The Mirror of Antiquity: American Women and the Classical Tradition, 1750–1900 (review)

The impact of Greco-Roman antiquity on the lives and minds of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American women is the politically highly correct theme of a book by an assistant professor of history at Stanford University. There are chapters devoted to the female world of classicism in eighteenth-century America, the rise of the Roman matron 1770–90, daughters of Columbia (whatever precisely that means) 1780–1800, Grecian luxury 1800–30, classics in girls’ schools and colleges 1790–1850, the Greek slave 1830–65, and Antigone reception during the period 1850–1900. One certainly learns from this book, but it must be read with care. Unburdened by knowledge of Greek, Latin, or German, Winterer considers the accusative plural of lex to be legos (57) and we have “ad locutio” (53) and “Caeasar’s Gallic War” (202). For gynaikonaitis (43) read gynaikonitis (Lys., 1.9). My favorite is her equating of Lucretius with Lucretia (215 n. 19): “Upon espying Lucretius, however, Sextus Tarquinius is inflamed by lust for her.” One does wonder. A feminine abstract, pietas, is called “Roman Charity” and presented as one of the “women of classical antiquity” who “in ancient Rome” breast-feeds her imprisoned father (79). “The emperor . . . showers the daughter with honors.” Glance at ValMax 5.4. ext.1. This source is nowhere cited correctly. The tale of Pero and Myco in fact is Greek, does not take place in Rome, and has nothing to do with any emperor. One cannot trust the author’s use of evidence she does not control.

Winterer seeks to prove the unexpected thesis that “women, no less than men, were responsible for America’s spectacular resurrection of classical antiquity during the period of national formation” (2). This in a word is nonsense. She adduces a handful of wealthy East Coast wives who were painted to look like Roman matrons, who occasionally invoked the fighting women of Sparta and the goddess Venus, who bought expensive Wedgwood for their homes, and who began in the 1790’s to found girls’ schools and colleges regularly with classical curricula similar to boys’. All this is true but restricted to a tiny elite, rather than indicative of American women in general.

Looking to document the hobbies of this small group, one finds interesting exceptions to mass ignorance and enjoys many delightful illustrations, which I hope will be used to brighten up Classical-Civilization lectures. But “women become fully classicized” (202) misleads, and that things culminate in “the new colossus” (10, 206), sc. The Statue of Liberty, must remain sub iudice. Documentation is not reader friendly. Notes are banished to the back of the book and to decrease their number she piles numerous references into one note in a way that makes precise documentation elusive. She avoids citing ancient sources precisely. The Lucretia “story is from Livy” (215 n.19), without precise annotation.

A last chapter, “Antigone and the Twilight of Female Classicism, 1850–1900,” documents a perversion of historical meaning through reception, often through naïve revivals. An ignorant troublemaker who ruins her well intentioned king and uncle becomes a Jesus-figure “exquisitely tender and feminine” (195), “pure in beauty and innocent in her affections” (197), “so perfect—so virginal and so martyred . . . the purest expression of Christian devotion to God” (197). Sophocles’ protagonist, Kreon, is “full of pride and passion, self-willed, stern, savage, purely selfish, haughty, and annoyed” (198); but see my Theatrokratia (Hildesheim 2005) 73–96.

In sum, Winterer certainly does not prove her thesis that women did as much as men to revive the classical tradition in early America, although along the way she has collected a number of forgotten examples that invite speculation and may with profit be used in other contexts by amused readers. She avoids unwelcome matters. The popularity of naked Greek women (e.g., 160, 166) provided an approved way to expose pornography in a Christian...