Sempronia

Sempronia was a Roman aristocrat of the late republic . She was the wife of Decimus Junius Brutus , consul of the year 77 BC. BC, and according to Sallust an active participant - at least an accomplice - in the Catilinarian conspiracy .

person

Little is known about her person; only Sallust reports about them in his De coniuratione Catilinae . Her origin is difficult to determine: On the one hand there is the assumption that she was the daughter of the social reformer Gaius Sempronius Gracchus , and on the other hand she could have been a sister of the wife of the same name of Marcus Fulvius Bambalio , which is more likely . the daughter of a Sempronius Tuditanus and the mother of Fulvia . In the first case, she should have been around 60 to 70 years old. Meanwhile, in the following source, Sallust praises her beauty and grace and praises her way of dancing. Nor does the fact that men want her speak in favor of an elderly lady.

Source excerpt

Sal. Cat. 25.1-25.5

Sed in iis erat Sempronia, quae multa saepe virilis audaciae facinora conmiserat. Haec mulier genere atque forma, praeterea viro liberis satis fortunata fuit; litteris graecis et latinis docta, psallere et saltare elegantius quam necesse est probae, multa alia quae instrumenta luxuriae sunt. Sed ei cariora semper omnia quam decus atque pudicitia fuit; pecuniae an famae minus parceret haud facile discerneres; libido sic adcensa ut saepius peteret viros quam peteretur. Sed ea saepe antehac fidem prodiderat, creditum abiuraverat, caedis conscia fuerat: Luxuria atque inopia praeceps abierat. Verum ingenium eius haud absurdum: Posse versus facere, iocum movere, sermone uti vel modesto vel molli vel procaci; prorsus multae facetiae multusque lepos inerat.

translation

“Among them, however, was Sempronia, who had committed many crimes of male audacity. This woman was very fortunate in her origins and beauty, and in addition she had a good fortune in her husband and children, was instructed in Greek and Latin education, played the zither, danced better than is necessary for a decent woman, and still possessed many things that are means of well-being . But everything else was more valuable to her than her reputation and her chastity; It was not easy to decide whether she spared her money or her reputation less; her sensuality was so inflamed that she sought out the men herself more often than was sought out. She had broken her word too many times before, renounced debts, knew of murder, and fell into the abyss through waste and poverty. But her gifts were not wrong: she could make verses, joke, sometimes reticent, sometimes gentle, sometimes cheeky; in short: she was witty and graceful. "

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In any case, Sempronia is the mother or at least the stepmother of the later Caesar murderer Decimus Iunius Brutus Albinus . Because of this fact it was often assumed that this could be a reason for the sometimes very negative representation on the part of Sallust, as he was one of Gaius Julius Caesar's followers or was sponsored by him. Against this view, however, there is the objection that Sallust emphasizes her noble origins and the merits of her husband and children, so that a hidden reference to the "depraved" D. Iunius Brutus Albinus is rather unlikely.

Sempronia near Sallust

After the previous characterization of Catiline in chapters 14 to 16, Sempronia now seems to represent its counterpart from the world of women; perhaps to illustrate the complexity of the conspiracy, in which women have now also been included. She appears as the exact opposite of the ideal image of women, namely as an emancipated and depraved matrona Romana. The excursus on Sempronia therefore seems not only to fill a gap, but rather to emphasize that the entire nobility, whether man or woman, was afflicted with general depravity. Sallust here emphasizes the extraordinaryness and the uniqueness of Sempronia's actions in contrast to the normal woman, their dangerousness and the inhumanity of their male deeds; however, there is no further explanation of what these acts are. However, it is conceivable that Sallust may be alluding to participation in political decision-making processes. He also describes her good origins, her beauty, her education, her talent in dance and her wealth. At the same time, however, Sallust refers to the excess of her qualities: she danced better than it should be, she was beautiful, which was not necessarily required of a matrona and sometimes seemed suspect, and she owned many luxury goods, which in the "good old days", evokes the sallust that made Lex Oppia illegal . From this point on begins the description of their really bad qualities; H. the violation of the virtues pudicitia , decus and frugalitas required by a matrona , because everything was more important to her than her reputation and her chastity and she spared neither her money nor her reputation. The description culminates in the accusation of promiscuity , which was an outrage for a respectable woman at the time, and the consequences of lack of money and even crime resulting from her lifestyle. But at the end of the report Sallust suddenly comes back - like a ring composition - to his initial topic, Sempronia's good qualities, where he again praises her wit and her per se not wrong nature. As already mentioned above, Sempronia looks like the counterpart to Catiline through the whole kind of description; Through her involvement in murders and the lack of money caused by wastefulness, she also comes on par with the male conspirators and thus becomes a seemingly full member of the conspiracy.

Sallust seems to have found great joy in the portrayal of such a self-confident woman, who symbolizes in her whole being the fear of the Roman upper class of the total overthrow of custom, morality and the old order. Sallust is mostly ambivalent in his remarks, he makes no judgment, but leaves the final judgment to the reader, although one is tempted to see the good in Sempronia. Their characterization is not necessarily to be taken personally, but rather as an example for a multitude, and Sallust certainly did not want to meet a women's movement that he disliked.

swell

• C. Sallustius Crispus, De coniuratione Catilinae , annotated by Karl Vretska, 2 volumes, Heidelberg 1976
• C. Sallustius Crispus, Bellum Catilinae. A commentary (Mnemosyne. Bibliotheca Classica Batava 45), ed. by P. McGushin, Leiden 1977
• Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Catilina, Iugurtha, Historiarum Fragmenta Selecta, Appendix Sallustiana (Oxford Classical Texts), ed. by LD Reynolds, Oxford 1991

literature

• Dacre Balsdon : The woman in Roman antiquity , Munich 1979
• Karl Büchner : Sallust , Heidelberg 1982
• Maria H. Dettenhofer : On the political role of aristocrats between republic and principate . In: Latomus 51 (1992), pp. 775-795.
• Birgit Schaible: Sempronia - a symbolic figure , in: Der Altsprachliche Studium 42/2 (1999), pp. 41–43
• Anja Schweers: Images of women and men in ancient Rome , in: Der Altsprachliche Studium 42/2 (1999), pp. 2-14
• Bettina Eva Stumpp: Prostitution in Roman Antiquity , Berlin 2001
• Ronald Syme : Sallust , Darmstadt 1975
• Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg : The procedure against the Catilinarians or: The avoided process , in: Great processes of Roman antiquity , ed. by Ulrich Manthe and Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg, Munich 1997, pp. 85-99
• Uwe Walter : An ambivalent female figure. Sallust's portrait of Sempronia in class , in: Der Altsprachliche Studium 42/2 (1999), pp. 33–40