Unveiling Spartan Women

Join leading academic Professor Ellen Millender for a lively discussion about Spartan women

Few elements of Spartan society have evoked the strong reactions routinely roused by the Spartans’ supposedly powerful and licentious females. The ancient evidence is, admittedly, problematic, since literary accounts of Spartan women were the product of male, mostly non-Spartan writers, who highlighted the more sensational aspects of the Spartan female experience. Archaeological evidence is also relatively limited but can illuminate these women’s lives and position.

This session will focus on those aspects of the Spartan female experience for which the evidence is relatively abundant and reliable:

1. Education and related ritual activity,
2. Marriage and sexuality,
3. Wealth and attendant political influence.

Join the event here (Microsoft Teams)

Discussants:

• Professor Ellen Millender (Reed College)
• Dr Petros Doukas (Mayor of Sparti)
• Dr Chrysanthi Gallou (University of Nottingham)

Young Spartans exercising, by Edgar Degas, oil on canvas (c. 1860) ©Wikimedia Commons

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Young_Spartans_National_Gallery_NG3860.jpg