Women and Gender in the Forum Romanum

Abstract

This article explores the evidence for women and gender in the Forum Romanum, investigating (primarily through literary sources) women's use of this space, and (primarily archaeologically) historical women's signification there by images and structures. The illustrated analysis proceeds chronologically from the Republic to the early third century C.E. Authors report women's presence in the civic Forum as abnormal, even transgressive through the Julio-Claudian period. The paucity of women's depictions and patronage here until the second century C.E. echoes constructs of Livy, Seneca the Younger, Tacitus, and others. The mid-imperial Forum, however, marks changes in Roman ideology as well as topography.