"Mulieres etiam aliquot": congiurate, delatrici e violenza politica

This article investigates the involvement of women in conspiracies over the last decades of the Roman Republic through the lens of violence. It discusses different forms of violence that affected female conspirators or informers, such as violent historical backgrounds, portrayals of violent people, violence against women and self-inflicted violence, that feature in three plots dating to the 1st century BCE. Moreover, it considers how women themselves perpetrated violence in the broader conspiracy context and the lack of violence in foiled plots in which women were involved. The scrutiny focuses on women who engaged in Catiline’s conspiracy (such as Sempronia and Fulvia), the plot to murder Caesar (Porcia), and the earliest conspiracy against Octavian (Servilia and Secunda Iunia). This contribution aims at demonstrating that women’s engagement in different forms of violence in conspiracies enabled them to gain political significance.