Les parentes féminines de chevaliers romains à l’époque tardo-républicaine

Abstract

The aim of this work is to study, if possible, the influence exercised by those female relatives of the Roman knights known in the last decennia of the first century BC. At that time, the equestrian order still did not have the legal definition created by Augustus. Even though women in Imperial times did never belong to the equester ordo, they played a crucial part in social promotion of their male relatives, through their weddings or wealth. This is the role we intend to highlight in Italy and in the provinces, even if we are aware of the complexity of this work, due to our sources (mainly literary, instead of epigraphic) and the available evidence.