NO ‘GREAT’ FLAVIAN WOMEN? PROCESSES OF SILENCING IN ANCIENT SOURCES AND (EARLY) MODERN SCHOLARSHIP

Abstract

Researchers routinely stress that, compared to the Julian-Claudian period, the Flavian period had no ‘great women’. But what do these researchers mean by ‘greatness’? This contribution examines processes of inclusion and exclusion of women in ancient, early modern and modern historical narratives about the Flavian period. Drawing on the conceptual frameworks advanced by Linda Nochlin and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, the article argues for more complex and more diverse grand narratives about Flavian women: instead of continuing the practice of making these women ‘invisible’, we would gain more by focusing on the subtleties of the act of silencing in both past and present.