Sarah B. Pomeroy

Women in Hellenistic Egypt : from Alexander to Cleopatra

After its conquest in 331 B.C., Egypt became the center of the Hellenistic world, attracting men and women from other parts of the Mediterranean area. In this cosmopolitan and mobile society, Greek women of the ruling class had unprecedented opportunities and were able to employ some of the legal freedoms enjoyed by their Egyptian counterparts. Using evidence from a wide array of sources including literature, papyri, inscriptions, coins, and terra-cotta figurines, Sarah Pomeroy discusses women ranging from queens such as Arsino? II and Cleopatra VII to Jewish slaves working on a Greek estate. This edition contains a new foreword, additional information, and an updated bibliography by the author.

Charities for Greek Women

When Medea is pretending to be an ordinary Greek housewife, she points out that a woman needs a dowry, in order to get a husband1). Among the respectable classes throughout the Greek world, all girls were expected to marry, and fathers usually provided their daughters with the requisite dowry 2). Girls who succeeded in marrying without any dowry were exceptional. Men who claimed that compassion had inspired them to take a dowerless bride counted on winning the favor of their audiences. A rich man like Callias, it is true, might marry a penniless Elpinice because her familys political connections were more useful to him than money; yet the granddaughter of the revered statesman Aristides, widowed and impoverished, was unable to attract another husband3). Lydian girls earned their dowries by prostitution, and unattractive girls in Babylonia were dowered from the proceeds of auctions of pretty girls 4). These expedients for acquiring dowries were clearly foreign. In Greece the obligation to provide a dowry for a girl who needed one usually devolved on her kinfolk. At various times

Slavery and Society at Rome

1. Confronting slavery at Rome 2. The slave society of Rome 3. The Roman slave supply 4. Slave labour 5. Quality of life 6. Resisting slavery 7. Change and continuity 8. Slavery and progress 9. To be a slave Bibliographical essay List of works cited Index.

Women in Ancient Societies: An Illusion of the Night

List of Plates - Acknowledgements - Notes on Contributors - Introduction L.Archer, S.Fischler & M.Wyke - Gender Bias in Archaeology L.Nixon - Women in Ancient Egyptian Wisdom Literature A.Depla - Notions of Community and the Exclusion of the Female in Jewish History and Historiography L.Archer - The Problem of Women Philosophers in Ancient Greece R.Hawley - An Ancient Theory of gender: Plato and the Pythagorean Table S.Lovibond - Producing Woman: Hippocratic Gynaecology H.King - Social Stereotypes and Historical Analysis: The Case of the Imperial Women at Rome S.Fischler - Woman in the Mirror: The Rhetoric of Adornment in the Roman World M.Wyke - Early Christianity and the Discourse of Desire A.Cameron - Reading Between the Lines: Sarah and the Sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis, Chapter 22) S.Brock - Public and Private Forms of Religious Commitment among Byzantine Women J.Herrin - Women in Anglo-Saxon Poetry F.Gameson - Recycling Ancient Material: An Orthodox View of Hindu Women J.Leslie - The Witch and the Wife: A Comparative Study of Theocritus Idyll 2, Simonides Idyll 15 and Fatal Attraction L.Gibbs-Wichrowska - General Bibliography - Bibliography of Works Cited - Index