WOMEN OF LEGEND AND WHY THEIR STORIES WERE GIVEN
SUCH EMPHASIS IN LATER ROMAN THINKING
We should begin by looking at some of the LEGENDARY women whose stories
were well established in Romans’ account of their early “history” by the time
literatue began (in the late 200s BC, over 500 years after Rome’s legendary
foundation).
We will start with:
a) THE “RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN”
b) HERSILIA’S INTERVENTION WITH HER HUSBAND ROMULUS
WITH RESPECT TO ANTEMNAE
c) THE INTERVENTION OF THE SABINE WOMEN BETWEEN THEIR
FATHERS AND THEIR HUSBANDS
d) THE TREACHERY OF TARPEIA
1.
There was no Roman literature before about 230 BC.
2.
By then, the Roman state was (archaeologically) well over 700 years old and, in
the Roman tradition, well over 500 years old.
3.
It had grown from being a collection of very small village communities
(engaged in simple farming and warfare [essentially raiding] and practising
certain religious rituals) on the hills beside the River Tiber in the 900s BC to
being a fully-developed state which had come to dominate the whole of Italy by
about 265 BC (through expansion of territory and through treaties of alliance)
and which had, in the decade before the first literature, begun to build an empire
in the wider Mediterranean through the acquisition of its first overseas
possessions (Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica).
4.
a) In the absence of independent evidence, we cannot say how early Romans
of the historical period [from about 300 BC] developed their legendary
accounts about their early days or on what those legends were based.
b) But by the time we have access to the details of those legends (often with
considerable variants) in the first century BC (particularly in the lengthy
history of the Augustan writer Livy [floruit 10 BC]) the stories had become
ingrained in the culture and were being used to illustrate and reinforce many
of the ‘norms’ which formed the essence of Romans’ relationships with one
another - not least the ideal relationship between male and female citizens –
in what was very much a male-dominated society.
c) But it was a society in which free-born women did have quite extensive
rights -
even though propriety demanded an established code of
behaviour on their part.
5.
a) We should begin by looking at some female figures from Rome’s
legendary past, reminding ourselves of their stories, and then moving on to
see what they reveal about male expectations in the historical period, ….
b) …… although the insoluble problem is whether the ‘norms’ in place in the
historical period derive from the relationships between men and women in
the period of legend or whether the legends themselves were developed to
explain and justify the established relationship between men and women.
6.
It all begins with the seizure of the Sabine women, usually called “the Rape
of the Sabine Women” from the Latin verb rapere – “to seize and carry off”,
but with no implications of any sexual impropriety.
“THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN”
In the fullest version of the story found in Livy (Book 1. 8ff) we learn [in summary]
a) how Romulus, after the foundation of his new community, to increase its
population, opened it up as an asylum for refugees (both freemen and slaves).
b) But Rome’s growing greatness was unlikely to last long because of the dearth
of women.
c) Consequently he sent envoys to various neighbouring peoples to negotiate
alliances and to establish the formal right of intermarriage with them.
d) Nowhere, however, were his overtures favourably received.
e) And so he extended an invitation to all the nearest communities (Latin and
Sabine) to come to Rome to attend a festival – to which all Rome’s
neighbours flocked.
f) When everyone’s attention was on the festivities, all the able-bodied Roman
men (at an agreed signal) rushed into the crowd and seized the young women.
g) When one maiden was being carried off by members of the household of a
certain Tallasius and the the abductors were asked for whom she was destined,
they called out “O Talassio! O Talassio!” and this, Livy reports, is why this
word was still shouted out at Roman weddings in his own day.
h) The girls’ parents escaped to their homes commenting bitterly about the
treachery that had been committed.
i) The girls themselves were indignant and fearful about what their fate would
be.
j) But Romulus went round from one to another and reassured them that it was
their parents who were to blame for refusing to accept the reasonable offer of
the rights of intermarriage with the men of Rome. They need not fear,
however, for as married women they would share all the privileges of their
new community and would be bound to their husbands by what was dearest to
both parties – their children.
k) And in course of time the women forgot their resentment.
l) But the parents of the girls who had been seized determined to seek revenge.
m) Forces from three communities moved against Rome separately but were
defeated.
n) When the Romans occupied the second of these, Antemnae, Romulus’ wife
HERSILIA, “long pestered by the young women who had been carried off at
the festival”, intervened and “asked him to pardon the girls’ parents and to
allow them to come to live in Rome.
o) This request was readily granted.”
p) Finally the Sabines gathered troops and for a time were successful, gaining
control of Rome’s citadel, because of the treachery of TARPEIA [see later].
q) When the two sides eventually engaged on the lower ground, the Sabine
women suddenly played the decisive role: they lost their natural timidity
and “with loosened hair and rent garments they braved the flying spears and
thrust their way in a body between the embattled armies. They parted the
angry combatants; they besought their fathers on the one side, their
husbands on the other, to spare themselves the curse of shedding kindred
blood. ‘We are mothers now’, they cried. ‘Our children are your sons, your
grandsons. If our marriages are hateful to you, turn your anger against us.
We are the cause of the strife.’ The effect of the appeal was profound”, Livy
reports. “Not only was peace concluded immediately but the two peoples
were united under a single government.”
r) And the Sabine king, Titus Tatius, shared the kingship with Romulus.
1. Before turning to Tarpeia, let us note how the seizure of the women has been
depicted over the centuries in art.
2. The theme of “the Rape of the Sabine Women” has been a subject of appeal
to many artists.
3. Let us look at the treatments of the following:
Pietro da Cortona (1627-29), Nicolas Poussin (1633-34), Peter Paul Rubens
(1635-1637), Niccolò Bambini (life: 1651 – 1736), Charles Christian Nahl
(1871) who depicts the women as far from unwilling, Pablo Picasso (1962),
John Leech (life: 1817 – 1864) as part of his “Comic History of Rome”.
PIETRO DA CORTONA (1627-29)
NICOLAS POUSSIN (1633-34)
PETER PAUL RUBENS
(1635 – 37)
TWO OF HIS VARIOUS
DEPICTIONS – THE FIRST
UNFINISHED
NICCOLÒ
BAMBINI
(1651 – 1736)
CHARLES CHRISTIAN
NAHL
[“THE RAPE OF THE SABINES – THE
INVASION” (1871)]
He depicts the women as far
from unwilling.
PABLO
PICASSO
(1962)
(one of
Picasso’s
depictions)
JOHN
LEECH
(1817-1864)
“Comic History of
Rome”
“HERSILIA SEPARATES ROMULUS
AND TITUS TATIUS”
by GUERCINO (GIOVANNI FRANCESCO
BARBIERI [1591 – 1666])
“THE INTERVENTION OF THE SABINE WOMEN”
JACQUESLOUIS
DAVID
(1799)