• 1 I am very grateful to Dunstan Lowe, Patty Baker and Ada Nifosi, as well as a referee for their hel (...)
• 2 When Nutton (2009, p. 161) dates the first signs of transfer of Greek medicine to Rome. The roles (...)
• 3 Those bodily fluids capable to influence nature are briefly listed in Gourevitch (1984, p. 102) an (...)

1Since 1993 and the ground-breaking thesis of French historian Nicole Boëls-Janssen, it is rare to find publications that discuss the powers of female bodies, and in particular of menstrual blood in ancient Rome.1 There is no mention of this blood in any of our pre-Imperial sources, perhaps due to the limited range of evidence rather than a lack of interest from the Romans. However, each and every Latin author examined in this article has acknowledged their debts to foreign influences, especially Hellenistic philosophy and medicine which started to flourish as early as the 5^th century BC. Even though these works contain numerous allusions to Greco-Egyptian practices, it does not mean similar ones were unknown or employed elsewhere in the Roman world at the same time (Aubert 1989, p. 422). As such, this paper analyses how menstrual blood was understood by the Romans, potentially as early as the 3^rd century BC.2 Unfortunately, Boëls-Janssen’s thesis is also one of the very few works that have discussed both the dangerous and beneficial properties of this blood. In her Introduction dedicated to women’s apotropaic powers, she explains how “certaines parties du corps féminin semblent avoir été l'objet de précautions ou de superstitions particulières” (1993, p. 4). Indeed, the female nature and its unique powers were associated with several bodily fluids such as urine and saliva, but also the intriguing blood that flowed out of women’s bodies every month.3 Following in her footsteps, this paper aims to examine the social representations falling upon menstrual blood, as well as its uses symbolizing one of the most powerful feminine insignia in Ancient Rome.

• 4 For a summary of key primary sources on the powers of menstruation in Ancient Rome, see Gourevitch (...)
• 5 Pliny (27, 78) writes: […] item novella tactu in perpetuum laedi, rutam et hederam res medicatissi (...)

5The most extensive discussions concerning the uses and values attributed to menstrual blood come from Pliny (7, 63-65 with 19, 176-177 and 28, 77-80) and Columella (On Agriculture 11, 3, 51). Both authors at length write about the harmful and negative properties of this type of blood. According to Pliny (28, 77), this substance contained outstanding powers that had no limit (post haec nullus est modus). Natural catastrophes such as hailstorms, whirlwinds and lightnings could be driven away by a menstruating woman. Menstrual blood could also sour crops, wither fruits and vegetables, kill bees, drive dogs insane, dull the brightness of mirrors, blunt razors, turn linens black, and rust iron and bronze.4 No contact with women’s blood was required to activate its powers. Columella (11, 3, 50) tells us that a menstruating woman could kill a young plant by merely looking at it (visu quoque suo novellos fetus necabit). Finally, this fluid was capable of destroying what could have overcome its most dangerous powers, in particular plants such as rue and ivy, described as having “the highest curative power”.5 Therefore, a bleeding woman represented a latent threat to humanity.

• 6 The most comprehensive study of pollution in the classical world remains Parker (1996). Concerning (...)

6In addition to these dreadful properties, scholars have debated the importance of menstruation and its polluting capacity in terms of ritual power (Parker 2007; Lennon 2010 contra Beck 2004, esp. p. 509 and Bodiou 2017). Applying Douglas’ distinction between ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ blood, Lennon (2014, p. 90) argues that human blood was the “ultimate matter out of place”. It belonged within the body and was a source of power when shed. The blood that leaves the confines of a human body was worrying because it symbolised death (Gourevitch 1993, p. 513). Hence menstruation, like any bodily substance, became a symbolic anomaly when leaving and transgressing the boundaries of the body (Douglas 1966). However, not every anomaly should be labelled as polluting. Instead, they are all powerful while their negative or positive valence comes from cultural constructs (Buckley and Gottlieb 1988, p. 27; Beard 1980, p. 20, n. 70). Building on these theoretical frameworks, historians have attempted to apply these ideas to antiquity. While modern anthropological approaches to concepts of purity and pollution have often been appropriated by those studying the Greek world (Lennon 2014, p. 58; Blonski 2017, p. 22), this is not yet fully true about Rome.6

• 7 According to the physician Soranus of Ephesus (Gynecology 1, 36, translation by Shelton A.): ἄριστ (...)
• 8 Later on (28, 83-84), he explains that fevers can be cured by sexual intercourse under the conditi (...)

7In the Graeco-Roman world, these anomalies were considered dangerous, and it has been argued that menstrual blood was perceived as a highly polluting substance (Lennon 2014, p. 56-58, 84 and 87). In many ancient societies, women were considered unclean until their menstruation had definitely stopped, hence the female body carried “une tendance particulière à réunir les plus grandes potentialités de « souillure »” (Blonski 2015, p. 57). In the Greek world, scholars have attempted to demonstrate that bleeding women were excluded from certain religious settings (Parker 2007, p. 121-122 contra Bodiou 2017). This was not the case in the Roman world. For instance, Roman sources do not present menstruating women as threats to their husbands. Some of them even recommended their readers to have intercourse with their wives during this time of the month to increase their chance of conceiving ; a recommendation that is nevertheless interpreted as an exceptional case by Gourevitch (1984, p. 95-96).7 Pliny (28, 44) also seems to believe menstruation was not always a contaminating substance, writing that many illnesses were cured “by either the first sexual intercourse, or the first menstruation” (multa genera morborum primo coitu solvuntur primoque feminarum mense aut).8 Its powers were also deeply connected with the symbolic notion of fertility and life itself. It was a natural process that should only be feared if it failed to occur (King 1994, p. 108; Bonnard 2013, p. 30).

• 9 For instance, the flaminica Dialis offered a ram to Jupiter on every nundina—every eight days—and (...)
• 10 Lennon (2014, p. 53) explains that diseases were not tolerated for religious officials, thus expla (...)
• 11 Soranos also reported that Diocles believed menstruation happened concomitantly between women, wit (...)

8Nevertheless, menstrual taboos came into existence to protect men from dangers they believed to be real; dangers embodied by bleeding women. In Antiquity, the removal of polluting substances required the performance of specific purificatory acts designed to expel them beyond the spatial boundaries of society (Lennon 2014, p. 16). Consequently, scholars have usually presumed that women in such states were forbidden to enter consecrated temples or to participate in rituals (Lennon 2014, p. 57). In the Greek world, inscriptions were laid down around the entrances of sanctuaries to control access and avoid any risk of pollution (Augier 2017, p. 95). Henceforth, if the menstrual flux was indeed conceived as a contaminating substance, it then had to be excluded from sacred spaces. However, these ideas are again not found in the Roman world. The city of Rome and its religious protection required that some priestesses performed daily rituals in some of the holiest areas of the city, priestesses mainly belonging to the prestigious College of the Pontiffs: the Vestal Virgins within the aedes of Vesta, the flaminica Dialis in the flaminia (the house of the flaminical couple), and the regina sacrorum inside the regia (DiLuzio 2016).9 Most of these women occupied their function when they were the most fertile and capable of producing children. In the case of the Vestal Virgins, their duties started at the end of childhood, when their bodies became fertile, and ended when approaching menopause. Cleanliness was indeed a significant pre-requisite for communication with the divine, especially for those acting as a medium: the priests and priestesses (Blonski 2015, p. 57). Therefore, if we accept the view that menstruating women were inherently and continually generating an impurity, priestesses would have been kept away from temples and altars. Who would have then replaced them every month during their menstruating period? In the exceptional case of illness, Pliny the Younger (Letters, 7, 19, 1-2) says that a Vestal was permitted to leave the precinct of the Atrium.10 However, it seems unlikely that they would have been replaced every month when menstruating. The proximity between the Vestals, living together in the Atrium Vestae, increased their chances of having synchronised menstrual cycles (McClintock 1971, p. 244-245), and therefore reduced the ability to find someone to replace them.11

• 12 Some have argued that the unique and ambiguous status of these priestesses prevent us from conside (...)
• 13 Parker (1996, p. 102) has pointed out that menstrual blood was barely discussed in ancient Greek t (...)
• 14 Lennon (2010 and 2014, p. 87) had already noted the lack of religious prohibition on menstruating (...)

9The case of the Vestal Virgins is revelatory.12 These priestesses watched over the sacred hearth of Vesta every day, which included days they menstruated. While fire was one of the most purificatory substance in the ancient world (Roux 1988, p. 63), it could not overcome the powers of menstrual discharges (Pliny 28, 80). Thus, it is surprising that bleeding women were allowed to approach sacred fires if their blood was indeed a threat. Purity was a key condition to meet before transferring anything across a religious boundary (Lennon 2014, p. 45). If menstruation held a symbolic and polluting danger for the city, how can we explain the Vestal Virgins’ participation in numerous cleansing rituals such as those of the Argei and of the temple of Vesta herself (purgamina)? Many questions arise but no significant answer can be offered for now as our sources do not debate such issues. Cicero and Ovid, whose works provide invaluable insights into the religious practices of the Romans, do not specify any menstrual restrictions in their writings; and when Cato the Elder (On Agriculture, 143) details how a proper matrona should worship the household gods, he does not mention what would happen if she came to menstruate or fall ill.13 Ultimately, there is no convincing evidence that there existed in ancient Rome a ban on menstruating women exercising their religious duties, and menstruation appears as a substance that did not always create an impurity or generate a blemish on people, places, and objects.14

• 15 Richlin (1997, p. 200) has already stressed how Pliny, in his discussions of the female body, seem (...)

13The large majority of the authors discussing the powers of menstrual blood appear to have also believed in the truthfulness of their statements.15 Pliny (28, 85-86) clearly believed in some of the claimed properties of menstrual blood. Some views are even presented as based on experiment. Columella (10, 337-341) implies that his knowledge of farming came from first-hand observations by reliable sources. According to Richlin (1997, p. 204), he refers to farmers who reportedly tried several measures before finding appropriate remedies to the plagues that devastated their fields. Pliny (28, 29) further implies that some practices were based on empirical evidence:

• 16 A century ago, a duo of pharmacologists had authenticated the observations made about a menstrual (...)

14Consequently, beliefs in the powers associated with menstruation might have occurred from ‘scientific’ experiences, in complement to long-lasting superstitions. For instance, modern science has attempted to demonstrate the existence of a powerful and toxic menotoxin (menstrual toxin).16 While the scientifically established properties of the menstrual flux were perhaps examined and tested by Roman farmers, the same discussions in botanical and agronomical works of Pliny and Columella “étaient à la portée du plus grand nombre, dans une société agricole” (Moreau 2006, p. 330). Thus, we can postulate that some of the views shared by our authors about woman’s blood might have been accepted by the community.

• 17 For instance, Scribonius Largus (17) discarded those who drank the blood of gladiators, explaining (...)

18Even though Greek and Latin physicians agreed that such practices did not belong to the medical arts, scholars nowadays share the view that there was no clear division between folk-medicine based on natural remedies (physika) and semi-magical cures before the end of Antiquity (Gaillard-Seux 2014, p. 202).17 Both of them were part of a set of beliefs focusing on the natural world and the humans’ role within it. Thus, in addition to the concoction of cures and remedies, this substance could also protect access to specific spaces. According to Pliny (28, 85-86), thresholds that had been put in contact with menstrual discharges were protected against supernatural danger:

• 18 Pliny provides many examples illustrating the connection between thresholds and magic: brides had (...)
• 19 Many Roman authors have stressed the collective fear to have spirits haunting the vicinity of thei (...)
• 20 About the connection between αἷμα (‘blood’) and λύματα (‘dirt’) at the origin of the Latin term (p (...)
• 21 In her discussion of the various Latin terms designating menstruation, Gourevitch (1984, p. 94) no (...)

19A few lines later (28, 104), the blood of a hyena is introduced as a prophylactic substance applied to doors to protect them against witchcraft. Doorposts appear as scenes curiously valued by the Romans to perform magic rites.18 They were also sacred places in front of which sacrifices and burials were practiced in Rome as early as the 4th century BC (Ogle 1911, p. 265-270). Doorposts also held a significant role in Roman superstitions: they were believed to be haunted by spirits (Ogle 1911), especially family spirits, and substances such as dog bile and snake’s heads were applied onto thresholds to ward off ghosts (Pliny 29, 67 and 30, 82).19 Therefore, by acting as a magical screen, menstruation contributed to the protection of these sites, as well as those within. To make sense of such practice, Lennon (2010, p. 79-80 and 2014, p. 85-86) has re-appropriated Douglas’ theory of bodily pollution in an attempt to overcome the anomaly presented by the use of woman’s blood, a substance he solely conceives as contaminating.20 Because thresholds were vulnerable to pollution, “one would expect the slightest contact between a doorway and menstrual blood to cause a serious pollution” (Lennon 2014, p. 85). He thus presents the Roman domus as a representation of the human body itself. Menstrual blood would then be solely dangerous for the ‘outside-body’ as the fluid flows outwards, not inward. While protecting the inside of the house, it pours its devastating properties on the outside. Accordingly, the act of applying (tactis) menstrual blood on a door might have been part of purificatory rites.21 Thresholds were vulnerable to blemishes and according to Ovid (Fasti, 6, 155), if defiled they had to be purified, notably by throwing water on them. Like dog’s bile and water, menstruation thus appears as a prophylactic and purificatory substance used for the same outcome: to protect places from evil spirits (Ogle 1911, p. 254-259). Therefore, the influence of Hellenistic schools of thought does not imply that practices reported by Latin authors were ignored by the people, while the majority of our sources seems to believe in the ambivalent powers of menstrual blood. We have also seen how this blood did not always generate a stain but could also prevent one.

• 22 Gourevitch (1993, p. 514-515) explains that menstrual blood was perceived as a malevolent and dang (...)

20On a broader scale, the many uses of menstrual blood, and more generally the female body, were connected to a system of values shared by the Roman community. The healthy body of a woman had a civic significance: it demonstrated her ability to replenish the citizen body (Dean-Jones 1989, p. 191). According to Hippocrates (Diseases of Women 2, 119), a woman’s health depended on her reproductive activity. Thus, a pregnant woman was a healthy woman (Rousselle 1980, p. 1095; King 1994, p. 108; Bodiou 2017, especially p. 41). Similar views were shared by physicians in the Roman world. For Soranos and Galen, women’s bodies were designed for excess; pregnancy and childbirth redressed the balance by making women healthy again (Felder 2018, p. 48). These theories echo Richlin’s interpretation of women’s bodies as divided according to fluid production (1997, p. 205). Those produced by the lower body could either hurt or help, while those produced by the upper body were only helpful. Based on the Greek concepts of sympathies and antipathies, the fluids of the upper body could also remedy harm caused by those of the lower body; hence Pliny tells us that menstrual blood drove dogs mad but breast milk prevented such effects (7, 65 and 28, 75). This division of bodily fluids that could only be produced by the female body, reflects the social representations of women’s roles in Ancient Rome. The production of a fluid in the lower body (menstrual blood) signified that a woman was not pregnant and therefore did not fulfil her primary function within the community. On the other hand, the production of a fluid in the upper body (breast milk) was a positive sign that she had indeed accomplished her duty. She was either pregnant or had just given birth.22 It is not surprising that in a society with a short life expectancy and high infant mortality, the reproductive functions of women were highly valued. Accordingly, a stigma fell upon those who did not meet such social expectations, who did not employ their powers to benefit society.

• 23 Gourevitch (1984, p. 95) had already noted the absence of visual expressions in the Latin language (...)

21Because it was thought capable of driving animals mad, triggering natural catastrophes and even causing the death of men (Pliny 28, 77), this female blood raised serious concerns for patriarchal authorities. They believed it could undermine social order if uncontrolled. Women were a double source of anxiety, both for their husbands and for those traditions established by men (Staples 1998, p. 61). The failure to control them, their bodies and behaviours, could lead to chaos. Livy (34, 2, 13-14) justifies men’s control over women by explaining that they not only seek freedom from them but also unrestrained liberty (licentia). However, we have already seen that allusions to menstruating women are scattered in our sources. The very mention of menstruation might have been tabooed (Gourevitch 1984, p. 95). According to Richlin (1992, p. 30), terms sharing the root –fa- such as infamis, infamia and nefas—what is ‘unspeakable’—designated things whose very mention would degrade those that pronounced them. Nefas was also employed to denote the result of polluting actions and referred to what should not be spoken about (Lennon 2014, p. 38). Subsequently, I believe this was the case for the menstrual flux, perceived as dangerous when mentioned, unveiled, and exposed.23 And this is evidently what our authors feared: to experience, with their own eyes, its existence in environments where it ought not to be seen. When a Vestal Virgin was found guilty of incestum, she had to be removed from society without being seen. She was transported to the underground chamber, veiled and in a closed litter: her sight could create a symbolic stain (Boëls-Janssen 1993, p. 230). Thus, when hidden, the powers of menstruation remained silent; hence the fact that it did not represent a constant threat to the purity of places and the inhabitants of Rome.

• 24 In his Introduction, Lennon (2014, p. 36-37) argues that encircling a defined space implied the re (...)

22Revealing this blood had to be achieved through carefully organised rituals. In a ceremony destined to protect young seeds from pests, we learn that a menstruating girl had to walk three times around a garden (Columella at 10, 357-368 and 11, 3, 64), or around trees and fields (Pliny at 17, 266-267 and 28, 77-78).24 The ritual also required the girl to expose other parts of her body: when walking around the field, her hair had to be untied and her breast exposed. It is thus, the (almost) entire female body that appears as holding apotropaic powers, and this garden ritual illustrates how women’s behaviour could be closely monitored. Whether hidden or revealed, entirely or only certain parts of it, the powers of the female body could either be suppressed or spread out, hence the significance of regulating their clothing. Not only where women used to be differentiated based on their social status, but distinctive clothes had to be worn to hide such powerful bodies from sight. In religious settings however, the rules were reversed. Women’s hair was sometimes loosened for certain occasions, their feet were revealed in processions to make it rain, and sex workers stripped off their clothes during the annual Floralia (Chavarria 2022). The various uses of menstrual blood and the female body were undoubtedly supervised: they were preferably activated in sacred environments, to contribute to the protection of the pax deorum.

• 25 See also Ann Suter (2015) for a review of the act of anasyrma in the ancient world, especially in (...)

23These powers were not always triggered by menstruation itself. Revealing the female body, or one part of it at any time, was required to activate them. For instance, we are told by Pliny (28, 23 and 26, 93) that a woman who was not menstruating could calm a storm at sea by stripping, and that naked young girls could cure patients with inflamed tumours by applying the back of their hands on cataplasms. Anasyrma, the act of exposing one’s sexual organs (of ‘lifting up’ the clothing), released these powers by revealing what was forbidden to expose (Suter 2015, p. 24). While references to such actions are relatively rare in the Roman world, the garden ritual discussed above fit into this category as our authors clearly detail how a young girl needed to bleed around the fields, and to do so her dress had to be lifted.25 Following King’s definition (1986, p. 62-63), it was an act that released the apotropaic powers of the female body in order to ward off threats. These cases undoubtedly demonstrate how nudity was a prerequisite in procedures that required the female powers to be activated.

• 26 See for instance this spell for a man who wanted to conjure the womb of his wife to be only access (...)

24Consequently, numerous strategies were adopted by the Romans in order to accept and integrate women’s bodies into the community. These controls are presented with contrasting and diverse ways by our main sources. When menstrual blood is depicted as freely employed and in an individualistic manner, its powers are continually depicted as dangerous. Pliny gives explicit details about how this blood threatened men and their creations. Menstruation was deadly for what is grown from the earth and a fatal poison to men (19, 176-177 and 28, 77). On the other hand, if these powers are activated under a strict male supervision with a collective aim such as curing the illnesses of household members or increasing a farm’s productivity (Pliny 28, 82-84; Columella 11, 3, 64), then the outcomes are always presented as positive and beneficial for the whole community. Thus, women could embody menaces to society when menstruating because of the powers associated with a release of this type of blood. However, when the same authors discuss men’s uses of the same substance, the tone of their discourse shifts. Woman’s blood is not presented anymore as an abomination, for example when we read about men adding their wives’ blood to the concoction of ‘love potions’ (Pliny 32, 49-50), or when they try to control the process of conception, both with the objective to ensure their wives’ fidelity.26 These binary and highly subjective views thus need to be carefully examined. Anthropologists have already highlighted our own bias when examining blood taboos: women’s prohibitions are always interpreted as a sign of their inferiority, but when men are those forbidden to have contact with the female sphere, it is again interpreted in the same way (Buckley and Gottlieb 1988, p. 13-14; Stewart and Strathern 2002, p. 349-351). These two kinds of taboos are parallel and yet their explanations differ. Therefore, we cannot be certain that menstrual blood was seen as a fundamentally dreadful substance by every member of the community. However, it is apparent that Roman men were more afraid of its many uses rather than the substance itself.

• 27 Bodiou (2017, p. 34-37) offers a different origin to the same outcome. It was primarily the ‘faili (...)

25However, these normative views attached to menstrual blood were not what were at stake; the problem arose from how these powers were policed and who was controlling them. Whether the state believed in these dangerous properties is not the issue. What truly mattered was to ensure that women remained under men’s supervision. While possessing outstanding powers, woman’s nature was also defined by a certain ‘infirmity’, a weakness of mind which justified their need to be constantly supervised (Chavarria 2022). Because men were biologically different from women, they did not suffer from the same flaws as women. Therefore, women’s bodies had to be strictly supervised by those that were non-female: in other words, the men.27 The presence of powers within women’s bodies is best seen as another excuse to legitimize male control over them (Chavarria 2022): menstrual blood became one of the instruments that had to be regulated by those who did not endure such ‘states’. Woman’s nature, seen as oscillating between its dangerous and good sides, contributed to justifying the various strategies developed by men to integrate female bodies into society without threatening its harmony. When discussing the many virtues of menstrual blood, Lévi-Makarius (1974, p. 29) wrote: