Page - 27 - in Austrian Law Journal, Volume 1/2017

ALJ 1/2017 Women and Civic Identity in Roman Antiquity 27 the innermost apartment of the house, which is called the gynaeconitis, and into which nobody goes who is not connected with her by close kinship.”12 Remembering what we have just said about female amicitia, friendship, one should recall the text of the only materially surviving letter in Latin written by a woman in her own hand, found at Vindolandia, in Britannia.13 At around 100 CE, Claudia Severa writes to another woman (Lepidinae suae) to invite her to her birthday party: as many as three times in a few lines she calls her soror, sister, and once anima mea, my soul. This amicitia does not have political or economic implications but expresses ties and connections of a social nature: the documentation of this matter in inscriptions is vast.14 Amicitia is documented not just between women but also between men and women,15 without sexual implications. The importance and frequency of female amicitia should be stressed, precisely given the charac- teristics of Roman society: the literary sources (especially Cicero) exalt friendship as a relation- ship that exists fundamentally between males. Moreover, friendship is a very strong social rela- tionship, placed in an intermediate position between the restricted circle of relatives and the widest circle of fellow citizens. Women also fully belong to this network of city relationships. 3. Third right: elsewhere there are queens who govern At around 400 CE, the poet Claudian16 states that in Rome a woman may not become a consul, in other words, she may not wield supreme authority, in contrast to other peoples who may have a female queen. Women cannot imperare,17 in other words, be magistrates.18 Even when, starting from 14 CE with Livia,19 the woman, linked by blood to the emperor (mother, daughter, sister and above all wife), adopts the title of Augusta, the statues that portray her in full length never include the belt, the cingulum typical of the Roman magistrate. The difference between Augustus and Augusta is particularly evident in one of the most famous fragments of the Digest of Justinian. Only its initial part is usually cited, but we will read in its entirety: “The Emperor is free from the operation of the law, and though the Empress is undoubtedly subject to it, still, the Emperors generally 12 CORN. NEP. vir. ill., III De excellentibus ducibus exterarum gentium, Praefatio, 6–7: “Quem enim Romanorum pudet uxorem ducere in convivium? aut cuius non mater familias primum locum tenet aedium atque in celebritate versatur? quod multo fit aliter in Graecia. nam neque in convivium adhibetur nisi propinquorum, neque sedet nisi in interiore parte aedium, quae gynaeconitis appellatur, quo nemo accedit nisi propinqua cognatione coniunctus.” 13 Vindolanda Inventory No. 85.057 = Tab. Vind. 2.291. 14 CRAIG A. WILLIAMS, READING ROMAN FRIENDSHIP 96 et seq. (2012). 15 Id. 16 CLAUD. Eutr. 1.340–348: “Obstrepuere avium voces, exhorruit annus nomen, et insanum gemino proclamat ab ore eunuchumque vetat fastis accedere Ianus: sumeret inlicitos etenim si femina fasces, esset turpe minus. Medis levi- busque Sabaeis imperat hic sexus, reginarumque sub armis barbariae pars magna iacet.”; “Loud sang the prophetic birds in warning. The year shuddered at the thought of bearing Eutropius’s name, and Janus proclaimed the madness if the choice from his two mouths, forbidding a eunuch to have access to his annals. Had a woman assumed the fasces [of the consuls], though this very illegal it were nevertheless disgraceful. Women bear sway among the Medes and swift Sabeans; half barbary is governed by martial queens.” 17 AMBROSIASTER Quaestiones veteris et novi Testamenti 45.3, at § 7. 18 See LIV. 34.7.9, supra note 8. 19 Francesca Cenerini, Le matronae diventano Augustae: un nuovo profilo femminile, in MATRONAE IN DOMO ET IN RE PUBLI- CA AGENTES. SPAZI E OCCASIONI DELL’AZIONE FEMMINILE NEL MONDO ROMANO TRA TARDA REPUBBLICA E PRIMO IMPERO, ATTI DEL CONVEGNO VENEZIA 16–17 OTT. 2014, 23, 35 (Francesca Cenerini & Francesca Rohr Vio eds., 2016); about the Augus- tae see lastly Antonio Pistellato, Augustae nomine honorare: il ruolo delle Augustae fra “Staatsrecht” e prassi politica, in IL PRINCEPS ROMANO. AUTOCRATE O MAGISTRATO? FATTORI GIURIDICI E FATTORI SOCIALI DEL POTERE IMPERIALE DA AUGUSTO A COMMODO 393 (Jean-Louis Ferrary & John Scheid eds., 2015).