Family and Polis in Athenian Funerary Monuments

Kathryn L. Seidl Steed (University of Michigan)

In the study of gender roles in classical Athens, an emphasis on the ideal exclusion of women and children from public life has led to a forced dichotomy between an exclusively male public world and a private sphere that must, by contrast, be reserved for women and family.  Men come to exist almost exclusively in the ideally masculine public sphere, and it is there that all their energy and emotions are invested (for example, Pomeroy: Goddesses, Whores…1975, continued through Wohl, Love Among the Ruins, 2002, in discussion of the epitaphios).  A different perspective, however, can be gained from fourth century Athenian grave reliefs; as private memorials erected in a public space, these monuments of are not only tokens of personal affection but also highly visible symbols of Athenian ideology, and they emphasize the unity and importance of the family rather than divisions between the sexes.  Men are present in force in family scenes, and they are shown far more often with women and children than in exclusively male groupings.  Of the almost 1,900 reliefs on which two or three adults appear, only some 300 depict men exclusively.  Women are only slightly more likely than men to be depicted with children, and where children are present, there is no appreciable difference in the ways men and women interact with them. 

Instead of existing in a purely masculine and public sphere, men are represented as full participants in family life.  Although the reliefs naturally depict the different roles men and women played in the polis, images of both sexes represent the strength and coherence of the Athenian family.  The central importance of proper family life to the life of the city is clear, and it is implied that a man cannot be a good participant in public life if he is not also a responsible and affectionate family member.  Fourth century literary sources complement the picture of family harmony that emerges from the grave monuments.  Rectitude in family life appears to have been a constant theme of public discourse, from a man’s dokimasia to his efforts to claim an inheritance or discredit rivals in court.  Aristotle’s list of dokimasia questions is heavily weighted towards issues of private life, and in his attack on Timarchus, Aeschines uses the authority of Solon to state overtly that a man whose private life is not in order and who abuses his kinsmen can bring nothing but harm to the city (Against Timarchus, 28).  In literature, as in funerary reliefs, men are not absent from the world of family and children but instead bring the values of family with them into the realm of civic life.