During the late Republic and early Empire, the new woman' made her appearance. This was a wife or widow of means who took part in life outside the walls of her

In the first century A.D. a "new" kind of Roman woman appeared whose provocative dress and decorum departed radically from the image of modesty that epitomized

'Perpetua shouted out with joy as the sword pierced her, for she wanted to taste some of the pain and she even guided the hesitant hand of the trainee gladiator

This sourcebook fully exploits the rich legal material of the imperial period, explaining the rights women held under Roman law, the restrictions to which they

Profiles the lives of women from archaic Greece in the seventh century BCE to the fall of Rome in 476 CE, including poet Julia Balbilla, Boudicca, Cleopatra III