On Women in Ancient Greek Culture, Drama and Education
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Women in ancient Greek culture, drama and education is a question which has been at the centre of the theoretical debate and creative experiences at least from the middle of the twentieth century until today. This paper proposes to revisit this question based on three principles. First of all, it refers not only to the dominant model of Athens but also to other parts of Hellenism, whose political systems may be democracies, tyrannies or hereditary kingdoms. Secondly, it draws its examples from the Greek metropolis of the 5th and the 4th centuries B.C., but also from other places and periods, which cover an area from the Mediterranean to Asia and a period long before and after the classical era. Thirdly, it envisages the question of ancient Greek women not only from the angle of culture, meaning literature and drama, but more generally in all the senses contained in the ancient term paedeia (παιδεία), including education. To clarify the meaning of this last point I would say that I am trying to highlight that what ancient Greek women were, depended in many ways on what their paedeia consisted in and, more precisely, on how they were educated.
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François Chamoux, La Civilisation hellénistique, Paris, Arthaud, coll. « Les Grandes Civilisations » (no 17), 1981, 1st edition.
Pierre Vidal Naquet, Le chasseur Noir, La Decouverte Poche/Sciences Humaines et Sociales, 2014.
Mitliadis Hadjopoulos, Ancient Macedonia, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, 2020.
According to the Βiography of Crassus by Plutarch – 45-47 to 120 A.D. – Euripides’ Bacchants were performed at the Armenian court in 53 BC. during the celebrations for the victory of the Parthians against Crassus. This is the last historical information we have concerning the staging of an ancient Greek tragedy. In the same text, we are informed that the king of Armenia was the author of Greek tragedies).
On the astounding Hellenistic findings of Dr. Sarianidi in Bactria and Turkmenia see Nadezdha A. Dubova “Victor Ivanovic Sarianidi”, Journal of Indo- European Studies, Vol42, No. 3&4, Fall November 2014, with a rich bibliography. Sarianidi has brought to light the connection of the Greek culture with the Kushans, who later on governed the North of India.
Claude Mosse, La Femme dans la Grèce antique, Paris, Albin Michel, 1983; Nicole Loraux, Les Enfants d’Athéna. Idées athéniennes sur la citoyenneté et la division des sexes, Paris, Maspero, 1981, rééd. augmentée d' une postface, Seuil, coll. « Points/Essais », 1990 ; L’Invention d’Athènes. Histoire de l’oraison funèbre dans la « cité classique », Paris/La Haye, éd. de l’EHESS/Mouton, 1981, nouvelle éd. remaniée, nouvelle préface, Payot, coll. « Critique de la politique », 1993 ; Façons tragiques de tuer une femme, Paris, Hachette, coll. « Textes du XXe siècle »,1985; Les Expériences de Tirésias. Le féminin et l’homme grec, Gallimard, Paris, coll. « NRF Essais », 1990; Les Mères en deuil, Paris, Seuil, coll. « La Librairie du XXIe siècle », 1990.
Martin P. Nilson, Greek Popular Religion, BiblioLife, 2009.
Mary Ellen Waithe, "Diotima of Mantinea", in Mary Ellen Waithe (ed.), A History of Women Philosophers: Vol. I: Ancient Women Philosophers, 600 BC–500 AD. Martinus Nijhoff, Dordrecht, pp. 83–116, 2018.
Paul Cartledge, The Greeks. A Portrait of Self and Others, Oxford University Press, 2002.
For the psychoanalytical reading of the Ouranos/Cronos myth, see, among others, Karl Abraham “Dreams and Myths: A study in folk-Psychology”, 1909, in Hilda, C., Abraham, M.D.(Ed.), Clinical Papers and Essays on Psycho-Analysis, The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, London, 1955.
The other face of Hades according to Heraclitus fragment 15.
Such scholars appeared already in late antiquity, but from 1795, when Friedrich August Wolf (1759-1824) published his Prolegomena ad Homerum, the question about the existence of Homer, the authenticity and the veracity of his works etc. became central until today. See also: “Homer”, The Biography.com Website, accessed May 7, 2015, http://www.biography.com/people/homer-9342775#synopsis; “Homer”, The British Museum, accessed May 7, 2015, http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/articles/h/homer.aspx; “Homer.” Encyclopedia Britannica. accessed May 7th 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/270219/Homer.
Modern theatre and film directors have often created shows based on his works. There are many movies based on the Iliad and the Odyssey, some of them of high artistic quality and/or very popular. With few exceptions, theatrical adaptations have not been equally successful.
The famous verse pronounced by Hector in the Iliad 12, 243 εις οιωνός άριστος αμύνεσθαι περί πάτρης : “defending ones’ own country is the best of omens”, condenses the ancient military ideals of Greeks and has become a moto for contemporary Greek armed forces.
On νηπενθές, a drug liberating from mourning, πένθος; see Odyssey fouth rhapsody 219 sq.
Herodotus, Histories 5, 51.
Plutarch, Lycurgus, 14, 4. See Sarah B. Pomeroy, Spartan Women, Oxford, 2002.
Bartolo Napoli, Angela Pits, Judith Hallet, Ancient Women Writers of Greece and Rome, Routledge, 2022.
“The dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Myth-making on the Oresteia” in Peradotto J. and Sullivan J.P., Women in Ancient World, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984.
See above note 8.
Transmitted by Thucydides who informs us it was pronounced by Pericles at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian war.
To explain this apparent paradox, Bernard Knox in his The Oldest Dead White European Males and Other Reflections on the Classics. W.W. Norton & Company, 1993 has stated that on the tragic stage women interpret parts that real life completely denied them.
Antigone 525 “I was born in order to unite in love and not to divide in hatred”.
Marvin Carlson, The Haunted Stage: Theatre as Memory Machine, University of Michigan Press, 2003.
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