Remembering and Remembered Women in Greco-Roman Meals

Abstract

This essay undertakes a reconsideration of the representation of women as participants in the practices associated with meals in the Greco-Roman world, with a particular focus on the first centuries ceand on the meal practice of early Christian communities. This essay proceeds less as an argument and more as a proposal of a heuristic approach; it thus seeks to delineate an agenda for future inquiry, not only about women at meals, but also concerning the role of what I call the “performance of tradition about Jesus” within the setting of the meal. The essay thus proceeds with broad strokes, gesturing toward a possible way of reconstructing and interpreting fragments of evidence.