Tag Archives: commentary

stuprum (3.2)

The Woman Down the Rock, , One Comment

The unchastity of a Vestal virgin was a religious offence punishable by death. According to Plutarch, a Vestal virgin was first executed for incestus during the reign of Numa Pompilius, the mythical second king of Rome (Life of Numa Pompilius 10.4). Yet Domitian’s execution of three Vestals for incestus in 83 CE indicates that this practice was observed well into the time of the Roman Empire.

Rome’s longstanding fixation on the sexual purity of the Vestal virgins is rooted in their symbolic function as the total embodiment of the city and its people. Not only was their chastity held to be representative of the state’s moral character, but their bodies symbolized the inviolability of Rome’s walls and the strength of her society. It follows that in times of great violence, the Vestals were occasionally suspected of incestus and sentenced to death. Such was the fate of Oppia in 483 BCE (Livy 2.42.9-11), when Rome was at war with the Veii and the Volsci, and of Opimia and Floronia in 216 BCE (Livy 22.57.3), amid the throes of the Second Punic War.

For a more extensive discussion, refer to Holt N. Parker’s article on the sexual status of Rome’s Vestal virgins.

saxum (3.2)

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While unchaste Vestals were executed by other means (live burial, cf. the comment on ampliatur a iudicibus in poenam?), the Tarpeian Rock from which Rome’s most loathed criminals were thrown was itself named after a Vestal virgin who had betrayed the Roman people: in the days of Romulus, the ill-fated Tarpeia had opened Rome’s gates to the attacking Sabines under promise of gold (Livy 1.11). The Sabines killed her shortly afterwords.

de iudicibus (3.2)

The Woman Down the Rock, One Comment

Because the unchastity of a Vestal virgin was a crime against the gods, her case was judged by the pontifical college rather than the Comitia Curiata, which usually presided over criminal trials (Cic. Leg. 2, 9, 22). The collegium pontificum consisted of a rex sacrorum, multiple flamines, multiple pontifices minores, and a single governing pontifex maximus. A body of great power and prestige, the college exercised ultimate jurisdiction over all matters of religion. By performing public rituals, establishing rules for private worship, and administering religious law, it acted as an intermediary between the Romans and their gods.

Pompeius Silo

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Pompeius Silo

Although he is frequently cited by Seneca we know little about him. His name suggests he is not from Italy and he may come from Narbo or Spain (in the latter country the cognomen Silo is attested in a number of inscriptions). The family were clearly originally clients of Pompey the Great; the consul M. Larcius Magnus Pompeius Silo, who held the office under Domitian, may have been one of his descendants.

Argentarius

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Argentarius

A Greek rhetor and native Greek speaker, he declaimed in Latin when at Rome. He should perhaps be identified with the Greek poet Marcus Argentarius who is represented in the Palatine Anthology by 37 epigrams. Seneca’s nephew the poet Lucan married a woman named Argentaria Polla, who may be his granddaughter: she was very learned. Despite the fact that he was Cestius Pius’ pupil, he and Cestius hated each other: he used to swear by the manes of Cestius while Cestius was still very much living and Cestius called him his monkey (Contr. 9.3.12).

Albucius Silus

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Albucius Silus

Augustan rhetorician from Novaria in Cisalpine Gaul. Seneca the Elder considered him one of the top four declaimers he had seen, and describes him in the preface to Controversia 7. He studied as an older man in the school of Gaius Papirius Fabianus, under whom Seneca’s son Seneca the Younger also studied. Suetonius in his On Grammarians and Rhetoricians 6 has this biographical sketch:

Gaius Albucius Silus of Novaria, while he was holding the office of aedile in his native town and chanced to be sitting in judgment, was dragged by the feet from the tribunal by those against whom he was rendering a decision. Indignant at this, he at once made for the gate and went off to Rome. There he was admitted to the house of the orator Plancus, who had the habit, when he was going to declaim, of calling upon someone to speak before him. Albucius undertook that rôle, and filled it so effectively that he reduced Plancus to silence, since he did not venture to enter into competition. But when Albucius had thus become famous, he opened a lecture room of his own, where it was his habit after proposing a subject for a debate, to begin to speak from his seat, and then as he warmed up, to rise and make his peroration on his feet. He declaimed, too, in various manners, now in a brilliant and ornate style, and at another time, not to be thought invariably academic, speaking briefly, in everyday language and all but that of the streets. He also pleaded causes, but rather seldom, taking part only in those of greatest importance, and even then confining himself to summing them up. Later he withdrew from the Forum, partly through shame and partly through fear. For in a case before the Hundred [an ancient tribunal] he had offered his opponent, whom he was inveighing against as undutiful towards his parents, the privilege of taking oath but merely as a figure of speech, using the following language: "Swear by the ashes of your father and mother, who lie unburied"; and made other remarks in the same vein. His opponent accepted the challenge; and since the judges made no objection, Albucius lost his case to his great humiliation. Again, when he was defending a client in a murder trial at Mediolanum before the proconsul Lucius Piso, and the lictors tried to suppress the immoderate applause, he grew so angry, that lamenting the condition of Italy and saying that "it was being reduced once more to the form of a province," he called besides upon Marcus Brutus whose statue was in sight, as "the founder and defender of our laws and liberties"; and for that he narrowly escaped punishment. When already well on in years, he returned to Novara because he was suffering from a tumour, called the people together and explained in a long set speech the reasons which led him to take his life, and then starved himself to death.