The Old Women of Ancient Greece and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Scholarship of the last decade or so on old women in ancient Greece has sketched a bleak picture.¹ Bremmer's influential account is the bluntest and most unremittingly negative: "Women existed in order to serve the males, whether for sexual pleasure or for the higher interest of producing an heir. An old woman resembled an object that has passed its usefulness and could now be discarded" (Bremmer 203). He goes on to say, "in ancient Greece old women constituted a marginal category, which was loathed and feared by the males" (Bremmer 204). But even Falkner, who offers a more complex picture and a nuanced reading of the literary evidence available, accepts the generally negative image detailed by Bremmer as the cultural norm, speaking of "the predicament of the aged and aging women in Greece" and of "the negative and detrimental effects of age on her identity in the terms in which her culture defines it: maternal, domestic, sexual, and erotic" (Falkner 75, see also 190-92).

In these discussions, Demeter's disguise as an old woman in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter has figured repeatedly in connection with the claim that old women had greater independence of movement than young women, an independence these scholars attribute to their worthlessness as sexual and reproductive commodities. As Garland puts it, "Since women past menopause are no longer capable of supplying heirs, there was not the same need to ensure their protection as when they were of childbearing years."² According to these scholars, what to us might seem one of the chief advantages of aging for women in ancient Greece-greater freedom of movement-actually results from lack of concern for their protection. Curiously, however, none of the scholars who cite the Hymn in this connection discusses the reaction of the Eleusinian maiden, Callithoe, to the old woman's solitude nor the goddess' lying explanation of the circumstances surrounding it. Neither speaker regards the solitary wandering of Demeter as normal behavior for old women; in fact, both treat it as unusual and inappropriate. Thus, its use by scholars to the contrary, evidence from the Hymn tends to weaken, rather than to strengthen, the case for old women's freedom of movement.

Moreover, both these passages and a number of others in the Hymn place a much more positive value on postmenopausal women than Bremmer's characterization of Greek social attitudes would lead us to expect. At first sight, this may not seem surprising to those familiar with the Hymn and scholarship surrounding it, for the Hymn has often been seen as offering an unusual perspective on ancient women. Moreover, the old woman of the Hymn is a disguised goddess, which may very well demand that she be treated with greater respect than mortal old women. Nonetheless, closer analysis of the discrepancy has important consequences for our perception of old women in ancient Greece and may incidentally affect our understanding of the Hymn. Above all, it reveals that the picture of old women in ancient Greece sketched by Bremmer and uncritically cited by other scholars as the norm is far too simple: that greater attention to the context of individual pieces of evidence and to such basic distinctions as class yields a far more complex picture. In particular, I will argue that the oft-repeated claim that postmenopausal women had significantly greater freedom of movement is very hard to substantiate, that old women were frequently given certain social functions that do not permit their being easily dismissed as no longer useful, and that there is a much broader range of emotional reactions to old women than Bremmer's "fear and loathing" characterization suggests. This is not to deny that negative stereotypes associated with old women are abundant in ancient Greece and that growing old was no doubt often difficult, particularly for women who were poor, sick, or alone. But that all women, regardless of their previous social status, experienced a significant drop in social value after menopause is not credible and is not supported by the evidence.

I will first look at...