middle helladic to the late helladic i shaft graves 25 страница

Finally, we should note the function of the bride and wife is to become a mother, for which we can use the term gyne. On a number of wedding vases we see a woman holding a small child, which would look ahead to the ideal result of marriage. The ambiguity of images and the difficulty of interpreting them individually, however, is highlighted by the grave stele of Ampharete that we saw in Chapter 10 (see Figure 10.19, page 254). That image of a seated woman holding a toy bird before a small child seems the perfect picture of motherhood, but we know from the inscription that the image signifies Ampharete and her granddaughter, both of whom apparently died about the same time. Since age was not commonly distinguished in representations of women, this might have been a gravestone made for any of several situations, including mother and child. Whatever the actual circumstances, images of women and children would epitomize the Greek social ideal for women.

women in public

Contrary to the picture of women’s seclusion in the literary sources, women did have important public roles to perform, in civic and religious processions, cult rituals, and funerary rites. In funerals, women were responsible for cleansing and preparing the body of the deceased. At the same time, this is a sign of their inferior status since the risk of pollution from tending to the dead was deemed lower for women than men because of their differing biological natures. The prothesis constitutes one of the first common scenes in Greek art beginning in the Geometric period, and women are the primary partici­pants in this activity of laying out and mourning the dead (see Figure 4.7, page 78; Figure 4.9, page 80). Women were also the primary mourners of the deceased, wailing the threnody and pulling and tearing their hair in grief, whether genuine or dramatic (see Figure 5.26, page 125). Indeed, women could be hired as mourners to make a funeral more elaborate and sensational, a practice that was sometimes proscribed by law. Men typically are more restrained in funerary scenes and acknowledge the deceased through salutes or chariot processions. The still immature nature of non-adult males can be seen in some of these scenes, such as in the gesture of the youth in the fifth-century prothesis scene that we saw in Chapter 5 (see Figure 5.26, left), where he grasps at the hair on his forehead in a powerful expression of grief.

After burial, women were responsible for bringing offerings to the tomb regularly and decorating it with ribbons (see Figure 5.26, right).

We have already seen many examples of women participating in religious processions, whether at important Panhellenic sites such as Delphi (see Figure 7.17, page 174) or at smaller sacred sites with just fam­ily members, as shown on the painted panel from Pitsa (see Figure 8.21, page 202). In the latter, a woman serves as kanephoros and pours a libation from a pitcher over an altar. The taller women behind her wear diadems and carry sheaves of grain, perhaps signaling their status as adults. A more important religious role for a woman was as priestess, which would involve greater r esponsibility for the supervision of ritual, the preparation of participants, and care for the shrine or precinct. While only a few, usually elite, women could become priestesses, the role brought a level of public visibility. The significance of this function is reflected in the statues that were erected in public spaces to honor priestesses. The kore of Nikandre, for example, is thought to have been set up at Delos in the mid-seventh century, where she likely served a prominent role, perhaps as priestess, in the cult of Artemis (see Figure 6.3, page 134).

Nikandre’s inscription does not mention any title and defined her status through her relationship to her father, brother, and husband: “Nikandre dedicated me to the far-shooter of arrows [Artemis], the excellent daughter of Deinodikes of Naxos, sister of Deinomenes, n[ow?] wife of Phraxos." Public statues of priestesses become more common in the fourth century все and later; these more clearly recognize the status or office of the individual. The statue of Aristonoё from the third century (Figure 13.8), for example, was placed inside the cella of the small Temple of Themis/Nemesis at Rhamnous in Attica. The inscription states that it was dedicated by her son Hierokles (son of Hieropoios) and that she was the daughter of Nikokrates of Rhamnous, so there is still some definition of her identity through her male relatives. An important difference from the inscription for Nikandre, however, is that she is identified as the priestess (hiereia) of Nemesis, and so carries a title in her own right. She once held a phiale in her missing right arm, and therefore is shown in the act of making a

libation to the goddess whom she served. The marble statue is life-size and standing on its base would have looked over all visitors to the temple.

We can see further recognition of the public roles of women in funerary monuments of the Hellenistic period. The stele of Phila, daughter of Apollas (Figure 13.9), dates to the second century and comes from Smyrna (present-day Izmir in Turkey). Phila is shown seated in a room with an open cabinet in the background. The two small figures in the corners are not children, but slaves shown in a hierarchical scale. One holds an open chest like that in the fifth-century stele of Hegeso (see Figure 5.28, page 127), while the other holds a spindle, a symbol of wool-working like the kalathos. Unlike Hegeso, Phila does not look at either object, implying that she may supervise the slaves but does not participate in their work. More evocative, however, is the frontal positioning of the head that looks directly at the viewer. Rather than a tableau within the funerary relief that keeps the space distant from the viewer, like the stele of Mnesistrate (see Figure 13.2), Phila engages directly with the viewer and does not lower her gaze. There is no men­tion of husband or children in the short inscription, but the wreath in the attic section of the stele bears the inscription o demos or “the people" This signifies that Phila has received some type of civic honor for her service to the city. Contemporary records indicate that wealthy and elite women could serve as substantial patrons of public projects in Hellenistic cities, and there are records of a few women holding public office or receiving honors for their literary achievements. While these examples are very modest in number compared to those of men, they do indicate that gender limitations and expectations were complex and variable by period and region.

One notable example of regional differences in gender is the case of Sparta. Here the number of citizens in the polis was small, while a much larger population, called helots, labored on the estates and workshops of the Spartans, essentially as serfs. Control over the territory and the helots depended upon a highly trained, essentially professional army whose fitness and discipline could defeat much larger forces. While Sparta’s regime was more authoritarian than the democratic government of Athens, Spartan women were better off than their Athenian counterparts judging by modern standards. There was public education for women, which included exercise. Spartan women married later, closer to twenty years old rather than fifteen, making them more mature and physically fit for bearing children. There were athletic contests for Spartan women, and some of the religious rituals appear to have been performed in the nude or nearly so, as they could be for men.

We have already seen some examples of caryatid mirrors which would have been idealized presentations of female identity, but there is a group of mirrors associated with Sparta that show a nude rather than clothed female figure for the handle (Figure 13.10). The figure on this example is young like the other caryatids, around the age of puberty, and wears elaborate jewelry and a headdress like that seen on other caryatid mirrors whose figures are clothed (see Figure 8.19, page 201;

Figure 10.6, page 242). This nude caryatid holds a bud in her hand and would appear to be making an offering or perform­ing a ritual, and should be seen within a ritualistic context in either case. The sirens next to her are metaphors for her allure, and their singing reminds us that the young women would also be singing and dancing in front of the city. This is a quite different attitude toward nudity and gender identity than in Athens during the sixth and fifth centuries.

Female nudity, however, presents challenges different from male nudity, both for the ancient viewer and today. The Aphrodite of Knidos (see Figure 12.11, page 300) estab­lished a canon of the female nude that was even more popular than the Doryphoros (see Figure 10.7, page 243) based on the number of copies and imitations, but questions linger about the direction of her gaze and whether she is looking downward in both modesty and shame. In the majority of cases, female nudity occurs in scenes of sexual violence, like the rape of Kassandra (see Figure 9.7, page 219, left side), or in more ambiguous sexual situations in which women were not equals with men, like the symposion scene in Figure 13.1. The double layers of clothing on elite women in tomb reliefs and statues show that the display of their body and sexuality was more restrained than that of men.

men and youths: gender and sexuality

Boys went through a similar sequence of stages as children, although rather than being taught the work of the household, such as weaving and cooking, they began to learn a craft or, in more elite families, were sent to schools. Pictures of school scenes were popular in Attic vase painting in the first half of the fifth century and show a teacher (paidagogos) instructing both young boys and teenagers in reading, writing, music, and athletics. On the cup by the Foundry Painter (Figure 13.11) one can see two youths being taught to box, their awkward gestures suggesting that they are unpracticed and new to this sport. The bearded adult man holds a forked stick that is the typical implement of trainers. The youth to the right is winding his hand and wrist in the leather straps of boxers, while a fourth youth appears on the left carrying a helmet and shield. The armor reminds the viewer of the close associa­tion between athletics and military service; training prepares the boys for the roles that they will assume in the city. Similar athletic scenes can also be seen on the ball player relief from a base that supported a kouros statue, probably for a tomb (see Figure 8.8, page 189). Other vases show scenes of youthful activity, including the hunting scenes on the Chigi olpe (see Figure 6.11, page 141). In the lowest frieze, youths and dogs work together to chase and trap hares; in the middle frieze youths ride to a lion hunt, and around the other side of the vase they attack the lion from all sides. As the choice of subjects for the Chigi olpe’s three friezes shows, group hunting and warfare are closely linked, with the scene of the hoplites marching and fighting in the top frieze being the result of the lessons learned from athletics and hunting.

Turning back to the youth with armor on the Foundry Painter’s cup, he seems better developed and more poised than the other youths, and may have moved on to the next stage of becoming an adult. At sixteen, a son was introduced by his father to the phratry or other group or tribe to which

his family belonged. At eighteen, he would formally become an ephebos and would begin military training. By age twenty or so, the young man would be ready for service in the army, whether as a hoplite or as a cavalry rider like the youths in the Parthenon frieze or Dexileos, who was twenty when he died in battle (see Figure 12.12, page 301). Attic vase painting has many scenes showing warriors departing, either bearded adults or beardless men who could be in their twenties (although in reality most men in their twenties would have been bearded, especially when wearing a helmet). On the volute krater by the Niobid Painter (see Figure 9.18, page 232), a youth in armor holds a spear while touching the hand of a woman holding his helmet and second spear. A second woman holds a phiale and oinochoe for a libation to mark the importance of the event for the family and polis. This woman may be his mother since her hair is tied up, but it is generally hard to distinguish visually between wives, mothers, and daughters in these pictures. For ephebes who were orphaned and whose family could not provide armor, the state could step in. Indeed, this intervention was sometimes necessary as marriage and fatherhood came after a man reached full citizenship and legal rights at age thirty. Given this relatively late start to fatherhood, many ephebes and men in their twenties would not have living fathers and their inheritance and the future of the oikos would be under a guardian.

In addition to education and military training, youths also developed social networks through performances in religious festivals and especially through the symposion (see Figure 5.20, page 119). Many of these scenes show a mixture of youths and adult men sharing couches, as in the mural from the Tomb of the Diver (see Figure 10.20, page 255). Here one youth is holding a lyre and embraces an adult sharing the couch. The other symposiasts hold cups, and two of them raise their cups toward an approaching youth on the adjacent wall of the tomb. Singing, reciting, and talking created a close-knit group. The revelry could leave the andron with the symposiasts dancing and singing boisterously in an activity called the komos. These komast scenes appear early in black-figure pottery (see Figure 5.23, page 122) and continue in red-figure work such as the fifth-century kylix by the Euaion Painter (Figure 13.12). One youth provides music with his lyre, while another offers an oinochoe of wine to an adult holding a skyphos. The men at the ends of the scene twist and kick to the music, and the procession carries on to the other side of the cup. This exuberant performance is less scripted and more informal than the type of dancing and singing associated with religious performances, and sug­gests that public display and near nudity were allowable for men in ways they were not for women.

The sympotic scenes not only point out differences in activities and behavior by gender in ancient Greece, they also raise the complex issue of sexuality. While a majority of people are heterosexual, the range of human sexuality is much broader and includes homosexuality and bisexuality. Having children is essential for both society and the oikos; the records of judicial speeches preserved from Athens show that inheritance and ownership problems arose if an heir were not available to the oikos or if the legitimacy of the heir presumptive were questioned. Gender roles helped to prepare men and women for performing these roles, but sexuality does not always align so neatly with gender identity and biological sex. To complicate this further, homosexuality was also linked to the gender roles assigned to men through the institution of pederasty. The exact nature of pederasty has been the subject of much debate, but Andrew Lear and Eva Cantarella (2008, 2) have described the custom as follows: “an adult man in ancient Greece could, with little or no risk of social disapproval, express sexual desire for another male, so long as the desired male was an adolescent (pais), whom the adult loved within the context of the socially codified and positively valued relationship which we call pederastic" In Athens and many Greek cities, adult men who interacted with youths in the symposion, palaistra, school, and elsewhere not only mentored them in training and education, but developed homoerotic emotional relationships with them that could include sexual relationships as well. The social acceptance of homosexuality within pederasty, however, does not seem to have extended to all relationships between men. There were also regulations that were intended to prevent abuse of these functions and pederastic relationships. The asymmetry of this relationship between men and youths is also mirrored by the large age difference between husbands and wives, meaning that age, sexuality, and gender were aspects of one’s identity and that adults could be expected to play multiple roles within Greek society. It also means that adult men might have to take on multiple sexualities in fulfilling all of their social and gender roles.

both heterosexual and homosexual, these are small in proportion to the number of courtship scenes, like that seen on a kylix by Douris (Figure 13.13). The exterior of this cup shows two youths seated on stools with adult men standing before them and another man off to the right. There are lyres hanging on a wall behind and above each youth, recalling music school scenes with adult teachers and their young students, whose paidagogos accompanies them. The net bag, sponge, and aryballos hanging on the wall refer to the physical part of education, but this is not an education scene. The hare in the lap of the youth on the left shows that this is a courtship scene, with the man in front of him offering the gift of a hare to gain his favorable attention. The pair in the center appear more contemplative or in conversation, but the direct gaze of the adults toward the youths signals their interest and effort. It is important to note, however, that these youths do not look back at the men, but lower their gaze. Even though they are the object of attention, they must behave with aidos and show proper decorum in responding to the courtship. As noted earlier, successful athletes were expected not to look at an audience while being crowned, but were to remain detached in their demeanor while receiving the adoring gaze of the spectators. It is i nteresting to note that youths, like women, were to lower their gaze and not respond directly when seen and desired by adult men.

interaction: CLASS, civic, and ethnic identity

The picture from the literary sources in fifth- and fourth-century Athens suggests a strong degree of gender segregation, but the reality was more varied and complex. Beyond performing together in formal rituals, there are many scenes on vase paintings show­ing men and women interacting in other settings or with more animation. A Campanian red-figure hydria from the fourth century, for example, shows a mixture of women and youths gathered in an open setting (Figure 13.14). They wear wreaths and bear several different kinds of objects that might be used ritualistically, and the mood is one that is very festive and seemingly informal. On the shoulder is a woman, perhaps Elektra, sitting on a tomb with two youths standing nearby. Whereas we associate women with the maintenance of tombs and memorializing the dead, it is not always clear that the men and youths we see at tomb scenes are the deceased or living members of the family. Indeed, the Apulian loutrophoros with the grave naiskos that we saw in the last chapter (see Figure 12.19, page 308) shows a youth kneeling to

offer a mirror to the deceased woman; he is the only figure who seems to be attending to the tomb at all. That these examples are from south Italian vase painting and not Athens reminds us that the Greek world was diverse and dispersed, and that civic and ethnic identity also played a role in shap­ing individuals and groups. To conclude this chapter, then, we will look at some other dimensions of identity that cut across the range of gender and sexuality.

We have already mentioned differences in class when talking about the symposion scene in Figure 13.1 or the stele of Mnesistrate. Whereas pederasty helped to shape gender and sexuality for Athenian men, it also established their identity among the Athenian elite, as we saw in Harmodios and Aristogeiton (see Figure 5.9, page 108). Lavish funerary monuments were one way that the elite could distinguish themselves, and we have to consider that this desire to distinguish one’s class was a key patronage element in the development of the Geometric style in Athens. The Dipylon amphora was truly monumental for its time, far larger than any other vase or sculpture and more intricately made and decorated (see Figure 4.7, page 78). Standing in the cemetery, it would have distinguished itself visually and drawn attention to the class status claimed by the family who had set it up over the tomb. While there are many more monumental kraters (see Figure 4.9, page 80) than amphorae from this period, the importance of class is signaled by the inclusion of a large number of women in the prothesis scenes as well as men in the commemorative procession. Later, marble funerary monuments serve to mark elite class identity, whether for Phrasikleia in the sixth century (see Figure 8.13, page 195) or the grave monuments of the Koroibos-Kleidemides family in the fourth (see Figure 5.27, page 126). Indeed, this effort to distinguish class over citizenship sometimes led to laws or policies banning elaborate funerary monuments, called sumptuary laws, since these displays were powerful visual statements against the equality of citizens in the polis. Even when individual monuments were common, as in the relief of Dexileos (see Figure 12.12, page 301), the polis still
exerted its prerogatives by placing the remains of Dexileos with those of the other fallen soldiers in a group tomb, making the monument a cenotaph rather than tomb, but still effective at evoking the status of his family.

Civic identity distinguishes members of one polis or region from others and was a key factor in monumental architecture and sculpture. As we saw in Chapter 10, in the funeral oration of 431/0 bce Perikles asked Athenians to look on their city as lovers while remembering the dead from the first year of the Peloponnesian War. While Athenians and Spartans might have been allies against the Persians in 480, Perikles extolled the greater virtue and superiority of the Athenians. Athens not only acted differently from Sparta, but also looked much greater as a city (see Figure 1.9, page 13). The Parthenon was not just a religious building, it was a symbol of the city’s triumphs and prestige.

Indeed, one could link the succession of temples built from the seventh century onward as a competition among cities for cultural and even political preeminence. At a Panhellenic sanctuary like Delphi, there was competition in the construction of monuments and treasuries by the various poleis to proclaim their wealth, power, or status. The Siphnian Treasury dominated the view from the entry to the temenos when it was built, but lost some of its visibility when the Sikyonian Treasury was built in front of it, but lower down the slope (see Figure 7.2, page 157; Figure 7.15, page 171). When the Athenians came to build their treasury after defeating the Persians at Marathon in 490 bce, they managed to secure a spot at the turning of the Sacred Way where their building would be seen fully on both its south and east sides (see Figure 7.14, page 170).

Another way of expressing civic identity emerged with the development of silver coinage, which, according to Herodotos (1.94), was invented in Lydia in Asia Minor. This probably happened about the end of the seventh century bce, but the idea quickly spread to the Greek poleis as it greatly facilitated trade. Each polis minted its own coins, and consistency in weight and purity of silver would help the economic life of the city. By the later sixth century, poleis began striking coins with designs, and each city chose specific symbols that would be identifiable across the Mediterranean. Athens, for example, had a head of Athena wearing a helmet on the obverse of its coins and an owl on the reverse, while Corinth had Pegasos and Athena on its coins.

sent grain stalks made of gold as an offering to Delphi (Strabo 6.1.15). Thus the grain on the coin not only symbolizes the prosperity of the polis, but refers to its distinctive offering at one of the most important Panhellenic shrines.

Colonies like Metapontum/Metaponto included both Greek and non-Greek peoples as residents, and this raises another aspect of identity that might best be labeled ethnic. Cities such as Metapontum/Metaponto, Akragas/Agrigento, Syracuse/Siracusa, and Poseidonia/Paestum were founded in lands that were already settled by indigenous, non-Greek peoples. The relationship of native and immigrant varied widely across the Mediterranean, from hostility to coexistence and cooperation. At Metapontum/Metaponto, the earliest Greek settlers lived at Incoronata, a site already inhabited by the Oenotrians. At first the Greeks lived among the Oenotrians, but Incoronata was later transformed into a rural sanctuary with the development of the Greek asty and chora by the sixth century bce. Imported Attic pottery bears witness to trade with mainland Greece, but the city had its own pottery industry that began to flourish in the second half of the fifth century, a fabric we now call Lucanian pottery (see Figure 9.11, page 224). At first the style was very similar to contemporary Athenian pottery, but in the fourth century developed its own style and subject matter as it met local needs. The inhabitants of Metapontum/Metaponto included both Greeks and natives, and so we might look at items like grave goods to see how individuals expressed their ethnic identity in that city.