Balsdon, in his important study on Roman women, remarks: “At no time did Roman women live in the semi-oriental seclusion in which women lived in Greece.” Nonetheless, he adds, “Complete equality of the sexes was never achieved in ancient Rome because of the survival long after it was out of date of a deep-rooted tradition that the exclusive sphere of a woman's activity was inside the home …” Both statements are fundamentally correct; thus, we should not measure Roman women's freedom by any yardstick other than the relative one of how they fared in comparison to their female contemporaries in the Mediterranean world. To anticipate our conclusions, a Roman woman compared favorably to her Athenian or Palestinian counterparts; however, there is reason to question whether they were better off than women in Macedonia or Asia Minor.

Social life

As was the case in various parts of Greece, one has to specify a class or group of Roman women when discussing whether Roman women were freer than Greek women. If one is discussing the Roman matron, then she appears to be freer, better educated, more highly respected, and more influential than matrons of the Greek mainland. On the other hand, though there were prostitutes in Rome, we do not find the phenomenon of educated companions in any significant numbers in the Eternal City.