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A Woman’s Actions in the Turia Inscription

Because they were carved in stone, most funeral inscriptions from ancient Rome are very short. One of the few surviving long inscriptions about a woman is from a tombstone from the first century B.C.E. Neither she nor her husband — the speaker in the inscription — has been identified with certainty, though she is traditionally called “Turia,” and he may have been a Roman official named Quintus Lucretius Vespillo. Both of them were caught up in the unrest of the civil wars of the late republic.

You became an orphan suddenly before the day of our wedding, when both your parents were murdered together in the solitude of the countryside. It was mainly due to your efforts that the death of your parents was not left unavenged. I had left for Macedonia, and your sister’s husband Cluvius had gone to the Province of Africa.

So strenuously did you perform your filial duty by your persistent demands and your pursuit of justice that we could not have done more if we had been present. But these merits you have in common with that most virtuous lady your sister.

. . . Then pressure was brought to bear on you and your sister to accept the view that your father’s will, by which you and I were heirs, had been invalidated by his having contracted a [fictitious purchase] with his wife. If that was the case, then you together with all your father’s property would necessarily come under the guardianship of those who pursued the matter; your sister would be left without any share at all of that inheritance. . . .

You defended our common cause by asserting the truth, namely, that the will had not in fact been broken. . . .

They gave way before your firm resolution and did not pursue the matter any further. Thus you on your own brought to a successful conclusion the defence you took up of your duty to your father, your devotion to your sister, and your faithfulness towards me. . . .

You provided abundantly for my needs during my flight [into political exile] and gave me the means for a dignified manner of living, when you took all the gold and jewellery from your own body and sent it to me and over and over again enriched me in my absence with servants, money and provisions, showing great ingenuity in deceiving the guards posted by our adversaries.

You begged for my life when I was abroad — it was your courage that urged you to this step — and because of your entreaties I was shielded by the clemency of those against whom you marshalled your words. But whatever you said was always said with undaunted courage.

Meanwhile when a troop of men collected by Milo, whose house I had acquired by purchase when he was in exile, tried to profit by the opportunities provided by the civil war and break into our house to plunder, you beat them back successfully and were able to defend our home.

EVALUATE THE EVIDENCE

Source: Mary R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant, eds., Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation, Second Edition, pp. 135–137. © 1982, 1992 M. B. Fant and M. R. Lefkowitz. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.