Augustus: More Freedom for Women in Rome
In this essay, I will be talking about the legal status of women, which changed in significant respects under Augustus' rule. I will start of listing the numerous roles of women and then dwell further into their roles to understand how that shaped roman women in the public sphere. I will also delve into how much the time of Augustus really changed women's position in society and how that would come to affect imperialism, roman law, and its society.
Augustus, or also known as Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of Rome. He was born on 23 September 63 BC and his death occurred on 19th August AD 14 in Nola, Italy. He reigned from 27 BC till his death. Augustus is known as the founder of the Roman Principate, which was founded to be one of the first steps of the Roman Empire.
Ancient Rome was a very misogynistic society and unfortunately, women did not have the pleasure of receiving equal rights which the men did. With Rome not regarding women as equal as their men, many women were subject to the authority of men. A father would hold authority over their unmarried daughters and once married would pass over their authority to their husbands. Their husbands would not only have authority over their wives but would also have legal rights over their children until then they were married themselves.
One interesting case of legal status of a roman woman is that of Acte whose husband Euphorsynus was her former slaveholder. I will be dissecting their funerary altar which reports different stages in Acetes and her husband's Euphorsynus family's lifespan. The mother's name was scratched out but one part of the alter gave a clue on who that could be. With one part giving credence to their daughter who had died young and the other, a hateful curse that was hidden on the back of the alter. This curse shamed a woman named Acte who long story short ‘revealed herself to be an adulterer, a cheat, and a thief’.
Act was presumably Euphorsynus wife, who he had once owned as a slave and had granted manumission, effectively making her a freedwoman by marriage. It is recorded in the article written by Huemoeller that an act of manumission can be taken as an act of sacrifice as a slaveholder on behalf of his slaves and therefore such a manumission act could be deemed as affectionate, and the manumission should be granted. The writer Huemoeller argues that the drama between Acte and Euphrosynus could be one of a kind, their union and marriage are quite the opposite.
Just over 300 funerary monuments in the roman world descript similar unions like Acte and Euphorsynus in which shows that male slave owners would free their female slaves to make them become a legally recognized wife. Huemoeller argues that the alter documents how Euphrosynus freed his slave Acte ‘for free (gratis)’, which gives the impression that she was freed out of love or as Huemoeller points out ‘in one case, lust,’ and in doing so he had given her the gift of freedom. However, as the funerary alter it points out how Acte eventually failed him and his expectations: ‘Manummited for free, following an adulterer, she abducted his attendants, an enslaved girl, and boy, from her patron.’
According to Euphrosynus, Acte failed her role as a freedwoman and wife by committing adultery, running off with her seducer, stealing his property instead of protecting it (running off with the slaves), and abandoning him. It is to be pointed out that Acte did fulfill one duty as his freed wide. As is known on the epitaph she bore Euphrosynus a child.
Milnor wrote, ‘In Roman society, women were traditionally associated with domestic life, their highest tasks confined within the household,’ an ideology that does still exists today. The highest praiseworthy role a woman could receive in Ancient Roman times was to be a wife and mother. They explain how Roman society has long believed that women belonged to the domestic sphere and come the time of the Augustan period women had finally become less invisible and had the chance to be something else and take on different and important roles without marring their domestic image.
However Roman women got a shot of independence once Augustus shot to power in 27BCE. Following the death of his Uncle Julius Caesar, Augustus was named his predecessor. Milnor notes in the introduction of the books, ‘Augustus and the political system he created were not just historical facts, but also ideas, which came into being gradually communally, and with some difficulty.’
In her report, Tursi writes that even though women held an inferior position to Roman men, the age of Augustan was an important step in their goal of power and freedom. Livia Drusilla, the third wife of Augustus had assumed a significant role in roman women's history and in Augustus' supporting party. Due to her being an aristocratic woman she was able to exert a lot of power and had helped change the way women were treated within the Roman Culture. Not only had she put a helping hand in that, but she had also been able to give advice and counsel to the Roman Emperor and husband, such a role was not that easy to come by.
Women who belonged to high society, such as Livia, were able to get a glimpse of what it was like for a woman involved in politics, and with the age of Augustus changed things for married women. Tursi explains how issues with the population could have influenced the laws that Augustus would execute. She argues that roman women had more freedom as wives than women who lived under their fathers.
He gave privileges to women who bore a certain number of children. A freeborn (women born free) women's status could become legally independent if they gave birth to three children. A freedwoman, (as talked about above in the case of Acte) could also become independent or also known as sui iuris if they gave birth to four children. As women naturally would want to be free and in control of their own life, they would take advantage of this new Augustan law and as an effect would solidify Augustus' legislation to keep Roman women in Rome to carry out their childbearing duties and fix the population difference of males over females.
Augustus was a very conservative man, who had strong beliefs in the traditional Roman family. In the first paragraph in the article written by Fife, he says that ‘he believed in ancestral values such as monogamy, chastity, and piety,’ and had introduced numerous ‘moral and political reformsâ.’
With the traditional roman family in mind, Augustus had adjusted the laws surrounding divorce and made it a more rigorous and stern process. Before these changes divorce was an easy process and quite a common occurrence. Fife writes (fifth paragraph), ‘After Augustus’ reforms, adultery became a civil crime instead of a personal crime under the Lex Julia de adulteries coercendis'. This made adultery not only a personal crime but a crime against a state where you could legally bring the adulterer to court.
There were many consequences had someone been convicted with evidence of adultery. Before Augustus, husbands had the right to commit their wives to death once convicted of adultery but left the women no right to do the same effectively leaving them powerless. However, Augustus reformed the law making a woman's father the only person to commit the woman to death. The husband was only permitted to seize one-third of her property and half of her dowry. Tursi said this was a ‘futile attempt to keep Roman women in their place’. Men were exempt from adulterous behaviors whereas women are committed to making this a law that as usual favored the men over the women.
Banishment was also another suitable penalty. A much better option than death. One case hit close to Augustus' home when his daughter Julia was banished and exiled to Pandateria, a desolate island after being arrested on the claims of adultery and treason. She never returned to Rome and died shortly after Augustus.
I will revert to my original query of are women better under the principate. Although women were an important focal point in the domestic sphere. Women had no power in politics, but Augustus' new social legislation gave in truth Roman women a legal standing in spite of the lex lulia de adulteriis making only women adulterous and men not. It kept roman women oppressed and as Tursi writes, 'Augustan legislation likely was not intended to increase the freedom of women.'
In some ways, Augustus brought more freedom for women in Rome. His wife was able to enjoy being an advisor, she was given a voice if only it was to be heard from Augustus himself. He gave women a right to finally be independent from men with the exception of having three or four children (depending on being freeborn or freedwoman). Women were finally included in Roman civic matters, no matter how small equality had to start somewhere.
