Aristodama of Smyrna

For the mythological women with a similar name sometimes rendered as Aristodama, see Aristodeme.

Aristodama of Smyrna (Ancient Greek: Ἀριστοδάμα) was a 3rd century BCE itinerant poet of ancient Ionia. None of her works have survived to the present; we know of her only through inscriptions found in the mainland Greek cities of Lamia and Chaleion.[1] There she and her brother were granted citizenship and other privileges in recognition of her poetic skill and performance. Chaleion honoured her for several readings of an epic (that they may have commissioned from her)[2] narrating the traditions of their Aetolian ancestors.[3] The earliest known such honour granted to a woman,[4] it provides evidence of the opportunities of education and advancement for women in the Hellenistic period.[5] That Aristodama must have lived sometime after 217 BCE is deduced because the contemporary Agetas of Callipolis is mentioned in the Lamia inscription as an Aetolian general.[6]

  1. ^ "Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum: 532". Archived from the original on 2016-08-12. Retrieved 2016-06-27.
  2. ^ Roosevelt Rocha, review of Wandering Poets in Ancient Greek Culture: Travel, Locality and Pan-Hellenism Archived 2022-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2010
  3. ^ Peter Wilson (14 June 2007). The Greek Theatre and Festivals: Documentary Studies. OUP Oxford. pp. 285–. ISBN 978-0-19-927747-6. Archived from the original on 3 June 2024. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  4. ^ Women and the Polis, De Gruyter 2021, ch.6 Archived 2024-06-03 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ Salisbury, Joyce E. (2001). "Aristodama of Smyrna". Encyclopedia of Women in the Ancient World. ABC-CLIO. p. 15. ISBN 9781576070925. Archived from the original on 3 June 2024. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  6. ^ M. M. Austin, The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp.264-5 Archived 2024-06-03 at the Wayback Machine