Helen of
Sparta – What Homer’s Helen tells us about Sparta
Raphael Sealey in his study Women and Law in Classical Greece (Chapel Hill: 1990) makes a strong case that the marriage customs and status of women as portrayed in the works of Homer are incompatible with customs in classical Athens. He argues that: “The Athenian and Homeric concepts of marriage are so markedly different that one cannot have developed from the other.” (p. 126)
Sealey furthermore argues that the depiction of Helen in both Iliad and Odyssey is not the evil, vain, greedy and sex-crazed Helen of the Athenian
theater but a dignified princess/queen and a wise woman. In the Iliad, Priam honors her, calling her
“dear child,” while Hektor, the paragon of Homeric virtue, shows her courtesy
and respect. Most important, Menelaos takes her back to be his Queen. In the Odyssey, Helen is depicted in Sparta apparently
enjoying the respect of the entire population and providing wise advice to her
husband. It is striking that such a
portrayal of Helen is consistent with Spartan tradition, where Helen was
honored alongside Menelaos, temples were built to her and an annual holiday was
celebrated in her honor.
One particularly intriguing aspect of the Helen portrayed by Homer
in the Odyssey is that she, like
Gorgo, is shown to be cleverer than her men! She is the first to recognize
Telemachos (Odyssey 4:138:32), and it is Helen who deciphers the significance
of an eagle carrying a goose (Odyssey
15:160:78).
This begs the question if Homeric traditions with respect to women
had a stronger influence on Sparta, particularly Archaic and pre-revolutionary
Sparta, than they did on Athens. Is it possible that Doric traditions generally
owed more to the world described in the works of Homer than did Ionian
traditions? Admittedly, we do not know
just what society the Iliad and Odyssey actually describe and many argue that
the world of Homer, like Homer himself, are completely fictional. Yet repeatedly, archeological evidence has
come to light that verifies elements of the great epics previously dismissed as
“fiction” (e.g. helmets with boars tusks).
We know that women in Sparta enjoyed exceptional freedom and
status compared, particularly, to women in Athens. While this difference is
traditionally attributed to the laws of Lycurgus, it is unreasonable to presume
that something as fundamental as attitudes toward women would change
abruptly. It is far more likely that
women in Sparta already enjoyed higher status and that the revolution in Sparta
that followed the First Messenian War only codified, institutionalized and developed
to new levels pre-existing tendencies. The fact that Cretan women, Achaian
women and women in Gortyn also had notably more freedom and status than women
in classical Athens is further evidence that there was a wider, pre-classical
tradition which contrasted sharply to the misogynous practices and laws of classical
Athens.
