turn the dowry of 1000 drachmas and pay another 1000 drachmas in fines of his own to her. Also, this contract was legally binding anywhere that those two shall have moved. This means that because of the time – where travel among the Hellenistic kingdoms was common practice and each place had it’s own laws – contracts needed to constructed as to be able to circulate in and out of each kingdom.In a rare case a woman was awarded a position as a magistrate. A one Phile of Priene. She became the first woman to construct a reservoir and an aqueduct. Her position as a magistrate was awarded to her probably because she contributed to the public works out of her private funds. But this shows that women were capable to function on a legal level, as was the case here. The next new rights of women in this period come from the arena of the new found domestic and civic freedoms. This is the new institution of educating women which I have already touched upon in the discussion between Plato and Glaucon. But I shall elaborate in more detail. A couple of examples of women’s literacy come from two places; poetry and the ability to sign one’s own marriage contract. We know of female poets in Classical Greece but now in Egypt with the new amounts of papyri women’s works remained intact as proof of their literacy. But the important part is that of women being able to sign their marriage contracts. Education became available to women in this period as well. Hipparchia, one of the first female Cynical philosophers even received an education based on the curriculum of a Greek boy. She received an education in rudimentary mathematics, music, literature, and of physical education. The aspect of women even being allowed to be involved in physical education is a radically new ideal. This because “Athletics were an essential part of the male curriculum that was opened to women in the Hellenistic period precisely because the...
