From their personal lives at home to their roles in the realms of religion, health, economics, governance, war, philosophy, and poetry, this is the story of ancient women in all their aspects. Vivante explores women's lives in four ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. While the experiences of women in ancient cultures were certainly very different from those of most women today, a tendency to focus too much on negative or restrictive images has until now provided readers with a rather incomplete picture. Looking at this important era from a female-oriented perspective, Vivante widens the perceptual lens and makes it possible to highlight the fundamental empowered aspects of women's activities in order to present them in balance with the various limits imposed on their societal participation. Beginning with powerful images of goddesses and women's roles in the religious sphere, Vivante details the foundation for women's activities in all other social realms. While these four Mediterranean civilizations were distinctive, they also influenced each other through various forms of contact--trade, colonization, and war. Both the similarities and the differences permit richer comparisons and promote a deeper understanding of the lives of women in each.

This one-stop resource for information and examination of the ten most important topics and events in Ancient Greek history is an ideal student companion to a study of Greek civilization. Each chapter focuses on one topic or event and contains two essays: a clear, concise introduction to the event that presents complex, factual material in an easily understandable way, followed by an insightful interpretive essay by a recognized authority that explores the short-term and far-reaching ramifications of the event and encourages critical thinking. Chapters cover: Early Greek civilization; political revolutions and the development of ethnic Greek identity; the Olympic games and the rise of Greek religious institutions; Sparta and Athens; the Persian Wars; Athenian imperialism; the Peloponnesian War; the development of Greek philosophy; Makedonian conquests; and Hellenistic empires.

Each chapter features a full-page illustration of the event and an annotated bibliography that identifies the most important and recent scholarship about the event. Useful appendixes include a timeline of important events in Ancient Greece, a glossary of terms, and a list of Greek gods and goddesses. This resource is an ideal addition to the school and public library reference shelf and is also excellent for supplementary reading in courses on ancient history and culture.

Knowledge about the roles of women in ancient civilizations has been limited to traditionally held notions, but recent discoveries and research have led to exciting insights into the great variety of ways in which women contributed to ancient cultures. This reference work, designed for student research, features lengthy essays and a wealth of new information about women's roles in twelve ancient civilizations around the world--China, India, Japan, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, West Africa, Greece, Rome, the Maya, the Inca, and Native North America.

Historical studies have tended to ignore women's roles in ancient civilizations and to devalue their contributions to the community. These essays examine women's religious, political, public, economic, and domestic roles, their legal status, creative expression in art and literature, and notions of beauty. Students can then compare women's roles across cultures. The contributors, each of whom is a subject specialist, examine not only the nature of women's limitations in patriarchal culture but the ways in which women often succeeded, despite these limitations, in becoming agents of social change. Each essay begins with a timeline of events in the history of that culture to place the narrative in historical context, and concludes with suggestions for further reading about women in that culture.

Series Information:
The New Classical Canon

Women on the Edge, provides a broad sample of Euripides' plays focusing on women, and spans the chronology of his surviving works, from the earliest, to his last, incomplete, and posthumously produced masterpiece. Each play shows women in various roles--slave, unmarried girl, devoted wife, alienated wife, mother, daughter--providing a range of evidence about the kinds of meaning and effects the category woman conveyed in ancient Athens.
Although women are often represented in tragedy as powerful and free in their thoughts, speech and actions, real Athenian women were apparently expected to live unseen and silent, under the control of fathers and husbands, with little political or economic power. Women in tragedy often disrupt 'normal' life by their words and actions: they speak out boldly, tell lies, cause public unrest, violate custom, defy orders, even kill. Female characters in tragedy take actions, and raise issues central to the plays in which they appear, sometimes in strong opposition to male characters. The four plays in this collection offer examples of women who support the status quo and women who oppose and disrupt it; sometimes these are the same characters.
The translations in Women on the Edge help readers locate the plays within their original social, cultural and performance context and mediate between ancient and modern ideologies.

Knowledge about the roles of women in ancient civilizations has been limited to traditionally held notions, but recent discoveries and research have led to exciting insights into the great variety of ways in which women contributed to ancient cultures. This reference work, designed for student research, features lengthy essays and a wealth of new information about women's roles in twelve ancient civilizations around the world--China, India, Japan, Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, West Africa, Greece, Rome, the Maya, the Inca, and Native North America.

Historical studies have tended to ignore women's roles in ancient civilizations and to devalue their contributions to the community. These essays examine women's religious, political, public, economic, and domestic roles, their legal status, creative expression in art and literature, and notions of beauty. Students can then compare women's roles across cultures. The contributors, each of whom is a subject specialist, examine not only the nature of women's limitations in patriarchal culture but the ways in which women often succeeded, despite these limitations, in becoming agents of social change. Each essay begins with a timeline of events in the history of that culture to place the narrative in historical context, and concludes with suggestions for further reading about women in that culture.