When: The October 12 2024, 15:00 (Local time) - Where: Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago

Prof. Stefania Santelia of University of Bari ‘Aldo Moro’ will lead a discussion – based on the reading of Latin sources translated both in English and in Italian – on the most praised feminine virtues in the Roman world: chastity, dedication to husband and children, frugality, industriousness, obedience, and above all, the ability to remain silent.

The condition of women in Rome must be considered in light of both the reality of the Roman familia and the prerogatives of the pater familias (who had power of life and death over wife, children, and slaves) and the restrictions imposed on women: the prohibition of participating in political life, of drinking wine, inheriting, or managing their own assets, of deciding whether to carry a pregnancy to term or “to delay childbirth” (to have an abortion, as the Romans said).