Aspects of women in antiquity: proceedings of the first Nordic Symposium on Women's Lives in Antiquity, Göteborg 12 - 15 June 1997, Volume 1997

Aspects of Women in Antiquity

ASPECTS OF WOMEN IN ANTIQUITY

PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST NORDIC SYMPOSIUM ON WOMEN'S LIVES IN ANTIQUITY GOTEBORG 12 - 15 JUNE 1997

EDITED BY

LENA LARSSON LOVEN &

AGNETA STROMBERG

PAUL ASTROMS FORLAG JONSERED 1998

STUDIES IN MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND LITERATURE Pocketbook 153 Edited and published by Professor Paul Astrom Jonsereds herrgSrd William Gibsons vag 11 S-433 76 Jonsered, Sweden

Selection and editorial matter c Lena Larsson Lov6n & Agneta Stromberg 1998 ° 1998 the contributors ISBN 91-7081-188-1 Printed in Sweden by Elanders Graphic Systems AB Published by Paul Astroms forlag, William Gibsons vag 11, S-433 76 Jonsered, Sweden

CONTENTS

Abbreviations

7

Preface Lena Larsson Loven & Agneta Strdmberg

9

Sex-indicating grave gifts in the Athenian Iron Age: an investigation and its results Agneta Strdmberg

11

Cybele and Aphrodite: two aspects of the Great Goddess Britt-Marie Ndsstrom

29

PARTHENIA — remarks on virginity and its meanings in the religious context of ancient Greece Leena Viitaniemi

44

Euripides, Bakkhai and maenadism Syrmove des Bouvrie

58

Etruscan women: a cross-cultural perspective Marjatta Nielsen

69

LANAM FECIT — woolworking and female virtue Lena Larsson Loven

85

Female property and power in Imperial Rome. Institutum Romanum Finlandiae Paivi Setdla

96

Conflicting descriptions of women's religious activity in mid-Republican Rome: Augustan narratives about the arrival of Cybele and the Bacchanalia scandal Marja-Leena Hdnninen

111

'IN PUBUCUM PROCURRENDP: women in the public space of Roman Greece Jorunn 0kland

127

The twofold view of women — gender construction in early Christianity Gunhild Widen

142

Penthesileia — a deadly different Amazon and Achilles' lost honour Ulrika Stahre

154

Sublime poetry or feminine fiddling? Gender and reception: Sulpicia through the eyes of two 19th century scholars Mathilde Skoie

169

Contributors

183

Index of names

185

List of plates

189

Plates

ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations of ancient authors and documents follow those listed in the third edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary. For modern periodicals and series, the abbreviations below are used: AC

Archeologia Classica

ActaHyp

Acta Hyperborea, Archaeology

AJA

American Journal of Archaeology. The Journal of the Archaeological Institute of America

AJAH

American Journal of Ancient History

AJP

American Journal of Philology

AM

Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung

ARID

Analecta Romana Instituti Danici

AIRF

Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae

ANRW

Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt

BEFAR

Bibliothfeque des Ecoles frangaises d'Ath6nes et de Rome

BICS

Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London

CIL

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum

7

Danish

Studies

in

Classical

Classical Quarterly HdAW

Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft

HsPh

Harvard Studies in Classical Philology

HThR

Harvard Theological Review

JRS

Journal of Roman Studies

UMC

Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae

MEFRA

Melanges d'archgologie et d'histoire frangaise de Rome, Antiquitd

Opus

Opus, Rivista internazionale per la storia economica e sociale dell'antichita

PBSR

Papers of the British School at Rome

PCPhS

Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society

RE

Real-Encyclopadie der Klassischen Altertumswissenshaft

REA

Revue des Etudes Anciennes

RHR

Revue de THistoire des Religions

SIMA

Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology

TLS

Times Literary Supplment

ZPE

Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik

8

de

TEcole

PREFACE

The papers in this volume were presented at the first Nordic Symposium on Women's Lives in Antiquity, which took place at the Department of Classics, University of Goteborg (Sweden) on 12-15 June 1997. It was initiated and organised by the editors of this book. The idea of organising the symposium emanated from yet another project which has been going on for some years — conducted by the same editors — to put together an international bibliography of monographs and articles, published from the early 1970s onward, about women in antiquity. During this work we gradually realised that in Scandinavia and Finland there were a greater number of scholars than we previously had been aware of, working in the research field that focuses on women's history and gender studies in antiquity. Out of this insight grew the plans for arranging a 'pan'-Nordic meeting on women and gender in the ancient world. The idea was to make it interdisciplinary and open to scholars from different academic levels, thus including both Ph.D. students, graduates, and established scholars. Since the symposium was the first of its kind in the Nordic countries, the common theme was intentionally kept wide. The reason for this was to give the participants the possibility to present papers with a broad perspective related to the general topic of women's lives in antiquity. Another aim was that the various subjects should easily reflect the individual research spheres of the participants. These would in turn result in a survey and a presentation of the studies in this field pursued in the Nordic countries, recently completed or still in progress. The interdisciplinary direction of the symposium is clearly demonstrated by the variety of the subjects of the papers. This purpose was achieved by participants representing diverse academic levels and branches of learning, such as history, archaeology, art history, philosophy, literature and religion — and all with the gender aspects put in focus. However, some parameters were given. The cultural limits were to range from the Iron Age to Late Antiquity in the Greek and Roman world (thus not including prehistoric subjects such as the Bronze Age, Ancient Egypt and the Near East). In addition to this, papers dealing with the scholarly tradition on the study of women in antiquity were welcome contributions. Two such studies 9

are included here: the reception in the 19th century of the Roman poet Sulpicia, and the survival and gradual change of the Achilles/Penthesileia motive in 18th/19th-century art. Apart from the papers printed in this volume, the symposium also included contributions of recently initiated research projects. These were presented in the form of seminars and open to debate. Discussion at the symposium was full and open, and held in a most friendly and fruitful atmosphere. We warmly thank everyone for their participation. Also, we wish to express our gratitude to the persons who have helped in preparing this book. Professor Robin Hagg for his generous guidance on various issues, practical and bibliographical; Dr. Jon van Leuven for correcting the English; Kjell Malmgren, B.A., for technical assistance; Dr. Michael Pettersson for bibliographical advice; and Professor Paul Astrom for the publication. We are also grateful for the generous financial support received, giving us the possibility to arrange the symposium and to publish this volume: the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond), Magnus Bergwalls Stiftelse, Stiftelsen Harald och Tonny Hagendahls minnesfond, NorFA (Nordisk Forskerutdanningsakademi) and Wenner-Gren Center Foundation.

Goteborg, June 1998 Lena Larsson Lov6n and Agneta Stromberg

10

Agneta Stromberg

SEX-INDICATING GRAVE GIFTS IN THE ATHENIAN IRON AGE: AN INVESTIGATION AND ITS RESULTS

Introduction The habit of furnishing the dead with grave offerings goes back to the dawn of mankind. It can be found in all ancient cultures, and even exists today in some civilizations. One may speculate over the kinds of interests, motives and beliefs that lie behind this custom. Often the term 'grave gift1 is used for the objects that accompanied the deceased, which could be misleading since it might imply that they were 'presents' needed for the underworld. But it is also evident that the types of items that the dead were provided with were personal things, perhaps various 'favorite' belongings of practical usage. Occasionally too, the items were symbolic or made exclusively for the burial occasion. Yet another aspect is that the grave offerings could be used as prestige goods and reminders of the status in life of the buried person. As such they may also have served as a manifestation for those still living who shared the same social position as the deceased. Thus funerals, burial rituals and grave offerings could have the further function of conserving and perhaps even strengthening social status for certain individuals in a society. One of the most spectacular grave finds from the Greek Iron Age was located in the Athenian Agora by the American School of Athens and excavated in 1967. It was a cremation burial, containing the remains of a woman, aged about 24-40. The burial, dated to ca. 850 B.C., was so well furnished with grave offerings that it is referred to as 'the tomb of a rich Athenian lady'. It contained more than 40 vessels of various shapes and sizes, bones of lamb and calf, and a vast amount of jewellery, such as gold rings, dress pins in bronze and iron, a pair of golden earrings and a necklace made of 1100 beads in faience, glass and rock crystal. In addition to these were also two ivory seals, one disk of ivory, and a model of a chest with five conically shaped objects on the lid — commonly interpreted as models of granaries, and 11

thus a symbol of wealth.1 (See Figs. 1-2, p. 13) All this of course raised the question whether 'the lady' had held any social, political and economic power in the 'pre-Athenian' society. That would surely have been the usual interpretation, had the burial belonged to a man. It should also be stressed that a number of other female burials from the same period in Athens show similar, if not the same, wealth.2 It is a fact that knowledge among scholars about the Greek Iron Age societies in general is quite limited. This is clear in regard to economy and social life, not to mention gender structures and strategies for power. Partly it is due to the lack of contemporary literary sources, as the art of writing disappeared for a period of more than 400 years after the collapse of the Mycenaean era. Whether the epics, traditionally going back to the middle and the end of the 8th century B.C., should be used as historical evidence is a vexed question, although it has been suggested that both in Homer and in Hesiod reflections of the late 8th-century society are noticeable.3 Thus, our sources from the Iron Age are mainly archaeological, and when using them one must also take into consideration that regional variations as well as chronological changes and fluctuations are striking. This is evident both in rites and in habits of providing the dead with grave offerings.4 In this paper I will focus on two problems. First, in the Athenian Iron Age burials are there grave gifts so strongly connected with the sex, or gender, of the dead that these items could be used as sex-indicators in the absence of skeletal remains, and thus of osteological investigation? And second, how should we interpret the wealthy female burials from Athens? These problems were the topics for an investigation performed in my Ph.D. thesis,5 where I presented and demonstrated an 'exclusion principle' to be used

1

Smithson 1968, 77-116. See e.g. Kubler 1943, 44-46, burial PG48 (=Stromberg 1993, 126, burial 89); v. Freytag gen. Loringhoff 1974, 1-25, burial VDAk 1 (=Stromberg 1993, 132, burial 125). 3 This has in particular been done when discussing attitudes towards, and the status of, women during the period in question. See e.g. Foley 1978-1979, 7-26; Qviller 1981, 3138; Wickert-Micknat 1982; and Cantarella 1987, 24-37. 4 For interesting studies that deal with social status in the Greek Iron Age as reflected in the burial material, see e.g. Morris 1987 and Whitley 1991. 5 A. Stromberg, Male or female? A methodological study of grave gifts as sexindicators in Iron Age burialsfromAthens (SIMA P-B 123), Jonsered 1993. 2

12

Fig. 1. The ash urn and some grave gifts from the 'tomb of a rich Athenian lady*, including the model chest with 'granaries'. From Smithson 1968, plate 18.

Fig.2. The model chest with 'granaries' on lid. From Smithson 1968, plate 27.

13

as an indicator of sex-related grave offerings.6 The investigation was based on data collected from some 625 burials from Iron Age Athens, i.e. about 1100-700 B.C. 7 The fact that we are dealing with such a long period is better demonstrated in my thesis, where also the historical and cultural changes in time and space are discussed. My present aim is to briefly illustrate the principle and its results in a more general fashion.

Preconceived

attitudes?

Is it possible to draw any conclusions about the sex of a person from another culture and time, who died hundreds or even thousands of years ago, by only tooking at the items that she or he was buried with? This has in many cases been done, and is still done, by archaeologists and scholars who for various reasons do not have access to the skeletal material.8 What types of objects, then, are commonly used by scholars as indicators

6 To use the term gender-indicating would perhaps seem more suitable when arguing that the deceased were provided with certain types of artefacts because these items were considered, in their time, by cultural standards to be appropriate to the sex in question. But when I here use the word sex-indicating I mean an indicator of the biological sex, since the method, as will be seen, aims to serve as such in the absence of proper osteological analysis. 7 This long interval is chronologically divided by scholars into various sub-periods, based on the different styles of the pottery decoration. The division has been translated into calendar years and thus we generally speak of Submycenaean (SM) 1100-1050, Protogeometric (PG) 1050-900, Early Geometric (EG) 900-850, Middle Geometric (MG) 850-760, and Late Geometric (LG) 760-700. The terminology for the period in question varies. Normally the label 'Iron Age' is used, thus covering the whole era. For a more historical approach', the term 'Dark Age' has been adopted for the period 1100-760, and 'the Renaissance' for 760-700. See e.g. Snodgrass 1971; Desborough 1972; Coldstream 1977; and The Greek Renaissance 1983. 'The Geometric period' is a term that derivesfromthe geometric decoration of the pottery, which has served as a basis for the chronology. For a more detailed chronological division in periods based on pottery styles and related to calendar years for the Geometric period, I refer to Coldstream 1968, 302-331. 8 The simple explanation for this is that the bones are either in too bad a state when found or even completely lacking. The fragmentary preservation is obvious when it comes to cremation burials.

14

of sex/gender? As it turns out in cases of Iron Age cremation burials, different shapes of amphoras were used as ash urns for men and women respectively, thus indicating that there existed an intention to mark the sex of the dead. Neck-handled amphoras were preferred for men, and belly-handled or shoulder-handled amphoras for women. In the Athenian material this is almost without exceptions, thus allowing us to use the shape of the ash urn as an indicator of sex.9 Also, it seems that when grave markers were used in the form of large ceramic vessels standing on the burial (this goes for inhumations as well as for cremations), the preferable shapes for men were kraters (large bowls on a stand) and for women amphoras}0 But apart from these facts, based on statistics that include bone analysis, weapons of all kinds are in general considered to be male equipment. So are drinking vessels, while spindle whorls, loomweights, cooking pots and jewellery are commonly used as evidence of a female burial. With the examples below I want to point out that we cannot ignore the chance that we are influenced and fooled by modern ideas and expectations about archaeological items as 'male' or 'female'. It is thus easy to apply our prejudiced minds to a prehistoric society whose estimations, symbolic language, and ideas of gender relations we know almost nothing about. The coarse-ware vessel labelled a 'cooking pot', often with traces of ashes and soot on the surface, is usually considered to be a woman's item, an assumption evidently based on the idea that women did the cooking! The following has been said about an Iron Age burial from the Athenian Agora: "The inclusion of the fragmentary cooking pot.,..makes it likely that the deceased was a woman."11 If cooking pots are not 'masculine' enough, then wine cups and other types of drinking equipment are. Probably the view of these items as male is rooted in the assumption that the old ritual symposion with its religious and social functions was a typical male institution. In the Classical period respectable wives did not attend the drinking parties of their husbands, and a common dislike for women drinking wine is noticeable from various ancient sources.12

9

Desborough 1952, 5f.; Stromberg 1993, 79f. Morris 1987, 151-154; Whitley 1991, 18, 137-162; Stromberg 1993, 81. 11 Smithson 1974, 360. 12 See e.g. Pomeroy 1975, 153f., with references to ancient authors and their opinion on women drinking wine. 10

15

About another grave in the Agora we can find this statement: "The types of vases offered — pitcher, jug and skyphos — are the same as those offered in the man's grave XIV, and confirm the identification of the skeleton as that of a man."13 In my opinion, it should not be taken for granted, without further investigation, that two persons, who have been provided with the same type of equipment, must belong to the same sex. Another question is whether drinking vessels can be found frequently in female burials from the Iron Age or not. Finally, about yet another burial from the Agora one reads: "The iron knife....is of interest because its presence in the grave would ordinarily suggest that the deceased was a man, while the jewellery is suggestive of a woman. The litde knife, small and delicate, may as well have been a household utensil as a weapon, and it would be dangerous to attempt to draw any conclusionsfromits inclusion among the objects in the grave."14 I sympathize with the author's decision made in the end, although I can understand his dilemma. During the circumstances, to him, the knife is confusing. And not only did this burial contain jewellery, but there was a spindle whorl as well, which is by tradition a strong 'female' item.

The method and its application The method used in my study is based on an exclusion principle that will produce a number of probably male and female grave gifts which might be used as sex-indicators, and this with a minimum of preconceived attitudes. It is quite simple and can be applied in every possible burial context, within every possible archaeological period, provided that there is a reasonable limitation in time and space. For example, my study was restricted to the region of Athens, and to ca. 1100-700 B.C. Also, the following two criteria have to be fulfilled:

13

Young 1939, 101. Note that these types of vessels, pitcher, jug and skyphos (cup), are often connected with wine-drinking, although their functions of course could have served many other purposes as well. 14 Young 1949, 289. 16

1. A reference group, consisting of burials where the deceased have had their biological sex determined by osteological examination. 2. The burials in the reference group must contain grave offerings. The reference group is to be labelled Category A. In my investigation mainly adults were included, although some 'girls' were referred to the 'woman' category, since their sex had been determined osteologically. Due to these circumstances I considered it important to investigate their grave gifts as well. All the grave offerings in Category A were classified into seven main groups, defined by me since I was particularly curious about the sex/gender relation of these types of objects: Weapons/Tools, Drinking vessels, Cooking pots (although I used the term Household pottery), Other vessels (a wide range of types and shapes), Jewellery, Spindle whorls and Miscellaneous (consisting often of odd and 'symbolic* items). In my burial material, as it turned out, only 20% of the deceased had their sex established by bone analysis. These 125 individuals, 57 men and 68 women altogether, thus formed my reference group — Category A. The remaining 80%, which did not have their sex determined by any bone analysis, formed a group that I labelled at this point Category B/C. The aim is now to single out, from Category B/C, probable male and female burials; and this process is built upon the grave gifts. By the exclusion principle these will be sorted out as 'male' and 'female', based on the types of grave gifts that are found in the male and the female burials in Category A, as follows. From Category A the types of offerings found in male and female burials respectively are listed. The hypothesis stated is that a true 'male' object should not be found in a female burial, since it would, by strong tradition and habit, be provided only for a man — and vice versa. Obviously, many types of items do occur among both men and women. But, as it happened, some types appeared exclusively in the male, or exclusively in the female, burials. Hence, according to the hypothesis, these types of objects could be labelled as possible 'male' or 'female' sex-indicators. The next step is to test the sex-indicators on the Category B/C, in order to see if these objects occur in any of the B/C burials. If so, one of two inferences can be made: 1. If any 'male' indicators are found in a B/C burial, and no other objects in this burial are 'female', the burial probably belongs to a man (and vice versa). Thus, the burial leaves Category B/C and enters a new group — Category B. 17

2. As mentioned above, a true 'male' grave gift can never appear in a woman's grave (and vice versa). So, if a 'male' and a 'female' item do occur together in the same burial from Category B/C* the logical result is that both these types of items proved, after all, not to be sex-indicators, and must be removed from the list as such. Since my study was dealing with a period of 400 years, which archaeologically and historically shows large variations, the investigations were performed in the different sub-periods SM (Submycenaean), PG (Protogeometric) and G (Geometric) separately. To further clarify how the exclusion principle works, it will be demonstrated below on the burials from the Submycenaean period.15

Table 1. Types of SM grave gifts in Category A Italicized items occur exclusively in male and female burials respectively. Items in parentheses have failed as sex-indicators after being tested on the Category B/C.

FEMALE amphora, belly-handled amphora, neck-handled amphora, rim-handled amphoriskos fibula household pottery lekythos pin pins in pair ring {shield-ring) skyphos spiral* stirrup jar

MALE amphoriskos fibula (jug) lekythos pin pins in pair ring skyphos stirrup jar

Probably a hair-adornment.

15

See Stromberg 1993, 41-44.

18

At this point only the types are important, not the actual numbers of items. Those in parentheses — the former 'male' jug and 'female' shield-ring from Category A — were found together in one burial from Category B/C, which disproved the sex-indicating function of these objects. For the burial in question there is thus no clue as to the sex of the deceased. Through this process, the number of sex-indicators will inevitably be reduced (as can be seen below). But a final list of sex-indicating types of grave gifts has also been crystallized. As it turns out in the Submycenaean period in Athens there are five female, and no male, sex-indicators:

Table 2. Submycenaean results MALE

FEMALE amphora, belly-handled amphora, neck-handled amphora, rim-handled household pottery spiral

Finally, when all the burials in Category B/C, from all the three subperiods, have been tested according to the method demonstrated above, we will have similar lists from the Protogeometric and Geometric periods.16 What emerge are the following three categories: Category A = individuals that have had their sex determined by bone examinations. Category B = individuals whose probable sex has been established by their grave offerings, since these, according to the exclusion principle applied, in all likelihood are related to the sex of the deceased. In my case altogether 51 more individuals had their sex established in this way: 25 men and 26 women.

16

Strdmberg 1993, 44-51. 19

Category C = individuals that have not had their sex established either on osteological grounds or by the type of grave gifts, since the burials did not contain any of the specific sex-indicating objects. Naturally, the method so far developed may not be convincing as a true indicator. Some more factors must be considered, added, and put into use. Among these are, as I call them, the 'high-frequency' items — HFIs for short — in order to further scrutinize the sex-indicating functions of the grave gifts. The definition of a HFI is an object that is not in the first place given exclusively to men or to women, but must appear in more than 1/3 of male or female burials respectively from the reference group, Category A.17 For example, a type of item with a high frequency in female burials could indicate that it was preferred especially for women, and vice versa, and thus a HFI would operate as a likely indicator. Together with other sex-indicating objects it would certainly helpftxrtherto strengthen the plausibility of a determination of the sex of the deceased. Disappointingly, in my material the types of 'high-frequency items' were not many in number — only six types of objects altogether turned out to be HFIs. Nevertheless, all these possess a. potentiality as indicators due to their large representation in men's and women's burials respectively. They were distributed as follows:

SM ring (female)

PG household pottery (female) pin (female) pins in pair (female) skyphos (=cup, female)

G wine jug (male)18

To sum up, the method of using grave gifts as sex-indicators should not be based on our gender-related ideas of male and female, but should be strictly founded on the actual presence of the types of items in a reference group. In this Athenian Iron Age material the combination of the sex-indicating factors 17

"The reason for this particular boundary line is that a natural gap happens to occur between * low-frequency' and * high-frequency' items, constituting a perfect border at ca. 37%, which is slightly more than one third", Stromberg 1993, 59. 18 The Greek term oinochoe is used in my thesis. 20

mentioned above — the HFIs, the shape of the ash urns, the ceramic grave markers and the list of indicators based on the results from the exclusion principle — creates a strong possibility of making a sex-determination of a dead person, based solely on the objects connected with the burial. The results What then were the results of the investigation as a whole, apart from the formulation and application of a systematic method to sort out sex-indicators in burial material? First, it should be noted that many of the sex-indicating items were exactly the ones that our preconceptions would lead us to expect. Weapons were found only in male burials and spindle whorls only in female graves. Jewellery occurred more frequently among women than men, and so did cooking pots. However, the study did reveal some interesting facts. For one, classification of burials as male based on drinking vessels is not reliable. In fact drinking cups and wine jugs are almost equally represented among men and women (although the wine jug, as seen above, was a male HFI in the Geometric sub-period).19 Also, the frequency of certain sex-indicating objects turned out to be surprisingly low. For example, weapons were not commonly used as grave offerings. A comparatively small number of men were provided with them; out of more than 600 documented burials only 32 were furnished with arms, meaning ca. 5%, and it should be noted that there is no representation at all of weapons in the Submycenaean period.20 If we concentrate on the female indicators we can see that spindle whorls show an even more curious detail — only 46 pieces altogether were found in my material and distributed among 15 women. And of these 46 spindle whorls, 21 came from the same burial.21 A female indicator, yes, but who were the women that were furnished with spindle whorls, and why? Other types of objects that are strongly related to women are kalathoi (clay models of wool baskets, see Fig A, p. 23), clay models of chests (commonly interpreted as symbols for jewellery boxes or bridal chests), and pyxides (ceramic boxes with a lid, occasionally holding model clay horses, see Figs. 19 20 21

Stromberg 1993, 60f., 64f., 70-72, 83f. Stromberg 1993, 81-83. Stromberg 1993, 95.

21

3a-c, p. 23). On the list of female indicators — and sometimes found in children's burials (girls?) — could also be noted items made in a peculiar greyish/pinkish clay, a ceramic ware labelled * Attic Dark Age incised ware'.22 These are all handmade, with incisions, and are often in the shape of dolls, beads, bowls (perhaps imitating straw baskets) — and even spindle whorls. (See Fig.5, p. 24) All the items mentioned above have a low frequency, and when they occur — often in combination with each other — they are mostly found in very wealthy and extraordinary female burials. I would suggest that even if these types of objects convincingly indicate a woman's grave (and they might also hold a female symbolic meaning) they are not the offerings that we find with the 'average' woman. In this material the items should be looked upon not as symbols of women and women's activities in general, but rather as an integral part of the offering-equipment displayed to honor the women of the wealthy families.23 Let us consider the grave offerings a bit further. Almost all the 'average' burials, when furnished with items, seem to contain a sort of 'standard equipment': usually some ordinary vessels for food and drink, and a few pieces of jewellery, like simple dress pins. This goes for both men and women. Since the wealthy burials naturally offer a larger variation of objects and types of objects, as the amount of offerings is vast, it is among the rich that the sex-related, or gender-related, objects are to be most frequently found. Thus, under these circumstances the difference between male and female is most visible. Also, the objects that stand out as sex-indicators are often a bit 'odd' in their appearance, or exclusive in material and shape. Several of the types of female indicators are evidently not items used for everyday work, but are symbolic. Among these are the already mentioned kalathoi, the pyxides with clay horses on the lid,24 the model chests, and the objects categorized as 'Attic Dark Age incised ware'. 22

Bouzek 1974; Stromberg 1993, 97f. Stromberg 1993, 102. 24 See Bohen 1988, 5-12. Bohen argues that pyxides with model horses on their lid are strongly related to women, since they appear almost entirely in women's burials. Bohen also compares the symbolic function of the horses with that of the 'granary' in the grave of the 'rich lady'. The number of horses, which Bohen suggests represent a real team, varies from one to four. Their presence on the pyxis lids should be interpreted as a symbol of power and fortune among the aristocratic families who could afford horses, and thus an indication that women who were furnished with this item belonged to that class. 23

22

Fig3. Three main types of pyxides; (a) horse pyxis, (b) pointed pyxis and; (c) Standard' pyxis. Drawings made by A-L. Schallin. From Stromberg 1993, 89, Fig.8.

Kolof hos FigA, Drawing made by A-L. Schallin. From Stromberg 1993, 38, Fig.4.

23

Fig.5, 'Attic Dark Age incised ware'; dolls, bowl and clayballs. From Bouzek 1974. Montage from figs,2, 4 and 10.

24

Finally, in this material the female burials in general contain more objects and a larger variation of types of objects than the male. What we label a 'rich' female grave would generally far exceed a 'rich' male burial by standards of wealth, which is interesting. What could it mean?

Rich and powerful women? Regarding the two problems that this paper was to focus on, the following can now be said. First, even when no osteological analysis has been performed it is possible to distinguish male from female burials in the Athenian Iron Age with the help of a systematic method based on the distribution of the grave offerings. However, for scholars the purpose of making such a distinction, and for determining the biological sex of a person who died thousands of years ago, must not be an end in itself. A sex-determination should rather enable us to discover and compare the social status among men and women, and between men and women — a study that under these circumstances, and in the period in question has to be based on the material standard of the grave goods that men and women were furnished with. Second, how then should we interpret the several wealthy female burials that really stand out in this context? This is not an easy question to answer. At first glance they give the impression that at least some women in this society possessed high status, and even political and economic power. On the other hand, according to my study, the burials do not seem to contain anything that accentuates productivity in terms of, for example, working life. No productive function, no social role created by the women's own personal qualities is, in my opinion, visible enough. The latter could be compared to the 'warrior' label, or occasionally the 'craftsman' label, that has been assigned to several of the males.25 But these kinds of analogies are not at hand when it comes to women, nor is the female function as mother in terms of symbolic items referring to procreation implied. We do find symbolic items in this material, and perhaps power and high ranking in most societies are expressed rather in a symbolic form than by objects referring to everyday life. But in this case, the symbols in general, together with all the wealth in the rich burials, do not seem to focus on

25

See e.g. Blegen 1952, 282: "The weapons and the tools deposited in the grave suggest that the occupant was a warrior and perhaps also a craftsman".

25

individual/personal status. The equipment is characterized by a standardization of prestige goods that attest the wealth and power of families, and thus stresses kinship. Even though sex and gender are expressed by the grave offerings, there is, in my opinion, no strong evidence that the sex/gender and power of the individual was the important thing to emphasize — as opposed to the degree of wealth within certain families. Let us conclude by returning to the 'rich lady'. Judging from the items in the tomb one may spontaneously argue that this woman held an important position in her society. In fact, had she been a man, most scholars would label this person a 'king' or 'chieftain'. Now, we can at least infer that she belonged to an important and wealthy family in the Athenian Iron Age society, and therefore was highly ranked. But whether her grave gifts mirror her own personal status or that of a father, brother or husband is a question yet to be answered. My suggestion must be that her burial reflects the power and wealth of her kin. Goteborg University Department of Classics (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History) Gdteborg Sweden

Bibliography Blegen 1952

Blegen, C. W., 'Two Athenian grave groups of about 900 B.C.', Hesperia 21, 1952, 279-294.

Bohen 1988

Bohen, B., Die geometrischen Pyxiden (Kerameikos XIII), Berlin 1988.

Bouzek 1974

Bouzek, J., The Attic Dark Age incised ware (Acta Musei Nationalis Pragae 28:1), Prague 1974.

26

Cantarella 1987

Cantarella, E., 'Origins of western misogyny', in Pandora's daughters. The role and status of women in ancient Greek and Roman antiquity, Baltimore and London 1987, 24-37.

Coldstream 1968

Coldstream, J.N., Greek Geometric pottery, A survey of ten local styles and their chronology, London 1968.

Coldstream 1977

Coldstream, J.N., Geometric Greece, London 1977.

Desborough 1952

Desborough, V.R.d'A., Protogeometric pottery, Oxford 1952.

Desborough 1972

Desborough, V.R.d'A., The Greek Dark Ages, London 1972.

The Greek Renaissance 1983

The Greek Renaissance of the eight century B. C: Tradition and innovation. Proceedings of the second international symposium at the Swedish Institute in Athens, 1-5 June 1981, (ActaAth-4o, 30) ed. R. Hagg, Stockholm 1983.

Foley 1978-1979

Foley, H., '"Reverse similes" and sex roles in the Odyssey', Arethusa 11-12, 1978-1979, 7-26.

v. Freytag, gen. Loringhoff 1974

v. Freytag, gen. Loringhoff, B., 'Ein spatgeometrisches Frauengrab vom Kerameikos', AM 89, 1974, 1-25.

Kiibler 1943

Kiibler, K., Neufunde aus der Nekropole des 11. und 10. Jahrhunderts {Kerameikos IV), Berlin 1943.

Morris 1987

Morris, I., Burial and ancient society. The rise of the Greek city-state, Cambridge 1987.

Pomeroy 1975

Pomeroy, S.B., Goddesses, whores, wives and slaves. Women in Classical Antiquity, New York 1975.

Qviller 1981

Qviller, B., 'Fraphilogyni til misogyni. Den greske polis' opprinnelse og forandringer i kvinnenes status*, Nicolay. Arkeologisk Tidsskrift 36, 1981, 31-38.

27

Smithson 1968

Smithson, E.L., "The tomb of a rich Athenian lady, c. 850 B.C.1, Hesperia 37, 1968, 77-116.

Smithson 1974

Smithson, EX., 'A Geometric cemetery on the Areopagus; 1897,1932,1947', Hesperia 43,1974, 325-390.

Snodgrass 1971

Snodgrass, A.M., The Dark Age of Greece, Edinburgh 1971.

Stromberg 1993

Stromberg, A., Male orfemale? A methodological study of grave gifts as sex-indicators in Iron Age burialsfromAthens, (SIMA-PB 123) Jonsered 1993.

Whitley 1991

Whitley, J., Style and society in Dark Age Greece. The changingface ofapre-literate society 1100- 700 B.C., Cambridge 1991.

Wickert-Micknat 1982

Wickert-Micknat, G., Die Frau (=Archaeologia Homerica, Kap. R,), Gottingen 1982.

Young 1939

Young, R.S., Late Geometric graves and a seventh century well in the Agora (=Hesperia, Suppl. 2), Athens 1939.

Young 1949

Young, R.S., 'An Early Geometric grave near the Athenian Agora', Hesperia 18, 1949, 275-297.

28

Britt-Marie Nfisstrdm

CYBELE AND APHRODITE: TWO ASPECTS OF THE GREAT GODDESS

Goddesses of the Orient Goddesses of Oriental origin are usually held in bad reputation in the history of religions, since they were considered to represent lechery and depravity. Aphrodite is a good example of such a goddess, whose beauty was indisputable but whose morality was censurable. Her presence in the Iliad and in the Odyssey was the only reason for the posterity to allow her a place among the Olympic gods. A similar reputation was attached to Cybele, often described as cruel, voluptuous and depraved. Like Aphrodite she early became a target of the polemics of the Church Fathers and they both always had a bad press in later handbooks of mythology. One reason for that was the evil influence of the Orient rooted in the Greek mind after the Persian attacks of 490-480 B.C. and transmitted into the writing of history in Europe which still in our century describes the Oriental influence as dangerous and depraved. Aphrodite and Cybele were said to obscure the clear and virtuous image of the ancient Greek gods. This echoes the anathema of the prophets of the Old Testament for the fertility idols worshipped by the infidel Hebrews from time to time. Such influence has, in my opinion, sometimes given an unfair picture of these two goddesses who were much venerated in Classical antiquity, objects of a pious cult and, in Cybele's case, great mysteries. The origin of Cybele In his discourse to the Mother of the Gods, Emperor Julian describes the introduction of Cybele at Athens as follows: a metragyrt, 'a beggar of the 29

Mother', once arrived in the Agora and eulogised the Great Mother of the Orient. The Athenians disliked his message, for reasons not known, and were moreover seized by anger, which resulted in their killing him. His body was thrown into a pit at the place. The Great Mother reacted against the offence and took her revenge on the impious Athenians with a great famine that killed many people. Horrified, they consulted the oracle at Delphi, who told them that Cybele must be accepted at Athens and that they furthermore must build her a temple in the Agora at the very place where the metragyrt was killed.1 This anecdote's veracity could be discussed, but the Great Mother had a temple in the Agora close to the Hephaisteion. It was built in the seventh century B.C., connected with the Bouleterion, and a cult statue was later made by Praxiteles. She had early been introduced in the Eleusinian cult, where she appeared together with Demeter in the mysteries. On the west coast of Asia Minor, she was already known as Rhea-Cybele, and had amalgamated with the nebulous Mother of the Gods, Rhea. In Ephesos she was also indentified with Artemis and her cult was famous.2 Cybele is in fact one of the oldest goddesses known in the history of religions. Under the name of Kubaba or Kumbaba she was worshipped in Mesopotamia and Asia Minor from the seventh millennium B.C. She is depicted sitting on a throne and flanked by lions, one of her typical attributes. In the Hittite enumeration of gods and goddesses Cybele is mentioned several times.3 When Asia Minor was seized by Phrygian tribes about 1200 B.C., Cybele became the national goddess of the country, which acquired the name Phrygia. Her paramount temple was situated in Pessinous, ruled by her priesthood, the Galli. Her famous cult image a black stone, probably a meteorite, with some anthropomorphic features, originally had been placed in that sanctuary. When Hannibal made a severe attack on Rome in 204 B.C., the alarmed Romans consulted the Sibylline books for advice, according to Livius.4 They were recommended to restore their old goddess to Rome, and she would then expel the enemy from Italy. King Attalos I of Pergamus, who had extended his conquests to Phrygia, allowed the Romans to fetch the image of the goddess at Pessinous. Cybele's entrance to Rome was a triumphal and solemn Julian 8.159 ABC. Nasstrom 1990, 35. 3 Laroche 1960, 113-128. 4 Liv. 29.10. 4-8. 2

30

ceremony, in which the noble matrons stood along the whole distance from Ostia to Rome, passing the statue from hand to hand. She was then installed in the temple of Victoria on the Palatine, but after Hannibal was driven out of Italy she got her own temple.5 The birth of Aphrodite According to Hesiod Aphrodite was born from the froth of the sea after the mutilated member of Uranos had been thrown down by Saturn. She arose from the sea at Cythera or Cyprus, according to another tradition. Homer tells us that she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione, a nymph and a daughter of Nereus. Dione is, however, the female form of Zeus, meaning 'heaven', and the name is sometimes used for Aphrodite herself, who is also called Aphrodite Urania. The fact that Aphrodite's name is missing among the recorded deities in the Mycenaean sources has encouraged the idea that her provenience was originally Mesopotamia. This means that she is a Hellenised version of Inanna, Queen of Heaven, called Ishtar in the Akkadian language. From Mesopotamia she had entered the Phoenician pantheon, from where she had become established on Cyprus in the beginning of the eleventh century.6 Against this idea stands the fact that Aphrodite was deeply rooted in the Greek culture when Homer composed his Iliad and Odyssey. Her prominent role in the intrigues of the Trojan cycle thus connects her with the eastern part of Greece and with Asia Minor, a link that has lead some scholars to identify her as a local goddess of this region.7 The attempts to interpret the name 'Aphrodite' reflect the uncertainty of her provenience. Little succes has, however, been reached in the efforts to derive her name from the Semitic goddess Astoret or Astarte. The bold attempt to read it as a Phrygite, 'from Phrygia' and derive the name of her son Aeneas from a Venes, 'from Venus', is not convincing. Another suggestion, apru thelus, 'the open woman', intimates her sensual nature. The interpretation that hints both at her birth myth from the froth and at her connection with Dione,

5

Liv. 29.14.13f. Boedeker 1974, 2f.; Friedrich 1978. 7 Boedeker 1974, 4.

6

31

'the heaven', which appears in -dite is, in my opinion, a better suggestion. This gives us eventually the interpretation 'the bright cloud' denoting her celestial origin.8 This means that Aphrodite's genesis might have Indo-European roots as well. The love goddess of the Classical Greeks was probably a synthesis of a Mesopotamian-Phoenician fertility goddess and an Indo-European goddess of Heaven, in close relation to the Great Goddess of Asia Minor. Goddesses of war The connection with Mesopotamia was noticed already in Classical antiquity by Herodotos, who calls a Semitic goddess of Askalon 'Aphrodite Urania'. This could, however, be an interpretatio graeca of Inanna, the Queen of Heaven and the daughter of the sky-god Anu. There are also striking differences between Aphrodite and Inanna. The latter could sometimes appear as the daughter of Anu, i.e. Heaven, sometimes as the daughter of the moon god Nanna, sometimes of Enlil, the god of the atmosphere, or even of Enki, the earth god. Inanna's personality is divided between her aspects of love and war. Her love for the young shepherd Dumuzi is not only the myth in itself but a mythical setting for the ritual of the sacred marriage. In this ceremony the king of the Sumerian city symbolically wedded the goddess, represented by her priestess.9 In this respect Inanna represents the cosmic force of fertility and abundance for whose favour the kings compete in terms of jealous lovers, boasting about their success in her bed.10 Her warlike aspect is in the same way connnected with the king. She stays beside him in the battle, 'the playground of Ishtar', and she helps him to extend his power. The stories about her campaign against mount Ebih as well as her descent to the underworld are expressions of her unlimited lust to expand her sphere of power. She is said to march together with the soldiers, whispering thrilling words to them in order to arouse their spirit of fight. The oldest testimonies about Aphrodite origin from Homer and the war of Troy. In the fifth song she hurries to her son Aeneas' help, when the furious Diomedes attacks him. Diomedes notices immediately that a goddess is joining in the battle and rushes against her with his spear. He injures her wrist and, 8

Boedeker 1974, 16. Jacobsen 1976, 27-29. 10 Hallo and van Dijk 1968, 6-10.

9

32

bleeding ikor, the divine blood, Aphrodite hurries back to Olympus (//.5.330333). There she complaines to her mother Dione, but Athena ridicules her, suggesting that she might have been wounded by the adornment of some Greek woman, whom she had tempted to leave her husband again. Father Zeus says smiling that her duty is marriage, not war, and that she should leave these things to Athena and Ares. This example shows the contrast between the belligerent Inanna and the weak and mild Aphrodite (77.5.428-430). The Love Goddess In the Homeric epics Aphrodite appears as the Love Goddess, whose promise to Paris causes the war between Greece and Troy. She is also described as a ruthless procuress, when she saves her proteg6 Paris from Menelaos' assaults. She envelops him in a cloud and brings him back to his bedchamber. After that she disguises herself as an old nurse and approaches Helen, who watches the battle from the walls of Troy. Helen discovers the goddess, and disapproves of her intentions. Aphrodite may go and consort with Paris herself, says Helen wrathfully. Aphrodite replies that she might arrange that Helen would forever be excluded from the relationship of both Greeks and Trojans, hated and detested. These threats pacify Helen, who returns to Paris. In the Odyssey Aphrodite more distinctively reveals her own love affairs. Married to the ugly and lame Hephaistos, she betrays him with the martial Ares. Hephaistos has, however, discovered their romance and arranged a trap. During their love-making a net suddenly falls over their bed and they are capturedflagrantedelictu when Hephaistos shows their crime to the laughing Olympian gods (CW.8.266f.). Ares is only one of the lovers of Aphrodite. Together with Hermes — the naked god — she bore the son-daughter Hermaphroditos. Aphrodite and Hermes used to be worshipped in the same temple and this is perhaps the reason such a figure emerges. Hermaphroditos had no religious function but was a popular motif in fine art.11 Aphrodite even turns to human lovers sometimes. The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite relates her passion for the Trojan prince Anchises, whom she discovers when he herds sheep on the mountain of Ida. She dresses in her special girdle, Covri, which gave a special grace, beauty and elegance to its wearer. She hurries over the hillside through the woods of Ida and makes the 11

Burkert 1985, 220. 33

wild wolves, lions and leopards do burn with passion so they do not notice her. She enters the hut where Anchises lives and he is filled with awe when he beholds her. He tells her that he is willing to build her a temple, but this is not Aphrodite's purpose for the end of the evening. She tells him a neat story about herself: together with some other girls she had danced in the forests of Ida, but got lost, and now she seeks shelters in Anchises1 hut. Furthermore, the gods have urged her to share his bed. Now Anchises understands the whole tale. When he wakes up she is standing by his bed more divine that ever and foretells that she will bear him a son, Aeneas, whom she will bring to the father at the age of five. If Anchises ever divulges their love, he will be punished severely, Aphrodite ends her speach. In fact, Anchises divulged the story and became lame, a mild reprimand compared with other men whom the goddesses give their love.12 Cybele and Aphrodite of Troy In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite the resemblances between Cybele and Aphrodite are evident. Both seem to be familiar with Mount Ida. In the Homeric Hymn to the Great Mother Cybele is pleased with the timbrels and cymbals and with the cries from the wolves and the bright-eyed lions, which echo over the wooded mountains.13 Unlike Aphrodite, Cybele is hardly mentioned in the Iliad although she is closely connected with Mount Ida and sometimes called the Mother of Ida or the Idaean mother. It was in this aspect that she became regarded as the special patron of the Trojans, whose descendants were the first Romans through Aeneas and his companions.14 The arrival of the Goddess represented by the black stone became a recurrent motive in the Roman tradition. Ovid presents in his Fasti a detailed story about the invitation to the goddess at her home at Pessinous. She answers it with the following words: "the place deserving every god's arrival".15 When the ship with her image on board arrived in the Tiber estuary, it got stuck and nothing could move it. A rumour circulated that a certain Claudia Quinta, accused of being unchaste, had caused the hesitancy 12

The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, 188f. The Homeric Hymn to the Great Mother, 3-6. 14 Nasstrom 1990, 40. 15 Ov. Fast. 6.270. 13

34

of the goddess. Claudia then performed a miracle, proving her innocence. She tied her girdle around the stern of the ship and got it afloat, which was interpreted as a sign from the Great Mother herself.16 In Emperor Julian's description the situation at Ostia becomes more dramatic. Claudia Quinta is desribed as a Vestal and she turns directly to the Goddess with the words: "Mother of the Gods — if I am chaste — follow me!" In Julian's view the miracle at the Tiber estuary had a special meaning; the goddess showed that she was not a lifeless idol as his contemporary Christian opponents claimed, but a strong and powerful goddess.17 Cybele's introduction to Rome also meant that she was involved in the festival calendar. If featured the Ludi Megalesii with a procession and a great banquet in the beginning of April, and there was a great drama at the vernal equinox, concentrating on the suffering of Attis, the Mother's consort. In the course of time her cult spread to the provinces and still in the sixth century A.D. there are notices about peasants who evoke the great Berecyntian mother.18 If Cybele was regarded as a patron of the Roman republic and later the Empire, Aphrodite held the position of an ancestress of the imperial family. Her son Aeneas had fled from the burning Troy and took his refuge on Mount Ida. Some Greek authors, among them Homer maintain that Aeneas stayed and ruled the remaining Trojans. These legends were interpreted by the Roman poets and historians as showing that Aeneas founded a new state of Trojans in Latium. Vergil writes of 'the Julian line' from Aphrodite through Aeneas, who founded 'a second Troy'.19 The consort of Cybele Cybele did not arrive alone in Rome. Together with her image the Galli follwed. They were her priests, who represented her paredros Attis, her suffering consort. Attis was according to most myths a beautiful youth who served the Mother of the Gods and who had promised her always to 'be like a child'. True to his fate he grows up and falls in love with a nymph or a princessj and this causes his destruction. He is no more 'like a child', and 16 17 18 19

Ov. Fast. 6.300-327. Julian 8.159 D. Berger 1985, 33. Ver. Aen. 10.

35

overwhelmed by fury, he emasculates himself. Attis bleeds to death under a pine tree, mourned by Cybele and others.20 This act was repeated in a cultic drama which in Rome was performed at the time of the vernal equinox. The first ceremony, Carina intrat, 'the coming of the reed', was in memory of the child Attis, who had been exposed in a basket of reeds when he was newborn. The next ceremony was called Arbor intrat, 'the coming of the tree', and this time the pine tree symbolised the dead Attis. He was carried in a mourning procession to the temple of Cybele, where the ceremonies continued on the following days.21 The Galli, the priests, were the most active in these violent expressions of mourning, piercing and flagellating themselves. On the 25th of March, called 'the day of the blood' they performed a complete imitation of Attis suffering when they emasculated themselves. It is probable that this rite had the purpose of a higher initiation, to become something above human status and nearer the gods. The next day were called Hilaria, 'the day of joy', and scholars have assumed that some kind of resurrection took place during the night. Still, we do not know exactly what turned the deep mourning into a day of happiness, and it might not be a resurrection in Christian terms. Attis belongs to the kind of demigods who can be defined as changeful deities, who alter between different statuses: child, lover and dead.22 The Roman attitude toward this priesthood was ambiguous. On the one hand they were esteemed as holy men and the servants of the Great Mother; on the other they were regarded as having the status of eunuchs, slaves who had been unmanned for certain purposes. The Galli became an easy target of poets like Juvenal and Martial, but before that Catullus had composed his Carmina LXIII, where he incarnates a young priest who, seized by frenzy, performs the initiation of the Attis priest. This poem, one of the oldest sources for this cult, also reveals the usual view of gender in Roman society. When Attis in the poem emasculates himself, he becomes a woman, or at least a mongrel woman, which means that women were regarded as mutilated men.23

20 21 22 23

Nasstrom Nasstrom Nasstrom Nasstrom

1990, 81-83. 1990, 81-83. 1989, 75-83. 1989, 53.

36

Attis and Adonis There are several myths about Attis and some of them deviate strongly from the norm. According to Pausanias, Attis was a beautiful youth, loved by the Mother of the Gods, whom Zeus killed in his jealousy with the help of a wild boar during a hunt.24 This story is almost identical to the fate of young Adonis, connected with Aphrodite from his youth. The myth tells about the young girl Myrrh who refused love, thereby bringing down Aphrodite's hatred on herself. The goddess punished her by making her fall in love with the only man whom she could not have intercourse with — her own father. Still, burning with passion, Myrrh seduced him and bore a son from this incestuous relationship, but the gods changed her into a myrrh tree. Aphrodite took care of the new-born child, who grew into the most beautiful youth and attracted the love of Persephone, the goddess of Death. In this aspect he also aroused the jealousy of Zeus, who arranged that he was killed by a wild boar and expired on a bed of lettuce. The goddesses then shared him between them. Half the year he is doomed to dwell in Hades, pleasing Persephone; the other half he resides on earth, and Aphrodite fills it with flowers in order to please him.25 This was regarded as a typical myth of vegetation, reflecting the cycle of growth and decay of nature as a parallel to the Eleusinian myth about Demeter and Kore. There are, however, traits in the myth about Adonis that lead in other directions. As a child he is loved by two women, and before his manhood he is killed without any offspring. He was born due to an unnatural relationship, from the extremely dry myrrh, and he died on a bed of lettuce. Lettuce had a special connotation in Classical antiquity, meaning impotence, barrenness and even death, and it was a common joke in the comedies that the wives should not serve their husbands lettuce.26 These elements together show that Adonis is not a god of fertility, but rather its opposite. He is prematurely ripe, an object of love at the age when he should have been a child, and he dies when he ought to have begotten children. Oscillating between Love and Death, Adonis becomes rather a warning example, a symbol of barrenness.27 24

Paus. 7.17.9-12. Paus. 7.17.9-12. 26 See Detienne 1994, 67. 27 Detienne 1994, 67, 99f. 25

37

Similar is Attis, whose fate is parallel: loved by a goddess, killed in his youth. Still, there is a trait of celibacy in his character, especially in the dangerous role sexuality plays in his life. The origin of Attis is obscure and probably he is a product of early ascetic movements in Asia Minor.28 The Gardens of Adonis Adonis is connected with some festivals, especially celebrated among women in Athens. The Adonia were celebrated in summer when the sun is most powerful. At that time small plants were placed in cups on the roof ceiling, where they grew up very quickly but withered soon under the burning sun. This rite was reflected in proverbs alluding to barrenness or immaturity.29 In Phaedrus Plato underlines the differences between the Gardens of Adonis and the cultivation of cereals. The French scholar Marcel Detienne's work has shown that these two opposites symbolise the ancient perspective of the ideal life, i.e. the cereal is the emblem of marriage and conjugal life which lead to offspring. The Gardens of Adonis are, on the other hand, a perversion of the procedure of cultivation as of an ideal marriage.30 Myrrh's incestuous union with her father takes place on the days of Thesmophoria, the rites celebrated in honour of Demeter. This festival took place in the autumn during the heavy rains; the women sat on the ground or in caves leading underground, where they collected the putrefied remains of the piglets, which were sacrificed at the Skirophoria. These were mixed with seed in order to ensure the following harvest. The festival of Thesmophoria thus displays the opposite of the Adonia?1 Passion and mysteries Aphrodite and Cybele thus share an unfortunate love for a mortal lover. Scholars have rightly pointed out the parallels with the Mesopotamian Inanna in this respect, too. Inanna mourns her lover, the young shephard Dumuzi, who suffers and dies a terrible death. Like him, Attis and Adonis suffer and 28

Nasstrom 1989, 86. Detienne 1994, 102. 30 Detienne 1994, 119. 31 Detienne 1994, 82. 29

38

die and return to earth temporarily, a pattern Frazer and his followers called 'the dying god of fertility*. There is as we mentioned earlier, neither a resurrection of these deities, nor any real connection with fertility, but mourning and sorrow for a loved person.32 This mourning in the cult of the Great Mother was expressed in a mystery religion. It began with a fast of nine days after which the participants were initiated in the mystery and became mysts, which means simply 'initiated'. We do not know exactly the events of these mysteries, except that something happened which changed the deep sorrow and anxiety into joy and confidence. In the case of Attis, there are no myths about his resurrection. It is the character of this demigod which represents the essence of the mystery.33 Attis bears another name, Menotyrannos, 'the Lord of the Moon', and like the moon he waxes and wanes: sometimes a child, sometimes a lover and sometimes dead. This vicissitude causes both suffering and joy, the essence of the mystery religions in antiquity. The suffering and death of Attis or any other of the young gods in the mystery cult serve as a reflection of human conditions, inevitable death and the survivor's deep sorrow.34 The death of the young Attis actualises the suffering in its highest degreee, and was enacted as a cult drama in which the mysts imitated the suffering gods or goddesses. They shared the suffering and mourned the death of the youth, whose effigy was carried in a funeral procession and awakened together with his body. Such a mourning is described by a Christian author, Firmicus Maternus: the god lies on a bier, bewailed by the mysts with rythmic lamentations in a dark room. In the middle of the night, light is brought in and a priest anoints the lips of the mysts, whispering:

9app€tT€ [IVOTGLL TOO 0€o£i

Be of good heart, mysts, the god has

cKoamncvou

been

< eoTcu yap f\[ilv

32 33 34 35

saved this is the salvation from your suffering.35

> • ^ etc Trdvu) awTtyxa

Frazer 1936, 232f. Nasstrom 1990, 85. Nasstrom 1990, 24. Firm. Mat. 27.1.

39

This description probably concerns the Egyptian mysteries of Isis and Osiris, but nevertheless it gives the impression of the solemn atmosphere and the promise to the believers.36 Regarding Cybele's and Attis' mysteries, the mourning during the 'the day of the blood' changed into Hilaria the following day. We also have access to one of the messages the mysts share, in a distorted form through another Christian author, Clemens of Alexandria,: " I have eaten of the tympanum, I have drunk of the timbrel, I have carried the kernos, I have walked into the bride chamber" and "I have become Attis' myst".37

The tympanum and the timbrel were rythmical instruments in the cult of Cybele and the kernos was a kind of tray on which sacred objects were carried. That the bridal chamber represents the bliss of the initiated is wellknown, but it migt have a deeper symbolism. A bride is called nymphe in Greek and connected with one of the phases of a butterfly, which was called psyche, also meaning 'soul'. The waxing and waning god, the suffering and the bliss were the essence of the mysteries. The aim was not salvation in a Christian sense, but a reconciliation with the human condition and with physical death. A feeling of relationship with the gods was integrated in this message, to be a 'child of heaven and the starry moon'.38 Cybele and Aphrodite in late antiquity Cybele's and Aphrodite's passion for their mortal lovers thus reflects a deeper essence than merely the erotic perspective. It is true that Aphrodite's cult did not develop any form of mystery religion, although the ingredients were present according to the myth. The daughter of Heaven became the Love Goddess, evoked at weddings, and the patroness of the courtesans. Her attributes were the myrtle, pigeons and apples, and she did not receive male animals as her sacrifice. In imperial Rome she held a special position as ancestress of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

36 37 38

Podeman Scrensen 1989, 83. Clem. Al. 2.14. See Nasstrom 1996, 169-175.

40

Cybele, the Mother of the Gods, who was introduced in the republic, enjoyed a renaissance during the reign of Claudius. Her mysteries were spread over the empire, not seldom as a supplement for the women in the garrison cities. When the change of religion took place, the two goddesses became a target of the Christian authors, who saw in them abominable pagan idols. Clemens of Alexandria reads Aphrodite's by-namt philomedes ('the sweet smiling One') as philomedea ('the One who loves the private parts').39 Cybele's love for Attis was ridiculed by Minucius Felix: "One is ashamed to utter something about the Goddess Cybele Dindyma's mysteries. Her lover had the bad luck to please her, however, because she was ugly and old — mother of so many Gods! No longer able to commit adultery she castrated him, as she wanted a eunuch in the pantheon. This fable causes the Galli or the halfmen to worship her by mutilating their bodies. This is not religion but torture.'' ^

The mysteries of Cybele and Attis thus turned into an obscene story, where the female plays a cruel role. The Christian authors had certain reasons to persecute this cult, as the ceremonies of Attis took place at the vernal equinox and recalled the passion of Christ.41 Cybele and Aphrodite, two goddesses of the Orient, bear many resemblances, which we have presented, but they were originally two different deities and they developed different cults. In the change of religion they became shameless idols of declining paganism. Still, they once were two aspects of the Great Goddess, functioning as the Love Goddess and the Mother of All Life, the national pride of Rome and the ancestress of the imperial house. Gdteborg University Department of History of Religions Gdteborg Sweden

39 40 41

Clem. Al. 2.13. Min. Fel. 23.4. Firm. Mat. 22.3f.

41

Bibliography

Berger 1985

Berger, P., The Goddess obscured, Boston 1985.

Boedeker 1974

Boedeker, D.D., Aphrodite's entry into Greek epic, Leiden 1974.

Burkert 1985

Burkert, W., Greek religion, Cambridge, Mass. 1985.

Detienne 1994

Detienne, M., The Garden of Adonis, London 1994 (1972).

Frazer 1936

Frazer, J., The golden bough, IV: 1, {Adonis, Attis, Osiris), London 1936.

Friedrich 1978

Friedrich, P., The meaning of Aphrodite, Chicago 1978.

Hallo and van Dijk 1968

Hallo, W., and van Dijk, J.J., The exaltation of Inanna, New Haven 1968.

Jacobsen 1976

Jacobsen, T., The treasures of darkness: a history of Mesopotamian religion, New Haven 1976.

Laroche 1960

Laroche, E., 'Koubaba d6esse anatolienne et le probleme des origines de Cybfele', in Elements orientaux dans la religion grecque ancienne, Colloque de Strasbourg 22-24 mai 1958, Paris 1960, 113-128.

Nasstrom 1989

Nasstrom, B-M., The abhorrence of love. Studies in rituals and mystic aspects in Catullus' poem of Attis, Uppsala 1989.

Nasstrom 1990

Nasstrom B-M., O Mother of the Gods and Men. Some aspects of the religious thoughts in Emperor Julian's discourse on the Mother of the Gods, Lund 1990.

42

Nasstrom 1996

Nasstrom, B-M., <MJag har atit av tympanon, jag har druckit av cymbalen...". Fralsning och forvandling i mysteriereligionerna', Svensk Teologisk kvartalsskrift, Arg. 72, nr 1, 1996, 168175.

Podeman Serensen 1989

Podeman Scrensen, Kobenhavn 1989.

J.,

Rethinking

religion,

Leena Viitaniemi

PARTHENIA - REMARKS ON VIRGINITY AND ITS MEANINGS IN THE RELIGIOUS CONTEXT OF ANCIENT GREECE

The aim of this paper is rather to raise questions on the theme of virginity and its general meaning in the religious context of ancient Greece than in any way to give final answers on the subject in question. This is an introduction for my forthcoming study,1 and thus it deals still more with the other studies made of the subject than with my own interpretations of texts of ancient authors. Hence the general remarks in this paper will be analysed in the future through a case study based on some less known classical texts about cultic procession. First, I shall make some general remarks about virginity and its connections with religious life, and with sexuality. Second, I wish to polemicize one of the problems we have while approaching the meanings of ancient virginity. After that follows a brief presentation of the etymology of the word parthenos (virgin), and a list of meanings that parthenia (virginity) had in antiquity. Before discussing and presenting parthenoi (virgins) in the religious context, I shall describe briefly the religious field of ancient Greece, and women's participation in its cults and rites. In conclusion, I shall attempt to evoke some questions about the subject that future studies will have to answer. General remarks on ideas of virginity Virginity is one of the most remarkable topics concerning female sainthood in the Christian era, but it can also be found in other cultures and their religious 1 I shall look at the subject more thoroughly in the ancient Greek religious context in my forthcoming article next year. It will appear in the series of publications of the Finnish Institute at Athens. My interest in virginity has arisen from my earlier studies on Roman Catholic female saints. My graduate work is dealing with 54 religious women, i.e. female saints, and their relationship to the authority of the church or of the society they lived in. Looking at the conflicts they experienced, I am studying connections between gender, power and religion.

44

traditions of holy women (e.g. Islam, Buddhism). In the case of holy men the word Virginity' is rarely used. The word used for men's abstinence from sexual acts and in marriage is celibacy. It can be a lifelong or periodic task depending on cultures and times. What about the meanings of these two concepts — virginity and celibacy? Are they comparable with each other, in other words, are they analogous? If we consider them from the perspective of sexuality, outside religious contexts where they both have been used frequently, they have one clear difference. Virginity means especially sexual inexperience and intactness, which celibacy does not necessarily do. 'Virgin' refers to a girl or to a young woman who has not yet had sexual experiences, or in any case this is assumed by the people around her (i.e. social control). The situation is basically the same with a boy or a young man who lacks sexual experiences, although he is not very often called a virgin. His sexual activities are usually also less controlled by society than in the case of a girl. Celibacy, on its part, refers more often to abstaining from sexual activities than to the state of singleness. It does not tell whether the man has had sexual experiences or sex life before the commitment or will have them after that. He may be either sexually inexperienced or experienced. The idea of virginity includes also the assumption of bodily integrity. Actually this term itself is a synonym of the word 'virginity'. But what does it mean to be sexually bodily or physically intact? Female bodily integrity — in my opinion — is strongly related to heterosexuality, in other words, with sexuality which is used for reproduction. If the girl was known to be bodily intact, that is, she was known not to have had intercourse with a man it had value to the man, who needed certainty that the child she would bear, was his heir. What about other kinds of sexual experiences, such as lovemaking between women? Is a woman still a virgin if she has had sex, or has made love, with a woman? I suppose that these sexual experiences do not concern virginity or bodily integrity as such; that is, they have not been seen to concern it by maledominated society, if the connection between heterosexuality and virginity is so strong as I have suggested. Sexuality has been defined and valued by men through the ages, and if the emotional, love and sexual relations between women have not had any socially or politically significant meaning, or they have not been a threat to men, there are not many signs of them in history. Love between women has been in that sense invisible.2 Women among 2

See e.g. Brown 1986, 6, 134, 165f., 204-206, about the few sources of love between women in history. 45

themselves have naturally given meanings to, put values on and named the phenomena discussed above. The truth is, though, that sexuality as well as other themes connected with it — as human and universal as they might be — depend inevitably on the culture and era which we are studying. The thoughts I have expressed here are still at a general level, but I think that they are interesting and worth studying. Do the concepts also refer to asexuality? They do, especially when used in the religious context as they mostly are. It seems to me that the present meanings of celibacy and virginity in our cultural circle originate from Christian antisexualism. Generally, though, there are and have always been religions, cults, sects and movements where the permanent and total state of virginity or celibacy is demanded for certain holy statuses, such as sainthood or priest(ess)hood. In those cases virginity would also exclude sexual activities between women. Some religions disapprove of, or condemn severely, all kinds of sexuality based on sexual desire or lust outside the marital institution created and confirmed by it, or prefer spirituality to corporality (e.g. the Catholic Church, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, certain groups of Hinduism); some just need such an asexual specialist for their rites but otherwise take a positive attitude toward the sexual behaviour of their supporters (e.g. many cults of ancient Greece and Rome, certain groups of Hinduism). The 'Christianfilter*— an example of how the cultural background affects our understanding of the meaning of ancient virginity Our present ideas of sexuality, which have been shaped in the culture coloured by Christian sexual morality, may — even unconsciously — prevent us from seeing the sexual multiplicity of ancient Greece and Rome,3 and particularly the meaning of sexuality in religious lives. It was interesting to notice how Giulia Sissa revealed her background of Roman Catholic culture in her interesting book Greek Virginity (1990) by concentrating so intensively on the meaning of the hymen as defining a virgin in antiquity. Even without direct references it would have been easy to find out from the way she approached the subject. On the other hand Ann Ellis Hanson did not so easily reveal her background in her article 'The Medical Writers' Woman' in the book Before Sexuality (1990), but the way she treated the subject made me think that her religious background was not the same as Sissas. Both Sissa and Hanson used 3

See e.g. Dover 1978, 183. 46

almost the same sources, which were, among other things, less studied medical texts of Galen and Soranus, but their interpretations differed from each other in some cases. Sissa claims that Greeks of ancient times did not even know of the hymen's existence or, if some medical people knew, they did not give any meaning to it as a sign of virginity, a so-called Virgin organ', as Christian patristic texts have reported being done later in the Christian era.4 Conversely, Hanson emphasized that both laymen and 'hippocratics', who knew anatomy, knew also about a young girl's possible hymen, or in any case about the unripe or underdeveloped condition of a young girl's genitals. But the meaning they gave to it had not so much to do with defining virginity.5 However, both Sissa's and Hanson's thoughts about virginity — in my opinion — agree ultimately. They both see that virginity was not defined only through some 'female anatomical organ' in ancient Greece or Rome but, on the contrary, definitions varied with the time and place. I find this example illuminating, because it shows how previous ideas of virginity affect the process of study in one way or another. Besides, it shows, especially in the case of Sissa, how we can overcome the obstacles by being aware of our standpoint and of our approach to the subject. Meanings of parthenos and parthenia What did parthenia, virginity, mean in ancient Greece and its religious life? The virgins of Vesta in Rome were famous, but what was the situation of Greek virgins? Did parthenoi have some kind of role in Greek cults, and did virginity have, for instance, some kind of divine or sacred meaning among the ancient Greeks? Many are the questions but fewer the answers. But before I take the theme to the religious context, I will try to show what kind of women the word parthenos referred to and what was understood by the concept parthenia. The gender of the Greek -word parthenos is feminine, even though its form with the ending '-os' is masculine (pi. parthenoi). The Etymological Dictionary of Hjalmar Frisk gives the meaning 'a virgin, a girl or a young woman'. The word is found already in the Iliad and it has many derivatives, including kalliparthenos 'with beautiftil virgins, belonging to beautiful virgins'. As a noun 4 5

Sissa 1990, If., 116f. Hanson 1990, 323f. 47

it has nine forms. Three of them have adjectives meaning Virginal' (maidenly or like a virgin). Other derivatives refer to e.g. different plants, the astrological sign of the Virgin, and the temple of Parthenon on the Acropolis. The rest of the derivatives are synonyms of the original word. Two of the derivatives or meanings of the word parthenos are interesting for my study. The first one is parthenias (masculine form) meaning 'son of a virgin', which can be found in the texts of Aristotle, Strabo, and even the Iliad, The second word is parthen-ia (feminine form) meaning 'virginity'. It has been used by Sappho and Pindaros, to name a few. The word's derivative as verb partheneuomai (also with prefix apo-, dia- and ex-) means 'to be a virgin', 'to treat somebody as a virgin'; the verb apo-partheno means 'to give up virginity' (in German 'entjungfern'). Morphologically and etymologically the word is isolated. In spite of that, there have been many attempts to find out the original meaning of the word. One of the attempts suggests that the original word derives or is formed from the verb theesthai which means 'to suck'.6 What did ancient Greeks, or more precisely Greek men, think about the parthenos? Helen King has written, quoting e.g. Plato, Xenophon, Aristophanes and Euripides, the following: "All women start their lives conceptually outside male society, but most are taken inside through the process of maturation. Children, for the Greeks, are by nature wild; in particular, the parthenos, childless, unmarried, yet of the age for marriage, is untamed and must be domesticated before it is even possible for a man to carry on a conversation with her. A girl's upbringing is represented as the 'taming* or 'breaking in' of a filly, and marriage is the end of this process."7

Thus parthenia meant the passage or the transition between childhood and matrimony. How long the period lasted depended on the tradition of each society.8 When actually did parthenos become gyne — changing from a girl to a woman, or a wife? Through marriage, is the most obvious answer, while thinking of the societies of ancient Greece, where gyne besides meaning a woman signified a wife. As a wife, especially as a citizen's wife in Athens, she had the highest status outside religious contexts, that women could gain, and she was socially respected. However, there were also other occasions, according to Helen King, when this change might have taken place. Such were 6 7 8

Frisk, s.v. parthenos. King 1993, 113f. Sissa 1990, 76. 48

menarche, defloration and the first parturition.9 The last occasion is interesting in regard to defining parthenia. It meant, accordingly, that a married woman who had not yet given birth to her first child, or who was pregnant, was called parthenos }° Particularly in this connection, the parthenia of antiquity and the virginity of the Christian era differ most. Parthenos was thus defined in relation to gyne, which meant strictly a married woman who had given birth to one or more children. The hierarchy between these two statuses seems to be obvious in regard to classical texts. The gyne was the ideal model of woman to which all the positive values were attached, while the parthenos was the bad, wild, untamed, that is, dangerous and difficult from a society's point of view, to which all the negative associations were referred.11 Almost all the information about ancient Greek women offers this model of binary opposition, which hardly represents the presumably more complicated truth. Already the use of virgins, parthenoi, in the civic and public rituals argues against it. Parthenos also meant a woman who had given birth to a child or children but who had no husband. Such a woman was, for instance, a concubine, which obviously referred to a sexually active woman. Her son was called parthenios and her daughter parthenios. There are many examples of mothers called parthenoi in classical literature; for instance, Pausanias, Pindaros, Sophocles and Euripides have written about them. Besides, mothers of many heroes were parthenoi. Atalanta was the mother of a hero called Parthenopeus, and in Sparta they used the word partheniai (pi.) for those children whose fathers were unknown. Parthenios, accordingly, referred to bastards, that is, to illegetimate children.12 A childless and unmarried woman was also called parthenos, because she was still, theoretically, marriageable. So, who was the parthenos? She was a virgin, a girl or a young woman; or a concubine with or without child; or a still pregnant wife, or a wife who had not yet given first birth, or an elderly woman without child or husband (an old maid, a spinster). What was she? She was young, unmarried and marriageable; wild and untamed; or married and pregnant, married and childless, or unmarried and childless. The facts indicate clearly that the 9

King 1993, 110, 113. From the 'heathen' perspective (early) Christianity's idea that a child was bom to a virgin, to a parthenos (i.e. Virgin Mary), was not at all uncommon or unknown but normal in that context, as Sissa has pointed out; Sissa 1990, 76. 11 King 1993, 111, 124. 12 Sissa 1990, 78-82. 10

49

virginities of ancient Greece and the later Christian era differ from each other, particularly, in their relation to sexuality. Even if there is no logical continuum between these two, as Sissa has shown,13 it would be interesting to see how the meaning of woman's sexuality has changed while sexual polymorphism in Greek and Roman civilization gradually, and in fact very slowly, changed to different cultures ruled by Christian sexual morals. Parthenia in the religious context of ancient Greece Is it wise to use the concept 'religion' in connection with religious life in ancient Greece? It is loaded with modern ideas of religion, such as Christianity and Islam, which seem to have compact doctrinal systems of belief and institutions. As a historian of religions, I want, however, to defend 'religion' as a superstructure or fundamental category, because we do not have any other word for such a universal phenomenon. Behind the word lies the idea of the common religiosity of human beings. Another Finnish historian of ancient Greek religion, Petra Pakkanen, wrote in her dissertation Interpreting Early Hellenistic Religion (1996) about the subject in the following way: 4 * Human religiosity functions as a basis for approaching religions of antiquity relying on the so-called relative a priori, which means that religion is, in a Wittgensteinian sense, a family-resembling concept: there is a network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing in all of the religions, and one characteristic that they all share is religiosity, which is to be understood as something having deep importance for those to whom it counts as * ultimate concern'.''14

Religious polymorphism or pluralism might be the best terms to describe the religious field of ancient Greece. There was not one 'big' religion but many cults as well as many gods, goddesses, and divine powers; in other words, polytheism. Some cults were public, official and civic, some more private, or limited to a special group of people, and some so-called mystery cults. Rites or rituals of cults were justified by myths, and they were performed either privately at home, or publicly at temples, in agoras of cities,

13 14

Sissa 1990, 76. Pakkanen 1996, 13 If. 50

or at some cultic places of nature.15 Many of the cults were distinguished by special rites, which had common features. These central features were, roughly estimated, the religious procession, so-calledpompe, and the sacrifice, especially the blood sacrifice by the altar.16 In many cases the sacrifice followed the procession, but there were also other events during the days of cultic feasts, for instance theatrical plays. Women17 had access to cults and their rites in ancient Greece. First, women could attain the status of cultic specialists as priestesses, prophetesses and other 'servants' of cult. Priesthood and ministries were open to women in the demes and cities; some were even for women only. Some priestesses, like those of Demeter, were elderly women who had passed their fertility age. Such elderly priestesses were exceptions among women concerning blood sacrifices, because they were on some occasions allowed to cut the throats of animal victims in ritual, which was usually severely forbidden for other Greek women according to Marcel Detienne who has studied the male monopoly in matters of blood sacrifice and everything connected with meat-eating.18 He has argued for a correlation between the theme in question and the politicoreligious power of men in ancient society.19 Also girls and young unmarried women were selected to serve gods or goddesses.20 Most of them fulfilled certain definitions of parthenia, although they were not always called parthenoi but had special names relating to the tasks they performed, or to the terms of feasts they participated in. I shall return to the subject later in this paper. Second, women in everyday life participated in many kinds of cultic 15

Bruit Zaidman & Schmitt Pantel 1992, 28: "Rituals were most often organized around a particular cult, and they varied greatly in form from one divinity and one city to another." 16 Bruit Zaidman 1994, 338f. 17 Writing about ancient Greek women 'as a class1 is misleading and simplifying, but in this connection it is impossible to deal with all the known differences between women (age, marital status, kinship, ethnic background etc.). The meaning of this general description is to serve my own purposes in creating a basis for my future studies, as well as to serve the readers of this paper. 18 Detienne 1989, 142: "Old women can shed blood since they are no longer at risk of losing it." 19 See e.g. Detienne 1989, 131-135, "Just as women are without the political rights reserved for male citizens, they are kept apart from the altars, meat and blood", op.cit. 131. See also Bruit Zaidman 1994, 338f. 20 Bruit Zaidman 1994, 340f. 51 TTBRARY

activities, both private and public. Bruit Zaidman has characterized their lot in the Athenian context as 'cult citizenship'21. The religious pluralism almost guaranteed that everybody found his/her cult or cults. Most of these did not exclude worshippers, for instance, on the ground of their biological sex but on the ground of their social status, birth or age, if they had such restrictions at all. Great festivals like the Panathenaea procession, Eleusinian mysteries, and different kinds of Dionysian festivals, made it possible for many social, gender and age groups to mingle, although there were also regulations and limitations on participating.22 Besides, there were feasts for women only, including the Thesmophoria in honor of Demeter Thesmophoros, which more specifically was only for lawful wives of citizens, and excluded, for example, the parthenoiP

Special groups of girls or young women who served deities The girls or young women who were selected to serve a deity, as I mentioned above, and who played notable roles at different cultic rituals in ancient Greece, were called by many names, such as kanephoroi, arrephoroi, ergastinaiy plyntrides, lutrides, aletrides, and arktoi. I also add the female participants of chorai to this list, as have been done earlier by some scholars. The word parthenos, which is used more frequently in classical texts than these special terms, occurs often as their synonym. Arktoi were girls named after 'she-bears' (v. arkteuein, 'act like bears'). The youngest ones were aged from five to seven or eight, and the eldest up to ten years old.24 They were chosen to serve the goddess Artemis at Brauron. Besides that particular cult, there existed similar cults of Artemis around Attica, e.g. at Mounichia and Halai. They all referred to some kind of initiation of a special age-group of both boys and girls, although very little is known about the rites of passage they included. The Brauronia festival, Arkteia, was organized and overseen by the Hieropoi, that is, by the ten magistrates, which was interpreted to indicate its civic importance as an official institution.25 21 22 23 24 25

Bruit Zaidman 1994, 338. Bruit Zaidman 1994, 340. Detienne 1989, 129. Sourvinou-Inwood 1988, 67. See e.g. Dowden 1989, 22-34, 46f.; Bruit Zaidman 1994, 342.

52

Arrhephoroi and ergastinai meant girls or maidens from aristocratic Athenian families, elected by the Assembly to help to celebrate the Arrhephoria in honour of Athena in the Panathenaia festival in Athens. Supposedly, they were four together, aged between seven and eleven. Arrephoroi carried the sacred casket, or the holy cist, on their heads during a ritual, which happened on one special night once a year on the Acropolis. Ergastinai were chosen to weave the peplos which was offered as a birthday gift to the goddess, and which was the goal and principal feature of the ceremony.26 Young women called plyntrides or loutrides, on the other hand, were selected, probably on an annual basis, to cleanse Athena's peplos and cult statues under the supervision of a priest. The festival Plynteria was named after the month of Plynterion, and it had equivalents in many cities other than Athens. Aletrides were girls who ground the grain for sacrificial cakes, and served gods. The sources have unfortunately very little to tell about the rituals connected with them.27 Kanephoroi were the most common and public female 'ritualists' of the festival processions all around Greece. They were young women who carried a sacrificial basket, which was called kanoun, at the head of the procession. Kanoun contained the things that were necessary for the preliminary ritual: the barley corns, the fillet and the knife (olai, stemma, mdchaira). After careful studies of the object based on pictorial material, it has been maintained that the kanephoroi must have been strong, because such baskets were not so light. It means that they must have been young women rather than little girls. Kanotin was indispensable in private sacrifice too. In this context there were not normally female basket-carriers or processions, but a male attendant who handled the basket.28 The age of kanephoroi was also the age of choral girls. They were young women or girls who sang and danced together, forming a special group, a chorus. The leader of a group was called choragus. They participated in processions and in other cultic events, and performed music and lyrics composed for them by male or female poets or lyricists, such as the famous Sappho and Corinna. Those poets themselves were sometimes choragi. The poems dealt, for instance, with love and envy, with beauty, weddings, or parting from a friend. They were called epithalamioi, wedding songs, and partheneia, simply 'songs for choruses of virgins', and their language was 26 27 28

See e.g. Bruit Zaidman 1994, 341; Lefkowitz 1996, 79. Bruit Zaidman 1994, 342. van Straten 1995, 10-12, 162.

53

erotic.29 The relations between participants in a female chorus or between teacher and pupils have been considered to have been eroticized or sexual. Dover stresses that they might have constituted an overt * sub-culture', or rather 'counter-culture', in which women and girls received from their own sex what segregation and monogamy denied them from men. It was interpreted as overt because literary evidence suggests that the male population of Lesbos and Sparta in the archaic period knew very well about women's relations.30 The brief and simplified presentation above does not do justice to those interesting examples, or to the research literature written on the subject. These ritualistic duties, services or acts of young females, however, are the wellknown cases in ancient Greek history. Although they formed rather permanent and public institutions, their character was temporary or transitory from their occupants' point of view. On the other hand, the public fame and honour the parthenoi got from the tasks they performed, or roles they played, benefited them, as is told by literary sources. It seems also that often these servants of gods and goddesses, were well-born maidens.31 The latter idea, though, may be just a result of the insufficient and biased (e.g. Athens- and aristocraticbiased) sources that are available.

Problems of initiation The most difficult question which this subject has raised, seems to be about initiation. The modern literature is ample on the question32 and usually its use of terms (like initiation' and 'rites of passage') is fairly careless.33 What 29

See e.g. Dover 1978, 179; Bruit Zaidman 1994, 346. Dover 1978, 180f.; he refers to Sapphofir.94 and Plut. Lye, 18.9. 31 Bruit Zaidman 1994, 341. 32 See e.g. Brelich 1988, 229; Bruit Zaidman 1994, 342f. On female initiation, compare Angelo Brelich with Claude Calame, Les choeurs de jeunes filles en Grece archat'que, Rome, 1977. 33 The word 'initiating', for example, has been mixed with words such as 'socializing' and 'teaching'. In society, children or young people are normally socialized and taught through the practices of everyday life, not only through some special initiations. On the other hand, mis does not mean that initiation would exclude the functions of socializing and teaching. However, initiation refers more specifically to admitting a new person to membership of a social group, and to imparting secret knowledge from one person to another. Initiation is performed through certainritesof passage, which mark the process of passing from an old status to a new one, and manifest the new status to the person 30

54

about our parthenoi (the cases above) from this point of view? Did they all concern some kinds of initiation processes, as has controversially been argued? I think there has been a tendency to emphasize initiations as an explanation for unclear ritual activities. Arktoi present the most reliable example of age-group initiations, as scholars have well shown. The problem has been the amount of children; the all-age-group could not participate, according to sources. But how do we know that there was only one kind of initiation, rather than many different, and perhaps more modest ones, for example near homes? Is it not possible that, once more, sources leave us in the lurch? The other parthenoi who performed certain rites during festivals, e.g. arrephoroi, ergastinai, plyntrides, and lutrides, I consider more as (maid)servants of deities. They gained temporary social status through the ritual roles they played. There may have been, though, some kind of rite (or ceremony) just for them, with which the new servant was devoted to the service of the goddess. Kanephoroi were even more common, in processions and sacrificial practices, as well as dancing and singing girls who were an integral part of popular festivities in ancient Greece. Besides, when there was an issue about young people, it was also an issue about pairing, courting and mating.

Conclusion Parthenoi undoubtedly had a visible and significant role in ancient Greek 'religion'. The meanings of their cultic acts, either to society, to other worshippers, or to themselves, are still, in my opinion, inadequately studied and analysed. The questions I am raising here concern, however, mainly the religious quality of parthenia in ritual contexts. What feature or quality of parthenia had such a meaning, or importance, that the parthenoi — unmarried young females — were so constantly used in rituals as they seem to have been according to sources? Did ancient Greeks value young females more positively in the ritual context than in everyday life, where the idea of the most ideal woman, gyne, the wife, has been said to dominate? Or were parthenoi just

himself and to society. Such significant occasions of human life, which also have social meaning, are, of course, birth and death, getting older, that is, moving from one age-group to another, and changes in social status, as in marital status, parenthood and widowhood, to name a few. Rites of passage are universal phenomena, and the symbols and explanations they use derive often from traditional myths. See e.g. van Gennep 1977. 55

beautiful ornaments and entertainers in processions, or solely represented their age-group, or substituted for all women, or acted as initiates in cultic activities, as previous research has contradictorily attempted to prove?

University of Helsinki The Christina Institute for Women's Studies Helsinki Finland

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van Gennep, A., The rites of passage, London 1977.

Hanson 1990

Hanson, A. E., The medical writers1 Woman', in Before sexuality. The construction of erotic experience in the ancient Greek world, eds. D.M. Halperin, JJ. Winkler & F.I. Zeitlin, Princeton 1990, 309-338.

King 1993

King, H., 'Bound to bleed: Artemis and Greek Women', in Images of women in Antiquity, eds. A. Cameron & A. Kuhrt, London 1993, 109-127.

Lefkowitz 1996

Lefkowitz, M., * Women in the Panathenaic and other festivals', in Worshipping Athena, Panathenaia and Parthenon, ed. J. Neils, Madison 1996, 78-91.

Pakkanen 1996

Pakkanen, P., Interpreting early Hellenistic religion, A study based on the mystery cult ofDemeter and the cult of Isis, (Papers and Monographs of the Finnish Institute at Athens, 3), Helsinki 1996.

Pomeroy 1975

Pomeroy, S., Goddesses, whores, wives & slaves. Women in Classical Antiquity, London 1975.

Sissa 1990

Sissa, G., Greek virginity, Cambridge 1990.

Sourvinou-Inwood 1988

Sourvinou-Inwood, C , Studies in girls'transitions. Aspects of the Arkteia and age representation in Attic iconography, Athens 1988.

van Straten 1995

van Straten, F.T., Hiera Kala. Images of animal sacrifice in archaic and classical Greece, (Religion in the Graeco-Roman World, 127), Leiden & New York 1995.

57

Synneve des Bouvrie

EURIPIDES, BAKKHAI AND MAENADISM1

Introduction Whoever studies Euripides' Bakkhai will be confronted with the question whether the drama reflects contemporary life or not. However, the existence of maenadism in Classical Athens is a tortuous issue. In spite of the wealth of literary and iconographic scenes of maenadism,2 we do not possess a single piece of historical evidence which proves the existence of the female cult of Dionysos. It is only with Pausanias in the second century A.D. (10.4,3) that we reach unequivocal information about Athenian women travelling to Delphi in order to join their Delphic sisters in nightly revels on Mount Parnassos. In the face of this state of our sources it seems untenable to assume a maenadic rite in earlier times. Still, numerous scholars hold the view that maenadism was practised in the Classical period. They assume that Euripides' Bakkhai bears witness to these practices, although of course the main plot of the drama stages events in the mist of a mythical age. When assessing Euripides' tragedy as a source for cult practices there is thus one crucial question that recurs: in what sense or to what extent does Euripides' tragedy reflect historical reality, and what does belong to the realm of myth? In our present situation, when unequivocal historical sources are lacking, this question is impossible to answer by a comparative method. We cannot compare the events in the drama with independent witnesses of the cult, and statements about cultic elements in Euripides' drama tend hence to become circular. However, while external evidence cannot help us any further in

1

The present article is a shorter version of an article in Classica et Mediaevalia

1997. 2

Collections of the iconography of maenadism are found in McNally 1984; Delavaud-Roux 1989 and 1995; Belis 1989; Villanueva-Puig 1986 and 1988. Cf. plates

i-vn. 58

deciding the question, there may still be left internal evidence in the tragic genre as a whole. The nature of tragic drama The genre of Attic tragedy, I will argue, does not simply offer a record of human experience, a Video of social life', cut from a stream of events and composed according to the author's artistic feelings. Nor does it present the personal views of an outsider-poet, axiomatically considering social life from a distant position and commenting critically upon it. Tragic drama offered a highly stylized plot of mythical events staged in a ritual performance in the centre of the community. Consequently instead of asking: What does the drama reflect? or: What does the dissident poet say to us? we should ask: How does this ritual theatre generally organize the dramatic events in order to reach its proper effect? And specifically, how does the present drama work and what conclusions can be drawn from this for our question? In order to come to grips with the problem of maenadism we must first investigate the tragic workings of Euripides' Bakkhai. I envisage the essential difference between ancient Greek theatre and our modern theatre in terms of distance, as a difference between ritual and aesthetic theatre. In our aesthetic theatre, while we may be emotionally involved in what is presented on the stage, we still preserve a distance of reflection on the events. On the contrary, ritual theatre is working at an unconscious level, upon the immediate reflexes of the audience, and at the level of culture instead of at an individual level. In the next phase we have to face some notorious problems signalled by students of the drama: the question of male participants and leadership among the maenads, the meaning of references to the blessings of wine, the apparent hints at Dionysiac mystery cult, and finally the content of missing parts in the deus-ex-machina scene. It will be noticed that questions of Euripides' attitude towards the god and the drama's portrayal of character or moral evaluation will not be addressed, while they belong to the conscious and dramatic level, and presuppose too modern views of drama. Our first problem, then, will be to assess the composition and tragic development of the Bakkhai. A general theory of Greek tragedy, which I have proposed earlier, will serve as our starting point. According to this theory the essence of Greek tragedy, its specific 'tragic workings', is the presentation of a series of events staging an 'inversion' of the world-order, a horrifying

59

disruption of the basic institutions of the community.3 As Aristotle argues in the Poetics, tragic drama serves two aims: not only does tragedy in its function of mimesis build up a recognizable universe (as do other forms of expression), but in addition every tragedy aims at arousing specific tragic emotions in the audience, eleos and phobos, leading to a final reaction of katharsis. These tragic emotions were aroused upon the violation of basic institutions and values, as Aristotle explains in his Poetics (Ch. 14.1453b. 15-22), e.g. when philoi threaten or kill each other, exemplified with fathers, sons and mothers.4 Unlike cases of murder when enemies are involved, or when the characters are indifferent to each other, murder within the relationship of philia is the only instance when tragic emotions are aroused, that is, when the heroes are disrupting the inviolable institution of philia, the sacred bond of solidarity in family and society. This disruption, however, may be restored, reaffirming the fundamental world-order, notwithstanding the heros' death. Independently of this tragic progress, at the dramatic level the final catastrophe may be averted, as Aristotle suggests. Yet the drama will qualify as Attic tragedy, since some basic institution has been disrupted, which seems to me to be the essence of this ritual drama. As I have found, not only is the institution of philia violated; there is a range of fundamental institutions at the heart of the tragic events, the oikos with its elements of solidarity, marriage, and succession, and the polis with its demands of reciprocity, cult, and the institution of the warrior. Independently, then, of whether at the dramatic level violence is done to the characters or not, resulting in an unhappy or a happy ending, there may take place what I have labelled a 'restoration' of the institution that was disrupted or threatened with disruption. In Aristotles' examples the value of philia is at stake: whether philoi kill each other or avoid murder at the last minute, becoming aware of their relationship in the recognition scene, that is, reassuming at the dramatic level their obligation of philia. We have to distinguish analytically between the strand of dramatic events and the strand of the institution involved, what I have labelled the symbolic level of the drama. At the conscious level the audience followed the dramatic event, the conflicts and actions of the characters. At a subconscious level they were exposed to horrifying disruptions of the normal institutional order, which aroused tragic reactions of shock and horror, as I interpret Aristotle's eleos and phobos, thereby however revitalizing that very world-order. 3 4

Bouvrie 1990, Chapter III, 73, 77-79. Bouvrie 1988, 55.

60

The Bakkhai This brief outline will in consequence lead us to ask: what may be the central institution that is violated in the Bakkhail As an initial hypothesis the most natural answer that seems to offer itself is the female rites of Dionysos. We should not fear circular reasoning here, for what is in fact happening is that the god, who presents himself emphatically as such, is being threatened, his female followers are imprisoned, and the rites they wish to introduce are suppressed. In due course their opponent, King Pentheus, will be punished and in a revelation the god announces his omnipotence. The fact that Pentheus is chastised does not oblige us to view the drama as a simple tale of crime and retribution, bringing home a strong moral lesson. On the contrary, the drama does not offer any easy moral message directed to irreverent individuals, with the warning not to challenge the gods, although this is of course the meaning of the main structure in the traditional tale.5 We have instead to focus on the specific tragic workings of the drama in order to examine whether and how our hypothesis will be confirmed. We should study the tragic plot in detail to see whether a starting point like the one proposed will make sense of the drama as a whole, as well as solving the various problems I referred to earlier. Still a preliminary question should be raised: who were the audience to whom the drama directed itself? Since the entire arrangement was a public event in the life of the polls, organized, created, and controlled by male citizens, we may assume that they constituted the community which tragic drama addressed. Our interpretation of the tragic development has to take account of this fact, as well as of the modulation of tragic sentiments in the events presented. What is significant in the first place is that the Bakkhai seems to present a specific course of emotional waves running through the intrigue. After the prologue, which is spoken by the great god Dionysos himself, and the hymnal song to his glory in the parodos, the aged Kadmos and Teiresias enter and launch their praise in honour of the god and his divine power. This scene has been considered a stumbling block to those who think Euripides' Bakkhai is a source for maenadism but assume that maenadic rites excluded male participation. Quite a few historians of religion have been wondering why these males will join the revelry. However, the scene should be considered in

McGinty 1978, 78. 61

the light of the tragic progress of the drama, which after the explanatory prologue usually offers what I have labelled 4an emotional prologue'. Euripides in particular composes his dramas in this fashion, expanding the rather jejune informative opening scene into a veritable emotional storm, stirring the feelings of the audience around the institution that will be disrupted during the drama. Examples abound: we may think of Medeia, Ion, Hippotytos, Alkestis, Helene, Andromakhe, Troiades, Iphigeneia in Tauris and so forth.6 In the opening scene of the Bakkhai Dionysos gives an expose that would leave the audience rather unaffected, but this is followed immediately with the hymnic song by the chorus of female worshippers and with the scene between Kadmos, Teiresias and Pentheus. This scene in particular serves both the tragic development and the dramatic intrigue. Essentially the Kadmos-Teiresias scene constitutes an 'emotional prologue': it presents the (proper) sentiment of reverence towards the god as well as a fearful and outrageous defiance of the god. Not only does this scene activate the cultural sentiments in the audience; the behaviour of the two aged men soon motivates King Pentheus to react, and thus it visibly sets in motion the dramatic action. The slightly comic behaviour of the two venerable men may have given the king's harsh reaction an understandable ring in the ears of the audience, in an age which, according to Versnel, witnessed the introduction of a number of foreign (private) cults, which aroused the suspicion of the polis? Their adherents were accused of begging, promiscuity, magic, and a general subversive tendency attracting women into their orbit. Pentheus' reactions, then, may well have been recognizable to the contemporary audience. Still, since the audience was presented to the great god himself, tragic shock and horror will have accompanied this scene in which Pentheus proposes to repress the god's rites. The whole confrontation seems to be devised in order to set the dramatic action in motion as well as to arouse powerful tragic sentiments at the sight of the young king, who, unaware of the terrible presence of Dionysos, in tragic irony fails to see whom he is trying to destroy. It is significant, as Henrichs already has noticed, that Kadmos and Teiresias never reach the mountains. After the scene they are disposed of, and they never prepare to join the bakkhantes in the way Pentheus will do.8 They do not dress as women, but only assume the deer's skin (nebris), the crown of 6

Bouvrie 1990, 321 and 203, 226, 247, 279, 298; Bouvrie 1996, 204f. Versnel 1990, 162. 8 Henrichs 1984, 69. 7

62

ivy (kissos) and the bacchic wand (thyrsos), and it is therefore reasonable to interpret their behaviour as a scene of men preparing themselves for other Dionysiac rituals, a question to which I will return. Even Teiresias' utterance that the god demands to be honoured by all may have been understood by the audience as "the great Dionysos is honoured in the symposion, in women's rites and in the theatre, that is, by a i r \ Once the action commences Kadmos and Teiresias disappear, and when Kadmos reappears at the end of the drama his role is only a function of the anagnorisis and lamentable dramatic solution. The god works his will through the band of Theban maenads while his peaceful Asiatic followers praise his supreme power. Gradually, however, they transform themselves into terrible forces of revenge, this transformation being not an element of the dramatic development, due to some change of mind to be explained in psychological terms, but a fiinction of the drama's 'tragic progress'. While Kadmos and Teiresias as well as Pentheus in the first episode behave in a — to the audience — recognizable manner, as soon as the dramatic conflict begins, the king is gradually transformed into a veritable theomakhos, fighting the god at the same time as the god will abandon his benign mask and be transformed into an inexorable force of retribution. This phenomenon, when characters radically change their status in a positive or negative direction, I have labelled 'twisting'. It is not to be confounded with some growing awareness or psychological development to be understood as part of the dramatic structure. The whole drama is organized in order to capture the attention of the audience with fascinating and frightening action, whose course absorbs their attention while imperceptibly provoking powerful sentiments in regard to the central institution. The drama did not offer some moralizing message, which presupposes a fundamentally intellectual distance and conscious reflection about the issues presented. Tragic disruption provoked a reaction at the level of cultural reflexes. This was achieved not only by the king's defiance of the god and his attempts to suppress the foreign cult, but still more by his attack on the Theban women. Within the dramatic intrigue this attack triggers the god's revenge, at the moment when the theomakhos orders men to go to arms against the raving women (Eur. Ba. 781f.). The events, though, take a different direction, when the king prepares to join the women running wild in the mountains. Without any warning the king is told that he will be killed if he trespasses on the women's realm. However, in the course of the drama it is never explained why men will be killed if they spy on the Theban women (Eur. Ba. 823). 63

Within the dramatic development the reason that is given why Pentheus is murdered is simply the fact that the Theban women are driven mad as a punishment for offending the god and his mother. But in relation to a maenadic cult reality such an explanation is only a pseudo-explanation, the exegesis of the myth thus being itself an extension of the myth, implying the 'truth' instead of stating it. By arousing powerful tragic emotions surrounding the central events, the tragic drama reinforced the audience's cultural sentiments towards (female) maenadic rites. The dramatic events present females celebrating the rites of Dionysos and a male violating these rites. The drama presupposes the cult of maenadism as a revered institution with its taboo upon male intrusion, and it is the drama's violation of the institution that provoked tragic reactions of shock and horror in the audience, thereby reviving their culturally conditioned feelings towards the proper world-order. The real reason for the king's punishment is never given: that men should be excluded from women's cult areas, because it is preferable that women celebrate their rites in seclusion.

Conclusions The tragic progress of the Bakkhai, then, presupposes the institution of maenadism with its norm prohibiting male participation in female cult practice. These activities are expressed in the Theban women as well as in the chorus. During the drama we are given a detailed picture of the chorus of Asiatic women. What is striking is the persistent reference to their particular music and dancing, their instruments and proper dressing.9 These details alone are insufficient as an indication of the existence of ritual traditions. Together with the tragic development, however, the image of female rites gains in credibility. In its basic structure the women's behaviour assumes the model of rites of rebellion: mothers abandoning their homes, their children, and their weaving. They roam from the inner centre of oikos and potts to the outer space of the civilized world, the mountains (oreibasia, Eur. Ba. 116), which however at the same time are situated in close opposition to the ordering power of Delphic Apollo. The women's marginal status is confirmed by the tearing apart of raw flesh

9

Delavaud-Roux 1989, 40 and 1995, 44; Belis 1989, 9. Cf. Rouget 1990, 161,

376f. 64

(sparagmos/omophagia, Eur. Ba. 735-745),10 their activity at night, but particularly by the miracle they achieve with the god's help. Unlike what has been suggested earlier, the miracle of milk, honey, and wine streaming from the soil (Eur. Ba. 142f. and 704-711) does not just illustrate the god's supreme power. Milk, honey, and wine are the normal ingredients of libation, when they are poured down into the soil.11 When these liquids are spouting up, they symbolize a reversal of the normal world-order. The same mundus inversus is evoked by the Theban women attacking farmers who try to chase them. While the males are unable to defend themselves with their metal weapons against the maenads, conversely the women, being invulnerable, injure their male opponents with their thyrsos wands (Eur. Ba. 758-764). The deus-ex-machina scene is only fragmentarily preserved, leaving us with part of Dionysos' speech. This scene may have prophesied the institution of the Theban or Attic cult of maenadism. It is striking that the god introduces the homeland of his Asiatic followers as a region inhabited by a mixed hellenic-barbaric population (migasin Hellesi barbarois, Eur. Ba. 18). In the exodos episode Kadmos prophesies that he himself together with Harmonia will be transformed into snakes, and that subsequently they will come and lead a similar host Qnigada barbaron straton, Eur. Ba. 1356) against the Hellenic world, which some day will attack Delphi but then be defeated. In the end they will be transferred to the islands of the blessed. These prophesies symbolize the marginal character of the rites involved: the female rites of maenadism turn the world upside down. They occur as an invasion into Hellenic life, disrupting the normal order and threatening the stability of the Apollonian world. However, since they are ultimately defeated, this disruption will not last; order will be restored and Greek normality prevail. A final problem concerns the role of wine and the hints at Dionysiac mysteries in the Bakkhai (Eur. Ba. 534f., 382ff.).12 The fact that both Teiresias and the chorus mention the blessings of wine has confused interpreters of the drama. However, these elements can be explained by the audience's need to 'feel' the omnipotence and blessings of the great Dionysos. If, as is argued in this analysis, the institution of maenadism with its taboo on male intrusion is the underlying 'truth' that was revived during the tragic process, this mythical performance was directed at an audience of Athenian citizens. Since these males were not able to identify with the bacchants, the 10

Obbink 1993, 68. Cf. Burkert 1987, 70. See Graf 1980, 209. 12 Villanueva-Puig 1988, 38. 11

65

drama had to bring home its 'truth' by evoking experiences familiar to men. Thus, when the blessings of the great god are to be conjured up, the drama offers scenes from the symposion with its elevating sense of community, and from Dionysiac healing or afterlife cult (mysteries). The elderly men seem to suggest initiates in Dionysiac mysteries, who are shaking off the burden of their age, as do the initiates in Hades in Aristophanes' Frogs (401 f.).13 To conclude, we may assume that the tragic workings of Euripides' Bakkhai can serve as a proof of the existence of maenadism in Euripides' lifetime.14 The mythical drama recreated the world-order of the Athenian polls, charging its institution of maenadism with new power and revitalizing the proper sentiments of the citizens. University of Tromso Instituttfor spr&k og litteratur (Greek and Latin) Troms0 Norway

Bibliography Editions of Euripides' BAKKHAI

Euripides, Bacchae, ed. comm. E. R. Dodds, Oxford 1960. Euripide, Les Bacchantes, 6d. comm. J. Roux, / texte, Paris 1970, // commentaire, Paris 1972.

B61is 1989

Belis, A., 'Musique et transe dans le cortege dionysiaque', in Transe et ttedtre. Actes de la table ronde Internationale Montpellier 3-5 mars 1988, dd. P. Ghiron-Bistagne, Montpellier 1989, 9-29.

13

1 completely disagree with Seaford's view (1981, 257) of the role of mysteries in the Bakkhai. 14 The main sources are discussed in Henrichs 1978 and Kraemer 1979. For the social function of trance possession Lewis 1989, 39. 66

Bouvrie 1988

Bouvrie, S. des, 'Aristotle's Poetics and the subject of tragedy', Arethusa 21, 1988, 47-73.

Bouvrie 1990

Bouvrie, S. des, Women in Greek tragedy. An anthropological approach (Symbolae Osloenses, Fasc. Suppl. 27), Oslo 1990.

Bouvrie 1993

Bouvrie, S. des, 'Creative euphoria. The cult of Dionysos and the theatre', Kernos 6, 1993, 79-112.

Bouvrie 1996

Bouvrie, S. des, 'Aiskhulos' Prometheus. An anthropological approach', Metis. Revue d'anthropologic du monde grec ancien, 8:1-2, 1993(1996), 187-216.

Bouvrie 1997

Bouvrie, S. des, 'Euripides' Bakkhai and meanadism', Classica et Mediaevalia 48, 1977, 75-114.

Bremmer 1984

Bremmer, J., 'Greek maenadism reconsidered', ZPE 55, 1984, 267-286.

Burkert 1987

Burkert, W., 'Omophagia', in Encyclopedia of religion 11, New York, London 1987, 70-73.

Delavaud-Roux 1989

Delavaud-Roux, M.-H., 'Danse et transe. La danse au service du culte de Dionysos dans l'antiquite' greque. Approche et m&hode de reconstitution', in Transe et theatre. Actes de la table ronde Internationale Montpellier 3-5 mars 1988, 6d. P. Ghiron-Bistagne, Montpellier 1989, 31-53.

Delavaud-Roux 1995

Delavaud-Roux, M.-H., 'MenadesetBacchantes', inLesdanses dionysiaques en Grece antique, Aix-en Provence 1995, 11-54.

Graf 1980

Graf, F., 'Milch, Honig und Wein. Zum Verstandnis der Libation im griechischen Ritual', in Perennitas. Studi in onore di Angelo Brelich, Roma 1980, 209-221.

Henrichs 1978

Henrichs, A., 'Greek maenadism from Olympias to Messalina', HSPh 82, 1978, 121-160.

Henrichs 1984

Henrichs, A., 'Male intruders among the maenads: the so-called male celebrant', in Mnemai: Classical studies in memory of Karl K. Hulley, ed. H. D. Evjen, Chico, Cal. 1984, 69-91.

Kraemer 1979

Kraemer, R., 'Ecstasy and possession: the attraction of women to the cult of Dionysos', HThR 72, 1979, 55-80. 67

Lewis 1989

Lewis, I. M., Ecstatic religion. A study ofshamanism and spirit possession, London 1989.

McGinty 1978

McGinty, P., 'Dionysos's revenge and the validation of the Hellenic world-view', HThR 71, 1978, 77-94.

McNally 1984

McNally, S., 4The maenad in early Greek art', Arethusa 11, 1978, 101-135 (reprinted in Women in the ancient World. The Arethusa papers, eds. J. Peradotto & J.P. Sullivan, Albany, NY. 1984, 107-141).

Obbink 1993

Obbink, D., 'Dionysus poured out: ancient and modern theories of sacrifice and cultural formation', in Masks of Dionysus, eds. T. H. Carpenter and C.A. Faraone, Ithaca and London 1993, 65-86.

Rouget 1990

Rouget, G., La musique et la transe. Esquisse d'une tMorie genirale des relations de la musique et de la possession. New enlarged edition with foreword by M. Leiris, Paris 1990.

Schlesier 1993

Schlesier, R., 'Mixtures of masks: maenads as tragic models' in Masks ofDionysus, eds. T. Carpenter and C.A. Faraone, Ithaca and London 1993, 89-114.

Seaford 1981

Seaford, R. 'Dionysiac drama and the Dionysiac mysteries', CQ 31, 1981, 252-275.

Versnel 1990

Versnel, H. S., 'Heis Dionysos. The tragic paradox of the Bacchae', Inconsistencies in Greek and Roman religion I. Ter Unus, Isis, Dionysos, Hermes. Three studies in henotheism, Leiden 1990.

Villanueva-Puig 1986

Villanueva-Puig, M.-C, 'A propos des Thyiades de Delphes', in Vassociation dionysiaque dans les sociite's anciennes. Actes de la table ronde organiseepar VEcolefrancaise de Rome 24-25 mai 1984 (Coll. de l'Ecole francaise de Rome, 89) Rome 1986, 31-51.

Villanueva-Puig 1988

Villanueva-Puig, M.-C, 'La mdnade, la vigne et le vin. Sur quelques types de representations dans la cdramique attique des Vie et Ve siecles', REA 90, 1988, 35-64.

68

Marjatta Nielsen

ETRUSCAN WOMEN: A CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

In this rapid survey of the changing images of Etruscan women through the first millennium B.C., I will bring up a series of issues which have been treated in this volume in connection with Greek and Roman women. The Etruscan women's reputation, as some of the few women in Classical antiquity whose status was not so bad at all, is partly due to archaeological evidence left by the Etruscans themselves, partly to the literary accounts left by Greeks and Romans, who — paradoxically — mostly intended to give a negative picture of their neighbours and enemies.1 But have the literary sources been squeezed to the utmost to produce cultural differences, which would not appear as great, if we only had archaeological evidence at our disposal? Therefore, I am mostly using archaeological and epigraphical material, grave goods and gifts to sanctuaries, as well as artistic representations, in an effort to place Etruscan women in a wider context. We are dealing with expressions of mentality and ideals. I will be looking at which aspects were given the strongest emphasis in different periods. Textile production and wedding symbolism (10th-7th cent. B.C.) In order to understand the background for the Etruscan women's position within society, we have to return to the village communities of the early Iron Age, the Villanova culture in the 10th-8th centuries B.C. At the outset, the 1

See discussion of literary sources e.g. by Rallo in Donne 1989, 15-33; Sordi 1995, 159-173. For Etruscan women in general, see the many contributions in Donne 1989, with refs.; most recently Bonfante 1994. 69

society appears almost everywhere rather egalitarian, Judging by graves: small, individual pits in the ground with a cremation urn, and sparse grave goods.2 A few objects define men only as men, by giving them a razor as grave goods, or as warriors, e.g. by giving them a helmet. Women were defined as spinners, by giving them spindle-whorls and bobbins. In the course of time, there was a tendency to place the individual graves in groups, often around one male and one female burial, probably a married couple and some of their offspring. Later on, men get more weapons and horse equipment in their graves, and women more jewellery, and still more objects related to wool-working. Sometimes spindles or bobbins were also put into men's graves, perhaps as symbolic gifts from the widow. No doubt, women's working capacity as diligent weavers was fully recognized and became the symbol of their contribution to the community, or to the economy of the oikos. But textile production as women's field of competence3 may especially have referred to their preparing their trousseau before the wedding, and once married, to dedicating themselves to domestic life.4 The earliest representations of wool-working among the Etruscans come from the 7th century B.C., not from Etruria proper, but from Etruscan areas in Northern Italy. In the reliefs of a bronze pendant, or tintinnabulwn, from Bologna5 (plate VIII) we see two women comfortably sitting on round-backed chairs, while fixing carded wool on distaffs (A). Another woman is spinning while walking (B) — a manifestation of diligence. On the other side of the pendant are shown the time-consuming operation of warping (C) and, finally, weaving (D). The weaver is sitting in an armchair, placed on a high scaffolding in front of a vertical, warp-weighted loom.6 From Verucchio, an early Etruscan enclave near the Adriatic coast, some 2

For comparable burial data, see Iron Age in Europe 1996; further refs. e.g. in Bietti Sestieri 1996. 3 For the whole question, see Barber 1995. 4 The hypothesis fits with burial data from Osteria dell'Osa in Latium. There one spindle-whorl was given to an adult woman (whose other duties only left time for spinning), while girls and young women often received many spindle-whorls, symbolizing looms they were diligently using; see most recentiy Bietti Sestieri 1996, 123f. For spindle and distaff, jusus and colus, carried by Roman brides in wedding processions, see Torelli 1984, 131136, 148. Many parallels exist from later times. 5 Morigi Govi 1971; Donne 1989, pis. 1-5. 6 For vertical looms, e.g. Wild 1988, 30-37. On Etruscan textiles and wool-working implements, Bonfante 1989. 70

chairs of the same model, carved out of tree-trunks, have been found, among many other objects made of organic materials.7 One of these 'thrones', coming from the rich tomb 89 in the Lippi necropolis, was decorated with elaborate wood-carvings on the inner side of the chair back. These give us a unique glimpse into village life about 650 B.C. (plate IX).8 My immediate impression of the carvings was that they showed the division of male and female labour in a village surrounded by wilderness. The upper pictorial frieze would depict women cooking, spinning and weaving. The lower frieze, in turn, would show men hunting and fishing, bringing their prey and harvest on heavy wagons to the centre, where two pairs of armed men are supervising the division of meat. The wood-carver seemingly knew how to give visual form not only to the structuralist theories about the division of the world and its inhabitants, but also to the system of tribute and distribution controlled by a chieftain. Still within these conceptual frames, I have been persuaded by G.V. Gentili's more precise interpretation of the carvings as giving the whole story of wool-working, from sheep to cloth.9 By and large following his interpretation, the lower frieze describes the preliminary stages of procuring wool: shepherding the animals, plucking the fleece, carrying it in a big jar on a wagon, washing, drying, and carding the wool, and perhaps arranging it into long rolls for spinning. The washing of the wool happens in the centre, under the supervision of the warriors. The scene is staged on a riverbank, judging by the waterfowl. All these persons acting outside the village are probably men and boys, since they lack the women's back-braid, which instead characterizes the persons in the upper part of the chair back. The presence of the warriors may raise the question whether they represent the chief who controls the collective labour of wool-working in a community for which it was of great economic importance, or whether all peaceful activities outside the village actually needed armed guards because of feuds typical of pastoral societies. Women's part of the wool-work is, then, shown in the upper part of the chair back. In the village, some women are spinning, while pairs of women

7

See most recently Boiardi & Eles, in Iron Age in Europe 1996, 45-66. Gentili 1987, 243-246; Bermond Montanari 1989, 128-130, 134; Bartoloni & Morigi Govi 1995, 175, fig. 5; Eles 1995, figs. 42, 44, 51. 9 Gentili 1978, 243-246.1 present only minor deviations from his description. The goatlike animals are probably sheep of the slender long-legged and long-necked, 'goat-horned' breed which still survives in peripheric regions of Europe. It periodically loses its fleece, which means that it does not require shearing; cf. Wild 1988, 13-17. 8

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are pestling or stirring dyeing pots in front of the two huts. In the very centre of the village there are two pairs of vertical looms, high and imposing. In front of the looms, on solid stands, weavers are seated on chairs, with their feet on foot-stools (cf. plate VIII). The cloth itself is patterned with typical motifs of the time, duck-stemmed boats.10 But who was the chair made for, and by whom? In later times in many rural communities in Europe, bridegrooms were supposed to show their skills by giving finely carved weaving equipment as gifts to their brides. Drawing from such ethnographic parallels, I would suggest that we are dealing with a wedding present. Our bridegroom at Verucchio would have wished to draw attention to his own male identity as a member of the elite, and at the same time to describe the male contribution to the female occupation of spinning and weaving.11 And, as we have seen, this type of 'throne' was, indeed, used also for such domestic activities. Yet the grave in which the chair was found probably belonged to a man. The chair was found on top of the big wooden box containing the cremation urn and all the grave goods, including mainly male objects and nothing else connected with weaving. Instead, there were two different kinds of helmets, much weaponry, horse equipment, a banquet service, amber and other ornaments of types prevalently found in male tombs. Even the big fan was no female prerogative in this period. The box was covered by a woollen garment.12 Therefore, the chair may be 'a wool-chiefs throne', but it might also be the widow's counter-gift to her dead husband, from whom she had got it — an analogy to spindle-whorls, given as secondary gifts to men's graves. Also many other graves at Verucchio have yielded remains of textiles, since cremation urns were often 'clad' in clothes. These confirm the ability of the weavers in making very fine fabrics and elaborate patterns. They also reveal that women's garments show traces of vivid colours, while those of men are normally undyed.13 The colourful and exuberant impression of female clothing was further accentuated by amber jewellery, made locally by

10

Cf. Us Etrusques 1992, 193. Woodcarving was among elite men's occupations in this period: several very rich male tombs include carpentry tools, e.g. Etrusker in der Toskana 1987, 176f. no. 7, with refs. 12 Its brownish colour was probably purple in origin. On the grave goods, see Gentili 1987, 242-257; Guldager Bilde 1994, 16; Eles 1995, 66-68. 13 Eles 1995, 50,figs.33-34. 11

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extremely skilled artisans, who utilized amber imported from the Baltic area.14 The wealth of the community seems to have been based on farreaching exchange. Perhaps the textiles were Verucchio's own contribution to the trade, so women had certainly earned their share of the luxury goods. At any rate, in the seventh and early sixth centuries B.C. women at the loom were still a reality, and remains of looms found in dwelling houses and residences of the period testify to weaving as a home industry.15 But spinning and weaving had already become the very symbol of home-staying wives, in contrast to men's mobility. In this respect Etruscan women do not differ in the least from their Greek or Roman sisters. Tanaquil, the wife of the first Etruscan king in Rome, Tarquinius Priscus, was recorded to have woven the first tunica recta, and her distaff and wool were shown for centuries in a temple founded by her.16 Long after the craft had been taken over by professional weavers, male and female, textile work continued to be the symbol of female virtue (cf. plates XIII-XIV).17 Returning to exchange, some of the earliest foreign objects from early Iron Age Italy come from women's graves, showing that matrimonial alliances were arranged between the elites of different ethnic groups. The foreign wives were buried with all their exotic things, which they had brought with them as brides.18 Consumption, representation, and the elite housewife (7th-6th cent. B. C.) The 7th century B.C. — the Orientalizing period — was an era of great social and cultural changes; the Mediterranean contacts were intensified; foreign 14

Dono delle Eliadi 1994, with an astounding variety of amber jewellery. The brooches were made in pairs, but every pair was a new creation. 15 E.g. at Acquarossa, Murlo, Roselle, Lago dell'Accesa. The weight of the loomweight is an important detail, too often neglected in publications; through it the number of looms for different qualities of fabric can be established, e.g. by Scheffer 1987, 110 (no. 282), 112. 16 Varro had seen Hanam in colo etfuso Tanaquilis'; Plut. Q.R. 30; Pliny HNS, 194. On the tradition of Tanaquil as weaver, e.g. Torelli 1984, 31-33, 104, 136; Rallo, in Donne 1989, 31, n. 101. 17 Cf. for Greece, Bettalli 1982; Stromberg, in this volume; for the Roman world, Larsson Lov6n, likewise in this volume. 18 E.g. Bartoloni, in Donne 1989, 35-54; Us Etrusques 1992, 112-114 nos. 13-23, 116f. nos. 36-38, with refs. 73

luxury and everything exotic were in vogue everywhere.19 The process of urbanization took great steps forward. The development in domestic architecture, from huts to houses,20 was also reflected in graves: the small burial pits and fossae developed into chamber tombs. In Southern Etruria, the rite of inhumation was introduced, while the Northern areas mostly continued to practise incineration. In the chamber tombs a man and a woman were often buried together, and eventually also their descendants.21 The richest female burials, especially those with a horse wagon,22 do not necessarily contain any equipment for textile working, while some other women have spindle-whorls and bobbins in absurd quantities, or these tools were too precious to be used otherwise than as mere status symbols; in fact, they turned into insignia.23 For 'ordinary women', weaving tools remained for some time part of the standard grave goods, 24 but jewellery became much more important. Though in no way confined to women, vases and other equipment for preparing and serving food and drink were also abundantly laid in women's graves. Apparently, the wife had by now acquired new duties. Together with the growing importance of olive and wine growing, and through contacts with Phoenicians and Greeks, more refined customs for common meals were introduced.25 Not only in Etruria, but also in Latium, women's tombs contain

19

Baglione 1992; Martelli 1994. Cf. a colloquium so labelled held at the Swedish Institute at Rome in 1997. For the development of houses and graves, see Prayon, in Etruscan life and afterlife 1986, 174-193. 21 The Regolini Galassi tomb at Cerveteri has to be cancelled from this list of early family tombs, as has been proved by Colonna & Di Paolo 1997. 22 Bartoloni & Grottanelli, in Donne 1989, 55-73; further refs., Rallo, Donne 1989, 68. 23 For spindles and distaffs of amber, glass, or gold-sheet covered wood, see e.g. Donne 1989, pi. 13; Martelli 1994 1994, 77f., 100. Bronze spindles were quite practical; they produced precisely wound and thin thread. 24 For later spinning ideology in Etruria and Latium, cf. Haynes 1989, 1401-1404. Spindles did not vanish from Etruscan tombs. In later periods, we have to keep an eye on profiled bone sticks with disc-shaped whorls (such as Wild 1988, 26; Serra Ridgway 1996, 304), objects that may easily be confused with writing utensils, hairpins and parts of ivory boxes. Other textile implements from later tombs are sewing needles, needle containers, scissors, thread bobbins, crocheting hooks, etc. For Hellenistic grave goods in Athens, see S. Houby-Nielsen, 'Grave gifts, women, and conventional values in Hellenistic Athens', in Conventional values of the Hellenistic Greeks (Studies in hellenistic civilization 8), ed. P. Bilde, Aarhus 1997, 220-262. 25 Rathje, in Donne 1989, 75-84. 20

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banquet services and plenty of wine-cups with women's name inscriptions, and even toast greetings.26 Without literary sources we would never have imagined that in Rome women were actually forbidden to drink wine — or at least unmixed, local wine. We know nothing about the legal and cultic aspects of wine-drinking concerning women in Etruria, but, in fact, we very seldom see women holding cups, until some centuries later. A significant exception is the Murlo banquet frieze, where we see a woman with a drinking cup in her hands (plate XI:3, the second reclining figure from the left).27 Earlier, it was customary to sit at the table, but now the 'reclining banquet1 became the privileged social manifestation among the elite. In the Near East men were reclining on banquet couches, while women were sitting on separate chairs or at the foot-end of men's couches. In Greece honourable women were not supposed to be present at all. In Etruria women were not only present, but they were reclining on the same couches as their husbands, and taking part in all the entertainment connected with wine-drinking. They were the natural centre of social gatherings in their homes — something which the Greeks found scandalous.28 The differences between Greek and Etruscan banquets are further accentuated by artistic representations, but we have to remember that in the Archaic period, the Greek vases were mainly designed for men's drinking parties (although many of them found their way to Etruscan graves), while paintings and sculpture in Etruscan family tombs necessarily stress the family context. The many illustrations from the Archaic and early Classical periods, the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., show that the banquet was for the Etruscan woman the big occasion for showing her beauty, wealth, and status as the mistress of the house. She is clad from top to toe — while men follow the Greek custom of banqueting with nude upper bodies and bare feet. The wives are smiling and gesticulating elegantly, and their husbands look not only pleased with their presence, but even proud of their social talents.29 Some

26

Bietti Sestieri 1996, 124. For the inscribed toast greeting from Osteria delFOsa, see Colonna 1980. 27 Rathje, in Donne 1989, 75-84; Rathje 1993. For later developments, see Nielsen 1990, 60-64. 28 Athenaios, Deipn. 1.42.23d, 3.38.153d, 12.14.517d-518. For Etruscan women in the Archaic period in general, see Baglione, in Donne 1989, 107-119. 29 Briguet 1989; Nielsen 1993, 115-121, with refs. 75

female dancers, musicians and acrobats look like professional performers,30 while many other dancing girls and women are so richly clad that they can hardly be other than the ladies and daughters of the house themselves.31 We are moving among the leading families, whose men held the important public offices. Women had no formal political power, but their contribution to the family's status by their own noble birth was undoubtedly considered very important indeed. The women's main field of competence was within the household, which by now meant a big town-house, closed towards the neighbours and the streets, but with an open courtyard inside. The closed domestic architecture must have affected, to a certain degree, women's lives. The difference between the male and female spheres is shown, among other things, at Cerveteri, by the convention of forming the benches in graves in different ways: as banquet couches for men, while women's benches were furnished with gables, alluding to houses. In the same town, also later on, women's grave markers, cippi, were always formed as houses, and those of men as short column shafts.32 As elsewhere, Etruscan women also are depicted with light complexion, in contrast to men's sun-tan. Yet Etruscan women were hardly prohibited from going out. We see them participating in many kinds of activities in public, but protecting their complexion with parasols when travelling by wagon (cf. plate XI:1), or by baldachins when following sport competitions and spectacles.33 There are no signs of any female seclusion. Preparing brides for reproduction (5th-4th cent. B.C.) In the Classical period Etruscan women finally learnt — for a short while — to sit and look dignified at banquets, unless they stood up when talking with their reclining husbands.34 Chiusine funerary statues occasionally represent women as enthroned goddesses, at times even furnished with wings.35 A 30 E.g. Steingraber 1986, 38, 78, 87-89, 99, 168f.; Thuillier 1985, 534; Rallo 1989, 153-155. 31 E.g. Steingraber 1986, 25, 55, 70, 98. It is, however, difficult to see the difference. 32 See Etruscan life and afterlife 1986: Bonfante 270; Prayon 184. 33 Thuillier 1985, 535, 632-634; Donne 1989, pi. 27, 66-69; Nielsen 1990, 53. 34 E.g. Steingraber 1986, 145-148; standing women, Tarquinia tomb 5513, op.cit. 174177. 35 Nielsen 1993, 116f„ nos. 6-9.

76

wave of 'heroizatiorT of women as brides, wives and mothers — and goddesses of love and death — swept throughout the ancient world. The late Classical period appears as one of 'women's liberation' mainly because much of the surviving archaeological material, e.g. painted vases, was designed to be used at weddings and as brides' outfits, which in due time followed their owners into the grave.36 Therefore, the decorations on wedding vases and toilet equipment often stress a balance between the sexes, as did the carvings on the Verucchio throne. Among the favourite themes were the Battle between Greeks and Amazons, Satyrs and Maenads, or wrestling mythological couples.37 Much attention was paid to make-up and body-care, judging both by representations of women, and by the costly toilet equipment buried with them.38 Cistae and mirrors (plates XII-XIV)39 were decorated with scenes referring to divine love and mythological loving couples — wishful thinking and examples to follow for the young bride and her groom. But all this 'vanity' had a deeper purpose: body-care and health, beauty and sex-appeal were recognized as necessary conditions for a lasting and happy marriage, and for ensuring the continuation of the family.40 This period also produced the 36

Baglione, in Donne 1989, esp. 116. In Greek vase painting of the period, wedding and funerary motifs are very common. 37 Mavleev, s.v. Amazones etruscae, LIMC 1, 1981; cf. in Greek art, Pandora 1995, 373-380. On cista handles with naked youth and a woman, with or without shorts, see Briquet 1991. 38 Cf. Rallo, in Donne 1989, 173-179. For motifs on Etruscan mirrors, e.g. Guide to Etruscan mirrors 1982, 166f.; Meer 1995. 39 For the mirror in plate XII, see Bonfante, in Etruscan life and afterlife 1986, 239, fig. 10. For the Arezzo mirror (plate XIII); Donne 1989, 167 (Bonfante), 176 (Rallo), pi. 92. The interpretation is mine. After leaving Ariadne, Theseus married the queen of the Amazons, Antiope or Hippolyte, and then Ariadne's sister Phaidra. I prefer, however, to identify the woman with the cista as Helen, who was abducted by Theseus according to some traditions (Apollod. 3.128; Hyg. FabJ9\ Paus. 1.41.4; Plut. Thes. 31.). For the Copenhagen mirror (plate XIV): Salskov Roberts 1981, no. 26; Donne 1989, pis. 9-10; Moltesen, in Etruria and Central Italy 1996, no. 53. There is no need of making a hetaira out of the affectionate woman, as signs of intimacy between the spouses abound in Etruscan art; cf. Nielsen 1993, 116-122. Since the fruit looks more like a quince than a pomegranate, Plutarch, Moralia 138a-146a, might be cited: "Solon advised the bride to eat a quince before getting into bed with her husband, and by this, I think, he meant that from the very beginning the pleasures coming from the lips and the voice should be harmonious and delightful''(Lefkowitz & Fant 1982, 240, no. 227:1). 40 Cf. Bonfante 1996. 77

well-known sarcophagus lids showing embracing couples in matrimonial beds.41 Another big group of archaeological material is constituted by votive offerings given to sanctuaries, to a large extent dealing with health, childbearing and other important stages in the human life cycle.42 We encounter young girls who have offered their braided hair to the sanctuary.43 We see girls being dressed as brides, heavily laden with golden jewellery, which would serve them both as signs of rank and as social security.44 We meet them again as well-fed matrons, and as mothers. Motherhood was finally added to the important female roles (plate XII).45 Before that time, representations of mothers, nursing and babies were rare — children seem to have come out of nothing. Perhaps all that attention to health and procreation was connected with progress in medical science, too.46 Among the votive gifts to healing deities, models of wombs were common. Many of them have recently proved to contain one or two small pellets, as if eggs or tiny embryos.47 I wonder whether there could be a connection between a knowledge of the preliminary stages of conception and the widespread symbolism related to deities of love: eggs, birds, and winged figures of all kinds.

41

Donne 1989, pi. 86; Nielsen 1990, 50-53; Nielsen 1993, 116f. nos. 11-14. Cornelia 1981. 43 Hair is widely believed to contain strength and sexual power; by cutting it, the strength was channeled inwards, to fertility. Votive statues of short-cut girls are especially plentiful in Lavinium; see Torelli 1984, esp. 31-49. 44 Most lavishly adorned are the bride statues from Lavinium, but analogous busts and heads have also been found in Etruria. Livy could not have put it better than in the speech put in the mouth of L. Valerius defending the repeal of Lex Oppia in 195 B.C., regarding women's right to own and use jewellery and colourful clothes as signs of their rank, corresponding to men's honour (Livy 34.7.8f.). For the equation of women's jewellery, beauty and arete in Greece, see Specht 1989, 94f. 45 Bonfante, in Donne 1989, 85-106; Bonfante 1997, with refs. to much previous works. For the mirror in plate XII, see note 39. 46 Cf. Dean-Jones 1996. The seasonal variations in pregnancy have been obliterated only recently. For women's fertility as a central value also in Greece, see Specht 1989, 7382. 47 G. Baggieri, in Archeologia Viva, 16:65, sett.-ott. 1997, 82-86. 42

78

Securing continuity (the last three centuries B.C.) In the last three centuries B.C., Etruscans had another, serious concern for securing continuation of their families, their cultural identity and their whole civilization: the increasing political pressure exercised by the Romans. Yet the Etruscans do not seem to have realized that they were a 'doomed race' until too late, in the first century B.C. The very big burial chambers designed to gather the family members through several generations are an eloquent expression of the strong sense of family continuity.48 The many name inscriptions from tombs give us an opportunity to make statistics about the family compositions in the tombs and also of women's part of the burials. In fact, what aroused my curiosity about the position of Etruscan women was that I discovered that the ratio of male and female burials in most Etruscan localities was about 60% to 40%, in men's favour, figures which have numerous parallels in various times and places. Women are best represented in those localities where the Etruscan culture was still vigorous, i.e. in the countryside and in Northern Etruria, which was not affected by the dominance of Roman power until the first century B.C. The only equal figures, 50/50, come from Tuscania in Southern Etruria. Here, also boys and girls were among those who were buried in stone sarcophagi. Among the survival strategies were frequent matrimonial alliances between the families of different localities, as testified by name inscriptions. This insistence on 'Etruscans marrying Etruscans' also continued in the Roman Imperial period.49 Etruscan society had been dominated by influential families, and within these, women had never lost their influence (plate XV). But even elsewhere, the ideal of invisible women was one thing, and the reality another. To sum up the categories of archaeological material I have examined here were intended to remain as records, and therefore, a very conventional picture has emerged. Indeed, Etruscan women seem to have been surrounded, from cradle to grave, by symbolic expressions related to wedding, marriage, housekeeping and child-rearing — things which appear as stereotypes throughout the history of womanhood. The shifts in emphasis, from production to consumption, and further on to reproduction, followed by and large the developments 48

For issues concerning late Etruscan family tombs and women's part of the burials, see Nielsen 1989; ead. in Donne 1989, 121-145; ead. 1990. 49 Sordi 1995, 170. 79

elsewhere in the ancient world. The differences we are able to discern are rather due to economic and social factors, which permitted a more 'liberal' attitude towards women's behaviour among the Etruscans. Svankaervej 20 2720 Vanlese/Copenhagen Denmark

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Lena Larsson Loven

LAN AM FECIT

WOOLWORKING AND FEMALE VIRTUE

The most important textile material to the Romans was wool. Its outstanding importance is reflected in Roman literature where wool, lana, is sometimes used as a synonym for clothes.1 The Romans used wool primarily from sheep, and the raw wool had to undergo several stages of preparation before a textile product ready to use was at hand. Some of these stages were considered to be women's work, and female work in general was traditionally to be performed mainly in the domestic sphere. The intimate connection between women's work and textiles was not a unique phenomenon in Roman society. On the contrary, it was a tradition widely diffused in many ancient cultures and in different areas.2 In this paper is discussed how traditional female work with textiles, and wool in particular, was also used as a symbol for female virtue. A woman working with wool was a long-lived ideal in Roman society and it is reflected in literary as well as in both epigraphic and iconographic sources. The stages in textile production traditionally ascribed to women were, above all, spinning and weaving. These were tasks of different character and different skills were required from those performing them. Spinning could be performed almost anywhere, including the domestic milieu, due to the fact that for this task only a small and rather simple instrument, the distaff, was needed.3 While spinning, the spinster could easily move this lightweight 1

Horatius Epist. 2.1.,207. Barber 1994, passim. 3 Geijer 1984, 26f. It would be possible to spin a thread without any implement at all by using only the hands, but this was probably unusual in Roman times and with the use of the distaff the result was a strong and solid thread. 2

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instrument around in, or even outside of, the house. Thus, spinning could quite easily be performed practically anywhere and did not need specially furnished rooms or workshops to be done. It was a task worth doing even during shorter periods of time, and its on-off character made it suitable to combine with domestic labour and taking care of small children.4 Spinning was also one of several tasks that could be confined to the slavegirls, ancillae, of the Roman household and to which they could return at any spare time.5 Weaving, on the other hand, requires more physical strength than does spinning. According to tradition weaving was the only heavy task that Roman women were expected to do. This tradition allegedly went back to the days of the founding of the city and was supposed to have been part of the peace treaty between the Romans and the Sabines, after the rape of the Sabine women.6 According to the agreement Roman women would in the future be exempt from all hard, physical work, with one exception — weaving. In addition to being more physically demanding than spinning, weaving also requires a much larger and stationary instrument, the loom.7 This means that weaving needs rooms specially equipped for the purpose and further that the work had to be done on the spot where the loom was placed. In the Roman house the loom was supposed to be standing in the atrium, a prominent place in the centre of the house, and symbolising both the traditional work of the materfamilias and female virtue.8

".... she worked in wool " A woman preoccupied with spinning and weaving is also a topos in Roman literature, the legendary Lucretia being the most well-known example.9 Even with her husband away from home, Lucretia devoted her time to traditional 4

Barber 1994, 29f. Fantham et al. 1994, 270. 6 Plut. Rom. 15.5. 7 The warp-weighted loom was for a long time the ordinary type of loom in the Mediterranean region (see plate XVI, from lst-century A.D. Rome). For the development of the loom see M. Hoffman, The warp-weighted loom, Oslo 1960; J.P. Wild, Textile manufacture in the northern Roman provinces, Cambridge 1970, chapter 7; The Roman horizontal loom', AJA 91, 1987, 459-471. 8 Wallace-Hadrill 1996, 109. 9 Livy 1.57.9. 5

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female household tasks, such as spinning wool. Chaste, faithful and even late at night occupied with wool-work in her home, Lucretia has become the classic image of female virtue. Her character, as described by Livy, is a sharp contrast to the image of the royal daughters-in-law, who in the absence of male surveillance devoted their time to a life of leisure and parties, instead of traditional female duties. The story of Lucretia may be seen as a reflection of the days of early Rome when it was likely to have been a reality for many women to be occupied with wool-work, as one of several domestic tasks in order to provide the family/household with textiles. It is worth noting that Lucretia is described sitting in the middle of the house, "...in medio aedium....",10 working together with her maidens and in full view of any visitor to the house.11 The importance of the atrium has been stressed by Wallace-Hadrill, not only as a room centrally located in the traditional Roman house but also as a space of prestige and symbolic value, and it was in this room that the wool-work should take place.12 In the regal and early Republican periods a largely home-based production of textiles seems most plausible.13 During the Republic there was a gradual change in the way Roman textiles were produced. It changed partly from a small-scale household production to one on a larger basis and even outside of the domestic realm. Parallel to this development was the gradual establishment of a corps of more or less professional workmen. The names of professions begin to emerge in the literary sources in the 3rd century B.C., and somewhat later are followed by occupational names in the epigraphic evidence.14 From the Republican period there are the Jullones, fullers, who seem to have been established in Rome in the second half of the third century B.C. as they are mentioned in the Lex Metilia.15 Further Republican examples of textile professions are the infectores, dyers of new textiles,16 and the lanarii,11 both

10

Livy 1.57.4-5. Philippides 1983, 115. 12 Wallace-Hadrill 1996, 109. 13 Some stages in textile production may have been pursued by specialists in a nondomestic setting in the early Republic, or perhaps even earlier. J. Lynn Sebesta refers to Plutarch who mentioned dyers who were supposed to have been organised already in the reign of Numa: Sebesta 1994, 66; cf. Plutarch, Numa 17. 14 von Petrikovits 1981, 64. 15 R E s . v . t o Metilia (2398). 16 Plaut. Aul. 521; CIL 5.997; 6.33861. 17 Plaut. Aid. 508; CIL 6.9489-9494, 31898, 33989; 9.826; 11.6367. 11

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of them are mentioned by Plautus. The exact meaning of lanarius is somewhat uncertain but the close connection with lana is obvious.18 None of these professions specifically document female equivalents, either from the Republican period or later.19 The earliest epigraphic evidence of Roman textile professions, then, refers to male workers. Neither the literary nor the epigraphic evidence documents female textile professions as early as the late 3rd century B.C. although women occur in other epigraphic contexts, like epitaphs, from the Republican period. In such contexts women, as well as men, are often described by standard phrases, reflecting the Roman notions of engendered characteristicas. One expression appearing with some regularity in female epitaphs is lanam fecit,10 as in the funerary inscription from Rome of a woman named Claudia. From the short inscription on her epitaph we know that she was married, and that she had given birth to two sons of which one had predeceased her. The inscription further informs the reader that Claudia was pleasant to talk to, that she took care of her home and "that she worked in wool".21 All is in accordance with what was expected from a virtuous Roman wife. The funerary inscription of Claudia is dated to the 2nd century B.C.22 By then the manufacture of textiles was partly on a large scale and partly done by professional workers. Even if a woman at that time still performed wool-work in her home, the Roman household is not likely to have been completely dependent on what textiles it could produce. Clothes and other textiles, both

18

See von Petrikovits 1981,100, s.v. lanarius. See also Dixon who in a forthcoming article has suggested lanarius to be a possible catchword, compared to lanifica. 19 Women are documented to a lesser degree than men in the occupational inscriptions, a tendency noted in other kinds of sources as well and perhaps due to a general reluctance to document women's work; see Kampen 1981, 13If. Inscriptions of married couples including the name of an occupation usually document the man's profession but not the wife's; Treggiari 1976, 98. One such example is the funerary plaque from Rome of the freedman G. Cafurnius Antiochus, his wife Veturia Deuteria, and their family. The man was lanarius, but no profession is mentioned for the wife; see Zimmer 1982, no. 34. Further details on the traditions of commemorating male and female work in the epigraphic evidence that give women a higher degree of invisibility are discussed by Dixon 1998 (forthcoming). On this issue see also Joshel 1992, chapter 1, 'Listening to silence'. 20 Lanifica may also be used in female epitaphs. Two elaborate examples are the inscriptions of two women from the time of Augustus: Murdia, CIL 6.10230 and Turia', CIL 6.1527; see Fantham et al. 1994, 318f. 2l CIL 1.1211(=6.15346). 22 Lefkowitz & Fant 1992, 16.

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simple ones and of more expensive qualities, were then on sale in shops and at markets. The qualities of clothes ready to use appear to have been of a greater variety than of those produced by the households. Furthermore, they were dyed in a wider range of colours than household products. This wider selection in materials and colours made them more attractive to the customers.23 In addition, it appears even to have been cheaper to purchase clothes, at least of simpler quality, than to have them produced by the household. Already in the early 2nd century B.C. Cato Maior advised Roman estate-owners to buy clothes in Rome for their slaves since this was more economical than to produce them on the estate.24 A combination of evidence from the later Republican period creates a picture of partly large-scale production of textiles, combined with textiles still manufactured in the domestic sphere. Thus, an inscription like the one made to the memory of Claudia may perhaps be read as concerning a woman who devoted her time to domestic labour, including wool-work. But, considering the development sketched above, lanamfecit may already in the second century B.C. have been a cliche and a mere female standard expression, and as such aimed to emphasize the impeccable character of a woman. Imperial ideology and woolworking It is hardly surprising to find the story of Lucretia related by authors from the Augustan period.25 Part of Augustus' moral reforms was to make women return to traditional housework, including spinning wool and weaving, and the female members of the imperial family were supposed to set a good example for other women. According to Suetonius, Augustus himself always wore homemade clothes, apart from special occasions. As in the days of early Rome when Tanaquil, wife of the king Tarquinius Priscus, was said to have been occupied with woolworking and weaving,26 the clothes worn by Augustus were said to be made by the women of his family.27 These were skills the imperial women had been taught as part of their aristocratic upbringing and 23

Sebesta 1994, 66-70. Cato Agr. Orig. 135.1. 25 Livy 1.57.9; Ov. Fast, 2.741-43. 26 Plin. HN 8.194; see also Nielsen p. 73, n. 16 in this volume. 27 Suet. Aug. 74; "Veste non temere alia quam domestica usus est, ab sorore et uxore etfilia netibusque confecta .... " 24

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education. Also the younger female members of the family were taught how to spin wool and how to handle the loom.28 Even with the women of Augustus' family as moral patterns for other women, it was a 'mission impossible' trying to make women return to their traditional home-based duties since time had passed this situation by. However, in spite of the Augustan failure, the idea of a woman spinning and weaving in a domestic setting continued to live on in Imperial times as a symbol for a virtuous woman or wife. Columella, in the mid-lst century A.D., complained over how his contemporary women had fallen for a modern way of living, a life-style based on leisure and luxury instead of the traditional female duties, such as spinning and weaving. According to him, women were no longer interested in performing their traditional tasks and they did not even bother to supervise the slaves' work any longer. Instead, they were more inclined to spend money on buying expensive clothes ready to use, i.e. quite the opposite of what tradition prescribed.29 Nevertheless, funerary inscriptions kept repeating that women worked in wool, as a sign of female virtue.30 Later in the 1st century A.D., the emperor Domitian tried to revive some of the political and moral ideas launched by Augustus, in an attempt to identify the policy of his reign with the cultural and social policy of the first Roman emperor.31 Once again, women occupied with traditional female work were singled out as important parts of the imperial policy and propaganda. From Domitian's reign there is quite a unique example in the visual arts, on the frieze of the temple of Minerva in Domitian's Forum Transitorium in Rome (see plate XVI). The frieze depicts scenes from the myth of Arachne, a young woman exceptionally talented at the loom who dared to challenge the goddess Minerva to a weaving contest. The mythological scenes are flanked by women occupied with spinning and weaving and their work is supervised by Minerva, the goddess preferred by Domitian. She was also the craftsmen's goddess and her patronage included domestic work.32 The frieze is a tribute to social stability and traditional values, such as women's domestic work and the exemplary behaviour of the ideal Roman matron.33 28

Suet. Aug. 64; "Filiam et neptes ita instituit, ut etiam lanifici assufaceret". Columella 12.preaf.9-10. 30 Cf. note 20. 31 D'Ambra 1993, 5. 32 D'Ambra 1993, llf. 33 D'Ambra 1993, 104f. 29

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Not only is the motive of the frieze of the Minerva temple unusual for a Roman state monument, but also the occurrence of non-allegorical women in the decoration of public monuments and buildings is a rare phenomenon in Roman state art.34 The combination of women and symbols for wool-work occurs, however, more frequently on non-official monuments, such as the tombstones commemorating civilians. The iconography of women's tombstones often includes various items of personal belongings (combs, mirrors, parasols, jewellery boxes, perfume bottles) as symbols for women's domestic lives (see plates XVII and XVIII) and women's work was symbolised by spinning implements, balls of yarn or wool baskets (see plate XIX), the latter as an iconographic parallel to lanam fecit. The ideal of the Roman matron also had an impact in the representations of women outside Italy, in the Roman provinces, indicating a gender differentiation similar to the Roman tradition. The iconography of female virtue may be seen in provincial funerary monuments too.35 Women occupied with wool-work were a tradition in Greece, and it was obviously valid in the western Empire as well (see plate XX). ''Italia quasillaria vixit arm XX..."36 Even if an expression like lanam fecit and the iconography of women's funerary monuments in many cases served as symbols of female virtue rather than literal wool-work, the Roman society still had to produce a huge amount of clothes and other kinds of textiles. For the people involved in the production, the occupational inscriptions have turned out to be a valuable source of information for 'job titles'37 since many of the vast number of funerary inscriptions preserved from the Imperial period include names of occupations, pursued by both men and women.38 Some of these professions 34

Kampen 1991, 218f. Fantham et al. 1994, 369f. 36 CIL 6.6342; "Italia quasillaria vixit arm XX / Scaeva tabellarius Tauri coniugi suae fecit". 37 On the problem of relating modern terms to the occupational titles used by the Romans see Joshel 1992, chapter 1, n.8, and Dixon 1998. 38 Some examples of more recent studies on Roman occupations based on inscriptions are: S.Treggiari, 4Jobs in the household of Livia', PBSR 1975, 41-72; 'Jobs for women', AJAH1, 1976 76-104; 'Lower class women in the Roman economy', Florilegium 1, 1979, 35

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are related to textile manufacture. Looking at the evidence of the traditional female stages in the process of manufacture, both male and female weavers (textores/textrices) are found, although none of them in abundance.39 For spinning, however, the evidence is exclusively female.40 The quasillariae recorded in the epigraphic evidence were all of low social standing and far from the women comprised by the ideal of the Roman matron. The imbalance of sexes in the evidence may of course always be due to preservation circumstances, but in this case it is hardly likely to be a mere coincidence, and seems to be a gender-loaded issue reflecting the Roman female ideal. Although weaving too was one of the traditional female tasks, it was obviously possible for a man to pursue as a profession. This may be at least partly due to the need for physical strength and the fact that weaving implied a more advanced technology than spinning, which was evidently considered to be more 'feminine' than weaving. Spinning wool represented something so utterly gender-loaded to the Romans that it became impossible for a man to be associated with this task. Men could easily handle wool at other stages, as in the profession of lanarius, but would not be associated with the spinning of wool. It represented an extremely feminine task which was entirely positive for a woman to be engaged in, but the very opposite for a man. The idea of a man spinning wool was considered ridiculous and used when mocking a man. One example of how this notion may be used with the purpose of dishonouring a man is a terra sigillata cup from the late Republic, when Anthony and Octavian were struggling for supreme power. The decoration of the cup shows Anthony sitting in a chariot, presumably drawn by a woman and followed by a procession of women carrying a fan, a parasol, a wool basket and a distaff-— all of them standard items appearing in the iconography of women's funerary monuments. The cup is likely to have served as a piece of Augustan propaganda showing the feminized Anthony, surrounded by women and symbols of femininity.41 It represents a man who had grown used

64-86; Giinther 1987; Joshel 1992. 39 From Rome textores: CIL 6.6360?, 6361, 9290 and textrix: 6.6362 and stamnaria 6.33371; for textrices see Treggiari 1976, 82. 40 Quasillariae from Rome: CIL 6.6349-6345, 9495, 9849-9850; Treggiari 1976, 81f. Eight of the women in these inscriptions were slaves in the Statilii family. The reason why so many of them labelled themselves quasillariae has been interpreted by Treggiari as production in a "factory-like atmosphere"; Treggiari 1976, 82. This situation has also been discussed by Giinther 1987, 109-112. 41 Volkmann 1953, Tafel 7.

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to being dominated by strong and 'masculine' women (Fulvia, and later Cleopatra) who had shaped the weak (i.e. feminine) character of Anthony, which made him unsuitable to rule the Roman empire.42 The 'well-known' tendency of being dominated by women would finally lead to his defeat against Octavian. Even with a combination of source material, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions to what extent women did domestic wool-work and how this related to commercialised production. There are indications, in spite of Columella's complaints, that lanificium continued to be the responsibility of the housewife.43 But even with the uncertainties about the organisation of Roman textile manufacture, it is evident from different kinds of source material that spinning was the female work par preference. The idea of a woman confined to traditional female tasks such as weaving and spinning wool was strong and long-lasting to the Romans. A woman spinning symbolised the industrious Roman housewife and it had a strong symbolic value when women could claim to be occupied with these tasks. Along with other female virtues, such as fidelity, modesty, chastity and honour, woolworking stands out as one of the most prominent symbols of female work and a hall-mark of a good, virtuous Roman matron and this notion apparently lived on for a long time, at least in the ideal world.

Goteborg University Department of Classics (Classical Archaeology and Ancient History) Goteborg Sweden

42 43

Plut. AntAO. Treggiari 1976, 83. 93

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Barber, E.W., Women's work. The first 20,000 years. Women, cloth and society in early times, New York & London 1994.

D'Ambra 1993

D'Ambra, E., Private lives, imperial virtues: the frieze ofthe Forum Transitorium in Rome, Princeton 1993.

Dixon 1998

Dixon, S., 'How do we count them if they are not there? New approaches to Roman textile workers', 1998. (forthcoming).

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Women in the Classical world. Image and status, eds. E. Fantham et al., London & New York 1994.

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Geijer, A., Ur textilkonstens historia, Stockholm (1972) 1984.

Gunther 1987

Gunther, R-M., Frauenarbeit - Frauenbindung. Untersuchungen zu unfreien und freigelassenen Frauen in den stadromischen Inschriften, (Veroffentlichungen des Historischen Instituts der Universitat Mannheim, 9), Miinchen 1987.

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Joshel, S. R., Work, identity and legal status at Rome. A study of the occupational inscriptions, (Oklahoma series in classical culture, 11), Norman & London 1992.

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Kampen, N., Image and status, Roman working women in Ostia, Berlin 1981.

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Kampen, N.B., 'Between public and private. Women as historical subjects in Roman art', in Women's history and ancient history, ed. S.B. Pomeroy, Chapel Hill & London 1991, 218-248.

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Women's life in Greece and Rome. A source-book in translation, eds. M. Lefkowitz & M.B. Fant, London 1992.

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Petrikovits, H. von, 'Die Spezialisierung des rdmischen Handwerks. Thema und Quellen', in Das Handwerk in vor- und fruhgeschichtlicher Zeit, I. Historische und rechtshistorische Beitrage und Untersuchungen zur Fruhgeschichteder Gilde, eds. H. Jankuhn et al., Gottingen 1981, 63-132.

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Philippides, N.S., 'Narrative strategies and ideology in Livy's "Rape of Lucretia"', Helios 10, 1983, 113-119.

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Sebesta, J. Lynn, 'TunicaRalla, TunicaSpissa. The colors and textiles of Roman costume', in The world of Roman costume, eds. L. Bonfante & J. Lynn Sebesta, New York 1994, 65-76.

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Treggiari, S., 'Jobs for women' , AJAH 1, 1976, 76-104.

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Volkmann , H., Kleopatra. Politik und propaganda, Munchen 1953.

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paivi Setaia

FEMALE PROPERTY AND POWER IN IMPERIAL ROME INSTITUTUM ROMANUM F1NLANDIAE

Introduction Recent research in ancient family history has emphasized the separateness of the properties of the spouses (bona paterna and bona materna), and the consequent economic independence of women. This means that the daughters who outlived their fathers had financial autonomy. According to Richard Sailer, they constituted the majority of women. For example, Pliny the Elder never refers to a guardian when speaking of a woman in his letters. However, the separateness of the properties does not eliminate the shared interests. The family house, i.e. the domus, was the centre of social identity and responsibilities.1 In a Roman house, there were no special premises for females and males. It has similarly been emphasized that the aristocracy were interested in their wealth and were actively involved in managing their properties.2 My work group is studying the wealth and power of women in Imperial Rome. In accordance with the tradition of the Finnish Institute in Rome, the work group is constituted by historians, philologists, archaeologists or art historians. I will give a short overview of the research theme of each team member. Ms. Ria Berg, M.A., studies the symbols of power and wealth, i.e. female luxury objects. The study is limited to objects which in principle were owned by women only, or object categories related to decoration, mundus muliebris and ornatus. Special attention is paid to certain types of jewellery and to mirrors. In legacy legislation, jewels are treated not only as objects with emotional value but also as genuine valuables and objects of investment. In Seneca's words, one jewel could be worth two legacies. Seneca uses the 1 2

Sailer 1994, 204-232. Rawson 1976, 85-87, 99-102.

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allegory 'dress in property' (Sen. De vit.beat 17.2). Legal proceedings were initiated in cases where the value of a jewel included in a legacy had changed through removal or addition of valuable stones (Dig. 34.2.6). Pliny the Elder calls pearls women's lictors and compares jewels to farms as a form of property. In early Imperial times, jewels and luxury objects were very controversial symbols of power and wealth. From the second century onwards, the attittude towards object symbols starts to become more accepting. The object material becomes more abundant, visible, massive and colourful. The images where a person, male or female, is surrounded by objects convey the idea of being in the focus of wealth and power. A permanent characteristic in literature and visual material is the special relationship between women and the objects. Ms. Riikka Halikka, M.A., studies the women in the Annates of Tacitus, especially as concerns their relationship to power. According to her, the Roman declamation tradition usually presented the woman as an outsider, a stranger and Another. However, Tacitus does not present the women negatively a priori. Thewomen in the Annales are also visible and operative as regards power. Women are presented as individuals, not just representatives of their gender. The value-containing references to women are often intended as criticism of men close to them. The attributes and characterizations connected with women are often the same as the male attributes but, before the woman can be defined positively or even in a neutral androgynous way, she must meet the characteristics traditionally required of a Roman woman, such as chastity (pudicitia) and fertility (fertilitas). Only then can a woman with the necessary personal characteristics and family origins cross gender limits and act in a publicly acceptable manner. Ms. Minerva Keltanen, M.A., studies the wealth and power of the spouses of the adopted emperors. There has been a lot of research on the empresses, but in addition to their economical and politcal power, she will focus on the iconography of the discription of the empresses. The empresses' images on coins reflect the official state message about their status. Rome had a long tradition of matrons as religious idols. On the coins of Plotina, spouse of Trajan, Vesta is a symbol of the empress's role as the protector of the home and the state, but also reflects the religious side of the state's life, associated, in particular with the empress. The empress's role in economic history is based on their land-ownership. Plotina Augusta is known as the owner of figlinae Quintianae, her officinator is known due to the figlinae Tempesiane, and she had a female officinator.

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Mr Janne Polonen studies the legacies from the point of view of female wealth. It is a much-debated question whether the female dowries and legacies can be seen as the basis of female wealth. Janne Polonen's tentative research findings show that the distribution of landed property was not dependent on the gender since land was transferred both to sons and to daughters. This explains the large share of women among the owners of land used for the production of bricks. I will quote a few among the Digesta female legacies: * 'Mother left the following legacy: Lucius Titus, and as many children as I shall bear, are to be my heirs with equal shares." (Dig.5.4.5.1). "A sister will inherit an equal share with her four brothers of the property of their mother." (Dig. 5.4.6.1). "In his will, Lucius Titus orders the following: Octaviana Stratonica, my dearest daughter, be saluted. I wish her to have and keep my farm in Gaza. To Octavius Alexander, my dearest son. I wish him to have the solerightto the farm in Cominia, previously in joint ownership. "(D/g.31.1.34.1). The resepective research shares the view that the children were the principal heirs and that the will was a matter internal to the family.3 Mr Ville Vuolanto, M.A., studies women who manage the property of their minor children. Legal texts show that even if the children had official tutors or guardians, the latter played secondary roles. According to Mr. Vuolanto, the operative rights of women as the managers of their children's properties increased. In reality, managing legal affairs and use of the nomination 'tutor' were, according to legal material, the only aspects fully prohibited to women. In practice, then, women could give instructions to and act as co-operators with their children's guardians as well as managing their children's business as guardians themselves. As long as there were no major problems or controversies connected with the management of the property, the mother could manage the children's funds freely and independently, even when the child had an offial guardian. Mr. Vuolanto's tentative results suggest that the mothers controlled quite a significant part of Roman wealth. However, it seems that the women managed this property very prudently.

3

Champlin 1991, 183-186. 98

New emphasis in economic history It was important to safeguard the family's wealth, i.e. to protect it against strangers and to save it for the children. Since second and third marriages were quite common, it was important to keep records and inventories of the separate properties of different family members. In his writings in the 1980s, John D'Arms emphasized that the written topos about the senatorial estate's indifference as concerns business and profit does not hold true in view of the physical evidence. According to him, the aristocratic ideal of despising profits was something more than a fiction and something less than a norm.4 Accumulating wealth was acceptable, and the legacies of the children had to be incremented. Maintaining a memory also included attention to wealth. The Roman landowner was interested in the management of his/her landed property, and the economic questions were important. Thus, for example, Pliny the Younger paid frequent visits to his properties. He was not willing to take any major risks but he wanted to have a steady income. He did make some investments. He landed property was divided in small parts, and most of them were leased to tenant farmers. He also used negotiators, working in close contact with them.5 According to John Crook, landed property was as easily transferable as any other property, and land ownership changed very frequently.6 Landowners also made continuous investments, i.e. bought land. Their landed property was constituted by various farms in various regions. Most of them were managed by tenant farmers. Therefore, the financial aspect was also present in landownership and land use considerations. It has also been emphazised that tentant farming was profitable and that tenant farmers even worked as hired labour in various functions. The farm rental usually included the necessary tools and buildings. A tentant farmer constituted a reliable sorce of income for the landowner.7 Digesta notes the following case: "A woman who had the usufruct died in December, the tenant farmers had already gathered the yield in October. Does the rent have to be paid to her heirs? "(Dzg.7.1.58 Scaev.).

4

D'Arms 1981, 48-71, 149-174. Neeve 1990, 397-399. 6 Crook 1986, 75-82. 7 Foxhall 1990, 113. 5

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New insight into brick production My own topic is the women's relation to brick production. In my doctoral thesis, the prosopographies were too largely based on the idea that land was simply inherited and that domini were merely passive landownders.8 Margareta Steinby has emphazised the participation of the domini in brick production.9 Not limiting themeselves to land-ownership, the domini and dominae were also interested in brick production. As regards the business activities in which the senators were engaged, brick production was not an exception; they were also involved in the production of amphorae and lamps. The private economic activities were characterized by variety and abundance. Roman business relationships were expressed in terms of friendship. According to John D'Arms, consortia made up by relatives and friends were important but, at the same time, business operations and trading constituted part of the economic contract network.10 This idea must be tested, using the persons who had their own brick stamps. We have no evidence of the offlcinatores owning the officinae. According to Margareta Steinby, a brick stamp was a shortened agreement between the dominus and the officinator. More than just a clay area, a figlinae must be considered as an administrative unit mangaged by an officinator. Associated with a dominus, ex figlinis tells us that the dominus was an owner of productive facilities and that the term "figlinae" was more than a mere clay area. Figlinae is a plural form, and could encompass several officinae. The name of the dominus mentioned alone meant that there was no need to make a distinction between individual officinae. The final product, or the brick, was owned by the dominus. One building could contain bricks from different figlinae of one and the same dominus. It was not the officinator but the dominus who had control over the production — as both the landowner and the brick producer. The association of brick production with construction, and not with agriculture, is also a finding made by Margareta Steinby.11 A dominus had several contract forms in relation to the officinatores. They could be tenants, constructed, holders of a usufruct or entrepreneurs. There 8

Setala 1977, 242-244. Steinby 1982, 227-237. 10 D'Arms 1981,48-71. 11 Steinby 1982, 227-237.

9

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is a stipulation dating back to Trajan according to which every candidate for a public office had to invest one third of his assets in landed property in Italy. This meant an increase in land purchases. The relation of the female domini to brick production In this presentation I will concentrate on the period after the second century. The dominus group need not be homogeneous and many combmations are possible. The domini are characterized by the following aspects. In the second century almost half of the domini of the senatorial estate were women, and women accounted for 40% of the stamps with two names, i.e. those with both the dominus and the officinator. These figures are far superior to the data referring to women in any other sources as a whole. Women account for 30% of the domini whose officinator or officinatores are found in the stamps of one or more other domini. Women are present in only 20% of the stamps with one name only. My aim is to study the share and participation of women at different levels in the exploitation of the brick clay areas. Women owned figlinae which were not only clay areas, i.e. administrative units. Brick production was their livelihood, and perhaps also an investment besides land-ownership. I will give some examples. Antonia Manliola was a landowner who lived in the second decade of the second century, and she had 3 or 4 officinatores employed only by her. In the brick stamps she is referred to as the owner of praedia,Jiglinae Macedonianae and her own slaves. (CIL 15. 281, 822, S:62-64).12 Atilia Quintilla's three stamps date back to Trajan. Each stamp has one officinator not found elsewhere. Caecilia Quinta was the owner of figlinae Suplicianae during Hadrian's time; one stamp bears an officinator. Caetennia Chione was the sole owner of figlinae Myrinianae in 135. The officinator is not known from elsewhere. I consider these dominae as brick producers.

12 In the 1970s, the work group of the Finnish Institute in Rome published three doctoral thesis on brick stamps: Steinby 1974; Helen 1975; Setala 1977. The brick stamps have been published in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, 15.1, as well as in the supplement The Roman brick stamps, edited by Herbert Bloch, and in the publications by the Finnish Institute in Rome, mostly by Margareta Steinby; Lateres Signati Ostienses. Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, 7, 1977-1978. The details of the brick stamp information can be consulted in the brick stamp publications and dissertations.

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Part of the dominae conducted extensive and well-organized operations. The criteria used by me are the numbers of officinatores and dating by the consuls. As an example, I will mention Plotia Isaurica, owner of figlinae Caepionianae approximately in 100-110. The stamps have no consular dating. Among her eight known officinatores, four continue in the figlinae in the stamps of the successor Arria Fadilla, and a couple of them are known from the stamps of other domini. If the transfer of landed property is explained by purchase, a family relationship to Arria Fadilla need not be searched for. Flavia Seia Isaurica is known only on the basis of the brick stamps, but they contain a lot of information. A total of 20 different stamps of hers are known. She produced bricks and owned several clay areas simultaneously during the years from 115 to 141, i.e. for 26 years. The period of her operation was therefor exceptionally long. Flavia Seia Isaurica owned the following figlinae known by name: she was the sole owner of figlinae Aristianae and Caelianae; the others were Fabienae, Publilianae, Tonneiane and TurQ which were situated on different farms. Ten officinatores are quoted in her stamps only, three are transferred to her successor, and moreover, her officinatores are known from the stamps of three other domini. A joint officinator is no longer a sufficient justification to suspect familily relationship. She was the first in her family, and her operations were extensive. She invested in landed property with a view to brick production. Further evidence of extensive and organized production is constituted by the several officinatores working for different domini. Among these domini, 35% are women. In addition to the above examples, I will here mention Arria Fadilla as a representative of this group. First in her family she was the owner offiglinae Caepionianae. She has several consular datings from the years 123 to 128. In 18 stamps she is mentioned as the owner of the praedia, and in six stamps she is the owner the figlinae. Of her 13 officinatores, four were also mentioned in association with the previous owner Plotia Isaurica, and the (Remoter-entrepreneur T. Rausius Pamphilus is known to have worked for two others. The consular dating is a sign of organized and business-like operations. In stamps with two names, women used the consular dating as frequently as men did; and in the stamps with only one name, the share of women is almost a third. The information obtained from Arria Fadilla's brick stamps tells us about large-scale operations. According to Tapio Helen, the domini were certainly also brick producers if they had their own slaves as officinatores.13 Domitia Lucilla and Iulia 13

Helen 1975, 103-109.

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Albana were dominae with several such slaves. Plotia Isaurica employed a slave of another dominus, and Memmia Macrina a libertus. Thus they were both landowners and brick producers. As concerns the information based on bricks, and perhaps also brick production, Domitia Lucilla the Younger is a case apart. About a hundred of her stamps are known which include several consular datings, including 17 different stamps of the year 123 and several stamps from the years 124 to 154. She was the owner of figlinae Caninianae, de Licini, Domitianae, Fulvianae and Terentianae. She had the largest number of own officinatores, or a total of 23 officinatores; moreover she had 21 free-born officinatores and 27 liberti officinatores. A noteworthy brick producer herself, she had a grandfather, father and uncle who were also owners of clay areas. The land and the brick production were inherited by her children, especially by the emperor Marcus Aurelius. The above dominae owned land and produced bricks but let others take care of the practical organization of production. This same aspects has been emphasized by Jane Gardner in her studies on the economic activities of women in Puteoli.14 Year 123 and women Year 123 is the year with the most abundant consular datings. Among the domini who only date in 123, women constitute a majority. The order came from above, and the women followed it. However, it is more important that women responded to the demand for bricks, being not inferior to men in this respect. These dominae must be regarded as female entrepreneurs. The following dominae had only one stamp with one name, dating back to the year 123: Fabia Aeliana, Flavia Pelagia, Neratia Quartilla and Ulpia Accepta. Flavia Operata was a domina in a two-name stamp of 123 from the figlinae Nomentana. The officinator is not found elsewhere. Her brother Flavius Posidonius has one for the same year and for the same figlinae. The brother and sister exploited the farm they had bought or inherited, that is, it held their clay areas. The dominae Valeria M.f.Urbica and Magia Marcella belong to the same category, even though their stamps are not dated. 14

Gardner 1998. 103

Iulia Albana is particularly interesting. She is mentioned in five stamps with two names, all of which, except one, date to the year 123. Her female officinator Procilia Phila is found in the praedid MammO stamp of year 124. Iulia had four slave officinatores, two of whom were females. She was an active brick producer. Titia Quartilla figures as a owner in two stamps dated back to year 123. Her officinator Marcius Fyrmus was previously seen in Trajan's stamps. I would also include Trebicia Tertulla, producer of the opus Salarese bricks, among these groups of producers. Her stamps do nor bear names of officinatores or relatives. They belonged to the group in which the landowner could also be personally responsible for the production, as was the case in the production of amphorae. All the above ladies must be seen as female entrepreneurs. In Business managers in Ancient Romels Aubert points out that women's share of production and firms were insignificant, but brick stamps show that women did take part in production. Just like men, they supplied bricks to meet the demand, especially in the magical year 123. The period during and after Antoninus Pius During the period of Antoninus Pius, the number of women quoted in brick stamps was at its highest. We know 28 private domini, half of which, or 14, were women. Among the domini of senatorial rank, women accounted for over half. But here too, we must ask whether they were just landowners or also brick producers. Three dominae from this period give consular datings to all their stamps, although this custom is no longer regularly followed, and only two men do so in the first place. The dominae are Iulia Saturnina, Cusinia Gratilla and Asinia Quadratilla. Their alleged family relationship has been based on information obtained from brick stamps. Iulia Saturnina's three stamps bear consular datings from 137, 139 and 141. They have only one name, and the domina is referred to as the owner of the praedia. The officinatores of five dominae are found on the lands of some other dominus as well. Brick production was still very well organized, and on a domus level it was controlled by women. 15

Aubert 1994, 217-243.

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Pomponia Q.f. Bassilla was an owner of both praedia and figlinae, quoted in three two-name stamps {CIL 15.1376-78) towards the middle of the second century. Three slave officinatores are known from her stamps, and this has been seen as a criterion for considering the dominus as a brick producer. She has no relatives mentioned in the brick stamps. The sole owner of the figlinae Negarianae, Sabina Sabinilla, also dates back to this period. Valeria Polla's stamp has been dated approximately to 140. The officinator moved from Iulia Lupula to Valeria Polla. When no particular family relationships between the domini are traced in the stamps, it can be deduced that many of the above-mentioned dominae had individually chosen brick production as their livelihood or investment. I maintain that the women accounted for an important part of private-sector brick production during the latter half of the second century, when most of the brick clay areas had been taken over by the imperial family. The brick clay areas were mainly transferred through the women, i.e. the mothers; Arria Fadilla's clay areas were inherited by her son, Emperor Antoninus Pius, and the clay lands of Domitia Lucilla the Younger by her son, Emperor Marcus Aurelius. In terms of time, the late dominae were often the first brick producers in their families. At the turn of the second and third centuries, the only owners of two n^med figlinae were Mummia Vara and Aelia Severa. Here new brick clay areas were exploited. Acilia Malliola was their contemporary. Among the other late dominae, we can mention Aemilia Severa who owned thefiglinae Publilianae during Septimius Severus's reign in 190-210, and who employed four negotiators, two of whom were women, Iunia Antonia and Iunia Sabina. She also had seven officinatores. Officinatrix Aemilia Romana {signum clava) was also an officinatrix of figl Publilianae during the reign of Caracalla. The information based on brick stamps indicates that the production was extensive and the operations organized through negotiatores. Pliny the Younger reports having had close contacts with his negotiatores. Also wine farms employed negotiatores. Aemilia Severa competed successfully with the imperial family in brick production. The heirs of Passenia Petronia are mentioned as domini of the figlinae Propertianae. The brick stamps of this area, as well as those of figlinae Publilianae, regularly mentioned a negotiator. Four of these are known, among them one woman, Aurelia Antonia. Women could thus also be negotiatores. The above examples show that even if the demand for bricks had decreased, private persons, members of old brick-producing families, 105

continued to produce while new active entrepreneurs had also entered the market. Women played a central role in both groups. These persons were not among the closest friends of the imperial family — either politically or genealogically. Women figure in stamps even in the late period, and not necessarily only as landowners but also as brick producers. Female officinatrices I am trying to see whether the female officinatrices share some special characteristics as to their position in production. We know 20 female officinatrices, which is only 6% of the total number of officinatores.16 However, this was the women's share of any other sector of business, as referred to in Aubert's book Business Managers. This motto related to the female officinatrices comes from Ulpianus (Dig. 14.3.7.1.):

"Parvi autem refert, quis sit institor, masculus anfemina, liber an servus, propriu alienu." We know that women performed hard jobs but could also be entrepreneurs. Women thus participated in various kinds of productive work — of course to a lesser degree than men. The officinatores could be land tenants, constructors, owners of the clay exploitation rights or managers of the business activities. The officinatores did not own the officinae themselves, but sometimes perhaps the tools and buildings. According to Aubert's study, women's work was diverse but the share of supervision work was small.17 In this sense the female officinatrices also constitute good source material. The female officinatrices known to us are 20, and five of them worked on land owned by female dominae, five worked for more than one dominae, and ten, or half of them, worked on the land owned by imperial domini. Among the imperial officinatores, women's share was as high as 25%, or four times their overall share. This is the most interesting aspect as regards the female officinatores.

16 17

Helen 1975, 112f. Aubert 1994, 413-420.

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Two female dominatrices had a female slave officinatrix — Iulia Albana during Hadrian's and Iulia Saturnina during Antoninus Pius's period. Already earlier, they had been identified as brick producers. Also Iulia Albana, Arria Fadilla, Memmia Macrina and Domitia Lucilla had female officinatrices. Female officinatrices have been considered to be a proof of officiantores being independent tenants (according to Gummerus)18 or independent entrepreneurs (according to Helen)19. From year 123 for about ten years, Cassia Doris was an officinatrix in the figlinae Caepionianae, owned by Arria Fadilla. Procilia Phila's name is quoted in the stamps of two different owners in the 120s. Statia Primilla was an officinatrix in two figlinae owned by Domitia Lucilla, first in Caninianae and later in Terentianae. Vibia Procla was a member of the officinator societas together with Tontius Felix, but she was also a sole officinatrix during Marcus Aurelius's time. This is also a sign of professionalism. Margareta Steinby has made a good point in noting that the stamps signums show that there was a common imperial direction controlling the operation of the officinatores.20 This means that the imperial officinatores also had socalled foreman functions. According to Aubert, women were not seen in such functions. Imperial female officinatrices are a late phenomenon in the history of brick production; most of them were active during the end of the second and beginning of the third century. I will discuss some imperial female officinatrices in more detail. Caecilia Amanda worked long as an imperial officinatrix in the figlinae called Domitianae Veteres. She started under Septimius Severus in 193-198, continued under two emperors in 198-211, including the period of the usurper C. Fulvius Plautianus from 203 to 205, and she retired only during Caracalla's period in 212-217. The signum used by her was Hilaritas. Active for over 20 years, she must be seen as a professional brick-production foreperson. Aemilia Romana was an imperial officinatrix in the figlinae called Domitianae Minores. Her series started — as shown by Margareta Steinby — after the disappearance of the said usurper Plautianus in 205 and continued until the end of the 210s. Her signum, the clava of Hercules, is also found in the figlinae Publilianae stamps of 212-217. This clay area cooperated with the figlinae Domitianae and Portus Licini}1 The officinatrix was largely 18

Gummerus 1916, 1450-1500. Helen 1975, 112f., 130. 20 Steinby 1974-1975, 102-109. 21 Steinby 1974-1975, 47-58. 19

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responsible for the imperial house's business activities in brick production. Calventia Maximina was an imperial officinatrix at the turn of the second and third centuries, approximately during the years 198-216. The officinae led by her were situated in thefiglinaeMarcianae and ihefiglinae Furiariae areas. First she used the signum Hercules sacrum faciens, changing it later to Hercules Victor. Her career as a foreperson lasted for almost 20 years. Sabinia Ingenua started as a member of the imperial societas of officinatores in association with Fonteius Proculus. Only Sabina Ingenua continued later under Caracalla. Also her signum is found among the stamps of the societas. Also in her case, it is a question of professional brickproduction management, the role of managing director. Her signum, protome Solis, is also found in other imperial figlinae. Conclusion Owing to the new approach, the prosopographies of the persons referred to in the brick stamps take a direction that values economy more than has traditionally been the case. It also means that my prosopographic reconstructions about the brick domini, based on the idea of maintaining landed property within the family, change or at least differentiate. Brick stamps show that the domini include many more persons and families not known on the basis of other sources. This can be explained by the fact that land was purchased for brick production in a business-like sense. This is also shown by the several female dominatrices who date the bricks in the year 123. In that period women participated in brick production in the same manner as men did. Women are also found as the sole operators in some figlinae. Further and more extensive research will perhaps reveal some economically active and/or wealthy families. Here we must utilize the increasingly expanding research in economic history. Pliny the Younger's concern was that the investments should not be risky. Certainly the clay areas in the vicinity of Rome did not constitute any risk. The supervisory position of the imperial female officinatrices is another interesting aspect to study. The female dominae, and also the female officinatrices, demonstrate female leadership and entrepreneurship. The list of female prosopographies compiled by my work group includes a total of 500 names, all women whose wealth we know someting about. The work group is preparing articles about wealth, power and women in Imperial Rome. The collection of articles will be published towards the end of next 108

year. The question we ask is what were the economic consequences of Roman inheritance legislation from the point of view of daughters and women in particular. An interesting aspect in the light of our topic is the feature, created by the Roman upper class and still maintained in European culture, that property should not be divided before death. We hope that we can contribute to answering John Crook's question: how was wealth accumulated and how did it end in the hands of the Roman women?

University of Helsinki The Christina Institute for Women's Studies Helsinki Finland

Bibliography Aubert 1994

Aubert, J.-J., Business managers in ancient Rome. A social and economic study ofinstitores, 200 B. C. A.D. 250 (Columbia studies in the classical tradition, 21), Leiden & New York 1994.

Champlin 1991

Champlin, E., Finaljudgements: duty and emotion in Roman wills, 200 B. C-A.D. 250, Berkely, Los Angeles, 1991.

Crook 1986

Crook, J. A., * Women in Roman succession', in The family in Ancient Rome: new perspectives, ed. B. Rawson, London & Sidney 1986, 58-82.

D'Arms 1981

D'Arms J.H., Commerce and social standing in Ancient Rome, Cambridge, Mass. & London 1981.

Foxhall 1990

Foxhall, L., 'The dependant tenant: land, leasing and labour in Italy and Greece', JRS 80, 1990, 97114.

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Gardner, J., 4Women in business life: some evidencefromPuteokY forthcoming in Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, 1998. Gummenis 1916

Gummenis, H., 'Industri und Handel (Rom)', RE DC, 1916, 1449-1534.

Helen 1975

Helen, T., Organization of Roman brick production in the first and second centuries A.D.: an interpretation of Roman brick stamps (Annales Academiae Scientarum Fennicae, Diss. Hum. Litt. 5,) Helsinki 1975.

Neeve 1990

Neeve, P.W. de, *A Roman landowner and his estates: Pliny the Younger', Athenaeum 78, 1990, 363-402.

Rawson 1976

Rawson, B., The Ciceronian aristocracy and its properties', in Studies in Roman property, ed. M.I. Finley, London & New York 1976, 85-102.

Sailer 1994

Sailer, R.P., Patriarchy, property and death in the Roman family (Cambridge studies in population, economy and society in past time, 25), Cambridge 1994.

Setala 1977

Setala, P., Private domini in Roman brick stamps of the Empirte: a historical and prosopographical study oflandowners in the district of Rome (Annales Academiae Scientarium Fennicae, Diss. Hum. Litt. 10), Helsinki 1977.

Steinby 1974

Steinby, M., 4La cronologia delle figlinae doliari urbane dalla fine dell'etk repubblicana fino all'inizio del III secolo', Bullettino delta Commissione Archeologia Comunale diRoma 84, 1974-1975, 7132.

Steinby 1982

Steinby, M., *I senatori e l'industria laterizia urbana', in Atti del Colloquio internazionale AIEGL su epigrafia e ordine senatorio, Roma 14-20 maggio 1981, 1-2 (Tituli, 4-5), Roma 1982, 227-237.

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Marja-Leena Hdrminen

CONFLICTING DESCRIPTIONS OF WOMEN'S RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY IN MID-REPUBLICAN ROME: AUGUSTAN NARRATIVES ABOUT THE ARRIVAL OF CYBELE AND THE BACCHANALIA SCANDAL

Comparison of the era of the Civil Wars with the era of the Punic wars was a common topic in Augustan literature. The Civil Wars symbolized moral and religious decay while the Punic wars were represented as the culmination of traditional Roman virtues, the golden age of the mos maiorum} It is noteworthy that Roman women also have a role in this juxtaposition.2 Augustan literature reflects the official worry about sexual morals of citizens as well as about birth rate.3 This way of thinking is well exemplified by a poem by Horace. According to the poem, the Civil Wars had been caused by bad morals and neglect of gods and their temples.4 Marriage, family and homes had been polluted during the times rich in sin.5 Horace especially complains about loose sexual habits of women. Maidens are undutifiilly interested just in dancing and love affairs, and when married they continue looking for younger lovers.6 In contrast to these complaints, Horace presents the glorious generation who defeated the Carthaginians. Immoral youth of his time could not have been born in the era of the Punic wars, when severe mothers raised their sons to become brave soldiers.7 The Horatian view of the Roman past serves as a point of departure for this 1

Cf. Wardman 1982, 64f. Liebeschuetz 1989, 93-95. 3 Treggiari 1991, 59. 4 Hor.Carm. 3.6.1-4: "Delicto, maiorum immeritus lues J Romane, donee templa refeceris/ aedisque labentis deorwn et/foeda nigro simulacra Jumo.'' See the interpretatio of the poem by Liebeschuetz 1989, 93. 5 Hor.Carm. 3.6.17-18: "Fecundaculpae saeculanuptias/primuminquinavere etgenus et domes." 6 Hor.Carm. 3.6.21-32. 7 Hor.Carm. 3.6.33-44 2

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paper in which I shall study Augustan narratives about Roman women's religious activity in the era of the Punic Wars. In this paper, the proper way of women's religious behaviour is exemplified by the arrival ceremony of Cybele in 204 B.C., while the improper behaviour is illustrated by the socalled Bacchanalia scandal in 186 B.C. I am interested in the ways in which Roman authors valued women's acitivity in the narratives about Cybele's arrival and the Bacchanalia. It is remarkable that men and women co-operate in these cases. In my opinion, this is why these incidents can tell us much about how women were expected to behave on public occasions where men were also present. Public life put women to the test, as it was not usually proper for a Roman women to attract public attention. Religion meant an exception in women's life, since mainly religious occasions drew women out of their homes. Unfortunately we do not know much about women's cultic activites in everyday life or in the regular cult (i.e. annual festivals of gods). This is to a great extent due to Roman (male) historians who were not interested in everyday life, nor altogether in what was regular and unchanging.8 They were mainly interested in religious phenomena that were new or exceptional. This is why most of what we know about women's religious acitivity during the Punic Wars is linked to expiatory rites and introductions of new deities. On grounds of Livy, women seem to have had a remarkable role in the Roman institution of placating gods from the Second Punic War onward.9 Livy is actually the only Roman historian who gives an extensive story about the Bacchanalia.10 In addition, there is an inscription with the text of the Roman senate's decree that forbids the Bacchanalia}1 There are also several references to Bacchanalia in the comedies by Plautus.12 In contrast to the Bacchanalia scandal, there are numerous narratives about the arrival of Cybele in the Roman literary tradition.13 In the course of time, more and more magical or miraculous details were added to the narrative.14

8

North 1989, 577. See Hanninen forthcoming. 10 Gruen 1990, 34, 36-39. 11 CIL I 581. For a linguistic analysis, see Wachter 1987, 289-298. 12 Plaut. Amph. 703; AuL 408; Bacch. 53; Cos. 979-981; Mil. 1016. 13 See Levene 1993, 69f. 14 Bremmer 1987, 105f.

9

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Women and the arrival of Cybele Let us first study the arrival ceremony of Cybele as an example of ideal religious activity of Roman women. The reception of Cybele's cult image, a black stone, appears to have been one of the most magnificent public ceremonies during the Second Punic War. According to Livy, the cult image was brought from Asia Minor on advice of the Sibylline books in order to guarantee Roman victory in the war against Carthage.15 The great mother of gods was received with solemn ceremonies at the harbour of Ostia. According to an oracle of Delphi, the worthiest man (vir optimus) in the state should receive the goddess.16 Young Publius Scipio got this honorary duty.17 He carried the black stone from the ship to land and gave it to the best Roman matrons, who were led by Claudia Quinta.18 The matrons formed a line from Ostia to Rome and the black stone processed from one woman to another in an unbroken chain.19 The whole Roman people stood waiting for the goddess in the city, where the cult image was situated in the temple of Victoria. People carried offerings to the goddess, and a lectisternium was arranged as well as ludi, namely the Megalesia.10 The reception ceremony was accomplished in a strictly hierarchical order. The vir optimus was the first person to receive the goddess, after him the most virtuous matron, then the other matrons and finally the whole people. Those who were considered the foremost men and women in the city had the duty of receiving the goddess first. The vir optimus was chosen from the illustrious and victorious family of the Scipios. Publius Scipio was a cousin of Africanus, an inexperienced young man who had not yet taken part in politics. Inexperience may have meant virtuousness and innocence in this case. Still, the glorious family background must lie behind the choice. Respectively the most chaste matron was chosen from another remarkable family, namely the Claudii.21 The aristocracy on the one hand, and matrons on the other, had a central role in the reception ceremony.22 It seems, however, to have been 15

Liv. 29.10.4f. Liv. 29.11.6. 17 Liv.29.14.8. 18 Liv. 29.14.10f. 19 Liv. 29.14.13. 20 Liv. 29.14.14. 21 Gruen 1990, 25f. 22 Graillot 1912, 55. 16

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important that not only the leading aristocratic families but all social groups took part in the ceremony in some way, and it could serve as a display of national solidarity.23 It is interesting in the narrative by Livy that Publius Scipio goes to Ostia with a group of matrons, not with a group of men. It may be noted that a mother-goddess could not be received without the presence of women.24 Publius Scipio transfers the cult image from the ship to land while women transfer it from the harbour to Rome. Livy emphasizes the importance of the group of matrons. Thus, Claudia Quinta does not have a special role in Livy's narrative. The group of women is characterized as matronae primores civitatis, the foremost matrons of the state. So they are chosen women, and Claudia Quinta is the most praiseworthy in their group. She has the most illustrious name of them all ("inter quas unius Claudiae Quintae insigne est nomen")25 Later authors give Claudia Quinta a more remarkable role in their narratives about Cybele's arrival in Rome. The group of matrons remains in the background in their descriptions. In these stories, Cybele's journey to Rome becomes an ordeal that saves Claudia's reputation. She was namely accused of light-minded and improper behaviour. In the version of Ovid, Claudia is suspected because of her fine clothes and hair style.26 This tells about how dangerous it was for a decent matron to appear outside home. Especially if she was beautiful and well dressed, she could easily be suspected of loose morals. Modesty and bashftilness were traditional virtues of Roman women. The Roman matron of the Republican age did not want to draw public attention.27 Especially in the time of the Second Punic War, Roman women were supposed to dress themselves simply and behave as modestly as possible.28 Actually it was allowed for them to be distinguished only in the religious context. Castitas and pudicitia were the virtues which qualified matrons for cultic duties.29 Religious ceremonies and festivals gave women an opportunity to come out of home, but women had to deserve this opportunity by proper behaviour. 23

Thomas 1984, 1505; Gruen 1990, 26f. Graillot 1912, 55. 25 Liv. 29.14.12. 26 Ov. FastA.309f. 27 Treggiari 1991, 232f; Fantham et al. 1994, 262. 28 Culham 1982, 79. 29 Treggiari 1991, 233; Boels-Janssen 1993, 231-233. 24

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Let us now return to Ovid's narrative. In his version, the ship that transports the cult image of Cybele sticks in the mud at the harbour at Ostia. For this reason Claudia gets an opportunity to prove her innocence. She prays the goddess for help with words "castas casta sequere manus".30 That means the pure goddess should move if Claudia is pure, too. The goddess who is a chaste mother should hear the prayer of a chaste matron. Claudia draws the ship from the mud with her own hands and thus proves her purity. Cybele emerges as the witness of her innocence. In later Roman literature Claudia becomes a vestal who is accused of breaking her vow of chastity.31 For example, in a poem of the fifth century A.D., Laus Serenae by Claudian, she draws the ill-fortuned ship to land with her own hair.32 Hair is an interesting detail in this version, a somewhat magical element in the female body.33 And in this case the hair is the very means with which Claudia proves herself innocent. As a vestal Claudia found her way onto Roman coins and terracotta reliefs. There is also a relief that illustrates the ship transferring the image of Cybele.34 Claudia Quinta is actually the only woman whose image with name we know from Roman Republican coins. In addition, according to Roman literary tradition, there was a statue of Claudia Quinta in the temple of Cybele on the Palatine.35

Female bacchants and their opponents The Bacchanalian affair is an antithesis to the arrival of Cybele, as it presents us with wicked and objectionable women. The story as told by Livy (39.8-19) is a romantic melodrama with various characters. There are an innocent young man, a good-hearted courtesan, a wise statesman, two elderly wise women as well as several wicked men and women. Hispala Faecenia, the noble-minded courtesan, helps Roman authorities to uncover the vicious intrigues. As a result of this disclosure the cult of Bacchus is banned throughout Italy. Members of Bacchic cult associations accused of criminal acts are taken to 30

Ov. FastA.313L Graillot 1912, 63; Bremmer 1987, 106. 32 Claudian. Carm.min. 30.17f.: "et eodem flumine ducens/ Claudia virgineo cunctantem crine Cybelen". 33 Gag6 1963, 168-170, 174; Boels-Janssen 1993, 8f. 34 Vermaseren 1977, 41; Sanders 1981, 290. 35 Fantham et al. 1994, 220, 234f. 31

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court and executed. The wide scholarly discussion about the reasons for this religious persecution has produced numerous interpretations.361, for my part, shall focus on the female characters in the story by Livy. There are three named good women in Livy's drama. Surprisingly, the actual heroine of the story is not a vestal or a noble matron but a courtesan, a freedwoman named Hispala Faecenia. In addition, she is mistress of a young man of rank, Publius Aebutius. The other decent women are matrons, namely Aebutia the aunt of Aebutius, and Sulpicia the mother-in-law of the consul Postumius. It is interesting that expressly women take initiative in uncovering the Bacchanalia conspiracy. The young Aebutius seeks protection by his aunt after he has been driven out of his mother's home. The wise aunt advises him to confide his troubles to the consul.37 This is possible through the consul's mother-in-law who knows the good reputation of Aebutia. Aebutia is known as a decent lady who follows old customs ("proba et antiqui moris femina")™ Aebutia gains respect and confidence through her decency. She testifies to the story of her nephew. Sulpicia, mother-in-law of Postumius, represents a matron of high rank in the story. Like Aebutia, she is a follower of old traditions. Livy characterizes her as gravisIgravissima femina> a venerable and stable woman.39 Gravitas as a quality accompanies her name whenever it is mentioned. In the story, Postumius uses her help in his informal investigations. Sulpicia contacts Aebutia and Hispala Faecenia.40 The consul apparently cannot himself call women for informal inquiries, and that is why he needs help from his respectable mother-in-law. She is also nobilis41 which may refer to her high social status. It can also mean that she was a well-known lady. It has been suggested by Pailler that she could be the same Sulpicia who had been chosen the most chaste woman (pudicissima femina42) from among the matrons during the Second Punic War to receive the cult image of Venus Verticordia. This could explain her effective relations among the Roman women of the

36

A most useful review of different interpretations is in Gruen 1990, 47-61. Liv. 39.11.1-3. 38 Liv. 39.11.5 39 Liv. 39.11.4 ^Liv. 39.11.5; 12.1. 41 Liv. 39.12.2 42 Plin. HN. 7.120 37

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elite.43 As Pailler himself admits, this is very hard to prove because Livy does not give the names of Sulpicia's father or husband. Nevertheless, her name may have had a good ring for Livy's purposes. Hispala Faecenia's testimony ultimately leads the consul to take measures against Bacchic groups. Livy tells that Faecenia was a well-known courtesan who had fallen into her indecent profession in slavery. According to Livy, she was a better woman than her profession would require.44 When Aebutius tells her he will be initiated in Bacchic mysteries for the sake of his mother's vow, she is shocked and warns him about the dangerous consequences of the initiation.45 As a result of Faecenia's warnings Aebutius refuses the initiation. Because of this he is driven from home.46 Hispala Faecenia is good-hearted but not especially brave. As she is summoned to the house of Sulpicia, she is struck with terror.47 This terror is probably due to the great difference of status between the women. First Hispala denies knowing anything about the Bacchanalia, though she admits she has been initiated.48 As she is afraid of revenge by gods and Bacchants, the consul affords her a refuge with his mother-in-law.49 Later Publius Aebutius and Hispala Faecenia are rewarded by the Roman senate. Special privileges are granted to Hispala Faecenia regarding her rights to hold and dispose of property as well as to choose her tutor and husband.50 It is particularly mentioned that she can marry a freeborn man and that it is no shame to any man to marry her.51 Her safety, too, is guaranteed by the senate.52 As a matter of fact, the senate makes Faecenia an honourable lady and liberates her from the shame caused by slavery and prostitution. What kind of cult did the Bacchanalia actually constitute? Next I shall follow the description given by Livy in the words of Hispala Faecenia.

43

Pailler 1988, 221-223. Liv. 39.9.5.: "Scortum nobile libertina Hispala Faecenia, non digna quaestu cui ancillula adsuerat, etiampostquam manwnissa erat, eodem se genere tuebatuf\ 45 Liv. 39.10. 46 Liv. 39.11. If. 47 Liv. 39.12.2f. 48 Liv. 39.12.3-6. 49 Liv. 39.13.4-7; 14. If. 50 Liv. 39.19.3-5. 51 Liv. 39.19.5. 52 Liv. 39.19.4-6. 44

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According to Livy the cult had spread from Greece via Etruria to Italy.53 In the beginning it had been exclusively women's cult, and initiation ceremonies had been arranged three times a year. Matrons had served as priestesses in the cult.54 Later a Campanian priestess, Paculla Annia, had totally altered the cult. Men were allowed to take part in the cult, and it became possible to receive initiation on five days monthly. As rites had earlier been carried out in daytime, they were now moved to nighttime.55 The cult was thoroughly reorganised. Wicked women in Livy's narrative of the Bacchanalia are naturally followers of the cult of Bacchus. Still, being a Bacchant is not the only sin of Duronia, the mother of Aebutius. She is also blamed for loving her new husband more than her son from an earlier marriage.56 It is her demerit that she is obedient to a husband who wants to demoralise her son through the Bacchanalia. Livy, however, characterizes Duronia rather as a passive follower than as a real villain. The priestess Paculla Annia, on the contrary, is an actively bad woman who ruins the cult of Bacchus by beginning to initiate men in the mysteries. The first men she initates are her own sons.57 She is also guilty of the other above-mentioned changes in the organisation of the cult. All the evil comes into the cult with these changes.58 In the narrative about the Bacchanalia scandal we meet a mighty collection of wicked women who are wild and so enraged that they can kill their own children. Their behaviour is described as senseless, violent, and terrifying. It is an antithesis of the dignity of honourable matrons. Women in Bacchic clothing and with their hair loose nearly become a caricature of women in traditional cults. Interestingly, Bacchant women bear torches which were a typical element in traditional matronal cults,59 but throw them down into the river Tiber.60 As the torches rise still burning to the surface, Bacchants can almost be called witches. They act outside the private sphere and official 53

Liv.39.8.3;9.1. Liv. 39.13.8. 55 Liv. 39.13.9. 56 Liv. 39.9.3f. 57 Liv. 39.13.9. 58 Liv. 39.13.8. 59 Drossart 1974, 134f. 60 Liv. 39.13.12.:' 'matronas Baccharum habitu crinibussparsiscum ardentibusfacibus decurrere ad Tiberim, demissasque in aquam faces, quia vivum sulpur cum calce insit, integraflammaefferre''. 54

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control, within an association which has created laws of its own. This is why they are dangerous women. The furious maenads of Greek literature seem to have served as models for Livy. In Greek descriptions, maenads are women in a temporary state of madness. They leave their homes, abandon their suckling babies and nurse wild animals instead.61 In the Greek world there is evidence of exclusively female worship of Dionysus that also had an official role.62

Women and the control of the foreign in the Roman religion It is fascinating that both the cult of Cybele and the cult of Bacchus were foreign cults in Rome and still their fates were quite different. Cybele was introduced publicly according to a plan and strictly under the control of the authorities. The cult also remained under tight control, and the orgiastic elements of the cult were treated with suspicion.63 For example, it was not allowed for a Roman citizen to serve as a priest in the cult.64 The arrival ceremony belongs to the same tradition as the great expiatory rituals of the time of the Second Punic War. Introducing new cults was one way of expelling the evil.65 Cults like that of Venus Verticordia were established in that era. As in the case of Cybele, women themselves chose the most chaste woman in their group to receive the cult image of Venus Verticordia.66 The cult image of Cybele appears to have been more important than the actual cult, which was not meant for Roman citizens. It was enough that the goddess was welcomed with appropriate rituals by Roman citizens, as the stone symbolizing the goddess was hoped to save the Roman state. It is noteworthy that the men and women co-operate for the sake of this goal. Woman act in ways controlled and authorized by the senate as in the expiatory ceremonies. Thus, their duties in the arrival ceremony of Cybele followed traditional and authorized forms. The Bacchanalia differs from the cult of Cybele in the respect that the cult of Bacchus had spread in Italy outside the control of authorities. It was an 61

Kraemer 1992, 37. Kraemer 1992, 39, 41f. 63 Le Gall 1975, 123; Beard 1994, 174-178. 64 Dion. Hal. 2.19. 65 Gruen 1990, 6-10. 66 Val. Max. 8.15.12. 62

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unofficial cult with its own independent organisation. From the point of view of the authorities, it was obviously dangerous that the people were united by a cult independent of the state. It was also suspicious and untraditional that the cult mixed different social groups.67 As long as the cult had been exclusively female it had been tolerated. Female participation in itself did not make the cult revolutionary.68 But when men and women of various social ranks met each other during nocturnal ceremonies, there was a danger of improper sexual liaisons and all kinds of crimes. The presence of wine, too, raised doubts as women normally were forbidden to drink wine.69 Still, Livy does not present female Bacchants as the worst criminals, but men. Liaisons between men are the most dangerous of all. What the cult of Bacchus really was like at that time, we do not know, as there is no objective description available.70 Livy describes Bacchants as people to whom no crime was unfamiliar. Livy's description must be exaggerated. It resembles the attitudes towards the adherents of the cult of Isis as well as the Christians later. These religious groups were accused of crimes and sexual licence in the same way and they were also harshly persecuted.71 The inscription bearing the senatus consultum that bans the worship of Bacchus does not refer to any civil crimes. It deals with the organisation of the cult and prescribes a penalty for offending the restrictions imposed on the cult.72 It does not appear probable that the cult could have suddenly spread in an explosive way after the Second Punic War.73 Archaeological finds attest that it must have spread in Italy much earlier.74 Furthermore, there are many references to the Bacchic cult in comedies by Plautus75 which can mainly be dated before 186 B.C. From this we may conclude that the Bacchanalia had been well known long before the persecution began. Though Plautus represents

67

Feig Vishnia 1996, 176. Gruen 1990, 61. 69 Serv. Aen. 1.737. 70 Kraemer 1992, 45. 71 Le Gall 1975, lOf; Pomeroy 1975, 222. 72 Gruen 1990, 62. 73 North 1979, 88. 74 Pailler 1988, 511; Gruen 1990, 50. 75 Plaut. Amph. 703; Aul. 408; Bacch. 53; Cos. 979-981; Mil. 1016. 68

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Bacchants in a way far from positive, his Bacchants are amusing and ridiculous rather than dangerous. Some researchers have also tried to find revolutionary elements in the Bacchanalia™ but we must bear in mind that according to Livy even people of high rank followed the cult.77 The participation of elite women is probably meant to be particularly alarming: men lose control of their wives and families may be broken.78 The persecution on the year 186 B.C. did not completely destroy the cult. It regained a tolerated status in the time of Caesar.79 Bacchic mysteries flourished especially in the second and third centuries A.D. Also the famous frescoes in the Villa dei Misteri in Pompeii from the early first century A.D. attest the continuity of the cult.80 The cult of Bacchus was still far from exceptional in the early second century B.C. We can e.g. recognize many striking similarities between Bacchic rites and the new Hellenistic forms of the cult of Ceres adopted in the third century B.C.81 These new forms were meant exclusively for women.82 Priestesses from Magna Graecia took care of the rites.83 Sexual continence was required before mysteries of both Ceres and Bacchus.84 Introduction of the exclusively female rites in the cult of Ceres was quite officially accepted, and the Greek priestesses were considered public priestesses who sacrificed for the Roman people. For some reason, only the innovations in the Bacchic worship were regarded as a threat against the traditional religion.85 There was an emphasis on ritual purity in the new cult of Ceres, while sexual licence and promiscuity were linked to the Bacchanalia in the Roman literary tradition.86 The female worship of Bacchus may well include compensatory elements. This means that women who in their everyday life are suppressed get

76

On this manner of interpretation and its criticism, see Gruen 1990, 47f. Liv. 39.13.14. 78 Feig Vishnia 1996, 175. 79 Pailler 1988, 14. 80 Ferguson 1970, 102f. 81 Pailler 1988, 426f. 82 Le Bonniec 1958, 388, 398. 83 Le Bonniec 1958, 284, 287. 84 Le Bonniec 1958, 411. 85 Spaeth 1996, 12. 86 Spaeth 1996, 111. 77

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temporary relief through the cult. In the Bacchic communities women could be free from normal social hierarchy. They had an opportunity to express their frustrations and aggressions while the actual status quo still remained.87 The cult of Cybele, though an orgiastic and ecstatic cult in Asia Minor, did not constitute such a cult for Roman women. The reception ceremony as described above was carried out according to the traditional rites. New ludi were established in honour of Cybele, but no new cultic forms for women. As far as we know, only in imperial Rome did the cult of Cybele gain real popularity, and people could serve the goddess as various cult officials.88 Both the cult of Bacchus and the cult of Cybele had their bloom in imperial Rome and they were equally ridiculed by conservative authors.89 Rome was by no means hostile towards new deities and cults, yet traditional cultic forms were extremely important.90 For that reason new deities and cults were adapted for the traditional religious system. As the Bacchanalia had developed unofficially, it avoided this adaption. The ways in which Livy describes women in the traditional official ceremonies, and in the Bacchanalia, indicates the great value that was attached to the old religious traditions in the Augustan age. Livy exemplifies with the Bacchanalia the dangers that Oriental luxuries and neglect of old tradition could bring. He means dangers like irrationality, loose morals and general decline. It is well known that Augustus tried to revive the old Roman religion and improve morals, especially the sexual morals of his subjects. His new marriage legislation was directed specifically towards the elite.91 By examinig Livy's narratives about Cybele's arrival and the Bacchanalia, one can notice that it was expressly the behaviour of elite women that interested Livy. Common people remain mostly somewhere in the background. The foremost matrons were expected to maintain ancient cults and customs, which means mos maiorum. Women did have a certain space within the traditional Roman religion, but they had this space as long as they acknowledged the control of the authorities, established cultic forms, and the limits of what was permissible. In times of crisis, women were supposed to co-operate with men for the sake of the common interest. Independent cult associations which aimed only at success for their members were regarded as suspicious. Kraemer 1979, 72-80. Sanders 1981, 279; Beard 1994, 170-174. Kraemer 1992, 61. Latte 1960, 148-194; Bayet 1969, 120-127; North 1979, 85f. Rawson 1986, 34f.; Treggiari 1991, 60f., 278. 122

Thus, the ideal Roman matron held firmly to ancient religious traditions* She was expected to be a severe mother who never forgot the welfare of her children. She was to be strong-minded, stable and serious. All this gained her the dignity that entitled her to take part in great official ceremonies, in other words, to help the state by means of religion. But after all, what did women themselves hope for? Did they derive more satisfaction from official stateoriented ceremonies or from unofficial mystery cults? Perhaps we know something about what women of the Augustan age thought, but we can hardly say anything about their ancestresses who lived 200 years before them. We know only the ideals which Augustan women were expected to aim at, and which women in the time of the Punic Wars were assumed to have fulfilled.

University of Helsinki Department of History Helsinki Finland

Bibliography Bayet 1969

Bayet, J., Histoirepolitique etpsychologique de la religion romaine, Paris 1969.

Beard 1994

Beard, M., The Roman and the foreign: The cult of the 'Great Mother' in imperial Rome', in Shamanism, history, and the state, eds. N. Thomas and C. Humphrey, Ann Arbor 1994, 164-190.

Boels-Janssen 1993

Boels-Janssen, N., La vie religieuse des matrones dans la Rome archaXque (Collection de l'Ecole francaise de Rome, 176), Rome 1993.

Bremmer 1987

Bremmer, J.N., 'Slow Cybele's arrival', in J.N. Bremmer and N.M. Horsfall, Roman myth and mythography (B/CSsuppl. 52), London 1987, 105111.

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Culham 1982

Culham, P., 'The Lex Oppia', Latomus 41, 1982, 786-793.

Drossart 1974

Drossart, P., 'Nonae Caprotinae: la faussecapture des Aurores', RHR 185/2, 1974, 129-139.

Fantham et al. 1994

Women in the Classical world. Image and text, eds. E. Fantham et al., Oxford 1994.

Feig Vishnia 1996

Feig Vishnia, R., State, society and popular bibs in mid-republican Rome 214-167 B. C., London 1996.

Ferguson 1970

Ferguson, J., The religions of the Roman empire, Ithaca, N.Y. 1970.

Gag6 1963

Gage\ J., Matronalia. Essai sur les devotions et les organisations cultuelles desfemmes dans I fancienne Rome (Collection Latomus, 60), Bruxelles 1963.

Gamsey 1989

Garnsey, P., 'Propitiation et prosperity religion et survivancedelacit6',0/?wj6-8,1987-89,137-145.

Graillot 1912

Graillot, H., Le culte de Cybele mere des dieux ft Rome et dans Vempire romain, Paris 1912.

Gruen 1990

Gruen, E., Studies in Greek culture and Roman policy, Leiden 1990.

Hanninen forthcoming

Hanninen, M-L., 'Juno Regina and Roman matrons', forthcoming article in AIRF.

Kraemer 1979

Kraemer, R.S., 'Ecstacy and possession. The attraction of women to the cult of Dionysos', HfR 72, 1979, 55-80.

Kraemer 1992

Kraemer, R.S., Her share of the blessings. Wrmi religions among pagans Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman world, New York 1992.

Latte 1960

Latte, K., Rdmische Religionsgeschichte, (HdAW V, 4), Miinchen 1960.

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Le Bonniec 1958

Le Bonniec, H., Le cuke de Ctrte a Rome des origines a la fin de la Republique (Etudes et commentaires 27), Paris 1958.

Le Gall 1975

Le Gall, J., La religion romaine de Vepoque de Caton VAncien au regne de Vempereur Commode, Paris 1975.

Levene 1993

Levene, D.S., Religion in Livy {Mnemosyne SuppL, 127), Leiden 1993.

Liebeschuetz 1989

Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G., Continuity and change in Roman Religion, Oxford 1989 (1979).

North 1979

North, J., * Religious toleration in Republican Rome', PCPhS 25, 1979, 25-103.

North 1989

North, J., 'Religion in Republican Rome', in The Cambridge ancient history VII:2. The rise of Rome to 220B. C., eds. F.W. Walbank et al., Cambridge 1989, 573-624.

Pailler 1988

Pailler, J-M., Bacchanalia. La repression de 186 av. 7.-C. a Rome et en Italie: vestiges, images, tradition, (Biblioteque des Ecoles francaises d'Athenes et de Rome, 270) Rome 1988.

Pomeroy 1975

Pomeroy, S.B., Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves. Women in Classical antiquity, New York 1975.

Rawson 1986

Rawson, B., T h e Roman family', in The family in ancient Rome. New perspectives, ed. B. Rawson, New York 1986, 1-57.

Sanders 1981

Sanders, G., 'Kybele und Attis', in^ Die orientalischen Religionen im Rdmerreich, (Etudes preliminaries aux religions orientales tous l'empire romain, 93), hrsg. von J.M. Vermaseren, Leiden 1981, 264-297.

Spaeth 1996

Spaeth, B.S., The Roman goddess Ceres, Austin 1996.

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Thomas 1984

Thomas, G., 'Magna Mater and Attis', in ANRW EL 17.3, Berlin 1984, 1500-1535.

Treggiari 1991

Treggiari, S., Roman marriage, Iusti coniugesfrom the time of Cicero to the time of Ulpian, Oxford 1991.

Vermaseren 1977

Vermaseren, J.M., Cybele andAttis. The myth and the cult, London 1977.

Wachter 1987

Wachter, R.,AltlateinischeInschriften. Sprachliche und epigraphische Untersuchungen zu den Dokumemen bis etwa 150 v.Chr. (Europaische Hochschulschriften. Reihe XV, Klassische Sprachen und Literaturen, 38), Bern 1987.

Wardman 1982

Wardman, A., Religion and statecraft among the Romans, London 1982.

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Jorunn Okland

'IN PUBLICUM PROCURRENDP: WOMEN IN THE PUBLIC SPACE OF ROMAN GREECE

"What sort of practice is this, of running out into the streets and blocking the roads and speaking to other women's husbands?"1 Introduction After 'the linguistic turn' of historical studies, it is often said that studies in gender have taken over the field previously dominated by the study of ancient women and their lives. 2 For, while it is regarded as impossible to state anything with certainty about historical women,3 it is still possible to investigate ancient constructions of gender. This is not the whole truth about the research situation in ancient studies, but neither, perhaps, is it very apt as a normative statement about what one should concentrate research efforts on. First, because ancient women are still not 'recovered' in all spaces they must have formed part of, the laborious, diligent work of tracing ancient women in ancient texts must continue, in order that the broadest possible textual basis may be provided for the future writers of comprehensive history. Second, the study of gender ideologies as well as the study of gendered social structures presupposes the study of women and men. As Amy Richlin states: "Feminists in classics....can attest that studying gender doesn't mean not studying women. The nature of our sources has forced us to think in terms of gender systems from the outset."4

1

Liv. 34.2.9. For a presentation and discussion of recent trends, see Katz 1995; Schmitt Pantel 1992, 464-468. 3 The reasons are first, that 'woman' is an empty category; second, that the body of ancient texts produced by women is too meagre; and third, mat texts produced by men cannot be read as sources for historical women. 4 Richlin 1993, 286. 2

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Third, ideological statements have limited interest in themselves if we do not have the slightest idea about whether they represented notions in the society they occurred in, and what their functions were, if any. One and the same gender ideology may have functioned in many and partly contradictory ways. Therefore, if we completely leave behind the socio-historical quest for women's life in Greece and Rome, we easily lose sight of the rhetoricity of ideological utterances and cut ourselves off from important parts of the meaning and functions of texts expressing gender ideology. In the present paper I will try to illuminate this by focusing on the limitations and functions of literary authors' gendered language about spaces. Gender Gender denotes culturally constructed categories imposed on female and male bodies, implying ideas about their 'nature' and meaning, what roles are appropriate for them, how power is distributed between them, and what the social relationships between them should be. But in a broader sense, gender categories are also imposed on other entities: to gender the world is a way of thinking about it, conferring meaning and values on it, and of legitimising its structures. For example, many Greek and Roman authors consider public space 'male' whereas domestic space is considered 'female'. I have chosen the 'thereness' of 'female bodies' as a starting point for discussing such notions of gender and city spaces. I am aware that a distinction between 'woman' (gender) and 'female body' (sex) is problematic since bodies are gendered as well, not foundational, pre-culturally or 'prehistorically' given. Nevertheless anatomy is used as a criterion for putting this or that gender label on a person; "destiny is anatomy".51 find the distinction relevant here, since I will use it to show how the gendering of spaces has little to do with the presence of male and female bodies in a place. Turning invisible: private and public as spatial, ocular and textual categories In much of the literature on Greece and Rome which draws upon concepts and models from anthropology, 'private' and 'public' are conceived of in spatial categories, as distinct spheres or spaces.6 5

Laqueur 1990, 25. Recently and clearly stated by MacDonald 1996, 32: "Throughout the Empire, among Pagans, Jews and Christians we hear expressions of the ideal 'spatial' distinction related to 6

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It has repeatedly been shown that there is no direct corrspondence between the modern distinction between 'public and private' and the ancient Greek concepts of 'polis and oikos\7 and that the categories 'public' and 'private' did not have the some connotations in ancient Rome as in modern anthropology. Still, with certain modifications the terms are found useful by many. In my opinion, a greater problem than the use of the terms 'private' and 'public' per se is how ancient authors' linking of 'domestic' (private) with 'female', and 'public' with 'male', in many instances is taken at face value as description of space} As long as we adopt their view we are prevented from seeing the female bodies present at least in the public, 'male' space of Roman times, and thereby are also prevented from understanding the limited value of utterances gendering the public space. The map prevents us from seeing the terrain. And even if the map would fit the 5th-century B.C.E. Athens better, 9 it cannot be used as a guide to all Mediterranean areas, and not throughout antiquity. These reflections are inspired and, I admit, coloured by my reading of texts10 from Roman Greece, more precisely early Roman Corinth (44 B.C.E.200 C.E.). 11 All of the texts contain in some way notions of women in cultic settings.12 Taking place both in sanctauries and in open-air spaces of the city,

sex." 7

For an overview, see Katz 1995, 35f. Cf. Rose 1993, 218: "Such normative constructs" (e.g. nature and culture, domestic and public) "tend to be used in ways that ignore the fact that these polarities are themselves the locus of ideological struggle". 9 Claimed by Foley 1981, 151 (my italics): "Women in drama do not confine themselves to the domestic and religious spheres to which they were relegated in reality. They not only take action in the politcal sphere deneid to them in .life, but they rarely defend the household and its interests". 10 The term 'text' is not limited to literary texts or to written documents alone, "but would refer to any interpretable cultural object, document or artifact" (Peskowitz 1993,9). Since I understand documents and excavated material remains as objects encoded with cultural meaning I read them as texts also. 11 Space does not permit a discussion of how hellenized or how Roman this Roman colony on Greek soil was. I am inclined to agree with Woolf 1994, who argues that instead of a synthesis of the two cultures, it is more correct to talk about an interaction that threatened the identity of neither of them. 12 The readings will be presented in my forthcoming dissertation Notions about cultic functions of women in first cent. Corinth — in the Christian group and in other GraecoRoman cults. 8

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the cult activities of women do not fit the axiom of the "seclusion and exclusion" of women from public-male spaces. Women went in and out of temples and sanctuaries. Women of all ranks participated in religious festivals in non-domestic spaces, not only females with 'open bodies'13 — slaves and prostitutes — but also poor, freeborn labouring women and even 'respectable' matrons.14 In fact the latter had to attend religious ceremonies in order to fulfil their special cultic obligations.15 In their texts on religion and ritual, ancient authors could therefore even mention women they considered 'respectable' by name, without bringing shame upon these women or their husbands.16 The 'public' in the Roman Mediterranean context could therefore alternatively be defined as a broad discourse where the participants, the public persons, are male and elite. This public discourse has been stored in written texts, and through these texts the public persons establish themselves as the only sovereigns in the universe and the rest of the world as 'others' dependent on or inferior to them. Through the public discourse as traced in the surviving texts, the public males present themselves as the ones who define and represent the world — because the gaze, voice, desire, power and autonomy are all theirs. In the public discourse of these ancient males we frequently find definitions of femaleness and maleness, what a female body signifies and which signs should be 'inscribed' on different categories of female bodies (the wife, the virgin, the slave etc.). But we also find gendering definitions of space: the authors state which space are 'for women', and which space are 'for men'. One example by Philo must suffice: "Market-places (riyopai) and council-halls and law-courts and gatherings (Oiaooi) and meetings where a large number of people are assembled, and open-air life with full scope for discussion and action — all these are suitable to men both in war and in peace. The women are best suited to the indoor life which never strays from the house (oiKoupia Kcti

13

An expression borrowed from Richlin 1995, 186. Athenaios 13.574b-c: "But that prostitutes also celebrate their own festival of Aphrodite at Corinth is shown by Alexis in The girl in love: "The city celebrated a festival of Aphrodite for the prostitutes, but it is a different one from that held separately for freeborn women."" 15 Scheid 1992, 388. 16 Winkler 1991, 5: "even to mention the name of a citizen-wife in the company of men was a shame and insult, implying an intrusion into another man's symbolic privacy." 14

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n ev6ov iiovn), within which the middle door is taken by the maidens as their boundary, and the outer door by those who have reached full womanhood.''17 Our modern interpretation of Philo is to a certain degree dependent on whether we believe that women actually were domestic18 or whether we read Philo in the light of social history which shows us again and again that the female bodies were there, in market-places and gatherings.19 Read within this frame of reference, the rhetorical function of Philo's words becomes clearer: he is not describing, but by gendering the spaces of the city he confers importance and power on one space over the other space.20 But this statement by a Jewish Platonist also fits well in John Jack Winkler's broader picture of Roman Mediterranean public discourse.

Winkler's kafeneio Winkler in his book Constraints of desire: The anthropology of sex and gender in ancient Greece has labelled the presentious texts of ancient males 'coffehouse talk', because they had a special and limited function between men only21: 4

* As guilty secret or as guilty pleasure, women's practical autonomy in certain spheres may well have been the sort of fact that in the company of men was known but never acknowledged or discussed, for in such company to do so would have brought shame. /..../

17

De specialibus legibus 3.169. On other occasions, even Philo himself gives advice about women's behaviour in the market-place! 19 Although demographers disagree on how to estimate the numbers of females per adult male, nobody would consider the city space as filled up by males alone. Dale Martin (Martin 1996, 53f.) who in his study of 1161 funerary inscriptions from Roman Asia Minor was puzzled by the fact that all families in the inscriptions from Olympia and Termessos had 50% more sons than daughters, tried to trace where the daughters disappeared out of view. A different way of putting the body of material together allowed him to conclude that the * missing' girls are still there, as singles, marginal members of the family structures built around others' immediate families, and concubines. 20 "Gender is a primary field within which or by means of which power is articulated" (Scott 1986, 1069). 21 Winkler 1991, 6. 18

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When women are active, they are trouble. Since a man does not want to invite trouble, it is prudent for him and other men to assume, until forced to do otherwise, that the women of his household are invisible, obedient, and industrious."22

Winkler claims no particular continuity from ancient to modern Greece. Nevertheless, since he has let anthropological literature as well as his experiences in modern Greece frame the interpretation of ancient Greek texts, he presupposes a closer continuity between ancient and modern Greece than between ancient Greece and modern 'NATO cultures', which in his opinion form the not very well considered frame of references for so many modern interpreters. I take Winkler's use of the term 'coffe-house talk' to indicate his point of departure in modern Greek men's discussions in the 'kafeneio' where women 'have no access'.23 Boasting and bluffing are very important features of the discussions, as is the silent agreement that women should not be adressed or spoken about unless they can be labelled as 'available' in a literal or metaphoric sense of the word.24 Other women, although present in the physical space of the coffe-house, are ignored and thus made invisible. Ancient Mediterranean written discourses has been taken at face value as representative of ancient reality by modern students. Winkler, not letting himself be deluded, states: "The first priority, therefore, must be to recover the usually unspoken premises or protocols governing the force of public utterances, and it appears that much of men's talk about women and about themselves was a calculated bluff. The study of women in the ancient world cannot proceed very far unless it is accompanied by an equally penetrating examination of men and how they constructed their practices of sex and genderidentity."25

Winkler thus severely relativizes the importance of this public male discourse, and considers it as appropriations, pretensions and normative utterances, not as descriptions of real life. I find his argument including the analogy to the modern kafeneio convincing. But while Winkler uses his argument as a basis for gathering indications of a possible female subversive

22

Winkler 1991, 8. Again according to the established discourse, for in practice women enter more and more often. 24 "The greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men" (Thuc. 2.46.2). 25 Winkler 1991, 4. 23

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identity in ancient Greece, I will use his argument as an interpretive frame for some texts mentioning women who, through their work and activities, must have formed part of the non-domestic spaces of Roman Corinth — thereby further underscoring Winkler's point. Junia Theodora, Priska and Phoibe are examples of women whose activities easily become invisible if one adopts the filtering gaze of the ancient male elite. Although each text gives only a partial and perhaps distorted picture of the women it represents, I consider these texts at least as representative of ancient women as e.g. Philo's text, and as important objects for socio-historical studies.

Junia Theodora "The deme of Patara (in Lycia) has decreed: Whereas Junia Theodora, a Roman resident in Corinth, a woman held in highest honour ..... who copiously supplied from her own means many of our citizens with generosity, and received them in her home and in particular never ceased acting on behalf of our citizens in regard to any favour asked — the majority of citizens have gathered in assembly to offer testimony on her behalf. Our people in gratitude agreed to vote: to commend Junia and to offer testimony of her generosity to our native city and of her good will, and declares that it urges her to increase her generosity towards the city in the knowledge that our people also would not cease in their good will and gratitude to her and would do everything for the excellence and the glory that she deserved. For this reason (with good fortune), it was decreed to commend her for all that she had done.' * "In order that both Junia herself and also the city of Corinthians shall know our city's gratitude to her and the decree in her favour, the secretary of the counsil (BouXn) making this decree sends to the deme of the Corinthians a copy of the decree which is sealed with the local seal."2* The inscription citing this decree as well as four other documents from the Lycians was probably set up at the grave of Junia Theodora. She may have functioned as some kind of 'ambassador' of the Lycians to Corinth — commercially, politically or religiously.27 Through her way of displaying her 26 Cf. Pleket 1969, 20-26, no. 8 (transl.: first part from Lefkowitz and Fant 1992, 160, no. 197, second part my own). The Greek inscription is a dossier of five separate letters and decrees with almost identical text, dating to 42-44 C.E. 27 SEG XXXVI307 gives an abstract of R. A. Kearsley *s Ancient society: Resources for teachers (Vol. 15, 1986), who suggests that Junia was a native of Lycia, where she owned land, and that she also held Corinthian and Roman citizenship. Part of her activity in

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wealth, she appears as a visible woman in the societies of both Corinth and Lycia: her benefactions are both made and made known in the civic space. The whole process of writing and sending these decrees and letters took place in the political institutions. Through the text we also learn about the public character of the house: in her OIK l a she received the Lycians — a deed she is afterwards praised for through this piece of public discourse. In the case of Junia Theodora, respectability is not dependent on public silence and invisibility.

Priska and Phoibe As Amy Richlin points out, the earliest Christian texts are interesting and important because they give a glimpse into a non-elite segment of culture. 28 In Paul's texts we meet several women, even if his brief references to them are not enough to let us recover their lives and thoughts in any detail. Still, what is interesting in this context is what is said about them in a self-evident manner, based on unspoken premises. They must e.g. have been quite visible not only in a cult that Paul and other early Christian authors tried to make as public and respectable as possible,29 but also in the non-domestic spaces of the city through their daily work. Priska is a woman we meet in the letters of Paul and in the Acts of the Apostles.30 She was married to Akvilas, but against the custom her name is always mentioned first except in 1 Corinthians.31 This is normally taken to

Corinth on behalf of the Lycians may have been in the commercial sphere. Kearsly further argues that although Junia Theodora and the contemporary Claudia Metroda from Chios gained special status in their local communities by possession of Roman citizenship, it was as women living according to Greek law and custom rather than as Romans that they were able to participate in civic life. In spite of great efforts, I have not been able to get hold of Kersley's text. 28 Richlin 1993, 285f. 29 See Fantham et al. 1994, 326, concerning Paul and his first letter to the Corinthians 14:33-36. The tendency is perhaps most clear in Luke-Acts, where rural Jews from Palestine, Paul and other apostles are set in connection with high Roman officials. 30 Paul's letter to the Romans 16:3; Paul's first letter to the Corinthians 16:19; the pseudo-pauline second letter to Timotheus 4:19; Acts of the Apostles 18:2, 18:26. 31 Paul's mentioning the couple's name in reverse order in this letter is completely in accord with his excluding "there is no male and female" from his citations of the baptismal formula in 1 Cor. 12:13 (compare his letter to Galatians 3. 28). He is trying to present an 134

indicate that she was a more trusted leader in the Christian sect than her husband. We do not know anything about the relationship between Paul and Priska, but evidently he regarded her as a very close and very trusted coworker. The Acts inform us that she and Akvilas came to Corinth after the Claudian edict that all Jews should be expelled from Rome, and that Paul during his stay in Corinth lived and worked together with them: Priska and Akvilas were tentmakers like Paul, and thus they belonged to the craftmen's segment of society. A relevant frame of reference for reading the texts about Priska is given by Susan Treggiari, who has gathered texts (mainly epigraphic) concerning working women of the lower classes 'in the Latin West', and from the late Republic until Constantine.32 The inscriptions and Treggiari's discussion of them inform us about the silence or negative attitudes of authors towards such women, about their living conditions, titles and occupations — subjects which in turn enable us to construct a possible 'life' for the woman we meet almost solely as a name in the New Testament texts. However, limits of space allow only a few comments. Working women had no possibilities of conforming either to the ancient Greek or to the Augustan female virtues. They must have been rather visible also outside the domestic space. Considering how common it was for craftsmen and- women to live, sleep and work in the same little shop, Priska's life in the shop cannot have been very 'private' and secluded — at least not with a third tentmaker, Paul, also living and working there.33 The texts mentioning Priska remind us of the taken-for-granted presence of crafts women in the shop areas and market-places of Corinth, and on the road: she must have travelled a lot, at least to and from Rome, Corinth and Ephesus, and probably together with her husband. In addition to Priska, Paul recommends 'our sister' Phoibe, a 5I&KOVOQ and TTpoaT&Tie (two terms of leadership in early Christianity and Judaism) in the Christian group of Kenchreai, the port of Corinth.34 No husband is mentioned in the connection with her,35 so probably she was a single woman

image of the ideal Christian woman as subject to her husband, against the Corinthian Christian women who in Paul's eyes are creating chaos and public contempt because they are too independent of men and not submissive. 32 Treggiari 1979 (see also Treggiari 1976 and Lefkowitz and Fant 1992, 208-224). 33 Cf Martin 196,51. 34 Paul's letter to the Romans 16: If. 35 Of course she could still have been married, but more probably she lived in 'ascetic autonomy' — i.e. her freedom of movement was accepted because she lived like a man. 135

running her own business — with the degree of visibility which then was necessary. Phoibe must have had enough means to finance her own service as a deacon, just as priestesses in other cults were expected to make contributions to the sanctuary or cult they served in. Phoibe must also have had a certain freedom of movement in order to be able to travel from Kenchreai to Rome. Phoibe is comparable to Lydia in Philippi, another of Paul's sponsors.36 She too gathered a group of Christians in her house, and Paul is described as being her client — economically. In many ways she is described as a paterfamilias, not only with freedom to take care of her own property, but also with the authority to take the decision that her household should be baptized together with her — indeed a complete change of focus of the domestic cult! Roman family laws were never able to reflect the fact that many households lacked a male head, so that a 'materfamilias' was responsible for the public relations of a household instead. 37 In spite of his many regulations on women's cultic behaviour, Paul evidently felt no need to explain to his readers why he did not find it problematic at all to describe Priska as a co-worker in Christ,38 and Phoibe as a TTpoaT&TiQ even for himself. Is the underlying reason again the 'guilty secret of women's practical autonomy' (cf. Winkler above), which is known and taken for granted, but still not included in the public way of speaking?39 Or is Paul caught in the ambiguity felt by many males in this period about

Conventions did not permit praising a married woman publicly without mentioning her husband: it would probably be regarded as a quite shameless act. This fact may lead to the careful conclusion that where women are mentioned alone, there is no husband to mention (cf. Treggiari 1979, 76). 36 Acts of Apostles 16:14-15,40. 37 Martin 1996, 55: "In those cases in which husbands are simply absent or when the husband has less legal power than the wife 0 we may reasonably speak of these women as 'female heads of households'. But even in other cases when the wife is the provider of the tomb and her name comes first for reasons unknown to us we may consider that these women enjoy some kind of 'head of the household' position even if their husbands are alive and even though such a position is not ideologically or legally possible for them in the Roman Empire". 38 Paul's letter to the Romans 16:3. 39 It is only in the opening and final greetings if his letters that Paul mentions the names of women. The main letter bodies conform more to what I have in a stereotype way labelled 'public male discourse'.

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women's proper roles?40 Or — is the reason economic? All the women mentioned here functioned as hostesses or patrons. When it comes to money and hard facts, it seems that even clear perceptions about respectable behaviour for women fade away. If we now cease the experiment of thinking about the public as a secluded discourse between men who were both authors and audiences of written texts, and return to thinking about the public as space, sight and sound, we see that female bodies also formed a part of the public. The problem then is not that non-domestic spaces in a city are labelled 'public' per se, or that ancient Greeks and Romans perceived public space as male space. There is a problem if we take ancient texts at face value and believe that 'male' space was a space for male bodies only, because then we are prevented from systematizing our scattered knowledge about the presence also of female bodies in public space. Although they had no access to most positions that conferred political power and formal responsibilities, and although they were not participating in the public discourse producing boundaries, meaning and literature, many women had to move around and be visible in the streets and market-places although it was at times not regarded as proper, simply in order to do their duties — working, shopping, praying etc. The elite woman who did not have to go out to do this business herself was still present in the public space, often too loud and too visible to be ignored even by the authors. Through festivals and other religious tasks, women of all ranks were seen as exercising their powers for the well-being of the whole city: i.e. they performed important public functions. Junia Theodora, Priska, and the other named women in a little city like early Roman Corinth were probably not exceptions to any normal state of invisibility of women in public space. Rather our information about these women illustrates the discrepancy between public discourse as seen mainly in legal and literary texts which treat such respectable, visible women as anomalies, and on the other hand small remarks in the same literature together with grave inscriptions, letters and documents, which are influenced by the same values as the former group of texts, but which more often represent women as moving far more freely between the domestic and public spaces.

40

This topic is discussed in Fantham et al. 1994, particularly 289f. and 326f. Roman Greece was strongly influenced by traditional Greek values. Also, the moral revivial in (and after) the age of Augustus stands in a certain contrast to the previous generations' lack of stability and social * order' with greater possibilities for women to take on responsibilities for familyfinances,political negotiations etc. 137

The public home If we take a final step inside the domestic space, the picture of domestic and public as gender-segregated spaces also dissolves there. Still in Roman times, the house was not only a place where one ate and slept, but in many cases also the place where one worked — both men and women. If women are represented as staying at home, this could in many instances be where most of the men stayed, too.41 Andrew Wallace-Hadrill42 argues, in a passage on the differences between Greek and Roman household architecture, that in Roman society: "the home was a locus of public life. A public figure went home not so much in order to shield himself from the public gaze, as to present himself to it in the best light."

He continues further down: "We are dealing rather with a spectrum that ranges from the completely public to the completely private, and with an architectural and decorative language which seeks to establish relativities along the spectrum. One space is more or less open or intimate in relation to the other spaces around it, and it is contrasts of shape and decoration that establish such relativities. The pattern of Roman social life admitted numerous and subtle grades of relative privacy; in which, it must be apparent, greater privacy represented not a descent in the scale, but an ascent in privilege, an advance towards intimacy with the paterfamilias.''

Worth noting is, first, that greater privacy represented an advance towards intimacy with the paterfamilias, not with the matron. Second, greater privacy also represented greater significance and power. Therefore, domestic space could also be represented as male space: again the male 'owned' and valorized the space, created boundaries and to a great extent defined the rules. Third, confidential business and planning of political strategies also counted as 'intimacy'. The Roman house was not private by modern standards.

41

It is also important to remember that far from everybody had a place or house we would consider a 'home', with facilities for 'domestic' or 'private' life. 42 Wallace-Hadrill 1988, 46, 58.

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Conclusion When writing the history of ancient city spaces, or the social history of ancient women, we should also put together the dispersed references to women in the public space and see if they form a pattern — or patterns. Such women should not be treated as scattered anomalies just because they do not fit into the patterns and stereotypes of women expressed in the main body of ancient texts. Women walk in and out of the state of invisibility; they are visible in some texts, invisible in others. It is important to make visible in the texts we produce not only those we know were there through small glimpses in the ancient texts (Junia Theodora, Priska and Phoibe), but also those nameless female bodies who simply were there and formed part of the unarticulated context of public discourse — slaves, prostitutes, freeborn women working in all spheres of the city. To read the fragmentary information about women in public space as exceptions and anomalies; to write about women only in the context of the household space or the brothel; or to investigate the household space as the space of women, is to adopt the world view and filtering gaze of the ancient public male. Our knowledge of women in public space teaches us that male authors' utterances on gender and public space must for the most part be read as normative and legitimizing utterances. One cannot at the outset just assume that society functioned according to these rules. It is exactly because the distinctions were not so clear that it was continually important to create boundaries through discourse. By representing public space as male space, ancient public males legitimized the exclusion of women from power positions, public discourse and processes of decision-making, and secured these privileges for themselves. University of Oslo The Institute of Biblical Research Oslo Norway

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Women in the Classical world, eds. E. Fantham et al., New York 1994.

Foley 1981

Foley, H.P., "The conception of women in Athenian drama', in Reflections of women in Antiquity, ed. H.P. Foley, New York 1981, 127-168.

Katz 1995

Katz, M-A., 'Ideology and the 'status of women' in Ancient Greece', in Women in Antiquity: new assessments, eds. R. Hawley and B. Levick, London and New York 1995, 21-43.

Laqueur 1990

Laqueur, T., Making sex: body and genderfromthe Greeks to Freud, Cambridge, Mass. 1990.

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Women's life in Greece and Rome. A sourcebook in translation, eds. M. Lefkowitz and M. Fant, Baltimore 1992.

MacDonald 1996

MacDonald, M.Y., Early Christian women and Pagan opinion. The power of the hysterical woman, Cambridge 1996.

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Peskowitz, M., 'Family/ies in Antiquity: evidence from Tannaitic literatur and Roman Galilean architecture', in The Jewish family in Antiquity, (Brown Judaic Studies, 289), ed. S.J.D. Cohen, Atlanta 1993, 9-36.

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Epigraphica 2. Texts on the social history of the Greek world, (Textus Minores, 41), ed. H.W. Pleket, Leiden 1969. 140

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Richlin, A., 'The ethnographer's dilemma and the dream of a lost Golden age', in Feminist theory and the Classics, eds. N.S. Rabinowitz and A. Richlin, London and New York 1993, 272-303.

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Richlin, A., 'Making up a woman: the face of the Roman gender1, in Off with her head!: the denial of women's identity in myth, religion and culture, eds. H. Eilberg-Schwartz and W. Doniger, Berkeley 1995, 185-213.

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Rose, P., The case for not ignoring Marx in the study of women in Antiquity', in Feminist theory and the Classics, eds. N.S. Rabinowitz and A. Richlin, London and New York 1993, 211-237.

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Sheid, J., 'The religious roles of Roman women', in A history of women in the West, 1. From ancient goddesses to Christian saints, ed. P. Schmitt-Pantel, Cambridge, Mass. 1992, 377-408.

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Treggiari, S., 'Jobs for women', AJAH1,1976,76104.

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Treggiari, S., 'Lower class women on the Roman economy', Florilegium 1, 1979, 65-86.

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Wallace-Hadrill, A., 'The social structure of the Roman house', PBSR 56, 1988, 43-97.

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Winkler, J.J., The constraints of desire. The anthropology of sex and gender in ancient Greece, London and New York 1991.

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Gunhild Viden

THE TWOFOLD VIEW OF WOMEN - GENDER CONSTRUCTION IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Introduction In 1990 a book on gender distinction caught much attention among scholars: Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud.1 In his book Laqueur launched a theory on views of the sexes which he described as the 'one-sex' and the 'two-sex' model respectively. According to this theory, men and women were seen not as two different sexes but as one, from antiquity up to the 18th century. This is not quite the same thing as claiming that the sexes were regarded as equal: man was the norm,2 and hence woman was seen as an inverted man. As is evident from his subtitle, Laqueur deals above all with the anatomic aspects of sex/gender. He demonstrates how the female genitalia were described as a kind of internal penis, and presents theories on conception from different historical epochs, e.g. that both female and male semen were necessary for conception, even if these fluids were of a different nature.3 Laqueur's theory is thought-provoking in many ways, but it must be kept in mind that it is applicable only to the anatomic aspects of the sexes. There can hardly be any doubt that antiquity, with its strong predilection for dichotomies, saw male and female as different sexes when it came to views of soul and character.4 Furthermore, this dichotomy was integrated in the hierarchic structure with which ancient philosophy distinguished people of different kinds from each other: the freeborn man was above the slave, the patron above the freedman, the grown-up was above the child, and man was 1 2 3 4

Cambridge, Mass. & London 1990. Cf. Blok 1987. Laqueur 1990, e.g. 35-43; 79-88. Aspegren 1990, 21f.

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above woman.5 This division was in turn a result of the asymmetrical structure within society: the freeborn man with his rhetorical and philosophical training made the categorisation, with himself as the standard model. Woman is different, another kind of being. The relation between the sexes is often expressed in terms of dualism, with female as opposite of male,6 but it must be kept in mind that the two are never on the same scale. 'Female* is always subordinate and with negative connotations in relation to 'male'. This hierarchical way of thinking and this structure of domination/subordination is the expression for and the result of a static view of society, where its members are expected to stay in the place given to them by birth, whether due to sex or other factors. The Church Fathers Studying gender perception through ancient texts means studying a male perspective on gender, since the authors of ancient texts were almost exclusively men. It also means studying an elitist perspective, since these men belonged to the intellectual and social elite. On the other hand, this male elite has set the standards not only for its own contemporaries but also to a great degree for posterity. This is true also for the Church Fathers. Their period is a period of transition in the Roman empire, when old traditional values were partly exchanged for new ethical concepts that came in with Christianity. The Fathers were part of this transition, as is obvious in many ways from their writings. They were well versed in ancient literature, even if they often disclaimed the reading of non-Christian authors.7 They were doubtless influenced by traditional social standards, even if they were spokesmen for a changing socio-cultural system, for which they to a large degree created the rules. They often had a solid traditional education before they turned to Christian authorship. It is often evident how moral concepts were taken over by the Christian authors and given Christian expressions, just as pagan temples were turned into Christian churches.8 The name Church Fathers suggests these men's role as codifiers and 5

Viden 1993, 157. Lloyd 1984, 3. 7 Jerome, Ep. XXII.30; Hagendahl 1983. 8 There are numerous examples of this latter phenomenon. Suffice it to mention Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. 6

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founders within Christianity. Following St. Paul, they created rules for Christian behaviour, rules that became very pervasive. Christianity presented ethical norms and new sets of moral values, but its application in everyday life still left much room for interpretation. This became a vast area for the Fathers. Their authorship is exegetical in the form of interpretation and commentaries on different texts in the Bible, but also prescriptive in the form of rules for the Christian man or woman. It is especially in the prescriptive texts that we find the strongest expressions of gender perception. Gender in Early Christianity Gender is an important issue in the early Christian discourse. The gradual development of a congregational life affected the roles of men and women and the relationship between them. The traditional hierarchy between human beings was not necessarily valid any longer, and women had a better opportunity to act as individuals with a larger degree of personal freedom than before. Many scholars have pointed to the fact that women played an important part in early congregational life,9 and it is a common picture to regard women as the introducers of Christianity — women who opened their houses to the congregation, married women who converted their husbands etc. Others, however, claim that this picture is false or at least exaggerated.10 In any case, there may be consensus on women's becoming visible in Christian contexts to a larger degree than before, playing the parts of helpers, sisters and patronesses. Christianity implied a shift of social paradigm, which at least temporarily opened up for a possibility of change in womens's conditions. A change of attitudes is reflected in Paul's famous words: " there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."11

This is of course not a declaration of equality for all human beings in our modern sense of the word, but a description of the spiritual status of those

9

E.g. Portefaix 1988, 167f.; cf. also Rom. 16.1-16. Cameron 1989, based on a study of rhetoric in Christian texts; Salzman 1989, based on epigraphical material; Cooper 1992, based on assumption of rhetorical strategies. 11 Gal 3.28. 10

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baptized in Christ.12 But even so, new tasks within the congregational life offered new possibilities to women. Even martyrdom quite paradoxically opened up for a kind of equality between the sexes: a woman could suffer death as a martyr and gain the martyr crown.13 But these shifts in traditional values also made way for correctives, and the Fathers supplied these correctives. It is in this context that I would like to discuss the idea of a twofold view of women. The change in female conduct could be described in terms of sexual transgression and an approach to or even identification with the male sex. The women themselves may make this manifest through e.g. dress or hair-cut. This transgression evokes different reactions in the men: it might be a good thing for a woman to rid herself of the deficiencies of her own sex and become like a man, if it means that she exchanges her moral weakness for moral strength. But if she puts on male habitus in order to attain male prerogatives it is certainly not something which is encouraged. The case of Thecla A famous example of a woman dressing like a man is Thecla in the apocryphal text Acta Pauli et Theclae. The maiden Thecla gets so carried away by Paul's preaching that she decides to give up her former life and follow him. This, among other things, means abandoning the young man she had been engaged to. In order to do so she cuts her hair and dresses up like a man. This is one of several traits that give evidence of the influence from the Hellenistic novel,14 but her male impersonation also has a new function in this legend: it gives her an opportunity to be active and take initiatives, even to the point of teaching the Christian faith and, perhaps, baptizing.15 At the beginning, her male attire is a protection that makes it possible for her to do things that her new role as a Christian demands of her but that she cannot do as a woman: to move around in the public sphere, without male protection. It might, however, be added that her male attire does not completely prevent her being identified as a woman, and as such she is a target for men's eyes and even for attempts of rape. 12

Cameron 1980, 64. A somewhat broader interpretation is found in Caird 1972, 272-274. 13 Jensen 1992, 239f. 14 Aspegren 1990, 102. 15 Aspegren 1990, lOlf.

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Within time, Thecla's male habitus brings about further changes in her activities: she becomes independent of Paul and preaches in her own authority, as Paul's equal. She becomes like a man, with male privileges and without any questioning of her rights of these privileges. An important factor in the process is her virginity: the prerequisite for her license to move freely in the male world is that she has cast off her femininity in the form of sexuality.16 Only by being non-woman can she be allowed to be like a man. In the text, which is usually dated to the second half of the second century A.D., there is no opposition against Thecla's behaviour, but it did not take long for the opposition to appear. Already Tertullian rejects the idea that women should have the licence to preach and baptize.17 Thecla did, however, keep her role as a holy woman. This is evident among other things from the fact that she appears as protagonist in Methodios' Symposion, the tract on virginity with female participants. But obviously the fact that Thecla gets the status of holy woman does not imply that other women are encouraged to follow her example. The case ofPerpetua Another example of sexual transgression is Saint Perpetua. She is the main character in one of the early martyr acts, Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis. This narrative is of a character totally different from the narrative about Thecla. It is an allegedly authentic story on the martyr death of a group of early Christians, including Perpetua's own story on her time in prison before the execution. There is good evidence for the authenticity of the story.18 Perpetua has been arrested together with other Christians who refuse to sacrifice to the imperial cult, and the narrative describes her life in prison up to the execution in the form of an animal show followed by decapitation. In prison and during the execution Perpetua plays a leading part among her fellow prisoners and she also influences the guards in different ways, e.g. by persuading them to improve the conditions for the prisoners, or even by converting them to Christianity. She also has several dreams of an apocalyptic nature, about her own salvation and that of her family and friends.

16

Aspegren 1990, 124. Tert. De baptismo XVII. 18 Fridh 1968. 17

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In one of these dreams the male identity appears,19 In her dream Perpetua is brought into the amphitheatre, but instead of being thrown to the wild animals she is opposed to a gladiator in the form of a terrifying Egyptian. She is stripped of her clothes and made into a man. This is described with the simple words "I became a man", facta sum masculus. She fights the Egyptian and wins the fight, and her reward is given her by a man dressed in white, whom she identifies as Christ himself. He kisses her and greets her with the words "Peace be with you, daughter". Perpetua gives her own interpretation of the dream: it is not the wild animals that she is going to fight, but the devil himself, and she is going to win that fight. The masculinization theme is not further developed, but on the other hand it is a very concrete masculinization. Thecla changed her outer habitus, but Perpetua becomes a man quite physically, albeit in a dream. As soon as the fight is over she returns to her female sex, which is shown by the fact that she is greeted as daughter. In her description of the fight she also uses female inflected forms about herself. In contrast to Thecla, Perpetua is not a virgin. On the contrary, she has a small baby which she still breast-feeds, and she is worried about how the baby is going to survive if she cannot keep it with her in prison. Her worry is used by her father, who eventually refuses to give the baby back to her. In this way he tries to make her give up her resistance and perform the sacrifice to the imperial cult that is the requisite for her release. But Perpetua does not give in, and miraculously the baby does not crave for the breast any longer while at the same time her own milk production ceases, thus eliminating the danger of milk fever. This detail certainly gives a tinge of authenticity to the text. There is also a description of how Perpetua's servant Felicitas gives birth in prison; the hard delivery which is due to the baby's premature birth, and details like bleeding, breasts dripping of milk and washing after the delivery, lend a certain female perspective to the narrative.20 Perpetua and Felicitas are women in flesh and blood and with genuinely female bodies, in spite of the spiritual comportment with which they face their martyr death. What, then, is the function of Perpetua's masculinization in the narrative? One might of course claim that it is just an element in the drama: in order to fight as a gladiator Perpetua needs male strength. On the other hand she wins through divine support (a rather advanced kind of kick-boxing), which she ought to be able to do even in the shape of a woman. Besides, female 19 20

Passio Perpetuae 10. Passio Perpetuae 15.18. 147

gladiators were not unknown.21 I would prefer to see her masculinization in the same light as that of Thecla. The latter's male attire gave her the opportunity to develop traits that were not traditionally associated with the female sex: initiative, activity, leadership. Perpetua in prison shows similar traits. She is the leader of the Christian prisoners, she is the spokeswoman who persuades the guards to improve the prisoners' conditions, she even receives the task of conciliating a priest and a bishop with each other, albeit in a dream. When she walks into the arena to face the wild animals she does so calmly and with her head raised, which is an important detail.22 The only thing that was deemed suitable for a woman in public was to walk with her gaze directed downwards, but instead Perpetua's gaze is described as so sharp that the audience turns its eyes away from her — and we could fairly expect the audience in the amphitheatre to be rather tough. All these traits in Perpetua lie outside the traditional female scope of activity, and what happens in her dream is that the spiritual masculinity takes bodily shape. In contrast to Thecla, Perpetua can make claim to the male identity without being a virgin. There is, however, a symbolic stripping of her femininity in the episode with the baby: her motherhood suddenly ends when the baby stops being dependent on her milk, which is described as her ceasing to worry about the baby or about pains in the breasts. The ties to the traditional female role of motherhood are broken, she is no longer a mother with a mother's worries and she no longer has a mother's physical body. She is free to divert her foil attention to her death as a martyr and her assumption in paradise. She is a woman but with male characteristics: she suffers the same pains as the men, shows equal or even greater strength and receives the same prize as they. We never hear any Christian criticism of Perpetua's masculinization. In the text no one opposes her leading position in the group of Christian prisoners. There is a hesitation about the appropriateness of giving advice to a bishop, but this hesitation is expressed by her fellow prisoner Saturus and concerns himself as much as Perpetua.23 The anonymous editor of the text praises her for her noble spirit and strength of mind. The only critic is her pagan father, who tries to use her feelings as a mother as a means to persuade her to give up her resistance. He appeals to her femininity, but he never criticises her masculine behaviour.

21

Wistrand 1992, 49. Passio Perpetuae 18. 23 Passio Perpetuae 13. 22

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The twofold view of women A martyr or a saint could be admired for his or her virtues even if it implied crossing the boundaries between the sexes, but this in no way means that the Christian woman generally speaking was allowed that liberty. The Christian writers had decided views on what was to them acceptable female behaviour within the congregation, and they become decidedly negative when they find that women have gained too much liberty. This is especially apparent within the ascetic movement. The main issue for the ascetic man is that all bodily demands must be controlled or even annihilated. This was of course also true for sexual lust, which could be controlled only through the de-sexualization of the ascetic. This leads to a two-fold view of the female sex among the Church Fathers. On the one hand, the de-sexualization leads to a demand for the ascetic woman to give up her female weaknesses and turn to male spiritual strength. This masculinization may be expressed in positive terms. St. Jerome uses expressions like mulier virilis or femina fortis to designate an ascetic woman, while Palladius calls a group of Christian women 'gynaikes andreiae\ male women, since "God lets them suffer the same fight as the men'*.24 This sounds very convincing: only by giving up her sex with its negative connotation of weakness, lack of self-control and unbridled sexuality25 could woman reach the state of mental and moral control that led to her being united with God. The ascetic man had only to give up his physical masculinity: he must be de-sexualized but not feminized. His mental qualities were not to be changed, only improved so as to be as good masculine qualities as possible.26 But this positive view of female masculinity is only valid to a certain extent. For one thing, women are not believed to be equal in mental strength to men.27 Jerome compares the chances of a young woman resisting the temptations of the devil with the difficulties encountered even by an experienced male ascetic, and does not seem quite convinced that the young woman is up to the fight: "If I had such difficulties after all these sufferings, how could a girl living in comfort possibly cope with them?"28 24

Hist.laus. XLI. Viden 1993, 17, 124. 26 Clark 1996, 228. 27 Viden 1993, 114f. 28 Ep. XXn.8. 25

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Secondly, a masculine state of mind might perhaps be acceptable, but this does not imply that a girl is encouraged to dress in men's clothes and go around in the world like another Thecla. On the contrary, she is to stay in her chamber and refrain from contact with the outer world to as large a degree as possible. If you start finding excuses for going out, there will never be an end to it, says Jerome. In his letter to the young Eustochium, in fact a tract on virginity rather than a letter, he warns her about numerous things that could be disastrous to her virginity (in fact more or less everything except praying and reading the Bible). One of his warnings concerns women who seem to be leading a virtuous and ascetic life, but are in reality only interested in showing off their virtuous life. In the presence of others they sigh and talk with feeble voices in order to give an impression of their strict fasting, they dress in dark clothes of coarse material and go around with dirty hands and feet, but under that outfit they hide a filled stomach. Another danger is the male woman: "other women are ashamed of the sex that they were bom to, change their clothes and dress like men, cut off their hair and walk around quite shamelessly with high-bom eunuchlike faces. There are also women who dress in hooded cloaks, like children, and peep out of them like owls." 29

Women who try to escape their sex are thus considered as bad as false ascetics. The theme of falsehood is also brought out by the words on the hooded women: the hood was a way of hiding one's identity when going about on more obscure business. The women in Jerome's narrative seem to believe that it is acceptable for them to go around like men, i.e. to see and be seen in public, as a result of their male attire. They do not go around with downcast eyes but with their heads high. What was in Perpetua a sign of courage and superb mental strength becomes shamelessness and lack of modesty in these women. Jerome's judgement on such women is as hard as his judgement on feigned asceticism. Conclusions How are we to explain the contradictory messages that we meet? On the one hand women have to rid themselves of their femininity to become good Christians and conquer the devil and the temptations of the world. On the

Ep. XXII.27.

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other hand those women who abandon their female sex and turn to masculine dress and behaviour are condemned just because of that. The explanation is to be found partly in the view of body and soul, partly in the view of women in public. A woman must free herself from the mental weakness of her sex, learn to control herself and be free from all sorts of passions. Her body must be de-sexed and de-sexualized: sexuality leads to love for a man instead of love for God, and care for children instead of care for life in heaven. But the woman must not go so far as to put on male clothing: that her body is desexed does not mean that it is allowed to be masculinized. The public sphere was a male domain and thus a forbidden zone for the Christian woman just as it had been for her heathen sisters. She should be seen as little as possible, preferably not at all, outside her home and if she at any time had to go out she should be veiled so as to be able neither to see nor to be seen. The private room should be around her even in public. When she crosses the border between the sexes in order to go out in the public sphere she must be condemned. Thecla and Perpetua are special cases. In antiquity there were women who were brought forward as exempla for other women, and in the same way Christian women could become examples for others. This is especially true of Perpetua, who can receive praise for her comportment only because of her martyr death and her courage in facing this death. Thecla is subject to criticism, at least when people try to present her as an example of women's rights to teach and baptize. Ordinary women should be content with a life in seclusion, in accordance with the ideals of old. By refraining from the weaknesses of her sex, woman could become a good Christian, and this strength could be described as a male quality. But the good Christian woman should be precisely a woman, and not behave like a man. Norwegian University of Technology and Science Department of History Trondheim Norway

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Bibliography Aspegren 1990

Aspegren, K., The male woman. A feminine ideal in the early church (Uppsala women's studies. A, Women in religion, 4), Uppsala 1990.

Blok 1987

Blok, J., 'Sexual asymmetry. A Historiographical essay', in Sexual asymmetry. Studies in ancient societies, eds. J. Blok and P. Mason, Amsterdam 1987, 1-57.

Caird 1972

Caird, G.B., 'Paul and women's liberty*, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 54, 1972, 268-281.

Cameron 1980

Cameron, A., 'Neither male nor female', Greece & Rome 27, 1980, 60-68.

Cameron 1989

Cameron, A., 'Virginity as metaphor: women and the rhetoric of early Christianity', in History as text: the writing of Ancient history, ed. A Cameron, London 1989, 181-205.

Clark 1993

Clark, G., Women in late Antiquity, London 1993.

Clark 1996

Clark, G., 'The bright frontier of friendship: Augustine and the Christian body as frontier', in Shifting frontiers in Late Antiquity, eds. R.W. Mathisen and H.S. Sivan, Aldershot 1996, 217229.

Cooper 1992

Cooper, K., 'Insinuations of womanly influence: an aspect of the Christianization of the Roman aristocracy', JRS 82, 150-164.

Fridh 1968

Fridh, k.,Le probleme de la passion des saintes Perpetue et Filiate, (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 26), Goteborg 1968.

Hagendahl 1983

Hagendahl, H., Von Tertullian zu Cassiodor. Die profane literarische Tradition in dem lateinischen christlichen Schrifttum, (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 44), Goteborg 1983.

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Jensen, A., Gottes selbstbewusste Tdchter. Frauenemanzipation im fruhen Christentum?', Freiburg im Breisgau 1992. Laqueur 1990

Laqueur, T., Making sex: body and gender from the Greeks to Freud, Cambridge, Mass & London 1990.

Lloyd 1984

Lloyd, G., The man of reason. 'Male' and female' in Western philosophy, London 1984.

Perkins 1994

Perkins, J.B., 'The passion of Perpetua: a narrative of empowerment', Latomus 53, 837-847.

Portefaix 1988

Portefaix, L., Sisters rejoice. Paul's letter to the Philippians and Luke-acts as received by firstcentury Philippian women, (Coniectanea biblica. New Testament Series, 20), Uppsala 1988.

Salzman 1989

Salzman, R.M., 'Aristocratic women: conductors of Christianity in the fourth century', Helios 16, 207-220.

Viden 1993

Vid6n, G., Women in Roman literature. Attitudes of authors under the early Empire, (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 57), Goteborg 1993.

Wistrand 1992

Wistrand, M., Entertainment and violence in Ancient Rome. The attitudes of Roman writers of the first century A.D., (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 56), Goteborg 1992.

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Ulrika Stahre

PENTHESILEIA — A DEADLY DIFFERENT AMAZON AND ACHILLES' LOST HONOUR

PENTHESILEA: Gebissen allso wurklich? Todt gebissen? /.../Nicht todt gekusst? /.../So war es Versehn. Kiisse, Bisse Das reimt sich, und wer recht von Herzen liebt Kann schon das Eine fiir das Andre greifen.1

Introduction A myth unique for Europe was created in ancient Greece: the myth of the Amazons, the female warriors. It survived during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and emerged again in a new form due to 'the Greek Revival' in the last half of the eighteenth century. In this essay I will concentrate on the myth's oldest motive, the fight between Achilles and Penthesileia, which ends with her dying and him — too late — discovering her beauty. This episode from the Trojan War was to attract the neoclassical sculptors Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen: they both worked on the motive around the year 1800. It is the changed content of ideas that is my main aim for this essay, not a complete survey of the motive and its different meanings. In 1808 Heinrich von Kleist wrote his play Penthesilea, an exquisite adaptation of the theme of power of love and death, where moreover the roles are reversed — Penthesileia, dazed by Eros, tears Achilles into pieces and subsequently drops dead herself. The play serves as a chronological terminus for this essay, but also as a starting-point. The reversed roles point to the most interesting feature in the myth of the Amazons, that it ultimately deals with 1

Kleist 1992, 601 f. 154

likeness and unlikeness, masculinity and femininity. In the Achilles and Penthesileia story these problems are brought to a head, something I hope to show below. Achilles and Penthesileia: the birth of the myth An Attic black-figured amphora, signed by Exekias and dated to ca. 530 B.C., shows on one side a picture of Achilles and Penthesileia (plate XXI), on the other Dionysos and Oinopion. Different motives on a vase can strengthen or at least allude to one another. I will return to interpretations of the possible connections between Dionysos, the god of wine and ecstasy, and the fight between a Greek and an Amazon. First I want to take a good look at the Exekian amphora. What does it depict, and what is actually its subject? How does it relate to the epic and visual tradition and to other types of Amazon fights, so called amazonomachiesl The picture is dominated by a male figure, Achilles — the name is inscribed — who is situated almost in the middle. In the picture-frame he moves from left to right, bent a little forward, and holds in his right hand a spear that he thrusts through the throat of his opponent. The opponent is a woman, indicated by the white colour of her skin, and here too is an inscription with her name: Penthesileia. She sinks to her knees, and her spear points ineffectively past Achilles. Their weapons are identical: spear, sword and shield. The spears also cross each other. Their helmets are both Corinthian, his covering his face while hers is open. The differences between them are emphasized — adding to the colour of the flesh, which conveys the biological difference — in the fact that he is dressed as a hoplite, while she carries a leopard-skin over her short chiton. The likeness is marked solely by the weapons, and one can even say that likeness is reinforced by the crossed spears. Consequently, there is a correspondence in their identity as warriors, and it is also the fight, the duel, that is the theme of the picture, caught in the moment when Achilles triumphs and Penthesileia dies. The picture on the amphora belongs to a tradition that was ultimately inspired by the oral epics. The story of Achilles and Penthesileia is not to be found in the Iliad, but was nevertheless a part of the now lost Trojan cycle. It is known to us through the epos Aithiopis, which is only preserved in fragments.

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Our story is found in a short summary in Chrestomathia, a text by the philosopher Proclus from the 5th century A.D.: the Amazon Penthesileia, daughter of Ares and born a Thracian, comes to help Priamos in the Trojan war. Achilles kills her, as she 'acts like a hero', and the Trojans bury her. Then Achilles kills his compatriot Thersites, who had mocked and offended him because of his alleged attraction to Penthesileia. This outrage is followed by a controversy between the Achaians. Finally Achilles leaves for Lesbos, sacrifices to Apollo, Artemis and Leto, and is later purified by Odysseus. The Dutch historian Josine H. Blok argues that while the story was born within the epic, it should also be analysed from inside the epic structure. I will briefly give an account of her analysis, since it is the most reasonable and fruitful interpretation I have found. The heroic pattern of epic is roughly as follows: hero — opponent — combat — rite of burial — glory. In this pattern the role of the Amazons is that of opponents. Hence the Amazons are more of a motive than a myth, as they always occur in somebody else's myth.2 The common epithet of the Amazons was antianeirai (equivalent to men).3 Since Penthesileia is given individual descriptive epithets, showing for example that she is Thracian and a daughter of Ares, she can be said to have her own myth, her own pattern. Furthermore, the contradictions in the myth of the Amazons are worked over in the encounter between her and Achilles. 4 The core of the story is the combat, but actually it deals with events before and after that. What is the significance of the combat within the Homeric epos? Blok thinks that the heroes are fighting to defend their group, their wives and children, and to confirm their male identity in the social hierarchy. The combat is preceded by the naming of the relatives: fighting is done literally in the name of the family. The battles are between men of about the same age, and the reputation and skill of the opponent are of great importance for the honour it gives to defeat him. The glory of the hero is thus as dependent on the opponent as on himself. A common identity is also created between the combatants within epic. They

2

Blok 1995, 239-249. Blok 1995, 169. Antianeirai consists of the elements ami, oner, ya and /. And means in the Homeric epics equivalent, something separate but equal — only later does it receive the meaning of contradiction. Aner means a male human being, ya is a feminine article, / the nominative plural. 4 Blok 1995, 217. 3

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fight together and in death they will both be heroes — unless the winner does not plunder and desecrate the body of the defeated.5 A man-to-man combat is not to take place without the two being each other's equals. As an Amazon, Penthesileia is antianeirai and thus equal. The identification between our duelists is reinforced by their names: Penthesileia consists of the parts penthos and leia, Achilles of achos and laos. Penthos is equivalent to achos, meaning 'grief; leia and laos ('people', 'tribe') are the same word, differing in gender.6 As I mentioned above, Penthesileia is presented as a daughter of Ares and as a Thracian. The paternity of Ares is to be understood as a personification of combat, of thumos — the lust for fighting. The Thracians had a reputation for being especially full of thumos. They also worshipped the gods that were later to be associated with the Amazons: Dionysos and Artemis. These allusions to the unrestrained are reinforced by the animal skin which Amazons so often wear, as Penthesileia does on the Exekian amphora. During the sixth century B.C. this skin alluded to wilderness, and specifically to the maenads. One can thus understand Dionysos and the maenads as counterparts to Ares and the Amazons. To depict Dionysos on the same amphora as an Amazon was then not as far-fetched as one would have thought.7 That Achilles is the hero and Penthesileia his opponent is obvious. He represents absolute masculinity, and she is defined by what is like and different from this character. Female and male in the figure of Penthesileia are direct translations of likeness and difference in relation to Achilles. The male components are her origin, Ares, her weapon and above all her thumos. Female are her body, the animal skin, the wound (women were killed through the throat or chest). To sum up, it is the tension between likeness and difference of heroic opponents which, reinforced by the instability of the masculine identity, has been shaped and reshaped in terms of sexual distinction ending in the myth of the Amazons. The problem in this story begins when Penthesileia is dead and Achilles is provoked by Thersites. The killing of Thersites is quite an important part of the original story, chiefly because the consequences are serious. But the content of Thersites' mockery is not available. What exactly does he say? And who is he? 5

Blok 1995, 251-255. Nagy 1979, 69-83. 7 Blok 1995, 265-269. 6

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In Josine H. Blok's analysis Thersites has the key role,, and besides it is the rumour of attraction that has shaped the view of the relation between Achilles and Penthesileia. In the Iliad and other eposes; Thersites is somebody who lacks a sense of decorum and respect for authority. He also uses rough language and, in short, is an anomaly in a system where the order of the universe is hierarchical and embodied by the aristocracy. To understand the function of the Thersites figure, Blok leaves the Greek sphere of culture and finds a possible comparison in Sanskrit drama. Here exists a jester-like figure who is the only one to approach the king as an equal and talk to him as a friend. The comic, earthbound jester/clown complements the elevated and celestial king, and together they create a picture of the cosmos:8 Achilles is forced to leave Troy temporarily after he has killed Thersites, which means that his crime was considered serious. If one understands Thersites as a jester-figure similar to that of the Sanskrit drama, his value and his right to be rude are explained. He is the one who speaks what is not to be spoken: Achilles feels something for Penthesileia as a woman, which suggests that he knew all along that it was a woman he had fought and consequently not an equal. When Penthesileia is dead, thumos and psyche have left her body. A female corpse is left. To fight an Amazon is to fight an equal, but at the death of the Amazon no honour is left. As the masculinity of Achilles is dependent on his combat with an equal, it has to remain concealed that his opponent was a woman. Thus, Thersites is questioning the masculine identity of Achilles. Then the core of the myth, following Blok, was from the beginning not that Achilles fell in love, but that he failed to completely hide this fatal questioning of him as man and warrior.9 Exekias depicts the moment before the shame. Penthesileia is still alive, an equal opponent whom Achilles gains honour and masculinity in killing. In ancient Greece she is never depicted as dead.10 This important factor is the only solid one in a very changeable myth. Reaching von Kleist, 2300 years after Exekias, the myth has been transformed into a drama of deadly passion, but the germ of such a creation existed already in the fifth century B.C. The iconographic chronology of Blok is as follows. The motive first occurs on tiny strings with reliefs, decorating the straps which kept the shield in place. These strings date from the last quarter of the seventh century B.C., 8

Blok 1995, 195-210. Blok 1995, 283-287 10 Blok 1995, 235.

9

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and depict different duels, mostly between heroes and monsters. As if to emphasize that Penthesileia did not belong to the monster-group, the order of attack is reversed: instead of attacking from the left, Achilles comes from the right. This scheme was found also on the black-figured vases until the midsixth century B.C., when, as on the Exekian amphora, the order is switched. A hundred years later the combatants have again shifted places, and furthermore Achilles now kills with a sword. Depictions exist with Penthesileia praying for mercy, and even once with Achilles carrying her away from the war. To explain these changes I have to survey the development of the Amazon myth during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.11 Changes in the myth of the Amazons The different themes in art during the sixth century were combats between Heracles and the Amazons, between Achilles and Penthesileia, some unidentified amazonomachies, and Amazons in everyday life — preparing to fight, on horseback, or returning from a struggle. The story of Heracles stealing the girdle of Hippolyte was canonized as his ninth labour, later in that century. By this time the Amazons have received a country and a town, Themiskrya at the river Thermodon somewhere in the northeast of modern Turkey. During the decades around 500 B.C. the story of Theseus and Antiope arises and disappears. Rape was a common feature in the Theseus legend, but in this context it is rather strange, for the rape presupposes a view of the Amazon as a woman. The visual depictions of the myth build on the iconography of marriage, an anomaly in the Amazon myth. The consequence of the rape is the Amazonian invasion of Attica and Athens.12 Gradually the whole myth of the Amazons became an Athenian matter. The fifth century is the era of the great amazonomachies, for example on the shield of the Athena statue by Phidias, at the metopes of Parthenon, and in the Stoa Poikile. It is generally accepted that the amazonomachies were used — but not created — as mythical counterparts of the Persian wars. During the Classical period the Amazons are not only more female in the mythical narrative, as in the story of Theseus and Antiope; their female gender is also stressed in visual art. The artistic interest in the female body — perhaps 11 12

Blok 1995, 224-231. Tyrrell 1984, 93-95.

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most of all the Amazonian — was slowly awakening. This development towards the female continued during the Hellenistic period. Lorna Hardwick has aptly summarized the ancient history of the Amazons in three words: heroes, outsiders, women. At first they are heroes that it takes a hero to beat (Achilles, Theseus, Heracles). Then they become symbols of the strange, of what was not the norm of Greek men. The Amazon as woman is the theme which bit by bit is reinforced. In literature the Amazons finally become friendly women who love to mingle with the Greek heroes.13 The genesis of a theme of love Pausanias (5.11.6) has described a painting by Panainos on the throne of the statue of Zeus in Olympia. According to him the painting showed Achilles holding and protecting the dying Penthesileia. The painting is dated to 440-430 B.C., and was certainly a source of inspiration for a number of reliefs, vases and other pieces of art with similar interpretation of the motive: no longer the combat but the moment after, and warmer feelings on the part of Achilles.14 Such depictions would not have been possible until the birth of the feminine Amazon of the fifth century. Gone is the shame of having fought and killed an inferior woman; instead we find the attractive Amazon. Returning one last time to the literary sources, the change is obvious. Apollodorus (Epit.V, 1-2; second century A.D.) sketches the scenario as follows. By mistake Penthesileia kills Hippolyte/Antiope, and she comes to Priamos to be purified. She joins the battle and kills many Achaians before being killed by Achilles. He falls in love with her when she is dead, and finally he also kills Thersites. Clearly Apollodorus weaves together the story of Theseus and Antiope with the one of Penthesileia. Earlier the theme of love was an accusation of fighting an inferior; now the rumour is a fact. The role of Thersites is defused, and the question whether Achilles has to leave Troy or not is no longer relevant. In fact, the murder in Apollodorus* version can be viewed with modern eyes: Thersites touched the sensitive spot.15 The change is also due to the fact that love, eros, had gained a positive content during the Hellenistic/Roman periods (in Classical antiquity the lover 13 14 15

Hardwick 1990, 14-23. Berger 1994, 305. Blok 1995, 198f.

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was a victim of the beloved).16 The whole suite later described by Apollodorus exists also in visual depictions: the purification of Penthesileia, her death, a mourning Achilles and - especially in the case of Achilles - the theme of immortality. The motive was a popular one on sarcophagi from this time until the third century A.D. On a famous sarcophagus in the Vatican Museum in Rome we can see a surface crowded by a depiction of war (plate XXII:1). In the center are Achilles and Penthesileia. He is holding her and simultaneously looks around. The group is emphasized through its size and placement. It is in the middle of chaos, and there is a contrast between the two and the combat around them. The relief is deeply cut with many overlappings, a drama on the edge. Here the motive is not, any more than in the epic, a private drama. It takes place in a clearly defined context, even if the content is a bit changed since the Archaic period. But the fact that Achilles and Penthesileia are still part of a combat is something to keep in mind while watching the neoclassical depictions of the motive: they are private, isolated arrangements. That the group was popular on sarcophagi is a sign of the view of love and death, of hope for an afterlife. The theme here is that love conquers death, which makes the story of Achilles and Penthesileia equivalent to myths like those of Orpheus and Eurydike, Eros and Psyche, Alcestis and Heracles. Starting by being a threat for Achilles, Penthesileia became a playmate, a lover, and the group paradoxically a symbol of hope, harmony and reconciliation.17 The development after antiquity In the Greek Revival of the mid-eighteenth century the Amazon gained a new life. At the end of that century and the beginning of the next, she is depicted in a way relatively similar to the ancient. During the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque, the Amazons* myth survived in sometimes grotesque forms. Their wealth, their monstrous animals and their mating dances were widely known in different kinds of adventure

16 17

Blok 1995, 287. Blok 1995, 199.

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literature.18 There is not enough space here to take a closer look at the myth during these centuries, and I will move to the years around 1800. Neoclassicism was mainly a masculine cultural expression, both in the motives chosen by the artists and in explicit ideology. The ancient heritage contained among other things the heroization of the masculine and marginalization of the feminine. This is best illustrated in the paintings by Jacques Louis David, where the men most often are active, the women passive — if they are at all included. In the mid-eighteenth century there had also been, if we are to believe the historian Thomas Laqueur, a dramatic, paradigmatic change in the view of the biological sex. In antiquity and through history until then, the biological sex was one: male. The female sex was then just a male one turned inside out, and stories were told of women becoming men because things simply had fallen out. No corresponding story exists of men turning into women — according to the idea of everything striving for fulfillment.19 This 'one-sex model' survived even the genesis of the scientific, anatomical doctrines based on dissection. Laqueur's thesis is that our cultural conceptions of gender underlie our view of the biological sex. It is easier to imagine the opposite, to understand sex as a basis for gender, but it is difficult to find other explanations for the fact that the one-sex model survived in a time when people could have seen with their own eyes that it was not correct. The change that according to Laqueur takes place in the mid-eighteenth century, when the sexes are referred to as being two, ended in man and woman being apprehended as specifically distinct. Biology became an argument for female subordination.20 The reasons for these changes are of course many, both socio-political and epistemological. This is not the place to try to analyse the development. Just let me conclude that the transition from a one- to a two-sex model is a fundamental and comprehensive difference between the ancient and the new classicism. As the myth of Achilles and Penthesileia from the beginning was modelled on a complicated analysis of likeness and difference, the theses of Laqueur are highly relevant in this context. Here I would like to describe and comment on the neoclassical sculptures and sketches before returning to the questions of sex and gender. Kleinbaum 1983, 75-85. Laqueur 1990, 126f. Laqueur 1990, 149f.

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In 1773 Vincenzo Pacetti (1746-1820) won a prize of the Concorso Balestra for his group Achilles and Penthesileia in terracotta (plate XXII:2). Francis Haskell has shown how this group of Pacetti is directly influenced by the 'Pasquino sculptures' in Rome and Florence. These groups were probably copies or replicas of a Hellenistic original from Pergamon, made about 240230 B.C.21 The 'Pasquino group' depicted, however, two men, probably Menelaos and the dead Patroklos. Pacetti changed Patroklos into Penthesileia, created a suffering face for Achilles, and thus made the first classicising sculpture on the theme. It is interesting to note that the sculpture was modelled on an all-pervading male topic, the heroic comradeship of war. Penthesileia is dead and, as in the Archaic myth, deprived of her martiality, her masculine thumos, represented by the helmet and the shield that — almost decoratively — lies on the ground in front of the group. The contrast between the powerful, straddle-legged Achilles and the lifeless body of the Amazon is evident. Compared to the temperate Menelaos of the model, Pacetti has turned Achilles' head upwards, a gesture of helpless lamentation. Already during antiquity the Amazons were depicted with one bare breast, most often the right one. It was the same breast they were said to have burnt or cut off for easier handling of the bow. This idea goes back to the fact that the word 'Amazon' in greek could be analysed as a-mazos, breastless. However, the Amazons are rarely depicted as one-breasted in ancient Greece, or in neoclassical art. Quite often they were shown with a bare breast, a feature recalling strength and freedom. In the Christian tradition, on the other hand, the bare breast symbolizes nourishment; the Virgin Mary is often depicted this way.22 In the sculpture of Pacetti there is thus an allusion to the mortally wounded, but also to the virgin, Amazon. Six years after Pacetti had completed his sculpture, in 1779, the young Venetian sculptor Antonio Canova (1757-1822) arrived in Rome. There he was taken into the circle of antique-admirers. Canova's interest in the motive of Achilles and Penthesileia was not great enough to make him finish a sculpture, but he did make two small bozzetti23 in terracotta in the very last years of the century, around 1798-99, The one depicts Achilles killing Penthesileia with something that looks like a dagger (plate XXIII); the other shows, in the next moment, Achilles and a dead Penthesileia. 21

Haskell & Penny 1981, 291-296. Warner 1985, 277-283. 23 Bozzetto is the Italian term for a small sketch in wax or terracotta, often made for demonstration to the purchaser of the future art work. 22

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Again we have a strong and straddle-legged Achilles and a passive Penthesileia with her head limply hanging from her shoulders. The two bozzetti are mutually inverted, but otherwise similar in artistic expression. The first impression is a strong association with slaughter. It is not easy to recognize the Canova who created smooth and sensual sculpture. The bozzetto depicting Penthesileia being killed makes one think about a sacrifice with the Amazon kneeling, exposing her throat. In the following moment Achilles is holding Penthesileia and watches her as if the struggle is still going on, as if there is a request for his attention and power. Comparing this bozzetto to Pacetti's, there is not the same kind of sorrow and grief, either in the way he holds her, or in the expression of his body. One might suspect a slight feature of surprise — the moment before he understands her beauty. There is however an important difference between Canova and Pacetti, and also between Canova and the sarcophagus mentioned above. The gaze of Achilles is directed straight toward Penthesileia; he is neither watching the struggle around him nor complaining to the gods. Apart from its coldness the bozzetto is thus romanticised, and through its ambiguity it is close to the drama by von Kleist. The Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) came to Rome in 1796 and stayed there until 1838. He soon made a name, and already a few years after Canova he had produced sketches on the theme of Achilles and Penthesileia. As late as 1837 he was interested in the motive and created a tondo in marble. His first bozzetto, from 1801, was in terracotta (plate XXIV). According to Jorgen Birkedal Hartmann the inspiration was the sarcophagus in the Vatican. This sarcophagus goes back to a Hellenistic group, not reconstructed until the 1960s. But the group belongs together with the Pasquino group; they were both composed on the active/passive theme.24 According to the drawings Thorvaldsen made for the group, he strived for a closed composition. The gaze of Achilles is again only directed towards Penthesileia; it stays within the group, not looking for enemies. Their bodies relate to one another as on the sarcophagus and Pacetti's sculpture: He stands straddle-legged, and she lies between his legs, her knees bent from weakness. Attributed to Thorvaldsen is likewise a bozzetto in terracotta in Berlin. Here too, Achilles is depicted with the dying or dead Penthesileia. He keeps her standing by holding her waist. She has thus not fallen down as much as in the other pieces of art just mentioned. The contrast between them is also not 24

Hartmann 1979, 124f.

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as great as before; they both wear clothes and their bodies are following each other in a sort of dance. This is very different from the earlier bozzetto by Thorvaldsen, where Achilles is naked and the bodily poses are almost opposite to one another. Almost forty years later Thorvaldsen created a tondo where the gaze and pose of Achilles have developed into something very tender (plate XXV). The couple seems to embrace in mutuality; her hand rests on his arm, and he bends down to her. Compared to the much earlier works by Thorvaldsen, this one is a more narrative picture where a succession in time is depicted, for example in the traits of combat. The shield and the axe of Penthesileia lie together with her helmet on the ground, where also the weapons of Achilles are. Of course the weapons have lost their Archaic meaning of equality. They are not even alike in any detail; on the contrary they seem to reinforce the picture of difference. Comments on the development of the myth The death of the Amazon has different meanings at different times. During the Archaic and Classical periods it means that she becomes a woman and that Achilles thereby loses his honour. In Hellenistic art, Penthesileia is beautiful in death, something that Achilles discovers. In the middle of the combat — because the threat is still there — a couple is born which personifies the immortality of love. In the eighteenth century, finally, the view of late antiquity is again alive; it is a desperate (Pacetti), confused (Canova) or loving (Thorvaldsen) Achilles who is depicted. The proper theme is his reaction to her death. An interest in death, as well as in different types of loving couples, is clearly identifiable in the art of the late eighteenth century. The groups of Mars and Venus by the Swedish sculptor Tobias Sergei, and Amor and Psyche by Canova, are examples; and the female figures in these groups express the gracile, the passively sensual. Penthesileia should also be included in this category of female figures. The first bozzetto (plate XXIV) of Thorvaldsen was planned to be a counterpart to Canova's group Hercules and Lichas, but it was never to be made in a bigger format.25 The group by Canova depicts how Hercules kills the child and messenger Lichas. It is a depiction of outrage, but the sculpture Hartmann 1979, 124.

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also carries other meanings and modes of interpretation;26 The fact that these two pieces of art have points in common at all should mean that the theme of power must be central in understanding them. In the works of Pacetti, Thorvaldsen and Canova the same theme is worked over and over, in the form of an active man and a passive woman. What happened to the equality of the Amazon? Is she still a warrior, or is she only woman and victim? In the Berlin sketch by Thorvaldsen one can see a quiver; in the tondo there are some weapons. One of Thorvaldsen's drawings, where Achilles is armed with a sword, is very close to one of Canova's bozzetti. Thorvaldsen has also tried an uplifted arm. This is a reminder that both sculptors knew the story and did not mix it up with some other mythological tale. The question is whether they at all understood Achilles and Penthesileia as parts of the Amazon myth, since there was practically no interest in it during the period 1750-1830. Earlier, for example by Rubens, and later, by Anselm Feuerbach, amazonomachies were painted.27 During the age of neoclassicism, though, there seems to be a lack of interest. Why, then, was the myth of the Amazons so difficult to cope with? My belief is that, during the late eighteenth century, the process of separating the human being in two incomparable sexes made any transgender myth like the one of the Amazons impossible. The Archaic condition, to view the problem of likeness and difference in the context of combat, was of course gone. The relation between the sexes was however seriously discussed, by intellectuals like Mary Wollstonecraft and Adam Smith. And this relation was analysed in terms both of likeness — that men and women are basically alike: if education were similar the result would be equality — and of difference, as by Rousseau who spoke of the naturally submissive woman/girl. The Amazons were not given as either positive or threatening pictures. But they did survive in the form of allegory; thus the 'Liberty' in the painting of Delacroix could be understood as a late descendant, with her Phrygian cap and bare breast.28 The myth of the Amazons also carried the heavy burden of the exotic as well as centuries of discussion of the truth. Earlier the Amazons were associated with foreign cultures and countries — names like the Amazon and California (after the Amazon queen Califia) originate from the myth. The myth 26

Johannesson 1989. The article deals with different interpretations of the motive in relation to national and political conflicts. 27 Reid 1993, 88-92. 28 Warner 1985, 271-277. 166

was also used in different fantasy-books, with the consequence that the subject became vulgar. As late as around 1750 a chapbook was published where Penthesileia is hewn in half by a fiirious Achilles,29 The interest in and discussions of sensibility during the eighteenth century, involving Platonic love and the sublime, had very little to find in the story of Achilles and Penthesileia. Canova worked with an astonishingly brutal analysis of the theme, and von Kleist succeeded in creating a play of aggression and love. There Penthesileia is indeed close to nature, traditionally female, in opposition to a more rational — but playful — Achilles, yet in her powerful madness she is without any simple comparisons. The origin of the myth was the elaboration of likeness and difference; the unmasking of Achilles led to the myth of him falling in love. It was the ambivalence in the opposition between them that I wanted to discuss also in the later development. It is the dynamism in this play with oppositions that allowed the reversal which von Kleist created in his drama, a dynamism that seems to have been almost invisible for the sculptors of neoclassicism.

Goteborg University Department of History of Art Gdteborg Sweden

Bibliography Berger 1994

Berger, E., 'Penthesileia', LIMC VII, Zurich 1994.

Blok 1995

Blok, J. H., The early amazons. Modern and ancient perspectives on a persistent myth (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World, 120), Leiden 1995.

Hardwick 1990

Hardwick, L., * Ancient amazons — heroes, outsiders or women?', Greece & Rome 37:1, 1990, 14-36.

Kleinbaum 1983, 158. 167

Hartmann 1979

Hartmann, J.B., Antike Motive bei Thorvaldsen. Studien zur Antikenrezeption des Klassizismus, Tubingen 1979.

Haskell & Penny 1981

Haskell, F., & Penny, N., Taste and the Antique. The lure of Classical sculpture 1500-1900, New Haven & London 1981.

Johannesson 1989

Johannesson, L., 'Valdet som emblem', Tvarsnitt 1989:2, 11-18.

Kleinbaum 1983

Kleinbaum, A. W., The war against the amazons, New York 1983.

Kleist 1992

Kleist, H. von, Tenthesilea (1808)', in Sdmtliche Werke: Brandenburger Ausgabe, 1.5, Basel 1992.

Laqueur 1990

Laqueur, T., Making sex. Body and gender from the Greeks to Freud, Cambridge, Mass., 1990.

Nagy 1979

Nagy, G., ThebestoftheAchaeans. Concepts ofthe hero in Archaic Greek poetry, Baltimore & London 1979.

Reid 1993

Reid, J. D., The Oxford guide to Classical mythology in the arts, 1300-1990s, New York 1993.

Tyrrell 1984

Tyrrell, W. B., Amazons. A study in Athenian mythmaking, Baltimore 1984.

Warner 1985

Warner, M., Monuments and maidens. The allegory of the female form, London 1985.

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Mathilde Skoie

SUBLIME POETRY OR FEMININE FIDDLING? GENDER AND RECEPTION: SULPICIA THROUGH THE EYES OF TWO 19th CENTURY SCHOLARS1

Are the poems of the Roman elegiac poet Sulpicia sublime poetry or just amateurish feminine fiddling? Answers to this question have been diverse throughout the history of the poems' reception, and it is still an important issue in modern discussions of them. It is a question central to the reception of Sulpicia in the nineteenth century and, in this paper, I shall argue that nineteenth-century answers to it are dependent on how commentators gendered the author of the poems. The poems 3.13-18 which you find at 'the back' of Tibullus, i.e. in the third book of the Corpus Tibullianum, are written from the first personperspective of Sulpicia Serviifilia, and are nowadays normally attributed to the Augustan Sulpicia.2 That has not always been the case and the question is still discussed.3 Besides being subject of debates on authorship, these poems, throughout the history of their reception, have also been the subject of highly varying interpretations and judgements, and still seem to challenge the modern reader and critic. Thus the poems are highly interesting as a case study for an investigation of classical scholarship, and the symbiotic relationship between philology and hermeneutics: in other words a demonstration of how

1

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual General meeting of the Classical Association at Royal Holloway, University of London, April 1997. 2 The Corpus Tibullianum is sometimes divided into three books and sometimes into four. For the sake of easy reference, I have chosen to stick to the three-book division that seems to be the modem consensus on the issue; cf. e.g. the editions of the text by J.P. Postgate, Oxford Clarendon Press, 19152 and F.W. Lenz, Leiden 1959. 3 E.g. Hinds 1987, 46 suggests that the poet could be 4
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interpretative commentaries can be. My project is to explore selected commentaries on the Sulpician corpus and to read this scholarly genre as text, that is as itself material for interpretation and analysis. I am thus not seeking the 'truth about Sulpicia', but exploring the different approaches and agendas or 'fictions of Sulpicia' that I find in my texts.4 These approaches and agendas are coloured by the different cultural horizons of different interpretative communities and their intellectual contexts. The commentary published in 1835 by Ludolph Dissen and Otto Gruppe's Die rdmische Elegie published in 1838 represent a crucial moment in the history of Sulpician scholarship. Until the seventeenth century the poems were unequivocally treated as written by the poet Tibullus, then Caspar Barth attributed them to a Domitian Sulpicia,5 although the attribution was not widely accepted. The next to deviate from the Tibullan authorship was the commentator on the Tibullan corpus Christian Gottlob Heyne who suggested that the poems in book three were written by different persons, and that it was not unlikely that the author of the Sulpician poems might be an Augustan Sulpicia.6 But despite this novel suggestion, Ludolph Dissen was still very much following the convention when he advocated Tibullan authorship in his commentary. Thus when three years later Otto Gruppe divided the poems about Sulpicia in two parts, one part written by Tibullus (the so called * Amicus' part) and one part by Sulpicia herself, it was almost a Kuhnian change of paradigm.7 What I shall argue is how these assumptions of authorship colour the interpretations. Ludolph Dissen was a professor at the university of Gottingen. He was a representative of the philological tradition of grammatical and critical learning, but saw the goal of philology not only in explanations of language and content 4

I am here using the terminology of DeJean 1989. C. Barth, Adversiariorum commentariorum libri LX, Frankfurt 1624, LIX.16, coll. 2811-2. 6 C.G. Heyne, Albii Tibulli carmina. Libri tres cum quarto Sulpiciae et aliorum, Leipzig 1755. 7 This division in two parts is still the norm. However, which poems belong to which group vary. Poem 3.13 has been attributed both to the * Amicus' or 'Auctor de Sulpicia' and to Sulpicia. This was a hot topic of debate in the late nineteenth century and at the beginning of twentieth. Gruppe attributes poem 3.13 to the * Amicus'. 5

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but also in an emphasis on the aesthetics of the work in question. Otto Gruppe on the other hand was no philologist in the strict sense. He had studied a bit of everything and practised as a journalist. He produced a vast amount of writings ranging from epics on German history to anti-Hegelian philosophical treatises. The only work of his that received any scholarly respect in the academic discipline of Classics, however, was Die rdmische Elegie. This work, unlike Dissen's scholarly and thorough two-volume work in Latin, is not a commentary in the strict sense, that is it is not a text with lemmata and interpretamenta. I still choose to use it here and juxtapose it with Dissen's as a commentary, firstly because it in parts is an explanatory run-through of the poems, and secondly because it became a work that no commentator on Tibullus could pass over in the years to come. Dissen finds no reason to doubt Tibullan authorship of the Sulpician poems — in fact his entire commentary sounds like a defence of Tibullus as the author. At the end of his commentary he addresses his reader as follows: "In the reading of every single elegy I do not expect you to have found anything that with certainty can be said to be different from the Tibullan spirit".8

And in his separate preface he encourages the reader to learn how similar these poems are to Tibullan composition in the elegance of their thoughts and form, in short "how they are worthy of such a poet" as Tibullus.9 Thus his project seems a) to defend Tibullan authorship and b) to promote the high value of these poems so that they fit the genius of Tibullus. He explains the appearance of the entire Sulpician garland as a poetic game. Tibullus undertakes this amusing task (iucundam rem) in a break between his own loveaffairs. Gruppe's project is completely different, as he states from the beginning that "these poems are real notes (Billets) by the tender hands of Sulpicia'V0 Furthermore the poems are, in Gruppe's opinion, clearly amateurish: 8

"Perlectis singulis elegidiis omnibus non spero te invenisse, quod certo dici possit alienum a iudicio Tibulli", Dissen 1835, 459. 9 "Nunc autem ... disces, quanta sit inventionis, compositionis et dictionis elegantia et cum Tibulliana ratione similitudo, quam sint ab omni parte digna tali poeta", Dissen 1835, 426. I0 "Diese sind wirkliche Billets ... und zwar von zarten Handen, von den Handen jener Sulpicia ...", Gruppe 1838, 48.

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'They are just about metrically correct yet not much more. One can see that these do not come from a trained hand; the expression is awkward and the constructions often put together by struggle only".11 In short he cannot imagine that Tibullus could have written this: "not even in an easy note". 12 While Dissen is looking for traces of poetic skill and originality worthy of the genius Tibullus, Gruppe is looking for traces of unprofessionality, clumsiness and spontaneity characteristic of an amateur. While Dissen is looking for traces of Tibullan art to prove his case for male authorship, Gruppe is looking for traces of what he calls weibliche Latein (feminine Latin) as evidence for female authorship. Nonetheless both commentators lay claim to an aesthetic approach. Dissen says that he wants to focus on matters of art, and Gruppe to focus on groups of poems to see their inner logic and art,13 They also share a genuine interest in the poems on Sulpicia. Gruppe offers a whole chapter to the Buck Sulpicia, and Dissen offers the garland a separate preface. These different agendas materialise in three different forms in the actual commentaries: firstly we have clearly contradictory treatments of lemmata, secondly a different emphasis in explanations for them, and thirdly a difference in choice of what to comment on. For examples of these differences we can take a look at the two commentators* approaches to poem 3.16 — the jealousy' or 'unfaithfulness* poem — probably the most difficult poem to decipher. Gratum est, securus multum quod iam tibi de me permittis, subito ne male inepta cadam. sit tibi cura togae potior pressumque quasillo scortum quam Servifilia Sulpicia: solliciti sunt pro nobis, quibus ilia doloris est, ne cedam ignoto, maxima causa, tow.

11 "Sie sind zwar metrisch richtig, allein auch nicht viel mehr; man sieht dass sie von keiner geiibten Hand kommen, der Ausdruck ist ungesuge und die Construction oft nur mit Miihe zusammenbracht'', Gruppe 1838, 49. 12 "Man kann sich nicht vorstellen dass Tibull so geschrieben haben sollte, nicht einmal in einem leichten Zettel", Gruppe 1838, 49. 13 Dissen 1838, Traefatio' or 'dedication' iii-viii; Gruppe 1835, 'Vorvort' iii-viii.

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I must thank thee that now in thy unconcern thou dost allow thyself so much at my expense, that I may not trip in some unhappy fit of folly. For thee toga and strumpet loaded with wool-basket may be worthier of thy preference than Sulpicia, Servius' daughter. But they are distressed in my behalf, to whom this is the greatest cause of pain, that I might yield my place to an ignoble rival.14

While Dissen tries to make this poem as clear as possible, Gruppe exploits its unclarities. A result of this difference is first of all the contradictory treatment of line two: permittis subito ne male inepta cadam. Normally one would expect permittis in me and not de me. However, if you choose to take de me with securus it does make sense. Dissen sees de me as linked to permittis, but as this would suggest a mistake on the part of the narrator — as he says; "this would be understood as a defect in Sulpicia" — he suggests an emendation.15 He changes permittis to promittis since, as he claims, everything is then clear. Gruppe, on the other hand, takes this verse as an example of the clumsiness that he attributes to the female touch. He quotes this line and says: "In particular quod iam tibi de me permittis looks very feminine".16 In the case of their treatment of maxima causa in line six it is possible to see an example of the second category of difference, that of emphasis. Both Gruppe and Dissen explain the term as forensic. But Dissen interprets this phrase as meaning that Sulpicia is fit for a fight, thus he reads the forensic terminology as a characterisation of the power of Sulpicia, and as a subtle depiction of her by the genius of a poet.17 Gruppe on the other hand states that causa is forensic and therefore unpoetic. As an example of the third kind of difference, the difference in choice of what is appropriate for comment, it is remarkable that Dissen slips over the 14 Translated by J.P. Postgate, Catullus, Tibullus and Pervigilium Veneris (Loeb Classical Library), London & Cambridge Mass., 19882( = 1995). 15 "intelligitur enim defectio a Sulpicia", Dissen 1835, 456. 16

"Besonders iam tibi de me permittis scheint sehr weiblich", Gruppe 1838, 52.

17

"Est vero maxima causa nunc ipsa praestantissima puella, maximo certamine digna, a forensibus ducta locutione" (but this is maxima causa; now this outstanding puella worthy a big fight draws upon forensic speech), Dissen 1835, 458.

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mentioning of Sulpicia's name in line four while Gruppe uses half the space of his commentary to discuss the use of the name, Dissen concentrates his philological skills on finding parallels for the quasillaria scortum in other literature and on exploring the irony involved. In fact he does not comment at all on Servifilia Sulpicia. Gruppe on the other hand bases his entire comment on this identification, which represents a link to reality and history, and a swing away from poetry and poeticity. And regarding the term scortum, instead of listing parallels, Gruppe comments that this is a word one would not like to hear from 'a lady of today'. This observation is also a swing away from literature, this time into the realm of the reality represented by contemporary rather than ancient women. These differences and these agendas also reflect the intellectual environment of early nineteenth-century Germany. Within less than a century Germany sees a movement from Classicism via the Enlightment to Romanticism, changes that all bear an impact on the way one approaches a text. Two trends seem particularly relevant to our two texts: the development of hermeneutics and aesthetics, and the new focus on women and the rise of literature written by women — both trends clearly represented in classical scholarship.18 In German academic criticism at this time there was a shift away from the model provided by Quintilian and the classicistic rhetorical understanding of poetics as a system of appropriate language — a movement from a concept of the ars bene dicendi to an aesthetics with room for such concepts as taste. The 'beautiful' was no longer what corresponded to poetic rules, but what was universally pleasing. And this emphasis on the universally pleasing brought the "beautiful" into the realm of the arbitrary and created an interest in the interpretational act itself. In fact Dissen explicitly claims that the work of Tibullus needs a hermeneutician,19 Parallel with this development in the academic sphere came an interest in the reading public and a rise in literary criticism in the form of book reviews in journals and elsewhere. Such reviews were written for a market and emphasised the pleasing — not necessarily the canonical. The result of this was a new way of looking at a text, and accordingly a need for a new way to legitimise the classics. One could not just 18 The founding fathers of hermeneutics — Friedrich Ast, Friedrich August Wolf and even Friedrich Schleiermacher — are all important names in the history of classical scholarship. For the rather widespread occupation with women in antiquity, see Katz 1995, 22-29. 19

Dissen 1835, v.

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praise their admirable Latin or paradigmatic status, their aesthetic value had to be proved. That women actually played a role in intellectual or cultural society is also a part of the picture of German romanticism.20 There was in this period an enormous growth in the literature written by women, and the salon of the writer Rahel Varnhagen brought together people like Schleiermacher, Goethe, Humboldt, and others.21 The female writers seem to have brought in a new genre — the epistolary novel — and a new mode of feeling that was taken in by the Sturm und Drang movement. In the political arena characters like Mary Wollstonecraft had made themselves heard.22 Another route into the realm of women for classicists was the new found interest in the daily life of Greece and Rome triggered, most notably, by the discoveries in Pompeii. The multitalented Carl August Boettiger published a book about a Roman woman's morning toilette, Sabina oder Morgenszenen in Putzzimmer einer reichen Romerin, which was such a great commercial success that he even had to write a follow-up; Sabina in the bay of Naples.23 Both Dissen and Gruppe claim to use an aesthetic approach and offer specific aesthetic judgements. However, as Gruppe remarks, Dissen seems to be hanging on to traditional rhetorical values.24 In the case of the Sulpicia 20

According to John Updike's article 'On "the seducer's diar"\ NY Review 29.05.1997, 28: "Women were both the objects of romantic desire and, in their susceptibility to love, Romanticism's foremost practitioners. Female psychology became an object of fascination to seducers and their chroniclers". Zantop 1990, 20, talks about a "feminization of culture". 21 "Compared to the search of German women writers during the 800 years of literary history sketched above .... the second half of the eighteenth century witnessed an explosion of literary activity' (my emphasis), Zantop 1990, 19. 22 This 'feminist movement' had gone on for some time, for example eighteenth-century Germany had brought forth about two-hundred and fifty books and essays debating the education of women: cf. Petschauer 1986, 262f. 23 Boettiger 1803, specifically mentions Pompeii as a starting point. However, in a previous article 'Waren die Frauen in Athen Zuschauerinnen bei den dramatischen Vorstellungen?', Teutscher Merkur 1797 (reprinted in the Kleinere Schriften in 1837) he makes a reference to what he calls "das neumodische right of women" (sic). The followup, 'Sabina an der Kiiste von Neapel', is printed in Kleinere Schriften III 1837, 243-301. 24 "Dagegen mit den weitlauftigen astetischen Erorterungen, welche der Gelehrte (i.e. Dissen) giebt, konnte ich nicht einverstanden sein, ich kann sie uberhaupt nicht fur

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poems, Dissen has to show his readers Tibullus' qualities explicitly, and these qualities are variatio in thought and metaphors, sweetness and sense — a rather Quintilian view.25 Gruppe on the other hand does not find much poetic value in the poems. Nevertheless, he finds them highly interesting and even grants some of them a certain aesthetic value of their own — but then in a completely different sense than that deployed by Dissen. Gruppe's main interest in the Sulpicia poems lies in the assumption that they provided material and inspiration for the 'Amicus' poet. He compares the relationship between the 'Amicus' poet and the Sulpician poems to the relationship between Goethe and Bettina von Arnim, a writer mostly of literary letters who was generally called a sister of Sappho and was seen by the poet Rilke as the paragon of the ever-loving woman.26 Gruppe sees the 'Amicus' and Sulpician poems in the light of the fact that Goethe used Bettina von Arnim's letters as material for his Sonnets.27 With this in mind, he praises the two last Sulpician poems — 3.17 and 3.18 — for being spontaneous and fall of fire and soul. However, these poems are not art any longer, but pure nature as in Schiller's definition of naive poetry.28 Gruppe thus distinguishes between the 'Amicus' poems as sentimental and the Sulpician as naive. On the whole the poems by Sulpicia get low marks from Gruppe — they are not art and are not much more than metrically correct.29 This is not just a matter of aesthetic ideals or the similarity with the Arnim-Goethe relationship. It is also a story of what happens when the canonical author disappears. The scholar is free from stock epithets and judgements, and can actually call poems bad. However, in this case, the critic Gruppe is not entirely free. By attributing the poems to a woman he takes on a new set of astetisch, sondern nur fiir rhetorisch erkennen", Gruppe 1838, vii. 25

I here invoke Quintilian in a double sense, with reference to a general rhetorical approach and to his appretiation of Tibullus in his famous statement about Roman Elegy, Inst. X.93: tersus atque elegans mini maxime videtur Tibullus. 26

Her latest work, Goethes Briefwechsel mil einem Kinde, was publisched in 1835, that is just when these works by Gruppe and Dissen were written. 27 "Aehnlich hat Gruppe bekanntlich aus Bettinas Briefen Sonnette gemacht" (In the same way Goethe made the Sonnetts from Bettina's letters), Gruppe 1838, 56. 28

Schillers seminal work, Uber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, was published in 1795. 29

Cf. above and note 11.

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values, that is the stock epithets and the evaluation of writing by a 'lady'. And the poems are treated accordingly. A reviewer of Bettina von Arnim's Goethes Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde wrote: "if the writer continues in the same vein, she should not be treated as a lady, but as an author'\30 Although he argues that she did write the poems, in Gruppe's writing Sulpicia is never called a poet. As a character she is referred to as a Madchen. In her writing capacity she is only referred to by synecdoche — as a voice or tender hands. Thus Sulpicia never enters the male world of literature.31 Sulpicia — or rather her hands — is writing small letters not intended for publishing. According to historians of women's literature, the female authors of the nineteenth century brought a "new language of feeling, spontaneity and authenticity" into the realm of literature.32 And theirs was a new literature often claimed by its contemporaries to have some "deficiencies of style" or "unusual formulations" or a "lack of smooth well-rounded perfection". 33 Thus the same characteristics as the ones Gruppe attributes to Sulpicia. Another contributing factor for such an identification with contemporary women's writing is the notion of genre. The epistolary genre was one in particular associated to women's writing by the end of the eighteenth century and was therefore a natural point of reference.34 When analysing the poems both Dissen and Gruppe emphasise the epistolary nature of the poems of Sulpicia — whether they are talking about fictive or real letters. The poems of Sulpicia, however, also challenge the critic on points of morality, that is a question of the outspoken female voice and sexual implications of the writing: how far did Sulpicia go? What I would like to call the poems' sexual politics. This is a topic that both Gruppe and Dissen deal

30

The critic was Christian Dietrich von Grabbe (I am quoting from Beutin 1993, 321). This is also shown in the scarcity of parallels to other literature. 32 Zantop 1990, 34. Furthermore the works of female writers "were judged against the works critics labelled 'high art' and were found wanting ...", Zantop 1990, 20. 33 Zantop 1990, 34. 34 "Letter writing had been a prime occupation for literate women from Hildegard von Bingen onward ...", Zantop 1990, 33. 31

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with explicitly. They also both conclude that the poems are in no way shameful or disgraceful. The supposedly naughty or problematic aspect of the poems is contained in poem 3.13 where Sulpicia says that she has been with a man (cum digno ...fiiisse, line 10). The commentators here feel compelled to decide whether this refers to sexual intercourse. But the problem is also the active woman and the passive — in fact mute — Cerinthus. It is worth remarking that this chastity debate is exclusively a phenomenon applicable to Sulpicia: whether Cerinthus has been unfaithful or not in poem 3.16 is of no interest to our commentators. Dissen acknowledges the possibility that Sulpicia might not be an innocent virgin and that the poems might not be strictly obeying the rules of moral conduct for Roman women, still the poems are to be read as art, not life, and are as such not shameful. It is all part of a poetic joke with personae and conventions. Sulpicia as a character is not to be compared to contemporary real-life women or Augustan noble puellae as her passion is painted "with stronger colour like in poetry".35 Again Dissen is emphasising the poeticity of the discourse. In the case of 3.13, however, this is much the same strategy used by Gruppe, as he attributes the poem not to Sulpicia but to Tibullus. He too emphasises the poetics of this poem — in the story lies material for an histoire scandaleuse, but the male poet makes this into higher art. The gendering of the writing by the commentators thus seems to imply two different sets of values. If the poems are poetic and written by a man they conform to the rules of poetry. If they are written by a woman — as Gruppe argues for the other poems in the cycle — they are part of reality and treated differently. A female voice ventriloquised by a man in a poetic setting seems immediately the most acceptable account of poem 3.13.36 On the whole there is a strong pull in these nineteenth-century commentaries towards a chaste Sulpicia. The interest in women — both ancient and contemporary — makes the issue highly relevant. The findings at Pompeii and the fictional work about Miss-every-day Roman Sabina by Boettiger both offer a rather immoral and frivolous view of Roman women. Boettiger even warns his female readers that they might blush at certain

"ardentiori colore ignes Sulpiciae depinxit ut in poesi", Dissen 1835, 428. One is tempted to compare this to Edith HalFs remark in the case of performing Medea and the popularity of the transvestite actor Frederick Robson — that the child-killing is not as problematic when the actor playing Medea is a male (The archetypal anti-mother1, TLS 14.02.1997,4). 36

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scenes.37 It appears important to the commentators to save Sulpicia from Boettiger and this view of Roman women. On the other hand there seems to be a reluctance to identify Sulpicia with other women in Roman elegy. It is remarkable that hardly one comparison occurs with Cynthia or Delia throughout Dissen's and Gruppe's accounts.38 What seems to distinguish Sulpicia from the elegiac puellae seems to be her real name and the concept of class.39 Her nobility and wealth are nearly stock epithets in Gruppe — die edle reiche Rdmerin. In opposition to Boettiger's Sabina who is noble but unreal, and the elegiac puellae who are poetic and 'not so high society',40 Sulpicia is a patrician placed in history by Gruppe as the granddaughter of Cicero's friend Servius Sulpicius.41 The interest in women runs through Gruppe's text. It is the femininity of the young, blushing, noble and rich Sulpicia that seems to be the main interest — not the genius poet Tibullus that Dissen is seeking or Sulpicia as author. The Nachleben that Gruppe's study underwent emphasises this interest even more.42 Gruppe does outline a feminine Latinity based on three pillars — the so-called constructio ad sensum, filling words like iam and odd passages in general43 — but I tend to agree with Nick Lowe in that Gruppe was not drawing the outline of a feminine grammar per se.44 What he was trying to do was to find traces of femininity in ways of thought. However, his concept

37

Boettiger is mentioned by Dissen 1835, 457, not in relation to Sulpicia but to the prostitute in poem 3.16. 38 When for example Gruppe comments on the term docta puella he links this to the Muses and not to Cynthia. 39 1 here use 'elegiac puella' as a term for the female beloveds in Roman elegy in the way it is used e.g. in Wyke 1987 and Sharrock 1991. 40 Cf. Veyne 1988, 67-85 on the status of the 'elegiac puella\ 41 Cf. e.g. W.Kroll, 'Sulpicia' (114), RE, Reihe 2, IV. A.l, Stuttgart 1931, col. 879f. 42 This was a topic taken up by e.g. M. Schanz - C.Hosius, Geschichte der romischen Literatur II, Munchen 19354(1890!) 189-91, and these features are still to be read in F. Marx, 'Albius' (12), RE, 1.1, 1894, coll. 1319-29. However, G.F. Hertzberg had already criticised this approach in his Hallische Jahrbucherfordeutsche Wissenschaft und Kunst II, 1839, 1012. 43 On the issue of feminine Latinity cf. Adams 1984 and Gilleland 1980. 44 Lowe 1988, 194f.

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of feminine Latinity was taken up by later scholars and then developed into a feminine language. Precisely this development illustrates the problems which nineteenth-century scholars had to face in their struggle to find a space for women in the male-dominated world of antiquity. It was seen as an anomaly that women could express themselves in the stern, sober and male language that Latin was perceived as. 45 As the Austrian writer Franz Grillpartzer wondered: "is it as difficult for others as it is for me, to imagine that a young Roman woman speaking to her beloved about her passion spoke Latin?" 46 — I think the answer is often yes. A way out, however, is to construe femininity in terms of what the commentators saw in their female contemporaries and/or give women a Latin of their own coloured by this language of feeling as Gruppe did. One could alternatively make Sulpicia a poetic voice in the imagination of a male author as was done by Dissen. In the first case the poems are given a minor value as feminine poetry, in the second a distinguished position as the work of a male genius.

Reading University Department of Classics Reading England

45

And, after antiquity, even sterner as it was the language of the church and academia.

46

"Fallt es jedermann so schwer als mir, sich eine junge Romerin zu denken, die mit ihrem Heissgeliebten von ihrer Leidenschaft — lateinisch spricht?" (taken from Gilleland 1980, 180, who is in turn quoting from H. Hafftner's article in Lefevre (ed.) Die rbmische Komodie, Plautus und Terenzy Darmstadt 1973, 108, where the above is mentioned without a more specific indication of the source).

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Bibliography Adams 1984

Adams, J.N., 'Female speech in Latin comedy,' Amichthon 18, 1984, 43-77.

Beutin et al. 1993

Beutin, W. et al., A history of German literature: from the beginnings to the present day, London & New York 1993.

Boettiger 1803

Boettiger C.A., Sabina oder Morgenszenen im Putzzimmer einer reichen Rdmerin, Leipzig 1803.

DeJean 1989

DeJean, J., Fictions of Sappho 1546-1937, Chicago & London, 1989.

Dissen 1835

Dissen, L., Albii Tibulli carmina ex recensione Lachmanni, Gottingen 1835.

Gilleland 1980

Gilleland, M.E., 'Female speech in Greek and Latin; AJP 101, 1984, 180-183.

Gruppe 1838

Gruppe, O., Die rdmische Elegie, Berlin 1838.

Hinds 1987

Hinds, S., The poetess and the reader: further steps towards Sulpicia; Hermathena 143, 1987, 2946.

Katz 1995

Katz, M.A., 'Ideology and 'the status of women' in ancient Greece,' in Women in Antiquity — new assessments, eds. R. Hawley and B. Levick, London & New York 1995, 21-44.

Lowe 1988

Lowe, N., 'Sulpicia's syntax; CQ 38, 1988, 193205.

Parker 1994

Parker, H.N., 'Sulpicia, the Auctor de Sulpicia, and the authorship of 3.9 and 3.11 of Corpus Tibullianuml Helios 21:1, 1994, 39-62.

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Petschauer 1986

Petschauer, P., 'Eighteenth-century German opinions about education for women J Central European history 19:2, 1986, 262-292.

Sharrock 1991

Sharrock, A., 'Womanufacture; JRSSi, 1991, 3649.

Veyne 1988

Veyne, P., Roman erotic elegy. Love, poetry and the West, (translation of the French original L 'elegie erotique romaine: L 'amour, la poisie et ['Occident, Paris 1983), Chicago & London 1988.

Wyke 1987

Wyke, M., The elegiac woman at Rome,* PCPhS 213, 1987, 153-179.

Zantop 1990

Zantop, S., Trivial pursuits: an introduction,' in Bitter healing: German women from 1700 to 1830. An anthology, eds. J. Blackwell & S. Zantop, New York & London 1990, 9-50.

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CONTRIBUTORS Synn0ve des Bouvrie has studied classical philology at Leiden, the Netherlands, she is professor of Classics at the University of Troms0 in Norway. She has published on Greek and Roman literature and culture from a feminist perspective. Her interests are women writers, Aristotle's Poetics, the cult of Dionysos and tragedy. Her main work is Women in Greek Tragedy. An anthropological approach (1990). Marja-Leena Hdnninen, Phil.lic, is a postgraduate student at the University of Helsinki, Finland, Department of History. She is preparing her doctoral thesis on women's roles in Roman religion. Lena Larsson Loven is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Classics, University of Goteborg, Sweden. She is working with a Ph.D. thesis on the involvement of Roman women in the manufacture of textiles in the Imperial period. She is also teaching courses on women's history/gender studies, and on Greek and Roman art and architecture. Marjatta Nielsen, Ph.D., is a Classical archaeologist, currently living in Denmark. She has written about various aspects of late Etruscan art and society. She has participated in Etruscan archaeological excavations in Italy. She has also lectured about the Etruscans at universities in Denmark, Finland, Italy, the USA and Japan. Britt'Marie NOsstrdm is professor of History of Religions at Goteborg University, Sweden. Her main fields of interest are Greek and Roman religions, mystery religions of the Hellenistic period and Old Norse religion. Ptiivi Setald, Ph.D., graduated in History at the University of Helsinki in 1977. She has been Professor of Women's History during 1991-1994 at the Christina Institute, which is the centre for women's studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She was the director of the Finnish Institute in Rome in 1994-1997. Her research field is female property in ancient Rome. She has also written books published in Finnish and Swedish about women in antiquity and in medieval times.

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Mathilde Skoie is cand.mag. from the University of Oslo. She is presently working on a Ph.D. thesis on the reception of the Roman poet Sulpicia in the Department of Classics at Reading University, England. Her project is supported by the Norwegian Research Council. Ulrika Stahre is B.A. in art history, history of literature and philosophy, as well as having a journalistic education. She is following the postgraduate courses and working on a doctoral thesis at the Department of History of Art at Goteborg University, Sweden. Her subject is Amazons in the 19th-century art. Agneta Str&mberg, Ph.D., is lecturer at the department of Classical archaeology and ancient history at Goteborg University, Sweden. Her research interests include women's history, especially within the Greek world, and Classical iconography. Gunhild Vidin, Ph.D., is associate professor in classical philology, Dept. of History, at the Norwegian University of Technology and Science in Trondheim, Norway. Her research interest covers male discourse on women and the female sex in ancient literature, especially within the Roman world. She is a member of the Norwegian research project The Christian Man and Woman: The construction of a New Identity in Antiquity. Leena Viitaniemi is an historian of religions who has done research on Roman Catholic female saints, and recently on the concept of virginity in the religious context of ancient Greece. She has studied comparative religion at the Department of Folklore and Comparative Religion in the University of Turku, Finland. Among these studies she has included cultural history, folklore, classical archaeology and gender studies. She now works in the office of the Christina Institute for Women's Studies at the University of Helsinki. Jorunn 0kland9 is Ph.D.student at the Institute of Biblical research, University of Oslo, Norway, where she also teaches Hellenistic culture, New Testament textual criticism and Greek. The preliminary title of her dissertation is Notions about cultic Junctions of women in the first cent. Corinth — in the Christian group and in other Graeco-Roman cults.

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INDEX OF NAMES

Achilles 154-167 Acilia Malliola 105 Adonis 37f. Aebutia 116 Aebutius 117f. Aelia Severa 105 Aemilia Romana 105, 107 Aemilia Severa 105 Aeneas 31, 34 f. Akvilas (married to Priska) 134 Alcestis 161 Amor 165 Anchises 33f. Anthony (Marc) 92 Antiope 159f. Antonia Manliola 101 Antoninus Pius 104f., 107 Anu 32 Aphrodite 29, 31-35, 37f., 40f. Aphrodite Urania 3If. Apollo 64, 156 Apollodoms 160f. Arachne 90 Ares 33, 156f. Aristophanes 48, 66 Aristotle 48, 60 Amim, B. von 176f. Arria Fadilla 102, 105f. Artemis 30, 52, 156f. Asinia Quadratilla 104 Astarte 31 Astoret 31 Atalanta 49 Athena 33, 53, 159 Atilia Quintilla 101 Attalos I (king of Pergamus) 30 Attis 35-38, 41 Aubert, J.-J. 104, 106f. Augustus 89f., 122 Aurelia Antonia 105

Bacchus 115, 119, 120f. Barth, C. 170 Blok, J.H. 156, 158 Boettiger, C.A. 175, 178f. Bruit Zaidman, L. 52 Caecilia Amanda 107 Caecilia Quinta 101 Caetennia Chione 101 Califia (Amazon queen) 165 Canova, A. 154, 164-167 Caracalla 105, 107f. Cassia Doris 107 Cato Maior 89 Catullus 36 Ceres 121 Cerinthus 178 Christ (Jesus) 41 Cicero 179 Claudia 88f. Claudia Quinta 34f., 113-115 Claudian 115 Claudii (the family) 115 Claudius (emperor) 41 Claventia Maximina 108 Clemens of Alexandria 40f. Cleopatra (VII) 93 Columella 90, 93 Constantine 135 Corinna 53 Crook, J. 99, 108 Cusinia Gratilla 104 Cybele29f., 34-36, 38, 40f., 112-115, 119, 121f. Cynthia 179 D'Arms, J. 99f. David, J.L. 163 Delacroix, E. 166 Delia 179 185

Demeter 37fM 51 Demeter Thesmophoros 52 Detienne, M. 38, 51 Diomedes 32 Dione31, 33 Dionysos58, 61-65, 119, 155, 157 Dissen, L. 170-173, 175-180 Domitia Lucilla 102, 107 Domitia Lucilla the Younger 103, 105 Domitian 90 Dover, K.J. 54 Dumuzi (shephard; Innana's lover) 32, 38 Duronia (mother of Aebutius) 118

Gummerus, H.. 107 Hades 37, 66 Hadrian 101, 107 Hannibal 30f. Hanson, A.E. 46f. Hard wick, L. 160 Harmonia 65 Hartmann, J.B. 164 Haskell, F. 163 Helen (queen of Sparta) 33 Helen, T. 102, 107 Henrichs, A. 62 Hephaistos 33 Heracles 159-161, 165 Hermaphrodites 33 Hermes 33 Herodotos 32 Hesiod 31 Heyne, C. Gottlob 170 Hippolyte 159f. Hispala Faecenia 115-117 Homer 3If., 35 Horace 111 Humboldt, W. von 175

Enki32 Enlil 32 Eros 154, 161 Euripides 48f., 58-61 Eurydike 161 Eustochium 150 Exekias 158 Fabia Aeliana 103 Felicitas 147 Feuerbach, A. 166 Firmicus Maternus 39 Flavia Operata 103 Flavia Pelagia 103 Flavia Seia Isaurica 102 Flavius Posedonius 103 Fonteius Proculus 108 Frazer, J. 39 Frisk, H. 47 Fulvia (wife of Marc Anthony) 93

Inanna 31-33, 38 Ishtar 3If. Isis 40 Italia (quasillaria) 91 Iulia Albana 102, 104, 107 Iulia Lupula 105 Iulia Saturnina 104, 107 Iunia Antonia 105 lunia Sabina 105 Jerome (St.) 149f. Julian (emperor) 29, 35 Junia Theodora 133f., 137, 139 Juvenal 36

Galen 147 Gardner, J. 103 Gentili, G.V. 71 Goethe, J. W. von 175f. Great Mother, the 30, 36 Grillpartzer, F. 180 Gruppe, O. 170-180

Kadmos 61-63, 65 King, H. 48 Kleist, H. v. 154, 158, 164, 167 Kubaba/Kumbaba 30 186

Laqueur, T. 142, 162 Leto 156 Lichas 165 Livius/Livy 30, 87, 112-122 Lowe, N. 179 Lucius Titus 98 Lucretia 86f., 89

Parthenopeus 49 Passenia Petronia 105 Patroklos 163 Paul (St.) 134-136, 144-146 Pausanias 37, 49, 58, 160 Penthesileia 154-167 Pentheus (king) 61-64 Perpetua (St.) 146-148, 150f. Persephone 37 Phidias 159 Philo 131 Phoibe 134, 136, 139 Pindaros 48f. Plato 38, 48 Plautus87, 112, 120 Plautianus (C. Fulvius) 107 Pliny the Elder 96f. Pliny the Younger 99, 105, 108 Plotia Isaurica 102f. Plotina Augusta (spouse of Trajan) 97 Pomponia Bassilla 105 Postumius 116 Praxiteles 30 Priamos 160 Priska 133-137, 139 Procilia Phila 104, 107 Psyche 161, 165

Magia Marcella 103 Marcius Fyrmus 104 Marcus Aurelius 103, 105, 107 Mars 165 Martial 36 Mary (Virgin) 163 Memmia Macrina 103, 107 Menelaos 33, 163 Menotyrannos (Attis) 39 Methodius 146 Minerva 90f. Minucius Felix 41 Mother of the Gods 29, 35 Mummia Vara 105 Myrrh 37f. Nanna 32 Neratia Quartilla 103 Nereus 31 Octavian 92 Octaviana Stratonica 91 Octavius Alexander 98 Odysseus 156 Oinopion 155 Orpheus 161 Osiris 40 Ovid 34, 114f.

Rhea 30 Richiin, A. 127, 134 Rilke, R.M. 176 Rousseau, J.-J. 166 Rubens, P.P. 166

Pacetti, V. 163-166 Paculla Ahnia (Campanian priestess) 118 Pailler, J.-M. 116f. Pakkanen, P. 50 Palladius 149 Panaionos 60 Paris (prince of Troy) 33

Sabina Sabinilla 105 Sabinia Ingenua 108 Sailer, R. 96 Sappho 48, 53, 176 Saturn 31 Schiller, F. von 176 Schleiermacher, F. 175

Quintilian 174

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Scipio: Publius Scipio 113f. Publius Scipio Africanus 113 Septimius Severus 107 Sergei, J.T. 165 Servius Sulpicius (friend of Cicero) 179 Sissa, G. 46f., 50 Smith, A. 166 Sophocles 49 Soranus 47 Statia Primilla 107 Steinby, M. 100, 107 Strabo 48 Suetonius 89 Sulpicia 169-175, 177-180 Sulpicia (mother-in-law of Postumius) 116f. T. Rausius Pamphilus 102 Tacitus 97 Tanaquil 73, 89 Tarquinius Priscus 73, 89 Teiresias 61-63, 65 Tertullian 146 Thecla 145-148, 150 Thersites 156-158, 160 Theseus 159f. Thorvaldsen, B. 154, 164-166 Tibullus 169-172, 174, 176, 178f. Titia Quartilla 104 Tontius Felix 107 Trajan 97, 101, 104 Trebicia Tertulla 104 Treggiari, S. 135 Ulpia Accepta 103 Ulpianus 106 Uranos 31 Valeria Polla 105 Valeria Urbica 103 Vamhagen, R. 175 Venus 31, 165 Venus Verticordia 116, 119

Vergil 35 Versnel, U.S. 62 Vesta 97 Vibia Procla 107 Victoria 31, 103 Wallace-Hadrill, A. 87, 138 Winkler, J.J. 131f., 136 Wollstonecraft, M. 166, 174 Xenophon 48 Zeus 31, 33, 37, 160

LIST OF PLATES

I. Maenads dancing around the altar and cult image of Dionysos, with double flute (aulos), castanets, and wands (thyrsos). Red-figure kylix by Makron about 490 B.C., found in Vulci. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Antikensammlung, Berlin, no. 2290. II. Same as plate I. III. Maenads, dressed in deer skin {nebris) and ivy crowns (kissos), dancing and handling wine at the cult image of Dionysos. They carry the double flute (aulos), tambourine (tympanon) and wands {thyrsos). Stamnos by the Vinos painter, about 420 B.C. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, no. 2419. IV. Same as plate III. V. Famous theatre seen, the so-called Pronomos vase, showing participants in satyr drama on the other side. In the centre Dionysos surrounded by satyrs and maenads. The maenads are dancing with wands (thyrsos) and torches. All are crowned with ivy crowns (kissos). Volute krater by the Pronomos painter, about 400 B.C. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, no. 3420. VI. Maenads and satyrs in the company of Dionysos, who carries his wine cup (kantharos) and the wine. The maenads are dressed in panther and deer skins, handling snakes and wearing torches and wands (thyrsos). Some are whirling around and characteristically tossing their heads by the neck. Redfigure kylix by the Brygos painter, about 480 B.C. Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, no. 576. VII. Same as plate VI. VIII. Bronze tintinnabulwn from the Tomba degli Ori\ Arsenale militare, Bologna. The reliefs show four stages in cloth production, to be read from below upwards. Ca. 600 B.C. Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna. (From Morigi Govi 1971, pis. 52, 54.)

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IX. A tree-trunk throne from Lippi tomb 89 at Verucchio, ca. 650 B.C. Museo Civico, Verucchio. The carvings tell the story of wool from sheep to cloth, from below upwards, from the periphery towards the centre. The inner side of the chair back. (From Gentili 1978, 245.) X. Same as plate IX. Central parts of the figured scenes. (Adapted from Bartoloni & Morigi Govi 1995, 175, fig. 5.) XI:l-3. Terracotta frieze plaques from the 'palace' att Poggio Civitate, Murlo, ca. 575 B.C. (1) Procession; (2) Assembly; (3) Banquet. The fourth scene, not illustrated here, shows a horse-race. The Antiquarium at Murlo. (From Rathje 1993, 136.) XII. Aphrodite (Turan) visiting the victims of her spell: Helen (Elina) in childbed with baby Hermione (Ermania), while the father, Paris/Alexandros (Elachsantre), is sitting by the bed. The mirror was found at Palestrina, but the inscriptions are purely Etruscan. Ca. 450-400 B.C. Villa Giulia, Rome. (From ES 4, pi. 379.) XIII. A young man's dilemma: the choise between virtue and vanity. Though without inscriptions, the youth can be identified as Theseus, rescued by Ariadne and her thread from Minotauros' labyrinth. Abandoned by him, she was married to Dionysos, to whom the thyrsos in her hand refers. The woman to the right, with a cista containing perfume bottles, is perhaps Helen, whom Theseus abducted. Mirror ca. 300 B.C. Museo Archeologico, Arezzo. (From ES 5, pi. 47.) XIV. No inscriptions confirm the identities of the three persons acting in this domestic idyll, but we may again be dealing with Paris, Helen, and a wingless Eros. The man offers his spinning beloved a quince in order to arouse her sweetness before bedtime, or a pomegranate to strengthen her fertility. Mirror, late 4th cent. B.C. The Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen, I.N. 474. (From ES 5, pi. 149.) XV. Women and children attend a ceremony in honour of a magistrate, whose empty sella curulis is seen on the podium. Cinerary urn of alabaster, end of the 1st cent. B.C. Museo Guarnacci, Volterra, inv. nr. 155. (From Brunn & Korte, / rilievi delle urne etrusche 3, 1916, pi. 91:2.)

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XVI. Part of the frieze of the temple of Minerva, Forum Transitorium, Rome. Late 1st cent. A.D. Photo: DAI, Inst. neg. 77.242. XVII. Funerary altar of Poppaedia Secunda, front side. Museo Civico Avezzano. Photo: DAI, inst. neg. 79.2774. XVIII. Funerary altar of Poppaedia Secunda, right side. Museo Civico Avezzano. Photo: DAI, inst. neg. 79.2776. XIX. Funerary relief of a woman called Spes, decorated with a wool basket (quasillum). Museo Archeologico Nazionale delle Marche, Ancona. Photo: DAI, Inst. neg. 8268. XX. Stele of Blussus, a sailor (nauta), and his wife Menimani, and their son Primus. Blussus himself is holding a bag of money in his right hand and his wife is holding a ball of yarn and a possible distaff. Mid. 1 cent. A.D. From Mainz. Landesmuseum Mainz, inv.no. S146. Photo courtesy: Landesmuseum Mainz. XXI. Achilles and Penthesileia. Black-figured amphora, by Exekias, ca. 530 B.C. British Museum, London. Photo: British Museum. XXII:1, Roman sarcophagus, 200-250 A.D. In the centre Achilles and Penthesileia. Musei Vaticani, Rome. Photo: the author. XXII:2. Achilles and Penthesileia. Terracotta group by Vincenzo Pacetti, 1773. Accademia di San Luca, Rome. Photo: Randi Solheim. XXIII. Achilles and Penthesileia. Terracotta group by Antonio Canova, ca. 1798-99. Gipsoteca Canoviana, Possagno. Photo: Giovanni Porcellato. XXIV. "Achilles og Penthesilea". Bozzetto by Bertel Thorvaldsen, Rome 1801. Thorvaldens Museum, Copenhagen, inv. no. A 777. Photo: Ole Woldbye. XXV. "Achilles with the dying amazon Penthesilea", by Bertel Thorvaldsen, Rome 1837. Tondo, original plaster model, Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen, inv. no. A 496. Photo: Niels Elswing 1997.

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Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature Pocket-books (selection) 1. Astrom, Cypern - motsattningarnas o. 2. Murray, The Protogeometric Style. 3. Laffineur, Les vases en metal precieux a Vepoque mycenienne. 6. Pomerance, The Phaistos Disc. 8. Holmberg, Athens. 9. Merrillees, Introduction to the Bronze Age Archaeology of Cyprus. 11. Astrom, Arkeologiskt detektivarbete. 12. Gjerstad, Ages and Days in Cyprus. 13. Andren, Capri - From the Stone Age to the Tourist Age. 15. Alden, Bronze Age Fluctuations in the Argolid. 16. Peltenburg, Recent Developments in the Later Prehistory of Cyprus. 17. Kromholz, The Bronze Age Necropolis atAyia Paraskevi (Nicosia). 18. Kapera, Kinyras. Bibliography of Ancient Cyprus for the Year 1979. 20. Orphanides, Bronze Age Anthropomorphic Figurines. 21. Skupinska-Lovset, Funerary Portraiture of Roman Palestine. 22. Westerberg, Cypriote Ships From the Bronze Age to c. 500 B.C. 23. Barletta, Ionic Influence in Archaic Sicily. 25. Astrom, Palmer & Pomerance, Studies in Aegean Chronology. 26. Weingarten, The Zakro Master and His Place in Prehistory. 28. Kapera, Kinyras, Bibliography of Ancient Cyprus for the Year 1978. 31. Sjoqvist & Astrom, Pylos: Palmprints & Palmleaves. 33. Sophocleous, Atlas des representations chypro-archai'ques des divinites. 34. Shelmerdine, The Perfume Industry at Mycenaean Pylos. 36. Andren, Deeds and Misdeeds in Classical Art and Antiquities. 37. Hankey, Archaeology: Artifacts and Artifiction. 40. Culican, Opera Selecta. 42. Knapp, Copper Production and Divine Protection. 43. Coulson, The Dark Age Pottery ofMessenia. 44. Nilsson, Cults, Myths, Oracles and Politics in Ancient Greece. 48. Shams, Some Minor Textiles in Antiquity. 49. Walberg, Kamares. A Study of the Character of Palatial Middle Minoan Pottery. 50. Lolos, The Late Helladic I Pottery of the Southwestern Peloponnesos. 51. Crowley, The Aegean and the East 54. Stuart Leach, Subgeometric Pottery from Southern Etruria. 55. Schone, Der Thiasos. Eine ikonographische Untersuchung iiber das Gefolge des Dionysos in der attischen Vasenmalerei des 6. und 5. Jhs. v Chr. 56-57. Astrom (ed), High, Middle or Low? Parts 1-2. Acts of an International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology held in Goteborg 2(f -22nd August 1986. 58. Bliquez, Roman Surgical Instruments and Minor Objects. 62. Psychoyos, Deplacements de la ligne de rivage et sites archeologiques.

65. von Rosen, Lapis Lazuli in Geological Contexts and in Ancient Written Sources. 67. Czernohaus, Delphindarstellungen von derminoischen bis zur geometrischen Zeit 68. Rombos, The Iconography of Attic Late Geometric II Pottery. 69. Tripathi, Bronzework of Mainland Greece from c. 2600 EC to 1450 BC. 70. Mattsson, The Ascia Symbol on Latin Epitaphs. 72. Warren, Minoan Religion as Ritual Action. 73. Astour, Hittite History and Absolute Chronology of the Bronze Age. 75. Webb, Ritual Architecture, Iconography and Practice in the Late Cypriote Bronze Age. In prep. 76. Tsipopoulou, Archaeological Survey atAghia Photia, Siteia. 77. Stavrianopoulos, Untersuchungen zur Struktur des Reiches von Pylos. 78. Overbeck, The Bronze Age Pottery from Kastro at Paros. 79. Astrom et aL, The Fantastic Years on Cyprus. The Swedish Cyprus Expedition and its Members. 80. Astrom (ed), High, Middle or Low? Part 3. Acts of an International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology held in Gbteborg 2&h-22ndAugust 1986. 82. Sjoquist & Astrom, Knossos, Keepers and Kneaders. 84. Weinstein Balthazar, Copper and Bronze Working in Early Through Middle Bronze Age. 85. Gifford, The Geo-Archaeology ofHala Sultan Tekke. In prep. 86. Hjelmqvist, A Cereal Find from OldEtruria. 87. Holmberg, The Red-line Painter and the Workshop of the Acheloos Painter. 88. Kelly Cooper, The Development of Roof Revetment in the Peloponnese. 90. Astrom (ed.), Gunnar Ekelbfoch Gottfrid Wallden, En brevvaxling. 91. Astrom, Gunnar Ekelbf och antiken. 92. Astrom (ed.), Jeno Platthy and Antiquity. 93. von Rosen, Lapis Lazuli in Archaeological Contexts. 95. Lambrou-Phillipson, Hellenorientalia. The Near Eastern Presence in the Bronze Age Aegean ca. 3000-1100 B.C. 96. Papagiannopoulou, The Influence of Middle Minoan Pottery on the Cyclades. 97. Voyatzis, The Early Sanctuary of Athena Alea at Tegea and Other Archaic Sanctuaries in Arcadia 99. Tagalidou, Weihreliefs aus klassischer Zeit 100. Misch, Die fruhbronzezeitlichen Askoi Griechenlands. Eine typologische Studie zur Entwicklung askoider Gefajiformen in der Bronze- und Eisenzeit 101. Begg, Late Cypriot Terracotta Figurines - a Study in Context 102. Astrom (ed.), Brevfran Gunnar Ekelbf. 103. Andersson, Antik ekonomt 104. Hitzl, Die griechischen Sarkophage der archaischen und klassischen Zeit 105. Reber, Untersuchungen zur handgemachten Keramik Griechenlands in der submykenischen, protogeometrischen und der geometrischen Zeit

144. Younger, Music in the Aegean Bronze Age. 145. Save-Soderbergh, Vid vags ande. 146. Linge (ed.), Cypern i historiens spegel. 147. Piltz & Astrom, Kairos. Studies in Art History and Literature in Honour of Professor Gunilla Akerstrom-Hougen. 148. Loader, Building in Cyclopean Masonry. 149. Crewe, Spindle Whorls. A Study of Form, Function and Decoration in Prehistoric Bronze Age Cyprus. 150. Fisher, The Mycenaeans and Apulia. An Examination of Aegean Bronze Age Contacts With Apulia in Eastern Magna Grecia. 151. Styrenius, Asine. 152. Saflund, Vandringar i Roms museer. 153. Larsson & Stromberg (eds), Aspects of Women in Antiquity. ACTA INSTITUTIATHENIENSIS REGNISUECIAE ACTA INSTITUTI ROMANI REGNI SUECIAE ARCHAEOLOGY AND NATURAL SCB3NCE DOCUMENTA MUNDI JOURNAL OF PREHISTORIC RELIGION KLASSIKER MONOGRAPHS FROM THE NORWEGIAN INSTITUTE AT ATHENS OPUSCULA ATHENIENSIA OPUSCULA ROMANA PAPERS FROM THE NORWEGIAN INSTITUTE AT ATHENS THE SCANDINAVIAN JOINT EXPEDITION TO SUDANESE NUBIA STUDD2S IN MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY. MONOGRAPHS STUDIES IN MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND LITERATURE. POCKET-BOOKS OBTAINABLE FROM PAUL ASTROMS FdRLAG, WILLIAM GIBSONS VAG 11, SE-433 76JONSERED, SWEDEN. Email: [email protected]. Fax +46-31-7956710.

GENDER STUDIES OBTAINABLE FROM PAUL ASTROMS FORLAG Paul Astrom, "Approaches to the Study of Women in Ancient Cyprus", in Paul Astrom (ed.), Acta Cypria. Acts of an International Congress on Cypriote Archaeology Held in Goteborg on 22-24 August 1991, Part 2, pp. 5-8. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature Pocket-book 117. 1992. ISBN 917081-015-X. Brit Berggreen & Nanno Marinatos (eds.), Greece and Gender. Papers from the Norwegian Institute at Athens 2. 184 pp. 1995. ISSN 1105-4204. ISBN 82-91626-00-6. Diane L. Bolger, "Engendering Cypriot Archaeology: Female Roles and Statuses Before the Bronze Age", Opuscula Atheniensia XX, P. Astrom Dedicata, pp. 9-17. 1994. ISBN 917916-030-1. Agneta Stromberg, Male or Female? A Methodological Study of Grave Gifts as Sex Indicators in Iron Age Burials from Athens. Studies in Mediterranean Archaeology and Literature Pocketbook 123. 217 pp. 1993. ISBN 91-7081-076-1. This brief, brisk and thoroughly readable Goteborg dissertation tackles a question which has troubled the more thoughtful Classical Archaeologists for a while now: how secure is the traditional basis on which male and female burials have usually been distinguished? Does it amount to anything better than 'arms and the man' and 'the distaff side5? — the method that she will apply ... is a laudably rigorous and logical procedure.

A.M. Snodgrass, The Classical Review.