Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, only a few women can be discerned who were active and independent rulers. Nonetheless, there were a considerable number of female figures who acquired immense political influence due to their particularly close proximity to a male ruler. Such figures are handled in this volume, both from the perspective of the sources and as literary figures. The framework of this study, which ranges from Mesopotamia of the 24th century BC to the Byzantine Empire of the 14th/15th century AD, through an intercultural comparison facilitates, not least of all, the identification of basic interpretative schemes for these figures which were employed contemporaneously and afterward, and indeed even influence modern scholarship.