‘The Insignia of Women’. Dress, Gender and Identity on the Roman funerary monument of Regina...

The current study focuses on the Roman gravestone of a British woman named Regina who diedin the second half of the second century at the Roman fort of Arbeia (South Shields) at themouth of the Tyne and was commemorated by her Palmyrene husband. The paper examines theLatin and Aramaic inscriptions on Regina’s gravestone, the depiction of her ethnic clothing andbodily adornment, and the portrayal of the deceased as a woman skilled in wool-working, in orderto contextualize and understand the important messages the monument conveys about physicalmobility, ethnicity, social standing and gender relationships on Rome’s northern frontier.

INTRODUCTION

In times of culture contact and change, groups can emphasize their ethnic identity andcultural traditions, or even invent seemingly ancient ones, in order to claim and asserttheir place in a fluctuating and transforming society (Barth 1969; Hobsbawm 1983,4–5; Wimmer 2008). In just such a period of heightened mobility and political trans -for mation following the Roman conquest of north-west Europe, socially, physicallyand culturally dislocated newcomers had to find ways to negotiate their identities inrelation to other indigenous and immigrant groups in the continental western prov -inces and Britain (Woolf 1998; Carroll 2002; Derks 2009; Mattingly 2011). In thesecircumstances, people found socially acceptable ways of expressing their identitieslocally, regionally and globally in the context of the Roman Empire, not only in life,but also in death. In fact, the adoption of Roman funerary customs and commemora -tive display served as a particularly useful and widely recognized forum for articulatingdisparate identities and aspirations in a visible and public way (Hope 2001; Stewart2004, 53–73; Stewart 2008, 62–76). By studying identity through the material cultureof funerary texts and images, we can analyse the negotiation of identities of groups inmobile and changing communities whose social lives were both ‘rooted in ongoingdaily practice and historical experience, but also subject to transformation and discon -tinuity’ (Jones 1997, 13–14). In ideal circumstances, scientific analysis of skeletalremains in Roman cemeteries in Britain and elsewhere in the Empire, can be com -bined with a study of the accompanying material culture to explore populationmobility and diversity as well as identity construction (Leach et al. 2010; Pearce 2010;Eckardt et al. 2010; Prowse et al. 2010).

Roman funerary monuments made of permanent materials and inscribed with textsand images convey information of central relevance to a study of ethnicity and gender

Archaeol. J., 169 (2013), 281‒311

‘The Insignia of Women’: Dress, Gender andIdentity on the Roman Funerary Monument

of Regina from Arbeia

m a u r e e n c a r r o l l

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roles in the past. Gravestones and built tombs, in particular those in the western andnorthern provinces, were often adorned with carved portraits of the deceased wearinga wide range of different types of clothing of Roman and non-Roman type and oftenengaged in gender-specific activities. Both dress and funerary ritual have beenhighlighted recently as spheres of practice with material correlates that lend themselvesto a study of identity (Pitts 2007, 701). Roman funerary monuments with portraits areparticularly worth analysing to see what people might have worn in life and howclothing routinely acted as a non-verbal code expressing multiple aspects of self-presentation and belonging, and even non-belonging. As Mattingly (2011, 215) hasargued in his discussion of ‘discrepant experience’ in the Roman Empire, the multiplelife experiences of the peoples incorporated into this Empire created cultural diversity,the expression of difference possibly being as important as signalling similarity in theconstruction of identities. This applies also to the ways in which people clothed andpresented their bodies to project conformity with or divergence from the ‘norm’,although the ‘norm’ will have varied in specific temporal, geographical and socialsituations across the Roman Empire. The value of ancient dress studies has beenrecognized by the European Union who, since 2007, has funded a multi-national andmultidisciplinary project on ‘Clothing and Identities. New Perspectives on Textiles inthe Roman Empire’ (www.dressid.eu/), of which the University of Sheffield is a co-beneficiary. In this project, significant inroads have been made in understandingthe behaviour and transformation of dress in a world that was both culturally diverseand politically uniform. And based on the work on this project, it is the relationshipbetween clothing and many levels of identity that is a particular focus of this paper.

The following study explores a Roman gravestone of high quality of a thirty-year-old British woman named Regina who died in the second half of the second centuryad at the Roman fort of Arbeia (now South Shields) some four miles beyond theeastern end of Hadrian’s Wall at the mouth of the River Tyne (RIB 1065; Salway1965, no. 107; Phillips 1977, 90–91, cat. no. 247, pl. 68; Hope 1997, 252, pl. 16B; Noy2010; Pearce 2010, 87; Mattingly 2011, 217–18; Allason-Jones 2012, 470–71, fig. 34.1;Illus. 1). The stone was commissioned by Regina’s husband, Barates, a Syrian fromPalmyra, to commemorate her and preserve aspects of her life for posterity.

Regina has been referred to as an ‘archetypal Romano-British woman’ and the‘best-known woman from all Roman Britain’ (de la Bédoyère 2001, 160, 222). Inreality, however, since the stone’s discovery in the late nineteenth century, insufficienteffort has gone into exploring Regina’s life, context and status or the multiple mes -sages conveyed by her gravestone. Little is gained by characterizing Regina simply asa typical ‘Roman matron’ (Hope 1997, 252) dressed in ‘fine garments’ (Henig 1995,65). Much more can be said about the clothing and objects of daily use chosen tovisually commemorate her. As will become clear in the following discussion, throughthe Latin and Aramaic inscriptions, the depiction of clothing and adornment in theportrait, as well as the indication of the domestic capabilities of the deceased in spin -ning and wool-working, Regina’s gravestone eloquently communicates importantmessages about physical mobility, ethnicity, social standing and gender relationshipson Rome’s northern frontier where frequently changing groups of vastly differentorigins and status came into contact with each other.

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REGINA AND HER HUSBAND IN THE CONTEXT OF ROMAN SOCIETY

Regina’s gravestone was found during the construction of housing in 1878 in an areato the south-west of the fort at Arbeia that was used in the Roman period as a cem -etery (Snape 1994). The monument is a rectangular sandstone slab measuring 1.25 mtall and 0.72 m wide, with a portrait of the deceased within a gabled niche and framedby two pilasters. The monument is dated on palaeographic and iconographic groundsto the mid- to late second century ad, as discussed below (College 1976, 232, 304, n. 715; Phillips 1977, 90–91; Bidwell and Speak 1994, 16). In this period, a fort ofpossible Hadrianic date was replaced about ad 160 by a stone-built fort for a mixed

283‘the insignia of women ’

illus. 1 Gravestone of Regina, Arbeia, second half of the secondcentury ad (Photograph: Arbeia Roman Fort and Museum)


cavalry and infantry unit (Bidwell and Speak 1994, 14–20; Hodgson 2001; 2009,61–71). In all likelihood, Regina and Barates lived at Arbeia during this period, beforethe fort was rebuilt in the early third century as a supply base for the northern cam -paigns of Septimius Severus (Bidwell and Speak 1994, 20–30; Hodgson 2001, 34–35;2009, 63–67).

The population everywhere on the Roman frontier in Britain was a complexmixed community of soldiers, civilians (traders, producers), military dependants(wives, concubines, families), slaves, and ex-slaves (freedmen and freedwomen) (James2001, 80; Gardner 2007, 48–50; Brandl 2008; Mattingly 2011, 219–36). The popula -tion was equally diverse in Arbeia itself. A Roman gravestone found here com -memorating a Moorish man from North Africa named Victor, the freedman of asoldier serving with the Spanish Ala I Asturum, underscores the ethnic and socialdiversity here in the second century (RIB 1064; Smith 1959; Colledge 1976, 233;Phillips 1977, 91–92, cat. no. 248, pl. 68). Arbeia was no less ‘international’ in the thirdand fourth centuries, when the Cohors V Gallorum, a unit recruited in central Gaul,and the numerus barcariorum Tigrisiensium, Tigris barge-men, moved into the site(Bidwell and Speak 1994, 16–20; Hodgson 2001, 32; Hodgson 2009, 70).

On Regina’s gravestone, a Latin and a Palmyrene Aramaic inscription are carvedbelow the portrait. The Latin inscription reads:

D(is) M(anibus). Regina liberta et coniugeBarates Palmyrenus nationeCatu(v)ellauna an(norum) XXX

To the Spirits of the Dead. Regina, freedwoman and wife.Barates, a Palmyrene.A Catuvellaunian, aged 30 years.

Below the Latin text is a single line in Palmyrene Aramaic which translates as:Regina, freedwoman of Barates, Alas!

Among the funerary monuments surviving in Roman Britain, Regina’s stands outin the quality of its design and execution and is testament to the competence of thesculptor. There was no pre-Roman tradition in Britain or across the channel in Gaulof erecting stone monuments with texts and images. The first exposure to Romanfunerary commemoration on the Roman frontiers in the west came with the arrivalof the Roman army who remembered their dead in this way and marked the differentand distinctive identity of the Roman soldier from the local and non-Roman civilian(Hope 1997, 255; Mattingly 2011, 232–34). With the army came stonemasons. In Gauland the Rhineland in the first decades of the first century ad, these hailed primarilyfrom northern Italy, their services then finding use among civilians (Gabelmann 1972,93–94). The earliest sculptors of funerary monuments in Britain after ad 43 likewiseare of continental origin, and it is clear that sculpture in Roman Britain was thepreserve of specific communities, particularly the military ones, within the provincialpopulation (Stewart 2010).

These early sculptors were not the only foreign stonemasons working in Britain,however, particularly in the zone of Hadrian’s Wall where there was a concentration



of military personnel and civilians connected with them. There is a general consensusthat by the second century, Palmyrene artists were operating at South Shields, makinggravestones, including those of Regina and of the Moorish Victor and possibly othersculptures in the Wall zone (Smith 1959; Colledge 1976, 231–33; Phillips 1977, 91–92,cat. no. 248, pl. 68, 90–91, cat. no. 247, pl. 67; Henig 1995, 17; Laing 1997, 51). Bothfunerary monuments show stylistic and some iconographic features known fromPalmyrene funerary art (I shall return to the wool-working tools and hand gesture ofRegina in this context), but the upright stele is unknown in Palmyra where portraitbusts are the norm, thus suggesting that both works are eclectic blends of east andwest. Regina’s clothing and accessories are presented in a more detailed way than isnormally the case in funerary reliefs produced by Romano-British sculptors. The richdrapery of her dress is carved in a manner not dissimilar to the linear style ofPalmyrene reliefs, an indication, perhaps, that we are dealing with an artist who wasfamiliar with stone sculpture in Palmyra. With the Aramaic inscription, we are on firm ground to identify the eastern origin of the craftsman responsible for the monu -ment. Adams (2003, 254–55) was confident that he was a first language speaker ofPalmyrene.

The Aramaic text at the bottom of the stone certainly is typical of numerous excla -mations of loss (the typical Aramaic expression ‘Alas!’) on Roman-period tombs inPalmyra, and there are no mistakes in the inscription carved in this language. This lineis outside the prepared box for the Latin text, although it is impossible to say whetherthis was planned from the beginning or added as an after-thought (Noy 2010, 21).Would the message have been understood? Who else would have been able to readAramaic at Arbeia? If there were artists and sculptors working here, and others,possibly associated with the military, about whom we know nothing, there could havebeen a few Palmyrenes at Arbeia who could make sense of the Aramaic inscription(RIB 1064; Smith 1959; Colledge 1976, 233; Phillips 1977, 91–92, cat. no. 248, pl. 68).Or possibly the Aramaic was meant to signal difference and special-ness of the stone,rather than to be read by a literate audience.

The craftsman of Regina’s tombstone seems not to have been as comfortable withthe Latin text, however, as he mis-spelled Regina’s tribal affiliation (Catuvellauna),even though he tried to correct it. The formulation of the primary Latin text is notwhat one would expect in an epitaph in that language where the nominative (simplynaming the deceased) or dative (a dedication to the deceased) normally is used. Instead,the accusative case usage and structure of the inscription find parallels in bilingualGreek and Palmyrene inscriptions (Adams 1998; Adams 2003, 253–55). The com -memo rator and commissioner of the gravestone was Regina’s Palmyrene husband;probably being bilingual in Greek and Aramaic he will have dictated a structure andphraseology familiar to him, and the Palmyrene sculptor and cutter of the text willhave been equally at home with at least Aramaic.

The Aramaic inscription actually adds nothing further to the life biography ofRegina already provided in Latin, but, as Mullen (2011, 545) notes, it does confirmthe strong link between ethnic identity and language that is also clear in Palmyra itselfwhere Aramaic in commemorative inscriptions was never replaced by Latin or Greek.The desire of the Palmyrene community in general to preserve its cultural and



religious identity in a foreign environment has been demonstrated elsewhere, forexample at Dura Europos on the Euphrates (Dirven 1999, 192–95).

What do we know about Barates, apart from his Palmyrene origin? It is commonlyassumed that [Ba]rathes Palmorenus, who was commemorated with a gravestone atCorbridge, is the same Barates who commemorated his wife at Arbeia, but this is farfrom certain (RIB 1171; Salway 1965, no. 43; Phillips 1977, 26, cat. no. 67, pl. 21;Noy 2010, 19, 25; Allason-Jones 2012, 471). There are other possible Syrians living inor stationed at Corbridge, so the Corbridge Barates might be a different man with thesame name (RIB 1124; see also RIB 1131). The Corbridge inscription gives Barates’profession or post as vexil[l]arius. Birley (1979, 127) suggested that vexillarius in this caseshould be translated as ‘trader in ensigns’, rather than a ‘standard bearer’ in the army,because in the Corbridge inscription there is no army unit named to which Baratesmight have been attached (cf. McLaughlin 2010, 156). Collingwood and Wright(1995, 386) and Tomlin (2011, 142) argued that a military post of low rank is morelikely and that Barates may have served in a possible numerus Palmyrenorum, a small unitof non-Roman auxiliary troops from Palmyra or Syria. In the end, it cannot bedetermined with certainty whether the two men are identical or whether the Baratesat Arbeia would have been a soldier or a civilian when he commissioned his wife’sgravestone. Had he been a soldier, however, we could reasonably expect this to havebeen stated, as this would have been an important reflection of his status. Thissoldierly status, for example, is flagged up by another commemorator at Arbeia,Numerianus of the Spanish Ala I Asturum, who set up a gravestone commemoratinghis Moorish freedman, as we have seen (RIB 1064; Smith 1959; Colledge 1976, 233;Phillips 1977, 91–92, cat. no. 248, pl. 68). All we know is that Barates cannot havebeen without means because he went to considerable expense to have his wiferemem bered with a large and elaborate memorial which we can interpret, in part, asa testimony to his sense of grief and loss at her death.

Quite how Barates from Palmyra and Regina from south-east Britain, — literallyopposite ends of the Roman world, — ended up together on the northern frontier isa matter of pure speculation. Since Regina is referred to as an ex-slave and freed -woman (liberta), it is absolutely clear that Regina’s Palmyrene owner had first ownedher, then freed and finally married her before she died at thirty. It has been suggestedthat Regina might have been sold into slavery as a child by her parents or that she hadbeen born to British slaves, but this cannot be proven and it would anyway not revealwhen she became Barates’ possession and at what age (Birley 1980, 147; Webster 2010,56). Neither Barates, nor Regina, were Roman citizens, but rather peregrini (for -eigners), as indicated in all likelihood by their single names. The Latin name Regina(‘Queen’) may be the name given to her upon enslavement or manumission; as aCatuvellaunian, she originally may have had another (Catuvellaunian) name, butRegina potentially could be a Celtic name as well (Rivet and Smith 1979, 446; seealso Ellis Evans 1967, 373, s.v. Regenos). Since the establishment of the lex Aelia Sentia in ad 4, a slave had to be at least thirty years old for manumission to be valid,however marriage was named in this law as one of the grounds for freeing a slaveyounger than thirty (Gaius, Institutes 1.13–19; Buckland 1975, 78–80). Social mobilityfor slaves through manumission and marriage is widely attested in the Roman Empire



in funer ary epitaphs, especially, but not only, in civilian contexts in Roman Italy(Carroll 2006, 239–41). But the phenomenon is also particularly common amongstfrontier soldiers. Their marriages to their own freedwomen are seen as a reflection ofthe fluctuating social conditions for recruits from very diverse regions in garrisonswhere ‘women of their own regional and social origins were not available’ (Phang2001, 151, 193–94). For many other external groups who were civilians or may havehad some indefinable connection to the military, these unsettled social conditionswere no less acutely felt. Someone like Barates, therefore, might also take his ownfreedwoman as his wife, having freed her under the age of thirty specifically for thispurpose. Even so, manumission in these circumstances was informal and normally didnot involve a magistrate with imperium so that the freed person had the status of aJunian Latin without Roman citizenship (Weaver 1990; Phang 2001, 177; Emmerson2011).

But were Regina and Barates legally married? The Latin word used for wife hereis coniunx, a word generally far more common than uxor in the epigraphy of the non-elite (Jeppesen Wiglesworth 2010, 14). A valid Roman marriage, according to theMinician law, could be contracted only by two Roman citizens, or by a Roman citi -zen and a Latin or foreigner who had been granted conubium, the right of contractinga marriage recognized in Roman law (Cherry 1990; Treggiari 1991, 43–49; Hersch2010, 20–21). We cannot know whether Barates might have been given conubium forsome reason, but it is not obvious and rather unlikely. Had Regina given birth tochildren after her manumission, her offspring with Barates would have been recog -nized as free-born non-citizens. After Caracalla’s grant of Roman citizenship to allfree inhabitants of the Empire in ad 212 (Cassius Dio, Roman History 78.9), peoplelike Barates and Regina would have been able to contract a marriage recognized inRoman law (Mathisen 2006, 1015–16). Until then, there were limitations. It has beennoted, however, that Roman epitaphs often ‘improved’ reality and shaped infor -mation relevant to the negotiation of the status and identity of the deceased (Hope2001, 24; Carroll 2006, 146–47). In fact, Treggiari (1991, 54) noted that even slavesand other couples who lived together without conubium ‘often call each other coniunx’in the inscriptions on their funerary monuments. So whether Barates and Reginareally lived in legal union (matrimonium iustum) or a partnership outside Roman law(matrimonium iniustum), they considered themselves socially married (Phang 2001,200–204; Hersch 2010, 27–29).

Returning for a moment to the Aramaic inscription on Regina’s stone, one impor -tant detail normally included in the inscriptions on funerary reliefs in Palmyra — thegenealogy of the deceased — is missing in this case. This may have various reasons.Clearly, this kind of detail was important to the Palmyrene community in Palmyra, asthe family and clan relationships of this rich caravan city were an essential part of thesocial and personal identity of the people who lived there. But Regina was notPalmyrene and this kinship contextualization was irrelevant on the British frontier;even Barates, so divorced from his home community, makes no reference to his filia -tion. Furthermore, enslavement in the Roman world often was followed by separa -tion from kith and kin, homeland and culture (Bradley 1994). Whatever kinship tiesRegina may once have had with her now distant family in Catuvellaunian territory



(Branigan 1985), her genealogy would have had no resonance with the community ofArbeia. And as long as Regina was still a slave, the master’s family and house providedher ‘with a country and a sort of citizenship’, because slaves had no recognized legiti -mate family, no past and no ties (Pliny, Letters 8.16). Webster (2010, 45) aptly refersto slaves as ‘genealogical isolate(s)’. Regina, as all Roman slaves, will have begun herhistory only with her manumission and subsequent entrance into society. It is, there -fore, unusual to see her tribal name (natione Catuvellauna) given in the epitaph; natio iscommonly used in conjunction with free-born, non-Roman men who served in theRoman auxiliary forces, but the point is that they were not of servile origin (Carroll2006, 130). Furthermore, Noy (2010, 19–20) highlights the rarity of the use of aBritish ethnic term in the epigraphy of Roman Britain. Slave dealers were obliged todisclose the origin/natio of slaves, but this detail was important for the sale/purchaseof a slave, not as a biographical detail for a commemorative inscription (Ulpian, Digest 21.1.31.21, 50.15.4.5; Wiedemann 1981, 108–9, No. 104; Webster 2010, 45).Barates perhaps included Regina’s tribal affiliation in the epitaph either because heknew where his wife was from in the province in which he came to live and thoughtit was appropriate here or perhaps because this was the best or only genealogical infor -ma tion he could provide for her. Or this statement of origin may have been includedat Regina’s request, possibly because she still felt some connection to the civitas,despite the alienation of her ethnic origin as a slave (Webster 2010, 257). As analterna tive, Pearce (2010, 87) has suggested that the statement of origo here may be lessan assertion of a local identity than an adoption of Roman naming conventions, butit is still an unusual inclusion of information. At least in death, by stating her nation -ality (pre-slavery), the stigma of having had a servile existence perhaps could be seento be lessened and the social inequality she encountered in life improved, in much thesame way as the status as a legal Roman wife might have been used.

‘FINERY AND BEAUTIFUL CLOTHES : ’ REGINA’S DRESS AND ADORNMENT

Portraits of the deceased are particularly valuable as indicators of dress, gesture andself-perception. They not only preserved the memory of the dead, but also conveyedan ideal representation of the social persona of the deceased (Stewart 2004, 54). In herportrait, Regina sits in a frontal pose looking out at the viewer. She is seated in a care -fully carved wicker chair, examples of which are known in contemporary funerary artthroughout the Roman Empire. She is clothed in elaborate garments and jewellerywhich, thus far in descriptions and discussions of this stone, have not received theattention they deserve.

In recent scholarship, it has become apparent that dress in general can function asa form of code through which people communicate to their audience their place insociety, or identity (Davis 1992; Lurie 1992; Eicher 1995; Hägg 1996; Sommer 2012).The study of clothing and dress behaviour holds enormous potential for understandingsocial processes in past societies, and the Roman Empire, with both cultural diversityand political uniformity as its characteristics, presents an excellent platform for such




illus. 2 Portraits of indigenous women from Lendorf (Austria), upper left; Tác (Gorsium)(Hungary), lower left; Speyer (Germany), upper right; Piber (Austria), lower right

(Drawings by J. Willmott)


studies (Sebesta and Bonfante 2001; Cleland, Harlow and Llewellyn-Jones 2005;Olson 2008; Edmondson and Keith 2008; Rothe 2009 and 2012). Dress was alsocapable of incorporating those who dressed the same way into a group identity andexclud ing those who dressed differently. By the same token, social constraints andindividual preference influenced clothing choice, both public and personal. Theinhabitants of Rome’s provinces often negotiated their ethnic identity by wearingindigenous dress, either on its own or combined with elements of (Italian) Romanclothing. As Rothe (2012) has recently demonstrated, in some regions, such as theterritory of the Gallic Treveri on the Moselle river, integration in the Roman Empirecould even mean the emergence of a new regional dress, rather than simply the reten -tion of a pre-Roman costume or the adoption of Roman dress from the Mediter -ranean core.

Particularly rewarding for a study of ethnic dress in Roman Europe are the prov -inces of Pannonia and Noricum (modern Hungary, Austria and southern Germany)and the west bank of the Rhine in the provinces of Germania Inferior and GermaniaSuperior (modern Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands), where images on funer -ary and votive monuments, as well as surviving dress accessories and jewellery fromgraves, give us valuable insights into the dress customs of these regions (Garbsch 1965and 1985; Wild 1968b and 1985; Böhme 1985; Facsády 1997 and 2001; Pásztókai-Szeoke 2000; Rothe 2009 and 2012; Carroll 2010; Illus. 2). In some cases it is evenpossible to attribute a particular ethnic costume to a specific tribe, rather than ‘just’ ageneral region. This is the case, for example, with the Germanic Ubii who migratedfrom the Lahn valley east of the Rhine in the late first century bc under Romansuper vision to occupy the west bank of the Rhine around Bonn and Cologne (Carroll2001 and 2002). Particularly the Ubian women appear as preservers of ethnic customs,as they are frequently depicted in an ensemble of clothing that in all likelihood repre -sents continuity from the late Iron Age through the Roman imperial period (Wild1968a and 1985, 401–3; Carroll 2001, 117–20; Rothe 2009, 37–39, 63–66; Carroll2010; Illus. 3). The evidence of clothing and dress accessories from graves and pictorialdepictions indicate that women on the lower Rhine and Danube continued to weartraditional ethnic costume for at least two centuries, although they were familiar withthe latest Italo-Roman dress worn by the many immigrant Roman women whoaccompanied their husbands, brothers and fathers to the frontier. They played animportant part in transmitting traditional values, ideals and identities expressedthrough clothing; men more regularly wore ‘mainstream’ Roman clothing, both civil -ian and military, in contrast to Gallic men who almost always wore the indigenoustunic and a hooded cape (Rothe 2009, 31–37).

The situation is more difficult, however, in Roman Britain. Not only are therelimited numbers of Roman gravestones or votive monuments with depictions of menand women whose dress we can study, but also when individuals are represented, thedetails are often hard to recognize. This is partly due to the low quality, grainy stoneused for many monuments, the limited ability of the sculptor, and the restricted ormodest cultural demand for sculpture, but also to the rather general and generic wayin which clothing in Roman Britain is depicted in sculpture (Johns 2003; Stewart2010). Often, all that we can say is that the inhabitants of Roman Britain wore tunics,




illus. 3 Portrait of a woman of the Germanic Ubii on avotive altar to the Matronae, from Bonn, late second-earlythird century ad (Drawing by J. Willmott)

coats and capes generally similar to those worn throughout Roman Gaul. The portraitof Regina, however, is rather more detailed and does allow several conclusions to bereached.

Regina wears non-Roman dress in this portrait, possibly reflecting her attire in lifeor what she would have worn as her ‘Sunday best’, or an idealized version of dresswhich sent particularly clear and recognizable signals in contemporary society inregard to identity and status. Regina, herself, might have requested that she bedepicted thus when she died; at the very least, her husband, as the commissioner ofthe gravestone, opted for this image. There is no attempt to combine her clothingwith the typical Roman wrap or palla of Italo-Roman matrons which many contin -ental women teamed up with their native costume (Sebesta 2001; Olson 2008, 33–36;Rothe 2009, 44–45). On the contrary, Regina’s portrait shows a pronounced diffi -dence towards Roman female dress. The inscription says that she belonged to the



illus. 4 Funerary bust of Aqmat,daughter of Hagagu, descendant ofZebida, descendent of Ma’an, from

Palmyra, late second century ad(Photograph: British Museum)

Catuvellauni, so we would be justified in asking whether her clothing can be ascribedto this British population group. It might be, but the problem here is that we have noother contemporary depictions of female dress in the Catuvellaunian heartland withwhich to compare Regina’s portrait. One thing, however, is certain: despite the obvi -ous Palmyrene influences on the monument, Regina is not dressed as a Palmyrene.There are plenty of funerary portraits from Palmyra, and they show women consist -ently wearing a tunic and cloak with a turban and a veil (Colledge 1976, 139–49;Goldman 2001, 164–67; Heyn 2010; Illus. 4). This leads us to the conclusion thatRegina is dressed in British clothing.

Regina wears a sleeved tunic whose skirt is floor length and whose sleeves end justbelow the elbow (Illus. 5). The neck of this garment is ruffled and protrudes abovethe neckline of the coat worn over it. The ruffled neck was a feature of Celtic sleevedtunics worn by women on the middle Rhine in the mid-first century ad, particularlyaround Mainz. The well-known stele of Menimane and Blussus from Mainz-Weisenau shows Menimane wearing a long-sleeved under-tunic with just such a neck(Boppert 1992, 53–59, cat. no. 2, pl. 6; Carroll 2006, 119–20, fig. 44; Böhme-Schönberger 1995) (Illus. 6). Regina’s unbelted coat is calf-length and it has elbow-length sleeves. It appears to have been made of a rectangular piece of cloth, possiblyfolded over and seamed down one or both sides, leaving a slit for the neck. The coatmust have been pulled over the body, rather than worn as a garment one stepped intolike a modern coat, as there is no front opening (or closure) visible.

The coat worn by Regina is perhaps a version of the so-called Gallic coat, a com -mon piece of clothing worn by women (and men) in the northern provinces, includ -ing Britain, from the second to fourth centuries (Wild 1985, 388; Böhme 1985; Wild2002, 23; Freigang 2005, 302–9; Rothe 2009, 36–37, 53–58; Rothe 2012). We mightcompare Regina’s clothing to that worn by a woman on a Roman gravestone of the



illus. 5 Portrait of Regina(Drawing by J. Willmott)

illus. 6 Gravestone of the Celtic couple Blussusand Menimane, from Mainz-Weisenau, mid-first century ad (after Klein 1848)


second century from Carlisle (Phillips 1976, 101–2, pl. 12; Coulston and Phillips 1988,167–68, cat. no. 497, pl. 111; Laing 1997, 51, fig. p. 53; Croom 2001, fig. 71; Wild2003, 303–4, fig. 16.3). This woman sits in a high-backed chair, like that used byRegina, and she wears a floor-length tunic visible below a calf-length coat (Illus. 7).It appears that the coat lacks a front opening (like Regina’s), although we cannot beabsolutely certain of this, as the woman wears a shawl over her shoulders that obscuresthe top half of the underlying coat. Similar versions of the coat and shawl combinationare known from other gravestones at Carlisle where it has been suggested that a schoolof sculptors operated (Phillips 1976). This may either be an artistic convention of theworkshop or perhaps women around Carlisle actually did normally wear a shawl orshoulder wrap over their coat. This garment combination is not limited to this regionhowever, as it is common also in the north-eastern part of the Roman province ofGallia Belgica, above all in the Moselle river region (Freigang 2005; Rothe 2009 and2012).

Of course, it is possible that the Palmyrene sculptor did not entirely understand theBritish costume worn by Regina that he was carving, but in the use of layered


illus. 7 Gravestone ofa woman from Carlisle,

second century ad(Photograph: Tullie

House Museum and ArtGallery Trust, Carlisle)



clothing, especially layers of differing lengths as well as sleeved garments, Regina’scostume is very much in line with the ethnic costume worn by various tribes up anddown the Rhine and Danube and in the interior of the western European provinces.Unlike the Gallic/Celtic dress worn on the middle Rhine in the first century ad orfrom the first to third centuries in Pannonia and Noricum, however, Regina does notwear any kind of tunic that requires fibulae on the shoulders or chest to fasten andhold together the garment. As Rothe (2009, 36–37, 54–55) has demonstrated, pre-Roman dress in the area of the Rhine and Moselle rivers required fibulae to hold ittogether, and this costume continued into the first century ad, as the so-called‘Menimane ensemble’ (under-tunic, tube-like over-tunic, cloak), named after thefunerary portrait of a woman of this name in Mainz, demonstrates (Illus. 6). There -after, in the second and third centuries, however, Gallic women’s dress evolved to onerequiring no fibulae to fasten the long tunic and coat worn over it (Rothe 2012). Incontrast, Pannonian women continued throughout the Roman period to use pairedfibulae to fasten their pinafores on the shoulders and singular brooches on the chest topin the tunic together, where it was slit down the front (Facsády 1997 and 2001;Pásztókai-Szeoke 2000; Illus. 8). Like Gallic clothing in the Rhine-Moselle region,the late British Iron Age and early Roman clothing worn by Regina’s ancestorsrequired fibulae, although it is difficult to determine the degree of dress conservatismparticular to regions and tribes throughout the first century ad (Hill 1997; Wild 2003,305–6; Carr 2006, 23–51). By the advanced second century, however, the produc tionof brooch pairs had ceased and the tunic and coat took over as typical British femaledress (Rosten 2007, 30, 37; Wild 2012, 451). This is what Regina is wearing. This isstill native dress, but the type not worn originally by indigenous women prior to theRoman conquest or in the early post-conquest years. Like Rothe’s (2012, 240) ‘Gallicensemble’ of pan-regional relevance for eastern Gaul in the second and third centuries,this might be a contemporary British response to older indigenous and importedforeign dress behaviour.

Around her neck, Regina wears a twisted neck ring or torques. In the art andliterature of Rome (and the art of Iron Age Europe), the gold torques is depicted as anitem of personal adornment worn especially by continental Celtic warriors and figuresof authority from the third to the first centuries bc (Cunliffe 1997, 117–19, and pl. VI, VIIIa; Ferris 2000, 7, fig. 1; Livy, Ab urbe condita 7.10.11; Polybius, Histories2.29.7, 2.31.5). But not only men wore them, as examples of bronze and even goldneck rings in female graves of the fifth and fourth centuries bc in Gaul demonstrate(James 1993, 69; Johns 1996, 27; see also Pope and Ralston 2011). However, thetorques had long ceased to be a repertoire of jewellery in Britain by the time Regina’sstone was carved, one of the latest hoards of this and other types of late Iron Age gold,silver and bronze jewellery being the Snettisham treasure in Norfolk dating to c. 70 bc(Stead 1991; Johns 1996, 27–29). Regina’s neck adornment, therefore, is somewhatpuzzling, as it appears completely anachronistic, at least in Britain. In contrast, gravefinds and funerary portraits of women and girls in the second and third centuries adin the terri tories of the Celtic Eravisci and Azali on the Danube, however, indicatethat the twisted neck ring still enjoyed particular popularity there for those who wereable to own such objects of value (see Illus 2, 8).


Of twisted metal are also Regina’s bracelets, one on each wrist. These so-calledcable or torc-twisted bracelets, most often made of copper alloy, but also occasionallygold, are regularly found in Roman contexts of the second, third and fourth centuries(Johns 1996, 118–19; Cool 2010, 296–97; Swift 2011, 196). Regina, therefore, iswearing contemporary arm jewellery. To make a neck ring of twisted metal, in realityjust a larger version of a bracelet, would not have been difficult, and I wonder if thisis what we are seeing. One might well ask, however, why such neck rings are lackingin the contemporary material culture of Roman Britain. Or might Regina’s torques beunderstood as a reference to her ‘British-ness’, something her costume also tries toconvey? This may be the case, although we should avoid interpreting this as a visualsignal of ‘Celtic-ness’, especially since the Celtic identity of British populations in theRoman period is likely to be a more recent construct (James 1999; Collis 2003). Whatappears certain is that her objects of personal adornment would have been of eco -nomic value and symbolic of wealth, especially if her jewellery were not just bronze,but possibly gold or gilt (Rosten 2007, 49–51).


illus. 8 Funerary portraitof Veriuga in the

indigenous dress of theCeltic Eravisci, from

Dunaújváros (Intercisa), first half of the second

century ad (Photograph:author, by permission of the Hungarian National

Museum)



Although the box next to Regina’s chair might be a toilet casket containing amirror and other personal items needed by a woman of leisure and status (Swift 2011,208), it may well be a jewellery box, giving a tantalising hint that Regina might havebeen in possession of more items of personal adornment than she is wearing. Such ajewellery box clearly was an item of value, as is demonstrated by a set of bracelets,rings, a glass bead necklace and other personal items (including a distaff and spindle,see below) stored in a wooden box that was deposited in the fourth-century grave ofa woman in the same cemetery in which Regina’s monument was found (Snape 1994,46, 54–61, figs 6–8). Regina’s bodily adornment looks modest in comparison to thevery elaborate layers of jewelled headbands, strings of necklaces, large earrings,multiple bracelets and rings that are worn with great vivacity by Palmyrene womenon their funerary portraits from the latter part of the second century (Colledge 1976,150–52; Heyn 2010, 632). Some of these Palmyrene women find their only Euro peanrivals amongst their Danubian sisters who also wear an array of ostentatious neck,chest and arm jewellery (Illus. 2). This kind of jewellery display appears to have beenvery un-Roman. As the late first-century funeral laudatio of Turia in Rome suggests,Roman society dictated that women should be ‘well-dressed without showiness anddiscreetly elegant’, although this may be an ideal, rather than reality, as it is a moralisticeulogy rather than a statement of fact (ILS 8393; Horsfall 1983).

Regina’s face and head are damaged, but close inspection of the back of the headand around the ears raises questions about another item of costume. It is possible thatthe ‘ribbed’ surface of the stone immediately at the back of the head is meant torepresent strands of hair, but the ‘strands’ radiate from the face in a very regularmanner and they appear on the lower half of the head not to have been pulled up orback, but loosely bound up (Illus. 9). In fact, on both sides of the head these ribs orstrands radiate out from a round, button-like feature which is located where the earsshould be, although they look nothing like ears, nor do they resemble the danglingdrop earrings as we know them from portraits of women wearing MediterraneanRoman jewellery in Italy, Egypt, or Palmyra. Earrings anyway seem to be rather rarein portraits of women in western indigenous costume and in their burial assemblages,so they may not have belonged to the standard repertoire in these regions (Swift 2011,210). We should perhaps consider whether the sculptor has depicted Regina wearinga bonnet, the ‘ribbed’ surface of the stone representing folds of fabric. This is not tobe confused with the large, oval ‘nimbus’ around her head. The bonnet is not aRoman (or Italian) article of dress, but it is very common as part of female ethnic cos -tume on the continent, in various parts of Gallia, Germania Inferior, GermaniaSuperior, Pannonia and Dacia. The most voluminous and imposing headdresses inEurope by far were those worn by the Germanic Ubii and their ancestral mothergoddesses or Matronae in Roman Cologne (Horn 1987; Woolf 2003; Carroll 2010;Illus. 3). Elaborate turbans and veils, rather than bonnets, were worn by women inMesopotamia as well, for example, in Edessa in the kingdom of Osrhoene and inEmesa in Syria in the second and early third century ad, although these are verydifferent from western headdresses (Segal 2005, 38–40, pls 1–3, 12; Skupinska-Løvset2003, 592, fig. 8). On depictions of the Ubian headdress and the Gallic bonnet in thesecond and third centuries, a pin or capsule often projects from beneath the bonnet,


usually at ear level or just above the ear, which is either a device used to secure theends of drawstrings on the bonnet or a long pin which probably held the headdress inplace in some way (Wild 1985, 392, 401–2, fig. 34, pl. XIII.43; Rothe 2009, 45).Although Wild (2003, 305) could find no sign of a bonnet in indigenous femalecostume in Britain, perhaps the button-like objects either side of Regina’s face dorepresent pins or accessories associated with the bonnet, although the headdressfastener on continental portraits always appears singularly, rather than in pairs.

If Regina is wearing a bonnet, not all her hair is caught up in it. A long curly lockfalls on either side of her neck and trails down over her shoulders. On close inspec -tion, these locks of hair do not seem organically related to the rest of the head. In fact,they appear to emerge from somewhere behind the head and behind the ‘bonnet’.


illus. 9 Detail of the back and side of Regina’s head and possiblebonnet (Photograph: author, by permission of Arbeia Roman Fort,

South Shields)



Long hair locks on either side of the neck had been a particularly popular hairstyle fora very high ranking Roman woman earlier in the first century ad, namely Agrippinathe Elder, although Agrippina never wears an un-Roman bonnet (Wood 1988).Regina’s hair locks find their closest parallels in female portraits in Palmyra, so we maybe seeing an element of female hair-dressing familiar to the Palmyrene sculptor;Palmyrene women stopped wearing their hair this way by the end of the secondcentury, and this could be an important chronological detail (Colledge 1976, 143). Butlong locks or braids are also known elsewhere in Britain, for example on a tomb por -trait of a woman of the Cornovii tribe from Wroxeter (RIB 639).

Regina’s costume has been discussed at length here to be able to contextualize it.Her presentation is also intimately connected to Regina as a person and a woman.Men in Roman Italy and in the Roman provinces could achieve status and rank insociety in various public roles (cf. Pliny, Natural History 7.43. 139–40). Women, onthe other hand, could use only limited means to signal status (Olson 2008, 104). In195 bc, the tribune of the plebeians, Lucius Valerius, made a petition to repeal theOppian Law which forbade women from owning more than half an ounce of goldand wearing clothing dyed purple. In his speech, he said that women received neitherpublic offices, nor priesthoods, nor triumphs, nor military decorations and rewards,nor spoils of war; instead, ‘elegance, adornment, dress — these are the insignia ofwomen’ (Livy, Roman History 34.7; D’Ambra 2007, 32–33). Apart from providing awelcome quote for the title for this paper, this statement reflects the importance ofdress in creating a social persona for women, whether they lived in Rome or on theBritish limits of the Empire. To a Roman from Italy, Regina’s costume would havesignalled ‘difference’, and it would have visibly demarcated her as a non-Roman ornon-Italian. To other women on the Roman frontier, who were used to seeing allkinds of different ethnic attire, however, this ensemble would have communicatednot only ethnic affiliation but also information about wealth, power, and status toRegina’s peers who knew and understood the many nuances of the visual messagesconveyed. In that sense, Regina’s ensemble may be seen to reflect not only con -temporary British clothing actually worn in the second century ad, but also aspects ofdress and accessories that are meant in an idealized way to express status and ethnicbelonging.

‘HER YARN NEVER LEFT HER HANDS ’ : GENDER ROLES AND FEMININE VIRTUE IN REGINA’S PORTRAIT

Aspects of the imagery on Regina’s gravestone are relevant also for a consideration ofthe expression of women’s roles on the Empire’s frontier. Next to her left foot is awicker basket with balls of wool and a possible distaff. This is thematically related tothe objects that Regina holds in her left hand; she holds a distaff loaded with rovings(top) and a spindle (below). Both the full basket and the spinning instruments con -spicuously displayed on her person send the message — ideal or real — that Reginawas adept at working in wool and an industrious wife.

The spinning of wool was a task traditionally carried out by the woman of theRoman house in Italy, at least ideally, as it may have been in pre-Roman Italy


(Larsson Lovén 2007; Gleba 2011). A brief examination of the evidence for thisactivity and its symbolism, even if mainly from Italy and belonging to an earlier periodthan the gravestone under discussion, is helpful and instructive as contextual informa -tion. In Rome, women are occasionally praised in their epitaphs for keeping the houseand working in wool. ‘Her yarn never left her hands’ claims the epitaph of AlliaPotestas in Rome, in reference to her diligence in spinning (CIL VI.39765; Lefkowitzand Fant 1992, No. 47). The gravestone of Claudia, a woman who died in the secondcentury bc in Rome, ends with the message: ‘She kept house, she made wool’,thereby reducing the character and essence of this woman to her domestic duties andabilities (CIL I.1007/ILS 8403; Gardner and Wiedemann 1991, no. 54; Lefkowitz andFant 1992, no. 39).

In the eulogy of Murdia in the late first century bc, the woman’s son recounts awhole suite of qualities much valued by (male) society: modesty, probity, chastity,obedience, skill at wool-working, diligence, trustworthiness, virtue, industry and wis -dom (CIL VI.10230/ILS 8394; Lindsay 2004; cf. CIL VI.11602/ILS 8402). In theeulogy of the wealthy ‘Turia’ in the late first century bc, the woman’s diligence atwool-working is specifically mentioned (ILS 8393; Horsfall 1983; Hemelrijk 2004).The traditional virtues of both women are such a stereotype of respectable femalebehaviour for women of this status and calibre that both orators feel they hardly needreiterate them; yet, they both do (Hemelrijk 2004, 194).

There is a general consensus amongst modern scholars that social pressures requiredRoman women to behave respectably, excel in traditional domestic duties, and dressin a manner to express and protect their chastity (Sebesta 1998, 12; Gilchrist 1999, 77; Kleiner and Matheson 2000, 12–13; Milnor 2011, 616). Recently, Jeppesen-Wigelsworth (2010, 214), however, has warned against making generalizations aboutthe portrayal of Roman wives and the ideals attributed to wifely behaviour. Sheconcludes that these ideals were stereotypical sentiments of idealizing eulogies andphilosophical or rhetorical literature by moralistic authors. There is indeed somethingnostalgic about Juvenal’s Satire 6 in the second century ad. ‘In the old days’, accordingto him, women had ‘hands chafed and hardened from handling Tuscan fleeces’.Perhaps the epitaphs of the second and first centuries bc discussed above are a similarreflection of an ideal and distant past that was still held up as noble and desirable. Inreality, on the imperial-period rural estates described by Columella, the spinning,weaving and making of clothes was carried out by slave women (On Agriculture 12.3.6;cf. Erdkamp 2005, 90–94).

Hemelrijk (2004, 19) has even suggested that the emphasis in the early Empire onthe traditional virtues of Roman women could be seen as a conservative reactionagainst the increasing presence of women in public life, as witnessed in the publicactivities of ‘Turia’ and the public funeral orations of women. Certainly the conserva -tive ethos of the emperor Augustus in the late first century bc and early first centuryad regarding the correct conduct of the women of his own family was very influentialin contemporary society (Severy 2003, 20–21, 136–37). Suetonius (Augustus 73) wroteof Augustus that ‘except on special occasions he wore clothes . . . made by his sister,wife, daughter or granddaughters’. It is very difficult to imagine the empress Livia (orany other of the imperial ladies) spinning wool, but this is the image that is




intentionally and effectively constructed. Women who were too active in public life,the traditional sphere of men, and who inadequately performed the private female rolewere vilified. Fulvia, the wife of Antony, Augustus’ biggest rival, who had raised anarmy for her husband, could be dismissed perfunctorily because she ‘took no thoughtfor spinning or housekeeping’ (Plutarch, Antony 10.3).

Thus, even in Roman Italy, interpreting the roles of wives, perceived or idealized,is tricky and demanding of a nuanced and critical approach. This is no less importantin studying the social context and behaviour of women and wives in provincialRoman society. Spinning and wool-working are suggested on funerary monumentsthroughout the Roman Empire, so Regina is not alone in appearing to be an idealwife. From the Rhineland to Palmyra, a wool basket associated with the deceased canbe seen depicted on Roman-period gravestones. Occasionally, as in the case of thefunerary monument of Ulpia Epigone in Rome in the late first or early secondcentury ad, the deceased is shown reclining with a wicker wool-basket that alludes toher domestic skills (D’Ambra 1993). It is tempting to see in the marble imitations ofwicker baskets that were used as ash urns in Italy in the late first century bc and theearly first century ad some reference to female domestic virtues, especially since theseurns were often associated with female burials (Sinn 1987, 174–75, cat. nos 341, 343,344, pl. 55c–f; D’Ambra 2007, 60, fig. 24). Further distant from Rome, MarciaProcula, wife of the legionary veteran M. Valerius Celerinus in Cologne, is shown onthe couple’s gravestone of c. ad 100 sitting the end of Celerinus’s couch, and at herside is a wicker basket from which spindles loaded with spun yarn protrude (Galstererand Galsterer 1975, cat. no. 219, pl. 47; Noelke 2005, 172–73, fig. 17; Illus. 10).

The spindle and distaff are the clearest visual devices used to express female roleswithin the home, and they have a broad geographic span in funerary portraits. Con -trary to Cottica’s (2007, 223) claim that these instruments predominate in the easternAegean and Syria, they appear also on funerary reliefs in Germany, Hungary andBritain, as the following discussion demonstrates. The motif is not common in Britain,it is true, but it is not entirely singular; a woman commemorated at Carlisle also holdsa spindle and distaff in her left hand (Coulston and Phillips 1988, 168–69, cat. no. 498, pl. 111). In both west and east, not only mature women, but also girls andyoung women are depicted with spindle and distaff, apparently as wives in training(Boppert 1992, 69–71, cat. no. 3, pl. 16; Böhme-Schönberger 2003; Segal 2005, 34,pl. 3). These tools also are found in many places, including Arbeia, in adult femalegraves (Snape 1994, 59–60, figs 8.23–24; Aurisicchio et al. 2002; Cottica 2007,224–25). The spindle, distaff and spindle whorls found in a second-century grave of asix-year-old girl at Les Martes-de-Veyre in Central Gaul indicate that learning to spinwool was a skill even children were expected to acquire for their future domesticroles, or perhaps the wool-working equipment present in the graves of young girlsmay be some sort of compensation for the non-achievement of marriage (Audollent1922, 290, 306, pl. 7.12; Roche-Bernard 1993, 66–67).

There are significant differences in the size and shape of these instruments of wool-working and in the way that they are held by the deceased in their portraits, as illus -trated in Illus. 11. On gravestones of the mid-first century ad in Mainz, the deceased,either standing or seated, occasionally holds a rather large, round ball of wool rovings


wound around the distaff, and a rather slim and long spindle dangles from the samehand. On second-century gravestones of Eraviscan women, for example at Aquincumand Gorsium (Illus. 8), the deceased hold a spindle in one hand and a distaff plumplyloaded with rovings to be spun in the other, both of them being displayed promi -nently in front of the chest (RIU 5 No. 1262; Schober 1923, 82–83, fig. 90; RIU 6No. 1548a; see Pásztókai-Szeoke 2012). Women on Phrygian gravestones of thesecond and third centuries ad almost always hold a slender version of these twoinstruments (Koch 1997).

But the closest parallels in form and size to the spindle and distaff held by Reginacan be found in Palmyra on numerous funerary monuments of women in the Romanimperial period. The Palmyrene spindles are slender with a slightly conical whorl on the upper end (a ‘high-whorl spindle’), and the wool yarn wound around thespindle is carved in a series of wavy lines. The distaff usually has a small globular ball


illus. 10 Gravestone of Marcus Valerius Celerinus and his wife Marcia Procula, fromCologne, c.ad 100 (Photograph: Rheinisches Bildarchiv)



of wool at one end with the wool threads arranged on the diagonal or criss-crossingeach other. Likewise, Palmyrene women always hold the distaff and spindle in theirleft hand, just like Regina. Heyn’s (2010) study highlights how hand gestures in Palmyr ene reliefs could draw attention to certain details of the funerary portraits. Thehand holding the distaff and spindle, for example, might have the index and middlefinger, or just the index finger, extended, as if to emphasize the spinning toolsbelonging to the deceased. This, too, is a feature of Regina’s left hand. Studies haveshown that these tools may have ceased to appear in Palmyrene reliefs by the end ofthe second century (Colledge 1976, 155; Heyn 2010, 632, 636), so it would seem that

illus. 11 Details of hands and wool-working equipment on funerary portraits from Mainz, upper left; Arbeia (Regina), upper right; Palmyra, lower left; Dunaújváros, lower right

(Drawing by R. Symonds)


this very motif suggesting feminine virtue and domesticity in Palmyrene art wasbeginning to lose significance when Regina’s stone was being carved. As we have seenwith the Aramaic inscription, the input of the Palmyrene sculptor of the monumentis signifi cant, even if Barates commissioned the text, and presumably it is the sculptoragain who was referring to what he knew from female funerary portraits in Palmyra,unless we give Barates credit for commissioning this level of detail in the type ofspindle and distaff and hand gesture seen on Regina’s gravestone.

The epigraphic, literary and visual sources discussed above indicate that the matronain Roman Italy had specific roles of wife and homemaker to play; even if it was astereotype it was a powerful and enduring one. Moreover, given the widespreadappearance of instruments of wool-working in the funerary portraits of women, itwould seem that there was a common perception in Roman society of women’sparticipation in an ideal social world, even if that world was far away from Rome. Thereasons for displaying the visual symbols of domestic industriousness in frontier soci -eties, however, may be somewhat different from the rhetoric of matronly duty inItaly. Although at Arbeia, it was Barates who projected an ideal image of his wife, itwas not always the husband who chose this imagery. Women also constructed theirown images and were responsible for this sort of representation. The grave stele ofMenimane and Blussus in Mainz, for example, was commissioned by her during herlifetime on the occasion of her husband’s death (see above; Illus. 6). She adopted aRoman cultural vehicle — the carved and Latin-inscribed gravestone — to displayethnic affiliation and status in frontier society through dress and bodily adornment. Byholding that familiar symbol of diligence within the marriage, a spindle and distaff,Menimane might have been projecting the image of a Roman matrona, even thoughshe was not a Roman citizen (von Hesberg 2008, 267).

Rather than reflect reality in absolute terms, however, funerary portraits such asthose of Regina or Menimane might or been likely to construct ideals. Spinning andwool-working, of course, may have been a traditional woman’s task in indigenousnorthern societies, just as in early Italy. The spinning paraphernalia depicted on funer -ary reliefs outside Italy, in this sense, functioned as ‘multi-lingual’ imagery reflectingthe feminine qualities of wives at home there. As Cool (2010, 274–76) has argued inreference to spindle whorls found in graves at Lankhills in Winchester, as late as thefourth century ad textile work may have symbolized the proper activity for arespectable woman of status and wealth. Perhaps the construction of ideals relevant tomatrimony was particularly relevant on the Roman frontiers where actively servingsoldiers may not have been able to legally marry their local ‘wives’ until the ban onmarriage was revoked by Septimius Severus in ad 197 and where foreigners withoutconubium could not have valid Roman marriages (Garnsey 1970; Campbell 1978;Phang 2001; Scheidel 2007). Women in such relationships in these military com -munities had to overcome being outsiders in a physical and legal sense (Hope 1997,256). The desire of women in this context to appear as legitimate wives and evenRoman matronae, at least in death, is understandable. Regina was ‘only’ a freedwomanand not necessarily in a marriage that was valid in Roman law, so it makes perfectsense for her ‘husband’ Barates to cast her visibly in the role of the matron and mistressof the home, thereby also giving himself domestic and private stability.




CONCLUSIONS

In Roman Britain, funerary monuments were set up with considerably less frequencythan in many areas in continental Europe, but their popularity with particular groups, especially immigrants and outsiders asserting their identity in a strange land, isattested (Hope 1997, 257). Barates, a Syrian, and his Catuvellaunian wife Regina fromsouth-east Britain, were both newcomers in the northern fort and associatedsettlement at Arbeia. This husband and wife were not of high social status, — neitherwas a Roman citizen and she was an ex-slave. As the commissioner of Regina’soutstanding funerary monument, he used the public arena of Roman funerarycommemoration to con struct and communicate their self-perception to others in asocially complex and diverse community of soldiers and civilians on the northernfringe of the Roman Empire. This Syrian-influenced monument with a distinctivesculptural style and an Aramaic text would have conveyed a powerful message aboutethnicity, status and difference in the context of social competition and perpetuationof memory.

Regina is dressed in indigenous British clothing, giving the viewer insights into thedress customs of the province of Britannia in the second century ad. There is nothing‘Italian’ about her dress, nor had she adopted any elements of the clothing of Palmyra,the homeland of both Barates and the sculptor of Regina’s gravestone. Regina’s cos -tume of layered and sleeved garments has much in common with the ethnic clothingworn by various population groups on the Rhine and Danube, however her jewelleryof twisted metal on her neck might be an idealized reference to older indigenousadornment no longer in use, but still symbolic of British-ness or indigenous antiquity.Her dress and bodily adornment — the insignia of women, according to Livy (RomanHistory 34.7) — were instrumental in creating a social persona from which ethnicaffiliation, wealth and status could be read.

But her social persona also entailed gendered behaviour and the manifestation offeminine virtue. With visible evidence of her skills in spinning and wool-working,Regina appears as an ideal wife, an image that resonated in Roman society in Italy asmuch as in the western and eastern provinces of the Roman world. The desire for women to appear as legitimate and diligent wives must have been particularlystrong in communities like Arbeia where there were real constraints on valid Romanmar riage and where women often had limited legal or even social rights. In thiscontext, Regina’s presentation as a respectable, modestly clothed and industrioushomemaker and wife is a poignant example of identity construction in death and forperpetuity.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to John Peter Wild for commenting on a draft of this paper and to the anonymousreviewers for their helpful suggestions. I should like to thank Alex Croom and Nick Hodges at ArbeiaRoman Fort for giving me access to the museum and discussing the site and its monuments with me.Thanks are also due to Jerneja Willmott and Rachel Symonds for their work on the graphics for thispaper.


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