The unknown Roman woman, whose funerary inscription is known as the Laudatio Turiae (LT), lived a highly eventful life. As a young girl, she brought the murderers of her parents to justice (1.3-9) and successfully defended her father's will against greedy relatives who had an eye on his property (1.13-26). During the civil war between Caesar and Pompey she supported her fleeing husband by supplying him richly with slaves, money, and food, by pleading with the authorities for clementia, and by defending their house against the partisans of Milo, who hoped to profit from the turmoil to plunder it (2.2a-11a). During the proscriptions under the second triumvirate she saved her husband's life, among other things by giving him advice and by finding places for him to hide. When, in late 42 B.C., by an edict from Octavian his civil rights were reinstated, she pleaded with Lepidus, who was in sole charge of the city, for confirmation. In spite of the humiliation and the wounds she suffered during this encounter, she persisted. Thanks to her determination her husband was restored, whereas Lepidus' brutality was publicly exposed (2.1-24). 1 In the long inscription he set up on her grave, her husband, whose name-like that of his wife-is lost, 2 pays much attention to her public deeds: though covering only a small part of the over forty years of their married life these actions occupy almost half the surviving inscription. This is the more remarkable since, at first sight, such public prominence contrasts with the domestic virtues and the retired life Roman women are usually praised for in funerary inscriptions. Moreover, not only the space he devotes to this, but also the way he presents his wife is unusual. In describing her public activities he uses words of action and virtue normally employed for men, even military metaphors. In view of Roman ideas of masculinity and femininity this is-to say the least-unexpected. Why would a husband emphasize the public prowess of his wife and use military and other 'male' words in praising her? In doing so, he even risked harming her reputation and throwing doubt on his own masculinity. The LT has received much scholarly attention. Most of it deals with the establishment of the text, its place in the genre of the laudatio funebris, its rhetorical aspects, and juridical and historical intricacies. 3 When it comes to a discussion of the deceased,
