Julie Nilsen

2-28-02

Classics 114

Neaera was an interesting woman. She was born into sexual slavery, changed owners a few time, and eventually gained her freedom. Because she was a prostitute, Athenian society gave her a fair amount of social mobility. With this mobility she was able to meet men and accompany her lovers to any place they wished. She was eventually given the opportunity to buy her freedom. This, in turn, allowed her to leave men when she felt she was being mistreated (one case in which she did this is shown in Cathleen Freeman’s translations of Athenian Legal Cases, pg. 201). However, this social mobility and the ability she had to make her own choices do not necessarily imply that Neaera had power.

Citizen Greek women were not given much power, although they did have avenues, but they were few and sometimes extreme. These women, however, were still citizens and did have more security in their lives but received it at the price of power and social mobility. Non-citizen women did not have this same security, but they did have social mobility. Neaera is in this non-citizen class of women that gained mobility but lacked security. Thus, to say she is a woman that gained power through her freedom of movement is to say that, had women wanted power in Athens, they should all have become prostitutes or slaves.

Neaera does "meet life equally on her own terms," but this is not by choice. She has the sense to see when a particular situation will better her life, and through this is able to buy her freedom and enter into a more stable life with Stephanus (pgs 191-266) However, she is never given the choice to live a different life, one with more stability and safety, such as the life of a citizen woman. Had she been given the option to become a citizen, one would easily agree that she would have taken it, for she was attempting to mimic this kind of life by living with a citizen man as his wife and declaring her children citizens when her trial came before the court of Athens.

Neaera had some power. Otherwise she would not have been able to better her life. However, this power was not gained because she was allowed to walk about the polis as she chose or because she mocked Athens’s laws by proclaiming her children citizens. Although current day society prizes social mobility and holds some power to it, a woman having social mobility in Athens was a sign of her lower class status, so this cannot be considered a source of power for women in Ancient Greece. The fact that she ignored the laws was due to motherly instinct to better the lives of her children. The issue of her leaving abusive lovers is a case of survival; why would anyone stay with someone that abused them if they had the ability to leave? Neaera is of a certain class status, she survives all her trials and attempts to better her children’s lives, but this does not imply power. What implies power in her life is her ability to better her living conditions by taking advantage of certain opportunities.