Cornelia mother of the Gracchi

Pietro Saltini (1839-1908)

Third quarter of the 19th century

Black pencil drawing on paper

GAM, Inv. 4909

In Republican Rome, the ideal female model was incarnated in a real-life matron who lived in the 2nd century BC. This was Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, and the mother of the famous plebeians' tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, as the inscription on the base of the statue that immortalised her - the first Roman woman - in a public place reads: Cornelia Africani f(ilia) / Gracchorum (CIL, VI 10043 = CIL, VI 31610 = EDR113975).

A rare example of a univira bride, since she had refused all offers of marriage after the early death of her husband, and a model of a prolific mother, Cornelia also represented the new perspectives that were opening up for the matrons of her time. In fact, she is credited with the creation of a cultural club in the villa at Miseno, as well as with the education and constant counsel offered to her children in their public activities, as testified by the fragments of her epistolary quoted by Plutarch and as recalled in the sentence Saltini used to comment on the drawing dedicated to this woman who was considered a model in the 19th century: “Cornelia, reprimanding her children for living a gloomy life, spurs them on to glory”.

Family tree

Daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia, beloved niece of Augustus, sister-in-law respected by Tiberius, mother revered by Claudius, grandmother honoured by Caligula and Agrippina the Younger, Antonia was a role model for her contemporaries. In fact, she combined the status of univira bride and devoted mother with that of patron of the arts and active promoter of the new regime established by her uncle Augustus, thus proving to be a full participant in the new possibilities that were opening up for matrons in the imperial age.

The Marriage of Augustus and Livia

Stefano Piscitelli

2021

Black chalk and acrylic markers on paper

Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 63:

Ex Scribonia Iuliam, ex Livia nihil liberorum tulit, cum maxime cuperet.

“(Octavian Augustus) had (a daughter) Julia by (his first wife) Scribonia, while he had no children from Livia (his second wife) he had no children, although he wanted them very much”.

Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 99:

Omnibus deinde dimissis [...] repente in osculis Liviae et in hac voce defecit: «Livia, nostri coniugii memor vive, ac vale!».

“Finally, having dismissed all (those present), [...] he died suddenly while Livia was kissing him and he said these words to her: "Livia, live in the memory of our union! Farewell!"”

The union between Octavian Augustus and Livia Drusilla best represents the many implications of a Roman marriage in the new political context: in fact, it sanctioned the peace between the young Octavian and the anti-Cesarean aristocracy, to which both his father and Livia’s first husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, belonged but it was also a strong human partnership. Although no children were born, the union lasted in fact more than fifty years, during which Livia was a listening advisor to her husband, who made her the symbolic figure of the first imperial family, providing her with public exposure and influence never before achieved by a Roman matron.

The Mausoleum of Augustus

Stefano Piscitelli

2021

Black chalk and acrylic markers on paper

Suetonius, Life of Augustus, 100:

Nec defuit vir praetorius, qui se effigiem cremati euntem in caelum vidisse iuraret.

"There was a praetorian man who swear that he saw the image of the deceased ascending to heaven while (the body) was being cremated".

The death of Octavian Augustus and the coming to power of Tiberius, Livia's eldest son, marked the real beginning of the dynastic system, a complex transition also considering the opposition among the imperial family and the aristocracy to the election of a member of the gens Claudia as princeps.

The succession was consequently made impassable by a complex system of adoptions, in which women played a central role: Augustus not only adopted Tiberius, but by will also his wife Livia, who thus entered the gens Iulia, by this time ennobled by the presence of two emperors - Julius Caesar and Augustus - and arranged for Tiberius to adopt Germanicus, the husband of Augustus' only niece still at court, Agrippina Major, a matron who together with Livia was expected to perform the task of uniting the two cores of the imperial family.

Therefore, if Augustus had already appointed in his will the two subsequent principes - first Tiberius and then Germanicus - he had simultaneously entrusted two matrons - Livia and Agrippina Major - with a fundamental role in the destiny of the Principality and in the management of the House of Caesars.

Mausoleum of Augustus

Étienne Dupérac (ca. 1535-1604)

Second half of the 16th century

Print

GDSU, Inv. 5017

The most illustrious members of the imperial family, both men and women, were intended to have their names on the Mausoleum erected by Augustus in the Campus Martius, depicted here in the 16th-century print by Étienne Dupérrac, which was one of the symbolic monuments of the new dynastic regime.

Upon the death of its founder, however, the Mausoleum was invested with a new sacredness, stemming from the fact that it housed the first divus, which would be followed by others, including Livia, who died in September 29 AD but was consecrated in 42 AD by her grandson Claudius.

While his son Tiberius, faithful to the mos maiorum, to the custom of his ancestors, which essentially restricted the women to the domestic sphere, had refused the many honours proposed by the Senate for his mother, the emperor Claudius, who came to power after the assassination of Caligula and without an official proclamation, tried to strengthen his position through his ties with Augustus, with whom he was primarily related through female connections. Especially thanks to her grandmother Livia, by then Julia Augusta, to whom the highest honours were then bestowed, including becoming a goddess, honours that helped build her value as a female role model for all future empresses.

Female sacrificial figure

Roman Art

Mid 2nd century A.D.

Greek marble

Uffizi, Inv. 1914 No. 131

Specific priestesses were immediately appointed to the cult of the goddess Julia Augusta, both in Rome and in the various cities of the empire. Based on the example of the female priests of the republican age - such as the flamines who assisted their husbands in their religious duties and the Vestals, the college of virgins consecrated to the goddess of the hearth, Vesta, whose status was superior to that of any other matron and subject only to the power of Pontifex Maximus - the flamen, in honour of the new divae of the imperial family, was an opportunity for the most influential women of the community to create a public space for themselves, and in return receive prestige and recognition.

This is, for example, the case of the young woman who was honoured with this splendid statue, which depicts her in the very act of offering a bloodless sacrifice over the flame of a candelabrum, a sacrifice consisting of grains of incense taken from the patera, the small bowl held in her left hand. In keeping with tradition, a flap of her long cloak covers her head and softly wraps around her hips, then falls from her left shoulder. The inscribed scroll allows this statue to be dated to the mid-2nd century, when many female divae had already populated the imperial pantheon and ample opportunities were thus offered to women who had the means to hold this office.

Divine rites

Stefano Piscitelli

2021

Black chalk and acrylic markers on paper

P. Clodium, Appi filium, credo te audisse cum veste muliebri deprehensum domi C. Caesaris, cum pro populo fieret, eumque per manus servulae servatum et eductum; rem esse insigni infamia.

“I believe you have already heard that Publius Clodius, son of Appius, was caught in women's clothing in the house of Gaius Caesar while the ritual sacrifice (in honour of the Bona dea) was being performed for (the) salvation of the (Roman) people and that he managed to escape thanks to the help of a servant girl. What a grave scandal!”

Cicero, Letters to Atticus, I 12, 3

Even in republican Rome, there were cults in which women could actively participate in the rites or that were even reserved exclusively for women. Every December, for example, sacrifices took place by matrons alone, assisted by Vestal virgins, in honour of the Bona dea, of which these drawings recount some passages, which nevertheless remain largely secret.

In fact, a deity embodied the life and fertility of early Rome, and men and even male animals were excluded from celebrating her, so much so that they had to be removed from the house where the ritual took place, because their presence could upset the goddess and compromise her beneficial action on Rome.

Violation of this ban was considered serious and could lead to public repercussions. This was the case, for instance, when Clodius broke into Caesar's house in December 62 A.D., where his wife Pompeia led the ritual. The scandal was immense - and the ridicule for Clodius, caught in women's clothes, as Cicero tells his friend Atticus, far from Rome - a scandal that led to the trial for impiety against him, and to Caesar's decision to divorce his wife, in the name of the dictates of the mos maiorum that demanded that a matron be superior to any possible suspicion.

City life

Stefano Piscitelli

2021

Black chalk and acrylic markers on paper

Juvenal, Satire VI, vv. 434-449

Illa tamen grauior, quae cum discumbere coepit / laudat Vergilium, periturae ignoscit Elissae, / committit uates et comparat, inde Maronem / atque alia parte in trutina suspendit Homerum. / Cedunt grammatici, uincuntur rhetores, omnis / turba tacet, nec causidicus nec praeco loquetur, / altera nec mulier: uerborum tanta cadit uis, […] / non habeat matrona, tibi quae iuncta recumbit, / dicendi genus […]”

“Even more annoying is the woman who, as soon as she is at the table, cites Virgil, justifies Dido, determined to die, and compares poet to poet, placing Virgil on one side of the scales, Homer on the other. The grammar scholars retreat aside, the rhetoricians give up, everyone present falls silent: neither a solicitor nor an auctioneer dare speak, nor even another woman […] I hope the matron sitting next to you does not consider that she has her very own oratory […]”.

Among the many accusations levelled at Roman matrons in Juvenal's famous Satire VI, the best known is certainly that of having lost their ancient modesty, an accusation to which many Roman men, such as Caesar in 62 BC, had appealed for a divorce. Other accusations were actually related to the recent opportunities opened up for elite women between the end of the Republic and the beginning of the imperial age, such as being too proud of their culture, to the point of competing in the ars dicendi with philosophers and rhetoricians.

City life

Stefano Piscitelli

2021

Black chalk and acrylic markers on paper

Juvenal, Satire VI, vv. 434-449

Although the matrons of the elite were in most cases rich and cultured women, thus provoking the outrage of many traditionalists such as the writer Juvenal, also in the lower classes women of free birth - the ingenuae - or freedwomen were active in society, where they were engaged in a variety of activities, as many epigraphic testimonies attest.

The female part of Roman society was able to make the most of the wealth and opportunities offered by the municipalities and the capital of the empire, often to the dismay of men. Rome was, after all, a real metropolis with a dense urban structure, in which it was difficult to regulate the traffic; a network of very lively and noisy streets, such as those around a popina, a place where one could eat and drink cheaply, like the one depicted here.

Relief with fabric selling scene 

Roman Art

Mid 1st century A.D.

Luni marble

Uffizi, Inv. 1914 No. 315

The capital of the empire, like the most illustrious municipalities, also sparkled with luxurious shops, which animated the meeting and strolling places of the rich and elegant people of Rome, in which the matrons of the elite were a central element. An example of this are two beautiful reliefs from the funerary monument of a wealthy merchant, which unfortunately remains anonymous, as the inscription mentioning his name remains missing. Thanks to the high quality of the reliefs, the two works portray vividly the activity of a cloth and cushion shop, with which the deceased wanted to decorate his tomb as a perpetual reminder of the professional and personal success achieved in life.

In this representation of the sale of cloth the men dominate the scene: the two shop assistants on the left show a large fabric, possibly woollen cloth, lightly draped, to a pair of elegant buyers seated on a bench, dressed in a long tunic and toga, assisted by a servant; in the centre, a standing man, perhaps the shopkeeper himself, appears to solemnly present the fabric.

Relief with cushion selling scene

Roman Art

Mid 1st century A.D.

Luni marble

Uffizi, Inv. 1914 No. 313

In the second relief, on the other hand, a matron takes centre stage (Inv. 1914 No. 313): the shop assistants, observed by a supervisor, pull a fine fabric, similar to that of the cushions on display, out of a container and show it to a couple. The status of the purchasers is defined by the presence of the servants behind them, by their clothing, but above all by the hairstyle of the woman, which echoes that of the empress of the time, Agrippina the Younger, wife of Claudius and mother of Nero, whose shoulder-length curls, elegantly and beautifully rendered, capture the viewer by focusing attention on the matron.

In this scene of everyday life there is an excellent synthesis of the female condition in the imperial age: on the one hand the normality of the presence of matrons alongside their relatives in social activities, on the other hand the pervasiveness of the model represented by the women of the imperial household, so much so that the style of the empress of the time cannot be disregarded in the female representation.

Agrippina the Elder in Germany

Stefano Piscitelli

2021

Black chalk and acrylic markers on paper

Pervaserat interim circumventi exercitus fama et infesto Germanorum agmine Gallias peti, ac ni Agrippina impositum Rheno pontem solvi prohibuisset, erant qui id flagitium formidine auderent. Sed femina ingens animi munia ducis per eos dies induit […]. Tradit C. Plinius, Germanicorum bellorum scriptor, stetisse apud principium pontis, laudes et grates reversis legionibus habentem.

“News had spread of the siege of (Germanicus’) army and the fact that the Germans loomed threateningly over Gaul; if Agrippina the Elder had not prevented the bridge over the Rhine from being destroyed, there would have been those who, out of fear, would have carried out this treachery. But (she), a woman of great courage, took on the duties of a commander in those days [...]. Pliny the Elder, historian of the Germanic wars, relates that (Agrippina) stood on top of the bridge to welcome the returning legions with praise and thanks”. Tacitus, Annals, I 69

The young matron Agrippina was invested with the prestige of belonging to the lineage of Augustus and of being destined to succeed to power as the bride of the future princeps. Plinio recounts the most surprising episode in her story, when the young matron arrived, in the absence of her husband, to take on the role of the dux, the commander, and was fully accepted by the army, even though there were other legates invested with military command at the scene.

The Death of Germanicus

Copy by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)

18th century

Painting, oil on canvas

Inv. 1890 No. 581

Agrippina the Elder’s strong presence alongside her husband engaged on various fronts was not only felt in Germany, when she came to the rescue at a critical moment, but also continued in the following years during Germanicus’ mission in the East. Here the future imperial couple quickly found themselves at odds with the proconsul of Syria, Calpurnius Piso, and his wife Plancina, close friends respectively of Tiberius and Julia Augusta, suspected by ancient sources of having acted on behalf of the emperor and his mother in this escalation of tension.

It was in fact a crisis at the summit of Roman politics, in which women once again played a central role, and which only ended with the unexpected death of Germanicus, who, at only 35 years of age, passed away in 19 AD after a sudden illness, surrounded by his generals, his wife and two youngest sons, Gaius Caligula and Julia Livilla,who were born during the journey to the eastern provinces.

A black story full of pathos, which represented one of the most difficult moments of the Principality of Tiberius, well represented again in the 17th century in the painting by Nicolas Poussin.

Agrippina the Elder with the ashes of Germanicus

Stefano Piscitelli

2021

Black chalk and acrylic markers on paper

Postquam duobus cum liberis, feralem urnam tenens, egressa navi defixit oculos, idem omnium gemitus, neque discerneres proximos alienos, virorum feminarumve planctus, nisi quod comitatum Agrippinae longo maerore fessum obvii et recentes in dolore anteibant.

"When Agrippina stepped from the ship with her two children, bearing the funeral urn in her arms, and with her eyes fixed upon the ground, there arose a universal groan, in which none could distinguish friends from strangers, or the lamentations of the men from the lamentations of the women; only Agrippina’s retinue, exhausted by their long period of mourning, were outdone by those who had come to meet them and whose grief was of more recent date".

Tacitus, Annals, III 1

As Tacitus masterfully recounts, Agrippina the Elder did not hesitate to use her husband's fame and the suspicions that weighed on Tiberius and Julia Augusta as the instigators of what was considered by many to be a murder, to channel popular favour onto her own children. She ensured their position in the succession, now officially centred on the couple formed by Tiberius' son Drusus Caesar and his wife Livilla.

The widow and her entourage arranged the return of Germanicus' remains from the East, on the way from Brindisi to Rome, as a very long funeral procession in order to show the Romans his descendants, three males and three females, as the most worthy heirs of Augustus' line.

Agrippina rescued

Stefano Piscitelli

2021

Black chalk and acrylic markers on paper

Once the 17-year-old Nero came to power, Agrippina the Younger's position became even firmer, given that in the first years of her son's principality she actively influenced his actions, in agreement with his tutor, the philosopher Seneca, and the prefect of the praetorium, Aphranius Burrus.

A partnership that soon ruptured, however, and, as ancient historians recount, drove the young prince to the idea of matricide, of which Tacitus recounts one of the most daring attempts.

At Neroni nuntios patrati facinoris opperienti adfertur evasisse ictu levi sauciam et hactenus adito discrimine, ne auctor dubitaretur. Tum pavore exanimis et iam iamque adfore obtestans vindictae properam, sive servitia armaret vel militem accenderet, sive ad senatum et populum pervaderet […] quod contra subsidium sibi?

“Nero, who was awaiting news of the crime, was told that (his mother) had escaped with a slight wound, but that the danger was such that she could not doubt the perpetrator. (Nero), dying of fear, feared that (Agrippina) would be ready to avenge herself by arming the slaves or raising the army or addressing the senate and the people [...] But what help could he hope for?” Tacitus, Annales, XIV 7, 1-2

The Assassination of Agrippina

Stefano Piscitelli

2021

Black chalk and acrylic markers on paper

The best proof of Agrippina the Younger's influence at court can be found in the ancient sources that recount her death and implicitly admit that the only weapon Nero could wield against this matron was a brutal murder, which Tacitus admits she was able to counter admirably.

Circumsistunt lectum percussores et prior trierarchus fusti caput eius adflixit. Iam in mortem centurioni ferrum destringenti protendens uterum «ventrem feri» exclamavit multisque vulneribus confecta est.

“The killers surrounded the bed and first the trierarch struck her head with a club. At the centurion who clutched his sword to give her the finishing blow she cried out, showing her womb, 'strike the belly' and she died from the many wounds”. Tacitus, Annals, XIV 8, 5

They are the last words that a great historian attributed to a matron who had managed to achieve a position of prominence in the imperial court, a position that a few years earlier would have appeared inconsistent with the status of women.