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Permission to Speak? Cleobulina/Eumetis in Plutarch’s Symposium of the Seven Sages and Mary in the Pistis Sophia
La Valle Norman, Dawn
La Valle Norman, Dawn
Author
Abstract
In his life, Plutarch publicly claims to have had intellectual conversations with women such as Clea, the dedicatee of both De Iside et Osiride and Mulierum virtutes. Within the Lives women are permitted reported speeches, and his work Lacaenarum Apophthegmata preserves the bons mots of brave women. Yet, in his multiple philosophical dialogues, none of these philosophical or verbal women are allowed to carry on conversations out loud while “on-stage.” Plutarch’s Septem sapientium convivium provides the clearest example of this avoidance. Cleobulina/Eumetis, although depicted as wanting to speak, maintains silence while Aesop speaks up for her, quoting her previous speech, and leaving her maidenly modesty intact. In this essay, I contrast Plutarch’s use of silent women in his dialogues with the Christian dialogue gospels written between the second to fourth centuries CE, which sometimes depicted female disciples in privileged conversation with the resurrected Jesus. As in Plutarch’s Septem sapientium convivium, their verbal participation is resisted by some of the men present within the fictional world but speaking rights are granted to them from Jesus himself. In particular, I will examine the roles played by Mary in the Pistis Sophia (third century CE). Plutarch’s strategies of ventriloquism are abandoned in these early Christian dialogic texts. This was to herald a new period of dialogic writing, when women would begin to be depicted “on-stage” speaking in their own voices. Examining the “hinge generation” of Plutarch and the dialogic gospels will illuminate the causes of this change in generic expectation.
Keywords
Roman Empire, Plutarch, Cleobulina, Eumetis
Date
2024
Type
Book chapter
Journal
Book
Plutarch and his Contemporaries
Volume
Issue
Page Range
335-351
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
Faculty of Theology and Philosophy
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Notes
This research was supported by the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Research Award, “The Female Voice in Ancient Philosophical Dialogues (DE220100854).
This Author's Version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use. © Dawn LaValle Norman.
The Publisher's version Copyright 2024 by Katarzyna Jażdżewska and Filip Doroszewski. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
This Author's Version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use. © Dawn LaValle Norman.
The Publisher's version Copyright 2024 by Katarzyna Jażdżewska and Filip Doroszewski. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.