La fama dopo il silenzio: celebrazione della donna e ritratti esemplari di bonae feminae nella laudatio funebris romana

This paper examines the Roman custom of laudatio funebris for women. It falls into two parts. The first focuses on the origins and the development of this oratorical practice, as shown by literary and epigraphic evidence, during the late Republic and the first centuries of the Empire. The second part analyzes the content and functions of these funeral eulogies. In praising a woman, the orator would mention her ancestry and fortuitous attributes (such as beauty and wealth), but the most relevant part of the speech was the praise of her virtutes. The qualities listed in extant examples of laudationes were virtues normally associated with a Roman matron, wife and mother who had earned a good reputation in her private life. By means of this conventional portrait, the laudatio funebris aimed to offer a positive exemplum of moral behavior to the Roman women assembled at the funeral. At the same time, the oration served as a vehicle of political propaganda for the man delivering it, who was a close relative of the deceased woman in question. By celebrating her ancestors, by praising her as proba femina, and by emphasizing her value as superior to that of all others of her sex, he would enhance his own prestige and that of his family