Abstract

The status of women in 5^th century Athens was highly circumscribed. There was a dichotomy between the cultural ideal that women were expected to uphold and the reality of their lives. At Celebration of Scholars, I wish to present my findings about the discrepancies between women and their actual roles and how literature and art confront the dichotomy existing during the Golden Age of Athens. There are diverse representations of women’s legal status: from citizen women, to heiresses, to metic women, to prostitutes and slaves. In my research, I examine the actual condition of women’s lives in classical Athens and how laws and customs delineated what they can and cannot do. I investigate these questions primarily through Xenophon’s Oikonomikos, Pericles’ Funeral Oration, Plutarch’s Lives, as well as through surviving court cases and works of art. For example, the cultural ideal states that women should be secluded inside the home, but the Athenian citizen woman Elpinice, an upper class woman, publicly defends her brother in court, in contradiction of the cultural ideality.  In my research I ask questions about how ancient authors, mostly men, and real-life women negotiate the discrepancies between what was ideally expected of women in cultural, ideal, realistic terms.