Coercizione, intimidazioni, violenze di genere in Tacito: la paura delle donne in età giulio-claudia fra pregiudizi e indifferenza storiografica

Abstract

The contribution focuses on the relationship between women and fear in Tacitus’ reconstruction of the Julio-Claudian age, pointing out that it seems to take on significance in two directions. In addition to the passages that bring out the capacity of women, or at least of some of them, to arouse fear or to appear fearsome for their enterprising behaviour, from others it is possible to deduce the impact of fear on women subjected to coercive impositions, delimitations of freedom linked to incriminations of various kinds, intimidation arising from their relations with the power of their relatives and even physical violence. In spite of the punctuality in the recounting of these episodes, one nevertheless notes the historian’s tendency to gloss over women’s emotional reactions in these circumstances, according to a perspective that often seems to reflect resistance to accepting their active presence on the public scene and involvement in political events, while at the same time expressing repudiation of behaviour contrary to the moral principles prescribed by earlier tradition for female conduct