#eric csapo

[pink-lemonade-rose]

[...] Aristotle objects to the use of the pipes in education because pipe music is "orgiastic" and because "it hinders the use of one's logos." But pipes also disfigure the face: the lips are puckered, the cheeks bloated, so that one becomes unrecognizable - one can be thought to lose one's identity; indeed the voice of another, of the pipes themselves, is said to emanate from the player's mouth (the reed, called "tongue," is inserted into the player's mouth), while the piper's face is bloated until it takes on the appearance of a mask, or gorgoneion, expressing a form of Dionysiac possession.

Eric Csapo, “The Politics of the New Music”

[beatingdrumspouringwine]

UPG (possibly?)

Would love to know if anyone else associates Dionysos with moths :) I very much do associate Him with moths, especially very large ones. The size has more to do with the bigger moths having eyespots, and in the article Riding the Phallus For Dionysus, the author Eric Csapo points out that eyespots are sacred to Him.

Also, moths are creatures of the night, there's a strong theme of rebirth with them (as any cocoon/chrysalis-weaving creature), they're colorful, they're gay icons in their own rights, and there seems to be a very Dionysiac element to the whole "live for about a week, look pretty, have sex, die" thing.

Anyways as I said at the start: would love to know Thoughts about this. I know I've never found more moth wings than the first summer I worshiped Dionysos, the highlight of which was a full set of almost completely intact luna moth wings :)

[thevibrationofatoms]

You have any recommended reading for people interested in *gestures vaugely toward your beliefs/worship* ?

Boy do I! Most of the stuff I’m reading lately is more academically bent than theological, but academics seem prone to waxing very poetic about Dionysus. Also even outside of religion stuff, the absurd complexity of Dionysus/Dionysian cult is fascinating.

Non-Reading: Let’s Talk About Myths Baby Podcast: CXIV: Dionysus Is Everyone & Everything, Queer Theory with the Queer Classicist Yentl Love What it says in the title, a really cool chat using academic queer theory to explore the ways Dionysus was a very transgressive god in the ancient Greek pantheon, and how unusual it was that such a subversive figure was still a member of the Big 12 Olympians. I wouldn’t use it as a reference in and of itself (tbh there is ONE BIT I twitch at where Yentl references Nonnus but then also mentions that Dionysus doesnt have any sexual assault stories. Which applies to all his current known mythos...except for what Nonnus wrote.) OSP Productions: Dionysus Again, I wouldnt use it as a reference point, and as much as I enjoy their videos (minus some quibbles with the Hades/Persephone video), I do wish the OSP crew listed their sources for stuff. But this is still a great, easy watch that is like a 101 on Dionysus: Way More Than The Drunk Party Dude. It’s a nice intro jumping-off point. Also, the art is adorable. READING: Anne Carson’s Bakkhai You know all those Greek quotes that keep making the Tumblr Gays foam at the mouth? The “Not to me, not if it’s you” stuff? That’s Anne Carson. Her adaptation of The Bacchae is my favorite version of Euripedes’ play so far and tbh I just recommend it in general. It also has this wonderful line.

Richard Seaford - “Dionysos” (link to a copy of the book on google drive) “Dionysos exists in our own world, as an irreducible symbol for the antithesis of something basically wrong with our society. When we look at modern conceptions of Dionysos since Friedrich Nietzsche, we frequently find a Dionysos who embodies something that is beneath the surface of our society and somehow embodies a universal challenge to it. Are such conceptions mere abstractions, remote from the reality of the ancient Dionysos? To some extent they are, and yet not entirely – as we shall see in what follows.“ An extensive and broad ranged examination of Dionysus’ impact on ancient and modern culture. It’s a cool look into theories on ancient modes of worship, and explores some of the base themes of his worship through the centuries such as nature veneration, epiphanies, death/rebirth, community, theater, and even the tie-ins to early Christian cult. All without being as dry and full of untranslated Greek as a lot of other academic essays are. Eric Csapo “Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual and Gender-Role De/construction,” - link to JStor article on google drive Tbh I’ve only just started reading this one but it hasn’t been too difficult to work through. Currently reading a bit that deep dives into the contrast between the sexual themes that surrounded Dionysus while the god himself was often less sexualized or even desexualized. Vikki Bramshaw: Dionysus: Exciter to Frenzy I had doubts about this book, written with a modern worship in mind, because the summary comes across as a bit “Source: it came to me in a dream” but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the use of citations. I don’t take entirely with every conclusion Bramshaw comes to, but her work tying together all the various regions and modes of worship come to some neat theological conclusions. Redefining Dionysus - link to google doc This is almost 700 pages of essays and articles on Dionysus compiled together. I’m still working my way through in no particular order. There’s a lot of neat academic stuff, but there’s also some non-English essays and these are all essays written by Classicists for Classicists which means they all use untranslated Greek terms casually and it can get confusing. It can also get pretty damn dry so this is the Real Fuckin Deep Dive level. Havent Read, But On My List Walter F. Otto - Dionysus: Myth and Cult Written in the 60s so it’s got some outdated stuff, but this is the book I see Dionysian worshippers mention constantly, and even in the academic essays I see it mentioned with an air of “yes its outdated but it’s a CLASSIC” and seems to have been the entry point for a lot of classicists. Apparently he wrote so rapturously about Dionysus that he was accused of being a secret pagan.

[thegrapeandthefig]

Greek gods and Dionysos are so great! Are there any scholarly papers/books you'd recommend about Dionysos? (just because they're good, they can be very specific, that would be great actually!) Thanks! Have a good one : )

I’m going to separate this in categories lol

Books

Dionysos by Richard Seaford, Routledge : a straight to the point introduction to the deity. It’s a fairly easy read that also covers the place of the god after Antiquity, through renaissance and beyond, from art to philosophy. 

Dionysus: myth and cult by Walter F. Otto: this is an old book (1933) which is flawed but still constitutes an important read. It’s one of those works that opened the way for the researchers who came after him. 

Redifining Dionysos by Alberto Bernabé et al. Published in 2013, to my knowledge this is the most recent collaborative work about Dionysus and will give you a good idea of the state of the research currently. It’s a compilation of papers from different authors, so there’s variety in term of specific topics as well. 

Articles

Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role De/Construction by Eric Csapo: a good read, it’s been circulating on tumblr lately.

Greek maenadism reconsidered by Jan Bremmer. This one is a bit old (1984) but worth the read too. 

Heis Dionusos - One Dionysus? A polytheistic perspective by Henk Versnel. I consider it an important read to understand the place of inconcistencies and paradoxes in Greek religion as a whole. 

If you have not read any of those yet, then you’re already going to be occupied for quite a while. Remember that Dionysus touches upon so many domains that there is also a lot to read in places where you wouldn’t think of necessarily. So you will also find information while looking into initiation practices, mysteries, ancient winemaking etc... added to this the more studies that are more focused on a particular period of time or area. It’s a rabbithole. 

DM me if you struggle with finding those online. 

[briefnytw]

Historical Context: Dionysus & Gender

Dionysus is an ancient Greek deity known as the god of wine, fertility, ritual madness, theatre, and religious ecstasy. His godly jurisdiction made him an essential part of ancient Greek daily life – wine production was a significant source of wealth and a cultural identifier among ancient Greeks. Furthermore, in the city-state of Athens, drama was an integral part of religious and civic life. The second-biggest festival of the year was a theatrical competition in honor of Dionysus.

While real-life theatrical revelry was an important part of Dionysus-worship, the myths about his origins and habits myths were even wilder. In Dionysian myths, the god attracted followers, often women, who left behind their social roles and became utterly entranced. In their trance-like state, these worshippers became filled with ecstasy; they would drink wine, live in nature, and be totally overcome with sexual, violent, and hedonistic urges. In these myths, the tearing apart and eating of a live animal often presents itself, eventually becoming a part of real-life Greek and Roman rituals in honor of Dionysus.

To the Greeks, and later the Romans, Dionysus represented an upending of the social order. In myth, he seduced his devotees into utter wildness and made them forget their human roots. He was associated with sexual freedom, and freedom from social hierarchies based on wealth and status. One of the main social structures Dionysian worship called into question was gender. In myth, the god entranced women away from their heavily-regulated roles and wives and mothers, and made them dangerous, wild, and powerful. His very image and presentation was different from that of other male gods in the Greek pantheon; he often wore clothing associated with women, where other male gods were portrayed nude. According to scholar Eric Csapo, his traditional masculinity is called further into question by his “sleek hair, unfamiliarity with wrestling” and avoidance of outdoor activities. In addition to the tearing apart and eating of live animals, Dionysian worshippers often dressed in the clothes of the other socially-sanctioned gender as part of their rituals. In 692 CE, well after the heyday of ancient Greece, young people cross-dressing and upending rules of gender in Dionysus-worship were still common enough that the church fathers in Constantinople issued a decree outlawing it.

While ancient Dionysus worship allowed for the deconstruction of gender and other social rules within a set length of time or specific religious context, it may have paradoxically served to reinforce these same social strictures at all other times. According to Csapo, publically-sanctioned rituals of status reversal can reaffirm the importance of social rules after. If everyone is allowed to break the rules of society for one day a year, they might be more content to uphold them at all other times. That being said, Dionysus’ reputation as an agent of chaos and revelry was powerful enough that it is still working today.

In Hurricane Diane, Dionysus is a butch permaculture gardener named Diane. She is still gender-nonconforming, just like she was in ancient Greece. As a butch lesbian, her very presence requires some of the women she interacts with to question their notions of what a woman can be, what a woman can look like, and who they can find attractive. In this reimagining of the Dionysus myth, Madeleine George envisions Dionysus not as a tool to reinforce the social order, but as someone who asks humans to question and ultimately leave behind their social comforts, habits and rules, including gender roles and heterosexuality.

Sources: Acting Like Men: Gender, Drama, and Nostalgia in Ancient Greece, "Riding the Phallus for Dionysus: Iconology, Ritual, and Gender-Role De/Construction", and "Performance Beyond The Binary: Towards An Intersectional And Intersexual Theatrical Discourse".

[his101sposts]

Theatre of Dionysus

Next, I visited the Theatre of Dionysus (440 BC), located in the city of Athens. It could hold about 10,000 to 15,000 spectators. Children, foreigners, women, and slaves had free admission in the audience. Athenian citizens were allowed to participate in certain dramas and festivals. They were included in the chorus, which would draw attention to the audience's sympathy in the drama. Public participation was also encouraged by the judging process. The judges would take the reaction of the audience into account. The audience would be able to drive many plays out of the stage by “clucking, heel banging, and whistlings”. Therefore, it is important for these plays to be well structured. Aristotle stated that “A perfect tragedy should, as we have seen, be arranged not on the simple but on the complex plan. It should, moreover, imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation”. Each play had to follow elements such as Character, Plot, Diction, Song, and Thought. Furthermore, there was strict financial and administrative control of the theatre by public officials. Some of the funds went to the professional performers. However, the entrance fee does exclude poorer citizens from being in the audience.

It was known that Euripides would incorporate more complex music into his tragedies in an attempt to create “realism”. This would encourage other actors such as Athenodorus (331 BC) to gain more success for his performances.

All in all, this Greek theatre played an important part as it has been a place where people could see their leaders and be a part of dramas made by Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus. Citizens could express their opinions and well-known figures would determine if they were exceptional or not based on the audience’s expression. This would be influential for modern society as illustrates how Classical Greek theatre created practices that are incorporated in poetry and dramas today.

Csapo, Eric, and William Slater. "Greek theatre, ancient." In The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance, edited by Dennis Kennedy. Oxford University Press, Inc., 2011. https://eznvcc.vccs.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/oupotap/greek_theatre_ancient/0?institutionId=2848

“Ancient History Sourcebook: Aristotle: Poetics, Excerpts.” Internet History Sourcebooks. Accessed November 28, 2021. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/aristotle-poetics-ex.asp.

[perennialessays]

Week 8

Katabasis: The Descent to the Underworld and the Encounter with the Dead

This week and the next we shall consider the topos of the descent to the underworld, both in the epical tradition and in relation to its reception and re-functionalising in different historical contexts. The descent to the underworld (Katabasis) is particularly interesting as it combines historicity with the imagined visit to a world that, by its very nature, is located outside history and beyond the human. Main texts:

Homer, The Odyssey (read the episode of Odysseus’ descent to Hades, Book 11)

Virgil, Aeneid (read Book 6, Aeneas’ descent to the underworld)

Dante, Inferno (please read a range of cantos, esp. the first and last ones, 1-5 and 31-34)

Some bibliography on myth and the descent to the underworld

Myth:

Armstrong, Karen, A Short History of Myth (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2006)

Coupe, Laurence, Myth (London: Routledge, 1997) (this also contains some interesting material on Eliot’s The Waste Land as well as Apocalypse Now)

Csapo, Eric, Theories of Mythology (Oxford: Blackwell 2005)

Descent to the underworld:

Falconer, Rachel, Hell in Contemporary Literature: Western Descent Narratives Since 1945 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004) (has an excellent chapter on Levi)

Pike, David, Passage Through Hell: Modernist Descents, Medieval Underworlds (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997)

Strauss, Walter, Descent and return: the Orphic Theme is Modern Literature (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1971) (on a different tradition of descent to the underworld, that of Orpheus and Eurydice)

Thurston, Michael, The Underworld Descent in Twentieth-Century Poetry: From Pound and Eliot to Heaney and Walcott (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) (has good intro and useful material on Walcott)

Aeneid:

Clark, Raymond, Catabasis: Virgil and the Wisdom-Tradition (Amsterdam: Gruner, 1979)

Segal, Charles Paul, '"Aeternum per Saecula Nomen", the Golden Bough and the Tragedy of History: Part I' Arion, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Winter, 1965), pp. 617-657 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20162991

Segal, Charles Paul, '"Aeternum per Saecula Nomen", the Golden Bough and the Tragedy of History: Part II' Arion, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring, 1966), pp. 34-72 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20163006

Solmsen, Friedrich, 'The World of the Dead in Book 6 of the Aeneid', Classical Philology, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Jan., 1972), pp. 31-41 http://www.jstor.org/stable/269013

Odyssey:

Crane, Gregory, 'The "Odyssey" and Conventions of the Heroic Quest', Classical Antiquity, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Apr., 1987), pp. 11-37 http://www.jstor.org/stable/25010856

[musicplayperformance]

Retorisch toiletpapier: interactieloze participatie in een fantasiewereld

Het internet heeft de manier waarop interactie met muziek wordt aangegaan de laatste twee decennia fundamenteel veranderd. Dit slaat niet alleen op muziekconsumptie, zoals streamingservices, maar ook wederzijdse interacties tussen muzikanten en fans op sociale media en de interactie tussen muzikant en muziek. Rondom muziek kan een artiest een digitale, pseudo-tastbare wereld creëren waarbinnen de muziek bestaat en die luisteraars betreden zodra de muziek beluisterd wordt. Een voorbeeld hiervan is de webshop https://store.thefuturebites.com/ van Steven Wilson. Deze website laat naast de standaard fysieke albums en merchandising ook uitverkochte items zien, waaronder een €230 kostende rol toiletpapier, van het fictieve bedrijf The Future Bites waarop het verhaal van het nog te verschijnen album is gebaseerd. De vragen rondom diëgese die dit oproepen zijn op zichzelf al reden genoeg om te concluderen dat deze webshop een ludo-muzikaal object is, een object waarin spel en muziek samenkomen.

Een non-muzikaal, immaterieel en grotendeels non-interactief object ludo-muzikaal noemen is een standpunt wat moeilijk te verdedigen is. De muzikale connectie met het conceptalbum, en daarmee met de traditie van de (rock-)opera in het algemeen, is eenvoudig te leggen, maar het spelelement is moeilijk te definiëren. Dit essay beargumenteert dan ook dat door het analyseren van de diëgetische kwesties het ludische aspect van deze webshop duidelijk wordt.

Allereerst is de kwestie van realiteit belangrijk. Een conceptalbum vertelt een fictief verhaal, en een voorwaarde voor iedere vorm van fictie is dat de ontvanger binnen het verhaal alles als mogelijk en waar ervaart. Michel Chion noemt dit een audiovisueel contract wat wordt gesloten tussen zender en ontvanger, wat de zender in staat stelt om een verhaal te vertellen.[1] Dit fictieve verhaal speelt zich af in een zogeheten Toovercirkel die de realiteit waarbinnen het verhaal zich afspeelt omkadert.[2] The Future Bites is hierin niet anders dan andere conceptalbums, maar de webshop verandert de strikte relatie tussen realiteit en fictie, door een manifestatie van een object binnen de Toovercirkel, buiten de Toovercirkel te zijn; dit heet supradiëgese.[3]

Deze supradiëgese werkt twee kanten op. Allereerst is het een object wat uit de Toovercirkel dichter bij de realiteit is gezet. Ik heb het hier niet over in de realiteit, omdat zowel de winkel als de producten geen fysieke gestalte hebben, maar alleen virtueel bestaan. Er kan in beperkte mate interactie mee worden aangegaan, maar de producten die ten toon gesteld worden zijn “uitverkocht” en kunnen niet besteld worden (wat logischerwijs ook onderdeel is van de diëgese). Anderzijds is het conceptalbum gebaseerd op het winkelconcept van de webshop en integreert het dus elementen uit de echte wereld in de Toovercirkel. Het album is gebaseerd op een winkelketen die “by adding a limited-edition serial number to an otherwise mundane object, [increases] its value ten-fold”, waarbij deze webshop dienstdoet als deze winkelketen.

De manier waarop het verhaal en de webshop met elkaar in verhouding staan doet in die zin denken aan de manier waarop realiteit, fictie en plaats een rol spelen in mythologie. De consensus van een levende mythologie in de samenleving is dat het een verzonnen verhaal is dat wordt behandeld alsof het waar gebeurd is.[4] De plek waarop het verhaal zich afspeelt is, net als deze webshop, een bestaande plek die de realiteitsgraad van de mythe waarborgt, terwijl de mythe een testament is voor de significantie van de plaats waar de mythe plaats heeft gevonden.[5] Dit is echter niet het enige waarin The Future Bites doet denken aan mythologie. Het bestaan van de webshop lijkt tegenstrijdig te zijn met de futuristische dystopie die in de rest van het concept gestalte lijkt te krijgen. Dit soort tijds-incongruenties zijn vergelijkbaar met mythologische verhalen waarin het feit dat het in het verleden plaats vond belangrijker is dan de chronologie en het exacte jaartal. De functie van het verhaal is tenslotte niet van historische aard, maar van contemplatieve: het is een verhaal wat iets zegt over het heden.

Wat zegt een supradiëgetische webshop over het heden? Henry Jenkins benoemt enkele functies van convergence culture, waarvan een van de eerste is dat het leidt tot mobilisatie van subculturen die zich tegen de dominante stroming verzetten.[6] Het verzet-element is in dit dystopische toekomstbeeld duidelijk aanwezig; Steven Wilson verzet zich tegen het kapitalistische systeem van vraag en aanbod waarin je door het aanbod te verlagen de prijs van je product artificieel hoog kan houden. Dit beeld van Steven Wilson valt goed te rijmen met vorige thema’s in de muziek van Steven Wilson, zoals de destructieve invloed van het internet op het sociale leven en obsessief materialisme, en het feit dat hij een groot supporter van lokale bedrijven is. Een digitaal artefact van een wereld waarin deze marktwerkingen zijn geëxplodeerd bieden de fans van Steven Wilson met dezelfde politieke ideologieën een platform om als imagined community samen te komen.[7]

Hiermee komt een tweede spelelement van The Future Bites naar boven: participatie. Een webshop waarop alleen uitverkochte artikelen staan biedt weinig ruimte tot interactie. Dit zou logischerwijs leiden tot een gebrek aan interactie, maar Henry Jenkins haalt deze twee termen uit elkaar. Participatie met een cultuur is het gebruiken van de media-uitingen rondom die cultuur, terwijl interactie vraagt om een platform dat daarvoor is gemaakt.[8] Participatie met een cultuur zonder consequenties die aan specifieke handelingen verbonden zijn noemt hij “retorische participatie”.[9] Retorische participatie zou zodoende kunnen worden gezien als deelnemen van de fans aan het doen-alsof van de artiest dat het verhaal en de Toovercirkel in de eerste plaats hebben geconstrueerd.

Dit brengt mij bij het laatste punt: is er bij retorische participatie nog wel sprake van agency bij de participant? In de woorden van Gadamer is “ieder spelen […] een bespeeld worden”.[10] Zo wordt iedere bezoeker van de webshop van The Future Bites het subject van het supradiëgetische spel van Steven Wilson en onderdeel van de spelwereld van het conceptalbum. Dit zou ook kunnen worden beschreven als supradiëgetische affordance, wat de agency bij de website zelf legt. Ook is de website ook een bron van vermaak voor de bezoekers en is de bezoeker puur door de keuze om de website te bezoeken de agent, ook zonder dat er sprake is van interactieve handelingen. Er is dus geen duidelijke agent-patient verdeling in het functioneren van de website.

Samenvattend functioneert https://store.thefuturebites.com/ als brug tussen de Toovercirkel en de realiteit. Zo biedt het fans om te participeren in het verhaal en de wereld die Steven Wilson probeert te creëren met zijn aankomende album The Future Bites. De website geeft het verhaal een illusie van realiteit, terwijl het album de website waarop merchandise gekocht kan worden extra significantie geeft door het dubbel dienst te laten doen als “mythologische plek”. Het zorgt voor een extra lag immersie in het verhaal en de muziek. Zo is deze vorm van retorische participatie hetzelfde als de producten van The Future Bites: “You may not need it, but you have to concede it makes you feel special.”[11]

[1] Michel Chion en Claudia Gorbman, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, Second edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).

[2] Johan Huizinga en Vincent Mentzel, Homo ludens: proeve eener bepaling van het spel-element der cultuur (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010).

[3] van Elferen, ‘¡Un Forastero! Issues of Virtuality and Diegesis in Videogame Music’, Music and the Moving Image 4, nr. 2 (2011): 30, https://doi.org/10.5406/musimoviimag.4.2.0030.

[4] Eric Csapo, Theories of mythology, Ancient cultures (Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2005).

[5] Angela Ganter Kühr née, ‘Ethnicity and Local Myth’, in A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean, onder redactie van Jeremy McInerney, 1ste dr. (Wiley, 2014), 228–40, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118834312.ch15.

[6] Henry Jenkins, ‘Rethinking “Rethinking Convergence/Culture”’, Cultural Studies 28, nr. 2 (4 maart 2014): 267–97, https://doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2013.801579.

[7] Peter Brooker, A glossary of literary and cultural theory, Third edition (Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, 2017), 156.

[8] Jenkins, “Rethinking ‘Rethinking Convergence/Culture’”, 283.

[9] Jenkins, 271.

[10] Günter Figal, red., Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, Klassiker auslegen, Bd. 30 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2007).

[11] Steven Wilson, THE FUTURE BITESTM, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asex3WtLPOA.

[briberrioswriter2020]

Women in the Theatre in Classical Athens

     Classical Athens, a period of history lasting from approximately 508-322 B.C.E., is known for its rich collection of drama, and attendance to the theater was just a part of daily life for citizens. However, there has been a constant debate about whether women attended the theater in classical Athens since 1776 when Karl August Böttiger published an article in Der Teutscher Merkur entitled, “Were Women in Athens Spectators at Dramatic Performances?”  Böttiger was among the first to make the argument that women were absolutely not in attendance at dramatic performances.  Before Böttiger's article, it was believed that women were certainly in attendance at the theater, but the article sparked a debate that continues until today.  As of today, it is commonly believed that prostitutes and other non-respectable women were certainly in attendance in classical Athenian theater, but the argument still stands whether respectable women were in attendance.  The main argument against women in attendance deals with how the audience was addressed in classical comedies, but there is much stronger evidence to refute the fact that prostitutes did attend theater while respectable women did not.  The only women in attendance at the theater in classical Athens were prostitutes because since respectable women had so few rights elsewhere, it does not make any sense for them to have attended the theater.   

     Evidence for women not in attendance comes first from the fact that, when addressing audiences, plays often seemed to exclude women, sometimes specifically.  In Aristophanes's comedy Peace, a character addresses the audience and says, “I will explain the matter to you all, children, youths, grown-ups, and old men, aye, even to the decrepit dotards.” (line 50)  For some reason, this list includes everyone except women, which does not make sense for the argument that prostitutes were in attendance at the theater.  In Eric Csapo and William J.  Slater's book The Context of Ancient Drama, the chapter “The Audience” claims that comic poets frequently address the audience as “gentlemen,” which also does not make sense if prostitutes were in attendance.  The majority of articles opposing the idea that any women were in attendance use these examples as a defense.  

     However, Csapo and Slater offer an explanation for the terminology of “gentlemen” stating, “Athenian rhetoric was developed in the Assembly and the law courts, where the audience was entirely composed of adult males. When comic characters address the audience as “gentlemen,” this is only a social and rhetorical reflex.” (Csapo and Slater 286)  When considering modern rhetoric, this argument makes a lot of sense.  For example, in modern English, the word “he” is often used as all-encompassing, and though “he or she” would be the more politically correct terminology, “he” alone is still considered correct.  In other languages, such as Spanish, the male pronoun is used to describe a group that is composed of both males and females.  Even the modern American colloquialism of referring to a group of people as “guys” defends this argument.  In classical Athens, the argument makes even more sense when one considers the fact that it was only boys receiving an education; there is really no reason for casual rhetoric to encompass both males and females, especially if the males greatly outnumbered the females in the audience.

     Ironically, the same comedy that poses an argument that women were not in attendance also poses a good argument that women were in fact in attendance.  In Peace by Aristophanes, there is an exchange between the slave and Trygaios:

TRYGAIOS: And throw the audience some barley! SLAVE: Done! TRYGAIOS: You've already distributed it? SLAVE: Yes, by Hermes there isn't a man in the audience that doesn't have barley! TRYGAIOS: But the women didn't get any. SLAVE: They'll receive it from the men tonight.  (lines ) The joke in this excerpt is that “barley” was a slang term for “penis.”  Despite the fact that Aristophanes earlier only addressed the men in the audience, this exchange implies that there were certainly women in the audience.  From the innuendo in the last line, readers can conclude that these women may or may not have been prostitutes, but prostitutes are certainly not excluded.  Furthermore, the excerpt is not referring to some metaphorical audience within the realm of the play; the characters were breaking the fourth wall and the throwing of barley into the audience was something that actually happened (Csapo and Slater 291). 

While the previous argument defends the fact that women were in attendance at the theater, it does not address the fact that perhaps only prostitutes were in attendance.  This argument refers back to the main point of this paper; prostitutes had significantly more freedom than respectable women.  During this time, respectable women were rarely allowed to leave their husbands' or fathers' houses, but prostitutes made their living by denying these societal norms.  In fact, prostitutes even attended the Athenian symposium, a social event full of wine, music, and men, and were a key part of the event, which required beautiful women to entertain the men (Zinserling 23).

     The fact that women had so few rights under the Athenian democracy makes it highly unlikely that they would have had the right to attend the theater.  First of all, women did not have the right to an education.  In his book,  A History of Education in Antiquity, H.I. Marrou does not mention any formal education for the girls of classical Athens, instead stating that “women's education was eclipsed by the dominance of the masculine element of the Greek civilization, and it did not re-emerge until much later, only shortly before the Hellenistic age.” (Marrou 35)  This implies that perhaps girls could have received an education at the very end of the classical period, but for the majority of classical Athens, girls would receive no schooling.  

     Verena Zinserling and Roger Just also have a lot to say about the lack of rights for Athenian women.  From Zinserling, one learns that while women were involved in the religion of classical Athens, they were not permitted to attend the shrines of oracles (Zinserling 23).  Also, while in many societies it was common for women to attend the marketplace, in classical Athens the husband and slaves did the shopping.  While Aristophanes implies that a woman was allowed to visit female friends and neighbors, “on the greatest occasions of Greek life, the pan-Hellenic games, she stayed dutifully home” (Zinserling 23).  Aside from being barred from certain aspects of religion and entertainment, women were additionally barred from politics.  “Women in Athens possessed no active politic rights,” states Just, and he likewise explains that women could not be in attendance at the citizen's assembly nor were they enfranchised (Just 13).  The Athenian democracy was established as a direct democracy that allowed the voices of all citizens to be heard, but unfortunately, women were not considered citizens.  In fact, the women's only contribution to the polis is to produce more citizens because children need to be born of “an Athenian mother properly given in marriage by her kin.” (Just 24)

      While the denial of these basic rights of involvement in entertainment, shopping, religion, and politics make it unlikely that respectable women would have been in attendance at the theater, the fact that women were not even supposed to leave their houses is more valid evidence.  According to Zinserling, “a respectable married woman went out of her quarters as rarely as possible” (Zinserling 23).  In the Socratic dialogue Oeconomics, Xenophon verifies this because it was thought more decent “if the woman remains at home more than she runs outside” (Xenophon, Oeconomics 7).  Evidence from these sources suggests that women only left the house on very special occasions, such as marriages and funerals.  It did not help that pale skin was considered more beautiful, and so husbands encouraged their wives to stay inside.  If women, excluding prostitutes, were so rarely allowed to leave their husbands' or fathers' homes, there is no reason to believe that they would have been in attendance at the theater. 

      There is another occasion when Athenian women were allowed to leave their homes, and in this case, men were not invited. The festival of Thesmophoria was a feast and celebration for the wives of Athenian men, used to prove the fact that they were married to citizens (Just 24). The festival gave these women an opportunity to leave the house, and for once, it was a celebration to which men were not invited. Walter Burkert explains the festival of Thesmophoria well, in his book Greek Religion:

    For women, the Thesmophoria represents the one opportunity to leave the family and home, not only all day but all night; they assemble in the sanctuary, rigorously excluding all men. … Every husband was obliged to send his wife to the goddesses and to meet the cost. (Burkert 242)

In this quote, there is also more evidence that women did not attend the theater, as Burkert refers to the festival as the “one opportunity” for women to leave the house. The existence of the festival of Thesmophoria is perhaps another reason why respectable married women were not allowed to attend the theater; they had their own private celebration, and the men of Athens felt that the theater was their own private celebration, a place where their wives did not belong. Married women in classical Athens were the property of their husband, a male guardian known as the kyrios.  These women were expected to respect their husbands, so if the husband did not want his wife to attend the theater, she would not.  According to Sarah Pomeroy, the whole point of a dowry was to give the woman a sense of security because Athenians were very protective of their women (Pomeroy 63).  This is perhaps another reason why Athenian women were rarely allowed outside of their houses.  If they were excepted to be delicate, pale, and pure wives, why would a husband allow his wife to attend the theater?  Furthermore, women could be in danger outside of their houses, and women were a very important part of society in that classical Athens needed Athenian women to produce more strong children.  The protectiveness of classical Athenian society was probably another major factor in women not attending the theater. 

      Notwithstanding the fact that it is fairly evident that respectable women did not attend theater in classical Athens, it is not evident that this was always the case.  In fact, some evidence, specifically a quote from Roger Just, points to the establishment of the Athenian democracy as the reason women had so few rights.  Before the implementation of Athenian democracy, it is very possible that respectable women did attend the theater.  Aristocracy meant that some women who were considered respectable had a lot more power than others.  It was possible for wealthy women to have significant influence, if only illegally, and there is no evidence to suggest that these women were not in attendance at the theater.  Direct democracy completely obstructed the ability of the women of Athens to gain illicit power through wealth; every male citizens' vote counted the same, and women were not considered citizens.  In fact, the enfranchisement of women is not thought to have occurred in Athens until the women's rights movement of twentieth-century C.E. Just commented on this problem, stating:

In narrowly oligarchic, aristocratic, or monarchic states, women who belonged to the elite have often wielded considerable power, even if illegitimately; on the other hand, since the bulk of the population, whether male or female, possessed no political rights, politics was not something which in general distinguished men from women. But in Athenian democracy there were no thrones from behind which women could rule, while the access that every adult Athenian male had to the offices and honours of the state sharply distinguished the citizen's life from that of his wife or daughter. (Just 24)

Although direct democracy was a huge step for government and political science as a whole, it was perhaps not the best for the rights of Athenian women, which seemed to have suffered as a result of its implementation. There is one more reason why men may have not allowed women to attend theater in classical Athens, and it is far more basic than any of the reasons previously stated.  Perhaps at the theater in Athens, there simply was not enough seating for women.  According to Csapo and Slater, there was fierce competition for seats at the theater. (Csapo and Slater 287)  In classical Athens, it was considered a right and a privilege for citizens to attend the theater, even the poor citizens. However, as Just explains, women were not considered citizens. (Just 13)  The tickets were subsidized by the government, and payment for the tickets was given to all Athenians, to allow equal opportunity for citizens of all socioeconomic classes to attend the theater.  However, the population of Athens was approximately thirty thousand citizen males, and the theater had between fifteen thousand and twenty thousand seats. (Csapo and Slater 288)  If the entire population of Athens gets free tickets to the theater, there would have certainly been no room for respectable women, whom one may assume probably made up another thirty thousand people in the city of Athens.  The few prostitute women who attended the theater were probably very lucky to get seats because it would be nearly impossible for the respectable women of classical Athens to find a seat in the theater, even if they were allowed to attend. 

      Csapo and Slater do make a point that perhaps contradicts the entire argument that respectable women did not attend the theater. Ironically, it again uses Aristophanes as a source, the writer of whom this argument is partially based: “Scholion to Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae 22. The scholion refers to a politician mentioned in Ecclesiazusae, performed 392 B.C. Phyromachos introduced legislation assigning separate seats to women and men and separating prostitutes from free women.” (Csapo and Slater 300)  As far as this goes, one cannot really be sure how to contradict this evidence.  There is the claim that Ecclesiazusae is a comedy about gender issues, therefore what is said in it and about it cannot necessarily be taken seriously, but presuming one does take it seriously, it greatly contradicts all of the evidence that respectable women were not in attendance at the theater. Perhaps women were in attendance extremely rarely, and Phyromachos did not want to force them to sit with the prostitutes.  However, there is a part of the legislation that does not make sense; why would the women be sitting away from their kyrios?  If free women did very rarely attend the theater, it was certainly with their male guardians, not with their female friends. Presuming Athenians were as protective of their women as Pomeroy suggests, why would wives not stay under the protection of their husbands at the theater.  Overall, the legislation does not make very much sense, and despite the fact that it contradicts the idea that respectable women did not attend the theater, it also contradicts itself.

     There are several conclusions that can be drawn from this information. If we accept the lines from Peace as evidence, some women were probably in attendance at the theater. These women were probably prostitutes. Respectable women in Athens had very little rights and were hardly allowed to leave their houses. It is very unlikely that these women would have been allowed to attend the theater. While the separate seating arrangements cannot be completely accounted for, the respectable citizen woman's lack of rights elsewhere makes it highly unlikely that they were in attendance at the theater. Furthermore, even if these women were allowed to attend the theater, there were not enough seats for everyone, and priority seating probably went to the men. Women not in attendance at the theater were probably only the case for the classical period of Athens. Before the Athenian democracy, wealthy, aristocratic women had more rights and probably could have attended the theater. According to Marrou, there is evidence that towards the end of the classical period, women gained more rights, and could have attended the theater after the classical period. During the classical period, the involvement of women in the theater audience seems highly improbable, but luckily, that was something that changed throughout history.

Works Cited

Aristophanes. Peace. Project Gutenberg. 2001. Web.

Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985. Print.

Csapo, Eric and Slater, William J. “The Audience.” The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. 286-305. Print.

Just, Roger. Women in Athenian Law and Life. London: Routledge Press, 1989. Print.

Marrou, H.I. “The “Old” Athenian Education.” A History of Education in Antiquity. New York: Sheed and Ward Inc., 1956. Print.

Pomeroy, Sarah. “Women and the City of Athens.” Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves. New York: Schocken Books, 1975. 63. Print.

Xenophon. Oeconomics.  Project Gutenberg. 1998. Web.

Zinserling, Verena. Women in Greece and Rome. New York: Abner Schram, 1972. Print.

[teensith]

i need to finish reading that mythological theory book bf’s parents got me for christmas (Theories of Mythology by Eric Csapo) (the guy has a really fantastic sarcastic sense of humor that he just cant resist injecting sometimes, like all classicists)

[gabriellamaries]

Truth was never a sufficient condition for something being believed or repeated

Eric Csapo, "Poststructuralism and Myth"