Conversations: From the Mythical to the Very Real, Ancient Women in Power w/ Stephanie McCarter

Published Nov 15, 2024, 5:00 AM

Liv speaks with Stephanie McCarter, whose was last on the show to talk about her recent translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, this time it's all about ancient women in power, both the historical, the mythical, and the details somewhere in between.

CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.

Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.

Hello, nerds, This is let's talk about Miths Baby, and I am your host live here with a conversation with returning guest Stephanie McCarter.

You all remember Stephanie McCarter's name from her recent translation of ab It's Metamorphoses, which I mean our conversation about that year ago, two years ago, what his time was absolutely amazing, but that translation is just chef's kiss. And so I was so rilled to have Stephanie back to talk about her new book, this source book type thing, women in Power, And this conversation was so much fun because we were talking about women in power like in all forms. Enjoy conversations from the mythical to the very real ancient women in power with Stephanie McCarter. I mean, honestly, I was just so excited because I think I would have known you had this book coming out, but then of course it landed in my inbox. That Metamorphoses episode and just your translation are still they're very much talked about in our listener circles as well.

So that's that's wonderful thing. It was a wonderful It was one of my favorite things I've done to promote, to promote the metamorphacy. So yeah, that's.

Great, such fun and so of course you're right, like it's funny because I feel like all we did was focus on the women in metamorphosies, because of course I would. But if now you have a book called women in Power, and I'm just like, okay, great, well obviously, yeah, I want to hear all about this.

It's an interest for sure.

Yeah, so what lend you to that?

Yeah, interestingly, this book has been brewing probably for about sixteen years, I would say, so. I have been teaching at the University of the South in Swane since two thousand and eight. So that year I taught, of course, on women in gender in the Ancient World for the first time, and I knew I wanted to teach about the Amazons because the Amazons are and so then we'll just go and find the stories about the Amazons and have them read them. And there was no place where I could just easily find that. Yeah, so I you know, I ended up like literally copying and pasting a bunch of stuff from my students to spend on that day for the Amazons. And I thought, well, wouldn't it be nice if we had like a reader that included the Amazons, and then I often will teach the assembly women of Aristophanes as well. And you know, if you want to teach something like a play, you have to have them purchase an entire book. And so it just occurred to me that maybe it would be nice if a book kind of assembled some of these sources for ancient women, and particularly like under the theme of like women who had power. But I didn't want it to just be you know, influential women in the ancient world or badass women in the ancient world, because there were tons of those, right, But I wanted stories about women who wielded official power and did not therefore exercise power through men. It was really important to me to do that because I think it gives you into a real view, a window into how Romans conceive not only of women and power, but also how they conceived of otherness too, because almost all these stories are not set in Rome, right, they're you know, Roman or in Greece, right. So these are stories where the idea of women ruling is really tangled up with ideas of ethnicity. And so to me, I just wanted to bring together these stories that would help us my students and I explore this being.

I mean it's like a big smile on my face throughout all of this. That's just it's all I've ever wanted, you know, like and of course, like my show exists for such similar reasons, and so I'm just yeah, I'm so so was thrilled with this. And the Amazons. I mean, I the Amazons are so interesting to me, and so maybe we're just like I'm gonna we're gonna stuggle the Amazons because you mentioned them, and I'm not gonna say no, They're so interesting to me because of everything you were just kind of you know, talking about there, which the way they do interact or the stories of them do interact also with that otherness, that foreignness, and then like what does that mean that you know that they only understood women could rule foreign people, and like based on the stories, like they seem to have done it pretty well, you know, like they're meant to be this like big force against theseus, and they certainly thought highly of theseus, so like it says a lot about them, and so like, yeah, I mean, what are your thoughts on the Amazons and that and like anything, well, so.

Many Yeah, I mean, if you just take Theseus and the Amazon. He's only one of the Greek heroes who had to fight against the am Like they call you in.

Little ways, right like they do.

Yeah, Hercules of course famously fights against the Amazons. And then you have, if you just take just stigging with Theseus for a moment, you have the story that he marries the queen of the Amazons, who is Hippolyta. So so many of these stories are about the triumph of the Amazons. And you know, Helen Morales talks about this a lot in her book Antiginy Rising that this is just part of what makes a hero a hero, is that you have to defeat women because and especially these women, because power. I think fundamentally at the heart of thinking about power in the ancient world was that there's only so much of it to go around and tie to. That is, power is so entwined with masculinity that there's only not only so much power to go around, there's only so much masculinity to go around. And the moment that you know, someone like Hippolyto or or Penthesileia, who's another really cool Amazon, as soon as they take some power for themselves, they're denying it from a man right, and so female power is by nature emasculating to the Greek and Roman mind. And so if we want to have these virile heroes who have power, we have to show that they're always getting the upper hand over women. And women come to symbolize not just the way that Greek men can have power, but the way Greeks in general can have power. Because Amazon's again their other, their Eastern barbarian, the barbarian. And so you know, if you again just taking the Amazons, if you think about the myths that are pictured, not just told, but also pictured in the city the Wad with the Amazons, the amazonomachy was pictured on the Parthenon, on the Metapes, and it's on lots of temples. But this is a place where the Greeks can articulate their triumph over the forces of Persians right, and over the forces of otherness and chaos and monarchy. So the the Amazon's become really interesting figures with whom the Greeks can think about male elite democratic identity. So you know, unfortunately we don't really get a lot of historical accuracy in these stories about the Amazons, although there were certainly warrior women on the ancient you know, Eastern steps, but we get a lot of you know, illustrations of how the Greeks used women to think with and female power to think about male power.

What a fascinatingly dark concept to like, I know, try to just think about the idea that the reason they had to take it is just that they couldn't conceptualize both having power and like that is so distinctly patriarchal. Like it reminds me, you know, when I talk about, like I've recently been on a kick of looking back at like evidence of past of matriarchy in you know, the prehistoric record. But when I say patriarchy, so often people hear it as an opposition to patriarchy, And I that's so interesting, Like this idea that it has to be I mean, it's the same thing. It's that it has to be an opposition, whereas what I mean is more like a negalitarian just like, oh, what the big surprise It turns out like both people can be in the same place at the same time and nobody's going to die. Like what is it about that patriarchal mind? I'm trying not to say the men to the male mind because I'm like, I'm trying to be better, Like, what is it about that patriarchal mindset that like means that we they cannot conceptualize of both it's horrifying and fascinating and horrifying.

Well, patriarchy is by nature hierarchy. I mean that's just how that's how it functions. There's the male head of household, the male head of state, the male king. And women's power has always been really crucial to upholding patriarchy. This is something that Kate Mann, who's a philosopher at Cornell, explores brilliantly in her book Down Girl, The Logic of Misogyny, where she talks about that.

Oh by by the title alone, it was.

It's one of the most illuminating books I've read on this subject. But you know, she she looks at the way women's power, their influence, their abilities are really valued by men as subordinate position in subordinate positions, right, and when women become potential usurpers for that male role, then the this is where the title comes from. It's like, down Girl. Yeah, so I think that, you know, patriarchy harnesses women's women's power and their abilities, but it doesn't support them at the top of the hierarchy. So you know, it's I think it testifies why you can say, well, you know, there's so many powerful women even in these so called patriarchies. I'm like, of course there were, because their power was being harnessed and supportive of that. Right, This is why a lot of the Roman impresses don't get in the book. You know, someone like Livia, the wife of Augustus, who was an incredibly influential woman, but insofar as the state went, she wasn't allowed to wield official power, but her influence used, was used and exploited to hold up Augustus's power. So what I like about all these women, most of them, there are a couple of other examples, is that their threats to mal power primarily and also what's interesting to me and I could I'm sorry, I'm talking no, no, please, none of the women in this book fundamentally overturned the hierarchy, right, yeah, because there aren't really other, you know, ways to conceive of power in the ancient world except for it being hierarchical, and there's only so much to go around. So like the Amazons, they don't you know, they don't kind of set up a equitable utopia between men and women. They get usually they get rid of the men entirely. Yeah, they do the things that men do, and then they put the men. If they let the men stick around at all, they make them do the weaving and the house chores. Right.

So the assumption that that is that is what would automatically happen, like that male fear of like, oh my god, like I literally cannot withhold or like let go of any of this power because obviously they're going to take over. And it's like, wow, that like what you're showing your cards right, like that, like that's what you want to do. The assumption that that's what everyone would want to do is wild.

Absolutely. I love looking at some of these maths in relation to like political cartoons during the women's suffrage Oh my god, because you see this a lot where you know, the women are kind of smoking cigarettes and discussing politics in the foreground and in the background you have the man back there holding the baby and washing the clothes. Right, it's just know this this sort of flip. You see this with another mythical woman in the book who's another favorite. Her name is Amphilly, and she was a prety and queen, and I'm sure you've talked as well.

And as soon as you said the switch around, I'm like, well, okay, that's coming great.

Absolutely. You know, she famously was the lover of Hercules and he came under her power both sexually and politically, right, And that reversal was demonstrated in the art between them, because she marches around wearing his lion skin and wielding his club, and he gets to, you know, weave and wear her her you know, her clothes. There's a very funny bit I included. It's a description by Olive where he basically tries to put on her bra and it kind of breaks open. And but yes, I mean that, this kind of visual representation of power as zero sum game. You see it again and again and again and again. Yeah.

Yeah, well it reminds me like and I before I say this, I'm going to specify that I'm talking hypothetical, and I recognize the connection to the modern political climate in the country I do not live in, but you do. But before I say this, I'm not talking about I'm not talking about the American election. I'm not People have been making some assumptions lately and I have to remind them that I'm Canadian and sometimes I don't remember that it's happening. And sorry, I say that lightly. I recognize how how important it is, but sometimes I have to, like in any case before I say this, that's that. But it reminds me of this notion that people or women often say. And I say this white women. I want to make that clear. White North American women often say this idea of like, oh, well, things would be so much better if a woman was in power, and like as if there would be this like switch that gets like flicked the minute a woman gets in power, and like things are going to turn around, and like news flash, most women of today, certainly those who have risen to a certain level of power, are unfortunately completely conditioned by the patriarch to continue on the exact same patriarchal thing, like it's not likely to change. I think that if we went back in time three thousand years and we never got to this patriarchal nature where this is like that the power dynamic that you're talking about, where like the zero sum game. I think if we never got to that, maybe that things would be different. But there's never going to be this moment. We've we've gone too far past the line that there's this moment like doesn't mean there's not slow change. I don't want to suggest that change isn't possible. Obviously we should always be hoping for change and better and it is baby steps, but like there's often this mentality that it's like it'll will be immediate, and then when it's not, it's like somehow it's like that individual woman's fault and it's like, well that's not true either. It's just yeah, it's it's it's so interesting to think in how it still plays out today. And I want to stick to the antwer world.

But yeah, you know, if you think, if you think an intersectional framework, then if you want to you know, really embed feminism and an intersectional intersectional framework that you know, you know, equality and equity will not be achieved simply by having a new you know, a new face at the top of hierarchy, right you.

I mean the structure needs to be transformed, exactly. And also I think this idea that you know, any kind of rule by a woman will be feminist.

Rule, yeah exactly, that's wild.

Yeah, it's wild because it kind of wants to reduce women to the stereotype, to a stereotype, like a lot of these stories do, right, But to me, one of the most feminist ideas we can arrive at is the fact that women are morally complex human beings.

That's why it's funny you say it that way, because, like I've been dealing with while we're recording this, it's we're in the midst of my Euripides series. And that's why I say I love him is because I think he just thought women were complex moral or humans with like just complete complex moral are exactly the same as men and like the bars in the ground. But that's why I would say that in whatever form, he could have been an ancient feminist. You know, it's like, yeah, because you write shitty women alongside good women, because turns out women are just as complex as men.

Absolutely such a revolutionary, thought fully fully human wow. But I think you do see this in you know, and the stories about these rulers, that women are are considered to be, I mean, very complex in these stories. Unfortunately, so much of their complexity also gets kind of collapsed into stereotypes as well. You know, someone like you know, Boudhica, She is extremely complex because on the one hand, she's almost out roman ing the Romans, right, she becomes like a spokesperson for freedom.

And we pause for one seconcause sure, I want to hear more about boot and I'll actually ask you to say even more.

But first I will let's back up.

Yeah, but before we got there, because I have one there's one thing that I found in some I wrote a piece for an upcoming book on Medusa, and so I did all this sticking into ancient sources that reference her and the Gorgons, and one that will now live inside my brain literally forever is Diodora Sichlis, who writes about the Gorgons and the Amazons as if they're kind of the same. Do you know of that off hand? Yeah, Like he talks about how like they were both races of warrior women and that Heracles killed them because in his like mandate to the power of man was not to allow women to rule. It's just like it puts it into words exactly what you're saying about this zero sum game.

That's great, but it also doesn't surprise me in the least that you would align the Amazons with a Gorgon, because Amazons are and I don't. I'm not endorsing this idea, but by the way, ancient view they're monsters because a monster is a hybrid creature. Yeah, and Amazon's become hybrids of men and women. Wow.

Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. Yeah. Well and yeah, and to me, it's also a reminder of like what the Gorgans served as more of in the ancient world than how we see them now, which is like of of kind of a defensive like they were sure, yeah, they defended themselves against men, which feels like kind of what the Amazons are doing too, So like linking that as a way to like, know, we had to put them down, Like it just that lives in my head. And then so yeah, hearing you describe this, I'm like, oh, that's literally what he wrote, Like they put it into a myth. They were like Heracles, like could not allow women to rule under in a world that he existed in.

Like yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So to return to Budica though, So my listeners, I'm gonna admit something, it's pretty bad my listeners have no idea well through me who Budhquet is because I've just never gotten to talk about her at all. Well, yeah, an introstely.

So the book is divided into three parts when we start there. The first part is about like the woman run state, so you have the Amazons, and then I translated the entirety of Aristophani's Assembly Women because it's one of my favorite plays. It's so underappreciated. And then the second part is about just mythical queens, so Dido and Hipsippoly and people like that. And then the last part is historical queens. Okay, I wanted to include all of these because ancient writers weave these different kinds of queens together. They don't sometimes, and you'll see like a historical queen will sometimes model herself on a mythical queen for instance, for example. But Boudica, I mean, if you have any listeners in Britain, as I'm sure you do, she will well well know, they will know she's a bit of a British you know, hero at this point. But she was the queen of a Celtic group called the Achinny and I'm probably not saying that. Probably some people will say I see people say it in different ways. And her husband, Prostetagis, was a Roman client king and he died and he wanted to leave his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman emperor. But after he died, the Roman soldiers basically came and said we're taking over here and flogged Boudicat and raped her daughters. And yeah, in response to this, she led one of the most successful and violent uprisings against Rome. This was when Nero was the emperor. But it's recorded later first by first by Tacitus and then by Cassius Dio, and she's given these sort of amazing speeches and then ultimately she is defeated and she dies either of poisoning herself for a sickness, so there's not we don't know exactly how she died, but yeah, but the speeches are super interesting that she tells, as I said, she in Tacitus, a lot of the like northern and I'm going to use the word barbarian, just because this is how the Romans conceived of, you know, of non Romans, but northern barbarians were often given like ultra masculine attributes and and also not just that, but ultra Roman attributes. So the Romans, you know, they valued freedom. But the way Tacitus will depict the Romans themselves, as they're no longer free because they live under an emperor, and certainly under an emperor like Nero, there's no way the state can be free. So instead this becomes an attribute for which northern barbarians especially will fight Germans and in Britains, and so Boutiquet in her speech she is called both speeches both in Tacitus and Cassius Dio. It also gets said Dio Cassius. So if I go back and forth, I will apologize, But they both make her appeal to freedom right. So I mean this is something that a Roman reader would probably certainly elite reader such as Tacitus's readers were, would have been really sympathetic. But then at the same time, in these stories, Boudica does things that fulfilled all of the most negative stereotypes of barbarians. So can I tell you a really, really horrendous story.

Please, But I'm glad that you give people.

They give you a warning if you need to jump ahead. Then this does involve some brutal violence. Cassius Dio tells us that after they they took to three towns in Britain, including London, and burn them to the ground. But then Cassius Dio tells us that in one of these towns, she took the most elite women of Roman women, and she and her troops would cut off their breasts and then sewed their own breasts into their mouths and then impaled them. So it's an absolutely brutal story in which Boudicuet answers her the violence that her daughters have and she herself has have suffered with, you know, similarly brutal violence. Yeah, so she's a real conundrum Boudica in trying to you know, one is very sympathetic, but then one is also taken back by her, and I think that's true for a lot of these women. Yeah.

Well and in that case too, like do we know anything about the actually the historicity that like the guys are writing these things who are like fifty to fifty right.

Exactly, We have no idea if this is true. Interesting, this is Cassius Dio, who is you know, he's living quite a long time after this, yeah, you know, a century after this happened. So again, this is fulfilling stereotypes. So perhaps we're just making up things that fulfill those stereotypes.

Yeah, because it's also it's giving amazon a little right, like there was that. Yeah, I mean it's not that prominent. I think in the ancient world that they didn't have one breast or that they cut one off, right, but that did exist as like a conceptual idea, So yeah, it's it's similar, absolutely.

I mean the thing about these stories is that they are inventions, invented. They may have some historicity, but we we you know, Tacit has made up this speech, Dio Cassius made up this speech, and so we don't know what the historical facts are. They tell us much more about how men were thinking about women than women in power, than how women in power were actually.

Right, hait all of it, like, that's that's all we have. That's what's so interesting and infuriat but mostly interesting. It reminds me of you know, you've mentioned Aristophanes and I already so I've never read The Assembly Women, and now you maybe want to. But I also think maybe I just have you come on and talk about it if you're interested in the future, because I've I have qualms with Aristophanes because I think he was or I think he was unkind to Euripides. Is legacy to us. I feel like, probably I come and I really change my mind often about how Ariston might have felt. But he definitely gave us this world where people are like euripidies was a misogynist because women hated him, And it's like it reminds me of that, just like we only know about how women felt about euripities through the writings of Aristophanes, So like, are we believing this comedic player who wrote also like Dick jokes into every second word, like, or are we you know, believing the work of your euripities? It's so interesting to kind of to pull apart. I mean, that's the truth with all ancient sources, and it's why I love the ancient world. But it's yeah, it's just such a weird thing to be to be looking at these things that are the only thing we have that maybe tells part of the story, and also are have the potential to just be like so skewed and biased for all these other different reasons.

Absolutely, And what surprises me is how often, like today, when we're talking about these women, we will choose a story that we think is kind of fun, right, and then we repeat it as though it's something that really is true. We get very invested in the truthfulness of some of these stories, Like we get very invested, say in the you know, the picture of the alluring Cleopatra that we have. So many of these stories we're told actually to damn her by the man who conquered her. Right, even some of the things that we think are super cool, we're actually meant to just denigrate the idea of women in power.

Yeah, so, I mean, I'm sure you have lots of examples of that, But do any stand out, Like do you want to talk about Cleopatra? I merely want to hear about anyone and everything.

I mean. So, there's this story that we're told about Cleopatra. I have so many authors in this book. I want to make sure I get this right. So this is a story by plenty of the Elder, And he tells us how she and Anthony are having this dinner party and are trying to outdo one another. And so she says, I can give you the most expensive meal you can imagine, And he's like, sure you can. So she has these two amazing pearls, and so she and she has a cup of vinegar brought in. This seems like some kind of magical vinegar that can dissolve a pearl. She drops the pearl into it and their ear rings, I should say, And when the pearl dissolves, she drinks it, apparently, And she's just on the verge of putting the other pearl in to dissolve when one of her you know, one of her people, her u the people who are perhaps I can remember who it is, but one of her retinue stop her. And and so you know, don't do that. You've proven your point already. But you know this is not this is a this was a story meant to make us gape in awe of her, right, yeah, like it seems so amazing that someone would do this. And then apparently the other earring was taken and sign in half and used to decorate a statue in Rome. But so often, so many of these stories about women make them into what the Greeks would call a fauma, like a marvel, right, they become things we can marvel at. They become beyond anything that we can imagine. By making women something to marvel at, we're actually again that's another way of othering them, like a freak show, a freak show exactly. Yeah, you see it again, and again one of my favorite stories of that in this book is Samiramus, who is the legendary founder of Babylon, and this is one of the figures that the Romans were obsessed with her. But I couldn't again find a good translation of what was written about her. So her story is told, and again I'm gonna make sure I have this right. Her story is told by a are you smarmus? By die door Siculus, and he tells us that she wanted to go to war against the King of India, but she didn't have any elephants. So she had all these hows just slaughtered and then heaped their carcasses on top of camel on top of camels to make them look like.

Et that is impractical and horrifying, horrifying.

And so she has like these fake elephants and this is just again it's like you want to have this reaction that you're having, like it's marvelous, right, yeah, it's it's it's it's freaky. And and so therefore it becomes a way of like making this Eastern queen. She's incredibly clever, she's beyond human, right, and weird, it's it's weird, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and Cleopatra operates within that same kind of you know, that same kind of complex of ideas. You know, we're We're told at one point and again so many authors. I think this is the bit bi Cassius Dio, And who I know, I've already called Dio Cassius a million times.

I feel like you've just said Cassius Dio, which is the only one I heard.

But nobody knows. Nobody knows. I go back and forth, and in fact I may, just if I can find it, I may read you this little please. Yeah, yet you can edit, edit this act Okay, it's actually this is by Plutarch in his Life of Antony. And Plutarch tells us her beauty, taken by itself, was not altogether incomparable, nor such is to astound those who saw her. But just her presence held you in an irresistible grip. Her demeanor, together with the eloquence of her conversation, and her character, which somehow pervaded her every interaction, all produced a certain stinging excitement. There was also a sweetness in the sound of her speaking, and her tongue like a mini stringed instrument. She effortlessly turned to whatever language she wished, so she rarely met with foreigners, needing any translation at all, but for the most part made their replies solely by herself, whether they were Ethiopian, Tragadte, Hebrew, Arab, Syrian, Mead or Parthian. She is said to have learned the languages of many other peoples, though the previous kings had refused to take up even the native Egyptian language. And this may be true that Cleopatra spoke all of these languages, so there may be a kernel of truth here. However, what we're also doing is we're saying something about the power of the female voice and its seductive ability. Right, the female voice here for Cleopatra, the way she speaks, it reels you in. I always compare this to the sirens, right where the voice will reel you in. But then you know, at the end of this you're going to encounter a woman who is extremely dangerous. Yeah, and you know, so this is part of Roman propaganda, But we also love this about Cleopatra, right, Yeah, and so I think this is one place where we have to resist this. Oh my gosh, she was so amazing. She spoke all these languages, and think why were they telling this story about her in the first place.

Well, and the way they compare her to the earlier kings, they're also like, yeah, they're really I mean, it sounds good to us now, but yeah, back then they're like, oh, well, she's not that Roman, she's not that Greek. She's going with everyone, you know, like exactly, yeah, she's like teaming up with the barbarians almost just what they're saying.

Absolutely absolutely, But then we yeah, but then when this just gets repeated with our approval.

Yeah, yeah, because it sounds great today. Well yeah, I mean, oh you mentioning the Diodorus again. I I'm trying to remember what because the way you described earlier. Sorry, my brains just having a little hiccup. It just like the kind of the wildness of the way like he describes the people, which I recognize is not what you just read, but the early you said earlier. But because the way he described the Gorgans and the Amazons and that piece that I had read, like it was something like that, we're just like so over the top, like before Heracles put them down, it was like they they had done all these things that sound great, but really if you break them down are all these kind of like hits against them in that the contemporary kind of mindset. And I'm just kind of now, like I read that piece so many times now that it's just like coming together in my head as you speak about what they're really doing. But in describing these women, God, it's just Okay, there's so many more. I want to You've mentioned so many names already, and I really want to hear your thoughts on no, no, no, no apologies, You've just given me more ideas.

PA.

Well, no, I mean so am I, which is why it works great. But that Dido and Hipsipoly you mentioned too, so because you're looking at the mythological I really want to I don't want to try to, you know, have us jam everyone into this, but I'm also just want to ask all of about all of the women. The problem is You've just come to me with all of my favorite things in the world, and I'm trying to fit it into one episode. So but yeah, like I I loved Ido obviously, Like you know, I've only talked about her in small context because of I don't talk about Rome all that much. But hip Sippoly too. I was talking to Melissa funky recently about Hysippoly because she studies fragments and talked about that, and so I've got sort of the the Euripides fragments in my head by this time. But but obviously hip Sippily appears in so many ways. So like I just now I'm rambling, and I would just love if you could tell me about Hypsippo.

I'll tell you about Hypsippoly. So she is, she's the queen of Lemnos Alan and the Agen, and I include two versions of her story. And I should say that the book is compiled. It compiles translations by various people, and so only some of them are new, but some of them were previously published translations that I just really like. So I included the story about Hypsippoly from Aaron Poochigean's translation of Apollonius of Rhodes. So it's a great translation. Good to know, Yeah, yeah, but by if you, I really love his translation of Apolonius. But at anyway, and then I actually translated the story her the version of her story from Stacius in the Bid. So these stories are so they have different features in comments, like the basic structure of her story is that she's a Lemnian queen. Her father is actually the king, which brings me to an interesting point I'd like to dig into further, is that these women tend to come into power in the like when a male has died or it's an accident. Almost always.

Yeah, and even in the diet or of Syclist. Actually, now that you say that, when he's describing the Gorgons or whatever sources I was looking for for the Gorgans, they also are always like, oh, well, Gorgans came to power because their father died.

Exactly, That's right, exactly. It's almost always the case or the husband dies or something. But her dad is still around at the beginning of this story. But they have honored the goddess Aphrodite slash Venus in favor of her husband. Hefeistas slash Falcan so Venus. I'm gonna say Venus because I'm a Romanist.

Ahead, sorry you've been saying Achilles.

It migrate to some. But she gets very upset at the Lemnians because they refuse her worship, and so she basically creates repulsion between the men and the women.

Smells we like exactly.

So in a lot of versions, yeah, she makes the Limnian women smelly, and the men go off and they start fighting wars and thrace and in the absence of the men, the women start plotting.

And that what women do when men aren't around.

And again, this is what all these stories would have us like, I'm so ready, yes, I want to.

Say this, and then I'm gonna connect tape. Simply, these women almost get rejected from leadership. It because they have the very qualities that would make them good leaders. They're intelligent. It's threatening, they are intelligent, they speak well. They're often seen as like, you know, making deals and uh, you know, wheeling and dealing, and we might say that they become conspiratorial, which is certainly what happens in the Limnian episode. So anyway, they conspire, they plot, they plan, they're clever, and when the men come back, they kill them all and except for Hypsippoly. So she puts her father to see on a boat to save his life and then she only pretends to have killed him. But because she's his daughter, she becomes the queen. And so Hypsipoly is interesting because she usually becomes a foil in a lot of ways. So in the bias, she's a foil, not just to the other women who were overtaken by fury, but she's a fuel, a foil for the larger epic two, which is this It's the story of the Seven against Theeves, and it's just an epic in which all the men are taken over by madness, lust for war, impiety, I mean, just you name it. And she's like this one lone figure of piety. I'm not going to kill my father. She's like a little Eneus within this story that is all about just utter madness and bloodshed. And then in the Apollonious story, she's a foil to a much She's a less threatening version of a much more threatening character who will come later, who is Medea.

She's like that, like what's I mean, I don't even know the word I want, but you know, yeah, she's she's the way you described it, like that, she's like an introductory for Jason, right, like exactly.

But you know, even this most positive exemplar for a female leadership that we can find in the ancient world still comes to power in a bloody coup.

Right, So that's well, and that the smell is so like like the the addition of derogatory and of derogatory like nature about them, and then to also have it done by Aphrodite like it all of these things are these little dings against her right. It's like, oh, women, are you know, predisposed to sort of that type of thing that would have Aphrodite curse you.

You know?

Or and and I mean that I forgot that it was so connected with her relationship with Hefeistus too, which is like a I mean also again, feel free to use the Roman names. I realize I will automatically was Greek and not even notice we're doing both, so the listeners will get it if we just go back and forth between us. It's kind of fun. But it's so interesting to me that it's connected with that couple because we have so many like Aphrodite herself, to me, is one of is like these women in a lot of ways, like she could be all powerful, and there are so many instances in the mythology of like all of these different times in which she is brought to heal and like lessened, and her relationship with Hephaistus is like the major one, which is that she doesn't want to marry him, you know, she wants to marry war and like how powerful that would that make her? They recognize that she's already so powerful, and so to then like have her relationship with hephaistis also then be this catalyst for the Lemnine women becoming smelly and like becoming this obviously derogatory like stereotype kind of thing. Like oh, it's so there's so many layers in.

That absolutely well, and it makes me think about the relationship between sex and power, right, I mean, aphrodite slash venus is she derives so much of her power through her sexuality. And you see this again and again in these stories that sex becomes an arena for contesting power. Right, So women can wield power through sex, but as a sphere is usually controlled by men, right, And so we see this in I think the Limnian episode really well, the women have, you know, this is the sphere over which they can try to have some control having sex with you know, this is their you know, through through sex with their husbands, the production of children, marriage, right, men refusing them that, their husbands refusing them that, and so women will then take over and kill their husbands. I mean, sex becomes a battleground, right, which is something that. I mean, certainly in ancient poetry this was a common trope that that sex is like a battlefield. And in the.

Mythology though, too, like they have this real obsession with women controlling reproduction, like you were saying, so like even in yeah, like you know, all of the like the the most ancient of mythology, all of that is really tied up in that idea, right, Like, that's why Zoos impregnates so many women. That's like this idea that women control that, and like, how is that?

You know?

How can how can men use that against them?

Essentially absolutely, which is why so many of these stories involve women getting the sexual upper hand. You cannot have power unless you control sexuality, right, unless you control reproduction, who gets to sleep with whom? And so in like the Assembly Women, and again I could talk about that play for a whole episodes, so I don't want to get into it too much, but the women dress up in their husband's clothes, they go into the assembly, they vote to give themselves power, and so the whole play sets that up. But there's this very disturbing final episode where these two three older women who are treated in remarkably sexist ways with all kinds of stereotypes about old women. But they are fighting over who gets to have sex with this young man and the whole thing is just this argument that happens, and he's lost the ability to have any control over who he gets to have sex with. He has no say in the matter. But you know, to enact a fully woman controlled society, you have to show how they exert power over the sexual realm. I mean the realms that you have to take control of our sex, speech, war and money.

Yeah. Wow, oh I This episode is tied in really well with another that also hasn't come out, but which I recorded recently with Emily Howser, because she is a new Ish book When Women Became Poets, And it's just from a mind have you read it or familiar? Yeah, So, like it's connecting so much with this, like because she broke down all the ways in which like they refuse to call women poets, like even sappho, like all these different ways they wouldn't do it, And it's just, oh, the connection is so solidly there, right, Like you're talking literal power. They're talking like Emily was talking like artistic kind of power, and it's like all this same thing, this like struggle for control where the two sides are just so disconnected like this.

Yeah, and the way the stories are told too for a again, because it is it's a struggle, right, power is a constant struggle in these stories. So for a woman to have any kind of autonomy over her body, it requires deposing the man, right, Like, there's doesn't seem to be a world in which a woman can come to equal terms, right, autonomy equals mastery in this in this way of thinking.

Yeah, well, it's like, oh my god, how how very relatable is that still today?

This?

Because I mean, that's what the core of everything is like in our world now, is like that. It's still that that deep desire to just control the things that women control over their bodies over like, oh wow, it's dark and also fortunately interesting because you're the Romanist, I would love to hear all about didoh, and then you don't have to use any of the names.

So I will say, I love teaching Dido, but it's it's hard to teach again because I don't want them to buy like an entire a ned. I don't want to have to have my student buy these, So I included the bits about Dido from Fagel's translation in This and Dido, in case your readers are not aware, she is the queen in Carthage in Virgil's Neid. When Aeneas and his men flee from Troy after it falls in the Trojan War, he and his men kind of wandering around the Mediterranean. They end up in Carthage, where they spend about a year, and Dido is the queen there. She gives them hospitality. She and Aneas enter a relationship which she believes. She believes it's marriage, and Virgil says, doesn't tell us exactly what Aneas believes about the relationship. He has to go because it's his duty to found Rome and she she builds pire, and she dies by suicide by falling upon his sword on top of the pyre. But before she does that, she curses the future Romans and the Carthaginians always to be at odds with each other, so she single handedly brings about the punic wars that will happen later in the story. According to Virgil. But she's interesting to read alongside Cleopatra. I like having them in the same volume. Yes, because there's this this idea that Aneus, who is something of a prototype for Augustus later as the you know, he's the first founder of what will become Rome, and Augustus is the second founder. Aneus is very much a figure of piety to the gods, duty to the state. These are you know, values that Augustus would try to associate with himself later. But there's this moment when he becomes almost an antony, and he's Aneas is there in North Africa with his queen, right, and there's this moment when Mercury comes down after Jupiter basically says, you know, go down there and tell him to get the hell out, and Mercury refers to him as Uxorius in Latin, which would become the English Eusorius, which is a man who's controlled by his wife. Right. So this idea that Aneas is momentarily emasculated by having spent this time in Carthage with Dido, and he leaves, even though it's pretty darn clear he'd like to stick around perhaps a bit longer. He seems pretty happy as he's helping Dido build her city. But this becomes a kind of a she becomes a negative foil to Aeneas in so many ways. She's like Aneus, she was a refugee from tire and Macedonia.

The reason she took power, there's also a death right.

Yeah, so her husband, Sicaus was was murdered.

Oh right, okay, but it's still that she does take power because her husband was murdered. Exactly was her husband? Yeah, okay, that's.

That's exactly right. Yeah, this, I mean, a strange monarchy produces more female uh empowered women because of this, you know, this this feature of it that if the king dies then and he has no adult sons, then it can go to the woman. And so that's almost all these women come into power, both in the myths and the history. You know, Boudicue she comes into power when her husband dies, for example. So but anyway, so she she is the murder of her brother. He is he's you know, she needs to flee him, and so she comes as a refugee to North Africa, just as Aneas does. And she starts, she founds a city, just as Aneas will do. And it's beautiful and successful and the story illustrates though how she is a woman. Again, it's a negative stereotype. She's so susceptible to love and to passion and that ultimately will become the downfall of her city. So as much as we admire her, she too becomes an argument against female power because she doesn't have control of her feelings of passion, she can't turn away from them.

The way you phrased it, with the I mean one Cleopatra, which I hadn't really thought of, but also like her being this cause of the punic wars, like I mean, beyond the story of her, do you have like thoughts on how intentional the Cleopatra might have been either, you know, I know there's so many theories about Virgil writing the Aeneid and like whether he was like loving on Augustus or whether he was like subtly putting down Augustus. And it's interesting to me to have that Cleopatric connection because it feels like it could be one of those like little underhanded like I don't totally love how you came to power kind of digs. You know.

It's I mean, Virgil, I've never thought. I've never bought that he is pro Augustus. I've also never bought but he's anti Augustus. Like, okay, to me, I want to do with Virgil what I do with women is allow him to be a morally complex human being. And and so that means that he's capable of capable of wrestling with complex stories in all of their complexity, right, And and so he he presents a Cleopatra or sorry, a Dido, who's really I think she's a likable character in the story. Yeah, she's heroic, right, she she's she's she too is complex, right, And so I love I love this about Virgil. I mean, one of my favorite characters. And I'm going to get off women for just one second to say this about Virgil is in the second half of the Nea, his a and his is Mizintius. He is a figure of horrendous impiety. He is killed. You would almost think that most writers would make him into a caricature of evil, but Virgil refuses. He's this extremely sympathetic character because he loves his son so much. And then his son is killed and it's so very sad, and we see Mizintius grieving, And I just love that about Virgil. He never lets us reduce the characters to stereotypes, so to simple one side of characters, and so he does this with Aneas too, like He's not going to let him just be an Augustus figure. He's also going to make him be a bit of an Antony. Maybe these two sides can coexist and in one person. And that's what makes Aneas I think, fully human as a character.

Yeah. Well, I think when you when you phrase it like that, I feel like he really also reached his goal a little of being very Homeric in that way. Yeah, because like the Homeric is I mean, he no one's surprised to hear that the Anid is directly inspired by the Homeric epics. But also the Homeric epics are so explicitly like not on either side there, you know, there's no like good guys and bad guys, So that that makes sense and it kind of works. And and she is, she said, she fits the Surci role very well, And yeah, that's h I love the story of Dido and also hate the story of Didoh and and you know, it's but it's interesting to think of it that way. And the Cleopatric connection I'm particularly interested in, and it's so close to like.

Absolutely yeah, and I think it had to have been so on on purpose. But then of course Cleopatra does appear in the aid in in book in book eight. Yeah, and I did translate that bit myself and included it, and in fact I can just read that too. Is that under Please, this is not the end of world. This is actually the shield of Aeneas. We're clear, of course, Yeah, where Cleopatra herself appears. So I'll just read this little bit because here there's not a lot of moral complexity for Cleopatra herself. Okay, here here is Cleopatra on the shield of Aeneas. So I'll just read it and then we can compare it to to didoh, since he, I think, by putting her there perfect purposefully does juxtapose them. So this is the the Battle of Actium, which is right there on the center of the shield. And Aneas has no idea what he's looking at.

This is just armor, a future shield, a future It's like I.

Think the phrase is often used to describe it as history in the future tense, right, this is what will happen. And burg Oil tells us like he doesn't know what any of this means. It's just on this shield that his mom brings to him. Okay, so we are told the queen amid this signals with her systrom, not seeing yet the twin snakes at her back, all sorts of monstrous gods and barking in Nubis fight armed with Neptune, Venus and Minerva. And in the conflicts center rages Mars, engraved in iron from the sky sad Furies advance and discord. Joyous clothed in rags, trailed by Bolona with her bloody whip. Actin Apollo bends his bow, observing on high in terror. Each Egyptian flees, each Indian, Arabian, and Sabean. The Queen herself appears to call the winds as she inferls her cells. The ropes now slack amid the gore. The flame Lord made her pell at looming death as wind and waves conveyed her across great bodied Nile, in warnings, spreads his arms, his whole robe, welcoming the conquered into his sea, blue bays and hidden streams.

That's beautiful.

Well, she's there, but he on one side are there gods of Rome and Augustus. On the other side the gods of Egypt and Cleopatra. So there's this real like us and them Rome, Egyptian civilization and not r Yeah, so so much of the complexity he gives didoh he doesn't give to Cleopatra later. But I do think this image of the Nile welcoming the conquered into his embrace is kind of beautiful and perhaps sympathetic.

Yeah, well, and yeah, I mean to me it just sounds like sort of equally powerful. But I recognize what he's doing. It's not necessarily meant that way in that work. But she just I mean, she sounds bad ass. But again, were like you were saying a lot of things that we now almost are forced to think sound bad ass. It's just because they are in oppa patriarchy. But yeah, you know that's the twin snakes is like, was that a reference to how she died?

It's a reference to how she will Okay, yeah, I mean it's this This story like Cleipatra drives me crazy because I don't believe it. I don't believe it for a second. I don't believe that Cleopatra in this moment where you know, she's she's really literally afraid she's going to be taking captive, that she is going to be marched. In Roman Triumph, Anthony has already fallen on his sword. He is dead, her options are limited, and she makes a desperate choice to keep her own sense of control over her own life and die by suicide. Right. It's a very I mean, it's a very powerful choice that she makes. I don't believe for a moment that she in this very serious choice that she makes to keep autonomy, that she says, how can I die in the most histrionic way possible? Yeah, somebody bring me some snakes.

That feels like it's a it is a dig against a woman. It's the way you said histrionic that immediately flagged it in my head. It's like, oh right, no, it's like it's hysteria. It's all of these things women are over dramatic, Like of course she wouldn't just kill herself, she would find a couple of snakes to bite her, like, yeah.

Which you know, it's certainly my son and I just want to see beetle juice. Beetle juice. And this is something that happens in that movie with this woman, in this moment of just she's being histrionic purposefully so, and snakes are involved, but oh my gosh, it's Cleopatra and this is how we're presenting her. But so the snakes are Roman invention. Yeah, and and and they're there to make her again look kind of over the top, overly passionate, theatrical and and feminine.

Yeah.

And I don't mean that as a compliment in this particular instance, because they didn't mean that as a compliment necessarily. Yeah, but we've you know, and if you if you google Cleopatra painting nowadays, it's gonna give us that that's what we will see her death scene with those snakes, because we still lean into it. We are still seduced by it.

I think of the Waterhouse Cleopatra painting. Sorry, if I was to google, that's the one I want. I can see you doing it.

I am. I'm sure I know it. But I oh, yes, okay, yeah, yeah.

That's my cleop I actually a listener years and years ago had sent to me this enormous art piece that has that painting. But then overtop is painted the words I am the work of art and I love it. So I think it always but yeah, but yeah, you're right, like it is. It's that iconic thing of like, oh, she killed herself by snakes, But really, I mean it's propaganda and also just yeah, I mean made to make her look bad and hysterical.

Yeah, since I would love to may since Cleipatrack is the most famous, right, she's there in Egypt. She dies in the year thirty BCE. But there are two other queens who bookend her, both geographically and temporalily, who we don't talk about, who we never talked about, so I want I wanted to include them. The reason we talk about Cleopatra is because she was conquered, right, and they make and by the Romans and by the Romans, they make her into this mythical creature. But then there are two women who they don't really The first is Salame Alexandra, who was a Hasmanian queen and Judea and she was the only Hasmanian queen. And her dates, oh gosh, I'm gonna go find them because I will get them wrong. I'm the worst person with dates I have written in here. She ruled from seventy six to sixty seven BCE. Oh wow, okay, And her story is recorded in Josephus. He's very ambivalent about her. He like she seems to been, you know, a very wonky, capable administrator. Right, she doesn't quite work well, right for for our over the top amazing, marvelous women that we have in these stories.

It's like women are just you know, complex people who are capable of all things.

She increased the size of the military. She but you know, he talks about the fact that she became too deferential to the Pharisees and so this this is not something that he really likes so much, and he but you know, she doesn't do a whole lot. What ends up happening is that her sons get involved in a war of succession. But eventually Josephus kind of just blames her for that, like of course, and yeah, you know, she's fine, but she's a woman in power. We can't have that. She's weakening this state. And this explains why Herod can later if you Josepha's come in and bring it into the Hasmanian dynasty. But the other woman, the other woman who I would like to think about in relation to Cleopatra, she's also on the cover. I will say, she's right here. She's amazing. Her name is Amani Rainus, and she was the queen in cush She was really the king, the queen in the Kingdom of Marraway, which was in Cush, which is based roughly equivalent to modern Sudan. Bits of Southern agent, is it?

Yeah, I was gonnait, okay, so yeah, exactly, immediately realizing I don't I know about Sudan. Could I point to it on a map? Not great way, So forgot it. I figured Cush was So now you just taught me the connection Kusha Dudan.

But we only know okay, So we don't know much about her, except there is a story that's told about her from the Roman perspective. It's told by Strabo, and he to make sure it's by Strabo. Yes, Strabo, she was actually the queen when Cleopatra was defeated, which is interesting. You never hear about her south of cle you have this other queen. Strabo refers to her as Candoc because that but that's just a title that the queens of Marriway were given. Her name is Amani Renus, and she was, as I said, the queen when Cleopatra was defeated. And then the Romans come in, of course, and Egypt becomes the personal possession of Augustus, and of course their eyes are going to start to look to expand south, the Romans imagine. So she actually leads a incursion and invades several Roman towns, and Strabo tells he describes her very very briefly. But Strabo, he describes her very briefly. He says, among this group were the generals of Queen Kandake, who in my own time ruled the Ethiopians. A manly woman, blind in one eye.

They're making her look great, I can tell already.

But this is basically the only glimpse we get of her in Strabo. But we're told about her when Ethiopians was like a blanket term that was often used here. Of course it's describing the people of Kush and marraway. But so the Romans are starting to go south. She invade several Roman towns. We're told that her troops toppled lots of statues of Caesar of Augustus, and eventually what ends up happening is that this is settled through diplomacy. She sends some ambassadors to Augustus and he says, okay, fine, We're gonna slightly make the border a bit south. So kassam Ibram becomes like the permanent southern border of the Roman Empire. But condocket and Kush itself become exempt from Roman taxation. Kush never becomes a Roman province. She remains queen until about ten BCE or so, and we never hear about her much in the Roman sources except here in Strabo. Why because she wasn't conquered.

Right, because she wasn't a good example for them to yeah, be angry about women hour exactly.

Wow, what is so cool is you know Strabo mentions that these the temples were toppled. We know that they at least took one of these statues, not temples, but these statues. We know that she took at least one of these statues back with her to Merriway, because there was this temple to victory and the head was actually buried under the steps, and that way anybody who walked up the steps of the temple could trample upon the head of Augustus.

Oh my gosh.

And so if anybody google, if anybody googles Augustus of marroway M E R O E, they will see this amazing bronze head of Augustus. This must have been one of the statues that that they toppled. And so I mean she gets presented as a defeater of Rome. Right, that does not fit the narrative easily. So I like to ask my students, why do you know about Cleopatra but you don't know about ammani Rainus? Whose stories have you been told?

Yeah? Yeah, well, I mean yeah, it makes me I can only think about the connection to modern Sudan too, you know, I mean one of the most horrific like just crises inhuman morality is going on there and caused entirely by the West because it just that kept going right, like you just it's Rome started it, you know, like ignore the people down there because they can't be like crushed and the way they wanted. And then you know, over the years, like just the power develops like around them almost I don't know phrasing it. So yeah, but that's that's so dark, and I mean, well good, I'm glad that she existed and clearly like was doing fine. So that's a great part of the story. Yeah, but just the way they erase it because of that, and then we have it erased because in the West, like I mean, everything we have is formed by the ancient Romans and Greeks, and you know, peripherally but yeah, wow.

You know this still every story, in every way we tell a story, has an agenda. There's no narrative that's free of that. And so I think that what I wanted to bring out by presenting the original versions of these stories as they are presented by the Greeks and the Romans, is I want people to be aware of what their original agenda was. Yeah, because you know, there are all these books that are written about these women and these and I'm not calling out a specific book or ways of telling stories because they have their own agendas too, but they take the information and they present it as fact. But I want, I would like because I find that so much of the primary material is simply in excess to most people, I wanted to make it accessible. So if you are interested in, say, you know, Zenobia, you can go and read about her in the primary materials that we have and ask yourself, what was the agenda of the original telling? What can that illuminate for the ways that we talk about women in power today and how we use our own narratives to still to discredit the very idea.

Yeah, I'm so excited for this book, Like, I just feel like your goals were everything that I want, you know, Like, it's funny the piece I have on Medusa, which is the books coming out next month, but I had a really similar intention, Like it's just it's a well, it was like twenty five thousand words, so it's like a decent chunk on Medusa. But my whole goal was to look at what actually exists in the ancient sources and what were the what was the agenda behind them, and how does that influence us today and what are the alternative possibilities based on the ancient sources of like and versus the agenda. Like so I'm just obsessed with all of this. I'm like, Oh, these are this is what I want to know. I want to know behind I want to know that that, yeah, to look at the ancient sources, but as what they were and what was maybe going on, and yes, this is all that survives, but it doesn't mean it's the actual thing, Like in whatever way we're looking at it. I mean history is so biased depending on what you have what survives and why and right.

And I think that one thing that also we can see is like, despite the fact that I think these stories are told ultimately to a pold patriarchy.

Yeah, is that.

We can still see really incredible things in them, right, we can see how we can find positive messages still there. So like Budicuat is motivated to step into the arena of power because of sexual you know, the sexual violence that was done to her daughters in the assembly women, the women realize that they have to work together, right to take over, to have some say in what the state is going to do. No single woman can do that on her own. In the story of a Mona Renus, we can see how, you know, a woman leader can resist an imperial power. I mean she can be the Luke Skywalker in that story, right, I mean there is You know, there are really cool messages I think to take out of these stories. But before you can do that, you have to be able to scrutinize the whole story.

Yeah, okay, you just saying that gave me such an idea. So I'm curious if you touched on it or have thought about it at all, because again this came to me while researching the Gorgons, because I was looking at all of the different kind of what could be going on in that story because obviously Medusa's messy, but what comes up a lot is I mean, you know, she is from North Africa in the mythos, right, she's from like the far west, and so like there's so many connections kind of to possibly what was going on in Africa when it came to queens, like the diet or a Siculus thing where he's like the Amazon's and the Gorgans, they were queens, they were bad. Hercules killed them. That was because they were probably seeing African queens and obviously were threatened by them. And so the story comes to us that way, you know, and people people to speculate that that Medusa is based on some kind of like African goddess or queen what. I don't think that's true, but I do think that like the stories of her, they were come there's parts of it were coming from that notion, and so like you know, you also mentioned Zenobia, which I don't I know the name, but like so but in addition to Immani ramus, am I saying it.

Amona, Well I always said amn Eyrenus for a long time, and I'm started saying Amani Rainus, yeah, rainus.

Okay, yeah, and they did that seems like evidence for these like yeah, African queens do we know? Can you tell more about Asian African queens? Do you have one?

Well, I mean certainly, I think going back to Egypt, I mean you have the example of female pharaohs. You have, so for example, I mean, I think perhaps in North Africa you have a lot of you know, brother sister rule that come you know, in the Pharonic period that comes over into the you know, the Ptolemaic period. You have the and mine Arenas is certainly not the only woman who had the title of Kandake. Yeah, I mean, so perhaps there was just a lot of evidence for queens in North Africa. But also I mean, gosh, even in the myths, I mean, the the lands you know, outside of Greece, right, I mean it's it's women's rule becomes a feature there. But I think especially of the East and perhaps of Africa as well. Not being a historian, I don't want to speculate too much on what kind of historical reality this my present, but I think it's important that I think it's important that we don't just say, Okay, well there are these queens because the Greeks were othering these places, but also to recognize that this was. I mean, this was a reality that there were that there were women queens.

The depiction of the stories includes othering, for sure, But yeah, that doesn't mean there weren't women queen. Same with the Amazons, right, yeah, absolutely absolutely, yeah. Did were there any more examples that made it into your book of just sort of beyond the Greco Roman world that you're particularly interested in?

Almostly the ones that I that I included, we were at least people who women who had come into contact with the Greco Roman roles in some way, right, I mean Zenobia is another one that I that I love. I love the description of her. She wasn't she She was a Palmyron, Palmyrene queen who again upon the death of the male Zenobe it was her husband and oed in office. He was assassinated and she became into power and then she he was a client king of Rome. And this is often what happens, Like you have these client kings and uh, the they will die and then the woman will come into power and immediately come into conflict with the Romans. Right, this happens with we have Boudica, we have Zenobia. She's great too, I mean ancient Palmyer was such an interesting place because it was at a real you know, crossroads. And so she she she she wanted, she wanted, She had imperial ambitions of her own. I mean, she took over a lot of Egypt, and she was defeated by Aurelian. He marched her in a triumph in Rome. So what Cleopatra was so frightened up happened to her? Her story is told in the Historia at Gusta, which is this really weird fourth century historical text, and but he tells us that the Senate had questions, had questioned Aurelian's manliness because he had defeated a woman and marched her in triumph. So he so really in order to demonstrate his own manliness, has to show that Zenobia was a worthy adversary. So there's this very interesting like speech or letter that he wrote to the Senate where he praises her and some of the prayer.

Yeah, just the need to do that. That has so many layers in there.

Yeah, and the Historia just says very complimentary towards her. He says things like, you know, she only had sex with her husband for the purpose of procreation, and she spoke with the voice of a man, which we've but this is interesting to me because again, two of the realms that women needed to exert control over were sex and speech, and we see her doing that in those stories. And women were often thought to be very sexually voracious.

Men Christian times, right, wow, you know men.

Greek Greeks thought that men possess naturally more naturally than women, the quality of suffer sune, which is like self control, right, and that comes to be associated with sexual self control. So the fact that Zenobia can exercise sexual self control means that she has this quality, a very masculine quality that would make her a good ruler.

Well, and I mean even the description, you know, describing her as man like in those varied ways, like and you mentioned it with IMMMI rainus.

Yeah, exactly manly woman we are talking.

Yeah, So it's interesting because it's like it's both a dig at them, it's a dig at their femininity, but also like a bit of like respect to their powers. Yeah, it's it's kind of hard to to like piece apart how how those actually end up coming across in the end.

Yeah, it's meant it is meant as a compliment, which, yeah, a little which you know, it does strike the modern ears very odd, and yeah it is. It is denying in their femininity, but again it's showing that it's giving some explanation for why they were successful rulers.

Yeah. Yeah, because they can't. It's a compliment only because they can't face the idea that women could be feminine and competent rulers.

So it's like, yeah, it's a compliment, exactly exactly.

Yeah. Well, I mean, okay, I'm not going to keep you forever, but do you have any that you any women or any stories that you haven't gotten to tell that you are really obsessed with in this?

I mean I'm obsessed with them. I mean basically, yeah, there will be I know, complaints, why didn't you include this person? Why didn't you include that person? Because these are my face favorites and that's why.

And you know what, you make the rules because you wrote the book. I know the.

Feeling, so I made the rules. I mean, yeah, there are just so many great ones. I mean, I guess one that we haven't touched on would be Oh, okay, I have to choose between Lavinia and Artemisia.

Please can because that's s greaker. It's not she's not Greek, but she's Greeker.

She's Greek. She is Greek, she's a you know, she's a Greek woman, Greek queen. And and again we're told she came to power when her husband died. This is Artemisia the first. She was the queen of Caria.

Sorry, not the one on the boat in Salamis, that's all.

This is the one. This is the one on the boat.

Yes, you can tell her that. I am at history, even if it's Greek to say the one on the boat in salim In theory. I know what I'm talking.

About, because there's a there's also the later Artemisia, who's the wife of a name I can never say greatly, but marciless. She looked the mausoleum. But at anyway, this is artemis the first, Artemisia the first, and she is the queen of Hala Carnassis, which is where Herodotus is from. And Herodotus tells her story. He's so filled with admiration for her. She's his queen right, and she does not side with the Greeks. She sides with the Persians because she's also Karia was a Persian Satropy, so she's she's kind of a client monarch of Xerxes, but she's constantly like the only Greek in the room right when Xerxes is having these conversations with his Persian advisors and these other advisors from these different allied groups, and she's the only one who can speak with any sense of freedom with Xerxes. And so he's coming to her and saying, what do you think I should do, Artemisia. She gives him very good advice, and he says, you're a great person, and I admire you, but I don't think I'll do what you say, and then he promptly goes and gets, you know, defeated and things like that. And she's very clever. At the Battle of Salamus, she's in between an enemy ship behind her and a friendly ship in front of her, and she knows she's about to get into trouble, so she decides just to ram the friendly ship. But so she doesn't really have a sense of, you know, loyalty to her allies, and she's like setting around, but she's.

Working with the Persians like good, I guess I get it.

But Xerxes sees this and he doesn't realize that she's rammed an enemy ship and he says, man, the only man out there is Artemisia and uh and so, but what is so fascinating to me about this is that I would love to think that Herodotus just sees her as a really cool, capable queen, like we finally we have found someone. But what he's doing is he's using her as a foil to Persian masculinity. Yeah, and so you cannot disentangle any of these stories from ethnic prejudice, well, yeah, because all of them.

And he's also you know, he's from Halikarnassis, like you say, but he's Greek, considers himself Greek, and so is writing about like someone from where he's from and he considers himself Greek. But she was on the Persian side of the big bad Persian war that he's talking about. So that's really interesting. Yeah, there's there's so much going on there, and we still have that moment where Xerxes calls her a man in order to clarify that she's good.

It's the leader, absolutely, absolutely, Yeah, it means the zero sum game, right. I mean, it's an interesting lesson that the way that we think about gender is not linked to biology at all here, right, the person who's the man in the situation is the one who's exerting control and power. Yeah, but it's a it's a it's a commentary in Eastern masculinity because Artemisia, the Greek woman, outmans the Eastern men, right, and so you see a lot of anti Eastern prejudice in so many of these stories. Yeah.

Well, and that's like a running theme, the of feminine femininity of the Persian so specifically too. So it's like the easy way to get a dig at them.

Absolutely, that's really.

That's really interesting, and it led me to a thought, Oh, when you were the gender thing that you just said, my my, ADHD's going a little while today. I apologize, but we're there that when you mentioned the gender the way that it's not about biology in this moment, right, it reminds me of Avid. Just bring it back to the last time you were here and specifically Canus slash Caneus and you know the sort of transformation transgender story in there, which is such a great example of that. Like this reminder that to back then it didn't the biology was not really their concern. They were very much open to having biology be not an issue. It was all about actions when it comes to your gender or or and also like power surpriss press. Yeah, and so to have that, like she Keneus, when a man becomes like all powerful and that's why, that's why he's a man, because he's like unbeatable on the battlefield, you know, and like and obviously there's there's more to it, and there's some like there's really nice transreadings of that, but in this moment, to me, it's just like, oh, well, of course Kinue is a man because battle.

But but I will say that for for kindness to have that, I mean there is that physical transformation that takes place.

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, definitely.

So I think that the ideal is usually in the ancient world, like you take Hercules for example, it's that the physical power I mean Hercules is a power of physical power, the power of you know, in war, uh, power of armies, that these will converge upon a masculine body, right. But in the absence of that, if the if the masculine body is not doing you know, behaving as it should, then that will converge on a woman, right. And I mean this is you know, this is a way that Zenobia's success gets explained that that all the men around her aren't doing what they're supposed to do, they're not acting like men. So in the absence of that, she has to occupy the role. Right, So yeah, I think, but I think that the relationship between you know, gender in the body in the ancient world is always one that was subject to debate and thinking about, and it was not an automatic assumption that that there was a clear relationship there, right, Yeah, yeah, which is interesting.

I mean I'm going to talk about all of I mean all of this literally forever and truly no pressure. But if you do want to come back on sometime and talk about the Assembly women, I think that would be amazing.

It is, it is its whole thing. I mean it is a little bit and it stands out a little bit in the book because it's not about a queen, right yeah, it's it's taking these stories and I'll just say this, it's taking these ideas but saying now, let's throw them into a democracy and see what happens. Yeah, this is in a monarchy somewhere else where women come to power. This is what happens when women come to power in a democracy. Yeah, it's really cool.

Specifically and by Aristophan, He's like, now I'm excited, which is saying a lot for me with Air all the idea of him. But do you want to I mean, the book is called Women in Power, but is there anything more you want to share with the listeners?

Last thing, I want to give a shout out to my fellow translators, because, as I said, some of the things that were included were pre existing translations. We have fagels Aniad, I have Matthew Fox's Luken, some passages from there, Aaron Puchigian's Apollonius translation, but lots of new things. And so I'm going to shout out to Eric Zimmerman Dahmer who is at the University of Richmond, and she did a beautiful translation of Avid's heroity seven Diedo to Ania, which is great my student page graph. She worked with my colleague Chris McDonough to do a wonderful translation of budquet speech and Tacitus, which they did a great job on. And then my other colleague, Daniel Holmes, who also happens to be my spouse, he translated tons of stuff for this. He was I could just like go throw things at him and say translate, and so he's he's a Hellenist, and he did a lot of the translating too, So it was a real, real group effort. I must say it. I'm so grateful to all of them for contributing.

Oh I'm thrilled to hear all of that. That's great. And yet you did the Aristophanes even though he's the Hellenist.

And you know what, my husband's actually written a book on Aristophane. So it was great. I really wanted I just wanted to translate in Aristophanes play. I'm like, yeah, this is gonna be my chance. I'm a Latin poetry person, but I'm going to do it. But there were moments when I would go to to to Daniel and say, what in the world does this joke mean?

I can see that he was able to.

Tell me out there. But yeah, I did a lot. I did a bunch of stacious, a bunch of propercious Virgil Aristophanes. I mean, I was translating plenty for this thing. So it was a way I could really stretch myself.

And yeah, that sounds like it was really fun too.

It was just a fun book, and I was. In fact, when it came out, I said to some students of mine, like, I barely remember writing it because it was just so much fun.

Yeah, that's so nice. Well, honestly, like I mean, I've been excited about it since I found out it existed, but now I'm like, oh, I'm excited for the translations too, Like this is just I'm going to go buy it on ebook because then it serves as my source so much easier. I'm really excited.

Basically, thank you so much.

I mean, thank you for coming on the show again and just being so lovely to chat with. It's been so much fun.

Thank you so much. It's been great Nerds.

Thank you so much for listening. As always, was such a joy to have Stephanie back. I again recorded these recent conversation episodes a little while ago now, but returning to thinking about that and remembering them for editing, honestly is so much fun. I love talking to Stephanie, and I'm certain we'll have her back, not least because apparently maybe she can make me like Aristophanes. Let's talk about myths. Baby is written and produced by me Live Albert. Mikayla Panguwish is the Hermes to my Olympians. The producer select music by Luke Chaos. The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Keep up to date on loads of new things coming from Let's Talk about mits Baby by signing up for our new newsletter, Iruses Rainbow at mitsbaby dot com slash newsletter I Am Live and I Love this shit

Let's Talk About Myths, Baby! Greek & Roman Mythology Retold

The most entertaining and enraging stories from Greek mythology and the wider Ancient Mediterranean  
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