Articles by Sophie Chavarria
Cahiers « Mondes anciens », 2022
The purpose of this article is to examine the positive and negative properties of menstrual blood... more The purpose of this article is to examine the positive and negative properties of menstrual blood in Ancient Rome and its related uses. Building on such premises, I go on to explore the cultural practices involving this ambivalent substance. I argue that menstrual blood and its powers were manipulated to reinforce male order and state control over women’s bodies, becoming an instrument justifying the enactment of new rules to control Roman women. On the other hand, far from pushing away women from public and sacred spaces, the powers of menstruation contributed to strengthen their integration into the life of the city.
Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal, 2020
The third issue of the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal (TRAJ) provides the opportunity to a... more The third issue of the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal (TRAJ) provides the opportunity to assess the structural issues in academia detailed in the previous editorials of the journal. The articles, and their authors, included in this volume were each affected by the worldwide pandemic. Throughout this period, however, the world has also become the theatre that enacted a renewal of social movements that amplified marginalised voices and experiences. Lack of representation was a key theme through TRAC 2019 and was emphasised by the conference's keynote speaker, Zena Kamash. This editorial examines the contemporary context of Roman archaeology, its engagement with social justice, along with the struggles and opportunities afforded to it by COVID-19. Also included is an introduction to the diverse range of subjects discussed throughout TRAJ volume 3, that moves beyond the traditional analysis of ancient Italy and other anglophone countries.
Reviews by Sophie Chavarria
The Journal of Roman Studies, 2023
Talks by Sophie Chavarria
Male writers in the ancient world, such as philosophers and physicians, were certainly not the on... more Male writers in the ancient world, such as philosophers and physicians, were certainly not the only ones interested in understanding the nature of the human body. Pliny the Elder, most notably, mentions a few obstetrices and hetairai (Salpe, Elephantis, Lais, etc.) as appropriate sources of knowledge on the matter. However, the surviving sixty inscriptions from Roman times that record the name of female healers barely enhance our understanding of these women, and none of them can be dated earlier than the mid-first century BC.
Thankfully, by confronting our main literary sources on the subject, authors such as Soranus,
Galen, and Columella, with fragmentary and much older evidence, we can successfully
establish a substantial list of professional women who offered services linked with healing treatments. These sources allude to the presence of midwives (opstetrices), female physicians (medicae) and nurses (nutrices) in the city of Rome between the 3rd and 2nd century BC, while also referring to other kind of therapists such as female soothsayers (coniectrices, hariolae), witches (praecantrices), and the famous Sibyls.
These evidence further attests that, despite the clear influence of ‘scientific’ schools of thought from the Eastern Mediterranean, a Roman cultural background of beliefs and traditions that focused on healing practices and to which women took part, existed in Rome simultaneously.
Homemade remedies were known by women in Roman households, from the matronae to vilicae, as well as priestesses (sacerdotes) and their assistants (ministrae, aedituae) such as those in charge of the pharmacy of the temple of Bona Dea. Through a comprehensive analysis – particularly of the technical lexicon – in fragments from different genres of early Roman literature, this paper will prove that as early in mid-Republican Rome women were perceived as authorities in healing matters.
À la suite d’une première journée sur le thème « genre et sources : lecture, relecture, mélecture... more À la suite d’une première journée sur le thème « genre et sources : lecture, relecture, mélecture », la SFR ALLHiS organise cette année la deuxième session de ce cycle
de séminaire jeunes chercheur.es sur l’hétéronormativité dans l’analyse des sources.
En remettant en cause l’hétérosexualité comme doxa, soit comme une forme d’évidence consensuelle et primordiale, la notion d’hétéronormativité suppose d’interroger
les mouvements de résistance ou les évolutions au sein des discours et des pratiques. La difficulté, en outre, à nommer et à définir ces dernières autrement que par leur affiliation ou non à une norme modulable pose un problème sémantique : comment désigner la « non-hétéronormativité » autrement que par la négative et, implicitement, par la transgression d’une norme hétérosexuelle entendue comme positive ?
En rassemblant des étudiant.es en master et en doctorat, cette journée sera l’occasion d’un dialogue interdisciplinaire entre jeunes chercheur.es sur l’hétéronormativité dans les études de genre, ses apports théoriques comme ses applications pratiques dans l’analyse des sources.
Throughout the 20th century, scholars have initiated a process aiming to overcome social biases, ... more Throughout the 20th century, scholars have initiated a process aiming to overcome social biases, especially from scholarly studies of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) where women remain silent. In this paper, I reassess women’s experiences as publicly active agents in their community. To do so, I examine how women’s image was shaped by public opinion. Their use of space is revealed not only by evidence ‘left’ by women themselves, but also by members of their inner and outer social circles. Thus, I argue that to fully understand women’s spatial experience, we should not limit ourselves to analyse the messages sent by their environment, but to consider their own use of space itself. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate how women behaved around these spaces. And when writing about the Roman society, we need to refuse to do as some of our predecessors: to systematically ignore women from our narratives.
Finding out women’s voices in Republican Rome is a challenge as for the large majority of them, t... more Finding out women’s voices in Republican Rome is a challenge as for the large majority of them, their lives remain ignored by the ancient sources. For Moses Finley (1965), we might even never draw a trustworthy portrait of women because of how very few evidence we possess about their lives. Fortunately for us, since Finley’s article historiography has been flooded by publications placing women from the ancient world as actors of their narratives. Even if none of them has been able to reveal direct voices (with the few exceptions of Sappho, Sulpicia and some epitaphs), scholars have become experts in interpreting their silences in a wide range of sources.
The fact that some Roman citizens felt the need to criticize women taking an active role in the civic life of Rome, men like Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE), indicates that some women may have been able to be heard within the public space. Furthermore, Roman theatre during the third and second century BCE became an acceptable way to stage female speech through the voices of actual men as well as fictional characters created by male play writers.
This paper follows the footsteps of those who have already stressed the importance of examining women as subjects of our storylines. However, I wish to go further by emphasizing the significance to reveal the plurality of female voices. Unfortunately, women from lower backgrounds such as courtesans and actresses have been persistently overlooked by scholars.
Despite the limited amount of sources, it is possible to bring to life the lives of these women by the analysis of both literary and archaeological materials, contributing to draw a better portrait of the female sphere in the ancient world.
Pline l’Ancien écrivait en 77 avant JC à propos du sang menstruel : « Après cela il n'y a plus de... more Pline l’Ancien écrivait en 77 avant JC à propos du sang menstruel : « Après cela il n'y a plus de limite : la grêle, les tourbillons, la foudre, toutes les tempêtes célestes, sont détournées par une femme qui, ayant ses règles, se découvre » (Pline l’Ancien, Histoire Naturelle 27.23.1). Bien plus encore que le déshonneur et la mort, le sang menstruel et les pouvoirs qui lui étaient associés étaient craints par les Romains. De fait, leurs utilisations étaient strictement réglementées et ils ne pouvaient être actives que dans un contexte cultuel. Par conséquent, ce type de sang était perçu comme l’un des puissants insignia féminins, offrant aux Romaines des pouvoirs illimités sur les phénomènes naturels. Reprenant la thèse convaincante de Nicole Boëls-Janssen (1993), l’objectif premier de ce papier est d’explorer les différentes façons dont les propriétés prophylactiques et nuisibles du sang menstruel étaient exploitées. En ajoutant à notre analyse l’ensemble du système de valeurs partagées par les Romains sous la République, ce papier cherche à évaluer dans quelle mesure nous pouvons légitimement affirmer que le sang menstruel ne générait pas toujours une souillure. En effet, il n’engendrait pas nécessairement une tache, polluant individus, endroits et objets, mais pouvait avoir des effets inoffensifs et bienfaisants. L’étude précise des représentations sociales du sang menstruel permet également de mettre en lumière certain contrastes entre nos sources. Si employé librement et dans une perspective individualiste, ces pouvoirs sont continuellement dépeints comme dangereux. En revanche, lorsqu’ils sont déclenchés sous la supervision des hommes, leurs conséquences sont toujours bénéfiques sur l’ensemble de la communauté. Par conséquent, tout en devenant un outil légitimant le renforcement d’un contrôle masculin sur les corps féminins, le sang menstruel consolidait également l’intégration de ces mêmes femmes dans la vie publique de la cité.
Conference organization by Sophie Chavarria
Cette manifestation propose de réunir à l’échelle internationale des chercheur.e.s étudiant les d... more Cette manifestation propose de réunir à l’échelle internationale des chercheur.e.s étudiant les différents types de rapports entre les concepts d’espace, de genre et de mémoire dans le monde romain antique. Malgré l’intérêt récent des chercheurs pour les Gedächtnisgeschichte (l’histoire de la mémoire) et la popularité concomitante des approches féministes, il est tout à fait étonnant que ces deux champs épistémologiques soient restés à une relative distance l’un de l’autre jusqu’à présent. Cette journée d’étude a donc pour objectif de réunir des chercheur.e.s dont les travaux actuels visent à combler cette lacune historiographique.
Les communications retenues ne se contentent pas de répondre à ces questions en se focalisant sur la cité romaine seulement mais aussi au reste de la péninsule italique, et des Gaules romaines. Quant à la chronologie retenue, elle a vocation à prendre à racine durant les premiers siècles de la République jusqu’au début de l’Empire tardif afin de fournir une vision de longue durée de ce phénomène d’élaboration d’une identité commune, d’une Romanitas unie autour de ses agents féminins.
Poster by Sophie Chavarria
Blog article by Sophie Chavarria
LUCIUS' ROMANS , Apr 13, 2018
This month's post has been written by Sophie Chavarria, a second-year PhD student in Classics and... more This month's post has been written by Sophie Chavarria, a second-year PhD student in Classics and Archaeology at the University of Kent. This article is partly inspired by a talk she gave last month at the Annual Meeting of Postgraduate in Ancient History organised by the University of London.
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Articles by Sophie Chavarria
Reviews by Sophie Chavarria
Talks by Sophie Chavarria
Thankfully, by confronting our main literary sources on the subject, authors such as Soranus,
Galen, and Columella, with fragmentary and much older evidence, we can successfully
establish a substantial list of professional women who offered services linked with healing treatments. These sources allude to the presence of midwives (opstetrices), female physicians (medicae) and nurses (nutrices) in the city of Rome between the 3rd and 2nd century BC, while also referring to other kind of therapists such as female soothsayers (coniectrices, hariolae), witches (praecantrices), and the famous Sibyls.
These evidence further attests that, despite the clear influence of ‘scientific’ schools of thought from the Eastern Mediterranean, a Roman cultural background of beliefs and traditions that focused on healing practices and to which women took part, existed in Rome simultaneously.
Homemade remedies were known by women in Roman households, from the matronae to vilicae, as well as priestesses (sacerdotes) and their assistants (ministrae, aedituae) such as those in charge of the pharmacy of the temple of Bona Dea. Through a comprehensive analysis – particularly of the technical lexicon – in fragments from different genres of early Roman literature, this paper will prove that as early in mid-Republican Rome women were perceived as authorities in healing matters.
de séminaire jeunes chercheur.es sur l’hétéronormativité dans l’analyse des sources.
En remettant en cause l’hétérosexualité comme doxa, soit comme une forme d’évidence consensuelle et primordiale, la notion d’hétéronormativité suppose d’interroger
les mouvements de résistance ou les évolutions au sein des discours et des pratiques. La difficulté, en outre, à nommer et à définir ces dernières autrement que par leur affiliation ou non à une norme modulable pose un problème sémantique : comment désigner la « non-hétéronormativité » autrement que par la négative et, implicitement, par la transgression d’une norme hétérosexuelle entendue comme positive ?
En rassemblant des étudiant.es en master et en doctorat, cette journée sera l’occasion d’un dialogue interdisciplinaire entre jeunes chercheur.es sur l’hétéronormativité dans les études de genre, ses apports théoriques comme ses applications pratiques dans l’analyse des sources.
The fact that some Roman citizens felt the need to criticize women taking an active role in the civic life of Rome, men like Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE), indicates that some women may have been able to be heard within the public space. Furthermore, Roman theatre during the third and second century BCE became an acceptable way to stage female speech through the voices of actual men as well as fictional characters created by male play writers.
This paper follows the footsteps of those who have already stressed the importance of examining women as subjects of our storylines. However, I wish to go further by emphasizing the significance to reveal the plurality of female voices. Unfortunately, women from lower backgrounds such as courtesans and actresses have been persistently overlooked by scholars.
Despite the limited amount of sources, it is possible to bring to life the lives of these women by the analysis of both literary and archaeological materials, contributing to draw a better portrait of the female sphere in the ancient world.
Conference organization by Sophie Chavarria
Les communications retenues ne se contentent pas de répondre à ces questions en se focalisant sur la cité romaine seulement mais aussi au reste de la péninsule italique, et des Gaules romaines. Quant à la chronologie retenue, elle a vocation à prendre à racine durant les premiers siècles de la République jusqu’au début de l’Empire tardif afin de fournir une vision de longue durée de ce phénomène d’élaboration d’une identité commune, d’une Romanitas unie autour de ses agents féminins.
Poster by Sophie Chavarria
Blog article by Sophie Chavarria
Thankfully, by confronting our main literary sources on the subject, authors such as Soranus,
Galen, and Columella, with fragmentary and much older evidence, we can successfully
establish a substantial list of professional women who offered services linked with healing treatments. These sources allude to the presence of midwives (opstetrices), female physicians (medicae) and nurses (nutrices) in the city of Rome between the 3rd and 2nd century BC, while also referring to other kind of therapists such as female soothsayers (coniectrices, hariolae), witches (praecantrices), and the famous Sibyls.
These evidence further attests that, despite the clear influence of ‘scientific’ schools of thought from the Eastern Mediterranean, a Roman cultural background of beliefs and traditions that focused on healing practices and to which women took part, existed in Rome simultaneously.
Homemade remedies were known by women in Roman households, from the matronae to vilicae, as well as priestesses (sacerdotes) and their assistants (ministrae, aedituae) such as those in charge of the pharmacy of the temple of Bona Dea. Through a comprehensive analysis – particularly of the technical lexicon – in fragments from different genres of early Roman literature, this paper will prove that as early in mid-Republican Rome women were perceived as authorities in healing matters.
de séminaire jeunes chercheur.es sur l’hétéronormativité dans l’analyse des sources.
En remettant en cause l’hétérosexualité comme doxa, soit comme une forme d’évidence consensuelle et primordiale, la notion d’hétéronormativité suppose d’interroger
les mouvements de résistance ou les évolutions au sein des discours et des pratiques. La difficulté, en outre, à nommer et à définir ces dernières autrement que par leur affiliation ou non à une norme modulable pose un problème sémantique : comment désigner la « non-hétéronormativité » autrement que par la négative et, implicitement, par la transgression d’une norme hétérosexuelle entendue comme positive ?
En rassemblant des étudiant.es en master et en doctorat, cette journée sera l’occasion d’un dialogue interdisciplinaire entre jeunes chercheur.es sur l’hétéronormativité dans les études de genre, ses apports théoriques comme ses applications pratiques dans l’analyse des sources.
The fact that some Roman citizens felt the need to criticize women taking an active role in the civic life of Rome, men like Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE), indicates that some women may have been able to be heard within the public space. Furthermore, Roman theatre during the third and second century BCE became an acceptable way to stage female speech through the voices of actual men as well as fictional characters created by male play writers.
This paper follows the footsteps of those who have already stressed the importance of examining women as subjects of our storylines. However, I wish to go further by emphasizing the significance to reveal the plurality of female voices. Unfortunately, women from lower backgrounds such as courtesans and actresses have been persistently overlooked by scholars.
Despite the limited amount of sources, it is possible to bring to life the lives of these women by the analysis of both literary and archaeological materials, contributing to draw a better portrait of the female sphere in the ancient world.
Les communications retenues ne se contentent pas de répondre à ces questions en se focalisant sur la cité romaine seulement mais aussi au reste de la péninsule italique, et des Gaules romaines. Quant à la chronologie retenue, elle a vocation à prendre à racine durant les premiers siècles de la République jusqu’au début de l’Empire tardif afin de fournir une vision de longue durée de ce phénomène d’élaboration d’une identité commune, d’une Romanitas unie autour de ses agents féminins.