The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens (Paperback)

~ (Author) "During the summer of 415 B.C. Athens was shaken by a scandal that roughly coincided with the launching of the boldest Greek military effort since..." (more)
Key Phrases: symposium cup, laughterless stone, kalyx krater, Classical Athens, Sex Appeal of Female Toil, The Athenian Prostitute (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is well written and intended for a wide audience; both the professional scholar and the general reader will find it provocative and diverting."--Sarah B. Pomeroy, "Classical World

Product Description

At once daring and authoritative, this book offers a profusely illustrated history of sexual politics in ancient Athens, where the phallus dominated almost every aspect of public life. Complementing the text are 345 reproductions of Athenian vase paintings depicting the phallus.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 477 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (April 27, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520079299
• ISBN-13: 978-0520079298
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #156,309 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A keen analysis that simply goes too far., May 17, 1999

By A Customer

If a book can be said to have a dual personality, Reign of the Phallus is it. The author, who has a vast knowledge of Greek pottery and who keenly analizes it, reveals interesting and penetrating aspects of classical Athens. She describes a society in which women are secluded wives or common prostitutes, with little in between. She describes men who are violent and dominating in their sexual relationships with both women and other men. She butresses her arguments with plentiful data and a massive number of pottery illustrations. However, she consistently reveals her biases as she presumes conclusions and then gathers evidence to support them. Several of her arguments are anachronistic -- sometimes by centuries! The author's greatest failing is to interpret images to fit her theses -- calling attention to many images and declaring them supportive, but dismissing images that are contrary to her theses. The text would be a good tool for a freshman college expository class, where it could be used to illustrate inconsistencies, unsupported assertations, and selective evidence. In spite of the author's political agenda, Reign of the Phallus can be rewarding for readers willing to sift through the assumptions and biases that structure the book. It provides a view into classical Athenian society revealed by the symbols and icons and stylized structure of its pottery. After finishing the book, I felt that the author gave me a look into classical Greeece, but who then went overboard in pushing her portrait of men who were opressive and violent in all their relationships, expecially sexual ones. The book was a lot of work.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating, occasionally over-reaching, August 22, 2003

By	Kinnison (Lancaster, PA) - See all my reviews

Scholars of the social and private life of antiquity face the difficult task of constructing a coherent narrative out of bits and pieces of information widely scattered through classical art, litterature, and archeaology, and Keuls does an excellent job of this. Her analysis of pictorial art and its various representations of men, women, boys, prostitutes, and sex acts is particularly illuminating. On the down side the book is not always very well organized, and the discussions of group ritual, including tragedy, as an examination of and cathartic release from the pressures of sexual antagonism offer some very interesting insights but could have been better developed.

My biggest problem is with the book's tendency, already noted by some reviewers, to overreach, to read certain historical and mythological complexities purely according to its own thesis. Thus, Keuls takes the prevalence of the Amazonomachia, the story of an Amazon assault on prehistoric Athens, as a sign of Athenian preoccupation with aggressive women and the battle of the sexes. But the Greeks are of course known for their artistic tendency to approach history through myth, and the myth of the oriental Amazons' assault on Athens almost perfectly mirrors the assault of the Persians in 490 and 480. These struggles were central not only to Athenian pride but also to their moral justification for empire, and it would surprising if Athenians _didn't_ reproduce them as often as possible, sexual politics aside.

I also don't think much of the book's biggest claim, that the women of Athens were responsible for the mutilation of the Herms in 415. Keuls acknowledges that, if she's correct, the women's responsibility could not be kept for long, but vaguely explains this away by saying the truth was "too shocking to acknowledge." This does not really address the obvious problems of attributing responsibility for one of the greatest mysteries of Antiquity to a group that couldn't keep it a secret. More simply, while Keuls represents the mutilation as a protest, it was to the Athenians an act of sabotage, exposing the expedition and the city to the deadly wrath of the gods. Protest is one thing; sabotage, deliberately endangering their men, their city, and themselves is something else altogether. The simple fact is that only a really well disciplined, organized, and ruthless conspiracy (my money's on oligarchic revolutionaries) could have carried the mutilations out and gotten away with it.

But don't get the wrong idea. This is a good book on the fascinating subject of ancient social and sexual mores, though readers would do better to start with Dover's classic "Greek Homosexuality."

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading for the vase paintings alone, October 22, 2003

By	Isabeau (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

Keuls's controversial contention that she's solved the mystery of who smashed the herms of Athens has overshadowed the real strength of this book, which is the documentation. She has amassed a wealth of vase paintings, as well as references to women in Athenian legal documents, that paint a clear picture of the reality of women's lives in ancient Athens. By the end of the book, she's proved her case that women's lives in the world's first democracy weren't that much different from modern women's lives in Saudi Arabia - except the slaves in general, and the slave prostitutes in particular, certainly had it worse.
It's a must read for anyone who still believes all Athenian women were heroines like Antigone.