Voices from Greece

Despite the variation among the poleis (city-states) of ancient Greece, it is the voices of Athenian men who dominate our sources. They would have us believe that women were confined to their homes, allowed to leave only for religious festivals and funerals, while men took care of public affairs. While there may be truth to this for some women, especially women of the upper classes, we also know that many women didn't have the luxury of staying home. The sources chosen to represent ancient Greece raise up Telesilla, a poetess who led an army to defend Argos when it was attacked by the Spartans, and the women of Corinth, who may have worshipped an armed iteration of Aphrodite. 

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"Here Artemis, O maidens fleeing from Alphaeus..."

a fragment of a poem by Telesilla preserved by Hephaestion in his Handbook of Meter

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"Above the Theater there is a temple of Aphrodite, and in front of the seated statue of the goddess is a stele engraved with an image of Telesilla the writer of poems. These lie as though thrown down beside her feet, and she herself is looking at a helmet which she holds in her hand and is about to put on her head. Telesilla was famous among women for her poetry, but still more famous for the following achievement.

Her fellow citizens had sustained an indescribable disaster at the hands of the Spartans under Cleomenes son of Anaxandridas. Some had fallen in actual battle and of the others, who took sanctuary in the grove of Argus, some had at first ventured out under a truce, only to be burnt to death when Cleomenes set fire to the grove. By these means Cleomenes, proceeding to Argos, led his Lacedaemonians against a city of women.

But Telesilla took all the slaves and all such male citizens who through youth or age had been unable to bear arms, and made them man the walls, and gathering together all the weapons of war that had been left in the houses or were hanging in the temples, armed the younger women and marshalled them at a place she knew the enemy must pass. There, undismayed by the war cry, the women stood their ground and fought with the greatest determination, until the Spartans, reflecting that the slaughter of an army of women would be an equivocal victory and defeat at their hands would be dishonor as well as disaster, laid down their arms."

Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 2.20.8

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"These women stand here on behalf of the Hellenes and the courageous soldiers of their own city, after they made their sacred vows to the goddess Cypris. For divine Aphrodite contrived not to betray the Acropolis of the Hellenes to the bow-carrying Medes."

an inscription dedicating the statues of women in the temple of Aphrodite on the AcroCorinth, 5th c. BCE

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"On the summit of the AcroCorinthus is a temple of Aphrodite. The images are Aphrodite armed, Helius, and Eros with a bow. 

Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 2.5.1

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Aphrodite, a goddess of warfare?

In the stories of both Telesilla and the women of Corinth, there are references to the goddess Aphrodite, also called Cypris, a reference to her birth from the sea near the island of Cyprus in Hesiod's Theogony. In the Thegony, Hesiod says of Aphrodite that her dominion was over the speech of maidens, their smiles and wiles, their sweet delights, and love. In other words, Aphrodite is a goddess of love and beauty, of all the things that little girls are supposed to be made of. Despite this assertation on Hesiod's part, Aphrodite is a very ancient goddess, associated with the Near Eastern Astarte, and connections with warfare can be found in both art and ancient religious activities. In fact, it seems that some depictions of Aphrodite might be confused for those of Athena because any women with a weapon or armor is assumed to be Athena. Here, we see reference to the women of Corinth. Aphrodite was the patron goddess of Corinth, and Pausanias tells us that there was a statue there depicting Aphrodite armed. This statue, on display in the National Archaeological Museum, may give us an idea of what that statue in Corinth, lost to history, looked like. We also see the inscription thanking Aphrodite, in her role as patron goddess of the city, for their preservation from the Medes (the Persians).

Here, this unexpected side of Aphrodite can be juxtaposed with the unexpected aspect that we see of (at least some!) women in ancient Greece.

The objects in the case were chosen to highlight this contrast. The bronze mirror, bronze pan, loom weight, and needle all represent what women were traditionally thought to be concerned with - they were to stay inside, manage the household, and produce textiles. The other objects in the case - a bronze javelin head and a bronze arrow head - represent the non-traditional role played by the women described in the sources on display here.

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Artifacts on Display:

Bronze Javelin Head

Bronze Arrow Head

Bronze Serving Bowl with a small sculpture of an acrobat on the rim

Bronze Mirror

Bone Needle

Loom Weight (found at Eutresis)

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