Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves: women in classical antiquity

332 Pages·1995·2.71 MB·English

by  Sarah B. Pomeroy

50 Years of Publishing
1945–1995

Copyright © 1975, 1995 by Sarah B. Pomeroy
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Schocken
Books Inc., New York. Distributed by Pantheon Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pomeroy, Sarah B.
Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves.
Bibliography.
1. Women—History—To 500. 2. Greece—Social conditions.
3. Rome—Social conditions.
I. Title. HQ1134.P64 301.41′2′0938 74-8782
eISBN: 978-0-30779147-4
v3.1
To Alexandra, who grew up with Goddesses
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chronological Table
Preface
Introduction
I. Goddesses and Gods
II. Women in the Bronze Age and Homeric Epic
III. The Dark Age and the Archaic Period
IV. Women and the City of Athens
V. Private Life in Classical Athens
VI. Images of Women in the Literature of Classical Athens
VII. Hellenistic Women
VIII. The Roman Matron of the Late Republic and Early Empire
IX. Women of the Roman Lower Classes
X. The Role of Women in the Religion of the Romans
Epilogue: The Elusive Women of Classical Antiquity
Notes
Works Referred To
Supplemental Bibliography
Illustrations
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
(Many dates are approximate)

PREFACE
W Goddesses was published twenty years ago, I did not anticipate the
HEN
reception and long life that it would enjoy. As soon as the book
appeared, it was described in Choice as “the first and only scholarly book
on its subject in the English language.” It was widely reviewed in both
the popular and the scholarly press. Goddesses was translated into
Italian, German, and Spanish.1
Goddesses was published early in the development of the history of
women in antiquity as a field for serious research, and it established
parameters for subsequent studies of the history of women in antiquity.
The overall chronological organization, which draws attention to change
over time in women’s lives, has been preferred by most historians to the
thematic or synchronic approach. The categorization by class and social
status, which points to differences between wives on the one hand and
whores and slaves on the other, and within social classes the additional
comparisons by gender (for example, Ptolemaic queens and their
brothers who are kings, and Roman matrons and upper-class Roman
men), are in common use. The terms “respectable” and “nonrespectable”
as applied to women have become clichés. The final important category,
geographical variation, immediately observable in the distinctions
between Greek women and Roman women, is nowadays axiomatic in
women’s history and is gradually being recognized in family history.2
The constant attention to differences between women is nowadays a
fundamental principle in women’s studies. The chronological
organization, in particular, has made it easier to assimilate women’s
history into traditional history.
Since 1975 the study of women in antiquity has become part of the
mainstream in the fields of classical studies and ancient history and
many significant publications on Greek and Roman women have
appeared. These include work on female artists and writers, women in
Hellenistic Egypt, female sexuality, the economic contributions of
women, pagan and Christian women in late antiquity, and female
representation in literature and the visual arts. A sample of this work is
given in the Supplemental Bibliography in the back of the present
volume as well as in the notes to this Preface. This recent work uses
traditional historiographical and art-historical approaches as well as the
newer perspectives of feminist theory, literary theory, and gender
studies.3
Although I considered revising Goddesses and discussed the matter
with colleagues, I decided to retain the text of Goddesses as originally
written. I have not changed my mind about any essential subject
covered, though of course, I would present some of this material slightly
differently today. As Heraclitus declared, “Everything is in process and
nothing stays still,” and comparing existing things to the stream of a
river, he says that “you would not step twice into the same river.”4
Nowadays I am even less willing to entertain the possibility of a
prehistoric society in the Greek world in which women enjoyed a higher
status than men, or were equal to them. If I were to rewrite my
discussion of matriarchy I would emphasize its importance in Greek
society and intellectual history as a myth. Of course, one woman who
rules as queen may enjoy the highest status, but her position does not
empower her female subjects. As later, well-documented historical
periods show, a queen may rule in a patriarchal society. I was led to
greater skepticism about prehistoric and Bronze Age matriarchy after
investigating reports about Sir Arthur Evans’s excavations of the “Palace
of Minos” at Cnossus, a site which has been referred to as a principal
locus for a matriarchal society and for the predominance of mother-
goddess cults.5 It became clear that Evans’s preconceptions about
matriarchy and mother goddesses had led him to rearrange some of the
archaeological evidence and alter his notebooks in order to corroborate
his theories.6 Further study of Linear B tablets from Bronze Age sites in
Crete and on the Greek mainland also gives no hint of vestiges of
matriarchy. Rather the tablets show matrilineal naming of children who
have mothers but no fathers. These mothers are probably slaves or
women of subordinate status. The tablets show the same sexual division
of labor that appears in later Greek society, where women engaged in