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“On the meaning of being a woman and a philosopher in the Graeco-roman world.”
Konstantinos Mantas mantaskostas@gmail.com

ELECTRYONE 

2022
Volume 8, Issue 2

 | pp.

48-60

Abstract:

This paper will focus on women as philosophers in the Graeco-roman world: its time span will be extended , roughly, from the 6th c BC to the end of the 4th c AD. This rather elongated time span is due to the scarcity of the sources: Although there is a significant progress on the subject of the role of ancient Greek and Roman women in religion, economy and –even-politics, this is due to the bulk of information which can be gathered from- both - inscriptions and papyri. We cannot be so lucky on the subject of women ‘s share in intellectual life. The surviving material written by women is flimsy and fragmented: we know the names of some female poets and some fragments of their poems, but what about female philosophers? Of course, there is a list which –according to Richard Hauley –records the names of sixtythree women philosophers of antiquity. The problem with that list is: were these women genuine philosophers or they were simply ciphers or heroines of anecdotes? In other words, did those women produce philosophical work? This seems to be a moot point in the historical research: For most of them, we cannot be sure about anything else except their name and some short story, usually in connection with a male philosopher and of anecdotal character. There were some female students in various schools of philosophical thought, starting from the Pythagorean ones, through Plato’s academia to the various epicurean “gardens”. Some women, even taught, though this is a rather rare phenomenon. But the only philosophical works which survives under a woman’s Konstantinos Mantas ELECTRYONE (2022) Vol.8, Iss. 2, 48-60 http://www.electryone.gr-ISSN: 2241-4061 49 name consists of a few epistles by Pythagorean women sent to other women who sought their advice. These epistles present problems to the researcher: Some deny that they could have been written by women, thus considering them as having been written by men using female pseudonyms. This is an argument colored by sexist prejudice: if we accept that, we should deny all female authorship in antiquity. Of course, women philosophers can be connected to female mathematicians : in antiquity, a philosopher had had to be well-versed in mathematics and there are references to female mathematicians from the mythological era(Aethra, the mother of Theseus) up to late antiquity(Hypatia). Also, some women in postclassical Alexandria were alchemists and theurgoi. This is another aspect of female spirituality : it seems that it was easier for women to participate in philosophical work of a metaphysical nature(close to witchcraft). The story of Sosipatra(4th c AD), as it has been recorded by Eunapius in his Lives of the sophists is simila to fairy tales and apocryphal texts. Another important aspect of the history of women philosophers is that they were closely linked to a male philosopher: usually , as his wife or daughter(Theano, Hipparchia, , Sosipatra, Hypatia).Like most of women doctors, female philosophers seem to have profited due to this kind of nepotism which was prevalent in antiquity. So, the fact that women, even, when they taught philosophy seem to have done so in their home, needs not to surprise us. In the Hellenistic and Roman era, women could act in various civic roles , as benefactors and titular office –holders but only as members of local aristocratic dynasties and in a “privatized’ civic system of rule. Last but not least: who should we call a philosopher in antiquity? The epigraphical material shows, that most of the inscriptions engraved on tombs, honouring women as philosophers, imply that the deceased were honored as educated women- not as creators of genuine philosophical works. The same seems to apply to the empress Julia Doman, wife of the emperor Septimius Severus-she was given the honorific title of philosophos, but she did not write anything. Her contribution to philosophy is limited to the foundation of a philosophical salon and to her commission of the writing of the biography of the legendary sophist and magician Apollonius of Tyana.
“THE FEMALE BODY AS A MEANS OF EXPRESSION OF THE RELATION
BETWEEN THE TWO SEXES IN ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDY”
Maria Christina Zikoudi zikoudimx@gmail.com

ELECTRYONE 

2022
Volume 8, Issue 2

 | pp.

32-47

Abstract:

This article examines the physicality of the female characters in the tragedies of Medea, Hecuba, Andromache and Trojan Women by Euripides. Using the theories of performativity by Judith Butler as a key, the research seeks to explore how female physical behavior on stage could resonate elements about their performativity of gender in the Athenian society of the fifth century. Through a recording of references on the female body and after drawing parallels with the according speeches of the characters, a very fierce potential of disavowing the Athenian societal norms arises for the tragic heroines. The female figures manage to accept and utilize the social prescriptions in their favor in order to achieve some control over their lives. In this way, they meticulously employ their consciousness and they transform their passive adherence to males into a powerful abnegating means of manipulating them. Their abnegation patterns fall into eight categories for the purposes of organizing the way females produce their physicality and perform their gender. These patterns are submission, acceptance, supplication, subversion, indulgence, death, imprisonment and reproductive power.
THE KEROS “DOVE VASE”
IS AN EIGHT-YEAR LUNISOLAR CALENDAR
Alexios Pliakos pliakosalexios@gmail.com

ELECTRYONE 

2022
Volume 8, Issue 2

 | pp.

16-31

Abstract:

: It is widely accepted that all civilizations have used a calendar. To the question: “Did the Aegean, the Minoan and the Mycenean Civilization use a calendar?” the answer is yes. So, have any of those calendars survived and been examined scientifically, and, if so, what kind of calendars are they?" Presumably, most calendars were created on perishable material and thus did not survive. But there are also imperishable materials such as ceramics and stone which were used for the recording of the passage of time. Surviving Megalithic constructions such as Avebury, Newgrange, Stonehenge and others may have functioned partly as calendars. In this paper, after a short discussion on the different types of calendars used in prehistoric times, a unique Aegean lunisolar calendar carved on a block of Aegean marble (dated 2750-2300 BCE) is examined and decoded. This unusual artifact was found in 1964 on the Aegean Island of Keros by the archaeologist Chr. Dumas (1968), who named it “The Dove Vase”. This unusual artifact was found in 1964 on the Aegean Island of Keros by the archaeologist Chr. Dumas (1968), who named it
Platos’s microcosm and macrocosm – inspired by Hesiod?*
Andrej Kalaš andrej.kalas@uniba.sk
Zuzana Zelinová** zelinova9@uniba.sk

ELECTRYONE 

2022
Volume 8, Issue 2

 | pp.

1-15

Abstract:

The main aim of the study is to identify the Hesiodian motifs in Plato’s philosophy. Thus the study is founded on the assumption that myth (the poetic tradition) and logos (the philosophical tradition) do not represent two distinct paradigms in ancient Greek thought, but more a kind of thought continuity. We will look for these motives or analogies at the level of organisation of the world (kosmos) and at the level of organisation of society (polis). We will deal primarily with Plato’s dialogues Timaeus, Republic and Symposium. The goal of the submitted study is to answer the question of whether and to what extent did Hesiod’s work influence Plato’s ideas about the organisation of the world and society as such.
Homer and the East on Aegean Crossroads: History,
Archaeology, Mythology
Anna Ramou – Chapsiadi Reviewed by: † Anna Ramou – Chapsiadi Translated by: Marianna Nikolaou m.nikolaou@aegean.gr

ELECTRYONE 

2021
Volume 8, Issue 1

 | pp.

28-31

Abstract:

Dio Chrysostom’s Euboicus as a rejection of Greco-Roman urban
civilization1
Ioannis Papadopoulos ioannispapadopoulos1987@gmail.com

ELECTRYONE 

2021
Volume 8, Issue 1

 | pp.

19-27

Abstract:

Dio Chrysostom’s Euboicus presents a unique case-study of a divergent voice that disrupts the rather smooth discourse of the urban dimensions of the Second Sophistic. The author, having experienced a rather turbulent period of life, during Domitian’s reign and observed alternative ways of life, unfamiliar with the Greek and Roman examples, produced a manifesto of a new view of social living. The ideas and examples presented in the aforementioned work rather reject some of the fundamental social principles of urban living during Classical Antiquity. The extent that Dio was a visionary of social change or a plain reactionary as a result of his personal calamities remains unclear. However, his treatise, describing a remote community in mountainous Euboea, consists not only of a call to a retreat to a more natural and ‘primitivistic’ way of life, but also includes a sharp criticism of the dominant problems of a Greek city during the imperial era. Through his reflection on such issues, Dio, appeared to have reached the fringes of civil disobedience, inspired by cultural otherness and the resistance to the monolithic Greek and Roman social norms.
‘The Funeral of Sarpedon’ by Constantine P. Cavafy
and Kyriakos Charalambidis: convergences - divergences / similarities –
differences
Louiza Christodoulidou xristod@aegean.gr

ELECTRYONE 

2021
Volume 8, Issue 1

 | pp.

8-18

Abstract:

Our presentation will be structured, mainly, around three axes. At a first level, our interest is focused on the artistic representations of the archaic angiographies that were the reason for the composition of the two poems, the targeting, the connotations and their consequent role. At a second level we will highlight the poetic function of the "Funeral of Sarpedon" by Konstantinos Cavafy and Kyriakos Charalambidis, as well as the convergencesdiscrepancies between them. At a third level, we will detect the contexts, since the conceptualbridges that direct us in an intertextual walk towards the corresponding contexts of the Iliad are scattered, but also in any differences or upheavals that highlight the ideological meanings of each poem.
Euripides’ Ion l.528: an example of comic self-consciousness*
Vasileios Dimoglidis dimoglvs@mail.uc.edu

ELECTRYONE 

2021
Volume 8, Issue 1

 | pp.

1-7

Abstract:

Euripides’ Ion is a play with elements that challenge tragic gravity, and bring about a lighter tone. Although the body of criticism that discusses the comic elements of Euripides’ tragedies (esp. the so-called tragic–comedies) is extensive, little attention has been given to cases of comic self-consciousness. The aim of this paper is to examine Ion’s l.528, and more concretely Ion’s utterance ...ταῦτ᾽ οὖν οὐ γέλως κλύειν ἐμοί;, as an example of comic selfawareness, that is, an instance that Euripides himself recognizes, in a metatheatrical way, as comic, while commenting at the same time on its reception on the audience’s part.
Bodies that matter; Re- (ad)dressing the canon in Euripides’ the bacchae
Marietta Kosma marietta.kosma@ell.ox.ac.uk

ELECTRYONE 

2021
Volume 7, Issue 2

 | pp.

50-66

Abstract:

A queer reading of Euripides’ the Baccahe, a tragedy of the fifth century BC. This paper addresses the ways in which female bodies escape the confines of their oikos, of the polis, of reproductive futurism and ultimately of an essentialized identity, while attaining an alternative identification. Narratives of violence, commodification and objectification of the body are exposed through the dialectic of the gaze. The notion of performativity of the body comes to the forefront as it is directly connected to the exposition of a queer identity. The definitional boundaries of the body are explored through queer studies, feminism, psychoanalysis and phenomenology. The possibility for same-sex desire emerges, exposing the complexity of female sexuality. The transformation of Agave to a radical subject through subversive acts of agency is revealed. This paper signals at the creation of a space for the recognition of queer kinship challenging reproductive futurism. I propose a number of avenues for further research, particularly in developing linkages between the various strands of the sparagmos and queer futurity.
“Portraits” of bifaces. Surficial findings from the palaeolithic tool-making workshops of nea artaki (Euboea, Greece)
Evi Sarantea evi.sarantea@hotmail.com

ELECTRYONE 

2021
Volume 7, Issue 2

 | pp.

21-49

Abstract:

Along the widespread flint rocks of Nea Artaki, Euboea (Evia), in the years 1977-1978 I detected open sites with rock processing residues for the construction of Palaeolithic tools, whereas evidence of settlements with thousands of tools were found in the coastal area. Nea Artaki used to be a major attracting pole for hunters and nomads, mainly for the construction of stone tools, from the Lower Palaeolithic to Chalcolithic period. The area has been declared an archeological site since 1985, but its prehistoric site was largely destroyed after the settlement expanded over the few years. Amongst the numerous stone tools I saved, a diversity of handaxes, cleavers, clactonian flakes etc. presented herein, are in consistency with the standards of the Lower Palaeolithic period. The scarcity of Palaeolithic quarry sites in Greece, the density, the number, the variety of artifacts from different periods, their extent on the ground surface, as well as the specificity of the composition of the locally available flints – which are being eliminated following their use as building materials at present – shall indicate the urgency for the effective protection of communal sites and one of the most significant open palaeolithic sites in Greece.