The martial virtues ― courage, loyalty, cunning, and strength ― were central to male identity in the ancient world, and antique literature is replete with depictions of men cultivating and exercising these virtues on the battlefield. In "Women and War in Antiquity", sixteen scholars reexamine classical sources to uncover the complex but hitherto unexplored relationship between women and war in ancient Greece and Rome. They reveal that women played a much more active role in battle than previously assumed, embodying martial virtues in both real and mythological combat.
The essays in the collection, taken from the first meeting of the European Research Network on Gender Studies in Antiquity, approach the topic from philological, historical, and material culture perspectives. The contributors examine discussions of women and war in works that span the ancient canon, from Homer's epics and the major tragedies in Greece to Seneca's stoic writings in first-century Rome. They consider a vast panorama of scenes in which women are portrayed as spectators, critics, victims, causes, and beneficiaries of war.
This deft volume, which ultimately challenges the conventional scholarly opposition of standards of masculinity and femininity, will appeal to scholars and students of the classical world, European warfare, and gender studies.
Author(s): Jacqueline Fabre-Serris, Alison Keith (ed.)
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Year: 2015
Language: English
Pages: XII+342
City: Baltimore
List of Contributors vii
List of Figures ix
Introduction / Jacqueline Fabre-Serris and Alison Keith 1
PART I. FROM WORD TO DEEDS: BETWEEN GENRES
1. War, Speech, and the Bow Are Not Women's Business / Philippe Rousseau 15
2. Women and War in the "Iliad": Rhetorical and Ethical Implications / Marella Nappi 34
3. Teichoskopia: Female Figures Looking on Battles / Therese Fuhrer 52
4. Women Arming Men: Armor and Jewelry / François Lissarrague 71
5. Woman and War: From the Theban Cycle to Greek Tragedy / Louise Bruit Zaidman 82
6. Women after War in Seneca's "Troades": A Reflection on Emotions / Jacqueline Fabre-Serris 100
7. Love and War: Feminine Models, Epic Roles, and Gender Identity in Statius's "Thebaid" / Federica Bessone 119
8. Elegiac Women and Roman Warfare / Alison Keith 138
9. Warrior Women in Roman Epic / Alison Sharrock 157
PART II. WOMEN AND WAR IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT: DISCOURSE, REPRESENTATION, STAKES
10. War in the Feminine in Ancient Greece / Pierre Ducrey 181
11. To Act, Not Submit: Women's Attitudes in Situations of War in Ancient Greece / Stella Georgoudi 200
12. Women's Wars, Censored Wars? A Few Greek Hypotheses (Eighth to Fourth Centuries BCE) / Pascal Payen 214
13. The Warrior Queens of Caria (Fifth to Fourth Centuries BCE): Archeology, History, and Historiography / Violaine Sebillotte Cuchet 228
14. Fulvia: The Representation of an Elite Roman Woman Warrior / Judith Hallett 247
15. Women and "Imperium" in Rome: Imperial Perspectives / Stéphane Benoist 266
16. The Feminine Side of War in Claudian's Epics / Henriette Harich-Schwarzbauer 289
Bibliography 303
Index Locorum 329
Index Nominum 334
Index Rerum 337
