Immigrant Women in Athens: Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship in the Classical City

192 Pages·2014·2.271 MB·English

by  Rebecca Futo Kennedy

Immigrant Women in Athens

Many of the women whose names are known to history from classical Ath-
ens were metic s or immigrants, linked in the literature with assumptions of
being ‘sexually exploitable.’ Despite recent scholarship on women in Athens
beyond notions of the ‘citizen wife’ and the ‘common prostitute,’ the schol-
arship on women, both citizen and foreign, is focused almost exclusively
on women in the reproductive and sexual economy of the city. This book
examines the position of metic women in classical Athens, to understand
the social and economic role of m etic women in the city, beyond the sexual
labor market.
This book contributes to two important aspects of the history of life in
fi fth-century Athens: it explores our knowledge of metics, a little-researched
group, and contributes to the study of women in antiquity, which has tra-
ditionally divided women socially between citizen-wives and everyone else.
This tradition has wrongly situated m etic women, because they could not
legally be wives, as some variety of whores. Author Rebecca Futo Kennedy
critiques the traditional approach to the study of women through an exami-
nation of primary literature on non-citizen women in the classical period.
She then constructs new approaches to the study of metic women in classi-
cal Athens that fi t the evidence and open up further paths for exploration.
This leading-edge volume advances the study of women beyond their sexual
status and breaks down the ideological constraints that both Victorians and
feminist scholars reacting to them have historically relied upon throughout
the study of women in antiquity.
Rebecca Futo Kennedy i s Assistant Professor in the Department of Clas-
sics at Denison University, USA. She is author of Athena’s Justice: Athena,
Athens, and the Concept of Justice in Greek Tragedy (2009) and co-author
of Race and Ethnicity in the Classical World: An Anthology of Primary
Sources in Translation (2013).
Routledge Studies in Ancient History
1 Cicero and the Catilinarian 4 Time in Roman Religion
Conspiracy One Thousand Years of
Charles Matson Odahl Religious History
Gary Forsythe
2 Ancient Graffi ti in Context

Edited by Jennifer Baird 5 Banishment in the Later Roman
and Claire Taylor Empire, 284–476 CE
Daniel A. Washburn
3 Roman Elections in the
Age of Cicero 6 Immigrant Women in Athens
Society, Government, Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship
and Voting in the Classical City
Rachel Feig Vishnia Rebecca Futo Kennedy
Immigrant Women in Athens
Gender, Ethnicity, and Citizenship
in the Classical City

Rebecca Futo Kennedy
First published 2014
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
The right of Rebecca Futo Kennedy to be identifi ed as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
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without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kennedy, Rebecca Futo, 1974–
Immigrant women in Athens : gender, ethnicity, and citizenship in the
classical city / by Rebecca Futo Kennedy.
pages cm. — (Routledge studies in ancient history ; 6)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Women—Greece—Athens—History—To 1500. 2. Women
immigrants—Greece—Athens—History—To 1500. 3. Women
immigrants—Greece—Athens—Social conditions. 4. Women immigrants—
Greece—Athens—Economic conditions. 5. Sex role—Greece—Athens—
History—To 1500. 6. Ethnicity—Greece—Athens—History—To 1500.
7. Citizenship—Greece—Athens—History—To 1500. 8. Athens
(Greece)—History. 9. Athens (Greece)—Social conditions. 10. Greece—
History—To 146 B.C. I. Title.
HQ1134.K46 2014
305.40938'5—dc23
2014001043
ISBN: 978-0-415-73786-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-81777-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For Elly
The most frustrating and most rewarding
thing I have ever produced
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Contents

List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction: Immigrant Women in a Male Citizen World 1
1 Metic Women, Citizenship, and Marriage in
Athenian Law 12
2 The Ideology of the Metic Woman 26
3 Aspasia, Athenian Citizen Elites, and the Myth of
the Courtesan 68
4 The Dangers of the Big City 97
5 Working Women, Not ‘Working Girls’ 123
Bibliography 163
Index 173
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Figures

2.1 Amazonomachy. ca. 440–430 BCE. 1899,0721.5.
©Trustees of the British Museum. 45
2.2 Amazon warrior. ca. 460–450 BCE. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1907 (07.286.86). 47
2.3 Grave stele, Theano of Erythrai. ca. 400 BCE. National
Archaeological Museum, Athens 3472. 57
3.1 Symposium with men and women. ca. 480 BCE. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1920 (20.246). 70
3.2 Ostrakon with Elpinikê, sister of Kimon. ca. 480 BCE.
Kerameikos Museum O 6874. 80
3.3 Ostrakon with Koisyra, mother of Megakles. ca.
490 BCE. Kerameikos Museum O 2359.1. 81
4.1 Grave stele, Demetria of Kyzikus. Mid-fourth
century BCE. Athenian Agora I 3174. 108
4.2 Grave stele, Eirene of Byzantium. ca. 375–350 BCE.
Piraeus Museum 3582. 110
5.1 Shopping for the symposia. ca. 490 BCE. BM E61.
©Trustees of the British Museum. 129
5.2 Grave stele, Artemisia. Early fourth century BCE.
Piraeus Museum 3581. 132
5.3 Grave stele, Melitta. Mid-fourth century BCE. 1909,0221.1.
©Trustees of the British M useum. 135
5.4 Grave stele, Phanostratê. ca. 350 BCE. National
Archaeological Museum, Athens 993. 142
5.5 Grave stele, girl with krotala. ca. 350 BCE. National
Archaeological Museum, Athens 1896. 149
5.6 Music and dance school? ca. 450–425 BCE. National
Archaeological Museum, Naples 3232. 151