Statue of a woman, the so-called 'Pudicitia' type

myminifactory

In this statue a woman wears a long tunic down to her ankles and a fringed cloak that covers her head and, falling from her shoulders, envelopes her figure down to her knees. The statue is of the so-called "Pudicitia" type, a central concept in ancient Roman sexual ethics. The word is derived from the more general 'pudor', the sense of shame that regulated an individual's behavior as socially acceptable. Pudicitia was most often a defining characteristic of women, but men who failed to conform to masculine sexual norms were said to exhibit feminizing impudicitia, sexual shamelessness. This plaster work is a copy of an original marble from the Severan period, probably found in Rome. The head is a modern Roman adaption, with the original featuring a hairstyle similar to the one typical of Julia Domna.