Front and centre

rom their earliest recorded appearance to modern times, a relatively small number of prominent female characters – human, divine or, confusingly, both – have been handed down through the best-known, endlessly retold Greek myths. Most storytellers (usually male) have framed them as essentially virtuous but vulnerable (Penelope, Iphigenia), immoral and dangerous (Helen, Phaedra) or irredeemably wicked and shameless (Circe, Medea