This is a much-needed analysis of how women behaved in Greek society,
how they were regarded, and the restrictions imposed on their actions.
Given that ancient Greece was very much a man's world, most books on
ancient Greek society still tend to focus on men; this book redresses
the imbalance by shining the spotlight on that neglected other half:
women had significant roles to play in Greek society and culture--this
book illuminates those roles. Women in Ancient Greece asks the
controversial question: how far is the assumption that women were
secluded and excluded just an illusion? It answers it by exploring the
treatment of women in Greek myth and epic; their treatment by
playwrights, poets and philosophers, and the actions of liberated women
in Minoan Crete, Sparta and the Hellenistic era when some elite women
were politically prominent. It covers women in Athens, Sparta and in
other city states; describes women writers, philosophers, artists and
scientists; it explores love, marriage and adultery, the virtuous and
the meretricious, and the roles women played in death and religion.
Crucially, the book is people-based, drawing much of its evidence and
many of its conclusions from lives lived by historical Greek women.
