When the book was first published, reviewers commented that Pomeroy's work was an improvement on previous treatments of women in classical antiquity, such as
J. P. V. D. Balsdon's Roman Women, and it was praised for its lack of "polemical bias".
Marylin Arthur thought that
Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves was "important", However,
Daphne Nash criticised Pomeroy's work for its "poor level of historical argumentation" and for Pomeroy refusing to give her own opinion on disputed points.
Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves is now considered to be a turning point in the study of women in ancient history. In 1994,
Edith Hall said that it "marked the inauguration of women's studies within classics"; in the same year,
Shelley Haley wrote that it "legitimized the study of Greek and Roman women in ancient times".
Lin Foxhall, writing about the historiography of gender in classical antiquity, has described Pomeroy's book as "revolutionary", and "a major step forward" compared to existing scholarship on women in the ancient world. ==See also==