How women participated in, and reinforced, Roman warfare during the middle Republic.

What is it about?

The Roman Republic of the fourth to first centuries BC was the high point of Rome’s military culture, and armed conflict at this time was framed as one party taking vengeance upon another for a perceived wrong. This framing meant that the war was just and in harmony with the gods. The exacting of revenge through battle was an inherently masculine activity, as combat in the mid-Republic was the primary means for displaying masculinity. Although the exacting of revenge was associated with masculinity, vengeance itself was gendered as female and was thought to have been part of the female psyche. The interconnectedness of male warfare and female vengeance at Rome meant that, while men did the actual fighting, women played a vital role in influencing males to perform their civic duty by service in war. Via the act of lamentation — a ritualised female mourning tradition — Roman women challenged men to take up arms in order to avenge the wrongs perpetrated by an enemy. The female lament, therefore, acted as a form of social pressure which persistently reinforced and regulated Rome’s culture of hypermasculinity.

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Photo by The Cleveland Museum of Art on Unsplash

Photo by The Cleveland Museum of Art on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The role of women in the martial and hyper-masculine culture of the Roman middle Republic has generally been downplayed in both ancient and modern writings, where they have most often been relegated to the status of victims or camp-followers. The paper seeks to dispel the notion that women played no role in Roman warfare and the creation of Rome's Mediterranean hegemony. It analyses traditional gender hierarchies during the mid-Republic and examines how the act of lamentation afforded women a voice in the normally masculine spheres of political decision making and warfare.

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