Classical Association of Vancouver Island lecture series 2016-17

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Thursday, November 3rd, 2016
7:30 PM to 9:30 PM

Third meeting of the 16-17 academic year; the Department of Greek and Roman Studies welcomes Professor Fanny Dolansky (Brock University) who will present a lecture entitled "Slavery, Gender, and Healthcare in Elite Roman Households."

Throughout the central period (c. 200 BCE to 200 CE), health appears to have been a significant preoccupation in Roman households from which few were immune, even at the highest levels of society. As is often the case about domestic life, we are best informed about the upper classes in part because of elite correspondence. In their letters, Cicero, Pliny, Fronto and Marcus Aurelius regularly mention the health of spouses, children, slaves, and freedmen. Not surprisingly, illness emerges as a topic of great concern and notable anxiety. Curiously, these authors rarely note the personnel engaged in treating the sick or the measures they employed. I argue that this is not accidental but a conscious choice, an omission that relates to freeborn, and particularly elite, anxieties associated with entrusting care of the body, and thus control, to slaves and others of servile background. Where the letters are silent about personnel and practices, medical, agricultural, scientific and epigraphic sources enable us to form a better picture of domestic healthcare and related dynamics within elite households. Sources indicate that in urban and rural households much care of the sick was the responsibility of women who were either slaves or not far removed from slavery: midwives, nurses, vilicae, and specially designated slaves such as ad valetudinaria. Through their care of the sick, these women made vital contributions to the household, including its economy, a dimension that has previously been overlooked. Placing the health and in many ways the future prospects of the household in the hands of slave women and freed dependents is significant in light of the strong tradition of women’s nefarious use of pharmaceuticals and ritual practices, and their recourse to powerful remedies derived from their own bodies that male authors viewed with a mixture of reverence and reproach.

The Classical Association of Vancouver Island is UVic’s organization for people interested in the Greek and Roman worlds. Monthly lectures by local and international scholars take place at UVic.

Everyone is welcome. To join CAVI and be on our mailing list, please send your name, contact information (address/email), and membership dues (10$/year, cheques payable to CAVI): CAVI – Department of Greek and Roman Studies
PO Box 1700 STN CSC Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2

For more information, please contact: Dr. Brendan Burke, Chair, Department of Greek and Roman Studies ([email protected]).