Diogenes Laertius’s main intention was to write biographies of male philosophers, but his writings also reveal, sometimes unintentionally, women’s roles and attitudes to women in ancient times. The general themes include misogyny, but he also gave examples of respectful behavior towards women, and of the humor involved in negotiating congenial relationships. Read more
In part 1 we looked at female captives, slaves, servants, and non-family members of the household as depicted in Homeric epic. In this post we look at their male counterparts. We start with Eumaios, whose story provides an example of how a servant was brought into a household. Read more
In Homeric poetry, apart from family members there are other members of the household [oikos] who are described by many different Greek words, and carry out differing roles. We were interested in understanding what those words would have meant and how servitude was portrayed, in the context of ancient Greek song culture of the Iliad and Odyssey. We start our exploration with female slaves/servants. Read more
