Marked Bodies
Red-figure hydria. c. 460 BCE. Louvre, Paris. CA 2587. © 2000 RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Hervé Lewandowski.
Description
Attic red-figure terracotta hydria (water jar) with a central scene bordered with bands of palmettes and Greek keys. Dimensions: h 38.3 cm, w 36.3 cm, d 31.4 cm. Found in Italy.
The scene shows three women collecting water from a spring using a hydria, the same shape of vessel as the decorated pot. Collecting water was a task for women. It also offered an opportunity for socializing. More affluent households employed enslaved women for such tasks.
Although it is difficult to determine status from an image, the tattoos on the women's arms suggest they are not Greek. Their cropped hair suggests enslaved status. The quality of the vessel and its painting suggest it was intended for the symposium, the all male drinking party. At such events, wine was poured into a krater and mixed with water. An enslaved person normally performed this task for the symposiasts.
Context
This image is evidence for the kinds of tasks enslaved women performed for the household. In addition to fetching water, enslaved women would also assist with textile production, cooking, cleaning, harvesting, and child care (Xen. Oik. 7). The group nature of such activities may have fostered community and provided networks for enslaved people.
Look closely at the arms of these three women and notice the linear markings. They include a solid vertical line down the top of the arm with a series of smaller horizontal lines and appear to be a form of adornment. Tatooing was practiced in Thrace, a source of enslaved people for Athens. Based on this knowledge we can assume these women represent enslaved Thracians.
© 1970 Musée du Louvre / Maurice et Pierre Chuzeville
According to the Greeks, the Scythians enslaved some Thracian women and tattooed their bodies as a sign of their enslaved status. When the Thracians were eventually freed, they covered their bodies with more tattoos to cover up the stigma of their previous enslavement (Ath. 12.27).
The Greek perspective of this story means we should be cautious about what it can tell us. It tries to explain a cultural practice among the Thracians that the Greeks did not understand. Greeks did not mark their bodies as a form of adornment. In fact, elite male authors admire the unadorned body (Xen. Oik. 10). But they did use tatooing and branding to mark the bodies of enslaved people and as punishment for any who attempted to free themselves. The bodies of enslaved people also became permanently marked through the labour they performed and through whipping, a common form of coercement. As such, the body of the enslaved person was a marked body and thus ideologically distinct from the body of free persons. This image, then, reenforced differences between enslaved and free for enslavers while also presenting the women as exotic.
For enslaved Thracians, tatooing like we see in this image was a mark of nobility and beauty (Hdt. 5.6) and perhaps remained a source of pride - something their enslavers could not deny them. What were their thoughts when they saw this practice reflected back at them through such images at symposia?
Further Reading
duBois, P. 2003. Slaves and Other Objects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jones, C.P. 1987. "Stigma: Tattooing and Branding in Graeco-Roman Antiquity." Journal of Roman Studies 77: 139-55.
Kamen, D. 2010. "A Corpus of Inscriptions: Representing Slave Marks in Antiquity." Memoris of the American Academy at Rome 55: 95-110.
Lee, M. 2015. Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tsiafakis, D. 2000. "The Allure and Repulsion of Thracians in the Art of Classical Athens." In Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek Art, edited by B. Cohen. 364-89. Leiden: Brill.