THE PUBLIC PRESENCE OF WOMEN IN THE CITIES OF ROMAN NORTH . TWO CASE STUDIES: THAMUGADI AND CUICUL

Christian Witschel

1. Introduction

This paper deals with the ‘monumental’ presence of women in the cities of Roman North Africa, i.e. their appearance in inscriptions and portrait stat- ues which were erected on the public places of this region’s urban centres, thus being visible for a broader audience. As these ‘civic monuments’ were a vital element of the social life and collective memory of such towns, it will be important to study the role of women within this context. In order to do so I will focus on case studies for which I have selected two middle-sized towns in the Roman province of : Thamugadi () and Cuicul (Djemila). These examples have several advantages for our investigation. First of all, both towns have yielded a rather extensive epigraphic material of about 600 inscriptions each.1 Secondly, we possess a clear-cut starting- point for the development of these cities as both were founded as (veteran) colonies at the end of the  rst century ad;2 and we can follow the evolution of the social structures at these places quite closely for the following 200 years. Finally, it is of some importance that both Thamugadi and Cuicul have been extensively (if often rather crudely) excavated by French archaeolo- gists in the late 19th and earlier 20th centuries so that we know most of the

1 There is no modern collection of the inscriptions of Thamugadi which have been edited in a wide variety of corpora and journals. I brought together most of this epigraphic material in my MA-thesis twenty years ago: Witschel (1992). In recent years only very few additions to this sample were made (as recorded in AE); for a short summary of these, see Witschel (2009) 191–192 n. 8. The inscriptions of Cuicul have fared much better in this respect as they were completely re-edited only a few years ago in ILAlg 2.3. 2 In the case of Thamugadi we have an exact date for the foundation of the colony, i.e. the year ad100 (see below n. 4); whereas the early history of Cuicul is much more disputed due to the lack of explicit sources. Nevertheless, there are strong indications that the foundation of Cuicul as a also took place in the late  rst century ad; see most recently Kleinwächter (2001) 65–72 and Dupuis (2001)—whom I cannot, however, follow in all points. 86 christian witschel built-up areas and especially the central places, including a large number of inscriptions connected to the public sphere.3 It is thus possible to investigate the importance that monuments put up for or by women had in the public realm of two smaller cities of Roman Africa. In the case of Thamugadi I will look at the totality of the civic society as reected in the epigraphic record and at the position of women within this sample; whereas with regard to Cuicul I will concentrate on the equipment of the large public places and buildings with (statuary) monuments and adjoining inscriptions in order to evaluate the role of the female members of the civic body in this context.

2. Thamugadi

Thamugadi was founded as a colony (named colonia Marciana Traiana Thamugadi) by the emperor in ad 100.4 A rigid urban planning scheme probably designed by military architects was used for the layout of the town, and its outward appearance must have been rather austere dur- ing these  rst years as it still lacked most of the important civic structures. It was only during the following generations, and up until the early third century, that the urban fabric of the town was improved to a considerable degree through the construction of a large number of civic and religious buildings. Most of these were  nanced either through public funds (pecu- nia publica) or by the investment of private money resulting from promises connected to elections for the municipal magistracies (pollicationes) or from private benefactions (municentia). In the  rst years of the colony the local society, presumably for the most part consisting of veterans of the legio III Augusta and their families who settled in Thamugadi, must have been rather homogeneous, although this is di cult to prove due to a lack of epigraphic sources securely dated to the early period. From the middle of the second century onwards, however, a process of diferentiation and hierarchisation began which transformed the social structures of Thamugadi during the decades that followed. One result of this process was the establishment of a stable municipal aristocracy, while the leading families of the town even

3 For a short description of the excavations and the most important buildings of Thamu- gadi, see Courtois (1951) and Lassus (1969). The best portrayals of the city of Cuicul and its urban development are to be found in Février (1964) and (1978); cf. also Kleinwächter (2001) 62–150. 4 This is demonstrated by two ‘founding inscriptions’ which were once attached to the gates of the town: CIL 8, 2355 = 17842 = ILS 6841 and CIL 8, 17843; cf. Dupuis (1994).