The House of the Tragic Poet (also called The Homeric HouseorThe Iliadic House) is a Roman house in Pompeii, Italy dating to the 2nd century BCE. The house is famous for its elaborate mosaic floors and frescoes depicting scenes from Greek mythology.
Discovered in November 1824 by the archaeologist Antonio Bonucci, the House of the Tragic Poet has interested scholars and writers for generations. Although the size of the house itself is in no way remarkable, its interior decorations are not only numerous but of the highest quality among other frescoes and mosaics from ancient Pompeii.
Because of the mismatch between the size of the house and the quality of its decoration, much has been wondered about the lives of the homeowners. Unfortunately, little is known about the family members, who were likely killed by the eruption of mount Vesuvius in 79AD.
Cave Canem, House of the Tragic Poet, Pompeii, Italy,
The ancient site of Letoon, lies 4 km south of Xanthos and was the leading Lycian religious centre. The principal gods of ancient Lycia were Leto and her twin children Artemis and Apollo. It was also the assembly place for Lycian league. Archaeological finds date back to the 7th century BCE.
The Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula began during the 3rd century BCE. A number of clashes followed, including inLusitania, a province located between present-day Portugal and western Spain.
In 138 BCE, the Roman praetor Decimus Junius Brutus was sent to Lusitania to fight roaming guerrilla bands. Unable to follow them through the province, he decided to attack their towns directly.
According to Appian : “Here he found the women fighting and perishing in company with the men with such bravery that they uttered no cry even in the midst of slaughter.”
In 137 BCE, he crossed the river Douro and encountered the Bracari, a Celtic tribe of present-day northwest Portugal. According to Appian, the Bracari were: “very warlike people”. The women : “bearing arms with the men, who fought never turning, never showing their backs, or uttering a cry. Of the women who were captured some killed themselves, others slew their children with their own hands, considering death preferable to captivity.”
This determination to fight to the death reminds of Roman encounters with other tribes, such as for instance the Cimbri (who may have been Germanic or Celtic people), whose women displayed a similar behavior.
Plutarch also tells of Caesar’s battles against the Celtic Helvetiansthat:
“After a long and hard struggle he routed the enemy’s fighting men, but had the most trouble at their rampart of waggons, where not only did the men themselves make a stand and fight, but also their wives and children defended themselves to the death and were cut to pieces with the men.”
During the expansion of their empire, the Romans sometimes encountered female commanders and female fighters. Some of them belonged to the Germanic tribes. Most accounts depict these women fighting in desperate situations, but they are shown as deadly and uncompromising.
Among these were the Cimbrian women. The Cimbri’s ethnicity is still subject to debate today. Some say that they were Germans, others that they were Celts. They had migrated from FrisiaandJutland and descended toward Italy and several clashes with the Romans followed. In 101 BCE, the Cimbri faced the troops of consul Gaius Marius at Vercellae.
The Cimbrian warriors were defeated, which led the women to take arms, even though the extent of these activities remain unclear. Indeed, according to the account of Florus:
“Therewas quite as severe a struggle with the women-folk of the barbarians as with the men; for they had formed a barricade of their waggons and carts and, mounting on the top of it, fought with axes and pikes.”
The women sent a delegation to Marius, but failed to secure their freedom. They therefore killed their children and committed suicide. Plutarchgives a slightly different account of the battle, saying that the women fell upon the men who tried to flee and killed them, including their husbands and relatives, and then committed suicide.
Women of the Ambrones , an allied tribe of the Cimbri, displayed the same behavior at Aquae Sextiae. Plutarch gives the following description of the Ambrones’ defeat:
“(…)The Romans kept slaying them until they came in their flight to their camp and waggons. Here the women met them, swords and axes in their hands, and with hideous shrieks of rage tried to drive back fugitives and pursuers alike, the fugitives as traitors, and the pursuers as foes; they mixed themselves up with the combatants, with bare hands tore away the shields of the Romans or grasped their swords, and endured wounds and mutilations, their fierce spirits unvanquished to the end.”
Cassius Dio also writes that during the war with the Marcomanni (166 until 180) the bodies of women wearing armor were found on the battlefield.
TheHistoria Augusta also mentions that during the triumph of Aurelian:
“There were led along also ten women, who, fighting in male attire, had been captured among the Goths after many others had fallen; these a placard declared to be of the race of the Amazons — for placards were borne before all, displaying the names of their nations”.
This last source isn’t, however, a reliable one, so this story must be regarded with some skepticism.
Bibliography:
Cassius Dio, Roman history
Chrystal Paul, Women at war in the classical world
