Byzantine Singlehood: The Mothers of his Students
Monday, September 12, 2022 - 07:00
Another article from this collection that is primarily about men even when nominally about women.
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Full citation:
Cribiore, Rafaella. 2019. “Different Ways of Life: Being Single in the Fourth Century CE” in Sabine R. Huebner & Christian Laes (eds), The Single Life in the Roman and Later Roman World. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. ISBN 978-1-108-47017-9
Publication summary:
A collection of papers addressing (and definine) the state of "singleness" in the Roman Empire, both in pre-Christian and early Christian times. There is a strong focus on Egypt as well as Rome proper, as well as wider Byzantine material. Comparative material is offered from Jewish sources, as well as a small selection of studies from specific cultures of more modern date.
Cribiore, Rafaella. “Different Ways of Life: Being Single in the Fourth Century CE”
This paper explores different modes of singlehood through the lives of three elite men. There is a brief discussion of single women mentioned in the epistles of one of the three: Libanius, a 4th century professor of rhetoric in Antioch. The women in question are widowed mothers of his students, most of whom did not remarry and who experienced certain struggles as a result, as well as their status having consequences for the students in question. But there are few details and Libanius’s concern is primarily for how their status affected their sons.
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