Etruscan Women Vs Greek Women

Two cultures with very opposing views regarding the roles and portrayal of women are the Etruscans and the Greeks, specifically the Athenians. It is difficult to discern what is true about the Etruscans, because many of the ancient sources about them are from the Greeks, who had a very biased view of Etruscan life. However, we can use this apparent bias to show how the Greeks thought women should behave. The Etruscan culture dominated west-central Italy throughout the archaic period. They often made contact with Greeks via trade with Greek colonies in Italy. Many of the artistic representations left behind by the Etruscans are sarcophagi, seen in Women in the Classical World, chapter 8. These sarcophagi are often sculpted to portray …show more content…
An example from Livy is the story of the Etruscan King Tullius, whose corpse was repeatedly run over by his daughter’s chariot, suggesting that Etruscan women are savages. They were thought to sleep around and often be naked, simply because they had similar social freedoms as men. This idea of adultery being the norm, was expanded to the Etruscans raising children communally, because there was no way of knowing who a child’s father was. In general, the Greek depiction of the Etruscans does not have much archeological basis, but it is reasonable to see how the Greeks reached these conclusions from their point of …show more content…
There were two classes of women in the sex trade: the Pornai were lower class, concubines and the Hetairai were somewhat higher class, mistresses. It is difficult to distinguish between the two classes, as they can change. Other than sex work women were able to participate in public life through religious activities, considered to be a civic duty. An example of a religious group, somewhat contradictory to the expectations of an Athenian housewife, were the devotees of Dionysus, whose worship involved altered states of consciousness, to produce a religious experience. Overall, Athenian women were mostly expected to stay indoors, and avoid contact with the outside world, unless their civic duty required them to. The Etruscan culture was progressive, compared to conservative Greek and Athenian culture in the treatment of women. The Greeks expressed their views on women’s behavior in their textual records of both themselves and the Etruscans. The Etruscans and Greeks may have existed in overlapping time periods, but held completely different cultural values regarding