In ancient Greece, women were child-bearers confined to their homes with few rights, but Greek mythology features powerful and frightening female characters. Think of the Amazons, the women warriors; the snake-haired Medusa, who turns men to stone; and Medea, who murders her children. In myth, it seems, Greek women took their bloody revenge.

Thus, she was the figure who bound the two ruling families together—again evincing the central role of women, even concubines, in early modern imperial politics.