Angebatur ferox Tullia. Lo spettro della figlia parricida a Roma

Can a Roman daughter be a parricide and be represented as such? In this paper, an attempt is made to answer this question by reading the disturbing portrait of Tullia Minor drawn by Livy in the first book of his History of Rome. Through lexical, philological and anthropological analysis, an attempt will be made to demonstrate that, despite the fact that the representation of Tullia remains anchored to her gender role and is toned down through various expedients, the episode whose she is the protagonist intercepts a cultural anxiety triggered by the liminal moment, marked individually and socially, in which the woman goes from being a daughter to becoming a wife: in this obligatory passage, the emergence of female instances of self-assertion is dangerous for the established patriarchal order.