The Rape of Sabine Women

1012 Words3 Pages

The ancient Roman tale known as the “Rape (or seizure) of Sabine Women” depicts women, taken against their will by Roman captures and married to Roman men. These women later, intervene in a battle between their new husbands and their angry brothers and fathers. The ancient tale depicts Roman ideology and practices of marriage. It shows how a bride was transferred from living under her father’s jurisdiction to being ruled by her husband. The capture of the Sabine women, the war that follows, and the final truce brought upon the Sabine women themselves are direct relation to the separation of a young bride from her maternal family, the transfer of authority, and her beginning in her new family. The tale is told by two philosophical figures of Roman history. Livy, whom writes about the events in 30 B.C.E and Ovid whom rights about them nearly a generation later1. Both have different views on the event, its meaning, and its relevance. The two men also share the same thoughts in regards to their view masculinity and power. Livy’s narration of the rape is different from Ovid’s as it clearly describes the effort put forth by Romulus to appease the women that were taken. Livy is able to develop the significance of the women taken by showing how his treatment of the gender roles is a direct reflection of what is acceptable in Rome, and that his narrative is not simply marital based but also has themes in the political and social realms. In the world today western culture recognizes persecution and oppression. Yet, the allegorical characterization of victims is not identified or taken as seriously. The Sabine woman are not viewed as victims for sexual innuendos in Livy’s tale. Instead they take the role of a counterfeit desire that seems ... ... middle of paper ... ...man people simply seemed happy to go along with their king’s plans. Ovid’s vivid narration on the rape of the Sabine woman seems to clash with Livy and many depictions of glorious Rome as a leading city. Instead such images are replaced by the brutality of the rape by Roman men and the emotional rollercoaster of the women being abducted. In all, Livy’s narrative appears to be an attempt to downplay the role of brutality and force used by the Roman men on the Sabine women. His narrative despite his best intentions exposes the immoral actions displayed by the Roman men on the Sabine women. Ovid’s narrative simply shows the exploitation of the Sabine women by Romulus’ men and the brutality of such actions. Works Cited 1Fantham, E., with H. P. Foley, N. B. Kampen, S. B. Pomeroy, and H. A Shapiro, Women in the Classical World. New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.

Show More
Related

  • Gender Interactions in The Aeneid by Virgil

    566 Words  | 2 Pages

    Virgil connects femininity with hysterical passion and masculinity an accomplished restraint of self. Due to this, women are often the conflict makers and men the solvers. However, this flat assumption does not work for these characters, as they are far more complicated than mere terms. They are fluid people who are influenced by the workings of Virgil along with the implications of their time period. The conflict between man and woman may therefore not be the si...

    Read More

  • Ideal Roman Women: Lucretia and Dido

    949 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lucretia and Dido are both viewed as ideal Roman women. The story of Lucretia is found in Livy’s Early History of Rome, while Dido is written about in The Aeneid by Virgil. By looking at Roman values, the story of Lucretia, the story of Dido, their similarities and differences, the background of Livy and Virgil, as well as the similarities and differences of Virgil and Livy’s views toward them, Dido and Lucretia can be seen as exemplary Roman women. Roman society operated under the authority of paterfamilias. Paterfamilias is where the oldest living male of the family was considered to be the father of the household; he had “virtual life and death authority over the entire household” (MPN, 107).

    Read More

  • Sympathy For Io In Ovid's Metamorphoses

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    Similar to the rape of Io, Ovid describes Callisto as a “girl” (Ovid 16) in order to provoke the characterization of innocence within the readers. Furthermore, much like Io tried to flee Jupiter, Callisto “fought him” (Ovid 16), which means that she was unwilling, and the victim of this crime. Additionally, after she is raped, when Diana gathers her and all the nymphs, Callisto feels severely isolated from her own friends and family caused by the “guilt” (Ovid 16) of no longer being a pure virgin, which makes the readers sympathize with her because being lonely is depressing and harmful. Ovid conveys disdain towards Jupiter that is very similar to Book I as well. Again, Jupiter knew acting upon his lust was wrong, but he still accomplished it by disguising himself with “the face and dress of Diana” in order to hide the crime from the rest of the Gods and Earth. In addition, Jupiter states that “my wife will not see my cunning” (Ovid 16), which further characterizes the God as manipulative and dishonest. Overall, Ovid conveys sympathy of the victims of rape by using common insecurities and social problems among humans in order to invoke empathy from the readers. On the same note, Ovid conveys disdain towards the rapists by obviously characterizing them as manipulative, dishonest, and immoral, which is very distasteful among the Roman

    Read More

  • Goddesses, Whores, Wives, And Slaves: Women In Classical Antiquity

    1877 Words  | 4 Pages

    This paper will discuss the well published work of, Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975. Print. Sarah B. Pomerory uses this book to educate others about the role women have played throughout ancient history. Pomerory uses a timeline to go through each role, starting with mythological women, who were called Goddesses. She then talks about some common roles, the whores, wives, and slaves during this time. Pomerory enlightens the audience on the topic of women, who were seen as nothing at the time. Men were seen as the only crucial part in history; however, Pomerory’s focus on women portrays the era in a new light.

    Read More

  • Comparison: The Hymn to Demeter & Ovid's Metamorphosis

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... challenged by the Pierides, to Minerva. The story is told by a woman to a goddess, about another goddess. So the reason for Ovid's empowerment of women may be for Calliope to satisfy a great, powerful audience, the Pierides and Minerva.

    Read More

  • Important Role of Women in Homer's Odyssey

    1720 Words  | 4 Pages

    Yet, despite the fact that no two women in this epic are alike, each—through her vices or virtues—helps to delineate the role of the ideal woman. Below, we will show the importance of Circe, Calypso, Nausicaa, Clytaemestra, and Penelope in terms of the movement of the narrative and in defining social roles for the Ancient Greeks. Before we delve into the traits of individual characters, it is important to understand certain assumptions about women that prevailed in the Homeric Age. By modern standards, the Ancient Greeks would be considered a rabidly misogynistic culture. Indeed, the notoriously sour Boetian playwright Hesiod-- who wrote about fifty years before Homer-- proclaimed "Zeus who thunders on high made women to be evil to mortal men, with a nature to do evil (Theogony 600).

    Read More

  • The Rape of Lucretia

    1982 Words  | 4 Pages

    The time is the sixth century, the place is Rome and the person is Lucretia, a woman who contributed to one of the biggest parts of Roman history: the creation of the Roman republic. The rape of the virtuous Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of Tarquinius Superbus' (an Etruscan king) was the final straw for the Roman people and pushed them to want to change from a monarchy to a republic. From the accounts of the rape of Lucretia from ancient historians like Livy, Cicero and Dionysius, it is clear that Lucretias rape not only spurred the roman people to want to get rid of the Etruscan King and his family, but also revealed the important role of virtue in women in roman society.

    Read More

  • The Role of Spartan Women

    1440 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fantham, Elaine, Helene Peet Foley , Natalie Boymel Kampen, Sarah B. Pomeroy, and H. Alan Shapiro.Women in the Classical World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

    Read More

  • Differences and Similarities of The Women of Athens and Sparta

    1843 Words  | 4 Pages

    --- Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken Books. 1995, 2010. Kindle Edition. Location 2733 of 6360.

    Read More

  • Comparison between "The Iliad" and "The Women of Troy"

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ation of the women. The victorious Greek army in the Women of Troy does not seem to have any moral compunction in using the women as slaves or their concubines. In this process, they not only insult the citizens of the city of Troy but dehumanize the womanhood itself.

    Read More

  • Livy Analysis

    2859 Words  | 6 Pages

    Any examination of women in Livy’s writing demands not only a literal interpretation of their character development and values, but also must account for their symbolic importance—thus creating a much more complex representation. Livy, an ancient historian, authored The Early History of Rome to be an exploration of Rome from its foundation, focusing on historical events and societal organization. In it, he examines the patriarchal society that stabilized Rome throughout its dominance. However, as a result of this explicitly defined hierarchy in Rome, women were seen as secondary figures in society. Most were viewed as submissive and passive, and it was well within the rights of men to assert their dominance—many women even agreed with these values. This can be seen in Livy’s portrayals of such women as the Sabine women, Horatia, and Lucretia. Yet Lucretia provides an interesting complexity to the exempla of women. On a symbolic level, Lucretia is an important catalyst in affecting the political organization of Rome. This representation is furthered with Livy’s descriptions of Lavinia, Rhea Silvia, and Verginia. Despite the work of Livy to create an accurate portrayal of women in ancient Rome, other authors showed women to actively defy this patriarchal society he describes. However, Livy’s effort to create the most accurate explanation of early Rome through a historical representation drives this discrepancy in characterization through genre. Therefore, Livy’s work serves as both an accurate and complex examination of the role of women in ancient Rome. According to Livy, a woman’s role was defined by her sacrifice; culturally, women were to be subordinate to men in the patriarchal structure of society, but also served as important...

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Don Quixote By Miguel De Cervantes

    1349 Words  | 3 Pages

    The story of Marcela is first encountered second hand through a male character who describes her in the most negative way. In his criticism “Competing Narrative Discourses: (fe)male Fabulation in the Episode of Grisóstomo and Marcela,” John P. Gabriele agrees that Marcela is misinterpreted by the male characters who describe her to Don Quixote (509). The men plea that she is very cruel and “does more harm in this land than the plague” (Cervantes 85). Even though Marcela has asserted her independence and rejected a countless number of men desiring to obtain her love, the men still objectify her by “waiting to see where her haughtiness will end and who will be the fortunate man to conquer so difficult a nature” (Cervantes 85). Referring to her as something to be “conquered” demonstrates how women were respected as nothing more than property and a source of pride. Yvonne Jehenson describes Marcela’s situation as “a male fantasy, a microcosmic image of man’s gender-inflected wish fulfillment” (Gabriele 510). This explains why the men have so much built up frustration towards Marcela for being the complete opposite of their

    Read More

  • Treatment of Women in Ancient Literature

    2408 Words  | 5 Pages

    Women were often subjects of intense focus in ancient literary works. In Sarah Pomeroy’s introduction of her text Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, she writes, “Women pervade nearly every genre of classical literature, yet often the bias of the author distorts the information” (x). It is evident in literature that the social roles of women were more restricted than the roles of men. And since the majority of early literature was written by men, misogyny tends to taint much of it. The female characters are usually given negative traits of deception, temptation, selfishness, and seduction. Women were controlled, contained, and exploited. In early literature, women are seen as objects of possession, forces deadly to men, cunning, passive, shameful, and often less honorable than men. Literature reflects the societal beliefs and attitudes of an era and the consistency of these beliefs and attitudes toward women and the roles women play has endured through the centuries in literature. Women begin at a disadvantage according to these societal definitions. In a world run by competing men, women were viewed as property—prizes of contests, booty of battle and the more power men had over these possessions the more prestigious the man. When reading ancient literature one finds that women are often not only prizes, but they were responsible for luring or seducing men into damnation by using their feminine traits.

    Read More

  • Much Ado About Nothing - A Feminist Perspective of Hero

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the plays female sexuality is not expressed variously through courtship, pregnancy, childbearing, and remarriage, as it is in the period.  Instead it is narrowly defined and contained by the conventions of Petrarchan love and cuckoldry.  The first idealizes women as a catalyst to male virtue, insisting on their absolute purity.  The second fears and mistrusts them for their (usually fantasized) infidelity, an infidelity that requires their actual or temporary elimination from the world of men, which then re-forms [sic] itself around the certainty of men’s shared victimization (Neely 127).

    Read More

  • The Role of Women in The Rape of the Lock

    828 Words  | 2 Pages

    On the surface, The Rape of the Lock is a retelling of an episode that caused a feud between two families in the form of an epic. One might believe that in his version, Alexander Pope portrayed the women of the story as shallow, vain little girls, however on a deeper level the women are crucial to the story. Aside from not being as helpless as they appear, each woman possesses a different kind of power that contributes to their character greatly. Rather than being the conceited and shallow figures expected of the time period, the women in The Rape of the Lock posses more power than meets the eye.

    Read More

More about The Rape of Sabine Women

Open Document