The lives and deaths of women in ancient Pompeii

Following up on her co-edited volume, Women's Lives, Women's Voices: Roman Material Culture and Female Agency in the Bay of Naples, Brenda Longfellow examines women's public lives in Pompeii. Pulling together statues, inscriptions, graffiti, wall painting, and architecture from tombs, sanctuaries, houses, and public spaces, she builds up a multifaceted picture of the lived experience of Pompeian women. By exploring how real women of all social backgrounds acted in public, rather than solely within the domestic sphere as is commonly done within studies of antiquity, she foregrounds their agency in interactions ranging from selling goods in the marketplace, to commissioning statues used to adorn these same spaces, to performing funerary rites. The remarkable remains of Pompeii allow a unique opportunity to study women from all classes, from slaves to freedwomen to elite matrons. Sometimes named, sometimes anonymous, these women left their marks in inscriptions and graffiti, funerary monuments and votive offerings, and civic buildings and public monuments. Longfellow centers her narrative around a few key women, including the city's most notable female patron, Eumachia, and uses them to examine female roles in funerals and postmortem commemorations, civic patronage and benefactions, commerce, priesthoods, and the home. By following these individuals, she is able to tell their stories and examine women's lives in Pompeii in both the concrete and abstract, allowing us to better understand their importance to the city and society.