The most remarkable thing about
Gorgo, wife of
King Leonidas I of Sparta, is that we know anything about her at all.
Herodotus and other ancient Greek historians are far more likely to
mention Persian queens than the wives of Greeks – not because
Persian women were more powerful than their Greek counterparts but
because Persians had several wives and so it was sometimes useful to
record by which of them a certain Persian figure had been
born. Since Greeks had only one legitimate wife, there was no
need for such clarification when it came to prominent Greek citizens.
Even the names of Spartan Queens are rarely mentioned. We do
not know, for example, the names of either Leonidas' mother
or his step-mother, the "second wife" who caused
all the trouble in the Agiad family in the second half of the 6th
Century BC.
The near complete absence of Greek women in ancient history (as opposed
to Greek mythology and drama) is a function of the fact that ancient
historians were predominantly Athenian males from the Classical or
Hellenistic Periods. Athenians of these periods did not think
women should be seen - much less heard – in public.
Women had no public role and so no business in politics or
history. As Pericles said in one of his most famous
speeches, "the
greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about, whether they are
praising you or criticizing you." (Thucydides,
History of the Peloponnesian War, 2:46.) Gorgo was by that
standard a hopeless piece of scandal.
The first time she is recorded opening her mouth, she was already
interfering in the affairs of state. She told her father to
send away the powerful tyrant Aristagoras, who requested Spartan
military aid for his planned rebellion against Persia.
Gorgo's father, King Cleomenes, had already told Aristagoras
that his proposal was "improper" and asked him to
leave Sparta, but Aristagoras then started to offer Cleomenes bribes.
As these became ever larger, Cleomenes appeared to be
weakening until his daughter intervened, saying: "Father, you had
better go away, or the stranger will corrupt you."
Gorgo allegedly offered this advice at the tender age of
"eight or nine." Even if, as there is
good reason to believe, Herodotus exaggerated her youth to make her
father seem foolish, it would be hardly less remarkable if a maiden of
18 or 19 did what Gorgo did. In no other Greek city but
Sparta would a female of any age have been allowed to be present much
less heard and heeded at a meeting between Heads of State.
Gorgo's advice was all the more remarkable because
it was good. It was Athenian aid for the Ionian revolt that
brought the wrath of Persia down on mainland Greece, leading some
people to quip that it was easier to bamboozle thirty thousand Athenian
men than one Spartan girl. Ironically, had the Athenian Assembly been
as wise as Gorgo, then Gorgo might not have lost her husband twenty
years later at Thermopylae.
Perhaps the fact that she was genuinely and exceptionally bright
explains why as a wife too she was consulted and her opinions
respected. This is evidenced by the incident in
which a blank wax tablet was sent to Sparta from the exiled king
Demaratus then at the Persian court. "No one,"
according to Herodotus, "was
able to guess the secret until… Gorgo, who was the wife of
Leonidas, divined it and told the others that if they scraped the wax
off, they would find something written on the wood underneath. This was
done; the message was revealed….(Herodotus, The
Histories, 7:239.)
There is little doubt, then that Gorgo was clever, but what else do we
know about her?
It is safe to say that Gorgo was probably not particularly pretty.
Had she been, it would have been mentioned by
somebody. The beauty of other Spartan women, notably Helen
and Demaratus' mother, is legendary or at least recorded.
Some people have suggested Gorgo was ugly based on her name which
conjures up the mythical Gorgon, a female beast with snakes for hair,
so hideous that all who looked at her turned to stone. But
this seems to be taking things too far in the other direction.
It is hard to imagine a truly ugly woman being so well-loved
by either her father or her husband – or so well adjusted and
self-confident. Furthermore, we are told that men
"made advances" to her, which also seems
inconsistent with an unattractive woman. Gorgo was probably
simply "ordinary," and so her looks were not worthy
of comment.
Whatever her looks, Gorgo was the quintessential Spartan woman in
spirit. She was educated, self-confident, out-spoken and
involved in the body politic. She was neither vain nor
materialistic. She showed Spartan scorn of affectation when
she thought Aristagoras had no hands because he let a slave dress him,
and when she accused an elegantly dressed man of not being able "to play even a female
role."
This second quote is again very telling because it suggests Gorgo was
familiar with theater – something an Athenian woman would
almost certainly not have been. Athenian women, as we have
seen above, were not supposed to be seen or talked about. It
was a disgrace for them to be seen even standing in the doorways of
their houses much less at the market place. How then should
they have been tolerated in the crowds that attended Athenian theater?
While it is just possible to imagine them (veiled and
heavily escorted by their male relatives) attending tragedies, the
sexual explicitness of Athenian comedies is utterly unimaginable if
respectable Athenian women were expected to be in the audience.
Gorgo's reference to "playing a female
role," however, makes it very clear that she had seen plays
performed.
There is even a chance that she saw these plays performed in Athens.
We know that Leonidas' short reign began with the
Persian invasion that led to the Battle of Marathon and ended with the
Persian invasion that crushed him and his 300 at Thermopylae before
continuing on to burn Athens to the ground. In short,
Leonidas' entire reign was dominated by the Persian threat
and the need for the Greek city-states to unite against the common
enemy. It is reasonable to postulate that Leonidas spent a
good deal of his time lobbying for support among the other important
cities especially in Athens. The very fact that he was
elected the
commander of the coalition forces including nominal command of the
Athenian fleet suggests that the leaders in other cities were familiar
with – and trusted - him. It is not fanciful to
hypothesize that on at least one of his trips to Athens, he took Gorgo
with him.
The evidence that Gorgo traveled to Athens is corroborated by her most
famous quote about only Spartan women producing men. An
Athenian woman is said to have asked her why "only Spartan women
rule their men." Since it is inconceivable that
an Athenian woman would have traveled to Sparta, the only place where
such an exchange could have taken place was in Athens itself.
The thought of Gorgo in Athens is rather like the Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur's court. She must have been a sensation
– and one imagines Leonidas with his dry sense of humor
enjoying every minute of it! For example, note that the
Athenian woman asked why only Spartan women "ruled"
their men, implying that Gorgo had been seen giving Leonidas advice
– and he had been seen to accept it, just as Cleomenes had
done before him. As Gorgo's response makes clear,
that willingness not to discount good advice just because it came out
of the mouth of a woman is what made Spartan men more manly –
at least in Gorgo's eyes! Understandably, perhaps,
Spartan men, who measured their virility on the battlefield more than
in the debates of the Assembly as in Athens, were less worried by the
words of women.
But we should not picture Gorgo as a shrew. Gorgo's
role was that of advisor, companion and lover. She is not
depicted telling Leonidas off (as she did her father), but rather
helping him solve the mystery the apparently blank wax tablet and
obliquely bragging about his masculinity. And while other
Spartan queens (notably Helen) are accused of adultery, Gorgo is
portrayed rejecting unwanted advances. She was the mother of
at least one child by Leonidas, his son and heir, Pleistarchos, and
there is no reason to believe this was their only child. The
fact that Pleistarchos was still very young at his father's
death suggests the opposite: that there either been elder children who
died or had all been female.
When Leonidas marched out to die at Thermopylae, Gorgo asked him for
instructions. His answer was a final compliment to her. He
said: "Marry a
good man and have good children." Not sons,
children. Leonidas wanted Gorgo not to mourn him but to be
happy, and he valued daughters as much as sons – probably
because he had learned from Gorgo the importance of clever and loyal
women.
Award-winning
novelist Helena P. Schrader is writing a biographical novel of Leonidas
and Gorgo. She has published three novels that will draw you
into a colorful and intriguing Sparta unlike the conventional
clichés. Helena Schrader holds a PhD in History
and works as a Foreign Service Officer.
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