In honor of Mother’s Day, I thought we’d learn a little about mothers in Rome in general, and a couple of the more famous mothers.
Matrimonium has in it the word mater—mother. The supreme purpose of marriage in ancient Rome was to produce legitimate children—citizens who could serve Rome. Everything else in society revolved around this idea.
Women received only a basic education, just enough to be able to manage an often very extensive and complex household. The wealthiest of Romans had several houses and hundreds of slaves, and the wives were expected to keep it all running smoothly.
Women were always subject to the authority of a man and in need of a guardian—usually her father even after marriage. Her property remained her own, except for her dowry, and she became legally independent on the death of her father. Her rights in marriage were few. A woman could not divorce her husband, but a husband could divorce his wife if she did not bear a child or even if she just did not bear a son. Upon divorce, the children belonged to the father.
Among the patricians, marriage in ancient Rome was arranged more for financial and/or political reasons than for true love. Citizens could only marry fellow citizens (to produce more citizens …). The husband was usually older than the bride. At ten girls could be betrothed, at twelve they could be married, to take advantage of their most fertile years. (Lower class women often married in their late teens or early 20s.)
The nuclear family was essential to the ancient Roman family structure. Mothers might give birth to many children, but half of these children died before their tenth birthday. Around the beginning of the empire, the number of citizens had been dwindling. Marriage rates had increased due to two sets of laws: the Lex Julia and the Papia Poppaea. The birthrate, however, had not increased. For this reason, the ius trium liberorum was enacted.
The “right of three children” included legal rewards given to women with three live babies (or four children for former slaves). It meant women were recognized as legally independent—no more need for a guardian. They could also receive inheritances. Men and women who were unmarried, divorced, widowed, or barren were prohibited from inheriting property unless specifically named in a will.
To understand the Roman view of what made a good Roman mother, let us look at Antonia Minor and Octavia.
Antonia Minor, mother of Claudius
Antonia Minor was the daughter of Mark Antony and niece of the first emperor, Augustus. She was also the mother of the future emperor Claudius. Her daughter Livilla had already killed her husband, the son of Emperor Tiberius, and then she and her lover, the praetorian prefect, hatched a plot to kill Tiberius. Antonia exposed it. Tiberius allowed Antonia to punish her daughter as she saw fit, so she locked Livilla in a room and starved her to death.
Antonia was also reported to have endlessly mocked her son Claudius, who had a physical disability.
No matter what we might think of her, Antonia was celebrated in Rome, and her birthday was made into a national holiday. A good Roman mother raised good citizens. Since her son Claudius became an emperor, she was regarded as an excellent mother.
Octavia, sister of Augustus
Octavia was the older sister of Augustus and great-niece of Julius Caesar. She had three children with Marcellus, one of her uncle’s opponents. After his death, to help her brother, she married Mark Antony to form an alliance between the two families and gave birth to two daughters.
After Antony had received the money and troops he needed from Octavia, he divorced her for Queen Cleopatra. Octavia remained loyal to Augustus, and became a sort of negotiator between the two rivals.
She never remarried, and after Antony’s suicide, she cared for his four children (by two other women) along with her other children. Octavia was highly respected by her brother and was a role model for many Roman women.
Octavia was one of the first Roman women whose likeness appeared on an official coin.