Funerary statue of a matrona
Marble, Rome 1st century CE
The matrona who remained loyal to her first marriage for life emerged as an upper-class ideal in the early Republic. Literary evidence suggests the ideal emerged from religious practice, as only elite matronae in their first marriage were eligible for certain priesthoods (the Flaminica Dialis, Fortuna Muliebris), some women's cults (e.g., Mater Matuta, Pudicitia) and the role of pronuba at wedding ceremonies (see Juno Pronuba). Ironically, the terms univira and univiria appear toward the end of the Republic, when divorce became more common (see Divortium; Treggiari, Roman Marriage, pp. 516-519) and Augustus's marriage laws mandated remarriage for matronae of child-bearing age. This legislation probably had little impact on non-elite women who, without inherited wealth, would have sought remarriage after their husband's death in order to provide for their family. Propertius imagines Cornelia, the elite young wife of Paullus Aemilius Lepidus, claiming praise as a chaste matrona with the words: in lapide hoc uni nupta fuisse legar (Elegiae 4.11.36; see WRW pp.79-81). Catullus writes that the highest praise of married women is that they live content with one man alone (Carm.111.1-2; see also Martial Ep.10.35.1-4). Valerius Maximus observes that women who were content with one marriage used to be honored with the crown of pudicitia (Facta et Dicta 2.1.3). Upper-class encomia such as the Laudatio Turiae praised wives for fidelity to their marriage: rara sunt tam diuturna matrimonia finita morte non divertio in[terrupta contigit] / nobis ut ad annum XXXXI sine offensa perduceretur (27; see WRW pp. 43-45). The exemplum of the chaste matrona was fostered by the Imperial family: the emperor Trajan, like Augustus, publicly honored his wife Plotina, who died before him, and his widowed sister Marciana, both univirae, for the purity of their family life. Funerary inscriptions from the imperial period, dedicated by non-elite husbands, bear witness to the pervasiveness of the ideals of the loyal univira and unbroken marriage (the texts below are from Rome and the provinces). The vidua, the woman who outlived her husband frequently by decades and never remarried was also acknowledged as a univira of traditional matronal virtue. Notable among such paragons were Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi; Junia Tertia, who lived 64 years as a widow after her husband Gaius Cassius Longinus commited suicide at Philippi; Seneca's unname d aunt; Julia Procilla, mother of Agricola, widowed by Caligula in 40 CE, killed in 69 CE in an attack on wealthy civilians by Otho; and Seneca's wife Pompeia Paulina, forbidden by Nero to join her husband in suicide. For further reading on the topic see Lightman & Zeisel (1977), Olasope (2009), Pomeroy (1975), Treggiari (1991) in the Bibliography; Kittell-Queller (2014 blog).
The inscription was viewed in the temple of the goddess Fides in the Roman municipium of Genuae/Genua (modern Genoa) in Regio IX Liguria; two scholars saw it "beneath a container of holy water." The dedication for his freeborn wife (see names of citizen women) was made by her freeborn husband (he bears a three-fold citizen name), who survived her. Both Roman citizens, Theophilus makes no mention of their political or social status. He praises Negelia Noniana as a univira, among other matronly virtues, who shared a long, harmonious married life with him. CIL 5.7763.
This inscription appears on a monument highly decorated with two heads of a satyr, a garland, and birds, located in various places in Rome on the properties of the Barberini family. It is dedicated to Aurelia Domitia, a freedwoman of the imperial house (see names of freedpersons), by her husband Pompeianus. Domitia's husband may have been a freedman of Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus, who was a general under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius; it is unlikely that the general failed to record his tripartite citizen name on his wife's monument. Following her identification as a former slave of the emperor's household, Domitia's status as a univira is given precedence in the list of her matronal virtues. She was married at the age of 16 to one man for 20 years. The validity of this marriage is emphasized by Pompeianus' proud reference to her as coniunx and to himself as maritus (compare the inscription naming two imperial freedpersons from the same period, CIL 6.13299). CIL 6.13303.
The inscription consists of two parts, inscribed on a bipartite monument. In the epitaph, the consular status of the family of the deceased, Fabia Fuscinilla, is acknowledged (clarissimae): Fuscinilla (b. c. 165), was the daughter of Publius Seius Fuscianus (b. c. 120), consul in 151 and consul suffectus in 188. Her abundant matronal virtues follow, then the name of her dedicator, her husband, Clodius Celsinus (b. 185). The second part of the inscription is an elegiac poem, written in the voice of Fuscinilla to those who stop before her tomb. She mourns her youth and the family she has left behind: one son became Q. Fabius Clodius Agrippianus Celsinus (c.210-post 249), proconsul of Caria in 249. She offers her cognomen, identifying herself as a citizen of her birthplace Petelia (traced to Monte Stella in Southern Campania). In the last line she aligns her life with the upper-class expectations of a Roman matrona: nupta, univira, unanimis. CIL 6.31711
NONDVM COMPLETIS VIGINTI QVAT[t]VOR ANNIS
A NATIS TRINIS ET VIRO ERIPIOR
The inscription is inscribed above the door of Matronilla's mausoleum, which has the effect of a temple. It was discovered near the Roman colonia of Thelepte (modern Feriana, in western Tunisia). Matronilla is celebrated for her many virtues as wife, mother, and grandmother; not only is she praised as univira, but additionally as unicuba, a separate fidelity. Her dedicator's name is not recorded; given her long life and the traditional age gap between husband and wife, it is possible her husband pre-deceased her, leaving family members to dedicate her memorial. (CIL 8.11294)
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