Personification and the Feminine in Roman Philosophy by Alex Dressler (review)

Personification and the Feminine in Roman Philosophy offers a new way to think about women in Roman texts. Dressler argues that figurative language in Roman philosophy reveals the dependency of the Roman man on the women whom Roman society subordinated and marginalized. Roman philosophers express this dependency through metaphor, in which both personified feminine nouns (e.g., natura, nature) and female figures (mothers and nurses) play a central role. In Dressler's reading, Roman philosophy admits that vulnerability and the need for others can be positive values, or at least necessary ones. Drawing on these concepts, which contradict the familiar masculine ideals of ancient Rome, Dressler traces a dialogue between Roman philosophers and radical feminist theorists (11–13). While not all readers will be persuaded, it is stimulating to look at Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, and Augustine through this lens. (Full disclosure: Dressler shared the manuscript with me when it was in press, so I came to it already interested in his approach.) This book is frequently a challenging read, but it repays the effort.

In the introduction, Dressler argues that feminine personifications give us access to moments when Roman philosophers, even if in spite of themselves, were able "to think differently" (17) about their world and their relations with others, namely others whom they oppressed. Chapters 1 and 2 lay out terminology and concepts key to the larger argument, such as "ownness": the awareness of one's own self and the acknowledgment of others (family, friends, fellow-citizens, all of humanity) as "one's own." Dressler makes a compelling case that ownness, or oikeiôsis in Stoic thought, is fundamental to Roman philosophy generally, not limited to a particular school (chapter 1). A key aspect of ownness is recognizing the other in the self (40): when Seneca reflects on his young wife's concern for him (Ep. 104.2), he suggests that she is present in his own self (33–34). But which others does this woman, as an Other in ancient Rome, recognize in her self? Is her experience of ownness the same as her husband's, or does Roman philosophy allow for women to have distinct experiences of the other in the self? These questions merit further consideration, especially because ancient women may have read philosophy (83), and because Catullus' adaptations of Sappho are pivotal in Dressler's discussion of personhood (65–68).

The next four chapters attend to the place of women and the feminine in Roman philosophical accounts of ownness and personhood. Chapter 3 draws out the significance of mothers and nurses in Stoic theories of ownness, which begin in babyhood and are rooted in the baby's attachment to caregivers. Chapter 4 discusses feminine personifications in Lucretius' treatment of the acquisition of personhood. Chapter 5, elaborating on the presence of others in the self, turns to Seneca on self-care, a practice made possible by the women and slaves who cared for the Roman philosopher (169). Chapter 6 examines ownness and ownership in Cicero's On Duties, with particular attention to private property (marked as masculine) and communism (marked as feminine). The remarkable contrast between Cicero's association of women with communitarian ownership and Roman women's actual activities as property owners (briefly noted at 208), which he discusses in his letters and speeches, deserves further development.

This book will interest scholars of Roman philosophy and literature, but it also put me in mind of recent developments in the study of Roman domestic space. Feminine personifications, Dressler suggests, "escaped" the Roman philosopher's usual project of "discriminating male and female" (254), and so figurative language directs us to aspects of Roman thought that go beyond the explicit goals of the ancient philosopher. In a similar vein, while elite Romans intended their houses to express their status and power, we can re-examine these same spaces from other perspectives: from a slave's point of view, the house becomes a site for escaping the...