ABSTRACT
All three sources are male, but then the sources for ancient women are, as it is now commonplace to state at the beginning of any article or book on the subject, almost entirely written by men.3 As Marilyn Skinner chronicled in a survey of the field written in 1987, this apparently simple observation at first led scholars to adopt a ‘determined skepticism’ and to restrict their work by concentrating on very small, discrete areas, shying away from any attempt at synthesis. The work of synthesis was instead left to the reader, facilitated by essays on ‘women in antiquity’ being grouped into accessible collections.4 It was accepted that access to ancient women would always be somewhat oblique. Skinner wrote, ‘Real women…are not to be found so much in the explicit text of the historical record as in its gaps and silences.’5 The next stage was therefore to develop strategies by which the gaps could be filled and the silences heard. For this, those working on ancient
women have been able to draw on the epistemological insights and methodological tools of the discipline of women’s studies, recognizing that all knowledge is ‘culturally shaped and politically charged’.6
