Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 76.16.1: contest for women under Septimius Severus

Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 76.16.1: contest for women under Septimius Severus

164-235 CE

Historiography

Literary source

There took place also during those days a gymnastic contest, at which so great a multitude of athletes assembled, under compulsion, that we wondered how the course could contain them all. And in this contest women took part, vying with one another most fiercely, with the result that jokes were made about other very distinguished women as well. Therefore it was henceforth forbidden for any woman, no matter what her origin, to fight in single combat.

Earnest Cary/Herbert B. Foster, Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Dio's Roman History, vol. 9 (= Loeb Classical Library; 177), London/New York 1914.

ἐγένετο δ᾽ ἐν ταύταις ταῖς ἡμέραις καὶ ἀγὼν γυμνικός, ἐν ᾧ τοσοῦτον πλῆθος ἀθλητῶν ἀναγκασθὲν συνῆλθεν ὥσθ᾽ ἡμᾶς θαυμάσαι πῶς αὐτοὺς τὸ στάδιον ἐχώρησε. καὶ γυναῖκες δὲ ἐν τῷ ἀγῶνι τούτῳ ἀγριώτατα ἁμιλλώμεναι ἐμαχέσαντο, ὥστε καὶ ἐς τὰς ἄλλας πάνυ ἐπιφανεῖς ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν ἀποσκώπτεσθαι: καὶ διὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἐκωλύθη μηκέτι μηδεμίαν γυναῖκα μηδαμόθεν μονομαχεῖν.

Earnest Cary/Herbert B. Foster (eds.), Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Dio's Roman History, vol. 9 (= Loeb Classical Library; 177), London/New York 1914.