Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Kolossourgia. ‘A colossal statue of a work’
- 2 Reflections of philosophy: Strabo and geographical sources
- 3 Who is a barbarian? The barbarians in the ethnological and cultural taxonomies of Strabo
- 4 Gender at the crossroads of empire: locating women in Strabo's Geography
- 5 Strabo and Homer: a chapter in cultural history
- 6 Strabo's use of poetry
- 7 Strabo's sources in the light of a tale
- 8 The foundation of Greek colonies and their main features in Strabo: a portrayal lacking homogeneity?
- 9 Ανδρες ἔνδοξοι or ‘men of high reputation’ in Strabo's Geography
- 10 Comparing Strabo with Pausanias: Greece in context vs. Greece in depth
- 11 The European provinces: Strabo as evidence
- 12 Amasya and Strabo's patria in Pontus
- 13 Cappadocia through Strabo's eyes
- 14 Greek geography and Roman empire: the transformation of tradition in Strabo's Euxine
- 15 Josephus' hidden dialogue with Strabo
- 16 Temporal layers within Strabo's description of Coele Syria, Phoenicia and Judaea
- Bibliography
- Index of geographical names
- Index of personal names
4 - Gender at the crossroads of empire: locating women in Strabo's Geography
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- List of figures
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Kolossourgia. ‘A colossal statue of a work’
- 2 Reflections of philosophy: Strabo and geographical sources
- 3 Who is a barbarian? The barbarians in the ethnological and cultural taxonomies of Strabo
- 4 Gender at the crossroads of empire: locating women in Strabo's Geography
- 5 Strabo and Homer: a chapter in cultural history
- 6 Strabo's use of poetry
- 7 Strabo's sources in the light of a tale
- 8 The foundation of Greek colonies and their main features in Strabo: a portrayal lacking homogeneity?
- 9 Ανδρες ἔνδοξοι or ‘men of high reputation’ in Strabo's Geography
- 10 Comparing Strabo with Pausanias: Greece in context vs. Greece in depth
- 11 The European provinces: Strabo as evidence
- 12 Amasya and Strabo's patria in Pontus
- 13 Cappadocia through Strabo's eyes
- 14 Greek geography and Roman empire: the transformation of tradition in Strabo's Euxine
- 15 Josephus' hidden dialogue with Strabo
- 16 Temporal layers within Strabo's description of Coele Syria, Phoenicia and Judaea
- Bibliography
- Index of geographical names
- Index of personal names
Summary
This project began as an attempt to outline the role of women in Strabo's Geography; or, to speak more geographically, it began with a desire to determine the place women occupy in Strabo's account of the world. Given that women (with a few notable exceptions) remain relatively muted in Strabo's overall landscape, the topic initially seemed a straightforward one. Yet in working systematically through the Geography it soon becomes evident that Strabo's attitudes toward gender and sexual difference are both more complicated and, at times, more contradictory than perhaps anticipated. If we demand from the text a consistent and coherent set of values and associations that frame the representation of women, we might be frustrated when, for example, Strabo categorically condemns the rule of women as contrary to civilised practice in one part of his work (3.4.18), while in another part he describes the reign of queen Pythodoris in notably positive terms (12.3.29).
Given the presence of such seeming contradictions in Strabo's lengthy text, my reading seeks not to determine what women meant categorically to Strabo (an impossible project), but to identify the numerous narrative frameworks that intersect in the Geography, frameworks that bring to Strabo's text divergent methods for conceptualising and representing women and sexual difference. My interrogation of sexual difference in Strabo is thus driven by an attempt to explore how women are employed in his text and with reference to what discursive and ideological systems.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Strabo's Cultural GeographyThe Making of a Kolossourgia, pp. 56 - 72Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005