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Women's Commensality in the Ancient Greek World
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2009
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Dining and drinking rituals in the ancient world have been the subject of much recent discussion, and the significance of these rituals, particularly for males, has been extensively studied. Scholars have often slighted the topic of women's part in the history of ancient Greek dining and drinking parties, however, and the broad generalization ‘Citizen women were never present at Greek symposia’ is not uncommon. Admittedly, women other than hetairai, slaves, hired entertainers, etc., are not conspicuous in the evidence from which we must draw our history of ancient Greek symposia. The evidence, however, both written and visual, was created and preserved predominantly by males. Also, the view that there was a fairly narrow participation of women often seems based largely on evidence taken from fifth and fourth century B.C. Athens. Yet the roles of women at Greek dining and drinking partieschanged over time and place. This paper provides a survey, with examples, of the variety of women's dining occasions from the Homeric through to the Hellenistic age. The aim of this survey is to emphasize the value of paying closer attention to the female side of wining and dining in our discussions of occasions of commensality in the ancient Greek world.
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References
Notes
1. Useful collections of articles on the ancient symposium include Murray, O., ed., Sympotica: a Symposium on the Symposion (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar; Slater, W. J., ed., Dining in a Classical Context (Ann Arbor, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murray, O. and Tecuşan, M., edd., In Vino Veritas (London, 1995)Google Scholar.
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5. For the use of the term symposium ‘to denote not only the drinking phase but the preceding dining phase as well, i.e. the entire feast’, see B. Bergquist, in Murray (n. 1 above), 37.
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10. See too, e.g., the Codrus Painter's red-figure cup (Vulci; London, British Museum E 82; ARV 2 1269.3) depicting goddesses (seated) and gods (reclining) at a symposium (pictured in Robertson, M., The Art of Vase-Painting in Classical Athens [Cambridge, 1992], 220 fig. 227)Google Scholar.
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15. This argument was advanced, for example, against Neaira, a Corinthian prostitute whom Stephanos, an Athenian citizen, had claimed as his lawful wife (Dem. 59.33, Against Neaera). See also, e.g., Isaeus 3.13–14 (On the Estate of Pyrrhus).
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39. For further discussion of these examples, see Dalby (n. 3 above), 172.
40. On the exclusion of males from this festival, see, e.g., Ar. Thesm. ; Burkert, W., Greek Religion, tr. Raffan, J. (Cambridge [Mass.], 1985), 242Google Scholar.
41. On females presiding at the Thesmophoria, see Ar, . Thesm. 372 ff.Google Scholar, Isaeus 8.19; on males financing the Thesmophoria, see Men, . Epit. 149Google Scholar, Isaeus 3.80.
42. Paus. 4.17.1; for discussion, see Detienne (n. 35 above), 130; see also Osborne (n. 35 above), 401.
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44. Our best source for the Haloa festival is Rabe, H., ed., Scholia in Lucianum (1906Google Scholar; reprint, Stuttgart, 1971), 279 ff. (to Dial. Meret. 7.4); for an English translation, with discussion, see Winkler, J. J., ‘The Laughter of the Oppressed: Demeter and the Gardens of Adonis’, in The Constraints of Desire: the Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (New York, 1990), 194–195Google Scholar.
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46. For the inscription, see Sokolowski, F., Lois sacrées de I'Asie Mineure (Paris, 1955), 170ff.Google Scholar, no. 73; for discussion of the political nature of this sacrifice, see Detienne (n. 35 above), 136.
47. On dining quarters at Brauron, with references, see Goldstein, M. S., The Setting of the Ritual Meal in Greek Sanctuaries: 600–300 B.C. (Ann Arbor, 1978), 114ffGoogle Scholar. On dining buildings in the sanctuary of Demeter at Corinth, see Bookidis, N. and Fisher, J. E., Hesperia 41 (1972), 288 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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52. On votive relief gifts from Eleusis, Delphi, Thasos, and Lesbos that depict women at sacred meals, see Cooper and Morris (n. 12 above), 80 (Plate 6 shows a votive relief from Thasos that depicts reclining men in the upper register and seated women in the lower).
53. On seated dining (rather than reclining) as the custom for ancient Greek women, seeDentzer, J.-M., Le Motif du banquet couché dans le Proche-Orient et le monde grec du VIIe au IVe siècle avant J.-C. (Paris, 1982), 432Google Scholar; see also Cooper and Morris (n. 12 above), 80–1.
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56. There are many vase paintings showing women involved in Dionysiac rites: for an example of women serving one another wine from a stamnos, see Bérard, C., Bron, C., Durand, J.-L., Frontisi-Ducroux, F., Lissarrague, F., Schnapp, A., and Vernant, J.-P., A City of Images: Iconography and Society in Ancient Greece, tr. Lyons, D. (Princeton, 1989), 19 figGoogle Scholar. 18 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). On ritual maenadism, see Henrichs, A., HSCP 82 (1978), 121 ff.Google Scholar; see also R. S. Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World, reprint (New York, 1993), 36 ff.
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59. Burkert (n. 40 above), 163 f.
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67. The father also expects to attend the lunch, but arrives too late (Men, . Dysk. 775–80Google Scholar). For the view that the men and women ate together at this luncheon, see Gomme, A. W. and Sandbach, F. H., Menander: a Commentary (Oxford, 1973), 228CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 608, 265 n. 871. For the view that the men and women ate separately (women before men), see Dalby, A., Siren Feasts: a History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece (London, 1996), 5Google Scholar.
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69. For women presiding over all-women feasts (such as at the Thesmophoria and the Skira), see section 3.
70. As Borgeaud emphasizes, ‘the women are in charge; they make the rules and determine the sequence of events’ (Borgeaud [n. 68 above], 168).
71. For discussion of I. Magn. 215, with attention to the use of the masculine form kataibatai, see Henrichs (n. 56 above), esp. 133–4.
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74. For example, Aristotle wrote a treatise on manners as well as one on drunkenness (see Ath. 186b, 464c, 496f), and Xenocrates (another pupil of Plato) also wrote a treatise on symposium manners (Ath. 186b).
75. On Gnathaena's treatise, see Ath. 585ab; the title of the treatise here is taken from Gulick (n. 32 above), vol. vi, p. 155 (Ath. 585b).
76. On the decrees passed in honour of Archippe, see Robert, J. and Robert, L., ‘Bulletin epigraphique’, REG 81 (1968), 504Google Scholarff., nos. 444, 445; see also Pomeroy (n. 23 above), 125.
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78. On the public nature of Arsinoe's Adonia, see Burton (n. 29 above), esp. 134 ff.
79. See Plut, . Mul. virt. 17Google Scholar, 254b–f (FGrH 500 Fl); Parth, . Amat. Narr. 9Google Scholar(Andriskos FGrHV2).
80. N. Robertson, in Slater (n. 1 above), 43.
81. On possible dining arrangements, both separate and joint, for men and women in Demeter's sanctuary at Corinth, see N. Bookidis, in Murray (n. 1 above), 91.
82. For the inscription, with commentary, see Sokolowski, F., Lois sacrées des cités grecques (Paris, 1969), 120 ffGoogle Scholar. (esp. 126, no. 65, lines 95–8); on the inscription's shared sacrificial feast, see Bookidis (n. 81 above), 91; on the inscription's significance, see also Burkert (n. 40 above), 279.
83. As Henrichs notes, ‘By the third century B.C., joint participation in non-maenadic Dionysiac rites by men and women alike must have been the norm rather than an exception’ (Henrichs [n. 66 above], 70).
84. On the presence of women at wedding feasts, see Oakley, J. H. and Sinos, R. H., The Wedding in Ancient Athens (Madison, 1993), 22Google Scholar ff.; Cooper and Morris (n. 12 above), 80 n. 46. On the probable absence of women from the sacrificial feast given during the Apaturia, a festival of the phrateres (clansmen), to mark new marriages, see Parke (n. 37 above), 89–90; for the view that the husband introduced his new wife to his phrateres on this occasion, see Burkert (n. 40 above), 255. Cf. Murray (n. 2 above), 230: ‘There is no evidence to suggest that they [Greek citizen women] even attended wedding feasts and funeral feasts’.
85. The English translation is taken from Hoffleit, H. B., ed. with translation, Plutarch's Moralia, vol. viii (Cambridge [Mass.], 1969), 335Google Scholar.
86. For illustrations, see Oakley and Sinos (n. 84 above).
87. On this citation, see also, e.g., Oakley and Sinos (n. 84 above), 22. For separate couches of men and women at a Greek wedding feast, see too Lucian Convivium 8.
88. See, e.g., Eur, . Iph. Aul. 1036–1079Google Scholar; Ap. Rhod. 4.805–9. See also the visual representations on the François vase and two dinoi of Sophilos (e.g., Boardman, J., Athenian Black Figure Vases [London, 1974]Google Scholar, illustrations 24, 25, and 46). For discussion of Sophilos' dinoi, with good pictures, see Williams, D., Greek Vases in the J. Paul Getty Museum, vol. i (Malibu [Calif.], 1983), esp. 22 ffGoogle Scholar.
89. Gulick (n. 32 above), vol. iii, p. 117.
90. Gomme and Sandbach (n. 67 above), 693.
91. For the inscription, see IG 12.3.330; for a French translation with commentary, see Dareste, R., Haussoullier, B., and Reinach, T., Recueil des inscriptions juridiques grecques, 2d series (Paris, 1898; Rome, 1965), 77 ff.Google Scholar; for discussion, see, e.g., Garland, R., The Greek Way of Death (Ithaca, 1985), 108 ffGoogle Scholar. On the little we know regarding the perideipnon (funeral feast), seeKurtz, D. C. and Boardman, J., Greek Burial Customs (Ithaca, 1971), 146Google Scholar.
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