Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Gynaeceum

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

GYNAECE'UM, GYNECI'UM, and GYNAECONI'TIS (γυναικεῖον, γυναικωνῖτις). That part of a Greek house which was set apart for the exclusive use and occupation of the female portion of the family, like the harem of a modern Turkish residence. (Terent. Phorm. v. 6. 22. Plaut. Most. iii. 2. 72. Vitruv. vi. 7. 2.) The situation of these apartments has given rise to much controversy, and still remains in some respects doubtful. From the words of Vitruvius, who commences his description of a Greek house with the Gynaeceum, it has been inferred that it formed the front part of the house immediately after the entrance; but this is so much at variance with the close and studied seclusion in which Greek females were kept, that it must be given up as untenable. At the Homeric period, the women's apartments appear to have been situated in an upper story (ὑπερῷον); and in after times the same distribution was occasionally adopted, where the ground-plot was of small extent, owing to the high price or scarcity of land. But after the Peloponnesian war the most rational conjecture seems to be that which would place the Gynaeceum at the back part of the premises, behind the devision allotted for the men (andronitis); so that it would occupy, with its dependencies, much the same position as the peristylium of the Pompeian houses; as it is laid down on the conjectural plan of a Greek house at p. 252., on which it is marked e.

2. Amongst the Romans, a cloth factory, or establishment in which only women were employed in spinning and weaving. Cod. Just. 9. 27. 5. Id. 11. 7. 5.

3. The Emperor's seraglio. Lact. Mort. persecut. 21.