How raped women were punished or the pudicitia in Valerius Maximus
Abstract
This paper discusses the impact of rape on women’s lives, as represented in section 6.1 of Memorable deeds and sayings by the Roman author Valerius Maximus. To do so, we demonstrate the opposition between stuprum and pudicitia – a virtue expected, for the most part, from the female population –, as well as the power conflict between the rapist and the paterfamilias, responsible for the victim. The asymmetry between the reality of female and male victims is also presented. The analysis uses the concept of exemplum, according to ancient authors such as Cicero and Quintilian, and modern ones, such as Rebecca Langlands (2018) and Matthew Roller (2018), in dialogue with Roman laws that concern stuprum, mainly the lex Iulia. The conclusion is that the mere prospect of losing pudicitia leads to some kind of punishment – usually death – also of the woman who is the target of the violence. Male victims tend to be represented as worthy of protection and revenge, either by legal means or by murdering the rapist. On the other hand, death is seen as a better option for women than dishonor, so they commit suicide, demonstrating their uirtus, or are killed by the paterfamilias, who thus protects the family name.
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