Vestal Virgins, Sibyls, and Matrons: Women in Roman Religion

Chapter One

notes chapter one 1. For a survey of Latin literature, see Kenney (1982). 2. Plut. Rom. 12.1. 3. Bömer (1951). 4. Timaeus of Taormina in Sicily wrote a thirty-eight-book history of the Western Greeks living in Sicily and southern Italy (Magna Graecia). His description of the history of early Italy, including the story surrounding Aeneas, formed a basis for Rome’s foundation myth. 5. Gaius Julius Caesar exploited the linking of Iulus to the name Julius (Iulius). Thus, the divine ancestor of the Julian family (gens) was Venus. 6. There is a conceptual but not an immediate linguistic connection between penates and penus (food, provisions). 7. Verg. Aen. 2.776–789. 8. Verg. Aen. 4. 621–629. 9. In addition to Vergil’s account in the Aen., see also Justin’s Epitome 18.4–6. 10. Varro Ling. 5.143 and Robinson (1992), 5–32. 11. Livy 5.52. 12. Linderski (1993), esp. p. 56. 13. See Chapter 4. 14. Women who fetched water left the secure sphere of home and ventured into the unknown, the liminal. This was also the sphere of nymphs. Myths often recount that women fetching water outside their homes were raped. See Larson (2001). 15. Cato Orig. frg. 68; Dion. Hal. 2.67.4; Plut. Num. 10 and Mor. 286–287. 16. Quint. Inst. 7.8.3. 17. “[M]ilitary success or the safety of a city dependent on the sacrifice or voluntary self-oblation of a person of especially high value—the fairest Virgin in the land, the king’s daughter, or even the king himself. This might in origin be a quite distinct conception, since death rather than expulsion is here essential; but, if so, a contamination of the two forms seems early to have occurred. Late sources speak of virgin sacri- fice as a ‘purification’” (Parker [1983], 259). 150 18. Livy 1.9; Ov. Fast. 3.199–3.234 and Ars 1.116–1.131. 19. Ov. Fast. 2.425–2.441. 20. Livy 1.26. 21. Livy 1.34–35. 22. Livy 1.46.7: “The initial source of throwing everything into confusion was a woman (initium turbandi omnia a femina ortum est).” 23. Calhoon (1997). 24. Livy 1.57–59 and Ov. Fast. 2.720–2.758. 25. Cornell (1995), 293–313. 26. Cornell (1995), 293–326. 27. Livy 2.12–2.13. 28. McCarthy (1994), esp. 106. 29. Mitchell (1986). 30. Archer (1994). 31. Livy 3.48.5. 32. Cornell (1995), 313–318. 33. Bettini (1991) and Flower (1996). 34. Livy 34.1.3: “ne qua mulier plus semiunicam auri haberet neu vestimento versicolori uteretur neu iuncto vehiculo in urbe oppidove aut proprius inde mille passus nisi sacrorum publicorum causa veheretur.” 35. Briscoe (1981), 39. 36. Ridley (1997). Ridley implies that females (especially those of a young reproduction age) are more likely to wander and cross territory lines that males establish and are sometimes killed for crossing. Females not only wander across, but they mate with others. 37. Livy 34.3.1. 38. Voconian Law of 169 BCE. 39. Gel. 17.6.8. 40. Treggiari (1991), 378. 41. Plut. 31.26. 42. Polyb. 31.26–31.27. 43. Cornelia was the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the wife of Tiberius Sempronius , and the mother of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. Both sons were tribunes of the people who were murdered for their engagement in social reform in the 130s and 120s BCE. 44. See Chapters 3 and 4 below. 45. Hallett (1984) and Beard (1980), 14–15. 46. See Chapter 4 below. 47. Cic. Att. 12.18. 48. Cic. Cael. 63. The Latin is: “quadrantaria illa permutatione.” The quadrans was a quarter of an ass (the smallest monetary unit) and considered a token of minimal value (OCD). See also Geffcken (1973). 150 notes to pages 8–19 151 49. This Ptolemy was Cleopatra’s father and pro-Roman. In 58 BCE, he fled to Rome as a consequence of Rome’s conquest of Cyprus, which his brother ruled. Caecus served Roma as censor (312–307 BCE) and was one of Clodius’ and Clodia’s most esteemed ancestors. 50. Apul. Apol. 10, and for a list of modern studies, see OCD “Catullus, Gaius Valerius.” 51. See Chapter 5 below. The Bona Dea Affair (62 BCE) had caused the rift between Clodius and Cicero. In 58 BCE, Clodius introduced a bill exiling any...