Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome; An Anthology; Ian Plant

Edited by

Ian Plant [+–]

Macquarie University

Dr Ian Plant is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Ancient History, Division of Humanities. He studied Classics (including Ancient Greek and Latin) and Ancient History at the University of Canterbury, where he completed his doctoral studies under the supervision of Dr Katherine Adshead and Professor Kevin Lee. He taught at the University of Western Australia before taking up the post at Macquarie.

His fields of research are Greek history and historiography, especially the study of Thucydides. He also works on women writers from Ancient Greece and Rome, and more recently on Egyptian religion in Greek and Latin writers. He teaches Ancient Greek, Latin, Mythology, Greek Heroes, Women Writers, Thucydides and Herodotus.

Among his current research projects are:

Thucydides and the writing of history
Greek and Roman writers on Egyptian Religion-a project he is working on in collaboration with A/Professor Boyo Ockinga.
Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome.

There is a general perception that almost all writing in antiquity was done by men. However, some important literature written by women during this period has survived, and many other women writers published work that has not been preserved. Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome is a comprehensive anthology of the surviving literary texts of women writers from the Greco-Roman world, offering new translations of the work of over fifty women. From Sappho, who lived in the seventh century BC, through to Eudocia and Egeria in the fifth century AD, the texts come from a wide range of sources: few works have survived intact, and many are known to us only through literary quotations, scraps of papyrus or even graffiti. Women’s literature in the ancient world spanned the fields of poetry and prose. There is lyric, epic and Christian poetry, along with prose works in history, medicine, alchemy, oratory and philosophy. In addition to genuine works by women, antiquity witnessed the creation of pseudonymous texts which were attributed to famous people (including some women); examples of these are included in this collection. Each author is introduced with a critical review of what we know about the writer, her work and the significance of her work, along with discussion of the texts which follow. The general introduction looks into the problem of the authenticity of some texts attributed to women and places literature by women into the wider literary and social contexts of the ancient Greco-Roman world.

Prelims

List of Abbreviations vii-viii

FREE

Introduction

Introduction 1-9

£17.50

Sappho [+–] 10-28

£17.50

(born about 630 BC) Sappho was by far the most famous woman writer in antiquity.1 Plato called her the tenth Muse, Antipater said that she surpassed all other women poets, Strabo that no other woman came close to rivalling her as a poet.2 She was honoured with portraits on coins from both Mytilene and Eresus (two cities on Lesbos which both claimed to be her birthplace)3 and with a bronze statue outside the prytaneion (town hall) in Syracuse, where she also lived for a while.4 Her early popularity in Athens is illustrated by an extant Athenian vase dated between 510–500 BC that shows her playing the lyre.

Cleobulina [+–] 29-32

£17.50

(fl. c. 600 BC) There remains doubt about the very existence of Cleobulina, although we have three short pieces of poetry attributed to her, numerous references to her life in a variety of ancient sources, and know of two plays named after her. Scholars have long suspected that she may have been invented to personify a female riddler. Despite the problems with her history, we should not lightly dismiss her as an historical figure and poet. Details of her life, like those of most ancient authors, were quickly forgotten. What remained was a reputation for wit, learning, sound political judgement, and philosophy arising from the works attributed to her.

Telesilla [+–] 33-35

£17.50

(lived 6th–5th centuries BC) Telesilla was a lyric poet who lived in Argos in the fifth century BC.She became famous for saving the city when it was attacked by the Spartans in 494 BC.

Myrtis [+–] 36-37

£17.50

(fl. 5th century BC) Myrtis was a lyric poet from Anthedon, a small coastal town in northern Boeotia (Plut., Greek Questions 40). Antipater calls her ‘sweet-voiced’ and places her amongst the best of women poets (Anth. Pal. 9.26.7s). She was famous enough to have a bronze statue made of her (Tatian, Against the Greeks 33).

Praxilla [+–] 38-40

£17.50

(mid-5th century BC) Praxilla was a versatile lyric poet from Sicyon. A contemporary of Telesilla, she lived in the mid-fifth century BC.1 Antipater of Thessalonica lists her first among his canon of nine ‘immortal-tongued’ women poets (Anth. Pal. 9.26.3), and Lysippus, a famous fourth century sculptor, also from Sicyon, made a bronze statue of her, evidence of the high esteem in which she was held.

Aspasia [+–] 41-42

£17.50

(fl. 450 BC) Aspasia is one of the most famous women of classical Greece, yet little is known of her life, and most of what was written about her in her own day is dubious. As the partner of Pericles, Athens’ leading statesman in the mid-fifth century BC, Aspasia moved in the highest aristocratic circles and attracted the attention of comic and serious writers.

Eurydice [+–] 43-44

£17.50

(born c. 410 BC) Eurydice was born about 410 BC, the granddaughter of Arrhabaeus, king of the Lyncestae, and the daughter of Sirras (Strab. 7.7.8). She was the mother of three sons, each of whom became king of Macedonia, and grandmother of Alexander the Great.

Philaenis [+–] 45-47

£17.50

(fl. 4th century BC) Philaenis was well known in antiquity as the author of pornography. The first mention of her is by Timaeus of Tauromenium who lived in the fourth and third centuries BC.1

Erinna [+–] 48-52

£17.50

(fl. c. 350 BC) Erinna was celebrated in antiquity for her poem The Distaff, a lament for her childhood friend, Baucis.

Hedyle [+–] 53-55

£17.50

(fl. c. 310 BC) The only information we have for the poet Hedyle, and the only extant fragment of her work, comes in a discussion of different types of fish in a fictitious dialogue by Athenaeus called the Scholars at Dinner (Deipnosophistai).

Anyte [+–] 56-60

£17.50

(fl. 300 BC) Anyte was admired in antiquity by Meleager who mentions her ‘lilies’ first in his catalogue of women poets. In the Greek Anthology there are 25 epigrams attributed to her, but either Planudes or the Palatine editor (or both) were unsure about the authorship of six of them; today only 21 of the epigrams are generally considered genuine.

Moero [+–] 61-62

£17.50

(fl. 300 BC) There are around a dozen references to Moero or to her work in ancient literature, though only three short fragments of her poetry have survived in quotation.

Nossis [+–] 63-66

£17.50

(fl. c. 300 BC) Nossis was a Greek poet who lived around 300 BC.1 In her extant poetry she tells the reader a little about herself, although only a small portion of her published work has survived.

Nicobule [+–] 67

£17.50

(fl. c. 300 BC) No biographical details of Nicobule have been preserved. We know of her from two fragments of a work on Alexander the Great, cited by Athenaeus (10.434c and 12.537d).

Theano [+–] 68-75

£17.50

(lived 6th century BC; texts late 4th–3rd centuries BC and later) In antiquity Theano was thought to have been one of the early Pythagoreans (of the sixth century BC), and various texts were in circulation under her name. However, there is serious doubt about the authenticity of the extant texts attributed to her.

Perictione I & II [+–] 76-78

£17.50

(texts date late 4th–3rd centuries BC, and 3rd–2nd centuries BC) Two works attributed to Perictione have survived in fragments: On the Harmony of Women and On Wisdom. Differences in language suggest that they were written by two different people. Allen and Waithe identify them as Perictione I and Perictione II.1

Myia [+–] 79-80

£17.50

(lived c. 500 BC: text written 3rd century BC) Myia was remembered as one of the daughters of Theano and Pythagoras. She married Milo of Croton, a famous athlete who was also a Pythagorean. The earliest reference we have to her comes in a fragment of Timaeus written in the first quarter of the third century BC4 and it is possible that his representation (or even invention) of Pythagoras’ daughter as an ideal Pythagorean woman led to the creation of pseudonymous work in her name.

Aesara [+–] 81-82

£17.50

(fl. 3rd century BC) Aesara of Lucania is a shadowy figure. She is only known to us from Stobaeus, who names her as the author of a philosophical work On Human Nature, some of which he quotes (1.49.27).

Melissa [+–] 83

£17.50

(fl. 3rd century BC) Melissa is known from the one extant work attributed to her—a philosophical treatise in the form of a letter to another woman, named Cleareta.

Phintys [+–] 84-86

£17.50

(3rd century BC) Scholars disagree widely on the historicity of Phintys, and the authenticity of the extant work in her name: two extracts from a treatise on the correct behaviour of women.

Ptolemaïs [+–] 87-89

£17.50

( perhaps 250 BC) Ptolemaïs is known to us through reference to her work by Porphyry in his Commentary on the Harmonics of Ptolemy. He tells us that she came from Cyrene and gives the title of her work, The Pythagorean Principles of Music, which he quotes. She is the only known female musical theorist from antiquity.

Boeo [+–] 90-91

£17.50

(fl. 3rd century BC) Boeo and a short fragment of her work are known to us from a reference in Pausanias’ discussion of early stories about the prophetic oracle of Apollo at Delphi.

Corinna [+–] 92-98

£17.50

(fl. 3rd century BC) Corinna was a lyric poet from Tanagra in Boeotia.Her excellence as a lyric poet is well attested: she is said to have defeated Pindar five times in poetic competition. It is recorded that she wrote five books of lyric poetry, which were called ‘Tales’, as well as epigrams (two hexameters survive) and lyric nomes (narrative poems). Perhaps as many as 42 fragments of her work survive, though no complete poem is extant, and some fragments are only single words.

Melinno [+–] 99-100

£17.50

(fl. c. 200–150 BC) The fate of the poetry of Melinno is fairly typical of that of many women authors from antiquity. Stobaeus, a Greek writing in the fifth century AD, quotes one short poem by her. This is the only reference we have both to Melinno and to her work.

Cornelia [+–] 101-103

£17.50

(fl. mid-2nd century BC) Cornelia is one of the most famous women from late Republican Rome. She was the daughter of Publius Scipio Africanus, and married another leading politician, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Two fragments of a letter attributed to Cornelia have been preserved in some of the manuscripts of Cornelius Nepos.

Hortensia [+–] 104-105

£17.50

(fl. 42 BC) In 43 BC three political and military leaders, the triumvirs, Mark Antony, Lepidus and Octavian (who later adopted the name Augustus), seized what amounted to absolute power in Rome. The following year the wealthy women of Rome marched to the Forum in the centre of Rome where Hortensia made a speech to the triumvirs, demanding that they change their plans to impose a tax on the richest 1400 Roman women.

Sulpicia [+–] 106-111

£17.50

(late first century BC) Sulpicia’s elegies are the only extant lyric poems in Latin by a woman. What we know about Sulpicia is extrapolated from biographical information she gives in the poems themselves

Philinna [+–] 112-113

£17.50

(1st century BC or earlier) Philinna is named as the author of a incantation to cure a headache.

Syra [+–] 114

£17.50

(The Syrian Woman) (1st century BC or earlier) On the same Egyptian papyrus as the incantation by Philinna of Thessaly is an incantation attributed to a Syrian woman (‘Syra’) whose name has been lost from the damaged manuscript.

Salpe [+–] 115-117

£17.50

(before AD 79) Pliny describes her as an obstetrix or midwife. Her name is Greek (it was the name of a fish, Athen. 7.321d-322a). All we have of her work is Pliny’s paraphrase of six remedies.

Elephantis [+–] 118

£17.50

(fl. late 1st century BC) Elephantis was also known as Elephantine. She was the author of erotica popular at the end of the first century BC. Martial suggests that she wrote some sort of licentious sex manual in verse (12.43.4)1, and according to Suetonius, the emperor Tiberius was a fan of her work (Tiberius 43.2).

Laïs [+–] 119-120

£17.50

(before AD 79) Laïs was the name of one of the most famous prostitutes of the ancient world. She was a native of Hyccara in Sicily.

Olympias [+–] 121

£17.50

(before AD 79) Olympias of Thebes was an important source for Pliny’s Natural History, books 20–28,1 though he cites her opinions explicitly only three times.

Sotira [+–] 122

£17.50

(before AD 79) Sotira is identified by Pliny the Elder as a midwife (obstetrix), but she is otherwise unknown

Timaris [+–] 123

£17.50

(before AD 79) All of the poetry of Timaris has been lost. We know of her and her work from Pliny the Elder, who calls her a queen (regina).

Sulpicia II [+–] 124-126

£17.50

(1st century AD) The modern impression of Sulpicia II’s poetry is largely derived from her appearance in two epigrams by her contemporary Martial. He characterises her work as a celebration of both chastity and sexual love, an unusual combination.

Pamphila [+–] 127-129

£17.50

(fl. mid-1st century AD) Eleven fragments of Pamphila’s Historical Commentaries were paraphrased by other authors in antiquity (Diogenes Laertius, Aulus Gellius and Photius) and these are now all that remain of the original 33 books.

Maria [+–] 130-134

£17.50

(fl. 1st century AD or earlier) Maria is one of the most famous alchemists. Post-Medieval alchemy treated her work with great respect. Her work survives in fragments.

Cleopatra [+–] 135-144

£17.50

(fl. after AD 64) Six fragments of Greek prose by Cleopatra survive in the corpus of medical writings that have come down to us from antiquity. Four are said to be from a work called Cosmetics and are cited by Galen. Cleopatra was not an uncommon Greek name. As ancient testimony consistently cites a Cleopatra as the author of Cosmetics, we should accept that the author identified herself by that name. The link with queen Cleopatra may have been a late invention. Galen implies that she was a physician (12.393, 446). She should be thus identified as Cleopatra the physician to distinguish her from the queen

Cleopatra (Alchemist) [+–] 145-147

£17.50

(fl. between 1st and 3rd centuries AD)

Dionysia [+–] 148

£17.50

(fl. AD 122) On the statue of Memnon at Thebes there is one short epigram by Dionysia, who is otherwise unknown.

Caecilia Trebulla [+–] 149-150

£17.50

(fl. c. AD 130) The statue of Memnon near Thebes in Egypt was famous in antiquity for the noise made by the stone as it was warmed by the morning sun.1 Caecilia Trebulla composed three epigrams on her visit to the statue of Memnon, proudly placing her name above her verses.2 She is otherwise unknown.

Julia Balbilla [+–] 151-154

£17.50

(fl. AD 130) Julia Balbilla is another poet we know only from four poems inscribed on the (misnamed) colossal statue of Memnon near Thebes in Egypt. She accompanied the Roman emperor Hadrian and his wife Sabina to this tourist attraction in AD 130, celebrating the visit in verses which she had inscribed on the statue itself.

Terentia [+–] 155-156

£17.50

(lived about 1st–2nd centuries AD) Terentia was a Roman visitor to Egypt whose only known work is a poem which she composed as an epitaph for her brother, Decimus Terentius Gentianus, and had inscribed on the pyramid of Cheops.

Demo [+–] 157-158

£17.50

(fl. c. AD 200) Demo was the author of one short epigram which she composed at the Colossus of Memnon and had inscribed on the statue.

Fabulla [+–] 159-160

£17.50

(before AD 210) Galen cites two passages from Fabulla (13.250) repeating the same two passages soon after (13.341).1 He describes her as a Libyan (i.e. African), though her name marks her out as Roman.

Maia [+–] 161

£17.50

(before AD 210) Maia’s remedy for cracks or chaps of the skin comes to us from Galen, but indirectly, appearing in a passage in which Galen is citing Andromachus Junior, and it was apparently he who attributed the recipe to a female author whom he called Maia (Galen 13.840 cf. 13.837).

Samithra [+–] 162

£17.50

(before AD 210) Galen cites one remedy by this otherwise unknown medical writer (13.310).

Xanite [+–] 163

£17.50

(before AD 210) Galen cites just one remedy by this otherwise unknown medical writer (13.311) when he deals with topical treatments for anal complaints.

Perpetua [+–] 164-168

£17.50

(AD 181–203) In nearly every case, stories of Christian martyrs are fictional. Some are wholly fictional, and some have been so greatly embellished by later writers that they can no longer be taken as historical. The martyrdom of Perpetua, however, is generally taken to be an exception to this rule. Not only is the account of the martyrdom accepted as historical, but many readers believe that part of the story, a first-hand account of the events leading up to her death, were written by Perpetua herself.

Theosebeia [+–] 169

£17.50

(date uncertain: 3rd–6th centuries AD) One epitaph attributed to Theosebeia has survived in the Greek Anthology (7.559). It is the only evidence we have for her and her work.

Proba [+–] 170-188

£17.50

(about AD 322–70) The author of a Christian Virgilian cento of over 690 lines, Proba is a significant author from the fourth century AD. She was the first writer to compose a substantial Christian cento, one of the first to use Virgil for a Christian purpose,1 and the first Christian writer that we know for sure was a woman.

Egeria [+–] 189-197

£17.50

(fl. early 5th century AD) Egeria’s Itinerarium, a journal of her pilgrimage and an account of the liturgy of Jerusalem, was only rediscovered in 1884.

Eudocia [+–] 198-209

£17.50

(c. AD 400–460) Eudocia is one of the best attested women writers from antiquity. Given the amount of her extant work, I am only able here to include in this anthology one book of the Martyrdom, the preface to and opening of the cento, and the Baths inscription.

Eucheria [+–] 210-212

£17.50

(fl. late 5th or 6th centuries AD) Eucheria is known to us from one poem which has survived in her name. The Latin vocabulary she uses suggests that the poem was composed in Aquitania in the late fifth or sixth centuries AD.

End Matter

Bibliography 213-220

FREE

Editions Used and Sources of Fragments 221-228

FREE

Glossary 229-242

FREE

Attested Greek and Roman Women Writers 243-249

FREE

Attested Verse Oracles 250

FREE

Chronological Survey of Women Writers 252-252

FREE

Select Tables of Comparative Numeration 253-

FREE

Maps 254-255

FREE

Index of Authors and Works Cited 256-263

FREE

General Index 264-268

FREE

Reviews

A comprehensive anthology, carefully researched. It has the considerable merit of making available in English translation authors who have never been translated at all, and/or whose work can be easily found only by professional scholars. There is nothing quite like this book on the market.
Mary Lefkowitz, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Wellesley College

It should serve as an invaluable sourcebook for the ever-increasing number of courses on women in antiquity and gender studies with the field of Classics and Ancient History, and also for courses on women’s literature generally. Plant has made it accessible to the widest possible audience by providing a glossary of people, places, texts and classical terminology… .The bibliography is admirably up to date and the various chronological tables, maps, appendices and glossary provide enough information to make the book readily accessible to students and non-specialists as well as a reference work and starting point for research on an woman writer of antiquity.
Scholia: Studies in Classical Antiquity ns 14 (2005)21

The volume…constitutes an important addition to the roster of modern collections of ancient sources and will be invaluable for university and upper level secondary school instruction about women in antiquity, women in classical literature, and sex and gender in the ancient world.
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.07.02

.

Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome

An Anthology

Ian Plant [+–]

Macquarie University

Table of Contents

Reviews

Related Journal

Related Interest

Search Equinox

Subjects