Women in Ancient Greece and Rome
Important Information

Reading List of recommended books for your research in this course.  (I will add books to it over the course of the semester, and if you have found a particular book helpful, let me know!) Research Paper Guidelines: Explanations of approaches to your papers for this class and my criteria for grading them. Essay and Book Report Guidelines:  How to write your essay responses or your book report, plus a few suggestions for essay topics (some of which allow you to elaborate on our class discussions). Possible Essay Topics Book Report Details

Research Paper Guidelines

For this class you will write one papers 5-6 page research paper. You may research any topic you like -- though if you want suggestions, a list is provided below.  The paper is due Monday, April 26.

Topics:

Anything to do with women or gender issues in the ancient Greek or Roman worlds.

You should consult me briefly about your paper topic before you begin working on it. Allow yourself enough time to research your topic thoroughly -- there may be competition for resources close to the due dates.

You might consider such topics as:

• women's roles in a religious ritual
  • marriage
  • funerals
  • Thesmophoria
  • worship of Dionysus, Artemis, Hera, or any deity for that matter
• women's legal status
  • property rights
  • dowry issues
  • mechanisms for managing legal problems
• women's economy
• women's representation in art (focus on one area, time frame or medium, e.g. red-figure vases)
• women's illnesses and medical treatment
• prostitution
• different statuses of freedom and slavery 
• representations of women in comedy or drama (including specific plays, or characters in different plays)
• women's literacy
• etc.

Be Specific: Bear in mind that this course covers a lot of time and a wide geographical region.  You will want to be specific. For example, "Greek women" is better than "ancient women," "fifth century Athenian women" is better than "Greek women," and "poor fifth-century Athenian women" is very specific and therefore the most effective sort of discussion you can pursue.

Research:  The paper should show a knowledge of your subject which is either wide-ranging or detailed (preferably both), and should also show some personal thought.  When planning your research, consider the following:

• Consult at least five sources, of which at least 4 must be either academic books, or articles on a university-approved, refereed Internet forum (such as Diotima's essays or articles from JSTOR or another academic archive).
• Make sure that primary sources are included in your work.  In many sorts of paper it is a good idea to make one primary source a focus of your research, and use other primary sources and secondary sources to illustrate it.  (For example, focus on Herodotus' description of Amazons and use other materials to explore the historical or sociological function or meaning of the story; or study how Helen of Troy is portrayed in Euripides' Helen, and compare this with other ancient portrayals, using secondary sources for insight into literary conventions.)  Literature and art-focused projects clearly include primary sources; see me if you wonder how to use (or find) such sources.
• There is a standard way of citing Classical primary sources, which you must follow when you use them in your paper.  This method is detailed at UNC-Chapel Hill's IAM site. 
• For a general guide on citing other kinds of sources, see Haverford College's Guide to Citing Sources in Classics.
• Include a Bibliography/Works Cited list.

When looking over your paper, consider the following (because I will!):

• Have you done enough research? Have you used the resources available to you to find out all you needed to make this an effective and informed presentation?
• Have you used primary sources? And when you follow an argument by modern authors, are you aware of the primary sources on which they have based their conclusions?  Are you sensitive to the possible agendas of your sources, and able to consider these in evaluating them?
• Are you guiding the progress of your research? That is, do you follow the "topic boundaries" of other peoples' discussions, or do your own questions lead you to your configuration of the issues you discuss?  Do you have an approach to your topic that distinguishes it from what someone else might write?
• Are you applying the perspectives and principles we have considered in this course in your treatments of your topic?
• Are you able to explain your ideas and argue your positions from a knowledge of the critical issues in your topic?
• Have you stated your thesis clearly, and constructed your arguments so they proceed effectively?  If one of your classmates read your paper, would s/he be convined by your argument?
• Do you meet the technical criteria of length and format?

These papers should have the mark of your intelligence, your interests, and your ideology, on them, but they are first and foremost research papers. I will want to see that you have endeavored to present an accurate and well-informed discussion of a particular area of ancient women’s lives. Use the resources of this library and the Internet, especially the Diotima web site (which will often refer you to library resources).  If you are having difficulty finding information, come to me; I can help you find other resources.

For a list of beautifully formulated topics (to inspire your own research) try M. Katz's course site.

Essay Guidelines

For this class, you will write two essays, or one essay and one book report. 

Due dates: Feb. 4 and March 18.

Essays: 2- 3 pages typed, with reference to at least one primary and one secondary source. 

These essays are your chance to express your reactions and interpretations of issues that come up in class, or that occur to you in your reading about ancient women.  They may explore or respond to a particular ancient source, or a particular parallel or difference between ancient and modern lives, or they may relate your studies of ancient women to other studies you undertake.  I will also provide some essay topics as the semester progresses, in case you work better that way.  Essays are meant to represent your well-considered opinions, feelings and interpretations, but they are also expected to be well-grounded in the material, both ancient and modern, that makes up this course.  What I will look for:

• clearly formulated topics
• familiarity with a central primary source and with class materials relating to it
• awareness of modern interpretations and perspectives on the topic, where relevant (i.e., while not going into full-force research mode, you have read up on the topic)
• personal investment in the topic -- i.e. you are writing about something that matters to you, or reflects issues that are meaningful to you, directly or indirectly
• clear writing
• points laid out clearly, so that a fellow student in the class could follow your argument or discussion and recap what your main ideas are

Possible Essay Topics:

Homeric Hymn to Demeter:  The following are some avenues of exploration you might take:

• What is the relationship between Demeter and Persephone in this poem?  What words or actions show the nature of their relationship to one another?  What insight does their relationship give to the relationship between mothers and daughters in Classical antiquity? 
• How does each goddess relate to the male power structure?  What recourse do they have against decisions that have been made without their consent?  What insight might these dynamics give to real familial and social relationships in Classical antiquity?

Homer:  Marilyn Katz observes that in Homer, the ideal marriage is a union of complementaries.  Describe how this is borne out (or not) in some of the Homeric couples we have encountered.  How do unmarried women like Nausicaa or Circe, or multiply-married women like Helen, fit into the mix?

Sappho: Scholars have argued over whether Sappho exhibits the same sort of temporary erotic passion for younger lovers that is found in masculine passion (both homosexual and heterosexual) in the Greek world, or whether she speaks of more emotionally grounded or lasting relationships.  What do you think and why?

Archaic Misogyny: What is it that archaic poets such as Semonides and Homer find so objectionable about women in general?  What social issues and attitudes might contribute to these opinions?  What do their poems tell us about ancient attitudes toward women – especially in comparison to the nearly-contemporary Odyssey?

Spartan Women: Were Spartan women better off than women in more traditional Greek cities?  What about their lives would be better?  What might be worse?  (And be sure to define what you mean by “better” or “worse” since these are value judgments none of the women at issue might have agreed with!)

Athenian Women: Women in classical Athens were, by our standards, repressed and disadvantaged by their legal system.  But what about the legal system was meant to protect citizen women?  Focus on specific institutions, laws and practices that would be seen by their authors as protecting women.  You may also want to consider what underlying views of women's nature led to their law code, and ways in which laws meant to protect women might have backfired and disadvantaged them.

Athenian Drama: Both Medea and Lysistrata are powerful women, in that they are able to play out their desires and achieve a victory (of whatever sort) over their male opponents.  Where do they get their power from? (community? intelligence? charisma? family? situations? etc.)  In what ways do they appear disempowered?  And are their parallels between the power expressed by the two characters, despite the very different plays in which they appear?

Amazons: When Plato argues the merits of his ideal society in which men and women would have approximately equal roles, he mentions the women of the Sarmatians, who also ride into battle alongside the men, and prove that women can do things men can.  Using Plato's perspective as a bridge, explore the attitude toward Amazons that appear in the Greek sources -- since although the Greeks largely limited the outside, public, and overtly active roles of their women, they nevertheless had many stories of these Amazon women who exceeded them.  (Of course, you can pick and choose your sources, since there are so many.)

Hellenistic Queens:  Both Cleopatra and Berenice are presented as attractive women -- but what sort of attraction do they offer?  Using the sources from your textbooks and the Power Points (and anything else you care to explore), discuss the nature of these queens as they are portrayed in the sources.  Be alert to the fact that the queens are portrayed by sources that have an agenda, and may portray more than real difference in the "personal styles" of the queens.

Ordinary Women: Using the sources from L&F of the Hellenistic period (323-30 BCE) (and a little into the Roman period if you like), discuss the lifestyle of the average Hellentistic woman, including what options are open to her in terms of work, home life, expectations in marriage, relationship with the outside world, and so forth.  You may focus on one or some of these aspects if you like. 

Early Republican Rome: In the myths of Early Rome, women often play a significant role.  Look at a few of these women (e.g. Rhea Silvia,the mother of Romulus and Remus, Cloelia, Lucretia, the Sabine Women, Vweturia, Claudia, Verginia) and discuss the ways in which their roles define Roman women.  Are they actors, victims, catalysts, forces for morality, symbols of the city, rebels, traditionalists?  Do they all have some things in common, or do they show different perspectives on the qualities admired in Roman women?

Republican Rome II: Women come in for some heavy criticism during this period.  What are the negative elements of women, as some Roman men describe them (and who are these critics anyway)?  Why are these elements considered so negative -- to whom or what do they do harm?  Are the criticisms different for elite and aristocratic women?  What must a Roman woman do to avoid criticisms such as these, and how (and for whom) is her compliance supposed to make things better?

Age of Augustus:  How much power did women of the Imperial family really have?  Were they able to exercise it in getting things done in a political sense, or was it mainly within their own (admittedly powerful) family?  Did Roman Imperial women conform to the images of them that were part of the public face of the Imperial family?

Women of Pompeii and Roman Egypt: Inscriptions and papyri give us insight into ordinary women's lives taht is harder to come by elsewhere.  What were the conditions of working women's lives in these places?  Could they be economically independent?  Were they restricted by the same elements of propriety that aristocratic women lived by?  Do their lives challenge some of our ideas about the limitations on women in ancient Rome, or reinforce them?

Book Reports  

You may replace one of the essays with a book report.  2-3 pages typed; see above for due dates.

• You may use a book from the class reading list, or you may consult the Diotima bibliography for a book on a topic that interests you, and either get it in this library or, if we do not have it, request it through Interlibrary Loan (allow 2 weeks).  If you are using a book not on the reserve list or in Diotima’s bibliography, discuss it with me first.
• Begin with the author, title, place, publisher and date in this format:

Lefkowitz, Mary R., and Maureen B. Fant (1992).  Women's Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation (2nd ed.).  Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

• In your first paragraph, give a summary of the central themes and ideas of the book. From this paragraph, I should have an idea of what the book covers and what conclusions it conveys.
• In the body of the report, you may focus your discussion on what you think are the central or most substantive issues. Every aspect of the book does not need to be equally thoroughly discussed -- you may want to use one chapter or one issue to comment on the focus of the book as a whole. If you use a collection of essays, you may concentrate on one or two of the essays (while making it clear how these essays fit into the overall theme of the book).
• This is an exercise in critical thinking. Do not simply summarize the contents of the book. Instead, comment on them from the perspective of what you have learned in this course about the field and its issues. I do not expect you to show a specific expertise in the area of the book you have chosen, but you will be able to use your knowledge from this course, and your own critical thinking skills, to interpret what you read.
• Give page references when you refer to specific passages or arguments. If you refer to another book for an opposing viewpoint (not necessary, but it could happen), give a full reference to that book.
• Please come to me with any questions or concerns.