Alexander, Hellenistic women and Olympias

[amyntoros]

Alexander, thank you for your interesting input. Because of time constraints today, I'm only going to respond briefly right now to a couple of your points. On the comments about Olympias - I'm far from convinced that the "witchy, bitchy, caricature" came entirely from the ancient sources. I was reading Justin again today, and if you took him only into consideration there might be a good argument; but even then I think it's more a question of people today being horrified by what Justin said she did, rather than how he describes her. I'm caught up in transcribing Polyaenus, but once he's done I shall finish putting a file together on Olympias - I have all the minor source references, but need to transcribe those in the major sources. Once I have everything together, I'll have an even better picture of her - and hopefully will be able to put forward a good argument based *entirely* on the ancient sources. In the meantime I have to see if I can obtain those two articles and read them through for myself - I'm especially interested in what Carney has to say.And I should have checked the sources regarding the dissolution (or non-dissolution) of the marriages at Susa. Funny how easy it is to absorb so-called "information" without realizing that it is just modern conjecture, especially when it is repeated so often. Very interesting - thanks. I have to follow up on this. :-)Best regards,Amyntoros

[marcus]

I've always assumed that the assumption is made on the basis of three 'facts':1. That we don't hear anything about any of the other Persian brides after the weddings.2. That none of the sons of any of the other bridegrooms are recorded as having been the sons of the Persian brides ... except Antiochus.3. That Seleucus was the only one who named any cities after his Persian bride.As you say, rather flimsy evidence ... I don't know for sure whether there is any other evidence, but if this is indeed all there is then it is far from strong!ATBMarcus

[ancientlibrary]

I find the second statement particularly interesting, and I wonder how much work has been done on the issue, particularly as relates to the source criticism of the Alexander historians. YouGÇÖve obviously got a very GÇ£layeredGÇ¥ effect or, put another way, a series of mirrors showing mirrors. Take a speech in Curtius. Of course, you have the problem of speechesGÇöthat all speeches in ancient historians, possibly but not in my opinion excepting Thucydides, are 100% bunk. But getting past this you wonder if a given detail is the product of CurtiusGÇÖ time (itself uncertain), his intermediate sourceGÇÖs time, the early Hellenistic period (if different), or AlexanderGÇÖs time. Does Curtius partake of a discourse of Romans vs. Greeks, Romans vs. Parthians or Romans vs. Romans (cf. The Germania, which is ostensibly about the Germans, but really about how Romans ought to be)? Does it partake of early-Hellenistic efforts to come to grips with the alien environment? To Greek attitudes toward the alien Macedonian-barbarian environment of the campaign, or to older (and slow-dying) attitudes to the mysterious east? Can we ever trace directly to the feelings and sentiments of the Macedonians actually taking part in the incident? There are a lot of interesting wrinkles hereGÇöArrian, for example, was a champion cultural negotiatorGÇöbut also serious source and interpretive problems. As often in Alexander studies, the hotter the flame, the harder it is to get near it.In any case, whatever the flame looked like, the moth died. However you conceive of or state his "policies" they do seem to have been largely repudiated. The Hellenistic world does not, it seem to me, take itGÇÖs cue from AlexanderGÇÖs life, but from the GÇ£facts on the ground,GÇ¥ pre-existing cultural attitudes, and the GÇ£negotiationsGÇ¥ of the early Hellenistic period. Lastly, and off-topic, I think GÇ£contactGÇ¥ vs. GÇ£mixingGÇ¥ is a false dichotomy. Quod tangit miscit, or perhaps becomes something entirely new. The extent of intercultural penetration has been underplayed and overplayed, but there is a solid, describable reality, varying based upon what sphere youGÇÖre talking about. Did the Greek language undergo massive linguistic changes because of Egyptian and Aramaic? No way. Do magical and divinatory text show an almost super-national koine? Absolutely.

[ancientlibrary]

Well, I may contribute a few more arguments
here, but I think Alexander stated the argument
better than I did (or even could have), particularly
with the article backup which now requires a
long drive for me to get. As perceptive as Carney
always seems to me, I find the concept of
female royal "power" an odd one. It's so easy to
get involved in modernizing (and moralizing)
analyses, as if we were discussing an
early-Hellenistic "glass ceiling," through which
women CEOs--whoops I mean queens--could
not pass. To use somewhat mathematical
terms, I suspect that the "power" of an ancient
queen, or woman, was not a scalar, but an
array, the elements of which must largely
escape us. Scholars don't know what to believe
about the role of women in the
much-documented and discussed Ottoman
Seraglio. Can we pretend to know a tenth as
much about Hellenistic courts? We see through
a fog, thicker with the national or gender
preoocupations of the author than any historical
substance. Take Cleopatra VII, by far the best
documented Hellenistic queen, with an "image"
of well known richness and literary potential. But
it's *all image*. What we *really* know about
Cleopatra would fit on the back of an index card!

[ancientlibrary]

This discussion has certainly brought out the
degree to which we need to question
assumptions about the evidence. Your
argument about Olympias took me off guard
and sent me back to my sources. I do think the
evidence forms something of a negative
imageGÇöDiodorus after Alexander's death has
some choice bits tooGÇöbut the evidence is
weaker than I would have thought. I look forward
to your collection of sources. (See the Smith
entry, also on the WCD, for many references. I
can also get you the Berve page.) The same
goes for the royal marriages. Very good
discussion.

[ancientlibrary]

You nailed my point about art exactly. To go
modern again, it's not as if the percentage of
female statues is a "metric of progress" like the
percentage of female students at Harvard Law
School. .I would, however, extend the art point
somewhat. Art can tell us a lot, but seldom by
itself. I'm rereading Burkert's _Greek Religion_
presently. Despite the large quantity of
seal-stones, statues and other religious
objects, depicting various figures and
mythological scenes scholars are virtually
clueless about Mycenaean religion. A guy
reaching up into a tree appears a lot. Who the
heck is he?

[abm]

"Does it partake of early-Hellenistic efforts to come to grips with the alien environment? "I think Geus' view on Eratosthenes (in the book quoted above) is very convincing in this respect."I think GÇ£contactGÇ¥ vs. GÇ£mixingGÇ¥ is a false dichotomy"you are right of course, but I added the comment because although earlier generations of scholars (starting with Droysen) assumed that the different cultures were really mixed to a high extent in the hellenistic world, more recently many scholars (e.g. Pr+¬aux) have argued that the cultures lived rather next to each other. Thus in Egypt we see that the people mixed, without necessarily causing a mix of the cultures. We know Egyptinas who had both an Egyptian and Greek name. They used the Egyptian name in their own village and dealings with Egyptians, while they used their Greek name in contacts with Greeks, the adminsitration etc. and apparently they kept both cultural spheres somewhat apart. (but i am no specialist on this)Concerning the marriages with Asian women the points Marcus makes are of course correct, but we have to reckon with the possibility that our extant sources simply weren't very interested in those women. As for Antiochos and Apamea, Seleukos' situation was different, since he ruled the area of the former Persian empire. Thus, while these are interesting points, they are, as Marcus said, certainly not strong enough to call the dissolutions of the other marriages a fact.I don't have the time to read the sources on Olympias now, but you Linda be right, of course. The marriage-dissolution-point shows, as Linda said, that one should always be very careful with any modern interpretation and thus I will say no more on this before i've re-read the sources on it.regards,abm

[amyntoros]

GǣYour argument about Olympias took me off guard and sent me back to my sources. I do think the evidence forms something of a negative imageGǪGǥ

Actually, in also going back to my sources, I must acknowledge that there GÇ£isGÇ¥ a greater negative image than I originally thought. Isolating all the particular events and comments on Olympias and then comparing them is something of an eye-opener. I still don't think the word GÇ£vitriolicGÇ¥ can be applied to the whole, but I do believe thereGÇÖs the possibility of you and I eventually GÇ£meeting in the middleGÇ¥ regarding Olympias GÇô at least as to how the ancients viewed her. Our own personal opinions may well continue to differ. (I printed the Smith entry to check my references on her, by the way GÇô thanks for the reminder.)Your comments on source criticism under the GÇÿHellenic Cultural MixingGÇÖ heading are also apt and IGÇÖve been having similar thoughts while reading up on Olympias. For instance: Justin (9.7) on Olympias killing CleopatraGÇÖs daughter says Olympias GÇ£enjoyed the sight of her suffering this vengeance.GÇ¥ Are these JustinGÇÖs words? The words of Trogus? Or a contemporary Greek source? Did some servant or soldier actually witness the murder of the child and report on OlympiasGÇÖ glee? I have no answer. ..I think the only way to a better understanding of Olympias, given our limited sources, is to analyze the information, piece by tiny piece. I started to do this with Plutarch, beginning where he calls Olympias GÇ£jealous and vindictiveGÇ¥ when writing about PhilipGÇÖs upcoming marriage to Cleopatra. I shall probably put it in a later and separate thread, as this one is getting too cumbersome, but I did want to note something from John Maxwell OGÇÖBrienGÇÖs ATG: The Invisible Enemy about that particular part of Plutarch. OGÇÖBrien says that after also indicting Olympias, Plutarch adds the statement that GÇ£a certain amount of accusation attached itself to Alexander also.GÇ¥ (Alexander 10.) In his notes he points out that this statement is missing from the Penguin translation but can be found in the Loeb text. The Penguin edition is certainly the most popular version sold, so most readers of Plutarch will not know this phrase is missing. (No wonder Marcus prefers the Loeb edition!) It seems that even our trusted translations can be quite inaccurate, another problem involved with source analysis and criticism.Amyntoros

[amyntoros]

"In general, I think that if Alexander really did improve the status of women, it was very indirect."I realize that in order to argue that Alexander, either directly or indirectly, was an influence on the changing role of women, I will have to convince that there *was* a change in the first place and give source references. I quickly scanned through Leflkowitz and Fant's source book on Women's Life in Greece and Rome. In the preface there's this: "Since the later sources tend to provide more explicit detail about women in all walks of life, development is evident in every category, and especially in public life, occupations and the law." Problematically, the book covers women right through Roman times, and there's little evidence from the Hellenistic period. That doesn't surprise me too much - none of the primary sources on Alexander have survived either. Still, there's evidence of respectable women (as opposed to courtesans) participating in games, being allowed to view the games, and being honored as a musician by a city, though the latter is as late as 86 BC. Not much, but it will have to do for nowGǪ Texts, Amorgas, 3rd century BC. Documents concerning various women and a mortgage; security for a dowry; transaction with a society, and leased property for female beneficiaries of a will. Papyri, Egypt (Hellenistic), 3rd century BC. Jobs held by women: Shepherdess. Scribe. Fuller.Inscriptions, female victors in athletic contests. 268/7 BC, at Oxyrhynchus: Bilistiche of Magnesia, winner of a four-horse chariot race. (She was the hetaera of Ptolemy Philadelphus.) At Larisa, early second century BC: Aristoclea from Larisa, daughter of Megacles, winner of a two-horse chariot race. From the Panathenaic victor lists, Athens: 194/3 BC, in the horse race, Zeuxo of Argos; in the four horse race, Hermione of Argos (both daughters of Polycrates). 190/89 BC, in the four-horse chariot race, Zeuxo of Cyrene, daughter of Ariston. 182 BC, in the four horse chariot race, Zeuxo of Argos from Achaea, daughter of Polycrates.Papyrus, Alexandria, 1st century BC. Annulment of the marriage contract of Dionysarion, daughter of Protarchus. (Her husband was deceased). Contract allowed the woman to take back her dowry from her mother-in-law's house, to marry again; and gave permission for her to expose her baby! Inscription, Delphi, 86 BC. Polygnota, a Theban woman, honored for her harp playing at the time of the Pythian games which were

[amyntoros]

(Dang! I really need to keep my responses down to a single post!)Inscription, Delphi, 86 BC. Polygnota, a Theban woman, honored for her harp playing at the time of the Pythian games which were not held on account of war. The city voted to "bestow on her and on her descendants the guest friendship of the city, the right to consult the oracle, the privileges of being heard first, of safety, of exemption from taxes, and of front seating at the games held by the city, the right of owning land and a house and all the other honours ordinarily awarded to other benefactors of the city; to invite her to the town hall to the public heart, and provide her with a victim to sacrifice to Apollo."Amyntoros

[abm]

Hi Linda,these are interesting examples, but they don't say anything on Alexander's part in improving women's status.regards,abm

[marcus]

Hi Alexander,I have to confess that I haven't really been following this discussion, merely scanning the messages.I have to say that, as far as I can see, we're on a hiding to nothing if we think we will find any evidence that Alexander himself did anything to improve the lot/role/perception/whatever of women. This suggests something proactive of which I fear we have no evidence.Oh darn this - I was just getting into my stride and I've been called away. I can't ignore the call. I hope I'll have a chance to come back and finish what I was saying ...ATB, in haste,Marcus

[marcus]

... and I've only just remembered that I was half way through this.Now, can I remember what I was getting at? Of course not! It was something along the lines of: this being the case, it doesn't mean that the improved role/perception/whatever of women was not as an indirect result of events during Alexander's life, but I can't imagine Alexander sitting down and saying "Right, I'd better do something to improve the lot of women, the poor dears." At the same time, these things happen as a result of many events, cultural and social changes. I think it's already been mentioned that with so many men off fighting in Asia, or exiled, or fighting as mercenaries elsewhere, it would be inconceivable that women would not be forced to become more prominent actors. Now, it can hardly be said that this was any proactive work on Alexander's part ... but one could certainly put it down to him as a prime mover and shaker of the period!ATBMarcus

[amyntoros]

Hi Alexander,These weren't supposed to relate directly to Alexander! In previous posts you seem to express doubts that the status of women had really improved in Hellenistic times. I sought out some examples that might help to show that the role of women *did* undergo change, figuring if we could eventually agree on that, then we could consider my arguments for Alexander's influence - an indirect influence, as Marcus has said, and as I originally argued.Best regards,Linda Ann

[abm]

Hi Linda and Marcus,of course, Linda, you did not say that Alexander had anything to do with these examples, but I only wanted to indicate that you still had to convince me on Alexander's part in the general phenomenon. I agree with what Marcus said in his two previous posts.regards,abm