Analyzing Antigone
The playwright Sophocles (497 – 405 BCE) might have been amused to find that nearly twenty-five hundred years after writing about his eponymous heroine, the […]
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Advance of the Amazons
It was love at first sight when Achilles locked eyes with the famed Amazon warrior queen, Penthesilea. Romance, however, was the last thing on his
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Empress Theodora—Sinner or Saint?
The hooded gaze of an inscrutable Theodora (c.497- 548 CE) greets hundreds of thousands of visitors each year as they pay their respects to her
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The Savagery of Citizen Wives
The dominant paradigm was turned on its head when subjugated women were made autonomous by participating in a feminine fertility festival known as the Thesmophoria.
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The Bible’s Bedeviling Bad Girls: Delilah, Jezebel And Salome
It should come as no surprise to most that the biblical writers were unfair to the gentler sex. After all, ever since Eve bit into
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Demeter and the Danaids: A Subversive Alliance
It is assumed with some authority that the Greek world’s most venerable feminine fertility festival—exclusive to upstanding citizen wives—had as its unequivocal founders a murderous
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The Mysterious Eleusinian Mysteries
Conjuring up mystical images of secret initiation rites held under cover of darkness, the Eleusinian Mysteries had a reputation as a dark and dangerous festival.
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Clytemnestra: Twilight of the Matriarch
As any self-respecting Greek hero knows, sacking a city and raping its female inhabitants is hard work. So it is no wonder that after Agamemnon
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Augustus’ Draconian Marriage Laws And The Banishment Of Julia Augusti
“Let her be banished for life,” Augustus (63 BC-14 AD) is recorded as saying about the harsh exile of his only biological child, Julia, to
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Augustus’ Draconian Marriage Laws And The Banishment Of Julia Augusti
“Let her be banished for life,” Augustus (63 BC-14 AD) is recorded as saying about the harsh exile of his only biological child, Julia, to
Augustus’ Draconian Marriage Laws And The Banishment Of Julia Augusti Read More »