Challenging Gender Roles: The Warrior Poet Telesilla Saves the Day, Pausanias, Desc. Graec.II.xx.8-9

Supra theatrum Veneris fanum: in cuius fronte e pavimento columna surgit, cui insistit Telesilla quae cantica fecit. Ad pedes eius carminum volumina iacent: ipsa galea aspicit, quam capiti iam ipositura manu tenet. Fuit Telesilla haec, & aliis de causis inter feminas illustris & honorem praecipuum ex poetica meruit. Haec illa Telesilla est quae tale virtutis muliebris documentum dedit. Quo tempore Argivi maiore quam dicendo explicari possit clade a Cleomene Anaxandridae filio Lacedaemoniorum rege afflicti sunt, aliis in prelio caesis, ii qui supplices in Argi lucum confugerant, parti ad pacis conditiones evocati, nihilo minus violati sunt; partim vero ubi se dolo circumvento  senserunt, seipsos & lucum simul cremarunt. Quare Cleomenes consumta Argivorum militari aetate & robore, ad Argos oppugnandum confestim Lacedaemoniorum copias duxit. Ibi Telesilla ad murorum praesidia servitiis, & iis omnibus qui per aetatem arma ferre non possent, armandatis, e domibus & templis aris, quae reliqua fortuna belli fecerat, refixis, omnes quae integra aetate erant feminas obarmavit, & ibi eas collocavit, qua ad oppidum Lacedaemonios accessuros exploratum habebat. neque vero illae hoste approprinquante bellico clamore exterritae sunt: quin fortiter & praesenti animo pugnantes, hostium impressionem sustinuerunt. At Lacedaemonii quum cogitare coepissent, si feminas violassent, invidiosam fore eam victoriam: sin victi essent, se turpissime discessuros, omnem ab illis belli ira abstinuerunt. 

ὑπὲρ δὲ τὸ θέατρον Ἀφροδίτης ἐστὶν ἱερόν, ἔμπροσθεν δὲ τοῦ ἕδους Τελέσιλλα ἡ ποιήσασα τὰ ᾁσματα ἐπείργασται στήλῃ: καὶ βιβλία μὲν ἐκεῖνα ἔρριπταί οἱ πρὸς τοῖς ποσίν, αὐτὴ δὲ ἐς κράνος ὁρᾷ κατέχουσα τῇ χειρὶ καὶ ἐπιτίθεσθαι τῇ κεφαλῇ μέλλουσα. ἦν δὲ ἡ Τελέσιλλα καὶ ἄλλως ἐν ταῖς γυναιξὶν εὐδόκιμος καὶ μᾶλλον ἐτιμᾶτο ἔτι ἐπὶ τῇ ποιήσει. συμβάντος δὲ Ἀργείοις ἀτυχῆσαι λόγου μειζόνως πρὸς Κλεομένην τὸν Ἀναξανδρίδου καὶ Λακεδαιμονίους, καὶ τῶν μὲν ἐν αὐτῇ πεπτωκότων τῇ μάχῃ, ὅσοι δὲ ἐς τὸ ἄλσος τοῦ Ἄργου κατέφευγον διαφθαρέντων καὶ τούτων, τὰ μὲν πρῶτα ἐξιόντων κατὰ ὁμολογίαν, ὡς δὲ ἔγνωσαν ἀπατώμενοι συγκατακαυθέντων τῷ ἄλσει τῶν λοιπῶν, οὕτω τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους Κλεομένης ἦγεν ἐπὶ ἔρημον ἀνδρῶν τὸ Ἄργος. [9] Τελέσιλλα δὲ οἰκέτας μὲν καὶ ὅσοι διὰ νεότητα ἢ γῆρας ὅπλα ἀδύνατοι φέρειν ἦσαν, τούτους μὲν πάντας ἀνεβίβασεν ἐπὶ τὸ τεῖχος, αὐτὴ δὲ ὁπόσα ἐν ταῖς οἰκίαις ὑπελείπετο καὶ τὰ ἐκ τῶν ἱερῶν ὅπλα ἀθροίσασα τὰς ἀκμαζούσας ἡλικίᾳ τῶν γυναικῶν ὥπλιζεν, ὁπλίσασα δὲ ἔτασσε κατὰ τοῦτο ᾗ τοὺς πολεμίους προσιόντας ἠπίστατο. ὡς δὲ ἐγγὺς ἐγίνοντο οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες οὔτε τῷ ἀλαλαγμῷ κατεπλάγησαν δεξάμεναί τε ἐμάχοντο ἐρρωμένως, ἐνταῦθα οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, φρονήσαντες ὡς καὶ διαφθείρασί σφισι τὰς γυναῖκας ἐπιφθόνως τὸ κατόρθωμα ἕξει καὶ σφαλεῖσι μετὰ ὀνειδῶν γενήσοιτο ἡ συμφορά, ὑπείκουσι ταῖς γυναιξί. 

--Pausanias, Descriptio Graeciae, II.xx.8-9; Translated into Latin by Romulus Amaseus (1696)

By the theater is a shrine to Venus, and in front of that is a column that depicts the poet Telesilla. [In the portrait,] there are books of her poetry at her feet; she is staring at a helmet in her hands as she is about to put it on. Telesilla was a famous woman revered for her poetry. There was a time when the Argives were overcome by a loss of unimaginable magnitude by Anaxandrides’ son Cleomenes and his Lacedaemonian troops. Some Argives fell in battle; the remaining retreated to a glade in Argos. Of these, some were killed as they surrendered under the premise of negotiating peace; when the others recognized that they had been betrayed, they set the glade on fire and burned themselves to death. Cleomenes then marched his Lacedaemonian troops against the now defenseless Argos.

Telesilla assembled along the city walls the slaves and citizens too old or too young to bear arms, and armed them with weapons from their homes and from the temples. She also armed the strongest of the women, and stationed them where she reckoned the Lacedaemonians would attack. These women held their own against the Lacedaemonians and fought bravely against them; the Lacedaemonians, thinking that a victory against women would be shameful, and a loss against women would be even more so, retreated. 

PAUSANIAS	MAP:
Name:  Pausanias Date:  110 – 180 CE Works:  Description of Greece	REGION  5
BIO:	Timeline:
Pausanias was a Greek writer who lived during the era of the “Five Good Emperors.” His work, the Description of Greece, is an important source for geographical, historical, archaeological, and cultural information about ancient Greece.	ROMAN GREEK