Discussion UsefulNotes / AncientGreece

Women also left home, the literature shows, to visit their favorite soothsayer,[18] participate in some public ceremonies,[19] admire works of art on the Acropolis,[20] visit men in prison,[21] argue their case before arbitrators,[22] and attend courtrooms to rouse the sympathy of juries for their male relatives.[23] Women also listened to public speeches; one, Elphinike, reproached Pericles after the latter gave a speech in honor of the Athenians killed in the war against Samos.[24] Plato says that refined women preferred tragedy to comedy; from this, as from two other passages, it appears that women frequented the theater as well.[25] Not only did women participate in their relatives’ funerals, but without them those funerals could not be carried out at all. Women were active in religion.[26] They could become priestesses; indeed, some priesthoods were reserved exclusively for women. Some religious rites in which women participated were carried out daily, while others focused on festivals held on fixed dates. Some of the festivals were mixed, with others reserved for women. None could have taken place if women had been confined at home. And that is not to mention the feast of Dionysus, during which women not only left their homes but the city as well, making for the mountains instead.