Women and the Sea in Classical and Christian Texts

In the ancient world, the most beautiful praise for a woman was ʻshe stayed at home, she spun the woolʼ. Thus, travel, especially by sea, was foreign to the female dimension. However, starting from the fourth century, some Christian texts shown the close connection between women and the sea. According to Jerome, the noblewoman Paula prepared to sail from Ostia to the Holy Land and left her children weeping on the shore. The sea acted as an element of the breaking of family ties, as clearly demonstrated by the story of Monica and Augustine of Hippo: during the night, Augustine sailed for Rome, leaving Monica weeping on the seashore of Carthage. Along with this connotation, the sea also became a main element in some hagiographical texts, where the bodies of female saints (i.e., Saint Restituta, Saint Trophimena, and Saint Patricia), preserved in a boat, reached the shore miraculously.