Rape and the Politics of Consent in Classical Athens

257 Pages·2002·5.211 MB·English

by  Rosanna Omitowoju

CAMBRIDGE CLASSICAL STUDIES
General Editors
R. L. HUNTER, R. G. OSBORNE, M. D. REEVE,
P. D. A. GARNSEY, M. MILLETT, D. N. SEDLEY

RAPE AND THE POLITICS OF CONSENT
IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
ROSANNA OMITOWOJU
King's College. Cambridge
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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1P Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge 2002
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2002
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
Typeface Times I 1/13 pt. System l!}Tp{2E [TB]
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Omitowoju, Rosanna.
Rape and the politics of consent in classical Athens/ Rosanna Omitowoju.
p. cm. - (Cambridge classical studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o 52 r 80074 9 (hardback)
1. Rape - Greece - Athens. 2. Sex customs - Greece - Athens. 1. Title. 11. Series.
HV6569.G82A 846 2002
364. I 5' )2 109385-<lc2 I 2002043605
ISBN O 521 80074 9 hardback
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements page vm
List of abbreviations lX
Introduction
Part 1: Regulating rape with words: rhetoric
and respectability in the Athenian courts
Introduction: Athenian law in context I 3
I Hubris: rape and shame 29
2 Bia: rape and violence 5 I
3 Moicheia: rape and adultery 72
4 Women and status I T 6
Part 2: Menander: propriety and transgression
Introduction: Menander in context
5 Rape and recognition in Menander
6 Rape and maintaining the status quo:
citizenship. marriage, money and eros 204
Conclusion 230
Bibliography
Index
VII
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are many people whom I want to thank for their help to me
in writing this book and the Ph.D thesis on which it is based.
Firstly I would like to thank Dr Simon Goldhill who super
vised my Ph.D thesis and who has been a wonderful colleague
here in King's. In both those roles he has been exceptionally
generous with his encouragement, support and critical insight. I
am also very grateful to Professor Paul Cartledge and Professor
Colin Austin who read large parts of my thesis and offered very
valuable comments and advice. Likewise I benefited from the
thoroughness and enthusiasm of my examiners, Professor Pat
Easterling and Professor Chris Carey. I owe a particular debt to
Professor Easterling who has looked at drafts of the whole book
and always been ready with scholarly perception and practical
advice. Professor Michael Reeve also read a draft as an editor
of the Cambridge Classical Studies series: his precision and dry
humour ensured that his comments were received with gratitude
and pleasure.
I am also exceptionally grateful to my family who have always
been behind me all the way: David, who has seen me through my
Ph.D and the writing of this book, Jonah, who has gladdened my
days and Adelaide, whose unexpected conception kickstarted me
into publication. Friends such as Vedia Izzet, Danielle Allen and
Sara Aguilar have also provided an invaluable network of support
and committed academic debate.
I would also like to thank the Classics Faculty in Cambridge
and King's College. Both of these institutions and the individuals
within them have supported me in a great number of ways.
viii
ABBREVIATIONS
Classical authors are abbreviated as in LSJ (see below).
ABSA Annual of the British School at Athens
AJA American Journal of Archaeology
AJPh American Journal of Philology
BICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies
CA Classical Antiquity
CE Chronique d'Egypte
CJ Classical Journal
CPh Classical Philology
CQ Classical Quarterly
GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
G&R Greece and Rome
JG Inscriptiones Graecae
.IHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
LSJ A Greek-English Lexicon H. Liddell, R. Scott.
H. Jones et al., eds., 9th edn, Oxford 1996
PCPhS Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society
RD Revue Historique de Droit Fran,·ais et Etranger
RFIC Rivista di Filologica e di /struzione Classica
SDHI Studia et Docwnenta Historiae et Juris
TAPhA Transactions and Proceedings <l the American
Philological Association
ZRG Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fiir
Rechtsgeschichte, Romanistische Abteilung
lX

INTRODUCTION
Rape is a hot topic in contemporary Britain and has been for the last
three decades or so. In this country and perhaps more strikingly in
North America. rape has been foregrounded in particular as a major
issue in the struggle for female liberation because in it the dialectic
of female oppression is claimed to have been most actively at work.
Indeed, contemporary feminists have described the call for control
of the body and sexuality as 'the most radical demand women can
make·. 1 Susan Brownmiller may have been justly criticised for the
sweepingness of her conclusions. declaring for instance that rape
'is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by
which all men keep all women in a state of fear' :2 but her work has
opened up new perspectives on the study of the crime of rape and
its relation to a dominant cultural context. Brownmiller and others
writing at that time, or working later in the same tradition, have
tried above all to site the issues raised by the discussion of rape in
the mainstream of social concerns. 1 Much of this work has aimed
consciously at counteracting the 'sick individual' approach which
places the rapist in a marginal position as an aberrant individual
afflicted by a psycho-sexual disorder. This work has also been
outspoken in its challenge to theories of 'victim precipitation' by
stressing the arbitrariness of victim choice.4 Instead these writers
1 Diamond and Quinby (1988) 194.
' Brownmiller ( 1975) 15, italics in the original· for criticism. with references to press
reviews at the time of publication, see Geis (1977) 13-18.
-' See e.g. Toner ( 1977) 51-84. who analyses rape situation,. police procedure, and trials
in an attempt to counteract the 'myths· of rape. Sec also Russell ( 1975). Clark and Lewis
( 1977). Griffin ( 1977), Plaza ( 1<)80). Scully ( 1990). Allison and Wrightsman ( 1993).
-! 'Victim precipitation· was a term used by Menachem Amir in his early and groundhreak
ing. though somewhat flawed. Pal/ans in Forcih!e Rape ( 197 1 ). He use, the phrase to
refer to actions or attitudes of the victim which may help to place her in a vulner
ahlc situation. This focus proved controversial and the phrase smacked too much of
blaming: the victim to find favour with critics. In contrast, in her study of convicted
rapists. Scully ( 1990) I 75 srcciJically asks rapists. especially those who committed
INTRODUCTION
focus on the commonness of the cultural conditioning which makes
rape a feasible behaviour pattern, a result not of aberrance but of
over-conformity to a principle of patriarchy and sexual commod
ification. But the discussion of rape is not just the preserve of the
academic or pseudo-academic discourse of gender politics; rather
it enters popular debate in a number of guises which yet serve
to highlight its centrality as a way of discussing and evaluating
norms of sexual behaviour, gender expectations, individual inter
action, and the relationship of law to society and of the public to
the private. It is these dynamics which make the study of rape such
a valuable prism for looking at any period.
For the media, rape is a sexy subject, both literally and metaphor
ically. Delia Dumaresq has noted that 'the law and juridical
practices round rape construct the rape victim with a specific
sexuality', 5 and this is equally true for both parties in its media
reportage. To begin with, it is a sexuality which can be paraded.
Even if the technical inadmissibility of the sexual histories of the
parties is maintained, in narration to the court the rape scenario
describes a series of sexual actions and preferences which have
lost the option of privacy traditionally afforded to sexual rela
tions in our society. Regardless of the validity of the charge of
rape, it describes an encounter which is at some level antagonistic,
instantiated in the rhetoric of the court, in which there are two
accounts of events which at once parallel and contest one another.
It encodes a sexuality based on brutality or 'misrecognition of
cues and signs concerning social interactions' ,6 on malice, deceit
or victimage. It also constructs a sexuality oriented to the interests
of the narrator and audience, but sanitised: their interest is not to be
tainted by the voyeurism of the pornographer or the prurience of
the gossip columnist. Instead it is a narration at once detailed, yet
glossed over with the normative vocabulary of the moral majority.
As well as the steady stream of 'routine' cases which receive
little or no extraordinary interest or coverage, the subject of rape
regularly throws up its causes celebres. At the time when I was first
·stranger-rape·. how they selected their victims. She reports that the overwhelming
majority chose women who were just there. the key factors being 'randomness and
convenience'.
5 Dumaresq (1981) 42. 6 Ibid. 44.
2