Monuments, midwives and gynecology

This paper discusses childbirth scenes on Greek funerary monuments in the context of attitudes toward women expressed in the Hippocratic treatises and general literature. It suggests that male concern to control female reproductivity led to doctors' increased involvement in the treatment of women that is reflected in the gynecological texts. These doctors employed female assistants, and such women enjoyed increased status, attested by the first inscription identifying a woman as a midwife on a mid-fourth-century tombstone. Some of the monuments portraying childbirth scenes may also have been the memorials of midwives.