Perfectissima femina. Femmes de l’élite dans l’Hispanie romaine

In Rome, the ideal of the Roman woman was that of the perfectissima femina (“the most perfect of women”), to borrow the phrase that Seneca used to describe his aunt Helvia, who remained married to just one husband, who lived in a discreet fashion dedicating herself to the household, and who risked her own life to rescue her husband’s remains. As a result, it was their domestic virtues that marked out Roman matrons as women of excellence, while public affairs were reserved to men, who were responsible for administrating their cities and the Empire. However, the Iberian Peninsula presents a set of notable exceptions to this general rule. There, despite their theoretical exclusion from any kind of political responsibility, some women, namely of the broadly defined elite, played a notable role in the public sphere during the first two and a half centuries CE. Far from making any claim to this, they played a key role in the private sphere, which by necessity brought their actions to public notice, because the family was one of the main areas for determining men’s public reputation. Even if they gained prestige only vicariously, they were able in this way to find their place in history, their history, which is the subject of this book.