Contested memories: Scipionic and Gracchan matronae

In mid-Republican Rome, the highly visible women within the aristocratic elite, occupying respected positions within their families and society, as patronae of individuals and of communities and with considerable funds at their disposal, might be in a position to achieve desired political goals. This chapter focuses, however, upon the symbolic capital they represented. We consider eight matronae: Cato’s first wife; the mother of Scipio Africanus; and six other women associated with the Scipionic and Gracchan households. Their public projections were all-important, and in the hothouse of elite competition and bitter political debate, those images and the memories of significant women were objects of contention. Surviving portraits (or sketches) are, for the most part, constructed creations transmitted with a purpose. While variations in the ancient portraitures (often contradictory) appropriately prompt doubts about the uncovering of the reality underlying those projections, the fact of the contested memories speaks to their significance.