Hortensia, primera oradora romana

Abstract

In Rome, the oratory written by women is considered absolutely extraordinary, occasional and very late produced. In this paper the reasons of the non existance in Rome of women orators till I century B. C. is explained, being the main one the placement of women to secondary roles concerning civil rights; so the absence of Roman women in judicial and political oratory till well advanced I century B. C., is another consequence of the silence to what they have been always condemned till present times. In spite of this, at the end of republican times three women orators appear in Roman society, Hortensia, Mesia and Carfania, and at that moment there was a clear tendency to broad the rights of women, but it seems difficult to apply the label of "emacipation" to that period. The very best known was Hortensia, whose personality and performance as woman orator is studied in detail in this article, based in ancient sources that mention her, namely Appian (Roman History IV 32-34) The figure of Hortensia, in future centuries was redorded in De mulieribus claribus by Giovanni Boccaccio (circa 1361) and in Libro de las virtuosas é claras mujeres by Don Alvaro de Luna (1446). But she has always been injustly silenced in Latin literature hand-books.