In her new book, historian Emma Southon shows that women are as important to the story of ancient Rome as any emperor or soldier

There is a story from the 1970s often told by Roman historians of gender. It goes like this: students at an American college approached their male professor, a revered Roman historian, to request a course on women in Roman history. They, being among the first women ever to study ancient history at this university, wanted to see themselves on their syllabus. Their professor disagreed. To their dismay, he replied that he may as well do a course on Roman dogs.

The professor’s meaning was clear: women have no place in history. History is not about women, or children or non-binary people or indeed dogs. History, to him and to an awful lot of people, is the Doing of Important Things. It is winning battles and having Important Opinions In Public. History is politics and public deeds. Women don’t make history.

The history of the Roman Empire is usually told in this mould. It starts with Romulus, moves through Brutus overthrowing Tarquin, bounces through an appallingly tedious list of expansionist battles and generals and consuls, before emerging into the political stab-fest of the Late Republic.

From there, it runs through all the emperors, occasionally mentioning a wife or mother to show how badly things can go when women take control, until Constantine invents Christianity and then Attila the Hun rolls up and ruins it.

But the history of Rome and its empire is so much more than just emperors and politicians and generals. History is so much more than Important Things. You and I, right now, are living through history. In the future, history books will be written about the times we live in, and we won’t be in them because we (mostly) do not do Important Things.

History, though, still includes us. It includes women who are not prime ministers or queens or capital-I Important. History happens to women (and men) as much as they make it.

This book, then, is a revisionist history of the Roman Empire with Important Things relegated to the background. This is a history of the things the Roman male historians and biographers never wanted to write about and certainly didn’t want us to be writing about.

This is a history of the things the Roman history writers designated as domestic, feminine, boring and worthless. It is a history of individuals, because, to quote Svetlana Alexievich, “this miniature expanse: one person, the individual. It’s where everything really happens.”

This is a history of Rome, from its foundation in 753 BCE to the fall of the last western Roman emperor in 476 CE, through the lives of women you have probably never heard of. These women are Vestal Virgins and sex workers, they are business owners and poets, martyrs and saints. Only four are rulers or officially involved in Important Things.

Each of them tells a different story of the Roman Empire as it grew from belligerent city state to immense empire and then shrank into warring states; from polytheistic Republic to emperor-worshipping monarchy to Christian superpower.

By focusing on women, we discover a whole new history of the Roman Empire, one where marriage is as important as war and where what it is to be Roman is constantly being reassessed.

Many of the women in this book never set foot in Italy, let alone Rome. Several considered themselves to be enemies of the Romans; others considered themselves thoroughly Roman but were treated as enemies.

Including women in history forces us, as historians, to re-evaluate what a Roman was, what Romanness was, and to confront the immense scope of the Roman Empire. Including women deepens our understanding of Roman history and Roman life.

When Romulus founded Rome, he knew that his city would not be complete until it included women; the history of Rome is equally incomplete without them.

Extracted from A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women by Emma Southon. 

Or buy a copy from Blackwell’s here.

Emma Southon is an ancient historian and bookseller at Waterstone’s Belfast. She is the author of Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore, a Best Book of the Year for the New Statesman, and A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Armed with a PhD in Ancient History, she also co-hosts the History is Sexy podcast. She lives in Belfast.

Emma is also our guest on “A Drink with the Idler” this week: 6pm Thursday 30 November 2023. Free to subscribers.

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