PUDENS, OPTIO CARCERIS: ROMAN MILITARY FIGURES AND THEIR NARRATIVE FUNCTION IN THE PASSION OF PERPETUA AND FELICITAS

Abstract

The lion’s share of attention given to the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas has focussed—not unreasonably—on Perpetua, the eponymous heroine, and on the ways in which her voice and character have been manipulated. But she is not the only figure in this text who is made to sing a tune. This article concentrates on the two military characters mentioned in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas—Pudens, optio carceris, and the unnamed tribunus—to suggest that we should pay more attention to the deployment and characterization of minor martyrological characters. An examination of Pudens and the tribune reveals previously understudied facets of the text, such as the anonymous Editor’s hand in attempting to stitch together Perpetua’s diary with his own concluding narrative, and the anxiety of the Carthaginian Christian community to be positively recognized by Roman authority figures. Finally, this examination contributes to previous debates over the text’s original language and date of composition, suggesting that the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas was written in Latin in the early third century—against a recent charge that the text is a late antique forgery.