Viria's Hispania
Characters:
Theme: Placing the Roman geographical framework on a map
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 > Latin > 4th ESO > The present of the Latin civilization
Enunciation
Viria Acte was born in Valencia Edetanorum, current Valencia, ca. 90 AD. She was an outstanding woman who, being a former slave, became a successful entrepreneur. She was the owner of a statue workshop that she run herself and that became very prestigious. She received many compliments and honours due to her work and her contributions to the city of Valencia.
She is not the only woman that we are aware of. Epigraphy has allowed us to know of many other women from the same period and others, what they did and where they were born or lived. They are spread throughout the Hispanic territory.
Placing on the map of the different Hispanic territories in the 2nd century.
We will make an itinerary through the different territorial divisions of Hispania through time.
Here is a brief historical overview of the different phases of the territorial distribution of Hispania.
Take a look at it and choose with distribution matches the period Viria Acte lived in and reflect in on the following map. Place the capital cities of the different provinces and the city that Viria was born in. Use different colours.
Answer the questions:
1- When did the province of Gallaecia become an independent one? What province did it split from?
2- What current cities correspond to the former Roman capital cities of the provinces?
Observations and context
1- Observations
Viria Acte was a Hispano-Roman woman from the 2nd century AD born in Valentia, in Tarraconensis. There are many more women spread throughout the Hispanic territory that we are familiar with because of epigraphy. With this activity, we intend to make a brief itinerary through the different configurations of Hispania's territory throughout its history as a Roman province, as well as to create a map of that territorial division during that specific period.
This activity should be completed with other ones related to Viria acte, Other women with Viria and Remains of the past, which refer to the distribution in other territories of different women from the 2nd century. We know of these women and their origins because of epigraphy, and the distribution of Romance languages and archaeological remains in the Iberian Peninsula.
All of them are intended for Latin in 4th of ESO as an approximation to the geography of the Roman Hispania.
2- Context
One of the key factors which led to the greater independence of Roman women in the Imperial period was their ability to own and manage their own money.
The epigraphy of Roman Hispania in the 2nd century offers numerous examples of professions carried out by women who were also, in some cases, owners of their own businesses. To cite just a few names, we can find wet nurses (nutrices), such as Secundilla (Gades) or Clovatia Irena (Emerita Augusta); hairdressers (ornatrices), such as Philtates (Lucus Augusti, Lugo) or Turpa Thyce (Gades); menders (sarcinatrices), such as Latinia Da[.... ] (Corduba); professionals related to the production, dissemination and trade of olive oil, especially in Baetica, such as Accilia Felicissima, Caecilia Charitosa, Cornelia Placida or Caecilia Trophime, among many others; owners of land in production, such as C. Plancia Romana (Fiñana, Almería) or Aurelia Iuventiana (Arauzo de Torre, Burgos); owners of artisan workshops of all kinds _from gilding, textile and footwear workshops to the manufacture of marble pieces, like our Viria Acte _, such as Aurelia Vivia Sabina (domina fabricae marmorariae) (Terena, Portugal), Cornelia Cruseidis (domina inauratoris) (Tarraco) or Valeria Severina, who was also patroness of the guild, (domina fabricae textilis et calceamenti) (Segisama Iulia, Burgos) to women who practised medicine and obstetrics, such as the Hispanic Julia Saturnina (Emerita Augusta) or later women, such as those belonging to other times and places, Primila, Empiria and Venuleya Sosis, qualified as medici; Salustia Ateneis, obstetrix; Naevia Clara, medicaphilologa or Aurelia Alexandra Zozima, cited ‘for her medical knowledge’.
We also find other professions: caementarius (bricklayer): Iulia (Conimbriga, Coimbra); purpuraria (manufacture of purple): Baebia Veneria (Gades); lintearia (weaver or linen merchant): Fulvia (Tarraco); pictor or pistor (painter or baker): Caecilia M [...] (Maresme, Barcino), etc.
Description
Placing on a map the different territories in Hispania in the 2nd century after studying the different configurations of the Hispanic territory throughout history.