The Diminishing Importance of Fate and Divine Femininity During the High and Late Roman Empire

Abstract

Weaving and femininity are historically intimately connected withthe concept of Fate. In antiquity Fate was portrayed as a powerfulfemale principle controlling the cosmic system humans inhabited.However, as the antique religious world gave way to a new era,the role of Fate subsided under Christian dominance. This articleexamines how this change played out, and how the worldview thatwon prominence as Christianity prevailed gradually lost touch withthe presence of powerful female cosmic principles. It shows that thedisappearance of Fate from the prevailing world was seminal in thebirth of a new ‘technology of the self’. In conclusion, the article placesthe disappearance of Fate in the context of a discussion of how theview of the self changed in the aftermath of Christianity, which hadbecome dominant. This discussion is related to the scholarship ofPeter Brown, among others, as well as a newly published posthumouswork by Michel Foucault (2018).