Just written an article about the Bona Dea Scandal
An escapade by the young P.Clodius Pulcher, the aristocrat who, a couple of years later would become a radical tribune of the people. The individualism of the period of the Late Republic does fascinate me; men and women seem to have been able to do and say fairly much what they wanted, with little in the way of repercussions.
This is in contrast to the greater social control exercised by Augustus a generation later, with his marriage legislation which made people's personal lives became a matter for the criminal courts and his successor Tiberius, with his tribe of informers that made people afraid to criticise the powers-that-be. I wonder if anyone has written about Augustus' daughter Julia, politicising her promiscuity (always a loaded term!) as the action of an old fashioned, reprobate Republican, refusing to have her personal life legislated for. Something to explore, possibly. Of course the Late Republic was also a time of violence, instability and corruption and politicians used their daughters and sons as pawns in marriage alliances but still things seem more open and equal than under the dead hand of tyranny.
