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tashtasher's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Abortion, Child death, Murder, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Slavery, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexual violence, Sexual content, Violence, Classism, War, Rape, Religious bigotry, Sexism, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Trafficking, Colonisation, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Incest, and Pedophilia
Minor: Animal death
annaper's review
4.0
Ik denk in zijn tijd een goeie vooruitgang maar nog veel verschillen met wat we nu weten en denken
dee9401's review against another edition
4.0
It was great to read about women in Greece and Rome other than the normal 'she was the empress, she was a manipulative evil one', 'she was a prostitute', 'she was perfect, bore lots of children, did the housework and then died early', etc. Sarah Pomeroy delves into woman at all levels, as best as the data will allow. A really great read that was a solid 4 stars until I hit the last chapter, The Role of Woman in the Religion of the Romans, where it jumped to 5 stars. The section "Sovereign Isis: The Loving Mother" in that chapter was excellent but the entire chapter was powerful.
Chapter 6, Images of Women in the Literature of Classical Athens was wonderful. Her analysis of grammar in literature was so cool (pp. 99-100) as was an intriguing thought on the stronger role of brother-sister bond vs. the wife to husband/father bonds (p. 101). I'm also happy that she likes Euripides since I feel his plays are better on many levels compared to Sophocles and Aeschylus (pp. 107-8, 111).
Chapter 8, The Roman Matron of the Late Republic and Early Empire also contains great data and analysis. I was fuming throughout this chapter and cheering for the small and large acts of standing up and talking back against the powerful men in charge.
Her closing line of the book, in the epilogue, is just an airhorn blast to demand we don't stop the work she's started: "And this rationalized confinement of women to the domestic sphere, as well as the systematization of anti-female thought by poets and philosophers, are two of the most devastating creations in the classical legacy" (p. 230)
Chapter 6, Images of Women in the Literature of Classical Athens was wonderful. Her analysis of grammar in literature was so cool (pp. 99-100) as was an intriguing thought on the stronger role of brother-sister bond vs. the wife to husband/father bonds (p. 101). I'm also happy that she likes Euripides since I feel his plays are better on many levels compared to Sophocles and Aeschylus (pp. 107-8, 111).
Chapter 8, The Roman Matron of the Late Republic and Early Empire also contains great data and analysis. I was fuming throughout this chapter and cheering for the small and large acts of standing up and talking back against the powerful men in charge.
Her closing line of the book, in the epilogue, is just an airhorn blast to demand we don't stop the work she's started: "And this rationalized confinement of women to the domestic sphere, as well as the systematization of anti-female thought by poets and philosophers, are two of the most devastating creations in the classical legacy" (p. 230)
suzemo's review
4.0
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
An older book (published in '75), it's a scholarly discussion of the attitudes and roles of women during Classical/Hellenistic Greek/Roman times. It's a nice book, discussing issues from a feminist point of view, and is one of the earliest/first books looking at how (Mediterranean) women lived during ancient times.
I studied Classical Civilizations as an undergrad, but the professors rarely focused on the lives of women, so it was nice to see a glimpse of the lives they led, and gave a fresh insight into their lives from a studied angle, rather than through some pop-culture filter.
I liked, not just the look at gender roles, but the evidence presented, and alternative theories also presented (even if they were not agreed with). Interesting. Enlightening. But definitely some very dry, heavy reading.
An older book (published in '75), it's a scholarly discussion of the attitudes and roles of women during Classical/Hellenistic Greek/Roman times. It's a nice book, discussing issues from a feminist point of view, and is one of the earliest/first books looking at how (Mediterranean) women lived during ancient times.
I studied Classical Civilizations as an undergrad, but the professors rarely focused on the lives of women, so it was nice to see a glimpse of the lives they led, and gave a fresh insight into their lives from a studied angle, rather than through some pop-culture filter.
I liked, not just the look at gender roles, but the evidence presented, and alternative theories also presented (even if they were not agreed with). Interesting. Enlightening. But definitely some very dry, heavy reading.
jackquelinereads's review
4.0
Recommended to me eons ago in a vid by jeansthoughts on her YT channel, is Pompery’s novel (felt more like a PHD) evidencing a study of the illustrious women in Antiquity. It was direct, organised and a fantastic sourcebook for an ever growing field of interest about the silent lives over the course of the century in antiquity.
book_files's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
5.0
I absolutely loved this book. I learned so much about how women were viewed, treated and how they lived their lives in classical antiquity.