Religions 7: Gender and Transformations

Gender Study of social and cultural position of man and woman put on the map by Sarah Pomeroy Initiation rituals: Arrephoroi ‘Bears’ at Brauron Features: physical endurance, beauty (Helen), dancing and women’s tasks In course of archaic period: only aristocratic girls (not in Athens); marriage

Patriarchal society Women associated with dirt and pollution No access to ‘macho’ gods, e.g. Poseidon Negative portrayal in art and myth (see below) Only temporary freedom: women’s festivals (see below) Role in mystery cults

Representations of women On vases: mostly negative; otherwise conforming to female roles Myth: Young girls to be tamed/domesticated (Io) Betrayal of family (Helen, Medea, Ariadne) > does not end well Married women: betrayal of husbands (women of Lemnos) - Older women frightening (Medusa, Moirai, Erinyes) Women outside Greek world: ‘barbarian’ (Amazons) Women in tragedies: tragic heroines, but are destroyed by own feminity (Medea) Goddesses not role models, as they often take on aspects of the male world (Athena, Artemis)

Women’s festivals Thesmophoria: 3 days (like Anthesteria), for aristocratic, married women, under male supervision: Day 1: Anodos (Ascent): to sanctuary of Demeter, procession with pigs (victim of Demeter), antaphrodisiac plants symbolising temporary leaving of marriage (Danaids) Day 2: Nesteia (Fasting): reversal, cf. Anthesteria Day 3: Kalligeneia (Beautiful Birth): pigs sacrificed, offerings to Kalligeneia

Maenads Eating raw meat, ecstatic dance, walking bare feet on hills, wear panther or deer skin, carry staff or thyrsus Followers of Dionysus; perhaps background in initiation Euripides, Bacchae (Friday!) Effect: Leaving home and talking to other women, religious experience, temporary escape from bonds of polis (cf. shamanism) However: participation only of aristocracy, only every other year, male supervision

Transformations From ca. 500 onwards mystery cults (mysteria); features: secluded, initiation, hereafter Eleusinian mysteries Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore = Persephone Autumn festival + initiation Myth: Demeter started cult after regaining daughter > ritual: gift of life = corn Agricultural > eschatological character after V

b. Orphism: Orpheus, starts ca b. Orphism: Orpheus, starts ca. 500, connection with Pythagoreanism and Bacchic rites Interest in hereafter, vegetarianism, reincarnation Derveni papyrus (ca. 325 BCE): Theogony, central text in Orphic mystery cults First movement in which holy books become central Tickets to the underworld: initiatory or funerary? Important in Hellenistic/Late Antique periods

Derveni papyrus

Compare with ‘normal’ Greek religion: what are the differences?

Exclusivity instead of inclusiveness of Greek religion Private initiation instead of openness/communal character of Greek religion Afterlife vs. here and now Focus on one god Holy books vs. oral character

Other transformations (than 1. mysteries): 2. Increasing criticism/blurring of gods 3. New gods: Asklepios (ca. 425), Cybele, Adonis, Bendis: ecstatic, private piety 4. Preference for one god: ‘Lord’ vs. ‘servants, slaves’, Dionysus becomes ‘Saviour’ (characteristic of Hellenistic period) 5. Private cults: Brasidas (foreshadowing of Hellenistic ruler cult)