Fulvia and Octavia: the female warrior's and the matron's coins
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30827/floril.v32i.22240Keywords:
Roman women, gender, coins, propaganda, public activityAbstract
This paper aims to discuss the representation of two Roman women, Fulvia and Octavia, who were very different characters: the former was a model not to be followed; and the latter, a real matron. To work with this theme, written and material sources such as coins were used. It is known that Roman written sources were used to build hierarchies linked to an idealized discourse related to male domination. However, coins of these women were analysed in terms of what they wanted to communicate, especially the gender strategies built in their coinage, which suggested questioning how Fulvia and Octavia were presented to the public. To introduce the context in which these women lived, it should be borne in mind that, theoretically, the family remained under the power of the paterfamilias (patria potestas) at the period of the Republic and beginning of Empire. It was concluded that Fulvia and Octavia showed a female diversity in different sources, which were multiple constituted and took up multiple positions within a range of social discourses and practices.
Downloads
References
A. Ancient authors
APPIANUS (1477), Historia Romana – De bellis civilibus, Translated by Petrus Candidus Decembrius. Venice, Bernhard Maler, Erhard Ratdolt and Peter Löslein.
ASCONIUS (2006), Commentaries on five speeches of Cicero. Ed. with a Translation by Simon Squires. Wauconda (IL), Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers.
CASSIUS DIO (1925), Roman History. Edited by E. Cary. London, G. B. Putman.
CICERONIS (1918), Orationes: Pro Milone; Pro Marcello; Pro Ligario; Pro Rege Deiotaro; Philippicae 1-14, Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit Albertus Curtis Clark. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
PLUTARCH (1965), Makers of Rome. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert. London, Penguin Books.
SUETONIUS (1957), The Twelve Caesars. Translation by Robert Graves. Harmondsworth, Penguin Books.
VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, C. (1924), The Roman History. Loeb Classical Library. Available in: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/velleius_paterculus/2c*.html.
B. Bibliographical references
BABCOCK, C. L. (1965), «The early career of Fulvia», The American Journal of Philology 86: 1-32
BALSDON, J. P. V. D. (1962), Roman women. New York, The Bodley Head.
BARRETT, A. (1996), Agrippina: sex, power, and politics in the early empire. London, Yale University Press.
BARRETT, A. (2002), Livia: first lady of Imperial Rome. New Haven, Yale University Press.
BARTMAN, E. (1999), Portraits of Livia: imaging the imperial woman in Augustan Rome. Cambridge, University Press.
BAUMAN, R. A. (1992), Women and Politics in Ancient Rome. London, Routledge.
BÉLO, T. P. (2014), Boudica e as facetas femininas ao longo do tempo: nacionalismo, feminismo, memória e poder. Tese de doutoramento - Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas da Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas.
BÉLO, T. P. (2018), «Os estudos de gênero na Arqueologia», in P. P. A. Funari & V. R. T. Camargo (orgs.), Divulgando o patrimônio arqueológico. Rio de Janeiro, Bonecker: 31-42.
BOURDIEU, P. (1996), «Novas reflexões sobre a dominação masculina», in M. J. M.Lopes, D. E. Meyer & V. R.Waldon (orgs.), Gênero & Saúde. Porto Alegre, Artes Médicas: 28-40.
BOURDIEU, P. (1998), A dominação masculina. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil.
BRENNAN, C. T. (2012), «Perceptions of women’s power in the Late Republic: Terentia, Fulvia, and the generation of 63 BCE», in S. L. James & S. Dillon (eds.), A companion to women in the Ancient World. Malden (MA), Wiley-Blackwell: 354-366.
BRUBAKER, L. & TOBLER, H. (2000), «The gender of money: Byzantine empresses on coins (324 – 802)», Gender & History 12.03: 572-594.
CID LÓPEZ, R. M. (2011), «La matrona y las mujeres de la Roma antigua. Um estereotipo feminino a través de las imágenes religiosas y las normas legales», en Mª E. Martínez Quinteiro, D. Hidalgo Rodríguez & N. Cubas Martín (eds.), Mujeres em la Historia, el arte y el cine. Discursos de género, variantes de contenidos y soportes: de la palabra al audiovisual. Salamanca, Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca: 55-70.
CONKEY, M. W. & SPECTOR, J. D. (1984), «Archaeology and the study of gender», in M. Schiffer (ed.), Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 7. New York: Academic Press: 1-38.
DIELEMAN, J. (1998), «Fear of women? Representation of women in Demotic wisdom texts», Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 25: 7-46.
DIXON, S. (1983), «A family business: women’s role in patronage and politics at Rome, 80-44 B.C.», Classica et Mediaevalia 34: 91-112.
FISCHLER, S. (1994), «Social Stereotypes and Historical Analysis: the case of the imperial women at Rome», in L. J. Archer, S. Fischler, M. Wyke (eds.), Women in Ancient Societies. London, The Macmillan Press: 115-133.
FITTSCHEN K. & ZANKER, P. (1983), Katalog der römischen portraits in den Capitolinischen Museen und den anderen kommunalensammlunger der stadt Rom 3, Kaiserinnen und Prinzessinnenbildniss, Frauenporträts. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zanbern.
FANTHAM, E. (2006), Julia Augusti: the Emperor’s Daughter. London and New York: Routledge.
FLORY, M. B. (1993), «Livia and the history of public honorific statues for women in Rome» The American Philological Association 123: 287-308.
GARDNER, J. F. (1990), Women in Roman law and society. London: Routledge.
GERO, J. M. & CONKEY, M. W. (1991), Engendering archaeology: women in prehistory. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell
GIDDENS, A. (1992), A transformação da intimidade: sexualidade, amor & erotismo nas sociedades modernas. São Paulo, Editora UNESP.
GINSBURG, J. (2006), Representing Agrippina: Constructions of female power in the Early Roman Empire. New York, Oxford University Press.
GRETHER, G. (1946), «Livia and the Roman Imperial Cult». The American Journal of Philology 67.3: 222-252.
GRUEBER, H. A. (1910), Coins of the Roman Republic in the British Museum, v. 1. London, British Museum.
HALLETT, J. (2015), «Fulvia: the representation of an elite Roman woman warrior», in J. Fabre-Serris & A J. Keith, Women & war in Antiquity. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Universty Press.
HARVEY, T. (2020), Julia Augusta: images of Rome’s first empress on the coins of the Roman empire. London and New York, Routledge.
HEKSTER, O. (2015), Emperors and ancestors: Roman rulers and the constraints of Tradition. Oxford, University Press.
HEMELRIJK, E. A. (1999), Matrona docta: educated women in the Roman elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna. London and New York: Routledge.
HOWGEGO, C. (2005), «Coinage and identity in the Roman provinces», in C. Howgego, V. Heuchert & A. Burnett (eds.), Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces. Oxford, University Press.
HODDER, I. (1986), Reading the past: current approaches to interpretation in archaeology. Cambridge, University Press.
KLEINER, D. (1992), «Politics and gender in the pictorial propaganda of Antony and Octavian» Echos du Monde Classique 36: 357-367.
KLEINER E. E. & MATHESON S. B. (eds.) (2000), I, Claudia II. Women in Roman art and society. Austin, University of Texas Press.
MATIĆ, U. (2021a), Violence and gender in ancient Egypt. London and New York, Routledge.
MATIĆ, U. (2021b), Gender-based violence, in A. Austin and W. Wendrich (eds.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Los Angeles.
MESKELL, L. (1999), Archaeology of social life: age, sex, class et cetera in Ancient Egypt. Oxford, Blackwell.
MILLAR, F. (1993), The Roman Near East, 31 BC-AD 337. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
MOORE, H. L. (2000), «Fantasias de poder e fantasias de identidade: gênero, raça e violência», Cadernos Pagu 14: 13-44.
MOORE, K. (2017), Octavia Minor and the transition from Republic to Empire. A thesis presented to the graduate school of Clemson University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts History. Clemson, South Caroline, USA.
OSGOOD, J. (2014), Turia: A Roman woman’s civil war. Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press.
ORRIOLS-LLONCH, M. (2007), «La violencia contra las mujeres en el antiguo Egipto» in Mª D. Molas Font (ed.), Violencia deliberada: Las raíces de la violencia patriarcal. Barcelona, Icaria: 57-70.
PISCITELLI, A. (2002), «Re-criando a (categoria) mulher?», in: L. M. Algranti (org.), A prática feminista e o conceito de gênero. Campina: Textos Didácticos: 7-42.
POMEROY, S. B. (1975), Goddesses, whores, wives and slaves: women in Classical Antiquity, Berlin: Schocken Books.
PORTO, V. C. (2018), «O culto imperial e as moedas do Império Romano», Phoînix 24.1: 138-154.
PURCELL, N. (1986), «Livia and the womanhood of Rome», Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 212 (n.s. 32): 78-105.
RAWSON, B. (2006), «Finding roman women», in N. Rosenstein & R. M. Marx (eds.), A companion to the roman republic. Oxford, Blackwell Publiching: 324-341.
REVELL, L. (2016), Ways of being roman: discourses of identity in the roman west. Oxford & Philadelphia, Oxbow Books.
RIESS, W. (2012), «Rari exempli femina: female virtues on Roman Funerary Inscriptions», in S. L. James & S. Dillon (orgs.), A companion on women in the Ancient World. Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell: 491-501.
ROSE, C. B. (1997), Dynastic commemoration and imperial portraiture in Julio-Claudian period. Cambridge, University Press.
ROHR VIO, F. (2015), «Dux femina: Fulvia in armi nella polemica politica di età triunvirale», in T. M. Lucchelli & F. Rohr Vio, Viris Militaris: rappresentazione e propaganda tra Reppublica e Principato. Trieste, Edizioni Università di Trieste: 61-89.
ROLLER, D. W. (2010), Cleopatra: A Biography. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
SCOTT, E. (1995), «Women and gender relations in the Roman empire», in P. Rush (ed.), Theoretical Roman Archaeology: second conference proceedings. Aldershot, Avebury: 174-189.
SHANKS, M. & TILLEY, C. (1992), Reconstructing Archaeology: theory and practice. London, Routledge.
SYME, R. (1986), The Augustan aristocracy. Oxford, University Press.
TREGGIARI, S. (1991), Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford, University Press.
TRIMBLE, J. (2011), Women and visual replication in Roman Imperial art and culture: Greek culture in the Roman world. Cambridge, University Press.
TUNNER, M. (2007), «Foreword», in P. Brennan, M. Tunner, & L. Wright, (eds.), Faces of power: imperial portraiture on Roman coins. Nicholson Museum. Sidney, University Press: 5.
VON HAHN, B. B. (2008), The characterisation of Mark Antony, Dissertation, University of South Africa, Pretoria.
VOSS, B. L. (2000), «Feminism, queer theories and the archaeological study of past sexualities» World Archaeology 32.2: 180-192.
WEIR, A. J. (2007), «A study of Fulvia», Phd thesis, department of Classics, Queen’s University, Ontario.
WELCH, K. E. (1995), «Antony, Fulvia, and the Ghost of Clodius in 47 B.C» Greece & Rome 42.2: 182-201.
WINKES, R. (1995), Livia, Octavia, Julia. Porträts und Darstellungen. Louvain-la-Neuve and Providence, Université catholique de Louvain.
WOOD, S. E. (2000), Imperial women: a study in public images, 40 BC - AD 68. Leiden-Boston-Köln, Brill Academic Pub.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
