“And who did not attend the banquet?” evocative contexts of women in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Convivales

Abstract

Goddesses, women poets, matronae, lascivious flautists or concubines, those are Plutarch’s women. The references to women in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Conuiuales are spread all over the work and occur in a variety of contexts: mythical justification, intimate hygiene, support of men, the role of mother or simply that of woman. Thus, in this vast gallery presented by the scholar from Chaeronea, the trivial humane figures will be highlighted with the aim to unveil the importance of women and their place in the social sphere. Therefore, the image of the female projected in the Quaestiones will be crossed with the dominant view in Graeco-Roman society.