Beauty is ephemeral in scholarship as much as in life; yet G.’s work on beauty contests and conceptions of corporeal beauty neatly pins down views and applications of the beautiful body in ancient Greece from Homer to the Hellenistic era. She does so on the basis of a wide range of archaeological and literary testimonia, offering a solid overview of the many modes of assessing beauty in ancient Greek societies. She separates male and female competitions, and outlines the various occasions for, and types of participants in, such judgements or kriseis, as well as the roles the latter might have in the poleis where they occurred.
Where the beautiful body seems a popular subject recently, with exhibitions (I. Jenkins et al. [edd.], Defining Beauty. The Body in Ancient Greek Art. London: The British Museum [2015]) and appearances in volumes on aesthetics in ancient culture more generally (D. Konstan [ed.], Beauty. The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea. [2014]; I. Sluiter and R.M. Rosen [edd.], Aesthetic Value in Classical Antiquity [2012]) a thought-through work like G.’s fills a gap in existing scholarship.
The book's strengths are in the collection of data, and that includes emphatically non-philosophical, contextual evidence. The first part presents an analysis of the Judgement of Paris in text and iconography. The differences in the nature of the three goddesses’ beauty are connected convincingly to their roles in myth as well as in ritual: where Athena is the unadorned, boyish goddess (despite her knowledge of adult women's crafts), Hera is regal and formally dressed; Aphrodite overwhelms mortals by her dazzling beauty and rich dress, make-up and perfume, although her power to disrupt mortals’ lives has dark undertones. The analysis of pottery persuasively shows increasing differentiation between the goddesses over time (p. 30): one explanation for this is that ‘archaic painters put themselves in Paris’ position, incapable of distinguishing between the three competitors’ (p. 31) whose equally rich, if varied, attire obscures their intrinsic beauty. The Judgement of Paris is partially a way of establishing the merits of the three types of beauty and the different characteristics and attributes of each, linked to the sphere of influence of the goddess in question (pp. 47, 63–4).
This distinction between different types of beauty ties in with the competitions, which are the subject of the remainder of the book, and lays a foundation for their analysis. It also offers an explanation for Paris’ reluctance to deliver the verdict: an exclusive choice between war, marriage or love, closing the doors to the other two, is something one could do without. In the Classical period, physical characteristics and attire became reflections of moral character and behaviour (p. 68). Restraint towards the temptation of beauty becomes a mark of good ethos, a point on which Paris might be criticised. In short, excellence in appearance was conceptualised as accompaniment of excellence in behaviour.
Later on in the book, G. lists various beauty contests, some of which can hardly have been considered dignified, for example, the election of the most beautiful female genitalia at symposia (pp. 103–7). The universality of the entanglement of physical and moral beauty can perhaps be doubted more than G. does, although of course, ancient sources confirming the connection outnumber those belying it.
In Chapters 4–6, G. presents the evidence for beauty contests of young girls, married women and prostitutes. Where for the former two, the power of beauty is channelled towards the common good, the latter plays a different part in society. Beauty contests of girls are more often than not mythical, and in the few instances where their context is historical – notably in Sparta, where the ephors judged girls’ thighs (p. 86) – their purpose is to establish eligibility for marriage. Their beauty is classified, leading to marriages befitting each girl's ‘level’; and this in turn provides the city with social order and continuance.
If this were the main purpose of such competitions, G. rightly argues, married women would not compete for beauty; but the evidence says otherwise. For them, as to some extent for younger women, beauty is a sign of divine favour, almost a collective good. Ritualising rivalry about beauty releases jealous tensions among citizens. Moreover, the most beautiful is the logical choice for mediating between the community and deities, for example as a priestess. In this way, ‘beauty pageants in which married women compete reinstate the social, political and religious order, by turning the beauty of married women to the advantage of the community’ (p. 102).
An interesting comment is that in a society in which women's modesty is so central to expectations, one might think that public displays even in full dress might be frowned upon (p. 91). And indeed, the standards of women's conduct that are presumed in this book very much concur with the idea that women in the ancient world, particularly in Athens, had no opportunities for public life outside of official religion. I would consider this a point of criticism, especially since the very restrictive view of women's activities and rights in, particularly, Classical Athens, has been under considerable strain over the last decade. Some of the scholarship in this field seems to be under-represented in the book (studies by J. Blok and J. Connelly, for example). More importantly, G. herself does excellent work in pointing out local and regional differences in the norms for women's behaviour. The obligatory modesty that might cause scholars’ surprise at such competitions would mainly apply to Attic examples of competitions of matrons or young women. Of these only one is mentioned, the election of the most beautiful woman at the Thesmophoria, who would mediate between the goddesses and mortals (p. 94). Thus, where G. presents a wide variety of attitudes towards beauty contests, the scope for wider societal considerations is less detailed, which means that rituals and views from different places are regularly judged by Athenian, upper-class, standards.
For prostitutes, in the next chapter, competitions focus on specific body parts, more like in male beauty pageants (p. 120), and are, according to G., less politicised. ‘Courtesans’ would show and compare body parts for entertainment at symposia, at which G. rightly wonders if men really never would have engaged in such sympotic locker room behaviour (p. 109). Interestingly, there seem to be no examples of beauty competitions focusing on male genitalia, while female prostitutes seem to have had no qualms about presenting these for public scrutiny.
While it seems logical that male competitions would have a more political character, the focus on texts in the second part of the book inevitably causes bias towards the political upper class of ancient Athens. A safeguard against this is the relatively rich material from other poleis collected in the book. And in certain respects, the political side is undeniable. Examples are the appointments of priests, or the justification of kings and other leaders based on beauty. Characteristics to focus on are not only musculature and stature, but also poise and, in some cases, voice (p. 138). In the final two chapters, G. analyses the social meaning of male contests of beauty, stature and poise, and connects them to the visible readiness to fight for one's city, to divine favour, to the welfare of the community and to moral standards which physical beauty reflects.
The volume offers a wide and thorough range of material on the subject, a well-developed argument about the different roles that these contests played in society and how they reflect attitudes towards beauty in men and women of various ages. The functionalist tendencies of the interpretation are often enriching. G. has delivered a valuable contribution to scholarship, which has much to benefit from a systematic survey. However, it is time to build on the evidence gathered here to try some innovative methods which particularly fit the subject of corporeal beauty: cognitive aspects of how bodily beauty is perceived, or the notion of embodiment (L. Shapiro, Embodied Cognition [2010]). The courses of research that this study provides are needed if we are to gain perspectives beyond the kind offered in this book.
