Roman Morality And Virtue Explored In Depth

[Skarr]

I have been always fascinated with Rome and Roman history. One thing which always fascinated me was the Roman attitudes towards virtue and especially the institution of the Vestal virgins, who were also in charge of cataloging and storing wills.

 

A vestal virgin remained bound to that order until the age of thirty and I think many young girls were forced into this order by their parents.

 

In my view, although the Roman patricians and knights insisted on morality and virtue, especially from their women, it was a means of keeping the women in check and dominating them.

 

The Romans really dominated their women and their entire household, allowing them little freedom. In public, all women were required to cover their heads and wear a veil, when out in public. The laws against drinking of wine were ridiculous and a husband could kill his wife with impunity, if he found her imbibing any spirits. Most women, except a few, were confined to their homes, spinning yarn, cooking and doing other things, although many of the more menial tasks were performed by slaves.

 

I really applaud those women who were defiant of the male domination like Clodia and even Messalina, who were unjustly vilified by the historians. No one knows if what was alleged in Cicero's letters about Clodia was really true or not. To me, it smacks of malice and is more politically motivated, as her brother, Clodius was despised by many. No doubt, Messalina did have many affairs but can you really blame her, being married to an insufferable bore like Claudius?

 

I have published my first novel recently, celebrating these brave women of the Republic in a series titled "Barbarians in Rome". While the first novel takes place outside of the city of Rome and is mostly focused on a long journey to the gates of Rome by a barbarian princess, the second and third novels are set in Rome and will be published soon, after final edits.

 

If you are interested, check out my blog at : http://romanhistoricalnovel.blogspot.com

 

Please post here if you agree or disagree on what I've written here about Roman morality, which applied mostly to the women and the men were free to cavort as they pleased, with slaves, with courtesans, with mistresses and whoever seized their fancy. The great Julius Caesar was also a great womanizer and would purposely have affairs with the wives of his rivals.

 

For a man, it was all about controlling and dominating his wife. If a wife had an affair with someone, the lover was rarely blamed. Instead, the husband would be rebuked, saying that he exercised no control over his wife. Divorce was sometimes difficult, particularly if the wife had her own property. In some cases, even the dowry (under contract) had to be returned to the husband.

 

Talking about Roman morality, can anyone really excuse their open practice of female infanticide and also general infanticide. The Roman head of household or paterfamilias ruled over everyone else in the family and his power was absolute. He could kill anyone, including his own sons and daughters, if he chose to. Although rarely used, it was something that every Roman who was a paterfamilias took for granted. Exposing children at birth was a common practice and every day, babies would be found abandoned at various places, especially female babies.

 

There is an actual incident recorded of one Roman writing casually to his wife, if it is a boy, raise him up from the earth as my son. If it is a girl, expose her. Talk about morality!

 

How about the wonderful Lucius Mummius, who razed the city of Corinth in 146 BC and massacred thousands, including women and children. This was solely done to further Rome's commercial interests in Greece and was a senseless act of cruelty. What did the senate do when Mummius returned to Rome?

 

He was awarded a triumph as the consul who was responsible for a great victory.

 

There are a lot of things which I admire about Rome - their organization, their buildings and so many aspects of their government and administration, which you can see even today, in our government.

 

Anyway, I think I must end here or I could go on and on.... Enough for now.

 

Skarr

[Maximus]

I totally agree with what you are saying, and it is my belief that this still goes on today, regarding several different religions. And hooray for those Roman ladies who stood up the domineering male species, if only more women would stand up to them today, the whole world might change.

[longbow]

Welcome to the Forum Skarr,i agree about the roman women but at least they had it better than the Greek women.

 

L

[Ursus]

The severe patriarchy you refer to is a function of the early republic. By Imperial times women, at least in the upper classes, were considerably liberated.

 

We have this discussion quite often on this site, if you want to read some of the earlier threads in this folder. I'm on record as saying I don't think the Romans were any more vicious than any other imperial power, and in some ways were quite more tolerant than some of the powers before or since.

[Primus Pilus]

I agree with some of the general sentiment... that women generally played a backseat role to men in the ancient world, and that history is usually reported in such a manner. However, I don't view it as either right or wrong, but simply that it was what it was.

 

I wouldn't be too disparaged though, many ancient women have received credit for outstanding achievement. Unfortunately yes, many of these are because of potential 'nasty' behavior, but I think even the average Romanophile knows of such women as Cleopatra, Livia, Messalina, Agrippina, etc. And that's just four names from a very short period of time, not even including those you've mentioned.

[Zeke]

Well, I do think it was wrong, but we only think it is wrong because of Christian morality and the laws of romanticism and chilivary that have been implemented on soceity saying what we can and cannot do.

 

We only think the way we do because people have already set down "rules" an "regulations" on how a society is "Virtuous" or not. It depends entirelly on the culture, the goverment propoganada and what religion the general populance adhears to.

 

Example: In the Middle Ages people never washed their hands, or took baths or had any type of hygine what so ever beause the church basically said that hygine wasn't a big issue because it didn't help Jesus in anyway. Yet in Imperial Rome people would have found this appaulling, considering the fact that they went to that baths everday after work to get clean and be social. Different societies have different ideas of what is "Right" and what is "Wrong." And the Europeans of the Middle Ages were compleatly oblivious to the fact that Rome had a totattally different set of rules on what was right and wrong. Yet they thought their primitive fuedal system was much better then a Heathen Empire that tryed to keep clean.

lol:

 

So Skarr......when you talk about the ancient woman and how they were treated bad all I can do personally is not really complain about it because that is how Roman Soceity worked. The Romans thought that woman had a certain place and men had a certain place. Romans thought that men were NOT EQUAL. They divided themseleves into different social classes to identify each other by their rank and how much power their family name had. The Romans were fierecly clan related...Juli, Flavians, Neros, Publius, Varsuses, Corenlius, and so on and so.

Woman wern't thought of as equal to men, they were just woman and they were born woman. Woman in Roman Soceity were there for a couple reasons:

 

1) To marry powerful Patrican families to incerese the power and wealth of their husband. Marriage was almost entirelly a social thing not out of love.

 

2) To expand the population of Rome by having children to provide male heirs to the familiy clan name or females to marry off to richer suitors of richer families the belonged to the Senate.

 

3) In rare cases the Roman men might love their wifes and enjoy having a wife.

I am sure once the Roman men married their wives; after a few years they began to love each other. It started out as a social affair but I am sure like any human they enjoyed having sex and being companions.

 

Roman woman did have some degree of power because they influeneced their husbands in bed. Or so I am assumming, sure the men had control of the household but I am sure woman still had something to do with it.

 

And about the babies being left to die.....Alot of them were mentally ill or retarded. Remember Romans had alot of in incestuial relations with their sisters of brothers so alot of their children came out defformed. And we kill baby lambs and baby cows everday.....what is the different with a baby human. Sorry to sound cruel.....but if we really want to become smpathetic towards living things we should stop killing baby everythings!

 

Back then it was socially normal to throw babies out.....and though we can complain about how Roman men treated their wives or left their children to die there is nothing we can do about it because it happened along time ago and back then it was normal to do such things. Just like Slaves were normal back then.

 

I WOULDN'T want my kid thrown on the street or anything and I don't support the idea of husbands controlling their wives or slaves for that matter, but I am sure many will agree with me, that though the Romans had their faults (or so what the current mortality says in our American Society) that their Empire was by far one of the greatest man kind has ever seen.

 

And its also Ironic.......thanks to Roman ideas of the Republic, we have a flourishing Democracy today with full civil rights for all our citzens so nearly 2,000 years latter the Romans made up for their wrongs by giving us a plan to stop slavery, male dominace and cruelty to infants.

 

So in my opinion they changed the world though they didn't know it at the time.

 

Zeke

[Lost_Warrior]

I wouldn't be too disparaged though, many ancient women have received credit for outstanding achievement. Unfortunately yes, many of these are because of potential 'nasty' behavior, but I think even the average Romanophile knows of such women as Cleopatra, Livia, Messalina, Agrippina, etc. And that's just four names from a very short period of time, not even including those you've mentioned.

 

 

Women who behave, rarely make history

 

We only think the way we do because people have already set down "rules" an "regulations" on how a society is "Virtuous" or not. It depends entirelly on the culture, the goverment propoganada and what religion the general populance adhears to.

 

 

Exactly. To get to the heart of the matter we have to think like Romans! I honestly don't think that many of the women had problems with the way they lived because, lets face it, if they did, they would have done more.

 

 

And about the babies being left to die.....Alot of them were mentally ill or retarded. Remember Romans had alot of in incestuial relations with their sisters of brothers so alot of their children came out defformed. And we kill baby lambs and baby cows everday.....what is the different with a baby human. Sorry to sound cruel.....but if we really want to become smpathetic towards living things we should stop killing baby everythings!

 

 

Yep. Honestly, I don't think killing off the defective babes was all *that* bad. I mean, they were saving them alot of suffering later in life as well.

[Primus Pilus]

Women who behave, rarely make history

Quite frankly it works that way in both genders... unless they are playing the hero/heroine against some great oppression, etc.

[Zeke]

Woman just excepted their situation in society.....they didn't know how to change so why would they. And it wasn't that horrible if it was as lost_warrior said, they would have tryed to change it.

[Skarr]

Families who were poor also exposed their children. The fathers also exposed the children of daughters who had gone astray. So, it was not merely the deformed and unhealthy children that suffered the fate, like in ancient Sparta.

 

I don't agree about the comment on incest, which was not common and was in fact, abhorred.

 

The Romans always held the Egyptians and Greeks in contempt for their various practices, from incest to homosexuality. It was alleged that Nero had committed incest with his mother because some slaves noticed stains on his toga after he emerged from her litter. This was the exception rather than the rule.

[Zeke]

Well the Romans excepted bisexuality, they had wives yet they had male lovers.

And famlies were poor as you said and they can't feed them its better to leave them out and pray that someone adopts them then let them consume all the food for all the other 10 members of the family household which also needed to be fed.

 

I am sure the Romans did alot of incest...even if isn't well documented in the history books. People didn't understand at the time that screwing your sister could have dire consequences.

I disagree I believe that the Romans also took alot of the Greco concepts of sexuality in general.

 

Zeke

[Skarr]

I would disagree on incest. During the times of the Republic, the period in which my novel is set, which sparked off this post, women were held up to a pretty high standard and although there were some women who were liberal and did protest against the various laws - including covering of the head and always being accompanied by an escort, usually a slave, these were the exceptions rather than the rule.

 

Many women were virgins until the day of their marriage and most Republican senators and knights kept a very strict control over their women.

 

If you have any historical sources to back up your claim on incest being widely practised, please post. This was largely an Egyptian practice and one instituted by the Ptolemies to protect their bloodline and keep their Greek heritage separate and distinct from the old Egyptian pharaohs.

[Favonius Cornelius]

For the Romans I think bisexuality was not a terrible thing, but by and large the leanings were more heterosexual. In fact you find many cases of Roman writers making fun of or ridiculing homosexual activities, showing that it was a bit looked down on, especially if you were on the receiving end of things.

[Augustus]

Remember the Romans and other anciet peoples didn't have the benefit of mechnised labor, so almost all textile and food preparation was done inhome as a cottage industry, unless you lived near a populous town that had manufaturing businesses which employed slaves. See women kept the home running.

[Skarr]

This is an insightful observation, Augustus. Many of the clothes the Romans wore were 'manufactured' at home under the supervision of the Roman women, who were kept prisoner by their husbands at home. It is appalling to think about their condition by modern standards and life must have been very difficult for the average woman, as they were denied everything, from basic education to the freedom we take for granted in modern society.

 

However, in some respects, certain high born ladies, especially those lucky enough to have property of their own, also enjoyed a level of comfort and freedom within their homes which would be also hard to duplicate today.

 

Anyway, who is to say which is better? These days, it is even difficult to take the subway or the bus without worrying about getting killed. The horrific blasts today in London are a grim reminder that modern times certainly confer more freedom but also force citizens to pay a great price, as long as there are senseless fanatics around, who purport to serve their 'religion' by killing innocent people at random.

 

TC

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