To His Ancilla

On the Inscribed Snake Bracelet from Moregine, Italy

Figure 1.  Inscribed gold snake armband from Pompeii, 1st cen. CE. Pompeii Archaeological Site. (Image credit: Gary Todd, PDM).

In the year 2000, excavations in Moregine, Italy, just south of Pompeii, revealed what appears to be two adults and three adolescents who died while trying to flee the eruption of the volcano, Mt. Vesuvius, in 79 CE. One of the adults, identified as a woman, was found with several gold jewelry pieces, one of which was a bracelet in the common shape of a coiled snake with engraved scales and glass paste for the eyes (Figures 1 & 3).  The interior of the bracelet was inscribed in fine punches with the words:

DOM(I)NUS ANCILLAE SUAE

The Latin phrase can be translated into English as, “From a master (dominus) to his own female slave (ancillae suae).” The Latin word, ancilla, not only refers to an enslaved woman, but one who worked inside the Roman household, as opposed to in agricultural labor.

It is difficult to say how widespread the practice of adorning female household slaves was. Kelly Olson, who has written extensively on Greco-Roman dress and ornamentation, says, “Slave women were clad in the tunic, but beyond that appearance would depend on the job the ancillawas employed in; the status and generosity of the master or mistress; and whether or not he or she wished to advertise their wealth on the slave’s body” (Olson 2008: 43).

Some wall paintings from Pompeii offer viewers an idealized version of domestic slavery, with a number of ancillae attending their mistresses in richly dyed tunics and adorned with jewelry(Figure 2). Though prevalent in some paintings, it is unlikely that such images reflect reality. Enslaved people in the household, meanwhile, could easily measure the painted representations against their daily lived experiences and note the differences.

Figure 2. Roman fresco depicting an ancilla in a purple tunic wearing a gold bracelet. From the House of the Punished Cupid (VII.2.23). Pompeii, 1st cen. CE. Archaeological Museum of Naples, Inv. No. 9249.(Image credit: Author's photo, July 2021).

Other paintings of non-elite women wearing fine jewelry tend to be depictions of women engaging in sex work, leading some to believe that the woman gifted the bracelet was a prostitute (Baird 2015: 167-168). In either case, although snake jewelry was common in Greco-Roman antiquity since the Hellenistic Period (c. 323 - 27 BCE), the inscribed snake bracelet would have been a rare item to receive as an enslaved individual.

The bracelet’s inscription implies an intimacy between the slave master (dominus) and the woman he gave this too, who was legally his property (Constabile 2001: 164). While prior scholars have thus interpreted the bracelet as a “lover’s gift,” the reality behind the bracelet’s story was probably much darker. First, the inscription appears to be custom-made, though the absence of specific names suggests that anonymity was desired (Figure 3). It is understandable that the male purchaser might not want to identify himself by name, but the generic employment of “ancilla” further conjures the image of a man who did not necessarily know to whom the bracelet would be gifted when he made the purchase.

Figure 3. Alternate view of inscribed snake armband. (Image credit: Author’s photo, July 2021).

Aside from a gift, this bracelet has over time become an artifact preserving evidence for the precarity of domestically enslaved women who were subjected to regular threats of sexual exploitation and violence. As put by J.A. Baird (2015: 169):

“Within the household, permitted sexual behavior was also linked directly to social status. Messages of male control and violence can be found throughout Pompeiian houses. Sexual labor permeated not just everyday life but the Roman worldview.”

The intimate relations between the master and his ancilla could also cause additional problems within the household if the man in question was also married, putting the enslaved woman’s life and livelihood in greater jeopardy if faced with the wrath of a jealous wife.

Though rare, it was not unheard of for unmarried and widowed Roman male citizens to free their female slaves for the purpose of marrying them (Cf. Rawson 1991). In fact, some believe that the woman found with this bracelet could have already been freed and married to her former master. Whether or not marriage was involved post-manumission, if the woman gifted the bracelet had indeed gained her freedom, the object might have served as both a reminder of her past and a resource in navigating her present, a valuable object that could be sold, traded, or repurposed.

In the chaos of the flight from Pompeii during the eruption, it is no doubt conceivable that the bracelet and the other items found on the woman and her companions could have been looted during the escape. Assuming that they were not, however, offers an interesting reconstruction. If the bracelet remained with the woman to whom it was originally given, its presence at the moment of death suggests that she retained possession of it through whatever changes her life had undergone—whether she remained enslaved, was freed, or entered into a more complex social position within the household.

What remains to be discussed about the bracelet is why the snake form in particular was chosen for the gift. While it was mentioned earlier that snake jewelry had been popular in Greco-Roman antiquity since the fourth century BCE, snakes had a special significance for Romans. Culturally, Romans associated snakes with their household gods, called the lares. Snakes regularly appear throughout Pompeii in domestic shrines called lararia (Figure 4). With this in mind, could the man who purchased the bracelet have chosen the snake to evoke the protection of the lares over the enslaved woman he desired?

Figure 4. Painted lararia wall shrine from the House of the Vettii (VI. 15.1). Pompeii, 1st century CE. (Photo credit: Author’s photo, July 2023)

Ultimately, the inscribed snake bracelet resists a single, definitive interpretation. It is at once an object of beauty and a marker of ownership and coercion; a gift and a claim that can simultaneously be read as adornment and constraint in the physical and social sense. On the one hand, the bracelet and its internal inscription “reasserts the power relationship and places it close to the body” (Baird 2015: 170). On the other hand, it may also have functioned as a resource for the recipient as an object of moveable wealth. Overall, its gold surface and delicate inscription conceal a network of social relations defined by inequality, intimacy, and power. As such, it serves as a poignant reminder that Roman material culture, often admired for its aesthetic and historical value, also bears witness to the lived experiences of those whose voices are otherwise absent from the historical record.

References

Baird, J. A. (2015). On reading the material culture of ancient sexual labor. Helios, 42(1), 163-175.

Constabile, F. (2001). Ancilla domni: una nuova dedica su armilla aurea da Pompei. Minima Epigraphica et papyrologica anno 5, fasicolo VI. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. 447-74.

Olson, K. (2008). Dress and the Roman woman: self-presentation and society. Routledge.

Rawson, B. ed. (1991). Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome. Oxford.