Women in Ancient Greece and Rome
Glossary

Apotropaic: Literally "turning away," the term refers to the use of scary, demonic creatures to "turn away" evil in their turn.  For example, Greek temples were often decorated with mean, scary Gorgons, which served to scare ("turn") evil away from  the temple.  Like the gargoyles of Notre Dame, it's a classic conversion of the potentially demonic to "our" side.

Archaic Era: refers to the time from the 8th through early 6th centuries BCE, when the Homeric poems were written down, the first lyric poetry appears, the major sanctuaries at  Olympia and Delphi became prominent, and large free-standing sculptue becomes common.  (Also: population was increasing and farming intensifying, and colonization was established in Asia Minor and southern Italy, and still continuing.)

Bronze Age: The period in which bronze, the first viable metal, replaced stone for weapons and tools, before it was displaced by iron technology.  In Greece, this period lasts from about 3200 BCE to about 1000 BCE.  Both bronze and iron technologies infiltrated Greece slowly from the Middle East, so the dates are approximate and differ from place to place.  The Greek bronze age was the period in which small, subsistence farmin communities eventually developed into (or stayed small but supported) urban centers and dominant kings or aristocratic classes, and the Minoan and Mycenean cultures were Bronze Age civilizations.

Cult Statue: A stsue of a deity that is set up in a place of worship, usually a temple but sometimes a grove.  Some cult statues are "recently" commissioned objects notable for their richness and perfection, while others are ancient and venerable and may even be crude or worn-out objects but which may have some vital power remaining with them.

Dowry: An amount of money, goods or property conferred on a daughter upon her marriage, and turned over to her husband for management.  The daughter didn't own it, since women typically did not own property in substantial amounts in the Classical Greek world and even if they did, were not considered able to manage it.  But it was inalienably settled on her, for the benefit or her and her children.  If a husband divorced her for any reason but adultery, it had to be returned to her father (so that it could continue to be used for her support, especially if/when she remarried).   BEcause fathers had to break up their family wealth to add to the prosperity of another man's household when they gave a daughter a dowry, daughters were often considered financial liabilities.  (Sons, even though their wives' dowries were not completely theirs, were still enriched by them and their children would inherit them, so sons brought wealth to the household rather than diminishing it.)

Epithet: Webster's describes it as "a characterizing word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing," so I will just give examples: You will hear "Poseidon Earth-shaker" or just "The Earthshaker," you will hear "Phoebus (i.e. shining) Apollo" or just "Phoebus,"  "Pallas Athena" or just "Pallas."  Not all of the attributive names of gods are used in place of their names -- Athena isn't just called "Polias" or "Parthenos," for example, but those are still epithets because they are so closely associated with her name and identity in some important circumstances.

Graus: An old woman who is no longer sexually active and can no longer have children.  Because of this, she has more freedoms than younger women who must be very circumspect so that their sexual chastity and especially the legitimacy of their children cannot be questioned.  The old woman can be more outspoken as well, and in Greek writing (almost all of which is by men) the graus is often portrayed as intrusive and annoying because of this outspokenness.  Old women could (in some times and places) make a little money through being professional mourners, as they could take more of a role in public events like funerals than younger women.

Gyne: A mature woman, assumed to be married (and sexually active) or to have been married (and have been sexually active and maybe, if remarried, to be sexually active again). 

Hedna: "Bride Price," an amount of goods, land, or money a man had to transfer to his bride's family upon marriage.  This was a material recognition of a woman's economic worth to her family and her husband.  It was also typically used for the daughter's financial security and might include things that would help start up her own household rather than only enriching her father's.  While there are allusions to hedna in archais literature, this practice faded early on, and the father's granting of a dowry was the rule in Classical Greece and Rome.

Hubris: A kind of arrogance that shows that you misunderstand your place in the universe, and step out of your place in it, usually by being too bold or by thinking you have too much power over your circumstances or too many righte over others, the world, or the gods, or by being disrespectful cosnciously or unconsciously to those whom you should respect and show proper humility toward.

Iconography:  The traditional or standard ways of representing things (or people) that make them immediately recognizable to those within the culture.  For example, the iconography of Athena involves a woman in women's clothing but with a helmet, shield and/or spear.  It may also include the aegis, or an owl.  Any or all of these things show people from Greek and Roman culture that they are Athena is portrayed. 

Kore (pl. korai):  A statue from the archaic period of a young woman.  These statues were usually dedications to goddesses.  The young women are shown clothed, although often they have their clothing pulled tightly around their bodies in order to show the sculptural form of the body underneath.  Many of them are holding out a piece of fruit (usually an apple).  "Kore" is also an alternate name for Persephone.  The term kore means "maiden."  The equivalent term for male statues of the same type and period (which are nude rather than clothed) is kouros (pl. kouroi), meaning "young man."

Kourotrophos: A type of visual depiction (usually a statue or figurine) in which a female is shown holding an infant.  Usually the infant is male, but in the Greek world, the kourotrophos can be Demeter with Persephone.  This kind of figure appears in many cultures in the Meterranean and Middle East (and probably elsewhere as well).  The kourotrophos figure that has been most dominant in Western society is The Virgin Mary with Jesus.  This representation shows the nurturing power of women, and also (usually) the value of the male child in that society, who perpetuatues his father's family, brings honor to the mother, and cares for her t(one way or another)hroughout his adult life.

Matriarchy: If it were parallel with pariarchy, matriarchy should indicate a social system in which women and ideas associated with femininity were privileged over men and ideas associated with masculinity.  But that place don't exist.  So many modern social thinkers describe matriarchies as societies in which there are some features such as matrifocality (living with a mother's family after marraige) or kinship counted mainly in the female line, together with a more egalitarian relationship between men and women.  Sounds nice.

Miasma: Literally, "pollution," miasma is a state of uncleanliness that renders you separate from ordinary society.  In myth, it always occurs because of dire, miserable blood guilt -- usually murder or incest or moral pollution from some horrible, destructive act, incurred whether or not you intended to do it.  It doesn't matter if you intended to eat your children or kill your brother -- if you did it, you're polluted.  Miasma can be removed by ritual cleansing, but sometimes seems to continue to mark the sufferer as subject to the gods' continuing disfavor.

Nemesis: The inevitable horrible downfall or destruction that follows hubris -- it is a punishment for overstepping the proper bounds of behavior, but it is also a restoring of proper balance to the world by putting you back in your place.

Nymphe: This word has two central meanings in Greek.  One is more or less "bride,"  but with a more extensive meaning than our word "bride."  It does mean (like our term) "a woman who is in the process of being married," but it also means a young woman who will be married in the near future, or a woman who has been married recently, but who has not yet had a child (which would cement her role in her new husband's family).  It could also mean "daughter in law."  And it could also refer to the female sexual organs.  It second main meaning is "nymph," one of the semi-divine female nature spirits who populate Greek mythology, and who also populate the  natural landscape in the religious perceptions of the Greeks.

Oikos: "Household," but with a more expanded meaning than our term.  The household goes beyond the nuclear family to include everyone associated with the household, which may include several generations.  It includes immediate family members, but also includes slaves and other people economically dependent on the household (so it has something of an economic sense as well.)  Both men and women had a central concern in the household -- the man to oversee and produce its wealth, and the woman to preserve it and add to its value (e.g. by weaving wool).  Men typically oversaw the farming and other household production, overseeing male slaves, and marketing; women oversaw child reading, food preservation and preparation, cloth work, and the duties of female slaves.

Parthenos: A virgin.  The goddess Athena is often referred to as "Parthenos."  It is similar to kore, but while kore is about the fact that a young woman is flourishing and coming to her sexual maturity, parthenos means specifically that she does not have/has not had a sexual relationship with a man.

Patriarchy: A social system in which men and the ideas associated with masculinity are advantaged over women and the ideas associated with femininity.  Most complex civilizations (i.e. those practicing agriculture and those with urbanization) are patriarchies, although they run the gamut from places like the modern Netherlands to places like ancient Athens. 

Patrilineal: Counting family by descent through the father's line.  In other words, in a patrilineal society, your family would be your father's (and father's father's and so on), while your mother's side of the family would be only secondary.  A man would count his family by his sons, and his daughters would remain part of his family even though they lived with their husband's family.  But the daugher's father would not be able to claim a daugher's children as his family since they belonged to her husband's family.  Confused yet?  It's not that dissimilar from how we count family names, with women changing their names with marriage, so Jane Doe married John Day and becomes part of the Day family, with her children having the name "Day" and the Doe name only being preserved through her brothers.

Polis (plural poleis): A "city-state."  The polis is what we would consider a city in its geographical location and size, but each polis in Greece was a unique political entity, with its own laws, its own citizens and rules about citizenship, its own lawcode, and its own calendar of religious festivals.  Poleis could have radically different ideas about women's appropriate roles, and different legislation about women even if their attitudes were fairly similar.  Since they were politically independent, poleis often went to war with one another or formed alliances for protection or aggression.

Primary Sources: Sources about a culture that come from within it.  Primary sources for ancient Greek culture include things like poems, plays and epics written by Greeks, artwork and architecture from that period, and inscriptions or other writings (papyri, etc.) from that period.  Primary sources show us views from within the culture and we are left to interpret them.

Secondary sources: Sources about a culture written by people from outside it.  Textbooks and other scholarly works, what I say in class, and anything not written, painted or built in the Greek and Roman eras are secondary sources.  They reflect outsider perspectives on, and interpretations of, the culture in question.  Sometimes there are gray areas -- for example, is Ovid, a Roman poet, a good primary source about Greek myth?

Trickster: a kind of figure found in many cultures whose modus operandi is deception and defiance of authority.  Often he is a culture hero as well, in that he creates or causes to be created many of the things that allow human culture to achieve the comforts and accomplishments that characterize it today.  In Greek culture, the central trickster figure is Prometheus, who suffers for his defiance of authority; Hermes is a trickster who suffers little if at all.