Term 1: Outline • 1: Who Were the Women of Ancient Greece? 2: Myth & Religion: Athena, maenads 3: Sex Goddesses: Aphrodite, Eos (Dawn) & Lady Monsters 4: Seminar: The Hymn of Aphrodite 5: Images of Greek Women 6: Reading Week 7: Women in Greece: A Survey 8: Seminar: Cities of Women: Aristophanes Ecclesiazusae (Lysistrata), Plato Republic V 9: Marriage and Adultery: Lysias 1, On the Murder of Eratosthenes 10: Courtesans and Hetairai: Neaera, Theodote Sex & Gender in Ancient Greece Who Were the Women of Ancient Greece? The Beginnings of Scholarship Pomeroy, 1975 – introduced new era of study – ‘Women in Antiquity’ Evidence – The Challenges • Textual and material culture • Bias in sources & in traditional scholarship • Sources cannot be taken at face value Literary Testimony • ‘Grave problems’ with biased sources • Majority of literature produced by men • Range of literature: histories, speeches, legal documents, tragedy, and comedy Men Praising Women It was not clothes, it was not gold that this woman admired during her lifetime; it was her husband and the good sense that she showed in her behaviour. But in return for the youth you shared with him, Dionysia, your tomb is adorned by your husband Antiphilus Dionysias, Athens 4th Century BC Men Hating Women Talking of Pandora; “From her is descended a great pain to mortal men, the race of female women, who live with men, and who cannot put up with harsh poverty, but only with plenty… the man who gets a wife of the wicked sort, lives with undying pain in his heart and his evil is without cure” – Hesiod, Theogony, 590-612 Men Hating Women • “The two best days in a woman’s life are when someone marries her and when he carries her dead body to the grave” – Hipponax, 6th century fragment Sappho When I look at you, fr. 31.G The man seems to me strong as a god, the man who sits across from you and listens to your sweet talk nearby And your lovely laughter – which, when I hear it, strikes fear in the heart in my breast. For whenever I glance at you, it seems that I can say nothing at all But my tongue is broken in silence, and that instant a light fire rushes beneath my skin, I can no longer see anything in my eyes and my ears are thundering, And cold sweat pours down me, and shuddering grasps me all over, and I am greener than grass, and I seem to myself to be little short of death But all is endurable, since even a poor man … Attic red-figure vase, 470 BC Female Poets • Insights into women’s lives – importance of other women, festivals, household games • Poems written to goddesses • Sappho – most famous female poet Comedy Aristophanes Are the women in Aristophanes plays more realistic depictions of women? Law Courts Against Neaera, Mid-fourth century Apollodorus The Murder of Eratosthenes, Fourth-century Lysias Who were the women of Ancient Greece? • You are making a presentation on this topic to the Coventry History Society – what are the three most important things they MUST know about? • You have 5 mins to prepare! Material Culture • Images of women limited in ‘elite’ arts – sculpture, stela, coins and gems • More variety in affordable art – vase painting, small-scale terracotta figurines • The Greeks didn’t have ‘art for art’s sake’ – everything had to have a function Women in Sculpture The Lady of Auxerre, mid-7th century Copy of the Aphrodite of Knidos, original 350-340 BC Women on Pots Attic red-figure skyphos Attic red-figure cup Households Loom weight Women in Religion Source Questions • How does the purpose of this text/sculpture effect its representation of reality? • What are the potential issues with this source? • What insights into the world of ancient Greek woman does this source provide? Herodotus • “In their manner and customs the Egyptians seem to have reversed the ordinary practices of mankind. For instance, women go to the market and engage in trade, while men stay home and do the weaving.” The Histories, 2.35