[Illustration: Decorative image]
· Three Types of Roman Womanhood ·
· Livia · Octavia · Julia ·
· Corruption of the Age not Due to Women ·
· Persecution of Virtue · Multiplication of Divorces ·
· Good Women in Public Life ·
· Plotina · Julia Domna · Julia Mæsa ·
· Soæmias · Mamæa ·
· The Old Type Gives Place to the New ·
[Illustration: Decorative image]
I
If one wishes to gain a clear notion of the dominant traits of the
Roman woman of twenty centuries ago, there is no better way than to
walk observantly through the old galleries where so many of them still
live in marble, side by side with the men who made or marred their
fortunes. There, graven in stone, one sees at a glance the strength,
the passion, the pride, the ambition, that left its stamp upon an age.
There too is the weakness, the sensuality, the arrogance, the cruelty,
that ruined a life and brought misery upon a generation. Most of these
women belonged to a class that held a conspicuous place in the public
view by virtue of its position. Some were wicked, a few were great, and
many were good though they rarely get the credit of it. To make them
live again is not easy, perhaps not possible, but we gather from many a
record curious and interesting facts regarding them. Their surroundings
are measurably familiar to us. We know how they looked, how they
dressed their hair, how they wore their robes, how they carried
themselves. With here and there a trait, an act, a passing word, an
anecdote, in their relations to men and society, we may compose a
picture which, if not exact, will give a fair idea of the manner of
women they were.
There were three matrons in the family of the first emperor who may be
taken as representatives of three dominant types of Roman womanhood.
In Livia, we have the woman of affairs; in Octavia, the woman of the
family; in Julia, the woman of the gay world. The first had before all
things the genius of administration which was the special gift of her
race; the second united the sweetest family affections with loyalty and
moral strength; the last was of the numerous and dangerous class that
made of society an occupation, and of pleasure an end.
Of the long line of capable women who had so strong and so lasting
an influence in Roman affair--sometimes for good and sometimes for
ill--the first and the best known was Livia. Standing as she did in the
blazing light that shines upon a throne, we see her on many sides--if
not always clearly, at least in bold outlines. That she had beauty,
tact, fascination, and a gracious address, doubtless counted for
much in her youth; but it was through her wise judgment, far-seeing
intellect, well-poised character, and keen practical sense of values
that this remarkable woman shared the fortunes and held the affection
of Augustus for more than half a century, and had a voice in the
destinies of Rome for seventy years. She has been given the purity
of Diana, the benevolence of Ceres, the wisdom and craft of Minerva.
There are many busts and statues of her, but they vary, and it is not
possible to know which best represents the real woman. We see her in
marble as Ceres--a commanding figure, with strength in every line. The
passion that lies in the delicate, half-sensuous curve of the lips is
overshadowed by the will that shows itself in the firm poise of the
head, and the intellect that sits in the ample forehead and looks out
of the serene eyes. “In features Venus, in manner Juno,” says Ovid,
who had ample reason to know the power of this discreet matron. She
frowned upon the license of the gay set to which he belonged, and it is
not unlikely that she had something to do with the hopeless exile that
pressed so heavily on his last years. But he declares that “she has
raised her head above all vices,” dwelling upon her strength and the
fact that “with the power to injure, she has injured no one.”
Whatever the faults of Livia may have been, no shadow rested on her
womanly honor. Probably she had no choice when, at eighteen, the
emperor took her from her husband--who found it best to submit amiably
where the caprices of his sovereign were concerned--and made her his
wife, this complaisant but elderly soldier of culture and influence
acting as her father or guardian in the ceremony, and dying soon after.
If he bore any ill will it does not appear, as he left his two children
to the care of his successor. At the same time, Augustus sent away his
own wife, the too jealous and exacting mother of Julia, on the day of
his daughter’s birth. The only failing of Scribonia seems to have been
that she was imperious and did not bear her wrongs with sufficient
equanimity.
This new union lasted fifty-two years, and the last recorded words of
the husband were, “Livia, farewell, and do not forget our love.” To
some one who asked her how she retained her influence so long, she
replied: “That comes from my moderation and my honesty. I have done
with joy all that he wished, without trying to meddle with his affairs
or showing the least jealousy as to his infidelities, which I never
seemed to see.” As a recipe for the management of husbands the last
might be open to grave objection, from a woman’s point of view, but it
was the undisputed privilege of Roman men, indeed of all men in early
times,--to say nothing of later ones,--to be made comfortable under any
circumstances; and they made no pretense to morality. As to meddling,
Livia evidently did it as though she did it not, as it was well known
that she tempered the harshness of her husband and modified many of his
stern decrees.
Perhaps a better explanation of his devotion might have been found in
the rare union of beauty and intelligence with the domestic virtues
which he took so much pleasure in extolling. In the waning of her
personal charms, she took care not to lose the attractions of a
versatile intellect and agreeable manners, also to sheathe in velvet
the delicate, closely welded chains of daily habit. She knew how to
submit and she knew how to rule. Since life is always a series of
compromises, perhaps its finest art lies just here. Maintaining the
traditions of her sex, she wove and made her husband’s clothes. As
she had six hundred or more attendants to fold her own garments and
minister to her comfort, it is not likely that these domestic duties
weighed very heavily. Doubtless a little supervision sufficed for a
great deal of credit. A well-managed household does not imply doing
things one’s self so much as the knowledge and ability to put the
machinery in running order; and Livia was before all things executive,
which has much more to do with brains than with virtues.
Like her husband, or because of him, she hated luxury and ostentation
in her daily life. Her house was small and simple, but decorated with
taste. The pleasures of sense had little weight with her; indeed,
there was a trace of asceticism in her character and in her way
of living. She had various theories which we call fads. These are
specially noticeable in an epicurean age, when a fortune was spent on a
dinner. She limited herself to a diet of fruits and vegetables, drank
a certain wine that suited the health better than the palate, and had
great faith in the virtues of cold water. Augustus was cured of a grave
malady by cold baths, but rumor said that the young Marcellus died of
them. Just why Livia was blamed is not clear, as the treatment was
prescribed by Musa, the great physician; but it was new, and she had
made it a fashion.
That she had many lovable traits is shown not only by the lifelong
devotion of her husband, but in the adoring affection of those who
served her. In recent years a large columbarium has been found which
she consecrated to the ashes of her numerous household, each of whom
had his little urn with a fitting inscription. She used her large
fortune generously, helped the persecuted, established a school for
poor but well-born children, and did a great many charitable things.
It may be true that she was cruel to her enemies, but she was loyal to
her friends and untiring in their interests. Wisely holding the threads
of a large and diverse patronage, she kept herself in touch with the
intelligence of the new age, and was inspired by a broad and catholic
public spirit. She is said to have built and endowed the Temple of
Concord, also a portico rich in ancient paintings, which bore her
name. If she was at home at the wheel or loom and looking after the
personal comfort of her husband, she was equally so in the coteries
of the learned and in the councils of State. She was called cold, but
there were slumbering depths of feeling in that strong soul which few
had fathomed. When her son Drusus died, it is said that only the tender
interference of her husband prevented her from starving herself to
death in the violence of her grief. But she quickly regained her poise,
and went about her duties public and private with no outward sign of
the sorrow that had come to her like a bolt out of a clear sky. She had
much of the fortitude of the Stoics in the days when philosophy was the
fashionable religion. But she went to the wise and learned Arius for
help and consolation, as women of later ages have gone to a spiritual
adviser. Seneca holds her up as a model of strength and well-regulated
sensibility. He dwells upon her heroic qualities and contrasts her
favorably with the more emotional Octavia, who mourned her life away
over the death of her son and other domestic misfortunes.
There was another and less sympathetic side to her character. Without
imagination, and little touched with sentiment, her life seems to
have been guided by a calm reason which was always at the service of
a towering ambition--a trait which, sooner or later, is sure to make
the gentlest man or woman hard and cruel toward any one who stands in
its way. This ambition was her master passion, and in its direction
lay her faults. To her judgment and discrimination was added the
craft of a diplomatist. Her grandson Caligula called her a “Ulysses
in petticoats.” That she had any hand in the singular falling away,
one after another, of her husband’s direct heirs, or that she ever
passed the point where intrigue becomes crime, is the purest surmise.
She had too many enemies in his family, who feared and envied her, to
escape calumny; but though many dark rumors were in the air, nothing
was ever proved. One youth was ill and died in Gaul, another in the
far East. It is too much to suppose that she could safely have helped
them out of the world at that distance, even had she wished to do so.
That she schemed long and successfully to raise her son Tiberius to the
throne is certain. That he repaid her with a great deal of ingratitude
is equally so. Perhaps he could not forget that it was her ambition
which compelled him to send away his much-loved wife, Vipsania,--whom
he could never meet afterward without tears,--to marry the already
notorious Julia, for whom he had a distinct aversion. But no one then
stopped to consider sensibilities. If Livia was sometimes hard and
cruel, she lived in an age when people who did many kind and generous
things had no hesitation in walking over a rival, crushing an enemy, or
even courteously suggesting to a friend who became inconvenient that
it would be wise for him to take himself out of the world. The man of
to-day is content with crushing rivals and ruining enemies in the name
of high-sounding virtues, but he has grown humane, and lets them live.
The time when fierce ambitions drove innocent victims out of life is
gone by. But we can judge people only by the standards of their own
day, and there is much evidence that Livia surpassed those of her time
in justice and compassion.
Fortune certainly favored the aspiring empress. Her gentle
sister-in-law, Octavia, died in good time for her ends. The brilliant
Julia, who won hearts and stood in her way, plunged recklessly to
her own ruin, taking with her into a hopeless exile the wronged but
troublesome Scribonia. Of this step-daughter’s sons, two were dead
in a far country, and the remaining one was chained for his vices to
a desolate rock in the sea. Of her daughters, one followed in the
footsteps and the fate of her unfortunate mother; the other was the
first Agrippina, a proud, imperious woman with her mother’s beauty
and her father’s inflexible will and courage. This granddaughter of
Augustus, so noted for her virtues, her talents, and her sorrows, had
followed her husband’s fortunes with wifely devotion, commanded the
adoring soldiers in his absence, and returned heartbroken, with his
ashes, to stir up Rome against his supposed murderer, whose wife,
one of Livia’s friends, was implicated. Sure of the justice of her
cause and the sympathy of the people, she defied the cruel Tiberius
and the cool Livia,--who was bent upon saving her possibly innocent
favorites,--to be finally sent to starve on the rocky islet where
her erring mother had expiated her follies and her vices. She was a
tragical figure, this spirited and haughty Agrippina with the face
and air of a Minerva and the fiery spirit of Mars, who paid so heavy
a penalty for her virtue and her loyalty. It is said that Livia
interceded for her, though without avail; also that she supported the
second hapless Julia until her death. Whether this was a stroke of
diplomacy, or the impulse of a pitying heart, we cannot know.
The center of a hostile group, it is clear that Livia’s rôle was
a difficult one, and the skill with which she disentangled these
conflicting interests is the best proof of her insight and worldly
tact. She had the instinct of leadership which divines men, women, and
possibilities, and is swift to bend circumstances to its own ends. If
she had her full share of troubles and chagrins, she hid them within
her heart, kept her own counsel in perilous crises, and pursued her way
with the calmness of a strong soul. By a singular fatality, every human
barrier was swept from her path, some by fate and their own misdoings,
some by more kindly nature, and some by intrigues, the mysteries of
which we cannot fathom. In the end she dominated friends and enemies
alike.
But, in spite of her success, the last of her eighty-eight years were
burdened with griefs. Her heart was wounded in the tenderest point by
the son for whom she had toiled and schemed; her pride was humiliated,
and her hopes were dashed. That she played the sovereign and became
capricious and exacting, was perhaps in the nature of things. No
one was ever more flattered and honored by an admiring people. The
Senate paid court to her, her receptions were officially announced,
her signature was attached to decrees, she was attended by lictors
when she went out, and had an altar on which her name was adored. She
had a conspicuous place among the white-robed vestals and was made
a priestess of Augustus. When she was ill the world mourned; when
she recovered there were fêtes and votive offerings. “A woman in all
things more comparable to the gods than to men, who knew how to use her
power so as to turn away peril and advance the most deserving,” said
one of her contemporaries. She remained to the end a stately figure
among women who have held the reality of power without its titles, not
through the arts of the coquette, but through tact, wisdom, foresight,
and intellectual force. With less temperament and esthetic quality, she
recalls Aspasia in her vigor, her mental grasp, and her power to hold
the affection of a great man in an age when such love seems to have
been rare. Perhaps we find a closer resemblance in Mme. de Maintenon,
who combined her strength, her cold reason, and her political sagacity
with a finer modern culture. It may be that the latter used her power
less wisely, but she was a sadder woman. She reached the goal of her
ambition only after the loss of her illusions, if she ever had them,
and the task of catering to the caprices of a spoiled monarch was too
much for her. The records of her life reveal too surely the tragedy
of a soul; she lacked the stoical endurance to suffer and make no
sign. Livia apparently never ceased to love the husband of her youth,
and they worked in sympathy. With this firm foundation of happiness,
all things were possible. One can point to no mistakes that were made
through her counsels, and their weight is shown in the letters of
Augustus himself. Of her wisdom and moderation, no better evidence
is needed than the unparalleled cruelties of her son as soon as her
restraining influence was gone.
We have able and gifted women to-day who are companions or mothers of
great rulers, but I can recall no one not a reigning queen who has a
like influence or has received equal honors. Have women of masterful
character lost the subtle art of fascination to make it available, or
are modern rulers smaller men, who fear a rival? With us, women of
this type find their place as presidents of charitable associations
or powerful clubs, or leaders of a conservative society. Sometimes
they are better known as wives and helpers of men with political
aspirations. But we rarely hear of them in the latter rôle, as they are
usually lost in a glory which they often make but do not visibly share.