Roman Wives, Roman Widows
Page 28
5. Cf. 4:3 where there is a reference to those who forbid marriage. The two words function as synonyms: `those wishing' to be teachers of the law, i:7; `God wishes' the salvation of all, 2:4; cf. (3oUoµai: `I wish' that men should pray everywhere, 2:8; `those who wish' to be rich, 6:9. Cf. (3o&oµai and EOEXw in Liddell & Scott where a significant distinction cannot be maintained.
8. K. Hopkins, "The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage," Population Studies 18.3 (1965): 30527, and the table on 325. His statistics, which are built on two previous studies, incorporate data from CIL IV, 1-30,000, which are Latin inscriptions in Rome.
9. Soranus, Gynaecology, 1.20. See D. W. Amunsen and C. J. Diers, "The Age of Menopause in Classical Greece and Rome," Human Biology 42 (1970): 79-88; A. Wallace-Hadrill, "Family and Inheritance in the Augustan Marriage Laws," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society n.s. 27 (1981): 59; and J. F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (London: Croom Helm, 1986), pp. 178-79.
10. S. Dixon, The Roman Mother (London: Croom Helm, 1988), pp. 71-73, 84-103, for the complex legal situation that applied.
n. The actual consummation of a marriage before puberty was discouraged by ancient doctors. See Soranus, Gynaecology, 1.33.
12. S. Treggiari, Roman Marriage: lusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), ch. 1o; S. Dixon, Reading Roman Women (London: Duckworth, 2001), pp. 85-86.
i3. Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian, p. 338.
14. See R. Taubenschlag, The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt in the Light of the Papyri, 332 B.C.- 640 A.D. (Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1955), pp. 120-27 for non-literary evidence in the Roman period. For examples of legal extant marriage contracts all of which refer specifically to the contents or value of the dowry and its importance, see PRyl154 (A.D. 66): 'received from him as a dowry on his daughter'; also PTebt 104 (92 B.c.); BGU 1052 (13 B.C.). J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Roman Women: Their History and Habits (London: Bodley Head, 1974), pp. 186-89, argues that the recovery of a dowry in part or whole was for its future use, i.e., remarriage.
15. D. M. Schnaps, Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1979), p. 84.
16. B. W. Winter, "Widows and Legal and Christian Benefactions," in Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (Grand Rapids and Carlisle: Eerdmans and Paternoster, 1993), pp. 69-70. All who aspired to public office in the Greek cities were asked, `Do you treat your parents well?'; W. K. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece (London: Thames and Hudson, 1968), pp. u6-18.
17. W. K. Lacey, The Family in Classical Greece (London: Thames and Hudson, 1968), pp. u6-18.
18. Dixon, The Roman Mother, p. 47.
19. Z. W. Falk, Introduction to Jewish Laws of the Second Commonwealth (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), p. 290.
20. G. Rickman, The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), pp. 184-85. There was also the provision of child allowances, alimenta, which appear to have operated in some places in the empire from at least the time of Nero onwards, although Augustus appears to have created something of a precedent by including minores pueri among his congiaria, resources for which were raised from public benefactors and were private schemes in the first century A.D. See A. R. Hands, Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome (London: Thames and Hudson, 1968), pp. 71-73.
21. On the exemption from levies by Vespasian on 27th December, A.D. 75 see M. McCrum and A. G. Woodhead, Select Documents of the Principates of the Flavian Emperors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), no. 458, and discussion in my Philo and Paul among the Sophists: Alexandrian and Corinthian Responses to a Julio-Claudian Movement, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), pp. 23-24.
22. E. Schiirer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, II (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1979), p. 437 n. 45, notes that the `officers charged by the primitive church with the care of the poor ((SIaKOVSiv rpalrECaic)' in Acts 6:1-5 are fulfilling an identical role.
23. K. F. Nickle, The Collection: A Study in Paul's Strategy, SBT 48 (London: SCM, 1966), pp. 93-94.
24. Cf. Acts 6:1 where `Hellenistic' Jewish widows complained of exclusion.
25. The N.T. gives no further indications that the mechanism for distribution to the poor in Jerusalem needed subsequent adjustments. It does, however, reveal that the problem continued to be a lack of resources from within the Jerusalem church. Only collections from the Diaspora Jewish and Gentile Christians saved them from destitution especially in a time of famine; see Acts 11:27-30; Acts 24:17 and i Cor.16:if.; 2 Cor. 8-9 and Rom. 15:25-27 (although in these instances there is no indication of the famine situation referred to in Acts 11:27-30).
26. Polybius, xxxvi.17.7.
27. Cicero, pro Caelio, 38.
28. Walcot, "On Widows and Their Reputation in Antiquity."
29. Petronius, The Ship of Lichas, no.
33. Horace, Odes, 3.6.21-32.
30. Petronius, The Ship of Lichas, in.
31. Pliny, Natural History, 14.28.140-41.
32. See p. 153 for discussion.
36. A. Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 194-95.
37. Krause, Witwen and Waisen im Romischen Reich I, p. 73.
38. R. P. Sailer, "Men's Age at Marriage and Its Consequences for the Roman Family," CP 82 (1987): 29-30.
39• B. D. Shaw, "The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage: Some Considerations," JRS 77 (1987): 43-44.
34. On the sexual repulsiveness of sensual old women, see Lucilius, 279-81.
35. Petronius, Croton, 140.
40. Sexual activity with females before menstruation was strongly discouraged by Soranus, the late-first-century gynaecologist from Ephesus, Gynaecology, 1:33.
41. Cicero, pro Caelio, 31, 49.
42. S. Treggiari, Roman Marriage: lusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian, p. 300, sees her being caricatured by Cicero at the trial.
43. Ka raaTpriviaw does not occur elsewhere in Greek but the meaning of oTpfviaw is clear, to run riot', `become wanton' Antiphon, 82, Sophilus, 6, Diphilus, 132, P.Meyer 20.23 (3rd century A.D.), Rev. 18:7, 9.
44. BAGD, p. 528.
47. A. Sand, "Witwenstand and Amterstrukturen in den urchristlichen Gemeinden," Bibel and Leben 12 (1971): 196, argues that this refers to a vow of celibacy for devotion to God. Cf. also Rev. 2:4,11 &y nut n rrptTnl. The reading back into the first century of an order of widows is rejected as it is clear that 1 Tim. 5:3-16 is intended to assist only those who qualify by reason of age for the assistance of the church.
48. See BDF #425,2.
49. In reading the discussion on the young widow, the earlier expectation of faith, love, holiness and modesty for any married woman would have applied equally to them (2:15).
45. A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, 2nd ed. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1915), pp. 511-16.
46. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 972.
50. E. D'Ambra, "Women's Work;" in Private Lives, Imperial Virtues: The Frieze of the Forum Transitorium in Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), P. 104.
51. D'Ambra, "Women's Work;" in Private Lives, Imperial Virtues: The Frieze of the Forum Transitorium in Rome, p. 105.
52. N. Kampen, Image and Status: Roman Working Women in Ostia (Berlin: Gerb. Mann Verlag, 1981). For the activities of working women see S. Treggiari, "Jobs for Women;" AJAH 1 (1976): 76-104.
53. On this boast among the sophists of knowing nothing of labour (rrbvov oux ei86rss), see Philo, Det., 34.
56. On the problems of gossip in a previous era see V. J. Hunter, "The Politics of Reputation," in Policing Athens: Social Control in the Attic Lawsuits, 420-320 B.C. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), ch. 4, pp. u6-i9, and esp. pp. ui-i6 where gossip among women included malicious statements about sexual mores a
nd the social status of other women.
54. Suetonius, Augustus, 73.
55. See p. 142.
57. Richlin, "Graffiti, Gossip, Lampoons and Rhetorical Invective;" in The Garden of Priapus, ch. 4. On the issue of gossip, see pp. 83-86, cit. p. 84.
59• Richlin, "Graffiti, Gossip, Lampoons and Rhetorical Invective," p. 84. On the nature of gossip she provides examples from Cicero's personal letters which, it has been argued, were intended for publication.
6o. Richlin, "Graffiti, Gossip, Lampoons and Rhetorical Invective," pp. 81-83, 218.
6i. Menander, The Arbitrators, ll. 262, 575; c£ Samia, 11. 299-300.
62. On the use of the neuter, see the entry in Liddell & Scott.
58. Richlin, "Graffiti, Gossip, Lampoons and Rhetorical Invective," pp. 81-83, 218.
63. Juvenal, Satires, 6.405-6.
66. Tacitus, Germania, 19.2.
64. The Digest, 25.4.1.io. For an example see BGU IV.1104 (8 B.c.).
65. Cicero, pro Caelio, 31, 49.
67. Cf. M. Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 75, who argue that it refers to chastity whether married once or twice.
68. Plutarch, "Advice to the Bride and Groom," 19.
69. D'Ambra, Private Lives, Imperial Virtues: The Frieze of the Forum Transitorium in Rome, p. 99 cit.; Dixon, The Roman Mother, pp. 71-73, 84-103; and A. Wallace-Hadrill, "Family and Inheritance in the Augustan Marriage Laws," Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (n.s.) 27 (1981): 58-80.
70. Juvenal, 6, 11. 592-609.
71. Memorable Doings and Sayings, VIL7.4. Cf. CIL VI.1o.1o23o (early first century A.D.) where a mother was lauded by the citizens for `her equal treatment towards her children' and at the same time showing `a pleasing and loyal spirit towards her husbands'.
72. D'Ambra, Private Lives, Imperial Virtues: The Frieze of the Forum Transitorium in Rome, p. 99. See also J. F. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (London: Croom Helm, 1986), pp. 178-79.
73. L. F. Raditsa, "Augustus' Legislation concerning Marriage, Procreation, Love Affairs and Adultery," ANRW II 13 (1980): 323. D'Ambra, Private Lives, Imperial Virtues: The Frieze of the Forum Transitorium in Rome, p. 99.
74. The Digest, 3.2.9.
79. B. Rawson, "The Roman Family," in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives (London: Croom Helm, 1986), p. 31.
80. Epigrammata Graeca, 243b.
77. The Digest, 3.2.11.
78. The Digest, 3.2.10.
75. Hopkins, "The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage;" p. 325, citing Plutarch, "Numa," 12.
76. Seneca, Ad Helviam, 16.1.
81. The predicate `no occasion' is placed at the beginning of the clause for emphasis.
82. See Liddell & Scott on the special use of Xapiv as a preposition following the noun and meaning `for the sake of, on behalf of, on account or
83. See pp. 16o-63.
84.0. F. Robinson, The Criminal Law ofAncient Rome (London: Duckworth, 1995), pp. 95-97.
85. Tacitus, Annals, 13.32.
86. J. Jackson, Tacitus, Annals, Loeb (1956), pp. 52, n. 3, 53 (c£ I1.50).
87. The use of the verb `to honour' (5:3), which was drawn from the semantic field of benefactions applied here to a widow given to good works. She was not seen as a liability as was the merry young widow but deserving of adequate support. For a discussion see my "Widows and Legal and Christian Benefactions, 1 Timothy 5:3-16," in Seek the Welfare of the City: Early Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (Grand Rapids and Carlisle: Eerdmans and Paternoster, 1994), ch. 4, esp. pp. 71-73.
88. See p. 124, including n. 5, on including this as an imperative.
i. S. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (London: Random House, 1975), P. 42, notes, 'A chronological arrangement of the codes of Dorian Sparta and Gortyn [the capital of Crete] and the code of Ionian Athens shows that the Spartan code which antedated the Gortynian by a century or two, was the most favourable to women'. The Athenian was the most restrictive.
2. So note the editors M. R. Lefkowitz and M. B. Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992 [2nd ed.]), p. 55. For an English translation of part of the text of the Gortyn Law Code (Inscr. Creticae 4.72) see theirs on pp. 55-58. The citation is on p. 55. On the closeness of the Athenians and Cretans on their oath never to begin hostilities, see Plutarch, Thes.,19.7.
8. Strabo, Geography, 10.4.22.
3. Lefkowitz and Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, p. 55.
4. Lefkowitz and Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, p. 55.
5. Gortyn Law Code, 3.45.
6. Lefkowitz and Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, p. 55.
7. Plutarch, "Advice on Marriage," WE
9. See Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, pp. 41-42, for the legal regulations governing women of the lower classes, cit. P. 41.
io. Gortyn Law Code, 2.3.
n. D. A. Mackenzie, Crete and Pre-Hellenic Myths and Legends (London: Gresham, 1917; reprint, London: Senate, 1995), p. 71, endorses the view even from the early period.
12. Mackenzie, Crete and Pre-Hellenic Myths and Legends, p. 59. On female divinities, see generally R. Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire (E.T., Oxford: Blackwell, 1996).
13. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, pp. 13-15, rightly cautions against drawing a conclusion about female dominance without the evidence of `written documentation' and solely from the large number of female figurines. In the case of Crete we do have extant epigraphic evidence of a more privileged legal position for women, as she herself notes, PP. 39-42.
14. Plutarch, "Old Men in Public Office," 792E.
15. I. F. Sanders, Roman Crete: An Archaeological Survey and Gazetteer of Later Hellenistic, Roman and Early Byzantium (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1982), esp. p. 132.
16. Strabo, Geography, 10:4.22.
17. See p. 21.
18. S. Treggiari, Roman Marriage: lusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), P. 233.
i9. See pp. 63-65.
20. Philo of Alexandria's indebtedness to philosophy is well documented by D. T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986), as is his training in oratory by A. Mendelson, Secular Education in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1982). His critique of the sophists is credible, being confirmed by late-first-century writers such as Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch, and Epictetus. The following discussion is a brief summary of that evidence and conclusions based on it from my Philo and Paul among the Sophists: Alexandrian and Corinthian Responses to a Julio-Claudian Movement, 2nd edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). As the subtitle indicates, the New Testament discussion was restricted primarily to Corinth with a discussion about a similar situation in Thessalonica, but that on Crete was missed.
21. Philo and Paul among the Sophists, pp. 30-34, 118-21.
22. Philo, Congr. 67-68; Philo and Paul among the Sophists, pp. 74-75, 81-87.
23. J. de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1975); for the first century Philo equates the magicians of Moses' day with the present-day sophists in their rhetorical practices. For evidence see Philo and Paul among the Sophists, pp. 88-91.
24. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 8.9.
25. For a discussion of the sophists' misuse of education for vice and deception, see Philo and Paul among the Sophists, pp. 81-91.
26. Philo and Paul among the Sophists, pp. 91-93. For a summary of their argument, see Philo, Det., 32-34.
27. Philo, Det., 34.
28. Cynic Epistles, "Of Socrates;" 1.4 and 6.io; P.Oxy. 2190.
29. Dio Chrysostom, Or., 32.11.
30. Winter, Philo and Paul among the Sophists, pp. 91-94.
31. On the wealth and status of the sophists see E. L. Bowie, "The Importance of the Sophists;" Yale Classical Studies 27 (1982): 29-59.
> 32. "Paul among the Christian Sophists," in Philo and Paul among the Sophists, ch. io, where it is argued that some of the rhetorically trained teachers who were his critics in Corinth were Jews; see 2 Cor. 11:22-23.
33. Philo, L.A., II1.167.
34. G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), pp. 364-69.
35. Winter, Philo and Paul among the Sophists, Part I.
36. Epictetus, Discourses, 111.23.23. The editor noted the practice of inviting a popular scholar to lecture in one's house, which was widespread in both the Greek and Roman periods; W. A. Oldfather, Epictetus, LCL, 11 (1978): 177, n. 6.
37. On the denunciation of the motives and the conduct of teachers in households, see Lucian, "On Salaried Posts in Great Houses"; cf. his own defence when he himself later in life took up a salaried post in connection with Roman Administration (in his "Apology").
38. According to Plutarch, Solon, 12.1, Epimenides of Phaestus was summoned from Crete because he was `reckoned the seventh Wise Man - a man beloved of the gods and endowed with a mystical and heaven-sent wisdom in religious matters'.
39• The attribution of the saying to Epimenides has been widely discussed. For a summary see W. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles (Nashville: Nelson, 2000), pp. 396-99; and I. H. Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), pp. 200-201.
40. Polybius, 16.18.5-22.2.
41. Plutarch, Lysias, 20.2; cf. Aemilius, 23.
42. Strabo, Geography, 10.4.17.
43. On the absence of wild animals on Crete see Pliny, Natural History, 8.83; and Plutarch, "Progress in Virtue," 86C.
44. For something like this in terms of feasting in a neighbourhood association see Plutarch, Lysander, 12.1; O. M. van Nijf, The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1997), pp. 181-82. He does not classify Plutarch's reference thus.
46. Strabo, Geography, 4-10.16, 18, 20. Cit. 18.
45• = membrum virile, Artemidorus Tarsensis, Grammaticus, 1.45; J. N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (London: Duckworth, 1982), p. 69. For the significance of the toga virilis, see p. 68.
47. Contra A. C. Thiselton, "The Logical Role of the Liar Paradox in Titus 1:12,13: A Dissent from the Commentaries in the Light of Philosophical and Logical Analysis," Biblical Interpretation 2 (1994): 207-23. He seeks to argue that the saying does not make a generalisation about Cretan society. However, his approach forces him to argue that the subsequent affirmation about the truthfulness of the witness `is more likely to have been intended as a light touch underlining the absurdity of a regress ad infinitum; cit. P. 207.