The earliest known example of writing in Latin by a woman—and the earliest message known to have been written by a woman in Britain—is a birthday invitation, from Claudia Severa, written in ink on wood and sent around the year A.D. 100 to Sulpicia, the wife of the prefect of the Ninth Cohort of Batavians and commander of Vindolanda, an Imperial Roman army fort manned by auxiliaries (non-citizens). The invitation is the most well-known of the Vindolanda Tablets found at the notoriously waterlogged Vindolanda archaeological site.
See the translation and description below.
I'd like to think that Sulpicia eagerly accepted the invitation.
Claudia Severa to her Lepidina greetings. On 11 September, sister, for the day of the celebration of my birthday, I give you a warm invitation to make sure that you come to us, to make the day more enjoyable for me by your arrival, if you are present (?). Give my greetings to your Cerialis. My Aelius and my little son send him (?) their greetings. (2nd hand) I shall expect you, sister. Farewell, sister, my dearest soul, as I hope to prosper, and hail. (Back, 1st hand) To Sulpicia Lepidina, wife of Cerialis, from Severa.
British Museum Museum number: 1986,1001.64.
"This diptych contains a letter to Sulpicia Lepidina from Claudia Severa, wife of Aelius Brocchus, sending Lepidina a warm invitation to visit her for her (Severa's) birthday (on the celebration of birthdays by private individuals see RE VII, 1142-4) and appending greetings to Cerialis from herself and greetings from her husband. The elegant script in which this letter is written is also probably to be recognised in 243, 244 and 248. The letters are slim, with marked ascenders and descenders, and very little use of ligature. There is occasional use of the apex mark for which see pp.57-61, above. In the present text the use is not always in long quantities. It is quite certain that the author is Severa herself, adding a brief message and the closing greeting in her own hand as she also does in 292 and 293. Almost certainly, therefore, these are the earliest known examples of writing in Latin by a woman."
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