33602880 Women Greece Rome

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The Most Silent Women of Greece and Rome: Rural Labour and Women's Life in the Ancient

World (II)Author(s): Walter ScheidelSource: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Apr., 1996), pp. 1-10Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/643080Accessed: 16/02/2010 17:42

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Greece& Rome, Vol.xliii, No. 1, April 1996

THE MOST SILENT WOMEN OF GREECE AND ROME:RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFE IN THEANCIENT WORLD (II)1

By WALTER SCHEIDEL

The Evidence: Field LabourHow can these ideas be linked to the ancient sources?Focusing first of allon women's contribution to arable cultivation and arboriculture, weimmediatelyface the first of manyblanks.To the best of my knowledge,wedo not have any explicit evidence of ploughing by women in the Greco-Roman world. Only two lines from Hesiod's Works and Days seem toestablish a connection between women and ploughing: according toHesiod, a properhead of a householdwould need 'first of all a house, andthen a woman and oxen for ploughing - a slave woman, not a wife, tofollow the oxen [or:to care for the oxen]' (405 f.). In the fourth centuryB.C.,however, the second line that specifies the status and the function ofthe desired woman was apparentlynot yet part of the receivedtext, sinceAristotle could still regard her as a free woman (Pol. 1252a 11ff.). Notuntil the first centuryB.C.didPhilodemos of Gadaraquote and defend thereading that defined Hesiod's woman as a slave labourer.2Even so, thewording does not make it clear whether this woman was meant to followthe harnessedoxen, that is, to do the ploughing,or to care for the oxen inthe stable.3The participation of women in the harvest is somewhat betterdocumented.Here we have to rely mainlyon the testimoniesof the ancientlexicographerswho preservedsome termsthat denoted female agriculturallabourers.Accordingto Pollux, Aristophanesmentioned a female reaper,agynaika theristrian,n one of his lost plays.A synonymousterm known toPollux was ametris, the female mower.4Furthermore,there are severalreferences to the poastria, a working woman who probably engaged ingleaning,the cutting of stubble,and the removal of weeds.5It is interestingto note that there even existed (at least) two different Attic comedies thatbore the title haipoastriai,which will have turnedthese women into stagecharacters.6We also hear about the kalametris,a woman who collectedcorn-ears and stubble. Plutarch lumps this category of women togetherwith male harvesters,apparently regardingthem as hired labourers.7The


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RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFEbucolic poet Theocritusdescribesone such woman as she follows the malereapers to pick up corn-ears (Idyll. 3. 32 and scholion). A more vividportrayal of this kind of agricultural work performed by women iscontainedin a poem of the AnthologiaPalatina (9. 89):Nico, describedas averyold woman,is forced to gleancorn-earstogetherwith herdaughters norderto escape starvation;the heat, however, is too great for her to bearand so she dies in the blazingsun;whereuponshe is incinerated on a pyremade of stalks.The RomancomicpoetTerence has one masterwarninghisfemale slave that she will have to reap corn-ears in the middayheat untilshe becomes as black and parchedas charcoal(Ad. 846-9).In general, the gleaning of single corn-ears that had been left behindbythe harvesters and the cutting of stubble to make straw are to be seen as aprerogativeof the poor and the old. The most detaileddescriptionof thisprocedureis in the Book Ruth of the Old Testament that refers to femaleservants who harvest wheat and barley as well as to the poor womanstrangerwho gets permissionto glean for free the remainingstalks.It hasto be noted, however, that Varro in his agronomic treatise takes a lessphilanthropicstance when he recommends that 'when the harvest is overthe gleaningshouldbe let, or the loose stalksgatheredwithyourown force,or, if the earsleft arefew and the cost of labourhigh, it should be pastured'(R.R. 1.53).Even in this case,however,we may suspectthatwomen madeup at least partof the labourersto whom the gleaningof such fields was tobe let.Women also took partin the threshingof the harvestedgrain. Accordingto Athenaios,two authors of Atheniancomedyreported specialsongs sungby women when they treaded barley under their feet. Work songs ofwomen for this particular activity are indeed known from many othercultures as well.8There are also a very few remarks about women's labour in wine-growing and olive-growing.Longos, in Daphnisand Chloe(2. 1. 3; 2. 2. 1),speaks of lots of women who had gathered to participatein the vintage.This is corroboratedby evidence frommodernGreece wherethe gatheringof grapesis a task joinedin by men, women, and childrenalike.9We moveon to much less firm ground with the reference of the late antiqueagronomistPalladius to an alleged precept of the Greeks that because ofthe olive's preference for chastity, only impubescent boys and virginsshould be allowedto plant olive-trees and to pick the olives (Op. agr. 1. 6.14).Homer alreadydescribeswomen who carry awayin basketsthe grapesthat had just been gathered (//. 18. 567f.). This may be comparedwith apapyrusfromHellenisticEgyptthat containsa contract of women who had

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RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFE 3beenhired as portersduringthe gatheringof olives.10 everal authorsmakemention of trygetriai, emale harvestersor pickers,if only in an unspecificmanner. 1

In Roman Italy of the EarlyEmpire,the agronomistColumella notes inpassing that when 'on rainy days, or because of frost, slave women couldnot performagricultural abour out of doors', they should be put to wool-work inside the house (R.R. 12. 3. 6). The casual character of this remarkgives the impression that to all appearances,Columella did not regardwomen's labour in the fields as something unusual.Since this impressionwould be in perfect keeping with, and receive ample confirmationfrom,comparative evidence on plantation farming from better-documentedslave-societies, we have to conclude that agriculture labour played anessential role in the lives of many slave-womenof the Romans.'2Further-more, occasional references to the presenceand the tasks of slave childrenon Roman estates also point to the existence of a considerable numberofunfree women on these holdingswho had to be kept busy.13Apartfromthese slave-women, ittle is heard aboutthe legal status of thewomen who engagedin field labour.The startlingfact that, althoughmanyof them would have workedin the smallholdereconomy,we simply do nothave any evidence aboutthem,will probablybe due to the profoundlack ofinterest of the ancient authors in the daily life of the free ruralpopulace.Bucolic lyrics and novels provide but little compensation.Hired working-women attracted somewhatmore attentionbecausethey providedservicesto the membersof the upper classes from which both the authors and thereaders of the works of ancient literaturewere drawn.Apparently, his factalone evoked an occasional if superficial interest in this group of people.While some of them will have been peasantwomen who hired out at timesof high demand for additional labour on larger, market-orientedestates,othersmay have belongedto a social stratum of impoverishedwomen whohad to eke out a living from all sorts of wage labour.

The Evidence: Animal HusbandryAs to the contributionof women to animalhusbandry, he ancientauthorsusually content themselves with unspecific remarks about women whotendedsheepsor lambs,goats, cattle, or unspecifiedlivestock.14There is noinformationon concrete tasks, such as the shearingof sheep which in theMiddleAges often fell to women.By andlarge,the same holdsgood for themilkingof sheep or cattle.15


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RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFEA little more can be said about the legal status and the social andeconomic position of women concerned with animal husbandry.Apartfrom fictional characterssuch as Chloe, free herdswomen areby andlarge

missing from our sources. Thus we are left with a few ambiguousreferences:Dio Chrysostom,for instance,recalls a stout, elderlywomanhemet in the Peloponnesewho was the mother of a herdsmanand often alsotended the sheep herself (1. 53f.). Yet she might equallyhave been a slavewoman. Horace briefly portraysthe work of Italian peasant women wholocked livestock in a pen and milked the cows, while the daughtersdrovegoats back from the mountain pasture (Epod. 2. 39-46).16Again,slave women take up considerablymore roomin the sources.Themost detailed account is given by Varro in the second book of hisagriculturaltreatise. In general, he makes a distinction between animalhusbandry on farms on the one hand and the tending of animals onmountain pastures and the practice of transhumanceon the other. 'Thuson the rangeyou may see young men, usuallyarmed,while on the farmnotonly boys but even girlstend the flocks.... As to the breedingof herdsmen,it is a simplematter in the case of thosewho stay allthe time on the farm,asthey have a female fellow-slavein the steading,andthe Venus of herdsmenlooks no farther than this. But in the case of those who tend the herds inmountainvalleys and wooded lands,and keep off the rains not by the roofof the steading but by makeshift huts, many have thought that it wasadvisable to send alongwomen to follow the herds,to preparefood for theherdsmen,and make them more diligent.Such women should, however,bestrong and not ill-looking.In many places they are not inferiorto the menat work, as may be seen here and there in Illyricum,being able either totend the herd, or carry firewood and cook the food, or to keep things inorderin theirhuts' (R.R. 2. 10. 1 and6f.). Once again,we may referto thecustoms of the Sarakatsani,where the women and children at a certaintime of the yearjointhe shepherdsand theirflocks to milk the animalsandto make cheese. Their women also do heavy work in buildingsheep-foldsand moving them to new sites.17On farms, too, the tending of animals could be regardedas a suitabletask for slavewomen.The Hellenisticpoet Herondashas a master orderhisfemale slave to get up and drivethe sow to the pasture(8. 6f.). In Plautus'play Mercator,a newly bought slave-womanlaunches a prophylacticpro-test that she never carried large parcels, tended cattle or nursed babies,thereby clearly touching on common activitiesof her like (Merc. 507f.).18Concerningthe female companionsof transhumantslave herdsmen,notonly their physicalfitness but also their ethnic originwould have played a

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RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFErole. It is likely that many of the slave-women who were put to such taskshad been raisedin cultures that had a reputationfor hard labourof women.Varro's remarkthat slave families from Epiruswere consideredespeciallyreliable, for example, might be an indication that, because of theirfamiliarity with pasturage, they were also used to look after thetranshumantherds of the Roman plutocrats.19n additionto sharingin thework, these slave-women would have fulfilled an importantfunction as thesexualpartnersand quasi-wivesof the male slaves.Indeed,severalsourcesalludeto the dangerof unmarriedherdsmenresortingto sexualintercoursewith their animals (Phaedr. 3. 3. 17; Plut. Mor. 149c-d). Moreover, thepresence of women and their eventual offspring provideda much-nedeedmeans of social control of the highly mobile, armed, and largelyunsupervisedslave herdsmen.2"

The Poor and the Barbarian:Women and Agricultural Labour in Literature and ArtThat the propertied classes of Greece and Rome would only take adetachedview of women who worked in the fields or in animalhusbandrycan be most clearly demonstrated by the marked tendency of ancientauthors to relegate this experience to social or geographical peripheries.While it was not fashionableto scorn the contributionof rustic women tothe economy of peasanthouseholds(though unnecessaryto dwell on themin any detail), and unwise to be prudish about the work-loads of slavewomen, it was above all agricultural wage labour by those who wereregardedas respectablewomen that was frownedupon.This reservation sbest brought out by the complaint of Demosthenes that due to currentcrisis, 'povertycompels our free citizens to performslavishand degradingservices. I am aware of Athenian women who are forced by the presentcircumstances to hire out as nurses, servants,andharvesters'(57. 45).21 ngeneral,povertyfiguresprominentlyas the underlyingcause of the manualwork of women in antiquity.22Needless to say, wage labour was held indisregardat least by the upper classes of Athens and Rome.23Even so, inthe case of women - and especially in the case of female harvesters -another factor may have militated against their employment as wage-labourers:apparently,the worst fate of all (short of enslavement) was aform of employmentthat exposed the wife, or the daughteror unmarriedsister, to the attentions of unrelated men.24 This concern is mostemphaticallyvoiced in the Book Ruth of the Old Testament: 'Boas said to

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RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFERuth:"Listen,my daughter, don't go on any other field to glean; do notleave this field, but hold on to my farm-girls;stick to the field where theyarereaping,and follow them!I will ordermy farm-handsnot to touch you."... "Well,my daughter",Noomi said to Ruth, "ifyou accompanyhis farm-girls, you cannot be molested on another field"' (VTRuth 2. 8f., 22). Aparallel,albeit a parabolicone, can be found in the novel of Daphnis andChloe:during the vintage, 'the men around the wine-pressescalled afterChloe, leapinglike satyrsin pursuitof a maenad,andwould have wishedtobe sheep in order to be tended by her' (2. 2. 2). Comparableappraisals nmore recent times frequentlyresultedin discriminationagainst agricultu-ral labourof women performedoutside the family circle.25The authors of Hellenistic novels were eager to draw a bleakpicture ofwomen in the rural labourforce.AchillesTatius, in his novel LeucippeandClitophon,introduces a woman who was kept as a slave on a suburbanfarm with the words: 'suddenly a woman bound with thick ropes andholding a pitchforkthrew herself at our feet; her hair had been cut off, herbodywas unkemptand the tunic she was wearingwas filthy' (5. 17).Whenthe novelists Chariton and Xenophon of Ephesus seek to instil particularhorror in their audience, both of them have their respective heroineshanded over as wives to herdsmen(Char.2. 3. 2; Xen. Eph.2. 9. 2). In thiscase, the transfer of these women from the 'civilized' urban sphere to amenacing rustic setting is deployed as a literary motif that is meant toemphasize their plight.26Other authors are more specific about the darkside of women's work in agriculture.Above all, the fact that they werelikely to developa sun-tan was represented n an unfavourable ight as if itstigmatizedthem.27When we look at the woman who died in the blazingsun while gleaning corn-ears from the poem in the AnthologiaPalatinawhich I quoted earlier (9.89), we have in a nutshell the three majorprejudices concerning the social position of women who had to doagricultural abour:she was poor, and old, and could not stand the blazingsun.Thus far we have confrontedonly the presupposedsocialmarginalityoffemale agriculturalworkers.In a way, this corresponds o the inclinationofancient authors to number agricultural labour of women among thecustoms of the barbarians.Hence, Plato contrasts the way of life of theAthenians,whose women would stay at home all the time, with the life-style of the Thracians and many other unspecified peoples who, he holds,employ women in arablecultivation, in the breedingof cattle and sheep,and for other slave-like services (Leg. 805d-e). Similar semi-barbarianhabits could be found in the remote parts of Greece as well:accordingto

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RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFEHeracleidesLembos, in Athamania(in northwesternGreece), the womentilledthe land while the men tended the animals.In the northwestof Spain,among the Cantabrians, he women took care of domestic work as well asof agriculture,while the men devoted their time to warfare and plunder.28These accounts may be comparedwith field data from (mostly tropical)horticulturalsocietieswhich suggest that women arelikelyto make amoresubstantialcontributionto primarysubsistence wherever the majorityofthe men are regularlypulled out of work with food crops into activitiessuch as warfare or hunting.29A late account of the field work of women on the fringe of the classicaloikumene s providedby Eugippiusin his Life ofSaint Severinus(Vit. Sev.14. 3): three days after Severinushad, in Noricum, miraculouslyhealed amoribundwoman, 'she began to work in the fields with her own handsaccordingto local custom'.It is not inconceivablethat the referenceto fieldwork done with her own hands is an indication of the tilling of the soilwithout a plough, that is, of the survival of hoeing at least in the moremountainousparts of Noricum.The compatibilitybetween agriculturalwork and child-bearingarousedparticularcuriosity.In Liguria,for instance,women allegedlygave birthtotheir childrenduringwork and, after washing the new-born,immediatelyresumeddiggingandhoeing andtheir otherwork([Aristot.]Mirab. 91). (Itis compelling to note that the reference to digging and hoeing suggestswomen's engagementin arablecultivationconductedonly byhoes,withoutploughs, which may point to the significant contribution to agriculturewomen had to make in the more backwardparts of the ancient world.)Strabo hands down a story told by Poseidonius about a landowner who'had hiredmen and women for ditch-digging;and how one of the women,upon beingseizedwith the pangsof childbirth,went aside from herwork toa placenearby, and,afterhaving given birth to her child,cameback to herwork at once in ordernot to lose her pay;and how the landowner saw thatshe was doingher workpainfully,but was not awareof the cause till late inthe day, when he learnt it and sent her away with her wages' (Strab.3. 4.17).30A parallelto this event is providedby Varro'sdescriptionof similarhabitsof women in Dalmatia(R.R. 2. 10. 8f.).In spiteof any exaggerationsand generalizationssuch accounts might contain there is ample evidencefrom more recent societies of hardagriculturalwork of women that lasteduntil the moment of delivery and continued after a very brief respite.Indeed,it is all too easy to come acrossanalogouscases in the now fashion-able autobiographiesof formerfarm-girlsof the early twentieth century.By and large, Greek and Roman art remainedblissfulyunaware of the

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8 RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFEexistence of female farm-workers. Unlike medieval illustrators whodepicted women who reaped corn-ears or made sheaves,31ancient artistsavoidedcomparablemotifs. Greek vases do not show female farm labourthat goes beyondthe pickingof apples.Ruralworkingwomen were bannedfrom Roman reliefs and mosaics.32Under these circumstances,somethingas unspectacular as a mosaic from Carthage that shows a woman whocarries a cask of black olives and another one who carries a lamb hasconsiderablerarityvalue.

ConclusionsAll in all, this brief survey shows above all that a realistic assessment ofwomen's role in ancient agriculture can hardly be based on those fewscarce and often imprecise testimonies available in our sources. For thisreason alone, general considerations of probable social and economicconditions will have to serve as a substitute for non-existing quantitativedata, whilst comparativematerial on peasant life and the rural economyfrom other periods of history will have to compensate for the dearth ofreliable informationfrom antiquity itself. The ancient evidence leaves uswith just a few general impressions: he fact that many if not most of thefemale agriculturalworkersmentionedin our sourceswere slaves or wage-labourerscan be explainedby the particularinterest the members of theliterate classes took in these groups. By way of contrast, the daily life ofwomen among independent peasants and tenants could be passed over inalmost complete silence. Apart from this selective lack of interest, whichaccountsfor much of the lack of relevantevidence,we also have to realizethat a realistic portrayalof the life and work of the masses would havemade it difficult to uphold the traditional, highly idealized image ofwomen's life. Instead, the literati chose to depict agriculturallabour ofwomen as a pitiable recourse of the poor and bereaved, or as a strangecustom of uncivilizedpeoples.The opposite extreme is representedby theidealization of ruralwomenin bucolicpoesy andthe praisingof the 'simplepeasant'. Because of their status as natally alienated outsiders to societyand its set of values,34emale slaves were the only ones whose labourcouldbe discussed in a matter-of-factlymanner.Notwithstandingthe seeminglyforbidding shortcomings of the ancient sources and the ineradicableambiguitiesof the comparative approach,I hope that these main trendsofthe ancient documentationconcerningfemale work in agriculturewill betested further and put into a broaderperspectivein more extensive cross-


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RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFE 9cultural studies of the differences between attitude and behaviour, andbetween literaryrepresentationand real life, in various past and presentsocieties.

NOTES1. This article is continued from (&R 42 (1995), 202-17.2. Philod. Oik. col. VIII35-40 (ed.Jensen).Cfl Timaios FGrHist 566 F 157.3. See Scheidel, Gymnasium 97 (1990), 416 n. 51 for discussion. The two iron ploughsharesdepositedat the sanctuarydedicatedto Demeter in Bitalemi(cf. G&R 42 [1995], 216 n. 41) may havehad only ritualsignificanceand in any case need not have been dedicatedby women: U. Kron, Arch.Anzeigcr 1992, 636-8, 649. By way of contrast, however, a greaternumber of hoes of varioussizescame to lightthere(op.cit.,638f.),which could be suggestiveof women who caredfor vegetablebedsor

covered the seed with earthafter the sowing.Perhapssomewhatsurprisingly,onlyone sickle was foundamong more than 20,000 votive offerings:op. cit., 637 fig. 10.4. Aristoph. r. 829 (IPCGIII. 2. 329); Poll. Oniom.1. 222.5. Archipposfr. 44 (I. 806 Edmonds);Hesychiosand Photios, s.v.poasln'ai.6. Magnes fr. 5 (PCG V. 630); Phrynichos fr. 39-45 ()(CG VII.412). The apparent frequencyofthese references seems to rule out thepossibilitythat femalegleanersandweeders weremerephantomsequivalentto the 'Ekklesiazusai'.7. Poll. Onom. 1. 222; Hesychioss.v. kalametuis;Plut. Mor. 784a.8. Athen. 14. 619a; J. Hinrichs, De OperariorumCantilenisGraecis(Darmstadt, 1908), 15 f: K.Bucher,Arbeil undRhythmus(Leipzig, 1919), 170f Cf. also Longos 3. 30.2.9. See, e.g.,E. Friedl, Vasilika,a Village n ModernGreece New York, 1962), 20.10. J. Hengstl, PIrivateArbitsverhdalnisseivierIPesonen n den hellenistischcn'apyribisI)iokletian(Bonn, 1972), 40.11. Demosth. 57. 45; Dio Chrys. 7. 114;Poll. Onone. . v. tuygeUriai.12. I will treat this in greaterdetail in a future comparativestudy of plantationmanagement andrural chattel slavery in classical antiquity and the American South. Cf. also my 'Reflections on theDifferential Valuation of Slaves in Diocletian's Price Edict and in the United States', IMBAt(forthcoming).13. K. R. Bradley,'ChildLabourin the RomanWorld',HIistorical eflections12 (1985), 325 f. (nowin I)iscoveringthe Roman Family [Oxford, 1991], 114); T. Wiedemann, Adultsand Children n theRomanEmpire London, 1989), 155.14. [Theocr.]Idyll. 20. 34f.; Varro R.R. 2. 10. 6f; Verg.Eel. 7. 14f; Ov. Fast. 4. 511; Dio Chrys.1.54; Longos, 1. 7. 2; 1. 8. 2f.; 1. 27. 2; 1. 28. 2f.; 2. 34. 1. For women'scontributionto animalhusbandry,see L. Bodson, 'Le rolede la femme dans l'elevage antique',in Lesfemmeset l'evage (Ethnozootechnie38, Paris, 1986), 5-19; H. Grassl, 'Zur Rolle der Frau in antikenHirtenkulturen',Lavemna (1990),13-17; 'Women in Ancient Pastoralism', unpubl. paper read at the 12th InternationalCongressofAnthropologicalndEthnologicalSciences,Zagreb,July 24-31 1988.15. Philostr.Soph. 2. 554 is the only reference to milkingby a woman I have come across.16. Nothing can be said about the presupposedstatus of herdswomen n bucolicpoetry:Grassl,op.cit., 17 n. 11.17. J. K. Campbell,Honour,Familyand Patronage Oxford, 1964), 29, 32.18. The childrenof such slavewomen would alsohelpto tend animals:Varro R. R. 2. 10. 1 and3; 3.17. 6; cf. Geoponica18. 1. 5.19. Varro .R. . 117. ; on which see R. Martin,'La vie sexuelle des esclavesd'apresles DialoguesRustiquesde Varron',in J. Collart (ed.), Varron,grammaire ntique el stylistique atine (Paris, 1978),117. Cf. the case of the Sarakatsanireferredto above.20. Martin,op. cit., 120f. Cf D. G. White,Am 'tI a Woman?Female Slaves in thePlantation South(New Yorkand London, 1985), 66.21. M. Golden, EMC 36 (1992), 318 rightly stresses the limited representativevalue of thisreference,derivedas it is from a 'notoriouslyproblematicpiece of advocacy'.22. P. Herfst, I.e travail de la femmedans la Grice ancienne(Utrecht, 1922), 91-5; D. M. Schaps,


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RURAL LABOUR AND WOMEN'S LIFEEconomicRights of Women n Ancient Greece(Edinburgh, 1979), 18; cf. T. W. Gallant, Risk andSurvival inAncient Greece Cambridge,1991), 133f., 164f.23. E.g.,G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, The ClassStrugglen theAncient GreekWorldfromheArchaicAgetotheArabConquestsLondon, 1981), 185f.;S.Mrozek,LohnarbeitmklassischenAlterum (Bonn, 1989),46-53.24. Thus A. D. Fitton-Brown, LCM 9 (1984), 73. On echoes in Old Comedy of the anxiety ofcommon Atheniancitizens over the potentialof their wives to engage in extramaritalsexual activity,seeJ. F. Gardner,'Aristophanesand MaleAnxiety: he Defence of the Oikos', G&R 34 (1989), 51-62.25. J. Kitteringham n VillageLifeand Labour(London, 1975), 129f.26. S. Said, 'La societe rurale dans le romangrec ou La campagne vue de la ville', in E. Frezouls(ed.), Societes urbaines, societes rurales dans l'Asie Mineureet la Syrie hellenistiqueset romaines(Strasbourg,1987), 151-4.27. Ter. Ad. 847-9; Theocr. Idyll. 3. 35; Hor. Epod. 2. 41f.; Anth. Pal. 9. 89. Cf. Aristot. Gen.Animal. 1. 20. 728a for the idea that females are often fair-skinned and thereby feminine, whereasmalesare darkerand masculine.28. Heracleides Lembosfr. 53 (ed. Dilts);Iustin.44. 3. 5.

29. C. R. Ember,AmericanAnthropologist 5 (1983), 297f.30. Cf. N. C. Saxena, 'Womenin Forestry',SocialAction 37 (1987), 153, referringto contractors nIndia who employ, along with male workers, women to undertake earthworkfor digging pits forplantations.31. E. Epperlein,JWG (1976) I, 196-200.32. T. Precheur-Canonge,La vie ruraleenAfriqueromained'apres esmosaiques Paris, 1962), 38f.;K.M.D. Dunbabin, The Mosaics of Roman North Africa (Oxford, 1978), 114f. Highly idealizeddepictions of women as personificationsof the seasons constitute the only exceptions:D. Parrish,SeasonMosaicsofRoman NorthAfrica(Rome, 1984).33. Dunbabin,op. cit., plate 109;cf. M. Rostovtzeff, TheSocial and EconomicHistoryof theRomanEmpire Oxford, 19572),528.34. For this concept, see 0. Patterson, Slaveryand Social Death (Cambridge,Mlass.and London,1982), 1-13.

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33602880 Women Greece Rome