ABSTRACT
Many of the processes of a Greek woman’s life are mysterious to us. Comparative studies suggest that the central concerns of female life in the ancient Mediterranean were the family, including childbirth and child-rearing, events such as marriages and funerals, illness and death, and domestic chores. 1 Yet in the case of classical Greece we know little of women’s early childhood, of female friendships, of training for married life, or of the experience of motherhood, probably the most significant emotional relationship in any woman’s life. In part this is due to the lack of literary sources written from a female perspective, but it is also a result of the agenda of Greek artists. A lekythos in Oxford attributed to the Providence Painter (fig. 1.1) illustrates very effectively the image of Greek women transmitted by pottery: an ageless and serene figure stands alone on a pot, lifting a chest in a vague domestic task; she is well-dressed, carefully depicted with clothes and jewellery as an object to be admired. 2 Both image and activity are abstract, and the agelessness of the figure removes it from any consideration of the roles played by women throughout their lives – as daughters, sisters, wives, mothers and grandmothers. Can such an image offer any comment on the reality of female life at Athens?
