"We are called a Democracy" (Noble Friends, this is a Greek City-State Game)

[Rhetoric]

Something I should have asked before choosing B)...

How did the Greeks see tanners/renderers? I know in some societies it was seen as unclean, or was it more like an artisan thing, respected like the rest of the merchant class?

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Tanning was a dirty and smelly job, but one that was not disreputable. It was a job of normal status for a craftsman, though an opponent or uncouth person might make reference to it as a way of insulting a politically active tanner.

I'd vote E, but I have a few questions first regarding that option:
- What is our starting age? Young enough to finish an education by the time we're adult, if we get the opportunity?
- What is our home situation like? What are our guardians attitudes to women's rights? Could we wrangle an education from them if really tried?

If we go with E, we should propably get contacts with the priesthood of Athene. She is the cities' patron deity, so represents a lot of pull. She is the goddess of wisdom, and she is female, so that's a decent basis for an argument for women's rights and education.

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As a young woman of a well born house, it would be most interesting to start you off just as you become old enough for your father to seriously consider marrying off. You would be 15 or so. Before that you would be learning the skills required of an aristocrat's daughter (tending children, weaving, spinning, cooking, and other domestic tasks) and would have little ability to argue on your own behalf.

Not that your father or other male relatives would take you seriously; as Athenian society is very sexist, the commonly held belief was that women were irrational and childlike. All men of Athens, even the lowest slaves, believe that they have superior powers of reasoning compared to a woman, and that it is the role of men to guide and protect good Athenian women from foolishly harming their own interests. Your father is no different. Indeed, he has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo as he is quite rich, and a daughter of marrying age represents a potential bargaining chip to weld his family to another of equal or greater status.

Could a girl in such a situation convince her father she should be educated? It is unlikely. Getting an education wouldn't be impossible though, but simply very hard for a girl in that situation.

The priests of Athena would most likely treat the daughter of a high born house who came to them arguing that women in Athens should be treated as equals with gentle reproach, and would tell your father to keep a better eye on you. I say "most likely" because I do not know the future. It may be that you make a superlative argument, or find a particularly open-minded priest.

Still I ask you make no mistake, when I said that options E and F were hard and impossible respectively, I was not joking. It would be a dangerous uphill battle for you to do the things you have in mind.

Edit: Having done a count, I see that the votes are very close. B, C, and E are all quite popular.
Voting is still not closed, I wish to give those who requested extra information time to reflect on it.

 

[Darkened]

Whats your stance on reasoning/scientific methods that didn't exist yet?

For example, if we tried to introduce experimental methodology somewhere down the line or Aristotlean logic, would that be shut down because it's a conceptual framework that wouldn't exist for another 1500 years or is it valid to 'discover' them?

IE: While I imagine that outright using scientific knowledge would be shut down hard, how much will you restrict us to time-appropriate methods of thought?

For example, a lot of what Aristotle wrote on men and women (200 years after us) was TRIVIAL to prove false if you actually checked.

Aristotle would argue, for example, that women have fewer teeth then men (and twist this into a grounding to justify many Athenian attitudes toward sex).

It's really really easy to open up your mouth and count or have one person do it.

More fundamentally, experimental verification is such a huge advantage over anyone at the time that, while I don't think we could just overturn existing attitudes/culture, we could (if we can learn writing and publish anonymously) probably broker our way into a lot of tech trees very very early.

Likewise a lot of modern technology (wheelbarrows) to the extent of my knowledge, didn't exist in the time period for uses that we put them to today. These could be easily reproduced without any grand technological knowhow that's out of date.

However the voters here have a serious advantage in that we can easily wikipedia Newton or Bacon and recreate the fundamental precepts of a universal scientific method with a few minutes of work.

At the same time, certain constraints of logic were taught differently. (Using Aristotle's logic I can prove that some cats are dogs) and no voter would actually engage with those methods of thought.

Likewise if we go with a female PC I doubt we're going to internalize existent beliefs about gender roles and the like so some such modernity will creep into our decision making process regardless.

Where's the line going forward?

Edit: A secondary note is that it would fairly easy to discover, say, Punnett squares and introduce ancient greece to principles of inheritance and genetics simply by gardening with the right plants in the right ways. Getting them adopted or accepted would be hard. Is this kind of 'inspiration' valid if we go do the work to prove it?

Also updating vote to

[X] E

 

[Rhetoric]

Whats your stance on reasoning/scientific methods that didn't exist yet?

For example, if we tried to introduce experimental methodology somewhere down the line or Aristotlean logic, would that be shut down because it's a conceptual framework that wouldn't exist for another 1500 years or is it valid to 'discover' them?

...

Likewise a lot of modern technology (wheelbarrows) to the extent of my knowledge, didn't exist in the time period for uses that we put them to today. These could be easily reproduced without any grand technological knowhow that's out of date.

...

Likewise if we go with a female PC I doubt we're going to internalize existent beliefs about gender roles and the like so some such modernity will creep into our decision making process regardless.

Where's the line going forward?

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To create a new concept is hard work, requiring time, skill, intellect, and general education. To prove your concept sound is even harder, and to defend it in the public sphere will require a patron or strong rhetorical ability. None of these things are necessarily beyond any of the potential characters, but some will have a much easier time than others. Characters who are described as being educated, or clever, or blessed by a goddess will have an easier time of it since they will start in an advantageous position.

Inventing or reinventing will not be easy. Rather than examine a dubious case like the wheelbarrow, let us use a more certain example of a simple idea that took a long time to be discovered. An idea like the stirrup may seem obvious to someone who has already seen one, but if it is an entirely new concept it is only obvious to a genius or very skilled inventor. Before the stirrup was available, the obvious way to ride a horse was without stirrups. This was limiting, but no one knew better (save perhaps for some Barbarians who had little or no contact with the Greeks). Even a genius or inspired inventor may get the idea wrong initially. Until the invention of appropriately rigid saddles, stirrups would cause terrible friction sores on horses.

If you play a woman, there is nothing that says she has to personally believe her gender role is just and correct. But the people around her will, and will treat her accordingly.

Edit: A secondary note is that it would fairly easy to discover, say, Punnett squares and introduce ancient greece to principles of inheritance and genetics simply by gardening with the right plants in the right ways. Getting them adopted or accepted would be hard. Is this kind of 'inspiration' valid if we go do the work to prove it?

Click to shrink...

Punnet squares are another idea that seems obvious if you've seen them already and already have the math and science background to understand them. Punnet only came up with the idea after reading Gregor Mendel's work, which was itself the result of nearly two decades of meticulous experimentation and observation. Do not take new ideas and concepts lightly: invention and discovery is usually hard work, and your character, short of divine intervention, will have to put in that hard work to enjoy the fruits of his or her labors.

 

[Warslick]

[X] B

 

[Plotvitalnpc]

[X] E

 

[Rhetoric]

The winner, with 38.9% of the votes, is E., the hard start.​

Your name is Gorgia, in honor of your father Gorgias. Your brother Dion has nicknamed you Gavra (anchovy) though, because your skin is fair and you are slim and wide-eyed. Like most Greeks, he loves fish, so the nickname is far from an insult and instead more of a funny and loving familiar name. Your mother is Isodice, and she is everything an Athenian woman is supposed to be. She loves beautiful things, and in particular owns a lot of pottery painted by Epiktetos, a metic (resident alien) who was once a slave. She has taught you the things a daughter of a well born house must know.

You are nearly illiterate. You can read the words for various local foodstuffs, and you can read some common names. You can write your own name because Dion showed you how, and you can count to one hundred. Numbers larger than that are problematic for you. Simple addition and subtraction is difficult for you, but not impossible. You have seen Dion and Gorgias do very clever things with a counting board, and both men can keep track of very large numbers and multiply and divide the sum at will. You don't really know how to use a counting board like that, but keeping track of smaller numbers with one is no problem for you. You might have learned more from Dion, but Gorgias complained that he was spoiling you and that was the end of it.

Sometimes Dion will take you out to the agora (the public plaza and market) on the pretense of doing the household shopping. He will always stop to listen to people read books aloud. Books are expensive and most people can't read anyway, but the people of Athens are cultured and will gladly share the information in many books by doing public readings. You are familiar with some of the stories of the heroic age, and the stories of the gods, but you are no poet. You have an appreciation for literature and plays. Visiting the theater is a joy for you, even if you are forbidden from watching the comedies because they are ribald and unsuitable for women.

Athenian women are held by men to be an irrational creatures, like children or animals, who must be under the care and guidance of a guardian. You have just become of marrying age, and you expect that you will spend your entire life under the guardianship of your father, or your brothers, or your husband. This is completely normal. It's how the people of Athens have done things for many generations before yours.

Women in Athens are citizens in name, but are really second class citizens at best. They have no political rights, and live very restricted lives. Good Athenian women seldom go into public, and are usually kept cloistered in their own section of the home, the gynaikon or "women's quarters." In your house, these quarters are upstairs, next to the slave quarters. The rooms upstairs can be locked, and your father and brother both have keys. Your father is quite proud that he was able to get locks: they're expensive and uncommon. Most houses simply use door bars and latches.

Your home is something like this:

The central courtyard is where you spend most of your time. In the morning you draw water for the household's needs from a private well (your family is quite well off, most houses don't have their own well), and help your mother prepare breakfast. Throughout the rest of the day, you'll clean and sweep the home, clean the andron if your father entertained guests the night before, clean bedclothes, mend clothes, spin wool, weave cloth, take in the laundry, prepare lunch with mother and the slaves, and do embroidery and other domestic tasks when nothing pressing is happening. At the end of the day you help with preparing the meals for the evening meal, take a bath, listen to your eldest brother when he tells you about his day, and have dinner with your parents and brother if your father is not entertaining guests (or being entertained by his peers at their houses). If he is, you and your mother will eat dinner with the slaves and help prepare the food for the guests.

Hosting parties is a big deal for a household of means. The men of the house live on the ground floor and entertain their guests in the andron, the "men's quarters." The andron has several couches where the men recline while they eat and talk with their friends during drinking parties known as symposiums. Women are not allowed, except for the occasional barbarian woman or courtesan brought by one of the male guests as a curiosity. You are somewhat aware of the practice of keeping courtesans, if only because your brother once mocked Simonides (a man only a few years older than himself) for keeping his courtesan under the same roof as his wife and was soundly beaten by thugs a day later. Your father, not wishing a feud, forbid Dion from bringing the matter to court. Dion was not permanently damaged, and had learned a lesson. For his part, Simonides did eventually move his courtesan into a modest house near his home.

You seldom interact with men who are not your relatives or your father's slaves. When guests visit your home, you and your mother retire to the gynaikon. This is what well born women do, and is considered polite, correct, and totally normal.

Your uncle Hebron is the current archon, a master of ceremonies and important person in the democratic assembly. The assembly selects an archon each year, usually from one of the aristocratic families. You know that much of Hebron's wealth comes from being a landlord and renting slaves to the city for use as night watchmen. He has always been friendly to you and your mother, and often would bring small gifts for you and your brother when he visited the home.

Last autumn, your mother Isodice miscarried while your father was out of town on business. It was Hebron who arranged for her medical care and who checked on the house daily. Dion was nominally in charge, but Hebron was the true caretaker that time.

Hebron likes Dion, but you once overheard he and your father discussing what to do about Dion being attacked in retaliation for the insult to Simonides. At that time both he and your father expressed concern that Dion was getting too flighty and disrespectful, and decided to keep the matter from escalation by making sure Dion could not take any retaliation in court.

Shortly after the beating, Dion declared he wished to be a poet and a playwright. While that is potentially a very respectable sort of occupation, it is not one which will pay the bills without a patron. Dion obviously assumed he would have access to the family wealth. Father did not deny this, but made it clear that he would not pay for character assassinations or other forms of literary mischief.

Thereafter Dion would spend a part of his time cloistered in his room, writing.

Today you are working with wool which was brought to you by one of your father's slaves. The wool must be prepared by being carded or combed before it is spun on drop spindles to be made into thread. Working with wool always leaves your hands soft, because the wool comes coated in lanolin from the sheep. Your mother has directed the slaves to comb the wool instead of carding it. The tufts of wool are positioned on large combs, and they run the combs through each other to straighten and separate the fibers.

Once you have a good supply of combed wool tufts, you take up Isodice's spindle and begin twirling the fibers along its length, turning them into thread which you wrap around the end. Several people combing can keep one spinner busy all day.

Isodice is happy to have you do the spinning, as it means she can use her time for other things. Today she is preparing madder dyes which Dion brought home. The batch of wool you are turning to thread will be dyed red by the madder, and will probably be used for making a himation, an outer cloak of durable wool.

Everyone is working in the courtyard, since it is a nice day. Dion and Gorgias have already left to go to the agora and baths, and probably to exercise and tend to other business. Most of the male slaves are also out of the house on business as well.

Spinning isn't a bad job, since it leaves you time to think and chat. There's a lull in the conversation at the moment. Previously your mother was planning dinner with Filistia, one of the female slaves who is quite good at cooking.

What do you do?

A. I say nothing and remain focused on my task.
B. I ask if anyone knows how Dion's play is coming along.
C. I ask if the portents were good for the wool harvest.
D. I ask what a courtesan does.
E. I ask something else (write in).

 

[Ct613hulu]

D. I ask what a courtesan does.

 

[Valette-Serafina]

B. I ask if anyone knows how Dion's play is coming along.

Elder brother seems somewhat fond of us, and we do have an interest in plays and such.
(He taught us some things. Let's try for more things.)

 

[MrGazzer]

B. I ask if anyone knows how Dion's play is coming along.

 

[Plotvitalnpc]

C. I ask if the portents were good for the wool harvest.

 

[a2znut]

B. I ask if anyone knows how Dion's play is coming along.

 

[Jaertin]

The priests of Athena would most likely treat the daughter of a high born house who came to them arguing that women in Athens should be treated as equals with gentle reproach, and would tell your father to keep a better eye on you. I say "most likely" because I do not know the future. It may be that you make a superlative argument, or find a particularly open-minded priest.

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I've done a bit of googling and what I've found seems to indicate that Athena had priestesses who served in the role for life, and were chosen from married or widowed women of high nobility. I'm guessing the same women had to have taken part in the Arrhephoria as virgins, starting from age seven.
And that priests who served her were prepubescent boys.

B. I ask if anyone knows how Dion's play is coming along.