Women's Ritual Competence in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean

Matt Dillon is an Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient History in the School of Humanities, University of New England, Armidale, Australia. He has written several articles and a book on women’s religion in ancient Greece, Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion (2002). He is interested in all ancient religions, and in Greek society.Esther Eidinow is an Associate Professor of Ancient Greek History at the University of Nottingham, UK. She has particular interest in ancient Greek religion and magic, and her publications include Oracles, Curses, and Risk among the Ancient Greeks (2007), Luck, Fate and Fortune: Antiquity and its Legacy (2010), and Envy, Poison and Death: Women on Trial in Classical Athens (2015).Lisa Maurizio is an Associate Professor of Classical and Medieval Studies at Bates College, Maine, USA. She is interested in interplay between gender, oral poetry, and Greek religion, and has published articles on Delphic divination as well as Classical Mythology in Context (2015).

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviationsList of FiguresNotes on ContributorsIntroductionMatthew P. Dillon, Esther Eidinow, and Lisa MaurizioI. OBJECTS AND OFFERINGS The Forgotten Things: Women, Rituals and Community in Western Sicily (8th–6th Centuries BCE) - Meritxell Ferrer Materiality and Ritual Competence: Insights from Women’s Prayer Typology in Homer - Andromache Karanika Power through Textiles: Women as Ritual Performers in Ancient Greece - Cecilie Brøns Silent Mourners: Terracotta Statues and Death Rituals in Canosa - Tiziana D’Angelo and Maya Muratov II. AUTHORITY AND TRANSMISSION Shared Meters and Meanings: Delphic Oracles and Women’s Lament - Lisa Maurizio Priestess and Polis in Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Tauris - Laura McClure Owners of Their Own Bodies: Women’s Magical Knowledge and Reproduction in Greek Inscriptions - Irene Salvo III. CONTROL AND RESISTANCE Bitter Constraint? Penelope’s Web, and "Season Due" - Laurie O’Higgins Women’s Ritual Competence and Domestic Dough: Celebrating the Thesmophoria, Haloa, and Dionysian Rites in Ancient Attika - Matthew P. Dillon Inhabiting/Subverting the Norms: Women's Ritual Agency in the Greek West - Bonnie MacLachlan IV. DENIAL AND CONTESTATION Women’s Ritual Competence and a Self-Inscribing Prophet at Rome - J. Bert Lott "A Devotee and a Champion": Re-interpreting the Female "Victims" of Magic in Early Christian Texts - Esther Eidinow "What the Women Know": Plutarch and Pausanias on Female Ritual Competence - Deborah LyonsIndex

"This book makes a significant contribution to both gender studies and studies on ancient Mediterranean religions ... this is a much-needed volume which opens the field to viewing women’s agency in ancient religions in a variety of different ways. Both scholars and students will find much of value in this edited collection."- Jennifer Martinez Morales, Monmouth College, USA, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018