Athenaeus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae 12.517d-e: condemning the practices of female athletics in Etruria

Athenaeus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae 12.517d-e: condemning the practices of female athletics in Etruria

2nd/3rd century CE

Anecdote collection

Literary source

The Tyrrhenians are the Etruscans. Athenaeus is quoting the fourth-century BCE historian Theopompus of Chios.

And Theopompus, in the forty-third book of his History, states that it is a law among the Tyrrhenians that all their women should be in common: and that the women pay the greatest attention to their persons, and often practise gymnastic exercises, naked, among the men, and sometimes with one another; for that it is not accounted shameful for them to be seen naked. And that they sup not with their own husbands, but with any one who happens to be present; and they pledge whoever they please in their cups: and that they are wonderful women to drink, and very and some. And that the Tyrrhenians bring up all the children that are born, no one knowing to what father each child belongs.

Charles D. Yonge, The Deipnosophists or Banquet of the learned of Athenaeus, London 1854.

Θεόπομπος δὲ ἐν τῇ τεσσαρακοστῇ τρίτῃ τῶν Ἱστοριῶν καὶ νόμον εἶναί φησιν παρὰ τοῖς Τυρρηνοῖς κοινὰς ὑπάρχειν τὰς γυναῖκας: ταύτας δὲ ἐπιμελεῖσθαι σφόδρα τῶν σωμάτων καὶ γυμνάζεσθαι πολλάκις καὶ μετ᾽ ἀνδρῶν, ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ πρὸς ἑαυτάς: οὐ γὰρ αἰσχρὸν εἶναι αὐταῖς φαίνεσθαι γυμναῖς, δειπνεῖν δὲ αὐτὰς οὐ παρὰ τοῖς ἀνδράσι τοῖς ἑαυτῶν, ἀλλὰ παρ᾽ οἷς ἂν τύχωσι τῶν παρόντων, καὶ προπίνουσιν οἷς ἂν βουληθῶσιν. εἶναι δὲ καὶ πιεῖν δεινὰς καὶ τὰς ὄψεις πάνυ καλάς. τρέφειν δὲ τοὺς Τυρρηνοὺς πάντα τὰ γινόμενα παιδία, οὐκ εἰδότας ὅτου πατρός ἐστιν ἕκαστον.

Charles Burton Gulick (ed.), Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, vol. 5 ( = Loeb Classical Library; 274), London 1933.