Description

What were women doing while men were building the Parthenon? Go beyond the Greek myths and find out about the real women of classical Athens: doctors, manufacturers, employers; sisters, neighbours, friends. 

In this talk, Ancient Historian Katherine Backler, author of new book Athena’s Sisters: Reclaiming the Women of Classical Athens, reveals how women in Athens helped to build temples and equip warships; how they used the legal system and their own networks to help themselves and their loved ones; how they organised and defined their social circles and friendship groups; and how they preserved their values and stories in stone for posterity. 

Dr Katherine Backler is a social historian of the ancient Greek world. She is particularly interested in the history of women, families, and enslaved people, and in how ancient Greeks from all walks of life told their own stories. She has recently joined the University of Leeds as a Lecturer in Ancient History; previously she was an Examination Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and then a Career Development Fellow in Ancient History at Trinity College, Oxford. Her first book, Athena’s Sisters: Reclaiming the Women of Classical Athens, was published by Cambridge University Press in February. Reviewers describe the book as ‘exciting’ and ‘original’, saying that it offers a ‘detailed, dynamic and positive picture’ of ‘the authentic lives of women in the ancient Greek world’ and ‘uncovers the perspectives and even possibly the voices of these multifaceted women from antiquity’. Katherine is currently writing about how Athens coped with the aftermath of its late-fifth-century oligarchic revolutions.