“For the woman it is more honorable to remain indoors than to be outside; for the man it is more disgraceful to remain indoors than to attend to business outside.” So declares a new husband in Oeconomicus, a series of dialogues on managing estates by the Athenian writer Xenophon (c. 428–354 B.C.).
The ancient Greeks thought it unseemly for women to venture into public except for religious festivals and funerals—and for the daily duty of collecting water, as shown in this sixth-century B.C. hydria (a vessel used to store water). In wealthier families, the shameful task of fetching water fell to slaves. For example, a female chorus complains about having to collect water in Aristophanes’s play Lysistrata—a political comedy in which the women of the Greek city-states deny their husbands intimacy in order to force them to make peace. The chorus intones: “Filling up my water jug has been no easy matter … Pushed as I was, jostled by slavewomen and sluts marked with a brand [slave prostitutes].”
The vessel shown here is one of numerous examples of this Athenian artist’s work. Known as the Priam Painter because of his depiction of the Trojan king on another vase, he was especially fond of fountain scenes—probably in part for political reasons. The Priam Painter may well have been celebrating one of the legacies of the Pisistratid Dynasty, a family of (benevolent) tyrants who ruled Athens in the mid-sixth century B.C. The Pisistratids made many civic improvements in Athens, including the building of public fountain houses. Prior to Pisistratid rule, the aristocracy of Athens controlled water resources through the private ownership of wells. Now, however, fountains were open to all, an act for which the Priam Painter apparently showed his gratitude in this hydria decoration.
“For the woman it is more honorable to remain indoors than to be outside; for the man it is more disgraceful to remain indoors than to attend to business outside.” So declares a new husband in Oeconomicus, a series of dialogues on managing estates by the Athenian writer Xenophon (c. 428–354 B.C.). The ancient Greeks thought it unseemly for women to venture into public except for religious festivals and funerals—and for the daily duty of collecting water, as shown in this sixth-century B.C. hydria (a vessel used to store water). In wealthier families, the shameful task of fetching water […]
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