Lucretia as Ideal Woman and Ideal Slaver in First Century BCE Rome

In Roman mythology, Lucretia represents the archetypal Roman matron, embodying the linked values of castitas (chastity) and pudicitia (sexual virtue) (Langlands). This paper identifies an additional, and closely associated, dimension to Lucretia’s exemplarity: her behavior as a slaver.

Enslaved people are omnipresent in early accounts of Lucretia. Depending on the version, they spin wool beside her (Liv. 1.57, Ov. Fast. 743), guard her door while she sleeps (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.64.5), and lament her untimely death (4.67.2). Most conspicuously, in all early accounts, Lucretia’s rapist succeeds in coercing her into sex by threatening to leave the dead, naked body of an enslaved man beside her corpse (e.g. Liv. 1.58.4). Slavery has not, however, played a major role in most interpretations of the myth, with the exception of a seminal article by Sandra Joshel. Identifying large-scale slavery as a key context for the composition of Rome’s early foundation myths in the first century BCE, Joshel wrote that Lucretia’s (and her counterpart Verginia’s) victimization was made possible by the “slave.” This paper expands on Joshel’s observation by arguing that the institution of slavery was fundamental to not only Lucretia’s violation, but also her virtue.

I focus on two key scenes, starting with the rape itself. While Tarquin tries additional methods to bend Lucretia to his will in some accounts, only one means of coercion is ultimately effective: the dishonor of adultery with an enslaved man. Tarquin’s threat represents this kind of sexual act as the most damaging act possible for a female head of household, whose sexual integrity should be protected (read: surveilled), not compromised, by the domestic slaves. If the rape scene offers the negative paradigm of a female slaver, the wool-working scene that proceeds it in Livy and Ovid’s accounts presents the opposite. For these authors, Lucretia’s castitas is embodied in her choice of evening activity: she spends her night engaged in textile work alongside her female slaves. Interpretations of the tableau usually focus on Lucretia’s own labor, representing wool-working as a stand-in for female virtue, especially Augustan female virtue (Lovén, Rodrigues). Equally important, though, is her supervision of the enslaved women and her exemplary stewardship of the household in her husband’s absence. Ovid refers to the work she has allotted to each woman Fast. 743), and Livy draws attention to the hierarchy manifest in Lucretia’s home: while she instructs her subordinates in productive labor, the less honorable noblewomen waste the evening—and, it is implied, the labor of their slaves—partying with their equals (aequales, 1.57.9).

Central to Lucretia’s virtue, then, is her recognition of the right and wrong way to be a female slaver, and this quality is not distinct from, but rather productive of, her famed castitas and pudicitia. While it has long been recognized that Roman virtus (manliness) was predicated, in part, on the domination of enslaved people (Williams), this paper suggests that more work is needed on the role of slaving in the construction of ideal femininity.