Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander

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Women Outside the Home

Poor women worked outside the home, often as small-scale merchants¹ in the public market that occupied the center of every settlement. Only at Sparta did women have the freedom to participate in athletic training along with men.² Women played their major role in the public life of the city-state by participating in funerals, state festivals, and religious rituals. Certain festivals were reserved for women only, especially in the cult of the goddess Demeter, whom the Greeks credited with teaching them the indispensable technology of agriculture³. As priestesses, women also fulfilled public duties in various official cults; for example, women officiated as priestesses⁴ in more than forty such cults in Athens by the fifth century B.C. Women holding these posts often enjoyed considerable prestige, practical benefits such as a salary paid by the state, and greater freedom of movement in public.