Sempronia’s song Sempronia’s Song Attitudes to Women’s Music-making in Ancient Rome Erika Lindgren Liljenstolpe Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Universitetshuset sal IV, Biskopsgatan 3, Uppsala, Friday, 9 October 2015 at 13:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in Swedish. Faculty examiner: Professor Gunhild Vidén (Institutionen för språk och litteraturer, Göteborgs universitet). Abstract Lindgren Liljenstolpe, E. 2015. Sempronia's Song. Attitudes to Women's Music-making in Ancient Rome. 191 pp. Uppsala: Institutionen för Arkeologi och Antik historia. ISBN 978-91-506-2478-6. This study explores attitudes towards women’s music-making in ancient Rome (c. 120 BC– 130 AD), as expressed in love poetry, satire, letters, historiography, biography, rhetoric and philosophy. The texts are studied from an intersectional perspective considering gender, social status, age and ethnicity to explain various attitudes. Gender-theoretical concepts of differentiation, implementation of hierarchy and master suppression techniques explain the need for controlling the Roman gender order and women’s music-making. The study demonstrates that the traditional picture of women musicians as either prostitutes or decent, musically-talented matrons needs to be nuanced, and that the attitudes were more complex than previously assumed. Some Roman authors show a positive attitude to women’s musical talents, especially love poets, but also writers of other genres, as long as it was performed on “appropriate” instruments in accordance with the social status of the woman in question. The musical skills of a woman should not override her modesty and virtue. A young woman was encouraged to display musical talents. This enhanced her beauty and attractiveness in the eyes of a husband-to-be. Older music- making women were, on the other hand, ridiculed as unrespectable. The labelling of women musicians in Rome as “non-Roman” could be another way of differentiating non-respectable from respectable women, but such identifying could also serve to evoke “exotic” attraction, or for an artist to require a certain status or a sense of belonging. The results obtained from the ancient Roman sources are further augmented by comparison with more recent periods in musical history, displaying a long tradition of rather similar attitudes as a result of patriarchal structures: in seventeenth century Italy Pope Innocent XI in an edict tried to prohibit women from playing music, since this would be injurious to proper modesty. In the twenty-first century world-leading women musicians such as Madonna and Mariah Carey are publicly scorned for their older age in relation to their music-making. In ancient Rome both women and music needed to be controlled: Music was unpredictable and could evoke unexpected feelings and temptations, whereas women held the key to pure marital breed and the Roman family line. Keywords: Rome, Roman, Music, Music-making, Women, Gender, Patriarchy Erika Lindgren Liljenstolpe, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Classical archaeology and ancient history, Box 626, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Erika Lindgren Liljenstolpe 2015 ISBN 978-91-506-2478-6 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-260751 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-260751) Printed in Sweden by Kph Trycksaksbolaget AB, 2015 To all music lovers Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... 9 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 11 1.1 Objectives of the study ....................................................................... 11 1.2 Previous research ................................................................................ 15 1.3 Methods and material ......................................................................... 17 1.4 Theoretical framework ....................................................................... 21 1.5 Outline of the study ............................................................................ 23 2. ROMAN MUSIC-MAKING .................................................................... 25 2.1 Music in Rome ................................................................................... 25 2.2 New musical influences...................................................................... 30 3. GENDERING INSTRUMENTS .............................................................. 38 3.1 Stringed instruments ........................................................................... 39 3.2 Wind instruments ............................................................................... 49 3.3 Percussion instruments ....................................................................... 52 3.4 Voice .................................................................................................. 56 3.5 The attitudes of musical theorists ....................................................... 57 3.6 Concluding remarks ........................................................................... 60 4. SOCIAL SETTINGS ................................................................................ 67 4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 67 4.1.1 Professional musicians and social status .................................... 67 4.1.2 Defining private and public ........................................................ 71 4.2 Opposed attitudes: Ovid and Juvenal ................................................. 74 4.3 Music making in love poetry .............................................................. 83 4.4 Respectable music making ................................................................. 92 4.5 Rebellious music making ................................................................... 99 4.6 Concluding remarks ......................................................................... 104 5. THE IMPORTANCE OF AGE .............................................................. 111 5.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 111 5.2 Youthful accomplishments ............................................................... 112 5.3 Adult women and their ageing ......................................................... 117 5.4 Concluding remarks ......................................................................... 121 6. BEING NON-ROMAN .......................................................................... 124 6.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 124 6.2 Greek influences and Roman ambivalence ...................................... 127 6.3 The dancing Gades-girls ................................................................... 133 6.4 Other non-Romans ........................................................................... 142 6.5 Concluding remarks ......................................................................... 144 7. PLAYING IN THE PATRIARCHY....................................................... 148 7.1 Differentiation and implementation of hierarchy ............................. 149 7.2 Master suppression techniques ......................................................... 160 7.3 The power of music .......................................................................... 164 8. PULLING UP THE CURTAIN .............................................................. 168 SUMMARY ................................................................................................ 172 SAMMANFATTNING ............................................................................... 174 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................... 176 Ancient sources ...................................................................................... 176 Modern sources ...................................................................................... 178 Websites ................................................................................................. 187 List of figures .............................................................................................. 190 Acknowledgements There are so many persons who have been of great importance to me in writ- ing this book, on a professional as well as on a private level. First of all, my deepest gratitude goes to my amazing supervisors who have given me unfail- ing support and encouragement through these years: to Prof. emer. Gullög Nordquist for being a guiding star and source of inspiration ever since I was an undergraduate student and first became interested in ancient music, to Prof. Hillevi Ganetz, who came in next and provided a fresh and stimulating “outside-perspective”, and to Prof. Gunnel Ekroth, who entered the scene at half-time, bringing new energy, joyfulness and structure to my work. For invaluable help in improving this book by reading my texts at various stages, giving important comments as well as good advice, cheerful encour- agement and friendship I am indebted to my colleagues at the Department of Archaeology and ancient history in Uppsala, PhD-colleagues as well as more senior colleagues, and in particular the participants of the higher seminar in Ancient History. For specialist knowledge and more extensive reading, I would particularly like to thank Dr Lisa Hagelin, Dr Ragnar Hedlund, Prof. Frands Hershend,