Information about women is scattered throughout the fragmented mosaic of ancient history. The vivid poetry of Sappho survived antiquity on remnants of damaged papyrus, riddled with gaps. The inscription on a beautiful fourth century B.C.E. grave praises the virtues of Mnesarete, an Athenian woman who died young, but we do not know if the grave's marble stele shows Mnesarete, or simply a ready-made design chosen by her family. We read that on one occasion in the fourth century a great number of Roman wives were given a collective public trial and found guilty of poisoning their husbands, but we can only guess whether these "poisonings" were invented, or were linked to a high occurrence of accidental food poisoning, or to something more sinister. Apart from the legends of Cleopatra, Dido, and Lucretia, and images of graceful maidens dancing on urns, the evidence about the lives of women of the classical world - visual, archaeological, and written - has remained little known and little understood. Now, the lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched Women in the Classical World lifts the curtain on the women of ancient Greece and Rome, from slaves and prostitutes, to Athenian housewives, to Rome's imperial family. The first book on classical women to give equal weight to written texts and artistic representations, it brings together a great wealth of materials - poetry, vase painting, legislation, medical treatises, architecture, religion and funerary art, women's ornaments, historical epics, political speeches, even ancient coins - to present women in the historical and cultural context of their time. Written by leading experts in the fields of ancient history and art history,women's studies, and Greek and Roman literature, the book's chronological arrangement allows the changing roles of women to unfold over a thousand year period, beginning in the eighth century B.C.E. The authors seek out and present ancient literature that preserves women's own voices.
This collaborative volume stakes a place for itself in the ever-expanding publications lists on women in antiquity as a novel kind of sourcebook...this volume gives considerable weight to visual as well as written material and attempts to set both within a coherent and contextualising account of the lives of ancient women (Times Higher Education Supplement)
`this volume offers a good introduction both to the range of source material relating to women in antiquity, and to some, at least, of the problems of interpretation it raises. Times Literary Supplement
a combination of adroitly chosen texts in translation, including a good mixture of inscriptions, and most imaginatively selected...most impressive and will provide an earnest student with an invaluable tool. (Greece and Rome Reviews 42)
a wide-ranging collection of the most important primary sources for the lives of "ancient women"......The book contains a wealth of illustrations..... This scholarly book would be a most useful resource for Classical Civilisation courses, both at University and A level.... the book is very clearly laid out and I do recommend it as a library source. (JACT review)
This collaborative volume stakes a place for itself in the ever expanding publication lists on women in antiquity as a novel kind of sourcebook. With its lavish and attractive illustrations, its juxtaposition of vase-painting with Greek poetry, coins with Roman historiiography, the volume is now likely to supercede that of Lefkowitz and Fant and be of considerable bibliographic use to students new to the field. (Maria Wyke, University of Reading, Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. LXXXVIII 1996)
