Citizen Bacchae: Women’s Ritual Practice in Ancient GreeceWhat activities did the women of ancient Greece perform in the sphere of ritual, and what were the meanings of such activities for them and their culture? By offering answers to these questions, this study aims to recover and reconstruct an important dimension of the lived experience of ancient Greek women. A comprehensive and sophisticated investigation of the ritual roles of women in ancient Greece, it draws on a wide range of evidence from across the Greek world, including literary and historical texts, inscriptions, and vase-paintings, to assemble a portrait of women as religious and cultural agents, despite the ideals of seclusion within the home and exclusion from public arenas that we know restricted their lives. As she builds a picture of the extent and diversity of women’s ritual activity, Barbara Goff shows that they were entrusted with some of the most important processes by which the community guaranteed its welfare. She examines the ways in which women’s ritual activity addressed issues of sexuality and civic participation, showing that ritual could offer women genuinely alternative roles and identities even while it worked to produce wives and mothers who functioned well in this male-dominated society. Moving to more speculative analysis, she discusses the possibility of a women’s subculture focused on ritual and investigates the significance of ritual in women’s poetry and vase-paintings that depict women. She also includes a substantial exploration of the representation of women as ritual agents in fifth-century Athenian drama. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 Working Toward a Material Presence | 25 |
The Reproduction of Sexuality | 77 |
Imaginary Citizens | 160 |
Ritual as a Cultural Resource | 227 |
Ritual in Drama | 289 |
| 371 | |
| 393 | |
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Acropolis Adonia ancient Greece Antigone Aphrodite argues Aristophanes Arkteia arrhephoroi Artemis articulate Athenian Athens Bakchai Brauron Brulé celebrations century B.C.E. chapter chorus city's civic claims classical construct cult cultic daughter dedications Delphi Demeter Dionysiac Dionysos discourse domestic drama Eleusis Eteokles Eupatrid Euripides female identity festival fifth century figure gender gesture girls goddess Greek Greek culture Hellenistic hetaira historical women honor husband identified ideology IG ii² images inscription instance Iphigeneia kanephoros Klytaimestra Kreon Kreousa LSCG Lykourgos Lysistrata maenads male marriage mother mourning myth narrative Neaira notion offer oikos Orestes participation patriarchal Pausanias perform play Plutarch poem polis political position priestess of Athena produced prostitutes Pythia representation represented rite ritual sphere role sacrifice scenes seems seen sexual significant Spartan speech status suggests Taurians temple Thebes Theonoe Thesmophoria Thyiades tion trope vases virgin wife woman women's ritual activity women's ritual practice young women Zeitlin