¹ This article is based on part of my 1994 Oxford D.Phil, thesis, ‘A Study of Gold in Early Greek Poetry’. For criticism and encouragement my thanks are due to Jasper Griffin, Robert Parker, the CQ referee, and above all my wife, Clare.

² The following will be referred to below by author′s name only: Arthur, M. B., ‘Early Greece: Origins of the Western Attitude Towards Women’, Arethusa 6 (1973), 7–58; M. Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, tr. R. Hurley (Harmondsworth, 1988)–not about Pandora, but covering much of what she stands for; N. Loraux, 'Sur la race des femmes et quelques–uns de ses tribus', Arethusa 11 (1978), 43–87; L. R. Sussman, 'Workers and Drones, Labor, Idleness and Gender Definition in Hesiod's Beehive', Arethusa 11 (1978), 27–41; J.–P. Vernant, Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, tr. J. Lloyd (London, 1980) pp. 168–85; F.I. Zeitlin, 'The Economics of Hesiod's Pandora', in E. D. Reeder, Pandora: Women in Classical Greece (Princeton, 1995), pp. 49–56.Google Scholar

³ For cross–cultural parallels, see Trencsenyi–Waldapfel, I., Untersuchungen zur Religionsgeschichte (London, 1966), pp. 49–75Google Scholar

⁴ Cf. Semonides 7W (which can be seen as a sort of commentary on Hesiod: Loraux, p. 54), especially 21–6,43–9, 83–93.Google Scholar

⁵ Again compare Semonides 7 (108–11).Google Scholar

⁶ Vernant, p. 180; the belly in the Theogony has been further explored by M. B. Arthur, 'The Dream of a World without Women', Arethusa 16 (1983), 97–116, who regards it as 'the floating signifier for every kind of ambiguity' in the poem (p. 111).Google Scholar

⁷ See LSJ s.w. apoTrjp, aporos, aporov, apovpa, dpocu. P. du Bois, Sowing the Body (Chicago, 1988) discusses field (pp. 39–64) and furrow (pp. 65–85) as Greek metaphors for the female body.Google Scholar

⁸ See Zeitlin (n. 2), and the longer version of the same argument (dealing at greater length with the Theogony context) in her Playing the Other (Chicago, 1996), pp. 53–86. This approach, founded on Hesiod's cosmogony, can in a sense be traced back to J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion² (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 27685.Google Scholar

⁹ Vernant, pp. 172, 174.Google Scholar

¹⁰ West is clearly right in implicitly rejecting suggestions by earlier critics that 573–84 or 578–84 should be deleted.

¹¹ Cf. Redfield, J., ‘Notes on the Greek Wedding’, Arethusa 15 (1982), 181J. 201, pp. 194ff. For an iconographical view, see Reeder, Pandora (n. 2), pp. 126J. 93.Google Scholar

¹² Loraux, p. 49. Zeitlin (pp. 54ff.) rightly observes that this emphasizes woman's 'artificial' and therefore 'secondary' status.

¹³ Th. 594–602: like drones, women dWorpiov Kafnarov is yaarep' afiwvra

¹⁴ Th. 603–12: marriage is either an uneasy mixture of good and bad, or an unmitigated disaster; but those who do not marry suffer the still worse misfortune of childlessness.

¹⁵ She is called 'golden' eleven times in Homer: for the significance of the epithet, see below.

¹⁶ Vernant, pp. 130–67,181–5; cf. Zeitlin, p. 50.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Cf. Op. 35–9, 274–85, 320; P. Walcot, 'Pandora's Jar, Erga 83–105', Hermes 89 (1961), 249–51.

¹⁸ Note the involvement in her adornment of Peitho (73), who provides an obvious link between her meretricious attractiveness and deceptive nature.

¹⁹ Zeitlin, p. 54, notes the parallels between Perses and Pandora herself, the difference between the two being that while Perses 'may be persuaded to resume his proper masculine role and to enter into the economy of labour... Pandora... remains ambiguous, excluded. For further reflections on Pandora as pot, see G. Sissa, Greek Virginity, tr. A. Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, 1990), pp. 154ff.

²⁰ Some editors delete parts of Op. 59–82, but they are wrong: see West on 70–80.

²¹ The relationship between the order (65f.) and its execution (73–5) is not immediately obvious, but while West may have succeeded in refuting the over–precise connections suggested by K. Robert, 'Pandora', Hermes 49 (1914), 17–38, p. 28,1 think his remarks leave room for the view of the lines I propose below.

²² On Aphrodite's origins, cf. Burkert, W, Greek Religion, tr. J. Raffan (Oxford, 1985), p. 152; C. IPenglase, Greek Myths and Mesopotamia (London, 1994), pp. 160–5. There is a sharp contrast. between the gold of Aphrodite and Ishtar, often associated with deception, and that of the 'Egyptian goddess of love, Hathor (the 'gold of the gods'). Just as Egyptian culture generally takes }a much more unequivocally positive view of the metal than the Greeks did, so Hathor I'represented not only what was true, but what was good, and all that is best in woman as wife, smother and daughter' (E. A. W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians [London, 1904], vol. I, pp. M28–38): this is nothing like Aphrodite!Google Scholar

²³ ANET, p. 638,11. 11–25: the full list includes a very wide range of precious substances (lapis lazuli, boxwood, alabaster and black willow).Google Scholar

²⁴ Gilgamesh I.iii–iv, tr. S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia (Oxford, 1989), pp. 55f.: cf. J. Griffin, Homer on Life and Death (Oxford, 1980), p. 200, n. 63; Gilgamesh IH.ii, tr. Dalley, p. 65Google Scholar

²⁵ Dalley (n. 24), pp. 155–60; they are put back on in reverse order as she leaves again. On the likely ritual context of the text, see Dalley, p. 161, n. 9; Penglase (n. 22) pp. 17–31 and 166f. For the use of gold in the ritual clothing of images of the gods in Mesopotamia, see A. L. Oppenheim, 'The Golden Garments of the Gods', JNES 58 (1949), 172–93.Google Scholar

²⁶ Penglase (n. 22), p. 239, concludes that the main period of Mesopotamian influence began 'several generations before Homer' (and ended at the start of the sixth century).Google Scholar

²⁷ The etymology of the word χρνσ⋯ς (Mycenaean ku–ru–so) indicates that the Greeks first acquired the metal from speakers of a Semitic language: cf. H. Quiring, Geschichte des Goldes (Stuttgart, 1948), p. 24. Geology and archaeology strongly suggest that Near Eastern traders provided the Greeks with almost all their gold from at least the period of the Mycenaean Shaft Graves until the middle of the seventh century (when the area around Thasos and Mount Pangaeus began to be exploited by the Greeks). On the Near East as a source of luxury objects, see the Homeric voyages of Odysseus, Menelaus and Paris; J. D. Muhly, 'Homer and the Phoenicians', Berytus 19 (1970), 19–64; E. L Smithson, 'The Tomb of a Rich Athenian Lady', Hesperia 37 (1968), 77–116; N. Coldstream, Geometric Greece (London, 1977), pp. 41f, 64f., 358.

²⁸ On the early history of Greek gold jewellery, see in general G. Becatti, Oreficerie Antiche (Rome, 1955), pp. 1–40; E. Bielefeld, Schmuck (Gottingen, 1968, = Archaeologia Homerica, ed. H.–G. Buchholz and F. Matz, Teil C: hereafter cited by author's name and Teil letter only); R. J. Higgins, Greek and Roman Jewellery2 (London, 1980), pp. 7–120; D. Musti, L'Oro del Greci (Novara, 1993), pp. 17–31 and 232–51; D. Williams and J. Ogden, Greek Gold (London, 1994), pp. 10–46.

²⁹ For the relation of this last item to Near Eastern and later Greek magical practices, see Faraone, C. A., ‘Aphrodite's Kestos and Apples for Atalanta’, Phoenix 44 (1990), 219–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁰ On the ear–rings, see Bielefeld, AH C, 4; Higgins in M. R. Popham et al., Lefkandi I (London, 1980, = BSA Suppl. 11), 219ff; Janko ad be.Google Scholar

³¹ For Cypriot versions of the ear–rings and charm, see C. Bonner, 'Keoros 1/u.ds and the Saltire of Aphrodite', AJP 70 (1949), 1–6; J. L. Myres, 'Homeric Art', ABSA 45 (1950), 229–60, p. 237. Golden monumental parallels for Hera's tasselled girdle have been found in both Mycenaean and contemporary Near Eastern contexts: cf. A. W. Persson, The Royal Tombs at Dendra (Lund, 1931), p. 14; Bielefeld, AHC, pp. 35f., 58; Marinatos, AH A, pp. 12 and 28.Google Scholar

³² Burkert W., ‘ Oriental Myth and Literature in the Iliad’, in Hagg R. (ed.), The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century B. C. (Stockholm, 1983), pp. 51–6; on a possible Near Eastern prototype for the Zeus–Hera episode, see L. A. Stella, Tradizione micenea e poesia dell' Iliade (Rome, 1978), pp. 96f. Others (C. H. Whitman, 'Hera's Anvils', HSCP 74 [1970], 37–42; C. Kerenyi, Zeus und Hera [Leiden 1972], p. 84) have noticed a number of 'cosmogonic' motifs in these books, and it is worth mentioning here that the AIOS' Ana.TT] contains one of Archaic poetry's relatively few references to the hieros gamos (II. 14.343–51). Homer uses gold here to express the fecundatory effect of divine intercourse, and he is followed in this by Pindar (cf. P.5–9, 55–59, 67–70, with A. Kohnken, Die Funktion des Mythos bei Pindar [Berlin 1971], pp. 87ff; Pa. 6.130–41 with Radt ad loc). However, this appearance of the metal in the context of divine sexuality is to be distinguished sharply from the gold of Aphrodite, with which we are chiefly concerned: it is a metaphor of male potency and divinely engendered fertility, rather than an image of artificially enhanced female allure, and its origins are not Mesopotamian. See A. B. Cook, Zeus III (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 473ff.; Trencsenyi–Waldapfel (n. 3), pp. 192–231; F. Daumas, 'La valeur de l'or dans la pensee egyptienne', RHR 149 (1956), 1–17; W Burkert, 'Oriental and Greek Mythology: The Meeting of Parallels', in J. Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology (London, 1987), pp, 10–40, n. 83; G. Costa, 'II dio d'oro in Grecia e in India', AGI69 (1984), 26–52, pp. 34f.

³³ In fact the Cypria poet was not content to present the Trojan War as resulting simply from the rivalry of the three goddesses, and so (fr. 1) seems in a rather inorganic way to have subordinated the traditional story to another Near Eastern motif: cf. Burkert (n. 32), p. 55. On Helen, Aphrodite, and the war, cf. Ibycus 282 (a) 8f, Alcaeus 42 and 283, and (more sympathetic to Helen) Sappho 16.

³⁴ II. 3.64–6,369–420; 5.318–51,416–30.Google Scholar

³⁵ Chapman renders: 'The force, O Muse, and functions now unfold/Of Cyprian Venus, grac'd with mines of gold', –rrofivxpvoos here is an emphatic variant on the more usual x/wcrttos, shedding the economic sense it has in Homer (e.g. II. 7.180) to assume a purely visual force. Cf. Hes. fr. 185.17, Scutum 47f.; D. Boedeker, Aphrodite's Entry into Greek Epic (Leiden, 1974, = Mnem. Suppl. 32), p. 26.Google Scholar

³⁶ Chapman: 'For, for a veil, she shin'd in an attire/That cast a radiance past the ray of fire. Her soft white neck rich carquenets embraced,/Bright, and with gold in all variety graced/That to her breasts let down lay there and shone,/As at her joyful full, the rising Moon./Her sight show'd miracles.'

³⁷ Anchises is confronted by something that looks too good to be true, but the strength of his passion compels him to believe in it. For the psychology, cf. A. T. L. Bergren, 'The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: Tradition and Rhetoric, Praise and Blame', CA 8 (1989), 1–41, pp. 14–22.

³⁸ See e.g. II. 16.180–3, or, in more moralizing vein, the story of Tyro at Hes. fr. 30.24ff., where Poseidon's attentions seem to constitute a reward for moral and physical excellence. In rather the same way, Pindar can refer to the assignment of Thetis to Peleus (A^. 5.35f; cf. also 11. 7f.) and Hebe to Heracles (/. 4.55–60; N. 1.69ff.) as rewards for their dpenj. Cf. Burkert, Greek Religion, p. 150 and F. Lissarague in P. Schmitt Pantel (ed.), A History of Women in the West I, tr. A. Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, 1992), p. 214.

³⁹ Even in the cases of Peleus and Cadmus, whose marriages to immortal brides (which have no hint of feminine seduction or control about them) serve both to crown their achievements as young heroes, and to introduce the disappointments of old age (P. 3.89fF). The only such pairing to be trouble–free is that of Heracles and Hebe, which simply gives expression to Heracles' apotheosis (Od. 11.602^1; Hes. Th. 950–5; frr. 25.26–33; 229; /. 4.55–60, N. 1.69ff.).

⁴⁰ Nymphs are of course also mortal (h.Aph. 257–72).

⁴¹ This, I think, is one reason why in early Greek poetry, the consequences of sex initiated by a male god with a mortal woman or nymph are generally unproblematic for both parties (contrast the cases of Cassandra and Creousa: E Tro. 253ff; E. Ion 881ff.). However, the female concerned is seldom the focus of interest on these occasions, simply serving as a link between a hero and his divine father: cf. Hes. fr. 253, and the examples cited in n. 45 below.

⁴² See Sikes and Allen ad loc for other examples of the dangers of sleeping with goddesses. Perhaps Anchises also voices the deeper Greek anxiety identified by Foucault, surrounding the i cost of the sexual act and the death to which it was linked (p. 125).

⁴³ The question whether the epithet χρνσ⋯θρονος ultimately derives from dpova (and thus I originally meant of the golden robe) or Opovos (i.e. of the golden throne) is irresoluble: for I etymological bibliography, see Cssola ad loc. The former derivation might be thought particularly appropriate to Eos' amorous behaviour (cf. h.Aph. 226, and Od. 15.250, where she abducts Cleitos, but I find it hard to believe that the latter would not much more readily have. suggested itself to a contemparary audience. χόθς is, of course, also used of Hera in 1 contexts where sex, or at least sexual jealousy, is involved, but we also find the epithet used of J Artemis (II. 6.205; Od. 5.123), and Hera's power is always at least as relevant as her sensuality in I the passages concerned (II. 1.611, 14.153, 15.5; A., Ap. 305; II. 1.37f.; cf. xpvaoirenXos at B. i 19.22: the two qualities are of course linked II. 14.212f.).

⁴⁴ Including weaving, the occupation of virtuous women like Penelope: for the disruptive impact of love on this steady pursuit, cf. Sappho 102.

⁴⁵ Cf. the formulaic repetitions of such phrases as viroSp–rjOeioa 8ia xpvnjvoSiTrjv (Hes. frr. 23a.315; 185.17; 221.3; 253) in the pseudo–Hesiodic Catalogues, in which sex and marriage are indispensable instruments for the propagation of the aristocracy whose mythical forebears they celebrate.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Cf. J. Rudhardt, 'L'Hymne homerique a Aphrodite', MH48 (1991), 8–20, pp. 17f.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Pace J. S. Clay, The Politics of Olympus (Princeton, 1989), pp. 166ff.,200f, there is nothing in the poem itself to suggest that she has lost her power to unite mortals and immortals ev JH\6TT]TI. Rudhardt (n. 46) pp. 14f. puts things a little more persuasively. Note also how the post–Hesiodic final section of the Theogony formulaically emphasises the responsibility of 'golden Aphrodite' for a number of such mixed unions which produce undesirable or unfortunate children. So Th. 9758". (Cadmus' daughters); 1004f. (Phocus); 1014 (Telegonus)–cf. similar phrasing in the cases of Typhoeus (821f.) and Medea (958ff.).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Cf. P. 9.67ff., and the rapid abduction of Ganymede (h.Aph. 202–8); admittedly, the examples that spring to mind involve male rather than female gods.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Theologically, this can be viewed in a positive light: 'Dire la puissance de la divinite et rappeler du meme coup les regies qui s'imposaient a son activite, c'est 1'inciter a intervenir parmi les hommes sans nuire a l'equilibre de leurs societes.' (Rudhardt [n. 46], p. 20).

⁵⁰ So Bergren (n. 37); cf. M. B. Arthur, 'Cultural Strategies in Hesiod's Theogony: Law, Family, Society', Arethusa 15 (1982), 63–82, pp. 66f., on the birth of Aphrodite in the Theogony. Again a Foucauldian terror looms, for what Greek male ideology appears most to have abhorred in sexual matters was passivity (Foucault, p. 46f), and even if in a heterosexual act the male is likely to be mechanically 'active', awareness of the seductive power of the female undermines his psychological dominance.

⁵¹ In the female–centred world of Sappho we find a presentation of gold and jewellery significantly different from this pattern. The exception proves the rule: among women, golden jewellery and other items of luxury clothing can be valued in a way analogous to the male appreciation of fine arms and armour seen in Homer or Alcaeus (with Sappho 39,44.8ff., 98a, cf. Alcaeus 140).

⁵² Meleager's shade tells Heracles that he has left at home a sister, with no experience of the beguiling goddess. It is tempting to see here a hint of the unhappy consequences passion was to have for the marriage that followed.

⁵³ Cf. Hera's use of gold jewellery for seductive purposes in II. 14, and the integral part it plays in the charms of Aphrodite herself (Hymns 5 and 6). Like Pandora, Hera combines conventional ornament with less tangible, but even more potently Aphrodisiac qualities (II. 14.214–21).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Pandora may be 'like a modest maiden', but then so was Aphrodite when she entered the hut of Anchises (h.Aph. 82): cf. Redfield (n. 11), p. 196 on the sexually charged nature of wifely modesty.

⁵⁵ Note that elsewhere (Op. 373f.) he does not warn against the dangers of being led astray by a beautiful woman, but by one who dresses in an obviously erotic way. In the Theogony, Pandora's beauty is only admitted in the same breath as she is said to be an evil (Th. 585).

⁵⁶ Lissarague (n. 38), p. 204 points out that the perception of male attractiveness was quite different: '[t]he ephebe's beauty was entirely in his body'.

⁵⁷ Vase–paintings and other evidence show that necklaces generally contained much more gold than ear–rings or the Geometric–Archaic type of diadems: see the works cited in n. 28 above.

⁵⁸ J. Rudhardt, 'Hesiode et les Femmes', MH 46 (1986), 231–16, makes the point that Epimetheus' folly in effect ends what had been a brief period in which men were completely independent from the gods.

⁵⁹ See Foucault, and Harrison, T., ‘Herodotus and the Ancient Greek Idea of Rape’, in Deacy S. and Pearce K. (edd.), Violence and Power (London, 1996).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ In Schmitt Pantel (n. 38), p. 61.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Cf. Arthur (n. 6), p. 104.Google Scholar

⁶² A good sequence of examples comes at the start of II. 8 (18–27, 41–6, 68–72); on a smaller scale note the group of divine epithets of the form xpvoo– + characteristic attribute (e.g. Hermes Xpvooppairis', Iris.

⁶³ Hesiod's rather limited and unencouraging summary of positive advice on marriage (Op. 695–705) sets the topic apart from others he handles: he does not usually have so much more to say about the pitfalls in a given area than about how to avoid them.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Millett, P., ‘Hesiod and his World’, PCPS n.s. 29 (1984), 84–115 correctly refutes those who have tried to present Hesiod as an aspiring or impoverished aristocratGoogle Scholar

⁶⁵ Cf. pp. 40–5 of West's edition of the poem.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ohly, D., Griechische Goldbleche des 8 Jahrhunderts vor Chr. (Berlin, 1953), suggested that these diadems were only ever used in funerary contexts, but others have not been convinced: see the review by R. M. Cook, Gnomon 26 (1954), 107–10, and related comments by Higgins (n. 28), pp. 96f.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ But cf. the language of Orestes to his mother at A. Cho. 919: prj.

⁶⁸ This is well brought out by Sussman.

⁶⁹ Zeitlin, p. 52, with Sussman and Arthur (n. 2) in mind: but although Sussman relies too heavily on debatable hypotheses about post–Mycenaean agriculture, and Arthur reads back into Hesiod too much from fourth– and fifth–century sources, their view that contemporary social change is one root of Hesiodic misogyny is attractive. Can it be a coincidence that this period witnessed the growing dominance of the male–centred structure of the polls over that of the oikos, in which the interrelationship of genders was less unbalanced?

⁷⁰ M. Wyke has observed a similar spanning of social class–types in Roman rhetoric against feminine adornment (mostly in the form of cosmetics, not jewellery), but this is related to a general negativity about luxus which has no consistent parallel in Archaic Greek texts ('Woman in the Mirror: The Rhetoric of Adornment in the Roman World', in Women in Ancient Societies, ed. L. I Archer et al. (London, 1994), 134–51, p. 136).

⁷¹ Both Pandora and Helen can be seen as 'Trojan Horse' figures: cf. W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek Mythology and Ritual (Berkeley, 1979), pp. 73f.; C. A. Faraone, Talismans and Trojan Horses (Oxford, 1992), pp. lOOf.

⁷² Mimnermus (fr. 1 W.l–5) appears to echo these lines when voicing a much more positive attitude towards the gifts of Aphrodite; cf. A. W. H. Adkins, Poetic Craft in the Early Greek Elegists (Chicago, 1985), p. 99. It is in elegy, and even more in lyric, that the erotic as an end in itself first appears as the focus of positive poetic interest, for poets concerned not with the disruptive effect of (fulfilled) passion upon society, but with the emotional turmoil of the (often frustrated) individual: cf. Theognis 1381–5; Sappho fr. 130. This in turn leads to a more positive and 'user–friendly' portrayal of Aphrodite herself (Sappho fr. 1–cf. E. S. Stigers, 'Sappho's Private World', in H. P. Foley (ed.), Reflections of Women in Antiquity [New York, 1981], pp.45–61).

⁷³ It may be objected that Paris is motivated simply by a desire to maintain his TI/XJJ, but Paris is no Achilles: rather, because Helen is a gift of the gods, she is–like Pandora–inescapable and so cannot be given away (for that matter, Helen would gladly be rid of Paris, but she is trapped too).

⁷⁴ References: II. 19.282,24.699; Od. 17.37,19.54 (cf. [Hes.] Sc. 7f, on Alcmene). The sufferings unwittingly caused by the beauty of Briseis or Penelope occupy large parts of the two epics. In the Iliad, Cassandra occasions more limited misfortune (II. 13.363–9), since the poem contains no hint of her part in the downfalls of Agamemnon and the lesser Ajax.

⁷⁵ Cf. II. 9.389E: the only other woman likened to Aphrodite is Hermione (Od. 4.14), whose beauty was not without unfortunate consequences, though these are not recounted by Homer. This sort of personal comparison with Aphrodite seems virtually to disappear in lyric, but instead. we find a variety of more or less direct comparisons between human beauty and gold itself. In { place of awe–inspiring and potentially threatening comparisons with divinity, lyric substitutes a. more human scale of values, just as if gold had never been applied to Aphrodite, but was simply I the pre–eminent material of the most beautifully crafted objects. Cf. Alcman 1.51–4; 3.64–8; 5. fr. 2, col.ii; Sappho frr. 132 and 156. Although there is often a general undercurrent of eroticism in; Alcman and Sappho, it seems to me that in none of these passages does the gold owe anything, as \ it were, to Aphrodite. The same can be said of Ibycus' description of the beauty of Troilus (Ibycus i 282(a) 41–5): Theognidean elegy had made the process of refining gold, and testing it by means ) of the basanos, into a symbol for the qualities most desirable in a fellow symposiast (Thgn. 415–18 I s 1164e–h, 447–52, 1105f; cf. more generally Thgn. 77f., 499–502; Simonides PMG 541.1–5, 592; Chilon ap. D.L.I.71; Men. Mon. 385), but Ibycus elaborates the detail of the image while simplifying the thought behind it, to create a purely aesthetic comparison. These rather different erotic manifestations of gold all appear in contexts which are unrelated to the particular vulnerability exposed by seduction or the economic problems that can overshadow marriage.

⁷⁶ von Reden, S., Exchange in Ancient Greece (London, 1995), pp. 54f.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Od 22.421–3; 7.103–7; Ii24.230f; Od 5.38 and 24.276–9.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ II. 23.704f.; Od 1.429–31.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Briseis and Chryseis are the obvious examples; cf. also Nestor's Hecamede (II. 11.624–7). Chryseis' name–which, like that of her home, Chryse, is common in myth–may suggest a particular affinity with treasure, or at least beauty, but its etymological relationship to xpvoos is uncertain: cf. H. von Kamptz, Homerische Personennamen (Gottingen, 1982); more generally, RE III, 2486–94.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ The bride–price–or–dowry controversy is a false dichotomy in most Homeric cases: see I. Morris, 'The Use and Abuse of Homer', CA 5 (1986), 81–138 (pp. 105ff., with full bibliography).

⁸¹ As at II. 11.241–5 or Od. 2.194–7.Google Scholar

⁸² Even the slightly unusual process of selection by which Atalanta's husband was chosen ended up revolving around the determined virgin's inability to resist the attraction of Aphrodite's metal: see Hes. fr. 76.6–14, and also Theog. 1287–94, with H. Frankel, Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy, tr. M. Hadas (Oxford, 1975), p. 443, n. 4.Google Scholar

⁸³ An eventuality avoided by Odysseus in the case of Helen (Hes. fr. 198.2–8): rather than waste his resources in fruitless competition with the Atreidae, he sends a respectful embassy, but no gift.

⁸⁴ So e.g. in the case of Troy (II. 18.288–92; 24.380–4, 543–8).

⁸⁵ Most restrictively so in the case of Danae. The comment of Ovid is worth bearing in mind: 'si numquam Danaen habuisset aenea turris,/non esset Danae de love facta parens' (Am. 2.19.27E). For the iconography of Danae and the golden shower, see LIMC III.l, 327fF.; III.2, 243fE; Reeder (n. 2), pp. 267–76.

⁸⁶ 'L'argent, c'est comme les femmes: pour le garder, il faut s'en occuper un peu, ou alors il va faire le bonheur de quelqu'un d'autre' (Ed. Bourdet, Les Temps difficiles).

⁸⁷ See in general Pearce, T. E. V., ‘The Role of the Wife as Custos’, Eranos 72 (1974), 16–33.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Daughters too can present a problem: Scylla, Medea, Ariadne, Danae.

⁸⁹ Cypria, Argumentum Procli. Euripides (Tro. 991–7) makes much of this aspect.

⁹⁰ LIMC IV1, 515ff., 556ff.; IV.2, 303. Iconographically akin to these vases are the so–called 'purse' vases, sometimes said to depict men giving money to prostitutes–but cf. Lissarague (n. 38), p. 212f.

⁹¹ Cf. S.EI. 837 and A. Cho. 615ff. (Scylla). Vase depictions (LIMC III.l, pp. 843fF.; III.2, pp. 606fF.) show Eriphyle's necklace not as an elaborate work of craftsmanship, but as a long string of large pieces of gold, suggesting that the transaction was regarded more as a bullion bribe than as an essentially symbolic token–gift which happened to bind the recipient to oblige the giver (contra L. Gernet, The Anthropology of Ancient Greece, tr. J. Hamilton et al. [Baltimore, 1981], pp. 83ff.).

⁹² See E Od 11.520 and S E. Tro. 822 (Schwarz). Euripides builds on this pattern of fatally attractive presents when his Medea, once again assuming a male role, pre–emptively destroys Jason's new oikos by means of the golden napalmed finery she sends to Glauce (Med. 946–75, 1144–1230).

⁹³ Od 15.417–22: the circumstances are reminiscent of Hdt. 1.1–5.

⁹⁴ This necklace is very like that of the vase–painters' Eriphyle (n. 91), a n d also like the one with which Eileithyia's co–operation at the birth of Apollo is secured (h.Ap. 92–114)–a gift which promotes the male order (Apollo, Zeus' son, is born) over the obstructive feminine jealousies of Hera, showing that Olympus can reverse human patterns, as well as following them.

⁹⁵ Foucault, pp. 146f.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Melantho, who is sleeping with one of the ringleaders, Eurymachus, is the most glaring example, and she correspondingly behaves worst to the disguised Odysseus (18.321ff., 19.65ff.). With her and those like her there is no more question of mercy than there is with the suitors themselves (22.465ff.).

⁹⁷ This is made clear at an early stage in the poem: Od 2.337–47.

⁹⁸ 'The worth of twenty oxen': the woman mentioned at II. 23.704f. is highly skilled, yet only worth four oxen. The difference in value is an index of the importance attached to the housekeeper's trustworthiness.

⁹⁹ The woman more frequently called ra^ui; is Eurynome, an unimportant figure who has been called a double of Eurycleia (e.g. Od. 17.495ff., 20.4).

¹⁰⁰ Xen. Oec. 9.1.11: 'one who showed most restraint in the matters of eating, drinking, sleeping and relations with men'.

¹⁰¹ The wife's duties of preserving her own chastity and the contents of her husband's house are neatly (and disingenuously) combined by Clytemnestra at A.Ag. 606–10. Cf. Pearce (n. 87), pp. 30–2.

¹⁰² Foucault, pp. 163ff.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ This manipulation by a goddess of intangible qualities of attractiveness (Od 18.188–96), parallel to Athene's beautifications of Odysseus (Od 6.229ff.; 23.156ff.) recalls some of the divine dressing scenes discussed above, particularly Hera's preparations in II. 14: cf. N. Forsyth, 'The Allurement Scene in Greek Oral Epic', CSCA 12 (1979), 107–20.

¹⁰⁴ It may be hard to believe that so many years have passed without even suitors as boorish as these producing a single gift, but the absurdity is no greater than Priam's apparent failure to recognize Agamemnon at II. 3.166–70.

¹⁰⁵ Cf. S. L. Schein, 'Female Representations and Interpreting the Odyssey', in Cohen (n. 106), pp. 17–27, p. 24: 'Why should we accept Odysseus' reading of the situation, which obviously is self–serving?'

¹⁰⁶ References to the older approach can be found in Russo's commentary. Examples of the current boom in Penelope studies include: M. A. Katz, Penelope's Renown (Princeton, 1991); N. Felson–Rubin, Regarding Penelope (Princeton, 1994); and many of the papers in B. Cohen (ed.), The Distaff Side (Oxford, 1995). For an overview, see in particular Katz, pp. 78–93.

¹⁰⁷ Felson–Rubin (n. 106), p. 29Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Zeitlin, F. I., ‘Figuring Fidelity in Homer's Odyssey’, in Cohen (n. 106), pp. 117–52,141.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Murnaghan, S., ‘The Plan of Athena’, in Cohen (n. 106), pp. 61–80.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Foley, H. P., ‘Penelope as Moral Agent’, in Cohen (n. 106), pp. 93–115, 102.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Cf. Buxton, R. G. A., Imaginary Greece (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 127f.Google Scholar

¹¹² Cf. Zeitlin, p. 55.Google Scholar