ABSTRACT

This volume offers the first comprehensive look at the role of women in the monarchies of the ancient Mediterranean. It consistently addresses certain issues across all dynasties: title; role in succession; the situation of mothers, wives, and daughters of kings; regnant and co-regnant women; role in cult and in dynastic image; and examines a sampling of the careers of individual women while placing them within broader contexts. Written by an international group of experts, this collection is based on the assumption that women played a fundamental role in ancient monarchy, that they were part of, not apart from it, and that it is necessary to understand their role to understand ancient monarchies. This is a crucial resource for anyone interested in the role of women in antiquity.

part I|7 pages

Women and monarchy in the ancient Mediterranean

part II|125 pages

Egypt and the Nile Valley

chapter 3|13 pages

Regnant women in Egypt 1

chapter 4|12 pages

The image of Nefertiti

chapter 5|14 pages

The God’s Wife of Amun

Origins and rise to power

chapter 8|12 pages

Berenike II

chapter 9|12 pages

Royal women and Ptolemaic cults

chapter 11|13 pages

The Kleopatra problem

Roman sources and a female Ptolemaic ruler

part III|133 pages

The ancient Near East

chapter 13|12 pages

Achaimenid women

chapter 15|13 pages

Seleukid women

chapter 16|12 pages

Apama and Stratonike

The first Seleukid basilissai

chapter 17|12 pages

Seleukid marriage alliances

chapter 19|12 pages

Hasmonean women

chapter 20|12 pages

Women at the Arsakid court

chapter 22|12 pages

Zenobia of Palmyra

part IV|50 pages

Greece and Macedonia

chapter 24|11 pages

Royal women in Greek tragedy

chapter 25|13 pages

Argead women

chapter 26|12 pages

Women in Antigonid monarchy

part V|53 pages

Commonalities

chapter 27|12 pages

Transitional royal women

Kleopatra, sister of Alexander the Great, Adea Eurydike, and Phila

part VI|103 pages

Rome

part VII|40 pages

Reception from antiquity to present times

chapter 39|12 pages

Semiramis

Perception and presentation of female power in an Oriental garb

chapter 41|13 pages

Roman empresses on screen

An epic failure?