The Murder of Regilla

“[Pomeroy] provides an absorbing analysis of justice, society, culture, and customs in the second-century Roman Empire.”—The New Yorker

“Sarah B. Pomeroy’s passionate account in The Murder of Regilla, following her from birth to death, is a sharp reminder of the brutally blunt edges of gender inequality.”—Joy Connolly, The Times Literary Supplement

“In one of the great scandals of second-century Greece, Regilla, the pregnant Roman wife of Greek philosopher and rhetorician Herodes, died from a blow to the abdomen. Drawing on archeological and textual evidence, Pomeroy carefully reconstructs Regilla’s life, her eventual murder and Herodes’s trial and acquittal, splendidly recreating the Greek culture of A.D. 160 and its attitudes around class, culture and sex… Numerous illustrations and quotations lend depth to Pomeroy’s masterful depiction of second-century Greece and the tragic portrait of a woman whose story has been lost to history until now.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Sarah Pomeroy has been one of the most influential voices in the study of women in antiquity. It’s good to find her now turning to the multi-cultural world of Greece under the Roman Empire—and to a nasty case of domestic murder.”—Mary Beard, Cambridge University

“A fascinating and vivid portrait, by one of the greatest authorities on ancient women. Drawing on a wide variety of ancient sources, Pomeroy enables us to see Regilla in her complex and dangerous environment. An informative and accessible introduction to the world of the second century AD.”—Mary Lefkowitz, Wellesley College

“A bold and well-informed first history of Regilla herself. Pomeroy is supremely well qualified to assess literary, epigraphic, architectural, and sculptural evidence. Her dramatic narrative and sympathetic presentation afford a gripping read.”—Barbara Levick, Oxford University

“Imaginatively deploying sparse and disparate sources, Pomeroy has constructed a dazzling mosaic, setting the biography of a unique woman into the little-known world of second century Roman Greece.”—Jo Ann Kay McNamara, author of Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia