Female patrons and the salutatio

[Epictetus]

We know that rich and powerful women were often patrons, because we have many statues and plaques set up by grateful guilds and cities to them. But did these women also engage in the salutatio, the ritualised morning greeting of clients to their patron?

I assume "yes," but I am only going on circumstantial evidence.

1) We know that there were women patrons, so presumably they would fulfill all such functions to their clients.
2) We have one interesting inscription that seems to imply a female client participating in the salutatio:

Sacred to the spirits of the dead, to Caius Caesius Niger, son
of Quintus, of the Teretina voting tribe, from the first (order
of) admission, curio minor from the four decuriae. Caesia
Theoris, freedwoman of Caius (dedicated this) for her patron
and for herself

CIL VI. 2169

The phrase "from the first (order of) admission / ex prima admissione" has been interpreted as meaning she was one of those allowed in first to see her patron. If a female could participate in the salutatio as a client, could she not as a patron?

What do you think? Do I have something here, or am I really screwed up?

[Lyceum]

Oh, certainly, they often accompanied their husbands etc. See Juvenal I.120 something onwards.

This is in full swing of the imperial period mind you, you would not necessarily expect it much earlier. Wealthy widows could partake in formal Roman Amicitia from both ends, just not as much as men, in fact they were particularly at risk of captatio benevolentiae, as many poets from Horace onwards mention...

So I guess the answer is a warm "maybe, it depends." lik most things though really.

[Malko Linge]

See in Google books

http://books.google.de/books?id=_6cD1ry1...ne&f=false

The phrase "ex prima admissione" coud be misspelling from a 16th century copy. The autor thinks the phrase "quidam ex officio admissiones"


Malko Linge