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The labour of women in classical Athens*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Roger Brock
Roger Brock
Affiliation:
University of Leeds
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Demosthenes' client Euxitheos is attempting to defend his claim to citizenship, and finds himself obliged to counteract the prejudice raised by his opponent Euboulides from the fact that his mother works, and has worked, in menial wage labour. The implication is that no citizen woman would sink so low; therefore, she is no citizen, and so neither is he. His response is defensive: he acknowledges that such labour is a source of prejudice (42), but argues that people often find themselves obliged to undertake such demeaning work through poverty, which is deserving of the jury's sympathy, and in any case has no bearing on questions of citizenship (45). He does not challenge the assumptions behind the prejudice, suggesting that he expects the jury to share them, and this might encourage us to extrapolate from the passage to a set of common values held by Athenian citizens, namely that paid work by women is degrading, embarrassing and only acceptable as a temporary expedient under the compulsion of poverty. If we then align these attitudes with the implications elsewhere in the orators that women led lives of seclusion, usually confined indoors and largely separated from the exterior male world, we might be inclined to conclude that the labour of women was also confined to the oikos and almost entirely distinct from the labour of males, not least in having little or no monetary aspect, a point which the usual view of the economic capacity of Athenian women appears to confirm.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , December 1994 , pp. 336 - 346
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1994

References

1 Euxitheos also mentions agricultural labour as typical of the δουλικ κα ταπειν πργματα into which citizen women had been forced by Athens' circumstances (57.45); since he adds that many have since gone from poverty to wealth, he seems to be suggesting that work of this sort was often temporary.

2 This is the idealized division presented in Xenophon'sOeconomicus 7.17–43, especially 22.

3 Antiphanes fr. 157 (all comic fragments are cited from Kassel–Austin unless otherwise noted); cf. Hunter on the Ττθαι or Ττθη of Eubulus.

4 The following tombstones commemorate nurses (* denotes the description χρηστ, # denotes ϕλη; in those marked +, ττθη indicates both name and function: see L. Robert in Firatli, N. & Robert, L., Les Stèles Funéraires de Byzance Gréco-Romaine [Paris, 1964], 186)Google Scholar: IG II2 10843, 11647*, 12177+, 12242*, 12387*, 12559*, 12632*, 12812–4+ 12815–6+*, 12996, 13065; SEG XXI 1064*, XXVI 341*. On IG II2 7873 (below) and 9112 (below, n. 22), see Clairmont, C. W., Gravestone and Epigram (Mainz, 1970), nos. 25 and 18 respectively.Google Scholar

5 In Soph. Trach, Eur. Medea, Hipp., Andr. and, apparently, Stheneboea (Webster, T. B. L., The Tragedies of Euripides [London, 1967], 80–4)Google Scholar, they are confidants of principal female characters (and it is striking how much better informed the Nurse is than the Paidagogos in the prologue of the Medea), but the relationship of Odysseus and Eurycleia in Odyssey 19–23 (n.b. Rutherford [Cambridge, 1992] on 19.357) and the fact that most of the presumed donors depicted on the relevant gravestones are male imply that this is due to dramatic economy rather than simply reflecting reality.

6 Foxhall, L., CQ n.s. 39 (1989), 22–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harris, E. M., Phoenix 46 (1992), 309–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Gould, J., JHS 100 (1980), 38–59 esp. 48–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Just, R., Women in Athenian Law and Life (London, 1989), ch. 6, esp. 106–8, 113Google Scholar. Interestingly, revisionist scholars trying to debunk the standard picture of female seclusion have made little or nothing of female labour as an argument: e.g. Gomme, A. W., CP 20 (1925), 1–25Google Scholar, Kitto, H. D. F., The Greeks (Harmondsworth, 1951), 219–36Google Scholar, Richter, C. D., CJ 67 (1971/1972), 1–8Google Scholar (who takes Euxitheos' words at face value on p. 8).

8 Cohen, D., Law, Sexuality and Society (Cambridge, 1991), ch. 6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, developing his arguments in G&R 36 (1989), 3–15Google Scholar. Gould had already suggested that it might be a question of ‘submerged lines of demarcation’, even among the poor (op. cit. [n. 7], 48–9).

9 The standard discussion of women at work in ancient Greece is still Herfst, P., Le travail de la femme dans la Grèce ancienne (Utrecht, 1922Google Scholar; repr. Salem, New Hampshire, 1980), which covers a wide geographical and chronological area: officially, his field is the Greek world to the 1st century a.d. (11), but he regularly cites later authors such as Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius and even the 12th-century Theodorus Prodromus (43n.10). Some of the relevant material from curse tablets is now made more accessible in Gager, J. (ed.), Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford, 1992), ch. 4.Google Scholar

10 SEG 18.36 B212, 25.178.5; n.b. Athen. 415ab on Aglais the trumpeter. For women following artistic and intellectual careers in general, see Pomeroy, S., AJAH 2 (1977), 51–68.Google Scholar

11 Pl. Alc. 126e, Lys. 208d, Laws 805e, Xen. Mem. 3.9.11, Lac.Pol. 1.3.

12 Wool-workers: Tod, M. N., Epigraphica 12 (1950), 10–11Google Scholar; Jameson, M., CJ 73 (1977/1978), 134 n. 63Google Scholar; n.b. also the great frequency of scenes of wool-working on Attic vases: Webster, T. B. L., Potter and Patron in Classical Athens (London, 1972), chs. 16–17Google Scholar; dyeing: Ar. Eccl. 215 (amateur), Eup. fr. 434 (professional); carpet-weaver: SEG 18.36 B62; linen-working: Aeschin. 1.97, Alexis fr. 36; sewing of garments: IG II2 1556.28, Ziebarth, E., SBAW 33 (1934), n. 7.8Google Scholar ( = Jordan, D. R., GRBS 26 (1985), n. 72)Google Scholar and Antiphanes' play Aκεστρα (frr. 21–4); n.b. also the net-weaver, below 342; sale: Elephantis the cloak-seller IG II2 11254, Apollod. Car. fr. 30 (a play sub-titled ‘The Cloak-seller’); Thettale: IG II2 1672.70–1. In the same inscription, one Artemis of Piraeus sells 70 dr. worth of reeds (line 64); these were probably roofing material.

13 Pl. Rep. 455c cf. Thuc. 2.78.3; Herfst, op. cit. (n. 9), 24–32.

14 Men. fr. 451.12, Alexand. Com. fr. 3, Antiph. fr. 224; their services were particularly associated with weddings: Poll. 3.41.

15 Bread-sellers: Ar. Frogs 857–8, Lys. 458 and n.b. Hermipp. frr. 7–12 (Αρτοπώλιδες); Philocleon in Byzantium: Ar. Wasps 238; the summons: ibid. 1388–1414; cf. fr. 129 for a similar victim in another play. Their association in comedy with loud voices and abuse might be simply popular prejudice, but a low status elsewhere is suggested in the linking of bread-sellers with prostitutes by Anacreon, PMG 388.4–5. Bread-sellers at Athens were not exclusively female: see Rhodes on [Arist.] Ath.Pol. 51.3.

16 κοδομ, κοδομετρια: Poll. 1.246, 6.64, 7.181. Other domestic activities seem to be viewed in the same ideological light: like milling, water-carrying is represented as an activity which women did for themselves in the Golden Age before slavery (Herod. 6.137.3 cf. Pherec. fr. 10; P. Vidal-Naquet, in Vernant, J.-P. and Vidal-Naquet, P. (edd.), Travail et Esclavage en Grèce ancienne [Paris, 1988], 104–6)Google Scholar; hence some passages in drama imply that it is unusual for a respectable contemporary woman to fetch water, or acceptable only in a crisis (Eur. El. 107–9, 309; Men. Dys. 189–94; water-carrying in ritual contexts might have been felt to hark back to the Golden Age, though n.b. D. Williams, in Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A. [edd.], Images of Women in Antiquity [London, 1983], 102–5Google Scholar for complexities here), yet other evidence implies that many free women did still fetch water (Ar. Lys. 327–35, Eur. Hipp. 123–4; Webster, op. cit. [n. 12], 98–9).

17 Porridge (λκιθος): Ar. Lys. 457, 562, Wealth 427–8; this last passage again links the trade to abusive language.

18 Meal and seed: Ar. Lys. 457, Poll. 6.37, IG II2 1554.40, D.L. 7.168; in the last case, the woman involved was presumably of free status, since Cleanthes cited her as a witness before the Areopagus; pulse: IG II2 1558.67.

19 Ach. 478, Thesm. 387, 456, Frogs 840; more precisely, she was a herb-seller, a female equivalent of the σκανδικοπώλης of Fr.Adesp.Vet. 97A (Edm.).: see Ruck, C., Arion n.s. 2 (1975), 14–16Google Scholar. Might the slur perhaps have been due either to origins in a deme represented as economically backward (though Phlya is not especially remote), or to the family's practising market-gardening rather than growing cereals?

20 Vegetables: Wasps 497–9, Lys. 457, Poll. 7.199; garlic: Ar. Lys. 458; figs: ibid. 564, Poll. 7.198; sesame: IG II2 1561.27 – apparently working with her husband: ibid. 23; salt: IG II2 12073; honey: IG II2 1570.73, Poll. 7.198.

21 Washerwoman: IG I2 473 ( = Raubitschek, A. E., Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis [Cambridge, MA, 1949], no. 380)Google Scholar; fullers: IG II2 2934 n.b. Poll. 7.37.

22 There was also a vogue for Spartan nurses at Athens (Plut. Lyc. 16, Alc. 1); IG II2 9112, the tomb of Malicha of Cythera, might indicate that nursing was sufficiently lucrative to encourage migration to Athens, but Plut. Lyc. 16 makes it clear that some Spartan nurses at least were slaves. The involvement of nurses in the household in which they worked is implied by the titles of several 4th-century comedies: there were plays called Ττθη) by Alexis and Menander and Ττθαι or Ττθη by Eubulus.

23 Hagnodike: Hyg. Fab. 274; Phanostrate: IG II2 6873 (n.b. the masculine form of ἰατρς: Robert, op. cit [n. 4], 175–8 discusses the terms used to denote women practising medicine); on both see Pomeroy, op. cit. (n. 10), 58–60, but n.b. the sceptical treatment of King, H. (PCPS 32 [1986], 53–77)Google Scholar, who regards the story of Hagnodike as a kind of myth. Alexis is reported to have used the word ἰτριαν (fr. 319), but this might simply have been a humorous coinage: Geoffrey Arnott has kindly drawn my attention to fr. 214, where Alexis uses περιστερς ‘in order to stress humorously by means of the masculine ending the sex of a speaker whose identification of himself with Aphrodite's pet bird is itself an amusing conceit’ (I quote by permission from his forthcoming commentary).

24 E.g. Eur. Hipp. 293–4, Ar. Eccl. 528–50, and see in general Lloyd, G. E. R., Science, Folklore and Ideology (Cambridge, 1983), 63, 70–80Google Scholar and Herfst, op. cit. (n. 9), 55–6 for female healers. One might also note the popular association between women and ϕρμακα: Just, op. cit. (n. 7), 265–8.

25 [Arist.] Ath.Pol. 14.4, Athen. 609c. The point seems to be that Hippias in marrying her took a wife of low status, hence, presumably, the alternative version in Ath. Pol. which makes her a Thracian (n.b. Rhodes ad loc). Other testimony on garland-sellers: Eubulus' play ‘Garlandsellers’ (frr. 97–104), Poll. 7.199.

26 Dem. 57.31, 35; note that Euxitheos uses the 1st person plural, suggesting that he works together with his mother, and the present tense, implying that they are still practising the trade.

27 Pherecr. fr. 70 with Athen. 612ab, 687a, citing an alleged law of Solon, is refuted by, for example, IG II2 1558.37. Sale of perfume: Ar. Eccl. 841, IG II2 1576.17, SEG 25.180.34; manufacture: Θρᾷττα μυρεϕς (IG II2 11688) – presumably a skilled slave.

28 Fr. 70; since the passage is speaking of trade, this seems a more likely sense for μγειρος than ‘cook’.

29 The classic text is Isaeus 10.10 with Wyse, the implications of which are discussed by Kuenen-Janssen, L. J. T., Mnemosyne3 9 (1941), 199–214.Google Scholar

30 See Schaps, D. M., Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh, 1979), 52–8, 61–3Google Scholar; de Ste. Croix, G. E. M., CR n.s. 20 (1970), 273–8Google Scholar; Foxhall and Harris (opp. citt. [n. 6]) discuss practical ways in which women could escape the formal limitations of their capacities.

31 πανδοκετριαι: Ar. Lys. 458, Frogs 114, 549–78; καπηλδες: Thesm. 347, Wealth 1120–2, Theopomp. Com. frr. 25–9, IG II2 1533.16, 1557.51; bad language: Ar. Wealth 426–36, cf. Wasps 38; dishonesty: Wealth 435–6, Pl. Laws 918d. Curses: R. Wünsch, Defixionum Tabellae Atticae (IG III.3), 30.10, 68a.5, 13, b.6, 87a.8 (compare the κπηλοι cursed in 30, 68, 70, 73, 75, 87), Gager (op. cit. [n. 9]), no. 74 and n. 47, Jordan, op. cit. (n. 12), no. 11. Prostitute(s?) and procuress: Wünch 68a; purpose of curses: Gager, op. cit., 151–3, C. A. Faraone, in C. A. Faraone and D. Obbink (edd.), Magika Hiera (Oxford, 1991), 11.

32 βαλανετρια Poll. 7.166; λεπτρια: cf. also Lys. fr. 88S = Poll. 7.17; note also the plays titled Bαλανεῖον by Amphis, Diphilus and Timocles. For the disreputable character of bathattendants see Anderson, C. A., TAPA 121 (1991), 151 and n. 10.Google Scholar

33 Cobblers: IG II2 1578.5, Wünsch (op. cit. n. 31) 12.2; gilder: SIG3 1177 (probably Hellenistic, but may well reflect earlier conditions); potter: Beazley, ARV 2 571.73, but Green, R., JHS 81 (1961), 73–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues that the scene depicts metal-workers; ARV 2 658.29, which shows a woman cresting a helmet, may furnish another woman associated with metalwork; groom (πσηκιστρι[α]: SEG XVIII 36 B91; Glaukothea: Dem. 18.129, 259, 19.199, 281 – the cult was that of Sabazius (see Wankel on 18.259); Euphrosune the net-weaver: Ziebarth, op. cit. (n. 12), no. 5.3–5 [= Jordan, op. cit. (n. 12), no. 52]; again, the tablet is 3rd century, but seems likely to reflect classical conditions.

34 So for example Fitton Brown, A. D., LCM 9 (1984), 71–4Google Scholar, following Herfst (op. cit. [n. 9]), 13–17.

35 Sallares, Notably R., The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World (London, 1990), esp. 55–7, 82–3Google Scholar; Gallant, T. W., Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, 1991), esp. 30–3, 127–8Google Scholar; Jameson, op. cit. (n. 12), 122–45; Cooper, A. Burford, CJ 73 (1977/1978), 162–75Google Scholar; Osborne, R., Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attika (Cambridge, 1985), 142–6Google Scholar, and Classical Landscape with Figures (London, 1987), esp. ch. 2Google Scholar; de Ste. Croix, G. E. M., The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London, 1981), esp. Appx. II.Google Scholar

36 18%; Jameson, op. cit. (n.12), 133–5; in general, see Tod, op. cit. (n. 12).

37 Dem. 57.45; for this general sense of ἔριθος n.b. Hes. WD 602–3, Poll. 1.221, 7.141 and cf. 1.222, 7.141 for τρυγτρια.

38 Song of the winnowers: Ar. Clouds 1358, fr. 352, Phryn. Com. fr. 14, Nicophon fr. 8; ποστρια: Poll. 7.141, Archipp. fr. 44, Phryn. Com. frr. 39–45, Magnes fr. 5; θερστρια: Ar. fr. 829; ϕρυγανστρια: Ar. fr. 916, Poll. 7.142; καλαμτρις: Poll. 1.222, 7.142; μητρδες in 1.222 appears to be the result of scribal confusion. N.b. also Fitton Brown (op. cit. [n. 34]), 73 for vasepaintings of women picking apples; these were perhaps inspired by the erotic overtones of apples (Burnett, A. P., Three Archaic Poets (London, 1983), 267 and n. 102).Google Scholar

39 Burford Cooper, op. cit. (n. 35), 168–72; Osborne, , Classical Landscape (n. 35), 45–6Google Scholar, reinforced by the theoretical and comparative studies of Gallant, op. cit. (n. 35), ch. 4, esp. 82–92, who concludes that 3 hectares was a minimum holding for a household and 4–6 the norm.

40 Arist. Pol. 1252b12, 1323a5–6; contrast Ar. Eccl. 651, the Utopian ideal. There are other considerations: Gallant, op. cit. (n. 35), 33 notes the status aspects of slave ownership, which might override purely economic calculations, and also points out that, in a crisis, slaves might be sold (ibid. 127–8). Todd, S. (JHS 110 [1990], 167–9)CrossRefGoogle Scholar suggests that political and jury pay may have been a significant supplementary income, especially for farmers, who would look on it as a bonus on top of their annual crop; any juror ‘covered for’ by his womenfolk would obviously be getting a genuine bonus, but the apparent profit might affect the readiness of any potential juror to buy a compensating slave.

41 The point is made by, among others, C. Mossé, in Finley, M. (ed.), Problèmes de la terre en Grèce ancienne (Paris, 1973), 179–86Google Scholar; De Ste. Croix, op. cit. (n. 35), 33, 52–3, and ch. 4; Wood, E. M., Peasant, Citizen and Slave (London, 1988)Google Scholar, chs. 2–3; cf. PI. Rep. 565a, and especially Isocrates' identification of the poor with fanners and traders in Golden Age Athens (7.44).

42 Walcot, P., Greek Peasants Ancient and Modern (Manchester, 1970), 37, 40–2Google Scholar; Jameson, op. cit. (n. 12), 138 n. 79.

43 See also Gallant, op. cit. (n. 35), 87–92 for long-term fluctuations in the labour available to his model oikos.

44 Jameson, op. cit. (n. 12), 137; Herfst, op. cit. (n. 9), 13–17.

45 E.g. Mossé, op. cit. (n. 41), esp. 184–5.

46 The case for widespread labour by citizen women at an early date would in fact be strengthened if we could trust his citation of a law of Solon forbidding the slandering of any citizen, male or female, for working in the agora (Dem. 57.30), but its authenticity is doubted by Ruschenbusch, E., ΣΩΛΩΝΟΣ ΝΟΜΟΙ (Historia Einzelschriften 9, Wiesbaden, 1966), Fl 17Google Scholar. One is the more inclined to suggest that his offer to name other citizen nurses, if the jurors wish, is a bluff, since it lays on them the onus for a breach of the apparent convention that citizen women are not mentioned by name in court (Schaps, D., CQ 27 [1977], 323–31).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Which should warn us against identifying anyone threatening legal retribution as a citizen (e.g. Theopomp. fr. 28, Ar. Wealth 418–21, 433–4).

48 [Xen]. Ath.Pol. 1.10–12; Pl. Rep. 563b, cf. Dem. 9.3

49 Visits: Dem. 55.23–4, Men. Sam. 35–41; loans: Ar. Eccl. 446–9, Thphr. Char. 10.13, Cropp on Eur. El. 191, Millett, P., Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens (Cambridge, 1991), 37–9, 144–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; mutual assistance: Lys. 1.14, Eur. El. 1129–30, Ar. Eccl. 528–50.

50 loc. cit. (n. 8).

51 Demos (n. 35), 144–6.

52 See, for example, Xen. Oec. 7.20–3, [Ar.] Oec. 1.3.4; the picture of Heracles working wool, at Omphale's behest is the ultimate rôle-reversal. This outlook persists in contemporary Albania: ‘no self-respecting male would be seen dead doing “women's work” for fear of being the laughing stock of his mates’ (The Guardian, 8th July, 1993).Google Scholar

53 Women's market: Thphr. Char. 2.9, 22.10, Poll. 10.18. γλγη: Eup. fr. 327, Poll. 3.127, Cratin. fr. 51, Hermipp. fr. 11 with Hesychius s.v. γελγπωλις, against Pollux 7.198, who seems, since the context concerns terms for sellers of foods, to take γελγπωλις to mean ‘garlic-seller’, from γλγις (as do LSJ s.v.).

54 De Ste. Croix, op. cit. (n. 35), 179–88; it is hard to know how much to make of Xenophon's preference for work over idleness even in high status women (Mem. 2.7.7, Oec. 10.10–13).

55 So Walker, S., ‘Women and housing in classical Greece: the archaeological evidence’, in Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A. (edd.), Images of Women in Antiquity (London, 1983), 81Google Scholar; n.b., however, M. Jameson, in Murray, O. and Price, S. (edd.), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander (Oxford, 1990), 186–92.Google Scholar

56 See, for example, Xen. Oec. 10.2, Ar. Eccl. 878 with Ussher; Lys. 530–1, Thesm. 823. On the parasol as a status-symbol in its own right see Miller, M. C., JHS 112 (1992), 91–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar