Women play an important, yet often overlooked, role in classical epics. Whether to drive the plot, add dimensions to a male hero's character, or to present a political argument in a rather vague sense, women and gender issues are an influential part of the classical epic. Women's roles are that of the lesser. Would we remember the names of the famous and infamous women of classical mythology and history if not for their attachment to the men in their lives?

            In order to examine women in classical epics, one must first examine them from the perspective of the people of antiquity. Women in antiquity were considered virtuous when domesticated. A woman should be submissive to her husband or father as the head of her household. A woman should be quiet and passive. Women were not to be involved in war. Nor were they encouraged to become intellectuals. Aristotle thought that women were a  “defective kind of human. They do not generate enough vital heat to transform their surplus into semen” (Clark, 6). He goes on to say that because women do not grow bald, just as children do not,  they are inferior to men. Because they are unable to produce semen, they are not in control of their desires and are therefore little better than infants themselves. Both the Greek and Roman societies of antiquity believed that “women are not just physically, but intellectually and morally, the weaker sex, and are thus designed for protected and family centered lives” (Clark, 3). For the Romans, “a woman is always a varying and changeable thing” (Aeneid 4.569).  For the ancient Romans and Greeks, a woman was a lesser human being, one designed for childbearing and looking after the smaller, manageable, household chores.

            In Homer's Odyssey, both mortal and immortal women are central to the development of the story. Odysseus wishes to return home to his wife, Penelope, who has  been waiting for his return for years. Yet, Odysseus must face tragic circumstances and remain exiled by the gods from his home. Along the way he meets Circe and Calypso, beautiful, immortal women who entrap Odysseus. Circe, the sorceress, drugs Odysseus' men and attempts to do the same to him. When her magic fails to work, she seduces him. Calypso holds him in her home, seducing him with immortality and agelessness. When Hermes arrives with the message that she must release him, she is upset. She notes that the male gods are “unrivaled lord of jealousy- scandalized when goddesses sleep with mortals” (Odyssey, 5.129-131).  The same seems to apply to mortals that “we must grant that the epic, like later Greek society, accepts a double standard for the sexual behavior of men and women” (Rutherford, 70).

            Indeed, Odysseus' virtue is not questioned despite his love affairs with the women he encounters, yet Penelope's kleos depends upon her virtue and fidelity. Agamemnon praises Penelope for her virtue, citing his own wife, Clytemnestra, as the example. She wins respect for her fidelity. In fact, “remarriage would compromise her kleos” (Heitman,  70).  To remarry would be to destroy that which has made her famous. Neither is Aeneas' virtue questioned during his affair with Dido. The gods even force it to occur through magic. Aeneas walks away reluctant but unscathed.

            Several female characters in the epic are seen merely as sexual objects. The maids who cavort with the suitors are killed for their impiety. The Sirens sing their lovely, seductive songs. Odysseus must tie himself to a mast in an attempt to not be seduced and killed by their songs. Note that he does not wish to see them, only to mate with them. Women are also objects to be given. Nausicaa's father tries to give her to Odysseus, as was the custom then, as wife. Odysseus himself see her as a possible sexual object which “he must not encourage too much or he risks entanglement” (Nortwick, 271). He leaves her, as Aeneas leaves Dido, burning with love yet she “controlled her emotion with the dignity of maturer years” (Couch, 461).  Likewise, Penelope is seen as an object to be given. The suitors suggest giving her back to her father, so that he might marry her off to someone else.

            Both the Odyssey and the Aeneid present examples of women who have achieved power. Dido is the queen of her kingdom, having won her territory through cunning. She is a powerful woman whose husband has died. She wishes to remain chaste, yet the gods direct her to an affair with Aeneas. When Aeneas leaves, Dido kills herself upon a pyre in her bedchamber. . She cannot remain alive to live with the disgrace he has wrought upon her. Upon her appearance in the underworld, it is seen that even in death, she cannot forgive his wrongs. She flees to the company of her former husband.  In the Odyssey, Queen Arete is more influential than her husband. Nausicaa tells Odysseus to entreat her and not the king for help. Camilla, the amazon, is another woman who crosses the line of what the expected role is. She appears late in the Aeneid, as a warrior woman. Becker suggests, “Unlike other women in the Aeneid, she rejects the appropriate roles and actions of women, behaves more like a man, and presents to the readers a paradox” (Becker).  She is presented as an androgynous creature, with both male and female aspects, something looked down upon by antiquity. She helps to lead the army of Turnus against Aeneas and dies in battle. She is wholly unlike any other character in either epic. These women are particularly odd, for they attain positions of authority in a male dominated society.

            Women are not traditionally seen as the hero in classical epic, yet Penelope can be seen somewhat as a lesser hero. Through her wits and cunning, she manages to dissuade the suitors. Her intelligence matches that of Odysseus at times. The Greek word, echephron, is used once for Odysseus and seven times for Penelope. It means one who keeps their head always. Likewise, Penelope is also given the epithet of “periphon” over fifty times. This word means one of good sense. Both of these words are ones of clearheadedness. In addition to her virtue, Penelope is a heroine because of her intelligence and her mind. She attains kleos, not by seduction, but by a lack of it. For Penelope, “heroism demands the courage to go unrecognized as a hero. No one else in the Homeric epics is called upon to make such a great sacrifice” (Heitman, 84). Penelope is compared to a lion, a simile reserved almost entirely for male heroes. She is an intelligent woman, weaving a web of lies to put off her remarriage to the suitors. Even when she begins to waver, she suggests that a contest be held. She has Odysseus' bow brought down. She must know that none of the suitors will be able to draw it, and none can. Therefore, she is saved from marriage and given more time. Her weaving of the burial shroud is perhaps the most famous example of her cunning. Despite all that Penelope does, her role is that of a woman in her home, weaving and being pretty. The epic is not named after her, though nearly as much of the plot has to do with her as with Odysseus.

            During the time in which the Aeneid was composed, the scandal of Marc Antony and Cleopatra had just occurred. By empirical decree, even Cleopatra's name was not to be said. Virgil uses his women characters as a template from which to discuss Cleopatra. She is a powerful woman in authority who committed suicide, just as the two queens presented in the Aeneid do. Homer seems to be laying the groundwork for what a woman should be. He sets up a paradigm for women to follow. He even gives examples of those who not to be like, i.e. Clytemnestra and Helen. Helen is of divine blood and acts thus, “Whereas Helen is a goddess of love who acts like a mere woman, Penelope is a mere woman who acts like, or even better than, a god” (Heitman, 103).  Homer sets Penelope as the example to be followed. For her, “to have her husband home and her long years of fidelity rewarded means the end of the story' (Rutherford, 74). She lives on, just as Nausicaa does. The only women to die in the Odyssey are the maids who sleep with the suitors. Virgil, however,  allows no woman touched by the hero to survive. 

            The women in both pieces draw the plot forward and give us insight into the male heroes. If not for Penelope, Odysseus might have chosen to remain with his goddesses. If not for Dido, Aeneas would be seen merely as a stoic hero without emotion. Vergil's statement toward the roman way of life seems evident. He encourages sympathy toward dido, who stands in for Cleopatra and displays the founder of Rome as a idiotic boy who must be led at every turn. His political commentaries run rampant through the Aeneid, including his views on the treatment of Cleopatra. In addition to plot and character development, it presents role of women in antiquity. Those in power usually fall and those who lead the quiet domestic life are blessed with old age and happiness. Women who are involved in war die. Those women who engage in illicit sexual behaviors die, and those like Nausicaa, who go about their desires with modesty, live. Women are presented as being capable of being good people, but only as far as women can be. They are not expected to be virtuous. No one really expected Penelope to hold out as long as she did. Yet, even having done so, she does not earn heroics, merely praise. What classical epics present is a template for the behavior of women.