1 Matrona: an Idealised Representation of Roman Women

In ancient societies, women were consistently entangled and entrapped in the constraints of a traditional male-dominated discourse of gender. Since early Republican times the male elite of Rome had constructed an image of the ideal woman that served as a means for instructing their female counterparts on their social role, for judging their behaviour, and for limiting their sphere of actions. The idealised Roman matrona was defined by moral qualities, such as domesticity, reticence, and modesty, that knew little variation throughout Roman times. In the so-called Laudatio Claudiae, an epitaph from Rome dated to the late second century BCE, Claudia is praised for those female virtues that should adorn Roman matronae: she was a beautiful daughter, a loving wife and a mother; she was charming when she talked and graceful when she walked; she took care of her house and worked wool.¹ Livy, the Roman historian of Augustan age, gives a picture of wifely virtue in his account of Lucretia that her husband and the other young Romans, arriving unexpectedly during the night, found at home surrounded by her maids and working at her loom.² I quote these well-known passages on two aristocratic Roman women as examples of a wider range of textual references to the topoi of good womanhood that celebrated women’s roles in the household as obedient daughters, devoted wives, and good mothers for the benefit of the male members of their family (fathers, husbands, and sons).

The traditional ideal of the aristocratic matrona conflicted with the reality of elite women’s life. The traditional image of the matrona whose life revolved around the requirements of the male members of her family was the product and reflection of a patriarchal ideology, which was not realised in the actual practices of the elite women acquiring an education, owning property, and participating in a wide range of social activities at home and in public. The position of the upper-class women in Roman society was certainly marked by ambiguity on both a social and a visual level. On the one hand, as women, they were required to embody the male-constructed ideal of womanhood, which was defined by a range of moral qualities such as invisibility, reticence, domesticity, obedience to a father, and devotion to a husband. On the other hand, as members of the elite, they were expected to live up to the standards of their class through the visual display of their possessions, civic benefaction, and participation in social rituals.³ This tension between the standards of idealised womanhood and the requirements of practical life was perceived even stronger when women were members of the emperor’s entourage and became part of the male structures of power. In the male perception, such privileged women could either remain untouched by their position and live up to the male standards of idealised womanhood, like the highly celebrated Octavia Minor, or turn into intriguing and vicious women, who interfered in the male-dominated domains of politics and the army, like the infamous Agrippina the Younger. From the women’s perspective, by contrast, occupying a privileged position within the emperor’s court sustained the possibility of their subjectivity, as they required a certain degree of agency to fulfil their opposite allocated roles as domiseda⁴ and public figure within the traditional structures of power.

Plotina’s experience in the court of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian provides a telling example of the ways a woman of the imperial family asserted her identity within the traditional structures of power by complying to the normative societal expectations around women’s behaviour. In fact, the few textual references preserved to us describe Plotina as the quintessence of the ideal woman and yet she was able to innovate the traditional role of imperial women. Taking Plotina as a test-case, this chapter will explore the tension between the rhetoric of tradition in the male construction of ideal womanhood and the departure from traditional discourse of gender, when a woman becomes a part of the male power structures. With the support of textual evidence, it will show that Plotina was able to break through social, cultural, and legal restrictions to claim some political agency, to occupy positions of authority, and to exercise some forms of power while carefully displaying her deference to the patriarchal norms of female behaviour.

2 Plotina: the Exemplary Wife

There is little information about Plotina’s early years. Most scholars’ educated guess is that her father L. Pompeius was a member of the equestrian or senatorial class and came from Nemausus, a Roman colony in Gallia Narbonensis, where the emperor Hadrian dedicated a basilica to Plotina after her death.⁵ Plotina had been married to Trajan for some years, when her husband became emperor in 98 CE.⁶ Trajan’s proclamation as emperor was a turning point in the couple’s lives that would have affected Plotina profoundly, being no longer the ordinary spouse of a man pursuing a military and political career in the imperial provinces, but the wife of the ruler of a large empire and an empress herself. The historian Cassius Dio gives us a hint of Plotina’s reaction to her social elevation when reporting what she said when as empress she entered the palace in Rome after the ceremonies installing Trajan as emperor:

Πλωτῖνα δὲ ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ ὅτε πρῶτον ἐς τὸ παλάτιον ἐσῄει, ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀναβαθµοὺς καὶ πρὸς τὸ πλῆθος µεταστραφεῖσα εἶπε ‘τοιαύτη µέντοι ἐνταῦθα ἐσέρχοµαι οἵα καὶ ἐξελθεῖν βούλοµαι’. καὶ οὕτω γε ἑαυτὴν διὰ πάσης τῆς ἀρχῆς διήγαγεν ὥστε µηδεµίαν ἐπηγορίαν σχεῖν.

When his wife Plotina entered the palace for the first time, she turned around so as to face the stairway and the people and said: “I enter here such a woman as I want to be when I depart”. And she conducted herself throughout the entire reign in a manner as to incur no reproach.⁷

With this short statement, Plotina was assuring the people of Rome that her new status and position in court would not affect her simple, unpretentious way of life. That she lived up to her words is confirmed by the contemporary Pliny the Younger, who, in his speech to Trajan, praises Plotina as a woman who embodies and exemplifies the virtues of idealised womanhood:

Tibi uxor in decus et gloriam cedit. Quid enim illa sanctius? quid antiquius? Nonne, si Pontifici Maximo deligenda sit coniux, aut hanc, aut similem (ubi est autem similis?) elegerit? Quam illa nihil sibi ex fortuna tua, nisi gaudium, vendicat! quam constanter, non potentiam tuam, sed ipsum te reveretur! Idem estis invicem, quod fuistis: probatis ex aequo: nihilque vobis felicitas addidit, nisi quod scire coepistis, quam bene uterque vestrum felicitatem ferat. Eadem quam modica cultu! quam parca comitatu! quam civilis incessu! Mariti hoc opus, qui ita imbuit, ita instituit: nam uxori sufficit obsequii gloria. An, quum videat, quam te nullus terror, nulla comitetur ambitio, non et ipsa cum silentio incedat? ingredientemque pedibus maritum, in quantum patitur sexus, imitetur? Decuerit hoc illam, etiamsi diversa tu facias. Sub hac vero modestia viri, quantam debet verecundiam uxor marito! femina sibi!

Your wife contributes to your honour and glory as a supreme model of the ancient virtues. In fact, who is more venerable and respectful of ancient customs than she? If a pontifex maximus had to choose a wife, would he not choose her or someone like her (where is one similar to her)? How she claims for herself nothing from your fortune but joy! How consistently she respects not your power but yourself! You are to each other as you have always been, you approve each other, and your good fortune does not add anything to you but understanding how each of you can use your mutual fortune. How modestly she dresses, how small the retinue she has, how graciously she walks! This is the work of her husband, who gives her such an education and training: for a wife, in fact, simply being obedient brings her glory. When she sees you unaccompanied by terror or pomp, would she not walk in silence and, as far as her sex permits, would she not imitate her husband walking on foot? This would be praiseworthy for her, even if you did differently. But with such a modest husband, how much respect she owes him as a wife and herself as a woman!⁸

In ancient Romans’ perception as well as in modern scholarship, Plotina truly embraces the role of the exemplary wife who supports her husband with devotion and lives modestly in his shadow. Her reputation as a modest empress elevated her as one of the most well-respected empresses of the Roman empire. However, in spite of her initial modest intentions and unpretentious way of life, the role as empress did change Plotina, who participated actively in her husband’s exercise of imperial power and exerted her influence in various ways. Far from remaining an invisible, passive spouse living in the shadows of the emperor, Plotina became an accomplished woman, who was able to use her position in the imperial court for innovating the traditional structures of power from within the patriarchal discourse of gender roles and behaviour.

3 The Women of the Ulpian Household

In line with the traditional ideas of female conduct, Plotina ensured her support to Trajan by maintaining good relations with her husband’s family. This included Marciana, Trajan’ sister, who lived in the imperial palace with the imperial couple; Salonia Matidia, Marciana’s daughter, who moved to the imperial palace after her mother’s death in 112; and Salonia Matidia’s daughters, Vibia Sabina and Mindia Matidia. Pliny praises Plotina and her sister-in-law Marciana as ideals of matronal virtues, when he states that the two women lived so harmoniously that they gave the impression of merging into one individual and they were reluctant to accept the honorific title of Augusta but ultimately acquiesced to Trajan’s wishes.⁹ A sardonyx intaglio dated to the early second century celebrates the concordia of the domus Traiana with the portraits of Trajan and Plotina facing Marciana and her daughter Salonia Matidia.¹⁰ In textual and visual media, the female members of Trajan’s family were staged as exemplary women for reinforcing the image of the emperor as the virtuous head of the household and, by extension, of the whole empire. It may seem that the Ulpian women’s deference to the patriarchal ideal of female lives revolving around the requirements of the male head of the household resulted in their lack of agency, power, and subjectivity. This is all the more striking when they are compared to their counterparts in other eras, such as Livia, Agrippina, and Julia Domna, who played more dominating and active roles in the male-dominated court.¹¹ However, we need to be careful not to confuse the reality of royal women’s lives with what was convenient propaganda. The women of the Ulpian household shared the same condition: they had lost their father or husbands when they were very young, did not marry again, and did not produce male children. Trajan remained the only male member of their family on whom these women depended for occupying a position in court and shaping their social identity. Their common experience may have created genuine bonds between the Ulpian women, who, however, had an interest in strengthening the bonds of patriarchal tradition for keeping the privileges that originated from belonging to the imperial family.¹²

4 Plotina: the Empress from a Roman Province

For Plotina, the embodiment of the traditional male ideas about female conduct, which dictated that a caring wife maintains good relationships with her husband’s family and supports her spouse in his public offices, was also a strategy for being accepted by the senatorial families of Rome in spite of her provincial origins. Plotina, in fact, was born in a family that could not claim Roman lines of ancestry and was married to a man that Cassius Dio describes as “an Iberian, and neither an Italian nor even an Italiot”.¹³ The social status of Trajan and Plotina as the first imperial couple coming from a province would have influenced the way in which the elite of Rome and Italy, who had controlled the political affairs of the res publica since Republican times, perceived the ruler and his consort. Unable to parade glorious Roman lineages like the imperial women of the previous century, Plotina shaped her identity around the traditional image of the ideal woman as constructed by the Roman elite as a means to make her position as a provincial empress acceptable. On the other hand, her enhanced status and visibility also gave her opportunities to engage in, and influence, the political processes of the court from which she was excluded by the patriarchal ideology because of her gender.

5 Plotina: the Influential Empress

Plotina’s involvement in her husband’s policies is recorded in a fragmentary papyrus documenting an audience by Trajan of Greek and Jewish delegations from Alexandria that had arrived at Rome for presenting their opposing views to the emperor. Before the audience took place, Plotina is told to have approached the senators for supporting the Jewish cause and have influenced Trajan whom the Greek author of the text accuses of displaying an anti- Alexandrian sentiment.¹⁴ On another occasion, Plotina urged Trajan to take some action against corruption among officials in the provinces, as reported in the Epitome de Caesaribus:

Namque ut ceteras omittam, Pompeia Plotina incredibile dictu est quanto auxerit gloriam Traiani; cuius procuratores cum provincias calumniis agitarent, adeo ut unus ex his diceretur locupletium quemque ita convenire: “Quare habes?” alter: “Unde habes?” tertius: “Pone, quod habes”, illa coniugem corripuit atque increpans, quod laudis suae esset incuriosus, talem reddidit, ut postea exactiones improbas detestans fiscum lienem vocaret, quod eo crescente artus reliqui tabescunt.

It is incredible to report how much Pompeia Plotina added to Trajan’s glory. When his procuratores were disrupting the provinces with false accusations to the extent that one of them was said to have met a rich fellow with the following question: “By which means did you get your wealth?”, and another: “Where did you get it?” and a third one: “Give me what you have.”, she [Plotina] reproached her husband and rebuking him for his lack of concern toward his reputation restored the situation to the point that afterward he spurned against unjust taxes.¹⁵

In the words of the historian who penned down this episode, Plotina is an example of those women who help their husbands and add to their reputation with their upright morality and precepts. Plotina’s influence over her husband is perhaps the reason why Voconius Romanus entrusted his friend Pliny with the duty of delivering some of his letters to the empress.¹⁶ Pliny mentions this task in a letter dated to 107–108, when Plotina had been empress for ten years. We do not know the contents of these letters, but, since Pliny had introduced his Spanish friend to Trajan for a senatorial appointment that was refused, we may suppose that Plotina was addressed for the influence she could have on her husband for advancing Romanus’ career.¹⁷ It is also possible that Voconius, who in Pliny’s opinion had remarkable writing skills, approached Plotina for the support that the empress could give to his literary pursuits.¹⁸ Plotina, in fact, was a well-educated woman who acted as a patron of learning. W. McDermott argues that ‘the noblest and most revered woman’ that the eastern mathematician and neo-Pythagorean philosopher Nicomachus addresses in his Enchiridion Harmonicon is in fact Plotina.¹⁹ More secure evidence of her intellectual interests is attested in the epistolary exchange between Plotina and the emperor Hadrian, which has been preserved in a fragmentary bilingual inscription from Athens dated to 121.²⁰ This correspondence was concerned with the appointment of the head of the Epicurean school. Law stated that only Roman citizens could fill this post, but it seems that there were no suitable candidates among Roman citizens at that time. Plotina interceded with Hadrian on behalf of Popillius Theotimus, the then-current head of the school, by writing the emperor a letter, in Latin, in which she asked him to loosen this rule and allow peregrines to achieve leadership positions in the school. In his reply to Plotina, in Latin, Hadrian granted the request. A letter of Plotina in Greek to the Epicureans in Athens subsequently conveyed the good news about the imperial decision.²¹

Plotina’s address to Hadrian in support of the Epicurean school at Athens raises the question of her relation with Hadrian and, more specifically, her role in his succession, which remains a subject of historical controversy. The ancient sources seem to suggest that Plotina used her position at court and her powerful status as Trajan’s wife to the extent that she overruled her husband’s authority on family matters that had political implications. The author of Hadrian’s life in the Historia Augusta states that the marriage between Hadrian and Vibia Sabina, Trajan’s grandniece, was “advocated by Plotina, but, according to Marius Maximus, little desired by Trajan himself”, while Hadrian’s appointments as the emperor’s legate and consul for the second time were granted through Plotina’s favour.²² Later in the text, the author reports a rumour “that Hadrian was adopted when Trajan was already dead for the action of Plotina who had someone speak in a feeble voice as if he was Trajan”.²³ For Eutropius, both Hadrian’s adoption and proclamation as emperor were not in Trajan’s plans but the result of his wife’s influence.²⁴ The earlier historian Cassius Dio claims the accuracy of his account based on the enquiry from his father, who was governor of Cilicia, when he reports that:

ὅτι ὁ θάνατος τοῦ Τραϊανοῦ ἡµέρας τινὰς διὰ τοῦτο συνεκρύφθη ἵν᾽ ἡ ποίησις προεκφοιτήσοι. ἐδηλώθη δὲ τοῦτο καὶ ἐκ τῶν πρὸς τὴν βουλὴν γραµµάτων αὐτοῦ: ταῖς γὰρ ἐπιστολαῖςοὐχ αὐτὸς ἀλλ᾽ ἡ Πλωτῖνα ὑπέγραψεν, ὅπερ ἐπ᾽ οὐδενὸς ἄλλου ἐπεποιήκει.

The death of Trajan was concealed for some days for this reason: that the adoption [of Hadrian] might be announced first. That was proved also by Trajan’s letters to the senate: for not Trajan but Plotina had signed them, something that she had never done before.²⁵

For Cassius Dio, Plotina’s behaviour could be explained only in one way: the empress was in love with the young man.²⁶ Plotina’s inner machinations or interference in Trajan’s politics for securing Hadrian’s adoption into the Ulpian family and his proclamation as the emperor may be the imaginary product of a certain historiographical tradition that was hostile to Hadrian for the disrespect that the emperor had showed toward the senatorial class: hinting at a woman’s plotting and familiar tricks was intended to belittle the morality and rulership of the emperor.²⁷ The later author of the Historia Augusta and Eutropius might not be reliable sources for reconstructing second century imperial history and Plotina’s biography. The Historia Augusta in particular, seems an ancient mockumentary for the number of inaccuracies, bizarre details, and fabricated information that are included in the biographies of the Roman emperors from Hadrian to Carus and his sons. Nevertheless, these Late-Antique works represent the few preserved narrative sources for reconstructing Plotina’ story and their testimony is invaluable. They may be not always reliable as historical sources, but they offer valuable insights into the patriarchal norms and ideals of womanhood that shaped ancient women’s identity and influenced Plotina’s mode of being an empress.

6 Behind ‘Plotina’s Plot’

In their accounts, ancient male authors may have introduced some elements (historical, partially historical, or totally fictional) with the primary aim to outline a negative portrayal of Hadrian for their predominantly male elite audience. Notwithstanding, these accounts should be valued as evidence of Plotina’s agency in a particularly dangerous situation that Trajan’s sudden death had created. In fact, the imperial couple did not have children, while the emperor’s sister Marciana and niece Salonia Matidia did not marry again after the death of their husbands, and Trajan’s grandniece Mindia Matidia either never married or was married to a man who did not have a close relationship with the Ulpian family.²⁸ The lack of male children in the emperor’s family raised a dynastic issue for the transmission of power. Denied a son and an heir himself, the emperor promoted the standing of Hadrian, who, after his father’s death, had been entrusted to the care of his cousin Trajan in Rome. In 100, two years after Trajan had been proclaimed emperor, Hadrian married Vibia Sabina, Trajan’s grandniece, whose status as the direct descendant of the emperor ensured that the imperial power was kept within the Ulpian family. However, at the time of the sudden death of Trajan in 117, Sabina and Hadrian had not produced the next male heir to the throne; nor had the emperor been able to formalise Hadrian’s adoption. The combination of these conditions created a void that the memory of the recent civil wars urged to fill in immediately with the proclamation of the next emperor.

If the rumours reported by the ancient writers have some elements of truth, Plotina should be celebrated as the empress who saved the Empire from political chaos, since with Hadrian the prosperity and peace brought by Trajan continued. We do not know to what extent Plotina’s supposed machinations were intended to guarantee the continuation of Roman rule, but for a childless consort Hadrian’s adoption in her husband’s family certainly served to add to the construction of her image as the ideal woman as well as to secure a position of power. In the patriarchal structures of Roman society, motherhood was highly celebrated for the male need to have heirs who could continue the family name and transfer properties. Within the system of imperial rule, this requirement was deemed crucially important for ensuring the continuation of the ruler’s dynasty and the stability of the Empire that financial resources, military power, and senatorial support alone could not guarantee. An emperor needed women at the most basic biological level. Trajan and Plotina did not have children, which would have put a considerable amount of pressure on the imperial couple, but even more on Plotina who, as a woman, could not fulfil the reproductive role promoted by patriarchal ideology. A fully recognised solution to the lack of natural children was adoption, which had also been practiced by previous emperors. Hadrian’s adoption into the Ulpian family would have been promoted by both Trajan for ensuring the continuity of the dynasty and by Plotina for complying with the patriarchal requirements of motherhood. In the official epistle to the School of Epicurus in Athens, Plotina describes the emperor Hadrian as a good son,²⁹ and in the programmed agenda of Hadrian as the legitimate ruler, she is celebrated as Hadrian’s mother.³⁰ As an adoptive mother, Plotina could claim the fulfilment of her maternal role in the imperial system and ideology in spite of the biological failure of her reproductive function. There was, however, another more practical reason of political convenience. By supporting Hadrian’s achievements and building a close relationship with the emperor, Plotina could secure her privileged position in court after the death of her husband.

7 Plotina: the Widow

Following an established practice in the Roman elite, Plotina accompanied Trajan to the provinces for his political and military duties: the shared travel experience served to advertise the concordia of the imperial couple while reinforcing the wifely qualities of the empress.³¹ It was during one of these trips to the eastern provinces that Trajan fell ill. With his body partly paralysed by a stroke, it was decided to sail back to Rome, but the emperor’s conditions worsened suddenly and he died in the city of Selinus in Cilicia on 8 August 117.³² Plotina, who on that occasion was accompanied by her niece Salonia Matidia, returned to Rome with the ashes of her dead husband.³³ For nineteen years Plotina had been the wife of a much-celebrated emperor whom she had supported, cherished, and assisted until his last day as the perfect spouse as outlined by the patriarchal ideology. Though Trajan’s death deprived her of the title and honours of the emperor’s wife, Plotina continued enjoying the privileges of a position in the imperial family as a financially independent widow and as the adoptive mother of the new emperor Hadrian.³⁴ Her address to Hadrian about the future of the Epicurean school and the emperor’s remark in the speech delivered at Plotina’s funeral that he never refused what she asked, because she always made sensible requests, bespeak her continued influence in the political affairs in the remaining years before her death in 123.³⁵

8 Women’s Virtues and Vices in the Male Discourse

The ancient male-authored texts portray Plotina as the embodiment of those female virtues that in the traditional discourse on gender roles were celebrated as the quintessence of the ideal womanhood. These core values were the deeply ingrained principles that served to judge women’s character and formed a stock repertoire from which to draw when commemorating them. These values were possibly emphasised in the funerary speech that the emperor Hadrian pronounced in honour of his adoptive mother Plotina, in a language probably similar to the Laudatio Claudiae, that I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, and many other laudationes in memory of other women.³⁶ The traditional female virtues for which a Roman woman should be commemorated were so much of a stereotype that a man felt obliged to apologise for listing them in memory of his mother Murdia, “because it is difficult for a woman to earn new forms of praise, since her life proceeds with small variations, it should necessarily honour the virtues in common so that what is omitted from fair precepts does not discredit the remaining virtues”.³⁷

It is arguable that many Roman women led highly eventful lives, but in the male perception of what ought to be a good woman the conventional domestic virtues remained the standard for female behaviour. A woman departing from the traditional norms of good behaviour and invading the male space of politics was inevitably subject to fierce criticism. On a deeper level, this kind of judgment unmasks the Roman male’s fear that women actively engaged in the public as property owners, benefactors, and patrons may threaten male power and authority, if their wealth and public activities were not directed towards the support and social promotion of the male members of their family. A woman’s position was perceived as highly problematic and a source of tension by the traditionally dominant group of men especially when she belonged to the emperor’s court. When imperial women claimed a voice in the space of masculine politics, the male-authored texts placed great emphasis on political intrigue, sexual scandal, and female scheming for describing these women. Their allegations bespeak the male attempt to contain powerful women within the domestic space of house and family, which makes it difficult for modern scholars to disentangle slander from reality. By contrast, imperial women who remained behind the scenes of public affairs and kept a modest demeanour, like Plotina, were praised in the sources for their virtuous character and deference to male authority.³⁸

9 Plotina between Tradition and Innovation

From a liberal feminist perspective, Plotina may appear as a passive, subservient woman who did not take advantage of her stable relationship with Trajan and of her position as an empress for supporting the women’s cause and demanding political equality and shared power in the imperial institutions. In her privileged position as the spouse of the emperor Trajan and later as the adoptive mother of the emperor Hadrian, she seems to have introduced no innovation to the traditional structures of power or gendered practices. Rather, Plotina seems to have kept the promise she made when she entered the imperial palace for the first time: “I enter here such a woman as I want to be when I depart”.³⁹ However, this description of Plotina in terms of empowerment and gender equality is influenced by modern concerns about women and society as much as the ancient portrait of the empress was defined by the socially constructed image of the woman as a wife and a mother for the benefit of one man: both approaches read Plotina’s story through the lens of the current ideological programme.

There is no doubt that the mos maiorum served as a tool for reinforcing the law of patriarchy, sustaining male dominance, and oppressing the female sex, as it is highlighted by feminist readings of ancient history. In this sense, Plotina’s life was not different from the destiny of other empresses of the Roman empire: all of them operated within a patriarchal, misogynist framework that denied them the right to hold any office or become a queen or replace their husband. Nevertheless, Plotina was able to manipulate the patriarchal norms of female behaviour as potentialities through which she reinforced her self-identity, preserved the privileges of her social position, and affirmed her agency within the traditional structures of power. Dio of Prusa epitomises well Plotina’s ability to move across the boundaries of tradition and innovation, when he notes:

γυναῖκα δὲ οὐ κοίτης µόνον ἢ ἀφροδισίων κοινωνὸν νενόµικεν, βουλῆς δὲ καὶ ἔργων καὶ τοῦ ξύµπαντος βίου συνεργόν.

[Trajan] regards his wife not only as his love partner but also as his helpmate in his counsel and actions and in his whole life.⁴⁰

The use of the synonymous words κοινωνὸν and συνεργόν emphasises the degree to which Plotina participated in her husband’s life in the bedroom and at work. She played the double role as the traditional wife who shares bed and affections with her husband and as his unconventional colleague at work (συνεργόν means literally ‘working together’), which placed her in a liminal space between the feminine domesticity and the masculine publicness. That is, Plotina sustained the patriarchal structures of Roman society with her commitment to continuity in gender practices but at the same time innovated the traditional structures of male power by exercising a form of nuanced agency and liminal power.⁴¹

She may seem to have enjoyed less power and autonomy than the earlier Julio-Claudian and Flavian women of the imperial court, who are described in ancient texts as women who asserted their power, were quite vocal in their demands, and made independent political and sexual choices. In contrast, Plotina’s political engagement in public life occurred behind the scenes of the long-established male authority. Yet, her apparent submissiveness and invisibility were a modality of political participation. Her mode of being an empress shows that a woman in the imperial court could achieve prominence and affirm her subjectivity within the framework of patriarchal ideals of gender inequality and male dominance. Her success can be measured from the degree to which she was able to embody, express, and amplify the male rhetoric of tradition and equally to depart from it for empowering her gender and social identity.