Ebook Download Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy
Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy. Checking out makes you much better. Which claims? Lots of smart words say that by reading, your life will certainly be better. Do you believe it? Yeah, show it. If you need the book Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy to check out to prove the sensible words, you could see this web page completely. This is the site that will certainly provide all guides that most likely you require. Are the book's compilations that will make you really feel interested to check out? One of them here is the Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy that we will certainly recommend.
Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy
Ebook Download Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy
Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy. It is the moment to improve and also freshen your ability, knowledge and encounter consisted of some entertainment for you after long time with monotone points. Operating in the workplace, visiting research, picking up from examination and even more activities could be completed and also you should begin new things. If you feel so worn down, why do not you attempt new point? A very simple point? Reviewing Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy is just what we offer to you will recognize. As well as guide with the title Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy is the referral now.
This letter may not influence you to be smarter, yet the book Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy that we offer will stimulate you to be smarter. Yeah, at the very least you'll understand greater than others which do not. This is exactly what called as the high quality life improvisation. Why should this Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy It's since this is your preferred theme to check out. If you such as this Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy theme around, why do not you review the book Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy to enhance your discussion?
Today book Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy we provide right here is not kind of usual book. You know, checking out now doesn't imply to manage the published book Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy in your hand. You could get the soft file of Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy in your device. Well, we mean that the book that we extend is the soft data of guide Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy The content and all points are very same. The distinction is only the kinds of guide Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy, whereas, this condition will exactly be profitable.
We share you likewise the means to obtain this book Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy without visiting guide shop. You can continuously check out the link that we offer and also ready to download Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy When lots of people are hectic to seek fro in the book establishment, you are quite simple to download the Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy right here. So, just what else you will choose? Take the motivation right here! It is not only offering the best book Spartan Women, By Sarah B. Pomeroy yet additionally the appropriate book collections. Here we consistently give you the most effective and also most convenient method.
This is the first book-length examination of Spartan women, covering over a thousand years in the history of women from both the elite and lower classes. Classicist Sarah B. Pomeroy comprehensively analyzes ancient texts and archaeological evidence to construct the world of these elusive though much noticed females. Sparta has always posed a challenge to ancient historians because information about the society is relatively scarce. Most existing scholarship on Sparta concerns the military history of the city and its heavily male-dominated social structure--almost as if there were no women in Sparta. Yet perhaps the most famous of mythic Greek women, Menelaus' wife Helen, the cause of the Trojan War, was herself a Spartan. Written by one of the leading authorities on women in antiquity, Spartan Women reconstructs the lives and the world of Sparta's women, including how their status changed over time and how they held on to their surprising autonomy. Proceeding through the archaic, classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, Spartan Women includes discussions of education, family life, reproduction, religion, and athletics.
- Sales Rank: #218540 in Books
- Published on: 2002-07-11
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.10" h x .70" w x 9.10" l, .76 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 216 pages
Review
"Spartan Women is a book that all ancient historians and classicists should add to their reading lists and personal collections. Sarah B. Pomeroy is already a scholar of great reputation in women's studies in the classical world, and this book adds to her reputation as a trailblazer in this dynamic field. Pomeroy has created a new classic that I predict will be part of the academic canon for years to come." --HISTORY: Reviews of New Books
"Sarah Pomeroy's new book is a pioneering and important work, a thorough and painstaking study by perhaps the leading scholar of ancient Greek women's history. Thanks to this groundbreaking book, historians are now in a much better position than perhaps ever before to treat the daughters of Helen not as exemplars or myths but as real human beings." -American Historical Review
"The book makes a valuable contribution to ancient Greek history and will immediately take its rightful place as the standard work in any language on a major but astonishingly long-neglected topic.... Pomeroy's female-oriented interrogation of the record is one that needed to be made, and in so doing she has significantly advanced our understanding of a critical--and diagnostically interesting--chapter in the history of women."--Bryn Mawr Classical Review
"Spartan Woman is a landmark in the history of ancient women because it attempts for the first time to offer an account of the lives of both elite and non-elite Spartan women and to do so by sifting through a very difficult body of evidence.... In Spartan Women, readers will find an exhaustive survey of the available information on the subject."--New England Classical Journal
"The world's top scholar on women in antiquity examines the lives of citizen women in militaristic Sparta.... Her analyses of women's health, education, fitness, wealth, leisure, self-image, social prominence, and religious power are cogent.... Pomeroy's book offers the best current account of the central role of women in Spartan society.... Highly recommended."--Choice
"Spartan Women is a masterly synthesis of its subject that is not only enriched by nearly a generation's accomplishments in the historiography of women, but also informed by a wise empathy for its subjects. An invaluable resource for students of antiquity, this book will also be provocative reading for anyone fascinated by the variegated textures of women's historical experiences."--Thomas J. Figueira, Rutgers University
"Drawing in part on approaches to women's history adapted by feminist historians, Sarah B. Pomeroy offers the most detailed study of Spartan women to date. Her thematically-organized chapters stress how Spartan women differed from their contemporaries, especially Athenians. Her appendix describing and evaluating the full range of our fragmentary historical, literary, and material sources illuminates the special challenge that she undertook in writing this book."--Helene P. Foley, Barnard College, Columbia University
"Spartan Women is the first full-length historical study of its elusive subject ever published. This is not surprising. The sources--meticulously laid out here in a wide-ranging appendix--are a historian's nightmare. Through this minefield Professor Pomeroy moves sure-footedly, armed with encyclopedic knowledge, a papyrologist's precision, speculative courage, and what Dr Johnson memorably described as 'a bottom of good sense.' No one will ever say the last word on any aspect of Spartan culture; but Spartan Womenis a wonderfully thorough, sane, and for the most part convincing exploration of a controversial topic."--Peter Green, University of Iowa
About the Author
Sarah B. Pomeroy is Distinguished Professor of Classics at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Most helpful customer reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
Being feminine - Spartan style
By D. Roberts
This is a one-of-a-kind exhaustive study on the lives of Laconian women. As Sparta was a closed society, not a whole lot is known about how the men lived, and even less is known about its female denizens. The sparse availability of primary sources on Spartan women makes any study of them rather difficult.
Sarah Pomeroy has consolidated just about everything we know, we think we know as well as what we might hypothosize about knowing about the lady Spartans. This book is a well-researched treatise on what their lives were, or at least could have been like some 2,500 years ago.
Ironically enough for a militaristic state, Spartan women enjoyed myriad freedoms and rights that were denied basically all other women of the classical age. As we look in hindsight, these factors weigh in to give them much more historical interest than women in other Greek city states. Pomeroy does an excellent job of delineating these various traits that separated them from alternative Greek social norms.
This book is highly recommended for both aficionados as well as persons interested in historical women's studies. Either way, this text has a wealth of information that will elucidate the lives of both Spartan women as well as Spartan men.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Sparta: A Unique Society
By Arnold E. Bjorn
While historians in antique and modern times alike have perhaps overemphasized the "alien" elements of Sparta's culture, it is clear that this Greek city-state was in many respects genuinely different from her contemporaries. Uniquely for her time, she subordinated the privileges of her citizens to the greater good of the State. In a day when mass education at public expense was elsewhere not even considered in theory, Sparta enlisted all her children in a state-run school until well past present-day high school graduation age. An egalitarian and collectivist ethos was consciously fostered, along with patriotism and civic responsibility. Every male citizen was expected to be a soldier first and foremost, putting the public welfare above his own. Only reservists held the right to vote, and only veterans of long military service could be elected to the Spartan Senate.
This military republic, instituted before the more liberal democracy of Athens saw the light of day and in an age when primitive monarchy and a largely night-watchman state were otherwise the norm, has been differently assessed in different times and places. Many modern observers have found a hint of fascism in Sparta's intensely nationalist and "militarist" civic-duty ethic. But in Antiquity her efficient and "idealistic" system inspired much admiration throughout the Hellenic world and beyond. Plato based his utopian Republic in large measure on Sparta's constitution, which was also praised by such intellectuals as Critias and Xenophon. Aristotle, on the other hand, perhaps the greatest Greek philosopher of all, was harshly critical of Sparta. But his criticisms were not the ones we would expect from present-day liberals: That Sparta was militaristic, denied human rights, was "racist" against non-Greeks or the like. Aristotle approved of all that. What annoyed him was rather that the Spartans did not properly control their women: They owned property, spoke freely in public and occasionally even had a say in politics!
To give context to such a statement, we must note the conditions elsewhere among the Grecians. There, and (so it seems) particularly in democratic Athens, women played a very limited role in polite society. The typical Athenian citizeness married young, had essentially no economic rights and did not participate in politics. A proper wife was expected to stay indoors, and modestly remain out of sight if her husband entertained guests; only poor women and female slaves were generally seen outside the home. As the historian Thucydides wrote, the greatest praise a woman could earn was if she was never mentioned, whether for good deeds or evil. It goes without saying that education for women was largely unheard of. In short, this was a highly "patriarchal" society, which some have compared to the Islamic cultures of our day.
Sparta was very different, in that her women were afforded an important role in public and economic life, and generally more highly regarded than was the norm in Hellenic society. Precisely how much so and in what ways is the subject of the present book.
Sarah Pomeroy has previously written on "Women in Classical Antiquity" (1975); here she concerns herself exclusively with the Spartanesses. Unfortunately, the surviving sources on Sparta are limited, leaving the historian less to work with than we might have hoped for. On the other hand, this means that nearly all the ones relevant to this study's subject can be addressed in one book. (An appendix provides a useful introduction for beginners to the ancient sources in question.) Thus, Pomeroy's research is good, but the available hard facts must of necessity be supplemented with a good deal of guesswork to provide anything like a complete picture. While I agree with many of Pomeroy's deductions, some appear in my eyes a little too speculative. It happens more than once that she seizes upon what I would consider a very tenuous piece of evidence and extrapolates an elaborate argument from it; on these occasions, one might prefer a more cautious approach.
Nevertheless, taken altogether her image of the Spartan woman is a largely sound and compelling one. Readers not already familiar with Sparta may be surprised at a system that seems remarkably "modern" in many respects, yet was based on fundamentally anti-liberal principles. Spartan girls as well as boys were educated, with their curriculum including music, poetry, literature, philosophy and perhaps a little mathematics, as well as gymnastics and sports. Unlike the men, they did not receive military training, although they took part in martial sports such as javelin-throwing and wrestling; Plutarch also enigmatically writes that part of their training was purposed to make them able to "defend themselves, their children, and their country" (p18). (Perhaps this would refer to self-defense against criminals or insurgents?) Spartan law also stipulated that they should marry later than was common elsewhere in ancient Greece, apparently no earlier than around age twenty.
Pomeroy points out that as with the boys, this education was not primarily intended for the girls' own benefit, but to make them better, healthier and more productive citizenesses of the Spartan state. But inevitably, it improved their individual lives as well. As adults, they had use for their learning as responsible members of society. In Sparta, where many men were on extended regular military deployment, it was expected of women to take a larger part in the day-to-day management of family businesses and property. (Aristotle complained that women effectively "ruled" Sparta and controlled its wealth, but this would seem a polemical exaggeration. In all likelihood ultimate authority in the family still rested with the husband; but Spartan marriages were probably rather more "complementarian" than was the fashion elsewhere among the Hellenes.) Nor were women wholly without a voice in public affairs. Historians tell of women who were admitted to the kings' councils. Examples of woman poets and even philosophers are also known, though how common they were is impossible to tell.
An interesting observation Pomeroy makes is that Sparta was famous in Antiquity for the beauty of her women. Going by modern stereotypes, we would expect that Sparta's relatively "empowered" women should be caricatured as mannish and unattractive -- Especially as Sparta's austere laws banned cosmetics, perfume and luxurious dress and jewelry. Yet the exact opposite was the case: Spartanesses were described as tall, blonde and beautiful, or by hostile writers as dangerously seductive. Pomeroy believes that this stereotype carries an echo of actual impressions: Their healthier style of living and more intellectual culture would, on average, have made them more attractive companions than the typical woman of, for example, Athens, whose life and opportunities were much more limited. An interesting thesis, if obviously one that is necessarily difficult to test.
* * * * *
In all, "Spartan Women" provides an intriguing attempt at reconstructing the life of women in the unique society that was ancient Sparta. I would recommend Pomeroy's study to all who take an interest in this society; many will probably, like myself, disagree with her on some points, but still by and large approve of her general conclusions. And if nothing else, it provides an excellent guide to the primary sources, so the student can access these and make up his own mind.
18 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
Most interesting book I've read this year
By Fifth Generation Texan
All those intriguing images of Spartan women from art and literature! Of course I wanted to know more about them. But how? Archaeologists and historians have interpreted such facts as survived, along with surviving propaganda written about them at the time – all of it in classical languages that I could not read – according to their own (and often quite male) biases. That is why I am so grateful for Sarah Pomeroy’s book. An expert on women and families in Ancient Greece, Pomeroy is also a resourceful scholar of the utmost integrity and common sense who works her way around and through the omissions and layers of bias to provide a portrait of Spartan women that is richer and more realistic than any hitherto available. This is the most interesting book I have read this year.
Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy PDF
Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy EPub
Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy Doc
Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy iBooks
Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy rtf
Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy Mobipocket
Spartan Women, by Sarah B. Pomeroy Kindle
