Education of Roman Women

Women were generally excluded from education, which was biased towards boys. But some girls from good families were taught to read and write and were known as doctae puellae, ‘educated girls’. Here’s an exceptional case of an educated woman in the public eye. After Caesar’s assassination in 44 BC, heavy taxes were imposed by the Second Triumvirate on anyone implicated with the conspirators. A woman called Hortensia (whose father was an orator called Quintus Hortensius) made a speech to the Triumvirs in 42 BC on behalf of the wives of the men affected. It was written down and studied in later years as an example of an outstanding speech and not just because it was by a woman.