How to become a goddess: Women and Divinity in Classical Antiquity

Abstract

The immortalization of mortal women in Antiquity offers us an extensive outlook on
gender roles on the ideological level, since the possession, at the highest degree, of a feminine
quality used to be the reason for their deification. Inversely, their success in masculine roles
could led them to be regarded as divine of half-divine, because it was only thinkable if they
were goddesses. Nevertheless, even in this instance, through their immortalization, their
capacity of power used to be brought back to properly feminine spheres of power, as power
of seduction over men and fertility.