Why are women not mentioned in any ancient sources? What was women’s role in the ancient world? To celebrate International Women’s Day, Blackpool Sixth Form student Isabella Aiton. M travels back to Ancient Greece and Rome to find out.
Women, interrupted
We all know about the famous philosophers – Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and all the way up to John Hick. But if you were asked to name the female equivalent to Descartes – who would you name? You likely wouldn’t know one. Have you ever wondered why that is?
Women are mentioned consistently throughout the ancient world – in the likes Ovid’s poem about how to pick up a girl (that’s a whole other talking point) so why can’t we name any ancient women who are on the same level of recognition as figures like Aquinas? I’m aware many questions have been asked without any answers provided so let’s travel back in time together and see if there is a logical and acceptable explanation as to why this may be (spoiler: there isn’t).
It’s important to note that not all cultures held a suppressive blanket over women in order to stifle them. For example, China in around twelve B.C. actually raised numerous strong female political and military leaders. But I want to discuss specifically why there are no famous women historians and philosophers.
Let’s start with ancient Rome. There were women philosophers in ancient Rome but they are largely unknown due to the societal restraints at the time which essentially allowed women to be seen and not heard. The reasons for these restraints lie in the fundamental lack of education for women, which was basic, if at all given, therefore preventing them from studying the very prevalent at the time subject of philosophy. This feeds into the idea of a patriarchal society where women were expected to be under the authority of men constantly – removing women’s ideas of life from public consumption and replacing them with the many tasks that come with homemaking.
In a 56 BC trial a woman named Clodia stood as a witness against the defender of Cicero – he took the opportunity to discredit her testimony by stating that she was a disgrace to how Roman women should behave in public.
This isn’t a sweeping statement – it’s just the way things were and can be clearly evidenced in the works of the famous Roman orator during the late republic, Marcus Tullius Cicero. In a 56 BC trial a woman named Clodia stood as a witness against the defender of Cicero – he took the opportunity to discredit her testimony by stating that she was a disgrace to how Roman women should behave in public and suffocated her voice by giving her grave scorn for daring to speak out as a woman, saying she should check herself first. This reinforces the idea that women should not express their own views and opinions in the ancient world because they would be going against the societal norms of men dominating the intellectual world, and pretty much everything else, whilst they remained silent and loyal homebodies.
But the lives and views of ancient women have become more popular in the past 100 years. Natalie Haynes, who specialises in ancient literature as well as being an author, told the BBC in 2020 that ancient history has always been told through the eyes of a man, by a man and for a man – but with the issues that were around in the ancient world being evermore prevalent today, she thought it necessary to retell the stories but from the perspective of women because “they can bring us a new understanding of what brutality and war does to people”. By going back and evaluating the lives and philosophies of ancient women we can, in a sense, feel more connected to and inspired by the strength and voice these women had that is still relatable today.
What’s my line again?
So what exactly was the role of women in different ancient cultures?
In ancient Greece it was very simple and clear – stay home and raise children. Women were not allowed to participate in public events or politics and they could not own nor inherit a property of their own. On the other hand, women never spoke out against this injustice (wait around 2,000 years and something might snap) because they were made to feel important in religion due to playing significant roles in religious festivals and the divinity of all things feminine being a key pinnacle of the largest religion before the rise of catholicism.
In contrast, women in Sparta were trained in athletics and able to inherit property, leading to the egregious assumption that they could have possibly being allowed to write their own thoughts in their own books.
Ancient Rome held a similar set of legal rights and practices for women as Ancient Greece but with a few noticeable differences. Although women were still not allowed to hold political office or vote, social class played a larger role in deciding how much power people should have rather than factors such as gender. This can be evidenced in the fact that upper-class women, known as patricians, were encouraged to be involved in both social and cultural events. This is a significant point in understanding the role of ancient women in philosophy because some patrician-ranking women became involved in poetry and art as well as being educated in literature which supports my fundamental idea that there were ancient women philosophers – you just need to know where to look.
Cicero himself, even though he became known for being hyperbolic, which unintentionally led to the firming of women’s expectations on how they are to act in public, positively cited and praised female philosophers of the time in his works.
Can you hear me now?
In this section, I will be highlighting three ancient women philosophers and their works and views as well as the relevance of them in today’s society. The first and arguably most famous – or infamous – female philosopher of ancient times is Aspasia (main image) who was active in ancient Greece around 400 BC.
She became the mistress of Pericles, who was the leader of Athens at the start of the Peloponnesian war, but she also made a significant contribution to philosophical thinking.
Socrates himself claims that Aspasia was his teacher and even credits her for his persuasive speech writing. Aspasia is a very significant woman in philosophy because she was featured as a character in several famous philosophical dialogues such as Plato’s Menexenus.
The second of our ancient female philosophers was the priestess of Delphi, Clea (depicted above by artist John Collier), who was most active around 100 AD. Clea is one of the most esteemed female philosophers of the ancient world because she was part of the political-religious system at the time in which political leaders would go to religious practitioners and ask for divine advice about political matters. However, the reason she was solidified in history as a powerhouse of ancient female philosophy was due to her conversations with Plutarch, the most famous intellectual of his time, about death, virtue and religion which inspired his own work.
Finally, my inspiration for this article is saved for last. Thecla has been speculated not to exist even though her legend inspired many women to pursue a life of philosophy.
Thecla was the most active around the 1st century AD and, as she was about to settle for a life of staying at home and making an advantageous marriage, she hears a divine calling from Paul and survives being thrown into a carnivorous arena before settling down as a teacher in her own right. Thecla was so significant to the ancient philosophical world when 250 years later, Methodius of Olympus wrote a dialogue of philosophical dialogue between women where Thecla was the star participant inspired by her religious and philosophical mission.
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