The presence of women in the cities of Roman Andalusia from a gender perspective 
(Cándida Martínez López)
The objective of this line of research is to investigate how the women of Roman Andalusia experienced and used their cities. We should remember that the area known today as Andalusia was dramatically transformed by urban development in the Roman era, and that the economic and social position of the women of the elites as large property-owners became increasingly important over time. These cities developed according to the classical Greco-Roman town plan, which was based on a conception of these spaces that was influenced from its theoretical conception to its practical application by the roles that men and women were to play in them. The cities of Hispania like all those in the ancient Mediterranean world manifested themselves as such in the public and political buildings of the forum, but also in those in which the spirit of citizenship was cultivated (baths, circuses, theatres etc), which were spaces of masculine sociability par excellence. It was here in the centre of the city that the greatest sums were invested, the most beautiful, most expensive materials were used, and the best artists were allowed to express themselves. The apparent simplicity of the division of roles and in the use and control of public spaces was in practice not so straightforward, and varied from one era to the next. Women did occupy public spaces. They did so for religious, economic or more mundane reasons, or in search of prestige. With the blurring of the frontiers between the public and the private, in the enjambment between these two worlds, we aim to discover the lives of many Hispanic women who occupied the public space in different ways. |
