Fifty years ago historians’ knowledge of women in the ancient world came from tiny bits and pieces scattered about. Such remnants included fragments of Sappho’s poetry, barely preserved in damaged papyrus full of gaps. Plutarch provides an engaging account of Cleopatra’s hold on Mark Antony, but he says nothing of her maritime knowledge or her ability to rule, and this year Stacy Schiff debunked his suicide-by-asp-bite myth. (Schiff calculated how much venom it would have taken to actually kill Cleopatra and her two servants.) So, entertaining as Plutarch’s account may be, our knowledge suggests he had a rhetorical agenda. We’ve studied urns featuring scenes from the legends of Dido and Lucretia…