In this paper, Giordano investigates women and religion in Ancient Greece by examining curses, supplications, and prayers. She draws on epic and tragedy as “pivotal literary genres in the ideological discourse of the Greek polis” (729). Giordano argues that female religious practice is confined by men to the private sphere.
Giordano sees religion as a social institution and an inextricable part of Greek civic life. Discourses like religion, manhood, and femininity are necessarily “performed in the public space” (730). Giordano notes that Homer describes being a man as being “both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds” (Iliad 9. 441). But women were barred from the public space and denied siderophorein and so could partake in neither aspect of manhood. Similarly, in Ancient Greek religion only men were allowed the “central acts of Greek cult: the deed of sacrifice and the word of prayer” (731).
Nevertheless, Giordano acknowledges that women “played quite a central role in the religious sphere” (731). But, she argues, these roles were severely restricted. Drawing on the work of JL Austin, Giordano examines the curse (ara) as a performative utterance. She notes that the religious power of curses is endowed by their public performance. She illustrates this by giving examples from the Iliad and the Odyssey of women cursing their sons by calling down the furies (Althaia and Meleager and Penelope and Telemachus, respectively). Thus, cursing is a power available even to those who are defenseless because of their “peculiar juridical status” (734). A similar power lies in funerary laments for those who have died unjustly. Taking the example of Electra’s prayer after Agamemnon’s murder by Clytemnestra, Giordano indicates that the performative power of cursing makes it “an agent of Dike” (735).
Next, Giordano analyzes Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes as a means to “reconstruct some perceptions and features of Athenian attitudes towards the gods” (735). Giordano traces the opposition of male and female elements in the tragedy. For example, Eteocles’ prayer for salvation is characterized by a kind of bargaining, while the Chorus of Theban women assumes a more supplicatory tone. Indeed, the Chorus “relies totally on the gods’ power” (737) to save them. Giordano shows that this is representative of the wider passive, supplicative role of women.
In sum, Giordano’s analysis of Seven Against Thebes convincingly demonstrates a fundamental opposition between the dominant, reciprocal, male prayer and the subservient, supplicative, female ritual actions. Giordano connects this to the broader challenge that women’s uncontrolled speech in the public sphere poses to male dominance. However, it seems that Giordano’s analysis has little nuance and relies too heavily on literary evidence, which was after all created by men. I would be interested to know, for example, what material culture might be able to demonstrate about women’s supposed passivity in Ancient Greek religion. A good example of this alternative viewpoint is evident in the following article: Nevett, Lisa. 2011. “Towards a Female Topography of the Ancient Greek City: Case Studies from Late Archaic and Early Classical Athens (c.520-400 BCE).” Gender and History 23 (3): 576–596.