A New Resource for Studying Roman Women in Latin

Ann R. Raia

The College of New Rochelle

Judith Lynn Sebesta and I announced the existence of the On-Line Companion to The Worlds of Roman Women (Focus 2005) at an ACL workshop in June of this year.  Both resources, the first of their kind, provide source material for those wishing to teach a Latin course on Roman women or develop a curricular unit. The primary sources are divided into Worlds, different contexts in which to explore Roman women; each World contains an introductory essay based on current scholarship and Latin passages taken from a wide variety of predominantly non-traditional authors and sources, extensively annotated to accommodate students in early stages of Latin learning.  The On-Line Companion offers additional hyperlinked text-commentaries, abundant images to illuminate the texts, Roman women and their environments, an annotated bibliography of print and web materials, links to Internet tools, and pedagogical aids, including syllabi and classroom activities.  This PowerPoint presentation will demonstrate how these resources have been used by teachers to enrich their students’ understanding of Roman women through observation of their visual representation and of the cultural information embedded in the Latin women spoke and was used to refer to them.  It is the intention of the website authors that the On-Line Companion will continue to grow in glossed texts, images, tools and resources, attracting contributors as well as users by virtue of the inherent interest of the content and the convenience of the medium.