The Rising of the Women of Rome on the Capitol on Account of Papirius

The Roman writer Aulus Gellius tells the story. In early Rome senators sometimes brought their young sons into the Senate, and a boy called Papirius was pressed by his mother to reveal what had been discussed there. To be rid of her he invented a debate on whether it would be better for one man to have two wives or for one woman to have two husbands. The next morning the women of Rome crowded to the Senate to plead for the second.

Here they swarm over the Capitol, some armed with household tools, around the bronze horseman of Marcus Aurelius. That statue was only moved to the Capitol in 1538, so the setting is Rome as it looked around 1600. This small painting on copper was long given to the Flemish painters Sebastiaen Vrancx or Frans Francken, and the Rijksmuseum now attributes it to Pieter Isaacsz. In the foreground a child rides in a little cart pulled by a dog.