Women in Antiquity

Print/PDFs

This page gathers all of the handouts and PDFs from the semester in one place, in case you need them for review or reference.

All Readings
 Abusch, “Ishtar’s Proposal and Gilgamesh’s Refusal”  Aeschylos, from Eumenides  Archer, “Notions of Community and the Exclusion of the Female in Jewish History…”  Archer, “The Role of Jewish Women in the Religion, Ritual, and Cult of Graeco-Roman Palestine”  Arthur, “Early Greece: The Origins of the Western Attitude Toward Women”  Arthur, “The Divided World of Iliad VI”  Bailey, “Initiation and the Primal Woman in Gilgamesh and Genesis 2-3”  Beard, “Re-reading (Vestal) Virginity” (WIA ch. 11, pp. 166–177)  Boatwright, “Women and Gender in the Forum Romanum”  Brock, “Reading Between the Lines: Sarah and the Sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis, Chapter 22)”  Burton, “Women’s Commensality in the Ancient Greek World”  Carp, “Two Matrons of the Late Republic”  Cato on the Oppian Law  Clark, “Roman Women”  Corbier, “Male Power … Through Women Under the Julio-Claudians” (WIA ch. 12, pp.178–193)  Curran, “Rape and Rape Victims in The Metamorphoses  Depla, “Women in Ancient Egyptian Wisdom Literature”  Dewald, “Women and Culture in Herodotus’s Histories  Dover, “Classical Greek Attitudes to Sexual Behavior”  Dowden, “Approaching Women Through Myth: Vital Tool or Self-Delusion?” (WIA ch. 3, pp. 44–57) Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablets 1, 2, and 6  Euripides, from Medea  Euripides, from The Bacchae  Fantham, “Aemilia Pudentilla: Or the Wealthy Widow’s Choice” (WIA ch. 14, pp. 220–232)  Fischler, “Social Stereotypes and Historical Analysis: … Imperial Women at Rome”  Fisher, “Theodora and Antonina in the Historia Arcana: History and/or Fiction?”  Foley, “The Conception of Women in Athenian Drama”  Foxhall, “Women’s Ritual and Men’s Work in Ancient Athens” (WIA ch. 6, pp. 97–110)  George, Introduction to Epic of Gilgamesh (pp. xxxi–li, remainder optional)  Hallett, “The Role of Women in Roman Elegy: Counter-Cultural Feminism”, with responses  Harris, “Inanna-Ishtar as Paradox and a Coincidence of Opposites”  Heath, “Women’s Work: Female Transmission of Mythical Narrative”  Hesiod, Theogony  Hesiod, Works and Days  Homer, selections from Iliad and Odyssey  Katz, “Ideology and the ‘Status of Women’ in Ancient Greece” (WIA ch. 2, pp. 21–43)  King, “Self-Help, Self-Knowledge: … Patient in Hippocratic Gynaecology” (WIA ch. 9)  Lambropoulou, “Some Pythagorean Female Virtues” (WIA ch. 8, pp. 122–134)  Lefkowitz, “Influential Women”  Lesko, “Women’s Monumental Mark on Ancient Egypt”  Livy, “The Capture of the Sabine Women” and “The Rape of Lucretia”  Marry, “Sappho and the Heroic Ideal”  Nixon, “The Cults of Demeter and Kore” (WIA ch. 5, pp. 75–96)  Ortner, “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?”  Perkell, “On Creusa, Dido, and the Quality of Victory in Virgil’s Aeneid  Pliny the Younger, selected letters  Plutarch, “Advice to the Bride and Groom”  Pomeroy, “Infanticide in Hellenistic Greece”  Pomeroy, “Spartan Women among the Romans: Adapting Models, Forging Identities”  Pomeroy, “Women’s Identity and the Family in the Classical Polis” (WIA ch. 7, pp. 111–121)  Robins, “The God’s Wife of Amun in the 18th Dynasty in Egypt”  Roehrig (ed.), Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh [packet of selected articles]  Roller, “Horizontal Women: Posture and Sex in the Roman Convivium”  Savunen, “Women and Elections in Pompeii” (WIA ch. 13, pp. 194–206)  Segal, “The Menace of Dionysus: Sex Roles and Reversals in Euripides’ The Bacchae  Slater, “The Greek Family in History and Myth”  Sophocles, from Antigone  Stigers, “Sappho’s Private World”  The Book of Esther  “The Twelve Tables”, fragments  Theocritus, “The Women at the Adonis Festival”, from Idylls  Thonemann, “The Women of Akmoneia”  Venit, “Women in Their Cups”  Walker, “Women and Housing in Classical Greece: The Archaeological Evidence”  Warren, “The Women of Etruria”  Wilson, “Female Sanctity in the Greek Calendar” (WIA ch. 16, pp. 233–247)  Zeitlin, “Signifying Difference: The Myth of Pandora” (WIA ch. 4, pp. 58–74)  Zeitlin, “The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Mythmaking in the Oresteia