ABSTRACT
Women did not have direct access to the Athenian courts, but male speakers often constructed identities (positive or negative) for women involved in litigation. In Demosthenes 39 and pseudo-Demosthenes 40, Mantitheus’ hostile construction of the identity of Plangon (the mother of his rival, Boeotus) is an object lesson in how to call a woman a ‘whore’ without using the word. When Phryne was prosecuted for impiety around the middle of the fourth century, the identity on trial was that of the legendary hetaira rather than the real woman. Similarly, when Aristagora was accused of violating immigration laws by not having an Athenian sponsor, it was her constructed identity as a hetaira that went on trial, not the vulnerable woman she really was. The construction of all these identities (whether or not they bear any resemblance to the real person) was not merely a matter of assembling gender stereotypes but an imaginative array of topics creating images which appear to be truthful, real, and persuasive.
