CLAS3051

Conception and Childbirth in Antiquity

What's Your Favourite Colour?

When you were 12? When you were 3? When you will be 72? What, then, is the favourite colour of [insert your

name here]?

Problem of Historical Analysis

Things change How large a chunk should we take for snapshot? What do we mean when we say 'what the Greeks

thought'?

Diachronic Analysis

A study of how things change over time From dia, Greek for 'through' And chronos, Greek for 'time'

Synchronic Analysis

Takes conditions during one chunk of time as basically the same

Necessary to choose some period about which to say something

Syn- or Diachronic?

“Intercourse does not appear to have been regarded by the Greeks as ordinarily polluting or dangerous for the participants”

Syn- or Diachronic?

“The reproductive theory which enjoyed greatest support in medical circles down until the time of Aristotle was that known today as pangenesis, or preformation.” Garland 29.

Sources as Time-guide for Reader

x The Greeks believed that 'the mother is not the begetter of that which is called the child, but only nurse of the newly-implanted seed.

Ok In Aeschylus's Eumenides Apollo makes the notorious observation that ...

Another Methodological Crux

How can we get at ancient practice from ancient theory?

Literature was expensive, created by the upper classes

Does Medicine tell us anything about Health?

Conception

Until 3rd c. Understanding Based On

External observation of human body Analogy from natural world Assumptions and observations from human

society Slaughter of animals

Why are We M/F (Dimorphism)?

Background in Hesiod's (8th c.) myth, where sexes appear to be different species

Women as punishment Compare Aristophanes (5th c) and Empedocles

(6th c.): love binds universe together Human sexual union part of that Which is the Greek view?

Similarity

To parent's activity at conception Sparta: energetic child from athletic mother Prohibition against drink

Age of Parents

Women in sources 13-14 yrs, against recommendations of Plato, Aristotle

Men around 30 Cause of infant (and maternal) mortality?

Predominance of Male Seed

Common opinion Reflected in birth of

Athena Eileithyia on L. Hermes with caduceus cp. medical authors

G29

Pangenesis

From pan, Greek for all and genesis, Greek for formation or creation

Small particles of all parts of body are in male and female seed

“passages extend into this from the whole body, which enable the fluid to pass to and from the spinal marrow.” Seed

Man burst forth from man, and is separated by being severed by a kind of blow. - Demokritos (=Democritus) of Abdera

Epigenesis

Advocated by Aristotle in 4th c. BC Theory proposes development by accretion and

organization of matter (more accurate than pangenesis in this)

Arist. also argued that female contribution was menstrual fluids, an incomplete semen

Ftm. female provides the matter, male the inner development

What Did 'the Greeks' Think?

Consider question of sex differentiation (G. p 32-33)

One view? Do we hold one view on this topic? Is there an over-all pattern to Greek thought on

this topic?

Transmission of Parental Characteristics

We search out rams and asses and horses, Cyrnus, that are of noble birth, and each man wishes his stock to be mounted by good males. But marriage to a woman who is bad, and the daughter of a bad man, causes the noble no concern -- if, that is, she brings him money. -- Theognis 7th c. BC

Pangenesis and Transmission

Greater emphasis on circumstances of conception

Fertility and Sterility

Reproduction was an effort and a necessity in ancient world

Children are your employees and your pension Woman's role revolved around reproduction Greater emphasis on correction of sterility than

on contraception

Divine Explanations

Like disease and famine, sterility sometimes understood as caused and cured by gods

Temples for healing gods include models of wombs

Water from springs near temples bring fertility

Physical Explanations for Sterility

“Women who have wombs that are dense and cold to not conceive; women who have wombs that are watery do not conceive because the seed is quenched. Women who have parched and over-headted wombs do not conceive ...” Hippocratic Aphorisms 5.62

Men are functionally sterile if “the sperm cools down by being transported too far and sperm that has cooled down is not generative” Aristotle Generation of Animals 1.718a22-5

Development of Foetus

Scientific observation from autopsy of aborted foetuses

Aristotle's experimentation with hens' eggs Candling shows the beating heart first of all

Treatment of Pregnant Women

Considered in tenuous state Capable of being religiously 'polluted' Not themselves polluting in general Not to perform strenuous exercise

Contraception

Concern mostly for prostitutes Medical or physical means mostly ineffectual Womb as 'jar' for seed which can be blocked

before or emptied after sex Hot / cold

Abortion

In context of societies that apparently allowed exposure of children

So not ethically controversial before Christian era One method through suppositories Disallowed by Hippocratic Oath: “I will not give

a pessary to induce abortion”

Abortion Through Medication

Pennyroyal, member of the mint family

Warning today against its consumption, esp. by preg. women

A poison, though, and dangerous in use