Ethnicity and Gender 487and the adoption of Roman names—seems to have been more important for men than
for women. The status of elite women, in contrast, was still defined and represented in
traditional terms.
Taken in isolation, this might suggest that it was more acceptable in ancient Italy for
men to be associated with new cultural and ethnic identities, at least at elite levels of soci-
ety, while representations of women showcased traditional symbols of ethnic and cultural
identity. It would, however, be dangerous to generalize, and if we consider evidence from
some other areas of Italy, we find a very different pattern. In Campania, where much of
our evidence comes from tomb paintings or from vases painted in Greek red-figure style
and dates to the fourth–third century, both men and women are depicted in ways that are
ethnically specific. The scenes are often highly stylized: men are usually depicted as war-
riors leaving for, or returning from, war, and women as either bidding them farewell or
welcoming their return, sometimes with rituals such as a libation or presenting a wreath
(Schneider-Herrmann 1996). Both men and women are depicted in an ethnically dis-
tinctive manner. Men wear a patterned tunic or loincloth and a broad belt, while women
wear a long tunic similar to a Greek chiton, but with a distinctive local heavy belt, cloak,
and headdress (Schneider-Herrmann 1996: 95). As in the Veneto, similar items of armor
and clothing have been found in tombs, demonstrating that these were genuine items of
dress and weaponry, and not just artistic convention. Although some aspects of female
dress suggest Greek influence, it also seems to have been important to depict both men
and women in ways that emphasized their ethnic identity.
Moving further south, the situation in Puglia contrasts with those of both northern
Italy and of Campania (Herring 2009). Here, tomb paintings and locally produced
red-figure pottery of the late fifth–early third centuriesBCinclude self-representations
of the local Messapic population (Trendall 1971; Schneider-Herrmann 1996; Carpenter
2004). These depict men in ethnically distinctive local dress, consisting of a patterned
tunic and a broad belt, but women are almost always shown wearing Greek costume,
rendering their ethnicity invisible (Herring 2009: 28–9). Only a small number of visual
representations, including pottery from Gravina and a tomb painting from Ruvo—both
of which show women wearing dark tunics and head-coverings—depict women in an
ethnically distinctive manner. All of these cases may show women taking part in some
sort of ritual, which may explain the wearing of ethnic dress rather than the Greek dress
found in most other representation. However, there is some corroborative evidence from
Greek literature of the fourth–third centuries that women from this area wore distinctive
dark robes (Lycophron,Alexandra1128–1140; Pseudo-Aristotle,De Mirabilibus Aus-
cultationibus109, Tzetzes,Scholiast on Lycophron Alexandra1137–41), so the evidence
from Ruvo and Gravina cannot be dismissed entirely. On balance, however, it seems
that, in this region, it was important for men to display their ethnicity in their outward
appearance, but not for women to do so, except possibly as part of special rituals.
Ethnic Categorization: Gender and
the Ethnic Stereotype
The relationship between gender and ethnicity is just as complex when we turn to
ethnic categorization. Gendered characteristics were sometimes ascribed by Greek and