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Pudicitia
Coin:
Julia Maesa, died 223, grandmother of Elagabalus
AR - Denarius, 2.92g, 17mm, 225°
Rome, 218/220 (struck under Elagabalus)
Obv.: IVLIA MAESA AVG
Bust, draped, without diadem, facing right, hair reaching to the nape of the neck, finely wavy vertically, large bun at the back, ear covered
Rev.: PVDICITIA
Pudicitia, veiled, draped, sitting facing left on a throne with a high back, holding a scepter diagonally in the left arm, holding with the right hand veil in front of her chin
Ref.: RIC IV/2, (Elagabal) 268; C. 36; BMC 76
Pudicitia ("shame," "modesty") was a central concept in Roman sexual ethics. The word derives from the more general pudor, the feeling of shame that classified a person's behavior as socially acceptable. This also included modest self-presentation. But even in the Kleiner Stowasser, "outwardly" appears in parentheses! Pudicitia was usually a characteristic of women, but men who did not adhere to male sexual norms were considered feminizing impudicitia, sexual shamelessness. This virtue was embodied by the goddess Pudicitia. Her Greek counterpart was Aidos, but she never had the same importance as Pudicitia did for the Romans.
History:
According to Livy, there were two temples of Pudicitia in Rome. The older one, dedicated to the Patrician Pudicitia, stood in the Forum Boarium by the circular temple of Hercules. In 296 BC, a dispute arose among the matrons. Verginia, the daughter of Aulus, from a patrician family, was excluded by the patrician women from participating in the sacrifices of the Patrician Pudicitia because she was married to the plebeian consul Lucius Volumnius. She rightly argued that she had entered this temple as a patrician and a chaste woman who had married only once, to the man to whom she had been given as a virgin. Finally, in the Vicus Longus, in a room she had separated from her house, she founded a chapel (sacellum) with an altar to the Plebeian Pudicitia. The service at this altar was almost the same as that at the older one. Only noble women, known for their chastity and who had married only once, were allowed to participate. But then the old strict customs declined, and the service became accessible to women of all classes, even profaners, and eventually this cult was forgotten.
L. Calpurnius Piso, as recounted by Pliny, connects this decline in pudicitia with a prodigium in 154 BC. In that year, in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, a fig tree had grown on the site of a palm tree symbolizing the victory over King Perseus, which had grown on the altar and perished. Fica (fig) was the well-known symbol of unchastity.
The existence of the temple at the Forum Boarium has been hotly debated. Based on Festus and Paul, the temple of Pudicitia Patricia was believed to be located in the now-desecrated church of S. Maria Egiziaca or in the church of S. Maria in Cosmedin. Wissowa, however, was able to prove that there had never been a sanctuary of Pudicitia Patricia on the Forum Boarium:
Festus never spoke of a sanctuary, but only of an image (imago) of the goddess, and Livy spoke simultaneously of sacellum and templum, which betrayed an only vague idea and can be explained by his attempt to explain the origin of the ancient cult of Pudicitia Publica in the Vicus Longus.
In fact, there was an ancient veiled image in the temple of Fortuna Virgo, which had even been mistaken for an image of King Servius Tullius, and Fortuna Virgo was closely related to Pudicitia, as we learn in Ovid's Fastes.
I have attached a pic of the statue of Pudicitia from the Museo Chiaramonti, Vatican Museums, Rome. The interpretation of this image as Pudicitia was obvious because she, too, was depicted as a veiled female figure, and the sacred law that the image could only be touched by women of recognized integrity also applied to the cult of Fortuna. We now also know that the Temple of Fortuna and the Round Temple of Hercules were actually adjacent.
The sacellum in the Vicus Longus, dedicated to Pudicitia plebeia, which Livy mentioned and for which he invented an etiology, appears to have been ancient, as Juvenal already mentioned.
The most striking example of Pudicitia was Lucretia, whose fate is described by Livy, among others. She was the beautiful and virtuous wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. Sextus Tarquinius, the son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the tyrannical king of Rome, noticed her beauty and raped her. She demanded that her father and husband swear revenge against the Tarquinians and then stabbed herself. Lucius Junius Brutus then led the Romans in a revolt against the Tarquinians and expelled them from Rome. This event, dated to 509 BC, is considered the beginning of in the Roman Republic.
I have attached the painting "The Suicide of Lucretia" (1625/26) by Guido Reni (1575-1642), from the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Neues Palais, Potsdam
Meanwhile, however, a moral decline had set in. By Caesar's time, for example, divorces had become quite common. They were no longer a social stigma, but merely an occasion for gossip.
Juvenal, in his satires, borrowing a mythology from Hesiod, recounts that at the end of the Iron Age, humanity had become so cruel and greedy that Pudicitia, along with her sister Astraea, the goddess of justice, left the earth and returned to heaven, so that from then on, people were left to themselves and helplessly deal with their wickedness and badness.
During the imperial period, Augustus issued a program of moral legislation intended to promote pudicitia among Roman citizens. But he and his followers were not in favor of this. Family the wrong model. In 18 BC, two new Julian laws were enacted that targeted women's fidelity. The Lex Julia de adulterii coercendis made adultery a crime, and the Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus was an attempt to increase the birth rate by punishing unmarried and childless men.
Now, Pudicitia also appears as a deity of the imperial house. Valerius Maximus was the first to associate Pudicitia with the Empress Dowager Livia. Her name then appears on coins of Plotina, Trajan's wife, with the legend ARA PVDIC (RIC 733), which showed that Plotina was to be honored by erecting an altar to Pudicitia. From then on, the name and image of the goddess frequently appear on the coins of empresses, first simply as PVDICITIA, as on our coin, later as PVDICITIA AVGVSTAE or PVDICITIA AVG, as one of the Empress's characteristics. The pose in which she raises her right hand and draws the veil over her face is iconographically an expression of moderation and modesty.
Sources:
(1) Livy, ab urbe condita
(2) Juvenal, Satires
(3) Cicero, in Verrem
(4) Pliny, Naturae historia
(5) Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia
Literature:
(1) Benjamin Hederich, Thorough Mythological Lexicon
(2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Comprehensive Lexicon of Greek and Roman Mythology
(3) Der Kleine Pauly
(4) Der Kleine Stowasser, Lateinisch-deutsches Schulwörterbuch
Kind regards
Jochen
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