In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals were priestesses of Vesta, virgin goddess of Rome's sacred hearth and its flame.
Marriage in ancient Rome was a fundamental institution of society and was used by Romans primarily as a tool for interfamilial alliances. The institution of Roman marriage was a practice of marital monogamy: Roman citizens could have only one spouse at a time in marriage but were allowed to divorce and remarry. This form of prescriptively monogamous marriage that co-existed with male resource polygyny in Greco-Roman civilization may have arisen from the relative egalitarianism of democratic and republican city-states. Early Christianity embraced this ideal of monogamous marriage by adding its own teaching of sexual monogamy, and perpetrated it worldwide and became as an essential element in many later Western cultures.
The architectural form of theatre in Rome has been linked to later, more well-known examples from the 1st century BC to the 3rd Century AD. The theatre of ancient Rome referred to a period of time in which theatrical practice and performance took place in Rome. The tradition has been linked back even further to the 4th century BC, following the state’s transition from monarchy to republic. Theatre during this era is generally separated into genres of tragedy and comedy, which are represented by a particular style of architecture and stage play, and conveyed to an audience purely as a form of entertainment and control. When it came to the audience, Romans favored entertainment and performance over tragedy and drama, displaying a more modern form of theatre that is still used in contemporary times.
Allia Potestas was a freedwoman from the Roman town of Perugia who lived sometime during the 1st–4th centuries AD. She is known only through her epitaph, found on a marble tablet in Via Pinciana, Rome in 1912. The inscription, considered to be one of the most interesting of Latin epitaphs, is unique because it contains both typical epitaphic information and more personal and sexual details.
Edith Hall, is a British scholar of classics, specialising in ancient Greek literature and cultural history, and professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University. She is a Fellow of the British Academy. From 2006 until 2011 she held a chair at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she founded and directed the Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome until November 2011. She resigned over a dispute regarding funding for classics after leading a public campaign, which was successful, to prevent cuts to or the closure of the Royal Holloway Classics department. Until 2022, she was a professor at the Department of Classics at King's College London. She also co-founded and is Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford University, Chair of the Gilbert Murray Trust, and Judge on the Stephen Spender Prize for poetry translation. Her prizewinning doctoral thesis was awarded at Oxford. In 2012 she was awarded a Humboldt Research Prize to study ancient Greek theatre in the Black Sea, and in 2014 she was elected to the Academy of Europe. She lives in Cambridgeshire.
Childbirth and obstetrics in classical antiquity were studied by the physicians of ancient Greece and Rome. Their ideas and practices during this time endured in Western medicine for centuries and many themes are seen in modern women's health. Classical gynecology and obstetrics were originally studied and taught mainly by midwives in the ancient world, but eventually scholarly physicians of both sexes became involved as well. Obstetrics is traditionally defined as the surgical specialty dealing with the care of a woman and her offspring during pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium (recovery). Gynecology involves the medical practices dealing with the health of women's reproductive organs and breasts.
Phintys was a Pythagorean philosopher, probably from the third century BC. She wrote a work on the correct behaviour of women, two extracts of which are preserved by Stobaeus.
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is ὑποκριτής (hupokritḗs), literally "one who answers". The actor's interpretation of a role—the art of acting—pertains to the role played, whether based on a real person or fictional character. This can also be considered an "actor's role", which was called this due to scrolls being used in the theaters. Interpretation occurs even when the actor is "playing themselves", as in some forms of experimental performance art.
Myia was a Pythagorean philosopher and, according to later tradition, one of the daughters of Theano and Pythagoras.
Galeria Copiola was an ancient Roman dancer (emboliaria) and actress whom Pliny includes in a list of notable female nonagenarians and centenarians in his Natural History. Because of Pliny's notice, Galeria is one of the few performing artists in classical antiquity whose career milestones can be precisely dated.
Caelia Macrina was a Roman woman who lived in Tarracina around 150 AD.
Volumnia Cytheris was an ancient Roman actress and mimae dancer. She is foremost known as the mistress of several famous Romans.
Dionysia, was an ancient Roman dancer-actress.
Sociae Mimae was a guild for female stage artists, mimae, in Ancient Rome. It is the only Ancient Roman guild exclusively for women of which there is currently any information. The guild financed its own burial ground and was apparently not in any lack of funds but rather well off.
The High Priestess of Athena Polias held the highest religious office in Ancient Athens.
Fabia Arete was a dancer, actress and singer in Ancient Rome.
Bassilla, was a dancer, actress and singer in Ancient Rome.
Ekaterina Panayotou, was a Greek stage actor. She belonged to the pioneers of the modern Greek theater of the 19th century, and was one of the first professional actresses in Greece.
Athena Filipaki, was a Greek stage actress. She belonged to the pioneers of the modern Greek theater of the 19th century and was one of the first professional actresses in Greece.
Hymnia was an epithet of the Greek goddess Artemis under which she was worshipped throughout Arcadia. She had a temple someplace between Orchomenus and Mantineia. We know from the geographer Pausanias that Orchomenus at least used to hold festivals in her honor.
