Gender and Identity

My paper examines the formal and thematic aspects of catalogues of women in Homeric epic to account for the genesis of the Hesiodic Gunaikon Katalogos (GK), a comprehensive genealogy structured as a list of mortal women. I show that catalogues of women appear in epic because they feature exogamous marriage as an instantiation of heroic action; exogamy and heroic action are both exceptions to the course of nature. A Panhellenic genealogical project like the GK preserved accounts of exogamy to avoid the repetitive nature of genealogy.   

Thesis: The slaves listed in the Attic Stelai are unrepresentative of the Athenian slave population: the proportion of female slaves is too low, because the confiscations from the Hermokopidai did not usually include property attached to their wives.  This property contained a high proportion of female slaves, but would often have been retained by the wives or re-possessed by their families before the auctions recorded in the Attic Stelai.

When the second triumvirate proposed a tax on the wealthiest women of Rome to cover the mounting costs of their war with Caesar’s assassins, Rome’s moneyed matrons did not favor the prospect of being taxed without representation.  A group of matrons immediately took action to protect themselves from the steep new levy.  Hortensia, the daughter of the great orator Quintus Hortensius, addressed the Triumvires in the Forum on behalf of the matrons.

This paper argues that maternity in the Iliad is associated with martial protection, and that Achilles identifies his own problematic role as the protector of his comrades with the figure of the Homeric mother who is both protector and destroyer of her own offspring. This is reflected in his use of maternal similes to describe his relationship to the Achaean army (9.323-27) and to Patroclus (16.7-11), as well as in his performance of feminine-gendered mourning behavior, such as when he holds the dead Patroclus’ head in his hands at his funeral (23.136-137, cf.

In the late second or early third century CE, two women presented a dedicatory inscription to the goddess Leto in which they referred to themselves as ship owners and merchants who participated in trade on the Red Sea. What is remarkable is the degree to which these women engaged in trade. Previous research and assumptions about gender roles have downplayed the involvement of women in shipping and trade, relegating them to the peripheries of investing in trade.