Download Mothers, Priestesses, and Courtesans

Maiden, Mother, Priestess, and Prostitute:
Gender and Society in Classical Athens
History 111: Lecture 21 (November 5, 2009):
The veil of silence: Unnamed Athenian women
A day in the life of “Melinna”
Sources and problems for the history of Greek women
Female space: Domestic architecture and gender in Classical Athens
A lecture without maps
Penelope at the loom: The symbolism of weaving
Women at the well: Melinna and her cousins
Information exchange among women
Gifts for the dead: Melinna visits the tombs
Mourning women and Solon's laws to control them
Care of the dead as depicted on funerary vases (lekythoi)
Inscriptions and stele of real Greek women
Gifts for the gods: Melinna worships at the Parthenon
The acropolis in the age of Pericles
Sacrifices before the goddess: Cult-images in Greek religion
Women gone wild: maenads and the worship of Dionysos
Women's piety and the role of priestesses
Divinity speaking through a woman: The oracle at Delphi
Melinna’s hopes and fears: Conception, birth, and motherhood
The dangers of childbirth (Tomb of Baucis the bride)
Marital relations or why Xeno was the boss....
A husband's manual for training his young bride: Xenophon’s Oeconomicus
The playwright Euripides and his views on women
Disreputable women in the streets and symposiums of Athens
Streetwalkers, flute girls, and 2-obol women
High-end courtesans (hetairai): Aspasia, companion of Pericles
Melinna as mother: Raising her daughter to become a bride
The embedding of gender roles in a patriarchal society