ABSTRACT
The surviving literary texts were written overwhelmingly by men, that is, by fathers and sons. Even when they do discuss women in families, they concentrate on fathers and daughters or mothers and sons rather than on the wholly female world of mothers and daughters. It would be difficult to write a book as substantial as Hallett's (1984) on mothers and daughters in Roman society, although Phillips' (1978) paper is a useful study of relations between mothers and adult daughters in the Roman elite (and see Hallett 1984: 261-2). Cicero, who provides an interesting glimpse into his relationship with his son Marcus and a more detailed picture of relations between Quintus junior and senior (his nephew and brother), writes only incidentally of relations between Atticus' wife Pilia and her daughter Attica or even Terentia and Tullia (his own wife and daughter). His feelings for Tullia are plain enough but it is necessary to read between the lines of reported movements and second-hand messages to appreciate the close association of mother and daughter. Tacitus (Ann. 11. 37-8) tells us that Domitia Lepida had
fallen out with her daughter Messalina but hurried to her side on her downfall in AD 48 and saw to her burial. This bald statement bears no comparison with his detailed treatment of the breach between Nero and Agrippina or of Tiberius and Livia. Biographers noted the influence of an exemplary mother on a great man. They did not record the lives of great women, save as such mothers.
