Wicked Stepmothers in Roman Society and Imagination

Abstract

The wicked stepmother is a figure of considerable importance in Roman literature. Juno and Phaedra provided mythological models, and rhetorical training helped to perpetuate the stereotype. There are superficial resemblances to the wicked stepmother of European folklore, but Roman literature concentrates on one particular form of “wickedness”: the stepmother who deprives her stepson of his paternal inheritance, either for her own benefit or her children's. Classical inheritance law and the structure of the Roman family gave scope for this, but imaginative writers made it an issue of much more importance than the legal texts indicate it ever had.

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