There is no doubt that the patriarchal nature of ancient Greek society resulted in poetry, education, art, and culture in general being dominated by men or at least by the male perspective. This is already confirmed in the field of language: the oldest Greek word for poet, singer, is the word "aoidos" in the masculine gender. [. . .] In relation to the education provided to girls outside the family, we must first mention the so-called "thiasoi" (female religious communities), although our information is fragmentary, we can describe and imagine the "thiasoi" as female communities with essentially religious character, whose presence is attested in various areas of the ancient Greek world. The girls, who belonged to these aristocratic circles, were dedicated to the worship of various deities, especially female ones, and marked the life of their community precisely by performing religious ceremonies and festivals.
The "thiasoi" were also centers of education where girls, under the guidance of an adult woman, learned everything they would need for married life for which they were destined. Education in the "thiasoi" included subjects such as music, singing, dance, refinement of clothing and hairstyles, elegance in behavior, and practice of female tasks.
It is also important to note the presence of another element that characterizes the female environment of the "thiasoi", namely poetic activity: these female communities seem to have been one of the main centers of production and dissemination of female poetry in ancient Greece.
From this perspective, the most notable example is certainly that of the "Sapphic thiasos". The girls, from Lesbos itself but also from elsewhere, entered the "school" of Sappho before marriage and left it to get married, so it was a circle characterized by continuous human mobility. From the surviving verses of Sappho's poetic production, it is possible to understand that her "thiasos" was an aristocratic and refined environment, in which the girls were mainly dedicated to the worship of the goddess Aphrodite and received education by learning to play the lyre, weave wreaths, dance gracefully, and dress elegantly.
Number of pages
449
Cover
Hardcover
Year of publication
2022
Publisher
Zitros
17 Coins
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