LEO PEPPE, EVELYN
HÖBENREICH, PATRIZIA
GIUNTI, VALERIO MAROTTA
Discussion* of the book of Leo Peppe, Civis Romana**
* During the Annual Meeting on Christian Origins of the Italian Centre for
Advanced Studies on Religions (CISSR), Bertinoro, FO, September 29, 2017.
** Leo Peppe, Civis Romana. Forme
giuridiche e modelli sociali dell’appartenenza e
dell’identità femminili in Roma antica, Lecce, Edizioni Grifo,
2016.
PATRIZIA GIUNTI
University of Florence
Identity,
Belonging, Citizenship.
The Boundaries of
the Status of Women*
CONTENTS:
1. Introduction.
– 2. Common identity.
– 3. Strategy of complexity.
– 4. The scope of
citizenship.
1. – Introduction
Dear Colleagues, the first task I feel it
incumbent on me to fulfil is to express thanks: thanks to the organisers of the
CISSR Annual Meeting and in particular to Professor Mauro Pesce for this
invitation, which I am honoured by, and which, at the same time, allows me to
meet with dear friends and talk about a subject that continues to exert strong
fascination over me, despite the passing of years. However, my thanks must
immediately be followed by apologies.
I apologise for the fact that, due to the
overlapping of tasks burdening the Head of a Department, I was unable to attend
the first session of the meeting and because the considerations I will now
present are absolutely fragmentary, especially when compared to the
presentations of those who have preceded and will follow me.
I can say that I interpret my presence
here today as an opportunity to make public my full and convinced appreciation
for this work by Leo Peppe: an appreciation that I privately expressed to Leo
exactly one year ago, just a few weeks after the book came out, when I
spontaneously manifested to him all my admiration for this work which, far from
being a purely recognitive collage, a simple overview of previous
contributions, represents an authentic, courageous global rethinking, thirty
years after Leo’s ‘pioneering’ debut, on the subject of the
female condition in Rome[1]. An
extraordinarily complex subject because, as Evelyn pointed out a short while
ago, gender studies have enjoyed overwhelming success precisely in the past
thirty years[2], with an interdisciplinary
emphasis and contributions ranging from ideological pamphlets to thorough
scientific investigations. It is not simple, therefore, to orient oneself in
this highly varied realm in order to find a key to interpreting the boundaries
of feminine subjectivity in Rome: a key that Leo Peppe has found in the term civis, leading him to entitle his book civis Romana.
Leo is right: the title does not belong
to the book, it expresses a whole set of meanings that go beyond the contents
of the book itself. Just as, I could add, the book does not belong to its
author, because, following its publication, there exist as many books as there
are readers. Well, the first consideration I would like to share with you
arises precisely from the idea suggested to me by the title “Civis Romana”.
2. – Common identity
According to a fragment attributed to
Varro, a 1st century BC antiquarian and philologist, in his de lingua Latina, “it is in our
power to attribute gender to those things that by nature do not have one”[3] and
in any event “no animated being can take the neuter gender”[4].
Attributing a gender to a given entity which, if animated, can never be neuter,
is therefore a matter of choice (we might say political choice): and this
conclusion leads us immediately to consider the fact that belonging to the
citizenry was expressed by a term that shows no gender diversification: civis is a common noun, invariable,
whose scope of meaning embraces the civis
as a man and the civis as a woman. In
contrast with modern declarations of rights, which make explicit reference to
the male gender (one example may suffice: the Déclaration universelle de droits de l’homme), even
inciting some to draft a polemical Declaration of the Rights of Women[5]; in
contrast with the political lexicon of ancient Athens, which envisaged two
different gender suffixes for members of the citizenry (polites-politis)[6], the
Latin political-legal vocabulary recognised a common, indistinct civic identity
(civis) and thus seems to have
proposed a model of fungibility and equal standing between the two sexes, where
the scope of male citizenship perfectly overlapped with the scope of female
citizenship.
But that was not the case.
Notwithstanding that the specialised
literature repeatedly underscores the different condition, the different
‘dignity’ of Roman women compared to Greek women, who were both
ideologically and materially relegated to the role of passive reproducers[7], and
despite the existence of a further process of “emancipation”
enjoyed by Roman women toward the end of the Republic and during the first two
centuries of the Empire[8],
there can be no doubt that women’s legal status in Rome was painted with
the colours of discrimination[9],
within a horizon of limitations, both as regards their control over their
subjective situations and above all in their power to exercise their rights.
This is clearly attested by Papinianus in
his Quaestionum Libri:
D.
1.5.9 (Pap. 31 quaest.): In multis
iuris nostri articulis deterior est condicio feminarum quam masculorum”[10].
Equally evident, and agreed among legal
scholars, is the fact that such discriminations were particularly pronounced in
the realm of public law, in relation to what today we call ‘first
generation rights’, political and civil rights. Roman women did not
participate in legislative and electoral assemblies, and thus had no part in
political decision-making: we are informed of this by an erudite man of letters,
Aulus Gellius:
Noctes Atticae, 5.19.10: Neque pupillus autem neque
mulier, quae in parentis potestate non est, adrogari possunt: quoniam et cum
feminis nulla comitiorum communio est...
On the other hand, the fact was confirmed
by the jurist Gaius in his Institutiones, who excluded women from
the adrogatio that took place before
the assembly:
Gai
1.101: Item per populum feminae non adoptantur, nam id magis placuit.
Similarly, Roman women could neither hold
public offices nor accede to the role of magistratus,
nor take part in judicial activity as judge (iudex):
D. 50.17.2 (Ulp. 1 ad Sab.): … et ideo nec iudices
esse possunt nec magistratum gerere …
Moreover, Roman women could not intervene
in court proceedings with functions of assistance (postulare pro aliis):
D.
3.1.1.5 (Ulp. 6 ad ed.): sexum: dum
feminas prohibet pro aliis postulare. et ratio quidem prohibendi, ne contra
pudicitiam sexui congruentem alienis causis se immisceant, ne virilibus
officiis fungantur mulieres.
D. 50.17.2 (Ulp. 1 ad Sab.): … nec postulare nec pro
alio intervenire nec procurators existere.
Likewise, women could not engage in
financial intermediation, secure the debts of others or act as bankers (argentarii):
D. 2.13.12 (Call. 1 ed. mon.): Feminae remotae videntur ab
officio argentarii, cum ea opera virilis est.
In short, to use the words of Ulpian,
women were excluded from all public functions and from all civil roles:
D.
50.17.2 pr. (Ulp. 1 ad Sab.): Feminae
ab omnibus officiis civilibus vel publicis remotae sunt[11].
Passing from the words of the jurist to
the words of the historian Livius, this total segregation of women from male
functions, be they political or religious (“Non magistratus nec sacerdotia nec triumphi nec insignia, nec dona aut
spolia bellica”), was what determined the division of roles between
the two sexes, relegating women to a universe in which outwardness, and
devotion to their appearance and clothing (“ornatus et cultus, haec feminarum insignia ... hunc mundum muliebrem”)[12]
predominated:
Liv.,
34.7: quid muliercularum censetis, quas etiam parva movent? non magistratus nec
sacerdotia nec triumphi nec insignia nec dona aut spolia bellica iis contingere
possunt: munditiae et ornatus et cultus, haec feminarum insignia sunt, his
gaudent et gloriantur, hunc mundum muliebrem appellarunt maiores nostri.
So is this the final picture? Was there a
precise distinction of roles, based on precise boundaries between the gender
identities underlying the single term civis?
There was not.
An overall examination of the documental
sources available to us, Leo Peppe’s work demonstrates, shows us a female
status that spanned, in concrete terms, significant legal, social and cultural
areas. Roman women, in actual fact, were able to rely on the assembly
institutions to ensure their personal inviolability[13],
played roles with functions of responsibility in many municipal or provincial
contexts[14], as well as in religious
practices and ceremonies[15],
autonomously or alongside male counterparts with religious authority[16], and
had an evident inclination towards entrepreneurship[17],
enabling them to amass wealth and use substantial economic resources for
initiatives of public interest, a phenomenon we call ‘euergetism’[18].
But how can we explain this inversion of
perspective compared to what we saw earlier? What can we infer from this
inclusion/exclusion dialectic, given such a complex picture? This is precisely
the second reflection I would like to share.
3. – Strategy of complexity
The key to interpretation is offered by a
paragraph of Leo Peppe’s book, Roma:
una società di diseguali (Rome:
a Society of Unequals)[19].
The Roman system was the result of a
veritable operation of social architecture: it was an edifice, resting on the
foundations of the summa divisio
between slaves and free citizens[20], and
was technically supported by a structure built on multiple levels of identity,
each of which was simultaneously superior and inferior to others (consider, for
example, the segmentation of the class of the Latini): reciprocal interplay was made possible not only by the
‘social ladder’ (a slave could become a freedman and citizen,
climbing from the bottom rung to the top), but also by an internal mobility
within individual social classes: a mobility that, in the presence of specific
economic needs or changing cultural messages, was capable of disrupting the
boundaries defining each status and thus bring about a change in political
policies (a slave was a res and yet
under certain conditions could conclude valid contracts), so that hierarchical
equilibriums could be redefined, but never suppressed, or else the stability of
the entire construction would be lost.
Among the many pieces of evidence we may
find, there is one that highlights this need to define the reciprocal
relationship among the different gender subdivisions:
D.1.9.1
(Ulp. 62 ad ed.): Consulari feminae utique consularem virum praeferendum nemo
ambigit. sed vir praefectorius an consulari feminae praeferatur, videndum.
putem praeferri, quia maior dignitas est in sexu virili.
We have before us a system in which
discrimination is an authentic political and legal strategy, in which
complexity is an instrument of government. Our difficulty in comprehending such
a system lies in the necessity of inverting our perspective. Modernity knows
the paradigm of formal equality among individuals[21],
which conceals the areas of substantial inequality, the inequality of life[22]. The
Roman experience knew the paradigm of formal inequality, where underlying
conditions could give rise to a substantial parification, an equal standing
among different classes.
In the case of the female gender, what
were the conditions for the social and legal permeability of this status? There
is one criterion pointed out by legal theorists and which, in my opinion, does
in fact emerge with considerable insistence: mulieris virilitas, the women’s virtue in interpreting the
conceptual models of male virtue. As the ancient tradition also confirmed in
numerous episodes, lying somewhere between history and legend, it was not
simply that women were capable of showing courage and military attitudes, but
they were also able to adopt the virile model in a way that neither subverted
the feminine role nor diminished the masculine role[23].
In my view, the clearest example comes
from the representation offered by Valerius Maximus of episodes in which a
woman engaging in forensic oratory – an activity that, as we have seen,
was forbidden – could actually be worthy of praise: as in the case of
Maesia, who, when brought to trial, personally defended herself before the
praetor and jury, and was thus granted an acquittal: according to Valerius
Maximus, Maesia concealed a virile soul behind the appearance of a woman
(“quia sub specie feminae virile
animum gerebat”).
However, a very different judgment was
passed on Afrania, who was assigned the worst attribute: a monstrum. Her petulance and impudence in court, according to
Valerius Maximus, made her the personification of feminine intrigue (“adsidue tribunalia exercendo muliebris
calumniae notissimum exemplum evasit”). The stereotype of female
negativity therefore (“adeo ut pro
crimine improbis feminarum moribus C.Afraniae nomen obiciatur”)[24],
such as to diminish, rather than elevate, the masculine role: Afrania’s
husband was given a name that mocked him for his inability to restrain his
wife: Licinius Bucco.
On the other hand, even more explicit is
the account of the most famous episode involving Hortensia[25],
daughter of the well-known orator Hortensius, who spoke before the triumvirs to
defend her own and other women’s right not to be burdened with taxes,
given that they were excluded from political decision-making: Hortensia’s
initiative would be rewarded, because the woman replicated her father’s
eloquence with her words, evoking his ghost, bringing him back to life in a
certain way (“revixit tum muliebri
stirpe Q. Hortensius verbisque filiae aspiravit”):
Val.
Max. 8.3.3: Hortensia vero Q.Hortensi filia, cum ordo matronatrum gravi tributo
a triumviris esset oneratus nec quisquam virorum patrocinium eis accomodare
auderet, causam feminarum apud triumviros et constanter et feliciter egit:
repraesentata enim patris facundia impetravit ut maior pars imperatae pecuniae
his remitteretur. Revixit tum muliebri stripe Q.Hortensius verbisque filiae
aspiravit, cuius si virilis sexus posteri vim sequi voluissent, Hortensianae
eloquentiae tanta hereditas una feminae actione abscissa non esset.
The ability of woman to carry out a
function ‘virilely’, interpreting the canons of virility in a fully
observant manner, without diminishing their value and without superimposing a
feminine specificity upon them, was thus the price for being placed on an equal
social footing and overcoming the legal barrier. This explains why the only
legal frontier that could not be crossed was the one related to the role for
which no substitutive parity was imaginable: family power.
4. – The scope of citizenship
To use the words of Eva Cantarella, we
could say it is almost a ‘paradox’[26] (one
of the many that the study of the female condition reveals) that the scope of
this common ‘citizenship’, this being a civis, saw its most radical limit in the realm in which the female
figure encountered its utmost exaltation, but in which women’s legal
marginalisation was greatest: the family. The place in which social recognition
was most clearly evident, in the sense of the functions and consequent
responsibilities assigned to women[27], was
also the place where the distinction of roles was more entrenched, in the sense
not only of their complementarity, but also of their radical non-fungibility:
the pact between the sexes that lay at the basis of the family structure[28]
allowed no parity: greater power of the man on the one hand, the internal, instrumental
role of the woman on the other. The true legal barrier never overcome by women,
even through a process of substantial homologation, was thus the patria potestas. The most explicit
witness, once again, was the jurist Gaius in his Institutiones:
Gai 1.104: Feminae vero nullo
modo adoptare possunt, quia ne quidem naturales liberos in potestate habent.
Leo Peppe’s book clearly captures
this aspect, as he makes reference to Cicero’s fundamental account in De re publica[29]:
Cic. De rep.1.43.67: et hoc malum usque ad
bestias perveniat, denique ut pater filium metuat, filius patrem neclegat,
absit omnis pudor, ut plane liberi sint, nihil intersit civis an peregrinus,
magister ut discipulos metuat et iis blandiatur, spernantque discipuli
magistros, … uxores eodem iure sint quo viri…
From this piece of evidence it emerges
that affirming that a husband and wife had the same rights, possessed an
identical legal status, would have been tantamount to subversion, an
unimaginable overthrow of the existing social order: the first step of a
destructive political process “ex
quo leges quque incipiunt neclegere, ut plane sine ullo domino sint”.
In that way the boundaries of the
women’s legal status in Rome were drawn, within the relationship of
husband and wife, iusti coniuges[30].