Bloomsbury (2016, 4th edn.) p/b 496pp £24.99 (ISBN 9781472578471)
Since its first publication in 1982, L/F’s source book on Greek and Roman women has been an invaluable aid both to classicists and to those interested in gender studies. This latest integrated edition brings a wealth of additional material, some recently discovered, and includes new translations and 40 illustrations. The original contained just under 300 extracts; almost 600 are now featured, drawn from a huge variety of ancient texts, inscriptions and papyri. The book is not only published in an additional e-format, but is also linked with a website to which new sources are regularly being added, an invaluable research tool. The authors assert that in future the website will be updated, but no further edition will be published.
The topics include poetry, both written by women and put into female characters’ mouths by men, men’s opinions on women, the legal status of women, their occupations, roles in public and private life and in religion, as well as many extracts from ancient works on medicine and anatomy. Women of all classes are represented. We encounter female gladiators, wrestlers, physicians, philosophers and an oil importer, amongst a huge range of occupations. Each section has a clear introduction and the sources are arranged chronologically. Detailed footnotes follow each chapter and a comprehensive bibliography, concordance and indices complete the volume.
All life is certainly to be found in this book. The realities of day to day existence are presented along with more idealised visions. We read about a woman greengrocer who brought a lawsuit in Egypt in AD 114 after she was assaulted and robbed by another woman: ‘she tore my dress and my cloak, and … took away the money that I had in the house…’. More decorously, three centuries later in Egypt, we meet Hypatia, who ‘… had progressed so far in her education that she surpassed by far the philosophers of her time, and took over the Neoplatonic school that derived from Plotinus…’.
L/F have compiled an invaluable cornucopia of sources accompanied by helpful exposition and suggestions for further reading. It will provide many hours of pleasure to all those who are interested in ancient culture and society or in women’s lives. Those, like me, who own the original edition should certainly invest in this new version.
Marion Gibbs