Spartan women: Did you mean...?

Pherenike (l. c. 388 BCE, also known as Kallipateira) was an athlete from Rhodes who, because she was a woman, could not compete in the Olympic Games and, as a married woman, was not allowed to even watch them. Defying these rules and risking...

Prostitution in ancient Athens was legal and regulated by the state. During the Greek Archaic Period (c. 800-479 BCE) brothels were instituted and taxed by the lawgiver Solon (l. c. 630 - c. 560 BCE), and this policy continued into the Classical...

The Thesmophoriazusae (also called The Poet & the Women or Women at the Thesmophoria) is a two-act comedy play written in 411 BCE by the great Greek comic playwright, Aristophanes. The play's principal focus is on the Greek tragedian Euripides...

Tattoos are an ancient form of art appearing in various cultures throughout history. One of the earliest (and possibly the oldest) pattern of tattoos in the world was discovered on the frozen remains of the man known as Otzi the Iceman who...

Fashion in ancient Egypt epitomized the concept of simplicity and ease in movement and remained relatively unchanged in this regard for over 3,000 years. Clothing and footwear differed in ornamentation between the upper and lower classes...

The Peloponnesian League (c. 550 BCE - c. 366 BCE) was a loose confederation of Greek city-states led by Sparta. The League was the oldest and longest-lasting political association in the ancient Greek world. For Sparta, the League gave it...

The roles, rights and lives of women in Ancient Greece varied depending on which city-state you were from, your social class and your wealth. Women in Ancient Greece had very few rights compared to men and, due to our lack of specific information...

A Very Useful Epistle (Epistre tres utile, 1539) is an open letter by the female reformer Marie Dentière (l. c. 1495-1561) to Marguerite of Navarre (l. 1492-1549) advocating for a greater role for women in the work of the Protestant Reformation...

A famous story from Greece relates how a young woman named Agnodice wished to become a doctor in Athens but found this forbidden. In fact, a woman practicing medicine in Athens in the 4th century BCE faced the death penalty. Refusing to give...

The Ecclesiazusae (aka Assemblywomen) is a comedy play written by Aristophanes, one of the great Greek comic playwrights. Written sometime between 393 and 391 BCE, it is, along with his play Wealth, one of only two he wrote after the Athenian...