THE WORLD OF BODY

Relief on a mirror lid of women preparing to bathe

Roman history bears witness to the fact that women's bodies were not their own but, lying at the intersection of public interest as they did, were constitutionally entrusted to males to regulate and administer for the good of the state. Body is at the crux of male and female biological and cultural difference, thus setting conservative gender and sex roles and ideals. Numerous examples in history testify to the impact of the female body on civic well being: the rape of the Sabine women and its result in new citizens; the rape of Lucretia which ended the monarchy; the arranged marriage of Julia which brought Caesar and Pompey into alliance while her death in childbirth, an event all too common in antiquity, allowed it to dissolve. Women's health and the practice of medicine in connection with pregnancy were significant areas of concern to the Romans, as the occupation of midwifery and extant gynecological writings demonstrate. Hera, goddess of marriage and the ability to procreate, and Venus, goddess of the youthful and virginal beauty that attracts the male gaze and gives sexual pleasure, represent in religion the twin social expectations of women. In matters of adornment and dress, women claimed the right of visual self-expression from the time of their fierce opposition to the 2nd century BCE Oppian law, a regulation limiting women's public display. Augustus awarded coveted personal and civic privileges to women who produced three children. Although in practice women gained greater control over their persons and destiny during the Empire, before the law their bodies remained subject to male oversight. For further information about this topic, see the Companion bibliography and Images of Body below.

IMAGES of BODY

Bathers: gilt bronze mirror back depicts two women bathing before a statuette of Venus. 2nd century CE . Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

Women's Dressing Roomwith small cold plunge, in the public baths called the Sabian Baths . Pompeii, 1st century CE.

Cosmetics: restored wooden box with lid, bronze fittings and figured relief carvings in bone, for toilette articles. 1st century CE. Naples, National Archaeological Museum.

Perfume Girl: fresco of a veiled seated girl wearing bracelets, earings, delicate sandals, and a gauzy peplos, filling a perfume vial from an aryballos; from a house near the Tiber now destroyed. End 1st century BCE. Rome, Museo Massimo.

Woman with Flask: marble statue of a woman wearing a peplos and holding a glass perfume flask. Ostia, c. 30 CE. Rome, Vatican Museum.

Doctors: inscribed funerary relief of a medical family freed by a member of the gens Clodia: (center) CLODIUS METRODORUS MEDICUS; (right) CLODIA HILARA; (left) CLODIUS TERTIUS MEDICUS. Last 3rd of 1st century BCE. Paris, Louvre Museum.

Hairnet: fragment, of gold wire, similar to that worn in the so-called Sappho fresco in Pompeii. From a tomb at Vetralla, Imperial period. Rome, Museo Massimo.

Woven Hairnet: fragment, of gold thread. From the Via Tiburtina, Imperial period. Rome, Museo Massimo.

Silver Mirror: relief on the back shows Phrixus on the ram's back with the Golden Fleece, fleeing to Colchis and carrying his sister Helle. From a tomb at Vetralla, Imperial period. Rome, Museo Massimo.

Snake Bracelet: gold arm bracelet. Late 4th-2nd century BCE. Rome, Museo Massimo.

Hairpin: bone, with inscription and heads of a couple (woman's head missing). Imperial period. Rome, Museo Massimo.

Jewelry: gold bracelets and earrings formed of hollow hemispheres, a type of jewelry invented by the Romans and common in this period. Pompeii, 1st century CE. Naples, National Archaeological Museum.

Hairstyles: female portrait heads from the early imperial period showing a variety of hairstyles. Rome, Vatican Museum.

Female Bust: marble portrait of a woman wrapped in a palla with a late Republican hairstyle. Rome, Vatican Museum

Claudia Olympias: marble bust of a woman with an elaborate three-tiered fringed hairstyle with braids in the back; the base contains a memorial dedication (see Class). Roman, 100-150 CE. London, British Museum.

Gold Snake Bracelet: inscribed DOM[I]NUS ANCILLAE SUAE (the master to his slave girl), it was on the arm of a woman found in a building in Agro Murecine near Pompeii; she was carrying other jewelry and coins. Roman, 1st century CE. Naples, Archaeological Museum.

Fresco: elegantly dressed woman wearing a diadem and veil, with a servant beside her (perhaps Phaedra and her nurse). From Pompeii (?), 20-60 CE. London. British Museum.

Girl in a Chiton: marble copy of a Hellenistic original. Rome: Museo Montemartini.

Augustan female: marble bust with a resemblance to Julia, Augustus' daughter; her hairstyle is similar to Livia's and Ottavia's, dating it to end 1st Century BCE. Rome: Museo Montemartini.

Sarcophagus: for Larthia Seianti, an Etruscan woman. From Chiusi, first half of 2nd century BCE. Florence, Archaeological Museum.

Terracotta Votive Models: 1. Eye, 2. Uterus, 3. Ear, 4. Breast, 5. Intestines. In Greece and Rome replicas of body parts were often dedicated in shrines of healing gods in thanks for or hopes of a cure. Roman, 3-1st century BCE. London, British Museum.

Matrona: marble funerary sculpture of a woman dressed in a tunic, stola, and draped in a palla; she wears a veil with a diadem, signifying her deification, common in women's grave statues. 2nd quarter of 2nd century CE. Oxford, Ashmolean.

Nursing Woman: marble relief of a seated woman with infant, accompanied by a male (the father?); a heavily veiled woman wearing a headdress reaches toward the child with a temple in the background, suggesting some ritual ceremony. Imperial period. Rome, Vatican Museum.

Nursing: statue of a draped woman wearing a crown (a goddess ?), seated on a bench and breast-feeding an infant. Late Hellenistic period. Rome, Vatican Museum.

Hairstyle of Empress Sabina: sideview of a marble bust showing her elaborately waved, fringed, and braided coiffure. 130-40 CE. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Stola: onyx cameo bust of a woman wearing a stola (straps of the stola are clearly visible), 90-100 CE. London, British Museum.

Aphrodite medallion showing the goddess at her toilette, assisted by her son Eros and a young serving girl. In gilded silver relief, it is incised around the rim with various symbols associated with love and beauty, such as a fan, a flower, a butterfly, a bird, grasshopper, and lyre. Taranto, 300-200 BCE London, British Museum.

Nude female athlete, the handle of a bronze strigil (another view), herself holds a strigil. Etruscan, found in a sarcophagus from Praeneste (Palestrina), c. 300 BCE. London, British Museum.

Marble Sculpture of a young woman completely wrapped in a cloak, wearing a head-covering (side view). Roman (copy of a Hellenistic Greek work). 1/2nd century CE. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Young Etruscan Woman Life-size terracotta sculpture (smaller) of an elegantly dressed female wearing elaborate jewelry, perhaps molded on real pieces. Late 4-early 3rd century BCE. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Head of a young woman whose hairdo is fashioned like that of Faustina the Elder, with braids wound around her head. Side view. Roman, Antonine period (138-161 CE). NY Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Marble head of a young woman. Her hairdo is fashioned like that of the head of Faustina the Elder on coins of 140-50 CE, with braids wound around her head.Side 1 view. Side 2 view. Roman. NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Cameo Pendant of a female head showing period coiffure. May be a portrait of Antonia Minor (36 BCE-37CE), wife of Tiberius' brother Drusus. Roman, Julio-Claudian period. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts.

Portrait Bust of a woman resembling Cleopatra VII; said to be one of the ladies of her court who went with her to Rome in 46 BCE. Hair arrangement of the late Republican period (side view). Italy 80-40 BCE.London, British Museum.

Silphium: stem of the plant on a bronze didrachma of Cyrene, whose economy was dependent on export of this herb, found growing in few places and extinct since the 3/4th century CE. This wild member of the fennel family was used for seasoning and medicine (a close equivalent was the native Roman plant asafoetida), in particular to prevent pregnancy. 300-260 BCE. Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Images are courtesy of the VRoma Project's Image Archive.