ABSTRACT
An analysis of women’s place in Thucydides’ work suggests he believes that women have almost no place in a political-military history at all, and probably should have no place there. On the rare occasions when women are mentioned, they are removed from the main action of the war either temporally or geographically. Prominent, named female characters are often from monarchical or aristocratic societies, where they are politically useful in marriage alliances. Such women have a detrimental effect on events in which they participate and are associated with treachery and murder; their prominence undermines the stability of the Greek world as a whole. Even the Peisistratid women of archaic Athens (6.55–59), the most prominent in Thucydides’ work, are treated as less important than their male family members. On rare occasions, groups of unnamed women become actively involved in the fighting; this is sometimes an indicator of their cities’ democratic values, e.g. at Corcyra (3.74.1); but Thucydides’ focus on their daring conduct (tolmērōs) and behavior “contrary to nature” (para phusin) also suggests that involving women in combat warps their character and undermines civic loyalty.
