From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (30 page)

90 F.Cumont 1913:183; Vermaseren 1963:162.

91 Gordon 1988:48.

1. Gordon 1980.
   

2. Plut.,
   Pomp.,
   24. 94 Cumont 1913:36.
   

1. Gordon 1980.
   

2. See pp. 96
   et seq.
   

3. See note 41, p. 166.
   

98 Cic.,
Att.,
1.12;
ibid.,
1.13;
ibid., Dom.,
29.77;
ibid., Har. Resp.,
6.12; 17; indeed the Bona Dea
’
s rites were thus described almost by definition.

99 Cic.,
Att.,
1.13.

1. Ibid.,
   3.
   

2. Cic.,
   Att.,
   2.1.5 with Shackleton Bailey
   ’
   s note. Also Quint.,
   

Inst.,
4.2.88.

102 Cic.,
Att.,
1.16.

103 Livy, 39.13.9; see also Cic.,
Leg.,
2.15.37. See also North 1979: esp. 88
–
89.

104 Cic.,
Leg.,
2.9.21.

1. Ibid.
   with Keyes
   ’
   note.
   

2. Ov.,
   Fast.,
   5.148
   –
   158 with Frazer
   ’
   s commentary. 107 Ov.,
   Fast.,
   5.153
   

1. Hadrian is said to have built a temple to the Bona Dea. See SHA,
   Hadr.,
   19.11. See also Platner-Ashby,
   s.v. Bona Dea Subsaxana, Aedes,
   

2. Frazer,
   op. cit.;
   Macrobius also suggests that men were forbid- den to enter her temple,
   Sat.,
   1.12.26; see also Festus, p. 348 L.
   

3. Ov.,
   Ars Am.,
   3.637
   –
   638 (my emphasis).
   

4. See note 4, p. 164, with accompanying text.
   

112 Macrob.,
Sat.,
1.12.26. See also Brouwer 1989:346
–
347.

113 See Piccaluga 1964:214
–
215 with notes 76
–
80.

114 See note 110, p. 169.

1. Ov.,
   Fast.,
   5.148
   –
   158. Ovid does no more than suggest that the ritual took place. Macrobius provides a few details but not many,
   Sat.,
   1.12.20
   –
   21.
   

2. Plut.,
   Caes.,
   9.
   

3. Plut.,
   Cic.,
   19.
   

4. Cic.,
   Att.,
   1.12;
   ibid.,
   1.13; Plut.,
   Cic.,
   28. The fact that Caesar was also
   pontifex maximus
   appears to have been irrelevant to the choice of his house as a venue for the rites.
   

5. A striking example of the derivation of female status from that of the male, and its religious repercussions, is the story of the institution of a cult of Pudicitia Plebeia by a woman called Verginia in 295 BC. Virginia
   ’
   s father was a patrician but she had married a plebeian, the consul, L.Volumnius. She was therefore excluded from participation in the rites of Pudicitia Patricia by patrician women on the grounds that having married out of the patriciate she was no longer one of them. Her response was to set up in her own house a shrine to Pudicitia Plebeia, to be wor- shipped exclusively by univirate plebeian women. Interestingly the two cults were defined in terms of each other, by a relation- ship of opposition, which was expressed by the competition of its worshippers for greater matronly chastity (Livy, 10.23.1
   –
   9).
   

120 Plut.,
Cic.,
19; Cic.,
Att.,
1.13.

1. See Plut.,
   Caes.,
   10.1 and 10.3.
   

2. Plut.,
   Cic.,
   20.
   

3. See e.g., Plut.,
   Cic.,
   19.4. 124 Juv., 6.340.
   

125 I cannot resist relating the following story. Long after I first wrote these words, I attended a meeting of the New York City Women
’
s Bar Association. The meeting was held in a big, impos- ing auditorium. There were at least two hundred women lawyers and law students present and not a single man. But all around the room hung large portraits of dead male lawyers, erstwhile pillars of the profession, gazing sternly down upon us. Our discussion that evening was all about surviving and succeed- ing as women lawyers in a heavily male dominated profession. The presence of these portraits gave the discussion a peculiarly uncomfortable edge. I was amused to find myself thinking of the festival of Bona Dea, and put down my sensitivity to the por-

traits to the comparisons I was making. But I learned afterwards that my colleagues, who had never heard of Bona Dea, felt exactly the same way that I had.

126 Cic.,
Har. Resp.,
17.37. 127 Juv., 6.314
–
345.

1. Plut.,
   Caes.,
   10.
   

2. See Versnel: 1993:229
   et seq.
   

130 Juv., 6.335
–
336.

131 See e.g., Cic.,
Att.,
1.12; Asc.,
Mil.,
46; Sen.,
Ep.,
97.2.

1. Plut.,
   Quaest. Rom.,
   20.
   

2. See note 79, p. 168, with accompanying text.
   

3. Macrob.,
   Sat.,
   1.12.24
   –
   25; cf. Plut.,
   Quaest. Rom.,
   20. 135 Ov.,
   Fast.,
   4.721
   –
   806.
   

136 Varro,
Rust.,
2.1.9; Dion. Hal.,
Ant. Rom.,
1.88.3; see Wissowa 1912:199
–
201; Scullard 1981:103
–
105.

137 Cic.,
Div.,
2.47.98; Prop. 4.1.17
–
20;
ibid.,
4.73
–
80; see also

Ov.,
Fast.,
4.807
–
820.

138 In a stimulating and persuasive discussion of how a rite changes to accommodate new social and political needs Beard compares the description of the Parilia
—
now called the Romaia
—
in Athenaeus, 8.361e
–
362a., which tells how the Parilia was apparently celebrated in Hadrian
’
s day, with Ovid
’
s descrip- tion. See Beard 1987.

139 Ov.,
Fast.,
4.784
–
806.

1. See e.g., Festus, p. 3 L; see also my discussion pp. 15
   et seq
   . The concept will be discussed further in
   chapter 4
   .
   

2. These were in part the ashes of the foetuses of sacrificed cows, burned by the Virgo Vestalis Maxima at the festival of the Fordi- cidia six days earlier. See Ov.,
   Fast.,
   4.629
   et seq
   .
   

142
Ibid.,
771
–
772.

143 See Prop., 4.4.73
–
78.

144 See Dum
é
zil 1963:274;
ibid.
1970:39.

145 Tib., 2.5, 87 and 89.

146 Ov.,
Fast.,
4.780. The word translated as wine here is
sapa
. According to Pliny it was made by boiling down must to a third of its quantity. He also claims that it was devised for adulterat- ing with honey, Pliny,
H.N.,
14.11.80. It is not clear whether there was honey mixed with the wine at the Parilia. For an inter- pretation of the symbolic significance of honey see pp. 50
et seq
.

147 Pliny,
H.N.,
14.14.

1. Ibid.
   

2. Dion. Hal.,
   Ant. Rom.,
   2.25.6. 150 Pliny,
   H.N.,
   14.14.
   

151 Val. Max. 6.3.9.

1. Cato
   ap.
   Gell.,
   N.A.,
   10.23. Other examples:
   ‘
   Fabius Pictor has written in his
   Annales
   that a
   matrona
   was starved to death by her relatives for having broken open the casket containing the keys of the winecellar;
   …
   Gnaeus Domitius when
   iudex
   once gave a verdict that a certain woman appeared to have drunk more wine than was required for the sake of her health without her husband
   ’
   s knowledge, and he fined her the amount of her dowry.
   ’
   Pliny,
   H.N.,
   14.14.89
   –
   90.
   

2. Gell.,
   N.A.,
   10.23; Pliny,
   H.N.,
   14.14; see also Plut.,
   Quaest. Rom.,
   6.; cf. Plut.,
   Rom.,
   1.4.
   

154 Ov.,
Ars Am.,
3.765.

1. See Brouwer,
   op. cit.
   

2. The chapter from which this quote is taken is worth reading in its entirety to appreciate ancient beliefs about the nature of milk.
   

3. Verg.,
   Aen.,
   7.807
   –
   809;
   ibid.,
   11.535
   et seq.
   See also the story of Byblis in Ovid,
   Met.,
   9.615
   et seq.
   

4. Soranus,
   Gynaikeia.,
   1.19
   –
   20. 159 See also Tib., 1.1.35
   –
   36.
   

1. It was of course not the case that female deities were always offered milk rather than wine. But if one accepts that in this par- ticular case the milk drunk by the shepherd symbolized the female and her special powers of fertility, as opposed to male fertility symbolized by wine, then that symbolism must be extended to other aspects of the rite as well. The deity was not offered wine, nor was she offered the mixture of wine and milk that her worshippers drank. Therefore in the context of this rit- ual the offering of milk marked the deity out as female.
   

2. See also Plut.,
   Coniugalia Praecepta,
   44. 162 Pliny,
   H.N.,
   14.6.53.
   

163 See pp. 84
et seq.

1 This is controversial. The speech has also been attributed to Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, censor in 131 BC. It is believed that it was this very speech that, according to Livy and Sueto-

nius, Augustus once read to the Senate. Livy,
Per.,
59; Suet.,

Aug.,
89.2. See McDonnell 1987:81.

1. For the interpretation of satire as misogynistic discourse see e.g., Richlin 1984; Henderson 1989.
   

2. This, for example, is the reason alleged for the necessity for women
   sui iuris,
   to be under the guardianship of a
   tutor
   . G.,
   

   1.144. See also Crook 1986b:85
   –
   86.
   

3. For the participation of young children in ritual see Dion. Hal.,
   Ant. Rom.,
   2.22.1
   –
   2; for the use of virgins in expiatory rituals see e.g., Obsequens, 27a, 34 and 36; for boys and girls perform- ing an expiatory rite together,
   ibid.,
   1.
   

4. The Vestal Virgins are the subject of
   chapter 4
   . 6 Livy, 34.
   

1. According to Cicero only a woman married
   cum manu
   might be called
   materfamilias
   . A woman married
   sine manu
   was
   uxor,
   Cic.,
   Top.,
   4.14. See Corbett 1930:113. These were legal defini- tions.
   Matrona
   encompassed both legal categories: both
   matres- familiae
   and
   uxores
   were
   matronae
   . For the purposes of this analysis I define
   matrona
   as a wife in a legal Roman marriage, that is, where the partners had
   conubium
   . For a somewhat dif- ferent interpretation see Treggiari 1991b:34
   –
   35.
   

2. The denial of a political identity to women throughout the entire sweep of Roman history from the early Monarchy, through the period of the Republic, to the final collapse of the Empire, was not an inadvertent result of the way the political and social sys- tem evolved. That it was perceived as a deliberate and integral part of the system is suggested by a speech made by Hortensia in 42 BC, before the tribunal of the triumvirs in the forum, protest- ing a tax imposed on the personal wealth of 1400 of the richest women of the city. Hortensia
   ’
   s argument is that women should not be forced to pay taxes since they were not allowed to enjoy any of the rewards of public life.
   ‘
   Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in the honours, the commands, the state- craft for which you contend against each other
   …
   ?
   ’
   Women had in the past made contributions from their personal wealth to the treasury in times of national crisis, but that was an entirely vol- untary gesture. It is worth noting that the fact that Hortensia, accompanied by a group of matrons, addressed the triumvirs at a public tribunal was seen, as Cato saw the lobby of 195 BC, as a piece of unmitigated effrontery. None the less, her petition was partially granted. See Appian,
   B. Civ.,
   4.32
   –
   35. Valerius in his
   

   reply to Cato in 195 BC echoes Hortensia
   ’
   s sentiments about women being excluded from public life and its rewards:
   ‘
   No offices, no priesthoods no triumphs, no decorations, no gifts, no spoils of war can come to them
   ’
   , Livy, 34.7.8. This section may have been directly influenced by Hortensia
   ’
   s speech. Quintilian, who admired the speech, says it was extant and being studied in his own day, Quint.,
   Inst.,
   1.1.6. For Cicero, a situation where wives had the same rights as husbands was equivalent to the unseemly freedom of slaves or to unfettered domestic animals running amok in the public streets, Cic.,
   Rep.,
   1.43.67.
   

3. See also Varro,
   ap.
   Gell.,
   N.A.,
   1.17.4.
   

4. For greater narrative detail see Livy, 1.4; Dion. Hal.,
   Ant. Rom.,
   

   1.76
   –
   79; Plut.,
   Rom.,
   3
   –
   4.
   

5. Since the Vestal Virgins will be the subject of the fourth chapter of this book only those features of the priesthood that are impor- tant for purposes of the present discussion will be mentioned here. References will be provided in
   chapter 4
   .
   

6. See esp. Dion. Hal.,
   Ant. Rom.,
   1.77.
   

13 Ov.,
Fast.,
3.11
et seq.;
see also, Tib., 2.5.51
–
54.