Humanities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 8

Humanities - Essay Example nd noting their increasing wealth, decided to tax the military widows.(Fant 1982) Initially the women accepted this even though it was an obvious case of taxation without representation. However, by 195 B.C. this emergency was over and unlike the provinces, Rome refused to repeal this Oppian Law. Nevertheless, after a demonstration by thousands of affected women supported by sympathetic tribunes they did repeal it. Later in 42 B.C. again an attempt was made to impose similar taxation.(Letkowitz 1982)However, this time it was to pay for a civil war against a rebellious faction. Hortensia was the first female to speak at a Tribunal in the Forum, and was able to successfully argue that women should not be required to pay taxes to support killing of their husbands and fathers. and thereby significantly reduce the pool of women subject to the tax. Aside from Hortensia, the Sabine women must be considered as icons of Ancient Rome (historylink102.com). In fact legend indicates that but for them the Roman Empire may not have ensued. Initially mainly men settled in this rough city, so Romulus devised a plan to attract women to grow Rome’s population. He invited a nearby tribe, the Sabines to a festival inside the city, where the men were attacked and many killed and the women abducted and raped. The surviving Sabine men later returned to Rome under King Titus to retrieve their women, but they were happy with their new lives in Rome and negotiated a truce with the Sabines and Romans uniting and sharing power in Rome for years to follow. The Forum demonstrations illustrate how women even without legal powers were able to use their newly acquired economic leverage craved by the state to pressure it to enact policies more favorable to their interests. On an individual level, wives of high ranking officials, including the emperor, could also exert some influence, although sometimes as in the case of Agrippina, this could be for purely selfish, evil personal motives. (She