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Women's Dreams
in Ancient Greece

Robert Rouselle
The Journal of Psychohistory V. 26, N. 2, Fall 1998

Dreams appear frequently in the historical literature of the ancient Greeks, yet most are the dreams of men. The dearth of women's dreams corresponds to the relative lack of interest most men had in women's lives. However, just as scholars have been able to reconstruct the basic details of women's lives in ancient Greece through the exploitation of sundry primary sources, so can some of the variety, cultural context, and function of women's dreams be recovered from the same sources. It is also possible to glean, however tentative, some glimpses into their underlying emotional concerns.

The subject will be limited to historical dreams from the late Archaic period to the end of the Hellenistic Age, roughly 700 to 30 B.C. Fictional dreams will not generally be considered, except on those occasions when they illuminate the cultural context of a historical dream. This division is not as precise as it seems, since many apparently historical dreams may in fact be literary inventions. Just as the Greek historians invented speeches to delineate the various issues facing their subjects,1 so they invented dreams to reveal hidden motives of the dreamer or to foreshadow future events.

Women's lives were not static during this period, and there were great differences in their status between contemporary poleis. From relative seclusion in fifth century Athens, living in the innermost rooms of the house, rarely allowed out except during festivals, their own names not publicized outside the family until their death, respectable women's lives improved during the fourth century to the extent that some received a formal education and could read and write, while others wrote poetry or became artists, philosophers, or physicians.2

Despite their increasing literacy, little besides their names survive from antiquity. Virtually all women's dreams from ancient Greece were written down by men. We know about Agariste's pregnancy dream or Olympias' consummation dream because Herodotus and Plutarch thought them worthy of remembrance.3 The dreams of women which resulted in the dedication of temples or sanctuaries were recorded by the historian or the artisan who inscribed it on stone. Even the narratives of the dream cures at Epidaurus refer to the dreamer in the third person. Whatever the origin of the supplicant to the god, whatever dialect he or she spoke, the inscription records the story in the local Doric dialect, composed by the god's male attendants.4

It would seem likely that the writer or editor modified or altered the dream's content in order to illustrate its importance to their theme. Agariste's pregnancy dream is mentioned by Herodotus not for what it tells us about her, but as a prophecy of the greatness of her son Pericles. Similarly, the consummation dream of Olympias is significant because she was the mother of Alexander the Great. Temples and sanctuaries founded on the basis of women's dreams are recorded because of the roles they play in the political and military affairs of the time. Even the dream cures of Epidaurus were written down to increase the glory of the god Asclepius.

Personal Dreams

One of the few exceptions is a dream found in a poem of Sappho. It unfortunately comes from a badly damaged papyrus text and the poem, originally of ten lines, survives only in fragments.5 It begins by calling out in the vocative "O Dream," onoire, noting that it visits, phoitais, whenever sleep comes. The language Sappho uses conforms to the traditional cultural pattern of Greek dreams. Whereas we would say "I had a dream last night," the ancient Greek would state "I saw a dream last night." Unlike most moderns, who believe that the dream comes from within, the Greeks considered themselves to be the passive recipient of the dream. The word phoitan, to visit, was one of the words frequently used to describe the appearance of the dream figure, which could be a god, dead friend, father-figure, or a virile woman.6

This cultural pattern is found in the earliest Greek literary work, the Iliad. Early in the poem Zeus decides to send Agamemnon a false dream. While the Greek leader sleeps, Zeus sends Dream to him, and standing beside his head in the form of Agamemnon's living, highly respected friend Nestor, he gives Agamemnon the false dream.7 Sappho's poem shows that this dream pattern was not just a literary convention, but accurately reflects how the Greeks dreamed.

Sappho refers in the poem to the "sweet god," presumably Dream, yet the language conveys anxiety, grief, separation, power, and expresses the hope of avoiding sharing some unknown object with the gods. Though the poem is too fragmentary to make much sense of it,8 it is clear that Sappho's dream was an intensely personal matter.

In another fragment of one line, perhaps the beginning of a poem, Sappho says "Throughout I spoke to you in a dream, Cyprus-born."9 Cyprus-born refers to Aphrodite, so called because although she was born at sea from the severed genitals of Kronos, she washed ashore at Cyprus.10 Talking to Aphrodite reveals another type of dream not mentioned in the historical texts, but hinted at and alluded to in medical writings and in the Greek magical papyri: erotic dreams.

Aristotle notes that women have dream emissions, an obvious sign of erotic dreams.11 In Greek, the association of dreams and sex was evident in the verb oneirotto, which refers to an unhealthy physical disturbance while dreaming.12 Beginning in the Hellenistic period and continuing throughout late antiquity there was a market for love charms and dream sending. Though most of their patrons were men, some were women. One of the Greek magical papyri concerns a young man who requests that the god cause a young woman to be attracted to him, "melting with passionate desire at every hour of the day and night, always remembering me while she is eating, drinking, working, conversing, sleeping, dreaming, having an orgasm in her dreams, until she is scourged by you and comes desiring me," and ends with his fantasies of their lovemaking.13 Though the passion and anguish of every waking moment reflects his own emotional state, he is willing to concede she has an erotic dream life. That most Greek men did not think or write about such things was due to their fear of women's sexuality.14

The Oneirocritica of Artemidorus contains several women's sexual dreams. The Oneirocritica was a second century A.D. collection of dreams and their prognostications which Artemidorus collected from a variety of sources, including his own clients, other dream interpreters throughout the Roman empire, and earlier dream books.15 Though outside our period, these dreams are relevant to our discussion as indications of dream types.

Artemidorus asserts that if a young woman dreams she has many eyes, many would-be seducers will pursue her.16 In another passage he indicates that if a women dreams she has many breasts it indicates she will commit adultery.17 The dream interpreter is interested in these dreams for their predictive value, yet for us they are examples of erotic dreams. The phallic significance of the eyes for the ancient Greeks is obvious; one need only recall the blindness of Oedipus or Tiresias.18 The woman was dreaming of being looked at by men's eyes, a symbol of phallic aggression. The dream of the multiple breasts is less obscure. Both dreams are examples of numerical multiplication of an object in a dream representing temporal repetition of an act.19 Though we know little about either dream, both seem to contain some fantasy of continued erotic pleasure.

Artemidorus also narrates the dream of a woman who dreamt that stalks of wheat sprouted from her breast and bent back into her vagina. She unwittingly had sexual relations with her son and committed suicide. According to Artemidorus, the wheat stalks represented her son, their entering her vagina sexual intercourse.20 What he treats as a prediction, we would treat as a subconscious fantasy, which she acted out.

Though poets, physicians, magical incantations and dream books may allude to women's dreams that are personal, that are concerned with their own desires and fantasies, the formal writings of Greek historians are much more restricted. They are basically concerned with two types of women's dreams, those of a religious nature and those of pregnant women. This corresponds exactly to the two activities in which respectable women were allowed to participate, religion and running the oikos, or household, which included giving birth to male citizen heirs. The historians' interpretation of these dreams, their reason for writing them down, is that these dreams involve men or the sons of men. The women's own concerns in these dreams are ignored. However, these dreams are usually given in fuller form, enabling us to sometimes comment on what these dreams meant to the dreamer herself.

Religious Dreams

Plato notes that "women of all kinds, the sick, men in danger or distress, or those who have had a stroke of good luck" make dedications to the gods on account of dreams or waking visions.21 Elsewhere he comments that many cults have been founded due to "dreams at night, prophetic voices heard by the healthy or the sick, or deathbed visions."22 Plato gives little credibility to the divine origin of such dreams. Some men had a different perspective concerning women's religious inclinations, as expressed by an unknown comic poet: "The gods will be our ruination, especially those of us who are married, for we are always celebrating some festival." A character called the Misogynist complains "we used to sacrifice five times a day, and seven female attendants would circle around us playing the cymbals, and cry aloud to the gods."23 Despite the occasional grousing, when a respectable women had a religious dream, men usually listened.

Some of the recorded dreams are clearly mythical, such as the dream of an old Elean woman who told the generals of Elis that her baby boy should lead the troops into battle against the Arcadians. When the battle began the baby became a serpent, routed the Arcadians, and slipped into the ground. The Eleans built a temple to the god Sosipolis, Savior of the City, and to his mother, whom they realized must be Eileithyia, the goddess of childbirth.24

Others are legendary. In his guide to Greece, Pausanias relates the story about the foundation of the sanctuary of Thetis in Laconia. During the Second Messenian War, the Spartan King Anaxander invaded Messenia and took several persons prisoner, including Cleo, the priestess of Thetis. Leandris, the king's wife, had a dream telling her to set up a temple to Thetis in Laconia, with Cleo's help.25

The entire story is suspect. The Second Messenian War occurred in the seventh century B.C. Though King Anaxander was a historical figure, Leandris is otherwise unknown. There were no contemporary historical sources for this period. Sparta possessed no historian to record its history until Phylarchus in the third century B.C., while Messenian pseudo-history is also the product of the third century when a newly liberated Messenia sought to recreate its earlier history.26

On the other hand, the association between Thetis and Leandris is intriguing. The Spartans were not a seafaring people like the Athenians, and in fact they seemed to have had an aversion to the sea. The introduction of a temple to the Nereid Thetis, a minor sea-goddess, due to a woman's dream parallels both the association of water as a birth symbol with the king's wife, and the Spartan man's aversion to both the sea and women.

There are epigraphical examples of temples founded and dedications made due to a dream. Most date to the Hellenistic or Roman period, and few details are given. Since these are public inscriptions, the actual dreams are not described, although mention is made of the divine figure seen by the dreamer. In this it conforms to the dream type mentioned earlier.27

Sometimes the dream is about a minor matter, as when a priestess of the Leucippides Hilaeira and Phoebe had modernized the face of a statue, but was commanded in a dream not to change the other one.28 Most of the dreams mentioned above concern minor matters, local legends picked up by Pausanias as he toured Greece in the second century A.D. and composed a descriptive guide to the regions he visited.

A more significant dream appears in Plutarch's biography of Timoleon. Some citizens of Syracuse had requested that Corinth help rid them of their tyrant, Dionysius. As Corinth had founded Syracuse several centuries earlier, the mother city felt obliged to help its former colony and sent Timoleon with a small mercenary army. Shortly before he set sail, the priestesses of the mother-daughter goddesses Demeter and Persephone dreamed they saw the goddesses preparing to accompany Timoleon to Sicily. As a result, the Corinthians prepared a sacred trireme and named it after the goddesses and sent it along with the liberator.29

The reason for the priestesses' dream was the special mythological relationship between Persephone and Sicily. According to a popular version of the myth, Persephone had been picking flowers in Sicily when she was abducted by Hades, who broke through the earth near Syracuse and caused a spring, later named Kuane, to gush forth.30 The island was subsequently given to Persephone as a wedding present.31 The importance of this dream for the Corinthians was its demonstration of support for the expedition and the prophecy of its eventual success. For the priestesses, this is the closest they could get to participating in the affairs of state and exerting an influence on the polis. For politically powerless women, this was a significant motive, conscious or not.

All these religious dreams share certain characteristics. The divinities in question were all goddesses, and the recipients of the dreams were respectable women, either priestesses or upper class women. Though they had their own motives, indiscernible to us today, for their devotion to the goddess, the men around them had their own reasons for acting on the dreams. In the mythical tale of Sosipolis, as in the historical story of Timoleon, the purpose was to defeat the enemy. The Spartans accepted the dream of Leandris, if there is any truth to the legend, as a technique of gaining the aid of the sea-goddess Thetis. Though a Nereid, a minor deity, she was widely known as the mother of Achilles.

Women did receive dreams from male healing gods, particularly Asclepius. Like most gods, he had temples and cult centers at different locations throughout the Greek world. Some were founded with the aid of women. Though the temple of Asclepius at Oeantheia, in Locri, was built as a thank offering by Phalysius, the agent of his cure was the poetess Anyte. In a dream, Asclepius had brought her a sealed tablet and told her to bring it to Phalysius, after which his poor vision was cured.32 Nicagora was credited with bringing the serpentine image of Asclepius in a carriage from Epidaurus to her native Sicyon. It is noteworthy that in telling this story Pausanias felt compelled to mention the name of Nicagora's husband and son.33

The most famous temple of Asclepius was at Epidaurus. The sick and infirm would come there and, after a ritual sacrifice and a bath, would spend the night in the Abaton. If the supplicant were fortunate, he or she would receive a dream from the god and leave cured.34 As at other sites of healing cults, the cured left votive offerings.35 When Pausanias visited Epidaurus, he found six stelae standing, though there had been more.36 Four of them were discovered in the late nineteenth century, two in excellent shape, two fragmentary. Each of the surviving stelae contain twenty or more cures, dating to the late fourth century B.C.37 Women are well represented on the stelae, although most are there for problems relating to bearing children.

One of the few exceptions was Ambrosia of Athens, who was blind in one eye. She laughed at the various cures of the lame and blind, yet in her sleep the god came to her and cured her. However, he did direct her to dedicate a silver pig in the temple as a thank-offering and as a memorial of her ignorance. He then cut her eyeball and poured in a drug. In the morning Ambrosia could see.38

The fragmentary third stela contains the account of a speechless girl who took her seat in the Abaton so that she could see the snake return from its tree to the building. She woke up shouting and called for her mother and father and went away healthy.39

Asclepius is usually portrayed as an older, mature man with a beard, similar to Zeus but with a kinder expression. As a physician, Asclepius was the ruler of his patients as Zeus was the ruler over the gods and mankind.40 The Greeks saw in the father the image of the gods, particularly the father of the gods, Zeus.41 As Zeus was held in honor by mankind in general, so was Asclepius when the sick came to him and spent the night in his sanctuary. Asclepius' major attributes were his staff, the snake, and the dog.42

If we accept that these inscriptions were not priestly forgeries, but accounts, perhaps exaggerated, of actual cures, it seems plausible that both Ambrosia and the speechless girl might have suffered some sort of hysterical conversion that resulted in sensory disturbances. Note that Ambrosia was directed to dedicate a silver pig in the temple as a mark of her ignorance. Though the pig was considered stupid, and Semonides in his misogynous poem calls the pig woman disheveled, filthy, and fat, the pig also had an obscene connotation in Attic comedy. Hus, sow, refers to the depilated genitalia of mature women.43 The sexual root of Ambrosia's blindness in one eye is seen in the traditional Greek belief that the eyes are the seat of love.44 We have no personal history as to the origin of Ambrosia's or the speechless girl's conditions or how long they suffered from them. However, the appearance of the father-figure Asclepius before Ambrosia or his phallic serpentine attribute before the speechless girl might hint at a resolution of some oedipal situation.45

Other ailments for which women came to Epidaurus are of a more mundane nature, including a tumor on the hand. A Cretan inscription tells of a woman with an ulceration on her little finger, for which Asclepius prescribed a topical mixture that cured the condition.46 The patients' belief in the efficacy of the prescriptions they received from the god in their dreams aided their recovery.

Dreams Concerning Childbirth

Among the most significant dreams for the ancient Greeks were those concerning childbirth, either those of pregnant women or those who wished they were. Artemidorus mentions several types of dreams of pregnant women and what they foretold. He also notes that certain dreams of pregnant women, such as seeing a midwife, merely reflect her concern for her delivery.47 Other dreams, regardless of what he believes they predict, may simply be wish-fulfillment dreams. These include dreams of children, of being pregnant, or dreams in which the dreamer is wrapped in swaddling clothes.48

The historians occasionally contain the mother's dream of a famous son. Herodotus notes that Agariste "while pregnant had a vision in her sleep, she imagined she gave birth to a lion. After a few days she gave birth to Pericles, son of Xanthippus."49 This is the only appearance of Pericles in Herodotus' history, although he was the political leader of Athens at the time Herodotus was composing his work. Herodotus' oral sources were many and included the Alcmeonids, from whom Pericles was descended on his mother's side. Pericles was born around 493 B.C.,50 and the historian was composing his history some forty or fifty years later. It would seem doubtful that a dream Pericles' mother had before his birth would be remembered fifty years later. Rather, the dream of the lion is used as a literary device, as a symbol of royal power to foretell the exceptional prominence Pericles achieved in a democratic polis.

It is, however, a plausible dream type. Artemidorus affirms that dreams of lion cubs indicate the birth of a child.51 According to Plutarch, Philip of Macedon dreamed that he put a seal upon his wife Olympias' womb. On the seal was the figure of a lion. Though other seers advised Philip to keep a close watch on Olympias to prevent adultery, Aristander of Telmessus stated that Olympias was pregnant. He noted that one does not put a seal on an empty object; rather, the lion meant that their son would be courageous and lion-like.52 The son turned out to be Alexander the Great. This could well be an actual dream of Philip's since a royal family would be more likely to record the prophetic dreams concerning their children. Aristander later accompanied Alexander on his conquest of Asia and left a collection of dream interpretations, which were still known in the second century A.D.,53 but have subsequently been lost. Perhaps Aristander recorded Philip's dream in his collection.

The lion dream also has a darker side. Herodotus reports a belief that the lioness produces only one cub once in her life, and when the cub is about to be born it scratches and claws its way out of the womb, destroying it in the process.54 Aristotle argues that the story is incorrect, and was made up to explain the scarcity of lions.55 But the folk-tale of the lion's birth had its believers, and in the second century A.D. Aelian mentions it.56 Aristotle does claim that after four or five decreasing litter sizes, a lioness will become sterile.57 The lion dream represents the pregnant mother's anxiety about childbirth, that the baby will claw its way out of her womb when she gives birth.58

Anxiety about the unborn child is also seen in the dream of the mother of the future tyrant, Dionysius I. She dreamed she gave birth to an infant satyr, one of the lascivious, goatish attendants of the god Dionysus. According to the seers, this prophesied a son who would enjoy a long and prosperous career. The source of this story is Philistus,59 who had an excellent reputation in antiquity as an accurate historian in the Thucydidean mold. He was also a confidant and political ally of Dionysius.

It would seem that the dream foretold the birth of a lascivious, uncontrollable half-animal overly fond of sex and wine. In addition, Saturos is the usual Greek word for satyr, but among the Sicilians they were called Tituros. Remove the rho and you have Tituos, or Tityus when Anglicized. Tityus was one of the Titans, imprisoned in Hades for attempting to rape Leto,60 one of Zeus's mistresses and mother of Apollo and Artemis. According to Homer, Tityus is punished by having two vultures constantly pick at his liver, which for the Greeks represented the seat of desire. In the dream of Dionysius' mother the symbol of the satyr is over-determined, and reveals the anxiety she had over how her son would turn out.

At times the anticipation of marriage and childbearing could cause powerful dreams. Plutarch says that the night before her marriage to Philip of Macedon was consummated, Olympias dreamed she heard thunder and that a thunderbolt struck her womb, followed by a large conflagration which spread about and was extinguished.61 After the achievements of her son Alexander the Great, this and other stories about his birth were recast as prophecies of his divine origin and world conquests. The later embellishments have caused historians to discredit the dream of Olympias;62 however, an analysis of the dream suggests that it is credible.

While in his mid-twenties, Philip married four women in 358 and 357. One of them was fourteen-year-old Olympias, the orphaned princess of the royal house of Molossia.63 According to the royal genealogies, Philip was a descendant of Heracles, who was the son of Zeus.64 Olympias was a devotee of Dionysus and no doubt aware of the myth surrounding his birth, one version of which had been included in Euripides' Bacchae composed only fifty years earlier at the Macedonian court.65 According to the myth, Zeus in disguise had impregnated Semele. A jealous Hera, Zeus's consort, convinced Semele to ask Zeus to reveal himself to her in his natural state. He appeared as a thunderbolt which killed her. Zeus rescued the child she was carrying and sewed it into his thigh until Dionysus was ready to be born.

Rather than a prophecy, the dream reveals the anxiety of a teenage princess about to marry the ruler of a nearby kingdom. Philip's descent from Zeus as well as his power as king make the thunderbolt a natural symbol. The thunderbolt is also Zeus's procreative agent and at the same time his weapon of destruction. Olympias' anxiety on the eve of her wedding is symbolized by the fate of Semele, impregnated by Zeus and killed by his thunderbolt. That such a dream would be recorded and remembered seems plausible, since Aristander is mentioned in connection with Philip's dream a few months later.

The Epidaurian inscriptions yield several relevant dreams. Four concern women wishing to conceive.66 The first concerns an unnamed women from Troezen, who slept in the Abaton and in her dream was asked by the god whether she wanted a boy or a girl. She answered boy, and within a year a son was born to her.67 This appears to be a highly censored dream when compared with what follows.

Andromache of Epeirus dreamed that a boy in the bloom of youth uncovered her, after which the god touched her with his hand. Afterwards a son was born to her and Arybbas.68 The dream has an erotic component in that the young man is described as oraios, ripe, in the bloom of youth. He uncovers her, presumably rendering her naked, after which Asclepius, probably seen as a mature father figure, places his hand on her. The hand, like the finger, had a phallic significance for the Greeks. One need only recall the dream demand made of Aelius Aristides that he cut off one of his fingers, an obvious symbol for self-castration.69

The other two have a different manifest content, since the miracle is performed by Asclepius' sacred attribute, the snake. Agameda of Ceos dreamed that a snake lay on her belly while she slept. She bore five children.70 The snake stands for the god to whom it was sacred,71 while the word used for lying down, keisthai, was usually used for lying down in bed and in Greek comedy was used in a sexual sense.72 Furthermore, the present indicative form of the verb is keio, which is spelt exactly as the word meaning cleave or split. The sexual implication of penetration was hidden by the tense of the verb used in the inscription.

The last dream is the most overt. Nicasibula of Messene dreamt that the god approached her with the snake crawling behind him. She had intercourse with the snake and gave birth to two sons within the year.73 The snake is associated with Asclepius in the dream and represents his disembodied phallus. All four dreams appear to be oedipal in content; in the first two Asclepius=father, in the last two snake=Asclepius=father. The snake as detached phallus seems to reflect a fantasy among Greek women that they acquire their lover's phallus when they produce a child. Artemidorus notes a woman's dream in which she held her husband's severed penis in her hand, cared for it, and bore him a son.74 The women at Epidaurus may have believed they were impregnated by the god, although the inscriptions specify that Arybbas fathered Andromache's child and that the woman from Troezen and Nicasibula had their children within a year, which is to say, after more than nine months.

Two other dreams concern prolonged pregnancies. Cleo had been pregnant for five years. After sleeping in the Abaton, with no dream described, she left and bore a son who was able to wash himself and walk around.75 The other concerns Ithmonice of Pellene who had come to the temple wishing for a child. In her dream she asked that she might get pregnant with a daughter, but neglected to ask that she give birth to it. After three years she returned to Epidaurus and asked the god to help her give birth, after which her daughter was born.76 The Greeks were familiar with a condition they called uterine moles. After intercourse a woman believes she is pregnant because her abdomen increases, the menses stop, her breasts swell and her stomach is upset. However, she never gives birth. Some have this condition for three or four years, some for the rest of their lives.77 Quite obviously Cleo did not give birth to a child able to wash himself and walk, but perhaps their belief in the efficacy of the god enabled women to pass the mole and later bear children.

Five dreams, four from Epidaurus and one from a literary source, report dreams which have been interpreted as anxiety-abortion dreams or quasi-cephalic births.78 The first concerns Arata from Lacedaemon, who had dropsy. She remained at home while her mother went to Epidaurus and slept in the Abaton and had a dream in which the god cut off her daughter's head and hung the body upside down to drain the fluid. The god then took down the body and reattached the head. When she awoke she returned home to learn that her daughter had the same dream and was cured.79

Aristagora of Troezen had a tapeworm in her belly. She spent the night at Asclepius' temple in Troezen and in her dream the sons of the god cut off her head but could not reattach it. When the god returned from Epidaurus he reattached the head, cut open her belly, removed the tapeworm and stitched her up.80

A variant found in Aelian tells of a women who went to Epidaurus, but the god was away. In her dream the attendants decapitated her and one of them reached in and pulled out the tapeworm. However, he could not reattach the head, which the god was able to do when he returned.81

Sostrata was pregnant with worms. She did not have a dream while at Epidaurus, but on the way home dreamed that a man, presumably Asclepius, cut open her belly and removed the worms.82

Erasippe of Caphyiae was full of worms. Her stomach was swollen and burning. She dreamed that Asclepius massaged her stomach and kissed her and gave her a drug to drink and commanded her to vomit. When she awoke she was covered in the vile matter she had vomited.83

In all five cases the women perceive themselves as being pregnant. In the case of Sostrata, the text uses the word for pregnant, ekuece, to describe her condition. The word used for the location of the worms in Sostrata and Aristagora, koilia, refers to a body cavity. Usually referring to the belly or abdomen, it is used by Hippocrates for the womb.84 Erasippe's worms are said to be in her stomach, gastera, but that word is also used to refer to the womb. Dropsy, which Arata suffered, can be related to complications during pregnancy.

Sostrata's worms are removed by a caesarean; the woman in Aelian's account and Arata are decapitated. Aristagora is both decapitated and undergoes a caesarean. Devereux has argued that in these dreams decapitation=caesarean.85

According to Artemidorus, dreams about bugs symbolize anxiety, and getting rid of them means that one will get rid of their cares. Tapeworms represent wrongs committed against the dreamer; discharging them through the mouth means the problem will cease.86 More than likely these worms do not refer to internal parasites, but to hysterical symptoms or anxieties conceived of in terms of pregnancy of worms. Ridding oneself of these symptoms is imagined as an abortion. The various methods mentioned in the inscriptions, surgery and drugs, were known to the ancient Greeks. Abortion through the mouth was also a part of ancient folklore.87

It would seem rather that these dreams are open to over-interpretation, that the dream symbols lend themselves to either interpretation. Conceived of as pregnancy, fluids or worms are born or aborted.

In the dreams of pregnant women we finally observe some genuine women's dreams, although they are still subject to the editing of the historian, priest, or artisan. Note that of all the pregnancy dreams only one concerns the wish for a daughter, reflecting the low value placed on female children. We can also ascertain some of the cultural types of pregnancy dreams, which include dreaming that one is carrying an animal or a mythological creature. The anxiety concerning the fetus and the ambivalence of the mother toward it is remarkable.

We have already discussed the negative interpretation of the lion and satyr dream. Artemidorus mentions other animals he found in the dreams of pregnant women, such as the fish and the eagle. Dreams of bearing a fish reflects the death of the baby.88 Greek biologists noted that although the eagle lays three eggs, usually only one survives.89 In the dreams of the women with worms it can be said that the tapeworm=fetus, since it would be easy to interpret the fetus as a blood sucking parasite.90 The tapeworm also recalls the viper, which according to Greek folklore is born by eating its way through the mother's womb.91

Even living children were not immune. It was Arata's mother who spent the night in the Abaton and dreamt that her daughter was decapitated and hung upside down like a piece of meat having its blood drained out. Artemidorus mentions a dream in which a women dreamed that she was drunk and danced in honor of Dionysus. Imitating Agave, she killed her three year old child.92

Artemidorus states that the inner parts of the body can represent children, because they come from within. The word he uses, splagchna, actually refers to the inward parts used for a sacrifice, including the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys, usually reserved to be eaten by the sacrificer.93 It is also used to refer to that which comes from the womb,94 hence Artemidorus' interpretation. The association of eating the bloody entrails of a sacrificial victim with the product from the womb reflects the cannibalistic impulses of parents.

The imputation of violent cannibalistic feelings on an unborn fetus also reflects parental teknophagic impulses.95 The Greek woman had to stay home and care for her children alone, with little or no help from her husband. She developed unconscious mechanisms for the release of hostility and rage by participation in religious rituals or by terrorizing her children with stories about cannibalistic maternal demons.96 In their sleep too, particularly when they were pregnant, the hostility of these women found a voice in their dreams. Though edited somewhat in the historical texts, that voice still reaches us today.

footnotes Below

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footnotes:

1. On the function of speeches in ancient Greek and Roman historiography see Charles W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp.142-68.
2. The best discussion of women's lives in ancient Greece is Sarah B. Pomeroy, Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). On the fourth century and later see Sarah B. Pomeroy, "Technikai kai Mousakai: The Education of Women in the Fourth Century and in the Hellenistic Period," American Journal of Ancient History 2 (1977): 51-68.
3. Agariste in Herodotus 6. 131. 2; Olympias in Plutarch Alexander 2. 3.
4. Pausanias 2. 27. 3. Translations of the evidence concerning Asclepius can be found in Emma J. Edelstein and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius: Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945). Testimonies will be cited in the following format: Pausanias 2. 27. 3=T. 384.
5. F 63 in David Campbell, Greek Lyric, 5 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982-93).
6. E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), pp. 103-5, 109.
7. Homer Iliad 2. 5-37.
8. Those who read the poems of Sappho in translation are usually offered brief, complete poems as if they accurately reflect what has survived. Reading the original, or at least a bilingual edition, is preferable.
9. F 134 Campbell.
10. Hesiod Theogeny 188-206.
11. Aristotle History of Animals 638 a 6-7; Generation of Animals 739 a 21-27. In the second century A. D. Soranus too noted this condition, Gynecology 3. 46.
12. John J. Winkler, "The Constraints of Eros" in Christopher A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink eds., Magika Hiera (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp.229-30.
13. PGM XVII a 1-25 in Hans Dieter Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 253-4.
14. Bruce S. Thornton, Eros: The Myth of Ancient Greek Sexuality (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1997), pp. 69-98.
15. There is some controversy concerning Artemidorus' value. Among psychoanalysts, Freud believed him to be an important precursor (see The Interpretation of Dreams, trans. James Strachey, New York: Avon Books, 1965, pp. 37-8, 130-1). George Devereux suggests that the dreams he reports suffer from secondary elaboration by his clients (Dreams in Greek Tragedy: An Ethno-Psycho-Analytical Study, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976, pp. xxii, xxvi). Though classicists find his work of value, they disagree on how it can be used. See Arthur S. Oakley, "Notes on Artemidorus' Oneirocritica," Classical Journal 59 (1963): 65-70; Thomas Africa, "Psychohistory, Ancient History, and Freud: The Descent into Avernus," Arethusa 12 (1979): 12-13; S. R. F. Price, "The Future of Dreams: From Freud to Artemidorus," Past and Present 113 (1986): 3-37; John J. Winkler, "Unnatural Acts: Erotic Protocols in Artemidorus' Dream Analysis" in John J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire (New York: Routledge, 1990), pp. 17-44; G. W. Bowersock, Fiction as History: Nero to Julian (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 80-98.
16. Artemidorus 1. 26. Best available for Greekless readers in Robert White, trans., The Interpretation of Dreams: The Oneirocritica of Artemidorus (Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1975).
17. Artemidorus 1. 41.
18. Freud, p. 433 n. 1.
19. Ibid., p. 407.
20. Artemidorus 5. 63.
21. Plato Laws 909 E-910 A.
22. Plato Epinomis 985 C.
23. Strabo 7. 3. 4.
24. Pausanias 6. 20. 3-6.
25. Pausanias 3. 14. 4.
26. Lionel Pearson, "The Pseudo-History of Messenia and its Authors," Historia 11 (1962): 397-426.
27. Dodds, p. 108.
28. Pausanias 3. 16. 1.
29. Plutarch Timoleon 8. 8; Diodorus Siculus 16. 66. 4-5.
30. Diodorus Siculus 5. 4. 1-2.
31. Plutarch Timoleon 8. 8.
32. Pausanias 10. 38. 13.
33. Pausanias 2. 10. 3.
34. See my "Healing Cults in Antiquity: The Dream Cures of Asclepius of Epidaurus," Journal of Psychohistory 12 (1985): 339-52 for detailed discussion.
35. Strabo 8. 6. 15=T 382. Strabo found Asclepian votive offerings at Epidaurus, Cos, and Tricca.
36. Pausanias 2. 27. 3=T 384.
37. IG IV. I2. 121-124=T 423. Edelstein only translates 121 and 122; the other two are too fragmentary.
38. IG IV. I2. 121. 4=T 423. 4.
39. IG IV. I2. 123. 44.
40. Edelstein, vol, 2, pp. 214-21. See the various descriptions of Asclepius' image in T 628-44.
41. Plato Laws 931 A; Plutarch F 46, 86 in F. H. Sandbach, Plutarch's Moralia vol. 15 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969).
42. Pausanias 2. 27. 2=T 688, 2. 28. 1=T 692. See T. 688-706 for the ancient descriptions of his attributes.
43. Semonides F 7. 2-6, discussion in the commentary by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Females of the Species (Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1975), pp. 64-65. On the symbolism of hus see Jeffrey Henderson, The Maculate Muse (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), p. 132. Also note my discussion in "Healing Cults," p. 345. I must note the double parapraxis that occurred in the typesetting of the article: delapidated was printed rather than depilated, and n. 58 prints pus for hus.
44. See for example Aeschylus Prometheus Bound 654; Euripides Hippolytus 525; Devereux, Dreams, p. 33.
45. The snake=phallus equation was commonplace in Ancient Greece. See for example Stesichorus F 219 Campbell, discussed in Devereux, Dreams, pp. 169-79; Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 527-35, discussed in Devereux, Dreams, pp. 181-219; Aeschylus, Suppliant Women 885-897, discussed in Devereux, Dreams, pp. 319-44; Aristophanes, Ecclesiazusae 908; the ancient scholia on Aristophanes Ecc. 908; Aristophanes, Lysistrata 759, discussed in Henderson, p. 127; Strato of Sardis in Anthologia Palatina 11. 22 (11. 21 and 12. 207 use lizards in a similar manner); Artemidorus 1 Prologue, 2. 13, 4. 67.
46. IG IV. I2. 123. 45; T 441.
47. Artemidorus 3. 32.
48. Artemidorus 1, 14, 15, 16.
49. Herodotus 6. 131. 2.
50. W. W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), Vol. 2, pp. 119-20.
51. Artemidorus, p. 2. 12.
52. Plutarch Alexander 2. 4-5.
53. His collection is mentioned by the Elder Pliny, Natural History 17. 243; Lucian Patriot 21; Artemidorus 1. 31, 4. 23, 24. This is the same Aristander whom Freud commends for his interpretation of Alexander's satyr dream during the siege of Tyre, p. 131, n. 2.
54. Herodotus 3. 108. 4.
55. Aristotle History of Animals 579 b.
56. In his Varia Historia he states it as fact, 10. 3, while in his Nature of Animals he calls it a fable, 4. 34. Pausanias narrates a tale from the Second Messenian War about a peasant girl who dreams that wolves brought a declawed lion to her farm. She freed the lion and restored his claws. The next day some Cretans brought the legendary Messenian hero Aristomenes bound, without his weapons, to her farm. The girl realized the prophecy of the dream, got his captors drunk, took one of their daggers and cut Aristomenes' fetters. The hero then killed his captors and escaped, Pausanias 4. 19. 5-6.
57. Aristotle Generation of Animals 750 a 30-35.
58. See Devereux, Dreams, p. 177.
59. Cicero On Divination 1. 39; Valerius Maximus 1. 7. ex. 7.
60. Homer Odyssey 11. 756-64.
61. Plutarch Alexander 2. 3.
62. For example, Peter Green, Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B. C. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 35-7.
63. N. G. L. Hammond, The Genius of Alexander the Great (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), pp. 3-5.
64. Plutarch Alexander 2. 1.
65. On Olympias' devotion to Dionysus, Plutarch Alexander 2. 7. On the myth, Euripides Bacchae 1-12.
66. See my "Healing Cults'" pp. 341-2.
67. IG IV. I2. 122. 34=T 423. 34.
68. IG IV. I2. 122. 31=T 423. 31.
69. Aristides Oration 48. 27=T 504. The god Asclepius allowed Aristides to remove his ring and dedicate it, after inscribing on its band "Son of Kronos." Also see Artemidorus 1. 42. For discussion see Dodds, p. 116; Devereux, Dreams, p. 36.
70. IG IV. I2. 122. 39=T 423. 39.
71. Artemidorus 2. 13.
72. Henderson, p. 170.
73. IG IV. I2. 122. 42=T 423. 42.
74. Artemidorus 5. 86; Devereux, Dreams, p. 190.
75. IG IV. I2. 121. 1=T 423. 1.
76. IG IV. I2. 121. 2=T 423. 2.
77. Aristotle History of Animals 638 a 10-18, Generation of Animals 775 b 25-776 a 8; Soranus, Gynecology 3. 36-39.
78. On anxiety-abortion dreams, see my "Healing Cults," pp. 342-3; on quasi-cephalic births, Devereux, Dreams, p. 174.
79. IG IV. I2. 122. 21=T 423. 21.
80. IG IV. I2. 122. 23=T 423. 23.
81. Aelian Nature of Animals 9. 33=T 422.
82. IG IV. I2. 122. 25=T 423. 25.
83. IG IV. I2. 122. 41=T 423. 41.
84. Hippocrates Mulierum Affectibus 1. 38.
85. Devereux, Dreams, p. 174.
86. Artemidorus 3. 7, 8.
87. Soranus Gynecology 1. 64-65. According to the Elder Pliny, if a pregnant woman steps over a raven's egg she will abort through the mouth, Natural History 30. 130. See the discussion in A. Preus, "Biomedical Techniques for Influencing Human Reproduction in the Fourth Century B.C." Arethusa 8 (1975): 237-63 and E. Eyben, "Family Planning in Greco-Roman Antiquity," Ancient Society 11/12 (1980/81): 5-82.
88. Artemidorus 2. 18, 20.
89. Aristotle History of Animals 563 a 17-23; 619 b 27-34. In the latter passage he notes that the mature eagle is jealous and voracious.
90. Devereux, Dreams, p. 174.
91. Herodotus 3. 109.1-2; Pliny, Natural History 10. 170; Plutarch, Divine Vengeance 567 F; Aelian Nature of Animals 15. 16. See Devereux, Dreams, p. 177-8. Artemidorus 4. 67 lists several examples of pregnant women who dreamt they gave birth to a serpent. Though he cites these as predictive examples, they also document the existence of dreams in which the snake=fetus.
92. Artemidorus 4. 39.
93. Aeschylus Agamemnon 1221; Herodotus 2. 40. 2.
94. Pindar Olympian 6. 43, Nemean 1. 35; Aeschylus Seven Against Thebes 1036; Sophocles Antigone 1066.
95. George Devereux "The Cannibalistic Impulses of Parents" in George Devereux, Basic Problems of Ethno-psychiatry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp.122-37.
96. See my "Lamia and Other Greek Maternal Demons," Tapestry (forthcoming).

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