The Romans had a very clear idea about what a good woman should be. First of all, she should aspire to unimpeachable Pudicitia, the fragile personification of purity – the slightest questioning of a woman’s virtue could destroy her – and she was expected to be fertile, loyal and supportive, both as a mother and a wife. But women were also believed to be especially susceptible to the ‘effeminate’ temptations of luxury and indulgence, failings that were seen as potentially undermining of the state.
When Octavian seized control of the Roman world in 31 BC and took the name Augustus just four years later, he knew he had to reinvent the whole image of the Roman state. He famously claimed to have restored the Republic, and in a sense he had, but he had also established a monarchy in all but name – where none was supposed to exist. However, he was constantly thwarted in his attempts to make the emperor’s position hereditary.
The Julio-Claudian dynasty (1), of which Augustus was the first of five emperors, lasted from 27 BC to AD 68, and the only reason it endured was because it was handed down through the female line.
