No abstract

The article examines the relationship of women and the objects surrounding them in the light of the term ‘affordance’. Coined by psychologist James J. Gibson, the term refers to the potentialities held by an object for a particular set of actions, stemming from its material properties. Through focusing on two case studies in which women use mundane objects (mainly pins and pestles) in violent situations – (a) stories (told by Herodotus and Euripides) about women attacking with pins, and (b) a group of vases representing women attacking with pestles – the article seeks to uncover a fundamental aspect of the engagement of women with the objects surrounding them, as envisioned by the men creating the literature and art. Deprived of almost any access to real weapons, these women are depicted as turning to objects in their immediate environment. Perceiving the affordances of these objects, stemming from their shape and material and the inherent potentialities for action, the women make use of them in acts of self-defence, anger, or revenge.

This article focuses on the images of the cuirasses from Polygnotos’ lost painting, the Iliupersis. I argue, based on a scrupulous reading of Pausanias’ detailed recreation of the painting, that Polygnotos painted two different types of body armour in his painting. One is the bronze bell cuirass, an old-fashioned panoply item in his day, and the second is the contemporary composite corselet. The visual juxtaposition of the anachronistic and the contemporary panoply items is intentional. It enabled Polygnotos to add complexity to his painting and to compel the viewer to historical awareness. Similar visual juxtaposition occurs also in vase paintings, proving that this visual practice is not an isolated, idiosyncratic creation, but rather a visual manifestation of the way the Greeks perceived and presented their past.

The article examines a series of images on Athenian ceramic vases in which sandals are depicted as a hitting implement. This iconographic motif appears mainly in two contexts: educational scenes, where an adult hits a subordinate, and erotic scenes, where the hitting action is almost always performed by males upon female prostitutes. The utilisation of this specific mundane object, rather than equally available others, for these violent acts is explored in light of psychologist James J. Gibson's term "affordance", which refers to the potentialities held by an object for a particular set of actions, stemming from its material properties. I suggest that the choice of the sandal is not arbitrary: it supports these aggressors' desire to cause pain to those of lower status, thereby controlling and humiliating them. The affordances of the sandal, stemming from its shape and material and the inherent potentialities for action, are perceived and exploited by the hitters. Though not designed as a hitting implement, in the hands of these privileged figures in these specific situations, the mundane, ordinary sandal becomes the medium, a social agent, by which their control attains physical embodiment. Thanks to the Athenian vase painters, we are able to register and visualise latent affordances of the sandal that previously lay out of sight. It seems that in the context of Athenian society, the supposed dichotomy between the ordinary usage and the extraordinary violent usage of the sandal collapses. In this particular case, hitting with a sandal seems as ordinary as donning it in everyday use.