Like the foundation myths of barbarian societies and Greek colonies, those of older Greek cities are a distinctive feature of ethnic identity, and also an indication of gender relations. The myth of Athens stresses continuity: theirs was a myth of autochthony. Athenian men had always inhabited the same land. They claimed that Erechtheus, one of their founding fathers, had not been born of woman, but rather had sprung up directly from the earth. The event used to rationalize women’s exclusion from the political process also was said to have occurred in the remote past (Augustine De Civitate Dei 18.9). According to this aetiological myth when Athens was young, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the most important divinity. All the women voted for Athena, and all the men for Poseidon. Since one more woman than man was present, Athena won. Thenceforth women lost the right to vote. The structure of the state was a macrocosm of family structure and their ideologies were mutually consistent. Athenian women were citizens insofar as only they could be the mothers of citizens. Any woman would do, for according to Athenian ideas about parentage, the father was the true parent (Ogden 1996). The mother was merely the fertile field in which he sowed his seed. Women and metics were barred from owning land and permitted to own only movable property. Marriage was virilocal. When she moved to her bridegroom’s house, a bride, like a newly purchased slave, would have to make sacrifices to his domestic gods, including Zeus and Hestia of the hearth, in order to gain acceptance in a household where she had not been carried around the hearth as a baby.
In contrast to Athens, the founding myths and history of the Dorians involved invasion and suppression ofthe existing native population, reducing them to the status of helots. Thus the distinctive authority and autonomy of Spartiate women may be attributed in part to the fact that the Spartans constituted an aristocracy. The Athenian style of democracy was oppressive to all women, for all were an underclass, like metics and slaves, whereas in Sparta it was all helots and perioikoi - men and women alike - who formed the populous underclass (Pomeroy 1975: 78). As I have mentioned above, the otherness of the helots was emphasized by their subhuman treatment.
In Sparta women could and did own land (Pomeroy 2002: 77-82). The ancient economy was based on agriculture, and land was the most valuable commodity. Though in Athens there were other sources of wealth including trade, banking, and manufacture, at Sparta wealth was based exclusively on land. Spartan women came to possess land through dowry and inheritance. Furthermore, unlike Athenians, who needed to have a male relative act as their legal guardian, as far as we can tell Spartans controlled their own property. As girls they had learned to drive horses for the festival of the Hyakinthia and it seems likely that they rode out in carriages to supervise their estates. Except for the costume, at Sparta the sight of a tall woman riding in broad daylight in a chariot would not have caused the consternation that the vision of Phye masquerading as Athena created at Athens (Hdt. 1.60). Eventually Spartan women owned two fifths of the land and, one assumes, the helots and slaves necessary to cultivate it. At Sparta royal women became not only the wealthiest women, but the wealthiest citizens in all Sparta.
Legends about Helen helped to shape the image of Spartan women and project it beyond Sparta. Helen was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was also wealthy and dominated men. Spartan art and Athenian literature indicate that she was able to subjugate her infuriated husband when they were reunited. Although Aristotle does not mention Helen, he repeats most of these attributes in his denunciation of Spartan women and their effect on the community (see above).
According to the myth of the judgment of Paris, Helen and her champion Aphrodite won a competition. From earliest times, Sparta was known as a land of beautiful women - in Homer’s words: Sparte kalligynaika (Odyssey 13.412). In the seventh century the Delphic oracle declared: ‘‘Of all the earth, Pelasgic Argos is best, and Thessalian horses, and Lakedaimonian women’’ (Parke & Wormell 1956: 1.82-3; 2.1-2 no.1). Spending time out of doors in the nude meant that women were exposed to public scrutiny from the time when they were very young. They competed with their peers not only in formal athletic events, but also in the eyes of their beholders and in their own judgment. Although Lykourgos had outlawed cosmetics, Spartan women had mirrors. Some bronze mirror handles show young Spartan women wearing a sickle which identifies them as athletic victors. Young girls learned to evaluate the beauty of other girls, and to compare their own appearance with that of their peers. In Alkman (Partheneion 1), the chorus decide that Agido is first in beauty, and Hagesichora is second. Theokritos captured the same sentiment. The 240 girls who race in honor of Helen declare that when they compare themselves to Helen not one of them is faultless (Theokritos Idyllia 18.25). Men also prized beautiful women and sought them as brides, even breaking some of society’s rules to win them. Unlike men in Athens where nubile girls were secluded and wore multiple layers of clothing when they went out, Spartans will have had many opportunities to look over potential brides who were completely nude. Herodotos (6.61) tells the story of a young girl who was afflicted with dysmorphia (‘‘misshapenness’’). More than ugly, she may have been deformed, for her parents had forbidden her nurse to show her to anyone. The nurse was so concerned that the daughter of fortunate parents was disfigured that she carried her every day up a mountain to the shrine of Helen and prayed to the goddess to free her from her ugliness. Helen appeared, and touched the child. Thereupon the ugliest girl grew up to be the most beautiful of Spartan women (Pausanias 3.7.7; Hdt. 6.61). The competitive phrase ‘‘most beautiful woman’’ occurs, often gratuitously, in many stories about historical Spartan women (e. g., Xenophon Hellenika 3.3.8; Plutarch Kleomemens 1.2, 22.1-2).
Greeks considered height an attribute of beautiful, noble women (Pomeroy 1994: 306). Homer (Odyssey 6.102-07) had described Nausikaa as towering over her handmaidens like a palm tree, and in the visual arts gods were depicted as taller than mortals. Thus, at Athens in a ruse staged by Peisistratos Phye’s height helped to convince the crowds that she was Athena. The Spartan Timasimbrota, who is mentioned in a fragment of archaic poetry, was as tall as a man, for she is described as resembling a golden-haired youth in her noble stature (Poetarum Melicorum Graecorum Fragmenta 5 F 2, col. ii 17-18). Archidamos was fined for choosing a short woman, because it was expected that the children produced by the couple would take after their mother (Athenaios 566A-B; Theophrastos in Plutarch Agesilaos 2.3; Moralia 1d). Plutarch described a heroic woman who accompanied Kleomenes’ family to Egypt as tall and robust (Plutarch Kleomenes 38.5). Diet reflected ethnic differences. Xenophon indicates that the Spartans were taller and stronger than other Greeks (Xenophon Lak. Pol. 1.10). The height of Spartan women probably resulted not only from heredity and eugenics, but also from their generous food rations. In ancient Greece a thin woman was not considered beautiful, but rather a pitiful creature who did not have enough food. Spartans were the only Greek women who were well-fed and drank wine. The Greeks viewed wine-drinking as a civilized activity, reserved for cultivated people high on the social scale (Lyons 1996: 110; Antonaccio &Neils 1995: 277). Since wine-drinking by women was not approved of elsewhere in Greece, the practice took on a negative connotation among critics of Spartan women. It was known that Spartan women drank wine as part of their regular diet, but there is no evidence that they were less temperate than the male revelers depicted on Lako-nian cups (Kritias F 6 Diels-Kranz = Athenaios 10.432D; Plutarch Lykourgos 12.7).
World History
