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  • Published: 15 October 2015
  • ISBN: 9781847923837
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $55.00

Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves

Women in Classical Antiquity




‘The classic, groundbreaking account of women’s lives in Greece and Rome… the first general treatment of women in the ancient world to reflect the critical insights of modern feminism’ Mary Beard

‘The classic, groundbreaking account of women’s lives in Greece and Rome’ Mary Beard

For centuries, half the ancient world remained invisible -- until Sarah Pomeroy’s pioneering history, which at last revealed the women of antiquity to modern eyes.

What did daily life hold for women in ancient Greece and Rome? How many women read the great histories of Herodotus and Thucydides? Did Socrates’ wife, Xanthippe, debate with her husband on issues of beauty and truth? Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves is a foundational work of feminism, reconstructing the lives of these lost women of antiquity in order that we might better understand the roots of our own classically influenced society today.

  • Published: 15 October 2015
  • ISBN: 9781847923837
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $55.00

About the author

Sarah B Pomeroy

Sarah B. Pomeroy was born in New York City and educated at Barnard College and Columbia University. She has lived in England and several other European countries and has taught at a number of universities, including Vassar College and Columbia. Her books include, Women in Hellenistic Egypt from Alexander to Cleopatra, Women's History and Ancient History, Women in the Classical World: Image and Text and Xenophon: Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary.

Praise for Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves

The classic, groundbreaking account of women’s lives in Greece and Rome… the first general treatment of women in the ancient world to reflect the critical insights of modern feminism

Mary Beard

Deeply fascinating ... from Pandora to the Lemnian women who slaughtered their husbands for saying they stank, from Solon's state-controlled brothels to the scabrous writing of Juvenal and the transvestite peculariaties of Spartan marriages ... attitudes and anomalies are explored which remain valid paradigms to this day

Observer