CCIV 243:
WOMEN AND THE POLIS

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Suggestions for Study 
For each Tuesday class, I suggest that you first read through the assigned material, to get an overview of the period covered, the major issues and events in it, and the aspects relating to women. Second, reread the material from Fine, The Ancient Greeks with the notes and questions below in mind: these are designed to help you organize the material for yourself and to alert you to what the major issues are. Also, consult the indicated pages in the Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece (PHA), and follow the links to the supplementary material from Thomas Martin's on-line Overview of Archaic and Classical Greek History (TRM). This will give you a slightly different perspective on the material and will help you to see how historical information can be understood and presented differently. Third, reread the material in Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece and think about the historical period covered in relation to women: what questions occur to you that are not answered by the readings in either Fine or Blundell? Make a list of these and bring them to class. For Tuesday's class, ignore the questions posted for Blundell: in most cases we will discuss these in connection with Thursday's readings. Your reading in Blundell for Tuesday can be more or less casual, and should be used to help you get started in thinking about women in relation to the historical period under discussion. For Thursday's class, read the Blundell chapter more carefully and think about it in more detail (see next paragraph). 

For each Thursday class, I suggest that you first read through the assigned primary material, to get an overall sense of what it is about. Second, reread the material with the notes and questions below in mind. These are designed to help you focus your attention on historical and sociological, rather than literary, issues. Third, reread the material in Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece which was assigned for Tuesday. Evaluate your own interpretation of the implications for women of the material against hers. Make notes on your observations and bring them to class. 

Topic: Three Parties (210-212) 
What were these and whose interests did they represent? Who were their leaders and where were their bases of power located? 
What was the relationship between this Megacles and the one who married Agariste, daughter of Cleisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon? (Hint: check the dates on the Tyranny background notes.) 

Topic: Pisistratus (212-214) 
What was the sequence of events of Pisistratus's tyranny? Pay attention to the dates of: his first seizure of tyranny (560); his second exile (556); his return to power and the battle of Pallene (546); his death (528).

Food for thought: Scholars are divided on the question whether the popularity of the theme of Heracles' apotheosis or introduction to Olympus on black-figure vases of the Pisistratean period does or does not reflect Pisistratus' attempt to link himself with the hero and patron goddess of Athens. The story in Herodotus I.60 may reflect such propaganda. Think about it when you read the summary of this episode in Fine and when you read the Herodotean narrative itself for Thursday.
For an illustration of one such vase, see this example in the North Carolina Museum of Art. You can link here also to a Shockwave presentation of the same vase which lets you rotate it.

Topic: Pisistratus' Tyranny (214-216; 218-20) 
What were the principal features of Pisistratus' domestic policy, foreign policy, religious policy, and building program?

After Pisistratus constructed the Enneakrounos, scenes of woman at the fountain-house on black-figure hydriai or water-jugs became popular. Here is a link to one such scene by the Priam painter, to whom 25 vases are attributed (including some showing the apotheosis of Heracles), and of these, 8 show women at the fountain-house.

Topic: Miltiades and the Philaidai (216-218; 221) 
Consider the relationships among the Philaidai: read what Fine says on the indicated pages and consult Herodotus 6.34-39 and 6.103 for an account of the family. Here is a table of the family relationships to help you follow the story. 

Give some attention, too, to the ancestry of the line: they were originally Aeacidae from Aegina, but now identified themselves as Philaidai, on the strength of Philaius' settlement in Athens. What does this tell you about the character of the gene? 

Topic: Hippias and Hipparchus (220-26) 
For now, read over the account of the period 528/7 - 510, down to the time when the Pisistratids were driven out of Athens. We'll discuss this period and the principal figures of it in more detail on Thursday, in connection with our reading of Herodotus's narrative of early Athens. 

Topic: Cleisthenes (226-29; 241-43) 
These pages deal with the historical aftermath of the end of tyranny at Athens. Pay attention in particular to the ways in which Sparta and other Greek city-states, as well as Persia, are involved or try to be in what goes on in Athens.
On what three occasions did king Cleomenes of Sparta intervene in Athenian affairs during this period? Can you detect a consistent policy behind Sparta's interventions?

Topic: Cleisthenic Reforms (229-41) 
What were the major features of Cleisthenes's reorganization of the Athenian population? What were the major points of contrast with the previously existing organization of the population? What was the overall function of the reforms?
What was the importance of the demes in Cleisthenes's reforms? What was a deme?
What was now the function of the tribe? How many were there? Where did they come from and of whom were they composed?
What was the function of the phratry under the new democratic system? How did this new function contrast with the earlier functions of the phratries?

Herodotus, Histories I.59-64 (pp. 22-25); V.55-96 (pp. 299-316);VI.87-93 (pp. 353-55), 103-4 (p. 358), 106-8 (p. 359), 121-40 (pp. 364-71) (Thursday); Aristotle and Thucydides on Harmodius and Aristogeiton (Thursday)

Today's reading includes some material which you have seen before (the Bacchidae, the wooing of Agariste, etc.), and which you can now review in its original context--the origins of Athens and its history up to the time of the beginning of the Persian Wars (490 bce).
The selections as a group comprise: the Pisistratid tyranny (from Pisistratus [560] through Hippias' attempt to return with Persian aid in 490 up to the aftermath of Marathon, which includes stories about Miltiades); Cleisthenes' reforms and his family history; relations with Sparta in the late archaic period; relations with Aegina and Salamis in the late archaic period.

Group I (Rachel, Sarah R, Mary Liz)
Review Herodotus I.59-64, V.55-65, and Aristotle and Thucydides on Harmodius and Aristogeiton.
Group II (Andrea, Sarah W, Becky)
Review Herodotus V.66-91, 93-96; VI.87-93, 103-4, 132-6.

Both Groups: Think about all the places in the narratives where female characters appear (historical or mythological). What general conclusions can you draw about women and the female in the era of tyrants? Think also about how family groups and their alliances are depicted in these sections of the narrative. How are these groups constituted and how do they establish, maintain or lose their positions of prominence? How do women figure in this process?
Also: consider what Blundell says about Plato and Aristotle (below). How do Plato's revisions of family relations and Aristotle's conceptions of its origins, structure and function compare with the ideas you have developed about the family and its place in society in the archaic period?

This chapter takes up ideas about women and the family which were formulated in the fourth century b.c.e., with reference to the democratic polis whose institutions were introduced at the end of the sixth century b.c.e. For now, consider what each of them says with reference to your ideas about the polis community as a whole in the era of the tyrants.

Last updated 4 March 1998