A Dewy Pregnancy: The Pearls of Roman Women

This seminar will make connections between the quintessentially female nature of adornment, the way in which the ancients thought pearls were formed, and the bodies of Roman women. Men were particularly enjoined not to wear pearls in antiquity (e.g. Pliny Nat. 37.14-16), and the gems were considered characteristically female ornaments. I argue that there were four reasons for this. 1. Most jewellery was classified as female and the desire for jewellery was a particularly female trait. 2. Pearls were one of the most expensive items known to the Romans, and by linking them to women Roman moralists were able to discourse at length on what they perceived as women’s extravagance. 3. Pearls were associated with women because the gems were associated with Venus – a goddess worshipped in great numbers by women. 4. The nature of the pearl itself. Pliny, in explaining the origin of pearls, states that oysters ‘when stimulated by the generative season of the year gape open…and are filled with a dewy pregnancy, and subsequently when heavy are delivered, and the offspring of the shells are pearls that correspond to the quality of the dew received (Pliny Nat. 9.107-8). Thus, pearls were perhaps the quintessential female ornament because of how they were perceived to be made.