Hortensia

The triumvirs, Lepidus, Antony and Octavian in 42 BC, discovered they were in dire need of funds to finance a punitive action against the assassins of Julius Caesar. To increase their purse, they released an edict requiring 1,400 of Rome's most wealthy women to provide them with valuations of their properties.

From these valuations, the triumvirs would determine what "contributions" each lady would make to the war chest. The published edict stated that any attempt at fraud would be punished with heavy fines. Informers would be rewarded, whether they were freepersons or slaves.

Angered by the decree, the women appealed to the triumvir's womenfolk as this was the only legal avenue with which they could hope to affect any change.

Their appeals recieved favorable responses from Julia, Antony's mother, and Octavia, sister of Octavian. Antony's wife, Fulvia, however, coldly rebuffed them. It is suggested that Fulvia gained much wealth and power from the proscriptions, and due to her greed would not have agreed with the women.

Rebuffed, enraged and frustrated the women staged a noisy public demonstration, something unheared of for women of any class to do. They forced their way to the Forum and disrupted the triumvirate tribunal being held there. Realizing Hortensia to be every bit as eloquent as her father Hortensius had been (he being the same Hortensius that was the notable rival of Cicero in the law courts), the assembled women chose Hortensia as their spokeswoman.

Boldly she addressed the triumvirs. We have her speach from Appian...

"As was proper for women of our rank petitioning you for something, we addressed your women. But Fulvia's rudeness has driven us here. As relatives of those whom you proscribed, we have already lost our menfolk. If you also strip us of our property you will diminish our status. If we have wronged you, proscribe us. But if we have not voted you public enemies nor destroyed your houses, nor led an enemy against you, nor prevented you from gaining offices or honors, why should we share the penalty when we have no part in the honors? Why should we pay taxes when we have no part in the honors, the commands, the policy making? 'Because there's a war on', you say. But when have there not been wars and when have women ever been taxed? Our mothers contributed when you faced the loss of the Empire in the Second Punic War, but they funded their contributions from their jewelry and on a voluntary basis, not from their property or doweries. We will gladly contribute to war with the Gauls or Parthians, but NOT to civil war. We did not contribute to either Caesar or Pompey, nor did Marius or Cinna tax us, or even Sulla!"

'How dare they!' thought the three men. These women dared to speak out in public while men who were present in the crowd were silent! How dare they demand reasons for the magistrate's decree! How dare they refuse to contribute money while men contributed their lives in their armies!

Angrily, Lepidus, Antony and Octavian ordered their lictors to remove Hortensia and the women. The protesting shouts from the men around the women, however forced the three to change their tactics.

In twenty-four hours came notice that the decree had been modified. The new decree from the triumvirate reduced the number of women to be taxed from 1,400 to 400. The difference would be made up by a tax on men, including foreigners who possessed more than 100,000 drachmas.This meant that the voteless and disenfranchised would still be bled to finace the action.

One wonders...

Did the triumvirs believe, due to Hortensia's father's known sympathies with the disenfranchised, that she was demanding enfranchisment for women? Q. Hortensius "Annals" were the best written accounts known of the Italian demands for the Roman franchise.

It is Hortensia's eloquent courage coupled with her courageous eloquence that is as compelling and relevant today, as it was then. That the men in the crowd surrounding her in the Forum stopped the lictors from driving the women away says much. They must have heard and believed to have also boldly rebuffed Octavian, Antony and Lepidus, who had been busy and successful in proscribing whoever they might consider 'enemies'.

That she dared speak at all, is notable. That she spoke and affected even a small change, is remarkable in the patriarchal society that was Rome.