¹ Sly's prominent interest lies in Philo's reconstruction of the power relations between Abraham and Sarah; see Sly, Dorothy, Philo's Perception of Women (Brown Judaic Studies 209; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 150 Google Scholar.

² Since Philo regards the value of self-restraint as inherent in the Mosaic legislation, Sarah's deeds and words relating to her marriage are also in accordance with Jewish values: see Niehoff, Maren, “Mother and Maiden, Sister and Spouse: Sarah in Philonic Midrash,” HTR 97 (2004) 419–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; eadem, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture (Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 86; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001) 94–110. As Niehoff notes, Philo's representation of Hagar as “a slave in the body but free and nobly born in the spirit . . . Egyptian by race but a Hebrew by her course of life” (Abr. 251) is fruitfully understood in light of Greek philosophy, Roman law, and Philo's broader conception of Jewish identity (Philo on Jewish Identity, 17–33). For the figure of Hagar in Abr. 245–254, see also Borgen, Peder, “Some Hebrew and Pagan Features in Philo's and Paul's Interpretation of Hagar and Ishmael,” in The New Testament and Hellenistic Judaism (ed. idem and Giversen, Soren; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997) 151–64, esp. 153–56Google Scholar.

³ Niehoff, “Mother and Maiden,” 413–44, esp. 422; see also eadem, Philo on Jewish Identity, 99–102; Loader, William, Philo, Josephus, and the Testaments on Sexuality: Attitudes towards Sexuality in the Writings of Philo and Josephus and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011) 61–65 Google Scholar and the earlier bibliography cited therein. Niehoff (“Mother and Maiden,” 429–44) also discusses the gap between Philo's representation of Sarah in De Abrahamo and his allegorical interpretation of her character in other treatises. While the latter is dictated by his philosophical conception of femininity as related to passivity and sensory perception, thereby representing Sarah as lacking feminine characteristics, the former seeks to portray her as a model for Jewish women, thus praising her for her wifely conduct (see below). For earlier discussions of the allegorical interpretation of Sarah in Philo's writings, see Sly, Philo's Perception of Women, 150–54; Wegner, Judith Romney, “Philo's Portrayal of Women—Hebraic or Hellenistic?,” in “Women Like This”: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World (ed. Levine, Amy-Jill; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991) 41–66 Google Scholar, esp. 54–56.

⁴ As a Jewish literary text written in a Hellenistic/Roman cultural and political environment, De Abrahamo must be considered from both these aspects. In addition to an analysis of the influence of his contemporary surroundings on Philo's representation of Sarah in light of the approaches adopted by Sly (Philo's Perception of Women), Wegner (“Philo's Portrayal of Women”), and Niehoff (“Mother and Maiden”), I thus also follow such scholars as Kugel in drawing attention to Jewish exegetical motifs: Kugel, James C., Traditions of the Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998)Google Scholar. See pp. 542–46 below.

⁵ See Abr. 247, which explicitly refers to the praise of Sarah as ἐγκώμιον (encomium, laudatory speech), as well as Weisser's discussion of the Greco-Roman rhetorical background of Abr. 245–261: Sharon Weisser, “Why does Philo Criticize the Stoic Ideal of Aphateia in On Abraham 257? Philo and Consolatory Literature,” CQ 62 (2012) 242–59, esp. 248–51. For the funeral-oration genre (laudatio funebris), see Durry, Marcel, Éloge funèbre d'une matrone romaine (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1950) xi–xliiiGoogle Scholar; Ochs, Donovan J., Consolatory Rhetoric: Grief, Symbol, and Ritual in the Greco-Roman Era (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993) 104–11Google Scholar. All citations from De Abrahamo are adapted from Philo, On Abraham; On Joseph; On Moses (trans. F. H. Colson; vol. 6 of Philo; LCL 289; London: Heinemann, 1966) with some modifications. Significantly, Philo also inserts a eulogy to Joseph immediately after the indication of his death (Ios. 268–270). See also the influence of the Roman practice of delivering funerary orations on Josephus's retelling of the Bible: A.J. 4.327–331, 6.292–294, and 7.389–391; Feldman, Louis H., “Josephus’ Portrait of Saul,” HUCA 53 (1982) 45–99 Google Scholar, esp. 46–52.

⁶ Pomeroy, Sarah B., Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves (New York: Schocken, 1995) 182–83Google Scholar.

⁷ E.g., the Laudatio Turiae and the eulogy to Murdia (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum [CIL] 6.10230). See Horsfall, Nicholas, “Some Problems in the ‘Laudatio Turiae,’” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 30 (1983) 85–98 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 89–91. While Philo's extrabiblical encomium to Sarah reflects contemporary practices, it may also have been inspired by Gen 23:2 LXX—“And Abraam went to mourn for Sarah and to grieve” [NETS]. See also Tanḥ. Ḥayyē Śārāh 4, which depicts Abraham as praising Sarah as “the capable wife” (see Prov 31:10–31) on the occasion of her death.

⁸ For Latin epitaphs and writings as reflecting the attributes of the ideal Roman matron and her antagonist, the “wicked woman,” see Fischler, Susan, “Social Stereotypes and Historical Analyses: The Case of the Imperial Women at Rome,” in Women in Ancient Societies: An Illusion of the Night (ed. Archer, Léonie J., Fischler, Susan, and Wyke, Maria; Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1994) 115–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ Niehoff discusses the close affinities between Philo's construction of Jewish identity and contemporary Roman notions in detail, evincing that Philo's writings integrate the Jews “among the Roman elite of the world” (Philo on Jewish Identity, 110). While she also demonstrates the role Roman legalization plays in Philo's presentation of Ishmael as a bastard with no claim to Abraham's heritage (ibid., 22–28), my focus here lies on the correspondence between Philo's portrayal of Sarah and the ideal of the Roman matron. For general surveys of women in Greece and Rome, see Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves; Eva Cantarella, Pandora's Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). For the Roman conception of the ideal wife, see most recently Alison D. Jeppesen-Wigelsworth, “The Portrayal of Roman Wives in Literature and Inscriptions” (PhD diss., University of Calgary, 2010); Shelton, Jo-Ann, The Women of Pliny's Letters (London: Routledge, 2013) 15–42, 93–176Google Scholar.

¹⁰ The style of this passage thus resembles that of the composition as a whole. The latter lauds the virtues Abraham manifests in his conduct. In addition to the obvious stylistic parallel, substantive correspondences also exist: like the patriarch, Sarah is lauded for the difficulties she endured in moving from Ur (see Abr. 62–67, 85–87), her “self-restraint” also being analogous to Abraham's (see Abr. 253, 255–261): see Niehoff, “Mother and Maiden,” 419–23. Integrated into a description of Abraham's virtuous character, the encomium also functions as a further (indirect) way of extolling the patriarch. It likewise constitutes the first section of Philo's reworking of Gen 23, the second section of which praises Abraham for his self-restraint upon his wife's death (Abr. 255–261). In its immediate context, Sarah's merits also demonstrate the loss Abraham suffered in her death, thereby emphasizing the depths of the self-restraint he displayed on that occasion: see Sandmel, Samuel, Philo's Place in Judaism: A Study of Conceptions of Abraham in Jewish Literature (New York: Ktav, 1956) 135 Google Scholar; Weisser, “Philo and Consolatory Literature.” The praise for Sarah similarly extols the patriarch on the principle that “a virtuous wife is the crown of her husband” (Prov 12:4 NKJV). The glory (or disgrace) women reflect upon their husbands / male relatives is a common theme in Roman oratory and history: see Carlon, Jacqueline M., Pliny's Women (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009) 138–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fischler, “Social Stereotypes,” 127–30. For further direct praise of Sarah, see Abr. 93–94: “He had a wife distinguished greatly for her goodness of soul and beauty of body, in which she surpassed all the women of her time” (see Gen 12:11, 14).

¹¹ For love and gender in the Bible, see Brenner, Athalya, The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and “Sexuality” in the Hebrew Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series 26; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 8–30 Google Scholar; see also the praise of Leah following her death in Jub. 36:21–24—which, unlike Philo's eulogy of Sarah, follows the biblical tendency and makes no mention of her love for her husband, rather depicting her as honoring him: see Livneh, Atar, “Not at First Sight: Gender Love in Jubilees ,” JSP 23 (2013) 3–20 Google Scholar, esp. 13–16.

¹² See Lattimore, Richmond, Themes in Greek and Roman Epitaphs (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962) 292–93Google Scholar. This quite popular theme also recurs in later inscriptions: cf. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (SEG) 2.521; CIL 6.11252.

¹³ CIL 1².1211 (Rome; 2^nd cent. BCE). For Lattimore's translation, see Mary R. Lefkowitz and Maureen Fant, B., Women's Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation (3rd ed.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) 16 §39Google Scholar. Cf. also CIL 1².1221, 5.7453, 6.11252, 29580, and 8.8123. In light of the above, it is clear that Philo attests to the Jewish adoption of the Hellenistic convention of the “loving wife”: note the epithet φίλανδρος (a lover of [her] husband) given to Jewish women in later Jewish epitaphs in Rome (Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum [CIJ] 166, 195). See Keener, Craig. S., Paul, Women, Wives: Marriage and Women's Ministry in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992) 166–67, 181Google Scholar.

¹⁴ See Dionysius of Halicarnassus, The Roman Antiquities (trans. Earnest Cary; 2 vols.; LCL 319 and 347; London: Heinemann, 1937–1939) 2:515–17. Depictions of loving wives are also extant in other genres, including epigrams and letters from a later period: cf. Martial, Epig. 4.75; Pliny, Ep. 4.19.

¹⁵ While the biblical text does not state that Sarah loved Abraham, the episodes Philo adduces as evidence of this virtue are based on the Abraham cycle. Genesis explicitly indicates that Sarah accompanied Abraham on some of his journeys and proposed that he have a child through Hagar (see pp. 540–46 below). The account of Sarah's death (Gen 23) thus functions in Abr. 245–254 as a “frame story” into which Philo inserts reworkings of various episodes from Gen 11–20. This technique of reworking and rearranging selected biblical pericopae is characteristic of Second Temple compositions known in scholarly circles as “Rewritten Bible” texts. The resemblance between Philo's literal biblical interpretation and the exegetical techniques typical of Rewritten Bible texts has been noted by various scholars: see Borgen, Peder, Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time (NovTSup 86; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 67–79 Google Scholar; Sterling, Gregory E., “The Interpreter of Moses: Philo of Alexandria and the Biblical Text,” in A Companion to Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Judaism (ed. Henze, Matthais; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012) 415–35Google Scholar, esp. 423–24; Damgaard, Finn, “Philo's Life of Moses as ‘Rewritten Bible,’” in Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years: Texts, Terms or Techniques? A Last Dialogue with Geza Vermes (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 166; ed. Zsengellér, József; Leiden: Brill, 2014) 233–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Steven D. Fraade, “Between Rewritten Bible and Allegorical Commentary: Philo's Interpretation of the Burning Bush,” in ibid., 221–32.

¹⁶ The translation here largely follows Niehoff, “Mother and Maiden,” 419. For a discussion of Sarah and Abraham's partnership see pp. 546–48 below and n. 52.

¹⁷ As Sly observes, a degree of tension exists between the retrospective depiction of the couple's immigration from Ur in the encomium and the literal interpretation of this pericope in Abr. 62–67, which fails to mention the fact that Sarah accompanied Abraham (Philo's Perception of Women, 147–48).

¹⁸ Like the biblical source, Philo's literal interpretation of Abraham's war against the kings makes no mention of Sarah's presence in the campaign: see Gen 14; Abr. 225–235.

¹⁹ Lex Julia (ca. 18 BCE) and lex Papia Poppaea (ca. 9 CE): see Shelton, Women of Pliny's Letters, 23. See also Dixon, Suzanne, The Roman Mother (London: Croom Helm, 1988) 71–103 Google Scholar; Fantham, Elaine et al., Women in the Classical World: Image and Text (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) 294–306 Google Scholar and the earlier bibliography cited therein.

²⁰ Suetonius, Cal. 7–9; Tacitus, Ann. 2.54. For the latter, see Tacitus, The Histories; The Annals (trans. John Jackson; 5 vols.; LCL 35, 111, 249, 312, and 322; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1925–1937) 2:527.

²¹ During the republic, wives rarely accompanied their husbands to the provinces. The gradual change that took place in this respect was due both to Augustus's promotion of familial values and the fact that the duration of tours of duty in the provinces became longer from the early principate onwards; see Tacitus, Ann. 3.33–34; Marshall, Anthony J., “Tacitus and the Governor's Lady: A Note on Annals iii. 33–4,” Greece and Rome 2/22 (1975) 11–18 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Raepsaet-Charlier, Marie-Thérèse, “Épouses et familles de magistrats dans les provinces romaines aux deux premiers siècles de l'Empire,” Historia 31 (1982) 56–69 Google Scholar; Rawson, Beryl, “The Roman Family,” in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives (London: Croom Helm, 1986) 1–57, esp. 26–28Google Scholar; and Shelton, Women of Pliny's Letters, 23–26.

²² For the rhetorical device of praising a woman at the expense of other, unnamed women who act differently see Seneca, Helv. 16.3–5.

²³ For the translation, see Dio, Roman History (trans. Earnest Cary; 9 vols.; LCL 32, 37, 53, 66, 82–83, and 175–77; London: Heinemann, 1914–1927) 7:7. For the formula see also the 1^st-cent. philosopher Musonius Rufus: “In marriage there must be complete companionship and concern for each other on the part of both husband and wife, in health and in sickness and at all times” [δε δὲ ἐν γάμῳ πάντως συμβίωσίν τε ε ναι καὶ κηδεμονίαν ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικὸς περὶ ἀλλήλους, καὶ ἐρρωμένους καὶ νοσο ντας καὶ ἐν παντὶ καιρ ] (What is the Chief End of Marriage? 13a [italics added]). The edition and title of the passage follow Lutz, Cora E., Musonius Rufus, “The Roman Socrates” (ed. Bellinger, A. R.; Yale Classical Studies 10; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947) 3–150 Google Scholar, esp. 88–89. For the translation see Lefkowitz and Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, 54 §75.

²⁴ Although Turia prepared a safe hiding place for her husband, provided for his needs during his flight, and begged for his recall to Rome (LT, right-hand col. 2a, 6a, 4), she did not follow her husband “always and everywhere.” This last theme does occur in later Roman literature, however: see below.

²⁵ Lefkowitz and Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, 23 §53. For loyal women who followed their husbands, see also the portrayal of Cornelia Metella in Plutarch, Pomp. 74.1–80.5.

²⁶ See Pliny, Letters and Panegyricus (trans. Radice, Betty; 2 vols.; LCL 55 and 59; London: Heinemann, 1969)Google Scholar. For Pliny's portrayal of loyal heroic wives, see recently Jeppesen-Wigelsworth, Portrayal of Roman Wives, 173–80; Shelton, Women of Pliny's Letters, 15–42. For the theme of wifely fidelity, see also Martial, Epigr. 9.30. In contrast, in his satires (first quarter of the 2^nd cent. CE) Juvenal mocks Roman wives for making excuses in order to avoid sailing with their husbands while enthusiastically accompanying their lovers (Sat. 6.83–113).

²⁷ Sly, Philo's Perception of Women, 149–50. Pace Sly, Philo is not responsible for introducing the idea that the purpose of Sarah's offer is to enable Abraham to become a father rather than herself a mother: see LXX Gen 16:2; Niehoff, “Mother and Maiden,” 421 n. 26; and Loader, Philo, Josephus, and the Testaments, 151–52. Philo's reworking of the text nonetheless elaborates and emphasizes the theme of Sarah's concern for her husband's welfare (see Abr. 249–250).

²⁸ According to Philo, Sarah declared: “I shall have no jealousy of another woman whom you will take not for unreasoning lust but fulfillment of nature's inevitable law” (Abr. 249); “but to avoid any suspicion of jealousy on my part, take, if you will, my handmaiden” (Abr. 251) (see also Niehoff, “Mother and Maiden,” 419–23).

²⁹ Another tradition, based on the same exegetical principle, presupposes a chronological link between the two pericopae, dating the covenant between the pieces (Gen 15) in accord with the datum given in Gen 16:3: see 1QapGen XX, 27–28; 4Q225 2 I, 2; Fitzmyer, Joseph A., The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1 (1Q20): A Commentary (3rd ed.; Biblica et Orientalia 18/B; Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2004) 253 Google Scholar; and Livneh, Atar, “How Long was Abraham's Sojourn in Haran? Traditions Regarding the Patriarch in Compositions from Qumran,” Meghillot 8 (2010) 193–210 Google Scholar, esp. 198–202 (Hebrew).

³⁰ See James C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 510–11; Scriptores aethiopici 87–88; Leuven: Peeters, 1989) 86.

³¹ In Jub. 14, Gen 15 and 16 are further presented as a single consecutive story, through a) Abraham's report of the divine revelation(s) to Sarah; and b) the rephrasing of Sarah's offer in words reminiscent of Gen 15:3: see Halpern-Amaru, Betsy, “The Portrait of Sarah in Jubilees,” in Jewish Studies in a New Europe: Proceedings of the Fifth Congress of Jewish Studies in Copenhagen 1994 under the Auspices of the European Association for Jewish Studies (ed. Haxen, Ulf, Trautner-Kromann, Hanne, and Salamon, Karen Lisa Goldschmidt; Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 1998) 342–43Google Scholar; eadem, The Empowerment of Women in the Book of Jubilees (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 60; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 50–51. Philo's representation of Sarah's directive as advice (cf. Abr. 252 to Gen 16:2) constitutes an additional parallel with the Jubilean version of the story (see Jub. 14:22).

³² A.J. 1.186–187: “Being distressed at his wife's not becoming pregnant, he besought God to grant him offspring of a male child. When God encouraged him to be confident, as in all other things he had been led from Mesopotamia for his wellbeing, so also he would have children. Sarah, at God's command, caused him to lie down with one of her handmaidens, Agare by name, who was an Egyptian by race, so that he might procreate children by her” (trans. Feldman, Louis. H., Judean Antiquities 1–4: Translation and Commentary [ed. Mason, Steve; Leiden: Brill, 2000] 70–71)Google Scholar. Although Gen. Rab. 45:2 does not explicitly link Gen 15 and 16, it represents Sarah's act as being in accordance with God's will.

³³ Philo's rewriting suggests that Sarah also prayed to God—further indication of her piety. Philo similarly hints that Sarah prayed with Abraham during their stay in Egypt (Abr. 95): see Gen. Rab. 45:4; Niehoff, “Mother and Maiden,” 423–26.

³⁴ Interestingly, Philo's description of Abraham and Sarah as “immigrants” (μέτοικοι) in Abr. 252 is based on Gen 23:4: see Daniel-Nataf, Suzanne, Philo of Alexandria: Writings (5 vols.; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1986–)Google Scholar 2:110 n. 148, 117 n. 176 (Hebrew) (translation and comments on De Abrahamo by Hava Shorr).

³⁵ See Machiela, Daniel A., The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation with Introduction and Special Treatment of Columns 13–17 (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 79; Leiden: Brill, 2009) 83–84 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In light of the parallel in the Genesis Apocryphon, it is not necessary to assume (pace Sandmel, Philo's Place in Judaism, 136) that the indication of Abraham's wealth is a contemporaneous allusion. Philo further stresses that Sarah's motivation for offering Hagar to Abraham was her fear “lest the house beloved of God should be left entirely desolate” (Abr. 247–248). Philo makes explicit reference to his reliance on a further exegetical tradition in Abr. 253: “Abraham . . . kept her [Hagar] . . . as the surest version of the story runs only till she became pregnant”: see Niehoff, “Mother and Maiden,” 422 n. 30.

³⁶ Although Weisser notes the affinities between Philo's retelling of Gen 16 and the Laudatio Turiae, she does not analyze them in detail (“Philo and Consolatory Literature,” 249–50).

³⁷ Translation of the Laudatio Turiae follows Wistrand, Erik Karl Hilding, The So-called Laudatio Turiae: Introduction, Text, Translation, Commentary (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia 34; Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1976) 17–31 Google Scholar.

³⁸ While Turia's offer accords with the fact that a wife's barrenness was typically a cause for divorce by consent in Rome, Gen 16 presents the attempt on the part of a sterile wife to have a child through her maid, a practice documented in ancient Near Eastern legislation. For the former, see, for example, Gardner, Jane F., Women in Roman Law and Society (London: Croom Helm, 1987) 81–95 Google Scholar; for the latter, see Speiser, E. A., Genesis: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (Anchor Bible; New York: Doubleday, 1964) 119–21Google Scholar.

³⁹ For a description of the couple's marriage, see pp. 546–48 below.

⁴⁰ While Sarah's despair of conceiving is explained by her old age (see Gen 17:17, 18:9–15; Abr. 111), Turia's loss of hope may be related to the fact that the various steps she took to remedy her barrenness failed: see Wistrand, The So-called Laudatio Turiae, 55; LT, right-hand col. 28–30.

⁴¹ According to Philo, Sarah won Abraham's esteem firstly due to her wifely love and then to her forethought. Turia is also said to have demonstrated the latter trait, although in a different context (LT, right-hand col. 58). The two texts also laud wifely fidelity in hard times, this being a general (and popular) theme rather than a specific association: see pp. 540–42 above.

⁴² Praise of barren women is however the exception, wives regularly being extolled for giving birth to children: see the epitaph of Pantheia ( Pleket, Harry W., Epigraphica 2: Texts on Social History of the Greek World [Leiden: Brill, 1969] 32–33 §20)Google Scholar and Claudia's epitaph (CIL 1².1211). The Laudatio Turiae is similarly unique in terms of its length, most epitaphs dedicated to women being much shorter and not containing any detailed narratives. For further discussion of the inscription's exceptional nature, see Jeppesen-Wigelsworth, Portrayal of Roman Wives, 211–16.

⁴³ “So, after Abram had lived for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife” (Gen 16:3 NRSV). The chronological data in Genesis suggest that the couple had been married for at least ten years before Abraham “consorted” with Hagar, their marriage as a whole lasting at least sixty-two years (see also Gen 12:4–5, 16:16, 17:17, and 23:1).

⁴⁴ CIL 11.1491 (Pisa; imperial period): see Lefkowitz and Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, 206 §277. See also CIL 6.6984, 15606, 15581; Durry, Éloge funèbre d'une matrone romaine, 37; and Jeppesen-Wigelsworth, Portrayal of Roman Wives, 250–56.

⁴⁵ See Fantham et al., Women in the Classical World, 318–21. The portrayal of Marcinus's marriage follows epithetical conventions: see Jeppesen-Wigelsworth, Portrayal of Roman Wives, 154–56. See also Pliny, Ep. 3.16. While the formula is prevalent in Latin sources from the imperial period, the ideal of harmonious marriage is ancient, occurring already in the Odyssey (6.180–185), which praises marriages that are characterized by “single-minded” (ὁμοφροσύνη) agreement. While Philo describes Amram and Jochebed's marriage in similar terms (Mos. 1.7), Abr. 245–254 uses different phraseology. The theme recurs—albeit with some terminological variations—in the discourses of the 1^st-cent. Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus (see 13a) and the contemporary Greek epitaph for Pythion and Epicydilla (SEG 17.427 [Thassos]). Harmonious marriages are denoted by the term concordia in Latin texts: see Tacitus, Ann. 3.33; Agr. 6.1; and Challet, Claude-Emmanuelle Centlivres, Like Man, Like Woman: Roman Women, Gender Qualities, and Conjugal Relationship at the Turn of the First Century (Bern: Lang, 2013) 107–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Lovén, Lena Larsson, “ Coniugal Concordia: Marriage and Marital Ideals on Roman Funerary Monuments,” in Ancient Marriage in Myth and Reality (ed. Lovén, Lena Larsson and Strömberg, Agneta; Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010) 204–20Google Scholar, esp. 213–17.

⁴⁶ See Lefkowitz and Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, 54 §75.

⁴⁷ See also Abr. 256, which refers to Sarah's death: “He [Abraham] had lost his life-long partner” (ἀποβαλὼν κοινωνὸν το σύμπαντος βίου) (Weisser, “Philo and Consolatory Literature,” 250 n. 39). For a further discussion of Philo's use of the term κοινωνός here and elsewhere see Niehoff, “Mother and Maiden,” 419–20. Unlike Philo, Musonius Rufus expresses the idea of marital partnership through a different term: see n. 23 above.

⁴⁸ The translation follows Philo, On the Decalogue; On the Special Laws, Books 1–3 (trans. Colson, F. H.; vol. 7 of Philo; LCL 320; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1937) 178 Google Scholar with some modifications; Sly notes but does not discuss the relevance of Spec. 1.138 to Abr. 245–246 (Philo's Perception of Women, 148).

⁴⁹ As Sandmel (Philo's Place in Judaism, 135) and Niehoff (“Mother and Maiden,” 419–23) note, both Abraham and Sarah maintain self-control in their marital lives. Here, too, they represent the exemplary marriage depicted in Spec. 1.138 and contemporary Roman ideals. See also nn. 2, 9, and 10.

⁵⁰ For a discussion of the relation between concordia (harmony, unity) and amor (love, passion, fondness) within the marriage bond in Latin literature, see Centlivres Challet, Like Man, Like Woman, 132–50.

⁵¹ Carmina epigraphica graeca (CEG) 530 (4^th cent. BCE, Athens; see Lefkowitz and Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, 180 §237).

⁵² For the former, see CIL 1².1221 (1^st cent. CE; Lefkowitz and Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome, 181 §239). For the latter, see CIL 6.18817 (1^st–2^nd cents. CE, Rome); see also 6.29580. As Lattimore (Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs, 277) and Jeppesen-Wigelsworth (Portrayal of Roman Wives, 218–29) point out, the theme of spousal love / devotion is more common in later Latin epitaphs (2^nd cent.). Although the Laudatio Turiae does not use the same formula, it nonetheless constitutes the most detailed epigraphic description of mutual devotion between a husband and wife: the husband rejected Turia's offer of divorce and bearing a child through another woman because he would not consider separating from his wife (LT, right-hand col. 40–47). For a discussion and examples of spousal affection in literary sources, see Balsdon, J. P. V. D., Roman Women: Their History and Habits (London: Bodley Head, 1974) 200–208 Google Scholar; Lefkowitz, Mary R., “Wives and Husbands,” in Women in Antiquity (ed. McAuslan, Ian and Walcot, Peter; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) 67–82 Google Scholar; and Centlivres Challet, Like Man, Like Woman, 132–50.