Conventional Ancient Roman histories may be dominated by men, but that tells an incomplete story. Emma Southon tells the stories of twenty-one women who made their mark on the empire.
While I enjoy reading about history, ancient history is usually not my jam – with one major exception. I will read anything Emma Southon writes, and wish fervently every time I finish one of her books that I hadn’t already read all of her older ones. It’s the conversational tone, the clear pleasure with which the book is narrated, and the knack that the author has for bridging the gap between the present and such a distant past while still making clear how very different the ancient Romans were from us.
In this book, we are told the stories of twenty-one Roman women who in some way left their mark visible to us two millennia later, which is a truly astonishing feat considering how little has been written about them by historians of the time, who were not particularly bothered with the everyday lives of such second-class citizens.
I appreciated that she showed us a diverse array of women from many different social classes and backgrounds, including women we might not today think of as being Roman, such as Boudica and Zenobia. I had known some of the events with which the women were associated, so it was surprising and illuminating to have the role that they played in them be brought to the forefront. I found the section about the women we know of through archeology to be particularly interesting, as it gave me an fascinating insight into the lives of middle class Roman women.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
