How much can we really know about the lives of elite women in the Late
Republic and Early Empire? If we are to take the written sources at face value
then we might assume that women in the public eye were generally oversexed,
overly assertive and ‘unnatural’ in their masculine behaviour: Cicero’s Clodia is
an excessive monster and Fulvia is an aggressive and manipulative woman who
dominates her husband. Rome of the Late Republic has a reputation for moral
decline characterised by increasing emancipation for women. The foundation of
the Principate sees Augustan moral legislation attempting to address this,
combined with the establishment of an unprecedented female role: that of First
Lady. Livia of the sources is virtuous and loyal, but she is also manipulative and a
poisoner. Messalina’s vilification by historians as a self-seeking nymphomaniac is
a culmination in the portrayal of female cunning and excess. However, these
portrayals do not tend to include information from material evidence. Through
analysis of both literary and artistic evidence this dissertation seeks to establish
whether it is really possible to see the real women behind the sources and to
determine their role and status with any true historical accuracy. In doing so it
considers the importance of the nature of those sources: some are blatant
propaganda, others conform to their literary genre and others reflect political bias
