Pomeroy - Böcker

Sparta, which existed from 800 B.C. until A.D. 200, was renowned in the ancient world as a stoic and martial city-state, and most of what we know about Sparta concerns its military history and male-dominated social structure. Yet Spartan women were in many ways among the most liberated of the ancient world, receiving formal instruction in poetry, music, dance, and physical education. And the most famous of mythic Greek women, Helen of Troy, was originally a Spartan. Written by one of the leading authorities on women in antiquity, Spartan Women seeks to reconstruct the lives and the world of Sparta's women, including how their legal status changed over time and how they held on to their surprising autonomy. In this book, Sarah Pomeroy covers over a thousand years in the lives of Sparta's women from both the elite and lower classes. This is the first book-length examination of Spartan women, and Pomeroy comprehensively analyses ancient texts and archaeological evidence to construct the history of these elusive though much noticed women. Spartan Women is an authoritative and fresh account that will appeal to all readers interested in ancient history and women's studies.

With this volume Sarah Pomeroy builds on the groundwork she laid in Xenophon Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary (Oxford, 1994) and provides the first comprehensive study of the Greek family. Knowledge of the family and kin groups is fundamental to understanding the development of the political and legal framework of the polis, a community if Oikoi (`families' or `households') rather than of individual citizens. Pomeroy offers a highly original and authoritative account of the Greek family as a productive and reproductive social unit in Athens and elsewhere during the classical and Hellenistic periods, taking account of a mass literary, inscriptional, archaeological, anthropological, and art-historical evidence. Despite the unflagging scholarly interest in the development of the polis, until recently little attention has been paid to the history and structure of its smallest constituent, the oikos. Pomeroy seeks to show that the Greek oikos^r had several versions: a pseudo-kin group restricted to male citizens; a mixed family group oriented toward the public, in which men predominated; and a family group of a more private nature that accommodated women to a greater extent, though without necessarily excluding men. Public legislation and private custom concurred to perpetuate the oikoi, expecting it to endure longer than the lifespan of any individual member and to bear economic and social burdens imposed by the state.