The changes which a century or so had wrought in the position and
education of women reacted on manners. The pagan virtues were
essentially masculine ones, and even women had always been more noted
for courage and stoical heroism than for the softer Christian qualities
which are called feminine. In the old days they had been subservient
because they were virtually slaves. For the same reason they were
expected to be blindly obedient. Their servile attitude toward men was
a duty; tradition gave it the force of a sentiment. Nor did the fact
that many Roman women had risen above their conditions, and shown great
dignity and strength, alter this general relation. It was not in their
nature, however, to be timid, or tender, or clinging. Sensibility was
a weakness and a trait of inferior classes. Love was a passion, or a
duty, or a habit, but not a sentiment. The new woman of the golden
age of Augustus was strong, dignified, self-poised, and commanding.
The fashionable set accented this tone and became haughty, arrogant,
and masculine in manner. It looked upon the conservative matron who
was disposed to preserve old traditions as antiquated. The change, in
its various gradations, was quite similar to that which passed over
Anglo-Saxon women in the century that has just closed. We also have our
golden mean of poise and dignity, as represented by the conservative
who are yet of the new age in culture, breadth, and intelligence;
we, too, have a few of the emancipated who like to demonstrate their
new-found independence by a defiance of social conventions; then we
have our ultra-fashionable parvenus who fancy arrogance a badge of
position, and pronounced manners a sign of modish distinction. Of
these classes, the first and the last were the most defined in Roman
society, but it is mainly in the last that we find the degeneracy of
morals which made a large section of it infamous.
Of the women of the conservative ruling classes we have pleasant
glimpses in the letters of Pliny, which picture an intelligent and
sympathetic family life that constantly recalls our own. His wife,
Calphurnia, sets his verses to music and sings them, greatly to his
surprise and delight. She has a taste for books and commits his
compositions to memory. He says she has an excellent understanding,
consummate prudence, and an affection for her husband that attests the
purity of her heart. It is not his person but his character that she
loves, so he is assured of lasting harmony. When absent, he entreats
her to write every day, even twice a day. If he has only his wife and
a few friends at his summer villa, he has some author to read to them,
and afterward music or an interlude. Then he walks with his family
and talks of literature. The charming little domestic traits, so
unconsciously revealed in these letters, are as creditable to himself
as to the wife who adores him. There is a touch of sentiment that we
rarely find in pagan life.
These letters throw many side-lights on other households. Pliny has
a word of profound sympathy for the sorrow of a friend who lived
thirty-nine cloudless years with a wife whose virtues would have
made her “an ornament even in former times,” and was left desolate
by her loss. We find a touching allusion to the fortitude of Fannia,
who has the qualities of a “heroine of ancient story.” She was
banished for supplying materials for her husband’s “Life.” “Pleasing
in conversation, polite in address, venerable in demeanor,” she is
quoted as a model for wives. She was a worthy granddaughter of the
famous Arria, who refused to survive her husband when he was condemned
to death, and gave him courage by first plunging the dagger into her
own breast, saying, “Pætus, it does not hurt,” as she drew it out and
passed it to him. Another of his friends lost a daughter of fourteen,
who, he says, combined the wisdom of age and the discretion of a matron
with the sprightliness of youth and the sweetness of virgin modesty.
She was devoted to reading and study, caring little for amusements.
Pompeius Saturninus read him some letters from his wife which were so
fine that he thought he was listening to Plautus and Terence in prose;
indeed, he suspects the husband of writing them himself, in spite of
his denial, though he considers him deserving of equal praise, whether
he wrote them or trained her genius to such a degree of perfection. It
is worthy of note that, while these letters show us the intelligent
companionship between husbands and wives which had taken the place
of the old relations of superior and inferior, as well as the fine
attainments of many women and the honor in which they were held, they
also pay the highest tribute to virtues that still shone brightly in an
age when it had become a fashion to speak of them as things of the past.
“Morals are gone,” said Seneca. “Evil triumphs. All virtue, all
justice, is disappearing. That is what was exclaimed in our fathers’
days, what they are repeating to-day, and what will be the cry of our
children.” If we may credit the history of that age, there was reason
enough for the cry, but there was another side to the dark picture.
This critical philosopher did not spare the vices and follies of
the great ladies of his time, and any tribute of his to the talents
and virtues of women is of value, as it is not likely to incline to
the side of flattery. In his letters of consolation to his mother,
Helvia, he mentions the fact that she is “learned in the principles
of all the sciences,” in spite of the old-fashioned notions of his
father, who “feared letters as a means of corruption for women.” More
liberal himself, he exhorts her to return to them as “a source of
safety, consolation, and joy.” To Marcia he writes in a tone that is
appreciative, though a trifle patronizing: “Who dares say that nature
in creating woman has gifted her less generously, or restricted for her
the sphere of the virtues? Her moral strength, do not doubt it, equals
ours.... Habit will render her, like us, capable of great efforts,
as of great griefs.” An incident of his own family life is worth
repeating, as it shows a pleasant and not uncommon side of domestic
relations at a period when Roman morals were at the worst. His wife was
solicitous for his health. “As my life depends upon hers,” he says, “I
shall follow her advice, because in doing so I am caring for her. Can
anything be more agreeable than to feel that in loving your wife you
are loving yourself?” The devotion on her side was more heroic, if less
reasonable. When he was politely advised to take himself to some other
world where he would be less in the way of his civil superiors, she
insisted upon dying with him. He tried in vain to dissuade her, but,
finding her persistent, he gave his consent, saying: “Let the fortitude
of so courageous an end be alike in both of us, but let there be more
in your death to win fame.” Her veins were opened with his; but Nero
did not need to get rid of her just then, so the attendants quickly
bound her wounds and saved her. This devoted Paulina had only the
satisfaction of sacrificing her color, as she was noted for her extreme
pallor to the end of her life.
We have other letters from a thinker and seer of the next century,
which give us as sympathetic an insight into the private life of
the Antonines as Cicero and Pliny give us into that of their own
contemporaries in the two preceding ones. Nowhere does Marcus Aurelius
appear in so human a light as in this correspondence with Fronto, the
distinguished master and philosopher, which came to us at a late day
out of the silence of ages. It reveals one of the rare friendships
of the world, and incidentally throws a pleasant light on the family
relations of the wisest and simplest of emperors.
History has cast a cloud over the wives of the Antonines--whether
justly or not we can never know. In an age of great vices, even virtue
is not safe, and the scandal-lover has always delighted to tear fair
names. But the testimony of a husband surely ought to count for more
than the flippant gossip of the idle voluptuary or the witty sneer of
the satirist. Referring to the elder Faustina, Antoninus Pius says: “I
would rather spend my life with her in Gyaros than live without her in
a palace.” As this desolate abode of the exile was supposed to be very
uncomfortable, the compliment was not a light one. It is not in such
terms that men write of faithless wives, nor is it in the nature of
such women to wear the white veil of innocence for a series of years
in the presence of those nearest to them. There was a temple built in
her honor which still keeps guard as a church over the Roman forum, a
permanent monument to the devotion of this tender husband. A charitable
institution for girls, that bore her name, has long since gone the way
of all perishable things.
In the letters of Aurelius, which cover a wide range of thought and
experience, there are constant references to his family. It is
difficult to believe the younger Faustina as wicked as men have painted
her. One of the most beautiful women of her time, as brilliant and
sweet as she was beautiful, the idol of her household, the object of
affectionate care on the part of her husband, this gracious woman has
been a mystery to successive generations. What if the lightly spoken
word of a malicious rival, or a dark insinuation from some impertinent
admirer whose vanity she may have wounded, kindled a fire which the
ages cannot put out? Such things have been, and may be again. “I thank
the gods for giving me a wife so kind, so tender to her children, so
simple,” said the philosopher, who kept his soul at a serene altitude
above things of sense; but he broke down when his children suffered or
died, and mourned this much-loved wife as a saint, giving her divine
honors. He also put a gold statue of her in the seat she had been in
the habit of occupying at the theater, and had her represented in a
bas-relief as borne to heaven, while he gazed after her with longing
eyes.
Fronto writes that the mother of Marcus Aurelius laughingly
declares herself jealous of him. He asks tenderly after the ailing
_domnula_, who is the idol of her father’s heart. Of his own
daughter Gratia he has much to tell, playing gracefully with her name.
He chats pleasantly of sleep, of health, of dreams, of the art of
speech, in which he was himself a master. But this is varied with
words of affection, with tender references to the children, their
pretty voices and their winning ways. He had given the little prince
a silver trumpet on his birthday, and draws a charming picture of the
group about their mother, the beautiful Faustina. But he loses his own
admirable and much-loved wife; then his grandson dies; and his heart is
torn with grief, as with sympathy for the sorrow of the gentle Gratia.
Joy falls away from the spent life of the white-haired philosopher. He
finds nothing to bind him longer to a sad world. His silvery periods
have lost their charm. He lays down his pen, and his last words are
full of pathos. He writes to an emperor who, like himself, has lived on
the heights of a calm reason. The blows of fate have struck them both,
and they weep, like others.
I have quoted more or less from the letters of four thoughtful and
clear-sighted men, because their personal details and general tone go
farther than any assertion to prove the pure and intelligent character
of a large section of Roman womanhood and its refining influence in the
family. They are a flattering tribute, not only to the women of the
new age, but to the fine qualities of a corresponding circle of men.
The life revealed by these distinguished observers who have talked so
familiarly of its every-day side is certainly remote from that which
has been dwelt upon by satirists and historians, but we cannot doubt
that it represents the domestic relations of an important class. It is
fair to presume that the women of culture and virtue who came within
their horizon were not exceptions.