Women in the Academy: Dialogues on Themes from Plato's Republic

In the early fourth century B.C., Plato founded his famous Athenian school, the Academy. Among the students who came to study there were two women, Axiothea of Phlius, who wore men's clothes, and Lasthenia of Mantinea. In five dialogues, inspired by those of Plato, C. D. C. Reeve imagines these women in conversation with one another, with Plato himself, and with their fellow Academician, Aristotle. The topics they discuss—women, art, justice, freedom, and the nature of reality—are all drawn...