Eva Cantarella

Cantarella dismisses the idea that the pre-classical era ever had actual matriarchies. In Greece she recognizes that women in areas other than Athens had less restricted lives, but emphasizes the role of Athens in passing on literary and cultural ideas of women as a curse to men and as nonentities in civil life. Greek women, for the most part, had lives that were centered on reproduction of citizens, if free, or on servile work and reproduction of servile workers, if slave. In Rome the show more situation is slightly better in that women earned respect for motherhood and for training children to be citizens. In order to do so they had to have more exposure to the world than women in Greece. But women served the family, not their own interests. They did not even have their own names--being know by a feminine version of the father's name and a number. So If Julius had two daughters, the second would be Julia Secundus. However, any change in women's status was usually attacked as a decline in morals. Christianity offered women personhood, but added a revulsion against sex to the general reasons for rejection. As the Empire fell, women lost rights again and were even blamed for the decline. Not an optimistic work. show less

"Bisexuality in the ancient world" provides a fascinating insight into the specific ways that men conducted their sexual lives in Ancient Greece and Rome. The work is divided into two broad themes: Greece and Rome, exploring each region in one half of the book, starting from the Greek Dark Ages up to the Roman Empire c 500-600 AD. This book focuses primarily on male bisexuality, as female bisexuality was largely overlooked by contemporaries, affecting available source material. The work show more provides an interesting analysis of how and when male bisexuality was tolerated, to what degree, etc. My only issue with the book is it's title: I initially picked it up thinking it may discuss bisexuality at large in the ancient WORLD, rather, in traditional classicist fashion, "world" here really just means "Greco-Roman". I would have recommended the title thus be "Bisexuality in the Ancient Greco-Roman World" or similar. show less

I particularly enjoyed the discussions on the Greek and Roman words and phrases and what they meant, but I found the entire book extremely interesting and engaging from start to finish.

Cantarella shows the structures of sexuality in Ancient Rome and Greece and how those cultures accepted sexuality other than heterosexuality, as long as it conformed to societal constraints.