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SUSAN GUETTEL COLE. Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004. xviii + 292 pp. 3 maps. Cloth, $45.
Everyone who studies the classics-even someone like me, whose interests tend more toward the Roman side of things-has to know a bit about the Greek polis. There is much to learn about it from this book. The project began, Cole says, as a study of the body and became a book about landscapes. At its core, it is a book about the polis and its various kinds of boundaries, or, in Cole's formulation, how Greek cities define themselves in relation to natural, human, and imaginative landscapes. Throughout, Cole draws on a wealth of archaeological, epigraphical and literary evidence. One strength of her approach is its extension beyond Athens to build up a convincing picture of features of civic life common to cities across the Greek world. In particular, Cole explores "how dividing the landscape into ritual space and productive space was related to the social articulation of gender as enacted in ritual" (5). Her study treats a series of striking questions about the ways in which cities understand their boundaries. How does a city differentiate the space it controls from the natural world, and from the spaces controlled by other cities? How do cities understand their origins in time, and when does a space stop being nature and start being a city? In what ways does the realm of the gods intersect with the realm of the city? What regulations and practices prevent the gods' participation in the success of the city from being disrupted by messy, polluting humans? How do cities and citizens manage and regulate that all-important gateway to citizenship, the birth canal?
In chapter 1, "Claiming a Homeland," Cole points out the relatively precarious nature of cities' agricultural and reproductive success: "in antiquity, the possibility of deprivation was real, practical remedies were few, and even a temporary shortage could have serious effects." In response, "individuals and communities relied on ritual remedies as well as agricultural procedures and political solutions" (12). She catalogues various identifications of sacred spaces as strategies for expressing the boundaries of a community, noting the changes evident in the transition...