This article examines some recent trends within the scholarship on ancient Greek women. The field of gender and women’s studies is vast, and so this review is necessarily selective; it is also historical in focus, though I have deliberately tried to include works that cover a broad chronological and geographical range, and those that draw on different kinds of source material. It is divided into three parts: part 1 examines questions concerning ‘real’ women, part 2 is on agency and part 3 draws some observations on the difficulties of, and opportunities for, writing histories of women.
The list of Euripidean plays in P.Oxy. 2456, whose primary principle of arrangement is by alphabetical order of first letter, has a secondary principle of arrangement, namely chronology of first performance date. This discovery provides a relative dating, and/or termini ante vel post quos, for 15 plays. The ordering in the papyrus is compared to orderings of other ancient lists of classical dramas, including a list of Aristophanes' comedies whose arrangement by the same combination of principles was identified by Wilamowitz. A source for this arrangement is proposed, namely Callimachus' Pinakes.
Pythagoras and Empedocles, the earliest pre-Socratic thinkers associated with the doctrine of metempsychosis, are both said to have accounted for their own previous incarnations. This article focuses on lists of their previous lives, here dubbed curriculum uitarum (CVV), and argues that they are revealing not only of the specifics of how metempsychosis is conceptualized by each thinker but also of the way in which they harness poetic authority. The article surveys all the surviving permutations of Pythagoras' CVV across the tradition and identifies an interplay of different modes of enumeration within them: lists of named human individuals vs lists of life forms. The latter mode is what also defines Empedocles' much-cited 'epigram' (B117 DK) on his past incarnations. Both CVVs are informed by strategic borrowings from Homer: while Empedocles' list draws on the characterisation of the Iliad's Nestor and the Odyssey's Proteus, Pythagoras' CVV is defined by the constant presence of the Trojan warrior Euphorbus. As is argued, this originates in the nexus of philosophical speculation and poetical exegesis which accrued around Euphorbus' short-lived but memorable appearance in the Iliad. In-depth engagement with Homer and Homeric exegesis is thus shown to generate philosophical innovation and to form a strong link between the Pythagorean and Empedoclean teachings on metempsychosis.
Between the fifth and first century BC, calendars that compiled astronomical and meteorological information, known as parap & emacr;gmata, came to be used throughout the Greek-speaking world. In the course of the Hellenistic period, numerous such almanacs attributed to scientific authorities who operated in different regions were circulating, some of which emphasized distinct atmospheric phenomena. By ca. 100 BC at the latest, individuals and communities began combining astrometeorological parap & emacr;gmata to produce their own, including inscribed public versions. I argue that politically active citizens and doctors would have benefited from the use of these calendars within the context of the Hellenistic polis because weather was believed to have a direct impact on the collective food supply and health of communities and such documents were perceived as an invaluable tool for anticipating important atmospheric changes, determining when meteorological thresholds were crossed and building consensus for communal action taken in response.
The letters between Sparta and Judaea preserved in 1 Maccabees and Josephus' Antiquities have generated considerable scholarly discussion. Only Josephus' version of Areus' letter to Onias includes information about its courier Demoteles, its 'square' script and the image on its seal. Comparison with contemporary Hellenistic epigraphical evidence suggests that these elements are archival metadata rather than parts of the original letter or Josephan inventions. Similar clauses attested in documents inscribed in several Hellenistic cities are remnants of archival processes, and the presence of such details in Josephus' version of Areus' letter suggests that it derives from an independent source and never underwent the translation process so evident in the Maccabean versions. This strengthens the case for authenticity.
In Greek literature, the barber is always portrayed as a garrulous chatterbox and his shop as a central place for gossip and rumours. Apart from these numerous anecdotes, however, few scholars have investigated the concrete realities of the profession and the actual status of barbers in the Greek East (including Egypt). This paper seeks to fill this gap. It is based on a careful social and economic analysis of the profession, including barbers' workspaces, their social recognition as skilled craftsmen, their funerary and religious practices, their relationships with their clients, as well as their income, wages and expenses. It attempts to re-place ancient barbers in their socio-professional and socio-economic environment, and to reconstruct some aspects of their daily lives that go beyond the statements of ancient authors and their elite discourse. By systematically cross-referencing all available historical data (literary texts, inscriptions, papyri, ostraca, iconographic and archaeological sources), the paper shows how their lives and status differ from their representation in the literary sources in order to bring these everyday workers out of the shadows and rehabilitate them as historical actors in Greek and Hellenized societies.
This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the production dynamics within the Kerameikos during the major period of black- and red-figure pottery production (600-350 BCE). Employing a statistical approach, this study explores the intricate interplay between the workflows of full-time and part-time painters and potters, and the nature of their respective tasks. By using Monte Carlo methods to estimate quantities, including the number of pots created annually and the hours required for painting, the statistical data generated not only support a complex and time-critical model for the potting industry, but the limits on the plausibility for some of these scenarios are also considered. These quantitative estimates are then situated within the context of the pottery-production chaine operatoire to consider the seasonality of the various professions of pottery production. A case is made for the existence of permanent painters managing a backlog of pottery while part-time potters shifted between potting and painting (and other tasks), while the concept of project management is also discussed; it is suggested that a critical role of the kappa epsilon rho alpha mu epsilon upsilon sigma extended beyond mere craftsmanship to orchestrating workflows.
This article re-examines archaic and classical treatment of beer drinking to argue, contra Nelson, that beer in archaic and classical Greek texts is not primarily feminine nor does it necessarily feminize its drinkers. Rather, a review of sympotic lyric, historiography, ethnography and Athenian drama demonstrates that beer is primarily an ethnic marker with no inherent gendered connotations. At the same time, in contexts where definitions of Greek masculinity are being constructed, beer can gain gendered connotations which enhance the ethnic otherness of the beverage and contribute to the definition of the Greek man. Any gendered implications of beer, furthermore, come not from the beverage itself but from the method of consumption, of sucking through a tube of sorts rather than sipping from a cup. This article thus argues that beer in the Archaic and Classical periods marks non-Greek status first and foremost and only secondarily effeminizes drinkers through associations with oral sex in contexts where ideas of masculinity are in play.
This article critically examines the frequent claim that Pherecydes of Syros deliberately composed his treatise to be read figuratively. More specifically, it is argued that mythopoeic images from the sixth century BCE ought to be distinguished from Classical and Hellenistic allegories lest later categories and distinctions be anachronistically projected onto an archaic thinker. Since this study shows how mythopoeic images are used to fill conceptual gaps in abstract discourse, and how philosophical vocabulary arises in the process of metaphorization, its findings might have implications beyond the context of Pherecydes' contribution to the development of the allegorical tradition.
In this article we offer an editio princeps of a new inscription from the Cycladic island of Paros and discuss its implications for understanding Parian co-operation with Dionysi omicron s I of Syracuse in the Adriatic in the early fourth century BCE. We argue that the text throws light on the Parian colonization of Pharos, and is related to activities of the Parians in the Adriatic in what seems to be the result of local Parian strife and strong anti-Athenian affiliations on Paros. We explore possible interpretations of the inscribed decree and their implications for the relationship between the Parians and Dionysios.
This article investigates the boundaries of the chronological-cultural unit of ‘Early Greece’, a phrase widely used in scholarship but which has little taxonomic meaning. I argue that the phrase, and the values that it encodes, continues to exist in a traditional evolutionary framework of cultural development within the Greek world. Through a bibliographical case study, I further demonstrate that there are different chronological understandings of ‘Early Greece’ within different subdisciplines, with material-based scholarship applying it predominantly to the Early Iron Age and text-based scholarship predominantly to the Archaic period. Following this, the article connects ‘Early Greece’ with protohistory, particularly through the lens of Homer references, and explores the ways in which the positionality of ‘Early Greece’ emphasizes the authority of textual sources over material ones and continues to articulate an under-defined vision of Greece centred on the fifth century BCE.
According to an account that Felix Jacoby published as Philochoros ( FGrH 328) F119, a gift of 30,000 medimnoi of grain was sent by Psammetichos from Egypt to Athens in the archonship of Lysimachides (445/4). When for its distribution a scrutiny ( diapsēphisis ) was held to check the citizen status of the claimants, 4,760 individuals appeared to be illegally listed as citizens, while 14,240 Athenians received a portion of grain. Brought together in this fragment, the events feature as a significant historical fact in studies of Pericles’ Citizenship Law, Athenian demography and the Athenian grain supply. However, in this article I argue that the account in F119 is not correct as it stands, but a conflation of historically disparate events into one episode. This confusing amalgam is not Philochoros’ mistake, but, with several possible causes, it must originate in the tradition between him and Plutarch, who incorporated it into his Life of Pericles (37). The most likely source of this conflated report for Plutarch’s version is the Alexandrian scholar Didymos. A major element in the confusion is the diapsēphisis of 346/5, when all male citizens scrutinized each other on their civic status, a one-off event that deeply affected Athenian society and its historical traditions.
Herodotus’ depiction of Miltiades’ transgression in the sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros on Paros is marked by the intriguing phrase κινήσοντά τι τῶν ἀκινήτων (6.134.2). We examine this proverbial phrase, whose implications for Herodotus’ portrayal of Miltiades’ downfall have not yet been fully acknowledged. The article draws attention to the widespread concept of sacred immovables (ἀκίνητα) that were protected by imprecations, and suggests that Miltiades triggered a contingent curse protecting divine property. Herodotus configures the episode of Miltiades on Paros as a narrative of entrapment and steers his readers to view Miltiades’ fate as the consequence of a curse at work.
