Troy and Women from Hollywood's Perspective

The movie "Troy" is now 30 minutes into playing out on AMC. Well done movie.

I'm also enjoying Brad Pitt in his portrayal of Achilles. He's a haughty, prideful, resentful young man who bears no loyalty to anyone except, perhaps, to his mother. I like his representation in this movie because he breaks from the static, predictable character acting of all his other movies I've seen since "Thelma and Louise."

Also interesting in this story is finally being able to see all the Greek characters I've read about in mythology and history taking their respective places in time juxtaposed to one another. Things finally come together. Relationships are made clear. I'll probably take the next 1.5 hrs to watch this story play out so that I can see how the history goes with all the parts and pieces put together instead of a bit here and a bit there. These are not people who were scattered across time, mere puppets acting out some mindless tasks. These were people full of feelings, cares, fears, needs for respect and association. They had desires to attain great things in many ways.

One thing I'm finding fascinating in this representation, however, is that Pitt seems to be telling us that Achilles was gay. Of course the Encyclopedia Britannica Junior was going to contain a very sanitized version of his life. But nothing else provided that perspective. It appears one of his lovers was his "cousin" (whose name I didn't catch) but as the story progresses, that concept is downplayed in deference to his finding Briseis and ultimately developing care for her.

From a historical analysis I saw many years ago on a PBS program, there was a discussion of Greek moralities and customs. Because so much emphasis was placed on family and the sanctity of the union, the virginity of the bride, men were allowed homosexual relationships until they were ready to wed. Once married, homosexual relationships were forbidden and the marriage bed was protected from desecration. So also were the young women protected from premature awareness and childbirth too early for the development and successful delivery of healthy offspring. Dalliances were discouraged.

I'm also finding the portrayal of the women and their roles in the household (even if it is the court) is fascinating. There seems to be a lot of liberty and freedom in many ways. Whereas, the knowledge I've been given before seeing this is that women were still subservient but not as much as other civilizations. There's no representation of how women played a role in political strategy and decision making. But then, women were the minor characters in this story. This was a story about how one woman caused a war and the focus was on carrying out the war.

Still, this story says women played a very minor role in life and governing. Why have women been treated as mere public eye candy and baby bearers? They are so essential is bringing about developing our cultures, telling the stories, being in partnership with the work and essential in planning. Yet, here again, they are shown as being the minor characters and mere tools in carrying out the larger scheme of life.

As in my youth, I viewed this movie and got curious about the facts - which were real and which fictional. I don't have a wonderful encyclopedia now. I have my laptop and access to information on the Web. So I went to the story of Achilles that can be found on Wikipedia. Interesting how this movie dovetailed so well with the facts on the encyclopedia.

Women's Struggles and Sacrifices

It's a little after 3:30 PM here and I'm sipping the last quarter of my comfort mug of breakfast coffee. I finally succeeded, after three attempts, in actually arising and staying out of bed at 1:10 PM. The laundry still sits next to me in the over-sized bag I use to take it into the basement where the on-site laundry is located. It's been patiently waiting since it was organized on Saturday morning.

Yesterday I finally understood the symptoms. Sometime between one of my risings and about an hour ago, I started putting these dynamics together like rails on a picket fence. Parallels of women in history who strove against the odds and how they felt about their circumstances, the prices they were paying -- and still are. Some of those heroines were recorded and acknowledged for their efforts, some not. The totality of them are now my sisters, grandmothers, aunts, and cousins in time and women's issues and feminism. They are my predecessors and I am the predecessor of the ones who come after me who have not yet learned the lessons of the extra effort to be a notable woman for your value and efforts and how to be recognized and acknowledged, even by some small audience, for having allowed your cup to spill over.

Right now I understand the difference between the glass half full and the glass half empty. It is half full because it is constantly being replenished. Therefore, it is never depleted and is always in some state of being full. The glass half empty started as full (maybe even more than full) but is constantly being depleted. There's nothing or only drops that attempt to refill but it is insufficient.

Recollection of the story of Mary Wollstonecraft comes to mind, especially her last year, in light of the radical political philosophies she promulgated. She struggled and strove to get her manuscripts not only published but also be paid for her efforts so that she could survive as well as care for her child. One sacrifice after another she made. First, sending the child to another family so that she would not have to endure the starknesses, the want, and the deprivation of existence that loomed for her mother. Unfortunately, the child (Mary Bysshe Shelley) and especially her older sister did not understand the sacrifices and thought herself a monster who had been rejected. But even in her state of depression, she gave birth to such rich literary classics.

Recollection of those two also calls to mind the unrecorded and timeless histories of mistresses throughout the ages of slave masters. These women obediently gave their bodies to endless days of labor in the house only to find themselves gratefully giving their bodies throughout the night. They were grateful that those were the payments for not being thrown into the streets to fend for themselves with no means of support or else killed for failure to submit. At any rate, they were spared their lives at the cost of their souls.

Some remembered how to sing and did. Some remembered the beauty of their surroundings and sucked them in at every opportunity. Little things gave a bonus to watching the sun rise each morning and offer an Amen as it set at night. On occasions, the one of her heart held her close and poured his life into her loins; she had the joy of remembering that there really was Life and tenderness and grace and meaning to the constant struggle.

What would have happened and where would we be had those women said "No" to the oppression, "No" to the repression, "No" to the cruelty, "No" to the ridiculous, and "No" to the insidious? I dare say it would be like the night skies without the multitude of stars because we would have none of the heroines, sung and unsung, as our guide stones.

Hard was thy fate in all the scenes of life
As daughter, sister, mother, friend, and wife;
But harder still, thy fate in death we own,
Thus mourn'd by Godwin with a heart of stone.

(from "Wollstonecraft and Fuseli" by British poet Robert Browning and that by William Roscoe)

Viva
Yvonne LaRose, CAC

Vestal Virgins

Reprinted from History and Women Blog.

In Ancient Rome, the vestal virgins were virgin female priestesses of Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. It was their job to maintain the sacred fire of Vesta. 

This duty was a great great honor and granted the women many privileges and honors.  They were the only female priests within the Roman religious system.

The discovery of a "House of the Vestals" in Pompeii made the vestal virgins a popular subject in the 18th century and the 19th century.  The objects of the cult were essentially the hearth fire and pure water drawn into a clay vase.

A Roman man by the name of Numa Pompilius introduced the vestal virgins and assigned them salaries from the public treasury.

He stole the first vestal virgin from her parents.  More vestal virgins were added later.  The women became a powerful and influential force in the Roman state.  

Numa Pompillius

The chief vestal oversaw the efforts of the vestals.  The last known chief vestal was Coelia Concordia in 380. The College of Vestal Virgins ended in 394, when the fire was extinguished and the vestal virgins disbanded by order of Theodosius I.

The vestal virgins were committed to the priesthood at a young age (before puberty) and were sworn to celibacy for a period of 30 years.  These 30 years were, in turn, divided into three periods of a decade each: ten as students, ten in service, and ten as teachers.  Afterwards, they could marry if they chose to do so.

However, few took the opportunity to leave their respected role cause they lived luxuriously and marriage would have required them to submit to the authority of a man, with all the restrictions placed on women by Roman law.  On the other hand, a marriage to a former vestal virgin was highly honoured.

A vestal was chosen by the high priest from young girl candidates between their sixth and tenth year.  To obtain entry into the order they were required to be free of physical and mental defects, have two living parents and to be a daughter of a free born resident in Italy.

To replace a vestal who had died, candidates would be presented in the quarters of the chief vestal for the selection of the most virtuous.   Once chosen they left the house of their father, were inducted by the pontifex maximus, and their hair was shorn.  The high priest pointed to his choice with the words, "I take you to be a vestal priestess, who will carry out sacred rites which it is the law for a vestal priestess to perform on behalf of the Roman people, on the same terms as her who was a vestal on the best terms".

Their tasks included the maintenance of the fire sacred to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth and home, collecting water from a sacred spring, preparation of food used in rituals and caring for sacred objects in the temple's sanctuary.  By maintaining Vesta's sacred fire, from which anyone could receive fire for household use, they functioned as "surrogate housekeepers", in a religious sense, for all of Rome. Their sacred fire was treated, in Imperial times, as the emperor's household fire.

The vestals were put in charge of keeping safe the wills and testaments of various people such as Caesar and Mark Antony.  In addition, the vestals also guarded some sacred objects, including the Palladium, and made a special kind of flour called mola salsa which was sprinkled on all public offerings to a god.

The dignities accorded to the vestals were significant.  In an era when religion was rich in pageantry, the presence of the Vestal Virgins was required in numerous public ceremonies. 

They travelled in a carpentum, a covered two-wheeled carriage, preceded by a lictor, and had the right-of-way.  At public games and performances they had a reserved place of honor.  Unlike most Roman women, they were free to own property, make a will, and vote.  They gave evidence without the customary oath.  They were, on account of their incorruptible character, entrusted with important wills and state documents, like public treaties.  Their person was sacrosanct.  Death was the penalty for injuring their person and their escorts protected anyone from assault.  They could free condemned prisoners and slaves by touching them - if a person who was sentenced to death saw a vestal virgin on his way to the execution, he was automatically pardoned.   They were allowed to throw ritual straw figurines called Argei, into the Tiber on May 15 celebrations.

Site of the House of Vestal Virgins in Rome

Allowing the sacred fire of Vesta to die out, suggesting that the goddess had withdrawn her protection from the city, was a serious offense and was punishable by scourging.

The chastity of the vestal virgins was considered to have a direct bearing on the health of the Roman state. When they became vestal virgins they left behind the authority of their fathers and became daughters of the state. Any sexual relationship with a citizen was therefore considered to be incest and an act of treason. The punishment for violating the oath of celibacy was to be buried alive in the Campus Sceleratus or "Evil Fields" (an underground chamber near the Colline gate) with a few days of food and water.

Ancient tradition required that a disobedient vestal virgin be buried within the city, that being the only way to kill her without spilling her blood, which was forbidden. However, this practice contradicted the Roman law, that no person may be buried within the city. To solve this problem, the Romans buried the offending priestess with a nominal quantity of food and other provisions, not to prolong her punishment, but so that the vestal would not technically die in the city, but instead descend into a "habitable room". Moreover, she would die willingly. Cases of unchastity and its punishment were rare. The vestal Tuccia was accused of fornication, but she carried water in a sieve to prove her chastity.

Vestal sentenced to die

Because a vestal's virginity was thought to be directly correlated to the sacred burning of the fire, if the fire were extinguished it might be assumed that either the vestal had acted wrongly or that the vestal had simply neglected her duties. The final decision was the responsibility of the pontifex maximus, or the head of the pontifical college, as opposed to a judicial body.

While the order of the vestal virgins was in existence for over one thousand years there are only ten recorded convictions for unchastity. The earliest vestals were said to have been whipped to death for having sex.

The paramour of a guilty vestal was whipped to death in the Forum Boarium or on the Comitium.

The chief festivals of Vesta were the Vestalia celebrated June 7 until June 15. On June 7 only, her sanctuary (which normally no one except her priestesses, the vestal virgins, entered) was accessible to mothers of families who brought plates of food. The simple ceremonies were officiated by the vestals and they gathered grain and fashioned salty cakes for the festival. This was the only time when they themselves made the mola salsa, for this was the holiest time for Vesta, and it had to be made perfectly and correctly, as it was used in all public sacrifices.

Vestals wore an infula, a suffibulum and a palla. The infula was a long headdress that draped over the shoulders. Usually found underneath were red and white woolen ribbons. The suffibulum was the brooch that clipped the palla together. The palla was a simple mantle, wrapped around the vestal virgin. The brooch and mantle were draped over the left shoulder.

Learn more about women and their fascinating bios and histories at History and Women

Mary Barrett Dyer (1611 - 1660)

Reprinted from History and Women Blog.

Mary was married at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 27 October 1633. In 1637 she supported Anne Hutchinson, who preached that God "spoke directly to individuals" rather than only through the clergy. She joined with her and became involved in what was called the "Antinomian heresy," where they organized groups of women and men to study the Bible in contravention of the theocratic law of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

On October 17, 1637, after nearly four years of marriage, she gave birth to a deformed stillborn baby, whom she buried privately.

Because she had sided with Anne Hutchinson in the Antinomian heresy, she and her husband were banished. They moved to Providence, Rhode Island.

Shortly thereafter, the authorities learned of the “monstrous birth,” and Governor Winthrop had it exhumed in March 1638, before a large crowd. He described it thus:

“It was of ordinary bigness; it had a face, but no head, and the ears stood upon the shoulders and were like an ape’s; it had no forehead, but over the eyes four horns, hard and sharp; two of them were above one inch long, the other two shorter; the eyes standing out, and the mouth also; the nose hooked upward; all over the breast and back full of sharp pricks and scales, like a thornback [i.e., a skate or ray], the navel and all the belly, with the distinction of the sex, were where the back should be, and the back and hips before, where the belly should have been; behind, between the shoulders, it had two mouths, and in each of them a piece of red flesh sticking out; it had arms and legs as other children; but, instead of toes, it had on each foot three claws, like a young fowl, with sharp talons.”

Winthrop sent descriptions to numerous correspondents, and accounts were published in England in 1642 and 1644. The deformed birth was considered evidence of the heresies and errors of Antinomianism.

In 1652, they travelled to England, where Mary joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) after hearing the preaching of its founder and feeling that it was in agreement with the ideas that she and Anne Hutchinson held years earlier. She eventually became a Quaker preacher in her own right.

Her husband returned to Rhode Island in 1652. Mary remained in England until 1657. The next year she travelled to Boston to protest the new law banning Quakers, and was arrested and expelled from the colony. Her husband, who had not become a Quaker, was not arrested.

Mary continued to travel in New England to preach Quakerism, and was arrested in 1658 in New Haven, Connecticut. After her release she returned to Massachusetts to visit two English Quakers who had been arrested. She was also arrested and then permanently banished from the colony.

From there, she traveled to Massachusetts a third time with a group of Quakers to publicly defy the law, and was again arrested, but this time, she was sentenced to death.

After a short trial, two other Quakers were hanged, but because her husband was a friend of the Governor, he secured a last-minute reprieve, against Mary's wishes, for she had refused to repent and disavow her Quaker faith.

Mary was forced to return to Rhode Island, then traveled to Long Island, New York to preach, but her conscience led her to return to Massachusetts in 1660 to defy the anti-Quaker law. Despite the pleas of her husband and family, she again refused to repent, and was again convicted and sentenced to death on May 31. The next day, she was hanged on Boston Common for the crime of being a Quaker in Massachusetts. She died a martyr.

Her execution is described by Edward Burrough in A Declaration of the Sad and Great Persecution and Martyrdom of the People of God, called Quakers, in New-England, for the Worshipping of God (1661).

Her last words before she died were: “Nay, I came to keep bloodguiltiness from you, desireing you to repeal the unrighteous and unjust law made against the innocent servants of the Lord. Nay, man, I am not now to repent. ”

After her death a member of the General Court uttered one of those bitter scoffs which prove the truest of all epitaphs, "She did hang as a flag for others to take example by."

A bronze statue of Mary, created by a Quaker sculptor, now stands in front of the Massachusetts state capitol in Boston; a copy stands in front of the Friends Center in downtown Philadelphia, and another in front of Stout Meetinghouse at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana.

Mary Barrett Dyer

1611 – June 1, 1660

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