The Roman Household

1. The Roman Household Households and Domestic Archaeology 2007

2. The Roman Household

3. Who Made up the Roman Household? Immediate Family Slaves/Servants

4. Members of the Household • PaterfamiliasFather of the Family • MaterfamiliasMother of the Family • FiliifamiliasSons of the Family • FiliaefamiliasDaughters of the Family • Plus daughters in law, grandchildren • Freedmen, freedwomen • Servants/Slaves

5. Paterfamilias “Father of the Family” i.e. Head of the Household

6. Paterfamilias - Theory and Reality • Power over life and death. • Controlled estate, property of all the other household members until death. • Reality???? • Context! Individual Cases varied.

7. Reality • Sons could be emancipated (given their independence) • Emancipated son becomes a paterfamilias in his own right

8. ‘Familia’: family, household, estate (doc. 7.1) • Let us see how the word ‘familia’ should be understood, for it is understood in various ways, as it refers to both property and persons; to property, as in a Law of the XII Tables where it is said, ‘Let the nearest agnate (the next of kin on the father’s side) have the estate (familia)’ • The term ‘familia’ also refers to a collection of persons, connected either by their own legal rights vis-à-vis each other, or by a more general kinship relationship.

9. ‘Familia’: family, household, estate (doc. 7.1) • We say that a family is connected by its own legal bond when several persons are either by nature or by law subjected to the potestas of one person — for example, the paterfamilias, materfamilias, and son and daughter under paternal control, as well as their descendants, such as grandsons, granddaughters, and their successors. The person who has authority over the household is designated the paterfamilias… • We are also accustomed to use the term familia for groups of slaves

10. Patria potestas (doc. 7.2) • ‘The power of the father’ • Slaves are in the potestas of their masters… Similarly, any of our children, whom we have begotten in lawful marriage, are in our potestas. This right is peculiar to Roman citizens, for there are almost no other peoples who have such power over their children as we have…

11. Authority over children (doc. 7.12) • The Romans’ lawgiver (Romulus) granted the Roman father almost total power over his son, valid through the whole of his life, whether he chose to imprison him, to whip him, to put him in chains to work in the fields, or even to kill him, even if the son was already involved in public affairs, counted among the highest magistrates, and lauded for his zeal towards the state... 27.1 And the Romans’ lawgiver did not even stop the father’s power at that point, but allowed the father

12. Authority over children (doc. 7.12) • to sell his son, without worrying whether this permission might be considered as cruel and harsher than natural affection would warrant. And — what anyone who has been educated in the relaxed customs of the Greeks would marvel at as savage and tyrannical — he even permitted the father to make a profit by selling his son up to three times, thus giving more power to a father over his son than to a master over his slaves.

13. The XII Tables (451/0 BC) • 4.2 If a father sells his son three times, the son shall be free from his father. • Son could be sold into debt slavery a maximum of three times • If freed by the buyer, the son was returned to patria potestas until the third time

14. No Romans as slaves, 326 BC • Doc. 1.52 • In that year it was as if the liberty of the Roman plebs had a fresh start, for men were no longer to be imprisoned for debt; this change in the law was brought about by the equally outrageous lust and inhumanity of a single money-lender. • From now on by law only a debtor’s goods were distrainable, not his person

15. Father’s authority • Only one who can own property • Can allow son a ‘peculium’ or fund • Can disinherit children • Chooses their marriage partners • Can insist on children’s divorce

16. Emancipation (doc. 7.4) • All children, whether male or female, who are under the potestas of their father, can be mancipated by him in the same way as slaves. • A fictitious sale • Needed five witnesses

17. When could a father kill his son? • Treachery against the state • Incest • Cowardice in battle • For crime in his role as magistrate • With agreement of family council • Sons could be encouraged to commit suicide

18. When could a father kill his son? • Brutus, the first consul, 509 BC (doc. 7.14) • Lucius Brutus’ glory is equal to that of Romulus, since the latter founded the city, while the former established its freedom. While he held supreme authority, his sons attempted to restore the rule of Tarquin, which he had himself driven out — he ordered that they be arrested, beaten with rods in front of the tribunal, tied to a stake, and beheaded with an axe. He divested himself of the role of father to take on that of consul, and chose to live childless rather than to fail to exact public retribution.

19. An ‘imperious’ father, 362 BC • Manlius’ son had been banished from his city, home and household gods, from the forum, public view, and the company of his equals, and consigned to servile labour, all but in a prison or penitentiary, where this young man of the highest rank and son of a dictator could learn by daily misery how truly ‘imperious’ his father was. And what was his fault? That he was not sufficiently quick with words and not ready with his tongue! Should his father not have tried to help this natural infirmity rather than chastising it?… (doc. 7.15)

20. Wives killed by their own family • The Bacchanalia, 186 BC (doc. 7.16) • More than 7,000 men and women were said to have been involved in the conspiracy. More were killed than thrown into prison. There was an immense number of men and women in both categories. Convicted women were handed over to their family, or to those whose authority they were under, so that these could punish them privately: if there was no appropriate person to exact the punishment, it was inflicted by the state.

21. Wives killed by their own family • Publicia, who had poisoned her husband, the consul Postumius Albinus (cos. 154), and Licinia, who had done the same to her husband Claudius Asellus, were strangled by the decree of their relatives: for those men of severity did not think that in so obvious a crime they should wait for a lengthy public enquiry (doc. 7.17)

22. Women’s crimes • Adultery • Murder and conspiracy • Dubious religious practices • Drinking wine • Egnatius Mecennius (doc. 7.17) • An unnamed materfamilias was starved to death by her relatives because she had broken open the casket containing the keys to the wine-cellar • Cato states that women were punished by a judge no less severely if they had drunk wine than if they had committed a heinous act like adultery (doc. 7.18)

23. The materfamilias • Much of what we consider to be respectable the Greeks think to be disgraceful. What Roman, for example, would be embarrassed at taking his wife to a dinner-party? What materfamilias does not hold the place of honour in her house and circulate in full public view? Things are very different in Greece; there women are not admitted to dinner-parties, except for ones with just family members, and she stays in the more retired part of the house called the ‘women’s apartments’, to which no man has access unless he is a close relative (doc. 7.28)

24. Wives • If married by ‘manus’ were in their husband’s power • If married by ‘usus’ remained members of their own family and in their control • Her property then remained separate

25. Wives’ property • Marcus Cato spoke as follows: ‘To start with, the woman brings a large dowry; then she retains a large sum of money, which she doesn’t entrust to her husband’s control, but lends it to him instead. Then later on, when she is angry with him, she orders a slave of her own to follow him around and hound him for the money back…’ So, from that property of her own, which she retained after the dowry was given, she lent her husband money.

26. Wives’ property • When she happens to be angry with her husband, she appoints to dun him for it a slave of her own, that is a slave in her possession whom she had kept back with the rest of the money and not given as part of her dowry, but retained; for it would be inappropriate for the woman to give such an order to her husband’s slave, but only to her own (doc. 7.11)

27. Fathers and sons • Boys taken to senate by their fathers • Cato the Elder: Once his son was born, Cato considered no business so urgent, except government duties, as to prevent him from being there while his wife was bathing and swaddling the baby (doc. 7.21) • He was himself his reading teacher, his law teacher, his athletics coach, teaching his son not only to hurl a javelin, fight in armour, and ride a horse, but also to box, endure both heat and cold, and swim strongly through the eddies and surges of the river. He wrote his History with his own hand and in large letters so his son might have the chance to become acquainted at home with Rome’s ancestral traditions

28. TRADITION: Ennius (doc. 1.9) • On manners and men of olden times stands the Roman state • ‘the custom of our ancestors’ (mos maiorum) • Courage, austerity, frugality, duty

29. Plutarch Life of Cato the Elder (doc. 1.17) • The censorship • it had numerous powers including that of the examination of character and lifestyle. Neither marriage, nor procreation of children, nor daily life, nor entertainment of guests should be as each man should desire and choose, without investigation and examination, but rather, considering that these revealed the character of a man more than public and political actions, they appointed as guard, moderator and chastiser, so that no one for the sake of pleasure should turn aside and deviate from his native and customary lifestyle, one of the so-called patricians and one of the plebeians. They … had the authority to expel from the senate anyone who lived in an unbridled and irregular fashion.

30. Plutarch Life of Cato the Elder 3 (doc. 2.14) • (Valerius Flaccus) was amazed to hear them relate how Cato, early in the morning, walked to the market-place and pleaded the cases of all who wanted his aid, and then returned to his farm, where, clad in a sleeveless tunic in the winter, and stripped in summer, he worked with his servants, then sat down with them to eat the same bread and drink the same wine. ….

31. Cato on farming (doc. 2.17) • On cabbage and how it promotes digestion. It is the cabbage which surpasses all other vegetables. It may be eaten either cooked or raw. If you eat it raw, dip it in vinegar. It promotes digestion marvellously, makes a good laxative, and the urine is good for everything medicinally. If you want to drink a good deal and dine freely at a dinner-party, before dinner eat as much raw cabbage, seasoned with vinegar, as you wish, and similarly after dinner eat some five leaves; it will make you feel as though you had not dined and you can drink as much as you want.

32. The senatorial ideology • It happened that at that moment Quinctius (Cincinnatus) was ploughing some ground for sowing, and was himself following the lean oxen that were breaking up the fallow, without a tunic and wearing a small loin-cloth and a cap on his head. … The men who were there to escort him all greeted him not by his name, but as consul, dressed him in the purple-bordered robe, placing in front of him the axes and other insignia of his magistracy, and asked him to follow them to the city. He paused for a moment and shed tears, only saying: ‘So my field will be unsown this year, and we shall be in danger of not having enough food to support us.’ Then he kissed his wife and, instructing her to look after things at home, went off to the city (doc. 2.13, 458 BC).

33. Scipio Africanus’ baths (doc. 2.20) • Actually, if you only knew, he didn’t bathe every day. Those who have recorded the ancient customs say that they washed just their arms and legs every day, since those parts of the body gathered dirt from work, and only washed the rest once a week. Someone will say at this point, ‘They must have been filthy chaps! Can you imagine how they smelled?’ But they smelled of the army, hard work, and manliness!

34. Patron-Client System • Business/Politics/Society based upon this system. • Series of Patrons + Clients • Patrons gave financial/social assistance to Clients. • Clients gave Patron social/political support.

35. Where was the Patron-Client relationship expressed? Outside the Domus And Inside the Domus

36. OUTSIDE The Roman Forum Public Life + Place of Business

37. The Fora at Rome Forum of Caesar

38. The Republican Fora

39. Life in the forum c. 150 (doc. 1.7) But now from morning to night, whether holiday or working-day, The entire people and senators in exactly the same way All strut about in the forum and never leave it; And they all give themselves to one and the same passion and skill — To be able to cheat within the letter of the law, to fight craftily, To strive through the use of flattery, to pretend they’re ‘honest fellows’, and To set ambushes, as if they were all the enemies of all men.

40. Daily Life for Wealthy Paterfamilias Salutatio Morning visit of Client to the house of his Patron. Began at Dawn. Lasted for Two Hours.

41. Daily Life for Wealthy Paterfamilias Then: Clients Accompanied Patron to the Forum. Arrived by the Third Hour. Business was conducted for Two Hours.

42. Commentorium Petitionis(34,36) Author instructs Cicero to travel to the Forum at the same times, so that people knew when he was going and he could be followed easily. Client could have followed Patron for up to 10 hours.

43. Daily Life for Wealthy Paterfamilias Then: Business at the Forum was concluded by the Sixth hour. Followed by Relaxation and Social Activity. Baths, Dining etc.

44. Note! Official Business has ended by Early Afternoon.

45. Daily Life for Wealthy Paterfamilias Then: Dinner occurred at the Ninth Hour. Social Activity and Invitation at Patrons House - Very Important! Social Success + Importance for Client.

46. NOTE! Not All Visitors were Invited Invitation = Appropriate Status

47. Dinner Parties

48. Unlike the Greek World -Men and Women often dined together. NOTE!

49. Why is this Important? Roman Society was based around the Patron-Client system. Client gains Assistance and Acceptance. Patron gains Support,Authority and Higher Status.

50. Significance Houses performed a ProminentPublic Role Modern House ≠ Roman House