Plutarch's essay de fortuna Romanorum has attracted divergent judgements. Ziegler dismissed it as ‘eine nicht weiter ernst zu nehmende rhetorische Stilübung’. By Flacelière it was hailed as ‘une ébauche de méditation sur le prodigieux destin de Rome’. It is time to consider the work afresh and to discover whether there is common ground between these two views. Rather than offering a general appreciation, my treatment will take the work chapter by chapter, considering points of interest as they arise. This method (...) will enable us to compare what Plutarch says on particular subjects and themes in de fort. Rom. with what he says or does not say about them elsewhere. We shall thus be able to see clearly that for the most part the ideas he presents in the essay correspond with his thoughts about the rôle of fortune expressed in more serious writing, and that, where there is no correspondence, this is attributable to the rhetorical background. I do not intend to address directly the frequently discussed but insoluble question of whether we have in de fort. Rom. only one of two original works, that is whether there was once a de virtute Romanorum which Plutarch composed or answered. De fort. Rom. itself in fact gives almost as much prominence to άρετή as to τúχη, and their competing roles will be carefully evaluated. Nor do I look at the dating of the work. (shrink)

This article analyzes the prominent role played by a particular vehicle, the matronly carriage, in the construction of Roman gender. Its focus is on the conveyance’s two most significant appearances in literary representation. First, I examine the various accounts of the vehicle’s best-known and most dramatic tableau, Tullia’s use of a carpentum to drive over her dead father king Servius Tullius’ body, arguing that the conveyance functions to articulate the cultural anxiety surrounding the passage from daughter to wife. I suggest (...) that the story of Tullia’s carpentum, as a quasi-mythic exemplum of “feminine transportation,” looms as a dangerous threat in need of accommodation. Next, I examine the story of the Roman matrons’ demonstration in favor of the repeal of the lex Oppia, which had prohibited, among other things, their right to ride in carpenta. I argue that the accounts of Livy and others seek to offer a solution to the challenge posed by the physically protesting women by redefining their vehicular mobility as state-authorized, and as directly tied to their reproductive function. Thus, while Latin literature often articulates urban traffic as a familiarly frustrating system of obstacles, my analysis uncovers a contrasting Roman discourse, one that identifies traffic with the fertility of the city and its ability to reproduce Roman citizens. (shrink)