Women in Sparta: Evidence
•Another common dance at Sparta was the Bibasis , which was much practised
both by men and women. The dance consisted in springing rapidly from the
ground, and striking the feet behind; a feat of which a Spartan woman in
Aristophanes (Lysistr. 28) prides herself. The number of successful strokes was
counted, and the most skilful received prizes. We are told by a verse which has
been preserved by Pollux (iv.102), that a Laconian girl had danced the bibasis a
thousand times, which was more than had ever been done before
•“LYSISTRATA . - Hello, Lampito, Lacédémonienne Cherished. How you are
beautiful, my soft friend! what a dyed fresh! what a air of health and strength!
you would strangle a bull.
LAMPITO . - By Beaver and Pollux! I believe it well; I am exerted with the
gymnasium, and while jumping I strike myself heel in behind”.
Alcman’s Maiden song
•In the Partheneion, the girls compare themselves to horses
•Hey had knowledge of horses but could also ride .Agesilaus 11 used to play “
pony on a stick” with his children
Partheneion
Images of Spartan Women
Eugenic controls
•“ His bride at the same time was scheming and helping to plan how they might
meet each other unobserved at a suitable time….Such intercourse was not only
an exercise in self control and moderation but also meant that partners were
fertile physically, always fresh for love and ready for intercourse rather than
being satiated and impotent from unlimited sexual activity.”
•“On the other hand, if a man did not want to have intercourse with his wife but
wanted children of whom he could be proud, he made it legal for him to choose a
woman who was the mother of a fine family…and if he persuaded her husband,
he produced children with her” Xenophon
•Xenophon, Polybius, Plutarch and Nicolaus of Damascus all refer to polyandry at
Sparta. Some scholars interpret “synoikein” as marry rather than in its common
sense of cohabitate or have intercourse. Xenophon’s description of husband
doubling postdates the Peloponnesian War and Leuctra indicating extreme
circumstances requiring change
Sayings of Spartan Women
•“ When a woman was burying her son, a worthless old crone came up to her and
said, “you poor woman , what a misfortune”. No by the two gods, a piece of good
fortune because I bore him so that he might die for Sparta, and that is what has
happened as I wished.”
Community Involvement
•Religion; In comparison with women of Athens,the activities of Spartan women
included substantially more opportunities for racing and far less for weaving.
Alcman’s poetry tells us of sumptuous banquets and the drinking of unmixed
wine. Even when the rituals were enacted by women only they were considered
an essential part of the religious life of all citizens. Votive offerings by women are
evidence of close relationships with female divinities.
•Although servile women did the routine weaving, freeborn women wove for
ritual purposes. Pausanius reports that every year women wove a chiton for
Apollo of Amyclae in a room designated as the chitona
•Weaving instruments and plaques depicting textiles were discovered at the
Shrine of Artemis Orthia.
•Role as Priestesses. “The priestess, holding the xoanon, ( wooden image of
Artemis ), stands by the Ephebes. It is usually light because it is very small; but if
those who administer the whipping ever decrease the whipping because of the
beauty or high status of the ephebe, then the xoanon becomes heavy for the
woman and no longer easy to carry. She blames those who administer the
whipping and says she is being weighed down because of them.” Pausanius
Inheritance Laws- Change over Time
•In terms of Greek law, an heiress was a fatherless, brotherless woman, known
as “patrouchos”.
•At the end of the 5th century the reforms of Epitadeus allowed women to inherit
‘kleroi”
•In the absence of a male descendent, such a woman could be the means by
which her father’s lineage was perpetuated. She might also transmit her father’s
property to her son, or inherit it herself
•Aristotle reports that at Sparta, heiresses were numerous. This was heightened
in the 4th century by the problem of oliganthropia ( sparse male citizens
)Aristotle complains that women owned as much as 2/5 of all Spartan land and
attributed the downfall of Sparta to this element
•In the later reforms of Agis 1V 244BC, he redistributed wealth to reinstate 600
landless citizens. Agis was able to convince his mother and grandmother, two of
the wealthiest women in Sparta to donate their property
Spartan Wives; Liberation or License
•“ A modern feminist might perhaps approve their equal though separate education,
which may have included an intellectual element; their frankness of utterance; their
liberated attire; their freedom from sedentary and stultifying domestic chores; their
control and management of households; their public valuation; and above all their
property rights. On the other side, however, the modern feminist is unlikely to be over
impressed by the way they were seized and had as wives in the domecile of their
husbands, who could lend them for extra marital procreation….and finally and perhaps
least of all by the overriding emphasis placed upon the woman’s child-bearing
potential by men who monopolized the political direction of a peculiarly masculine
society.” Paul Cartledge
Using these sources and other evidence explain the role and
contributions that Spartan women made to Sparta (12)