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Ancient Roman women and the culture.

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

Ancient Roman women and the culture.
Let’s now abandon the morality or immorality of the Roman women of the end of the republic and let’s look to other aspects of their character. There is no doubt on the fact that they had a strong personality and that they were not unlearned as the greater part of their Mediterranean sisters. When, for instance, in Greece, also if belonging to great and very important families, the girls were just considered nice dolls one married, had children by them and, when all was said and done, lived shut in their gynaecea spinning wool, weaving clothes and overseeing the slaves’ work, the Roman ones, brilliant and intelligent creatures, who received a solid teaching, had their family life but at the same time could sustain lively and entertaining conversations with everyone in the world and thus these Roman nice brides were not the kind of simpletons one married just to have children, but a woman apt to be her husband’s best partner.
Among the upper class women a certain number might be considered true intellectuals. Thus in the II cent B.C. there is Cornelia, the Gracchi’s mother, daughter of the general Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus who triumphed over Hannibal, and mother in law of Scipio Aemilianus who, married to her daughter Sempronia, was the man who destroyed Chartago. Cornelia was not only very cultured but also extremely intelligent and fascinating. Both Plutarcus, Orosius and Velleius Paterculus underline her great love for the “Belles lettres” and it is from them that we learn that not only was she well versed in the Greek literature, but that she spoke a perfect a Latin and wrote so beautifully , that still at Cicero’s times her letters were considered models of composition and of her Cicero wrote
“We read the letters of Cornelia, the Gracchis ‘ mother and from them we see that her sons were not as much created in her bosom as in her learning”
And certainly Cornelia was a noteworthy and much admired woman. We read that, having retired at Misenus after her sons’ death, she regularly entertained Greek intellectuals and authors and that she received many presents also from kings who were allied with Rome and who wanted to express their admiration for her. One of them, Ptolemy Euegetes, even proposed to her. She could have became the queen and lived at Alexandria which at these times was the centre of every culture, but politely refused: after the death of Gracchus, her beloved husband, she never thought of any marriage.
In the I cent. B.C. there was another Cornelia, Pompeius Magnus fifth and last wife and much younger that him. She was the daughter of Metellus Scipio Consul in the year 52 B.C. She had been first married with Publius, the son of Crassus, who died with his father in the year 53 B.C and in the 52 she married Pompey, who two year earlier had lost his fourth wife, Julia, Caesar’s daughter. Of Cornelia Plutarch writes:
“ Her youth was not her only attractive. She was well read and she could sweetly play the lyre; she was well versed in mathematics and she could debate any philosophic discussion. At the same time in her there wasn’t any unpleasant and conceited side that often happen with this kind of sophisticated women.”
We know then the story of Cerellia who was a persistent fan of Cicero and who did anyhing was possible to do in order to be able to secure all his works at the point that some time – as it happened for the “De finibus”- she even succeeded to read them before that they had been published.
We also know of Pliny’s younger wife, who not only read all his works, but set his poetries to music and sang them accompanying her voice with the cithara. Moreover there were other very talented women as Iaia of Cyzicus who from Greece came in Italy where she became quite a success as a portraitist and painter. There were also women who could plead a case how in he Senate did Ortensia, the orator’s daughter. Then we can’t forget of the many women doctors, novels’ writers, essayists and poetesses.
Oh admirable Roman women!