Extranjeras en la Roma de Marcial y Juvenal

Abstract

The study of female foreigners in the Roman world should be realized possessing a textual critique of the written sources up to verifyif they are contaminated by the political, philosophical or moral opinions of their authors. This way to work the roman sources should substitute the women’s simple utilization, and their presentation as if they take part of a pure social history of Rome. After studying the female foreigners in the works of Tacitus, Suetonius and Florus, and to the women in general, including the foreigners, in Plinius the Younger, we’ll try to corroborate or refute now the conclusions about those works with the study of the female foreigners in Martial and Juvenal. In general, a certain good intention is observed towards the female foreigners, with the mention of several exempla uirtutis, more than of exempla uitiorum. This comes to show in the writers (poets as Martial and Juvenal, and a letters’ writer as Plinius), a different attitude towards the female foreigners that the one showed by the historians. Probably it reflects their major attachment to the social reality of his time.