C Wealthy women and munera

Prohibitions on holding office, however, did not exclude wealthy women of high rank from contributing financially to their communities.

Euergetism (from the Greek meaning “good-deed-doing”) was the practice of public bene­faction by local elite families for the maintenance of the cities of the Empire. Men often performed these benefactions while holding municipal office, and indeed the ability and will­ingness to use their own resources for the public good were essential prerequisites to holding office in the cities of the Empire. The obligations (which might or might not be financial) of those who held public office were known as honores, and carried prestige. In addition, however, those with wealth and social rank were liable to perform munera (duties), which did not in themselves carry any prestige [Millar 1983; Sirks 1989]. Both honores and munera might involve public benefaction, such as paying for the erection of new public buildings and the repair of old ones, sponsorship of public games and entertainments, and the distribution of largesse to citizens on holidays and special occasions.

In return for these services by the wealthy elite, cities would honor their benefactors with statues and honorific inscriptions praising their munificence and their excellent qualities.

Women of wealthy, office-holding families were also subject to munera, the responsibility to pay for and put on performances, such as gladiatorial shows or theatrical groups, or other public entertainment.

D.50.4.3.3 (Ulpian): Their very sex prevents women from undertaking munera of a physical nature (corporalia).

It was customary for men running for public office to promise to undertake or pay for a show or other public benefit if elected. The following passage is from one of Ulpian's books on the duties of provincial governors. Its reference to the promises of female candidates for office presumably refers to situations in the Greek east, particularly the cities of Asia Minor, where women did hold some magistracies, unlike in the west [see van Bremen 1996].

D.50.12.6.2 (Ulpian): It should be understood that not only males, but also females, ought to fulfill any promises they have made because of public office (honores). And this is supported by a rescript of our emperor and his deified father (Caracalla and Septimius Severus).

The following case, from a book of Responsa (“replies”) by the third-century jurist Modestinus, records a promise in Greek by a woman, Septicia. It must be from the eastern Empire, probably one of the cities of Asia Minor:

D.50.12.10 (Modestinus): Septicia promised a contest to her native land, under this condition, that the principal (of the sum she gave for the founda­tion of the contests) would remain with her and she herself would pay the monthly interest of half an aS⁴ for the prizes of the contestants.

“Seeking honor,¹⁴⁶ I dedicate a contest to be held every fourth year, (using the interest) from 30,000 (denarii), myself holding the money of the capital and giving sufficient surety to the dekaprotoi (the chief magistrates of the city) for the purpose of paying the interest on the 30,000 in the customary way, with my husband as judge of the contests and presiding officer, and in turn the children that will be born from me. The interest will go to the prizes of the theatrical players, according to what the Council (Boule) decides for each contest.”

I (Modestinus) ask, whether Septicia's children (filii) can suffer insult (iniuria) from not presiding themselves over the contest according to the words and condition of her promise. Herennius Modestinus replied, in the event that the exhibition of the contest was legal, the form given to (Septicia's) promise must be preserved.

Septicia endowed a quadrennial theatrical contest for her (unnamed) city, with strings attached: she kept control of the principal and disbursed the interest for the prizes, and her husband and children were to preside over the contest. Apparently after the death of Septicia and her husband, the city tried to take the presidency out of the hands of her children, who then brought suit for iniuria.¹⁴⁷ The jurist Modestinus ruled that according to the terms of the endowment, the donor’s children should preside.

It is unusual to find in the Digest explicit mention of a provincial woman, and the verbatim quotation (in Greek) of her promise of munera. But there is extensive epigraphical evidence from the cities of the Empire, especially those in the provinces of Asia Minor, to show that many women did undertake these financial burdens.

This decree from the Aegean island of Syros honors Berneike after her death for her office­holding and benefactions, noting at the same time her fulfillment of traditional womanly ideals. Her role as archeine presumably resembled that of the male archon, and so would have involved leading public celebrations at the beginning of the year, presiding over sacrifices, and providing public feasts and hand-outs [van Bremen 1996, 130—1].

Pleket #25 (IG XII.5.655), 2nd-3rd c.

The Council and People decided; the opinion of the chief magistrates: Since Berneike daughter of Nikomachos, wife of Aristokles son of Isidoros, has led a good and seemly way of life in all respects, and after she became archeine she generously from her own resources discharged her duties to gods and men on behalf of the fatherland, and after she was made priestess of the heavenly gods Demeter and Kore and served as priest of the holiest of the gods and of the city in a chaste and worthy way, she died, having also borne and brought up children. (They decided) both to praise the life which the woman had lived, and to crown her with a golden crown, with which it is customary for us to crown good women. And the one making this proposal to us shall proclaim publicly at the woman's funeral that, “The People of Syros crown Berneike daughter of Nikomachos with a gold crown because of her virtue and good-will towards it (Syros).”

Like Berneike, Aurelia Leite of Paros was praised by her city for traditional womanly virtues as well for as her generosity and wisdom.

Pleket #31 (IG XII.5.292), c.300

The most remarkable and best in every respect Aurelia Leite daughter of Theodotus, wife of Marcus Aurelius Faustus the first man of the city, high- priest from his ancestors for life of the Augusti and the Caesars, and Kabarnos (priest of Demeter) and gymnasiarch. When she was gymnasiarch she constructed and restored the gymnasium which was worn out from the passage of time. The most magnificent city of Paros, her fatherland, taking honor rather than giving it in exchange for her many great deeds, concerning which it often voted resolutions, erected a marble statue of the wisdom-loving, husband-loving, children-loving and fatherland-loving woman. (in verse) The glorious Faustus fully honored Leite, his wisdom­bearing wife who bore the best of children.

Though euergetism was most firmly rooted in the Greek cities of the eastern Empire, the practice of local elites performing acts of civic generosity also took hold in the communities of the west. Here Junia Rustica (whose name indicates she holds the Roman citizenship) in the small town of Cartima in southern Spain, who holds a priesthood of the imperial cult, is honored in a Latin inscription for her munificence. Such priesthoods, and the promotion of the local elites who performed benefactions, contributed to the “Romanization” of provinces like Baetica in Spain [Mackie 1990, 184—5]. In this case, Junia Rustica also paid for her own statue and statues of her son and husband, all of which had been decreed by the town council.

CIL II.1956 (ILS 5512), later 1st c.

Junia Rustica, daughter of Decimus, first and perpetual priestess in the town of Cartima, rebuilt the public porticos, which were broken by age, gave the land for the baths, maintained the public revenues, placed a bronze image of Mars in the forum, gave from her own money and dedicated porticos for the baths on her own land with a swimming-pool and an image of Cupid, after having given a feast and having produced public shows. (She also) had made with her own money and gave statues that had been decreed by the town council of Cartima to herself and to her son Gaius Fabius Junianus, after having remitted the expense, and likewise a statue to her husband Gaius Fabius Fabianus.

color=black face="Times New Roman">The honoring of local women for undertaking public benefactions was not limited to the provinces, of course; see, e.g., the dedication to Abeiana Balbina (priestess, patron, and holder of the ius liberorum) in Part III.D.

It was important for the purpose of assessing munera on wealthy men and women to know in what city they owed munera. Normally, one performed munera in the city of one's birth (origo). Women, however, often moved away from their place of origin when they married and took up their residence (domicilium) in their husband's home. A woman who married a citizen of another city performed munera there:¹⁴⁹

D.50.1.38.3 (Papirius Justus): The same emperors (Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus) decided in a rescript that a woman seems to be the resident of the same city as her husband for as long as she has been married, and is not forced to perform munera in that place whence she takes her origin.

D.50.1.22.1 (Paulus): A widowed woman retains the residence (domicilium) of her departed husband, by the example of a woman who has been made a clarissima person through her husband; but both (residence and status) are changed if another marriage occurs.

D.50.1.32 (Modestinus): She who has been betrothed does not change her own domicilium before the marriage is contracted.

D.50.1.37.2 (Callistratus): It should be known that women, who have given themselves in marriage which is not legitimate, should not perform munera in that place where their husbands are, but where they themselves originated. The deified brothers (Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus) decided that in a rescript.

An example of such an illegitimate marriage would be that between a senatorial woman and a freedman [see Chapter 3, Part I.B]. It is the exception to the rule stated above, that married women perform munera in their husband's city.

Women were also liable for munera on property they had inherited from their father, in whatever place that paternal property happened to be:

Cod. Just. 10.64.1, 244-249

Emperor Philip Augustus to Claudius:

Malchea, who was born in one place but married in another, can be compelled to (perform) honores or munera which are connected with persons and which her sex is capable of, not at her own place of origin but at her husband’s residence, if her husband is not staying in the city of Rome. This has been often stated in rescripts. But it is necessary that women undertake the munera inherited from their father in those places in which they possess property.

Cod. Just. 10.42.9, 293-305

Emperors Diocletian and Maximian Augusti and the Caesars to Marcia:

Women also ought to undertake the munera they have inherited from their fathers.

This reply was probably part of the same original rescript as:

Cod. Just. 10.52.5, 293-305

Emperors Diocletian and Maximian Augusti and the Caesars to Marcia:

Our deified parents decided, on the example of males,¹⁵⁰ that women who have five surviving children are excused from personal ^w^ra, which are imposed on women according to the condition of their sex.

A law of Constantine relieved senatorial women of some inherited munera·. if their father had been elected praetor but had died before carrying out the obligations incumbent on prae­tors in late antiquity (which mainly consisted of paying for gladiatorial contests and the like), women who had no brothers did not have to undertake their dead father's munera. (Clearly, if they did have brothers, the brothers were expected to undertake the munera.) Constantine's law is no longer extant; we know of it from a later law of Valentinian¹⁵¹ which apparently rescinds it:

Cod. Theod. 6.4.17, 19 January, 370

Emperors Valentinian and Valens Augusti to Olybrius, urban prefect:

We have learned that our divine parent Constantine decreed that in the case when a father acknowledges all his senatorial munera when alive, and then died after being nominated praetor, and his survivors appear to be daughters, with no masculine offspring surviving at all, the women have no (necessity of) carrying out (his financial obligations as praetor). Therefore, since¹⁵² it happens that not only males are heirs to their father, but also females come to succeed by the law of inheritance, you should in no way excuse these same women from (the obligations of) the praetorship as well as the gifts, if they have become of full age or adults.¹⁵³ But you will take care to compel them also to sustain their paternal obligations according to the hereditary portion of individual persons. Though it seems unjust and dishonorable for women to advance to the purple stripe and the (senatorial) insignia, however they will be able to acknowledge the (obligations of) the car***narian praetorship according to the glebal tax on their paternal property.¹⁵⁴

Given on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of February in the consulship of the emperors.

Senatorial daughters as well as sons are responsible for carrying out their deceased father's munera, assuming that the daughters have at least reached the age of puberty. The law can be traced to the policy of Diocletian and his co-rulers, that women are responsible for the munera they have inherited from their office-holding fathers. Senatorial women are to pay for their status by performing munera, but are not to enjoy its perks (the broad purple stripe of a senator's toga and other insignia), which would be “unjust and dishonorable”!

Another law of the same emperors assigns liability for patrimonial munera to the daugh­ters of navicularii, the corporation responsible for the transport of grain and other essential supplies by ship to Rome and Constantinople [Sirks 1989, 109—11]. Such women were bound by their inherited responsibilities even if their husbands had obligations elsewhere:

Cod. Theod. 13.5.12, 14 May, 369

The same Augusti to Demetrianus, prefect of the grain supply (annona) of Africa:

If any navicularius has been able to obtain transferal of legal forum by the indulgence of Our Eternity, he shall be deprived of the enjoyment of his granted request.¹⁵⁵ But concerning the persons of women the statutes of ancient (emperors) shall be kept, that, in whatever forums it is decreed by ancient disposition that they have been enrolled, there they are to recognize the duty of their ship-master's burden. For just as it is fitting for the same women to follow the forums of their husbands in lawsuits and private legal cases, so in public obligations they ought to preserve the procedure of their birth-place (origo).

Given at Trier on the day before the Ides of May in the consulship of Valentinian, noble boy,¹⁵⁶ and of Victor.

A woman’s munera are based on those of her father (which she inherits along with his property) or of her husband (when she changes her domicile to reside with him). Legal sources generally discuss women mainly in terms of their family roles — daughter, wife, mother. A woman acting publicly outside of those roles, as advocate, magistrate, or judge, was not only a social but a legal anomaly. We turn now to legal sources treating women in their family roles — marriage, divorce, and motherhood.