Spanning 3,000 years, from the birth of Minoan Crete to the death of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome, a magisterial new history of the ancient world told, for the very first time, through women. For centuries, men have been writing histories of antiquity filled with warlords, emperors and kings. But when it comes to incorporating women aside from Cleopatra and Boudica, writers have been more comfortable describing mythical heroines than real ones. While Penelope and Helen of Troy live on in the imagination, their real-life counterparts have been relegated to the margins. In The Missing Thread , Daisy Dunn inverts this tradition and puts the women of history at the centre of the narrative. These pages present Enheduanna, the earliest named author, the poet Sappho and Telesilla, who defended her city from attack. Here is Artemisia, sole female commander in the Graeco-Persian Wars, and Cynisca, the first female victor at the Olympic Games. Cleopatra may be the more famous, but Fulvia, Mark Antony''s wife, fought a war on his behalf. Many other women remain nameless but integral. Through new examination of the sources combined with vivid storytelling Daisy Dunn shows us the ancient world through fresh eyes, and introduces us to an incredible cast of ancient women, , weavers of an entire world.

Vorwort
A vivid portrait of the ancient world that illuminates the stories of the women so often pushed to history's sidelines

Autorentext

Daisy Dunn is an award-winning classicist and author of seven books. Her most recent, Not Far From Brideshead: Oxford Between the Wars (2022), was selected for Radio 4's Open Book and longlisted for the Runciman Award. Her previous book, In The Shadow of Vesuvius, was an Editor's Choice in the New York Times and a book of the year in many publications. Daisy read Classics at Oxford before receiving a Masters from the Courtauld Institute and PhD from UCL. She is also a cultural columnist and editor of ARGO: A Hellenic Review. She lives in London and her website is www.daisydunn.co.uk

Klappentext

In Homer's Odyssey, Penelope famously unpicks the threads of a shroud at night to put off marrying a hapless suitor. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Philomela weaves the story of her rape into a tapestry after she is deprived of the power of speech. Male writers were generally happy to imagine mythological women turning their daily chores into creative exercises in self-expression. It did not always occur to men that real women might be up to something just as interesting. These women, the missing thread in the tapestry of ancient history, are the focus of this book.

Proceeding from Minoan Crete to Mycenaean Greece, from Lesbos to Asia Minor (modern Turkey), from the Persian Empire of ancient Iran to the royal court of Macedonia, from Dido's Carthage in Africa to Cleopatra's Egypt via Rome and its growing empire, this story covers a stretch of almost 3,000 years of classical history. Written with Daisy Dunn's lively prose and compelling storytelling skills, this is an epic journey through a hidden side of ancient history.

Zusammenfassung

'A brilliant concept, executed with enviable elegance' Lucy Worsley

'A gem of a book. Thanks to Daisy Dunn's elegant and lively retelling of history, the women of the ancient world are restored to the centre of the story of classical antiquity. It was a joy to read.' Peter Frankopan

Spanning 3,000 years, from the birth of Minoan Crete to the death of the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome, a magisterial new history of the ancient world told, for the very first time, through women.

For centuries, men have been writing histories of antiquity filled with warlords, emperors and kings. But when it comes to incorporating women aside from Cleopatra and Boudica, writers have been more comfortable describing mythical heroines than real ones. While Penelope and Helen of Troy live on in the imagination, their real-life counterparts have been relegated to the margins. In The Missing Thread, Daisy Dunn inverts this tradition and puts the women of history at the centre of the narrative.

These pages present Enheduanna, the earliest named author, the poet Sappho and Telesilla, who defended her city from attack. Here is Artemisia, sole female commander in the Graeco-Persian Wars, and Cynisca, the first female victor at the Olympic Games. Cleopatra may be the more famous, but Fulvia, Mark Antony's wife, fought a war on his behalf. Many other women remain nameless but integral. Through new examination of the sources combined with vivid storytelling Daisy Dunn shows us the ancient world through fresh eyes, and introduces us to an incredible cast of ancient women, weavers of an entire world.