Brill's Companion to Episodes of 'Heroic' Rape/Abduction in Classical Antiquity and Their Reception

Rosanna Lauriola (Ph.D. Greek and Latin Philology, University of Firenze, Italy) is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Randolph Macon College (Virginia, USA). She has published many papers, book chapters, and some books on a variety of authors and topics of Greek literature and its reception, including Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Euripides (2015) and Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Sophocles (2017).

"Tracing the presentation, from the earliest tellings of their stories to our own day, of four of the many mortal women of Graeco-Roman myth on whom Zeus/Jupiter cast a lustful eye, with an indignation that blazes from every page, Lauriola indicts the king of the gods as a serial rapist (along with several other male gods and heroes), and – more importantly – indicts also the overwhelming majority of poets, artists, critics and scholars whose evasions and euphemisms have distracted attention from the criminality of the perpetrators and the suffering of their victims – and are still doing so." Alan Sommerstein, University of Nottingham, UK.' “Brill's Companion to Episodes of ‘Heroic’ Rape/Abduction in Classical Antiquity and Their Reception” is overall a strong analysis of ancient myth. It treats ancient examples of violence with meticulous attention that they have up to this point rarely been afforded in scholarship. Lauriola’s book will be useful to academics who wish to analyze ancient myth through an outlook that centers women’s experiences, and it is applaudable for its tact and respect.' Hannah E. Gadway, The Harvard Crimson, July 29 2023."Overall, Lauriola’s work occupies a critical role in the continuation of feminist readings of classical myth and classical reception studies, presenting a small but well-analyzed selection of episodes of heroic rape/abduction and their reception across an expanse of disciplines from music to therapy. She is diligent in providing the historical and socio-cultural contexts that are essential to understanding how ancient audiences understood rape-myths and how these same myths morphed over time, and she continuously built upon her previous examples to create a cohesive history of misogynistic treatments deployed to devalue female survivors of heroic rape. In my opinion, the work was accessible to audiences that may only have a base-level understanding of Greek and Roman mythology, making it an ideal ‘companion’ and introduction to heroic rape/abduction in classical antiquity, with extensive explanations of all concepts and figures broached within the book." Grace Figueroa, New Classicists, Issue 10, December 2024

• AcknowledgmentsList of Figures1 Introduction1 Why Rape? A Prefatory Note2 Rape/Abduction: What’s in a Name?3 Patriarchy and ‘Rape Culture’: The Pervasiveness and the Overlooking of Rape in Classical Antiquity4 The Perspectives, Objectives, and Methodology of This Study: For an Operational Definition of Rape5 Mapping Out This Study2 Episodes of ‘Heroic’ Rape/Abduction in Classical Antiquity and Their Reception1 Zeus, the “Master Rapist”: A Selection of His ‘Many Rapes’3 ConclusionBibliographyIndex LocorumIndex of Modern AuthorsIndex of Works of ArtIndex of Subjects