No Woman No War: Women's Participation in Ancient Greek Warfare

Author(s): Pasi Loman

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Apr., 2004), pp. 34-54
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
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Greece & Rome, Vol. 51, No. 1, April 2004

NO WOMAN NO WAR: WOMEN'S

PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT
GREEK WARFARE*

By PASI LOMAN

Greek women's participation in warfare, as opposed to women as

victims of war, has received surprisingly little attention from classicists
and ancient historians. Some scholars, such as Schaps,' Barry,2 and
Graf,3 have discussed certain individual aspects of women's role in war.
The topic, however, has yet to be covered fully. Furthermore, previous
work on this issue has tended to undervalue the role and effectiveness of
women's participation in war. This article will demonstrate that Greek
women fulfilled valuable tasks in times of war, both at home and on
foreign campaigns. Before exploring the various ways in which women
helped their men in war efforts, however, a brief study of women's
general attitude towards war - or the literaryimage given in this regard -
will act as an introduction.
What we know about Greek women's attitude towards war comes
mostly through male writers. We do, however, possess some writings by
Greek women, which give an indication of how - at least some - women
felt about war and soldiers. The texts being referred to here are a few
poems by Hellenistic women poets, namely Anyte and Nossis.
Two of the extant poems by Anyte deal with heroic death on the
battlefield:
Death took you in your prime [...]
dying, you brought dark grief to your mother Pheidia.
But the poem on this stone above you sings
of how you died doing battle for your beloved fatherland.4
* An earlierversionof this paperwas presentedat the AnnualMeetingof Postgraduatesin
AncientHistory(AMPAH),on 15thMarch2003 at the Universityof Nottingham.I amgratefulfor
the numeroushelpfulcommentsmadeby the participantsat the event.Manythanksalso for Jim
Royandthe editorsof GreeceandRomeforreadingandcommentingon variousdraftsof thisarticle.
Any mistakesthatmay remainare,of course,mine alone.
1 D. M. Schaps,'The Womenof Greecein Wartime',Class.Phil. 77 (1982), 193-213.
2
W. D. Barry, 'Roof Tiles and Urban Violence in the Ancient World', GRBS 37 (1996), 55-74.
3F. Graf, 'Women, War, and Warlike Divinities', ZPE 55 (1984), 245-54.
4 Anyte, 5 [Snyder] = Anth. Pal. 7.724, translation by J. M. Snyder, The Womanand the Lyre.
Womenwritersin Classical Greeceand Rome (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1989).
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 35
The Lydian dust holds this Amyntor, son of Philip,
who touched iron-hard battle with his hands many times.
Nor did grievous sickness send him to the House of Night,
but he perished holding his round shield over his
comrade-in-arms.5

It is clear that the author of the two poems quoted above thought highly
of men who were willing to sacrifice their lives for their country. In a
third poem Anyte depicts an epitaph erected to a horse that had died in a
battle.6 All of these three poems separately, and especially taken
together, give the indication that Anyte glorified war.
Nossis, the second Hellenistic woman poet known to have written
about war, was equally full of admiration for men who fought bravely:
The Bruttian men cast these shields off their doomed shoulders,
struck by the hands of swift-fighting Locrians.
They celebrate their courage, resting in the temples of the gods,
nor do they miss the arms of the cowards whom they left.7

The image given by the two woman poets is a fairly traditional one; they
approve of bravery in war and are supportive of their men's military
actions, thus they seem to approve of war itself, but there is no
suggestion that women would take any active part in warfarethemselves.
The same message can be seen in much better known texts - written by
men - about women's attitude towards war.
For example, if there is any truth in Herodotus's account of the
stoning of Lycides, who supported a peace settlement in 479 BCE,and
the consequent lynching of his family by Athenian women, it would
appear that women were not pacifist by nature; on the contrary, they
were capable of voicing strong support for war.8 In general, women are
often reported mourning the defeat or celebrating the victory with their
men, as opposed to being grateful for peace per se, indicating that they
had supported their men's action all along.9
Aristophanes's comedy Lysistratahas been used as a tool in various
anti-war debates, as its central characterLysistrata and her fellow Greek
women have been seen as pacifists and anti-war protesters.?0Yet, it can
5 Anyte,6 [Snyder]= Anth.Pal. 7.232, translationby J. M. Snyder(n. 4).
6
Anyte,8 [Snyder]= Anth.Pal. 7.208.
7
Nossis, 11 [Snyder]= Anth.Pal. 6.132, translationby J. M. Snyder(n. 4).
8 Herodotus, 9.5.
9 E.g. Herodotus,5.87; Xenophon,Hellenica6.4.16; cf. Schaps(n. 1), 196.
o1 Most recentlythis ideawas used by the humanitarian
movement'LysistrataProject',famous
aroundthe worldon 3rdMarch2003 in an attemptto
for its readingsof Aristophanes'sLysistrata
stop the invasionof Iraq.For the 'LysistrataProject',visithttp://www.lysistrataproject.com.
36 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

be justifiably argued that Aristophanes's female characters are not, in

fact, pacifists per se. They did, of course, want the war to be stopped, but
this was not for humanitarian or ideological reasons. What drove
Lysistrata to initiate the sex strike, with the view that this would force
the men to end the war, was her wish to bring her husband back home.
She, like her female friends, missed her husband, felt lonely and
unimportant, and most of all she was sexually unsatisfied."1 Indeed,
such was the sexual desire amongst the women that when Lysistrata
introduced the idea of blackmailing their husbands to bring about peace
by abstaining from sex, a number of them initially refused, arguing that
they preferred to let the war carry on than to become celibate.12 So
much for pacifism, then. Clearly Aristophanes's female characters did
not object to war in principle; they were simply sick and tired of being
ignored by their men.
In any case, it is questionable whether Aristophanes's Lysistratacan
be used as a guide on Greek women's attitude towards war. After all, its
characters and events are fictional. The women in Aristophanes's
Lysistrata are, however, worthy of a further note because of their
transgressive nature. They break barriers by taking direct action in the
male sphere of (military-) politics. They even seize, and then hold the
Acropolis by force."3 Given the fictional nature of its characters and
events, this play will not be discussed further here.
Ancient authors often portray Spartan women as fiercely patriotic and
admirers of bravery on the battlefields. Plutarch, for example, recalls a
story of a Spartan mother who sent all her five sons to war. Afterwards,
she is said to have waited anxiously for news of the battle. When
someone finally returned from the battlefield and told her that she had
lost all her sons, she yelled angrily at the messenger that this was not the
news she had been waiting for: she wanted to know who had won the
battle. She calmed down once informed that Sparta had won; this
apparently also made her accept the loss of her sons without grief.'4
According to Plutarch, the physical training that Spartan girls and
women underwent was designed to prepare them to defend themselves,
their children, and their country.15Yet, it appears that they were not, in
fact, trained to fight actual battles, nor are they indeed ever portrayed as
taking part in military campaigns.'6 But, there was a group of women
" 12
Aristophanes, Lysistrata99-118. Aristophanes, Lysistrata 124-36.
13
Aristophanes, Lysistratae.g. 240f., 452, 676.
14 Plutarch, Moralia 241c7. 15 Plutarch, Moralia 227d12.
16
S. B. Pomeroy, Spartan Women(New York, 2002), 16.
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 37

that the Greeks widely believed to have broken the martial mould: the
Amazons.17 However, a sceptical modern scholar cannot take the
Amazons seriously as historical figures; they belong to the realm of
legends and fiction.
Admittedly, there are a few modern scholars who believe in the
Amazons, or at least in the possibility that other similar tribe(s) with
warrior women would have existed, making it possible - in their eyes -
that the Amazon myth is based on reality.18These scholars, however,
have yet to come up with evidence that would prove beyond doubt that
Amazons or anything remotely similar really ever existed. Most scholars
are cautious about making any claims for the historicity of such warrior
women.19 In fact, some doubt concerning the Amazons existed already
in Antiquity. Plutarch lists a number of scholars who did not believe in
the Amazons.20 Strabo claims that these stories are 'beyond belief.21
And the fact that Arrian felt the need to justify his belief that the
Amazons had once existed, though no longer in his own time, also
implies that some doubt concerning the existence of the Amazons was
present already in Antiquity.22
Although the Amazons almost certainly never existed, they were,
nevertheless, an important part of ancient belief and the myths were very
popular in Antiquity, especially in Classical Athens.23 It is, therefore,
worth exploring briefly why the Greeks kept repeating various stories
about the Amazons, if no such tribe of warrior women ever existed.
Clearly, as Blundell has argued, one of the reasons why the Amazons
17
On the Amazons see, for example, Herodotus, 4.110-17; Arrian, Anabasis 4.15, 7.13;
Xenophon, Anabasis, 4.4.16; Diodorus, 17.77.1-3; Curtius, 6.5.24-32; Aristophanes, Lysistrata,
678-9. For a good modem overview of the Amazon myth, as well as the reasons behind its immense
popularity in Classical Athens, see S. Blundell, Womenin Ancient Greece(London, 1995), 58-62.
18 In 1997, Davis-Kimball wrote a short article in which she claims that such a tribe existed in c.
200 BCE-200CE,near the area of the modern-day Russian town Pokrovka, close to the Kazakhstan
border. Davis-Kimball based her argument on burial finds (swords, daggers etc.) and the bowed
legs of a 13- or 14-year-old girl, which according to her proves she rode horses (J. Davis-Kimball,
'WarriorWomen of the Eurasian Steppes', Archaeology50 (1997), 44-8). Yet, the weapons could
have been placed in the female graves for some unknown ritual purpose, as Davis-Kimball admits
some scholars believe (47). The other evidence - which she incidentally holds as the firmest proof -
that of the bowed legs of a young girl, seems rather flimsy too. Are we really to believe that not only
women but also girls as young as 13 fought in battles on horseback simply because one girl evidently
had bowed legs? Even if the legs of that one girl were bowed because she rode horses, it does not by
any means prove that she actually took part in warfare.
"9W. B. Tyrrell, Amazons. A Study in Athenian Mythmaking (Baltimore and London, 1984),
23-5.
20 21 22
Plutarch, Alexander46. Strabo, 11.5.3. Arrian, Anabasis 7.13.
23 The Amazons were a source of
inspiration and a common theme not only for literary authors
(poets, orators, geographers, and historians), but also for sculptors, painters, and other artists
(Blundell (n. 17), 61). Most famously they appear on the West-side metopes of the Athenian
Parthenon on the Acropolis (Tyrrell (n. 19), 19-21).
38 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

myth was such a favoured topic among Greek authors and artists was
the fact that they were used as an archetype of the defeated barbarian.24
The answer must also lie in the complete role reversal of 'Amazon
society', and what that was able to teach the Greeks. Being everything
that the Greek women were not supposed to be, the Amazons, who were
beaten by Greek men, acted as 'negative role models'.25So, among other
things, the Amazon myth helped to reinforce the ideology that in a
civilized Greek society women were expected to marry and let their men
do the politics and the fighting.26
We have seen that the prevalent literary image of Greek women
represents them as patriotic, but largely passive, supporters of their
men's military actions. In what follows, however, it will be demonstrated
that the Greek women actually had many active roles in warfare. The
discussion is divided into two parts: the first part will illustrate that
Greek women often participated in defending their cities and commu-
nities; the second part challenges the widespread modern assumption
that women had no role in foreign military campaigns.

Women at Home

When Greek cities faced an imminent attack or were under a siege,

women often provided invaluable moral support and encouragement to
the men defending their homes.27 Indeed, surely the mere fact that the
men had their mothers, sisters, wives, lovers, and daughters in the cities
actually motivated them to fight. Occasionally the military leaders made
the threat posed to the families explicit, as they spurred their soldiers to
fight. For example, Lyciscus, the Acarnanian envoy at Sparta in 211
BCE, spoke to his soldiers thus: 'So the Romans are carrying off the
women and children to suffer, of course, what those must suffer who fall
into the hands of aliens.'28In addition to wanting to save one's family,
24
Blundell (n. 17), 62. For the Greeks defeating the Amazons, see for example Homer, lliad
6.186.
25
Blundell (n. 17), 62.
26
Much more could be said of the Amazons myth(s) as they are multi-layered - in addition to
things military, they deal with religious, ethnic, gender, and marital aspects of life - and therefore
there will have been many different reasons for the Greeks to use the stories, but these other aspects
are not of immediate interest for the current study. On these various topics, see more in Tyrrell
(n. 19), 125-8 and Blundell (n. 17), 61-2.
27
Schaps(n. 1), 211.
28
Polybius, 9.39.3: translation by W. R. Paton (London, 1923); cf. Polybius, 3.109.7; Thucy-
dides, 7.68.
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 39

every soldier, no doubt, wanted to appear brave and successful in the

eyes of his wife and/or mistress(es). Consider, for example, the words of
Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus, the Spartan king: 'Fellow citizens, let
us now prove ourselves brave men and thus be able to look people in the
face ... let us cease to feel shame before our wives and children and
elders and strangers, in whose eyes we used once to be the most highly
honoured of all the Greeks.'29
Spartan women, of course, were infamous for their lack of tolerance
for cowardly men, whether husbands or sons.30 They are said to have
sent letters to their sons fighting in the battlefields, encouraging them to
be brave or die.3"Plutarch reports that a Spartan mother gave her son
two alternatives as he left for war: he could return home with the shield
she gave him, or he could return home on the shield, that is, dead.32
Some Spartan mothers are even reported to have killed their sons if they
were suspected to be cowards, for example, if they returned home alive
after a Spartan defeat, which, of course, showed that they did not fight
until the end but retreated instead.33
Enjoying the support of one's family must have been important for
Greek soldiers, but they would have doubtless required some reassur-
ance that the gods were on their side too, or at least not against them. It
is worth asking, therefore, what role women played in rituals surround-
ing warfare. Given that women conducted many important religious
duties in general, it is very surprising that the evidence, as studied and
presented by Graf, does not indicate that women had any role in the
rituals surrounding warfare: 'They [women] did not participate in the
prayers and sacrifices before and during the departure of the army.'34
Yet, storiesof female involvement in warfare were, at the very least, used

29
Xenophon, Hellenica 7.1.30: translation by C. L. Brownson (London, 1921). According to
Xenophon, Archidamus spoke these words while leading the Spartans against the Arcadians in 368,
hence this does not reflect on town defence per se. However, despite this or indeed because of it, this
example just highlights the motivational factor of women; their influence was felt even on foreign
campaigns, never mind at home. On fear of appearing cowardly, see also, for example, Homer, Iliad
6.440f.
30 On this
subject, see Pomeroy (n. 16), 8, 57-60, 152 with n. 40.
l' Plutarch, Moralia 241a3, 241d10-11.
32
Plutarch, Moralia 241fl6. For many more similar quotes on Spartan women see Plutarch,
Moralia 240-241a20. Persian women are also said to have hated cowards; they allegedly demanded
that Cyrus' soldiers be brave and fight instead of retreat (Plutarch, Moralia 246).
33
Plutarch, Moralia 241b5; Pomeroy (n. 16), 156 n. 64.
34 Graf
(n. 3), 245. However, Athenaeus does recall a story of Corinthian prostitutes taking part
in religious petitions and supplications in order to prevent Persian invasion (Athenaeus, 13.573c).
Perhaps we ought not to be too categorical, therefore, in denying any female involvement in rituals
surrounding warfare.
40 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

in explaining the origins of various cults.35 Since Graf's article on

women, religion, and warfare is thorough and on the whole convincing,
I have only one general remark to add to conclusions given there. As is
well known, women had important religious roles in the everyday life of
a Greek polis; for the peace of mind of the soldiers, therefore, it must
have been important to know that women continued to take care of these
responsibilities, even if they had nothing directly to do with war. For the
current debate it may be worth highlighting that the religious roles
reserved for women included many tasks surrounding funerals and the
cult of the tomb.36 War, obviously, produces numerous bodies to be
buried. How far the Greeks were able to follow the funeral rituals at
times of crisis is not known, but every effort to this end would certainly
have been made.37
Giving moral and spiritual support was important, yet women were
involved in ancient warfare in many other ways too. It was relatively
common, for instance, for women to aid the armies indirectly by helping
to finance them. Women are seen donating money and jewellery for the
common good. This would mostly have been on a voluntary basis.38
There were times, however, when women were compelled to contribute
to war financially. This was the case, for example, in 146/5 BCE,when
Diaeus, leader of the Achaean League, ordered all the wealthy
Achaeans, women included, to finance the Achaean War against
Sparta and Rome.39 It could also be a woman who forced other
people to pay the armies; the wife of Nabis, the Spartan king, for
example, was infamous for her cruelty in collecting money.40The wives,
sisters, and daughters of exiled men often lost their property to the
opposition and thus unwittingly financed warfare.41
Women would, no doubt, have been responsible for much of the food
production for the armies; this was probably the case on foreign
campaigns, but certainly so when defending a siege of a city or a
village.42 When most of the Plataeans, for instance, fled to Athens
during the Peloponnesian War, 400 men stayed to withstand the
siege, and 1 10 women were left to cook for them. The Spartan
3S Graf, (n. 3), 245ff.; cf. D. Ogden, Greek Bastardy in the Classical and Hellenistic Periods
(Oxford, 1996), 134-5.
36
R. Garland, Religion and the Greeks(London, 1994), 68, 73, cf. 30, 35.
37 Polyaenus, 8.70 for Cyrenean women burying the war dead.
38
E.g. Polybius, 1.72.5; cf. Diodorus, 32.9 on Carthaginian women's jewellery.
39
Polybius, 38.15.6ff.
40
Polybius, 18.17; cf. Diodorus, 22.5.5.
41
E.g. Polybius, 24.7.3.
42
Barry (n. 2), 68; contraon foreign wars Schaps (n. 1), 208.
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 41

women, too, are witnessed distributing food and drinks for their men in
war. And Polyaneus recalls Cyrenean women preparing food for their
city's defenders.43 Preparing food is obviously not a military task as
such. Yet, ensuring supplies is of paramount importance for any military
action. One only needs to think about the harsh criticism that 'the
coalition forces' faced during the 'Second Gulf War' in 2003, as their
advancing troops were running low on food supplies due to their
unexpectedly rapid advancement. The ancient armies would have
been used to similar problems, especially on foreign campaigns;
Lysimachus's troops, for instance, were reportedly hard pressed for
food in 292 BCE.44 Furthermore, the fewer men were tied to food
production, the more men were available for fighting; hence it made
sense to ask women to do this for them. Slave labour, of course, would
also have been an option, but this would have required some soldiers to
guard them.
Sometimes when a city's defence was about to crumble, the women
came to give direct assistance to their men. For example, in the early
third century BCE,Spartan women famously refused to flee even though
Sparta seemed doomed to be taken by Pyrrhus, and the men were
prepared to send their wives and daughters to Crete. So, instead of
running to safety, the women were given tasks of war. They, for
instance, dug trenches - it is reported that their contribution was to
dig one third of the entire trench - and they also took care of and
delivered weapons to their men, nursed the wounded, and buried the
dead.45 It is important to acknowledge that Spartan women were not
unique in their readiness to assist in city-defence. For example,
Cyrenean women took up similar tasks when Ptolemy besieged their
city: 'In battles the males would bear the brunt of the fighting, but their
wives were throwing up stockades, digging ditches, supplying missiles,
bringing up stones, nursing the wounded, and preparing food.'46 It
would appear that these were universal tasks for women all around the
Greek world.47
If the enemy, nevertheless, succeeded in surpassing the city walls,

43
Thucydides, 2.78 (Plataea); Plutarch, Pyrrhus 29.3-6 (Sparta); Polyaenus, 8.70 (Cyrenea).
44
Diodorus, 21.12.1. Cf. Appian, Mithridatic Wars 11.76. Malnutrition could, of course, lead to
spread of disease among the soldiers, camp followers, and prisoners of war (cf. Strabo, 17.1.54).
45
Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 27.4; Polyaenus, 8.49; Schaps (n. 1), 194.
46
Polyaenus, 8.70: translation by P. Krentz and E. L. Wheeler (Chicago, 1994).
47
To be sure, it is not suggested here that women would always have stayed within cities that
were under siege. The contrary, that is that women were taken to safety, must often (usually?) have
been the case. See, for example, Polybius, 21.37.8-9 and Livy, 38.18.10.
42 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

some women were capable of heroic deeds. On many occasions women

would climb to the rooftops and start throwing roof tiles on the
invaders.48 And they did not do this without success. An old Argive
woman famously killed the Epirote king Pyrrhus by throwing a tile on
his head, in 272 BCE.49As incredible as this may sound, this could really
have happened, for roof tiles could easily kill and cripple, as Barry has
demonstrated in his article 'Roof Tiles and Urban Violence in the
Ancient World'.50 Moreover, this is not the only known example of a
man being killed by women throwing tiles.51
From Pausanias we get another example of women defending their
town by throwing tiles on invaders. According to him, Messenian
women successfully drove off the Macedonians from Ithome in this
manner.s2 Plutarch recounts women of Chios pelting Philip V with
stones, and thus saving their city by driving him away.53 These and
other examples should make it clear that women could, and often did,
play an important role in defending towns.54
Although potentially effective, tile throwing could of course not
guarantee a victory. Acarnanian women, for example, ended up slaugh-
tered together with their men despite their brave attempts at stoning the
Aetolian invaders.55Yet, sometimes women were able to help to rescue
their city even after their men had surrendered. There are a number of
stories of women hiding weapons under their garments, which they
either gave to their men or actually used to fight themselves. Polyaenus,
for example, writes of Carian women saving their city by giving their
men weapons they had hidden under their garments.56 Even if most
such stories are fictitious, we cannot completely disregard the idea of
women being able to help in this manner.
This type of behaviour must in any case have been rare. More often
48
Barry (n. 2), 66-74. It is to be noted also that tile throwing was not exclusively something that
women did. Agesilaos, for example, ordered older children and the elderly to defend themselves and
Sparta in this manner in 363/2 (Diodorus, 15.83.3). The value and effectiveness of tile throwing
was indeed noted by town defenders, and both men and women, free and slave, have been attested
as tile throwers (Barry (n. 2) 69-72).
49
Polyaenus, 8.68; Plutarch, Pyrrhus34.2; Pausanias, 1.13.8. The killing of Pyrrhus took place
soon after he failed to invade Sparta, where, as we saw earlier,the women helped to defend the city.
50 See 51 On this topic, see Barry (n. 2), 67, 70, 72.
my note 2.
52
Pausanias, 4.29.5. 53 Plutarch, Moralia 245.
54 For further instances
see, for example, Plutarch, Moralia, 245c, 248e; Thucydides, 2.4.2,
3.74.1, cf. Diodorus, 13.56.7, 32.20b; Sallust,Jug. 67.1; Polyaenus, 8.69ff.; cf. Graf (n. 3), 245 n. 6.
A complete list of known tile throwing incidents is in Barry (n. 2), 73-4. It is to be noted that there
are scholars who have questioned the value of women's tile throwing (Schaps (n. 1), 195; cf. Graf
55 Polyaenus, 8.69.
(n. 3), 245-54).
56 Polyaenus, 8.64. Polyaenus also writes of Salmatian (in Spain) women defending their city
against Hannibal by fighting with swords they had hidden under their garments (Polyaenus, 7.48).
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 43

the cities would have succumbed at this point, and not infrequently -
though not inevitably - the women would have had to suffer enslave-
ment and/or rape at the hands of the victors. Some women, however,
were able to take vengeance on their rapists. To give just one example,
Timocleia, a Theban woman, was raped by the men of Alexander III of
Macedonia ('the Great'), but she kept her honour by killing the rapist.57
Indeed, the fear of rape and enslavement was often enough to spur
women to kill their own children and/or to commit mass suicide rather
than allow the enemies to take control of them.58Rape and enslavement
would have destroyed the honour of a woman and brought disrepute for
her city. Polyaenus' story of Cypriot women avoiding surrender by
choosing to die instead may be representative of many other similar
incidents. According to him, then, Axiothea, the wife of the king
Nicocles, encouraged women to kill their children and then themselves,
after Ptolemy I had deposed and caused the death of her husband, in
310 BCE. Finally, she is said to have cut her own throat and jumped into
a fire to prevent the enemy from controlling her corpse.59
Almost a century later, in 219 BCE, the women of Saguntum allegedly
killed their children and committed mass suicide, rather than surren-
der.60And Polyaenus reports that Phocian women decided to commit
mass suicide in the event that their men were defeated, and that this
decision actually motivated the men to fight harder and ensure victory.
Pausanias was aware of the same story, but according to him it was the
men who came up with the plan to kill the women and children if defeat
seemed inevitable.61
Anyte, whose pro-war poems were quoted above, also wrote an
epigram glorifying suicide in the face of defeat (this would imply that
women could, indeed, have taken the initiative on such matters):
We leave you, Miletus, dear homeland, because we rejected the lawless insolence of
impious Gauls. We were three maidens, your citizens. The violent aggression of the
Celts brought us to this fate. We did not wait for unholy union or marriage, but we
found ourselves a protector in Death.62

57 Plutarch, Moralia 259d-260d; Polyaenus, 8.40. More examples in Plutarch, Moralia 258d-e,
Alexander 12; Polybius, 21.38. All future references to 'Alexander' are to this same king.
58
E.g. Plutarch, Moralia 244.
59 Polyaenus, 8.49; Diodorus, 20.21.
60
Diodorus, 25.15; cf. Polybius, 3.7.10; Livy, 21.14-15.
61
Polyaenus, 8.65; Pausanias, 10.1.3-11.
62
Lefkowitz and Fant, 1992: no 12 = Anth. Pal. 7.492, translationby M. R. Lefkowitz and M. B.
Fant, Women'sLife in Greeceand Rome. A Source Book in Translation,second edition (London,
1992). As Lefkowitz and Fant note, Antipater of Thessalonica wrote a similar epigram on a mother
killing her daughter and then herself as Corinth fell to Rome (335 n. 11 = Anth. Pal. 7.493).
44 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

Through murders and suicides, then, Greek women could at least

defend their honour and their city's reputation, even if the city itself
could not be saved.
As a final issue on defensive warfare it needs to be mentioned that the
Greek cities were only as strong as their weakest link; hence it was vital
to maintain the loyalty of the women too. It would take only one woman
to betray a city.63 After the battle of Marathon, for example, a Parian
priestess called Timo advised an Athenian called Miltiades on how he
could conquer her city of Paros.64
On the whole, however, Greek women are represented as patriotic
and loyal to their poleis, and the poems by Anyte and Nossis seem to
indicate that this image was justified. Furthermore, as has been argued,
women actually contributed to defending cities in many ways. The help
the Greek women gave, it may be concluded, was also appreciated and
often most valuable. In pointing out Spartan women's ineffectiveness in
defending their city at the time of the Theban attack in 396 BCE,
Aristotle implicitly supports the view that women usually were helpful:
'they [Spartan women] rendered no useful service, like the women in
other states [my italics], while they caused more confusion than the
enemy. 65

Women on Foreign Campaigns

What has so far been said of women's participation in warfare may not
have been altogether surprising. Perhaps it is only to be expected that
women too would do all they could to defend their homes. What is yet to
be acknowledged by the scholarly world is that Greek women had
important roles in offensive warfare too. Schaps, for example, argued
the following: 'Time and again, when cities of Greece were threatened,
the women rose to the occasion and helped in their salvation. The more
striking, then, is the complete absence of women from the record of
foreign wars. We hardly expected to find ancient Greek women serving
as hoplites, but they do not seem to have contributed in other ways,

63 Schaps(n. 1), 196.

64
Herodotus, 6.134. He did manage to get inside Paros, thanks to her help, but otherwise he
failed. Furthermore, the oracle at Delphi deemed that Timo had done nothing wrong, for she
apparently knew that Miltiades would fail (Herodotus, 6.135). For other stories of women letting
armies inside city walls see, for example, Athenaeus 13.572e and Polyaenus, 8.36.
65
Aristotle, Politics 1269b: translation by H. Rackham (London, 1932).
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 45

either.'66 It will soon become apparent that Schaps was very much
mistaken. In the following I shall outline the roles, some of which were
very important, that Greek women had in foreign wars, particularly in
the Hellenistic period.
Although Xenophon says that (Greek) women did not fight in wars,
being biologically unfit for this,67there werea few individual women who
actually fought or led armies in the battles of Classical Antiquity. The
Macedonian royal houses had traditionallyallowed women of royal rank
to appear on battlefields.68This continued in the Hellenistic period, too.
Cynane, the half-sister of Alexander, for example, took part in actual
battles.69She was taught the arts of war by her mother Audata, and she
later passed on the skills to her own daughter Eurydice (at the time still
called Adea).70 After Cynane died, it was indeed her daughter Eurydice
who took control of her troops.7' Eurydice, of course, famously fought a
war against another woman, perhaps the only such war in history, for
she battled unsuccessfully against Alexander's mother Olympias.72The
three women, Cynane, Eurydice, and Olympias, were the only three
Macedonian royal women known to have appeared in front of armies
during the Hellenistic period.73 Other royal houses, however, had
fighting women too.
Another Eurydice, one of the four wives of Ptolemy I, for example,
was in charge of mercenaries and is credited with restoring Cassandreia
to Ptolemaic control.74 Of all the Hellenistic women it is indeed the
Ptolemaic queens who are most often credited with leading armies. This
is hardly surprising, for it was in Egypt that royal women managed to
acquire wealth and real power in general. And in the Hellenistic period,
money and power enabled anyone to raise an army.75 At least the
following Ptolemaic and Seleucid queens and princesses are said to have

66
Schaps (n. 1), 207.
67
Xenophon, Oeconomicus7.23.
68
G. H. Macurdy, HellenisticQueens (Chicago, 1932), 105.
69 Polyaenus, 8.60; Athenaeus, 13.560ff.
70
Audata was Philip II's Illyrian wife; it is said that the Illyrian women habitually took part in
active warfare. See E. Carney, Womenand Monarchy in Macedonia (Norman, 2000), 58.
71
Polyaenus, 8.60; Athenaeus, 13.560ff.; Macurdy (n. 68), 48-9.
72
Diodorus, 19.11; Athenaeus, 13.560f.; Orosius, 3.23; Macurdy (n. 68), 40ff.
73 E. Carney,
'Foreign Influence and the Changing Role of Royal Macedonian Women', in
ArchaiaMacedonia V:papersreadat thefifth internationalsymposiumheld in Thessaloniki,October10-
15, 1989 (1993), 313-23, esp. 315, 322. It is not known whether Audata, the mother of Cynane,
ever had the chance to use her military skills in practice.
74
Polyaenus, 6.7.2; Macurdy (n. 68), 103.
75 Cf. S. B. Pomeroy, Women in Hellenistic Egypt: from Alexander to Cleopatra (New York,
1984), 16.
46 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

had or led armies: Arsinoe II,76 Berenice II,77 Arsinoe III,78 Laodice the
widow of Antiochus II,79 Cleopatra I,80 Cleopatra II,81 Cleopatra III,82
Arsinoe (IV) the daughter of Ptolemy XI,83 Cleopatra IV,84 and
Cleopatra VII.85 There were also other non-Ptolemaic non-Seleucid
women who led armies; the Illyrian Queen Teuta, for example,
commanded Gallic mercenaries in the late third century BCE.86 Laodice,
queen of the Samenians, fought a war against the Parthians.87Cratesi-
polis, wife of Polyperchon, took over his husband's troops after he died
in 314 BCE.She took revenge on the people of Sicyon, slaughtering
many and crucifying thirty of those still alive after the end of the
massacre. She continued to hold the city and, according to Diodorus,
her soldiers remained loyal to her.88
Some royal women are said to have been clever enough to manipulate
troops without actually taking official charge of them; such a woman
was, for example, Phila, the wife of Demetrius Poliorketes.89
As Roy has commented, it is striking that the ancient sources do not
seem to find anything too peculiar about royal women, such as Arsinoe
III, sister and wife of Ptolemy IV, being present at battlefields.90This
76
Arsinoe II is widely thought to have ruled over her brother-husband, Ptolemy II, even on
military matters. On this subject, see Macurdy (n. 68), 119ff. S. M. Burstein, 'Arsinoe II
Philadelphos: A Revisionist View', in L. Adams and E. Borza (eds.), Philip II, Alexander the
Great and the Macedonian Heritage (Washington D.C., 1982), 197-212, has, however, argued
against this common view, claiming that Arsinoe neither ruled Egypt nor held much influence over
her brother.
77
Pomeroy (n. 75), 20. 78 Polybius, 5.83.
79
Plutarch, Moralia 489a; cf. D. Ogden, Polygamy, Prostitutionand Death (London, 1999), 131,
151; Macurdy (n. 68), 86.
80
She was in charge of an army, but maintained peace (Macurdy (n. 68), 145).
81 There is no explicit evidence for Cleopatra II having led armies, but since she was able to drive
her brother into exile - he went to Rome - it would appear that she must have had power over the
Ptolemaic army. See Diodorus, 31.18; cf. Macurdy (n. 68), 153-4.
82
Justin, 39.4; Pausanias, 1.8.6ff.
83
Cassius Dio, 42.39; Caesar, Civil War 3.112; she fought against Rome, i.e. Caesar and
Cleopatra. 84 Justin, 39.3.3; Macurdy, (n. 68), 165.
85 Velleius Paterculus, Compendiumof Roman History II, 84-9 = N. Lewis and M. Reinhold,
Roman Civilization, (New York, 1990), no. 118; Plutarch, Antony 58, 63, 67, 69.
86
Polybius, 2.4.7ff., 2.7.6ff.; G. T. Griffith, TheMercenariesof the HellenisticWorld(Cambridge,
1935), 253. 87 Josephus, 13.13.4.
88 Diodorus, 19.67.1-2. Polyaenus' eighth book contains many stories of individual women,

queens/leaders of tribes and subjects alike, taking part in various military actions. Some of these
stories are clearly fabricated (and many are undateable), but others may bear a grain of truth at the
very least. So, for example, he recalls the words of Seramis, queen of Ninus: 'Nature made me a
woman, but by my deeds I became not at all inferior to the brave men' (Polyaneus, 8.26: translation
by P. Krentz and E. L. Wheeler (n. 46)).
89 Diodorus, 19.59; Carney (n. 70), 169. Stratonice, the ex-wife of Demetrius, king of
Macedonia, stirred up a revolt at Antioch after Seleucus refused to marry her (Josephus, Against
Apion 1.206-8).
90 J. Roy, 'The Masculinity of the Hellenistic King', in L. Foxhall and J. B. Salmon (eds.), When
Men WereMen: Masculinity, Power and Identity in ClassicalAntiquity (London, 1998), 122-3.
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 47

phenomenon, therefore, cannot have been extremely rare. It has to be

said, however, that the military success of the Hellenistic queens was not
great.91They were usually left behind the fighting men for safety, and
Cynane, the half-sister of Alexander, is actually the only woman who is
on record as having killed an enemy on a battlefield.92To her credit
must also be mentioned that she was able to win over a contingent of the
late Alexander's army, when faced with Alcetas, brother of the regent
Perdiccas.93
More often we hear of military blunders by women. Nicaea, widow of
a tyrant of Corinth, for example, was tricked easily by Antigonus (he
promised that his son, Demetrius, would marry her), and she conse-
quently lost both her city and her life.94Cynane's daughter Eurydice lost
control of her late mother's troops relatively soon after acquiring them.95
And indeed, she lost her life because she plunged into the battle against
Olympias and her allies96without waiting for her own ally Cassander to
come to help her.97Deidameia, daughter of Pyrrhus, captured Ambra-
cia and planned a revenge for Ptolemy, who had been murdered, but she
was tricked and deceived, resulting in her violent death.98The inability
to control armies effectively often also led to the inability of royal women
to rule kingdoms, as was the case with Cleopatra Thea in the latter part
of the second century BCE.99
Apart from queens and princesses, we hardly ever hear of individual
women taking an active part in offensive warfare, that is in actual
fighting, unless we are to believe Diodorus's story about Herais, a
common woman who apparently turned into a man, growing male
genitals and all, and joined the cavalry.100
What stands out from the few examples of fighting women is the fact
that none of the women recorded as having fought in battles are
'ordinary' Greek women. In one way or the other they can be distin-
91 Cf. Camey (n. 70). 92 Macurdy (n. 68), 232-5.
93 Polyaenus, 8.60; E. Carney, 'The Career of Adea-Eurydice' Historia 36 (1987), 496-502,
esp. 498. This was when Cynane was taking her daughter Adea-Eurydice to be married to Philip-
Arrhidaeus; the marriage, of course, did take place, but only after Cynane herself had been killed
(Polyaenus, 8.60).
94
Plutarch, Aratus 17.1-5.
95 Diodorus, 18.39; Carney (n.
93), 499; Carney (n. 70), 132.
96 The allies being Polyperchon and Olympias' cousin Aecides, king of Epirus.
97
Justin, 14.5.8-10; Diodorus, 19.11.2-7; Aelian, Varia Historia 13.36; Carney (n. 93), 500-1.
98 Polyaenus, 8.52.
99 J. Whitehorne, Cleopatras(London, 1994), 161.
100 Diodorus, 32.10. The Arcadians (among the Ten Thousand) told the Mysians that their
women fought alongside them in battles and that actually it was the women who put the King to
flight (Xenophon, Anabasis 6.1.1-13). This, however, was a light-hearted and drunken joke in a
party, following a dance by a girl in armour.
48 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

guished from - what we take to have been - an average Greek citizen

woman. A number of royal women, notably Ptolemaic queens, took part
in military action. These were women who had penetrated the male
sphere of power politics, and it was on the battlefield that the royal
authority of monarchs was established. Hence, ambitious royal women
had to at least appear militarily capable. The three warrior women
connected with Alexander were not only royal, but also foreigners,
having Illyrian descent. Reportedly Illyrian women were habitually
acquainted with military matters.10' Another group of foreign women
allegedly familiar with warfare was, of course, the Amazons. The
Amazons, however, were not only isolated in time102and space, but
they were also very different from the ordinary Greek women. 'In the
literary accounts the Amazons can be seen to represent an inversion of
everything which a Greek male (in particular, an Athenian male) would
have expected of a woman.'103In any case, as has been argued earlier,
one should not consider the Amazons as historical figures; there simply
is no evidence to support their existence.104
It is difficult to make sense of Herais, the alleged transsexual cavalry
(wo)man. Assuming that she was a historical figure, who did join an
army, one could think that perhaps she was a particularly masculine
woman and wild stories concerning her gender began to appear during
her lifetime or soon afterwards. It may be more likely, however, that the
Greeks found it difficult to accept that a normal Greek woman could
take up arms - this was men's business - hence this fantastic story was
probably invented as a way to explain her involvement with an army. In
the minds of Greek men, it was only in town defence that there was any
room for ordinary Greek women to give direct and noticeable military
assistance.
Either 'normal' Greek women did not fight in foreign wars, which
101
See my note 70.
102
No ancient author claims to have been contemporary with the Amazons, let alone to have met
them (cf. Blundell (n. 17), 58).
103
Blundell (n. 17), 62, cf. 58. In addition to allegedly having fought wars, the Amazons are said
to have, among other things, practised hunting, refused to marry, and to have been in political
control of their own state in which they lived without men (or in complete inversion of the common
sex-roles). Indeed, Greek men would have considered many of the things that the Amazons were
alleged to have done as masculine or men's business. In reverse, what was commonly understood as
feminine does not seem to have concerned the Amazons of the Greek stories - they are even
thought to have cut off one of their breasts to ensure better mobility as they fought on the battlefield
- consequently they appear androgynous. For the cutting off of breasts, see Strabo, 11.5.1 and
Diodorus, 2.45.3, 3.53.3. For discussion about the Amazons as hybrids of men and women, see
Tyrrell (n. 19), 125-8.
104 Admittedly it is equally difficult to prove that the Amazons did not exist, but surely the
burden of proof lies with those who argue that they did.
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 49

seems to have been the case, or the literarytopos did not allow this to be
reported. In any case, Greek women had important non-fighting roles.
Citizen armies needed citizen women to produce citizen soldiers.105
Mercenary armies, which became more common towards the end of
the Classical era (and standard in the Hellenistic era), depended heavily
on foreign recruits. Women thereby lost one of their traditional roles,
namely the production of legitimate manpower for armies. Of course
women continued to produce children, some of whom would end up as
soldiers, but it no longer mattered who the mother (or indeed father) of
a soldier was. Women were, however, arguably even more integral to the
mercenary armies than citizen armies; the mercenary armies had a large
number of female camp followers.
There clearly were some female camp followers already in the Clas-
sical period. When the Ten Thousand were making their way back to
Hellas, Xenophon writes that women and children, together with men
older than forty years of age, left by sea, while other departed by land.106
It is interesting that Xenophon does not inform us right from the start
that there were some women with the soldiers - perhaps he thought it
too obvious or insignificant to mention - which raises suspicions that
women may have gone unmentioned in other reports of travelling
armies too. We also know, for example, that one of Alexander's
generals, Philotas the son of Parmenio, had a mistress with him, a
former prisoner of war, Antigone from Pydna in Macedonia. Interest-
ingly, Alexander used her as a spy once he became suspicious/paranoid
about Philotas.'07 The most famous hetaira among Alexander's troops,
however, was Thais, the future wife of Ptolemy I Soter, the first
Macedonian king of Egypt; she was thought to have been behind the
burning of Persepolis.108It appears that 'the more important men in
Alexander's army were permitted the luxury of female company . . .
courtesans, concubines and wives.'109
After Alexander's death, in the Hellenistic period, it became almost
standard for mercenaries - so not just the officers anymore - to take their
105
Consider, for example, Lysistrata's reply to the magistrate's comment that women have no
role at all in war, albeit that the dialogue is fictitious: 'What do you mean, damn your eyes? We bear
its burden more than twice over: in the first place by bearing sons and sending them out as hoplites'
(Aristophanes, Lysistrata588-90: translation by A. Sommerstein (Warminster, 1990)).
106
Xenophon, Anabasis 5.3.1.
107
Plutarch, Alexander 48. One suspects that women were used in this way as spies more
frequently than the sources reveal. The fact that we do not have much evidence for this is hardly
surprising, for spying is secretive by nature.
108 Plutarch, Alexander38.
109Pomeroy (n. 75), 99; cf. Diodorus, 6.25.5, 18.104.4.
50 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

mistresses, wives, and even entire families with them when they went
abroad in search of employment. One indication of the growing
tolerance of female camp followers is the decline of references to
homosexual relations amongst Greek soldiers.110We do have direct
evidence of this too, the best example being the mass emigration of
Cretan mercenaries to Miletus. We have epigraphic evidence for this in
the form of two long lists of people who were granted Milesian citizen-
ship. According to these inscriptions, up to four thousand families had
left Crete, never to return.'1' Such a huge population-transfer was, of
course, exceptional. We do, however, find individual Cretan mercen-
aries in a wide variety of other places too, near to and distant from Crete
and - importantly - their wives and families are also often recorded as
having moved with them.112
Gauls were another ethnic group that travelled widely because of
war. Indeed, according to a Roman consul of 189 BCE,the Gauls had
made the entire world their home because of mercenary service.13
What is of particular interest for us about the Gauls, who were often
employed by the Greek armies, is that they habitually took all their
families with them on campaigns. Antigonus, according to Polyaenus,
had about 9, 000 Gallic mercenaries, but the overall total of Gauls in
the expedition was about 30, 000. Furthermore, the Gallic mercenaries
demanded payment not only for the soldiers, but also for their wives,
children, and the injured or otherwise unarmed men.14 Livy, too,
writes of Gauls taking their families with them.1"sIt seems that despite
it making the journeys slow and more burdensome, the Gauls always
took their families with them. To borrow from Launey: 'les Gaulois ne
se separaient jamais.'16 The inclusion of women and children in the
convoys must have made the campaigns more troublesome; never-
theless the Gauls preferred to travel with many non-combatants, even

110
D. Ogden, 'Homosexuality and Warfare in Ancient Greece', in A. B. Lloyd (ed.), Battle in
Antiquity (London, 1996), 123.
11 Milet, III,
Delphinion,nn. 33-8; P. Brule, La PiraterieCretoiseHelklnistique(Paris, 1978), 168.
112
For example, a mercenary called Eraton from Oaxos served in the Ptolemaic army in Cyprus,
and he had a wife and two sons with him. See M. Launey, Recherchessur lesArmeesHellenistiques,in
2 volumes (Paris, 1949-50), 679-80. Various tombstones from Thessaly and Eretria indicate that
both Cretan men and women migrated to Greece. In addition, we find Cretans in Egypt, Anatolia,
Asia Minor, and as far away as modern Afghanistan and India. See A. Petropoulou, Beitrdgezur
Wirtschafts-und GesellschaftsgeschichteKretasin HellenistischerZeit (Frankfurtam Main, Bern, New
York and Nancy, 1985), 30, 128, 211 n. 48-9; Brule (n. 111), 163-4.
113
Livy, 38.17.2-3.
114 Polyaeneus,
Stratagem4.6.17; Launey (n. 112), 493-6.
115
Livy, 38.18.15.
l6 Launey (n. 112), 494, cf. 497 n. 6.
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 51

entire tribes, such as the Aegosagae, in the service of Attalus I, in the

late third century BCE. 17
The Gauls and Cretans may have been exceptional in their numbers,
but in principle they were probably not very different from any other
mercenaries of this age. We do have evidence for mercenaries of other
backgrounds taking their women with them on the campaigns, too. In
fact, female camp followers were so integral a part of the Hellenistic
mercenary armies that occasionally the soldiers would refuse outright to
fight if they were not allowed to take their women along. Demetrius
Poliorcetes, for example, got into trouble in 307 BCE as those of his
soldiers who had left their families in Egypt deserted him.118The word
for baggage, aposkeue,actually came to include by definition the families
- wives and children - of the soldiers, as Holleaux has demonstrated in
his detailed study of this single word.119
As another example of the importance of women in the baggage one
could mention that in the mid-third century BCEEumenes' mercenaries
deserted him and joined the army of his enemy Antigonus instead,
because the latter had seized their children, wives, many other relatives,
and concubines.120Occasionally armies attacked their enemies' baggage
for revenge, as Pelopidas did after the Macedonian king Ptolemy had
bribed his mercenaries to switch sides in the early 360s BCE.121 On the
other hand, one could receive gratitude for not attacking the camp
followers - as Eumenes did when he ignored the chance to capture
Antigonus' baggage.122
One of the more important tasks that both women at home and
women following armies would have had was to take care of arms and
armour. They would, among other things, sharpen spears and supply
missiles for their men.123 Plutarch writes how the Peloponnesian women
117
Polybius, 5.77-8. Since the number of Gallic mercenaries was great and entire families, even
communities, migrated together, it is fair to speak of a real migration of peoples or mass wandering,
'le d&placement des Celtes etait une veritable migration de tribus' (Launey (n. 112), 494). In
another context Diodorus comments that the inclusion of women in the baggage made the
travelling armies look like colonizing expeditions (Diodorus, 20.41.1).
118
Diodorus, 20.47.4; Launey (n. 112), 788.
119M. Holleaux, 'Ceux
qui sont dans le bagage', REG 39 (1926), 355-66, esp. 363 with n. 1,
cf. 356-7. The revolt that broke out among the mercenaries in the service of the Carthaginians in
the mid-third century was probably at least partly prompted because they were not allowed to take
their families with them when they were ordered to leave the city (Polybius, 1.66.6-11).
120
Diodorus, 19.43.7-8; Polyaenus, 4.6.13; Plutarch, Eumenes 16-19; Justin, 14.3-4, 14.7-12;
Orosius, 3.23.25.
121 Plutarch, Pelopidas
27.
122 Plutarch, Eumenes 9. It has to be added that, although women were a common feature as
camp followers, it must, of course, be true that individual raids were carried out without women;
they would have waited for their men at base camps. 123 Polyaenus, 8.49, 8.70.
52 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

had in their hands 'helmets and plumes for dyeing, and horsemen's
tunics or soldiers' cloaks for embroidering'.124This, he continues, was
good for the morale of the soldiers. It is probable, although evidence is
lacking, that women had a greater role than just dyeing and embroider-
ing when it came to producing uniforms. In fact, some of them may
even have given a helping hand in producing arms and armour. Again,
the evidence is not plentiful, but we can argue that a known woman
helped her helmet-making husband by decorating the helmets. A curse
tablet concerning Dionysios, a helmet maker, includes a mention of his
wife, Artemisia, and she is described as a gilder.125If one woman was
involved in decorating helmets, we may assume that some others did so
too. And if this much is true, then other women could have been
involved in other aspects of manufacturing arms and armour.
Finally, there is the issue of female entertainers. We are all familiar
with images of Marilyn Monroe entertaining the US troops at war, and
one could cite numerous more recent examples, such as Mariah Carey
in Kosovo. These two female artists, however, were neither the first nor
the last women to have been paid to entertain armies. Pericles had a
group of prostitutes (hetairai) with his troops as he was laying siege to
Samos in 440 BCE.126 The Ten Thousand had dancers and prostitutes
with them.127 Alexander's army had prostitutes and entertainerstoo; we
have already come across Thais, but in addition there were many less
illustrious entertainers. A passage in Athenaeus indicates, in fact, that
Alexander himself always had male and female flute-players accom-
panying him in the camp.128The inclusion of wives and families in the
trails of Hellenistic armies would have made the need for female
entertainers less urgent, but I have no doubt that they existed among
the camp followers of these armies too.
One could easily question the military value of these entertainers, but
one would be foolish to do so. Obviously these dancers and prostitutes
did not slay enemies or protect friendly soldiers. Yet, the constant
presence of musicians and other entertainers among the armies is
124
Plutarch, Philopoemen9.5: translationby B. Perrin (London, 1920). The only woman known
to have actually worn armour at battlefields is Adea-Eurydice (Athenaeus, 13.560f.; Camey (n. 93),
500).
125 IG
III.iii, 69 = Lefkowitz and Fant (n. 62), no. 337, p. 224. Although the inscription is not
explicit about Artemisia's role in the helmet-making business, H. McClees, A Study of Womenin
Attic Inscriptions(New York, 1920), 30, 32, for one, has interpreted it as meaning that she would
indeed have helped her husband in ornamenting the helmets.
126
Athenaeus,13.572f.
127
Athenaeus, 13.576d; Xenophon, Anabasis 6.1.1-13.
128
Athenaeus, 12.539a.
 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE 53

conspicuous and needs explaining. Most armies would only take with
them what they, or their generals, thought necessary, or at the very least
useful, for the campaign. The Ten Thousand, for example, off-loaded
all newly-taken prisoners and everything else that was not considered
indispensable, including baggage animals, to ensure swifter and easier
travel.129It would appear, therefore, that the services of entertainers
were appreciated and even regarded as valuable; only this would explain
why their presence was tolerated - and why modern armies continue to
employ entertainers. The importance of (female) entertainerslies in the
mundane life of a soldier. In the life of a soldier battle-days are in the
minority, and most days involve simply marching, training, or waiting
for action; this creates boredom, boredom creates tension, and tension
may, at worst, lead to mutinies. The role of the entertainers was,
therefore, to keep the soldiers happy and ready to fight.

Conclusion

Greek women were not mere spectators of war - far from being always
passive, they had many active roles in warfare. The motivation, as well
as emotional and spiritual support, which they provided their men, was
invaluable. Women were also paramount in securing supplies - food in
particular, but also arms and armour - for the armies, both at home and
away. Although only a few exceptional women took part in actual
fighting on the battlefields (and even fewer successfully), numerous
ordinary women took up arms - or roof tiles as it often was - to protect
their own cities and communities against invaders. Not infrequently
their contribution in town defence was also valuable and effective; a fact
occasionally acknowledged by ancient authors, such as Aristotle. The
patriotism and bravery of Greek women is, however, nowhere else as
evident as in the many recorded cases of mass suicides, committed to
preserve the reputation of both their cities and themselves.
The inclusion and importance of women among camp followers on
military campaigns has mostly escaped the notice of both ancient and
modern scholars. Female entertainers and prostitutes have sometimes
received cursory notes in the works of historians, but their real value has
not been acknowledged until now. It was their job to keep soldiers'
spirits high. This was significant, for the morale of soldiers affects their
129
Xenophon, Anabasis 4.1.12-14.
54 WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN ANCIENT GREEK WARFARE

fighting skills and ability to work as a unit. However, even more

important than the presence of entertainers, especially in the Hellenistic
period, was the fact that many soldiers took their wives and children
with them on campaigns. Arguably, many campaigns would not have
been fought unless the soldiers were given the right to bring their
families along. To sum up, the various roles women had in warfare
indicate that although war was still the business of men, it was a business
that needed women too - no woman, no war.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

ELTON BARKER: Junior Research Fellow, Wolfson College, Cam-

bridge.
JOHN R. PORTER: Associate Professor, Department of History,
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon.
PASI LOMAN: Postgraduate student, University of Nottingham.
ISMENE LADA-RICHARDS: Lecturer in Classics, King's College,
London.
HERBERT W. BENARIO: Professor Emeritus, Department of Clas-
sics, Emory College, Atlanta.
CLAIRE JAMSET: Assistant Lecturer in Classics, Australian National
University, Canberra.