Could Greek women read and write?

The general topic of Greek literacy has often been considered during the last fifteen years, but little attention has been paid to a more specific topic, the literacy of Greek women. ¹ Granted, there is not a great deal of evidence for female literacy in antiquity, but women appear among the earliest examples of readers of books on Athenian vases, fourth-century writers often discuss the topic of the education of women, and references to women who read and write often appear in later literature. The evidence for female literacy comes from a variety of sources. Because the evidence is random and haphazard, no single method of analysis could yield reliable statistical results and any conclusions must be offered with care. Generally speaking, however, it is clear that literacy is not universal in antiquity, that the level of literacy varies from place to place and from time to time, but that in all places women are less likely to be literate than men. For the purposes of this paper, I will be concerned with women who spoke Greek, and the nature of the evidence is such that the chronological and geographical limits will be broad: from the seventh century b.c. to the fourth century a.d. and from mainland Greece to the Black Sea, Asia Minor, and Egypt.