FECUNDITAS, STERILITAS, AND THE POLITICS OF REPRODUCTION AT ROME ANGELA GRACE HUG A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO DECEMBER 2014 © ANGELA GRACE HUG, 2014 Abstract This dissertation is a cultural history of the role of human fertility – fecunditas – in Ancient Roman society c. 200 B.C. – A.D. 250. I ask how the Romans chose to understand human fertility, how they sought to preserve and encourage it, and how the absence of fertility affected their marriages, their families and their political careers. It is an investigation of the place of fertility in the Roman cultural consciousness. Using a wide range of sources – literary, epigraphic, papyrological, juridical, and numismatic – I argue that the Romans conceptualized fecunditas (fertility) not just as a generic female quality, but as one of the cardinal virtues that all married women were expected to embody. A woman’s fecunditas could be evaluated and judged according to how many children she bore, how often she became pregnant, and how many of her children survived into adulthood. Although fecunditas was constructed as a female responsibility, élite Roman men were able to take advantage of having a fertile wife. Official benefits, such as those accrued by law under the ius trium liberorum, the rights of three children, brought one level of honour. An élite man could also exploit the fecunditas of his wife to increase his own social capital. In return, women of proven fertility were thought to deserve conjugal loyalty from their husbands and ought not to be divorced. Infertility could lead to the dissolution of a marriage. Fecunditas was not a private matter, nor were the members of the imperial family, the domus Augusta, immune to its pressures. At all levels in Roman society there was a strong interest in the safeguarding of the fecunditas of Roman citizen women, for through them the strength of the Roman state was preserved. It is not wrong, I argue, to speak in terms of a sort of fecunditas project, an obsession with the numbers of Roman citizens and the importance of fertile women to bear more of them, which permeates Roman society from the beginning of the Republic into the third century A.D. ii To Ben and Eamon iii Acknowledgements First, I must thank my supervisor, Prof. Jonathan Edmondson, for convincing me initially to join the Collaborative Programme in Ancient History (ColPAH) run by York University and the University of Toronto, and for his guidance, support, and understanding over the last six years. Particular mention must be made of his Herculean efforts in reading and commenting on the entire dissertation in two weeks when I first gave him a full draft. I have benefitted enormously from his wealth of experience and knowledge. I would also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Prof. Elizabeth Cohen, Prof. Andreas Bendlin, and Prof. Christer Bruun, for their helpful comments and suggestions. Dr. Rebecca Flemming went well above and beyond the requirements of an acting supervisor during my time at Cambridge in 2013. She read drafts of every chapter, not just the one which I had come to Cambridge to write, and discussed them with me at length. Her generosity with her time was very much appreciated. I am grateful to Prof. Brent Shaw for agreeing to be my external examiner and for his thoughtful and valuable comments on the dissertation. I would also like to thank the other members of my examination committee, Prof. Jeremy Trevett and Prof. Tony Burke. The dissertation has been much improved by the critical eyes of everyone who has read it. They will not all agree with everything in this dissertation, of course, and any remaining errors are my own responsibility. I acknowledge with gratitude that financial support for my research was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship), the Ontario government (Ontario Graduate Scholarship), and by York University. The Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement, also awarded by SSHRC, allowed me to spend four months in the summer of 2013 as a visiting graduate student in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge. I am grateful for the scholarship opportunities that allowed me to concentrate on my research. Sections of the argument in draft form were presented as conference or seminar papers at meetings in Toronto, Quebec City, St. Catharines, Montreal, and Cambridge. I thank the audiences on these occasions for their stimulating questions and discussion. I would also like to thank the faculty and graduate students who belong to ColPAH. It is a truly collegial environment in which to work and I am grateful for all the support I have iv received. Special thanks to Prof. Sarah Blake and Prof. Allison Surtees for moral support when things got tough. I would like to thank my family for their love and support throughout this entire project. Particular thanks go to my sister, Christina, my mother, and my father, who all stepped in to help with childcare at times when deadlines loomed. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my husband and my son, who have endured the demands my dissertation imposed on our family with good humour, patience, and kindness. Ben encouraged me to go back to graduate school, never doubted I would finish, and willingly took on more than his fair share of house and family responsibilities in order to give me the time and space to write, even when that meant interrupting his own work. I could not have finished the PhD without his unwavering support. Eamon has had to share his mother with the dissertation for his entire life, but he has done this with remarkably good grace. He brought me down from the ivory tower and reminds me every day that there is more to life than ancient history. This dissertation is dedicated, with love, to them. v Table of Contents Abstract ii Dedication iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents vi List of Tables viii List of Figures ix Introduction 1 Chapter One: Human Fertility and the Roman Élite Introduction 17 The Place of Children in Élite Roman Marriages 18 Voluntary Childlessness as Endemic in Rome? 34 Patterns of Childbearing among the Roman Élite I: Starting 46 Patterns of Childbearing among the Roman Élite II: Stopping 52 Patterns of Childbearing among the Roman Élite III: Spacing 61 Conclusion 73 Chapter Two: Gendering Fecunditas Introduction 75 Partners in Conception? The Roman Understanding of Infertility 76 Fecunditas and Virtue 87 Reciprocal Obligations I: Fecunditas as Social Capital 101 Reciprocal Obligations II: Fecunditas and Divorce 115 A Delicate Balance: Hyper-Fertility and Gender Preferences 120 Demographic Outliers: Multiple Births 130 Conclusion 141 Chapter Three: Fertility and the State Introduction 143 Fecunditas and the Roman State 144 Tyranny and Infertility 162 Rewarding Fecunditas 175 Encouraging Fecunditas? The Alimenta Schemes 187 Conclusion 190 Chapter Four: Fecunditas and the Imperial Family Introduction 192 Exploiting Fecunditas I: The Julio-Claudians 193 Exploiting Fecunditas II: Later Emperors 202 The Benefits of Adoption? 214 Infelix Fecunditas: Fertility and the Julio-Claudian Women 228 vi Conclusion 246 Chapter Five: Fecunditas Outside the Élite Introduction 248 Fertility and the Non-Élite, According to the Élite 249 Concerns for Fertility in the Roman World 254 Anatomical Votives 260 Epigraphic Evidence 269 The Ius Trium Liberorum as Status Symbol 291 Conclusion 299 Chapter Six: Barren Unions: Infertility and the Roman Élite Introduction 302 Methods of Coping with Involuntary Childlessness I: Adoption 304 Methods of Coping with Involuntary Childlessness II: ‘Substitute’ Children 323 Methods of Coping with Involuntary Childlessness III: Divorce 331 Conclusion 345 Conclusion 349 Bibliography 355 vii List of Tables 1 Birth dates of Agrippina’s children with Germanicus 230 2 Inscriptions commemorating women who died in childbirth 273 viii List of Figures 3.1 Aureus of Trajan, A.D. 103-111, with reverse showing Trajan reaching down to 169 raise Italy to her feet, with a child between them reaching up to the emperor (BMCRE III, no. 404). Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum 4.1 Sestertius of Tiberius, A.D. 22-23. Obverse shows busts of the twin sons of Drusus 200 emerging from cornucopiae (BMCRE I, no. 95). Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum 4.2 Denarius, A.D. 112-115. Obverse has bust of Plotina, reverse shows altar and cult 204 statue of Pudicitia (BMCRE III, no. 529). Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum 4.3 Aureus of Antoninus Pius, A.D. 149. Reverse has the busts of Faustina’s twins 207 emerging from cornucopiae (BMCRE IV, no. 678). Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum 4.4 Denarius of Marcus Aurelius, A.D. 161-176. Bust of Faustina the Younger on the 209 obverse, reverse shows Fecunditas holding an infant in each arm; at her sides are two more children facing left and right reaching up to her (BMCRE IV, no. 89). Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum 4.5 Sestertius of Marcus Aurelius, c. A.D. 161-163. Bust of Faustina the Younger on 210 the obverse, reverse shows Faustina with her six children (BMCRE IV, no. 950). Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum 4.6 Sestertius of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, A.D. 164-169. Bust of Domitia 211 Lucilla on the obverse, reverse shows Fecunditas, or possibly Lucilla herself, nursing a child (BMCRE IV, no. 1199). Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum 4.7 Denarius of Elagabalus, A.D. 218-222. Obverse has bust of Julia Maesa, reverse 213 shows Fecunditas standing left, extending right hand over head of child standing right, and holding cornucopia in left hand (BMCRE V, no. 63). Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum 4.8 Gold coin (quinarius) from A.D. 256. Obverse has bust of Salonina, wife of 214 Gallienus; reverse shows Fecunditas holding an infant in her left hand and holding the hand of a child in her right (RIC V, no. 15). Image credit: ©Trustees of the British Museum 5.1 Anatomical votive of a human uterus, Latium, 4th to 1st cent. B.C. 260 Image credit: Wellcome Library, London ix 5.2 Anatomical votive of a human uterus, Latium, 4th to 1st cent. B.C. 261 Image credit: Wellcome Library, London 5.3 A votive offering of a swaddled baby, Latium, 4th to 1st cent. B.C. 265 Image credit: Wellcome Library, London 5.4 Epitaph for Veturia Grata (CIL VI 28753 = CLE 108) 282 Image credit: Clauss-Slaby Database (http://www.manfredclauss.de) x