Food and dining in the ancient world have been the focus of much recent scholarly attention. From discussions concerning the depictions of symposia or drinking-parties on Greek vases to analysis of ancient writers’ descriptions of lavish banquets, scholars have demonstrated a marked interest in the parties of the ancients. Such inquiries of Greek dining, however, typically focus on the male participants and their activities during symposia. A less explored area of research is the event that comes prior to the drinking parties, namely dining (deipnon), and, in particular, the questions surrounding the presence of women and their roles during marital and ritual feasts. The scholarship on women and dining is limited to studies of courtesans at symposia. A study of women diners who are not courtesans and that uses a more interdisciplinary approach, including archaeological and architectural evidence, is lacking, despite the fact that textual evidence exists that discusses cases of female dining, and votive figurines, vases, and reliefs represent female diners.
This dissertation, therefore, seeks to examine ancient texts, archaeological evidence, dining rooms in sanctuaries, and current gender theory in order to argue two points: first, that ancient Greek women occupied prominent roles during ritual and marital feasts; and second, that their activities took place in the dining rooms of sanctuaries at the ancient sites of Argos in the Peloponnese, Brauron in eastern Attica, and Corinth on the Isthmus. Finally, previous scholarship has argued that women in antiquity mostly occupied roles within the private household; my dissertation, however, will expand the study of their role from the private spaces of their houses to those spaces that had a more public function, such as sanctuaries where women actively participated in rituals and nuptial celebrations.
Accordingly, the previously low status of ancient women in modern scholarship must be reevaluated in order to account for these public positions. My dissertation will reveal that the traditional view of ancient Greek women as being confined to the household is not accurate. The significance of my research, therefore, will be to acknowledge the place of ancient Greek women in dining that is largely absent in recent scholarship, but can be reconstructed on the basis of texts, imagery, architectural remains, archaeology, gender theory, and our knowledge about women’s roles in religion.