Overview
The Power, Royal Agency, and Elite Women in the Hellenistic and Roman World conference and lecture series explored the roles of women in positions of authority—particularly royal women—across Hellenistic and Roman contexts. Interest in female power and royal agency in antiquity has grown significantly over the past two decades.
The groundbreaking study of Grace Harriet Macurdy in the 1930s, Hellenistic Queens: A Study of Woman-Power in Macedonia, Seleucid Syria, and Ptolemaic Egypt and Vassal-Queens and Some Contemporary Women in the Roman Empire, remains of immense value, as no single comprehensive work has replaced it. Yet, recent decades have seen a dramatic shift: new evidence, innovative methodologies, and expanded perspectives have created the opportunity and need for vastly deeper examinations of ancient royal women.
Organized by the Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies (WIHS), this conference aimed to build on Macurdy’s legacy by fostering a nuanced, interdisciplinary exploration of power, gender, and representation within monarchic systems.
Conference Resources
Context & Focus
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Despite the frequent use of the term “power” in modern scholarship, a sustained theoretical and analytical exploration of what “power” or “powers” actually meant in ancient contexts—especially regarding women—has been largely absent. Macurdy’s treatise underscored that the concept of power was central to understanding Hellenistic queenship. Yet, her work (like many others) often described manifestations of power rather than defining it in theoretical terms.
This lecture series responded to that gap. By convening international scholars, it examined how ancient women, particularly queens, exercised and negotiated influence—politically, culturally, and symbolically. With an expanded interdisciplinary lens, the series re-evaluated what it meant for women to possess, embody, or perform “power” in royal contexts, offering new insight into gendered authority across the ancient Mediterranean.
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Scholarly Significance
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The Power, Royal Agency, and Elite Women series represents a growing international effort to re-frame discussions of female power in the ancient world. By bringing together spcialists in ancient history, literature, and material culture, the conference re-evaluated the language of royal authority and the representation of women's influence across political and cultural boundaries.
The event's interdisciplinary approach bridged classical studies, gender theory, and visual analysis, offering new methodologies for understanding how female agency was conceptualized and performed in Hellenistic and Roman societies.
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