Laudatory speech Turiae

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Laudation Turiae fragment f

Laudatio Turiae ( Latin praise of Turia ) is an inscription from the time of Augustus found near Rome . It is the longest known Roman epitaph . It is the funeral oration ( laudatio funebris ) of a husband for his deceased wife, which is engraved in the woman's tombstone. It provides a good insight into Roman inheritance and marriage law .

Tomb

Fragment g

The inscription called Laudatio Turiae was on two stone slabs, presumably 2.6 m high and 90 cm wide, which were spanned by the dedication ending in XORIS ( uxoris = for the wife) and possibly a statue of the dead (and her husband) framed. It originally contained around 180 lines of text, 132 of which have at least partially been preserved.

The tomb was smashed in the 2nd half of the 3rd century at the latest, because two of the seven fragments found around Rome served as cover for burial niches in the Marcellinus and Petrus catacombs on Via Labicana and are now in the Villa Albani walled up. Only copies from the 17th century exist of the three fragments on the left. Only the two most recently found fragments are on public display, the remaining half of the headpiece in the right column with the dedication XORIS (fragment f) and a smaller section a few centimeters below (fragment g) in the museum in the Diocletian Baths .

About half of the original inscription has been lost. Reconstruction is made easier on the one hand by the regular writing with spaces in between for meaning segments, on the other hand it is made more difficult by the fact that one does not know how many letters originally belonged to each line.

content

The deceased was married for 41 years. In his speech, the widower praises his wife's domestic virtues , as is not uncommon on tombstones of Roman women , but more noteworthy were those of her qualities that she did not share with other matrons . That is why he describes their eventful common life:

The deceased had no brothers, only one sister who was already married. Her parents were murdered shortly before the wedding. While her fiancé was in Macedonia and her brother-in-law in Africa , the young bride stayed in her parents' house and arranged for the perpetrators to be punished. In addition, she had to fight a dispute against her mother's relatives, who wanted to gain access to her father's property through legal guardianship (see below) and who wanted to withhold her and her sister's inheritance. These maternal relatives claimed that the sisters had left the paternal family because they had entered into a Manu marriage . They therefore have no claim to their father's inheritance. The young woman replied that, unlike her sister, she was not yet married and therefore would not be under any potestas after the death of the Pater familias . That is why she was given the inheritance that she shared with her sister. Only then did she move into the house of the future mother-in-law and wait for her fiancé.

In the long marriage for the time despite childlessness, the couple shared the management of their property. Although he had the tutela ( tutela ) for their inheritance, they had the custodia (supervision ) over his property. From this it can be concluded that she did not enter into a manu marriage. So she was able to support her husband repeatedly and helped him. a. when he fled persecution as a supporter of Pompeius during the civil war between Caesar and Pompeius by giving him her jewelry and, supported by sister and brother-in-law, provided him with slaves, money and supplies in exile. In his absence, she protected the house from Milos' raiding troops. Although the marriage of a Roman citizen to an exile was considered invalid, she stood by him. She later asked the triumvir Lepidus to extend Octavian's edict of grace to her husband as well. Even though Lepidus kicked her when she threw herself at his feet, she stubbornly and successfully insisted on her rights. Her husband regained his civil rights and was able to return to Rome.

After long hoping for children in vain, she offered him a divorce while at the same time giving up her property in order to enable him to have children with another woman. He refused resolutely because she also replaced his daughter. With her fortune, she generously endowed female relatives, including the descendants of her sister, with a dowry. Although he had hoped that his much younger wife would perform the funeral rites for him, she had now died before him. Despite her request not to go to great lengths to get her funeral, the devastated widower erected the expensive tomb for her.

Identification and timing

The names of the dead and their husbands are missing. The only family member mentioned by name is a Gaius Cluvius, who was married to her sister. That the deceased was Turia, the consul's wife from 19 BC. BC, Quintus Lucretius Vespillo , acted as u. a. Theodor Mommsen, with reference to Appian and Valerius Maximus , is not confirmed by recent research. Marcel Durry considers it unlikely that the widower would not have mentioned his rank in the speech. Dieter Flach lists some contradictions between the historians' reports and the inscription. for example, name the inscription as a confidante sister and brother-in-law instead of the slave mentioned in Valerius. In addition, he considers Turia's deed to be remarkable, but not unique, which even the inscription admits. As a result, the deceased and her husband can only be viewed as members of the Roman upper class.

The text gives only a few chronological fixed points for the couple's lifetime: As Milo 52 BC. Was banished, the speaker bought - before the wedding (?) - his house. Since the woman owned the house alone against 48 BC. Defended Milo who had returned to BC, her husband must have gone into exile beforehand. The second triumvirate was formed at the end of 43 BC. The amnesty of Augustus, to which the wife appeals, is either an edict of grace from the year 42 BC. Or around the in the Treaty of Brundisium 40 BC. Pronounced amnesty, because the treaty of Misenum 39 BC Allowed re-naturalization of all those threatened by proscription , so that no special grace would have been required.

Social context

The so-called Laudatio Turiae is a funeral oration (Latin laudatio funebris ), as it was given in memory of noble Roman men by the next male bereaved on the Rostra in the Roman Forum . The first woman for whom such a funeral oration was given is said to be Popillia, the mother of Catulus , consul 102 BC. BC, have been. However, because of the ideal of female invisibility in public, women were seldom honored with a public speech that was then given at the grave in front of family members and friends. By engraving the speech on the tomb, the Turiae laudation reached a significantly larger audience than just the immediate audience. Only two other eulogies for women have survived: The very short laudation Murdiae at the same time and the speech by Emperor Hadrian to his mother-in-law Matidia .

The widower describes his wife as independent and praises her for male virtues using military terms such as virtus (“masculinity”, “bravery”). At the same time, by listing female virtues , he emphasizes that she does not violate the social order. She showed her courage only in his absence and in the exercise of her duties as a wife.

Law

Due to the detailed description of several legal disputes, the Laudatio Turiae is an important source for Roman law at the end of the republic , especially for inheritance law :
The family of origin of the deceased probably belonged to the highest census class with assets of more than 100,000 As . The lex Voconia forbade these richest Romans from 169 BC. To use women as heirs, except for a single daughter ( unica filia ) if there were no male agnates . The deceased, who was still single at the time of the murder of her parents, must therefore have been the only daughter. Her sister, who was married in Manusehe, on the other hand, no longer belonged to the father's gens , which is why the father should not have considered her in the will, while the deceased would have been the principal heiress as
unica filia even without a will. Now, however, the father had given both daughters equal consideration. Her mother's relatives seem to have referred to this. The parents had signed the Manus marriage through coemptio , a symbolic bride purchase, namely only after the marriage of the older daughter and after the will was drawn up. This gave the mother the same legal status as her unmarried daughter. If she had survived her husband, she would have had to take a member of her family of origin as a tutor . The maternal relatives wanted to transfer this to the unica filia and at the same time exclude the married daughter. The still unmarried young woman was no longer under patria potestas after the death of her father , but she had to choose her guardian from his gens . Possibly the father had also named her fiancé tutor in his will. Her mother's family therefore had no access to their assets.

The close relationship between the deceased and her sister, which the inscription repeatedly praises as a special sign of pietas , has no place in the concept of the Roman family. The law did not provide for the deceased to share the inheritance with her sister, nor for the support of her children, because the Manus marriage meant that the sisters were no longer considered related.

literature

  • Dieter Flach : The so-called Laudatio Turiae. Introduction, text, translation and commentary (= texts on research. Vol. 58). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1991, ISBN 3-534-11287-3 .
  • Emily A. Hemelrijk: Masculinity and Femininity in the "Laudatio Turiae". In: The Classical Quarterly New Series, Vol. 54, No. 1 (May, 2004), pp. 185-197.
  • Josiah Osgood: Turia: A Roman Woman's Civil War , Oxford 2014
  • Manfred G. Schmidt : Introduction to Latin epigraphy. 2nd, reviewed and bibliographically updated edition. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-534-23642-8 .
  • Erik Wistrand: The so-called Laudatio Turiae. Introduction, Text, Translation, Commentary (= Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia. Vol. 34). Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, Göteborg 1976, ISBN 91-7346-009-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. CIL 6, 1527 .
  2. ^ Flat: The so-called Laudatio Turiae. 1991, p. 15.
  3. ^ Peter Keegan: Turia, Lepidus, and Rome's epigraphic environment. In: Studia Humaniora Tartuensia. Vol. 9, 2008, ISSN  1406-6203 , A.1, online .
  4. Bernhard Kytzler : Women of antiquity. From Aspasia to Zenobia. Artemis, Zurich 1994, ISBN 3-7608-1084-5 , p. 167.
  5. ^ Nicholas Horsfall: Some Problems in the "Laudatio Turiae". In: Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Vol. 30, No. 1, 1983, pp. 85-98, here p. 85, doi : 10.1111 / j.2041-5370.1983.tb00438.x .
  6. ^ Flat: The so-called Laudatio Turiae. 1991, p. 12.
  7. Like their parents, they made up for it later. So: Osgood: Turia: A Roman Woman's Civil War , p. 40
  8. So after the reconstruction of Flach: The so-called Laudatio Turiae. 1991, p. 108.
  9. Theodor Mommsen: Two Sepulcralreden from the time of Augustus and Hadrian . In: Theodor Mommsen: Collected writings. Volume 1: Legal Writings. Part 1. Weidmann, Berlin 1905, pp. 393-428 (first 1863).
  10. Appian: Civil Wars 4, 44 .
  11. Valerius Maximus 6, 7, 2 .
  12. ^ Marcel Durry: Éloge funèbre d'une matrone romaine. (Éloge dit de Turia). Société d'Édition "Les Belles Lettres", Paris 1950, p. 54 ff.
  13. ^ Flat: The so-called Laudatio Turiae. 1991, pp. 2-3.
  14. Hemelrijk: Masculinity and Femininity in the "Laudatio Turiae". ; P. 185
  15. Hemelrijk: Masculinity and Femininity in the "Laudatio Turiae". ; P. 186
  16. CIL VI, 10230 ; see also Hemelrijk: Masculinity and Femininity in the "Laudatio Turiae". P. 193f.
  17. CIL XIV, 3579
  18. Werner Riess: Rari exempli femina. Female Virtues on Roman Funeral Inscriptions ; in: Sharon L. James, Sheila Dillon (eds.): A Companion to Women in the Ancient World . 2012. pp. 491-501; Pp. 496-497.
  19. ^ Flat: The so-called Laudatio Turiae. 1991, pp. 18-25.
  20. ^ Max Kaser: The Roman private law: section. Ancient Roman, Pre-Classical and Classical Law , Munich 1971; P. 368
  21. ^ Eva Labouvie: Sisters and Friends: on the cultural history of female communication . Cologne Weimar, 2009; Pp. 256-259