How to Survive in Ancient Greece

Robert Garland

• Publisher: Pen & Sword History
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526754714
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Geschichte der griechischen Antike

What would it be like if you were transported back to Athens 420 BCE? This time-traveler's guide is a fascinating way to find out... Imagine you were transported back in time to Ancient Greece and you had to start a new life there. What would you see? How would the people around you think and believe? How would you fit in? Where would you live? What would you eat? What work would be available, and what help could you get if you got sick? All these questions, and many more, are answered in this engaging blend of self-help and survival guide that plunges you into this historical environment—and explains the many problems and strange new experiences you would face if you were there.

Women and the Family

How men regard women

Greek society is strongly patriarchal. There’s no getting away from that – to us – highly unpalatable fact. But at least the Greeks don’t think of women’s bodies as dirty or polluted. There’s no taboo on having sex with a menstruating woman and there’s no need to purify yourself after having intercourse, as there is in some religions. Even so, some highly educated Greeks regard women’s bodies to be inferior to those of men. Take what Aristotle wrote:

A woman resembles an infertile male. She’s female because of a kind of inadequacy. She can’t use what she consumes to produce semen in its perfect form. This is due to the coldness of her nature.

Women’s bodies, Aristotle explains, try to manufacture semen but they fail. Instead they produce menstrual discharge. This supposedly ‘scientific’ theory is, of course, based completely on prejudice. Anatomy as a science does not exist in Classical Greece, due to a strong religious taboo against dissecting the human body. I think it’s a sure bet that most physicians never saw inside the body of a woman, whether she was dead or alive.

As further evidence of prejudice, I would point out that the father’s role in conceiving a child is believed – by some at least – to be more important than that of the mother. Apollo describes the mother as ‘merely the nurse of the newly sown seed’ in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, meaning a woman’s womb is secondary to a father’s sperm. With consummate lack of logic, however, Greek men invariably laid the failure to conceive at the door of the woman. Male sterility was beyond their ken.

There is also the deeply sexist belief that women are the originators of human misery. This is exemplified by the myth of Pandora; her name means ‘All-gifted’ or ‘All-giving’. Zeus ordered Hephaestus, the god of the forge, to fashion Pandora out of clay to repay humans for the fact that the Titan Prometheus had given them fire. The woman was given the name Pandora because she had so many winning attributes. Zeus gave her a sealed jar and, being a woman, she was helplessly curious about its contents so couldn’t refrain from opening it. As a result, hard labour, painful diseases and all the other evils that trouble humanity flew out into the world. Only hope remained inside the jar, and that explains why humans are incorrigibly hopeful.

The Greeks, or at least some of them, believed that women are incapable of controlling their lust. In Herodotus’ history of the Graeco-Persian Wars, Gyges, the future king of Lydia declares, ‘A woman removes her sense of shame when she removes her clothes.’ This allegation may be partly based on the fact that Greek men have many ‘legitimate’ – i.e. socially acceptable – sexual outlets outside marriage, whereas Greek women have none and are required to remain faithful to their husbands. This double standard underpins the narrative in Homer’s Odyssey. Whereas Odysseus swans around the Mediterranean – well, not quite as he does face several challenges and mishaps, but you get my point – sleeping with the nymph Calypso (seven years) and the witch Circe (one year), his poor old wife Penelope is left at home, having to fend off an army of suitors.

The kind of work that Greek women do

Before describing what kind of work Greek women perform, I need to provide you with some background about their status and lifestyle. These, as you’ll soon discover, are very different from those enjoyed by women living in the west today.

To begin with, Greek women lead much more restricted and solitary lives. They can’t vote, can’t become jurors, can’t (if they’re respectable) appear in public unaccompanied, can’t initiate a divorce or any other lawsuit, can’t represent themselves in court, can’t inherit in their own name, probably can’t attend the theatre, and so on.

They have few opportunities for work. One occupation available to them is textile manufacture. Tapestry weaving in particular brings considerable honor and repute to women, though we need to note that this is performed in the home. I should also point out that arts and crafts aren’t exclusively gender-specific. A vase in the redfigured style – that’s to say, a vase that is decorated with figures painted in red against a black background – shows a female vase-painter decorating a mixing-bowl, and it’s probably safe to assume that a minority of women find an outlet for their talents in other male-dominated crafts. It’s often the fate of a woman who has been supported during her husband’s lifetime to be forced to work for a living once she becomes a widow. Her chances of having to work therefore increase as she ages.

Some enterprising women work as ‘female companions’ or hetairai. These are the only women who are permitted to attend a drinking party, known as a symposium. We’ll talk about symposia later. You shouldn’t look down on women who choose this career path when you bump into them, as you surely will. Though some hetairai are hired for their sexual favours, it’s one of the few professional outlets available to a freeborn woman. And it’s also the case that hetairai are the only women who, as a group, are educated and politically informed. They need to be. It’s almost part of the job description. That’s because they mix in the very highest cultural, intellectual and political circles. As a result, some of them become extremely wealthy.

Women can also serve as priestesses and officiants, but we can hardly call that a career path, and, besides, such positions are only available to a select few. Another role for a woman is that of midwife, which I’ll discuss later. You could also become a wet nurse, though most wet nurses are probably slaves.

How women have to behave

If you’re a ‘respectable’ woman, you’ll be expected to spend most of your time inside the home. It’ll be your task to manage the running of the household, including the education of your children. Convention demands that you never leave your home unaccompanied. The statesman Pericles ended his famous speech on behalf of the war dead in the first year of the Peloponnesian War with the observation that ‘a woman’s greatest glory is to be talked about neither in praise nor in blame.’ In other words, you will be expected to be socially invisible. This is backed up by a statement made by a female character in a play by Euripides:

Woman dressed in chitôn.

What’s most scandalous is when a woman goes outdoors. I used to long to go out, but I stayed inside. I kept a lid on my mouth, unlike some women […] I didn’t answer back to my husband and I gave him gentle looks. I knew when to get my way and when to let him get his way.

So she knows when to get her own way? Good to know that it’s a twoway street.

Modesty, however, is all important. When you do go outside, be careful not to expose any part of your face or body. I suggest you drape your cloak over your head to cover your face.

Very likely your husband will be out of the house most of the day, either working, engaged in public business, or merely chewing the cud in the Agora. He regards this as his male prerogative. He’ll also spend many evenings at symposia, drinking with his mates and a few hetairai. There’s no point objecting. It won’t get you anywhere. You’ll just have to suck it up. Medea in Euripides’ play of that name sums things up as follows:

A man, when he’s tired of the company of those in his home, goes out and cheers himself up […] whereas we women are forced to direct our attentions exclusively to one person.

Your husband will also be absent for extended periods of time whenever he’s called upon to perform military service. In theory that could be at any time and at a moment’s notice. On such occasions you’ll enjoy some independence, although you still won’t have much freedom of movement. Most of the time, you’ll be reliant on your relatives (female, of course), your slaves (also female), and your children for companionship. You probably can’t read, though if you’re wealthy, your husband might purchase an educated slave who can read for you.

Whichever social class you belong to, you’ll be expected to contribute to the welfare and prosperity of the home. One of the chief ways you can do this is by spinning and weaving. Even Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, owns a distaff (hers is made out of gold), with which she spins wool or flax into yarn or thread. Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, deceives her suitors by pretending to weave a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes and then undoing the weaving at night. She’s told them that she will marry one of them only after she’s finished weaving the shroud. She held them off for years by this ruse. Penelope might not be educated in our sense of the word, but she’s obviously a lot smarter than all the suitors – 108 in total – put together.

No doubt all this sounds pretty humdrum, perhaps even stifling and stultifying, and as a twenty-first-century woman you may well find it so, but don’t assume that every Greek woman will agree with you. Seclusion isn’t the same as submission, and although your life revolves around the home to a degree that you may well find tedious, you need to remember that until relatively recently western women have been denied what we now consider to be basic human rights. In the UK it’s only just over a century-and-a-half ago that women ceased to be under the economic and legal control of their husbands and were permitted to sue for divorce, and it’s less than a century since women over the age of twenty-one have been entitled to vote.

Remember, too, that women are extremely vulnerable in the ancient world. Restricting them to the home and out of the public gaze is not exclusively about control. It’s also about their safety and their well-being. So, although there’s no question that a contemporary woman will at first find life in ancient Greece deeply frustrating, after a while she may begin to see the benefits of her seclusion.

It sounds odd to put it this way, but one of the few social outlets available to a woman is attending a funeral. That’s because women handle the treatment of the dead. In particular they prepare the body for burial and accompany it to the place of interment. They also make periodic visits to the grave, depositing gifts and pouring drink-offerings known as libations.

A law court speech ascribed to a writer called Lysias describes how a married woman began a clandestine affair with her lover by exchanging glances at a funeral and, subsequently, using a slave as a go-between. The pair took what few opportunities life presented. Incidentally, the affair ended badly because the husband found them in bed together and killed the adulterer, as the law permitted.

The only other social outlet for women is provided by festivals from which men are excluded. One of the most important of these is the Thesmophoria, which is held in honour of Demeter, goddess of the harvest. As with many Greek festivals, the origin of this one is unknown, though it may have something to do with the fact that when Hades, god of the Underworld, abducted Demeter’s daughter Persephone, a fissure in the earth opened up and swallowed her. That’s because pigs are thrown down into a fissure at the Thesmophoria. Three days later women descend to retrieve the rotting flesh. This and other festivals give women an opportunity to get out of the house and associate with other women, and though ritual predominates, you’ll find there are plenty of opportunities for the exchange of gossip.

How husbands treat their wives

You’re just going to have to accept the fact that your husband will be leading a completely independent life, including having sex with any woman he chooses, so long as she isn’t freeborn. As I’ve already indicated, Greek society operates solidly on the principle of the double standard. In particular, it’s totally legit for him to sleep with a hetaira.

Having what we would call ‘an affair’ isn’t an option for either a husband or a wife. In Athens, if a wife and her lover are caught in flagrante delicto, her husband is permitted to kill the adulterer and required to divorce his wife. If the husband doesn’t immediately divorce his wife, he is liable to be stripped of his citizenship.

An adulterous man who isn’t caught in flagrante delicto but pronounced guilty in a court of law will merely face a fine payable to the aggrieved husband, his offence being regarded as more excusable than the woman’s for reasons I’ll explain in a moment. A woman found guilty of adultery is debarred from all forms of public religion. Whether she’s also debarred from participating in household religion is unknown. She’s also prohibited from wearing jewellery, which means that everyone knows what she’s done. If she violates this law and wears jewellery, anyone who wishes – that’s the legal phrase – is free to tear her clothing and beat her.

Adultery is regarded as a more serious crime than rape. That’s because adultery may lead to the production of an offspring whom a husband believes to be his biological heir, whereas when a rape has occurred, the husband knows that the offspring of such an act isn’t his.

Prostitutes, called pornai, are readily available and soliciting isn’t a criminal offense. In fact, brothels support the public exchequer by paying a state tax. You can even prostitute your own daughter, if you so choose, but you can’t prostitute your son. If you do, the law will punish you severely. In addition, your son won’t be required to support you in your old age, as is his obligation otherwise.

Human nature being what it is, there must be some wives who give their husbands a hard time for their infidelity, even though it isn’t possible for a wife to sue for divorce on grounds of mental or physical cruelty. When the wife of a politician and general called Alcibiades tried to leave him, he dragged her back home by her hair, thereby publicly shaming her. I often wonder whether Penelope gave Odysseus a piece of her mind when he got home in reprisal for his dalliances. I certainly hope so.

Your husband is probably at least ten years older than you are. Though we don’t know the precise age-band covered by marriageability, it seems to have extended from seventeen to thirty-five in the case of a man and from thirteen to twenty-five in the case of a woman. Whereas a male is free to contract a marriage from eighteen onwards, a female of any age can do so only at the instigation of her father or legal guardian.

The Greeks see nothing objectionable in what we would regard as a deeply asymmetrical relationship. On the contrary, they approve of it. Given the age difference between husband and wife, you must expect a degree of paternalism in your husband’s treatment of you. An imaginary character called Ischomachus in a treatise by a pamphleteer called Xenophon says he wasn’t able to have a rational conversation with his wife until he had ‘tamed’ her, by which, I suspect, he means discipline her to his view of how she should behave. Once he had completed this task, Ischomachus was able to explain to his wife her du...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Timeline
• Things You Should Know
• Introduction to Your New Home
• Women and the Family
• Shopping
• Food and Diet
• Clothing and Appearance
• Work
• Health and Hygiene
• Social Structure
• Politics
• Beliefs and Rituals
• Relaxation and Entertainment
• War
• Law and Order
• Travel
• A Final Word of Advice
• Testimonials
• Glossary
• Credits