ABSTRACT
When I realized one day that I was about to start writing my doctoral thesis in the classics without having learned a thing about the life of Greek women,1 I walked into Smyth Classical Library and asked whether anybody there knew anything about women in Greece. “I think de Ste. Croix has something about it in the latest Classical Review,” said one student; I picked up the Classical Review from the magazine stand in the library, and, sure enough, there were a few “very inconclusive” pages on the subject, “offered mainly in the hope of stimulating a thorough inquiry into the whole subject.”2 Sensing a promising thesis topic (and not being very happy with the one that had been suggested to me), I walked down to the Widener Library stacks to look for some of the books mentioned in the article, and once I got there I glanced around in the same area to find other books on the subject. I checked them out, placed them in my carrel, and had the beginnings of my doctoral bibliography.
