In Plautus’ Aulularia, the Lar familiaris praises Phaedrium for her pietas, for she always supplicates him with incense, wine and more on his altar daily and gives him garlands: ea mihi cottidie / aut ture aut vino aut aliqui semper supplicat, / dat mihi coronas (Plaut. Aul. 23–5). D.’s important volume reveals that, like Phaedrium, women had a place at the altar in Republican Rome, not just in sacra privata, but as priestesses and religious officiants in sacra publica, wherein some presided over sacrifices pro populo, evincing their sacrificial and sacerdotal capacity. The volume comprises an introduction, seven chapters, a conclusion, a bibliography and closes with a general index. In the first three chapters, ‘The Flamen and Flaminica Dialis’, ‘Priestly Couples’ and ‘Salian Virgins, Sacerdotes, and Ministrae’, D. adduces the many types and functions of priestesses and female religious officiants in Republican Rome. She reassesses the Vestal Virgins in the final four chapters, ‘The Vestal Virgins’, ‘The Costume of the Vestal Virgins’, ‘The Ritual Activities of the Vestal Virgins’ and ‘The Vestal Virgins in Roman Politics’. The volume builds upon and augments a burgeoning body of scholarship on women in Roman religion, particularly that of N. Böels-Janssen, R. Flemming, E. Hemelrijk, L. Holland, J. Rüpke, C. Schultz and S. Takács. Throughout, D. discloses how women were ‘neither marginal nor incidental’ in Roman religion, but instead ‘indispensable participants in a fundamentally cooperative endeavour’ (p. 244), challenging O. de Cazanove's and J. Scheid's notions of female sacrificial incapacity and marginality. D.’s volume is a pleasure to read, at once accessible and scholarly, appropriate for readers who are undergraduates and beyond, and it will serve as a valuable resource in the library of any ancient historian interested in gender or religion. Each chapter is rich and self-contained, allowing for sporadic readings, but only a fulsome reading will illumine the many priestesses around the Republican altar.
In her introduction, D. invokes Horace's tacita virgo (Vestal Virgin), ascending the Capitolium besides a pontifex (Hor. Carm. 3.30.8–9) to highlight the invisibility of priestesses in scholarship on Roman religion and to announce her own aim ‘to restore Rome's priestesses to their proper place in the religious landscape’ (p. 1). D. challenges a strand of scholarship that dismisses or marginalises the religious roles of women, demonstrating that the literary evidence for female sacrificial incapacity and religious marginality has been misread or misinterpreted, and adduces the ample evidence for female sacrificial capacity and sacerdotal roles as priestesses and religious officiants (pp. 4–10). D. acknowledges the subordination of priestesses and female religious officiants to their male counterparts (e.g. to the pontifex maximus), but stresses that they were not merely adjuncts, nor does subordination equal exclusion (pp. 5–6). Instead, she argues that ‘both men and women could sacrifice and address the gods on behalf of the Roman people’ and ‘priesthood itself was a fundamentally cooperative endeavour’ (p. 10). D's introduction closes with an examination of the (primarily antiquarian) literary evidence (pp. 11–16).
Chapters 1 and 2 delve into the evidence for priestly couples and joint priesthoods in Republican Rome. In Chapter 1, D. examines the most prestigious of the three patrician flamonia maiora, the flamonium Diale, a joint priesthood shared by two patricians born ex farreatis and married per confarreationem. She reveals that the cooperative religious activity, public virtue and costume of the flamen and flaminica Dialis were exemplary models for Roman married couples. She stresses that the flamen and flaminica were appointed for life by the pontifex maximus, shared numerous religious obligations and stringent ritual prohibitions, and, if either died, their priesthood was dissolved (pp. 17–51). D. emphasises the regular public religious activity of the flaminica, disclosing how she performed rites pro populo, presiding over public animal sacrifices for Jupiter on nundinae, as well as over expiatory and lustral rites, and participated in processions (pp. 23–32).
In Chapter 2, D. uncovers further examples of priestly couples, including the other flamonia maiora, the flamonium Martiale and Quirinale, comprising patrician flamines and patrician or plebeian flaminicae married per confarreationem, who feasibly shared religious obligations and were subject to some ritual prohibitions (pp. 55–62). Regarding the flaminicae, D. claims confarreatio could (effectively) confer the patriciate on plebeian women (after J. Rüpke), obviating any requirement a flaminica maior be born a patrician (pp. 19–23). This provocative suggestion elucidates flaminicae Martiales with plebeian nomina and has wide-ranging implications for patricio-plebeian marriage (cf. Macrob. Sat. 3.13.10–11). Contra D., perhaps this requirement was relaxed over time or restricted to the flaminica Dialis alone, reflecting the other stringent prohibitions for the flamonium Diale (after J. Linderski). Thereafter, D. traces the public roles of the rex and regina sacrorum, a priestly couple akin to the flamonium Diale, (typically) patricians born ex farreatis, married per confarreationem and appointed by the pontifex maximus, with shared ritual obligations on kalendae, wherein the regina sacrorum performed rites pro populo, presiding over public animal sacrifices for Juno (pp. 63–8). She also (reasonably) proposes the curialia flamonia were joint priesthoods, offering as evidence the religious activity of the wives of the sixty curiones (curiales flamines), plausibly curiales flaminicae (pp. 68–76; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.21.2–22.1; Festus, p. 56L). Less convincingly, D. suggests that the flamines minores and the obscure flamines montanorum (priests of the seven hills, CIL VI.32455; cf. flamen Palatualis in Varro, Ling. 7.45) evince further joint priesthoods, but, as she admits, there is no evidence for flaminicae minores or montanorum (pp. 62–3, 76–8). In sum, these two chapters provide demonstrable evidence that priestly couples were central figures in Roman religion.
Chapter 3 illustrates the numerous other (primarily elite) priestesses and (primarily non-elite) female religious officiants in Republican Rome, including the saliae virgines, sacerdotes of Fortuna Muliebris, Bona Dea, Liber, Bacchus, Magna Mater and Ceres, piatrices, antistites and various ministrae, including popae (!), simpulatrices, caniferae, camillae, flaminiae sacerdotulae, tutulatae, tympanistriae, tibicines and aedituae (pp. 79–118). At times, D. stretches the evidence for a priesthood, particularly the obscure saliae virgines, for which she hypothesises elaborate public religious activity from a single, brief antiquarian source (pp. 79–85; Festus, p. 439 L.), and the sacerdos Fortunae Muliebris, whose priesthood is adduced from a legendary account of Coriolanus (pp. 85–8; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 8.55.3–4, 8.56.4; cf. absence in Livy 2.40.11–12; Val. Max. 1.8.4, 5.2.1; Plut. De fort. Rom. 5; Vit. Cor. 33.1–6, 37.1–3; Tert. Mon. 17.4; Festus, p. 282 L.; but supported by Serv. auct. ad Verg. Aen. 4.19). These concerns aside, D. indicates that many elite and non-elite women of varied ethnicities, ages and marital statuses were priestesses and religious officiants in a dizzying array of cults (civic and otherwise, exclusively female and mixed), presiding over or participating in public sacrifices and processions, administering cult activities, property and temples, and playing sacral music. Female religious activity ‘positioned [women] right at the heart of civic community’ (p. 118).
Chapters 4–7 tread well-trodden ground: the nature, selection, legal status, privileges, costume, and ritual and political activities of the Vestal Virgins (pp. 119–239). Much of this material has recently been addressed by M. Beard, A. Gallia, M. Martini, N. Mekacher, C. Schultz, A. Staples, S. Takács, and R. Wildfang. Nevertheless, D. makes astute observations about the Vestal Virgins, particularly when she underscores their daily religious activity and integration into the festival calendar (pp. 188–222), as well as their continued interest in and political support for their natal family after their captio by the pontifex maximus (pp. 224–39). D. declares that these priestesses were not ciphers, but ‘adept social actors who understood how to use their position and its privileges to their advantage’ (p. 239). In her conclusion, D. emphasises that women were a vital part of civic cult from an early date, that their priestly service granted them opportunities for leadership, prestige and authority, and that they served the gods alone or with male counterparts (pp. 240–4).
D.’s lucid prose, excellent English translations of Latin and Greek sources, extensive footnotes and bibliography, and general index increase the volume's accessibility and utility. She demonstrates an authoritative command of the ancient evidence, but occasionally stretches it somewhat implausibly (pp. 62–3, 76–88) or retrojects from the Principate onto the Republic (pp. 33, 117–18). Furthermore, in a volume redressing invisibility and lacunae, this reviewer would have appreciated an appendix with a catalogue of known and conjectural priestesses (beyond what Rüpke offers). Quibbles aside, D.’s volume is an invaluable contribution to the scholarship on women in Roman religion and an indisputable confirmation of female sacerdotal capacity in Republican Rome.
