Thesmophoriazusae

Womens Festivals
Provided outlet for women to participate in public life
Often involve withdrawal from normal life
Two festivals closely linked: Thesmophoria & Skira
sacrifice of pigs
Represent time when Demeter is in mourning for Persephone
Adonia, Haloa
Haloa
Demeter and Dionysus (so December)
Bloodless
Presidency of Women
Aischrology
Adonia
Mentioned in Lysistrata
Adonis, consort of Aphrodite dies and is mourned
Wailing, emotionalism
Organized and paid for by women
Unlike some festivals, accepts prostitutes
Rooftop Adonis Gardens
Skira
Time of license
Men played dice together
Women leave their normal seclusion
banded together to eat garlic, then sacrifice and feast
Scene of Aristophanes Ecclesiazusae
Thesmophoria
Thesmoi: Unwritten Laws of society
Held in late autumn at seed sowing
Rites kept secret
One of most ancient festivals (11the c. BCE)
Pigs were sacrificed and their entrails strewn into pits
Later (months?) rotten remains gathered by women
who had to fast for 3 days in ritual purity
Placed on altars together with phallus-cakes
Then scattered on fields when seeds sown
Scholiast on Lucian.
'The Thesmophoria, a festival of the Greeks, including mysteries, and these are
called also Skirrophoria. According to the more mythological explanation they are
celebrated in that Kore when she was gathering flowers was carried off by
Plouton. At the time a certain Eubouleus, a swineherd, was feeding his swine on
the spot and they were swallowed down with her in the chasm of Kore. Hence in
honour of Eubouleus the swine are thrown into the chasms of Demeter and Kore.
Certain women who have purified themselves for three days and who bear the
name of 'Drawers up' bring up the rotten portions of the swine that have been
cast into the megara. And they descend into the inner sanctuaries and having
brought up (the remains) they place them on the altars, and they hold that
whoever takes of the remains and mixes it with his seed will have a good crop.
And they say that in and about the chasms are snakes which consume the most
part of what is thrown in; hence a rattling din is made when the women draw up
the remains and when they replace the remains by those well-known images, in
order that the snakes which they hold to be the guardians of the sanctuaries may
go away.
3 Days of Thesmophoria
Anodos ascent
Women set up tents on Pnyx
elected overseers of the festival
Nesteia: day of fasting (this is day of Aristophanes play)
Women sat on ground on anaphrodisiac seats
Subdued
Aischrologia? (maybe on 3rd day)
Kalligeneia beautiful birth
Women prayed for fertility
Magic and Cursing
Thesm. 334-Crieress recites parody of the ara Solonos
Euripides public enemy of women as Medes are to Athenians
Cursing and Magic part of public policy
Inscription : Dirae of Teos.' 'Whosoever maketh baneful drugs against the Teans, whether
against individuals or the whole people:
''May he perish, both he and his offspring.
'Whosoever hinders corn from being brought into the land of the Teans, either by art or
machination, whether by land or sea, and whosoever drives out what has been brought in:
'May he perish, both he and his offspring?
'Whosoever of them that hold office doth not make this cursing, what time he presides over the
contest at the Anthesteria and the Herakleia and the Dia, let him be bound by an overcurse, and
whoever either breaks the stelae on which the cursing is written, or cuts out the letters or makes
them illegible:
'Nay he perish, both he and his offspring'
Euripidean drama in Thesmophoriazusae
Clever tricksters:
Telephus (takes hostage, persuasive)
Palamedes (inventor: 11 letters, dice, counting)
Helen
Melanippe the Wise (hides two illegitimate children from father)
Phaedra (lies that stepson raped her)
Andromeda
 According to myth, Melanippe bore twin sons to Poseidon while her
father Aiolos was in exile. On orders from Poseidon, and anticipating
her father's return, she exposed the children in a cow shed, where
they were discovered by a shepherd and brought to her father and
grandfather, Hellen. Thinking these to be "cow born monsters", they
ordered the infants to be burned and instructed Melanippe to
prepare the funeral shrouds. Through her powers of persuasion,
however, Melanippe was able to convince her father that the children
were not monsters, and their lives were thus spared.
Melanippe
At center, an elderly man, Boter
(shepherd), emerges from an orchard
carrying two newborns (note the pointed
heads) wrapped in a blanket, which he
presents to Hellen. At right, an old woman,
Trophos (nurse), comforts the distressed
heroine Melanippe. On the other side
stands Aiolos, her father, who carries a
scepter to denote his kingship. Behind him
is Kretheus (Melanippe's half brother) who
crowns a mare, possibly a reference to
Melanippe's mother, Hippe. In the upper
register, Poseidon, above Melanippe at
right, gestures angrily to Aphrodite and
Eros. Athena stands at the center, with
Apollo and Artemis beyond.
Telephus
Womens problems in Thesm.
Women passing off other children as their own
Danger of childbirth
Demands on women to produce sons
Availability of exposed or slave babies
Husband had to be declare the baby legitimate
Also customary to expose baby if frail/deformed
Until 5th, 7th, or 10th day, ceremony for the baby:
Amphidromia and Dekate
Baby formally presented to non-family members in a celebration after
the forty days were over.
 Childbirth one of the most dangerous aspects of a womans life.
average household consisted of 4.23 children: 75% died before 10
average woman went through six or more pregnancies in a lifetime.
10/1000 maternal deaths?
Only women usually present for birth
Male anxiety about being cheated
In Roman source (Ulpian) legal text about widow giving birth
One guarded entrance with female relatives observing to prevent
substitution