Epic Women Over her dead body: Rhea Silvia, Dido and the city of Rome

The Power of Dead and Dying Women  Why are dead and dying women so powerful?  Lucretia – established the Republic  Verginia – her father kills her so she won’t be sexually assaulted by a political rebellion/order restored to Republic  Sabine women – narrow escape from death

The Story of Rhea Silvia or Ilia  Paradigm for how Romans view gender relations  Sex and violence intersect in the female body  Death of the violated female has positive benefits for male community

The Dream of the Vestal  In Ennius’ version, Rhea Silvia is dragged along a riverbank by a beautiful stranger  Disoriented, she calls out and is comforted by her father  “for an attractive male seemed to drag me unwilling through charming willow trees, riverbanks and unknown places”

She loses her body in the dream  Her body lacks strength  She is unsure of her footing  She can’t see her father, only hear him  Her hands and tears have no effect

The men in the tale have no lasting physical presence  Her father is only a disembodied voice  Her divine attacker, Mars, vanishes quickly  Even the path Rhea Silvia wanders shows no signs of the presence of others

What happens to Rhea Silvia?  After giving birth, she is thrown into a river and married to the king of the river  In other words, she meets her death by drowning  Death as marriage theme  Her death assures the life of her sons, as their mother is part of the ground they will found the city on.

What does this story mean?  Her death is the equivalent of a foundation sacrifice  The Romans had a tradition that the city’s success would only be assured by a human sacrifice  Site of Rome is at once maternal  Ilia begins the sequence of women raped and killed in the course of forming Rome’s political future. Female sexuality is “rewarded” with death

Rhea Silvia’s legacy  The cycle will continue with Romulus’ rape of the Sabine women  Both the Sabine women and the city are sites to be owned and defined by the male political figure

The other founding myth of Rome  Aeneas comes to Italy from Troy to found a new city  He meets queen Dido of Carthage  They fall in love... But she has sworn a vow of chastity to her dead husband Sychaeus

Dido’s Sexual Transgression  “But scared and shaking from her huge undertakings, rolling her bloodshot eyes, her trembling cheeks covered with spots and pallid with death imminent, Dido... ascended the high pyre in a mad state and unsheathed the Dardan’s sword.”

The Queen Must Die  Her red and white color is symbolic of initiation into sexual acts  She must die for her act and also so Aeneas can go on to found Rome  Her political activity as queen of Carthage is not compatible with Roman political order

Alison Keith on Roman Women in Epic  The sight of a gorgeous woman who is dead is the impetus for Roman political order.  Female death is made into a sexual topic in Latin Epic  Men in epic often die quickly, but women are put through more lingering and painful deaths.

What life in the Republic was really like for women...  Manus = “by the hand”  The alternative = three nights in her father’s home  By the end of the Republic, the manus wedding falls out of fashion

 death penalty for drinking or adultery  Drinking was for male religious ceremonies, not women’s pleasure  Poisoning the husband’s children or making duplicate keys to the house  Divorce for other grounds meant the woman got one-half of his property