ancienT women

In 1975, Sarah Pomeroy’s Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity1 broke ground in the study of women in the ancient world, pulling much relevant information together in one book for the first time. This new volume in Blackwell’s Companions to the Ancient World series ambitiously sets out “to draw together, in a methodologically self-conscious way, the advances in scholarship since Pomeroy” (p. 1). Most of what is known about women in antiquity comes from texts or from visual/material evidence (e.g. vases, statues, burial sites). This interdisciplinary collection presents essays on both of those aspects. The editors themselves represent both aspects of the field, with James coming from the textual aspect and Dillon from the visual. The volume contains thirty-nine essays, some by well-established scholars whose names will be easily recognized by those familiar with the field of women in antiquity, and some by newer scholars. Some of the authors call into question conventional beliefs, and all raise questions about interpreting the available evidence. Because much of the evidence comes from the new RefeRence woRks in women’s sTudies