Lucretia as a Symbol

that most listeners are probably familiar with today. In that version, Medusa was the daughter of a sea god who grew up to be a beautiful young priestess of Athena or Minerva, as the goddess would have been known to Avid and the Romans. Medusa tragically caught the attention of Poseidon or Neptune, who proceeded to rape her in Minerva's temple. Avid uses the brutal word vitiace injure, defile, or damage to describe the act. You might know what happens next in the story.

It's not Neptune who's punished, but Medusa herself. Her hair is transformed into snakes by her own goddess. There is a feminist reading of that outcome, in which some see Minerva giving Medusa a means to protect herself against future assault. That's a generous reading, as classic scholar Natalie Haynes reminds us Minerva wasn't exactly a girl's girl, but it's also a fairly depressing reading. In my view. Protected may be,

but Medusa's fate is also sealed. She will be a monster to be hunted, and her severed head will later be turned into a weapon for another's use. Avid's Metamorphosies is far from a light read, both in terms of its length and content. Sexual violence is pervasive throughout many of its stories. Jokingly calling Metamorphoses Greek mythology fan fiction is not really inaccurate, but it's also not fully painting

the whole picture. The text was meant to serve as a history of the world from creation to the death of Caesar. Just as it's pervasive in the pages of the text, sexual violence is also pervasive in the history of the world. Avid followed Metamorphosies with Fasti, which, instead of focusing on Greek legends, finished wishes what the last three books of Metamorphoses began turning the lens to Roman history, religion, culture,

and figures. Because both books blend genre, and because of the time they were written, much of the content in both Metamorphoses and Fosti fall somewhere in between myth and history. The noble woman Lucretia and the famous story of the rape she suffered at the hands of Sextus Tarquinius, who is also known as Tarquin, is one such mythohistory found

in the pages of Avid's Fasti. Some historians take an extreme view on Lucretia's story, claiming that it was a complete fabrication, but the more widely accepted understanding is that the legend probably grew out of real events, but that it was later shaped or metamorphosed over time to create a poignant, symbolic narrative. Though Medusa and Lucretia hail from different cultures and different Ovid poems, their stories say a

lot in conversation with one another. They were both daughters of powerful fathers, both hailed for their beauty and purity, both were raped by men with more power than they had, and in death they both became weapons to be yielded by yet more powerful men. But where Medusa's head was quite literally wielded by Perseus, who used it to turn his own enemies to stone, Lucretia's body became more of

a symbolic weapon. After her rape and subsequent suicide, her body was displayed on the streets by revolutionaries to incite rebellion. Lucretia's suicide after her assault is known as the catalyst that led to the fall of the Roman monarchy, the

reason that the Roman Empire no longer had kings. The story of the ideal Roman woman driven to take her own life because of the actions of a man drunk on his own power became itself a powerful enough narrative to be, as the French philosopher Pierre Bale put it, quote, one of the hinges on which the history of the

Romans turns. Perhaps more critically, we can look at Lucretia through the words of Simone de Beauvois, who wrote that it is through women that quote certain historical events have been set off, but the women have been pretexts rather than agents. The suicide of Lucretia has had value only as symbol. But where did the story and the symbol come from? What role has it played in different moments and history? And is it possible to know who Lucretia was really or will she always be in the hands

of men using her for their ends. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is noble blood. Just as with the myth of Medusa, the story of Lucretia will differ from historian to historian, storyteller to storyteller. The first recorded account of Lucretia's story comes from the Roman historian Livy in his History of Rome, written nearly five hundred years after the

event described. Before Livy, the story existed in oral tradition, and after him it would continue on in the hands of other writers and historians like Dionysus of Halikarnassis, Dio, Cassius Avid, and eventually Shakespeare, Machiavelli, and Rousseau, each with

their own interpretation and agenda in their tellings. The scholar ian Donaldson, in his book Rapes of Lucretia, A Myth and Its Transformations, reconstructs the earliest versions of the story to give a composite picture of what might have been the quote historic event. It goes like this. In five hundred and nine BC, the Roman King Tarquinis Superbus was

attempting a siege of the town of Ardea. One night during the siege, a group of noblemen, the king's son among them, were having a wife off, boasting about whose wife was the most virtuous, the most beautiful, the most exemplary. One nobleman, Calatinus, insisted that his wife, Lucretia, daughter of the magistrate Lucretius, was second to none, her virtue the

most virtuous, her beauty the most beauteous. When the boasting turned competitive, it was suggested that the group would make the twenty somethingter mile trip back to Rome to assess each wife themselves. Most of the wives were found together chatting and engaging in idle pastimes, but Lucretia hashtag not like other girls, was found at home alone spinning wool homemaking while her husband was away on the front lines.

Lucretia won the contest of best and most wife. Though the story begins light and even a little bit silly to our modern ears, the story takes a dark turn. In Livy's words in translation, the king's son quote Sextus Tarquinius was seized with a wicked desire to debauch Lucretia by force. Not only her beauty, but her proved chastity as well provoked him. The men returned to Ardia, but

Tarquin later returned alone. Lucretia courteously received the king's son as anyone would be expected to, giving him food and a room to stay in for the night, but when the household was asleep, he entered her bedroom in the middle of the night with a sword on his person. Tarquin first attempted to seduce Lucretia with promises to marry her and make her queen, but when that didn't work, he turned to threats. If he couldn't have her, he would kill her. She continued to deny him, and so

he came up with another plan. He threatened to kill not only her but also one of his slaves, and to place their naked bodies in her bed together and then claim he found them together and killed them in outrage. The posthumous shame of that final threat was too much for Lucretia. She stopped resisting, and Tarquin proceeded to rape her. The following morning, Lucretia summoned her father, Lucretius and her husband Calatinus, to their home, and she asked each of

them to bring a trusted friend. Calatinus brought Lucius Junius Brutus, not the A two guy, to be very clear, but a nephew of King Superbus, a nephew and not a fan. Brutus was generally thought of as an idiot, but he was in reality putting on an act of ignorance, waiting for his moment to get revenge on the king who

murdered his father and brother. And so with those four men gathered, Lucretia told the story of what happened the night before, and when she was done telling the story, she revealed a knife beneath her garments, which she used to stab herself and die. Brudus removed the knife from her body and swore an oath by the blood of Lucretia none more chaste. Tell a tyrant wronged her that he would drive the Tarquins from Rome. With that, a

revolution began to form. Lucretia's body was displayed at the Forum in Rome, where Brudus rallied the Romans by showing them the tyranny of the Tarquins and its consequences. It was a successful publicity campaign and the people drove the royal family out of Rome, vowing to have no more kings. Brudus and Lucretia's husband Calatinus were installed as the first consuls of the Roman Republic. The end or is it? That is the SparkNotes version of events, but technically yeah.

The last mention of Lucretia in her story is that of her body on display while she was alive. However, she does get a bit more characterization in other versions of her story. In Livy's telling, Lucretia has a poignant rallying speech before she takes her life, quote, my body alone has been violated. My heart is guiltless, as death shall be my witness. But pledge your right hands and

your words that the adulterer shall not go unpunished. Her death is than heroic, even masculine in a sense, as death by night was not traditionally associated with women at the time, It's portrayed as a morally virtuous death. Lucretia is killing herself, she explains, so that promiscuous women cannot

use her as an example to justify their own actions. Avid, for his part, gives Lucretia more dialogue in the story's beginning when she laments the danger her husband may be in on the front lines, and when she joyously throws herself into his arms upon his return, even in front of all of his comrades. Lucretia is portrayed as devoted and tender, while also sheltered and a little naive. Avid also gives us a physical description for the first time.

Her complexion is snowy, she uses no cosmetics, her hair is golden and flowing freely. It's this physical Lucretia that we will most often see in artistic depictions to come. Her appearance was a feminine ideal. By Avid's time, most Roman women had dark hair and an olive complexion to imitate the desirable German beauty standard. Sex workers were actually known to wear blonde wigs, while women across classes wore

chalk on their faces to appear paler. Lucretia's characterization through her words, actions, and appearance, then all serves to portray her as an ideal in every sense. But what happens when you kill an ideal? Avid's telling takes an arguably more human approach when compared to Livy. His Lucretia does not die grandly, calling for revenge. Instead, the morning after the horrific event, she's visibly disheveled and wearing a morning gown.

She's distraught and finds herself having trouble telling her father and husband what has happened. This Lucretia is overcome by grief and cannot find her heart guiltless. Instead, her last words are quote, though you forgive me, I cannot forgive myself. Only through death does Lucretia believe that she can preserve her virtues. But her death becomes far bigger than that. In the end, she doesn't just die for what she saw as her sins, she also dies for the birth

of the republic. As the ideal woman of the Roman Republic, Lucretia's death both literally and metaphorically expunged the tyrant and his lineage from Rome, literally because she might have been pregnant with the son of the son of the king. Lucretia's role in Roman history is not completely dissimilar from that of an earlier woman in Roman mythology, one of the famed Vestal virgins, Raya Silvia, who according to legend, was raped by Mars and gave birth to Ramus and Romulus.

The wolf raised twins, whose battle for divine favor is remembered as the traditional founding story of Rome. Both stories were that of a chaste woman. One would bring about the Kingdom of Rome and the other the Roman Republic. If we remember Simon de Beauvoir's words here quote, women

have been pretexts rather than agents. Livy states in his history that his writing is not just intended to be a history lesson, but also moral instruction, hoping Roman readers of the day could learn from Romans of the past, which probably explains Lucretia's inspirational speech. Ofvid was less concerned with the morality of the average Roman. His Lucretius story was actually written during his exile from Rome by the

Emperor Augustus. The reasons for this exile were never actually documented, but do not worry, the city of Rome did revoke his exile in twenty seventeen, only two thousand years later. Both Avid and Livy had a vested interest in portraying the corruption of power, emphasizing in their stories the inherent wickedness and immorality of the son of the king, Sextus Tarquinius. This is how the story would be understood for many years, with Tarquin as a monster and Lucretia as both a

victim and a martyr. It wasn't until Augustine, the bishop and theologian, who wrote on the City of God against the Pagans, that Lucretia's role would be altered in the public consciousness. Regarded today as a cornerstone of Western thought. Augustine's work was written between four hundred and thirteen and four hundred and twenty six a d. In the context

of the ongoing conflict between Christians and Pagans. After the sack of Rome by the Goths in four hundred and ten, Pagans were beginning to fear that Christianity and the abandonment of Roman gods was the cause of their suffering, and with City of God, Augustine, from the Roman province in North Africa, was seeking to counter those arguments and bolster the faith of Christians. The title comes from the idea that even if earthly empires fall, the City of God

will ultimately prevail. When it comes to Augustine's writing on Lucretia, he begins quote they, as in Pagans, will certainly bring out Lucretia with great praises for her chastity. If that feels a little mocking, it's because it was. Augustine goes on to question why Lucretia killed herself if she was

truly guilty of nothing. He argues that she actually killed herself because even though she was attacked, she eventually consented, and her consent, rather than being out of fear of the consequences as in the original tellings, was in Augustine's mind because she secretly desired Tarquin Eleanor Glendinning writes in her analysis that quote, a person committed to the Christian faith could suffer any bodily suffering and emerge with an even stronger mind and conviction in the existence of God.

By doing so, Augustine's City of God also laid the foundations for early Christian beliefs surrounding suicide. In general. Augustine believed that thou shalt not kill also referred to oneself. Augustine is disparaging a pagan hero using a Christian narrative, and the Western world will of course only continue to move further from paganism and towards Christianity as time marches. On. The other change, Augustine makes here is distancing Lucretia from

the revolutionary narrative. Augustine does not care about the Tarquins or Brutus. He has just focused on Lucretia as an unworthy pagan martyr figure. It's important to discuss Augustine because his words will have permeated the culture of every writer that tells the story of Lucretia going far forward, whether they agreed with him or not. Disconnecting her from politics also gave way to new narratives want about chastity, lust,

and temptation. There are many Renaissance paintings of Lucretia, but most are domestic, not political scenes, domestic scenes with her in various states of undress, either fending off her attacker or pointing the knife at her own chest. There's also an eroticism to these paintings that can arguably be traced back to Augustine. All of this brings me to Shakespeare. Shakespeare's main source for his narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece wasn't Augustine, but actually the originals Avid and Livy.

There are, though, a number of ways in which Shakespeare's poem depart arts from its source material. But one in particular is shockingly different. Lucretia's suicide in Shakespeare's poem does not lead to a revolution. In fact, there is no mention of the Roman Republic at all. Late in the poem, Lucretia has a lengthy speech reflecting back on her rapist's crime. Quote, thou seemest not what thou art a god? A king? For kings, like gods, should govern everything. How wilt thy

shame be seated in thine age? When thus thy vices bud before thy spring? If in thy hope thou darst do such outrage? What darst thou not? When once thou art a king? Right off the bat? We are in a very different political atmosphere than the world of Livy and Avid. Maybe it's obvious Shakespeare lived in England under a monarchy. His Lucretia is comparing kings and gods in a positive way, going so far as to say that they should govern everything. The message is not that absolute

power corrupts absolutely. It's that Tarquin is corrupted absolutely. One bad apple. Shakespeare's Lucretia continues, quote, this deed will make thee only loved for fear. But happy monarchs are still feared for love with foul offenders, Thou perforce must bear when they in thee the like offenses prove, if but for fear of this, thy will remove. For princes are the glass, the school, the book where subjects, eyes do learn,

do read, do look. Lucretia is speaking with more political language than she has in any other version of her story, but it is a far cry from what the original political purpose of her story was. Shakespeare is instead working within the genre of mirrors for Princes, a literary genre that was popular throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which sought to, as the title implies, provide advice and examples for rulers to give advice on how to be

a good prince. Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece ends with Brutus declaring to avenge her death, but this is done by banishing Tarquin from Rome, not starting the republic. The poem ends quote, when they had sworn to this advised doom, they did conclude to bear dead Lucrece, thence to show her bleeding body through Rome, and so to publish Tarquin's foul offense, which being done with speedy diligence, The Roman

plausibly did give consent to Tarquin's everlasting banishment. Lucretia's body is still a political weapon, but as a symbol she carries much less weight when Tarquin is simply banished, as opposed to he and his family being forever removed from power and the entire system of government of Rome changing forever. Shakespeare is much more focused on the actions of the individual, and make no mistake, he thinks Tarquinius is corrupt. Though

he is writing in a post Augustine world. It is clear that what Lucretia feels towards her attacker in Shakespeare's poem is fear she is not consenting. Shakespeare uses a metaphor of Tarquin as a predator, the wolf hath seized his prey, the poor lamb cries. Compared to Augustine, Shakespeare also displays a far greater understanding of the reality of the physiological repercussions of rape. While Lucretia's family believes quote her bodies stain, her mind untainted clears, he writes that

quote with a joyless smile. She turns away the face that map, which deep impression bears of hard misfortune carved in it with tears. Her suicide is not the result of her secretly being unchased. In Shakespeare's version, it is, as it was in the beginning, a preservation of her chastity. We know this because Shakespeare has her tell us quote for me, I am the mistress of my fate, she states as she contemplates what to do in the aftermath

of her assault. She's given more dialogue, more of an inner life here than in any other telling, aligning her more with Shakespeare's other tragic heroines. Shakespeare's telling of Lucretia may appear to be removed from key points of its original context, but again, it fits quite nicely in Elizabethan England. It's not a stretch to draw parallels between the virgin queen who proudly sacrificed marriage for her country, and Lucretia,

who was so chaste that she died for hers. The poem was written around the same time Shakespeare would make another reference to the virgin Queen in A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Oberon speaks of quote a fair vestal throned by the west. Shakespeare's flattery also appears in Richard the Third, in which the mad villainous hunchbacked king is overthrown not by a revolution but by combat with the next king,

who have to be Elizabeth's great grandfather. But for a prospective on Lucretia's story that returns to the original revolutionary sentiments, let's go where else to France or more specifically, Geneva. As Jean Jacques Rousseau bounced between European countries throughout his life, His unfinished tragic play LaMonte de Lucrece was composed around seventeen fifty four seventeen fifty six, still early years in

Rousseau's career. Seventeen fifty four was the same year he wrote his foundational Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality among Men, in which he argued that moral inequality is not innate to humans, rather a product of quote, wealth, nobility or rank, power, and personal merit. Given Russeau's lofty Enlightenment ideals, his play does, as you might imagine, return Lucretia's story to its Republican roots, the roots that we're

lacking in Shakespeare's telling. But like in Shakespeare's a number of details have been changed for storytelling purposes. Lucretia begins Russeau's story engaged to sexist Tarquinius, but her father breaks it off despite the wishes of the king, and Lucretia instead marries the less powerful Calatin for different political reasons.

There may have once been something between the two, but Lucretia tells her handmaiden that she prefers quote the constant and peaceful love of Coltan to the fiery passions of Sextus. Referring to Tarquin still, she prays, quote, O God who sees my heart, clarify my judgment. Guarantee I do not cease to be virtuous. You know that although I want to be, I will always be if you want it as well. So in this version there is a temptation

to return to Tarquin, but Lucretia fights against it. Because this is theater, we're given a story that's a more dramatic and be an introduction to a number of additional moving parts that weren't present in any other version. In Rousseau's version, Tarquin has promised that he'll arrange a marriage between two lovers, his servant and Lucretia's handmaiden, if the two of them can arrange a secret meeting between him

and his ex fiancee, Lucretia. Lucretia's maid is wary, believing her lady is quote not capable of feeling anything but for her spouse and her duty. But Tarquin's servant argues that Lucretia only puts up appearances of virtue, and no one would ultimately but virtue above personal passions. While all of that is going on, Brutus is already plotting his

revolution to overthrow the Tarquins. He tries to persuade Colton to join his cause by telling him about how Tarquin is in love with his wife, but Coltan simply tells him quote, I know the virtues of Lucretia's heart. On top of that, Colton fears war and the possibility of anarchy, slavery,

and civil strife after the monarchs are driven out. Lucretius, his father in law, accuses him of being childish, taking the easy way out by continuing to live in comfort under tyrants rather than fighting for the greater good of liberty and equality. The rest of Rousseau's play is only available to us in fragments. Tarquin laments that Lucretia's quote virtue deserving of adoration by the gods has been soiled by him quote the violist of mortals, before in a twist,

he kills himself. It's unclear in this version whether rape or consensual sex happened, but Lucretia ultimately kills herself as well. In Rousseau's autobiographical work Confessions, he describes his reasoning for writing about Lucretia quote, I planned a prose tragedy on no less a subject than Lucrece, with which I had some hope of overcoming derision, even though I ventured to bring that unfortunate woman back to the stage when she

had become an impossible subject for the French theater. He was referring to two failed productions by French playwrights, first Jean Francois Rignard and Charles de Francais, who had produced comedies of the story, notes, which I have to imagine is probably why they didn't work. Rousseau instead believed Lucretia could be a quote useful heroine with whom Parisian audiences could identify. Melissa M. Mathis, in her book The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republics, writes that quote.

For Rousseau, the story of the rape of Lucretia is in part an apt encapsulation of deterioration and renewal, an allegory for the loss and potential rebirth of the Republic. And for Rousseau, women are the perfect emblem of both corruption and the possibility of renewal. Who else in eighteenth century French society has fallen further than women, specifically the bourgeois women of the salons. Yet upon whom else can

the possibility for renewal be placed? Even the wretched can be redeemed, made into the virtuous nursemaids of the republic. Surely there is still reason to believe in the possibility of a Republican rebirth.

of the nouveau bourgeois that Rousseau detested. He, like the bourgeois, is absorbed in his own comfort, reluctant to give up his privileges even for the greater good. In Rousseau's version, we don't see Lucretia's body weaponized as literally as in the others, but it's still used as a tool, only this time for Tarquin's redemption. Tarquin is so horrified by what he has done, whether it was tempting Lucretia or assaulting her, that he is driven to kill himself, as

she usually exclusively is. In the wake of his transgression, he realizes that he is the vilest of mortals, reaching a quite literal moment of enlightenment, his violation of Lucretia was his path to redemption. Lucretia, for her part, kills herself in one part to preserve her virtue, but also because of Quote having shared in the crime. Because these parts of the play are only available to us as fragments, it's hard to do a complete analysis, but it does

present an interesting contrast with Augustine. Augustine believed Lucretia killed herself because she was guilty of desiring Tarquin, and therefore she was unworthy of pagan admiration. Rousseau believes that she potentially killed herself for the same reasons, but he presents it as heroic. There's not a sense that killing herself is purifying her body and her country, as there was in the original version, but rather the larger idea that the republic can still be born from an imperfect mother.

But no matter which narrative we look at from any date, place, or time, Lucretia is always the pretext rather than the agent. Her value is mostly that of symbol. In some of these tellings, she's given a greater inner life, a richer carecterzation, but it's always to serve the ultimate goal of saying something about the place and time in which her story is being retold. It's difficult to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this episode, who is Lucretia really?

Because she's something different to every writer that she's been the subject of. Maybe there isn't even a real Lucretia at all. But that's also a question that's impossible to answer ultimately. For better or for worse, Lucretia exists, but she exists as legend. That's the story of Lucretia and the many, many ways she's been interpreted over the course of history. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break for a very important artistic interpretation of Lucretia by a woman.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a Baroque painter, the first woman to become a member of the Academia in Florence, perhaps best known for her paintings of Judith, the Jewish heroine. Not only did several of her paintings focus on Judith, but Lucretia was also a subject that Artemisia returned to multiple times. Her sixteen twenty five portrait of Lucretia, fittingly entitled Lucretia, shows a well known scene with new nuance. Lucretia is moments from suicide, her left hand clutching the knife and

her right hand clutching her breast. She's disheveled in the aftermath of her assault, but the painting doesn't feel erotic as it sometimes does in the hands of other masters. She is not fair haired or flawless. Her brow is tightly wrinkled and The distress is evident on her face, and she looks up in contemplation. We see the defined muscles of her legs and the strength in her hands.

There is clear pain, but there's also clear strength. When Artemisia was seventeen, she herself was raped by another Italian painter, Agostino Tassi, and when the case went to trial on the grounds of Tossi dishonoring her family, Artemisia was subjected to torture during her testimony to prove she was telling

the truth. Her experiences have affected the way art historians view her paintings, and while many have believed she sought to portray vengeance, a newer school of thought argues that what Artemisia was actually interested in was showing strength in her female heroines. There are even some art historians who see similarities between Artemisia's self portraits, one entitled quite Poignantly Self Portrait as a Female Martyr, and her sixteen twenty

five portrait of Lucretia. I encourage you to look at these works for yourself, along with Artemisia's other masterful compositions. She is wonderful both as an artist and just a name that we get to say Artemisia Gentileschi, who ultimately whether or not Artemisia Genta Leschi's past influenced her future decision to paint Lucretia, her perspective introduced a new depth that was lacking amongst her peers.

producers Aaron Manke, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.