Saint Theodora
When we consider the pious lives of saints, images of self-sacrificing martyrs come to mind, devout adherents passionately immolating themselves for a higher cause. So […]
The Brutality of Citizen Wives
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
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Unraveling the Eleusinian Mysteries
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
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The Rape of a Goddess
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
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The Triumphant Women of Sparta
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
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The Return of the Amazons
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
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In Search of Cleopatra: The Early Years
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
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Theodora The Great: From Mistress to Monarch
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,
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In Search of Asherah: The Lost Hebrew Goddess
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
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The Passion of Dido
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
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