Women In Pompeii And Herculaneum

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In this analysis, an examination will be provided on how sources from Pompeii and Herculaneum can be interpreted to make known the role and status that women of first century AD possessed. Specifically, reference will be made to the Fresco from the triclinium of the Villa of the Mysteries, Inscription of the Eumachia Building and the tablets of Poppaea Note. Nevertheless, prior to analysing the evidence that these sources reveal; it should be noted that the women of Pompeii are not to be placed in a homogenous grouping. This is a result of the diversified roles and status that women occupied in Pompeii and Herculaneum. To provide a comprehensive analysis of the roles and status women possessed, the report will be categorised into a domestic, professional and slave context; to ensure the dichotomy in the grouping of women is made explicit. …show more content…

The villa is interpreted to delineate twenty women participating in a continuous scene beginning with “ritual purification and preparatory offerings” and terminating in a “dance of initiation”. Regardless, of the women being depicted as human beings in control of their actions, the small numbers of men are illustrated as submissive and in the possession of the mythological realm. This is inferred through Dionysus, the god of wine and mystic ecstasy, positioned on Ariadne’s enthroned

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