omen were present for the festivities and that Scintialla arrived with her husband Habinnas, having just left another banquet. (32)
Women were also able to attend religious festivals, such as the Ambarualia and the Lupercalia.(33) Women could also attend amphitheatre events like gladiatorial matches and circuses. There is even evidence that women fought as gladiators,(34) but they were not allowed to be seen on stage as actors.(35) Ovid, in his Love Affairs advises men that the racetrack is a good place to meet women, which is evidence that they could even attend those events.(36) It is very intriguing that Roman women who had so few legal rights could also possess so many personal freedoms. Roman women were certainly not sequestered away in gynaeconitis as Athenian women were in Greece. Sarah Pomeroy, in Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves, points out that "Roman women were involved with their culture and were able to influence their society ... Roman women dined with their husbands and attended parties, games, and shows."(37) Eva Cantarella makes some similar observations:
The Romans did not believe that women should be shut up in a special part of the house or that they should be forbidden to dine with men or go out in the street ... Perhaps the liberality of the Romans toward their women is not altogether accidental. Given their duties, women had to participate in some way in men's lives in order to assimilate their values and become more faithful transmitters of them.(38)
Girls did receive some informal education in their homes and learned to read and write. Both mothers and fathers had a role to play in the transmission of Roman culture and education to their children, however, it was frowned upon for women to become too educated, as can be seen in Juvenal's writings. He scoffs at women who have opinions on Homer, grammar, and ethics, and he implies that these sorts of women have forgotten their place in society by being so knowledgeable. It was not their place. (39) Women were already finished their educations and having babies when their male contemporaries were practicing eloquence or studying philosophy abroad in places like Athens. Of course, this would only apply to males from upper class families. Women from the lower classes received enough education to assist them in running small businesses and working as dressmakers or salespeople in the markets.(40)
A dichotomy existed within the lives of Roman women. They did have some personal freedoms, but they had little chance for individuality or personal choice. They were under the constant supervision of their fathers, male relatives, and husbands, who regularly kissed them on the mouth to find out if they had drunk wine.(41) Drinking wine was strictly forbidden for Roman women and they could be punished by death. In Memorable Deeds and Sayings from the first century AD, Maximus tells us how Egnatius Metellus beat his wife to death for drinking wine.(42) It was believed that wine caused women to have adulterous relationships, which were very common since so many marriages took place for political or economic reasons, not for love or passion. Women found to have committed adultery could be put to death by their fathers or guardians.(43) Women often married men who were much older than themselves. They married whoever they were told to.
Another controlling device used against Roman women was the practise of not allowing them to have personal names. Instead, a woman took her father's middle name or nomen and feminized it. From a Roman woman's name you could tell who her father was and therefore, her position in society. (44) Women existed within their families and had no identity of their own. Their fathers had absolute control over their lives and could even sell them into slavery or force them into a marriage and out of one, too.(45) Some women were forced to get a divorce because their fathers had found more lucrative and prestigious families for them to marry into. If they had children at the time of the divorce, women were forced to leave them behind. When ma