What light is thrown on Archaic and Classical Athenian beliefs about gender by artistic representations of any one aspect of contemporary life? Illustrate your essay with specific examples.

A great deal of attention has been focused on the role of women in antiquity, in particular those during the Classical Athenian period. It is common for these scholars to regard the social status of women during this period as appallingly low. Many assert that at this time they were considered little better than slave or children, and that they were much worse off than the women of other periods in Greek history (e.g. Cantarella, 1987). This low status was apparently noticeable by their confinement to the home, and almost total exclusion from public life. Many have based their studies primarily on literary sources, rather than material evidence. However, by the very nature of these sources they are often over-dramatized or biased, which can lead to scholars forming a hasty interpretation. The material evidence, actual depictions of women from this time, is highly subjective and interpretations are often influenced by the scholars own literary knowledge. With this in mind, this study attempts to show the usefulness, as well as the shortcomings of artistic representations of women from this period.
The evolution of Greek art and the portrayal of women should first be set against the background of social, political and economic conditions. The Archaic Age, 750-479 BC, was a time when a revolution in Greek culture took place. New political and social structures and artistic and intellectual traditions emerged. Most of the evidence we have about society and women from the Archaic Age is from literary sources written by men. Hesiod and Semonides saw the role of woman as a curse sprung from the first female Pandora (Cantarella, 1987). The Greek household was patriarchal, and most women were denied a public role. The only women in Greece who enjoyed a full public life were the courtesans. Women in art during this time were mainly presented in a very modest but enchanting manner. This portrayal reflected the attitudes of the time.
This is apparent in the Kore from the Acropolis and the Peplos Kore. The maturity of these subjects show us that they are parthenoi. (unmarried adolescent girls) The characteristics that are represented by them are consistent with the Grecian ideas and conception of a parthenoi. According to E. D. Reeder (1995), “A girl on the edge of womanhood was viewed as enchanting; she was to be adorned with clothing and jewelry like a doll, in a manner in which Pandora was first fashioned and then ornamented to be a bride for Epimetheus.” She goes on to state conversely however, during this time it was also believed that young women possesed extreme “sexual curiosity, an almost uncontrollable spirit, and an irresistability to men” (Reeder, p. 65). Young maidens during the Archaic age were expected to behave in a manner that seems to be the opposite of the way women are portrayed as parthenoi. They were to cast their eyes downward in an expression of modesty, shame, respectfulness and submission (Ibid., p. 67). They were also expected to conceal their legs and figures behind the himations and chitons. However, The subjects in the Kore from the Acropolis and the Peplos Kore have direct gazes. The Kore from the Acroplis has her chiton and himation pulled extremely close to her body revealing the bulge of her breasts and her figure.
The Classical Age, 479-336 BCE, was the time in when art and architecture flourished. The Athenian dramatists were the first artists in Western society to examine such basic questions as the rights of the individual, the demands of society upon the individual and the nature of good and evil. Greeks in the Classical Age were still very patriarchal with women being considered subservient to men. Athenian women obtained power only when they became the wife of an influential citizen or could obtain some influence by their relationship to a man. They were still restricted in their activities to within the realm of the family, or in the context of the activity of a courtesan. The statuary of the Classical Age reflected the societal ideals of the time. The nude male body was exalted as the highest king of beauty. Nude women were also depicted in Classical Greek art, but not in the same idealized fashion of the male nude. The Statuette of Aphrodite and the Nike of Paionios exhibit remnants of the Archaic ideal, including, showing sensuality through the fully draped figure. Starting from the late Archaic Age, naked women appeared on Attic vases. However, these women were hetaerae. Respectable women were never shown nude on vases. If they were on a vase, they were clothed. Towards the middle of the fourth century, the portrayal of the female body changed dramatically.
The life of Athenian women at this time is well illustrated by their countless representation on vases. H.B. Walters (1905, p.172) counts approximately thirty separate occupations of women in these vase paintings. These are primarily household and bridal scenes, although there are also depictions of women involved with games and music, as well as religious ceremonies and festivals. A delicately painted lekythos dating from around 440 BC (See Williams, 1993) depicts the scene of a wife’s husband departing for battle. He wears a sword on his belt and holds a spear in his hand, whilst his wife holds out his helmet for him. Between them a goose is visible, which appear to have often been kept as pets and regarded as symbols of love. This image seems to emphasize the idea of the wife existing to serve the husband. She is there to help and prepare him for his duties as a man. A similar vase (Ibid.) shows what a typical husband may have expected of his wife whilst he was away. An upper-class woman is seated in the centre, handing her bay to a servant on the left. Further to the left we see a loom and on her right stands a young man, probably the eldest son. It seems to celebrate the notion that the primary role of women at this time was to rear children and care for the home.
An alternative to the role of wife and mother is illustrated by the images on a vase dating from 450 BC (See Ridgway). This vase depicts a symposium of courtesans, otherwise know as hetaera. In ancient Greek society, hetaerae were independent and sometimes influential women who were required to wear distinctive dresses and had to pay taxes. Composed mostly of ex-slaves and foreigners, these courtesans were renowned for their musical and dancing talents. There is evidence that these women were educated and their opinions were often respected by men. They were not expected to follow the same rules as wives, and many attended actual symposia (Walcott, 1984). To the ancient Greek observer, these figures would have seemed extremely unnatural, as symposiums were an almost exclusively male preserve. They were so associated with the male aristocratic citizen that to show courtesans holding a similar party would have appeared quite ridiculous. These representations of women as prostitutes and entertainers contrast sharply with the depictions of other women on other vases, which show industrious wives weaving or making sacrifices.
A number of red-figure vases produced shortly after 450 BC depict women in scenes of domestic life. G. Richter (1907) examines three vases in particular, in an attempt show off the full gamut of female activities; work, play and worship. The first (Fig. 1) depicts a household scene; the women are conversing and working wool. Spinning is the predominant occupation most associated with women in Greek art. Williams (1993, p.94) notes that in Greek literature the distaff became the symbol for a dedicated housewife. This idea was obviously adopted by vase-painters, the best example being a depiction of a woman spinning bearing the word philergos, meaning industrious (See Ridgway, 1907). Richter’s vase serves to highlight the status of women in Greek society; they were expected to remain indoors and only interact with other women. The women are obviously indoors, as indicated by the fluted Ionic column on a plinth and no men are present in this scene.
The second vase depicts women at play (Fig. 2). Two women, who are both clothed – implying that they are respectable, are engaged in spinning tops. The stick of the whip held by the woman on the left is clearly visible. The image is hastily drawn, but is very spirited. The intensity and physical exertion of the activity is evident, and the energetic effect of the scene is added to by the concentrated look of attention each woman is giving to the game. Richter notes that this game appears to have been played by both adults and children alike (Ibid., p. 423). What makes this vase especially interesting is its implication that ordinary Greek women at this time did not abstain from games or entertainment. It also shows that, whereas men had their own circle of friends, women were not kept in isolation and formed their own friendships.
The third vase (Fig. 3) is more open to interpretation than the first two. On one side a woman sits on a four-legged stool, she holds an unknown object in her hand and is surrounded by baskets of fruit. In front of her stands another well dressed woman, wearing a bracelet, necklace and earrings. The women are obviously of a higher class, and as it is they who are carrying the baskets rather than their servants, we could assume that the containers are made of gold. Richter suggests that it depicts an important religious festival (Ibid., p.420), making it especially useful due to a lack of religious representations of women from this period. This idea is supported by the presence of a satyr and the figure of a winged Eros in the background. The natural explanation is that this is a depiction of a cult in which satyrs played an important part. Richter goes on to suggest that these women are preparing for the Dionysia, one of the more important festivals celebrated in Athens (Ibid., p. 426). He cites the scholiast on Aristophanes, “at the Dionsysiac festival in Athens… maidens carried baskets of gold, in which they placed fruits…” (Ibid.). According to the literature of the time, religious festivals such as this were the one occasion when women were expected to congregate outside.
Like these vases, a similar pattern of images can be seen on ancient Athenian funerary art. This art often reveals as much about gender roles as it does about religious belief. As grave stelae represent living men and women, they provide some evidence of the variety of beliefs about gender in Athenian life. The ideological component of these funerary images can be explained by the concept of death being a right of passage. It is a time of crisis when social values seem to be threatened, and therefore this art provides an opportunity to view society’s ideals of life. It acts not only as a memorial of the individual’s life, but as what was considered the ideal way in which to live one’s life. However, these images should also be treated with caution, as by their very nature they are based on stereotypical views of Greek society. In one such stele (Fig. 4) we can see similar visual elements to the scene on the vases from this period. This contains a seated woman, a standing man and an attendant maid carrying a chest. It probably represents the stereotypes of man, woman and maid, rather than a narrative of the individual’s life.
The stele of Hegeso is one of the best known of the Athenian grave stelae (Fig. 5). She sits on a high-backed chair typical of interior scenes, suggesting in the context of the gender division of the Greek house, this space is feminine. A woman pictured in her own quarters fits with the patriarchal norms of Athenian society. She has lifted some jewelry from an open box, which a slave holds for her. The slave is poorly dressed in comparison to her mistress and seems to be looking in awe at her owner’s presence. The jewelry box and the slave are a mark of Hergeso’s status as a wealthy free woman. Although this seems like an intimate picture, the components of woman, slave girl and box are all familiar. The similarity of this image with countless others supports the idea that this is a stereotypical depiction rather than an assertion of individual identity. We must never forget that this image was produced by men and represents the male ideal of Athenian women.
The adornment of jewels seems to play an important role in defining the female stereotype. There is some debate as to what this signifies. Images of men are often accompanied by symbols which imply action and refer to their everyday lives, yet jewelry does not even carry the same connotations of industry that the images of wool-working in the vase paintings do. Leader suggests that one possibility is that they refer to a woman’s dowry (Ibid., p. 692). The Athenian woman’s dowry was often a significant contribution to her husband’s household, thus giving her status and power in that household. Leader’s view is that the jewelry in these images is a representation, albeit a passive one, of a woman’s power within the family. This also highlights the dynamic between male and female relationships; a girl was ruled by her father until she was given over to her husband with the dowry.
From these examples it is clear how depictions of women can add to literary accounts dating from the same period. However, what may appear to be an archetypal image is easy to over-interpret. One might assume that all women depicted in the act of spinning wool must be respectable, or that a woman who sits on a klismos (a high-backed chair) must therefore be the female head of the household. This presumption is challenged by a late fifth-century hydria (See Williams) which clearly portrays a woman seated on a klismos teaching a young woman, whose nakedness implies she is a hetaera, to spin wool. This idea is also disputed by the image of wool-working taking place inside a brothel, painted on the outside of a cup dating from the sixth-century (Ibid.). In a similar vein, a cup which dates to 470 BC (Ibid.) shows a group of ten women, some seated, some standing, with most holding fillets or garlands. As there are no men present one could imagine that the setting was the women’s quarters in a richer household. However, it is equally plausible that these women are hetaerae preparing for the evening business.
It is evident then that mistakes can be made when translating cultural ideals into social practice. If respectable women did not go outside a great deal, and certainly not to the fountain house, then surely the women depicted as doing so must be slaves or courtesans. Most women in ancient Greece were not of a higher class, so it is unlikely that they had slaves to fetch water for them. The majority of Athenian women must have, therefore, left their homes and embarked to the fountain house to fetch their own water. There is evidence in Aristophanes that free women often congregated at fountains, as the contemporary women did in the rest of the Mediterranean (Cohen, 1989, p.7). In truth there is evidence of women doing a multitude of tasks outside the home, which is seemingly ignored by artistic representation. These include working in the fields, trading at the market and acting as nurses or midwifes. The very idea that in a relatively poor region like Greece, the labour of women can be easily dispensed with is ludicrous. This is another example of the idealism in Athenian art. It concentrates on the role of higher class women, the ideal in Athenian society, and conforms to the stereotypes considered acceptable (Ibid.).
It should be noted that this idealism is not only limited to depictions of women. Images of men from this period are also highly stereotypical of their roles in society. They are shown carrying the military equipment of the hoplite, or preparing for an athletic competition or as bearded older men carrying staffs. The stele of Chairdernos and Lykeas from Salamis (Fig. 6) dates from around 400 BC and shows too young men, both carrying a round shield in one arm and a spear in the other. We cannot assume that these men died in battle, as at this time the Athenian’s buried their war dead every year at the same tomb at Kerameikos. The image of a soldier was a potent symbol of a man’s duty to the city and might have been chosen to commemorate a man who died at the age of military service. These are not images of specific individuals, anymore than the images of women are.
Artistic representations of women can throw much light on Archaic and Classical Athenian beliefs about gender. Images can show the various occupations and duties expected of women, as well as provide some insight into their status in society. Added to literary sources from the same period they can expand and develop our knowledge of Greek culture. They were obviously required to look after the home, but were not kept in isolation as classical opinion would suggest. The various activities depicted shows that they lived lives comparable to most women in Mediterranean society during this period. To say that women were more oppressed at this time is largely an unfair analysis. Men and women obviously had clearly defined roles in society, both subject to various traditions and taboos. However, these images should not be considered ‘snap-shots’ of the time; rather they often represent the stereotypical and idealized views of Athenian life. They were either commissioned or produced to be appealing to the observer. They can therefore be as equally biased as a literary account, and even more open to interpretation.