranchised inhabitants.

These latter were the plebeians. This class was made up of the descendants of the ancient people who of old had inhabited the country, ordinary foreigners who were attracted to the city, and the children of captives who had been given their liberty. At first, the plebeians enjoyed no rights whatever. They lived, it is true, under the shelter of the walls of the city, but on the outside. They possessed no right of suffrage, and were not allowed to interfere in any public affair. But they were free. They held property and engaged in handicrafts and in commerce. It soon came to pass that the increase of their number and their importance rendered their repression by the nobles more and more difficult. Under King Servius the plebeians became citizens; and, as is the case in every land, the internal history of Rome contains nothing more interesting than the indomitable and successful struggle of this lower class to wrest ever larger privileges from the tenacious rulers. It was not, however, until B.C. 444 that equality of rights had made sufficient progress for matrimonial alliances to be countenanced between patricians and plebeians. By the commencement of the Christian era all practical distinction between these two classes had vanished.

In addition to the two principal orders, there was that of the clients. These were in reality vassals, who preferred dependence on the great and wealthy to living independently in a precarious liberty. They were called by the names of their patrons and were numbered in the latter’s tribe. By enactments of law, the patron was made responsible for the support and protection of his clients. In return, the patrician could depend upon his clients to fight his battles, support his cause, and prove themselves loyal retainers of his house in both good fortune and evil. The subservience of these clients, and the conscienceless zeal with which they furthered the designs, even the most wicked, of their masters, are well illustrated in the part which Marcus Claudius played in the persecution of Virginia by the decemvir Appius. Another dependent class was that of the slaves. At first the number of these was comparatively small; but as the conquering arms of Rome spread over the world her avaricious sway, the captives dragged in barbarous triumph to the city grew out of all proportion to the population. They enjoyed fewer rights and suffered under a regime more inhuman than in any other slaveholding nation in history.

That which distinguished one class from another in early Roman society had nothing whatever to do with the character of the occupation of the people comprising it. The noblest of the early patricians, as well as the commonest plebeians, tilled the soil with their own hands; nor did they disdain to engage in trade, or even in the letting of money on usury. Wealth was no more a consideration than occupation in determining to which order a man or a woman belonged. In course of time, the plebeians, despite the patricians’ unneglected privilege of practising robbery under due process of law, numbered many families of great wealth; but no man could therewith purchase entrance to the higher class. It was the blood line that marked these distinctions; it was ancestry alone that could give the patent of nobility. Nor is it surprising that a people who believed in the divine origin of some of their tribes should acknowledge superior rights as attached to a well-authenticated pedigree.

In most societies, the advantages of class are more markedly displayed in the life of the women than in that of the men. This does not appear to have been the case in the early times of the Roman Republic. In fact, it is difficult to see how difference in class greatly distinguished the patrician matron from her plebeian sister. Neither had any legal part whatever in State affairs or in any public functions, excepting those of a religious nature. The duties of each were confined to the home, and no woman was relieved from the obligation of personal and diligent industry. On the epitaphs of many noble women were praises for their chastity and their proficiency in spinning. Indeed, the evidence seems to indicate that any other qualities than these two, and that of fertility, were deprecated rather than admired by the Romans of this period. The only advantages which a patrician woman could possess were her natural pride in the privileges of her family and what honor was reflected upon her from the positions held by her male relatives. The term “Head of the Family” never had so tyrannical a meaning as in most ancient Rome. It was a place which a woman could not hold. The husband was all in all; no one else was recognized by law. Wife, children, clients, and slaves were alike persons without will of their own. They were mancipia, under the hand of the father. He it was who answered for them to the State and who judged them. If a wife was accused of crime, she was committed to her husband for judgment. And this was the law even down to the time of Nero, when Pomponia Græcina, charged with embracing a foreign superstition, was “consigned to the adjudication of her husband.” A man could even condemn his wife to death for certain offences, such as the violation of her marriage vows, or even for forging false keys in order to steal his wine. At her husband’s death, the wife could not claim any of his property if he had bequeathed it to another, even though it were willed to an entire stranger. In this severely disciplined society, the woman never escaped from guardianship. She was looked upon as belonging to the family rather than to the State. The latter consisted only of men, to whom the women were merely necessary accessories. No one thought that a woman possessed any claim or right to independence of individuality. She was always under a master: her father, when she was a girl; her husband, when she was married; and her nearest male relative, if she became a widow. If she obtained any share in her father’s property or in that of her husband, she could not transfer or bequeath it without the consent of her male guardian, unless she were a Vestal; nor could she marry without the same consent.

But, however dependent her position may have been, whether maid or matron, the Roman woman was always treated with reverence. The stola, the characteristic robe of the matron, corresponding to the toga of the male citizen, always ensured for its wearer respect, it being not merely an article of attire, but also an insignia which could only be retained by strict rectitude of life, market days or assembly days. In the villa—a miserable cabin made of mud, rafters, and branches—not a day, not a moment, was lost. Horace does not draw a more agreeable picture of ancient city manners. He tells us that “at Rome, for a long time a man knew no other pleasure and no other festival than to open his door at dawn, to explain the law to his clients, and to lay out his money on good security. They learned from their elders, and taught beginners, the art of increasing their savings.” But when it is remembered that Cato was a sour and miserly Puritan, who adopted austerity as his pose, and that Horace was a poet, not untouched with cynicism, who lived in a society in which the charm of simple enjoyments was entirely forgotten, we may consider both pictures, though from differing causes, slightly overdrawn. Nevertheless they serve to indicate how circumscribed was the life of the wives of the early Romans.

Those strong-minded, intense, practical people were...