ABSTRACT
The “Widow of Ephesus” treats the widow as a celebrity, and that affects readers’ reactions to her behavior and expectations about the story’s outcome. In this note, I apply recent studies’ insights into the phenomenon of celebrity, particularly Tom Payne’s witty, irreverent and popularizing book, Fame: What the Classics Tell Us about Our Cult of Celebrity. Payne understands fame as “a systematic cycle of celebration, consecration and sacrifice” that is used to create celebrities in order to kill them, whether literally or figuratively, as sacrificial victims. The theme of fame and celebrity in the “Widow of Ephesus” accounts for some of the ambiguity with which the other characters—and readers— view the widow of this story.
