Roman History and Epic Poetry

Women at the centre of Roman history

In Livy’s History of Rome and Sallust’s Conspiracy of Catiline, women are essential to stories about the Roman community. Marriage makes Rome’s survival possible; sexual violence provokes conflict; women intervene in war and challenge restrictions in public. These narratives also reveal how male writers judged women’s behaviour.

Historical writing is not a transparent window onto the past. Writers select incidents and construct speeches to explain events and communicate values. Livy’s stories of Rome’s early kings concern legendary beginnings, whereas his account of the Oppian Law and Sallust’s account of Catiline concern Republican political life. All require us to distinguish what happens in the narrative from how the writer encourages us to interpret it.

The abduction: Rome’s survival at women’s expense

In Livy 1.9, Rome is militarily strong but lacks women. Without marriages and children, its population will survive for only one generation. On the senate’s advice, Romulus sends envoys to neighbouring communities asking for alliances and intermarriage. They claim that Rome has divine support and the virtue needed to become great.

The neighbours refuse because they fear Rome’s growing power. They also insult the Romans by asking whether they have opened a sanctuary for runaway women. Romulus conceals his resentment and arranges the Consualia, games described here as honouring Neptune the horseman. Visitors come from Caenina, Crustumium and Antemnae; the Sabines arrive with wives and children. Hospitality and the impressive new city help put the guests at ease.

While the audience watches the entertainment, a prearranged signal begins the attack. Young Romans seize unmarried women. Most take whoever is nearby, but particularly beautiful women have been reserved for important senators and are carried off by plebeians acting for them. Livy also connects the wedding cry ‘Thalassius’ with men declaring that one especially beautiful captive is being taken to Thalassius. The story links a later marriage custom to this violent beginning.

The parents flee in distress, accusing the Romans of violating hospitality and appealing to the gods of the festival. The women’s removal breaches the trust owed to guests and separates daughters from families and homeland.

Romulus then blames the parents’ refusal of intermarriage. He promises the women marriage, a share in Roman possessions and citizenship, and children. He asks them to give their affection to the men who have already taken control of their bodies. Livy narrates a change from injustice to affection as the husbands console and charm them, justifying their actions through love and longing. This is the narrative’s reconciliation, not evidence that the original abductions were consensual. Women are initially treated as the means of securing Rome’s future, rather than as people choosing their own marriages.

From abduction to war

In 1.10, the women’s parents appeal to Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines. Caenina, Crustumium and Antemnae also seek revenge, but Caenina attacks alone rather than waiting for the others. Romulus defeats its army, kills its king and captures its city.

Romulus carries the dead king’s arms to the Capitol and dedicates them beside a sacred oak to Jupiter Feretrius. Livy presents this as the origin of Rome’s first consecrated temple and a precedent for dedicating spoils taken from defeated enemy commanders. He emphasises the honour’s rarity: only twice subsequently had such spoils been awarded. The women’s abduction thus becomes part of a story explaining Roman military and religious traditions.

In 1.12, the Sabines hold the citadel. Fighting takes place around the slope and valley between the Capitoline and Palatine hills. Hostius Hostilius leads the Romans and Mettius Curtius the Sabines. When Hostilius falls, the Romans flee. Romulus appeals to Jupiter to stop their flight and vows a temple to Jupiter the Stayer of Flight. He then announces that Jupiter orders them to stand and fight.

Curtius taunts the Romans as dishonest hosts who find abducting women easier than fighting men. His accusation keeps the original wrongdoing visible within the battle narrative. Romulus leads a counterattack; Curtius retreats into a swamp but escapes with his followers’ support. The battle resumes, with the Romans gaining the advantage.

The Sabine women become peacemakers

In 1.13, the Sabine women enter the battlefield among flying missiles, with torn clothes and loose hair. They physically separate the forces, then appeal to their fathers on one side and their husbands on the other. Their children are the Romans’ sons and the Sabines’ grandsons: continued fighting would make this a conflict within families.

They ask the men to turn their anger against them rather than leave them widows or orphans. Their claim that they are the cause of the war is part of their persuasive appeal, not a reason to blame them for their abduction. Both soldiers and leaders fall silent, and the commanders negotiate peace.

The result is more than a truce. Romans and Sabines unite as one community, its population doubles, and Romulus and Titus Tatius share the throne, with power centred at Rome. Livy connects the name Quirites with the Sabine town Cures and the Curtian Lake with Curtius’ escape. Romulus names thirty curiae after the women, although Livy acknowledges uncertainty about how their names were selected. Three cavalry centuries are formed: the Ramnenses are named after Romulus, the Titienses after Titus Tatius, while the origins of the Luceres remain uncertain.

The women move from being seized by men to exercising decisive agency. Their bravery saves both families and the state. Yet their authority is expressed through their relationships as daughters, wives and mothers, and male kings retain political rule.

Lucretia and the ideal Roman wife

Livy 1.57–59 places another woman at a turning point in Rome’s story. King Tarquinius Superbus is campaigning against wealthy Ardea. He wants money after costly public works and hopes plunder will reduce resentment among Romans who dislike his arrogance and their prolonged labour as workmen and servants.

During the drawn-out campaign, the princes and Collatinus drink together and compare their wives. They decide to visit unexpectedly to judge the women’s conduct. The king’s daughters-in-law are enjoying a luxurious banquet. At Collatia, however, Collatinus’ wife Lucretia is spinning late at night, with her maids working around her by lamplight. She wins their contest of feminine virtue.

Wool-working mattered as more than a household task. It symbolised diligence, domestic responsibility and respectability. Lucretia’s work contrasts with the other women’s leisure, showing the reader what this narrative presents as exemplary female conduct. Such an ideal does not prove that all Roman women lived this way.

Coercion, reputation and the fall of royal rule

Sextus Tarquinius desires Lucretia after seeing both her beauty and chastity. He returns a few days later without Collatinus’ knowledge and is welcomed as a guest. At night he approaches Lucretia with a sword. When threats of death fail, he threatens to kill her and a slave and arrange their bodies to make it appear that she committed adultery. He uses fear of a fabricated disgrace to coerce her and rape her.

Lucretia summons her father, Spurius Lucretius, and her husband, asking each to bring a trusted companion. Her father brings Publius Valerius; Collatinus brings Lucius Junius Brutus. She identifies Sextus and demands an oath that he will be punished. Her distinction is explicit: her body has been violated, but her heart is innocent. The men likewise place the blame on the coercer, not the coerced, arguing that wrongdoing depends on intention.

Nevertheless, Lucretia kills herself, saying that no shameless woman should use her example to justify living. This expresses the narrative’s extreme pressure surrounding female reputation; it is not a judgement that victims of sexual violence deserve punishment.

Brutus holds up the bloodied knife and swears to oppose Tarquinius Superbus, his family and any future king. The men carry Lucretia’s body into the forum at Collatia, where grief becomes anger and armed action. In Rome, Brutus uses his office as Tribune of Celeres to address the people. He connects Sextus’ violence with the king’s arrogance, the people’s degrading labour, and the murder of Servius Tullius, whose daughter Tullia drove over his body. The people reject royal rule and exile Tarquinius and his family; Brutus then goes to the camp at Ardea to rally support against the king.

Lucretia speaks and demands justice, but male leaders turn her suffering into a public campaign. Her story connects an ideal wife’s violated household with a royal family represented as abusing the whole community. Tullia provides a contrasting female figure: she is condemned for violating family loyalty, and fleeing the palace, she is cursed by men and women invoking the Furies.

The Oppian Law: women making public demands

Livy 34.1 describes a dispute over restrictions imposed during the Punic War. The Oppian Law forbids a woman to possess more than half an ounce of gold, wear multi-coloured clothing, or travel by carriage in the city or within a mile of it, unless celebrating a religious festival.

Tribunes Marcus Fundanius and Lucius Valerius propose abolition. Marcus and Publius Iunius Brutus oppose repeal, and the consul Marcus Porcius Cato supports keeping the law. The debate concerns women’s ability to possess and display wealth, but formal decision-making remains in male hands.

Women refuse to remain at home despite persuasion and their husbands’ orders. They block streets and routes to the Forum, appeal to men passing through, and approach consuls, praetors and other officials. Their argument is that the state is flourishing and men’s wealth is increasing, so women should regain their former finery. Their numbers grow as women arrive from surrounding communities.

This is organised public pressure, not simply private complaint. Livy’s opening description of the issue as insignificant contrasts with the scale of the dispute that follows. The passage reveals women acting collectively despite resistance to their public visibility; it does not describe the final decision on repeal.

Sempronia: talent inside a hostile portrait

In Sallust 24.5–25, Catiline recruits women as well as men. Sallust alleges that these women’s luxurious lifestyles and declining income from prostitution have driven them into debt. Catiline believes he can use them to mobilise enslaved people, burn the city and win over or kill their husbands. These are reported plans, not accomplished outcomes.

Sallust singles out Sempronia. She has advantages of birth, beauty and family, knows Greek and Latin literature, and is accomplished in music and dance. Yet he describes her dancing as more elegant than an ‘honest woman’ should be and her crimes as showing ‘manly audacity’. These judgements reveal boundaries he draws around acceptable female behaviour.

He accuses her of placing luxury above honour and modesty, pursuing men, betraying trust, failing to repay debts and knowing about a murder. He also acknowledges her intelligence, poetry, humour, flexible speaking style and charm. The portrait is therefore not simply one of incompetence: her abilities make her a striking figure, but Sallust frames them within moral condemnation.

Sempronia contrasts with Lucretia’s domestic diligence and sexual respectability. However, neither portrait should be treated as a complete description of Roman women. Together with the Sabine women and the Oppian protesters, these accounts show how women could be represented as indispensable to Rome, influential in public affairs, or threatening to social order.

Virgil’s shield: a battle turned into a struggle of values

Virgil’s Aeneid is epic poetry, rather than historical prose. In 8.671–713, he describes the Battle of Actium as an image on a shield made by Vulcan, the god of fire and craftsmanship. This is an artwork within the poem, not a surviving shield to inspect. The imagined materials make the scene vivid: a golden sea has white foam, silver dolphins move through it, and bronze ships occupy its centre. As the description develops, the figures seem to act, fight and flee.

The opposing sides are presented very differently. Augustus Caesar stands high on his ship, leading the Italians with the Senate, the People and Roman gods beside him. Twin flames shine from his brow and his father’s star appears on his head. Agrippa leads another column of ships, favoured by winds and gods, wearing a naval crown decorated with ships’ beaks. These details associate their leadership with Roman unity, honour and divine approval.

Antony, by contrast, brings ‘barbarous wealth’ and ‘strange weapons’, accompanied by eastern peoples and his Egyptian consort, Cleopatra. The parenthetical judgement ‘the shame’ openly condemns her presence. Virgil makes the conflict appear to pit Rome and its proper order against a threatening foreign alliance. That is the poem’s framing, not an impartial judgement of the peoples or woman it depicts.

Cleopatra: a commanding queen facing defeat

Cleopatra is not merely a spectator. Positioned in the centre, she signals to her forces with a sistrum, an Egyptian rattling instrument. The detail gives her a commanding role while emphasising her Egyptian identity. She differs sharply from Lucretia’s domestic ideal: here a woman occupies the centre of public warfare.

The gods reinforce the contrast between the armies. ‘Barking Anubis’ and gods labelled ‘monstrous’ oppose Neptune, Venus and Minerva. Mars, the Furies, Discord and Bellona intensify the violence; Bellona carries a blood-drenched whip. When Apollo of Actium bends his bow from above, the opposing peoples flee. Divine intervention therefore makes Augustus’ side appear favoured, rather than presenting victory as solely the result of human tactics.

Cleopatra calls upon the winds and sets sail. Yet two snakes are already pictured behind her, unseen by her, and Vulcan has made her pale with approaching death. These details foreshadow her fate: the reader understands a danger that the queen does not yet acknowledge. The personified Nile mourns and opens its sheltering waters to the defeated. This ending introduces pathos, an appeal to pity, alongside the earlier condemnation. Cleopatra is portrayed both as a formidable foreign queen and as a defeated figure approaching death.

Camilla’s childhood: a life dedicated to Diana

Book 11 shifts from the shield’s depiction of historical warfare to the epic’s own battle narrative. Camilla fights on the Italian side against the Trojans and their allies. In 11.532–596, Diana, the virgin goddess associated with hunting, speaks sorrowfully to Opis, one of her virgin followers. Camilla is dearer to Diana than anyone else, but the goddess already describes her taking up weapons ‘in vain’. Her death is foreshadowed before her achievements are narrated.

Diana explains the origin of their relationship. Camilla’s father, Metabus, was driven from his throne at Privernum because people hated his tyrannical rule. He fled with his infant daughter, naming her Camilla after her mother Casmilla. Pursued by enemies, he reached the flooded river Ausenus and feared that he could not safely swim across carrying her.

He wrapped Camilla in cork-tree bark and tied her to the middle of his oak spear. Before throwing it across the river, he dedicated her to Diana, asking the goddess to accept the child as her own. He then swam after her and recovered both spear and daughter from the opposite bank. Camilla’s first association with a weapon is therefore also an act of religious dedication and a desperate attempt to preserve her life.

Metabus lived outside the cities, among shepherds and wild mountain country. He nourished Camilla with a mare’s milk and milk from wild creatures. As soon as she could walk, he equipped her with a lance, bow and quiver. She wore a tiger’s pelt instead of a gold hair clasp and trailing robe, and learned to bring down cranes and swans with spears and a sling. These details explain her hunting skill and distance from conventional feminine dress and upbringing.

Although mothers wanted her as a daughter-in-law, Camilla rejected marriage, remaining devoted to Diana, weapons and maidenhood. Her virginity is not incidental: it connects her way of life with the goddess she serves. Diana wishes Camilla had remained in her company rather than entering war against the Trojans.

Diana’s care and the limits of protection

Diana says that ‘bitter fate’ drives Camilla onwards. She sends Opis to the Latin borders with an avenging arrow, ordering her to punish whoever wounds Camilla, whether Trojan or Italian, with equal bloodshed. Diana also promises to carry Camilla’s body and untouched weapons in a cloud and bury her in her own land. Opis descends, veiled in a dark whirlwind.

Divine affection does not guarantee survival. Diana’s response is to arrange vengeance and burial rather than prevent the fatal wound. This gives Camilla’s coming death religious significance and emotional weight: she is a beloved, sacred follower, not merely another casualty.

Camilla’s aristeia: skill, leadership and ferocity

In 11.597–647, Camilla commands a wing of the forces opposing the Trojans and their Etruscan allies. She appears alongside Messapus, Coras and his brother on the Latin side. The cavalry charges, retreats and advances again. Virgil compares the changing movement to waves rushing towards the shore and drawing back. At the third encounter, the lines lock together and fighting becomes a close, bloody struggle involving riders and horses.

Virgil then singles Camilla out in 11.648–724. He calls her an Amazon, associating her with legendary female warriors, and describes one breast bared for battle. She showers javelins, wields a battle-axe with an ‘unwearied grasp’ and carries Diana’s golden bow. Even when retreating, she turns her bow backwards and fires at her attackers. Retreat does not mean helplessness: she remains dangerous and skilful.

Her chosen companions are Larina, Tulla and Tarpeia, who carries a bronze axe. They are loyal in peace and war. Virgil compares their company to Amazons gathered around Hippolyte or Penthesilea, giving Camilla’s leadership a heroic female precedent.

This extended display of exceptional fighting is an aristeia. Euneus is her first victim; she also kills Liris and Pagasus, one struggling with his wounded horse and the other attempting to help him. Amastrus, Tereus, Harpalycus, Demophoon and Cromis follow. The statement that as many warriors fall as she throws spears emphasises her deadly accuracy.

Her encounters reveal different aspects of her character. She kills the huntsman Ornytus and taunts him for mistaking battle for hunting, declaring that defeat by Camilla’s spear will bring him fame. Her reference to ‘a woman’s weapons’ openly challenges male expectations. Against Butes, she exploits the gap between armour and helmet; against Orsilochus, she turns inside his pursuit and becomes the pursuer. Yet she repeatedly strikes Orsilochus with her axe while he begs for mercy. Tactical brilliance coexists with pitiless violence.

The son of Aunus tries to exploit her pride. He challenges her to dismount and fight on foot, then attempts to escape on horseback once she accepts. Camilla outruns and intercepts him, seizes his reins and kills him. The simile of a falcon catching and tearing apart a dove conveys both her extraordinary speed and her predatory ferocity. She defeats cunning, but her angry response also shows how readily a provocation can redirect her attention.

Arruns waits for a weakness

In 11.725–767, Jupiter watches the battle and stirs the Etruscan commander Tarchon to action. Tarchon shames his men by asking whether a woman can drive them into disorder. His insult depends on the assumption that defeat by a woman is particularly humiliating; Camilla’s success has exposed that assumption.

Tarchon seizes Venulus from his horse and carries him away while they struggle. Virgil compares them to an eagle carrying a resisting snake. The Etruscans imitate their leader and charge, changing the momentum of battle.

Meanwhile, Arruns silently circles Camilla with his javelin, following her whether she advances or withdraws. He searches for the easiest opportunity rather than confronting her openly. His patient concealment contrasts with her conspicuous battlefield triumphs. Virgil also describes his life as owed to the fates, foreshadowing danger for the man who threatens her.

Chloreus, spoils and the fatal ambush

In 11.768–835, Camilla notices Chloreus, formerly a priest of Cybele, glittering in elaborate Phrygian equipment. His horse has bronze-scaled protection fastened with gold; he wears purple and saffron clothing, embroidered garments and a golden helmet, and carries a golden bow.

Camilla pursues him recklessly. Virgil gives two possible motives: she may want to dedicate his Trojan weapons in a temple, or display herself in captured gold. The first would make the spoils a religious offering; the second suggests personal display. He nevertheless characterises her pursuit as ‘a feminine desire for prizes and spoil’. The gendered phrase qualifies the admiration built by her aristeia, associating her distraction with a supposedly female weakness. Her attention to luxurious equipment also contrasts with the simple, wild upbringing Diana described.

Arruns uses this distraction to attack from ambush. He prays to Apollo, guardian of holy Soracte, invoking his community’s worship through walking on burning embers. He asks to remove the shame caused by Camilla, whom he calls a ‘dreadful scourge’, and claims he wants no trophy or spoils: he only wishes to kill her and return home. This is his hostile view of her, not the whole poem’s judgement.

Apollo grants only half the prayer: Arruns may kill Camilla, but he will not return to his homeland. Camilla notices neither the sound nor the approaching spear before it strikes beneath her breast. Her friends catch their falling queen. Arruns flees in both joy and terror, unwilling to face her weapons. The simile of a wolf hiding after killing a shepherd or bullock stresses his fearful withdrawal rather than celebrating a glorious victory.

Camilla’s death: loyalty survives her strength

Camilla tries to pull out the weapon, but its iron point is lodged deep near her ribs. Her colour fades and her strength fails. The contrast with her earlier tireless fighting creates pathos: the warrior who controlled so many encounters cannot now free herself from a single wound.

She addresses Acca, her closest and most trusted companion, as ‘my sister’. Her final instructions concern the defence of the city. Acca must tell Turnus to take Camilla’s place in battle and keep the Trojans away. Even after the reckless pursuit that exposed her to attack, Camilla’s last concern is her military responsibility rather than captured wealth.

She releases the reins and weapons, slips helplessly to the ground, and her life flees ‘angrily’ to the shades below. The anger makes death feel like an unwilling loss of life and heroic potential. With Camilla fallen, the Trojans, Etruscans and Evander’s Arcadians surge forward together. Her death matters to the whole battle, confirming the importance of the leader they have lost.

Camilla’s portrayal therefore resists a simple judgement. She rejects marriage, excels in a male-dominated arena and inspires loyal female companions. She is also proud, fierce and fatally distracted. Diana’s sorrow and the tenderness of her death encourage sympathy, while Virgil’s gendered description of her desire for spoils introduces criticism. As with Cleopatra and the women in the histories, interpretation depends on connecting actions with the language, relationships and values surrounding them.