Browsing by Author "Bolton, Lesley"

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    A Re-interpretation of the Anthesteria and Its Eclectic Ceremonies
    (2024-09-10) Leo, Kingston Tyler; Hume, James; Toohey, Peter; Bolton, Lesley; Stahnisch, Frank; Maynes, Craig
    Scholarship on the Anthesteria, an Athenian festival held in late February and celebrated new wine in honour of the wine-god Dionysos, are at odds with how to interpret this festival, given that its various ceremonies contrasted each other in terms of their themes. Most notably the Anthesteria had joyous drinking festivities as well as a sacred wedding ritual between Dionysos and the basilinna (the archon basilieus’ wife). Held at this festival was also the morose Aiora ceremony, a rite wherein young Athenian women swung on makeshift swings to honour the death of the maiden Erigone. Given this contrast of the Anthesteria’s events, previous scholars, such as Walter Burkert, have demarcated the festival’s gloomy rites from its more cheerful and sacred rituals by placing them on separate days, which still encompassed the Anthesteria. More recent scholars, on the other hand, have excised the Aiora and holy wedding ceremony from the festival on the grounds that these two ceremonies are unrelated to the jovial and wine-centric events of the Anthesteria. Contradicting these scholars, my thesis offers an alternative interpretation of the Anthesteria, in which this festival could be both a gloomy and joyous occasion that was held on one day and hosted festive drinking events in conjunction with the gloomy Aiora ritual and sacred wedding ceremony. I shall argue that these seemingly contrasting events were interconnected and had a unifying purpose of ultimately promoting both agrarian and female fertility. As I discuss the fertility-promoting properties of the Anthesteria and its events, I shall compare this festival to Artemisian coming-of-age rites that promoted female fertility. Additionally, I will interpret this festival through the perspective of Hippocratic medicine, an interpretation overlooked by previous scholars, given that its ceremonies resemble Hippocratic treatments for gynaecological illnesses that affected a female’s fecundity.
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    An Edition, Translation and Commentary of Mustio's Gynaecia
    (2015-05-12) Bolton, Lesley; Sigismund Nielsen, Hanne
    This dissertation provides a new critical edition of Mustio’s Gynaecia, the first since Valentin Rose’s 1882 volume for the Teubner series. It is accompanied by a facing page translation, the first in English, and related commentary. Introductory material locates the text and its author within the history of women’s medicine, including a discussion of extant sources and transmission of the work. Written in Latin sometime in the fifth or sixth century CE, the Gynaecia covers the topics of obstetrics, paediatrics and gynaecology. Its author, the otherwise unknown Mustio, concedes to his audience that he is re-using older Greek material, but stresses that he is going to rework the content into a novel format suitable for midwives with limited formal education. In fact, he sets a good part of the work into a basic question-and-answer format that is ideal for rote memorization, making it a practical training tool for women whose level of literacy might be rudimentary. It is generally believed that Soranus, the greatest exponent of the Methodist school of medicine at Rome, is the source for the Greek material, via the work commonly known as the Gynaecology. It has also been argued that Soranus wrote (at least) two versions of the Gynaecology, a full version and an abridged one set in a question-and-answer format, and that it is the latter shorter version that Mustio bases his work upon. I challenge both the idea that Mustio inherited the question-and-answer format from Soranus, and the notion that Soranus wrote several versions of the Gynaecology. I argue, rather, that while Mustio may not have ‘invented’ the question-and-answer-format, his adaptation of it as a catechetic instructional tool for women was indeed innovative. I also question the traditional connection between Mustio’s work and the Gynaecology of Soranus, and suggest alternative readings for the Cateperotiana and the Triacontas which scholarship has thus far interpreted as catechetic and non-catechetic versions by Soranus of his own material from the Gynaecology. In terms of stylistic method, subject matter and intended audience, this a unique text in ancient writing, yet one that has attracted little modern research.