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A Woman's Place: Imperial Women in Late Antique Rome

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A Woman's Place: Imperial Women in Late Antique Rome This is a repository copy of A woman’s place: imperial women in late antique Rome . White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/125916/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Hillner, J.D. (2017) A woman’s place: imperial women in late antique Rome. Antiquite Tardive: revue internationale d'histoire et d'archeologie, 25. pp. 75-94. ISSN 1250-7334 https://doi.org/10.1484/J.AT.5.114851 Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ AnTard, 25, 2017, p. 000-000 DOI ??? A WOMAN’S PLACE: IMPERIAL WOMEN IN LATE ANTIQUE ROME* JULIA HILLNER La place de la femme : les impératrices dans la Rome tardo-antique La relation entre les empereurs romains de l’époque tardive et la ville de Rome est traditionnellement caractérisée par l’abandon de la cité, favorisant des lieux qui répondaient mieux aux exigences militaires, politiques et religieuses de cette période. Or, l’historiographie récente amène à penser que pendant l’Antiquité tardive la position impériale vis-à-vis de l’ancienne capitale de l’empire a été plus complexe, notamment au Ve siècle. Le présent article s’appuie sur cette approche et y introduit une nouvelle perspective, en s’intéressant davantage aux itinéraires des femmes de l’empire et laissant de côté ceux des hommes qui ont dominé les débats intellectuels sur la Rome impériale de l’Antiquité tardive. Une lecture attentive de nos sources, pour la plupart incomplètes, suggère que nombre des membres féminins des familles impériales résidait à Rome entre le début du IVe et le milieu du Ve siècle, pour une période souvent beaucoup plus longue que les membres masculins. Dans un premier temps, j’examinerai les raisons d’une telle situation, montrant que la présence des femmes à Rome relevait d’une politique plus large destinée à associer la famille impériale à la ville de Rome – ou plus précisément d’une construction en pleine évolution de la famille impériale autour des principales femmes –, de manière à assurer l’unité, l’harmonie et la tradition de l’empire. Toutefois, comme l’a montré récemment Jill Harries, le fait de résider à Rome a peut-être offert à certaines de ces femmes une marge de manœuvre : je développerai ce point en montrant comment la résidence à Rome a façonné l’identité des femmes impériales de différentes manières, souvent en fonction du rôle qu’elles jouaient au sein de la famille impériale (femme, sœur, mère ou fille). Les différentes expériences individuelles des femmes à Rome me permettent de mettre toute la lumière sur le conflit tragique entre Serena, cousine de l’empereur Honorius, et sa demi-sœur Galla Placidia, au tout début du Ve siècle. [Trad. de la Rédaction] This article examines the presence of female members and the ancient capital of their empire at a time of of the imperial family in the late antique city of Rome. profound political and religious change, as well as about The evidence for this presence has signiicant things to the functions assigned to emperors’ female relations tell us about the relationship between late Roman emperors in late Roman imperial propaganda. Most importantly, the evidence provides a window into the varied ways in which residence in Rome shaped identities of individual women of the imperial family and how, in turn, their * I would like to thank Maximilian Becker and Timo Christian different roles within the imperial family – wives, sisters, (University of Frankfurt) who collected the majority of primary data assembled in Appendix I, and the Alexander-von-Humboldt mothers, daughters and other female descendants – shaped Foundation who funded their work. I would also like to thank these women’s relationships with the city of Rome. Lanfranco Cordischi (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di The attitudes of late Roman emperors to Rome have Roma) for arranging a visit of the residence under the Istituto Nazionale di Previdenza Sociale, and Sandro Santarelli of the traditionally been described as one of neglect in favour INPS for his informed and good-humoured guidance on site. of residence at places more suited to military, political 58 JULIA HILLNER AnTard, 25, 2017 or religious agendas of the time, such as Trier, Milan, Late Roman Imperial women and Late Antique Rome: Ravenna or Constantinople. The foundation of the latter sources and approaches as the ‘new Rome’ on the Bosporus by the irst Christian emperor Constantine in 330 is often seen as exemplifying As is the case with ancient women generally, infor- this situation.1 Yet, recent historiography has shown that mation on imperial female residence and activities in positions of late Roman emperors towards Rome were late antique Rome has to be pieced together from very more complex, particularly at the time of Constantine fragmentary evidence deriving from a variety of source and then again in the 5th century. Jill Harries and Muriel types, each demanding its own critical approach: literary Moser have called for a reassessment of Constantine’s texts, inscriptions and archaeological remains. It there- “rejection” of Rome, pointing to his continuous close fore needs to be borne in mind at all times that the story relationship with Roman aristocrats, who served as his of imperial women’s residence in Rome can only be told imperial oficials and his frequent correspondence with in a snapshot and often speculative way. In some cases, the Roman senate.2 Andrew Gillett, Mark Humphries and we even have to assess whether our sources refer to resi- Meaghan McEvoy, in turn, have shown that ifth-century dence in Rome at all, even before we can start analysing Western emperors tended to exalt the position of Rome to their meaning. For instance, the historian Zosimus, writing create a counterweight to the rise of Constantinople and in the late 5th century, explained that Theodosius I sent to cement their legitimacy, eventually even moving the his iancée Galla and her mother Justina, widow of the court back to Rome for long periods under Valentinian III previous emperor Valentinian I, from Thessalonika “to (425-455).3 Rome” in 387 ( ). While this passage could The present article will build on these new approaches be an allusion to the city itself, Zosimus could also have to late antique imperial Rome from a different perspective. taken “Rome” as a synecdoche for the entire West.5 Even Our understanding of the role Rome played in imperial if he did mean the city of Rome, there is no guarantee strategies in this period will be reined if we shift that Zosimus, who was writing in Constantinople some attention away from the itineraries of imperial men, time after the event, is a reliable witness. which have dominated scholarly debates on imperial In this article, I have in general followed scholarly Rome in late antiquity, to those of imperial women. While consensus where it placed women in Rome, noting late antique emperors’ usually short visits to and long potential debates at the appropriate instance. However, absences from Rome have been examined in painstaking I have also tended to give the sources the beneit of detail, a study of the presence in Rome of imperial women the doubt. This is important because, even though the is still in its infancy.4 Yet, as we shall see, a careful reading evidence for imperial women is more fragmentary than of our often fragmentary sources suggests that a number for imperial men, we cannot afford to dismiss it, however of imperial female relatives were resident in Rome hypothetical its analysis may be. Here, a “safety-in- between the early 4th and the mid-5th centuries, often for numbers” approach may help. As Appendix I shows, much longer than male members of the imperial family. the frequency of well-attested and undisputed cases In addition, some of them were buried just outside the of imperial women in late antique Rome is in fact high city. I will begin with an overview of these cases (all enough to suggest a trend for female residence in Rome listed in Appendix I) and an exposition of a methodology that does not seem to be accidental and into which the of how to approach them. This is important, as this data uncertain cases may it as well. I would also argue that has never been assembled before, so that historians the references in our literary sources, at once rare and need to develop rigorous ways as to how to interrogate often cursory, to female residence in Rome are signiicant them. I will then proceed to investigate one scenario of in themselves. The nature of ancient literary sources is female imperial presence in Rome in more detail: that such that women were rarely talked about and rarely for of women belonging to the Constantinian dynasty up to their own sake. Yet, where they are, we need to distin- c.
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