Women in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook

by Bonnie MacLachlan

The study of women in the ancient Mediterranean world is a subject that has received an important attention from classicists and historians, and is also making a major impact on disciplines such as Women's Studies, Sociology and Anthropology. This volume is an essential resource for all interested in gender in Ancient Greece, supplying a good compilation of ancient source material in translation that sheds light on the daily lives of women and the cultural matrix of the ancient Greek world. The material consists of literary, historical, philosophical and rhetorical texts, along with inscriptions and papyri. Contextual commentaries are included, along with specialized and general bibliographies. Ranging geographically from the Greek mainland and the communities along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, to Egypt and the Greek West (modern day southern Italy and Sicily), the volume follows a clear chronological structure: Beginning in the eighth century BC with the Archaic Period, it continues through the Classical Period and concludes with the Hellenistic era or Post-Classical Period.

[From the back cover of the book]

Genres: Nonfiction, History

244 pages, Paperback

First published May 31, 2012

About the author

Bonnie MacLachlan retired from the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Western Ontario in 2012. While no longer teaching in the department she continues with her research, giving conference presentations and publishing in the area of Greek poetry and religion, comic theatre in the Greek West and gender studies.

Reviews

[Pilar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good and well documented reference book.

[Debby · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love source books. This one had great intros to the primary source materials and wasn't too heavy on the interpretations, letting the ancients speak for themselves. An excellent companion to any study of women in antiquity, and a very enjoyable stand-alone for the curious.

[Carolyn Kost · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a positively riveting sourcebook, an extensive and illuminating--but not annotated at length--collection of texts on women’s roles and lives in ancient Greece. MacLachlan divides the book into three sections by period: Archaic, Classical, and post-Classical [Hellenistic], provides a list of further reading at the end of each chapter, and presents the realities of women’s lives, as well as the values “reflected and informed” in the literary texts.

The first section draws largely upon the work of Hesiod, Homeric hymns, and melic and lyric poets, especially Sappho.
The second and longest section features chapters on Lived Experience (maidenhood, marriage, concubines, adultery, death, etc), Property rights, Foreign Women, Prostitution, Religious Life, Gender on the Stage, Dorian [Peloponnesian] Girls and Women, Women and the State [from Plato and Aristotle], Warrior Women (Amazons, Telesilla, Artemisia), and The Female Body (from the Hippocratic writers, et al.).
The last section refers to an era during which the shift of power from Athens to Macedon resulted in “greater agency and confidence” in women.

An excellent sourcebook and essential purchase for public and academic libraries, particularly where there is interest in Classics and Women’s History/Herstory.