THE VEIL IN AUGUSTAN ART
CHAPTER 8 CONCLUSION
From the evidence presented in the preceding chapters, it is possible to conclude that there existed in ancient Rome a culture of female veiling. Veiling practices were not static but were subject to changes in fashion, changes that were in turn shaped by broader social forces. As we have seen, although men did occasionally veil they only did so in very specific circumstances. Women, on the other hand, habitually veiled; at least those of respectable status did so when they went out in public. This was true to the extent that the veil was the most visible thing about a woman as the veil was, unlike the woman herself, visible to all.
As the most publicly visible signifier of an honourable woman, the veil came to stand for the state that it denoted: well-contained and productive female sexuality. This ideal of sexual behaviour became especially important in light of the manner in which the civil wars and the remedies to the ills that had caused them were understood in terms of gender. By understanding a decline in morality as having been instrumental in the collapse of the republic, the Romans assigned a great deal of political responsibility to women. Therefore in order to put this situation to rights the female body had to be still further politicized while at the same time pretending to return to the ways of the past, which situated a woman's body securely in the domus. The veil signified the traditional divisions between male and female, public and private, and thus allowed women to be brought into the public realm all the while signifying that the harmful influences of their sex were contained. Thus the veil assumed great importance during the Augustan period when the distinctions between public and private were being eroded. In doing so, not only did the new regime place more importance on women but also the attempt to do so was characterized by a pronounced tendency towards archaism. It is this archaism that attempts to simplify what in the years of the late republic had become very complex gender relations. This meant that the ideas of honour and shame assumed even greater
importance than they had during the late republic and with them so too the veil assumed greater significance because of its ability to protect female shame and thus male honour and the integrity of the state. The notion of male honour is linked to male status as honour is the currency whereby men negotiate social interactions with other men. A woman's sexual purity was ensured as well as represented by her use of the veil. The veil was therefore of great importance in maintaining the social status of her male relatives.
In its role as a marker of sexual purity—and by other means—the veil came to be understood as a definitively female garment. Therefore when men assumed the veil they became in some ways more feminine, both in terms of honour and in terms of their relative social status. The veil served to protect this vulnerable state, a state in which women permanently found themselves. Both sexes showed their subservience and relative inferiority before the gods when they veiled in the liturgical context. In this setting the veil marked the devotee as submitting to the will of the gods and was also able to protect the person while they were interacting with the numinous realm. This protective quality of the veil was also important during various stages in a person's life during which a transition was made from one state to another, when they were removed from the normal protection offered by their place in society. This practice helps to explain the veiling of the bride as well as veiling in times of mourning.
To prove in some way that the Romans did have a culture of female veiling it was
necessary to examine their vocabulary of veiling. Indeed the very proliferation of veiling
terminology is a strong sign of the prevalence of the practice as it demonstrated that the
Romans were concerned enough with veiling to have specific veils that served different
purposes. Thepalla was a kind of all-purpose veil that women used when going about in
public. Other veils such as the ricinium, the rica, the flammeum and the suffibulum had
more particular applications. The uses of these veils were limited to certain persons or to
certain contexts.
c,
It would appear that veiling in some of these contexts was a matter of increased concern during the time of Augustus. Being so closely related to the ideals surrounding female sexuality the veil was of specific importance when attempts were made to regulate sexual morality. The rejuvenation of what was considered traditional morality was accompanied by a programme of religious renewal, and these two agendas occasionally intersected. This was the case with the cult of Pudicitia, the personification of female sexual virtue whose worship was reinstated under Augustus.
There is evidence that the restoration of this cult was accompanied by a law, perhaps as an accompaniment to the lex de adulteriis, that attempted to regulate sexual morality.
The most likely way in which compliance with this law was displayed was by dress. A woman's pudicitia and impudicitia was indicated by her dress and women who veiled were most often praised for their pudicitia. It therefore seems likely that in terms of the hypothetical lex de pudictia veiling was made a matter of legal decree. It would seem that it was to this law that Valerius Maximus, the moralist so influenced by the Augustan programme, was referring to when he wrote of Sulpicius Gallus whom he quotes as saying that the law 'sets my eyes as the limit by means of which you may prove your beauty' meos tantum praefinit oculos, quibus formam tuam adprobes (6.3.10). In his account of Sulpicius Gallus' actions Valerius Maximus conflicts with Plutarch. Neither source is entirely trustworthy as it would seem that while Valerius Maximus was strongly influenced by the Augustan moral programme and by the legislation Plutarch, because of the funerary context of which he was writing, misunderstood Roman veiling practices.
While statements such as those of Plutarch and Valerius Maximus have been almost completely ignored by scholars, the artistic evidence for female veiling has likewise not been given sufficient attention. Part of the reason for this is a misunderstanding of how the artistic tradition depicts veiling. It has generally been thought that veiling was not the norm amongst Roman women because much of the time women are not depicted with their heads covered by veils. This is not the case as the tradition seems to dictate that the veil be represented as present but not necessarily as covering the head. There are a
number of ways in which an artist might do this. The most common of these methods is by depicting the veil-gesture that entails the subject using a hand (often that furthest from the viewer) to lift a part of her veil up and extending it forward. This gesture is in time simplified to the point that the subject need merely tug up a piece of her garment.
Having identified the significance of this gesture it becomes clear that representations of veiled women are very common in the art of the Augustan period. Because of the generally public nature of Roman art, these images formed an important part of the Augustan programme. By using a visual rather than literary medium, the Princeps was able to reach a far larger audience. He used the female form to convey to this audience the message that the Roman state was once again healthy. To allow for this positive interpretation, images of veiled women were employed. By making use of the veil's signification of the positive qualities of femininity, Augustan artists were able to reassure the public as to the healthy nature of the private sphere that surrounded the man that now ruled Rome as though it were his own domus.
This dissertation has attempted to prove that veiling was the standard practice of Roman women and has focused especially on the time of the early empire. I have concerned myself not only with the anthropological significance of this practice but also its socio- political motivations. For the Romans, a breakdown of morality in the family and in the individual led to its collapse in the state. It was in this way that the Romans explained the failure of the Republic, attributing its wider failure to an insidious decay within the Roman household. The programme of cultural regeneration advanced by the emperor Augustus conscientiously propagandized morality and chastity in an attempt to make clear that after the anarchic years of the civil wars Rome once again had a legitimate government. Depictions of veiled women, especially women of the imperial household, came to symbolize the new ethos. This ideological manipulation was an attempt to recreate older ideals of national identity, an identity which, having been fashioned by artists and literary men, soon translated itself into daily life. I examined how during this time the use of the veil, an exemplar of female chastity, was revived and became a
common fixture in both art and literature and how this chaste dress code reasserted the ideal of the mos maiorum.
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