Janice Siegel: Abstract for CAAS 1996 (successful)
Procne and Medea: Partners in Crime or Sisters in Justice?
I plan to present a study of two enduring mythological characters, Medea, and Procne, both strong women guilty of infanticide. The purpose of this study is to determine the treatment afforded these characters by ancient authors and artists. First I will present the pervasive attitude(s) of ancient authors to Procne and Medea, before and after her branding as "child-killer", which we can trace to Euripides. Medea is the preeminent child-killer of ancient literature as far as we are concerned, and Procne the ultimate child-cooker. Although Procne's crimes are much more significant than Medea's, and are ultimately irreconcilable with nature and society, these two women have much in common: they are both strangers in a foreign land, and both murder their own children in order to avenge crimes perpetrated upon them by their husbands.
The two women are often linked by classical authors, in either pity or shame: Ovid, for example, links them in every one of his works of poetry, sometimes with chastisement for their crime (A.A. 381-4), sometimes with understanding for their need for vengeance (Am. 2.14.29-33). Even Juvenal affords them a special place among the impious women of classical antiquity because they committed crimes of passion, not greed (Sat. 7). Other references link them in condemnation: these sisters of evil stand as twin paradigms of impiety (Seneca, Herc. Oet., 949-953), unrighteous aggressors against innocent victims (Apuleius, Apologia78.9), and scorned women hell-bent on vengeance (Statius, Silv. II.I.137).
But what attitude toward these same subjects is reflected in the art of the classical period? Are some artists also sympathetic to the plight of women, who are powerless to stand up to treacherous husbands in any other way? Or do they forever condemn the acts of a heartless mother? Is there any shift in artists' sympathies as the myths evolve over time, or as they make the transition from the Greek to the Roman tradition? There is a considerable collection of ancient monuments devoted to these women, and a careful study has shown definite connections in the way the artists have approached their studies of Procne and Medea. By using both visual and literary manifestations of these myths, I hope to come to some conclusions about the treatment afforded these women of mythology, and what such treatment says about the classical period, its writers and its world. I am eager to share this research with my colleagues at the Classical Association of the Atlantic States.