giant agapic axe wound

Although most of her writings did not survive, Pamphile (or Pamphila) of Epidaurus (fl. mid-1st century CE) deserves recognition. She is one of the earliest known female historians and the only ancient Greek woman historian about whom we have significant information. Additionally, she was a key figure in developing the genre of “miscellaneous history,” where authors retold anecdotes from earlier works.

A pioneer of historical writing

Pamphile stands among the earliest known female historians, alongside the Chinese scholar Ban Zhao (c. 40–45 – c. 117–120). This does not mean, however, that she was the first or only female historian of her time. For instance, there are references to a woman named Nicobule, who reportedly wrote a biography of Alexander the Great between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE.

According to Photios, Pamphile was a mature woman during the reign of Nero (54–68 CE). Conflicting accounts exist regarding her origins: Photios claimed she and her family were from Egypt, while the Suda, a Byzantine encyclopedia, stated that she and her father, Soterides, were from Epidaurus.

Pamphile was a polymath, likely with access to an extensive library. She attributed her knowledge to her own readings, her husband and the conversations she overheard from his visitors.

Pamphile’s Work and Influence

Pamphile’s main work, Historical Commentaries, survives only in fragments—eleven excerpts from the original 33 books, preserved in paraphrases by authors like Diogenes Laërtius, Aulus Gellius, and Photios. Her Historical Commentaries is considered the earliest known example of “miscellaneous history”. Later writers seem to have emulated her work and style.

In addition to this, Pamphile is credited with other works, including a collection of apophthegms, lectures, debates, and discussions on poetry. She also wrote an epitome of Ctesias in three books. According to the Suda, she authored a work titled On Controversies and a sexual manual called On Sexual Pleasure.

Deborah Levine Gera speculates that Pamphile might also be the author of Tractatus de Mulieribus Claris in Bello (Treatise on Women Distinguished in Wars), which recounts the deeds of powerful women from history, such as Tomyris and Artemisia I of Caria.

Pamphile described her work as poikilia, meaning a “tapestry” woven together from various sources and genres. She chose this approach to make her writing more engaging and enjoyable for her readers.

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Further reading 

Anonymous, Tractatus de Mulieribus Claris in Bello

MacDaniel Spencer, Pamphile of Epidauros: A Female Ancient Greek Historian

Plant Ian Michael (ed.), Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome : An Anthology

"Remarkably, two perfume recipes from the Middle Assyrian Period (roughly 1400–1000) were attributed to the expertise of female perfumemakers. Of the two texts, only the one translated here preserves a colophon in full. According to this colophon, the compilation of recipes for making perfumed “canus” oil are said to have been dictated, “according to the mouth” of Tapputi-belet-ekallim, the female perfume-maker (Akkadian muraqqitu).

What “according to the mouth” means with regard to the question of authorship can be debated. For example, the colophon was previously translated as “copied on the command of Tapputi-beletekallim.” However, considering that her profession is explicitly mentioned, it rather seems that the literal translation would fit better: according to the tablet, Tapputi-belet-ekallim is recorded as having dictated the recipe, which was then written on a clay tablet and baked by a scribe. Middle Assyrian perfume recipes were found within a mixed archaeological context preserving both Middle Assyrian and later Neo-Assyrian clay tablets. Nevertheless, an exact date for the text can be found in the colophon, which dates the text to the fifth regnal year of king Tukulti-Ninurta I (whose reign is conventionally dated to 1244–1208): “month Muhur-ila¯ni on the 20th day; the eponymate of Šunu-qardu rab šaqê.” In other words, the text most probably dates to the year 1239 BCE.

As a genre, manuals are unified by a common linguistic register, characterized by conditional clauses and the use of second-person verbs that instruct an anonymous doer (“you”) to make a certain product or reproduce a particular expert skill. One of the principal goals of manuals is to transmit expert knowledge by means of step-by-step instructions. The transmission of expert knowledge via manuals, however, presents a number of compelling and complex questions regarding the nature of technical knowledge itself, its value for cuneiform intellectual societies, and the efficacy of transmitting “hands-on” knowledge by means of texts. Questions may also be asked of particular manuals, such as this one’s unusual attribution to a female perfume-making expert."

this is also just very lazy and callous victim-blaming under the pretense of advocating for internet safety precautions. as a public figure you cannot just not appear and you also should not be expected to receive and ignore blatant sexual harassment and degradation because it comes with the job of being a woman in public and especially a progressive woman of color with an post pubescent body in politics. it also sounds like they know they have a problem, they know how to fix it, and they know what possible problems they would have with enforcing it and how to force compliance and yet just straight up do not want to do it because it might theoretically impugn free-speech laws, would certainly cause a backlash from an already volatile and ethically dubious faction that loves to doxx and harass people they don’t like, and because it would require time, money, and sustained effort to enforce compliance with obstinate tech companies and the conclusion is that it’s just not worth it at the expense of this particular woman, all women in politics and in public more broadly, and all women in general as the use of surveillance and tech (specifically cameras) to monitor and upload people’s images without their consent and against their will and even without their knowledge until it is too late becomes more and more prevalent. it is a complete violation of a woman’s right not to be sexualized, harassed, and objectified and a clear treatment of her as a second class citizen to expect her to just deal with, expect, and prepare for it when her male colleagues will never have to. it’s a double standard applied to women, all women, that shuts them out of public life and documenting their own experiences for fear their very image will be used against them.

btw, lest we forget! he has been credibly accused of multiple allegations of sexual harassment by multiple women that primarily involved him refusing to allow them to leave while he masturbated in front of them against their will and without their consent.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/arts/television/louis-ck-sexual-misconduct.html

anyway if you have csam or nudes (same thing) of yourself uploaded online anywhere from before you were 18 you can get them pulled down and hashed so they’re taken down everywhere simultaneously now and result in instant bans if anyone posts them by going here:

websites have 48 hours to comply or face hefty penalties.

if you have non-consensually uploaded content of you after 18 you can do the same thing here with a different form:

On Tuesday, Politico posted a provocative, anonymously sourced piececlaiming that New York congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might be planning, in concert with Justice Democrats, to recruit a Democratic primary challenger to her fellow New York congressman Hakeem Jeffries in 2020, in part in response to his undercutting of California congresswoman and progressive stalwart Barbara Lee in a November House leadership election. Ocasio-Cortez later dismissed the piece, calling it “birdcage lining.”

However inaccurate the facts in Politico’s reporting may have been, the piece was useful and telling — the expression of a building fever dream about Ocasio-Cortez, and the fears of what she might be capable of, should she continue to flash her unprecedented willingness to make bold demands and push her party where she thinks it should go. Ocasio-Cortez’s eagerness to flex her muscles, without demurring or waiting for her turn — without even waiting to be sworn in — is undergirding nightmarish fears about her as an agent of chaos and destruction. The Politico story itself was illustrated with an image of the Bronx native appearing to literally rub her hands together while grinning like Dr. Evil.

Reading the piece, I couldn’t help but think of Naomi Alderman’s brain-bending novel, The Power, published last year. It depicts a world in which women develop the power to inflict physical pain, and to kill, via electricity that emanates from their fingers. In Alderman’s fictional universe, this power is exhibited first by young women who in turn awaken it in their elders; as they are learning the possibilities and limits of their new power, the women giddily experiment with it, sending sparks and currents, determining how much of it they have, whether they can control it, and how they might best deploy it.

The book is extraordinary because it forces readers to think about all the ways — within our social, sexual, professional, and political relationships — in which men’s power over women is so much taken for granted that we don’t question it, don’t even notice it. But when women acquire an equivalent force, chaos and fear reign. The Power read to many, and was regularly reviewed as, a piece of chilling dystopian fiction. But as Alderman herself has said, “It’s only a dystopia for the men … nothing happens to a man in this book that is not happening right now to a woman somewhere in the world.”

Francesca Woodman (1958–1981) - Untitled, Boulder, CO. (Self-Portrait), c. 1972-75

Morocco, 1936. Pierre Boucher