Women and peace in ancient Rome (2nd c. BC- 2nd c. AC): discourses and practices of gender

This PhD dissertation studies the discourses and practices that linked women with ideas and forms of peace in ancient Rome between the 2nd century BC and the 2nd century AD. The analysis is approached from the perspective of the history of women and gender history, and from the theoretical assumptions of the history of peace, as well as the social and cultural history. The main sources of analysis have been written texts, epigraphy as well as coins and other iconographic expressions. Particularly, it is analysed how peace ideas –polemical and variables character according to different historical moments and spheres of use– were constructed and imagined on the basis of gender, specifically from what was thought of as feminine. From this discursive imaginary, we also delve into how feminine identity, in connection with these ideals of peace, conditioned and encouraged different women to act as promoters and builders of different forms of peace in their families and communities. Likewise, it also explores how this gender identity was represented publicly in their subjectivity and individuality. The main objective is to understand the gender logics on which different, highly processual ideas of peace were built, while recognising women's agency to participate in these feminised discourses and habitus of peace. They were part of these dynamics in accordance with multiple interests, although, in common, their actions improved the vital conditions of their communities. The starting hypothesis is that gender was a constitutive foundation of the imagination and representation of ideas of peace in ancient Rome. That aspect also conditioned how, why, and from what positions women could act on those principles. Applying a gender perspective allows us to identify the particularities, the creativity, the negotiations or even the possibilities of recognition of that relation between women and peace.