Presenter(s): Alexis Garcia—Art History and Cultural Anthropology
Session 4: Cultural Considerations—The Other
The Grave Stele of Hegeso (400 BCE) depicts a ‘mistress and maid’ scene and preserves a valuable insight into elite iconography and exploring the experience of wealthy Athenian women in their social roles and domestic spaces . The slave attendant, if discussed at length, primarily functions for academia as a method of contrast and comparison to her elite master . While this is a valuable interpretation for studies of gender and class in fifth century Athens, more can be done in regard to examining the slave attendant on the stele, and as a byproduct, examining slave figures in all Greek art . Slaves made up a sizeable portion of fifth century Athenian society, and were present in both elite and poor households . However, due to a lack of material and literary evidence, the field of classics has not engaged with exploring the concept of Greek slavery to its full extent . In addition, what little does remain to modern scholars was commissioned or written by elite voices, who were biased against slaves . This paper explores potential reconstructions for slave perspectives and narratives on the Grave Stele of Hegeso by drawing upon the trope of the Good Slave and Bad Slave in Athenian theater and Homeric epic . This paper also discusses the relationships between masters and slaves, household slave dynamics, and what constitutes the idealized Athenian slave .