CLAS 3417
Marginal Groups in the Roman World
Wednesday 12:30 – 3:20
In A 227
Important stuff
Instructor: Dr. I. Mueller
 Office:
H 328
 Phone: 705 474 3450 Ext. 4423
 Email:
ilsem@nipissingu.ca
 Course Website:
http://www.nipissingu.ca/faculty/ilsem/im
home/
 Password: livia
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Course Books
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Course Books:
1. R. Garland, The Eye of the Beholder, Deformity and
Disability in the Graeco-Roman World, Bristol Class.
Press 2010 (2nd edition), 9781853997372
2. M. Atkins and R. Osborne, eds., Poverty in the Roman
World, Cambridge U. Press 2006, 9780521106573
3. C.A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans, The
Gladiator and the Monster, Princeton, 1992(1996),
9780691010 915
4. Th. Grunewald, Bandits in the Roman Empire, Myth
and Reality, Routledge, 9780415486811
Grade Distribution
Presentation on readings
 Bibliographic Essay
 Research Essay
 Final Exam in Class
 Participation/preparedness
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15%
25%
35%
15%
10%
Presentations
Students will be asked to provide short
presentations of the assigned readings:
chapters, articles, primary sources, etc.,
 Short summaries of the central argument,
most important issues, sources used, etc.,
 Sign-up will be next Wednesday.
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Assignment # 1
*Assignment # 1 consists of 2 stages:
1. – an annotated bibliography due Oct.
19.
 2. the bibliographic essay itself is due Nov.
2, 2011. Details of the assignment will be
posted on the assignment webpage.
 Note: Your bibliographic essay and
research essay will be on one and the
same topic.
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Historiography Essay
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Before you proceed to write this essay,
you must submit a bibliography and get
permission from me to continue.
Final Exam
Short in-class exam 70 minutes
 Format: all essay type answers:
 A – terms/names/ - short paragraph
answers
 B evaluation of primary passages from our
reading
 C an essay question – topic provided in
advance
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The Course
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This course examines several social groups that
mainstream Roman culture considered to be
marginal. Some of the groups the course will
focus on include the disabled, the poor, the old,
unattached women, criminals, gladiators and exslaves. Students will examine a wide variety of
primary sources ranging from legal and literary
sources to inscriptions, papyri, works of art as
well as archaeological evidence as well as a the
most recent scholarship on these topics.
Attention will also be paid to the methodological
problems historians encounter when studying
marginal social groups.
How do we define
marginality?
Modern definition
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People in a given society that are not
considered mainstream – groups of people
that are different from the majority and
considered to be inferior in one way or
another - they do not quite belong.
Marginality
Who and what determines marginality?
 In today’s society?
 How inclusive are we?
 Do we have marginal groups?
 How do we treat them?
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The drowning in Regina Sept. 13
Marginal Groups in the Roman World
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The disabled, (physically disabled, mentally disabled, the blind)
The sick, the old, the poor,
Women as a class, widows, orphans (of the lower classes)
Money changers, free Romans working for money
Foreigners, barbarians, ethnic groups (Jews, other minorities)
Gladiators,
Criminals, murderers, bandits, thieves, pirates, etc.,
Magicians, witches, astrologers, medical sharlatans
Executionors, grave diggers
Prostitutes, actors, acrobats, performers; sexual deviants
Freed and slaves
The Problems studying marginal
groups in antiquity
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Source Problem: No accounts left behind by the
disabled, or the poor about their experience,
No ancient accounts exist about the daily life of
the disadvantaged
Greek and Roman sculpture reflect the ideal of
that culture– the perfect and beautiful body
Evidence scattered
Law and ideology versus social practice
The Sources
Literary Sources: histories, biographies,
legal sources, poetry, satire, philosophical
treatises, medical writings, etc.,
 Papyri from Roman Egypt
 Material remains, sculpture, reliefs, etc.
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Idealization of human body
Late Roman Republican ‘verism’
Portrait of aristocratic
Roman
 Emphasizing ‘wisdom
and experience’
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Earliest Roman Law code:
the Law of the XII tables
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(5th century BCE)
Table VI on patria potestas (paternal power):
1. A notably deformed child shall be killed
immediately.
2a. To a father ...shall be given over a son the
power of life and death.
Table V. 1..women, even though they are of full
age, because of their levity of mind shall be
under guardianship…except Vestal Virgins, who
..shall be free from guardianship.
The Spartans
Offspring was not reared at the will of the father,
but was taken and carried by him to a place
called Lesche, where the elders of the tribes
officially examined the infant, and if it was wellbuilt and sturdy, they ordered the father to rear
it, and assigned it one of the nine thousand lots
of land; but if it was ill-born and deformed, they
sent it to the so-called Apothetae, a chasm-like
place at the foot of Mount Taÿgetus,
 Lykurgos 16.1 (Legendary Spartan Lawgiver 8th
century BCE?)
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Soranus (Roman physician)
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“should be perfect in all its parts, limbs
and senses, and have passages that are
not obstructed, including the ears, nose,
throat, urethra and anus. Its natural
movements should be neither slow nor
feeble, its limbs should bend and stretch,
its size and shape should be appropriate,
and it should respond to external stimuli
(2.6.5, in Eye of the Beholder pg. 14)
On Old Age
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“Frugal living can bring one to old age; and to
my mind old age is not to be refused any more
than it is to be craved..So the question we need
to consider is whether one should shrink from
the final stages of old age and not await the
end, but bring it on artificially….I shall not
abandon old age, if old age preserves me intact
for myself, and intact as regards the better part
of myself; but if old age begins to shatter my
mind, and to pull its various faculties to pieces, if
it leaves me, not life, but only the breath of life,
I shall leap from a building that is crumbling and
tottering……. Seneca, Ep. 58.32
Sallust on the ‘poor’
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In general the whole plebs approved of
Catiline’s undertaking, from an inclination
for new things. In this it seemed to act
according to its custom. For always in a
state those who have no resources envy
the propertied, admire evil men, hate
established things and long for new ones,
and from discontent with their own
position they desire everything to be
changed. (Sall. Cat. 37)
The Context:
Chronology
 The Roman World (Geography)
 The nature of Roman Society:
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Basic Roman Chronology
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753 BCE – traditional date for founding of Rome
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753 BCE – 509 BCE: Regal Period
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509 BCE – 31 BCE: Republican Period
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30 (27) BCE – 284 CE: Principate
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284 CE – 476 CE: Dominate
Rome and Italy
The Roman empire in 25 AD
The Graeco-Roman World
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Roman culture influenced by Greek culture from
its earliest days (Hellenization)
Wave 1: Via Etruscans and Greek colonists;
through trade with Greece,
Wave 2: Conquest of Greek city states in Italy
and Sicily; Conquest of Greek East
Influx of Greek slaves – during conquest many
Greek intellectuals brought to Rome as teachers
for the children of prominent/wealthy Romans
Greek education in rhetoric, philosophy,
literature, art, etc, and fluency in Greek became
essential for Roman elite
Cultures of Ancient Italy
Greek City States in Italy
Approaches to the study of marginal
groups in antiquity
What determined marginal status?
 Important factors that must be
considered:
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 Social
class
status, gender, legal status, wealth,
The Roman social hierarchy
Status based on property qualifications and birth
1. Roman Citizens
2. foreigners (peregrini) = freeborn non-citizens
2. Freed Citizens (liberti)
3. Latins (latini) - Italians before 89 BCE;
(from Augustan Period) – informally freed slaves
4. infames – criminals, actors, male prostitutes,
gladiators, etc. lost citizen privileges – i.e. right
to marry citizen, etc.,
 4. Slaves (servi)
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Freeborn Roman Citizens
1. Elite –(highest property class) Senators and
Equestrians
 A) Senatorial elite: participated in politics, held
public offices that entitled seat in senate,
 B) Equestrians – often eve wealthier – did not
hold public offices – financial backers of
senatorial elite
 Everybody else belonged to the lower classes –
wealthy to the very poor
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Changes in the Imperial Period
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212 CE – all freeborn living in the Roman Empire
were granted citizenship with some exceptions
Top of hierarchy, Emperor and imperial family
By 2nd century – senatorial elite
clarissimi/clarissimae (most distinguished)
By 3rd century CE: law divided population into 2
groups:
1. honestiores (“more honorable people,”
included senators, equestrians, municipal
officials, and soldiers) 2. humiliores (“more
insignificant people,” (all other groups) harsher
penalties for this group.
Patriarchy and gendered hierarchy
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A patriarchal society: male elite dominated political and social
institutions for their own interests
Males were considered superior (supported by medicine and
philosophy)
Women considered inferior to males; status of women in society
determined by that of their fathers and husbands
Legal and social disabilities for women: could not participate in
public life (could not hold public office other than that of priestly
offices; could not act as surety of loans, could only represent
themselves in court, not even their own children or anyone else
Institution of tutela (guardianship): law required women to be in
male guardianship throughout their lives;
By late Roman republic had become a mere formality though, but
remained in law.
Questions?