In the journal Nature, researchers announced that they had discovered the identity of the Roman matron depicted in a marble statue found in Chersonesos Taurica, an ancient Roman colony along the Crimean Peninsula outside present-day Sevastopol in 2003.
That year, archaeologists excavated one of the largest residential houses in Chersonesos Taurica. It was centrally located, not far from the ancient colony’s theater and agora. There, they unearthed coins, an a dedicated altar to Artemis and Apollo, 600 years worth of ceramics, and the white marble head.
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The head featured elongated eyes and a Hellenistic hairstyle, and is considered extremely rare. The site yielded only five known fragments of marble sculpture over the last 200 years of excavation. However, researchers were unable to identify her—until now.
Around 140 CE, Chersonesos Taurica was granted eleutheria, the right for the city to independently run its own administrative and legal affairs, mint coins, and levy taxes. In response, the city mounted a statue of a Roman matron named Laodice, who was instrumental in these arrangements.
“The erection of an honorary statue testified to the outstanding services of this person to the city. Like Roman matrons, local women were probably expected to participate in social and political activities. It can be assumed that this was related to the city’s efforts to obtain the status of a liberty city during this period,” lead researcher Elena Klenina explained in the study. However, it remains unclear exactly what role Laodice played in the matter.
Laodice’s identity was rediscovered by researchers at Poland’s Adam Mickiewicz University who found an inscribed pedestal with the name in the archives of the Archaeological Museum in Odessa, Ukraine. She was the wife of city councilman Titus Flavius Parthenokles, who was also a member of one of the city’s most influential families.
The pedestal not only matches the statue’s style, but also dates back to the second quarter of the 2nd century CE. An isotope analysis found that the marble was sourced from the Greek island Paros. It is believed to have been carved in one of Rome’s Eastern provinces or by artisans from that area.
Furthermore, historical records show that only one woman in Chersonesos was honored with a statue during this time.
The quality of the statue and Laodice’s expression indicate her elite status, along with its massive size—it was once more than six-and-a-half feet tall. The back of the statue was left unfinished, as it would have once stood in a niche or alcove, likely in a public setting such as the agora.
More than anything, Klenina added, “the findings of this study have demonstrated that matrons exercised significant influence and played an active role in political life, both within the confines of Rome and beyond its borders in the first centuries AD.”