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Reviews
| Daughters of Gaia: Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World, by Bella Vivante. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. 264 pages. $49.95, cloth.
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| In Daughters of Gaia, Bella Vivante explores the multidimensional lives of ancient women in four distinct cultures fundamental to the development of the Western tradition—Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. The chronological scope of her comparative framework (from the third millennium B.C.E. to the fifth century C.E.) enables Vivante to illustrate how the development of states with a strong patriarchal orientation devalued women's participation in the religious, economic, political, and intellectual spheres of life. Despite the social limitations placed upon them, ancient women used their religious responsibilities, their intelligence and creativity, their economic resources, and their kin connections to empower themselves and improve the well-being of their families and communities. Vivante draws upon a wide array of source material from the fields of archaeology, art, art history, literature, philosophy, and history to make her case. Undergraduates will certainly appreciate the numerous photographs of ancient artifacts depicting women in their many guises (as goddesses, queens, mothers, slaves, food preparers, musicians, dancers, writers, and weavers) that illustrate the text. Most of her textual evidence necessarily comes from the historical period when patriarchal social institutions had become the norm. Nevertheless, Vivante finds much of value even in the more misogynistic texts when read with the aim of understanding the ways in which ancient women were "active agents in their own lives... and not only the objects of societal repression (p. xxiv)." |
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Daughters of Gaia is topically organized around the various spheres in which women's active participation provided them with a source of power and identity. Vivante dedicates the first two chapters to exploring the cultural significance of female deities, tracking changes in the representation of particular goddesses from the prehistoric to the historic period, and describing the diverse ways in which ancient women worshipped the goddesses (prayers, offerings, processions, songs, dances, and sacrifices). Chapter 3 is devoted to the domestic sphere and chronicles the socially recognized stages of a woman's life from birth to death with particular attention paid to the status of adult women as wives and mothers. Chapter 4 begins with a general overview of ancient healing practices and medical theories regarding the female body before proceeding to specific areas of concern in women's health such as menstruation, conception and contraception, childbirth, and menopause. Chapter 5 focuses on the economic roles of women in both the home and in the market. The domestic-based economic activities of child care, food preparation, and textile manufacture are of primary concern, but Vivante also explores the extra-domestic labor performed by women as healers, perfume-makers, potters, musicians, dancers, brewers, tavern owners, prostitutes, and slaves. For undergraduates, this chapter will be an excellent reminder that in the ancient world, all women worked, and many of them recognized the distinct advantages of economic independence. In Chapter 6, Vivante examines the ways in which ancient women exercised political authority as Queen Mothers while their sons were still minors, as the wives of kings during their husbands' absences, as the daughters of rulers who used marriage ties to cement political alliances, and as female rulers in their own right. Chapter 7 explores the symbolic and material associations connecting ancient women, both historical and legendary, with war. Women sent their husbands and sons off to war; suffered as the victims of warfare; provisioned troops with uniforms, foodstuffs, and other services; and a select few served as memorable battle leaders (notably Artemisia, Queen of the Persians, and Boudicia, Queen of the Iceni in southeast England). Vivante concludes Daughters of Gaia with two chapters examining ancient women's intellectual contributions as evidenced by their philosophical and poetic writings. Even though the Western philosophic tradition has generally ignored the writings of the female Pythagorean philosophers, Vivante does not. The texts they wrote address ethical issues pertinent to both sexes as well as the appropriate virtues specific to the female sex. As Vivante reminds the reader, the destruction of most of the writings of female philosophers coupled with the failure to embrace the surviving writings as philosophical texts, enabled "later shapers of Western cultural institutions... to promote the fiction that intellectual matters were an exclusively privileged male concern (p. 173)." |
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Vivante's clear and readable prose, succinct introductions to the cultural and historical context of each chapter's topic, in addition to the glossary, timeline, index, and guide to further readings, all make Daughters of Gaia a student-friendly text for undergraduates. It will work well in an upper division course in world history, ancient history, or women's history. |
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| Roanoke College, Salem, VA |
Whitney Leeson |
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