The conference volume deals with the scope of action and individual chances of power of women related to rulers of pre-modern times. An introduction is followed by 15 examples from the late 3rd mill. to the Early Middle Ages. The precise topics are networking at the court in Ur, ethno-archaeological and iconographical approaches to Kushite queens, symbolic resources of Argead women and women around the Diadochi, Demetrius Poliorcetes and his wives, Hellenistic queens playing major roles, the wives of rulers in Ptolemaic Egypt according to private Demotic sources, matronage amongst the notability of Miletus, matronage in Augustan aetiology and strategies of action of mythical wives of rulers, Julia Severa, Poppea, and the matronage of Jewish religion, women for women in epigraphic sources, the resources of women in the entourage of the Antonine emperors, strategies of late antique matronage, early medieval queens and empresses at Byzantium, among others.