Aristodama of Smyrna ( grc, Ἀριστοδάμα) was a 3rd century BCE itinerant

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

of ancient

Ionia Ionia () was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day Izmir. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian ...

. None of her works have survived to the present; we know of her only through inscriptions found in the mainland Greek cities of

Lamia LaMia Corporation S.R.L., operating as LaMia (short for ''Línea Aérea Mérida Internacional de Aviación''), was a Bolivian charter airline headquartered in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, as an EcoJet subsidiary. It had its origins from the failed ...

and Chaleion. There she and her brother were granted citizenship and other privileges in recognition of her poetic skill and performance. Chaleion honoured her for several readings of an epic (that they may have commissioned from her) narrating the traditions of their

Aetolia Aetolia ( el, Αἰτωλία, Aἰtōlía) is a mountainous region of Greece on the north coast of the Gulf of Corinth, forming the eastern part of the modern regional units of Greece, regional unit of Aetolia-Acarnania. Geography The Achelous ...

n ancestors. The earliest known such honour granted to a woman, it provides evidence of the opportunities of education and advancement for women in the

Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 3 ...

. That Aristodama must have lived sometime after 217 BCE is deduced because the contemporary

Agetas Agetas ( grc, Ἀγήτας) of Callipolis was commander-in-chief (or '' strategos'') of the Aetolians in 217 BC, during which year he made an incursion into Acarnania and Epirus and ravaged both countries. Polybius, v. 91. 96 For this accompli ...

of Callipolis is mentioned in the Lamia inscription as an Aetolian general.M. M. Austin, ''The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest'', Cambridge University Press, 2006
pp.264-5
/ref>

References

External links

* - the two inscriptions in French translation by M.Dana {{Authority control Year of death unknown 3rd-century BC Greek people Ionic Greek poets Ancient Greek women poets 3rd-century BC women writers 3rd-century BC writers 3rd-century BC Greek women