A History of Women in the West - v.1 : From Ancient Goddesses to Christian Saints

In the words of the general editors, "A History of Women" seeks "to understand women's place in society, their condition, the roles they played and the powers they possessed, their silence, their speech, and their deeds.

It is the variety of the representations of women - as gods, Madonnas, witches, and so on - that we hope to capture, in its permanence as well as its many transformations".

Informed by the work of 75 distinguished historians, this five-volume series presents a panoramic chronicle that extends from antiquity to the present day.

The inaugural volume brings women from the margins of ancient history into the fore.

The authors' analysis offers fresh insight into more than 20 centuries of Greek and Roman history and encompasses a landscape that stretches from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and from the Pillars of Hercules to the banks of the Indus.

In the minds of the ancients, the roles for which women were destined were silent ones: motherhood and homemaking, tasks relegated to obscurity by scribes who focused exclusively on the deeds of men.

Even the census neglected women; in Rome, only heiresses were counted. But the dearth of information about women in official archives and the near absence of writing by women from this era stand in stark contrast to the profusion of texts and images created by men that are concerned with women and gender.

The authors draw upon sources ranging from gravestones to floor plans, from stele inscriptions to papyrus rolls, from vase paintings to Greek and Roman literary works, to illustrate how representations of women evolved during this age.

They journey into the minds of men - from the Greeks imagining their godesses to the Church Fathers inventing the figure of the martyred female saint - and bring to light an imaginative history of women and of the relations between the sexes.

The authors explore select aspects of ancient mythology, philosophy, law, and art that illuminate the social position of women and the prevailing attitudes about sexual difference.

The social practices that left an indelible mark on women's lives - practices associated with sexuality and reproduction, property, and religious ritual and priesthood - are examined. What emerges is a portrait that enriches our understanding of the women of antiquity and enlarges our knowledge of their true roles in the social, religious, economic, and imaginative life of the ancient world.