fecunditas, sterilitas, and the politics of reproduction at rome angela grace hug

398 Pages·2014·2.93 MB·English

FECUNDITAS, STERILITAS, AND THE POLITICS OF
REPRODUCTION AT ROME

ANGELA GRACE HUG

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY
YORK UNIVERSITY
TORONTO, ONTARIO

DECEMBER 2014

© ANGELA GRACE HUG, 2014
Abstract

This dissertation is a cultural history of the role of human fertility – fecunditas – in Ancient
Roman society c. 200 B.C. – A.D. 250. I ask how the Romans chose to understand human
fertility, how they sought to preserve and encourage it, and how the absence of fertility affected
their marriages, their families and their political careers. It is an investigation of the place of
fertility in the Roman cultural consciousness. Using a wide range of sources – literary,
epigraphic, papyrological, juridical, and numismatic – I argue that the Romans conceptualized
fecunditas (fertility) not just as a generic female quality, but as one of the cardinal virtues that all
married women were expected to embody. A woman’s fecunditas could be evaluated and judged
according to how many children she bore, how often she became pregnant, and how many of her
children survived into adulthood. Although fecunditas was constructed as a female
responsibility, élite Roman men were able to take advantage of having a fertile wife. Official
benefits, such as those accrued by law under the ius trium liberorum, the rights of three children,
brought one level of honour. An élite man could also exploit the fecunditas of his wife to
increase his own social capital. In return, women of proven fertility were thought to deserve
conjugal loyalty from their husbands and ought not to be divorced. Infertility could lead to the
dissolution of a marriage. Fecunditas was not a private matter, nor were the members of the
imperial family, the domus Augusta, immune to its pressures. At all levels in Roman society
there was a strong interest in the safeguarding of the fecunditas of Roman citizen women, for
through them the strength of the Roman state was preserved. It is not wrong, I argue, to speak in
terms of a sort of fecunditas project, an obsession with the numbers of Roman citizens and the
importance of fertile women to bear more of them, which permeates Roman society from the
beginning of the Republic into the third century A.D.
ii
To Ben and Eamon
iii
Acknowledgements

First, I must thank my supervisor, Prof. Jonathan Edmondson, for convincing me initially to join
the Collaborative Programme in Ancient History (ColPAH) run by York University and the
University of Toronto, and for his guidance, support, and understanding over the last six years.
Particular mention must be made of his Herculean efforts in reading and commenting on the
entire dissertation in two weeks when I first gave him a full draft. I have benefitted enormously
from his wealth of experience and knowledge.
I would also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Prof.
Elizabeth Cohen, Prof. Andreas Bendlin, and Prof. Christer Bruun, for their helpful comments
and suggestions. Dr. Rebecca Flemming went well above and beyond the requirements of an
acting supervisor during my time at Cambridge in 2013. She read drafts of every chapter, not
just the one which I had come to Cambridge to write, and discussed them with me at length. Her
generosity with her time was very much appreciated.
I am grateful to Prof. Brent Shaw for agreeing to be my external examiner and for his
thoughtful and valuable comments on the dissertation. I would also like to thank the other
members of my examination committee, Prof. Jeremy Trevett and Prof. Tony Burke. The
dissertation has been much improved by the critical eyes of everyone who has read it. They will
not all agree with everything in this dissertation, of course, and any remaining errors are my own
responsibility.
I acknowledge with gratitude that financial support for my research was provided by the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Joseph-Armand Bombardier
Canada Graduate Scholarship), the Ontario government (Ontario Graduate Scholarship), and by
York University. The Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement, also awarded by SSHRC,
allowed me to spend four months in the summer of 2013 as a visiting graduate student in the
Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge. I am grateful for the scholarship
opportunities that allowed me to concentrate on my research.
Sections of the argument in draft form were presented as conference or seminar papers at
meetings in Toronto, Quebec City, St. Catharines, Montreal, and Cambridge. I thank the
audiences on these occasions for their stimulating questions and discussion.
I would also like to thank the faculty and graduate students who belong to ColPAH. It is
a truly collegial environment in which to work and I am grateful for all the support I have
iv
received. Special thanks to Prof. Sarah Blake and Prof. Allison Surtees for moral support when
things got tough.
I would like to thank my family for their love and support throughout this entire project.
Particular thanks go to my sister, Christina, my mother, and my father, who all stepped in to help
with childcare at times when deadlines loomed.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my husband and my son, who have
endured the demands my dissertation imposed on our family with good humour, patience, and
kindness. Ben encouraged me to go back to graduate school, never doubted I would finish, and
willingly took on more than his fair share of house and family responsibilities in order to give me
the time and space to write, even when that meant interrupting his own work. I could not have
finished the PhD without his unwavering support. Eamon has had to share his mother with the
dissertation for his entire life, but he has done this with remarkably good grace. He brought me
down from the ivory tower and reminds me every day that there is more to life than ancient
history. This dissertation is dedicated, with love, to them.
v
Table of Contents

Abstract ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgements iv
Table of Contents vi
List of Tables viii
List of Figures ix

Introduction 1

Chapter One: Human Fertility and the Roman Élite
Introduction 17
The Place of Children in Élite Roman Marriages 18
Voluntary Childlessness as Endemic in Rome? 34
Patterns of Childbearing among the Roman Élite I: Starting 46
Patterns of Childbearing among the Roman Élite II: Stopping 52
Patterns of Childbearing among the Roman Élite III: Spacing 61
Conclusion 73

Chapter Two: Gendering Fecunditas
Introduction 75
Partners in Conception? The Roman Understanding of Infertility 76
Fecunditas and Virtue 87
Reciprocal Obligations I: Fecunditas as Social Capital 101
Reciprocal Obligations II: Fecunditas and Divorce 115
A Delicate Balance: Hyper-Fertility and Gender Preferences 120
Demographic Outliers: Multiple Births 130
Conclusion 141

Chapter Three: Fertility and the State
Introduction 143
Fecunditas and the Roman State 144
Tyranny and Infertility 162
Rewarding Fecunditas 175
Encouraging Fecunditas? The Alimenta Schemes 187
Conclusion 190

Chapter Four: Fecunditas and the Imperial Family
Introduction 192
Exploiting Fecunditas I: The Julio-Claudians 193
Exploiting Fecunditas II: Later Emperors 202
The Benefits of Adoption? 214
Infelix Fecunditas: Fertility and the Julio-Claudian Women 228
vi
Conclusion 246

Chapter Five: Fecunditas Outside the Élite
Introduction 248
Fertility and the Non-Élite, According to the Élite 249
Concerns for Fertility in the Roman World 254
Anatomical Votives 260
Epigraphic Evidence 269
The Ius Trium Liberorum as Status Symbol 291
Conclusion 299

Chapter Six: Barren Unions: Infertility and the Roman Élite
Introduction 302
Methods of Coping with Involuntary Childlessness I: Adoption 304
Methods of Coping with Involuntary Childlessness II: ‘Substitute’ Children 323
Methods of Coping with Involuntary Childlessness III: Divorce 331
Conclusion 345

Conclusion 349

Bibliography 355
vii
List of Tables

1 Birth dates of Agrippina’s children with Germanicus 230

2 Inscriptions commemorating women who died in childbirth 273

viii
List of Figures

3.1 Aureus of Trajan, A.D. 103-111, with reverse showing Trajan reaching down to 169
raise Italy to her feet, with a child between them reaching up to the emperor
(BMCRE III, no. 404).
Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum

4.1 Sestertius of Tiberius, A.D. 22-23. Obverse shows busts of the twin sons of Drusus 200
emerging from cornucopiae (BMCRE I, no. 95).
Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum

4.2 Denarius, A.D. 112-115. Obverse has bust of Plotina, reverse shows altar and cult 204
statue of Pudicitia (BMCRE III, no. 529).
Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum

4.3 Aureus of Antoninus Pius, A.D. 149. Reverse has the busts of Faustina’s twins 207
emerging from cornucopiae (BMCRE IV, no. 678).
Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum

4.4 Denarius of Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 161-176. Bust of Faustina the Younger on the 209
obverse, reverse shows Fecunditas holding an infant in each arm; at her sides are
two more children facing left and right reaching up to her (BMCRE IV, no. 89).
Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum

4.5 Sestertius of Marcus Aurelius, c. A.D. 161-163. Bust of Faustina the Younger on 210
the obverse, reverse shows Faustina with her six children (BMCRE IV, no. 950).
Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum

4.6 Sestertius of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, A.D. 164-169. Bust of Domitia 211
Lucilla on the obverse, reverse shows Fecunditas, or possibly Lucilla herself,
nursing a child (BMCRE IV, no. 1199).
Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum

4.7 Denarius of Elagabalus, A.D. 218-222. Obverse has bust of Julia Maesa, reverse 213
shows Fecunditas standing left, extending right hand over head of child standing
right, and holding cornucopia in left hand (BMCRE V, no. 63).
Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum

4.8 Gold coin (quinarius) from A.D. 256. Obverse has bust of Salonina, wife of 214
Gallienus; reverse shows Fecunditas holding an infant in her left hand and holding
the hand of a child in her right (RIC V, no. 15).
Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum

5.1 Anatomical votive of a human uterus, Latium, 4th to 1st cent. B.C. 260
Image credit: Wellcome Library, London

ix
5.2 Anatomical votive of a human uterus, Latium, 4th to 1st cent. B.C. 261
Image credit: Wellcome Library, London

5.3 A votive offering of a swaddled baby, Latium, 4th to 1st cent. B.C. 265
Image credit: Wellcome Library, London

5.4 Epitaph for Veturia Grata (CIL VI 28753 = CLE 108) 282
Image credit: Clauss-Slaby Database (http://www.manfredclauss.de)

x