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Public and Private Space and Action in the Early Roman Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2020

Susan E. Hylen Open the ORCID record for Susan E. Hylen [Opens in a new window]
Susan E. Hylen*
Affiliation:
Emory University, 1531 Dickey Drive, Atlanta, GA30322, USA. Email: susan.hylen@emory.edu
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Abstract

Scholars have often explained discrepancies in evidence for women's participation in the early church by reference to the gendering of public and private spaces. Public spaces were coded male, and when churches moved into these spaces, women's leadership was disavowed. This article rejects the usefulness of the public/private dichotomy as an explanatory tool, arguing that the modern sense in which these terms are used was anachronistic to the New Testament period. The overlap between public functions and space that the modern concept of the ‘public sphere’ takes for granted did not exist in the ancient world. Public functions often occurred in household spaces, and functions considered private also took place outside homes. For these reasons, scholars should look for new language that better describes the ancient patterns.

Keywords

New Testamentpublicprivatewomenspacehousehold
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , October 2020 , pp. 534 - 553
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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16 See, for example, Pateman, ‘Feminist Critiques of the Public/Private Dichotomy’, 281–303.

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19 On the Greek and Roman origins, see Habermas, Structural Transformation, 3–4.

20 For critique of Habermas, see Fraser, N., Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989)Google Scholar; eadem, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democrary’, Social Text 25/6 (1990) 56–80; Benhabib, S., Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (New York: Routledge, 1992)Google Scholar.

21 M. P. Ryan, ‘Gender and Public Access: Women's Politics in Nineteenth-Century America’, Feminism, the Public, and the Private, 195–222, at 195.

22 For agreement on the definitions of ‘public’ and ‘private’, see e.g. Winterling, A., Politics and Society in Imperial Rome (trans. K. Lüddecke; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) ch. 4Google Scholar; Russell, A., The Politics of Public Space in Republican Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) ch. 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 All Greek translations are mine unless indicated otherwise. Numbering follows the Thesaurus linguae Graecae.

24 For discussion, see Harries, J., ‘Servius, Cicero and the Res Publica of Justinian’, Cicero's Law: Rethinking Roman Law of the Late Republic (ed. P. J. du Plessis; Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016) 123–41Google Scholar, at 132–7.

25 See also Livy 39.42–3; Tacitus Ann. 13.4.

26 See Ramsey, J. T., ‘The Proconsular Years: Politics at a Distance’, A Companion to Julius Caesar (ed. M. Griffin; Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) 37–56Google Scholar, at 37, 48.

27 See also e.g. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 9.49.1; 10.1.2, 3.3, 48.2, 55.5; Josephus, Ant. 13.261; Artemidorus, Onir. 1.2.44; 1.4.; Plutarch, Lyc. 25.4; Fab. 14.7. See also Plutarch's contrast between Persian kings and the private citizen (ἰδιώτης ἀνήρ, Conj. praec. 16).

28 See especially Milnor, K., Gender, Domesticity, and the Age of Augustus: Inventing Private Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) 20–1Google Scholar; Winterling, Politics and Society, 71–2; Russell, Politics of Public Space, 191. For primary sources, see Pliny, Ep. 2.1.2; 5.3.5; Tacitus, Agr. 39.2; Hist. 1.49.

29 Fertik, H., ‘Privacy and Power: The De Clementia and the Domus Aurea’, Public and Private in the Roman House and Society (ed. K. Tuori and L. Nissin; JRA Supplement Series 102; Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2015) 17–29Google Scholar, at 17. See also S. Speksnijder, ‘Beyond "Public" and "Private": Accessibility and Visibility during Salutationes’, Public and Private in the Roman House and Society, 87–99; Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘The Social Structure of the Roman House’, Papers of the British School at Rome 56 (1988) 43–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 45–57.

30 For discussion, see L. Bablitz, ‘Bringing the Law Home: The Roman House as Courtroom’, Public and Private in the Roman House and Society, 63–76.

31 Bablitz argued that trials probably took place on the oecus, a raised surface within the peristyle of some homes. Bablitz, ‘Bringing the Law Home', 67–8. See Seneca, Controversiae 9.2.4 for the suggestion that a triclinium was not an appropriate venue.

32 Wallace-Hadrill, A., Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) chs. 1–2Google Scholar; Riggsby, A. M., ‘"Public" and "Private" in Roman Culture: The Case of the Cubiculum’, JRA 10 (1997) 36–56Google Scholar; Treggiari, S., ‘Home and Forum: Cicero between “Public” and “Private”’, TAPhA 128 (1998) 1–23Google Scholar.

33 Cooper, K., ‘Closely Watched Households: Visibility, Exposure and Private Power in the Roman Domus’, Past and Present 197 (2007) 3–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 21.

34 See e.g. van Bremen, R., The Limits of Participation: Women and Civic Life in the Greek East in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1996)Google Scholar; Hemelrijk, E. A., Hidden Lives, Public Personae: Women and Civic Life in the Roman West (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 See e.g. the Pompeii inscriptions honouring Mamia, CIL x.816; Eumachia, CIL x.810, 811.

36 Ward, R. B., ‘The Public Priestesses of Pompeii’, The Early Church in its Context: Essays in Honor of Everett Ferguson (ed. A. J. Malherbe, F. W. Norris and J. W. Thompson; NovTSup 90; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 318–34Google Scholar.

37 E.g. P.Oxy. iii.493, vi.932, xxxiii.2680; BGU ii.601, ii.602, iv.1097; P.Mil.Vogl. ii.77.

38 For discussion, see Sheridan, J. A., ‘Women without Guardians: An Updated List’, BASP 33 (1996) 117–31Google Scholar; Kelly, B., ‘Proving the ius liberorum: P.Oxy. 12.1467 Reconsidered’, GRBS 57 (2017) 105–35Google Scholar; Hylen, S. E., Women in the New Testament World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018) 67–8Google Scholar.

39 See also Livy 4.10.6, 15.8; 5.22.1, 23.10, 50.7; 10.23.11; 26.36.5.

40 For example, using δημοσίος: Dionysius, Ant. Rom. 2.6.2, 10.2; 3.22.10; 4.9.7; 5.11.3, 31.3, 69.1; 6.29.4, 30.2; 8.55.5; 10.21.6; Plutarch, Sol. 21.2.4; 24.2.1; Fab. 22.6.3; Cor. 20.5.3; Lucian, Sat. 24; Pausanias, Descr. 1.29.16; Josephus, Vita 200. κοινός was less frequently used in this way: e.g. Dionysius, Ant. Rom. 7.20.2; 8.70.5; Diodorus Siculus, Hist. 1.82.3.

41 See also Dionysius, Ant. Rom. 1.40.5; Artemidorus, Onir. 5.25; Chariton, Chaer. 3.4.7; Plutarch, Cat. Maj. 6.2.2.

42 For Latin examples, see Valerius Maximus 2.10.6; 3.2.ext.6; Velleius Paterculus, Hist. 2.19.3.

43 E.g. Dionysius, Ant. Rom. 9.27.2; Josephus J.W. 2.455; Plutarch, Num. 22.1; Publ. 23.4.2; Fab. 27.3.1; Dio Chrysostom, Grat. 4; Lucian, Demon. 67; Pausanias, Descr. 8.11.6; Lesbonax, Protreptikos A 19.6. See also Livy 30.44.10.

44 E.g. Dionysius, Ant. Rom. 10.54; Josephus, Ant. 3.233, 237; Plutarch, Cor. 37.4.6; Num. 16.1; Aelius Aristides, Sacred Tales 3; Pausanias, Descr. 8.41.6.

45 See also e.g. Dionysius, Ant. Rom. 2.62.4; 3.31.3; 4.9.8; 5.25.2, 40.5; 8.72.1; Dio Chrysostom, Rhod. 54.

46 E.g. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 2.3.3; 2.74.4; 4.44.2; 7.63.2; Josephus, Ant. 3.55; Aelius Aristides, Smyrnean Oration 232.22; Pausanias, Descr. 5.22.1; Artemidorus, Onir. 2.30.

47 Russell, Politics of Public Space, 4, 29. Russell also notes that the distinctions were sometimes overlapping. See ch. 5.

48 See also Dionysius, Rom. Ant. 6.90.3; 7.72.13; 9.60.5.

49 Russell, Politics of Public Space, 33.

50 Winterling, Politics and Society, 58.

51 See also Livy 8.28.5; 23.9.13; 26.9.7, 13.1; 39.14.2; Cicero, Verr. 2.1.80; Mil. 33.

52 Among hundreds of citations in this time period in the TLG, I found only a few where δημοσίος may mean publicly accessible space. These include: Lucian, Anach. 22; Fug. 18; Artemidorus, Onir. 1.8; Polyaenus 3.9.30; Chariton, Chaer. 1.1.16.

53 E.g. Diodorus Siculus, Hist. 12.41.6; 13.57.2; Philo, Flacc. 36.4; Strabo, Descr. 3.4.16.

54 See, for example, the inscriptions regarding Iunia Prokla, Iunia Theodora or Claudia Metrodora: Kearsley, R. A., ‘Women in Public Life in the Roman East: Iunia Theodora, Claudia Metrodora, and Phoebe, benefactress of Paul’, TynBul 50 (1999) 189–210Google Scholar; Ashton, N. G. and Horsley, G. H. R., ‘A Rediscovered arkhisynagogos Inscription from Thessaloniki, and an intriguing Iulia Prokla’, Tyche 31 (2016) 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar;.

55 See also P.Oxy. xiv.1758; BGU xiii.2350; P.Mil.Vogl. ii.77; and the discussion in Bagnall, R. S. and Cribiore, R., Women's Letters from Ancient Egypt: 300 BC–AD 800 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006) 81–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Russell, Politics of Public Space, ch. 4.

57 For discussion, see Russell, Politics of Public Space, 61–2, 189.

58 Osiek, C. and MacDonald, M. Y., A Woman's Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006) ch. 7Google Scholar.

59 For discussion, see e.g. Crook, Z., ‘Honor, Shame, and Social Status Revisited’, JBL 128 (2009) 591–611Google Scholar; Hylen, Women, ch. 5; Osiek and MacDonald, A Woman's Place, ch. 9.

60 In John, the dinner took place at Lazarus’ house, and it was not stated whether Mary, who anointed Jesus, resided in that house (John 12.1–3).