Is This True? Julia The Elder

[caldrail]

I'll let Tacitus have the last word on roman promiscuity. In his Germania, he describes the Germans as - not thinking it 'up to date' to seduce or be be seduced.

 

You said it Tass.

[Skarr]

Here are my 2 c.. on this.

 

While some Roman women (especially in the later Republic) did have affairs or committed adultery (especially with Caesar, who was beloved of many a wife - a political strategy he employed, to humiliate their husbands), I think the modern mind is clouded with Hollywood and lascivious depictions, especially a Roman "orgy", which is a modern concept of what it was like.

 

A lot of what we fantasize about Rome is often that, pure fantasy and while we would certainly like to imagine the Roman matrons running wild, more often than not, they were swaddled from head to toe in wool, covered with a veil and if you, by chance, happened to glimpse at their bodies, it would be quite podgy, with probably rolls of fat. No nubile beauties, unless you went to a specialist brothel, where you might find mostly foreign women, from Egyptians to Greeks, who might be a little better to look at.

 

The Roman men jealously guarded their women and it was unusual for a woman to even walk the streets alone, unescorted. Most women led humdrum lives (with a few exceptions, of course, like Clodia, who was a rich widow and subject to attacks from Cicero - more political than factual, if you ask me) and spent their days spinning wool, in the kitchen and with their children and household slaves.

[Furius Venator]

Given that Caesar slept with the wives of both Pompey and Crassus, I'm not sure that political humiliation was necessarily a consequence. An exception might be Cato demanding to see love letter send from Servilia to Caesar during the debate on the fate of the Catiline conspirators thinking that it was a missive that would implicate Caesar in the conspiracy. Even then, although hilarious, it was not very politically damaging to Cato.

 

Given Caesar's extraordinary successes, I don't see that Roman women were 'jealously guarded' at all. Divorce seems to have been easy and commonplace and women such as Servilia were not kept 'in purdah', rather being influential persons in their own right.

 

No doubt sexual scandal was exaggerated (as it always is) but affairs were commonplace.

[phil25]

My own view is that the truth is somewhere between Skarr and FV - Rome was less licentious than Hollywood suggests, but room for Snow White to drift - as Mae West might have put it.

 

I think both the two threads above put things very well.

 

My objection in this thread has always been to suggestions that Roman noblewomen went in for the sort of mass orgies that Suetonius and others suggest for the Julia's, Messalina etc. I don't think Julia was pure, but equally, I don't think her sin was profligacy - that may just have been a cover-story.

 

Phil

[Skarr]

FV, perhaps I should have been more clear in my statement about women being 'jealously guarded'. I think it was an inappropriate characterization, as I used a more modern phrase for what was viewed a little differently by the Romans.

 

The concept of 'cuckold' is more modern and what hurt more is the lack of control exercised by the husbands over their household, as women were treated more on par with property (certainly not as equals). If Caesar slept with the wife of a political rival, it was injurious to his dignitas. He was more concerned about that and the fact that people would perceive him as 'weak', since he couldn't control his own wife. I don't know if I'm getting the concept across right or not, as it is a little difficult to explain the mind set.

 

Caesar, for example, purposely went out to seduce Bibulus's wife, when he was his junior colleague and consul in the same year as Caesar. Of course, Caesar always used a multi-pronged attack on his rivals and when it came to the games, the expenses were split between Caesar and Bibulus, as both were editores, but it was Caesar who got all the credit for staging the games from the public, as if he solely put up the lavish and extravagant games, funding everything from his own pocket.

 

As far as Servilia, Clodia, Fulvia and a few others were concerned - these were the rare exceptions, as they had wealth and property of their own, under their own control and not subject to the whims of their husbands or fathers. This made them powerful and sought after, especially Clodia, who was a rich widow and courted by many a young Roman. Cicero attacked her especially, because her brother Clodius exiled him from Rome and he bore no goodwill towards their family.

Edited June 22, 2006 by Skarr

[Gaius Octavius]

It is claimed that Caesar had an 'affair' with a sister of Cato. Maybe this is why the ancient and present incarnation of Cato had and have so vehement an attitude towards Caesar.

[Furius Venator]

Servilia, mother of Marcus Junius Brutus. It was she who sent Caesar a torrid love letter which Cato mistook for a secret letter from Catiline (or one of his fellow conspiritors) and demanded Casear read out to the senate. Caesar (for some reason) spared Cato by merely handing him the note. Cato apparently hurled it back with the cry 'Take that you drunkard'. Strange since Caesar was notably absetmious whereas Cato was fond of a drink of several.

[caldrail]

Sexual activity from the male viewpoint was considered virile and normal. Falling in love was something of a situation to be pitied. Emotional slavery if you will.

[Deve1982]

On 5/21/2006 at 4:20 PM, Guest DCLXVI said:

Is this true

 

Julia the Elder (39BC-14AD)

The fact that she could have had relationships with a large number of men is a fact, but the figure that is indicated (if I am not mistaken, 70,000) looks impossible. In those days, all aristocratic women had relationships with various men and this was considered the norm.