A kiss to detect wine on her breath: the violent policing of women drinking in Ancient Rome
Retrieved on:
Thursday, June 1, 2023
Male, Punishment, Republic, Man, Longevity, Woman, Violence, Death, Bona Dea, Cooking, Archaic, Wine, Female, Drinking, Dignitas, Viticulture, Liquor, Entertainment, Bottled water, Beer
It was accessible to the masses, a fundamental staple of mainstream life and an indispensable part of the Roman economy and trade.
Key Points:
- It was accessible to the masses, a fundamental staple of mainstream life and an indispensable part of the Roman economy and trade.
- Despite its centrality to the everyday life of the Romans, the ancient sources continuously attest it was a problematic drink when consumed by women.
- One of the ways in which this control over women was codified was through their drinking practices.
Punishment for drinking
- In the customary laws of early Rome, the discipline of female sobriety was instilled through punishment.
- During the earliest periods of Rome’s history and up until the Middle Republican period, it was a socially sanctioned custom for husbands to punish their wives for drinking.
- Many Ancient Roman sources speak of female drinking and adultery concurrently.
Acceptable drinking
- Archaeological evidence attests to their drinking practices as far back as the ancient written sources state otherwise.
- Certain types of wine, such as passum, a type of sweet raisin wine, were perhaps acceptable in the strict confines of gendered drinking parameters.
- Yet even here drinking wine was shrouded in innuendo, invariably described as “milk” and carried in a “honey-pot”.
A socially acceptable drink
- The male authors of these texts heavily mythologised the past, often to convey the inferred wickedness of their present day.
- By the time of the transition from Republic to Empire (around the first century B.C.E), it was customary for women to drink wine.
- Livia, wife of Emperor Augustus, is said to have credited her longevity to a wine varietal from Istria.