User:VivecaFitz/Eumachia

Name and Family

Eumachia was the daughter of Lucius Eumachius, who amassed a large fortune as a manufacturer of bricks, tiles and amphorae. She married Marcus Numistrius Fronto, who may have held the important office of duovir. The Numistrii were one of Pompeii's oldest and most powerful families. All that is certain is that Eumachia was able to use her wealth and social standing to obtain the position of public priestess of the goddess Venus Pompeiana (the city's patron goddess), and she became a successful patronus of the economically significant guild of fullers, the guild which consisted of tanners, dyers and clothing-makers.

Social Significance

Eumachia is essential as an example of how a Roman woman of non-imperial/non-aristocratic descent could become an important figure in a community and be involved in public affairs. She is seen as a representative for the increasing involvement of women in politics, using the power of a public priestess, the only political office able to be held by a woman for social mobility. Female patronage of public construction projects was related to priesthoods in Pompeii; these public responsibilities, paired with familial status, may have given women the authority or opportunity to bequest monuments to communities. As priestesses, these women guarded long-held communal traditions. They used their patronage to erect monuments that reflected their or their families' predominance and social standing in the town. In exchange, these prominent patrons were honored with honorific sculptures in life and donations of land for tombs or money for funerals after death. The disparities between Mamia, a 1st-century public priestess in Pompeii from a prominent family in Herculaneum, officially sanctioned tomb, and Eumachia's private tomb show how diverse the social response may be. However, the range of social functions depicted in sculptures of women is more limited: this reflects both their actual place in society and the ideal of womanly behavior (for the elite, at least). The Romans were caught in a bind when publicly displaying their women in portrait statues: The ideal of the sexually faithful, domestically oriented, heir-producing matron, who was reluctant to be seen in public, clashed with the reality of the politically active women of the imperial court and the financially significant female municipal patrons in towns across the empire. Funerary inscriptions emphasize women's domestic and familial values: chastity, material fidelity, wifely and motherly devotion, and attention to household chores.

Building of Eumachia

Statue of priestess Eumachia Building Pompeii

There are three sections to the building. The building's front is composed of a deep porch called the chalcidicum, a component of the continuous portico extending down the Forum's East side. Two spacious niches 1.36 meters above the ground are located at the ends of the wall, the back of the porch. On the South side of this porch, there are traces of metal swivel holes between the bases of the columns, possibly indicating latticework. The porticus, a four-sided colonnade around a spacious court, and the crypta, a tunnel behind the colonnades on the complex's North, East, and South sides, compensate for the building's interior. Three doorways lead into the crypta: two at the front of the colonnade and one at the back intended to provide access from the Via Dell'abbondanza up a steep hill. Some windows were shuttered on the North and South sides of the walls that separate the porticus from the crypta. According to early studies, the court once had the ruins of many vats, stone tables, and cistern openings. These characteristics have long since vanished. A black stone with an iron ring, which functioned as the cover for the underground cistern, is in the middle of the court.

Eumachia Building

The relevant inscriptions, which are gathered as befits her religious office aside from the customary lines on the tomb outside the Port Nocerina, most likely adorned the rear niche of the structure on the honor side of the Pompeiian forum, otherwise known as the Aedificium Eumachiae. The dedication at the base of the monument reads, "The fullers [erected it] to Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess," which is a style used for honor inscriptions throughout Roman Italy. The public building facing the forum contains the inscription, "Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess, in her own name and that of her son Marcus Numistrius Fronto, built the chalcidicum [porch] and cryptoporticus with her own money and dedicated them to Augustan Concord and Peity, " which may be related to her son's successful bid for the position of duovir. Other inscriptions and architectural remnants attest to the local elites' propensity to adopt the imperial family's preferred religious and mythical themes. This trend would only intensify over the following century.

Statue

Statue of Eumachia

Eumachia is dressed in a palla over a tunic and stola, in Hellenistic style, with her stola wrapped around her arms and hands close to her body. This type of clothes covering, delicate women's poses, features, and material employed, was in the aim of Rome's social control approach, which alludes to Livia, whose statues popularized the representation of the stola. Family members adopting aspects of the emperor's physiognomy emphasize family cohesion in imperial portraits. The wavy strands of hair separated in the center and pushed back from Eumachia's face imply that the image incorporates elements of the portraiture of imperial ladies such as Livia. Moreover, her individualizing characteristics highlight the classicizing traits: her small mouth, slightly bent head revealing her delicate neck in a vulnerable manner, and veiled hair. Her stance is quite dynamic in that her right knee is slightly bent, and her left foot is in the front, reflecting a trait that suggests more active body language in that she looks to step off her pedestal while having a closed form and wearing heavy garments. She is also gazing down on her audience that opposes the social mores and highlights the discrepancy between ideal and actual. Despite her wealth, she still had to balance the demands on her to adhere to conventional fashions with the more rebellious elements of her portrait.

The placing of Eumachia's honorific statue extends from the fountain to the porticos, as well as the high level of craftsmanship. Also, the idealizing portrait characteristics emphasize her link to the empress and her fulfillment of Augustan mores. Such references to the central authority solidified her elite reputation in Pompeii, emphasizing her importance to the fullers who sponsored the statue and the general public who benefited from the new complex.

Extra Effort

Tried to add images that will enhance the reader's understanding of this article.

Divided History and Significance section into Name and Family and Social Significance for clarification, and tried to add more analysis of statue of Eumachia.

Compared to other topics, finding resources for Eumachia and her statue was difficult. There is good amount of information about Eumachia's significance in Roman history also as women's roman social status and roles, but the chronology of Eumachia's life is difficult to follow. However, with the help of the professor and school database, I was able to do my research and successfully finish my project.