Sarah B. Pomeroy

Think about the stories of the Greeks and Romans. Sure, women might be in the story in various places; they might even motivate some of the action in them. But overall the women are not doing much of the acting. They might be indispensable, but they certainly can be marginalized.

Sarah Pomeroy led the way in Classics with the first real history of women in the Classical world with her 1975 Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. In this edition the author provides an updated preface but otherwise the work remains substantially the same.

Pomeroy began with the theology of the Classical world and how the Greeks and Romans imagined their gods and goddesses. She then considered what can be known of Greek women in the Bronze Age and in Homeric epic (~2500-1000 BCE), the “dark age” and archaic period (1000-500 BCE), women in Athens, public and private from 500-300 BCE, how women were portrayed in the literature of Athens at that time, women in the Hellenistic world (332-30 BCE), Roman matrons of the period around 150 BCE-100 CE, women of the lower classes of Rome, and finally how women functioned within Roman religion.

The story overall is one of marginalization, especially in classical Athens. While it cannot be doubted that the story presented in the Old and New Testaments has its points of misogyny, it becomes painfully apparent in this reading how much of the heritage of modern Western misogyny in fact stems from the classical Greek authors. Their view of women and their capacities was quite dismal. Women would obtain slightly more freedom in previous times and in the Hellenstic age, and Roman women would be able to enjoy slightly more freedom, but nothing approaching anything we would imagine as true freedom or equality in worth or value. As is noted in the text and more thoroughly in the epilogue, it would seem Greek and Roman culture had more men than women in it, which would be a function of choice in terms of which children were raised and/or favored. We can find modern parallels in certain cultures which to this day prioritize boys over girls and that gets manifest in population numbers.

For freeborn women in the Classical world, if they survived long enough, the vast majority would become wives. Some would be whores. A precious few would have significant roles in religious matters. A very large number would be slaves and treated as such. They would all have goddesses to honor, yet even they would generally be seen as less active or propitious than the male gods.

This book remains the standard of the field for good reason. It holds up very well despite being almost fifty years old - which for the field would otherwise be rather dated. Since many of the architects of our society were enamored with the Classical authors, and many to this day draw their inspiration from them, it is good to be aware of Classical perspectives on women and to be willing to call out its misogyny. Just because ancient Greeks believed something does not make it good or right, and we should never be so entranced with them as to disregard and degrade women today because of them.… (more)