The importance of gossip (according to the ancients)

Gossip appears to be good for the mental health. That should make the females of the ancient world some of the healthiest people around.

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Ross Clark

Britain is living beyond its means

Not that men did not gossip. The essayist Plutarch (c. ad 100) wrote disapprovingly of the ‘adulteries, seductions, family quarrels and lawsuits’ they loved to hear about (barbers’ shops were especial hotbeds of gossip); but his big gripe was that they were such bores. He described one droning on to Aristotle, and indulgently adding how amazing his stories were. Aristotle replied: ‘What is amazing is that anyone with feet puts up with you.’ Another crasher, after a long rigmarole, said: ‘I’ve bored you, philosopher.’ Aristotle replied: ‘Certainly not! I wasn’t paying attention.’

But it was women who, in male eyes, were the real gossips (as the women in Aristophanes’s comedies regularly confirm). The poet Semonides (c.