184 BARBARA TSAKIRgIS
Female agency in weaving should not be discounted. Foxhall and Stears
( 2000 ) have argued that women owned the textiles they made. Their assertion
follows Foxhall’s previous study ( 1989 ) of a woman’s ability to hold property, an
article in which the author proposed that even if a woman could not freely and
often distribute, trade, or sell that property, she still was the rightful owner of it.
Textiles made before the wedding were taken into marriage as dowry, and like
any other dowry, remained the property of the woman and could be retrieved
upon divorce. The law code of Gortyn (IC iv. 72, col. 2 lines 48–52, col. 3 lines
17–24) declares that a woman divorcing in that city owned one-half of the
cloth she wove in the course of her marriage. Textiles were, simply put, a form
of capital. They were dedicated in sanctuaries, and so too were the tools used
to produce cloth. I have already cited the silver beater dedicated to Athena in
Athens, and loom weights were dedicated to Athena at Lindos (Blinkenberg
1931 ), Troy, Delphi, Elataea, Stymphalus, Halos, and on the Athenian Acropolis
(Wallrodt 2002 ). I strongly suspect that the reluctance to see cloth and cloth-
ing as part of the market economy in Athens is the result of the reluctance to
see women as having an active role in that economy.^11 Brock ( 1994 ) previously
chipped away at the notion of women’s work as degrading and thus rele-
gated to slaves or only women of the lower classes. He argued that the literary
sources appear to suggest as much because seclusion of women was regarded
as a status symbol, and no self-respecting Athenian would want to advertise the
fact that his female relatives produced clothing or domestic textiles for sale.
What I have presented here may be added to Brock’s argument as material
evidence that he did not mine for support of his idea.
While they approach the matter from somewhat different perspectives,
both Brock and Foxhall are in general agreement that the household is ‘the
primary unit of production and consumption’ (Saller 2007: 87), a statement
with which I essentially agree for the Classical period. In poorer house-
holds, the members of the oikos spun and wove for private consumption
and, if possible, produced cloth and clothing for sale to augment the family
income. In wealthier households, some cloth and clothing production may
have occurred while further garments, those in excess of the household’s
capacity to produce or those rendered in finer weave, in luxury materials,
or with specialized embellishment were purchased from outside sources.
Evidence for the ergasteria in which textiles of non-domestic manufacture
were produced have been recognized in the Classical period at Athens and
Olynthus, and increasingly in the Hellenistic period such as in the dye-
ing establishments at Mycenae and Delos; however, the evidence of loom
weight distribution argues for predominantly domestic production in the
Classical period. Saller argues for a somewhat slow and limited develop-
ment in women’s and children’s labor from the time of Classical Athens to
the advent of imperial Rome, and the dyeing establishments cited herein,