Leigh Fetner
Oxford Readings in Greek Religion Chapter 13
“Women and Sacrifice
in Classical Greece”
Robin Osborne
“There is no doubt that a person’s gender could make a difference
to their role in Greek
sacrifices. But did it normally make a difference in Greece? And
why did it make a difference?”
Two inscriptions:
1) 440 B.C. in sanctuary of Herakles at the island of Thasos: To
Thasian Herakles. Goat is prohibited, so is pig. Women are prohibited.
No ninth is given. No perquisite portions are cut. No contests.
2) thirty or forty years earlier at the sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros:
To Athena Patroia sacrificial rites are performed every other year
and women obtain a cut.
Why were women not allowed in the sanctuary of Herakles
The presence of women impairs the warrior’s energy and it would be detrimental
in a hero’s shrine which served to consecrate heroic valor.
Excluded from the shrine of Agamemnon
Herakles was called “woman-hater”
According to Martin Nilsson religion did not exclude women.
1) Priestesses
2) woman took part in festivals and sacrifices
3) Virgins carried the sacred implements and provisions at sacrifices
According to Walter Burkert sacrifice only specifies the gender
in
1) Kanephoros (blameless maiden at the front of the procession
carries on her head the sacrificial basket)
2) the sacrifice
3) sacrificial cry
According to Detienne women were usually excluded from the sacrifice
1) regularly excluded from taking part in sacrificial ritual or
partaking of sacrificial meat
2) compelled to be vegetarians
See Louise Bruit Zaidman’s beginning to second paragraph pg. 299
women’s place in religion = their place in political order
Blood:
homology between woman and the sacrificial beast
Aristotle Historia Animalium compares menstrual blood of
adolescent girl to the animal that has just been stabbed
women don’t shed blood because they bleed themselves
Tragic Ways of Killing a Woman (Nicole Loraux): women in
tragedy kill themselves in ways that do not require bloodshed
If this argument is true then it is to be expected that women would
be excluded from blood sacrifices at least from menarche to menopause.
Exclusions:
more cases of exclusions than inclusions in the corpus of sacred
laws
See pg. 302 for list of exclusions
Inclusions:
women were treated differently
garments were regulated
no ornate garments
certain cults prohibited women from wearing make-up and playing the
aulos (flute-like instrument)
other prohibitions: wearing jewelry, black, shoes, having their
hair bound, and if wearing the forbidden object the object was then dedicated
to that god/goddess
other places regulated what could be dedicated–usually aimed at
finery
Unclean:
such regulations reflected the uncleanness resulting from various bodily
functions
4th century Cyrene, late 2nd century Delos, and 3rd century A.D. Lindos:
man’s sexual contact with a woman or contact with a woman giving birth
carried impurity
In the Delian case, it focused mainly on women with menstruation
and miscarriage as one of polluting factors (other included eating
pork and fish)
More Inclusions of Women:
1)Cult of Artemis Pergais at Halikarnassos: Priestesses and wives
of prytaneis in the month of Herakleion were to have equal shares
of the victim
This invocation of wives of prytaneis shows clear political links
2)Some examples make it harder to see the political ties: Sacred
calendar from the deme of Erkhia—5 parallel calendars listed in
separate columns headed by the first 5 letters of the alphabet See pg. 304-05
3) Decree found in the Athenian Agora
A. sacrifice on 17th and 18th of Hekatombaion
B. sacrifice pig to heroines and full grown victim and a table
to the hero on the first day and Perfect victim to the hero on the second
day
C. distribute the meat
1. Orgeones present
2. _ shares to third sons
3. Full shares to free women
4. _ shares to daughters
5. Single share for slave
6. Wife’s share to be given to her husband
3 Levels of participation
1. Killing the victim
2. Eating the roasted viscera
3. Sharing in the meat
* Eating the viscera is a privilege–only to those having official
role in the ritual–large number of priestesses share the viscera
Inscription from Chios (400 B.C.) Priestess of Eileithuia is to
consume her perquisite on the spot ‘along with the women who made the
sacrifice’
More Exclusions:
1)Cults that exclude women seem most often marginal to the cities
See pg. 310 for list of cults
2) Prohibitions were cult specific
3) Women were not as a rule excluded from sacrificial meat
4) Cult practices are not to be seen as closely linked to day-to-day
politics carried out by the Assembly
5) Religious actions had political effects but is by no means incompatible
with the independence of Religion from political arrangements
6) Women were excluded from sacrifices because they had no part
in the group that made the sacrifice
Not excluded from taking part in the sacrificial victim because
it was sacrificial victim
7) Different cults in different cities practice different exclusions
Political Life and Sacrifice:
1)It dominated ancient sources but did not dominate life as lived
and experienced
2) Relations between cities and between households could be kept
to males but relations with gods was open to all humans
3) Participation in sacrifice that secured women’s place in the
order of things
” Sacrifice reached parts of society with politics did not
reach, and in doing so it reached some parts that were the exclusive
domain of women.”
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