Syme pointed to the real effect of these measures - by including women in the strictures, Augustus effectively created a senatorial class.25 He also noted that `One of the consequences of this new legislative and political formalization of a senatorial status and rank hierarchy was that senators were kept from marrying freedwomen and thereby publicly compromising that special status Augustus wanted to claim for their group'.26
That Augustus attached a great importance to the intention of this legislation of 17 B.C. can be gauged from the evidence we have of the reinstatement of the Secular Games in the same year. They would henceforth commemorate the preservation of the State and, as Suetonius noted, it was Augustus who commissioned Horace to write the `Centennial Hymn' (Carmen Saeculare) for this extremely important occasion. It was sung on the third day of the festival by a choir of girls and boys in the temple of Apollo and at subsequent celebrations of the Games.27 This hymn provided the opportunity to declare matters central to the welfare of the state. Not only was Augustus declared to be `of Anchises' and Venus' pure blood' (hence Venus would be the mother of the imperial family and provide a warrant for the imperial cult, 1.49), but this composition also contained a clear reference to the intention of the lex Julia.
Ilithyia, gently bring on birth at the proper time, whether you more approve the name Lucina or Genitalis, protect our mothers.
Goddess, bring forth offspring, and prosper the Senate's edict on wedlock, that the new law on the marriage of women produce abundant children....
Gods! give proven morals to our ductile youth, Gods! give rest to our sober elders, give profit, progeny and every honour to Romulus' race....
Now Faith, and Peace, and Honour, and pristine Modesty, and Manhood neglected, dare to return, and blessed Plenty appears, her horn laden.28
The first two verses belong to the second triad of the hymn with its theme on the outcome of the lex Julia; the third stanza is the final verse in the fourth triad on the divine activity that created Rome; and the last stanza cited above forms the third in the penultimate triad linking the return of modesty and manhood to its originator and his divine origins - Anchises and Venus.
Writing from his perspective, Williams comments, `It is hard to see why a quarter of the space allotted to Augustus' achievements [four stanzas] should have been given to exaggerating the effects of this piece of coercive legislation, in such extravagant terms'.29 Clearly, Horace saw it to be a matter of substantial significance for his generation, and behind this great Roman poet was the shadow of Augustus. Williams also notes, `It is hard to sense any poetic qualities in these words, but Horace no doubt inserted them because of the moral legislation of i8 B.C. [that] put the finishing touch to the new world'.30 Given these observations, the reference to the lex Julia is all the more poignant. Augustus had seen a nexus between his moral reform and the welfare of the Roman family and the state. It was therefore appropriate that he should be lauded for `the new law on the marriage of women' which was described for public consumption as `the Senate's edict on wedlock'. A specific petition, `give proven morals to our ductile youth', was also made to the gods in the hymn.31
Whatever clandestine or mixed motives are attributed to Augustus in initiating this legislation, the hymn provides an important insight into the strategic role which Augustus himself attached to the lex Julia and his vision that there should be `nothing greater than the city of Rome'.32
It is also important to note that as early as 28-27 B.C. Augustus revived the cult of Pudicitia (Modesty) which had been established in 331 B.C. Only women of patrician birth who had married only once, and that to a patrician husband, had been allowed to participate in it.33 This was a move that foreshadowed but one of the outcomes hoped for in the lex Julia.
In 28 B.c. Augustus had begun a programme of moral reform but the law did not get on the statute books or, if it did, it was repealed. Propertius provides evidence.
Cynthia rejoiced indeed when the law was lifted At the enactment of which we had both wept long In case it should divide us, though Jove himself Cannot separate two lovers against their will But Caesar is mighty.34
Propertius rejoiced in its failure, for it `would have forced him to abandon Cynthia and marry a wife to provide manpower for the state'.35 Augustus saw a critical nexus between the patricians and the moral conduct of wives a decade before his lex Julia; the latter was a long-projected piece of legislation.
Bauman acknowledges that there is no consensus among scholars as to the full intention behind the legislation, but he believes that some important conclusions can be drawn. He states `in terms of the most viable theory the aim was to strengthen the traditional family unit, to stimulate the Italian birthrate [given `the long years of anarchy and civil war'], and [he does not fail to add] to reinforce pudicitia, the strict moral standard expected of women'.36
It was to be expected that legislation such as this, which moved into uncharted waters (or rather stormy seas), would not go unchallenged given that the lifestyle of men and women, not least the socially important interest groups, would be affected. Treggiari comments, `The effect of the Augustan Law is attested by attempts made to evade it.' However she notes the effectiveness of the law on adultery in some cases and concedes that the results are impossible statistically to know.37 What remaining evidence do we have?
The `defiance of the upper class women who tried to enrol themselves among the women exempt from persecution for stuprum and adulterium by publicly stating their loves' indicates `how vividly the lex Julia's division of the society was perceived'.38 As a response to this the Senate forbade women descended from, or married to, senators or knights from becoming high-class prostitutes (hetairai).
We know that the legislation on adultery committed by wives was implemented, because Dio Cassius records that `Many women were accused but Augustus set a definite date as a limit'.39 In A.D. 2 the five-year proscription (on the limitation of legal action) concerning such charges was introduced. Bauman argues that women alone would have pressed for such an amendment and speculates that they would have mounted a campaign for this relief. Ovid, having been trained in a progressive law school, gave the lobby his expert advice.40
Certain men were unhappy with the implications of the legislation. Suetonius recorded that the knights `persistently called for its repeal at a public gathering' but that did not influence Augustus, whose response was to display the children of Germanicus before the Equites' lobby as proof of the importance of the family. His action suggests that the dissatisfaction of the Equites at that particular time was with the penalties for those who had not married or who had not produced children.41 It was meant to deprive young unmarried men who had received the toga virilis of their affairs with sexually experienced married women who were not prostitutes, and to penalise them for not marrying. The legislation affected `bequests which played an important role in the social life of Rome, especially among the young and the aristocratic'. 42
Others, according to Suetonius, who were bachelors were getting betrothed to little girls, which meant postponing the responsibility for father- hood.43 Married men were frequently changing their wives. Even making allowance for the exaggerated comments of Seneca, wives also engaged in changing partners. He hoped in the light of such intervention that no longer would `illustrious and nobly born women count their age not by adding up consuls but by husbands, and go away [divorce] in order to marry and marry in order to divorce'.44
Members of the Equestrian Order sought to have the provision that discriminated against those of their class who were married, but had no children, rescinded.45 This aspect of the legislation affected the laws of inheritance and touched primarily the wealthy, i.e., estates with over ioo,ooo sesterces and women with over 50,000 sesterces.
The social and legal pressure to have children was such that, if widows who were childless in their first marriage remarried and had a child by that marriage, they could enjoy the benefits from an inheritance. This aspect of the legislation is attribu
ted to Augustus' concern about the falling birth rate in Rome compared with Republican times. This seems to have been a genuine concern given the census of 28 B.C.46 As lines 18-20 in the Centennial Hymn record, the matter of children was a great concern of Augustus.47
Dio Cassius recorded `he assessed heavier taxes on unmarried men and women without husbands, and by contrast offered awards for marriage and childbearing'.48 By means of his `social' legislation Augustus gave a further incentive to have children by giving preference to those who did so by moving them more rapidly through posts in the Senatorial class. Treggiari notes that `Augustan marriage legislation slighted or rewarded men by enhancing or retarding (depending on their marital and reproductive choices) their ability to advance quickly within the new structure of clearly ranked jobs'.49
Horace (65-8 B.c.) was an important commentator on the Augustan age and a poet of such significance in the early empire that his odes even became a school textbook. Juvenal noted his writings in the wake of their publication. Given the relationship Horace had with Augustus (Horace named him as his heir in his will), the former's assessment of Augustus' lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis is important - apart from what was sung at the state occasion in his Centennial Hymn.50 (See pp. 45-46.)
On its effects he commented -
Elsewhere he addressed Augustus as one who carried `many weighty affairs on your shoulders, strengthening Rome's defences, promoting decent behaviour, reforming our laws'.53
It is clear that unlike the majority of extant responses to the legislation, Horace not only acknowledges its reality but, even allowing for political pressure and poetic licence, reports with approval on its intention. (See p. 45 for his Centennial Hymn.) While there are discrepancies in the moral tone of Horace's public poems (with their praise of marital faithfulness) and his erotic ones, Raditsa feels that there is justification for the latter. He suggests, `The erotic poems were acceptable, because they enjoyed the endorsement of a great tradition and did not directly address themselves to the present .154
One of the ongoing criticisms of the original legislation was that it struck at the heart of a central pillar of Roman law, i.e., it created categories before the law and not equality before the law (aequa lex). Some objected to a law which prevented marriage between patricians and plebeians. Cicero (io6-43 B.c.) recorded the resentment of any prohibitions that precluded them marrying those who were Roman citizens.55
As late as Tacitus, concern continued to be expressed about this breach of equality before the law, and the wedge he saw Augustus inserted in this legis lation between law and justice.56 From the perspective of Roman jurisprudence `these laws represented a considerable breach of that principle [of equality] and thereby testify to the fragmentation of society ... equality before the law distinguished a body politic from a collection of persons (multitudo). If the Emperor was outside and above the law, others were being placed outside and below it'.57
However, the emperor's daughter, Julia, was not beyond the reach of this law.58 She was tried at his instigation for her blatant, promiscuous adultery in 2 B.C. Sempronius Gracchus was named as the adulterer while Julia was married to Agrippa; they continued this relationship after she married Tiberius. She was prosecuted in a series of trials citing not only Gracchus but also other men. Antonius was sentenced to death but allowed to commit suicide while others, including Gracchus and a number of senators and knights, were banished from Rome.
Seneca reported that `[Augustus'] failing years were alarmed by his daughter and the noble youths who were bound to her by adultery as if by a military oath'.51 He complained that `she received lovers in droves ... roamed the city in nocturnal revels.... Turning from adultery to prostitution ... [she sought] gratification of every kind in the arms of casual lovers'.60
It was Augustus and not her husband, Tiberius, who intervened and made her scandalous behaviour public, punishing her lovers in varying degrees and permanently banishing his daughter from Rome. `Julia and her friends publicized their activities. They made the forum and even the rostra from which Augustus had asked the people to vote his laws witness their making love.... Here and there are hints of something approaching an ideology justifying their promiscuity - as if some hoped the pursuit of licence could lead to freedom .161 She and her friends `had something in common with the Bacchanals, whose coniuratio expressed by oaths what Seneca attributes only notionally to the grex Iuliae. The two movements also shared nocturnal activities and the consumption of wine, those "infallible" proofs that women were up to no good'.62 Her flagrant defiance of the law could not be allowed to continue. For Augustus she sadly epitomised the kind of new Roman woman with her flamboyant conduct, her circle of friends, and her blatant promiscuity against which he had legislated.
Her indiscreet behaviour in public could not have come at a more inopportune time for Augustus. As early as 29-27 B.C. he was seeking the title of `father of his country' (pater patriae) which would be his last constitutional acquisition. `It was seen as a transfer of the state into the power of Augustus, as if into the power of the head of a family.'63 The nexus of a comparable title with promiscuity is reflected in Horace who wrote this ode in 28 B.C.
If he [Augustus] aspire to be styled on monuments Father of Cities (pater urbium), Oh, let him dare to bridle unbroken licence.64
It had taken a quarter of a century before the title of `father of his country' was conferred on him in 2 B.C., and this prize, with the political power it conferred, occurred just before the trials of Julia.65 The `head' of `The Family' had to act in the face of his daughter's flagrant flouting of his legislation.
Dio Cassius reports in a fulsome way the two addresses given by Augustus in response to the Equestrians' request for the repeal of what he cited as `the law regarding the unmarried and the childless'. These were delivered in the Forum at the time of the triumphal games given by the consuls and provide evidence of his concerns about both Roman marriage and promiscuity.
Augustus, speaking first to the married men and beginning his address with the divine order of marriage, is somewhat effusive in his praise of them.
Therefore, men, - for you alone may properly be called men, - and fathers, - for you are worthy to hold this title as I myself - I love you and praise you for this....
He was unashamed that he had provided them with incentives as husbands and fathers.
I not only bestow the prizes I have already offered but will distinguish you still further by other honours and offices, so that you may not only reap great benefits yourselves but may also leave them to your children un- diminished.66
The promise of even further material and immaterial benefits suggests he was keen to secure their continuing support for his legislation and, as always, there were advantages for the State in terms of future generations of Roman citizens. Interestingly, he epitomised the estate of marriage in terms of having no better relationship than where `a wife is of chaste conduct ((Yc34pcov), domestic, mistress of the house, its good stewardess, a rearer of children; one ... to restrain the mad passion of youth'.67
In a second address in another part of the forum he spoke to a much larger assembly of bachelors. He `indicted' them on a number of accounts, explaining each 'charge'- committing murder, for not begetting descendants; sacrilege, in putting an end to the family names of their ancestors; impiety, in destroying the greatest gift of the gods, i.e., human life; destroying the State by defying its laws and finally betraying the country by `rendering her barren and childless'.68
He warned them -
I, now, have increased the penalties for the disobedient, in order that through fear of becoming liable to them you might be brought to your senses; and to the obedient I have offered more numerous and greater prizes than are given for any other display of excellence, in order that for this reason, if for no other) you might be persuaded to marry and have children .61
Augustus could not understand why they had not been moved by his incentives or driven by fear of the penalties.70
In citing their epitomising of the unmarried state in terms of being `free and untrammelled' he unmasked what they really wanted as `full liberty of wantonness and licentiousness'.' He cited the concessions of betrothal to very young girls as a means of deferring marriage until they were of age; these men should instead be classified as `prospective bridegrooms' so that those who sought love and intimacy might secure this through lawful means, i.e., marriage. He commended his flexibility in not forcing them into marrying immediately and gave them three years leeway, later reducing it to two in order to accommodate them. Those not of senatorial rank were permitted to marry freedwomen. Yet this did not persuade the bachelors whom he addressed to marry.72
The freeing of slaves of Roman households and bestowing citizenship on them was another move calculated to increase the number of Roman citizens. Yet those born free had simply wanted to copulate and not populate Rome, to put it succinctly-" Dio concludes, `Such were his words to the two groups at that time', and informs the reader that Augustus subsequently increased the rewards to those who had children and introduced a distinction between unmarried men and married men without children by imposing different penalties. He also gave a year's amnesty before bringing these penalties into force so that they could marry and those without children had time to qualify for the rewards. He also lifted the ceiling on the value of property which women could inherit to above ioo,ooo sesterces and granted the Vestal Virgins all the privileges enjoyed by women who had children. We know that the speech occurred before the Lex Papia Poppaea came into force because Dio specifically mentions that fact.74
Roman Wives, Roman Widows Page 6
