Elite Women and War

Roman imperial and non-Roman royal women seized the opportunities provided by frequent warfare and by the politics of court society to advance their interests and goals in novel ways in the fifth and sixth centuries. Admittedly, not all of their efforts succeeded. Nonetheless, some Roman imperial women did realize some of their goals, providing models for royal women in the wars that unfolded in the post-Roman Ostrogothic kingdom in Italy. This chapter discusses four women as case studies: two fifth-century imperial women, Justa Grata Honoria and Licinia Eudoxia, and two Ostrogothic royal women, Amalasuintha and Amalafrida. These women used the opportunities presented to them by war and the negotiations that precipitated fighting to assert political influence, demonstrating womanly agency in Late Antiquity.