Roman Women

Description:
This book examines the daily lives of Roman women by focusing on the mundane and less celebrated aspects of daily life - family and household, work and leisure, worship and social obligations - of women of different social ranks. Using a variety of sources, including literary texts, letters, inscriptions, coins, tableware, furniture, and the fine arts, from the late Republic to the high Imperial period, Eve D'Ambra shows how these sources serve as objects of social analysis, rather than simply as documents that recreate how life was lived. She also demonstrates how texts and material objects take part in shaping realities and what they can tell us about the texture of lives and social attitudes, if not emotions of women in Roman antiquity.

Review:
'While the book is intended to serve as an introduction, it provides detailed and concise information with avenues for more in-depth studies and will make an excellent textbook for any college course on women in Rome.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review 'This book offers a good introduction to a large topic for an audience with no prior knowledge and it provides valuable background material for the Cambridge Latin Course.' Journal of Classics Teaching

Table of Contents:
1. Gender and status; 2. Marriage and family; 3. Women's work; 4. Public life; Glossary; Roman authors; Selected bibliography.

Author Biography:
Eve D'Ambra is chair and professor of art at Vassar College. She is the author of Roman Art (Cambridge, 1998).