This book is a companion volume to the authors Women in Ancient Rome, first published in 2013. It provides a much-needed analysis of how women behaved in Greek society, how they were regarded and the various restrictions imposed on their freedoms, movements and actions. Naturally, given that ancient Greece in most of its manifestations was very much a man's world, the majority of books on ancient Greek society even now tend to focus almost exclusively on men; this book redresses the balance by shining the spotlight on that other somewhat neglected or dismissed half: women had a significant role to play in many aspects of Greek society and culture and this book illuminates those roles. Women in Ancient Greece asks the controversial question: how far is the commonly accepted assumption that women were secluded and excluded just an illusion ?It answers the question by extending from the treatment of women in Greek myth, and the role of women in Homer and Hesiod through the playwrights, poets and philosophers to the comparatively liberated and powerful women in Sparta and Macedon until the end of the Hellenistic era; it covers women's lives in ancient Athens, Sparta and in other city states; it examines the role of women in Crete. It describes eminent women writers, philosophers, artists and scientists; it explores love, marriage and adultery, the virtuous and the meretricious, and the key roles women played in Greek death and religion. Crucially, the book is people- based, drawing much of its evidence and many of its conclusions from the lives lived by actual historical Greek women. In short, Women in Ancient Greece provides evidence for the important active role women played in ancient Greece, highlighting the contribution they made to one of the world's most influential and enlightened civilisations.Amongst many other ground-breaking things, the ancient Greeks developed a form of democracy; however, at the same time, to a large extent, they felt it necessary to keep their women secluded, and excluded from public business. This book acknowledges this seclusion and exclusion as inarguable fact, but contends that it is all very much a question of degree: the presumption through centuries of scholarship has been that women were locked in and at the same time locked out; Women in Ancient Greece goes further to question just how illusory this generalisation actually was.
Paul Chrystal was educated at the Universities of Hull and Southampton where he took degrees in Classics. His MPhil thesis was on attitudes to women in the poetry of the Roman love poets. He is the author of over 50 books published since 2010: they include In Bed with the Romans; Roman Military Disasters; Roman Women: The Women who Influenced Roman History; Wars and Battles of Ancient Rome; and Women in Ancient Rome. He writes regularly for academic and general history magazines, national newspapers and appears on the BBC World Service, on BBC Radio 4' on BBC local radio and on radio programmes in Spain and Ireland. Other publications include four best-selling books on chocolate, coffee and tea, a biography of the Rowntree family, numerous books on various aspects of the history of York, local, industrial and social histories of towns and cities extending from Scarborough to Port Sunlight, from Bournville and Saltaire to Middlesbrough and Hartlepool.
Introduction; Goddesses and mythical women; Epic, tragic and comedic women; Misogyny and invective; Women and the (re-) writing of history; Women in the family; Love and marriage, dowries and divorce; Seclusion and Exclusion: How Much of an Illusion ?; Women and the world of work; Spartan women: crucial cogs in a well-oiled war machine; Dressing down and making up; Educated Women: Poets, Philosophers, Painters, Physicists and Prostitutes; Women in the visual arts; Women in religion and in philosophy; Women and death; Women as witch; Medicine and women; Epilogue; Glossary of Greek terms; Greek and Roman sources quoted; Abbreviations; Bibliography; Index of Women; General Index.
