Controlling Images: Enslaved Women in Greek and Roman Comedy

Abstract:An enslaved woman, intentionally or unintentionally, facilitates the recognition of a lost citizen daughter in twelve Greek and Roman New Comedies. This paper explores enslaved women and citizen daughters through an intersectional lens. In the literary ideal, citizen daughters are relatively invisible, while enslaved women are made hypervisible in their stead. The “helpful slave woman” represents the cultural fantasy that enslaved women will express gender solidarity with citizen daughters, thereby benefiting their enslavers. As a controlling image—a term coined by Patricia Hill Collins—the trope defines female slave loyalty for both masters and slaves in the audience.