A Father, a Daughter and a Procurator: Authority and resistance in the prison memoir of perpetua of carthage

The prison narrative attributed to the early third-century Christian martyr Perpetua of Carthage has long attracted attention because of its dramatic portrayal of a Roman father's failure to extract obedience from his adult daughter as he tries to dissuade her from allowing herself to be punished as an enemy of the Roman state. This study explores the alignment between paternal authority and the authority of the Roman procurator Hilarianus in Perpetua's narrative, considering how the civic spaces of forum and arena became theatres for both filial and civil disobedience. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.