From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (2 page)

Despite this fear there was one area where the public, collective action of women was not merely tolerated, but was actively encour- aged.
Religious ritual provided the single public space where women played a significant formal role.
6
It is only in the domain defined and demarcated by ritual that we find
‘
ordinary
’
women acting formally, collectively and publicly sometimes alongside men, sometimes apart. Moreover, women
’
s public religious activity, far from being perceived as threatening, was sanctioned by the male establishment, even deemed vital for the well-being of the polity. In Rome, where religion and politics formed virtually a single cultural institution, women
’
s complete exclusion from one aspect of it and prominence in the other is noteworthy. Can the prominence of women in religion help provide an answer to the puzzle of their absence in politics? What can Roman religion
—
cults, rituals, festi- vals
—
tell us about Roman women? And how can we be sure that the image that a study of religion yields is not distorted?

The answer to the last question is of course that we can never be sure. But if the image of Roman women as seen from the perspective of religion is consistent with images seen from other social and cul-

tural perspectives, law say, or satire, or myth, the image acquires a degree of plausibility. To understand this notion by means of a metaphor, consider Monet
’
s studies of the cathedral at Rouen.
7
Monet produced thirty studies of the cathedral at Rouen. Each one is different, building on the artist
’
s experience, reflecting different light and shade from the different time of day. It is the same cathe- dral, but each representation is different; each study constitutes just one view of the cathedral. But each study contributes to the others and through them all, individually and collectively, we begin to appreciate Monet
’
s experience of the cathedral. A study of Roman women from the perspective of Roman religion is one view of the cathedral.

Roman religion, however, is not alone in its attempt to define and construct Roman women. There are other views of the cathedral: Roman law, for example, or Roman myth or Roman lyric poetry or Roman satire. What unites these different views into a kind of coher- ence is the concept of
‘
Romanness
’
. So I begin with the fundamental assumption that Roman culture, in the broadest possible sense of that term, is a system. Each aspect of that system operated in a differ- ent way but generated meaning within the same bounds and con- straints that affect all the other aspects of the system. Thus Roman women as constructed by their religion, for example, are recogniz- able as the Roman women constructed by, say, Roman law. Each is a different view of the cathedral.

That notion of a system must, for the moment, be taken as an arti- cle of faith. It is not susceptible of independent proof, at least not in a book of this scope. One way to test the hypothesis, however, is to approach the same question from a variety of perspectives to see if we are left with a reasonably coherent outline or with irreconcilably different representations. If the picture of Roman women drawn from religion is unrecognizable from the picture drawn by law or myth or politics even, then the idea of Roman culture as a system becomes hard to defend. If not, the idea is not only defensible but is very helpful in filling out the inevitable gaps created by the very nature of ancient historical evidence. Thus Roman law can provide clues to puzzles encountered in Roman myth, Roman myth clues to puzzles encountered in Roman religion and so forth.

My contention that Roman women played a central role in reli- gion goes against the grain of the current orthodoxy which would accord such prominence only to priestesses such as the Vestal Vir- gins, the
flaminica Dialis,
or the
Regina Sacrorum
.
8
The ordinary

Roman woman, according to this argument, was almost entirely excluded from active roles in the religious community.

The orthodox argument begins like this: Roman women, as far as their religious roles were concerned, were of two kinds. There were, on the one hand, the ordinary women who played very little part in religion and there were priestesses, who were exceptions to this rule. It was only the priestesses, female religious functionaries, that were important to the civic religion. However, the religious functions of these women were so specific, carefully defined and removed from the common experience of ordinary Roman women, that they can- not be subsumed under the category of women for purposes of analysis. Therefore women as a sex had no religious importance.

This argument is seriously flawed. The religious roles of female priestesses were indeed very different from that of the average woman. But then so were the roles of their male counterparts very different from that of the average man. The
flamen Dialis
and the
Rex Sacrorum,
for example, had ritual duties and obligations that set them conspicuously apart from other men.
9
For that matter the specifically religious duties of the pontiffs or the augurs or any of the other numerous male religious functionaries were also quite differ- ent from those of any other male. But nobody would conclude from this that men in general did not have meaningful roles to play in reli- gion or that their roles were marginal.

The orthodox argument then becomes circular. If women played a marginal role in religion, then the cults that they participated in must necessarily be marginal.
‘
[Women] were so thoroughly excluded from Roman religion that they frequented suburban sanc- tuaries and the temples of foreign gods, and
…
threw themselves into all sorts of deviant religious practice and thought
’
(Scheid 1992a:377). The temples of
‘
foreign gods
’
thus frequented by women included those of Mater Matuta, Venus Verticordia, For- tuna Muliebris and Bona Dea, for the rites of these deities were performed by women. These constituted the
‘
fringe
’
of Roman reli- gion.
‘
Women participated in the ceremonies of imported cults, those governed (in Roman eyes at any rate) by the Greek rite
…
. [I]n some cults
…
they mingled with slaves and others from the fringes of Roman society
’
(
ibid.:
397). This is an incautious definition of the religious fringe. One of the oldest and most revered foci of Roman worship, the cult of Hercules Invictus at the
Ara Maxima,
was by Republican times in charge of public slaves.
10
Its rites were con- ducted according to Greek custom
—
Graeco ritu
—
with head uncov-

ered.
11
But most significantly, this rite was strictly forbidden to women. The cult of Hercules at the
Ara Maxima
was exclusively a male cult. Men such as Sulla and Crassus were known to have partic- ipated
—
and participated spectacularly
—
in the rites, both sacrific- ing, according to custom, a tithe of their enormous wealth by feast- ing the Roman populace at the altar.
12
In charge of public slaves, its perceived Greek origins manifestly affirmed in ritual practice, this cult, together with the elite Roman men who participated in it, ought, within the terms of the orthodox argument, to be consigned to the fringes of Roman religion
—
surely an absurd proposition.

While no one has suggested that the cult of the
Ara Maxima
was marginal to the civic religion, the cult of Bona Dea is an accepted example of marginality. But we need to think again. The December rites of Bona Dea, nocturnal, secret, forbidden to men, might at first glance appear to exemplify marginality. Nevertheless this rite was conducted annually not in
‘
a suburban sanctuary
’
but in the house of a magistrate with
imperium,
a consul
’
s house
—
as in 63 BC in Cicero
’
s
—
or a praetor
’
s house
—
as in 62 BC in Caesar
’
s. Moreover, the ceremony was conducted by the Vestal Virgins, who belonged to the ranks of the priestesses who are widely acknowledged to have played a central role in the civic religion. Cicero described this rite as being
pro populo
or
pro saluti populi
. It is difficult to reconcile such a description with marginality.

In effect then, the orthodox theory boils down to an argument that women
’
s cults were
ipso facto
marginal. This is profoundly unsatisfactory for it renders the bulk of our evidence on women
’
s religious activities residual. Women participated in rites that were indisputably important to the civic system. For example, on 1 March, the beginning of the old Roman year, married women,
matronae,
performed rites to Mars Gradivus.
13
This was the same deity who presided over the
Salii,
male priests chosen from the elite, who with ritual dance and song paraded through the streets of Rome with the
ancilia,
or the sacred shields, one of which was the pledge of Roman power believed to have been given to Numa by Jupiter himself. One of the occasions when the procession of the
Salii
took place was on 1 March.
14
It is very difficult to justify an argument that would have the role of the
Salii
central to the civic religion, and the role of the
matronae,
in rites to the same god on the same day, marginal.

Women
’
s ritual activities extended beyond their regular duties at annual festivals. They were sometimes called upon to perform ritu-

ally at times of crisis in the state. Most of our evidence for this is in connection with rites for the expiation of prodigies. These rites var- ied in form, which appear to have depended on the recommenda- tions of the religious functionaries involved
—
haruspices, decemvirs,
more rarely
pontifices
. Sometimes they were performed by magistrates alone, sometimes by men, sometimes by women divided into the sexual categories of
matronae
and virgins, some- times by two or more of these groups acting together.
15
These rituals were often public, with the participants processing through the streets or from temple to temple. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that women
’
s roles on such occasions were considered less important than men
’
s. We are not justified in seeing them as marginal.

Nevertheless, although women did participate in the rituals and festivals of the civic religion, they were absent at the political inter- face of religion. Scheid is right when he says that religious power was wielded only by men. Where religion impinged on public policy women had no voice.

Public sacerdotal responsibilities were always exercised by men. Important public liturgies were presided over by magis- trates, sometimes assisted by priests chosen from among the people of Rome. Priests and magistrates shared the responsibil- ities of the res publica and formulated and interpreted sacred law. Only they were authorised to announce the will of the gods, determined by consulting auspices or the Sibylline Books. Together with the Senate, the magistrates examined any religious problems that arose and in consultation with the priests prescribed remedies
…
. Since the public religion was limited to these prescribed activities, religious power was almost entirely in the hands of these men.

(Scheid 1992a:378)

This is scarcely surprising for, as we know, women had no political authority, and in Rome priesthoods and magistracies often went hand in hand. Indeed Scheid
’
s words are a modern echo of Cicero:

Among the many divinely inspired expedients of government established by our ancestors, there is none more striking than that whereby they expressed their intention that the worship

of the gods and the vital interests of the state should be entrusted to the direction of the same individuals.

(Cic.,
Dom.,
1.1)
16

If women had no religious authority to make and impose decisions, it is logical to infer that women
’
s religious roles were sanctioned by men.
17
Why were women allowed
—
assigned?
—
public roles in reli- gion? One function of this book is to explore this question. The book is structured as a selective study of cults and rituals in which women played an important part. Each chapter has as its primary focus a single cult or
—
in
chapter 2
—
two thematically related cults. To an extent the choice of cults has been arbitrary, but they are all ones in which the dominant female role is defined by a male role which is sometimes overt, sometimes covert but always present if understated. It is in fact the male role in each of these cults that is critical to an understanding of the role that the women play. The cults I have chosen to examine are those of Bona Dea, Ceres, Flora, Venus and Vesta. I have examined only those aspects of the cults that are concerned with gender and sexuality.

Finally, I must briefly return to the idea of a system
—
this time my thesis is that Roman religion is itself a system, a complex network of meaningfully related cults and rituals. Polytheistic religions, includ- ing Roman religion, have by and large been treated as a congeries of separate cults and ritual practices. As Alan Wardman puts it,

[I]t is difficult for those who are used to monotheism or a theis- tic philosophy to detect any sign of order within this multitude of deities and divine powers. It seems at first sight to be no more than an anarchy of tradition and novelties.