Synopses & Reviews
This collection of essays explores the lives and roles of women in antiquity. A recurring theme is the relationship between private and public, and many of the essays find that women's public roles develop as a result of their private lives, specifically their family relationships.
Essays on Hellenistic queens and Spartan and Roman women document how women exerted political powerusually, but not always, through their relationship to male leadersand show how political upheaval created opportunities for them to exercise powers previously reserved for men. Essays on the writings of Sappho and Nossis focus on the interaction between women's public and private discourses. The collection also includes discussion of Athenian and Roman marriage and the intrusion of the state into the sexual lives of Greek, Roman, and Jewish women as well as an investigation of scientific opinion about female physiology.
The contributors are Sarah B. Pomeroy, Jane McIntosh Snyder, Marilyn M. Skinner, Cynthia B. Patterson, Ann Ellis Hanson, Lesley Dean-Jones, Natalie Boymel Kampen, Mary Taliaferro Boatwright, and Shaye J.D. Cohen.
Review
An integrated volume that can be compared with the best current work on the ancient world.
Elaine Fantham, Princeton University
Review
This exciting collection of papers contains a remarkable amount of truly original work.
William V. Harris, Columbia University
About the Author
Sarah B. Pomeroy is professor of clasics at Hunter College and the Graduate School, City University of New York.