‎Princeton University Press, 1993. Hardcover. Blue cloth covered hardcover with gilt lettering to spine in a like new dust jacket. 8vo. (6.5 x 1 x 9.75 inches) Includes a list of illustrations, bibliography and an index. 271 pp.

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ISBN: 9780691032726

"[This book's] insistence on bringing to the foreground the significance of the 'division between the sexes' in Athenian ideas about citizenship [has] provided a model for integrating the study of the feminine directly into the heart of a given society, while its resistance to facile generalization and static oppositions between male and female (has) pointed the way to a far more supple and subtle understanding of cultural dynamics.

"... Loraux has shown herself a formidable critic who now securely occupies a premier position in the world of classical scholarship on both sides of the Atlantic.... [The Children of Athena] remains an adventure in reading that proves as fresh and as rich in insights as when it was written." - from the forward.

According to one myth, the first Athenian citizen, Erichthonios, was born from the earth after the sperm of a rejected lover, the god Hephaistos, dripped off the virgin goddess Athena's leg and onto fertile soil.

Henceforth Athenian citizens could claim to be truly indigenous to their city and to have divine origins that bypassed mater-nity. In these essays, the renowned French Hellenist Nicole Loraux examines the implication of this and other Greek origin myths to explore how Athenians in the fifth century forged and maintained a collective identity. In particular she reveals the peculiar status of women in Athens, whose "citizenship" or even maternity meant very little in political contexts but was crucial in religious cults and in Attic tragedy and comedy.

Loraux looks at the overlap and contradictions between myths of autochthony and ideology about citizenship in Attic democracy, and at the role played by the patron deity Athena in mediating between the worlds of religion and politics, women and men. Taking the topology of the city as her guide, and drawing from texts such as funeral oratory and dramatic works and from iconographical sources, she brings discourse and representation to bear on the historical record concerning social and political life in classical Athens.

Price: $74.95