It
is fitting that the first indexed entry under “women” in The Cambridge Companion to The Roman Republic is “—and poison.” So many accusations against female poisoners
surface in the annals of Roman history that the modern aphorism “When poison’s
to blame, the killer’s a dame” seems an accurate term for the csi-zeitgeist of the age. Poison itself was so feared by the elite in
many ancient empires that the Greek ruler Mithridate (c. 120-60 BC), one of
Rome’s most feared enemies, would ingest small doses of poison in the hopes of achieving
immunity to known toxins. Mithridatism –
the belief that one could protect the body from poison via small doses of
toxins – survived well into the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
Coin and bust of Mithridates
The
Romans knew and employed a wide variety of poisons of animal and vegetable
origin, including the hemlock that caused the death of Socrates, mushrooms,
mandrake, nightshade, opium, spider, viper, and certain marine animals.[1]
Since many of these toxins were available locally, murder by poison certainly
could and did occur.
Atropa bella donna, or deadly nightshade --
a known Roman poison
Much
of the difficulty in separating the fact and fiction of Roman poisonings rests in
the word for poisoning itself: veneficium. In her recent study of homicide in the
Republic, historian Judy Gaughan notes that the etymology of the word suggest
both magic and poisoning, ideas that may have been inseparable at the time.[2]
The
idea of magic, poisoning, and femininity culminated in an ancient case relayed
by the chronicler Livy (59 BC – 17 AD). The
331 BC poisonings led to the conviction of 170 Roman women, an incident the
Roman historian pejoratively writes was the result of mulierbris fraus – feminine treachery.
Roman patrician woman
Since
Livy is the earliest source for an incident dating to ancient Rome, modern
researchers should be wary of his account.
Livy reports that the poison conspiracy surfaced during an already troubling
period for the Republic, which was suffering from some sort of pestilence. Accounts of the pestilence vary, but it
appears the citizens were largely unconcerned until they noticed men dying off
more quickly than women. When the
pestilence began to affect the upper classes, the primores civitatis, the state grew even more uneasy.
In
this turbulent environment, the testimony of an ancilla, or slave woman, lead to stunning charges against nearly
200 Roman women. According to the slave,
who approached curule aedile Q.
Fabius Maximus under the promise of indemnification from prosecution, the
deaths of the Roman men were not natural consequences of the pestilence. She explained that the city was under attack
by mulierbris fraus and lead him to a
house where two patrician women were brewing suspicious concoctions.
Bust of the Roman historian Livy (b.59 BC)
According
to Livy, the aristocratic women accused of the brewing – Cornelia and Sergia – insisted
they were merely cooking curatives for the victims of the pestilence. The
informer challenged their statements, insisting the women drink their own
potions. The curule aedile agreed;
Livy explains that the women drank the potion and died, “killed by their own
wickedness.”
Roman vessel, such as the ones used for
mixing potions
As
word of the poisoners and their deaths spread, Rome was gripped by fear and
suspicion. Since the charges against the
accused affected the state and not just individuals, the subsequent trials were
public, held by a special commission presided over by Fabius Maximus -- the
first such trials for poisoning in the Republic. The likelihood that some confessions surfaced
under trial by ordeal is highly likely, and by the time the commission
concluded, 170 women were found guilty and executed.
For
Livy, who chronicled events such as these as exempla, or moral tales, for his readers, this female conspiracy
was easily explained: these patrician women wished to rid themselves of their
husbands or fathers, thereby claiming some measure of independence.
Tomb of a Roman noblewoman
Many
Roman philosophers – Livy, Cato, and Dionysius among them – believed that men
should have complete control over their wives and daughters, even in decisions
of life and death. These men would refer
to the apocryphal “Laws of Romulus,” arguing that these laws maintained strict
rules for society, some of which were upheld by the citizens.
In
the upper classes, men were required to raise all sons, but only one daughter,
a law that could and did lead to female infanticide. Husbands also had the right to decide whether
or not their wives should undergo an abortion. Noblewomen could not vote or
serve in public office, save for the Vestal Virgins, who were priestesses of
Vesta, goddess of the hearth. Even women’s
names were not their own – taking their only name from that of their fathers,
with a feminine ending such as Julia for Julius.
Mosaic from Pompeii of two Roman women with a witch
Further
down the social ladder, women had less and less rights, losing any claim even
to their own bodies. Female slaves, for
instance, were often given to males as rewards or companions. Girls as young as seven were given to older
slaves as reward for good work. And even the Vestal Virgins, who enjoyed some
freedom, were often treaded as scapegoats in trying times for the
Republic.
So
what happened during the poisonings of 331?
Were these patrician women challenging the natural order, seeking equal
rights through murder? Were they taking
advantage of the pestilence to rid themselves of the yoke of marriage? Or were
they wrongly accused by a superstitious, fearful public?
Roman drinking cup
Modern
theories on the poisonings vary according to the weight a historian is willing
to give Livy’s account. In his Women and Politics in Ancient Rome,
Richard Bauman believes Livy’s
retelling of an event that occurred some 400 years before the Roman chronicler’s
death.[3] The problem with believing Livy is that he a
male writer fully invested in the idea of paterfamilias,
and he himself is concerned with maintaining a social order where women are
scapegoats for lapses in morality.
Roman coin with a woman's portait (Augusta)
Notably
absent from Livy’s chronicle is any account of the effects of this “poison”
Cornelia and Sergia had allegedly been brewing.
Obviously, this makes a modern forensic investigation difficult since
the effects of Roman toxins of the age are well-known. The fact this these accusations surfaced
during a period of pestilence and that the initial informer was paid for her
information also raises questions about the veracity of Livy’s account.
Livy
insisted that the 331 events “suggested madness rather than felonious intent,”
but the suggestion that 170 patrician women would have conspired to murder
greatly diminishes the idea that “madness” could have played a role in the
affair. Gaughan believes that the pestilence
presented a “threat to [the] social order,” and should be factored into a
reading of Livy’s version of the 331 poisonings, which seems a more tempered
assessment of the events of 331.[4]
Gaughan
also raises the possibility that the two women initially caught brewing the
concoction may have been trying to
prevent the pestilence from consuming the Republic. Unfortunately, their medicines were their own
undoing in a culture and environment that was highly suspicious of Roman women’s
motives.
What do you
think? Was poison to blame? Roman-csi
values your input. Feel free to weigh in
the comments section.
[1] For
a complete list of Roman toxins, see I. Cilliers and F.P. Retief’s “Poisons,
Poisoning, and the Drug Trade in Ancient Rome.”
[2]
See Judy Gaughan, Murder Was Not a Crime:
Homicide and Power in the Roman Republic, Austin: U of Texas P, 2010.
[3]
See Bauman’s Women and Politics in Ancient
Rome, London: Routledge, 1992.
[4]
See Gaughan, 45.
