Political Conversations in the Houses of Roman Women: Livy's Account of the Bacchanalia in 186 B.C.E.

Abstract: This paper focuses on women's houses in republican Rome and political conversations that took place in this gendered domestic context. The Bacchanalian "conspiracy" provides suggestive insights into the roles played by women living in their own houses in the early 2nd century b.c.e. According to Livy, pivotal conversations that shaped the outcome of this crisis took place in the houses of women, including Sulpicia (mother-in-law of Spurius Postumius Albinus, consul 186 b.c.e.), Aebutia (an equestrian widow), Duronia (a married woman), and Hispala Faecenia (a freedwoman living on the Aventine). These conversations reveal social settings in which women interacted and exchanged information.