Caecilia, Calpurnia, and Their Dreams of Political Importance. Patterns of Constructing Gender Relations and Female Scope for Action in Ancient Roman Sources

• Main Author: Anna Katharina Romund
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Athens Institute for Education and Research 2018-04-01
• Series: Athens Journal of History
• Online Access: https://www.athensjournals.gr/history/2018-4-2-3-Romund.pdf

During the crisis of the Roman Republic, ancient sources mention a number of political interventions by women. The paper at hand seeks to investigate two of these occurences in which dreams motivated women to play an active role in political affairs. Cicero and Julius Obsequens report the dream of Caecilia Metella that instigated the repair of the temple of Juno Sospita in 90 BC. Nicolaus of Damascus, Velleius Paterculus, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch, Suetonius, Appian, Cassius Dio, and, again, Obsequens cover the dream of Caesar's wife Calpurnia in their works. According to them, the dream drove her to save Caesar from the imminent assassination in 44 BC. If we aim for a better understanding of the growing female scope for action, we will need to systematically analyse ancient authors’ personal conceptions of gender relations in a comparative way. Therefore, my paper examines the reports on Caecilia and Calpurnia in order to find recurring patterns that reflect the writers’ ideas of gender relations and gender hierarchies. A three-step analysis scheme will be created. 1) The model regards family roles as an indicator of the gender relationship discussed by the author. 2) The verbal or non-verbal mode of the woman’s intervention, whether of strong or weak intensity, mirrors the options of female action depending on that specific relationship. Furthermore, this relationship is defined by means of the depicted reaction attributed to the addressee. 3) The reactions of the contemporaries or authorial commentaries display the author’s attitude towards the female intervention. In addition, an ascription of affective emotions to the intervening woman correlates with a writer’s disapproval.