| dc.description.abstract | In the following thesis I will attempt to research the Spartan women during the classical period in ancient Greece. What do we know about them, can we say for certain that we know anything about them at all, and how should we go about researching them as a subject? The period this thesis is centred around is the classical era in ancient Sparta, from ca. 500 BC to the fall of Sparta at the battle of Leuctra in 371. The classical era does not end until around 335 BC, but for the sake of this thesis, I will not investigate further beyond the battle at Leuctra. I will try to answer these questions by trying to construct a picture of a Spartan woman’s life from birth to death. The benefits of following a lifespan-structure is that we get an opportunity to look at many different aspects of Spartan women’s lives. The challenge, on the other hand, is that certain aspects of their lives will overlap. For example, the subjects of women and sport, and women’s public speaking will be some that ranges throughout almost their entire lives, because they present such important aspects of Spartan values in general. To research the aspects of a Spartan woman’s life I have decided to focus on sources written by Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle and Plutarch. I have decided on these as they provide some of the most thorough sources on Spartan women from the classical periods, and due to the lack of written sources from Sparta. There are, however, some issues we shall need to address about these sources, which cannot be overlooked. Firstly, all these authors have non-spartan backgrounds. Secondly, none of them are women, and cannot provide a female view. We will thus not have the opportunity of learning what it was like being a Spartan woman in the classical period from a first-hand perspective, but rather we shall need to view them through a male gaze. By looking at a Spartan woman’s life from start to end, we will have the opportunity of investigating many different aspects of their lives, and get a general idea of their uniqueness compared to other Greek women. The most important outtakes from this thesis will be that it is imperative that we investigate the Spartan women in different groups, instead of as a whole group. Spartan women were different from other Greek women in certain aspects, but were perhaps not so different as we might think. They received an education, were encouraged to speak in public, and even had the right to own land. However, their primary function in the | en_US |
