Pasts Imperfect (1.23.25)

Roman Women and the Army, Myths of the "Roman Salute, Peruvian Tattoos & More

“Men's, women's, and children's calcei. Found in a trash pit or ditch in the Roman fort at Bar Hill, Scotland. Dated generally to the Antonine period, ca. 142-180 CE. See the Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery Collections, GLAHM F.1936.123, F.1936.124, and F.1936.126. On display at The Hunterian, University of Glasgow, Scotland” (Image and caption by Dan Diffendale).

This week, ancient military historians Lee L. Brice and Elizabeth M. Greene discuss their new edited volume on Women and the Army in the Roman Empire. Then, the myth of the “Roman Salute” and Elon Musk’s use of a Nazi gesture during the U.S. Presidential Inauguration events, 3D-printing ancient Chinese bells, recovering Bronze Age board games, Antinoüs gets his cinematic moment, ancient Peruvian tattooed mummies, new ancient world journals, a lecture on the “Future of Egyptology,” and much more.

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Women and the Army in the Roman Empire by Lee L. Brice and Elizabeth M. Greene

If a reader were to choose a pre-1970 history book about the Roman world, they might have thought there were almost no women in ancient Rome—except perhaps a handful of elite women and sex workers. Nearly fifty years after Sarah Pomeroy’s groundbreaking research on ancient women, it is still possible to pick up books about the Roman military and find no mention of women in association with soldiers, officers, and forts. Traditional study of Roman military communities has ignored or erased most of these women and their families from daily military life.

“Column for Trajan cast V&A frontier women,” Piranesi in Rome, Wellesley College (Image by ©Kimberly Cassibry, CC BY-NC 4.0),

The presence of women, children, and families within the forts and in the extramural settlements of the Roman army is now beyond doubt, thanks to the diligent and sometimes contentious work of scholars over the last thirty years. Archaeological and documentary evidence reveal not only the presence of communities that surrounded military camps, but also the inescapable fact that these extended military communities interacted inside and outside the fort through habitation, commercial endeavors, and social obligations. As a result of being shunted by historians, classicists, and archaeologists into exclusively external communities, women have been acknowledged as existing, but otherwise ignored – out of sight and out of mind. Not only have their social and economic contributions been disregarded, but even their identities have been overlooked. It is now overwhelmingly clear that women can no longer remain invisible in attempts to better understand life in the Roman army at any level.

Past dialogue on the topic was dominated by the need to prove first that women were present in the Roman forts at all and that they had an active role to play in military communities. The burden of proof was never placed on those arguing that women were absent from Roman castra. But our evidence, literary and archaeological, shows they were present but not accounted for. There are still scholars who doubt the presence of women inside the fort itself, except for the occasional occurrence of sex workers in a military environment. The resistance is a predictable response in the intensely conservative scholarly landscapes of Roman history and military history, but is no longer tenable.

A leather toy mouse found inside a bag of scrap leather at Vindolanda Fort along Hadrian’s Wall, 105-130 CE (Image via the press release of the Vindolanda Trust).

Our volume goes some distance toward filling the gap by focusing on the lives and identities of women who lived by the “call of the military horn” in different ways. We worked from the premise that women were indeed active members of these communities and as such we explore the various roles and functions they played in the social, economic, and religious frameworks of military communities. It has become increasingly clear from a combination of evidence that women and children made up a significant proportion of residents in many military sites, particularly if one considers the fort and its attached extramural settlement(s) together as constituting a military community. Inscriptions, writing tablets, artifacts, and literature all point toward the regular and enduring presence of women and families in these intra and extramural spaces throughout the empire.

“Birthday Invitation of Sulpicia Lepidina” (97–105 CE), Tab.Vindol. 291, discovered at Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall, England, but now at the British Museum, London (Image via the British Museum).

The need to improve our understanding of the identities and social roles of women who were part of Roman military life is overdue. At the same time, although we might expect to find evidence of women in any military community, this does not guarantee they were part of every military community in the empire, nor that they will always be archaeologically visible. The chapters not only restore women to ancient military contexts from which they have been erased, we expect they will stimulate much further research into the societies within the castra as well as the surrounding settlements.

Lee L. Brice, and Elizabeth M. Greene, eds., Women and the Army in the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024). You can purchase the book with a discount code (102268) here until January 31, 2025 or read a chapter here.

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Global Antiquity and Public Humanities

Your PI co-editors were extremely troubled and weirded out by Elon Musk’s actions on Inauguration Day, so we wrote about it for Hyperallergic. And, for the record, our stance is that it was a Nazi salute (Duh!). Our essay points out how integral the work of military historian Sara Elise Phang (Roman Military Service 2008, and she also contributed a chapter to the Women and the Army volume, above) and classicist Martin M. Winkler (The Roman Salute: Cinema, History, Ideology 2009) were to combatting the notion that the “Roman Salute” was authentic to Roman military history. When you see people now noting that it was a fiction started in large part by artist Jacques-Louis David’s painting ‘The Oath of the Horatii’ [1784–5], it is Winkler’s classical reception research in action. It may not always be apparent in the moment, but the work we do as ancient historians can matter greatly to the public discourse.

Jacques-Louis David, "The Oath of the Horatii" (1784–5), oil on canvas, now at the Musée du Louvre, Paris, France (image public domain via Wikimedia Commons).

For the experimental archaeologists out there, Kin Sum Li has published an article in Nature about digitally and physically recreating ancient Chinese bells. Li reproduced the chime bells from a 3-D scan of one excavated from Xinzheng in Henan province, China (ca. 500 BCE). And then … he 3-D printed them!

At the University of Central Florida, history professor Tiffany Earley-Spadoni and a team of researchers made new discoveries during fieldwork at the Bronze Age site of Kurd Qaburstan in Iraq: a game board, cuneiform tablets, and architectural features!

Over on the Feminist Studies in Religion blog, Jaeda Calaway has a great post on “Becoming Weird, Becoming Woman,” looking at the queer coding of Weird Barbie played against Stereotypical Barbie in Barbie (2023). This is part of a larger series on “Barbie & the Bible,” introduced by theologian Tamisha A. Tyler with thanks to EFSR board member Meghan R. Henning, who helped to organize the original conference.

Big congrats to PI contributor and friend Jordan Rosenblum! We love a pig history.

Jordan Rosenblum recently won the NJBA for Jewish Food Writing & Cookbooks with his book, Forbidden: A 3,000-Year History of Jews and the Pig (2024).

Oh yeah, matriarchy! Along with her team, geneticist Lara Cassidy at Trinity College Dublin found that women were at the social center of an ancient Celtic tribe. At an Iron Age burial site, they discovered that many of the people buried their were related through their maternal line.

"It's a really rare pattern." says Cassidy. "Never seen before in European prehistory to have so many people all related through the female line. It's adding to that pile of evidence that women were able to wield quite a lot of social and political influence in these societies."

Take a guess: which US city was the first to be named a UNESCO City of Gastronomy ten years ago? Seriously. Guess. It’s Tucson! 4,200 years of agriculture will do that. The bounty of the desert, combined with generations of multicultural settlement, has made Tucson’s gastronomic scene chock full of “culinary layers” for literally thousands of years. Sign me up for a Sonoran hot dog. Stat.

barefoodtim

A post shared by @barefoodtim

If you’re looking for fine-line tattoo inspo, you’ve come to the right place…? Using laser-stimulated fluorescence, researchers found that mummies from Peru’s Chancay culture (900 to 1500 CE) had elaborate, delicate tattoos of “ornate geometric designs, reminiscent of scales or vines, as well as an amorphous animal with a curled tail.” And in case you missed it, Solange Ashby recently discussed the new discovery of a medieval Nubian tattoo near the Monastery of Ghazali (Sudan), as well.

Archaeologists excavating near the Colosseum at the site of the Domus Aurea in Rome discovered a 2.4 kg (5.3 lb) gigantic ingot of Egyptian Blue pigment. See the press release for more and remember to revisit our PI issue on Egyptian Blue. In other pigment news, there is also new research on mercury levels in the cinnabar used in the ancient Maya city of Ucanal in Guatemala.

Egyptian blue ingot (© Colosseum Archaeological Park, Photo by Simona Murrone).

You know him and love him for his cinnamon-bun-like tresses: it’s Antinoüs, the ancient world’s most famous twink! Cameron Scheetz at Queerty reports that filming for Gus Van Sant’s new film, Antinous, dubbed a “psychosexual thriller,” will begin later this year. Very juicy. We are pretty sure this film will be a cult classic—for Hadrian at least.

Finally, we just really love the Getty octopus and are still sending all our good wishes to the people of California. Remember, you can donate directly to fire relief efforts or even buy a work of art to help artists rebuild. Check out the GoFundMe directory of Black families in order to help the historically Black neighborhood of Altadena.

Attributed to the Binningen Painter, “Paestan Red-Figure Fish Plate,” 325-300 BCE, Paestum, South Italy (Place Created) now at the Getty (96.AE.240) (Getty Open Content with a cute little speaking bubble I added to this cute little πολύπους).

Also? It is almost Lunar New Year! It begins Wednesday, January 29, 2025 🐍🏮

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New Antiquity Journal Issues (by yaleclassicslib.bsky.social)
Acta Classica Mediterranea Vol. 7 (2024) #openaccess
Antiquités Africaines Vol. 60 (2024) #openaccess
Classical Receptions Journal Vol. 17, No. 1 (2025)
The Classical Review Vol. 74, No. 2 (2024)
Forum Classicum No. 3 (2024) #openaccess
Frankfurter elektronische Rundschau zur Altertumskunde No. 54 (2024) #openaccess
Helios Vol. 50, no. 2 (2023) Non-Hermeneutic Reading
The Journal of Roman Studies Vol. 114 (2024) NB Kassandra Miller “Intentional Menstrual Suppression in Imperial Rome” Rebecca Darley “Indian Ocean Trade in the First Millennium c.e.: Taking the Romans out of Indo-Roman?”
Nova Tellus Vol. 43 No. 1 (2025) #openaccess
Romanitas: Revista de Estudos Grecolatinos No. 24 (2024) #openaccess
Altorientalische Forschungen Vol. 51, No. 2 (2024)
Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History Vol. 11 No. 2 (2024) Dress for Success. Textiles, Furniture, and Power Accessories Expressing Status in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean (3rd—1st millennia BCE)
Journal of Coptic Studies Vol. 26 (2024)
Anais de Filosofia Clássica Vol. 18 No. 35 (2024) #openaccess Filosofia Clássica e Matemática
Augustinianum Vol. 64, No. 1 (2024)
Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 86, No. 1 (2025)
Philosophy East and West Vol. 75, No. 1 (2025) The Prospects, Problems, and Urgency of Global Intercultural Philosophy Now
Phronesis Vol. 70, No. 1 (2025)
Archaeologia Austriaca Vol. 108 (2024) #openaccess
Archaeologia Polona Vol. 62 (2024) #openaccess Pontic Olbia in the Post-Roman Period
Journal of Music Archaeology Vol. 2 (2024) #openaccess
Oxford Journal of Archaeology Vol. 44, No. 1 (2025)
Ériu Vol. 74 (2024)
medieval worlds: comparative and interdisciplinary studies Vol. 21 (2024) #openaccess Chinese and Western Empires and Their Transformations
CERÆ: An Australasian Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Vol. 11 (2024) #openaccess Metamorphosis, Transformation, and Transmutation
Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society Vol. 37, No. 1 (2024) #openaccess
Early Christianity Vol. 15, No. 5 (2024)
International Journal of Cultural Property Vol. 31, No. 2 (2024) NB Ammar Kannawi, et al. “The Lion Statue of Ain Dara: Revealing the Fate of an Icon of Syrian Archaeology Looted During the Conflict”
Journal of the History of Sexuality Vol. 34, No. 1 (2025)
Digital Scholarship in the Humanities Vol. 40, Suppl. 1 (2025)

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Events, Workshops, and Exhibitions

In honor of Christ’s College, Cambridge lending the Foundress’ Cup to the British Library for the “Medieval Women: In Their Own Words” exhibition (October 25, 2024-March 2, 2025), medievalist Mary Franklin-Brown will speak online on Tuesday, February 4 at 11:30am - 1pm CST on “Golden Wreaths for Hippocrates” Sign up here.

Header image online for the British Library’s “Medieval Women: In Their Own Words” exhibition on now in London until March 2, 2025.

At the Bowdoin Museum in Maine, “Etruscan Gifts: Artifacts from Early Italy in the Bowdoin Collection” is only on exhibit for two more weeks, ending on February 9, 2025. Also, there is an exhibition of Pompeii objects on loan to Graceland, Elvis’ house near Memphis, Tennessee. Apparently this hunka burnin’ stones is on display until April 13, 2025.

On March 5, 2025 at 1pm – 2pm GMT, there will be a free lecture for the EES on “The Future of Egyptology” given by Egyptologist and repatriation expert Monica Hanna: “This talk examines the need to critically reassess Egyptology, arguing that its origins as a European-centric discipline have perpetuated colonialist narratives and power imbalances.” This event will be recorded and made available on the EES YouTube channel afterwards or you book online here.

Poster graphic for Hanna’s “The Future of Egyptology” lecture.