134 THE GREEKS
talking of which Socrates remarks: ‘Then we have now discovered a form of rhetoric
addressed to a people composed alike of children and women and men, slaves and
free’ (Gorgias 502d).
Women are often depicted on vases offering libations or assisting at sacrifices.
In the more private sphere, one of the duties outside the home that was particularly
the province of women was officiation at funerals. Women gave libations to the dead,
as does Electra in the Libation-bearers. That Antigone should see it as her duty to
perform burial rites for her brother, Polyneices, might be considered part of her
assumption of a traditional role that she supports in affirming ‘the unwritten,
everlasting laws of the gods’ (Antigone454–455). Equally traditional is Creon’s
FIGURE 36 A woman pours an offering from a jug over a flaming altar, Attic red-figure
vase by Macron
Source: ©J. Etherington