Finding Persephone: Women's Rituals in the Ancient Mediterranean Book

Acknowledgments     xi
Abbreviations     xiii
Introduction
Ritual and Gender: Critical Perspectives   Angeliki Tzanetou     3
Sources and Methodology
The Scandal of Women's Ritual   Deborah Lyons     29
Gender and Agency
Looking for the Images: Representations of Girls' Rituals in Ancient Athens   Jenifer Neils     55
Improvising on the Athenian Stage: Women's Ritual Practice in Drama   Barbara Goff     79
Sanctissima Femina: Social Categorization and Women's Religious Experience in the Roman Republic   Celia E. Schultz     92
Threat and Hope: Women's Rituals and Civil War in Roman Epic   Vassiliki Panoussi     114
Performance
Folk Songs as Ritual Acts: The Case of Work-Songs   Andromache Karanika     137
The Rise of the Demon Womb in Greco-Roman Antiquity   Christopher A. Faraone     154
Thesmophoria and Eleusinian Mysteries: The Fascination of Women's Secret Ritual   Eva Stehle     165
Appropriations and Adaptations
Worshipping Demeter in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt   Maryline Parca     189
Nuptiarum Sollemnia? Girls' Transition to Marriage in the Roman Jurists   Lauren Caldwell     209
Maidens and Manhood in the Worship of Dianaat Nemi   Eve D'Ambra     228
Male Improvisation in the "Women's Cult" of Eileithyia on Paros   David D. Leitao     252
Early Christian Antipathy Toward the Greek "Women Gods"   Kathy L. Gaca     277
Bibliography     291
Contributors     317
Index     321