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@title{Weaving this all together}

@author{Morgan Lemmer-Webber}

@section{A gap, revisited}

Given the relative scarcity of evidence for Roman textile production in general and women's roles therein more particularly, this study has aimed to present a framework patched together from scraps of evidence. As it is, we know that women from every level of society participated in wool work to some extent. At the base of the labor pyramid were the slaves and servants working either from within or without the @italic{domus} that are commemorated with their job titles. A rung above them were the free and freed- women doing textile production in their own homes to provide clothing for their families, to sell into the market, or both. In higher class households the @italic{matrona} would supervise the textile efforts of her slaves and servants. And at the very top of the social hierarchy were the ladies of the imperial family toiling to provide the emperor Augustus's wardrobe. These glimpses, however, do not give a cohesive explanation of women's roles within the process. Because of the scattered nature of this evidence, much inference is required in order to get a clear picture of what women's roles in textile production may have been. Seen as a whole, this evidence leaves gaps that in themselves serve as evidence for the missing pieces.

In choosing the case study sites for this dissertation, I looked for those which had multiple types of evidence for textile production.  However, in analyzing the available evidence, each site fulfilled a different role by mapping to one of the larger synthesis chapters. This is likely largely a matter of survival bias.  In Karanis, we don't have commercial evidence because the public areas of the city were not preserved.  Since Ephesus and Trier have both been continuously inhabited, the nature of the excavations cannot be as consistent as an archaeologist might prefer.  This, of course, is the negative space of evidence, but the positive is the contrast: Karanis had a wealth of domestic evidence, Trier provided mostly commercial records, and Ephesus gave grounding for a performative analysis.  What has survived from each site lays a foundation from which our analysis may proceed.


@section{Patterns, evidence, and observations}

@subsection{Domestic and commercial: contrast or complement?}

The division of production between 'domestic' and 'commercial' contexts -- a practice I've clearly perpetuated in this study -- is probably more arbitrary than it would have been in the ancient world. Just because tools were discovered in domestic contexts does not preclude the possibility that home production could play a part in the wider commercial framework. The reasons for this division in modern scholarship are largely based on three factors: the general association between women, textile production and domesticity; the association of women with the private sphere and men with the public sphere; and modern conceptions of industry.

The association between women, textiles, and domesticity in the ancient world is attested to in literature, mythology, and epitaphs lauding women's productivity and virtue. This construction of wool work distilled into an attribute of the hardworking housewife is seemingly substantiated archaeologically by the sizable quantities of textile tools found in domestic contexts at sites across the Roman empire including Karanis and Ephesus. In contrast, centralized production centers remain much more difficult to locate archaeologically. While there are notable exceptions, such as @index['("fullery/fullonica")]{fulleries} and dye shops which require purpose-made installations and are therefore archaeologically identifiable, even these are often connected to domestic structures. In spite of written sources referring to textile based professional associations and the @italic{Gynaecaeum} or weaving-house as we find for the city of Trier, few corresponding archaeological sites have been located with large enough quantities of @index['("spindle/whorl")]{spindle whorls} or @index['("loom weight")]{loom weights} to be considered weaving or spinning warehouses.

If we consider our knowledge of what types of materials survive in which settings, this is not surprising. With the exception of arid regions such as Karanis, wood and other perishable materials tend to rot over the passage of time. This absence of evidence leads to two significant possibilities. First, that there were more centralized production centers but, due to survival bias, they might not be easily located.@footnote{ Two beam upright looms would have been made nearly entirely out of wood and therefore leave no discernable archaeological evidence and wooden @index['("spindle/whorl")]{spindle whorls} would have been a more cost efficient choice in a workshop over the stone, glass, or ivory @index['("spindle/whorl")]{spindle whorls} that are often found in domestic and funerary contexts.} Second, that spinning and weaving was done within the home and sold piecemeal into a larger commercial network. There is no need to believe that these two paths are mutually exclusive; mixed commercial and cottage industries were common in the western world up until the industrial revolution.
@;TODO add citation

In general, research in this field has skewed towards the missing commercial production center thesis, and also that this work was done by men. This is linked to a dichotomy which assumes that domestic contexts are associated with women and commercial contexts are associated with men. However, we do have specific evidence for female job titles related to textile production. The @index['("quasillaria/spinner")]{spinner (@italic{quasillaria}}), is the only title exclusively applied to women. It is also the largest production bottleneck in the process considering that it takes far more time to spin a pound of wool than it does to weave the same quantity. Spinning, therefore, would have comprised of the largest portion of the labor force. It is disingenuous to assume that the textile economy relied on otherwise unattested male @index['("quasillaria/spinner")]{spinners} when the shape of the missing evidence suggests female @index['("quasillaria/spinner")]{spinners} providing this labor for commercial as well as domestic textile production.@footnote{Nonetheless, some readers may see the phrase "shape of the missing evidence" scattered repeatedly throughout this dissertation and assert that this is not "proof".  But an absence of proof leads to assumptions in both cases, so the question is, where is "the burden of proof"?  Why then is the default for the burden of proof to assume that women @italic{did not} play a role?}

Other positions within textile production were filled by both men and women including: @index['("textor/weaver" "textrix")]{weaver (@italic{textor/textrix}}), supervisor of textile production (@italic{@index['("lanipendius" "lanipenda")]{lanipendius/lanipenda}}), and tailor (@italic{@index['("vestiarius" "vestiaria")]{vestiarius/vestiaria}}).@footnote{ CIL 6:6339-6346 (MS); Treggiari 1976, 83. CIL XIII 558} The gender and identity of the people filling these roles would be dependent on a great number of factors. People who were commemorated with job titles likely fell into one of two categories (or a blend of the two): either they were professionals working for the public; or they were working in a household with enough slaves or servants that they have specialized duties. It is likely that there were far more slaves that did spinning than we have evidence for because most households likely had fewer slaves that performed a greater variety of duties. These people likely spun and wove but wouldn't be commemorated as @index['("quasillaria/spinner")]{spinners} or @index['("textor/weaver")]{weavers}. At this level, there was likely less distinction between gender division and whichever slaves were available for performed the tasks that needed to be done. However, the gender of the servants also would have depended on the affluence of the household as male slaves were more expensive than female slaves and the wages for free/freed- men would be higher than for free/freed- women. Therefore in most households domestic tasks such as spinning, weaving, and even the supervision of textile work would most likely have been done by female labor because it was more cost efficient. The division between domestic and comercial production is also blurred with the question of division of labor within a household. The monument of the Statilii, for example, commemorates eight @index['("quasillaria/spinner")]{spinners} and four @index['("textor/weaver")]{weavers} within a single household. With so many individuals performing textile-related, it is unlikely that they are merely producing for household consumption.@footnote{ @italic{CIL} 6:6339-6346 (MS) as cited in @cite[Treggiari1976 82]. See also the graffito from the house of Eudoxus in Pompeii which lists ten women's names alongside the quantity of wool to be spun for warp and weft threads.@cite[Moeller1969 566]}

@;; And now the prostitution part

This permeability between domestic and commercial space is visible in another job which has also historically always been available to women: prostitution.  Prostitution can be done anywhere (hopefully with some level of privacy, but not necessarily), it involves a commercial transaction, and while this is a job that could (and has) been performed by any gender, it is primarily performed by and associated with women.  

@;; - can be done anywhere
@;;   - brothels exist
@;;   - but there are fairly few of them
@;;   - prostitution can happen in a cemetery or in a back alley on a prostitute's house or in a brothel.
@;;   - It's the same basic commercial transaction no matter where it's happening

Like spinning, prostitution can be done anywhere.  We have evidence of purpose-built brothels (see Pompeii), but not many.  But the number of brothels we have would not have fulfilled the needs of the market, so what accounts for the overflow?  Prostitution can occur in private and domestic residences (of the clients or of the service-providers), or in cemeteries or in back alleys.@footnote{ Juv. 3.66; Ov., @italic{Am.} 3.I4; Mart. I.34. @cite[Flemming1999 48]}  No matter the location, the act of prostitution remains a commercial transaction: a service rendered in exchange for compensation.

@;; - social status
@;;   - courtesan class (likely a woman who owns her own home, and the prostitution happens in the house... or in esteemed social residences) [parallel: matrona]
@;;   - the brothel where you have a purpose-built structure [parallel: weaving/spinning warehouse, though we're uncertain if this exists in ancient rome]
@;;   - lower classes of prostitutes, most likely happening within cemeteries and back alleys [there's no doubt that spinning has been done residentially in many homes, spinster, slaves]

However, the perception of grace and dignity assigned to the women who perform these jobs is not equal throughout society.  We have a wide range of social statuses.  On the higher end for prostitution, we have the @italic{meritrix,} The Roman equivalent of the courtesan or @italic{hetaira}.@cite-footnote[Flemming1999 41] Successful courtesans might have their own (sometimes even luxurious) private residences, where they both lived and worked and saw clients.  The parallel for textile work would be the @italic{matrona} and her family members dutifully spinning and weaving for the family.  At this level of social status, a woman might be received with grace and dignity, and may even achieve a degree of financial independence.  The middle ground for prostitution is likely the brothel, and weaving/spinnning, the warehouse: a centralized location for working professionals.  We have strong evidence for the existence of brothels or @italic{lupanaria}; the existence of textile warehouse production centers is mostly speculative.  In the lower classes of prostitution there are slaves within the household (who very well may also be those doing the spinning and performing sexual labor with the master of the house) but also those working on the street. The Latin term @italic{lupae} encompasses these lower tiers of prostitutes and evokes a level of contempt.@cite-footnote[Flemming1999 48]  One thing that remains common across all of these are that spinning and prostitution remain available work for women to produce income for themselves and their families.  (However spinning does have one advantage that it is not physically demanding or reliant on youth therefore one ages out of less quickly.)

@;; - The places these actually intersect
@;;   - neither spinning nor prostitution have to be full time jobs
@;;   - they can be done concurrently
@;;   - spinning hetaira on greek pottery
@;;   - while prostitution is well accepted as a job available to women, spinning has the advantage that one ages out of it less quickly (footnote: and we also have evidence through history that this has been the pipeline of women's work... it's the task that can be done after one has aged out of sexual work)

While these two professions can be looked at in parallel, there are likely places where they actually intersected as well.  Neither spinning nor prostitution must be a full time job and can even "fill in the gaps" within the disrupted timestructures of domestic work. Gerhard Rodenwaldt introduced the idea of the idea of the "Spinning @italic{Hetairai}" as an interpretation of representations on Greek vases of women spinning in sexually provocative poses or even nude, often with a male audience who is often offering her a purse or gift.@cite-footnote[Rodenwaldt1932] The purse or gift serves as a visual representation of the commercial transaction.  This interpretation posits that in the downtime between customers, Hetairai spun or wove as a supplemental form of income.@cite-footnote[Barber1994 278] These representations reflect the pattern of a fetishization of women's labor which is pervasive through history.@cite-footnote[Fischer2013 231] We saw this trend above in the story of Lucretia, who incited Sextus Tarquinius's lust by dutifully spinning into the evening,@footnote{ Ovid, @italic{Fasti} 2.768-772} and is prevalent in sixteenth and seventeenth century print culture.@footnote{ For example, a Dutch engraving which shows a girl spinning accompanied by a sexually suggestive inscription, see: @cite[Postrel2020 47]} 

Prostitution is a job that monetizes attraction, youth, and beauty.  Therefore, the earning potential for prostitutes diminishes over time... but textile work, and spinning especially, remain available as sources of income that can be performed.  There is evidence that women have frequently spun in parallel to prostitution throughout history, and have increasingly transitioned to that role as they age.  If we can acknowledge that women played a large role in the economy of prostitution in the Roman empire, why has women's labor in the textile economy been minimized within the ancient Roman empire?

@;; - along with the parallels come contrasts
@;; - the most notable contrast is in perception
@;; - while both have a range of positions with a spectrum of social acceptance
@;; - the sum of prostitution is of negativity and distain
@;; - the sum of textile production is of positivity and virtue

The parallels between prostitution and textile production only run so far, however.  As occupations, both sexual labor and textile labor both have a wide hierarchy of positions.  Nonetheless, the sum of prostitution's social recognition is of negativity and cultural disdain.  The sum of textile work's social recognition is positive, deeply rooted in cultural ideas of feminine virtue.


@subsection{Cultural threads}

Moving from production to cultural meaning is a move from practical concerns to social narratives.  We have glimpses of the varied ceremonies, rituals, rites, and traditions where textile production was performatively used as an allusion to feminine virtue.

From birth to death, the threads of textile production flow across the cultural narratives of women's lives throughout history.  Most of these associations with feminine virtue hinge on the idea of the productive housewife embodied in the story of Lucretia and echoed in epitaphs lauding the deceased textile skills alongside her other duties as a wife. The incorporation of handmade textiles into the bridal attire and the use of the @index['("spindle/whorl")]{spindle} and @index['("distaff")]{distaff} in the marriage procession demonstrates her ability to contribute to the household via her skills right from the start of her journey as a wife. The regular use of textile implements as grave goods as well as textile implements depicted on gravestones follow the @italic{matrona} through to the end of that journey. The discovery of ornamental bone @index['("distaff")]{distaffs} of a type typically associated with burials in the domestic context of the terrace houses at Ephesus implies that there may have been a physical connection between these two performative events. Perhaps these objects held social significance and were used for ritual textile production throughout a woman's life and ultimately were buried with her.


@section{Mending the gap}

@;All accounts of history spin a narrative. In history, our story must be constructed with the information we know, the gaps filled with our assumptions.

Associations between women and textile production as emergent cultural phenomena predated the Greek and Roman worlds, were likewise prevalent in cultures that were not in contact with European society, and continued through most of history.  Even now, when textile manufacturing has hit a level of industrialization that the workforce isn't terribly gendered, the hobby tradition of textile crafts continues to be skewed toward women.  The modern equivalent of the @index['("quasillaria/spinner")]{'spinster'} (a woman who spins thread as a means of income, colloquially used as a pajorative in American and British culture to refer to older, unmarried ladies) can be seen in places like Etsy or Ravelry where a higher proportion of women than men bring in supplemental income or even make their living by selling textile crafts, tools, and patterns.  And yet even now, the notion of women's role within textiles once we move to consideration of fields as esteemed as commerce and economics is generally overlooked and dismissed.@footnote{One need only look at computer programming to see a field where women were the primary workers (particularly since computer programming was perceived as secretarial work) up until the point where it was considered serious business, and then were quickly written out and pushed aside.  Final published copy will include more refrences and may expand on these observations since much of early computer programming and hardware design had significant overlap with textile work, but here is a simple start:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/magazine/women-coding-computer-programming.html (@bold{TODO:} **add more looking at the recent F&C show notes)}

The central question of this dissertation has been: what roles did women play in textile production within the Roman Empire?  Throughout this work I've spun a narrative navigating across the literary construction of the domestic housewife, the @index['("quasillaria/spinner")]{spinner} providing thread for the textile industry, and the performative use of spinning and weaving as an attribute of femininity in the face of consistent, yet consistently minimal amounts of evidence.  Therefore, I return to the motif that has appeared throughout this dissertation: sometimes the hole that delineates the absence of evidence is itself the shape of the evidence.  Let us be explicit then: for the majority of the space where we lack definitive proof, this hole is women-shaped.  Therefore we pick out the likely missing piece: women provided a significant commercial and domestic contribution to the economy of textile production.  This is not a binary choice, as made clear through the model of the cottage industry.  This is carried forward then into the performative roles of women in ceremonial contexts and social narratives.

The tendency of scholars has historically been to perpetuate the gender biases of the past, cutting women from the very thread that they have spun.  At the fraying edges of this social fabric, the ghosts of these women speak to us.  Yet we are not doomed to repeating past mistakes; we may mend the rips and gaps of history going forward.  And indeed, progress is happening.  The last fifty years of scholarly research has made great strides towards writing women back into history; I hope that through this dissertation I, in some small way, have done my part to stitch this story back together.

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