Sulpicia - Life, Love, and Literature in Ancient Rome

This is the first full-length biography of Sulpicia, the earliest extant female author of classical Latin poetry. Unmentioned by her contemporaries, Sulpicia belonged to the pinnacle of the Roman aristocracy and wrote openly about her life and love affair in the same literary forms as Ovid, Propertius, and Tibullus. This study investigates Sulpicia''s family background, the societal expectations for a woman of her aristocratic rank, and the literary ferment that swept Rome in her day and to which she contributed.