Cicero's last visit to the forum
Characters:
Theme: Characteristics of Roman architecture: the forum
Competencies
Competence in Linguistic Communication
Personal, social and learning to learn competence
Competence in cultural awareness and expressions
Subjects and year by Educational System
Spain > Classical culture > 1st ESO > Continuity of cultural heritage. Literature, art and science
Enunciation
Fulvia symbolises the antithesis of the Roman matron, who abandoned the tasks that were socially assigned to women, acting as a ruler and even recruiting legions. She must have used the forum's speaker's rostrum, on different occasions, to criticise her opponents or to draw favour with her husbands' supporters.
Answer the questions:
a.-Find information about the Roman forum, in which part of the city it was located and what the people who visited it did there.
b.-Look at the image below. Here you have the location of the buildings that made up the forum of a city. Find out what was done in the basilica, in the curia and especially what the rostrum or tribune of orators was. What does rostra mean? Who was an orator in Ancient Rome?
Adapted from Macaulay, David (1978): El nacimiento de una ciudad romana. Barcelona, Editorial Timun Mas.
c.-Think of the main square of a town or city. What do people do there? What differences and similarities do you think exist between the Roman forum and the public squares of today's cities and towns?
d.-Before reading the text below, look up for information on Wikipedia about the characters mentioned in it: Marcus Tullius Cicero, Mark Antony (the triumvir) and Fulvia.
And when Cicero's head was sent to them (for when he fled he was seized and beheaded), Antony, after addressing many unpleasant expletives to him, ordered it to be placed in a conspicuous place, more visible than the others, in the tribune of orators, there from where he had uttered so many sophistries against him, and there it could be seen together with his right hand, which had been amputated, and Fulvia took the head in her hands, before it was taken away, and, enraged with it and spitting at him, placed it on her knees, and opening her mouth, tore out her tongue and pierced it with the hairpins she used for her hair, while she taunted him with many cruel infamies.
Cassius Dio: Roman History, BCG-393. Our own translation from Juan Pedro Oliver Segura (p. 80).
e.-Can you now explain why his enemies ordered Cicero's head and hand to be placed on the tribune of the forum and why Fulvia tore his tongue out?
Observations and context
In the eyes of Roman law, women had an inferior legal status compared to men. Thus, law restricted women from participating in public office, such as practising law, being judges or holding any of the judiciaries.
But the royal Roman matron was much more than a housewife. Classical sources provide news of women who gained access to the public sphere to make use of their voice, breaking with the traditional role that had been assigned to them. We have heard about the lawyers Carfania and Maesia, from Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi brothers, and from Julius Caesar's own mother, Aurelia. But also about women who were involved in the fight for power, participating openly or in the shade. Examples include Servilia, mother of Marcus Brutus, the orator Hortensia, Clodia the rebel or Livia, wife of Emperor Augustus, without forgetting Octavia, wife of Mark Antony and sister of Augustus.
These women came to hold the same power as many of the men who ruled Rome. They had great communication skills and political, economic and legal knowledge. The best example of them all was Fulvia.
The activity has been assigned for 1st of ESO, but can be adapted to 2nd, 3rd or 4th of ESO levels in classical culture, or Latin in 4th of ESO.
Description
The activity consists of a comprehensive reading of a text by Cassius Dio in which he tells us how Fulvia and Mark Antony order the head and hands of Cicero to be placed in the rostrum or tribune of the forum. The text will be the starting point from which students will search for information about the forum and the buildings that made it up, as well as the daily activity that took place in that space.