Women in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook

by Bonnie MacLachlan

The study of women in the ancient Mediterranean world is a topic of growing interest among classicists and ancient historians, and also students of history, sociology and women's studies. This volume is an essential resource supplying a compilation of source material in translation, with suggestions for further reading, a general bibliography, and an index of ancient authors and works. Texts come from literary, rhetorical, philosophical and legal sources, as well as papyri and inscriptions, and each text will be placed into the cultural mosaic to which it belongs. 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 BCE the coverage continues through Archaic and Classical Athens concluding with the Hellenistic era.  

Genres: Nonfiction, History

250 pages, Kindle Edition

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.