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LUCRETIA AND HER CONSILIUM DOMESTICUM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2024

Elia T. Schnaible
Elia T. Schnaible*
Affiliation:
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
*
el.schnaible@gmail.com
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Abstract

The article takes a critical look at the idea that the gathering of men Lucretia confronts a few moments before her suicide is to be understood as an ancient Roman domestic court (consilium domesticum). Arguing from the basis that the paternal power (patria potestas) is a constitutive element of this private-law institution, it examines what supports and what conflicts with the interpretation.

Keywords

LucretiaCollatinusconsilium domesticumpatria potestasmanusRoman marriageprivate lawT. LiviusDionysius of HalicarnassusP. Ovidius Naso
Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , April 2024 , pp. 76 - 91
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank my professors Angela Pabst and Stefan Pfeiffer for their inspiring teaching as well as the anonymous reviewer for his/her most valuable remarks. I have sought to include the latest research available. Nevertheless, the study by M. Lentano, Lucrezia: Vita e morte di una matrona romana (Rome, 2021) was not accessible to me hitherto.

References

1 Livy (1.57.4–58.12), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. Rom. 4.64.4–67.49), Ovid (Fast. 2.723–836). I am going to cite the following translations: E. Cary, Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, Volume I: Books 1–2 (Cambridge, MA, 1937); E. Cary, Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Roman Antiquities, Volume II: Books 3–4 (Cambridge, MA, 1939); B. O. Foster, Livy. History of Rome, Volume I: Books 1–2 (Cambridge, MA, 1919); J. G. Frazer, Ovid. Fasti, rev. by G. P. Goold (Cambridge, MA, 1931). On the further reception of the myth of Lucretia, see Donaldson, I., The Rapes of Lucretia. A Myth and its Transformations (Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar; Chrystal, P., ‘Two Case Studies on Receptions of Sex and Power: Lucretia and Verginia’, in Moore, K. R. (ed.), The Routledge Companion to the Reception of Ancient Greek and Roman Gender and Sexuality (London/New York, 2023), 317–56Google Scholar; Späth, T., ‘Zwei Lesebrillen für Lucretia: Vom paganen exemplum zur christlichen controversia’, in Semenzato, C. and Hartmann, L. (eds.), Von der Antike begeistert! Philologie, Philosophie, Religion und Politik durch drei Jahrtausende (Basel, 2023), 339–49Google Scholar.

2 Livy 1.58.5–12, Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.66–7, Ov. Fast. 2.815–36.

3 Ogilvie, R. M., A Commentary on Livy. Books 1–5 (Oxford, 1965), 219Google Scholar; Watson, A., Rome of the XII Tables. Persons and Property (Princeton, NJ, 1975), 67Google Scholar; Donaldson (n. 1), 24; Doblhofer, G., Vergewaltigung in der Antike (Stuttgart, 1994), 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kowalewski, B., Frauengestalten im Geschichtswerk des T. Livius (Munich, 2002), 117CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Amunategui Perello, C. F., ‘Lucretia and the Historical System of Noxality’, RIDA 55 (2008), 74Google Scholar; Schultze, C., ‘Ways of Killing Women: Dionysios on the Deaths of Horatia and Lucretia’, in Hunter, R. L. and de Jonge, C. (eds.), Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the Augustan Rome. Rhetoric, Criticism and Historiography (Cambridge, 2019), 171Google Scholar. We will return to Weissenborn's attribution to this group in the course of our study.

4 Watson (n. 3), 42; Harris, W. V., ‘The Roman Father's Power of Life and Death’, in Bagnall, R. S. and Harris, W. V. (eds.), Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A. Arthur Schiller (Leiden, 1986), 81Google Scholar; Treggiari, S., Roman Marriage. Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford, 1991), 16Google Scholar; Westbrook, R., ‘Vitae necisque potestas’, Historia 48 (1999), 203–23Google Scholar; Curran, J., ‘Ius vitae necisque: The Politics of Killing Children’, JAH 6 (2018), 111–35Google Scholar.

5 On the nature of patria potestas with consideration of the ‘authority of a husband over his wife’ (manus), see Watson (n. 3), 9.

6 Schultze (n. 3), 176.

7 The venia loquendi, i.e. the permission to speak, is part of the concept of vires loquendi (‘power to speak’) as a visualization of gender-specific power positions. Men speak, whereas women are the ones who remain silent or are silenced. Sextus Tarquinius, for example, addresses Lucretia with the words: ‘Be silent, Lucretia!’ (Tace, Lucretia, Livy 1.58.2). See V. Rosenberger, ‘Die schöne Leiche: Lucretia und der römische Mythos von der Vertreibung der Könige’, in H. Macha and C. Fahrenwald (eds.), Körperbild zwischen Natur und Kultur. Interdisziplinäre Beiträge zur Genderforschung (Opladen, 2003).

8 Watson (n. 3), 35.

9 Amunategui Perello (n. 3), 77.

10 The convenire in manum is already mentioned by Gaius Inst. 1.108–11. On the other hand, marriage sine/cum manu is a modern term. The Roman equivalent would be, for instance, uxor (quae) in manu viri est (‘a wife under the power of her husband’), Treggiari (n. 4), 17.

11 C. Kunst, ‘Eheallianzen und Ehealltag in Rom’, in T. Späth (ed.), Frauenwelten in der Antike (Darmstadt, 2000), 34; A. Richlin, Arguments with Silence. Writing the History of Roman Women (Ann Arbor, 2014), 39. The marriage cum manu was more widespread until the beginning of the second century bc, Watson (n. 3), 18.

12 Treggiari (n. 4), 265, recognizes in Dionysius the same preference for the self-regulating family and a dislike of direct state influence as in Cic. Rep. 4.6. Possibly the fact mentioned also by Treggiari (n. 4), 266, that Augustus’ legislation allowed a former ‘head of the household’ (pater familias) to kill an adulterous daughter, even if he lost his patria potestas by conventio in manum, ties in with this Zeitgebundenheit.

13 Harris (n. 4), 92.

14 J.-M. Claassen, ‘The Familiar Other: The Pivotal Role of Women in Livy's Narrative of Political Development in Early Rome’, AC 41 (1998), 75. On Dionysius, see Schultze (n. 3), 161.

15 W. Schubert, ‘Herodot, Livius und die Gestalt des Collatinus in der Lucretia-Geschichte’, RhM 134 (1991), 88.

16 E. Dickey, Latin Forms of Address. From Plautus to Apuleius (Oxford, 2002), 276.

17 Kowalewski (n. 3), 110.

18 For Kowalewski (n. 3), 113, the actual purpose of the certamen muliebre.

19 Doblhofer (n. 3), 12.

20 S. Freund, ‘Pudicitia saltem in tuto sit: Lucretia, Verginia und die Konstruktion eines Wertbegriffs bei Livius’, Hermes 136 (2008), 314.

21 Ibid., 319.

22 Watson (n. 3), 167; Schubert (n. 15), 91.

23 M. Mirković, ‘Patria potestas or Murder in the Family’, Anali Pravnog Fakulteta u Beogradu 63 (2015), 7–8. Likewise Harris (n. 4), 86.

24 Mirković (n. 23), 13. On the correlation of patria potestas and senatorial auctoritas see Harris (n. 4), 89.

25 J. D. Hejduk, ‘Epic Rapes in the Fasti’, CPh 106 (2011), 29.

26 K. E. von Bóné, ‘The Roman Family Court (iudicium domesticum) and its Historical Development in France and the Netherlands’, Osaka University Law Review 60 (2013), 28.

27 W. Liebenam, ‘Consilium’, RE 4.1 (1900), 915.

28 W. Kunkel, ‘Das Konsilium im Hausgericht’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Romanistische Abteilung 83 (1966), 219 n. 2; Harris (n. 4), 81; Treggiari (n. 4), 266.

29 Liebenam (n. 27), 915; Kunkel (n. 28); J. Crook, ‘Patria potestas’, CQ 17 (1967), 119; Watson (n. 3) 35, 38; Donaldson (n. 1), 24; Treggiari (n. 4), 265; Bóné (n. 26), 26.

30 C. Schlip, Typen, Gruppen und Individuen bei Livius. Untersuchungen zur Darstellung und Funktion historischer Akteure in ab urbe condita (Berlin/Boston, 2020), 187.

31 Donaldson (n. 1), 103. See also N. S. Rodrigues, ‘Lucretia, Tullia and Tanaquil: Shaping the Identity of Rome's Women in the Augustan Period’, in L. Roig Lanzillotta, J. L. L. Brandão and A. Rodrigues (eds.), Roman Identity. Between Ideal and Performance (Turnhout 2022), 98, who thinks that Lucretia – as a woman of pietas – had to inform her father and husband about what has happened to her.

32 Livy 2.36.1–8; W. Weissenborn, T. Livi ab urbe condita libri. Erklärende Ausgabe 1.1, ninth edition (Berlin, 1908), 260.

33 W. Weissenborrn, T. Livi ab urbe condita libri. Erklärende Ausgabe 1.2, eighth edition (Berlin, 1894), 99.

34 Harris (n. 4), 87.

35 Diod. Sic. 9.20.3; Livy 1.58.5; Ov. Fast. 2.815–16.

36 C. G. Paulus, ‘Iudicium’, DNP online (2006) <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_dnp_e529500>, accessed 24 November 2023.

37 Cf. Livy 1.58.5.

38 Gell. NA 10.23.4; Amunategui Perello (n. 3), 77 (sine manu), 78 (cum manu); Richlin (n. 11), 43.

39 Watson (n. 3), 12; Amunategui Perello (n. 3), 77. She is henceforth considered agnate of her husband and loses the status of filia familias (‘daughter of her father's household’), Treggiari (n. 4), 28–9.

40 Rosenberger (n. 7), 109.

41 Amunategui Perello (n. 3), 77.

42 Ibid., 78. According to the definition of pater familias by Watson (n. 3), 9. Likewise Mirković (n. 23), 12.

43 Donaldson (n. 1), 8.

44 However, it is by no means the case that Livy did not know about the nature of consilium domesticum and manus. For the year 186 bc he gives a paraphrase: ‘Convicted women were turned over to their relatives or to those who had authority over them, that they might be punished in private’ (mulieres damnatas cognatis, aut in quorum manu essent, tradebant, ut ipsi in privato animadverterent in eas, Livy 39.18.6). Kunkel (n. 28), 224–5, recognizes eum cognita domi causa verberasse (‘that he tried the case in his house’, Livy 2.41.10) as the result of a domestic court, which for Livy did not require any further elaboration.

45 Donaldson (n. 1), 23.

46 Treggiari (n. 4), 265.

47 F. Prescendi, ‘Weiblichkeitsideal in der römischen Welt: Lucretia und die Anfänge der Republik’, in Späth (n. 11), 220. Freund (n. 20), 319, bases Lucretia's suicide on her own judgement and, in contrast to Verginia, attests her an active role. He goes on (p. 324) to call her suicide a lonely decision of her own. Similarly M. Fox, Roman Historical Myths. The Regal Period in Augustan Literature (Oxford, 1996), 293.

48 S. R. Joshel, ‘The Body Female and the Body Politic: Livy's Lucretia and Verginia’, in L. K. McClure (ed.), Sexuality and Gender in the Classical World. Readings and Sources (Oxford, 2002), 179.

49 B. Russell, ‘Wine, Women and the Polis: Gender and the Formation of the City-State in Archaic Rome’, G&R 50 (2003), 79.

50 Liebenam (n. 27), 916.

51 E.g. Doblhofer (n. 3), 13; Kowalewski (n. 3), 117. On Dionysius, Schultze (n. 3), 171.

52 Prescendi (n. 47), 217, and P.-M. Martin, ‘Livy's Narrative of the Regal Period: Structure and Ideology’, in B. Mineo (ed.), A Companion to Livy (Chichester, 2015), 259, assume the same source for Livy and Ovid.

53 Watson (n. 3), 167.

54 Kunkel (n. 28), 236.

55 Treggiari (n. 4), 265.

56 Ibid., 266.

57 On the advisory function of the friends in the consilium domesticum, see Watson (n. 3), 35.

58 Lucretia's motivation to let as many people as possible hear of her misfortune also contradicts the idea of a private-law consilium. Treggiari (n. 4), 268, for instance, notes that ‘it was more decent for women to be dealt with privately than by public trial’.

59 Watson (n. 3), 34; Kunkel (n. 28), 236.

60 G. Forsythe, ‘The Beginnings of the Republic from 509 to 390 bc’, in Mineo (n. 52), 315.

61 R. A. Bauman, ‘The Rape of Lucretia’, Latomus 52 (1993), 551.

62 Kunkel (n. 28), 240, 250; Treggiari (n. 4), 266.

63 Kunkel (n. 28), 233.

64 Ibid., 237–8.