The two Heroides, Hypermestra Lynceo and Phedra Hyppolito, are analysed here for the first time as protagonists of the end of matriarchy.  
Resuming the lesson of J. J. Bachofen, so far neglected in the rethinking of the two "heroines", the book shows how the female condition is not reduced in the passage from tragedy to elegy, but preserves the same pathos bringing to the surface the anthropological dynamics immersed in the collective unconscious.