C The guardianship of women in the Roman East
Gaius tells us that non-Roman women in the provinces, while not subject to the same tutela as Roman women, nevertheless “often are in a sort of tutela' [Institutes I.193; see III.A].
His statement is borne out by evidence from non-legal, non-literary sources: inscriptions from Asia Minor and Greece and documents on papyri and other material from Egypt and the Near East.In the ancient Greek cities on either side of the Aegean, the institution of such a guardian, called a kyrios (“lord”), went back many centuries. Before she was married, a woman's kyrios was her father; after marriage, her husband was kyrios (whereas the husband of a Roman woman would not be her tutor). If her husband died, her son or another male relative would take over the role of kyrios. Many inscriptions commemorating public actions by women, including sales, gifts to cities or associations, and legal transactions, state that the woman was acting “with kyrios” (adding the name of the kyrios), implying that his consent was necessary for the action to be valid [van Bremen 1996, 217—25].
Women in Roman Egypt also had kyrioi, the custom having been brought to Egypt by Greek settlers in the wake of Alexander's conquest. Again, the kyrios was usually a husband or a close male relative such as her father, brother, or son. The approval of the kyrios was required in certain types of written agreements and in legal proceedings, including some which did not require a tutor's approval under Roman law [Taubenschlag 1955, 170—8; 1959, 353—77; Arjava 1996, 118-23; Arjava 1997].
Guardians are also mentioned in documents from the Jewish communities of the Roman provinces of Judaea and Arabia that are written in Greek (but not those written in Aramaic or Nabatean).
In these documents the guardian is called an epitropos, the word used for the guardian of a fatherless orphan in Egypt and the Aegean, and also for the guardian of a minor in the Jewish documents. Normally a woman's epitropos was her husband, unless he was himself a party to the transaction [Cotton 1997]. The presence of a woman's epitropos is noted in legal proceedings and marriage contracts of the Babatha archive [P.Yadin 14 and 20; see further Chapter 2, Part III.B and Chapter 5, Part II.B.2], and also appears in a recently published marriage contract from Judaea [Cotton 1994].No kyrios (or epitropos) is mentioned in legal documents found at the Roman military outpost of Dura Europos on the Euphrates River in which women are active participants. This led the editors of the Dura documents to suggest that unlike women elsewhere in the Roman East, women at Dura were free of male guardianship [Welles, Fink and Gilliam 1959, 12 and 151]. However, a recently published parchment document from the Middle Euphrates area, not far from Dura, mentions a woman who claimed to have the ius liberorum, the “right of children” which freed mothers of three children from guardianship [P.Euphr. 15; on the ius liberorum, see III.D]. This suggests the existence of the Roman tutela mulierum in this area the first half of the third century, when the Dura and Middle Euphrates documents are dated.26
We can conclude that the institution of lifelong guardianship of women was known throughout the eastern half of the Roman Empire, where the guardian was usually the husband or a close male relative. The consent of the guardian was necessary to validate certain legal and financial activities to which women were parties, though the actions which required a guardian seem to have varied somewhat according to region.
This guardianship was similar in many respects to the Roman tutela mulierum, except that the Roman tutor was not usually the husband nor, after Claudius' abolition of agnate tutela, was he necessarily a relative. The fact that after the mid-first century, a Roman woman's tutor often was not a family member and might be someone in a dependent relationship to her, such as her former slave, suggests that Roman women may have had more independence of action than their eastern sisters. Nevertheless, as recent studies have pointed out, male control or influence over women's actions could come from other sources, particularly within the family, whether or not such males were actually designated as “guardian” [van Bremen 1996; Beaucamp 1992; see Part III.E].In addition to many documents in which women are mentioned as acting with (or without) a guardian in various transactions, we also have from Egypt a number of requests to officials from women, both Roman citizens and non-citizens, asking that a particular guardian be appointed for them.
The following petition from the town of Oxyrhynchus is dated before the Edict of Caracalla granted Roman citizenship to virtually all free inhabitants of the Empire.27 It is in Greek, and from a woman who is not a Roman citizen and who needs a kyrios in order to borrow money. If a woman in Egypt who was not a Roman citizen did not have a kyrios (perhaps because she was a widow without grown male children) and wanted to transact a matter requiring a kyrios' approval, she would request a kyrios for that one transaction. Though the body of the petition was written by someone else (probably a professional scribe), Tabesammon, who explicitly says that she is literate, signed it herself.
Petitions for assignment of a kyrios were sent to a regional official, the strategos of the nome (district) where the woman lived, or his deputy, the “royal scribe” (basilikos grammateus).
In the absence of both these officials, Tabesammon has addressed her request to a municipal official, the exegetes.P.Oxy. I.56, 211 C.E.28
To Maximus, priest, exegetes in office, town councillor, from Tabesammon, daughter of Ammonios also known as Cassius, from the city of Oxyrhynchus, her mother being Diophantis, a citizen.29 Borrowing for my essential needs money at interest to the sum of six thousand drachmas, upon the security of a vineyard belonging to me near the village of Sinarou and all things appertaining to it, knowing letters, I request of you — due to the fact that the acting strategos, the royal scribe, is not present — that Amoitas son of Ploution, his mother being Demetrous, from the afore-mentioned city of Oxyrhynchus, who is present and consents, be registered as my kyrios for this transaction only. I have paid the established tax for this request.30
size=2 color=black face="Times New Roman">Year 20 of the Emperors Caesars Lucius Septimius Severus Pius Pertinax Arabicus Adiabenicus Parthicus Maximus and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Pius the Augusti [and Publius Septimius Geta]31 the Caesar Augustus, Phaophi 30.
(in another hand) I, Tabesammon daughter of Ammonios, have presented this.
(in a third hand) I, Amoitas son of Ploution, [consent].
Roman citizen women living in Egypt, like Roman women elsewhere, were supposed to have a tutor (called a kyrios in Egypt) on a permanent basis, unless they were still under patria potestas or had been released from the need for a tutor by the ius liberorum. The Julian and Titian law (lex Iulia et Titia), enacted in the mid-first century B.C.E., gave provincial governors the power to appoint guardians [Gaius, Inst I.185, in III.A; Rules of Ulpian 11.18].
Several petitions from Roman citizen women requesting as kyrios a man of their own choosing survive from second- and third-century Egypt [Modrzejewski 1974].In the following petition (also from Oxyrhynchus) on papyrus to the prefect (governor) of Egypt, Aurelia Arsinoe asks that Aurelius Herminus be appointed as her kyrios. The petition is dated 21 May, 245, some years after the Edict of Caracalla, and so both Aurelia Arsinoe and the man she requests as kyrios are Roman citizens.32 Like most women (and men) in antiquity, she was illiterate; someone else signs for her “since she does not know letters” — a standard phrase found on many documents from Roman Egypt.33
The prefect of Egypt probably received thousands of petitions each year, both while he was in residence at Alexandria and when he was conducting his assizes (conventus) elsewhere in the province [Lewis 1983, 185—95]. These petitions were pasted together in long papyrus rolls and kept in the prefect's office. This papyrus is not the original, but a copy made in the prefect's office, presumably for Aurelia Arsinoe to keep for herself. It preserves the petition, which was written in Latin, a Greek translation, and the prefect's subscription — that is, his response and official signature, written below the petition. It also records the number of the sheet and of the papyrus roll in which the original was pasted for storage in the prefect's archives. The text is fragmentary, but can be reconstructed from similar documents (e.g., P.Oxy. IV.720, written two years later to the same prefect; P.Oxy. XXXIV.2710; and SB III.6223, below).34
P.Oxy. XII.1466, 245 C.E.
[in Latin] To Valerius Firmus, prefect of Egypt, from Aurelia Arsinoe.
I ask, lord [that you give to me as guardian, according to the Julian and Titian law and the decree of the Senate,35 Aurelius] Erminus.(in Greek) Year 2 Pachon 26. Sheet 94, Roll 1.36
(in Greek) Translation of the Latin:
(in Greek, in another hand)
To Valerius Firmus, prefect of Egypt from [Aurelia Arsinoe. I ask, lord, to give to me] as registered guardian according to the Julian and [Titian] law [according to the decree of the Senate, Aurelios Herminos. It was presented?] on the twelfth day before the Kalends of June in the consulship of Emperor [Philip Augustus and Titianus].
I, Aurelia Arsinoe, daughter of Sarapion [have presented this, asking that Aurelius Hermin]os be registered as my guardian.
I, Aurelius Tima[genes... wrote this on her behalf] since she does not know letters. I, Aurelius Herminos son of Dionysios [consent to the request. Year 2, Pachon 26?]
(in Greek, perhaps in another hand) Unless you have the right to another guardian,37 [I give you as guardian] the one whom [you request].
The preceding examples were on papyri. A clffeerenr medium, rhe wax tablet, was used for the following document, which recorded the assignment of a guardian by the prefect of Egypt.38 This was a diptych, with two wooden leaves (A and B) fastened together to form four pages (two exterior and two interior; the interior had a wax surface on which to write). The fourth page (the exterior of B) had the names in Latin of seven witnesses, all Roman citizen males (including C. Terentius Sarapammon, who had requested the tutor), and (in a different hand) the beginning of the same text as on the interior pages, which continued on the first page (the exterior of A). “Double documents” such as this are rare in Roman Egypt, almost all in Latin and from official Roman circles, but are found elsewhere in the Middle East, such as the Babatha archive from the “Cave of Letters” on the Dead Sea [see Lewis 1989, 6—10].
SB III.6223 (inner text only), 198 C.E.
size=2 color=black face="Times New Roman">(On the two interior pages:)
(in Latin) Q. Aemilius Saturninus, prefect of Egypt, with C. Terentius Sarapammon bringing the request,39 gave as tutor to Mevia Dionysarion, according to the Julian and Titian law and the decree of the Senate, M. Julius Alexander, provided that tutela does not pass from a legitimate tutor.40 D. E. R. E. E. B. T. S. S. 41
Transacted at Alexandria in Egypt on the ninth day before the Kalends of October in the consulship of Saturninus and Gallus, in the seventh year of the Emperors Caesars L. Septimius Severus Pius Pertinax Arabicus Adiabenicus Parthicus Maximus and M. Aurelius Antoninus the Augusti, in the month Thot on day 26.42
(in another hand, in Greek) I, Mevia Dionysarion, have requested as registered (guardian) Julius Alexander, as above. I, Gaius Julius Heraklas, have written on her behalf as she does not know letters.
The outer leaves of the diptych (see above) have the same text as the inner leaves, and the names of seven witnesses.