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purple motes

Artifacts to help you imagine more.

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Highlights

  • Abelard castrated
  • Byzantine wife saves husband
  • Amphitryon & Geta duped
  • Chastelaine de Vergi tragedy
  • Aristotle’s advice to Alexander
  • Empress Theodora: woman leader
  • Tristan & Isuet
  • Xanthippe & Socrates
  • New Modern Sexism Scale

Psellos

Psellos supported gender equality in eleventh-century Byzantium

With his keen understanding of his mother’s life and gender advantage, Michael Psellos strongly advocated for gender equality in 11th-century Byzantium. … Read the post Psellos supported gender equality in eleventh-century Byzantium

grateful cuckold: emperor accepted cuckolding for foot massage in bed

Confronted with being cuckolded, no less than the Byzantine Emperor Romanos III acquiesced in exchange merely for foot massages in bed. … Read the post grateful cuckold: emperor accepted cuckolding for foot massage in bed

Psellos’s funeral Encomium: the great mother is dead

At the literal and interpretive center of Michael Psellos’s Encomium for his Mother is the under-appreciated story of his sister befriending a prostitute. … Read the post Psellos’s funeral Encomium: the great mother is dead

women’s nature allows Amazons & other women to die like men in battle

According to a declamation of Choricius of Gaza, the Trojan king Priam stated that women’s nature is no obstacle to Amazons and other women dying in battle. … Read the post women’s nature allows Amazons & other women to die like men in battle

John Italos & Michael Psellos: masculine troubles in Byzantium

Representations of John Italos and Michael Psellos in the Byzantine satire Timarion indicate how each fared in relating masculinity to gynocentric society. … Read the post John Italos & Michael Psellos: masculine troubles in Byzantium