Thesmophoria, the feminine fertility festival, dedicated to the Goddess Demeter, was literally for women only. Citizen males of ancient Greece were unconditionally restricted from attending […]
The Brutality of Citizen Wives Read More »
The Eleusinian Mysteries conjures up mystical images of a dark and dangerous festival, befitting its name. Indeed, it was surrounded by such an aura of
Unraveling the Eleusinian Mysteries Read More »
Who were Demeter and Persephone and why did their myth resonate so strongly with women of ancient Greece? The story of Demeter, goddess of the
The Rape of a Goddess Read More »
It must have come as no surprise to the Greeks that the face, which launched a thousand ships, was of Spartan origin. After all, Spartan
The Triumphant Women of Sparta Read More »
On the vast steppes of Eurasia, in an area the Greeks referred to as Scythia, lay the remains of a young woman approximately twenty to
The Return of the Amazons Read More »
Before apocryphally rolling out of the carpet and into legend, Cleopatra (69 BCE-30 BCE) already had a storied past. The twenty-one-year old and her thirteen-year
In Search of Cleopatra: The Early Years Read More »
One of the most influential and powerful empresses of late antiquity, Theodora’s (c 497-548) life reads like a melodrama where she plays many roles: actress,
Theodora The Great: From Mistress to Monarch Read More »
Situated on the Mediterranean in today’s northern Syria, Ugarit, a second millennium Canaanite port city, was the site of a major excavation in 1928 that
In Search of Asherah: The Lost Hebrew Goddess Read More »
Commissioned by none other than Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus after his decisive victory at Actium over Antony and Cleopatra, Virgil’s Aeneid is a patrilineal tale
The Passion of Dido Read More »
All of Rome was in an uproar. No one had imagined that even a cold fish like Augustus was capable of exiling his only biological
The Emperor’s Daughter Read More »
