Social Structure and the Role of Women in Pompeii and Herculaneum

Vocabulary flashcards covering the social hierarchy, legal status, and roles of men, women, freedmen, and slaves in ancient Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Senatorial Elite

Wealthy Roman aristocrats based primarily in Rome who owned large Campanian villas for leisure and status (e.g., Lucius Calpurnius Piso) and exercised political power in Rome rather than in municipal government.

Local Elite

Wealthy landowners and merchants who lived permanently in Pompeii and Herculaneum, dominated the town council (ordo decurionum), held public office, and lived in luxurious domus.

Ordo Decurionum

The local town council in Pompeii and Herculaneum controlled by the local male elite to govern municipal affairs.

Euergetism

The civic practice of wealthy citizens funding public buildings, games, temples, and baths to benefit the community, establish a positive reputation, and serve as political propaganda.

Domus

Large, elaborately decorated townhouses inhabited by the local elite, such as the House of the Faun and the House of the Vettii.

Programmata

Electoral campaign notices painted on the walls of Pompeii to promote candidates running for municipal office.

Ingenui

Freeborn Roman citizens. Freeborn women held Roman citizenship but possessed limited legal rights and could not vote or hold political office.

Tutor

A male guardian (such as a father, husband, or male relative) under whose legal authority Roman women were required to remain when managing property and legal affairs.

Liberti

Freedmen; men freed from slavery who could vote and operate businesses, often working for their former masters, but were barred from holding formal municipal political office.

Augustalis

A priest of the imperial cult (cult of the emperor), a prestigious civic religious office that wealthy freedmen (liberti) were permitted to hold.

Julia Felix

A wealthy Pompeian woman who owned a substantial estate and independently rented out commercial shops, apartments, and a private bathhouse.

Poppaea Note and Dicidia Margaris

Two women named on wax business tablets dating to $61\,\text{AD}$ recording a financial loan, providing evidence of women engaging directly in financial transactions.

Patronage

Financial or material support provided by wealthy individuals to fund public projects or support clients and guilds in exchange for prestige, political support, and public honour.

Eumachia

A wealthy Pompeian public priestess and patron of the fullers' guild who constructed and dedicated a monumental building in the Forum to Concordia Augusta and Pietas in her name and that of her son.

Marcus Numistrius Fronto

The son of Eumachia whose political prospects and social standing were promoted through the public building she funded in the Pompeian Forum.

Sacerdos Publica

A public priestess, representing one of the few formal, publicly recognized civic roles available to freeborn elite Roman women (e.g., Eumachia, Mamia).

Mamia

A prominent public priestess in Pompeii who was commemorated by the town with a public funeral and a large, distinguished tomb.

Veia Barchilla

A woman who funded and constructed a large commemorative tomb for her husband, illustrating female agency in funerary patronage.

Manumission

The legal procedure through which an enslaved person was granted freedom by their master.

Slaves (Servi)

An unfree social class comprising roughly $20\,\%$ to $40\,\%$ of the population in Pompeii, engaged primarily in domestic, business, and agricultural labor, with few distinct quarters or funerary markers.

Vitalis and Justa

A freedwoman and her daughter involved in a documented Herculaneum legal dispute regarding Justa's status and upbringing in the household of Gaius Petronius and Calatoria Temidis.